Quick guide to UFO2000 online playing

Quick guide to UFO2000 online playing

Still work in progress!

Written for the 0.9.1105 beta version, which is the most played version online. If you have something older, please upgrade!

This guide is intended for people new to the game. Often people join the server first time they start the game and try to play with someone, but they don't have even a basic team ready and generally don't know what to do. Here are the necessary things to do and to learn before you play online.

Before you play

Install the original game data

(Note: the installer asks about these things and you may already have set them up from there)

UFO2000 has only a few maps by default. You should download the original game data here: http://data.the.cz/ufo_xcom.zip. The .zip file contains two directories (XCOM and TFTD), these should be unpacked wherever UFO2000 is installed. This it will enable you to play the most played maps like City and Port.

You can get even more maps from here: http://area51.xcomufo.com/depot2.htm. This mappack contains some very good maps, even though they're not played very often online.

First (hotseat) game

You should try a game against yourself to get the hang of the interface, and to make a team for online play. Start UFO2000 and choose "start hotseat game".

Setup

You'll see a list of units on the left, and controls to change the game options. Try to change the map to City by clicking the second row (the map name) in the "MATCH SETTINGS" box (if City doesn't appear in the list, you probably didn't follow the "Install the original game data" step correctly). You can place your units somewhere in the green rectangle on the left of the minimap.

The game options can be changed by either player online.

Make a first team

Equipment and weapon set

You can change the equipment and race or armour of each unit. To do this, CTRL+click the unit name in the list. There are some hotkeys available with useful functions in the unit detail, read about them in the legend on the right. Use the "Ufo2000 Classic Set", which is used online almost exclusively.

Each piece of equipment and each unit costs points. In an online game, the players decide on a point limit, most often 7000 points, sometimes 15000 points. You should make at least a team for 7000 points. Don't go mad with power armour and expensive weapons, because that way you'll have to take less units. In a 7k (7000 points max) game, it is desirable to have six units, or at least five. In 15k game, take at least twelve units.

This really depends on the terrain and your choice of tactics. For instance, most players deploy their units on a line and maintain that line during the first rounds. But if you have a smaller team and you're attacking through a specific axis you'll be facing the same amount of troops than your opponent and they'll be better armed and protected. Hobbes 19:44, 24 November 2008 (CST)

By clicking the units statistics in the unit detail, you can change its race, name and some of the stats. More powerful races cost more points (see Unit Types (UFO2000)). Stats have a cost too, and they also have a limit on the total -- they're a bit complicated (you may read about them in Unit Stats (UFO2000)). You can tinker with them later and keep them as they are for now.

A team usually needs some cheap scouts (which can use cheap weapons like laser pistols, and should have 80 time units), assault units (mutons are good, usually with a plasma rifle) and perhaps some support with heavy weapons like XAAS or rocket launcher. Alien fusion grenades (the most powerful kind (there's also the demolition pack, but it behaves a little differently from grenades -- explained below) and smoke grenades are also useful things to take.

You don't have to try too hard for your first team, you'll probably want to change it a lot after the first or few first games anyway, when you learn some tricks from your opponent.

When you have a team, you can save it with F2 in the unit detail screen, and load it later with F3.

Start the game

When you're done equipping and placing your units on the map, press SEND and then START on the left of the map screen. Place some units for the second team and SEND + START on the right to start the game.

Ingame

You're in the battlescape now. The interface should be familiar from the old XCOM games. By default, the doublescale mode is enabled -- press asterisk (*) on the number pad to disable it and get better resolution.

You can check how far you can get with your time units by holding CTRL and moving the mouse around. By holding ALT, you can check the trajectory of your shot to see if there's anything in the way between you and your target, or check the trajectory of a thrown grenade (very useful!).

You can change the size of the chat window on the bottom by pressing SHIFT + Up or Down arrows.

Review

So by now you should:

• have the original game data installed and maps like 'City' choosable
• be familiar with the game interface
• have a reasonable team for 7k / 15k point games

This is pretty much it -- now you can play online. There are more good things to know though, and I'll talk about them in the next paragraphs.

Beyond the first game

Game mechanics

Explosives

Just like in the old XCOM games, you can prime a grenade to 0 and hold on to it for a couple more turns, it won't explode until you throw or drop it (but it will explode as soon as it hits the ground when thrown, so you can't use the "grenade proxy" technique).

However, this isn't the case for the powerful demolition pack, it will explode precisely on time and you need to be very careful with it. If you prime one to 0, you need to throw it on the same turn, or it will explode in your hands. If you want to throw on your next turn, prime to 2 (before you get your turn, 2 grenade time units will pass). Practice in hotseat a little before you use demolition packs, it's a bummer to blow up your own guys in a real game.

Getting better

Replays

Don't forget to save a replay after a game -- in the replay you can see the whole battlefield and most importantly your opponent's turns. This way you can learn a lot about other people's teams and strategy to improve yours.

Making a decent team

TODO:

• Equipment
• Races
• Stats

Issues

Can't choose a race

Sometimes it happened to me that i can't change a unit's race to an alien in the unit detail -- it will turn to human with no armour no matter what i choose. A workaround is to copy an existing alien unit (ctrl+insert) and paste (shift+insert) it to the unit you want to change. After that, it should be possible to change the race to whatever you want.

(is this because you can only change your race to an alien when the unit is male and not female?)
--Raydarken 20:19, 15 February 2009 (CST)

Minimap dissapeared in battlescape

Usually happens when playing with different map sizes. Press shift+right arrow, then shift+left arrow, it should appear again.

Unit can't move

This is usually because you're out of energy (the orange bar in the stats) because you were moving too much in the past few turns. Unfortunately, the game doesn't show any special message or other indication when you try to move without energy, so it may seem like a bug occurred.

Bugs in online games

TODO