multiple squads and aircraft

[dawnpatrolss]

With trouble winning the game and instead getting beaten on easiest level (i know dont kill me heh) i read about running more aircrafts with soldiers simultaneously. Sofar i have only mustered 2 craft doing 2 targets at a time.

What do you recommend as main objective for this? Are there really enough targets for multiple aircraft with crews doing 3-5 different missions one after oneother?

[Muton]

Your goal is to expand bases as aggressively as you can, and build and steal as many Helios as you can.... Ultimately your goal is to have many bases, 4-5 bases manned with an 8 soldier crew in each continent with two Helios's to carry everyone, except australia/antarctica. You'll need to activate the bases with the inactive Manticores ASAP and use Manticores until you can upgrade to Helios

[lunarknight64]

You can win with only 1 squad assuming no one dies, but you would still want multiple aircraft for other reasons. You'd probably want 2 snydrion ships to carry your squad since you need 2 ships to bring the full 8 people into a mission unless you use the slow anu ship or the late game festering skies dlc ship. Speaking of festering skies having an extra ship or two dedicated to hunting the behemoth's flyers can be a decent way to make a little extra cash/rep and send the behemoth back to sleep faster. Other than that extra ships can generate income by flying around and trading with havens.
You'll definitely lose havens to pandoran attacks with only 1 squad since you can't defend everywhere with just 1 squad, though as long as you do enough defends to get all of the research required to beat the game you'll probably be okay

[Tasi]

I prefer keeping the number of my teams low (because on legendary difficulty it is a pain to get enough SkillPoints). While I have more soldiers (in training facilities mostly to replace possible losses) I am keeping only 2 teams. Each team is separated in 2 aircraft (together 4 aircraft). The reason is speed. To be able to stay just with 2 teams, I need to be fast and the fastest aircraft is only for 5 soldiers. I fly in pairs to land with 8 soldiers.

With 2 fast teams you will be able to cover the whole globe on highest difficulty.

[Tasi]

Plus you need more (and sturdier) aircraft (without soldiers) to defend against behemoth

[Almost Perfect]

The point of the activating the bases is that you can find the Pandoran nests and Lairs and prevent them attacking so it should be a priority for spending your resources.

The more Aircraft and teams you have means you can explore the map quicker which is your principle income initially before defending and trading with the Havens becomes more important.

Similarly if you don't spend your resources on aircraft and soldiers what are you spending it on? Upgrading the bases isn't expensive and it only speeds up training, research, build times and later on Mutagen production.

Last thing, if you're new to the game, more squads and aircraft means you can experiment with different load outs and soldier builds.

[snuggleform]

I highly recommend getting a second plane early and just use it with 1 soldier or 1 vehicle to double your scouting progress so you can get a lot of free resources and pick your targets better for your main team. It is expensive to get a fully functioning second team online; you basically have to get a full 6-8 secondary team that sits in a training facility until level 7 because enemies outscale them too hard otherwise. You can aim to do that at some point in the game but I don't consider it the highest priority; you want to get the snowball going by increasing your resource gain first.

[Kaysoky]

Is it ever worthwhile to actually make aircraft? It seems like you could steal a dozen aircraft in the time it takes to make one... and you don't need to invest a thousand+ resources.

I'm still on my first run, and I haven't raided, stolen, or sabotaged at all (since that seems counter to the goals).

[ulzgoroth]

Previously, it was often asserted the answer was no, you should get planes from theft.

In the latest version they greatly increased the diplomatic downside of doing that sort of thing, so it may be less attractive.

[Cohlrox]

I think stealing early and often is the key. The rep hits seemed to be lower early in the game. I am in a game with 4 aircraft on day 16 and now the rep hits are in the 20s and 30s for attacking a faction and I regret not doing it more earlier. I am curious tho, how does the new rep system work? Does it just automatically put you into the red reputation no matter what score it currently is or something?