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        UFO: Enemy Unknown - FAQ

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request for topics? comments? information?
email william.kang@dscmail.com


Contents:

I.  Intro to UFO
 A. What is UFO?
 B. Who makes UFO?
 C. Where can I get UFO?
 D. Requirements for UFO
 E. Description of UFO
 F. What about the bugs?
 G. What about the copy protection?
II. Playing the Game
 A. Getting Started
 B. Misc
 C. Tables


I. Intro to UFO

A. What is UFO: Enemy Unknown (UFO)?

UFO: ENEMY UNKNOWN is a fantastic game!  It is an excellent
strategy games comprable to Civilization and MOO. The year is 1999. 
Ufos are being sighted around the globe. You are the head of XCom -
a world-wide organization funded by the governments of Earth and 
charged with the protectection of the Earth form the threat of alien
invasion.


B. Who makes UFO?

The game is by a British company called Mythos Games Ltd. by a
guy called Jullian Gollop (of Laser Squad fame) and is being
distributed by Microprose. Mythos Games recently released
another game, Starlord, previous to UFO, but reviews for that
effort are less than enthusiastic.


C. Where can I get UFO?

The game is not yet generally available in the U.S. MicroProse 
Direct (US) has said that the game will be out in June. Meanwhile,
you can order it from some place that imports software titles. 


        1. So, why do some people already HAVE it?

UFO is available in stores in the UK (and other parts of Europe). 
You can try calling Microprose UK:  011-44-454-329510.


D. What are the requirements for UFO?

A 386/20 Mhz or better processor, 2MB RAM, VGA, 10 MB of HD space 
and a mouse. And a 3.5 drive. Plus 136k for each save game position. 
UFO supports GUS and SB for digital sound and Adlib/SB/Roland 
LAPC for music. Doesn't seem like GUS sound AND music really work.
Copy Protection is a find-the-code-in-the-manual type. 
The very well done intro can be deleted to save about 2 megs of 
space. Batch files are included to run UFO with or without 
the intro.


E. Can you describe the game before I go out and blindly order it?

The year is 1999. Ufos are being sighted around the globe. You
are the head of XCom - an world-wide organization funded by the
governments of Earth and charged with the protectection of the
Earth form the threat of alien invasion.

You begin the game by placing your base on a very nicely done
globe (Earth) and from there you  launch interception and
retrieval missions, and build other bases around the world. You
accomplish your mission by intercepting alien ships, recover
alien artifacts, and research where the aliens are coming from
and how to defeat them at the source.

The game is divided into several parts: ufo tracking and
interception, ground combat, research/manufacturing, and XCom
logistics. 

When a ufo is detected, you can launch interceptors to shoot it
down. The slickness of the interface is very reminiscent of 
Syndicate; even the "whoop" of each mouse click is there.
Once a ufo is on the ground (by its own volition or in a
crash), your troop carrier can land and unload your operatives. 
The screen changes to a Syndicate/Ultima 8 type view where
turn-based combat takes place. Your task now is to neutralize
the aliens while keeping your own casualties minimal. 

Equipping your soldiers with everything from pistols to flying 
armor, you deploy your men. The map is pretty large and random with 
the same patches of terrain/buildings/ships moved around. Terrain
themes can range from arctic to desert to urban, with four
levels in the vertical and an alien base/ship somewhere on the
map ranging from a tiny 1 man pod to a multiple level battleship
or base that covers the map. 


F. What about the bugs?

There are two bugs in the game that are pretty much being
encountered by everyone.

        1. The Y-Axis bug (and other graphics problems)

Because of a corrupt alien base map file, the game will probably
crash on you. An easy and temporary solution is to copy another
file in your MAPS directory over the corrupt one. Just copy
UBASE10.MAP over UBASE07.MAP. The corrupted graphics seen during
combat may be from this source also.

        2. The Strength bug

Due to what seems like a pretty common bug in games, having too
high a strength attribute for a soldier will end up crippling
him/her as if the strength rolls-over back to 0. This is
noticable when you try to throw something, like a grenade. You
get "Out of Range" messages. The solution for this are to not
over-develop your characters until you can get the patch from
Microprose. 


        3. What do the patches do?

The first patch consists of a bunch of .map files that go in the
MAPS directory. This might fix the Y-axis bug.

There is a second patch that is more official that updates the EXE
to V1.2 and data files and it is over 600k long.

You can find the second patch as:

        wuarchive.wustl.edu   pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS/patches/ufo1-2.zip


G. What about the copy protection? (or Where can I get a 
crack for the game?)

   There is an uuencoded copy of cracks for both 1.0 and 1.2 at
the end of the FAQ. At least until I get some idea of how
people feel about attaching this stuff to FAQs.



II. Playing the Game


A. Getting Started

        1. Where should I put my base?

Since where your base is is going to determine how effectively
you can intercept and investigate UFOs, you shouldn't just put
your base anywhere. Here are a few things to consider. A base
can cover an area somewhat larger than the United States or
Europe.  Beyond that range, interception with fighters become
chancy since the ufo can just head outside of detection range. 

Second, a UFO that crashes on the ocean is a UFO that sinks into
the ocean. Your troops don't have scuba gear, so try to leave as
much of your effective interception range on land.

Third, since you are funded by the nations of the world, think
about how you can serve the most nations with the least number
of bases until you can afford more bases.

According to these factors, somewhere around Central Europe
might be a nice place to set up shop. Since you have enough
money for several bases, secondary interceptor/detection bases
(bases with just a radar, or just radar, interceptors, and stores)
might be set up in North America, Central/East Asia or Central
Africa.


        2. How can I get more money?

Your original funding comes from the governments of the world.
In order to maintain that funding after the review every month,
you need be successful in ufo interception to keep the patron 
states happy.

To supplement your income, you can sell the artifacts that you
get from your excursions into alien ships. For example, selling
one Mind Probe nets you a cool 300 grand. Since you can't really
use more than 2-3 and they are pretty easy to come by, money
isn't usually a problem. 

Excess alien carcasses and weapons can also produce a steady 
stream of income. Since you will need the Elerium-115 you find,
resort to selling this as a last resort. Other items should also 
not be considered excess so easily. It can be easy to run out of 
UFO power supplies and plasma weapon clips; both of which require 
Elerium-155. By not selling these, you also save Elerium-115 when
you take these from your stock instead of manufacturing them.

If you still can't get enough money, invest in some engineers and 
set to work making armors. Even if you have to make the alien 
alloy yourself, you will still come out ahead after figuring the 
costs for the engineers and manufacturing.



        4. What should I research?

Well, just about everything and anything. Laser weapons are a good
start.

Interogating live aliens can reveal alien ship types or their
plans. The information you get is usually related to the occupation
of the alien; leaders have strategic info, engineers, technical and
so on.

Just don't research the same thing at two bases. They get treated 
as two separate efforts and once one base discovers something, 
the other base will continue researching that topic until you 
"discover" it again. Even if you deallocate all your scientists 
from the project, you will still have it on your list of presently 
being researched topics and you'll end up researching it if you're 
a perfectionist.

These are the research trees to help you in figuring out an optimal
research path. Btw, dead end research (stun bombs, medi-kits, etc)
is not included. Also, when an item can be built because of a tech
and is not pretty explicit in the tech name, the item is mentioned
in parenthesis.



  Laser Weapons        Heavy      Heavy         Plasma    Plasma 
       |               Plasma   Plasma Clip      Rifle   Rifle Clip
  Laser Pistol            |___________|            |__________|
       |                         |                       |
  Laser Rifle                    |                       |
       |                         |__________OR___________|
  Heavy Laser                               |
       |                                    |
  Laser Cannon                        Plasma Cannon
(Tank/Laser Cannon)                 (Hovertank/Plasma)
       |                                    |
  Laser Defense                       Plasma Defense
       

    
              Alien Alloys                        Blaster      Blaster
                  |                               Launcher     Bombs
Elerium 115  Personal Armor  UFO Power Source       |___________|
    |_____________|_________________|                      |
                  |                                   Fusion Ball 
                  |                               (Hovertank/Launcher)
             Power Suit      UFO Navigation                |
                  |_________________|             Fusion Ball Defense
                           |
                     Flying Suit



Alien    Elerium        UFO            UFO
Alloys      115     Power Source   Navigation
 |___________|___________|______________|
                   |
                  UFO 
              Construction
                   | 
                  New 
             Fighter Craft
                   |
                  New 
           Fighter-Transporter
         __________|____________
         |                      |
        Grav                 Ultimate                                   
         
       Shield                 Craft


Interrogation Subjects

Alien -------------- Alien Origins
Alien Medic -------- species information    
Alien Leader ------- The Martian Solution
Alien Commander ---- Cydonia or Bust
Alien Navigator ---- Hyper-Wave Decoder
Ethereal ----------- Psionic Laboratory 
                 ___________|____________
                 |                       |   
           Mind Shield                 Psi-Amp

---


	5. What are some tips for combat?

There seem to be two philosphies about combat (so far); using large
squads deployed from one of a few transports, or small squads (1-2 men) 
deployed from one of many transports stationed around the world. Since 
rookies are pretty useless by themselves, most games start with the 
large squads and then get smaller as the troops get more experienced. 
The differences in how some people play seems to be in how many troops 
they put on a transport and how they are stationed around the world 
(one big base, a couple main bases, or all large bases). Also, whether 
or not they use tanks.

When you are just starting a game, a single hit will usually kill 
anyone, so having a tank as a point shield is a good way to keep your 
men alive. Still, you are bound to lose a man once in a while.

If you are having trouble finding where an alien is even though the
screen says "1" (i.e. a muton in a green field at night), take a
quick look at the overhead map and the alien will be a blue circle.
Just click the map on him, and you'll find him right there, instead
of having to scroll all over the place.

Since you can shoot between floors through a elevator, take the time
to look in all directions before going up. If there is an alien close
to the elevator square (1-2 spaces) on the floor above, you can usually 
hit him from a very safe position.

Take notice of which aliens have which weaknesses. For example, shoot 
the plasma weapons at the Cyberdisk, and send the Autocannon (HE) to 
take out some Sectoids instead.



B. Misc

    1. How do I keep my men/women from being taken over, mentally,
    by those cloaked aliens? AND, once one IS cloaked how do I fix him
    so I can bring him out alive, rather than losing him (MIA) in 
    action?

Until the aliens can see you, they won't try to control you. So when 
you attack and they see you, you need to take them out very quickly. 
Since tanks are immune to psionics, use those to clear out the aliens
outside and near doorways/hull breeches and in buildings. Then storm
each area.

Alien control wears off after one turn so don't write off your 
soldiers when they are taken over. Especiallly if it is near the 
end of a battle.

Until you can build up some psi ability, you'll just have to make
sure you troops are brave enough to withstand panic attacks.

 
    2. Why the research is very slow sometimes? What can i do when it 
    says "Poor" or "Unknown" on the items I'm researching?

It just means how close you are. Some things are just harder to study 
than others. Add more scientists to speed things up.


    3. While fighting on the ground, I shot a rocket at an alien. It
    died. Bang. Mission over-- 4 aliens listed as killed. Thinking 
    maybe I caught the rest (and didn't notice) in the blast.

The other 3 aliens probably just died in the crash. You might be 
able to see corpses that you haven't killed. Or the corpses might
have been destroyed (i.e. explosion)

    4. What is happening to all my plasma (or any) ammo?

    An ammo clips are thrown away after a mission. Even ones that are
still full. Unload as many guns (particularily the ones with expensive
ammo) as you can before ending a mission. Or switch to laser weapons.

     5. What is Elerium-115?

Elerium 115 has the unusual property of generating anti-matter power
when bombarded with certain particles. This creates gravity waves and
other forms of energy. It is not naturally found in our solar system
and cannot be reproduced.

As your research will tell you, it is the alien power source and 
is used in many of their items. Since it is not found on Earth and
it can not be manufactured, it can only be retrieved from alien 
ships/bases. At first, you may have so much of the stuff that you 
are tempted to sell it, but once you start manufacturing your own 
exotics, Elerium-115 will usually be the limiting factor (partially
because almost everything else can be manufactured). But then again,
you might have tons of the stuff. At least make some power armor and
sell it as that while making a profit.

C. Tables


        1. BASE FACILITIES

                  Days to
                   Build   Cost  Maintainence/Description
______________________________________________________________________
Access Lift          1     300k     4k Elevator to base
Living Quarters     16     400k    10k Holds 50 personnel
Laboratory          26     750k    30k Holds 50 lab spaces
Workshop            32     800k    35k Holds 50 manufacturing spaces
Small Radar         12     500k    10k 5% detect/10 mins, 300nm range
Large Radar         25     800k    15k 5% detect/10 mins, 450nm range
General Stores      10     150k     5k Holds 50 units of stores
Alien Containment   18     500k    15k Holds 10 aliens for interrogation
Missile Defense     16     300k     5k Defense 500, 50% accuracy
Laser Defense       24     900k    10k Defense 600, 60% accuracy
Plasma Defense      34    1200k    12k Defense 900, 70% accuracy
Fusion Ball Defense 34    1800k    14k Defense 1200, 80% accuracy
Grav Shield         38    2300k    15k Doubles base defenses
Mind Shield         33    1300k     5k Conceals base from alien attack
Psi Lab             24     750k    16k Psi training room for troops
Hyperwave Decoder   26    2000k    30k Translates alien mission orders
Hangar              25     200k    25k Holds 1 plane


        2. AIRCRAFT

          Max Speed  Accel  Fuel Weapons Hull  Cargo  Description
_______________________________________________________________________
Skyranger    760 kph   2    2000    0     150    14   Transport
Interceptor 2100       3    1000    2     100     0   Fighter
Firestorm   4200       9     20*    2     500     0   Updated Fighter
Lightning   3100       8     30*    1     800    12   Updated Transport
Avenger     5400      10     60*    2    1200    26   Air/Space Fighter/
                                                             Transport
    * Uses Elerium 115 as fuel.


        3. AIRCRAFT WEAPONS

              Damage    Range      Hit %   Reload
_____________________________________________________
Cannon          10       10 nm      10 %     2 sec
Stingray        70       30         70      15
Avalanche      100       60        100      20
Laser Cannon    70       21         70       4
Plasma Beam    140       52        140       6

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        4. PERSONNAL WEAPONS

                Auto    Snap    Aimed   Clip    Dam     
________________________________________________________________________
_
Pistol                  60/18   78/30    12     26
Rifle           35/35   60/25   110/80   30     30
Heavy Cannon            60/33   90/80    14     56/52/60 (AP/HE/I)
Auto Cannon     32/40   56/33   82/80    14     42/44/48
Rocket Launcher         55/45   115/75    1     75/100/90
Laser Pistol    28/25   40/20   68/55     -     46
Laser Rifle     46/34   65/25   100/50    -     60
Heavy Laser             50/33   84/75     -     85
Plasma Pistol   50/30   65/30   85/60           52
Plasma Rifle    55/36   86/30   100/60          80
Heavy Plasma    50/35   75/30   110/60          115
Small Launcher                            1     90 (stun)
Blaster Launcher                          1     200

Grenade                                         50
Smoke Grenade                                   60
Proximity Grenade                               70
Alien Grenade                                   90
High Explosives                                 110



        5. ITEMS

              Engineer-     Workshop
                Hours  Cost   Space  Elerium Alloy Sell Space Type
________________________________________________________________________
___

  PERSONAL WEAPONS
Laser Pistol      300    8k     2      -       -              Weapon
Laser Rifle       400   20k     3      -       -              Weapon
Heavy Laser       700   32k     4      -       -              Weapon
Plasma Pistol     600   56k     3      -       1    84k       Weapon
Plasma Pistol Clip 60    2k     4      1       -     4k       Ammo
Plasma Rifle      820   88k     4      -       1   127k       Weapon
Plasma Rifle Clip  80    3k     4      2       -     6k       Ammo
Heavy Plasma     1000  122k     4      -       1   172k       Weapon
Heavy Plasma Clip  80    6k     4      3       -    10k       Ammo
Blaster Launcher 1200   90k     5      -       1   144k       Weapon
Blaster Bomb      220    8k     3      3       -    17k       Ammo
Small Launcher    900   78k     3      -       1   120k       Weapon
Stun Bomb         200    7k     2      1       -    15k       Ammo
Alien Grenade     200  6.7k     2      2       -    15k       Weapon

  EQUIPMENT
Medikit           420   28k     4      -       -   465k       Equipment 
Motion Scanner    220   34k     4      -       -   456k       Equipment
Mind Probe       1200  262k     4      1       -   334k       Equipment

  PERSONAL ARMOR
Personal Armour   800   22k    12      -       4   140k       Per. Armor
Power Suit       1000   42k    16      5       5   310k       Per. Armor
Flying Suit      1400   58k    16     16       5   420k       Per. Armor

  AIRCRAFT/WEAPONS
Firestorm       14000  400k    30      -      65     0        
Lightning       18000  600k    34      -      85     0
Avenger         34000  900k    36      -     170     0
Laser Cannon      300  182k     6      -       -   211k
Plasma Beam       500  226k     8     15       -   267k
Fusion Ball Launch400  242k     6      -       -   281k
Fusion Ball       600   28k     6      4       -    53k             

  TANKS/WEAPONS
Tank/Laser       1200  500k    25      -       -   594k
Hovertank/Plasma 1200  850k    30     30       5   980k
Hovertank/Launcher1400 900k    30     25       8  1043k

  UFO COMPONENTS
Alien Alloys      100    3k    10      -       -     6k   .1  UFO Comp.
UFO Power Source 1400  130k    22     16       5   250k   .6  UFO Comp.
UFO Navigation   1600  150k    18      -       3    80k       UFO Comp.

  ALIEN ARTIFACTS
Examination Room    -    -      -      -       -     9k       Artifact
Alien Entertainment -    -      -      -       -    20k   .2  Artifact
Alien Surgery       -    -      -      -       -    38k       Artifact
Alien Food          -    -      -      -       -              Artifact
Alien Corpse        -    -      -      -       -    20k       Artifact
Elerium 115         -    -      -      -       -     5k       


MISC DESCRIPTIONS

Electro Flare   A light source on night missions. Can be picked up and
                reused.
Motion Scanner  Detects movement in a 8 space radius.
Medikit         Used to heals wounds, revive, and boost morale.
Stun Rod        When used aginast one standing next to you, can knock
                an alien out.
Mind Probe      Probes an alien for their characteristics.
Psi Amp         Used to focus a slodiers psi ability as an attack
Alien Alloys    Used in many manufacturing processes.
Elerium 115     Must be scavanged. Used as a power source in many items.
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