(incomplete) Beginner’s Guide to XCOM: Enemy Within

Overview

Trust me: Enemy Within is like Enemy Unknown except better.

Introduction

Are you beginning with the game and want some tips or already played it but can’t keep your troops from dying or have negative income? Then you are lucky! And don’t get confused by the Title. XCOM: Enemy Within is better than XCOM: Enemy Unknown so get that DLC if you haven’t already.

Note: The first X-COM game was really, REALLY hard. So this game won’t be easy, too!
Edit: Holy Sh**, I didn’t mean to make this Guide that long. But it’s unavoidable since it should cover everything.

Starting a Game

I recommend the easiest difficulty for beginners. No, really. The game punishes mistakes very badly. Even at easier difficulies. And I also recommend you the Tutorial ONLY when you play the game for the very first time. It will limit you in the possibilities and make it actually harder for you to expand your base properly and manage panic.

Not the MELD Tutorial though. It will make it a bit easier since the first mission (or second when choosing the tutorial) will always be the same.

And don’t activate the Ironman mode. You don’t wanna do it. You WILL make mistakes and have to reload a previous save. By the way, remember to save right after your Skyranger landed in one save and right after you completed the mission successfully in another save.

This is a free “DLC” integrated automatically into the game. No need to search for it and download it. The Second Wave options add replayabillity to the game and can make it more challenging.

The following Second Wave options are available by default:

• Damage Roulette
  • Description: Weapons inflict a wider range of damage.
  • Don’t take it. It will actually make the game harder. It’s more a drawback than it is useful.
• New Economy
  • Description: Randomizes funding provided by Council members.
  • Don’t take that either. It could be better if you’re lucky but most of the time this just cripples you.
• Not Created Equally
  • Description: Rookies have random initial stats.
  • I like to choose this since you can get good soldiers. Rookies have up to 80 aim instead of the standard 65.
• Hidden Potential
  • Description: As a soldier is promoted, their stats increase randomly.
  • I like to take that, too. There’s also a chance that Rookies with bad aim get more than others by ranking up and being as good as the others.
• Aiming Angles
  • Description: Units receive Aim bonuses the closer to flanking an enemy they are.
  • If you are a tactician, take it. If not, don’t.
• Save Scum
  • Description: Loading a saved game will reset the random number seed, so taking an identical action may yield different results.
  • Must have, since you have to rely on RNG in some situations, like catching an alien with 70% chance. Just make sure you save before doing so.
• Training Roulette
  • Each soldier’s training tree is mostly randomly generated. Does not apply to MEC Troopers.
  • Not recommended. You should experience the normal training tree and experiment what’s best for your team composition. Also there are combo reliant abilities. Don’t even think about taking it as a beginner.

Availabe Base Locations are:

• North America (“Air and Space”)
• Europe (“Expert Knowledge”)
• Asia (“Future Combat”)
• South America (“We have Ways”)
• Africa (“All in”)

All aircraft and aircraft weapons cost 50% less to purchase, build and maintain.

Laboratories and Workshops cost 50% less to build and maintain.

All projects in the Foundry and Officer Training School cost 50% less.

Autopsies and Interrogations are completed instantly.

Monthly XCOM budget increased by 30%.

Since you still can get all continent bonuses in the game, you should choose the one that helps the most in the early game. “Air and Space” is not bad, but you can live with that extra cost. “Expert Knowledge” is a bit better. “Future Combat” can be also quite helpful. “We have Ways” is great, but since you only have to use 2 Satellites to get that bonus anyway, I wouldn’t recommend it for the start. “All in” is great, because you’ll get 30% more cash. And this will help you.

On the other hand if you choose europe or asia, you won’t have to defend so many countries and africa and south america are easy to take since they only require 3 or 2 satelites.

The First Mission

Keep them close
Keep them safe

Originally posted by The XCOM wiki, article “Squad Tactics”:

Single Squad

This strategy revolves around keeping the squad together and as compact as possible. For smaller or ill-equipped teams, this may be the only means of survival and effectiveness, as no one soldier is capable of bringing significant force to bear on an aggressor. While keeping the squad together is the driving force behind this strategy, it is important to keep the squad from bunching up unnecessarily; while cover availability may require several soldiers to come together, keeping a minimum spread of two meters (tiles) between troops helps to minimize the risk from grenades and other area of effect attacks.

This allows the squad to protect itself very well by concentrating fire. However, troops will begin to get in each other’s way when it comes to getting into cover. Additionally, unless care is taken to stagger reloading, the entire squad is prone to running out of ammunition at the same time, leaving them vulnerable for a turn as they reload. Clearing an Area of Operations (AO) this way can be very time consuming.

You will only fight against Sectioids. But don’t take it too easy. Everyone is still a rookie and rookies have bad aim. Use explosives, but with caution. They destroy all artifacts (mostly weapon fragments, important for research) except the bodies itself.

The sectoids have a special psi ability: Mind Merge

The sectoid can target a friendly sectoid (or mectoid, but they appear later in the game so no need to know about them now) in sight to give the target sectoid +25% crit chance, + 25 Will and +1 TP for one turn. If the transmitting unit dies, the targeted sectoid dies, too!

Originally posted by The XCOM wiki:

Mind Merge often does more harm than good; it means one less Sectoid shooting at the player, it gives the possibility of a double kill by killing the Mind Merge transmitter, and worst of all, it is a dead giveaway of the positioning of 2 Sectoids in the fog of war for easy aiming of long ranged explosive attacks such as Fire Rocket.

Fun Fact: The chances of getting a full female squad to lead in the first mission is 6,25% (tutorial disabled), gives you an easy way to get the “Flight of the Valkyries” Achivement and happened to me in 2 of 16 games.

Stuff to note

Cover gives defense bonus to the unit in cover and only in that direction.

Defense is the main factor for chance to miss shots.
For example if unit A attacks unit B at an acceptable range, unit A has 100 offense (aka aim) and unit B has 0 defense, then unit A has 100% chance to hit unit B.

Full cover is indicated by a full shield and gives +40 defense and partial cover is indicated by a half shield and gives +20 defense. Hunkering down doubles the defence bonus from cover.

Half Cover:

Full Cover:

Other example. Unit A has 80 offense and unit B is in full cover, therefore has 40 defense. Unit C is in partial cover and therefore has 20 defense. Unit B and C are at the same distance to Unit A. Unit A will attack unit C because unit A has 40% chance to hit unit B and 60% chance to hit unit C.
Btw that’s how the enemy AI works. If the chance of hitting any enemy isn’t too low it will attack the target that has the highest chance to get hit.

Flanking only ignores the defense bonus from the envorinment. Defense bonuses from e.g. smoke grenade or ghost armor still applies. If a Unit in cover but enemy units are in a direction that is not covered from cover are considererd flanked (marked with yellow shield) and not given any defence bonus from cover plus the enemy unit has +50% crit chance to that flanked unit.

Most Terrain in this game is destructable with Explosives, Fire, Collateral Damage, Kinetic Strike Module and gunshots (the weaker the gun the less likely terrain is destroyed). This is convinient because cover is destroyable, too.

Explosives: destroys cover and sets vehicles on fire (except Needle Grenade? Sure thing that Flashbangs and Gas Grenades don’t count as explosives). Vehicles explode after 2 turns (if the aliens caused a vehicle to burn it will explode in their next turn), dealing damage to everything directly near it (1 tile). Cars deal 6 and tanks deal 15 damage. Although they are no vehicles, UFO Power Source and gas pumps can explode as well. UFO Power Source deal 10 damage and gas pumps deal 6 damage.

Fire: can spread and destroy cover. Fire is made from explosions and flamethrowers. Note that a flamethower doesn’t destroy cover immedately. Robotic units are unaffected by fire. Fire can block paths to units affected by fire (understandable, since you wouldn’t want to run intentionally into a fire as well.

Collateral Damage/Kinetic Strike Module: please view the MEC trooper class section for more informations.

Gunshots: There’s no way to destroy cover intentionally with gunshots. Only missed shots have a chance to destroy cover.

Poison comes only from Thin-Man, Chryssalid and Gas Grenade. Robotic Units, Thin-Man, Chryssalids and those who wear special items are immune to Poison. Poison does 3 – 5 damage, divided into 1 per turn, -3 mobility and -20 aim. Already poisoned Units can’t be poisoned again until the poison effect ends.

The Unit can shoot on the first enemy that enters it’s sight with -20 aim penalty and no critical hit is possible. If the unit shoots a sprinting unit, it will get an additional -20 aim penalty. Going into overwatch will end the unit’s turn.

Overwatch is very useful, but shouldn’t used to shoot enemies that were in partial cover prior to moving, because it would be almost the same as trying to shoot an enemy in partial cover, but without the no crit penalty. Also, the enemies in Singleplayer won’t sprint ever.

Cyberdiscs, Mectoids and Sectopods will enter overwatch when sighted and the Second Wave option “Itchy Trigger Tentacle” isn’t active. Aliens, that are dropped down (only occurs in council missions) will enter overwatch and trigger the overwatch from your troops. EXALT troops, that are drop down, only enter overwatch if they were dropped on higher elevation.

Your Squad

After you built the Officer Training School (autiomatically available from the start at Easy and Normal) you can buy upgrades for your squad. Two of them are “Squad Size I” and “Squad Size II”.

Squad Size I
Cost: 50§
You can command 5 soldiers in a mission.
At least 1 Soldier has to reach the rank Sergeant to be able to buy the upgrade.

Squad Size II
Cost: 75§
You can command 6 soldiers in a mission.
At least 1 Soldier has to reach the rank Captain to be able to buy the upgrade.

The standard stats of Rookies are: 65 Aim, 40 Will

On average, the Will stat is 70 on Colonel for every Class except Heavy, which is 75.
Use the Will Values mentioned to determine if one soldier has good or bad Will.
Use the Aim Values in the Tables to determine if one soldier has good or bad Aim if “Not Created Equally” and “Hidden Potential” are enabled.

The Heavy

Heavies are useful at the early game and to destroy cover and suppress enemies. Due to their poor aim they become kinda useless at the late game. I’m actually using builds now.
[link]

Stats:

Aim is increased between 0-2 per rank if “Hidden Potential” is enabled.

The Assault

Assaults can be build to tank or destroy enemies. You should always have 2 assaults ready, one fully defensive to catch enemy fire if needed and one fully offenisve to run and gun to the enemy and dealing lethal damage to the enemy.
[link]

Stats:

Aim is increased between 1-5 per rank if “Hidden Potential” is enabled.

The Support

They can be build to either heal or support by other means like suppressing enemies and giving cover. Here you should have both versions, too. Because both are useful.
[link]

Stats:

Aim is increased between 2-6 per rank if “Hidden Potential” is enabled.

The Sniper

They can be hard to level up until they get the squadsight ability. After that you just have to position them right.
[link]

Stats:

Aim is increased between 3-9 per rank if “Hidden Potential” is enabled.

This is my favorite class and I have always 2 different snipers.

This build relies on teamwork & positioning and can be very devastating. It also can make the Base Defense MUCH easier, when used right.

• Snap Shot
• Gunslinger
• Battle Scanner
• Executoner
• In The Zone

This build revolves around killing the BIG things fast or disabling those, or just simply kill things. You have to find a good sniper nest, or equip your sniper an Archangel Armor to make yourself one.

• Squadsight
• Damn Good Ground
• Disabling Shot
• Opportunist / Executoner
• Double Tap

Tactical notes:

• If Double Tap is active, but the second shot won’t be shot, Double Tap will be active next Turn.
• To use In the Zone correctly, you should target the signs (on the lower right part of the HUD where all shootable enemies are listed) that are yellow when the enemy is in cover. If an enemy is not in cover, his sign will still be red, so pay attention.

The MEC Trooper

Useful for tanking and dealing tons of damage. Their primary use is to take damage when it’s unavoidable and destroying cover so other squadmembers have a better chance to hit the enemy.

Heavies should be argumented at rank Lieuteneant for maximizing Will and Aim increase.

Assault and Support are better when un-argumented, so keep them as they already are:

• You will never get to the enemies near enough to use the assault ability effectively.
• Since a MEC should be the frontline you can’t use the support abillity effectively. Your MEC can’t be at the front and in your team at the same time.

Snipers are a viable choice for getting argumented, too. But only at rank Colonel, so their aim is maximized. A MEC trooper with good aim is a MEC trooper who rarely misses.

For stats just use the Values of the respective Class the MEC trooper had prior to argumentation. Aim is increased between 1-5 per rank if “Hidden Potential” is enabled.

[link]

Tactical Notes:

• Collateral Damage and Kinetic Strike module will explode explosive Terrain and vehicles immedately when targeted by them
• If used One for All, the MEC still can reload or use class 2 and 3 subsystems without leaving the cover stance

Sub Classes

Note: MEC Troopers can’t be member of any Sub-Class.

Using mental force to Buff or Kill. General Rule of Thumb is: If It’s Melee Only it has high Will. If it’s a robotic unit it has 0 Will and thererfore unaffected by Psionic Attacks except for the Mechtoid. Everything else has low will.
[link]

Gene mods help improving some aspects of soldiers.
[link]

[link]

S.H.I.V.

I like those things. They are very helpful at any difficulty for scouting, MELD running, being a meat metal shield etc. In the late game you can use a full team of those for easier missions like smaller UFOs and Council Missions.
Don’t let the description irritate you. The repair times for those things are still less than an equally wounded soldier. Also, it’s death is easier to get over it. Though it rarely dies.

Also, I like to troll enemies with it. After finishing the “Sentinel Module” and “S.H.I.V. Plasma” projects, I let one go right into the enemy group. Since they’re flanked, they try to move and get shot down by it.

But beware: the Sentinel Module will be disabled for the rest of the battle if the S.H.I.V. sufferes a critical hit.

Alien Types

All Values are from the normal difficulty.

Notes:

• Robotic units are immune to fire, poison, panic, psi attacks (the Mechtoid is affected by psi attacks), stun (Arc Thrower) and have the hardened bonus ( a 60% lower chance to get critically hitted)
• Flying units are harder to hit (-20 aim) (Airborne)
• Strangled unit takes damage every turn and can’t take actions until strangulation ends
• If strangulation ends, the unit can take actions again but with significantly lower aim (-50%) and walk radius (-75%) for 1 turn

Simple aliens with one psi abillity.

Aim: 65
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 0
Health: 3
Mobility: 12
Will: 10
Weapon: Plasma Pistol (2-4, 5-7 Crit, 0% Crit Chance)
Abilities: Mind Merge, Suppression
Notes:

• The weakpoint of this alien is the mentioned abillity
• More information about it is found under the section “First Mission”

Aim: 85
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 20
Health: 10
Mobility:12
Will: 90
Weapon: Plasma Pistol (2-4, 5-7 Crit, 0% Crit Chance), Alien Grenade
Abilities: Mind Fray, Greater Mind Merge, Mind Control, Psi Panic
Notes:

• It can Inflict -25 Aim, -25 Will, a movement penalty for 3 turns and do 5 damage (Mindfray)
• It can Mind Merge with all lesser aliens of the same species (Sectoid, Mectoid) at the same time for the same buff (+25% Crit Chance, +1 hp) (Greater Mind Merge)
• It can take control over an enemy for 3 turns (Mind Control)
• It can let an enemy panic (Psi Panic)

Human-like alien with poisoning abillity.

Aim: 65
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 0
Health: 3
Mobility: 15
Will: 15
Weapon: Light Plasma Rifle (4-6, 8-10 Crit, 10% crit chance, +10 aim)
Abilities: Leap, Poison Spit, Suppression
Notes:

• It does 2 less damage on Easy and Normal difficuly
• It can spit a poison cloud (3×3) over a long distance (Poison spit)
• If no poisonable unit is in range, it will fire instead
• If it dies it bursts into a 3×3 poison cloud
• More informations about poison can be found at the section “Stuff to Note”
• It can jump to higher places with ease (Leap)

This alien is only found on alien ships. Capturing one to complete the game is unavoidable.

Aim: 70
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 0
Health: 3
Mobility: 12
Will: 20
Weapon: Light Plasma RIfle (4-6, 8-10 Crit, 10% crit chance, +10 aim)
Abilities: Suppression
Notes:

• It has low health, but can be REALLY dangerous at higher difficulties in the early game.

Since it can fly it’s harder to hit.

Aim: 50
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 0
Health: 4
Mobility: 12
Will: 10
Weapon: Light Plasma Rifle (4-6, 8-10 Crit, 10% crit chance, +10 aim)
Abilities: Airborne, Launch
Notes:

• It can fly (Airborne)
• It can fly to any point of the map, but will end it’s turn. It will use this for flanking. (Launch)

Aim: 70
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 10
Health: 12
Mobility: 12
Will: 25
Weapon: Plasma RIfle (6-8, 11-13 crit, 10% crit chance), Alien Grenade (5 damage)
Abilities & Notes are like the ones from the Floater plus:

• It can throw an alien grenade, but needs to open to do that (Bombard)

Flying metal tentacle monster.

Aim: 65
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 10
Health: 5
Mobility: 16
Will: 0
Weapon: Plasma Pistol (2-4, 5-7 Crit, 0% Crit Chance)
Abilities: Airborne, Strangle, Stealth
Notes:

• It will go stealth if it knows that it’s spotted (Stealth)
• It then proceeds to fly torwards a sqad member that can be strangulated and will try to do so (Strangle) (Seekers need to be stealthed to be able to activate strangle) (The damage per turn is 2/2/4/8/12 [2 in the first turn, 2 in the second, 4 in the third etc])
• If no member can be strangulated, it will stay still or reposition to fire it’s weapon in the next turn (Seekers can’t fire if they’re stealthed)
• Also hide your waifus.
• It’s a robotic unit
• It can’t be in stealth forever
• If it tries to strangle a unit, that unit loses it’s chance to make a reaction shot.

[link]

A flying disc

Aim: 70
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 10
Health: 16
Mobility: 18
Will: 0
Weapon: Cyberdisc Cannon (7-9, 12-14 crit, 25% crit chance), Alien Grenade (5)
Abilities: Airborne, Bombard, Death Blossom
Notes:

• It’s a robotic unit
• It can fly (Airborne)
• It can’t utilize cover
• It can throw an alien grenade, but needs to open to do that (Bombard)
• It can shoot with it’s high damage cannon, but needs to be open to do that
• It stays open as long as it closes again or gets hit. Being open causes it to not having the hardened bonus as long as it’s still open
• If it dies it closes and activates Death Blossom. It could activate Death Blossom not only when dying, but rarely does it. Death Blossom deals 4-6 damage in standard grenade range (3 tiles)

A little flying piece of metal that can repare and go ALLAHU AKBAR!

Aim: 60
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 10
Health: 3
Mobility: 12
Will: 0
Weapon: Drone Beam (1-3, 3-5 crit, 10% crit damage)
Abilities: Airborne, Repair, Overload
Notes:

• It can fly (Airborne)
• It’s a robotic unit
• It can’t utilize cover
• It can repair other robotic units (Repair)
• It can explode and deal damage around it (like a standard grenade) and to itself, too (Overload)

Fast melee alien that can reproduce itself by creating Zombies.

Aim: 0 (they are melee and melee attacks always hits)
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 10
Health: 8
Mobility: 20
Will: 120
Weapon: Chryssalid Claw (6, 9 crit, 20% crit chance)
Abilities: Leap, Poisonous Claw, Implant
Notes:

• They do 2 more damage in Classic and Impossible
• It’s Hardened (-60% crit chance), Stun immune (Arc Thrower) and Poison immune
• It can’t utilize cover
• If the attack kills it’s victim and the victim is a human, it will lay an egg into the body.
• Then the body will turn into a Zombie in the next turn.
• It can jump to higher places with ease (Leap)

Created by Chryssalids.

Aim: 0 (they are melee and melee attacks always hits)
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 0
Health: 10
Mobility: 8
Will: 120
Weapon: Zombie Fist (8)
Abilities:
Notes:

• It does additional damage in Classic (+2) and Impossible (+4)
• It only has a timed lifespan (3 turns) until the chryssalid is born
• It can’t be stunned (Arc Thrower)
• If it dies before the chryssalid can hatch, the chryssalid won’t hatch anymore
• It can’t utilize cover

Alien Types 2

High health, high defense alien that is made to fight at the frontline.

Aim: 70
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 10
Health: 8
Mobility: 12
Will: 10
Weapon: Light Plasma Rifle (4-6, 8-10 crit, 10% crit chance, +10 aim), Plasma Rifle (6-8, 11- 13 crit, 10% crit chance), Alien Grenade (5)
Abilities: Suppression, Blood Call, Intimidate
Notes:

• It can Buff allied Mutons, Muton Elites and Berserkers in range with +10 Will, +10 Aim and +4 Movement for 2 turns (Blood Call)
• If it gets wounded, the enemy who wounded it has a chance to panic. This can trigger Close Combat Specialist and Sentinel Drone (Intimidate)
• In the first month it gets deployed it only has the Light Plasma Rifle, then it has the Plasma Rifle and 1 Alien Grenade

Aim: 80
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 20
Health: 14
Mobility: 12
Will: 20
Weapon: Heavy Plasma (8-10, 14-16 crit, 0% crit chance), Alien Grenade (5 damage)
Abilities: Suppression, Bombard
Notes:

• It has increased health at higher difficulties (+2 Classic, +4 Impossible)
• It can throw an alien grenade, but needs to open to do that (Bombard)

Very high health melee alien with strong attacks.

Aim: 60
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 20
Health: 20
Mobility: 17
Will: 80
Weapon: Muton Blade (9, 13 crit, 30% crit chance)
Abilities: Intimidate, Bloodlust, Bullrush
Notes:

• It does more damage on Classic (+1) and Impossible (+3)
• It’s hardened (Hardened)
• If it gets wounded, the enemy who wounded it has a chance to panic. This can trigger Close Combat Specialist and Sentinel Drone (Intimidate)
• If it takes damage from the enemy in the opponent’s turn it will walk torwards the unit that caused the damage (Bloodlust)
• It can charge in a direction, destroying every destructable cover in it’s way, to attack a target (Bullrush)

Mechanized Sectoid

Aim: 70
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 10
Health: 20
Mobility: 14
Will: 0
Weapon: Plasma Mini-cannon (6-8, 10-12 crit, 0% crit chance)
Abilities: Plasma Barrage, Psi Shield
Notes:

• It does less damage at Easy (-1) and more damage at Classic (+2) and Impossible (+4)
• It’s a robotic unit
• It drops 5 MELD if not killed with explosives
• It can shoot twice when it doesn’t move at the same turn (Plasma Barrage)
• If it gets Mind Merged, it recieves a 6 TP shield instead and as long as the shield is up it recieves 50% less damage

The hardest motherf**king robotic unit you will see.

Aim: 80
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 30
Health: 30
Mobility: 12
Will: 0
Weapon: Chest Cannon (9-11, 15-16 crit, 0% crit chance), Cluster Bomb (3x 4-7)
Abilities: Cluster Bomb, Cannon Fire, Reinforced Armor
Notes:

• It’s a robotic unit
• All damage it recieves is halved (Reinforced Armor)
• It can shoot it’s cannon twice a turn to different targets if it doesn’t move and goes to overwatch mode right after (Cannon Fire)
• If it does suspiciously nothing it targets an area that will be bombed in the next turn (Cluster Bomb)

Beware of his Mind Control ability

Aim: 100
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 40
Health: 20
Mobility: 12
Will: 120
Weapon: None
Abilities: Mind Fray, Rift, Psi Lance, Mind Control, Psi Drain
Notes:

• Although it has high aim, it uses no physical weapon.
• It’s hardened (Hardened)
• It can Inflict -25 Aim, -25 Will, a movement penalty for 3 turns and do 5 damage (Mindfray)
• It can take control over an enemy for 3 turns (Mind Control)
• It can cast a devastating area of effect attack, that inflicts more damage to enemies with less will and stays for 2 turns. It can also damage robotic units. (Rift)
• It can attack a unit for 10 damage (and more if a Will test is failed) and has a 25% crit chance. It affects robotic units as well. (Psi Lance)

The Boss

Aim: 120
Critical Chance: 0
Defense: 40
Health: 25
Mobility: 12
Will: 150
Weapon: none
Abilities: Mind Fray, Rift, Psi Lance, Mind Control, Psi Drain
Notes:

• Although it has high aim, it uses no physical weapon.
• It’s hardened (Hardened)
• It can Inflict -25 Aim, -25 Will, a movement penalty for 3 turns and do 5 damage (Mindfray)
• It can take control over an enemy for 3 turns (Mind Control)
• It can cast a devastating area of effect attack, that inflicts more damage to enemies with less will and stays for 2 turns. It can also damage robotic units. (Rift)
• It can attack a unit for 10 damage (and more if a Will test is failed) and has a 25% crit chance. It affects robotic units as well. (Psi Lance)
• Double Tap sniper and it’s eZ

Base Maintenance

[INCOMPLETE]

Start building 1 Satellite after the first abduction mission where you pick the engineers as the reward.

Concentrate on building Satellite Uplinks and Satellites. Every month 3 Satellites and 1 Uplink, until you have 11 Satellites. Then build the Satellite Nexus and 5 Satellites. You should have already researched “Alien Flight Computer” at this point. You’ll also need to build some workshops to get the Engineers needed for the Satellite Uplinks. Remember to build the Satellite Uplinks & Satellite Nexus and Workshop & Foundry & Cybernetics Lab adjacent to each other to get the most out of them. Also build the Foundry and the Cybernetics Lab asap. Don’t forget the Energy. Only build the Genetics Lab, if you have much MELD.

Cheat Sheet
List of Corpses and their Usage. If the Usage consumes corpses, it is underlined. Note that the “Sell?” section only indicates if you can freely sell the corpses after you already autopsied them and did all research revolving around those corpses. If you’re not sure if you should sell any corpses and only did the autopsies, then you should have 4 of the corpses to be sure (6 for mutons).

Stuff to Research

[INCOMPLETE]

> Weapon Fragments
> MELD recombination
> Xenobiology
> Arc Thrower
> Alien Alloys

Start capturing aliens and interrogate them. Interrogating aliens halves the research time of certain researches.

UFO Power Source to unlock MEC class 2(interrogate Thin Man for faster research)
Get the armor projects.
Research Beam weapons and the Laser weapons but DO NOT BUILD those. After some EXALT missions, they will drop Heavy Lasers, Laser Snipers and Laser Rifles. Your team can use them if you researched the respective Research.

Priority:
>Tactical Rigging
>Alien Grenade
>Ammo Conservation

Balancing the Panic

Here’s the guide I made about the abduction missions. It basically contains everything you need to know about panic balancing except for a few things I will mention here.

[link]

• If a country has panic level 5, it will leave the XCOM project at the end of the current month. If more than 8 countries left, it’s game over.
• Satellites reduce panic by 2 in the country they’re deployed (useful for last minute save).
• Depending on how many Civilians you rescued in Terror missions, the panic is reduced.

Guides that I approve

This section exists, because there are many Guides that don’t provide any help. They exist just for entertainment. I’ll list guides here that provide useful information for Beginners:

[link] [link] [link] [link]

In case you want to activate “Training Roulette”

[link]