UFO AFTERSHOCK GUIDE

By: AvengerVersion 1.5

1. Intention of this guide............................................................................................42. Play the Tutorial missions......................................................................................43. Exploring Provinces...............................................................................................44. Initiating Missions..................................................................................................55. Tracks.....................................................................................................................5

5.1. Building Tracks..............................................................................................55.2. Sea Tracks......................................................................................................55.3. Destroying Tracks..........................................................................................65.4. Connecting Individual Mines.........................................................................65.5. Track Upkeep.................................................................................................6

6. Resources...............................................................................................................66.1. Stashes............................................................................................................66.2. Improving Mine Production...........................................................................7

7. Diplomacy..............................................................................................................77.1. Tips for Trading Resources............................................................................77.2. Bribing Factions.............................................................................................77.3. Rejecting Missions.........................................................................................7

8. Base Construction..................................................................................................88.1. Early Advice...................................................................................................8

9. Research...............................................................................................................1010. Manufacturing..................................................................................................1011. Squad................................................................................................................11

11.1. Recruiting.................................................................................................1111.2. Recruiting Equipment..............................................................................1111.2.1. Humans....................................................................................................1111.2.2. Cyborgs....................................................................................................1111.2.3. Psionics....................................................................................................1111.3. Racial Differences....................................................................................1211.4. Levelling-up.............................................................................................1211.5. Plan for Training......................................................................................1311.6. Maximum Skill Levels.............................................................................1311.7. How soldier stats impact on the game......................................................13

12. Overview Screen..............................................................................................1513. Starting Guide..................................................................................................1614. Difficuly Levels...............................................................................................17

14.1. Newbie.....................................................................................................1714.2. Soldier......................................................................................................1714.3. Veteran.....................................................................................................1714.4. Superhero.................................................................................................1714.5. Statistics...................................................................................................17

15. Tactical Advice................................................................................................1815.1. Stealth.......................................................................................................1815.2. Changing Stances.....................................................................................1815.3. Changing facing of soldiers.....................................................................1915.4. Range........................................................................................................1915.5. Formation.................................................................................................1915.6. Watch Command......................................................................................2015.7. Most Effective Weapon............................................................................2015.8. Weapon Accuracy....................................................................................2015.9. Snap Shot vs. Aimed Shot........................................................................2115.10. Damage Types..........................................................................................2115.11. Incapacitating Enemies............................................................................2115.12. Capturing Enemies...................................................................................2215.13. Friendly units in missions........................................................................2215.14. Using Teleporters.....................................................................................22

16. Advanced Notes...............................................................................................2316.1. Advanced Research..................................................................................2316.2. Ambidextrous...........................................................................................2316.3. Commando Weapons...............................................................................2316.4. Composing Weapons...............................................................................2316.5. Knowledge Buildings...............................................................................2416.6. Track Management...................................................................................2516.7. Advanced Human Weapons.....................................................................2516.8. Warp weapons..........................................................................................2616.9. Targeting body parts................................................................................2616.10. Scout abilities...........................................................................................26

17. High Level Recruits.........................................................................................2718. Cyborgs............................................................................................................28

18.1. Body Implants..........................................................................................2818.2. Arm Implants...........................................................................................2818.3. Leg Implants.............................................................................................2818.4. Eye Implants.............................................................................................2818.5. Chipsets....................................................................................................2918.6. Manufacturing Implants...........................................................................29

19. Psionics............................................................................................................3019.1. Psi Suits....................................................................................................3019.2. Circlets.....................................................................................................3019.3. Collars......................................................................................................3019.4. Vambraces................................................................................................31

20. Drones..............................................................................................................3220.1. Composing Drones...................................................................................3220.2. Scout Core................................................................................................3220.3. Fighter Core.............................................................................................3220.4. Defender Core..........................................................................................3220.5. Hover Chassis...........................................................................................32

20.6. Wheeled Chassis......................................................................................3320.7. Walking Chassis.......................................................................................3320.8. Tracked Chassis.......................................................................................3320.9. Drone Equipment.....................................................................................33

21. Appendix..........................................................................................................3421.1. Track Costs...............................................................................................3421.2. Armour Effectiveness...............................................................................3521.3. Training Requirements.............................................................................3621.4. Experience Tables....................................................................................3721.5. Game triggers...........................................................................................3821.6. Bases........................................................................................................3921.7. Building Costs..........................................................................................4121.7.1. Factories...................................................................................................4121.7.2. Laboratories..............................................................................................4121.7.3. Defence....................................................................................................4221.7.4. Knowledge...............................................................................................4221.8. Manufacturing..........................................................................................43

22. Thanks..............................................................................................................4723. Links.................................................................................................................47

1. Intention of this guide

This guide is intended for people new to the world of UFO: Aftershock and want to learn how to play the game as well as more experienced players. I have included hints and tips with each section, to help you play, but have avoided going into detail in some areas where it would spoil the plot. So if you see “spoilers” mentioned that’s the reason why I’ve left it out of this guide.

All the statistics and figures used in this guide are taken from the release version (1.0.3) of the game unless otherwise stated. I realise that some of these may be changed in later patches, but hopefully they will just be tweaks rather than major changes.

2. Play the Tutorial missions

Regardless of whether you have played UFO: Aftermath or not I recommend you play through the tutorial missions. There are lots of hints and tips given in this that will help you play the game. A lot of questions asked on the forums can be answered by playing the tutorial.

Also have a look in the Glossary. It contains a lot of information, even at the start of the game. At first a lot of it won’t be relevant, but do refer to it from time to time, as it updates as you discover more things in the game.

3. Exploring Provinces

The Geoscape (world map) is divided up into many regions. There are countries and provinces, so to make it clear this is what they are:

Province – this is a single territory that will contain either a mine or a base. It is normally surrounded by thin blue lines.

Country – This consists of one base and between 1 to 4 resource provinces. The border of a country is marked by a broad blue line.

To explore a province click on it, then click Mission. A grey target icon will appear over the province. It will take 6-10 hours to explore the province. When it has been explored a message will appear letting you know you can initiate a mission there.

Only provinces adjacent to those you control can be explored, with a few exceptions:

1) Distant provinces connected by sea-lanes can be explored, but to capture them you will almost certainly have to move your laputa.

2) Some provinces are deemed to be “Uncontrollable” by the game. These provinces do not contain resources or bases, have no strategic value, and cannot be controlled by any faction in the game. You can build tracks through them to other provinces. An example is the Sahara Desert.

4. Initiating Missions

To initiate a mission you must first explore the province. When you click on the province details of it should appear in a window on the right of the screen. This lists the name of the province, what country it is part of, who controls it, and what resources it contains.

Click on the province and then click the Mission button. A message will appear telling you a mission has been initiated. Click “Centre and pause” and the camera will move to the province where the mission is available. To open the mission click on the resource icon on the province and details of the mission will appear.

You are given the option to equip your squad here, so you can make any necessary changes. If you are given a “Capture the alien” mission you will need to remove one person from your squad so you have sufficient room in the pod to bring the alien back. To remove someone from the active squad drag their picture into the reserve pool of soldiers on the right in the Squad screen.

5. Tracks

Only build tracks to link bases together.

You don’t need a track going to every mine.

Build sea-lanes where possible, as they are a much shorter route than crossing by land.

A country is made up of between 2 and 5 provinces. One of these will be the capital province, where you can build a base, and the other provinces will contain mines. Once you have captured a province with a mine it will automatically deliver what it produces to the capital province of that country. Link the base to your network to gain all the resources being collected by the base.

5.1. Building Tracks

Select the province you want to build the track from. If you are allowed the “Tracks” button will appear near the bottom of the screen. Clicking it will reveal a network of faint yellow lines showing which routes are available. Click on the neighbouring province you want to connect and a thin yellow line should appear showing that the track is being constructed. It will take a few hours to complete, when it will turn into a thick yellow line showing it is completed and working.

5.2. Sea Tracks

These are tracks across the sea, linking two coastal bases. They are constructed in the same way as normal tracks but take longer to construct. They appear yellow whilst under-construction, and turn bright blue when completed.

Use sea tracks whenever possible as they are a much shorter (& therefore cheaper) way of connecting two bases than building a track over land.

5.3. Destroying Tracks

To destroy a track you no longer want click on the province it is in, click tracks and then click on the direction you want to destroy the track. This is the same method as building tracks, but you will be clicking on a completed track.

5.4. Connecting Individual Mines

If you urgently need to connect a mine to the network, or decide the base is not worth connecting you can connect individual provinces with mines. Simply build a track into the province and it will be connected. DO NOT do this for all mines. As mentioned above, if you control the base of a country you will get the resources from the mines without needing to connect them with tracks.

5.5. Track Upkeep

Tracks costs resources to keep them running. You can run them at a deficit, but as soon as one of your resources runs out the network will shutdown until sufficient resources are found to let it work again. A table of track costs can be found in the Appendix 21.1Track Costs.

6. Resources

Managing your network of tracks is a vital element of the game if you are to succeed. The more tracks you have the greater the upkeep, so you need to capture as many resource provinces as possible.

The world map is randomised when you start the game. While base locations and uncontrollable regions remain the same in every game, the resources in a province are randomly generated at the start.

Low tech resources are the remains of basic human equipment from before war and appear on the world map as blue dots. They are the natural resource of the Human faction and are usually found in their provinces.

High tech resources are also human made equipment from before the war but represent computers and other more advanced components. They appear on the world map as red dots and are usually found in Cyborg controlled provinces.

Alien tech is the rarest resource as it is not of human origin. The remains of crashed UFO’s or alien bases contain advanced equipment that could not have been made by humans, and appears on the world map as green dots. They are the natural resource of the Psionic faction, and are usually found in their provinces.

NOTE on resources. Some people have had different results and have an abundance of alien tech, while others captured the whole of Europe and found none. The game randomly decides where the resources will be placed, and this may be influenced by the game difficulty level.

6.1. Stashes

Stashes are one-off finds of a particular type of resource. They are randomly scattered throughout the world, and when the province is captured you get the entire stash added to your resources. You will not get any further income from it.

6.2. Improving Mine Production

To increase the production of mines within a country you have to increase the knowledge level of the base. To do this you must first research, and then construct, knowledge buildings, the first of which is the Library. Among other things it will increase the productivity of mines in that country by a small amount. The more knowledge buildings you have the more effective they become, working together to produce better results. (A knowledge level of 4 is more than twice as good as knowledge level 2).

An example of the increase in productivity is shown in 16.5Knowledge Buildings.

7. Diplomacy

There are 3 factions you can deal with in the game: Humans, Cyborgs and Psionics. There is a 4th that will be revealed with the plot, which I have left out of this guide to avoid any spoilers.

Each faction has a reputation rating towards you. The more missions you successfully complete for each faction the more that faction will like you. Increasing your reputation with a faction enables you to recruit better soldiers and also to request more resources when you need them.

If you attack a province controlled by one of the factions and kill some of their people you will damage your reputation with that faction. The knock-on effect however is that your reputation with the other two may actually increase, as they don’t particularly like or trust each other.

Having a bad reputation with a faction will mean you can’t ask for resources from them and you can’t get any decent recruits from them. Unless you want your game to be hard I wouldn’t advise repeatedly attacking the factions unnecessarily.

7.1. Tips for Trading Resources

Each faction has a favoured resource, linked to the type of faction they are. Humans are low-tech (blue), Cyborgs high-tech (red), and Psionics alien tech (green). When you ask a faction for resources if you pick their natural tech you will get more of it. So if you need alien tech ask the psionics for it. Asking for resources will reset your reputation with a faction to neutral, so only do it when you need to.

7.2. Bribing Factions

If you want to recruit higher level soldiers from a particular faction you can bribe them to like you by donating resources. Donating resources that are not the factions natural resource is more effective than giving them what they already have loads of. So use alien and high tech resources to improve your reputation with the human faction.

7.3. Rejecting Missions

If you reject a mission where the locals are asking for help you will damage your reputation with the faction asking for help. It doesn’t matter if you initiated the mission or they did – it will look bad for you. If you want to avoid losing reputation and can be bothered to fight the mission, accept it, then abort the mission once you

land. The faction will acknowledge that you tried and will actually improve your reputation a little bit, even though you lost.

Update v1.1 – If you reject a mission and then initiate another in the same province you will be offered the same mission again. If you wait a while, and then try again the type of mission may have changed. Since the mission type is random there is not guarantee that you won’t get the same type again.

8. Base Construction

From the Geoscape click on the Bases button. This will take you to a screen where you can build labs and factories in each of your bases. All bases you control are listed on the left, and clicking on a name will take you to a view of that base.

At the top of the screen is a bar showing you how much of each resource the base is collecting and adding to the network. If you have knowledge buildings these figures will be higher than the total from the mines shown on the world map

Near the top right of the screen there is a short list with 4 options: Labs, Factories, Defence and Knowledge. Clicking on each option will show you what buildings are available to be constructed. As you research floor plans more types of buildings will become available in the appropriate list. Some buildings require a certain knowledge level before they can be built, so keep that in mind when you need to build them.

8.1. Early Advice

Build lots of basic weapons labs, basic weapon factories and ordnance factories. You will need these to produce basic armour, weapons and ammo, and to research more advanced weaponry. Reticulan laser rifles are fine for the first few missions but the ammo won’t last forever and you can’t make more of it.

A list of all available Bases can be found in the Appendix 21.6Bases. A list of buildings and their costs can be found in the Appendix 21.7Building Costs.

9. Research

Click on the Research button to see what is being researched and what is available. There is no point having labs if they are not busy, so as long as you have stuff available you should be researching.

On the left you will see a list of lab names. These are the types of labs you have built. At first you will only have the Laputa lab, but you should build other labs to let you research weapons and a whole range of other stuff.

Just below the list of labs are two buttons. Clicking on the “no labs” buttons displays all of the research that you could be doing, but you don’t have the appropriate lab built. If this is the case try to build at least one lab of that type, just to get it moving. You may decide that some branches of research aren’t worth taking, but if this is your first time playing the game I suggest you don’t ignore anything. All research provides you with something useful, even if you don’t value it at the time.

To start research click on the item, and then click on the arrow pointing left to the left of the list. You can queue research items in this separate list, and using the arrows there move items up or down. They will be researched in that order.

To reduce the research time build more labs of that type. It may not appear to update on the main list, but when you start the research the timer will be correct.

Further details on Labs can be found in 21.7.2Laboratories

10. Manufacturing

Similar to research, as long as you have factories they should be kept busy. Weapons labs can produce stuff like guns and armour, with more specialised stuff being made in advanced labs or other labs (spoilers). Ordnance factories produce ammunition, mines, and grenades. You should keep these busy constantly churning out equipment for your troops.

Similar to research, manufacturing projects are started in the same way, and can be queued up. The difference is that you can change the quantity to be made with the “+” and “–“ buttons. Increasing the quantity will also increase the time to complete the order.

To cancel unwanted stuff use the right arrow instead.

If you have researched an item but don’t have the factory to build it the item will appear on the “No Factory” list. If you want to manufacture these items you will need to build the relevant factory first (identified by the symbol next to the item).

For many items, particularly later on the manufacturing times get very high (>15 days for one item). To reduce the time build more factories. The total time will be divided by the number of factories you have, bringing the time to a much more sensible level.

Further details on Factories can be found in 21.7.1Factories

11. Squad

Your squad is the pool of troops you have to do missions with. Initially you only have a small number of troops, but as you find the factions and improve your reputation with them, you can recruit more people to fight. Human recruits are similar to the troops you have already. Cyborgs can have implants and tend to have higher hit points. Psionics can use psionic equipment, but tend to have lower hit points.

11.1. Recruiting

To buy new recruits click on Diplomacy. Choose which faction you want troops from and click “Ask for recruits”. The available list of recruits is shown to you. The higher your reputation with the faction the higher level the recruits will be to a maximum of level 10 in the early stages of the game (even higher level recruits can be found later on). Higher level troops may also have training and may come with some equipment.

11.2. Recruiting Equipment

One added bonus of recruiting is that some soldiers come with equipment and armour, so the thought of spending all that money isn’t just for the soldier. From the soldiers portrait you can see what armour they are wearing, and from the skills they have you

can make an educated guess what type of equipment they will have. For stats on the different types of armour see the Appendix 21.2Armour Effectiveness.

11.2.1. Humans

A grey/brown uniform (with collar for male, no collar for female) means no armour.

A blue collar means Light armour and helmet

A dark open collar means Medium Armour and helmet.

A level 10 or higher with L3 gunman comes with Heavy Armour.

11.2.2. Cyborgs

Armour up to ear on left (red and dark grey) means Basic Body armour (L1 Implant)

Armour up to near top of head (red and shiny silver) means Advanced Body Armour (L2 implant)

11.2.3. Psionics

Since they don’t wear helmets this is harder to spot. You need to look at the colour of their clothing in the bottom left of the portrait.

Yellow green and blue means no armour, just basic clothing.

Brown and turquoise means Psi-suit

Bands around their heads also indicate what type of psionic equipment they have:

Red band – damage circlet

Silver side burns – Accuracy circlet

Metal claws on head – Interference circlet.

The type of equipment tends to relate to the type of skills the recruit has. A sniper for instance is likely to have a sniper rifle, while a commando will have commando equipment. Troopers tend to have assault rifles (M4 Carbine). Stalkers also have commando weapons and sometimes personal cloaks (higher level).

If you have an abundance of a particular resource it can be far quicker to buy your equipment this way than using factories to produce it, particularly for items such as suits of heavy armour.

11.3. Racial Differences

Each of the races has different strengths and weaknesses. These will automatically be applied to any recruit.

Humans:

-1 to Psi power

+1 to Mechanical

Human females are smaller, harder to hit and slightly stealthier than their male counter-parts. They are also weaker, and have slightly fewer hit-points.

Cyborgs:

-1 to Stealth

+1 to Close range

Compared to humans, cyborgs are larger, less stealthy, have 25% more hit points, and can carry more. They are also the only race capable of using cyborg implants.

Psionics:

+2 to Psi power

-1 to Capacity

-1 to Hit points

Similar to human females, but with fewer hit points. They have Psi-vision ability, but are also more visible to psionic creatures. They are the only race capable of psionic training and using psionic equipment.

11.4. Levelling-up

Every time you complete a mission, successfully or failed, every member of the squad that went on the mission gains experience. When the total experience gained by the soldier reaches a certain point the soldier goes up a level.

This gives you 1 point to spend on improving the soldiers’ abilities. In the Squad screen click on the soldier and the Training tab. Clicking a “+” next to a stat will increase the stat. When you are happy with it click Confirm – if you don’t the points will not be spent.

If you haven’t spent your level up points by the time you reach the next level they simply stack up until you do spend them. So you can take low level recruits with an experienced squad simply to gain a few levels, even if they don’t leave the landing pod. 21.4Experience Tables shows the Experience required for each level.

11.5. Plan for Training

You will see a list of 12 possible “professions” next to the soldiers’ stats. Each soldier can have up to 3 professions. Once you have started a profession you cannot cancel it, but it can be enhanced through further training to level 3. This is the highest and most effective a profession can be.

Look in the Glossary for full details of the professions. Your characters will need to have certain minimum skill levels to train in each profession, and these get higher for each level of skill. Cyborg Implants and Psionic Training are only possible by recruits of those races. Humans cannot train in either. When you are buying new recruits look at their skills and work out what role they would be best at.

It is a good idea to plan your training in advance. When training your soldiers will not be available to fight, so don’t put all your soldiers into training if you know you are about to be attacked.

Some skills work well together and have similar requirements, which means you can have a soldier with 2 good professions fairly early in the game. Skills also provide you with special abilities or training, such as increased ability to dodge, or the ability to use certain types of weapons. If you want to use rocket launchers or heavy armour you need to have the right skill first.

A table of training requirements is in the Appendix 21.3Training Requirements.

11.6. Maximum Skill Levels

The maximum level a skill can get to is Super Heroic. If you increase stats or gain skills that would raise it higher than this they don’t. There is no Super Heroic +1, +2 etc. as stated in the manual.

Patch 1.1 update – it is now possible to raise stats and skills above Super Heroic, displayed as Super Heroic +1, +2 etc. The current maximum for a stat is +4 for strength for cyborgs using advanced strength legs and arms.

11.7. How soldier stats impact on the game

All skills are given a rating and as level-up points are put into the soldiers’ stats these skills will improve. If you hover over a stat it will tell you what the main skills it affects, and they tend to be fairly intuitive. Hit points for instance, are affected primarily by Strength and Willpower.

The ratings a skill can go through are: Awful, Poor, Average, Good, Very Good, Excellent, Heroic, Super-Heroic.

The easiest place to see the effects of stats is by looking at a weapon in the Squad screen. Apart from the basic weapon stats there will also be some numbers next to them, which show how the soldiers personal skill (or lack of) will affect the performance of the weapon in combat, by changing the range, damage, accuracy etc.

A soldier with average skill will not have any modifiers. If the skill is below average there will be negative modifiers (shown in red), but if the skill is above average the modifier will be positive (shown in yellow). As your soldiers skill with a particular type of weapon increases, so will the range accuracy and damage of the weapon as they learn how to use it more effectively.

For some skills it is harder to see the effect on the Equipment screen and must be seen in game. The med-pack is the clearest example.

If a soldier has average Medical skill and uses a basic med-pack they will heal 100 points of temporary damage. If you give the med-pack to someone with a higher skill they will heal more damage. The increase seems to be a % increase, so by using a better med-pack (advanced) the increased effect is even greater.

Update v1.1

Now the cap on Super Heroic has been lifted it is possible for both stats and skills to go to +1, +2 etc. I think only cyborgs can have stats higher than Super Heroic as it requires implants to boost the stat. Skills can be raised above Super Heroic by any soldier with high enough stats relating to the skill. There are also some bonuses from training that may increase skills further.

12. Overview Screen

This screen shows several useful pieces of information, and can be customised to a limited extent to show the information in the way you prefer. The main part of the screen is taken up by a list of buildings, showing what you have built, where it is, and further info on what it is doing. At the top of this display are headings for each of the columns. Click on the headings and it will sort the list by that category.

The categories are: Building location (base name), Building name (e.g. adv. Weapons lab), Type of building (a symbol depicting type of facility), Status (researching or idle). Clicking the tab at the top of each column will sort them alphabetically, and the info should remain sorted like this when you return to the screen.

Mine production is shown in the top right corner, showing the split between low, high and alien. Also in that table is data on how much your track network uses up, as well as research and production facilities. The figures at the bottom of this mini table tell you what your actual income each hour will be.

Track data is shown below that. Once you have a few tracks built it will show 5 sets of figures. The middle line is what your costs are now, below is what they would be if you removed tracks, and above is what the costs will increase to. For a list of tracks costs see 21.1Track Costs.

Finally in the bottom right there is info on how effectively you are using the provinces you have. The number of bases you have, and the number connected is shown to let you know when some are not connected. It also lets you know what % of your buildings are idle. This means they are not doing anything, when they could be researching or constructing something. Knowledge buildings work constantly in the background, so despite appearing idle, they are in fact working.

13. Starting Guide

This guide contains advice on a strategy for starting the game. If you want to figure things out for yourself do not read this section.

Every game starts out with your base in Stuttgart, the capital of Central Europe, and one province with resources. Since this is also part of Central Europe you are automatically collecting resource income from it. Start exploring neighbouring territories within Central Europe, as you can collect income from these without having to build tracks.

When you need to expand there are a few bases very close by. Paris, in North East France contains a base, which is adjacent to Stuttgart. North of Paris is England, which as well as being a base is also your first base with sea-lanes available. From here you can choose to link Spain, if you want to stay in Europe, or expand over to New York and South America. I advise that you stick to Europe until you have that established, as the laputa is quite slow moving, and you don’t want to keep jumping the Atlantic to do missions.

Using this strategy you can link 4 bases with only 3 tracks. Capture the resource provinces that they are linked to and you have the start of a strong economy. Build weapons labs to research human weapons, and have weapons factories and ordnance factories churning out weapons, armour and ammo for your soldiers. Use weapons that you find in missions, but bear in mind you only have limited ammo for them until they are researched. Try to equip your squad with a variety of weapons, that way they won’t all run out of ammo at the same time, and will all have different strengths and weaknesses. For instance a shotgun does loads of damage, but it only has a short range. Therefore give it to someone who is good with the weapon (Short Range skill) and is fast, so they can get close to the target quickly before they are shot to pieces.

Give everyone a knife and a med-pack. There should be enough to give most of your squad one each, but if not give them to the soldiers who can make best use of them. No point giving a med-pack to someone with Awful Medical skill, when you have a soldier with Good Medical. Also move the weapons around before the first mission, as they haven’t been given to the best people. As a last resort knives can be used to fight with, but are best used to finish off unconscious enemies on the floor, as it saves ammo.

When you go on a mission move slowly and carefully across the map. When you spot an enemy you will probably need to focus all your firepower on it to bring it down quickly. If you encounter a group of enemies it is better to focus your shooting on just one target early on. This way you will reduce the number of guns shooting at you faster than spreading your shots between them.

Research is a very important part of the game, as it enables you to discover and produce new and more powerful weapons. Multiple labs will increase the speed of research, and they should never be sitting idle until there is nothing left to research.

14. Difficuly Levels

When you start a new game there are 4 difficulty levels to choose from, Newbie, Soldier, Veteran and Superhero. I have put the summary first, and the table extracted from the game files after.

14.1. Newbie

Enemies take 40% more damage, damage from enemies is reduced by 70%, mine production is doubled, research and production times are reduced by 20%, soldiers gain 50% more experience and are 25% less visible.

14.2. Soldier

Enemies take 20% more damage, damage from enemies is reduced by 50%, mine production is increased by 25%, research and production times are reduced by 10%, soldiers gain normal experience and are 10% less visible.

14.3. Veteran

Everything is 'normal', except you earn 10% less experience.

14.4. Superhero

Enemies take 20% less damage, damage from enemies is increased by 50%, mine production is reduced by 15%, research and production take 15% longer, soldiers gain 20% less experience, and are affected by visibility normally.

14.5. Statistics

Here is the table of data as extracted from the game files. The numbers in the table are a multiplier, with 1.0 representing “normal”. Figures larger than 1 increase the factor, and figures smaller than 1 reduce it. I’ve deliberately avoided using larger/smaller means easier/harder, as different factors work in the opposite direction.

Newbie Soldier Veteran Superhero

Enemy Damage 1.4 1.2 1.0 0.8

Friendly Damage 0.3 0.5 1.0 1.5

Mining 2.0 1.25 1.0 0.85

Research 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.15

Production 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.15

Experience 1.5 1.0 0.9 0.8

Visibility 0.75 0.9 1.0 1.0

Enemy Damage is the amount of damage your weapons inflict on the enemy. A figure larger than 1.0 will increase the damage you do, making the game easier.

Friendly Damage is the amount of damage you take from the enemy. On easier difficulties this is greatly reduced.

Mining relates to how productive resource mines are. 2.0 for newbie means production is doubled, whilst 0.85 in superhero means you only get 85% of what they would normally produce.

Research and production relate to the costs involved in discovering and manufacturing new technologies. Higher figures means higher costs, and therefore more difficult.

Experience multiplier affects how much experience you are awarded at the end of each mission. Since this is the main factor controlling the advancement of your soldiers reducing this below 1.0 makes the game harder.

Visibility refers to how visible your troops are to the enemy, not the other way round. The more visible you are the more likely the enemy will spot you and shoot you.

15. Tactical Advice

This section contains hints and tips on how to play tactical combat missions against the aliens, as opposed to the Strategic part of the game conducted on the Geoscape.

15.1. Stealth

Stealth is a skill that can be used to try and avoid being detected by the enemy. How stealthy your character is depends on their skill, as well as what position they are in and how they move about the battlefield. Obvious things like distance and hiding behind cover will reduce the chance of you being spotted, by since you can’t stay still forever how you move is important.

15.2. Changing Stances

There are three stances in the game: Standing, Crouching and Prone. To switch between stances click the stance buttons in the bottom right of the screen. They will change to the new stance immediately or at the end of their current order. It takes some time to switch between stances, so if you see a rocket heading for a prone soldier they won’t be able to run away quickly.

Standing – This allows the character to run around the mission. This is the fastest way to move but is also the loudest. You are most likely to be spotted by an alien if you are moving fast and making lots of noise, but at least you will be up and close quickly.

Prone – This is where the character lies on the ground. This is the slowest way to move, but is also the quietest and hardest to spot for the enemy. Flatsters, due to their height gain the benefits of this stance, hence their ability to “appear” only a few feet away from your soldiers.

Crouching – This is halfway between the other two. The character stays low to the ground but without sacrificing too much speed. They are harder to spot and hit than standing troops, but easier than prone ones.

Which stance you adopt is up to you, and circumstances may mean you have to change quickly. Early in the game, when you have low accuracy fairly short range weapons I suggest rushing into the enemy to get a better chance of hitting them.

Change your weapon mode to burst (if available) and try to get as many bullets as possible flying towards the enemy. At medium range reticulans and morelmen are more accurate than you will be.

15.3. Changing facing of soldiers

One of your soldiers is more likely to spot a hostile if they are facing in the right direction, and telling your soldiers to move doesn’t always end up with them facing the right way. To fix this when you right click to give a move order, keep the button held, and move the mouse in the direction you want them to face. An arrow will appear on the destination square indicating which way the soldier will face.

To do this with stationary troops, right click on the soldier or the square they are on, and move the mouse in the direction you want them to face. This is much faster than manually moving each troop around until they face the way you want.

15.4. Range

Early weapons have low effective ranges, and are not particularly accurate – in the hands of level 1 recruits anyway. If you can’t hit the alien your chances of killing it are very small. Early on you need to get close to give yourself a good chance of hitting and killing it. Therefore use the standing/running stance to close the distance between you and the enemy quickly.

Take advantage of the fact that some aliens don’t have ranged weapons. Learn which ones these are and take advantage of it. Deal with the most dangerous threats first, such as those with ranged weapons and work your way through them to the less dangerous ones. This does not mean enemies without ranged weapons are not dangerous, but that they are only dangerous once they are next to you. Shoot them from a distance and they will not be a problem.

15.5. Formation

Sadly you can’t set a formation up for your soldiers to follow, so if you select all your soldiers and tell them to go to point A, they will all group together and stand in a tight group – ideal for an enemy rocket.

On the other hand you don’t want your soldiers so far apart they can’t help each other if they run into difficulty. Move 2 or 3 soldiers at a time and have them covered by others who are ready to shoot.

Keep your soldiers about 4 or 5 square apart in open spaces to reduce the effectiveness of enemy grenades or other area effect weapons. Try not to move soldiers across the path of a soldier who is shooting. The soldier shooting will cancel his orders and just stand there until you tell him to do something else.

Inside bases you are restricted in how far you can spread out, and it’s not unheard of for enemies to use grenades and explosives in these confined conditions. By staggering your position down a corridor (position soldiers in a zigzag down the sides of the corridor) you can enable them all to fire and minimise the impact a rocket would have. Obviously put your longest ranged weapons (snipers) at the back of the group and close combat specialists near the front so they all stay in useful positions.

15.6. Watch Command

The watch command appears as a button above the stance buttons. Putting a soldier on watch prepares them for combat. It reduces the aiming time for the first shot they make, as they are ready to fight. Use this command when you know you are close to hostiles and they are coming towards you.

15.7. Most Effective Weapon

When you launch a mission you are told what type of hostiles you can expect to face (mutants, reticulans, humans etc.). Learn what types of weapons are most effective against the enemies you are fighting and equip your squad accordingly. Initially you won’t have much choice, as you only have a few weapons, but even then you have some laser weapons, and some standard “soft damage” weapons such as pistols, shotguns and rifles.

If you want to find out the weaknesses of a particular alien type you need to kill one and bring its body back for autopsy in the medical lab. The research will give you a description of the creature, how it attacks, and what its weaknesses are.

15.8. Weapon Accuracy

This is my interpretation of Martin Klima’s (project lead on Aftershock) post trying to explain how accuracy is calculated. There are many factors that will affect weapon accuracy that cannot all be explored in this guide so for this reason I have simplified the explanation to only look at the weapon.

In simple terms if 2 weapons are identical except for accuracy the gun with the higher percentage is the better weapon to use. The problem arises when comparing weapons that don’t have the same range or damage potential. To compare which weapon is best to use we need a common factor. This has been done in AS by calculating the distance at which the weapon is 50% accurate.

Weapon Range Accuracy

Laser Pistol 30m 67%

Laser Rifle 50m 64%

The range of a weapon (in metres) is the distance where your chance to hit is 10%. So for the weapons above they are 30m and 50m respectively. Accuracy is a percentage and is used to find the distance at which the weapons chance to hit is 50%. Multiply the range by the accuracy % to get the distance in metres:

Weapon Calculation Distance for 50% accuracy

Laser Pistol 30*0.67 20.1m

Laser Rifle 50*0.64 32m

A weapon with a high accuracy is therefore more effective at longer ranges.

These are the accuracies for the weapons only. The skill of the soldier will also play an important role in determining whether a shot hit its target. The size of the target and skill of the target are also factors that need to be considered by the game. The description of each weapon also contains information on which skills it uses and what the requirements are (for instance heavy weapons training). The more proficient the soldier is in a given skill the better shot they will be with all weapons of that type.

In the initial release version the Glossary has different figures for weapons compared to the information displayed in the Squad screen. In the glossary the accuracy is displayed as a distance, rather than a percentage – this is the range at which the weapon is 50% accurate. Patch 1.1 has hopefully fixed this inconsistency.

15.9. Snap Shot vs. Aimed Shot

This controls how much time and concentration the soldier puts into aiming each shot. By taking snap shots they can reduce the time for each shot, but they are less accurate. By taking time to aim the shot properly the shot will be more accurate, but is also slower. To switch between the two modes you need to click on the relevant target button in the bottom right. The right hand button is for aimed shots, and the one on the left is for snap shots.

15.10. Damage Types

When you look at armour you are shown 5 different resistances, Projectile, Energy, Mechanical, Burn and Psi. Rather than being precise terms these are merely classes for types of damage. For instance rifles have the option of firing standard rounds or AP rounds, but while they are both projectiles they do not behave in the same way.

Regular rifle ammunition is regarded as “Soft”

AP rifle ammunition is regarded as “Hard”

Both “Soft” and “Hard” damage resistances contribute equally (50% each) to make the Projectile resistance that is displayed for a piece of armour or for an enemy. Where more than 2 damage types apply to a category each damage type counts equally towards the overall resistance.

For example a piece of armour is 60% resistant to Soft, but only 10% resistant to Hard. The resistance to Projectiles is therefore 35% ((0.6+0.1)/2).

Projectile = Soft + Hard

Energy = Laser + Plasma + Warp + EMP

Mechanical = Sonic + Blade + Explosive

Burn = Plasma + Burn

Psi = Psi

Note that Plasma is part of 2 different resistance classes, Energy and Burn. Internally the game calculates damage as Plasma, so there is no problem with it being in more than one group. There are currently no weapons in the standard game that inflict EMP damage.

For Armour Resistances to damage see 21.2Armour Effectiveness

15.11. Incapacitating Enemies

All creatures have a health bar like just like your soldiers, which starts off full and green. When they are damaged they take temporary damage (red), stun damage (grey and wears off) and permanent damage (black). If they are damaged enough, usually the bar must be all red or close to it, then the unit falls to the ground unconscious. This unit is now out of action until either they recover naturally (5-10 seconds), are healed with a med-kit, or die of bleeding.

Bleeding shows up on the character portrait as a drop of blood in a circle. Moving your cursor over this gives you the details of the bleeding. Each second the unit will lose health until the red bad turns black and the unit dies. If they are not treated with a med-kit before their health runs out they die. (A level 3 medic can revive them, though they will only have 10HP for the rest of the mission and will take a long time to recover in hospital).

15.12. Capturing Enemies

Some missions require you to capture a live alien for scientists to study or interrogate. There is only ever one alien that you can capture on a mission, and they are identified by a large red arrow above their head. You must first incapacitate, but not kill the alien. You must then get one of your soldiers within 3 metres of him when he wakes up. This means standing right next to him or one square away. It is advisable to take a med-pack with you, as if he is bleeding he will die and you will lose the mission.

Think about what weapons to take on capture missions. While it is fun to use highly trained snipers and high damage weapons normally they aren’t very useful when you need to take one of them alive. It can be handy in missions like this to pack additional low power backup weapons, to deliver a little more damage to an already severely wounded enemy without killing it.

Sonic weapons tend to deal a greater proportion of their damage as stun damage, rather than physical damage. Therefore weapons like the Ultra Sonic Gun (Sniper rifle) are very good for using on capture missions.

15.13. Friendly units in missions

Some missions require you to either escort friendly units to a particular point, or to rescue a captured friendly unit. In these missions it is important that all of the friendly units do not die. If there is more than 1, then a few can die, but at least 1 must survive to the end of the mission.

In the case of rescuing a unit, they often carry advanced and powerful weapons. If you can knock them unconscious you can loot them for their equipment. Not very ethical – but all’s fair in love and war!!

15.14. Using Teleporters

Teleporters are most commonly found on crashed alien ships, but can also occur elsewhere. To use them simply walk your soldiers one at a time into the teleporter. When you move the cursor over the teleporter it will change in shape. When the soldier steps into teleporter they will be transported to the connected teleporter, which will be one level up/down from where they were before. In some alien ships there are teleporters to move you from one side of the ship to the other, rather than up or down.

Teleporters are placed in pairs – so they can only teleport you between the two locations. Stepping back onto a teleporter will take you back to your original position.

16. Advanced Notes

This section contains advice and hints for people more experienced in the game. It will therefore contain some spoilers with names of enemies, certain weapons/ technologies and events that occur in the plot. If you don’t want to know what they are don’t read this section until you have played for a reasonable amount of time.

In short don’t read beyond this point until the countdown has reached 0:00:00.

If you don’t know what I’m referring to then you haven’t got there yet!!

16.1. Advanced Research

As the game progresses the technology you use to fight with will improve making older labs and some factories obsolete. When you have researched everything available for a particular lab you should demolish it to make room for more advanced labs and factories. By the time you reach the end of the game you really should be using something better than a Browning knife and a Desert Eagle.

16.2. Ambidextrous

This is given to you with Level 2 Ranger Training, or with the cyborg chipset.

To use Ambidextrous you must be equipped with 2 weapons of the same type, either pistols or SMG’s. For instance 2 desert eagles, or 2 MP5’s are fine, but one of each won’t work. Only the base weapon must be identical, so you can choose to mod one and not the other. It is designed for single-handed or hand-and-a-half weapons, so you can’t use two rocket launchers or two sniper rifles.

16.3. Commando Weapons

Commando weapons can only be used by characters with this skill (Commando L1 or Stalker L2). These include: Katana, Shuriken, Throwing Knives and Blowpipe. A L3 Commando has the added ability of very fast closing times for the last 5 metres when equipped with a melee weapon.

16.4. Composing Weapons

Many weapons in the game can be modified with a variety of attachments that enhance the weapon in some way. Click on the weapon, and if it’s available a Compose button should appear with the item description. This will take you to the weapon composition screen. Each type of weapon attachment can be mounted to the muzzle, visor or under-barrel. Drag the attachment to a valid slot and give the weapon a name. This will now appear in the Glossary under the name you give it.

You cannot manufacture already composed weapons, so you will have to manufacture the parts separately and compose them manually. Research for weapon components can be done at a basic weapons lab, and parts made at basic weapons factories.

Note that the under-barrel grenade launcher requires rocket training to use.

Composing armour, drones or cyborg implants all work in the same way. Click the item, then compose, drag the upgrades into the relevant slots, give it a name and click compose to complete it.

In v1.1 and 1.2 several changes have been made to composing weapons. The effects of several parts have been changed, altering their effectiveness to reduce the exploitation of certain combinations. The training requirements for items such as the laser sight have also changed, so check the composed weapon can be used by the soldier before you send them out to fight with it. If they can’t use it, it should be highlighted in the Squad/Equipment screen.

16.5. Knowledge Buildings

There are three knowledge buildings, Library with KL=1 (KL = Knowledge Level), School with KL=2, and College with KL=4 but needs 1KL to build. Apart from being a requirement to build some of the advanced labs they also help defend against propaganda (secret service centre helps here), and also increase productivity in mines for the country. Knowledge level is base specific, so anything you build in Stuttgart will only affect Central European provinces.

For labs that require KL of 2 or less the most efficient solution is to build a school. Anything larger, such as a Jet Propulsion lab (needs KL=5) and you need 2 knowledge buildings. If you get into this situation the best tactic is to build a school or library, then build 2 colleges. When the colleges are complete they will support each other and the school/library can be removed. Since all bases have a minimum of 3 slots this makes the most of the 2 slots you have to fill with knowledge buildings and a free slot to build in.

To find out how effective they were at increasing productivity I did the following test. A country had 2 alien mines producing 61 units per hour. There were no other mines, and the base had room for 3 buildings.

KL Production Increase Inc/KL

0 61 0 0

2 69 8 4

4 79 18 4.5

6 92 31 5

8 104 43 5.5

10 118 57 5.7

12 133 72 6

I didn’t bother to do each combination in between as this gives a clear enough picture. The right hand column shows that the more knowledge buildings you have the more effective each one becomes – the increase in production from KL=8 is more than twice the increase from KL=4.

Since alien tech seems to be the scarcest resource it makes sense to build knowledge buildings at those bases to maximise the benefit they provide.

Knowledge buildings appear to be “Idle” when you look at the list of buildings you have. They are not idle, but they cannot be used for any particular research or manufacturing. They are constantly active, but work in the background, by increasing

productivity from mines, and later on work to protect you from propaganda and losing provinces. Things like the secret service centre can be built for this purpose, though the KL they provide is for protection only, and not to increase mine production.

The highest requirement of a lab for Knowledge is KL=6.

Labs that only require KL=2 or less can be built in any base. However labs requiring more than this are only efficient if placed in large bases with 4 or 5 slots. This minimises the number of slots needed for knowledge buildings, and frees up other smaller bases for less complicated production factories, or lower KL labs.

16.6. Track Management

To start with you will probably connect every base you win to your network, but this isn’t always the best solution. Use sea-tracks whenever possible. They provide a much shorter way of connecting two bases than doing it by land. Early in the game London and Malaga are two very useful coastal bases to own, as the allow access to bases on North and South America, Africa and the Middle East.

Avoid duplicating tracks. This means you network will be vulnerable to attack if the enemy take a territory with tracks in it, but the cost of protecting against it totally would be prohibitive. Once you manage to get a track all the way round the world the chance of losing contact with a base is greatly reduced, as the resources can move either way round back to your main base (Stuttgart).

Only connect bases by land when the cost of doing so is less than the cost of the tracks. If the base you want to connect is 3 provinces away and only contains 1 mine it probably isn’t worth connecting up, unless you really need the resource, or until you can find another shorter way of linking it up (maybe from the other side).

A table showing track costs can be found in the Appendix 21.1Track Costs.

16.7. Advanced Human Weapons

There is currently a problem triggering this event, so until there is a patch to fix it here is the best solution found. First you must research Firearms at the Basic Weapons Lab. When this is complete Advanced Human Weapons research should appear on the list of possible topics, but is unavailable without an Advanced Human Weapon. The following list of weapons/parts/ammo are items that will enable this research:

Sonic gun

Ultra Sonic gun

Gyrostabilizer

Recoil Compensator

5,56x45mm NATO flechette Ammo - the ammo not the gun that can fire it

7,62x51mm NATO explosive Ammo - the ammo not the gun that can fire it

You are most likely to find these in encounters with cultists, as they are a major source of advanced weaponry early in the game. If the research is not triggered when you complete the mission, but the item appears in your equipment you will need to “re-find” the item. To do this simply take the item with you on your next mission, and drop it before completing it. This time when you return to the Geoscape the research should be available (you may need to advance time by about an hour).

16.8. Warp weapons

Warp weapons require you to perform an autopsy of a Starghost Hover. The research time for warp weapons can be reduced by researching Reticulan warp weapons use first. This only requires you to find a warp weapon. This can be found before the Wargots arrive, but is more common after the Laputa defence mission.

16.9. Targeting body parts

This skill is gained only with Level 3 Sniper training. To use it you must equip your sniper with a sniper rifle and shoot using aimed shots. Snap shots won’t allow you to target body parts. If the target is humanoid when you click to shoot them a small diagram will appear showing the targets body divided into zones.

Moving your cursor over each zone will show you the chance to hit.

The centre of the body is the largest bit, and therefore has the highest chance to hit. There are no special effects of targeting this part of the body.

The head is the hardest part to hit because of its size, but hitting it will almost certainly result in a critical hit that will kill all but the hardest of enemies in one shot.

The legs and arms targeted shots are designed to further incapacitate the enemy. Critical hits to these limbs will make the target fall over and may knock the weapon they were using out of their hands.

Non-humanoid targets cannot have body parts targeted. These tend to be mutants, including Brainmen, Muckstars, Flatsters and Scuttlebugs. These have to be shot in the normal manner.

In v1.1 composing a weapon with a laser sight required sniper training (removed in v1.2) but also allowed the soldier to perform targeted shots with non-sniper weapons. Also the laser sight allowed non-sniper weapons to perform targeted shots, this has been removed in v1.2

16.10. Scout abilities

The abilities to see armour, weapons, resistances etc. did not work in the release version, but has been fixed in v1.1. A soldier with L3 Scout, can see a lot more information about the target by moving the cursor over the target. This is particularly useful for finding weaknesses in enemies, and also how dangerous they are from the weapons they are using. While the weapon is not given a name, the damage and distance are shown. If you zoom in on the target you may be able to work out what the weapon is visually.

17. High Level Recruits

High level recruits become available when factions start to like you a lot. At neutral they only offer one L1 recruit with no training apart from racial skills. Successfully completing missions and giving them resources will increase their diplomacy rating with you, and they will offer you more recruits, initially L4 and L5, until they offer L10 when they really like you. Later in the game even higher level recruits will become available. The higher level recruits obviously cost more, and the cost is the races natural resource (so alien tech for psionics).

Apart from having more experience higher level recruits may also have some training, and if so are likely to have weapons/equipment on them that is relevant to their profession. It is possible to use this to your advantage, as you can effectively buy new technology and open up new lines of research by buying recruits.

Looking at the picture of the soldier you can determine if they are wearing any armour by their collar. This is discussed above in 11.2 Recruiting Equipment.

18. Cyborgs

Cyborgs are the only race that can use Cyborg implants, and their training in this skill determines what level on implants may be installed. Cyborg implants are researched at the (Adv/Basic) Cyborg Implant Labs, and constructed in the (Adv/Basic) Cyborg Implant Factory. If you plan to make use of Cyborgs in your squads it really makes sense to invest some time and resources in implant technology, as they can provide some major enhancements to your Cyborgs.

Due to the fact that they are part man and part machine they have a higher number of hit points than humans (Super Heroic hit points = approx 3800HP compared to approx 3000HP for a human). As a result they make effective front-line units.

A Cyborg can have 4 different types of implants installed. Implants cannot be removed once they have been installed, so think about which implants are best for that Cyborg before installing them. Advanced implants are installed on top of basic level implants, so you can upgrade an implant, but not remove it. The bonus provided by advanced implants includes the bonus from the basic implant, so the maximum bonus from an implant is +2. Upgrading an implant does not make the basic implant available for another Cyborg to use.

18.1. Body Implants

Cyborgs cannot wear armour like humans, so rely on this implant for their protection. Until you can manufacture these implants I wouldn’t recommend recruiting any cyborg without this implant, as they will be very vulnerable to all forms of damage. There are no variations in types of armour, so install the best available.

The Basic Body Implant is level 1, and the Advanced Body Implant is level 2.

18.2. Arm Implants

Arm implants come in two types, Strength or Dexterity. Basic level implants will increase the stat by 1 point, while advanced implants will increase the stat by 2 points. This is restricted to Super-Heroic in the release version, but is allowed to go higher with patch 1.1.

Basic Arm Implants are level 1, and Advanced Arm Implants are level 2.

18.3. Leg Implants

Leg implants come in two types, Strength or Agility. Basic level implants will increase the stat by 1 point, while advanced implants will increase the stat by 2 points.

Basic Leg Implants are level 1, and Advanced Leg Implants are level 2.

18.4. Eye Implants

Basic implants are the detail eye and infra-red eye:

Detail eye gives a +1 bonus to Observation, improving the ability to spot enemies.

Infra-red eye allows you to view a thermal image of the battlefield in Infra-red mode. This implant increases the chance of spotting enemies that give off heat.

The Advanced eye implant is the Reticule eye implant which increases the long-range skill by 1.

Eye Implants researched at the Basic Implants Lab are level 2, and those researched at the Advanced Implants Lab are level 3. If a new eye is installed it removes the effects of the old eye, and only gives the benefits of the new eye.

18.5. Chipsets

There are a variety of chipsets which can be Composed with Advanced Implants to improve their performance. Unlike other implants, because they are composed, these can be removed and replaced with other chipsets. In the release version of the game these could not be composed with Strength implants, but could be composed with other limb implants.

Throwing arm chipset gives a +1 bonus to the Throwing skill. Level 2 Implant.

Surehand arm chipset gives a +1 bonus to the Rifle skill. Level 2 Implant.

Combat arm chipset gives a +1 bonus to the Close Combat skill. Level 2 Implant.

Eye Link arm chipset gives a +1 bonus to the Long Range skill. Level 2 Implant.

Ambidextrous arm chipset gives the Ambidextrous ability as the Ranger skill. Level 3 Implant.

18.6. Manufacturing Implants

As a general rule basic implants are manufactured at the Basic Implants Factory, and Advanced implants, at the Advanced Implants Factory. Level 2 chipsets are made at the basic factory.

Any stat increases gained from installing implants work exactly as if the cyborg had gained a level and spent the point on the stat. This means that cyborgs can be eligible for training much faster than other races by using implants, as well as increasing the skills related to the stat that was increased.

19. Psionics

Psionics are the only race that can use psionic weapons and items, due to the mutations they have developed in the past 50 years. They are not able to equip normal armour like humans, and generally have fewer hit points than other races (about 2400 for Super-Heroic), making them a poor choice for combat units.

With their special ability of Psi-Detection, and requirement of Perception as part of psionic training they can be very good at spotting units from a distance, and work well in a support or sniper role.

Psionic Equipment is similar to cyborgs in that they have 4 types of equipment, Psi suit, Circlet, Collar and Vambraces. All equipment is level 1 unless otherwise stated.

19.1. Psi Suits

Psionics cannot wear normal human armour, and wear psionic suits instead. The defence values for these can be found in the Appendix 21.2Armour Effectiveness.

19.2. Circlets

Accuracy circlets increase the accuracy of friendly units by 20% when shooting at enemies the psionic can see.

Damage circlets increase the damage inflicted on enemies the psionic can see, by anyone in the squad, by 20% not including explosive damage caused by grenades or rockets.

Interference circlets can be used on any target the psionic has line of sight to, reducing the enemy’s chance of hitting your soldiers by 30%.

Vivid Image circlets increase the chance to panic enemies (about 15%) when they are shot as long as they are within the line of sight of the psionic.

Life Drain circlet allows the psionic to drain hit points from a target for each point of stun damage inflicted on it. When combined with life sink vambraces the psionic can pass the drained health to a nearby ally. This item requires level 2 training.

19.3. Collars

Cloak collars help friendly units within line of sight by giving them a bonus to their stealth, helping them move undetected. This item requires level 2 training to use.

Healing collars – if a friendly unit is healed within the psionics line of sight the effects of the healing are increased. This item requires level 2 training.

Protection collars allow the psionic to increase the psi resistance of friendly units nearby by 30%, helping them resist attacks. This item requires level 2 training.

Motivation collars give the wearer the bonuses of Force of Will, allowing them to move when badly injured.

Escape collars are intended to be used to aid friendly units that have been incapacitated/ knocked unconscious by slowly moving them towards the psionic, and hopefully away from danger.

19.4. Vambraces

Trueshot vambraces increase the accuracy of the wearer significantly when using weapons with the Long Range skill.

Capacity vambraces increase the amount of weight the psionic can carry by giving a +1 bonus to capacity.

Projector vambraces allow the wearer to use certain psionic projectors. A bug in the game allows the weapons to be used without these vambraces, although this may be fixed soon in a patch.

Life Sink vambraces can be used in conjunction with the life drain circlet to pass hit points drained from enemies as healing to nearby friendly units. Max range 10 metres.

20. Drones

Drones are machines that you can manufacture to scout or fight for you in missions. Each one takes up one squad place in the landing craft, and can be controlled as normal. To use drones you must first research them in the Advanced Weapons Lab, and construct the parts in Advanced Weapons Factories. To use drones you must also have a trained technician.

20.1. Composing Drones

Drones are constructed from several parts, consisting of a Core, a Chassis and whatever array of weapons and armour you choose. Click on the core you want to construct it from, and then click Compose. Only manufactured drone weapons and chassis suitable for the type of core will be shown. Drag the bits you want onto the relevant slots, and give the drone a name to complete the construction as you would for a normal weapon. The drone should now appear in the pool of recruits and can be dragged into the current squad as normal.

Drone Cores

There are three types of Core available to construct your drone with. The type of core will determine the role of the drone, what chassis it can have, and the equipment capacity.

20.2. Scout Core

Scout drones have 1 chassis slot and 1 equipment slot. They are designed to be fast and nimble, so can only use the hover and wheeled chassis.

20.3. Fighter Core

The Fighter Drone Core has 2 slots for equipment, allowing it to equip larger weapons. It has improved armour over the scout, but due to its increased weight has to use either the wheeled or walking chassis.

20.4. Defender Core

The Defender Drone Core is the heavyweight core, with 3 slots for equipment. This allows it to equip large weapons and additional shielding if required. Due to its very heavy weight it must use either the walking or tracked chassis.

Drone Chassis

The type of chassis determines how the drone moves, the speed, and what weight it can take. Once a chassis has been fitted to a core it cannot be removed.

20.5. Hover Chassis

The hover chassis is a lightweight manoeuvrable solution only compatible with the scout drone core, enabling it to move rapidly over any surface. The in game description says it can cross water, though I have not found any water on maps to test it out.

20.6. Wheeled Chassis

This is a reasonably fast chassis that can travel across solid surfaces, but cannot cross water. It is larger in size to the hover drone, and can support either the scout core or the fighter core.

20.7. Walking Chassis

This is the slowest moving of the four chassis but is also the most versatile. The walking chassis can successfully climb stairs and even ladders to reach places no other drone is able to. This chassis is designed for either the scout or fighter cores.

20.8. Tracked Chassis

Using tank treads this is the heaviest chassis available, capable of taking huge loads, and as such is only suitable for the Defender Core.

20.9. Drone Equipment

Drone weapons are mostly researched together in one big batch. The Scout core is restricted to using only the smaller types of weapons that take up one equipment slot, and therefore tend to do less damage. Larger weapons such as rocket launchers take up 2 slots together and are therefore only usable on the heavier fighter and defender cores.

Other equipment such as the Drone Heavy Shield can be fitted into an empty slot, but in this case can only be fitted to the Defender Core, providing increased protection.

Unlike the chassis and core, equipment can be removed from the drone after it has been composed, and replaced with different weaponry. Drones do not have extra capacity to pick up items in the mission, or to carry extra ammo. The weapons they use have larger ammo capacity than their human carried equivalents, but once they are empty they cannot reload until they return to the Laputa at the end of the mission.

All drones are 100% immune to Psi attacks.

To repair a drone you need to have a Level 2 technician with a repair kit. These are much more effective than standard med packs.

21. Appendix

This section mainly contains data that some people may find useful, but is not essential. It is kept here to keep the main part of the guide short and easy to read.

21.1. Track Costs

Tracks Low Tech High Tech Alien Tech0 0 0 01 9 6 52 21 15 133 32 24 214 45 33 295 57 42 376 70 52 467 83 62 548 96 72 639 110 82 72

10 123 92 8111 137 102 9012 151 113 9913 165 123 10814 179 134 11815 193 144 12716 207 155 13617 222 166 14618 236 177 15519 251 188 16520 265 198 17421 280 210 18422 295 221 19423 309 231 20324 324 243 21325 339 254 22326 354 265 23327 369 276 24328 384 288 25329 399 299 26330 415 311 27331 430 322 28332 445 333 29333 461 345 30434 476 357 31435 491 368 32436 507 380 33437 522 391 34438 538 403 35539 554 415 36540 569 426 375

It is possible to build more tracks than this, but this is enough to connect most bases in the world, and is fairly costly to upkeep. This really highlights the importance of having knowledge buildings in provinces with rare resources.

Later in the game when you start being attacked and losing provinces to propaganda you may want to build in safeguards into your track system. By having a continuous track that runs round the entire world, losing one link should not lose you any bases as they are connected to Stuttgart by going the other way round the world. While this will increase the upkeep slightly, through having more track, it reduces the disruption when you get attacked.

Track costs do not vary with game difficulty, though resource production from mines does fall when you play on harder difficulty levels.

21.2. Armour Effectiveness

Armour Type Projectile Energy Mechanical Burn PsiLight Armour 22% 3% 23% 10% 0%Medium Armour 47% 21% 44% 50% 10%Heavy Armour 75% 41% 78% 69% 55%

Light Helmet 7% 1% 8% 10% 0%Medium Helmet 14% 6% 13% 19% 10%Psi Helmet 7% 1% 6% 0% 55%

Basic Body Implant 22% 16% 28% 30% 0%Advanced Body Implant 39% 30% 51% 50% 14%

Light Psi Suit 17% 30% 31% 35% 50%Psi Suit 37% 44% 48% 50% 69%

Scout Core 0% 22% 30% 50% 100%Fighter Core 10% 27% 36% 65% 100%Defender Core 19% 14% 46% 79% 100%

Drone Heavy Shield 57% 17% 53% 39% 0%

This table shows the protection given by the different types of armour. This shows basic un-modified armour only. Some human armour can have shield or cloaks attached which will improve the effectiveness of it. Light armour can have 2 add-ons, and medium can have 1 add-on.

For drones the heavy shield can only be fitted to the defender core.

Scout Level 3 ability should make the details of any target visible if you move the attack cursor over it. This was fixed in v1.1.

For an explanation of what the different damage types mean see 15.10Damage Types

21.3. Training Requirements

STRENGTH AGILITY DEXTERITY WILLPOWER INTELLIGENCE PERCEPTION  A P A G V E H A P A G V E H A P A G V E H A P A G V E H A P A G V E H A P A G V E HCommando                                                                                    Cyborg                                                                                    Gunman                                                                                    Leader                                                                                    Medic                                                                                    Psionic                                                                                    Ranger                                                                                    Scout                                                                                    Sniper                                                                                    Stalker                                                                                    Technician                                                                                    Trooper                                                                                    

Key:  Level 1 Requirement  Level 2 Requirement  Level 3 Requirement

This table shows the stat requirements for a soldier to train in a particular skill. Level 1 is shown in blue, level 2 in yellow and level 3 in red. In all cases each levels requirements are one higher for each stat than the previous level. Cyborgs are the only race able to train as cyborgs, and psionics are the only race who can become psionics. For these races they are only allowed two other skills. Humans can pick any three from the remaining types of training.

21.4. Experience Tables

This table shows the total amount of XP required to reach each level, and the amount from one level to the next in the right-hand column.

Level Experience Required

Increase

1 0 0

2 200 200

3 400 200

4 800 400

5 1,000 200

6 1,400 400

7 2,000 600

8 2,500 500

9 3,200 700

10 4,000 800

11 5,000 1,000

12 6,200 1,200

13 7,600 1,400

14 9,300 1,700

15 11,000 1,700

16 13,000 2,000

17 16,000 3,000

18 19,000 3,000

19 23,000 4,000

20 28,000 5,000

21 34,000 6,000

22 41,000 7,000

23 49,000 8,000

Each time you gain a level you will get one point to spend on the soldiers stats. These points are kept until they are spent, and are not lost if you gain more levels before spending them.

Beyond this table each level costs 1,000 XP more than the previous level, to a maximum of Level 43.

21.5. Game triggers

There are several key events in the game which act as triggers. At these points the difficulty and types of enemies increase, as does the cost of new recruits.

This contains names that may spoil the plot if you haven’t reached them, so you have been warned. Chances are that if you don’t recognise one of the terms you haven’t reached it yet.

Event

Experience

Co-eff

Cost

Co-eff

Intro 1 0

Laputa 1 0

Explore 2 10

Cultist 3 15

Wargot 5 20

Spaceship 6 25

Myrmecol 8 0

Starghost 8 25

Reticulan 6 25

Moon 5 25

Outro 3 0

Intermezzo 1 0

The Experience Co-efficient is a bit tricky to decipher. Essentially the higher the number gets the harder the enemies you will be fighting, which in turn gives you higher XP per mission. It tends to be linked to the appearance of new enemies, but also means that existing ones, such as Reticulans will be armed with better equipment. This does not guarantee higher XP, but it should mean the missions are more of a challenge.

The Cost Co-efficient is a bit easier to see. By looking at the Diplomacy screen and attempting to hire recruits the cost and availability will change with each trigger event. Before the arrival of the Wargots the highest recruits available are Level 10, but increases to L12 after their arrival.

21.6. Bases

Here is a table showing all the Bases, along with the countries they control, the size of the base, number of resource provinces, and whether they have access to the sea. Size is the number of buildings you can construct, and does not include the spaces for Terminals and Sea Ports which are the only structure that can be built on some bits of land.

Base Country Size Resources Sea Port

Algiers Algeria 4 2 Yes

Baghdad Arabia 4 2 No

Bangkok Indochina 4 2 No

Buenos Aires Argentina 3 1 Yes

Cairo Egypt 5 2 No

Caracas Caribbean 4 2 Yes

Dallas Greater Texas 4 2 No

Dar Es Salaam Ethiopia 3 2 Yes

Denver Midwest 3 1 No

Detroit Great Lakes 5 1 No

Istanbul Balkans 3 4 Yes

Johannesburg South Africa 4 3 No

Lagos Guinea 4 1 Yes

Lhasa Tibet 3 1 No

London British Isles 3 2 Yes

Los Angeles California 3 2 Yes

Malaga Iberia 4 3 Yes

Melbourne East Australia 5 2 No

Mexico City Mexico 4 2 No

Miami Dixie 4 2 No

Moscow Russia 5 2 No

New Delhi India 5 3 No

New York North Atlantic 4 3 Yes

Novosibirsk Siberia 3 1 No

Paris France 4 4 No

Perth West Australia 3 1 Yes

Port Moresby North Australia 3 1 No

Riga Baltic 4 1 No

Rio de Janeiro Brazil 5 2 No

Salta Chile 3 2 No

Seattle Columbia 3 2 No

Shanghai China 3 2 Yes

Shenyang North China 4 4 No

Singapore Indonesia 4 3 Yes

Stockholm Scandinavia 3 3 No

Stuttgart Central Europe 5 4 No

Tashkent Kazakhstan 3 3 No

Tehran Persia 4 2 No

Yekaterinburg South Ural 3 1 No

Some of these bases can only be accessed via sea ports, and some only by crossing uncontrollable provinces. Since these cannot be manually explored you must wait for the game to automatically explore them.

21.7. Building Costs

21.7.1. Factories

Factories produce everything that you research in the labs. Knowledge is the Knowledge Level (KL) required at the base before the factory can be constructed.

Factory Low High Alien Knowledge

Basic Weapons 110 80 15 0

Advanced Weapons 145 85 25 2

Ordnance 115 80 0 0

Detection 70 70 55 2

Medical 60 75 75 2

Implant 80 90 30 1

Advanced Implant 90 125 35 3

Psionics 80 30 85 1

Advanced Psionics 85 50 110 3

Energy Weapons 100 90 30 2

Hyper Energy Weapons 115 115 50 4

Space Program Factory 90 80 55 4

21.7.2. Laboratories

Labs are used to research new technologies. Items recovered from tactical missions are researched so they can be used by your troops.

Laboratory Low High Alien Knowledge

Basic Weapons 120 50 0 0

Advanced Weapons 135 70 15 4

Detection 75 75 50 4

Energy Weapons 105 70 20 1

Hyper Energy Weapons 125 80 35 6

Jet Propulsion 80 70 45 5

Basic Implant 90 80 0 2

Advanced Implant 95 105 20 5

Psionics 65 30 75 2

Advanced Psionics 75 40 90 5

Medical 80 50 70 0

21.7.3. Defence

These buildings train recruits to defend the base automatically when it is attacked. If you choose to defend the base with your main squad they will assist you on the mission. Each building trains soldiers to a different level, but the higher the level, the fewer they can train. Each soldier level adds 1 to the Defence Level (DL) of the base.

The Secret Service Office is unique, in that it does not train troops, but adds to the DL of the base through propaganda, increasing the DL by 6.

Low High Alien Soldier

Level Quantity

Barracks 125 55 10 1 6

Garrison 160 60 10 2 3

Militia HQ 170 85 20 3 2

Secret Service Office

100 90 40 6 N/A

21.7.4. Knowledge

These buildings increase the Knowledge Level (KL) of the base, allowing more advanced buildings to be constructed as well as increasing the productivity of resources in that country. They also help to defend the base against enemy propaganda, making the base less likely to fall to the enemy.

Low High Alien KL Produced

KL Required

Library 85 35 0 1 0

School 200 95 30 2 0

College 460 220 95 4 1

21.8. Manufacturing

This section deals with where something is manufactured. I was planning on linking this in with the research tree, but it was hard to understand. These tables show what each type of factory can produce. Costs are not shown as these vary between difficulty levels.

Basic Weapons Factory Advanced Weapons Factory

AK47 Assault Rifle Defender Drone Core

Airgun Drone Sonic Gun

Browning Knife Fighter Drone Core

Colt model 635 SMG Gyrostabilizer

Desert Eagle Pistol Heavy Armour

Drone Heavy Shield Hover Drone Chassis

Drone Light Gun Psi Helmet

Drone Machinegun Recoil Compensator

Drone Missile Launcher Repair Kit

Drone Shotgun Scout Drone Core

Flash Suppressor Sonic Gun

HK33 Assault Rifle Sonic Mine

HK69 Grenade Launcher Tracked Drone Chassis

IMI Para Micro Uzi Submachine Gun Ultrasonic Gun

Katana Walking Drone Chassis

Light Armour Wheeled Drone Chassis

Light Helmet

M-72 LAW Missile Launcher

M4 Carbine Medical Factory

M60E3 Machine Gun Advanced Medikit

M82A1 Barrett Sniper Rifle Antitoxin

MP-5 Submachine Gun Basic Medikit

MSG90 Sniper Rifle Intelligence Booster

Medium Armour Paralyzer Dart

Medium Helmet Poison Dart

PK Machinegun Psi Booster

RPG-7 Grenade Launcher Psi Medikit

SPAS 12 Shotgun Stasis Field Generator

SPAS 15 Shotgun Stimulant

SR-25 Sniper Rifle Strength Booster

Shuriken Warp Medikit

Silencer Willpower Booster

Throwing Knife

Under-barrel Grenade Launcher

XM8 Assault Rifle

Basic Implants Lab Advanced Implants Lab

Basic Agility Leg Advanced Agility Leg

Basic Body Implant Advanced Body Implant

Basic Dexterity Arm Advanced Dexterity Arm

Basic Strength Arm Advanced Strength Arm

Basic Strength Leg Advanced Strength Leg

Combat Arm Chipset Ambidextrous Arm Chipset

Detail Eye Implant Eye Link Arm Chipset

Infra-Eye Implant Reticule Eye Implant

Surehand Arm Chipset Throwing Arm Chipset

Psionics Factory Advanced Psionics Factory

Accuracy Circlet Capacity Vambraces

Cloak Collar Confusion Projector

Damage Circlet Escape Collar

Healing Collar Helmet Psi Booster

Interference Circlet Life Drain Circlet

Light Psi-Suit Life Sink Vambraces

Paralysis Projector Motivation Collar

Projector Vambraces Psi Suit

Protection Collar Vivid Image Circlet

Psionic Poison Projector

Trueshot Vambraces

Ordnance Factory Energy Weapons Factory

.50 Browning AP Ammo Accelerator

.50 Browning Ammo Battery

20mm Grenade Drone Laser

5.56mm AP Ammo Drone Light Shield

5.56mm Ammo Drone Plasma Gun

5.56mm Flechette Ammo E-Cell

7.62 NATO AP Ammo Laser Pistol

7.62 NATO Ammo Laser Rifle

7.62 NATO Explosive Ammo Laser Sniper Rifle

7.62mm AP Ammo Plasma Gun

7.62mm Ammo Plasma Shotgun

85mm Explosive Grenade Under-barrel Plasma Launcher

85mm Phosphorous Grenade

9mm AP Ammo

9mm Ammo Hyper-Energy Weapons Factory

Acid Grenade Drone Medium Shield

Drone Autodestructor Drone Warp Gun

Flash-bang Grenade Energon

Fragmentation Grenade Power Shield

Fragmentation Mine Warp Resonator

Incendiary Mine Warp Rifle

LAW Explosive Missile

LAW Phosphorous Missile

Motion Fuse Space Program Factory

Phosphorous Grenade Spacecraft Control Centre Module

Shotgun Cartridge Spacecraft Engines Module

Smoke Grenade Spacecraft Living Quarters Module

Thermal Fuse Spacecraft Stores Module

Detection Equipment Factory

Bio Scanner

Doppler Scanner

Drone Scanner

Drone Doppler Scanner

Drone Infra-Vision System

Group Cloak

Helmet Mounted Psi Detector

Movement Finder

Night Vision System

Personal Cloak

Psi Absorber

Sniper Scope

Sound Dampener

Thermal Sight

Under-barrel Laser Sight

22. Thanks

Thanks to everyone on the Official UFO: Aftershock forum for all their input in creating this file, and in particular those who contributed to this thread: UFO Aftershock Guide.

Thanks to Slaughter for hosting the file at StrategyCore

Bezimienny Bovine cannibal

Elevrai Hapveg

Mmk Neo

PlacidDragon Slaughter

Synonym ShadoWarrior

WiseAvatar

If there’s anything you would like corrected or added to this guide please post on the forums.

23. Links

Offical UFO: Aftershock website

Official UFO: Aftershock forum

UFO: Afterlight

StrategyCore

Patches can be found in the Support section on the Aftershock website.

This document is © 2005-2006 by Chris “Avenger” Collins. Any errors in this document are mine, and mine alone. This document can be distributed and linked to only upon the agreement of the author, and cannot be altered in any way. If you need to get in contact with the author, please visit the forum and send me a personal message.