After playing the game for a while and building up your stores save the game. Now quit the game and go into your current save game directory and make a copy of the base.dat file. Now boot the game back up and sell everything you have (if you need money) or transfer stores (not ships or personel) to other bases. Now save the game again and quit. Next replace the base.dat file with a the copy of the original that you made earlier. Now when you go back to the game you'll have all the money from the sales plus all the equipment you sold. And, if you transferred anything those items will arrive shortly. Continue the above procedure as often as you like.
You will be able to use alien weapons even though you did not collect the technology from them. However you will have to research the alien weapons technology. Same for UFO construction. You will have access to researching all availlabe (or most) UFO ships and Alien life forms, including researching the cyclona bust, which will enable you to go to mars and destroy the alien base. Only an avenger can fly to mars and equip your players with fusion ball launchers and the most destructive weapons availlable for mars.
In order for the Cheat to work you must FIRST construct all 3 bases on earth. Try to spread them out wisely!
Once you have done this. Make a backup of the file liglob.dat, and then, use a hex-editor. Load the hex-editor into workbench and load the file liglob.dat into the hex-editor.
If you change all the values to "FF" (like below) the following will happen.
ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff
ffffffff etc...
078 to 0F8 (Full Weapon for Base 1)
0F9 to 135 (Full Weapon for Base 2)
136 to 172 (Full Weapon for Base 3)
248 to 257 (Get all Jets and game Solution ??)
2E0 to 2F3 (Collect all alien life forms ?)
314 to 317
The Value for money must be set to 3B9AC9F8 for 999,999,999 dollars
US.
The awesome thing about this hack is that you also get to research and build all the advances buildings such as psionic lab and fusion ball defences etc.. early in the game!!
Also, after changing all the weapon values, you only need to manifacture one of each item, and your inventory will indicate yu have 255 or 226 of these items! (Although some items may be in the research window, they might already be availlable.)
Best of all you get a lot of elyrium!
One draw back is that I was not able to find out the location for the UFO power source and UFO Navigation. Once you get these from a mission, I am not sure if these items will go to 256 (items) or you might have to re-edit the save game file to update/refresh your FF's.
Weapon storage buildings are not neccessary when using the cheat, although it might help to build 2 or 3 of them.
One problem is the fact that your bases will have 255 scientists and 255 technitians (or whatever, can't remember their title). So you will not be able to purchase soldiers in bases 2 and 3 until you build enough Living space for all the 255 scientsts and other dudes and the soldiers themselves. You can try selling Scientisis etc to make space.
A Formidable ship is the Avenger with Fusion ball launcher/Ammo!
NOTE: When editing, be sure to have the current sector and ending sector at the same location, and above all - backup your save game file!
First of all, check your soldiers and sack any that have a firing accuracy of less than about 60. Keep hiring and firing soldiers until you have 10 good marksmen. This may take some time but don't worry. The funding countries won't kick up a fuss as long as you shoot down the UFOs with your interceptors.
You don't have to go for every UFO with your Skyranger - the larger ones are the most worthwhile.
Buy three Avalanche launchers and missiles and equip your interceptors with Avalanches only. They are undoubtedly the most efficient. While you're at it, buy some Electro Flares and put them on your Skyranger. They come in handy for your graveyard shifts.
As for your soldiers, equip them with rifles and grenades, then hire 30 more scientists and 10 more engineers. Let your scientists research laser weapons technology to produce laser rifles for your soldiers.
If you still have some money left, start building your second base. The most efficient way is to build the bases roughly on the equator. If the first one is located in Florida, the second one should be built on the other side of the globe, in India or Africa. The next base could be in Japan, on the tiny Pacific islands or in Europe.
Now you should be ready for your first encounter with the aliens. If you've shot down a UFO, save the game. If it's dark, wait until daybreak before you send in your Skyranger. If you can't wait, don't forget those Electro Flares. Move your soldiers under your Skyranger first and let them check the area. Turn them around on the spot, until you've discovered the surroundings, then cautiously move them on, always leaving them some movement points for their automatic reactions.
After a successful fight you'll return with lots of useful stuff. Don't sell it all, let your scientists research it. Start with Alien Alloys (which leads to Personnel Armour) and then go for Heavy Plasma (which leads to Plasma Beam). If you've already researched Plasma Beam, equip your interceptors with these weapons as soon as possible.
Keep all elerium if possible, it will be important later in the game. Of course, if an alien attack on your base leaves you with 5000 units of elerium, you can sell 4000.
If you are too successful, the aliens will start attacking your bases. Sometimes they terrorise cities as well so just send out your Skyranger and get rid of them.
The aliens can only mind control your soldiers if at least one alien can see them. There are three types of alien that can do this: Sectoid Leaders, Sectoid Commanders and all Ethereals. Buy stun rods and try to catch one of them alive (having built an Alien Containment first, of course). Research the living alien. Now you can build a Psi Lab and develop your soldiers' psionic abilities. Some soldiers will get mind controlled more easily than others, so sack them. Recruit and sack soldiers and train them until you've got at least two or three with a psionic strength of 90 or more. Put your super brains on your Avenger or Skyranger and let them mind control the aliens.
Even if they don't succeed in the beginning, the practice will accelerate the development of their skills. Once their psionic abilities have reached 50 or more, they can even control Ethereals.
Try to catch living alien navigators, physicians and engineers to research them. Alien navigators or engineers can tell you something about alien crafts and their weapons or about new facilities for tracking UFOs.
Finally, you'll have to catch a few alien commanders. They'll tell you something about 'Cydonia'. Don't waste your time and money with weak interceptors. Research the Avenger, send it to Cydonia and kick some alien butt.
You can use the Blaster Launcher like a can opener. Make your own entrance and send your soldiers through. If you don't need anything from the craft, simply shoot it to pieces with four Blaster Launchers and send in two or three soldiers to clean up the rest.
In a base, try to find the control room as soon as possible. The first Blaster Bomb goes right through the tiny window at the side and opens a hole in the second wall. The second Blaster Bomb goes through this window to the elevator, then go up and left or right. Enjoy the explosions! Even if you don't like this form of fighting, it's worthwhile seeing it. You can find the elevator even in complete darkness. If you put the cursor on it, you'll see the elevator rays.
In the middle of the game, you should aim to have five to eight bases. In the first base you should have two Psi Labs, two Workshops, 20-30 soldiers (two Avengers with about 10 soldiers each and 10 left behind to protect the base), 50 scientists and 80-100 engineers.
Building an Avenger with only a few engineers takes a lot of time.
Above all, save the game as often as possible. If you lose a battle, or something goes drastically wrong, you can just reload and try again.