Aliens Own Earth - Revision history

TowigOs: Tips about how to tune the difficulty of the Aliens Own Earth campaign.

2025-08-08T12:45:23Z

Tips about how to tune the difficulty of the Aliens Own Earth campaign.

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:45, 8 August 2025
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	Now LOAD from the savegame folder where you put the "Aliens Own Earth" files. This new game from the very start has now got 20+ aliens bases scattered over the globe. Everything else (money, technology, X-Com bases) is set to the normal starting levels. Enjoy your (short) time as an X-Com Commander!		Now LOAD from the savegame folder where you put the "Aliens Own Earth" files. This new game from the very start has now got 20+ aliens bases scattered over the globe. Everything else (money, technology, X-Com bases) is set to the normal starting levels. Enjoy your (short) time as an X-Com Commander!

			===Dialing the difficulty down===

			If you find this scenario too hard to play, you can dial the difficulty down by becoming selective about which races you permit on Earth. Floaters are arguably the easiest to deal with but their Reapers can run quite a bit. Mutons are somewhat harder because they are tougher and have more powerful terror units. Sectoids have psionics which can wreck your
			starting team and their Cyberdiscs are essentially flying bombs that shoots searing hot plasma at you. Snakemen's terror unit can (and will) turn your guys to more aliens and Ethereals combine powerful psionics with indestructible mechas. By either allowing the alien base missions or shooting these scouts you can decide which aliens get to have a base and which do not.

			Alternatively you can just hex-edit the resulting [[LOC.DAT]] file and put in whatever mix of alien races you desire.

			===Dialing the difficulty up===

			While preparing the bases, you will learn where exactly they are and who is in them. You could then use this "exploit" to find and eliminate them quickly.

			To prevent this exploit from working, prepare multiple sets of alien bases. Then once you are ready to play the scenario, pick one randomly and install it. Now you have no idea where to search for these pesky things.

	==Game Editors==		==Game Editors==

TowigOs: A little tip about how to skip terror sites without ignoring them

2025-08-08T12:26:57Z

A little tip about how to skip terror sites without ignoring them

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:26, 8 August 2025
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	* if you have a UFO on a mission to scout for an alien base location, don't shoot it down. Let it go and you'll have a base building squadron appear earlier. Look for the alien base once you think its built and then you can go after the squadron.		* if you have a UFO on a mission to scout for an alien base location, don't shoot it down. Let it go and you'll have a base building squadron appear earlier. Look for the alien base once you think its built and then you can go after the squadron.
	* if you have an alien craft looking for your base, let it go until you have the VERY LARGE types appear. Shoot these down for big score bonuses.		* if you have an alien craft looking for your base, let it go until you have the VERY LARGE types appear. Shoot these down for big score bonuses.
	* you are playing the game for a positive score at the end of the month. Large and Very Large ufos give the biggest scores when destroyed. You can ignore the rest. For the reason the more you shoot down the more you'll have to deal with retaliation missions later on. The objective is to survive until the next month and letting aliens build bases. You can ignore terror sites as well if your score permits this.		* you are playing the game for a positive score at the end of the month. Large and Very Large ufos give the biggest scores when destroyed. You can ignore the rest. For the reason the more you shoot down the more you'll have to deal with retaliation missions later on. The objective is to survive until the next month and letting aliens build bases. You can ignore terror sites as well if your score permits this (or land & abort for smaller score hit).

	===Over 20 Alien Bases===		===Over 20 Alien Bases===
	Once you have over 20 alien bases (and under 25), go thru and sack everyone except 8 soldiers at your first base. These eight soldiers are your defending force if you miss an alien craft attacking you first base. They are not necessary, but just in case. Once you have seven undefended bases, remove the Mind/MC Shield and let the aliens destroy these bases. You might have to shoot down many more alien craft before the aliens start getting annoyed. Once you have one base left, remove the soldiers from any transport crafts and save your game and exit. Use an editor to change the craft back to terran types and replace the weapons with the default starting weapons (stingrayX6,avalanchX3 or ajaxX6,DUPX3).		Once you have over 20 alien bases (and under 25), go thru and sack everyone except 8 soldiers at your first base. These eight soldiers are your defending force if you miss an alien craft attacking you first base. They are not necessary, but just in case. Once you have seven undefended bases, remove the Mind/MC Shield and let the aliens destroy these bases. You might have to shoot down many more alien craft before the aliens start getting annoyed. Once you have one base left, remove the soldiers from any transport crafts and save your game and exit. Use an editor to change the craft back to terran types and replace the weapons with the default starting weapons (stingrayX6,avalanchX3 or ajaxX6,DUPX3).

TowigOs: Clarify what kind of detection to get (radar/sonar is not sufficient)

2025-08-08T12:21:03Z

Clarify what kind of detection to get (radar/sonar is not sufficient)

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:21, 8 August 2025
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	To get +20 alien bases onto the surface of earth, you have to edit some things to make the gameplay go alot faster. You don't want to play the game through properly. Forget research and manufacturing, training etc. Using a savegame editor, you'd want to:		To get +20 alien bases onto the surface of earth, you have to edit some things to make the gameplay go alot faster. You don't want to play the game through properly. Forget research and manufacturing, training etc. Using a savegame editor, you'd want to:
	* give yourself 200mil. and build seven more bases spread around the globe.		* give yourself 200mil. and build seven more bases spread around the globe.
	* edit the layouts of the eight bases to contain hangers, stores, detection, alien fuel, hand weapons, armour etc.		* edit the layouts of the eight bases to contain hangers, stores, detection with alien communications decoding, alien fuel, hand weapons, armour etc.
	* buy 6 fighter craft then use an editor to change all craft to Avenger/Leviathan and give them plasma/sonic weapons.		* buy 6 fighter craft then use an editor to change all craft to Avenger/Leviathan and give them plasma/sonic weapons.
	* use an editor to change hitpoints of ALL alien craft to 25, and speed to 1000. Change X-COM craft to 1000 hitpoints and 10000 speed and 500 fuel. It may help to decrease the weapon range of some of the UFO/USO.		* use an editor to change hitpoints of ALL alien craft to 25, and speed to 1000. Change X-COM craft to 1000 hitpoints and 10000 speed and 500 fuel. It may help to decrease the weapon range of some of the UFO/USO.

Hobbes: categorizing

2013-07-23T02:54:03Z

categorizing

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:54, 23 July 2013
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	See [[Game Editors\|this page]] for a list of tools to use to edit game files.		See [[Game Editors\|this page]] for a list of tools to use to edit game files.

			[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Spike: Moved to its own page and re-edited to hopefully make more sense

2008-11-18T23:51:20Z

Moved to its own page and re-edited to hopefully make more sense

New page

=Aliens Own Earth=

==Introduction==

This article describes how to create a scenario where the game is much more challenging. The Aliens begin the game in a very dominant position in Earth. Doing this lets you play a game where the aliens already own the Earth and you have an uphill battle to get Earth back.

In order to play this game, you first need to work through a campaign specially designed to create lots of Alien bases. You then manipulate some game save files in order to move all these Alien bases 'back in time' to the start of a new game. The new game is "Aliens Own Earth".

==Pre-Game Campaign ==
To get +20 alien bases onto the surface of earth, you have to edit some things to make the gameplay go alot faster. You don't want to play the game through properly. Forget research and manufacturing, training etc. Using a savegame editor, you'd want to:
* give yourself 200mil. and build seven more bases spread around the globe.
* edit the layouts of the eight bases to contain hangers, stores, detection, alien fuel, hand weapons, armour etc.
* buy 6 fighter craft then use an editor to change all craft to Avenger/Leviathan and give them plasma/sonic weapons.
* use an editor to change hitpoints of ALL alien craft to 25, and speed to 1000. Change X-COM craft to 1000 hitpoints and 10000 speed and 500 fuel. It may help to decrease the weapon range of some of the UFO/USO.
* buy 10 soldiers for each base and change their states to 100 (or thereabouts)
* edit diplomacy so that you get 100mil per month. It will adjust naturally thereafter.
===Fast Gameplay===
The only way to get through this pre-game setup campaign quickly is to shoot and destroy (not crash land) the alien craft. Since the hitpoints of a Battleship/Dreadnaught is only 25, it will take one shot from the X-COM craft to blow it up. Also:
* if you have a UFO on a mission to scout for an alien base location, don't shoot it down. Let it go and you'll have a base building squadron appear earlier. Look for the alien base once you think its built and then you can go after the squadron.
* if you have an alien craft looking for your base, let it go until you have the VERY LARGE types appear. Shoot these down for big score bonuses.
* you are playing the game for a positive score at the end of the month. Large and Very Large ufos give the biggest scores when destroyed. You can ignore the rest. For the reason the more you shoot down the more you'll have to deal with retaliation missions later on. The objective is to survive until the next month and letting aliens build bases. You can ignore terror sites as well if your score permits this.
===Over 20 Alien Bases===
Once you have over 20 alien bases (and under 25), go thru and sack everyone except 8 soldiers at your first base. These eight soldiers are your defending force if you miss an alien craft attacking you first base. They are not necessary, but just in case. Once you have seven undefended bases, remove the Mind/MC Shield and let the aliens destroy these bases. You might have to shoot down many more alien craft before the aliens start getting annoyed. Once you have one base left, remove the soldiers from any transport crafts and save your game and exit. Use an editor to change the craft back to terran types and replace the weapons with the default starting weapons (stingrayX6,avalanchX3 or ajaxX6,DUPX3).
<br> Cut CRAFT.DAT, LOC.DAT, and BASE.DAT from the savegame folder and then make a copy of these files as a backup.

==Copy Files to Create New Campaign==

Insert the [[LOC.DAT]], [[CRAFT.DAT]] and [[BASE.DAT]] files into a fresh new game savegame folder, and you'll have all the alien bases from the old game present in a new game.

NOTE: If you plan on overwriting the new with old, you must remove the soldiers from any and all transport craft before you copy the files over to the new savegame folder. Doing so will stop any 'ghost' soldiers remaining on the transport craft when you go to equip it. Alternatively, you can copy the SOLDIER.DAT file from the old location.

Start a new game and plunk your first base down anywhere. Remove the eight agents assigned to the tranport craft in this new game, then save and exit. Copy the three files into this savegame folder.

Note: It may help to make new install of the game because you have edited the previous installation, unless you want to go thru the old install and revert the editing.

==Playing the New Campaign==

Now LOAD from the savegame folder where you put the "Aliens Own Earth" files. This new game from the very start has now got 20+ aliens bases scattered over the globe. Everything else (money, technology, X-Com bases) is set to the normal starting levels. Enjoy your (short) time as an X-Com Commander!

==Game Editors==

See [[Game Editors|this page]] for a list of tools to use to edit game files.