AL:Walkthrough

This is a stage by stage walkthrough of UFO:Afterlight.

By its nature, it will rob you of the fun of lots of discovery, especially on research.

Start game

Events will happen at a rapid pace in the early game.

The first thing to do should be to send two to three single class scientists to the scientific bay and claim the three territories to the South. At the same time, do the same to engineering bay and build mines, you need Fuel, Metals, and Chemicals. Do these immediately and update mine building queue as new territories are claimed.

While they are working, research  Military Training,  Firearms, and  Medicine. Produce a few Buzzsaws, some Dynamites,  Suit Repair Sets, MedKits, and  First Aid Sets, followed by Rifles and ammos.

Also start training scientists and technicians, one to two each. Train Willhelm Schrooten in  Minor Driving, then assign him to the returned probe team so that he can drives.

Wield the Buzzsaws to ⚔ First Aqueduct and probably second aqueduct. By the time the North Pole is attacked, you have better upgraded to ranged weapons.

When the Reticulans propose alliance, you have a few options.

The first is ignore the proposal and conquer their resource-rich territories, including their main base. Cons: high tactical pressure. Pros: more experience.

The second is accept the proposal, and expand to other directions instead. Many players have no love for them (they DID destroy Earth), and send Tabby to die in First Aqueduct mission, for the twins to join early, before betraying them when the Expedition arrives (or earlier).

The third is conquer the richest and less hostile lands before accepting the proposal, either temporary or for good. This allows a easier early game because you have more resources, can train newbies (except the twins) with the weak reticulans, and benefit from the alliance.

Whether you want to do the infamous ⚔ First Hyperspace Gate mission opened up by Back to Excavation Site is up to you. If this is your first game, please try it. Otherwise, skip it. The extra experience gained from a dynamite run will become irrelevant very soon.

Early game

After the first Hypergate mission, the beastmen is out, and number of enemies begin to increase.

With the superior range of Reticulan Laser Rifle you can overwhelm Beastmen and  Robots at long range. When you see a Beastman capture mission, make it a priority. Remember to bring at least two dynamites for destroy object missions.

If you are fighting the Reticulans, you need a good scout with as high Scouting as possible, and rush with burst/snapshot firearms.

If or when you have allied with them, make sure to produce spare rifle and ammo to exchange equipments. Make frequent requests or offers, and if you can get enough rockets you can use them to fight the tougher beastmen and saves some research time. Do not give resources. But do consider exchanging rifles for battle armors.

After researching  Communication with Earth, build  Satellite and research  Light Battle Armor for level 4 environment and for better protection. Soon after Satellite you can choice to get a new technology from Earth. Eventually you will get it, but getting it early will make life on Mars easier. If you do, research the tech and then  Fossil Fuel Origin for a bigger power plant which allows a second Lab.

Hyperspace Gate and  Heavy Duty Suit are second top priority. Heavy Suit is important for high environment hostility missions caused by high altitude and high solar activity.

Train up a team of (6+) soldiers in  Major Suit Wearing and  Minor Stability .

Train all soldier/scientists in  Minor Medicine , and all soldier/technician in  Minor Suit Handling and  Minor Surveyor . After the training, bring at least one of each into any tactical mission, preferably two of each in case one is down.

Do not negate new buildings and trainings for scientists and technicians, either. Train a full team of Planetology, Earth Technology, and Weapon Smith. Assign additional trainings as you see fit.

Now is also a good time to start  Terraformation.

With Heavy Suit (and trainings), Earth Technology, and with two labs, the pressure now shifts away from research to resource and tactical missions.

Early Middle game

Contact with Laputians and acquisition of  Advanced Earth Technologies signals the beginning of early middle game.

Unlike Earth Technologies, Advanced Earth Technologies is not a priority. After Earth Technologies, there are simply too many other researches.

For starter,  Reticulan Technologies is a very important technology. It enables research of new resources, faster vehicles, and base expansion. Together with  Combat Explosives, it (eventually) leads to Rocket Station , which helps a lot.  Laser Weapons, necessary in late middle game, is just a nice bonus for now.

For resources,  Water Tank Construction and  Warehouse allows you to stay sufficient without over extending territory.

For tactical,  Advanced Optics gives you nightvision goggles and scopes, while  Advanced Firearms gives new weapons and also new weapon trainings.  Beastman Autopsy enables Minor and  Major Beastmen Anatomy.

If you want to play with Drones, research  Automatic Defense System. But please skip the basic Turret; dies too easily. You need at least Battle Turret.

Excavation missions can be used to train the less experienced soldiers.

Again, do not forget trainings. Match research / production to characters' trainings as much as possible to increase efficiency.

Late Middle Game

The arrival of two new factions mark the start of late middle game, the longest part of the game.

You need to decide whether to ally with the Expedition or with the Rebels, and you must finish off one of them to get  Advanced Reticulan Technologies, required to win the game. If you prefer to fight the good guys, meet the Expedition with robots plus a solo, experienced reticulan soldier.

If you haven't stated yet, please start  Terraformation now. Otherwise, Mars should already be changing colour, so that researching  Beastman Plastics and  Medium Armor will actually be useful. To sustain advanced research and production, and to suppress the Beastmen, you need to expand and destroy as much gates as feasible.

 Armored Turret are also useful in clearing mines. Much faster and less risk of injury.

If you have trouble dealing with the Martians, try the Buzzsaws produced when the game just started. For new beastman units, try leg sniping and sustained grenades (with or without launcher); when they are down, the others can charge.

Research priority should be  Lifesupport for some very hostile environments, weapons (mentioned above), Advanced Reticulan Technologies,  Advanced Mining (requires certain terraformation level), and Beastmen and Martian technologies.

Trainings should have slowed down by now, but do not totally forget it.

Late game

The critical research that open up Late game stage is elements of martian language, as it open up Magnetron building plus some very critical research to forward story. And the required research for EML is Martian archives. You definitely need to wipe out one Reticulan HQ site (the territory with building icon) to gain access to one research.

With increased resources from advanced mines and the high grade equipments that they enables, it is you against the top Beastmen.

With proper technology, you can communicate with and choice to be friend the Martians, which would allow you to rescue some hostages which will be your new recruits, but it won't matter much.

Once you have Gatlings, Warp Cannons, Light Swords,  Power Shields,  Ultracofeine, and many other ultimate equipments, you should have the upper hand in most battles. Given good tactic.

For the last stage of terraformation, you need to research certain technologies from all three aliens and combine them. For Reticulans you need Advanced Reticulan Technology from raiding a main base, either the yellow Rebels or the purple Expedition. For Martians you start with artifacts from excavation sites, and keep researching. For beastman you just need Shaman interrogation.

Don't worry; after  Accelerated Terraformation there are still some plot twists waiting for you.

Good luck, and have fun.