its something always happens to me in those strategy games: There's a point where the enemy will have ALWAYS better equipment than mine, whatever I do, whenever I go. And that's the point I'm right now:

Currently the best armor I got its the -human- heavy armor. I can manufacture sol armor but its not enough against the last weapons the reticulans are using (Some kind of fast shooting yellow laser weapon and the all-powerful rocket launcher). I have enough human plasma rifles and ammo, some rocket launchers (never got the chance of use them in combat) and alien plasma guns.

In the "strategic" view I have stopped the biomass with the repulsors, got the russian secret base mission available (But I can't beat it, the greys just chew my guys). I have a decent win/lose aerial combat ratio, but I just can't go to the UFO crash sites.
I can't research anything really useful (Just transgent autopsies) and can't manufacture something useful too.
Plus, I'm avoiding make psi-stuff, as I see those items uselss (Why should I just "stop" an alien? I just want to blow it up).

So, any ideas on how to continue?

You are making a classic newbie mistake seen in most any Strategy/RTS mix: Assuming that the heaviest armor is "better." than standard armor.

Whenever you get a new toy, the first thing you should do is check the glossary and see what it does. For example:

Heavy Armor

75% soft
60% universal
45% Hard
55% burn
25% Laser
20% plasma
25% warp
10% Exception
20% heal
0% Paralyze

Enhanced Combat Armor

65% Soft
40% Universal
20% Hard
40% Burn
30% Laser
25% Plasma
40% Warp
5% Exception
0% Heal
10% Paralyze

Hybrid Sun Armor

60% Soft
45% Universal
30% Hard
20% Burn
20% Laser
30% Plasma
45% Warp
25% Exception
0% Heal
20% Paralyze

Hybrid Sky Armor

30% Soft
20% Universal
10% Hard
40% Burn
65% Laser
60% Plasma
35% Warp
35% Exception
0% Heal
30% Paralyze

Notice how the Enhanced Combat armor provides more plasma and laser protection than the much harder to acquire heavy armor? It also weighs less and lets you wear a helmet at the cost of not being able to use heavy weapons with that character. The second tier alien armors weigh even less, and they give comparable defenses as well (though they are slow to manufacture.) Even enhanced light armor has a decent niche, as it gives a lot of mobility for the defenses it gives you.

Personally, I generally run the following loadouts.

Scouts
Uses 1-handed pistols and grenades.
-Light Armor > Enhanced Light Armor > Hybrid Armors

Infantry
Uses rifles and launchers. Shotguns indoors.
-Light Armor > Combat Armor > Enhanced Combat Armor(Throwers)/Enhanced Light Armor (Launchers) > Hybrid Armors

Snipers
Use sniper rifles
-Light armor > Combat Armor > Enhanced Combat Armor> Hybrid Armors

Heavy Weapons
Use Launchers and Collapsible guns
-Light Armor > Enhanced Light Armor > Heavy Armor > Enhanced Heavy Armor


Oh yeah, and that mission sucks hardcore. The game ramps up in difficulty pretty significantly at the Russian base mission. If you don't have any collapsible guns yet, I strongly recommend researching the principles behind the micro-slug accelerator and manufacturing a collapsible rail-gun or two for the more open missions.

Edit: Psi guns have their niche. Stingers are really nice backups for your psi-strong Launcher-Users and Snipers, and the Psi-Projector is a game-breaker. Probably not as much of a gamebreaker as psi is in the X-com series, but still bloody powerful if you use it right.

I did check out the specs, but didn't realized about what kind of damage the aliens did. I mean: I didn't went for the "heaviest armor" assuming "best protection", but for it due "most balanced protection" asuming "I don't know what Im going to find on the ground once my guys are there".
Also, take into account that at the moment of the post, my biggest problem was alien rocket launchers: One well placed rocket and bye bye squad. At least heavy armors can protect my guys from the first shot so they can return fire.

Gotta give the Enhanced Armor another chance against greys.

Anyway, after creating the thread I started to test different configurations for my guys, and it seems a 5-heavy armor gunners 2 sol-armor scouts/medics are keeping up to the task.
First, I didn't knew how to operate collapsible weaponry (Yeah :$), after introducing it to my squad I have almost forgot about "standard weapons". I can go running around and dodge missiles, but I have to return fire, and standard guns doesn't seem to be any helpful against those green/blue alien armor. Heavy weaponry, on the other side, are proving really useful and fun to use in both outside and inside environments.
(Yeah, its fun having a pile of alien corpses in a corner near my machine gun xD).
Also: A sniper gun is worth the trouble? Maybe a Barret can take out greys easily? Used one on the game start to find out it did few damage to the enemy. I was expecting some kind of "one shot, one kill" weapon and... :S

Problem is my scouts, in cqb have to keep their heads down due lack of shooting power. Maybe I'll try with plasma shotguns. (Grenades are really worth the trouble? I haven't use any in the whole game xD)

The problem with the research your are suggesting its that... well, I can't research it. The last thing I made was alien missile launchers (Hey, why I can't manufacture standard human ammo/weapons? ._. ), I'm researching warp weapons (Which seems to be bloody powerful) but I can't access to new armory. And I DO really want to research the new alien stuff.
Also, I'm trying some of the psi weapons with my scouts as a complement-gun (So my scouts can get away from ambushes, or can make the enemy stand idle in the heavy weapons range, whatever), because that "I shoot you, now you are the enemy" weapon its just despicable. Thus, I want it on my side.
Will look for psi-projectors, then :D


And the last question: There's any problem on waiting to take the russian base mission? I just want to be really ready for it, but I don't want to screw the whole game if I wait too much :S

Thanks for the advices!

Against rocket launchers, mobility is also a type of protection, I will not argue that rocket launchers suck hardcore when the aliens start using them. Eventually they will get phased out in favor of the weaker warp weapons and the potent psi projectors(though never entirely).

Heavy armor is probably the worst armor against alien rocket launchers, thanks to the Laser and Incendiary type ammunition that the aliens love to load. At least with normal combat armor you can attempt to get a unit away from the blast with enough warning. Also useful against launchers are smoke grenades. Throw a few down when you first deploy in the alien mission, then have a few scouts with good speed pick out the aliens while your screened launchers shoot the GROUND near the aliens. It's not perfect, but it works wonders.

The blue armor is weak to soft and hard ammunition, which you have in spades in conventional stuff. The green armor resists EVERYTHING, and if you see one of them you need to focus that alien down quick or else he may ruin your day. I'm glad to see that you've managed to come to the light about collapsible stuff though. I find snipers remain useful throughout the game, the Barret is a bit heavy for my tastes, but the Accuracy International L115AE has excellent range, is lightweight enough to carry more than a pistol as a side-arm. Don't expect your snipers to down anything in one shot, take advantage of the fact that the enemy can't fire back and whittle them down slowly.

If you are researching warp weapons, then you should be able to start manufacturing hybrid gear. The game is kind of funny in that regard: you need to manufacture at least one of a lower-tier item before you can manufacture something later in the tech tree. For Enhanced Combat Armor/Helmets you need to have a Enhanced Light Armor/Helmet created first. For sky and sun armor you need to make a basic alien suit first (and you need to make either a sky or sun suit to make your own bio-armor.). I strongly suggest you look through your development list and pick our a few things you haven't built yet.

As for scouts and grenades: Yes, grenades are well worth it. Each one is basically a short-range handheld launcher that can fire over cover. I've found that acid grenades will eat up any type of grey in seconds, incendary grenades can block off a doorway for half a minute each, explosive grenades are wonderful in urban fights against trangeants, and smoke is handy if you need cover (it lasts a lot longer than the animation.) For that reason I normally kit my scouts out with a single-handed pistol, a medkit, and as many grenades as they can carry. With their lighter armor they are still vulnerable to direct fire, but their speed generally means a scout can get to cover before getting killed and path themselves up (or chuck a few grenades!) Generally I run my scouts in teams, either a x2 scouts (in open missions) or a scout and soldier/sniper. If the scout goes down, his teammate is able to back him up and recover him most of the time. Plus it makes psi projectors a more viable option for a scout (since using it makes you VERY vulnerable. Oh, I also have found that unless the grey you control has a target nearby, it's better to make them throw ALL of their weapons towards your squad. That way when you lose control of them they are harmless.)

Don't worry about the russian base mission, if you wait it will remain. However, I strongly suggest not sending your best units into that meatgrinder. Last time I did it I lost all but two of the units I sent in (on hard.)

Well, for now I can say I'm performing some serious alien ass-kicking.

Using heavy weapons on the russian base mission (5 heavy guys with turrets/miniguns, 2 scouts working as a bait, as in previous missiones) proved EXTREMELY useful (No casualties, few problems, all in normal skill). After that, everything has come easier:

- Enhanced heavy armors for my heavy weapons guys and the recently-researched bio armors for my scouts proved really useful to survive rockets (Specially those darned fire rockets).
- I've split the soldiers into two teams: The heavy weapons team (For missions involving aliens) and the scout team (For missions against transgents and biomass creatures).
The heavy weapons team uses to have two scouts (All with enhanced heavy armor, the scouts with the bio armor) and the scout team (obviously) is equiped with bio armor and the brand new enhanced plasma rifles (Although I'm still having doubts against its performance versus the alien enhanced laser rifles. The plasma guns seems to kill aliens pretty fast).
- Grenades proved REALLY useful in one "enter into the alien structure" mission where in the beginning the aliens ambushed me big time, incendiary rockets included. Now the standard scout loadout includes a full set of grenades, although I have only used them twice. Thanks for the tip!
- I'm fighting my way to the alien ship (Surrender the Earth? NO WAY) while reconquering what's left of the enemy territory. Right now there's only "crash site", "rescue pilot", "base under attack", "attack alien base" and the random "transgent attack" and "attack the biomass" missions. The game starts to get a bit repetitive, given it seems there's nothing else to do but completing the alien ship mission, researching it and travel to the moon to kick the alien commander ass.
- Right now, I have two "major" problems: The alien "now I control your men" gun, which I haven't got the chance of research yet (Maybe I have, but I don't know where it is) and I don't really like at all (Its a cheating weapon: Now you show your face in a corridor, now I control your mind, now you have to kill your own men -which means "now you load a save game) and those fire rockets. Missions against greys are a bit tricky due those two things but I'm managing to cause some serious trouble to the skinnies.

That is all for now. It's good to see the game allows you to slow down and take the "story" missions when you are really prepared after beating several "training" missions ^^

Looks like you're getting the hang of it. My mantra was: alien armors are good against alien weapons, human armors good against human weapons. I lost a couple of good soldiers in sky armor to cudgels with M16's before I figured that out, though. Only use sky armor against aliens, ever.

Aliens are hard to fight in close quarters combat, especially with the mind control gun. This is why I don't understand why some people insist that a tight group with massed fire is the best way to play this game - I think they're simply wrong. A good scout will be far enough away from other soldiers that he can be abandoned while mind-controlled, and recovered when it wears off.

The mind-control gun can shoot through walls, which is kind of cheap and wrong (but awesome when you give it to one of your own guys). Research it when you get the chance. Proper scouting will also give you a better chance against rockets (which simply murder the crap out of clustered soldiers on any difficulty setting). Definitely don't cluster your men in an alien base. Spread out. Snipers are good at range, but crap in close quarters - if you can take down a rocket alien before he's even in range, you're ahead.

I find the best weapons to use against aliens (other than heavy weapons, of course) are those that deal 'hard' damage, like M16's, Five-Seven Tacticals, and (if I recall correctly) MP-5's and rail guns. Grenades are amazing, when you remember to use them, and grenade launchers can be simply deadly to all foes.

Plasma is usually not good against aliens, and lasers are pretty much never good against aliens. Those are alien types of damage, and their armors are pretty doggone effective against those things. Of course, the enhanced plasma gun and plasma shotgun do enough damage that they may still be effective, but they are most effective against large transgenants.

Oh plz...

Here's what you need to do....

1: Keep ur guys alive..once they get all mentals into excellent and all the physicals in very good, they'll be unstopable..
(that is..with the right kind of weaponry..)..focus on 7 to become that good first..
(once they have strength, agility, dexterity and willpower in good, and inteligence and perception into very good, you can also train them in ALL professions..)
In order to get a good squad, kick the ones that score extremely high in one or more attribs..i.e. strength heroic..
Personally I kick anyone who can't make all professions by level 11..

2:Get all of them into Bio Armor, and have them use AI L115 sniper rifle..
You'll find those once you find enough bases..I have 3 more to spare now..(total squad count =12.)..

3:If something goes terribly wrong, load a save..and with that..save often..(at start of each ground mission..)

4: KICK A$$ AND WIN !!
5: STOMP SOME MORE !!
6: TRASH EM !!
7: EFF THE EFFERS !!
8: ROAST SOME !!
9: Umm...anyone know any good euphemisms for kicking their hinies ?
10: Don't finish the research on the moon mission, before you actually want to go there..
Once the research is done, you'll have to go..
also..don't finish the reticulan offer..
(set all research bases to engineering or military or anti bio-mass or something..)
then once you have everyone in gear, and kicking their a$$ has become tedious..then go to the moon..
It'll still be hard..but hey..with all of ur guys being super-heroes..and at least two warp medkits..not impossible by far..
(you don't have to worry about them ending up in the hospital afterwards..you'll win..game ends..no hospital..)

Hope this'll help a lot..I know it works for me..

I hope also..X-COM Ufo Defense (the very first) comes here SOON..
(Still the best one..when you like making ambushes for the guys inside their spaceships..)

FYI..My kill rate is one alien per 2 seconds..7 guys letting one round off with the AI L155, WILL kill anything in one salvo..
(They have high skills..excellent and heroics..and they're fast enough to dodge any missiles....)
At range..they can't be beat..

Also..when doing bases and crashes..keep the range to the max..and always get an ambush that has most of them able to fire on a single target..
enemy ship crashes..still a lil hard..since in some cases there's not a whole lot a ship to create range in..but still, when they fire 4+ strong on a single target, it goes down in a single salvo..)

In the city..SINGE..in the bush..SINGE...anywhere where there's range they ROCK..
Also..I do ships in groups of 4 just now..(heroics..)
Smaller group makes less targets for them and can still kill in one salvo..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzMrxnprYis&feature=youtu.be&t=51s
(And no..I didn't select that video for the boobs..only for the fact that it has no ads attached..) Yeah..they do that to me too...for exactly 2 secs (tops)..then the 'smart' alien has to consider plugging holes with tampons..and he releases my guy..MUAHAHAHAHAHAAA (6x AI L115 rounds..all in the center of the chest..oh yeah..he considers 'dropping out' real fast..)

Note:Don't let the avi fool you...I'm great at gaming..

A little late to the party... but finally revisited and completed aftermath (back in the 2000s my PC and graphics card were too sluggish) on windows 10 no less.

Many of the points above are valid, especially levelling the squad.

However once I had characters with strong psionic skill things got much easier. I essentially played it the same way I played X com back in the day :

I had 2 squad members (my snipers) who also carried dual psi projectors; they start as snipers on the base approach maps, and switch to psionic weapons just before entering the base.

once in the base, just wait for an alien to show up and take control (the psi projector fires very very quickly), if its carrying a psi projector then walk it up to the squad and drop that on the floor (so that the psi shock troops can use it later when they're low on ammo) then kill it point blank, or else walk it outwards to explore. If an enemy is encountered fairly quickly, use the second psi soldier to possess the second alien, drop the first's weapon and use it as a scout. (it will walk back to where it dropped its weapon once control wears off, making it easy to kill with the second controlled alien / repossess with your psi troops)

You can now pretty much explore and complete the whole level using reticulans. If no enemies are anywhere nearby, I sometimes turn their guns on themselves and kill them. Unfortunately I only just read online that you can terminate mind control by pressing CTRL-C (if on patch 1.3 and above) which would have made life much easier. Just in case things go wrong, I also have a soldier with a collapsible machine gun in heavy armour guarding the troops (I set him up as the very first move) in case a reticulan comes around the corner with a launcher. All the other troops wear bio armour.

One of my soldiers has super-heroic speed (maxxed) who I occasionally use as a scout to run around. This tactic worked flawlessly for every alien base without any casualties.

For the russian base (Kasputin Yar) a small modification on the technique worked, for the first "base approach" level. I had my runner charge forwards then left to the edge of the screen, triggering a bunch of reticulans to fire rockets at him; the psi shock troops started out with the projectors in hand this time and took over the reticulans at the gate, then thereafter the reticulans inside the grounds once the controlled gate ones died (or were machine gunnned down by my heavy trooper); this resulted in utter chaos with rockets flying inside the base; one of the computer controlled reticulans even destroyed an exterior wall towards the end (? by accident?) giving my soldiers a convenient shortcut to the green gathering point.
The base level of Kasputin Yar did not present any significant difficulty.

For the moon mission I initially kitted all the troops up with the Falcon sniper rifles (75 range, 250 damage) and marched them into the base using the same psi-control tactic (didn't have to use any of my own ammunition save a few rounds from the collapsible machine gun) then wiped out the reticulans on the grounds; lined all my guys up facing the final door and had my runner charge in. open the door, and charge back out; mind controlled the 3 reticulans inside the room with the octopi things and got them killed off early after doing some minor damage to the octopi, then as the octopi came charging out let fly with the sniper rifles (the psi troopers dropped their psi projectors on the ground and switched to sniper rifles too) and the collapsible machine gun. This nearly didn't work, the octopi seemed damn near invulnerable and made it to within a square of my troops; fortunately 2 of them had some kind of AI bug and didn't leave the room (they were ? patrolling the inside back and forth) or they would certainly have broken through. However I noticed when I sent in my speed runner (with enhanced plasma rifle since he had run out of sniper ammo) he despatched them fairly easily.

So I replayed it with everyone holding an enhanced plasma rifle insead (save the heavy trooper with the collapsible machine gun) and this time round it was a massacre. The octopi all died the second they made it 1 or 2 steps out the door. Interestingly this time there were only 2 reticulans inside, and their weapons were different (the first time one had an incediary launcher, 1 had a psionic projector and the last had a microslug accelerator. The second time one had the microslug accelerator but the other had a plasma pistol thing.)

Hopefully someone else benefits from this!

Hey here am i 20 years later ..

i'm now at the step where i can have "biomass repulsive base"
All these tips are very usefull
I am suprised no one talk about one mechanic, which when used can make things lot easier
i mean Discretion , there is the perk, but mainly when you are runing you can be detected from afar; in the other hand while you are walking some times you can get just behind the target before he sees you.

For Exemple the russian base, my 1st time i have every soldier runing. i was attacked at the begining bye 2 rocket launcher, one grenade launcher, and some plasma guners; at least 5 reticulan began to shoot at me before i can do anything.
The same map from the very begining, just put every one in walking stance. it was not the same i saw some of the reticulans before they begin to shot at me. ( once you are detected you can run ... ), so i can deal with each of them almost one by one.
The big deal is when they are attacking your base ( they are about 3 to 6 of them together, (so mostly impossible to deal one by one, the others will see you). What i find very effective is smoke grenades. ( may be risky, but i never saw any reticulan fire a rocket on a place, they always target some one ). Smoke grenade= they can't see you, then fire grenade, rocket , even flamethrower.
Disclaimer: All that may work maybe because of the difficulty of my game ( I do not remember having choosed any difficuty when i began a game ).