UFO: Extraterrestrials Platinum – How to Manage Bases

Tips to Manage Bases

Secondary Bases Explained

The secondary bases main purpose is to increase the amount of money you get per month. Building a base on a continent essentialy doubles the money you get from that specific continent. You can win the game without building bases, but you should. In the easy difficulty, the money goes from ~488,000 to almost 1,000,000. In hard, it goes from ~233,000 to ~488,000 per continent.

It’s secondary purpose is to provide air coverage. The countries doesn’t pay you for going into tactical missions. They pay you for clearing the skies. For destroying the ufos (it doesn’t matter if you don’t go into tactical missions). They will increase or decrease the amount of money you get per month depending on how well you controlled the air in that continent.

I recommend having at least 2 fighters in Syrtis Maior, Peloponesia/Thermos and Patria, since they are far from your main base.

It’s third purpose would be… Being a CAF base. It’s easier to defend a base than attacking an alien base. You can defend easily a base staying in the main room. In an alien base it’s the opposite. You need to act quickly because you are in a tight space.

The Strategy

So… My way of managing the bases after a lot of playthroughts (recommended specially in the highest difficulty):

• The first month i don’t build a base. We have like 2M and i spend almost 1,5M in investigations, building and equipment.
• I always build the alien containment, 2 laboratories and 2 workshops and a hangar to have a place to build ships to send to other continents. You could build only 1 lab and workshop. I maintain the cost by doing a lot of tactical missions the first months.
• In the second month i build a base in Patria, Syrtis Maior or Peloponesia / Thermos. Every time i have 2M-3M, i spend 1M to build another base until i have them all. Having all the bases as soon as possible is huge. It’s a lot of “passive” money you don’t have to earn in tactical missions.
• Each time you build a base, build a detection system so you can detect all ufos in that continent. In the bases where you want to have ships, build another hangar. 1 ship is not enough. But you don’t need ships in every base. The ships are costly to maintain and you can defend nearby continents. That’s why i recommend those specific continents.
• You don’t need to destroy every ufo to win the game. Just destroy the ones you think you can handle. If you can’t handle a battle cruiser or something like that, it’s normal. Ignore them until you have your ion technology and all that stuff.

I don’t want to spoil anything so my last tip is to not build air defense buildings. They are bad, they cost too much to maintain, they can be destroyed, and the aliens aren’t stupid and will avoid the bases that have the most defenses.