Getting Started
Contents
Differences between the difficulty levels explained
There are 3 fundamental differences between each difficulty level:
1) Conditions on starting a new game (starting resources, recruits and equipment)
2) Acquisition of recruits and rate at which they improve (initial stats and equipment, Skill Points awarded per mission)
3) Enemy capabilities and behavior (strength on tactical missions, speed at which Pandorans evolve and frequency of Pandoran attacks on the Geoscape, which also sets the speed of the Doomsday Clock)
In broad terms you should be aware that
- Experienced TBS players that play Phoenix Point for the first time usually find that Veteran provides an adequate challenge. If you play Firaxis Xcoms on the third difficulty level (Classic/Commander) you should probably start Phoenix Point on Veteran, and if you find it too hard try on Rookie. Phoenix Point is a complex game, with many game systems. It can take you some time to master them.
- The difficulty curve in Phoenix Point is such that the game is easy at the beginning and progressively gets harder (though some optimal decision making and grinding can allow you to reverse this curve towards midgame making the late game very easy); if you are finding the first missions too hard, you should probably restart at an easier difficulty level.
- The hardest difficulty setting (Legend) assumes that the players are not only familiar with the game mechanics, but also have some meta knowledge of the game that will allow them to take some optimal decisions or that they will know how to live with the consequences of not doing so.
- Players who are already familiar with the game but prefer less pressure from the Doomsday Clock or want to take their time finishing the game often choose the third difficulty setting (Hero).
Conditions on starting a new game
Starting resources
Rookie:
200 
800 
400
Veteran:
150 600 300
Hero:
100 500 200
Legend:
80 400 200
Starting recruits
Rookie:
Veteran:
Hero:
Legend:
Starting equipment
Rookie:
Medkits 10 
Odin Grenades 10
Veteran:
Medkits 6 Odin Grenades 6
Hero:
Medkits 5 Odin Grenades 5
Legend:
Medkits 2 Odin Grenades 2
Acquisition of recruits and rate at which they improve
Initial stats
Rookie:
20 Strength 9 Willpower 14 Speed
Veteran:
18 Strength 8 Willpower 14 Speed
Hero:
16 Strength 7 Willpower 14 Speed
Legend:
14 Strength 6 Willpower 14 Speed
Equipment (when recruited at a Haven)
Rookie:
Weapons and armor, acquired at 25% discount (?)
Veteran:
Weapons and armor, acquired at full price (?)
Hero:
Only armor, acquired at full price (?)
Legend:
No weapons, no armor
Skill Points awarded per mission
Rookie: 12
Veteran: 10
Hero: 7
Legend: 5
Enemy capabilities and behavior
- The Speed of Pandoran evolution is lowest on Rookie and highest on Legend.
- There are more enemies and they are stronger on higher difficulty levels. This is true for both enemies deployed at the start of the mission and for the enemy reinforcements.
- There are more advanced enemy types on special missions on Legend, particularly in the first introductory missions given by each faction.
- Pandorans attack Havens more frequently on higher difficulty levels
Baby steps on the Geoscape
When you start a new game (provided you do so without the Tutorial; if not, it will be after you complete it), you will see your Base Phoenix Point and a couple of nearby Points of Interest (POIs) marked with 
signs. You can travel to these POIs with your Aircraft (the Manticore 1) to explore them, which can result in any of the following:
- a Faction Haven (
Anu, 
New Jericho or 
Synedrion), and, when you meet a Faction for the first time, it will give you its starting quest, which you can choose to do later (see Diplomacy for tips on how to handle Factions, or Diplomacy missions for complete information on missions, rewards, etc.), or 
an independent haven that gives a side quest (see Independent Haven missions).
- a short text adventure that yields resources, diplomacy rating changes, damage to the craft/soldiers, new recruits, nothing at all, etc. You can also get text adventures or mini-quests at Havens when you visit them for the first time.
- a scavenging mission to obtain Resources (marked with this sign 
or with this one 
, for higher yield and higher difficulty "overgrown" sites that will appear later in the game), Recruits or land Vehicles (
) (you can choose to do it later)
- an ambush; you can't choose to do it later, nor prepare your troops adjusting their equipment, spending excess skill points, etc. The ambush missions work as a deterrent, to prevent exploring the map using a craft with, for example, only one untrained and unarmed soldier.
If the POI turns out to be a Haven, it will reveal any POIs with its operating range. Your Base also has a Satellite Uplink that will automatically scan the surroundings in search of POIs. The scanned area is that green, expanding circle.
At first Faction Havens appear on the Geoscape only showing the Faction shield, but once you research Haven trade protocols and Haven recruitment protocols you will see something like this:
The icon means that the Haven produces and trades this resource and the 
that there is an Assault soldier available for rectruitment at the Haven. To trade resources or recruit soldiers you need to travel to the Haven with an aircraft (can be empty)
You can’t travel anywhere you want on the globe - you can only travel to a POI that is within the Range of your Aircraft. This means that you fly around the planet in baby steps, or following a chain of POIs. Eventually (sometimes quite soon) you will want to get to far away POIs to do Special Missions (marked with this sign 
for both main and optional missions, and with different hues for the Diplomacy missions) that you are given over the course of the game and which you need to complete to advance in your path to victory, or to get something nice.
You want to discover as many POIs as fast as possible to increase the reach of your aircrafts. Explore new POIs and do scavenging missions whenever you can to gain resources, recruits or vehicles and combat experience for your operatives.
So, send your Manticore 1 out to explore, but first click on the flashing Research tab and start researching, and then on the Personnel tab to equip your operatives: have all your operatives carry a medkit, extra ammo and a grenade (you can also equip your troops in mid-flight, or right before starting a mission, except in the case of Ambushes and Base Defenses).
First blood
Chances are, your first mission will be either the introductory mission of a Faction (which will offer it to you the first time you discover one of their Havens) or a scavenging op (this one for sure if you are playing the Tutorial). If you are playing on Legend, you will want to avoid doing the first Synedrion and New Jericho missions because they are too hard for your initial team of rookies.
You might also want to postpone them (especially the NJ mission) if you are playing on a lower difficulty level. The Anu mission is easy enough (it does have a fireworm shooting Chiron, but if you are skilled enough to be playing on Legend you should have no trouble dealing with it) and so are the scavenging ops.
Tactical combat is covered in detail here, but for now it's largely unnecessary: the first Pandorans you will face are melee only with little to no armor. They are easy to take care of, provided you don't let them get close where they can do quite a bit of mischief. You want to either take care of them on your turn before they reach you, or use short range Overwatch to dispatch them as they approach you.
After every tactical mission your squad receives Experience Points (XPs) that are divided among the team members based on their individual performance during the op and each of them also receives a fixed number of Skill Points (SPs), depending on the difficulty level (12 on Rookie, 10 on Veteran, 7 on Hero and 5 on Legendary).
XPs (required for leveling up to gain access to new skills) and SPs (used to improve attributes and acquire new skills) are covered in detail in the Character Progression section, but for now the big takeaway is that the total amount of XPs depends on the type of mission and performance of the squad as a whole, while their distribution among the team members depends on individual performance (mostly enemies killed, but also damage dealt, HPs healed and some other factors), which means that you don’t get more XPs for slaying more enemies.
After each mission your operatives will heal any disabled body parts, but will not recover lost HPs. However, these can be permanently healed by using a Medkit, which means that it's not really necessary to go to base to heal there.
Each operative starts with 40 Stamina, and loses 2 pts per turn up to a maximum of 10 on a tactical mission. Once Stamina decreases to 10, the operative is tired and has only 3 AP instead of 4 to spend each turn. If Stamina goes to 0, he is exhausted and has only 2 APs. You recover Stamina at a base with a Living Quarters at a rate of 2 per hour per facility. In brief: you don't want to do any missions with operatives who have 10 Stamina or less. You will get a warning before deployment informing you that some of the operatives are tired and exhausted, but if you want to save yourself the trip to the mission, check the Stamina of your operatives in the Personnel tab every once in a while.
Combat basics
Aiming and projected damage
Maps are small. You will often start with some of the enemies already detected and within LOS (you can see here how Detection works). Target them with different weapons (you will have ARES assault rifles, a pistol, a sniper rifle and a heavy cannon). Play around with the aiming reticle. Convince yourself that zooming doesn’t alter the size of the reticle. Look at what happens to the health bar of the targeted enemy as you move the aiming reticle around it. You will see that part of the red bar will be filling with white > wedges. The part of the red bar where wedges appear and the size of the > wedges will change as you move the aiming reticle. The white represents the chances that the shot will do a certain amount of damage. (For detailed explanation on how aiming works, see Accuracy).
The more white you see, the higher the probability that the shot will deplete the health bar up to the point where white wedges start appearing. A flashing red skull & crossbones next to the HP bar indicates that the shot is certain to kill the target. You will see a similar HP bar next to a targeted body part and a card detailing what will happen if the body part is disabled. (For detailed explanation on how damage works, see Damage).
(Phoenix Point runs a Monte Carlo simulation on the current shot and the projected damage is an average of the results)
So, the first thing you should notice is that most weapons are out of range of the enemies that you can see at the start of the mission: if the inside circle of the aiming reticle is not covering fully the target, you have less than 50% chance of hitting it, and the empty spaces that the target might have count (for example, Arthrons are thin, and even when you have them completely covered by the aiming reticle there is a high chance that the shot will miss). Usually, you don’t want to take that shot.
Another thing you should notice is that targets are constantly changing their position, so their exposure changes. This is because all the characters are performing the ‘idle’ animations all the time and hitting the freeaim button or shooting using snapshot mode at the right moment can enable you to take a better shot.
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Moving and shooting
Your operatives can do actions in any order as long as they have Action Points (APs) remaining, and they can spend part of an AP on moving, then take another action (like shooting) and then spend the remainder of that first AP on further movement. So you can do things like move forward to approach an enemy, shoot, and then run back, or move into cover to break Line of Sight (LOS) with the enemy.
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Know your enemy
If you hover the pointer over an enemy you will see its basic stats, like Health Points (HPs), Willpoints (WPs) (for more info on what are these, see Willpoints (WPs) in the Tactical Combat section; for now think of them as both morale and mana for using special abilities) and Movement (in tiles).
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You can left click on an enemy and then left click on info, and see everything there is to know about it, as if it was one of your own troops. By hovering over its weapons you can see how damage they can do (for more information on how to read this data, see About Weapons)
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Overwatch
You can use excess APs to set up Overwatch to shoot at enemies during their turn. For detailed explanation and tips on how to set up effective Overwatch, see here, but the basics are:
- Overwatch will be triggered by any enemy that steps into the Overwatch cone that you set up (if it is within the Perception range of your operative after taking into account the stealth modifiers, but you don't have to worry about this for now)
- When setting up Overwatch you can press shift and use the middle mouse button to adjust the height and base of the cone to choose exactly the area you want to be covered
- Avoid painting the Overwatch cone over cover and obstacles; it is very likely that the enemy might be behind it when the Overwatch triggers and you will throw away your shot
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Cover
The nuances of cover in Phoenix Point are dealt with in detail here, but for now just don't overestimate it, especially if you are coming from cover-centric games like Firaxis XComs. In Phoenix Point cover only protects you if it's actually in the way of a projectile. There are no penalties (like critical hits) for being outside of cover and no bonuses to defense for staying in cover. Your best defense is to neutralise the enemy before it can attack you, and your second best defense is to keep out of its LOS and a long way away.
Things to be aware of when doing scavenging missions
- On missions where one of the objectives is to evac (notably Scavenging missions and Ambushes) any items left on the ground will be lost: if you want to take something with you, one of your operatives must pick it up and evac with it.
- Approaching blue crates (which you will find in the Resource Scavenging missions) opens them and grants 5 WPs to the operative (for more info on what are these, you can check the Tactical Combat section; for now think of them as both morale and mana for using special abilities - at first you will only spend them when using your Heavy's Jet Jump). However, if you use some skill or ability (like Jet Jump or Dash) to approach the crate it won’t open and you will not receive the WPs. Note also that to transfer items from the crate to the inventory of the soldier you need to spend 1 AP, but the game allows you to move items from the crate to the inventory even when you don’t have any APs left. You will close the inventory screen thinking that you have transferred the items from the crate to your operative when you didn’t, so make sure that you have at least 1AP left when you are moving items from a crate to the inventory of an operative.
- On Rescue Scavenging missions you have to approach neutral soldiers to gain control of them and then evac them with your operatives. There are different setups for these missions, but most of them are designed so that unless you are very aggressive and run as fast as possible to the rescue, most of the neutrals will get killed before you reach them.
- Enemy reinforcements will continue to arrive until your Evac. They will be small in number and perfectly manageable, provided you brought enough ammo.
- There are Mist Sentinels (pillars of living matter) that will auto-spawn Pandoran Mist every turn. Mist is bad for you, good for Pandorans: any PX operative starting the turn inside it will lose 2 WPs and Pandorans gain 1 WP and are more difficult to spot; more on all that in the Tactical Combat section - for now just don't go inside and be careful around it because there might enemies lurking about. If for some reason you absolutely must get rid of the mist (for example, if there is an enemy inside and you can't spot it), you can use grenades to clear it up (any weapon that deals blast damage will do, including all kinds of grenades, missiles and spider drones)
Understanding the goals of the Phoenix Project (PX) and the Doomsday Clock (aka Human Population Census, or HPC)
The aim of the game is to defeat the Pandoravirus and save Humanity before the human population drops below a certain level. One of the first technologies that you will research is the Human Population Census (HPC). At that point a white bar will appear in the top right hand corner of the screen in the Geoscape view and a percentage, which will start at around 99% and immediately start to decrease. If it goes below 20% you lose.
Here is the first confusing part: what makes the HPC decline and is there a way of slowing it, or stopping it altogether?
In fact, what actually makes the HPC drop like a ship from Heaven in the first weeks is not the Pandoravirus, but... overpopulation. Many Havens (see Diplomacy) start with populations that they cannot support with their existing food supplies. There is nothing you can do about that.
The other major source of population loss is the destruction of Havens, mostly by the Pandorans. You can do something about that, as you can intervene in any attack on a Haven on the side of the defenders and stop it (how exactly we will see when we look at Havens).
However, your goal is not to protect the Havens indefinitely. You can't stop the Doomsday Clock; you have to beat the game before it runs out.
It's important to keep this in mind, because though you will want to defend Havens to get rewards and to discover Pandoran bases, you should be prepared to let entire areas of the world go if defending them is not worth the time and resources.
To win you want:
- Resources to build items, activate bases and construct facilities
- Many experienced operatives on several aircrafts to complete as many tactical missions as possible
- Research to improve your tactical and strategic capabilities and to ultimately uncover the mysteries of the Pandoravirus and how to defeat it
