Crash course in XCom: Enemy Unknown?

[Grif]

Having actually played it, yes, this is completely true. (I'm currently on Week 3, Normal difficulty, and probably heading for a defeat. Disrupter Rifles are becoming the weapon of choice for my enemies, but I haven't finished researching them, and my advanced laboratories both still have a few more days to go, so I think I'm losing the science race. I'm certainly losing a lot of men- those rifles pack a punch! I'm constantly strapped for cash, so I've abandoned all hope of stopping UFOs and now just show up right afterwards to clean up the mess.)

As tengu noted, swarms of smaller vehicles do work in this game, unlike others where bigger is better. Get Phoenix Hovercars, or Hoverbikes and load them with autocannons. You'll have a pretty lightshow.

I noticed that the "Taken over by aliens" mark is actually at 50%. Why is this? Is there any reason I should care whether an organization is at 60 percent vs 90%, if they're both "Taken over?" Can I reclaim an organization for humanity?

Also, if an organization is worthless and weak, should I bother protecting it from aliens? I mean, yeah, Megapol and Marsec sell me weapons, so staying on their side is good, but what about, say, the Technocrats, who provide nothing? Is there a disadvantage to them being evil? Do the aliens get more powerful with more support?

An organisation is fully taken over once it reaches 100%. Once an organisation is taken over, there's no turning back. It will become hostile to you (obvious), stops any trade, and all raids/alien infiltration missions in their buildings will now feature their personnel fighting alongside aliens. (In effect, instead of civilians spawning, you have armed guards to deal with.) In addition, they will no longer report alien infestations to you. The thing about this is that aliens can and will spread from one building to another, so it just generally is a bad thing. Finally, they might even attempt to raid your base. Aliens, however, don't benefit from it directly.

Another thing to note, if Transtellar ever sides with the aliens (and they often do, the moronic traitors), all taxi and cargo shuttling services are no longer available to you. This means you can no longer shuffle personnel and items between bases as easily as before.