Thats some high quality advice from Guppy.
I got a few comments myself as a supplement.
BloatedGuppy said:
4. For early mission rewards take Engineers. On the rare occasion you can take cash, but not soldiers, and certainly not scientists. The only time you should deviate from this is if you absolutely have to do a mission in a particular location due to panic.
One thing worth keeping in mind before embarking on a mission, is that you can safely exit the mission screen and come back if you need to check up on something or build some instant gear. I like to take a look at the situation room before embarking on an abduction mission. As long as you don't advance time with the scan button, the mission will still be there when you return to mission control.
You can do the same on the loadout screen. If you find that you are short on gear while equipping your soldiers, you can exit the screen build the gear and come back. The game will even save the changes you made to the loadout.
12. Power supply. Build as necessary. You'll usually need a couple + a thermo or two, or an elerium generator. If you have steam handy, try to group your power supplies around it.
I generally find that the benefit of the advanced power generators is too small to warrant the large initial investment. They do save some expenses in digging and access lifts, so late game they have some use but early on go for the cheapest ones and link them if possible.
It's possible to tweak some effeciency out of the base building by planning in advance and making sure the power is there when you need it. If I have some spare cash at the end of the month I usually use it to dig or make a power generator so I can get started on necessary structures as soon as the cash is available.
16. Make good use of the grey market. Don't hoard anything save for weapon fragments, alloys, and elerium. Early on you don't need those power sources and flight computers, so sell them. Anything broken, sell. Keep 4-6 corpses on hand for research, and then sell (not Chrysalid corpses). The early cash boost is extremely helpful.
I like to hoard a few floater corpses myself. The dodge consumable for interceptors is excellent when using inferior interceptors against a better opponent. You only need to keep one or two dodge consumables in storage for emergencies. Make more as you spend them.
Most other corpses can be sold after the initial research.
You don't need a whole lot of power sources and flight computers, but you do need some and supply can be low. I don't sell them unless I know for certain that I have more than I need.
1. Rule of thumb #1. Be very, very careful with dashing. I won't say never dash, because sometimes dashing is appropriate. Most properly, don't dash like an idiot. Don't dash into "fog of war". Don't dash ahead with the last guy on your turn. If you CAN move slowly from solid cover to solid cover without dashing, that's what you should be doing. No one ever died from moving too slowly and carefully.
When cover is sparse and I need to dash, I like to use bounding overwatch. Some soldiers will dash to the next cover, others will stay back for overwatching. But don't put them on overwatch until the end of the turn in case the dashers spot something.
Dashing can also be handy for triggering overwatch since you get a defensive bonus when dashing.
Guppy is right though, making one move should be the standard procedure. Only use dashing with caution.
3. Rule of thumb #3. Half cover is no cover at all. Full cover is a 40% accuracy reduction. If an alien has an 85% chance to hit you, he now has a 45% chance to hit you. Half cover is 20% reduction. That alien now has a 65% chance to hit you. Are you comfortable with that? Neither am I.
When forced to use low cover, supplement with smoke. Smoke basically turns low cover into high cover. Then proceed to find better cover next turn.
9. Overwatch, on everyone but opportunist snipers, is horribly inaccurate. It has its uses, but do not over-rely on it. You're better off taking high % shots on your turn than waiting to take low % shots on theirs. That all overwatching soldiers will fire at the same target if it enters all of their LOS first is another reason to avoid this.
This is one of the few points where I slightly disagree with Guppy. Overwatch does incur a penalty to accuracy, but overwatch fire almost always trigger on enemies out of cover. In practice overwatch fire is more accurate than firing at enemies in full cover. And the same as firing at enemies in soft cover. In addition overwatch can force enemies to stay in cover as a sort of suppression, or force them to sprint when they move. The AI does pay attention to what you do. You probably wont hit a sprinting enemy with overwatch, but the enemy wont fire at you either.
Overwatch is great for locking down the centre when trying to flank, or to delay the enemy if you need a turn to get ready.
There are some cases where overwatch is a very bad idea. When facing enemies with AE attacks like grenades from mutons and cyberdisks or poison from thin men. Those enemies love it when you dig in behind cover using overwatch or suppression. In those cases well timed aggression is the best approach.
14. Support. A good recon alternative to Assault, especially if it's early game and you're being cautious. Sprinter makes your Support the most mobile unit on the field, so they can cover a lot of ground easily, and retreat just as easily if they don't like what they see. ALWAYS take Field Medic and Savior with your Support. If you use them for recon, they should have high will. You shouldn't need more than one support once you have a sergeant or higher.
Support may seem weak when looking at their skill tree, but I love them. They are basically the Jack of all trades that becomes good because squad size is so limited. The extra move makes them able to reach a hot spot quickly, or get to cover that others can't reach. Extra medkits is a life saver, and smoke is great as a get-out-of-jail-free card. When getting laser or plasma tech, they even have weapons that kill stuff.
