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1.0 guide - strategy, tips, achievements

By ink

v1.0 basic strategy to win game and get all achievements. extra tips, but they're not needed.

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Created by

ink
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Category: Achievements, Characters, Gameplay Basics, Walkthroughs

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

4 Apr @ 8:45pm

7 Apr @ 5:22am

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Guide Index

Overview

Intro / Basic strategy

Base layout

Hiring

Late game team and early recruitment

Research

Bug invasions

Exploration

Enemy Factions

Space fighting

Mining / Engineers

Scholars / library

Artifacts

Diplomats

Misc tips

Achievements

Outro / disclaimers

Comments

Intro / Basic strategy

There is only 1 true bottleneck, getting enough income from grants to pay all salaries before the subsidies run out (1 year).
If you consistently send out multiple scientist teams, and write patents every time you get 5 theories, this should be easy.
Just don't go broke hiring and over-building before covering salaries. (unless you know what you're doing)
If you go too slowly, bug invasions might be trouble, but i never had an issue.
Fighting enemies is relatively easy (see below "space fighting"), so everything else in the game is not very important at regular difficulty levels.

Base layout

Closed rooms (w/ doors) with only 1 function. (all previous guides are wrong/outdated). If less than full blue circle icon, people get stressed.
Small rooms around the stargate so robots build fast and walking distance is minimized.
To optimize early bedrooms, place locker before bed (it doesn't let you place adjacent if bed is first).
Duplicate of everything that needs restocking (meds, food)
Pathing is generally very good and 1 cell width is enough for traffic
BUT it can get stuck and it won't tell you (e.g. in recreation room if you cover the entrances for the games, it will let you do it but no one uses them)
Build all power together and a nice path with doors for bugs to walk through. i prefer "behind" the stargate, which creates an 'obvious' path for the bugs, and lets rooms that people use be near eachother.
When turrets are unlocked, create "killbox".

example of early base, and lategame base (for a science achievement rush, so rooms are not optimized at all, but room locations are a good starting point)

Hiring

Hiring options

Hiring Cheap - most of your early recruits can be cheap.
- why yes: salaries never change. it's easier to over-hire and fire than being 1-2 short in a critical role;
- why no: skills only increase 18 levels, and cheap units don't get maxed. lategame you have plenty of money;
- why yes anyway: it's not a noticeable difference between a good and great unit. most classes only need 2 skills and/or start with low skills even when expensive.
Hiring Best (expensive) - early, hire 1-2 expensive scientists to write grants. mid game, 4+ expensive soldiers help win wars. everyone can be expensive lategame, once your money is really under control.
Hiring best value for money - you could spend a lot of time finding good value, and that is the optimal play, but overall it doesn't seem to make a huge difference so don’t overthink it.

Other tips

Focus on main stat early game. (you can see relative importance by clicking on person and tab “training priorities”)
Max lv1 total stats: Diplomat/Engineers ~13-15. Sci/Med/Sch ~20-22. Soldiers ~26-29.
You can get more recruits by just spending 2k and get multiple rounds of the same role.
Just don't go broke over-hiring expensive before you know what you are doing :)

Late game team and early recruitment

Team is capped at 50. When trying to "do everything", I run:

7 scientists (3 recurring teams, 2 exploring teams, 2 in base)
4 engineers (3 recurring teams, 1 spare)
3 scholars (2 “manually recurring” teams, 1 in base)
3 diplomats (1 team per enemy faction)
So 13 teams. To run medic and soldier on all missions, you need:
13 medics +2 in base (renamed BASEMED) and
13 soldiers + all remaining slots (5=18) as spares + base defense.

When rushing a win, more scientists or soldiers over scholars/diplomats/engineers.
You can also get more soldiers instead of medics for missions.

Early game, if you don't know what you're doing, hire

1 good scientist (for patents), 6 cheap scientists (rush lv2 on 1 for research).
4 cheap doctors (rush lv3 on 1 for surgery), keep always 2 in base.
5 cheap-ish soldiers.

Research

After money is “solved”, research is the bottleneck most of the game, but never becomes a big problem if you keep sending teams out.

Early game priority

High – Medbay/Training room. Then all lab techs. Security when you get bug attack event.
Mid – Builder capacity 1 when you can spare.
Low – Recreation room (I’m sure it’s great and game recommends it earlier, but I build it only after all the above and sometimes after operations). I don’t take training room additions until very late-game, they are probably ok but too costly and no one dies if you skip them

Mid game priority

High – Operations (once you have 1-3 recurring teams, it doesn’t take long until the money problem gets solved). Powerplant upgrade when it starts getting hard to manage. (usually right before operations, as each takes 500energy). Security door (when bugs start being annoying)
Mid – Workshop and basic ore+raw ore. Good to get going, but it doesn’t really stop you from progressing. It is required for library, which is required for artifacts, so I still go for it.
Low – Almost everything else. Late game upgrades are very good and I prefer to prioritize those. For the first games, I would probably pick up alien culture study, alien affairs and gater team size4, but in my achievement runs, I’d rather get:

Late game priority

High – ICU (makes strategy of “permanently getting injured” much faster), Generator 3 (makes life much easier), Nap pod (replace all barracks with smaller footprint), Turret (base defense is never a problem again).
Mid – builders 2, builders upgrades level 1 (cheap), light exosuit upgrades.
Low – everything else. You already “won”.

This is enough for rushing normal/easy difficulties in v1.0, not necessarily “optimal” play.

Bug invasions

As soon as you get the warning you found bugs, rush research security and place a few pistols
Bugs will rush power plants. I like to have all power at the back of the base, but I kill them all right outside the stargate.
the 1 time i didn't stop them (early game), they just killed a few powerplants and went back, so don't worry too much i guess?
Security doors after 2-3 invasions make it easier to kill them before they escape the entrance room. Lategame, lots of turrets make it easy to stop the entire invasion
AI of your soldiers is extremely bad. In the first invasions, setting/resetting soldier gathering point is usually needed.

Exploration

Expansion priority

Claim all 1-distance from your base (cheap)
Claim towards aliens and minerals close to the base (to claim when they're explored), picking up “high potential” (science) spots along the way
Mid-lategame, claim towards aggressive factions to be able to invade them.

Exploration "strategy"

Don’t be afraid to go to “dangerous” places, usually just results in injuries (have not played the max difficulty). This includes places where exosuits are recommended, especially if it unlocks places you want to go that do not require exosuits.
For very high danger situations (e.g. lv10 missions or exosuit requirements), units can die. I tag my “cheap” teammates (with lowercase surname) and send them to dangerous missions or just recruit level 1 soldiers. If they die I just replace with more level 1 soldiers.
Early rush medic research, have always 2 in base (1 of them level 3 for surgery), to make sure you don’t get everyone injured at the same time. Lategame, ICU research makes life much easier.

Other tips

Best way to get influence is study alien species, but that is lategame, and by then you already won.
Don’t let influence go past 1000, or it is wasted.
Alien worlds need to be fully explored before being claimed, this can massively bottleneck/slow down expansion if it's "on the way" to enemy base
You can only claim & invade through a line from a world you control. you may need to "disconnect"/re-connect to make sure the "dotted line" comes from the right world.
Very early game, you might need to fiddle with "disconnecting" worlds to save some power, but just building more power is generally a better idea than wasting time over optimizing something so non-impactful.

Enemy Factions

I’m sure there are better strategies, but this simple one works:

Just fight enemy factions 1 at a time as soon as you have a stable money situation, starting with whoever is closest / more aggressive.
You need to expand your territory next to them to invade.
There is a “non aggressive” way to expand by using influence, but it takes ages and not practical to use vs 3 factions.
Be careful to not get attacked or “influenced out” of a world that connects a chunk of the empire (you can lose all the attached worlds).

Space fighting

My "strategy":

Invade with 2 soldiers with 10 body/10 perception and 1 bait (usually level 1 soldier, preferably high body so they last longer), that will most likely die, and hire a replacement post-fight.
In each fight, you can’t attack twice with the same guy, just keep alternating attacks, killing enemy strongest soldiers first. Use the "80% chance" attack, it is clearly more than 80%.
Have 2 available 10b/10p soldiers +1 bait in base, as enemies will inevitably counter-invade. Use the same strategy (“strategy” may be a strong word for this) to defend.

Note that optimal play is have multiple roles blabla, but this works, it requires fewer mouse clicks. and it’s easier to explain.