Just started to play Aftershock and found it to be very hard. I have finished Aftermath but this feels way harder and more unforgiving.

One of the things I have problems with are the tactical missions. It seems that my soldiers reaction time and the ability to fire of are somewhat inconsistent. The Aliens and Mutants just walk up to them and kill them despite me ordering all my soldiers to fire.

Enemies also seem to "pop up" in places I just looked, very close making my soldiers not able to act.

Would be great if any Aftershock veterans could help me out with some pro tips.

Thanks in advance!

It's been a little while since I played so I don't know how helpful this is, but I'll try.

The thing about Aftershock is that, like Aftermath, it has a pretty weird difficulty curve that goes up and down, particularly at the beginning before you can properly outfit everyone. When you're starting out, you pretty much have to keep your units together so they can all focus-fire on everything one at a time. Also, be sure to make note of the two crosshair buttons on the bottom-right of the screen during combat: these switch your soldiers between aimed and snap shots, and when the monsters get close you'll want them to be shooting as quickly as possible.

I'll reinstall sometime tomorrow so I can get back into the swing of things and give some better advice.

That would be great! Thanks for the help!

I would agree with Thompsons that the type of attacks you're telling your soldiers to carry out might be delaying them. Aimed shots can take significantly longer. You can tell by the little progress bar associated with the soldier while they are performing the action.

Also, this is a silly question but just to be sure: they have their weapon ready in their hands, yes? If they have to dig into their belt or backpack for it, that'll add to the reaction time.

And yes, enemies can and will often seemingly appear from nowhere. This will happen less as your soldiers get better, and it also usually doesn't happen as much with the larger, armed creatures. But early in the game you're going against the "wild beast" kind of creatures, and they can be harder to notice, especially the small flat gray ones that hug the ground (look kind of like manta rays...I forget their name).

The trick is to keep your soldiers together, make sure you're having them watch in all the important directions, and also, try having them move slower. Soldiers that are running will often miss things that they would have noticed if walking or otherwise moving slower. As your men get better, you'll be able to rush a bit more safely.

Flatsters are the little manta ray things and yeah, they usually tend to sneak up on you. They're actually kinda dangerous and whenever you see one, open up on it with any laser weapons you have (projectiles don't do as well against them).

In terms of priority targets, morelmen should be priority one since they're usually armed and can spit acid at you, which does really bad damage over time. Then go for flatsters, since they can shock your guys pretty badly, and then pretty much just go along from there.

Another note: only build roads on the world map that connect your main base to other bases. Roads cost a bit to maintain, and it's pointless to have them running through every territory to collect materials when connecting them to a base allows it to gather every resource within its boundaries.

Thanks for all the help, you are making my gaming a whole lot easier...and more enjoyable.

If you need any more aid, have a look at this:
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/ufo_series/vital_information_for_new_players_of_aftershock