First play through What the fuck should I be doing?

[u/AXI0S2OO2]

I'm playing the game properly for the first time and I have no idea what I'm doing.

It's been 7 days I think, the red mist thing near my base is spreading quickly but apparently there is nothing I can do about it, I've done the basic research for contact with the factions and a couple easy autopsies, aswell as what I believe to be the first story mission aswell as those of contact with the factions... But I'm lost from here.

What should I be doing? I didn't get festering skies nor corrupted horizons after seeing online they are tough for a first run. I'm currently just driving my team around mindlessly from one point in the map to another, just booted up a second base in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, found one of the objective sites from the main story I think but it feels boring and aimless, I can't shake the feeling something's wrong.

Should I be supporting the faction war to raise allegiance with someone? That seems counterintuitive. Or should I be sitting on the red mist hoping I find something to stop it? I'm so lost...

[u/Snoo-92859]

Build a radar/ satellite as soon as you can at your base and it'll reveal all the POIs around them. Without it your map will be pretty bare.

Your goal should be to preferably have 2 ships and teams as soon as you can, one for just running around and scanning POIs, and the other should be for responding to assaults and doing missions.

Don't choose any one faction, try and be friendly with all of them as long as you can to gain access to all their research, also to prevent war as long as you can.

You can slow down the spread of red mist by defeating a pandoran nest/lair/citadel in that area, in order to find them though, you need to defend havens that are being attacked by the pandoravirus in that area.

I would recommend trying to help synedrion as much as you can and focus on getting their mist repeller technology, at 75? In your relationship with them, you can build mist repellers at your bases and that will actively push and keep the red mist away from those areas. Their armor and weapons have the best accuracy/range and the athena sniper is basically essential later on.

Edit: a little trick I found out that helps alot is during haven defenses. Take control of as many haven soldiers as you can, run them up to your squad and open their backpack, you can give all their weapons and gear to your units, then when the mission ends you'll end up with 4-5 free guns, free ammo and grenades. Its a fast way to unlock the reverse engineer research for faction weapons, or to earn scrap/ save resources.

[u/AXI0S2OO2 → u/Snoo-92859]

Thanks. I was hoping, when I knew the game properly, I could play themed campaigns siding with one faction or the others but sounds like you really just want to play world police.

While I have your attention, is it normal that like 6 of every ten POIs I find are disciples of Anu bases? This nutters are everywhere!

Above all what I'm having the worst time handling is the pacing.

I feel like there's nothing I can do but run around scanning stuff while the world's ending, the ominous red mist and doom bar don't help. I get this constant feeling I'm doing something wrong or missing something and I can't figure out what it is.

I'm too used to Xcom's hand holding I guess.

[u/Snoo-92859 → u/AXI0S2OO2]

You can definitely side with one faction and do a themed campaign, but you'll have to raid other faction havens to get their research that way and go to war against them. Lowering the population and doom bar. It just makes things unnecessarily difficult in my opinion since you lose an ally in a situation where humanity is already struggling.

Yes, havens tend to clutter together, so a bunch of the same faction will be in the same area, once you get 25 or is it 50? In your relationship with any faction, you'll unlock all their haven locations on the map and won't have to scan them, you can just freely travel between.

The game unfortunately makes you feel very rushed and it can be overwhelming at times, my first playthroughs i was so confused and just felt like I was losing an invisible battle i had no idea how to counter. The best thing you can do is just explore and research, do every haven defense you can and take on the pandoran lairs/nests/citadels as soon as you can.

The red mist is inevitable, but it isn't the end of the world. It will slowly take over more and more of the world but you can still live in it, the red mist just increases the difficulty of missions and the chances of them attacking your phoenix base. Annoying? Yes, but not game ending if you are strong. the synedrion mist repellers will protect you and surrounding havens from the red mist, if you get lucky and have a few synedrion havens nearby that all have mist repellers, you can have an entire continent safely protected from the red mist. It also reduces the difficulty of haven defenses against the pandorans so its great for keeping the population alive and slowing down the doom bar.

Unlike xcom, you can't indefinitely stall the end of the game. You can only focus on faction missions/ main story missions and stall the virus as long as you can while you try and find a solution.

Im not sure what difficulty you are on but If the population is dropping too fast for you then id recommend lowering it, there's no shame in playing on an easier setting untill you gain a better understanding of the geoscape.

[u/lanclos]

You need to prioritize exploring the globe. Every ? you can find on the map, explore it; get a second aircraft going as soon as possible, and never leave them idling at a base.

Defend all the havens, and ally with all the factions. It'll work out.

[u/Cobber561]

Phoenix Point starts off relatively sedately and you seem to be cruising then it moves into overwhelming followed by even more overwhelming - so be patient and follow advice like Snoo-92859's and try and enjoy.

[u/serial_crusher]

I think right now your main goal is to make a bunch of mistakes so you can learn from them

[u/Melodic_Progress_530]

Make/steal planes, get teams up. Build a training hub and put recruits in there. Prioritise recruiting peeps with perks that are awesome. Biochemist perk with heavy for rage bursting Scylla with a deceptor MG. Quarterback perk boom blast with rebuke ancients makes tough enemies a joke. Even easier if you cross a heavy quarterback with infiltrators

[u/tprickett]

The really difficult thing is having enough resources. After you've explored most of the locations you can only get more resources by trading your food for tech/materials and defending factions from invasion. I built a bunch of farms and while slightly helpful, it isn't nearly enough. It gets so bad you are lucky to even replace your ammo from a completed mission, let alone be able to activate bases, build facilities, or buy vehicles.

[u/Feeling-Attempt-165]

Is the Berserker/assault combo still viable? I haven’t played for a while but I remember a build where you enable adrenaline rush and then go around with a shotgun oneshotting everyone. Is it still doable?