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As soon as the game starts start research on laser weapons. The pistol and rifle are so inferior to alien technology. The laser weapons should give your troops a fighting chance in a battle. The laser weapons are very cheap time unit wise, and do not need any ammuntion. The laser rifle is the best of the weapons. It shoots almost as fast as the laser pistol. The heavy laser loses its ability to do auto shots. Without that ability, it is practically useless. Sectoids, the first alien encountered in the game can be easily killed with the laser rifle. Once the laser rifle is researched, there are two good paths to go in the technology tree. One is to research plasma weapons recovered from UFOs. This will lead to the plasma beam, the best craft weapon. Also alien plasma arms are even better than laser. The problem with going to this path so quickly is that you may run out of clips. Plasma weapons need ammunition unlike laser weapons. Instead of researching plasma weapons, I choose to research alien alloys. After alien alloys are researched, you can research armour. The personal armour is a cheap way of lengthening your troops lives. Without armour, your soldiers usually die in one hit. Personal armour allows a troop to possibly live through a shot or two. When combined with medikits, the wounds can be healed on the battlefield. Your soldiers will live through more missions, and may get promoted to X-COM officers. An X-COM officer is a veteran. They have been on a few mission. Also with experience, their firing accuracy, throwing accuracy, bravery, time units, energy, and health may increase. This will allow for better soldiers when you need them.
After you have brought your soldiers up to par with the aliens, it is time to bring up your aircraft. You need to research five alien technologies before new craft can be researched. These are alien alloys, elerium -115, UFO navigation, UFO power source, and UFO construction. Once these are researched, you can research new figher craft and even fighter-transports. These X-COM crafts are more heavily armoured, and are much faster than your old Skyrangers or Interceptors. They are needed to catch up with some of the faster UFOs. The very large UFO can only be shot down with one of these crafts. An interceptor will be blown away before it is even in range. The Ultimate Craft is the only way to the secret alien base. Only by adapting to alien technology can mankind survive.
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