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I've got a considerable amount of alien detritus lying around my base:

storages of assorted alien materials

Some items, like the damaged UFO flight computer, are marked as useless and intended for sale without consequence.

However, I have no idea how many bits of Alien Alloys I'm likely to need. Or what a stack of alien corpses might be useful for, for that matter. I could, however, immediately use some extra credits.

I'm tempted to sell a bunch of this stuff off to finance my near-term needs, but I'm concerned that some of this is going to be terribly valuable and rare later.

What bits of alien refuse are critical in the mid and late game, and how much should I keep on hand?

Wrigglenite
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agent86
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2 Answers2

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  1. Do not sell alloys, elerium, or intact components. Alloys go into almost everything, elerium goes into lots of high-end awesome things, and stuff like Flight Computers go into the cool vehicles later. Damaged stuff is ok to sell, as you can't do anything with it. You will need lots of alloy and elerium, and there is never an amount of this stuff that is "too much" unless you are near end-game and your stores are overflowing in all the neat shiny end-game toys. And even then you probably shouldn't sell this stuff. How many high-end craft you build is a matter of taste. But the high end craft will perform better than our "mundane" stuff, even without the awesome high-end munitions. Gun parts would also fit here. Though if you can capture a lot of aliens you'll capture a lot of alien tech intact. You'll likely have to build some high-tech weapons on your own at some point, though.

  2. In addition to that, you pretty much need 1 of everything for research, but you knew that already. Some items might be marked as having no research value, you can sell those. I'm pretty sure (Damaged) items are thusly marked, in fact. It may be these are the only items like that. The items will be marked as having "no research value/safe to sell" in the grey market sell screen, when you select them (it will be so marked in the description). As Kotekzot notes, you can also safely sell alien entertainment, surgery, and stasis tanks. I think I've seen all there is to see and I can't recall anything else that's safe to sell off hand.

  3. Corpses can be used in certain construction, e.g. Muton corpses for I think Titan Armor, and floaters are used for the dodge power up I think. Also, council requests will occasionally come in for corpses. I sell some but I like to keep a decent sized stack in reserve and I don't sell anything Muton or "worse". It's worth pointing out that council requests are uncommon, so saving all your corpses probably isn't going to pay off. Council requests will probably be of much greater value than selling the corpses, to be sure (I sold 6 light plasma rifles for $1500).

  4. As of Enemy Within, you can get gene mods from autopsies, in addition to the existing research benefits.

By request, here are the things you can spend corpses on researching/building. The list is not yet complete as I can't check every price in my longest game as I've already done a bunch of it. I'll update as I track the rest of the items down.

Cost in corpses (yuck!) of various items

  • Outsider Shard - (1) Skeleton Key (but I'm not sure if you can sell these anyway).
  • Chrysalid - (4) chitin plating
  • Ethereal - (1) mind shield
  • Berserker - (1) combat stims
  • Floater - (3) dodge power up
  • Heavy Floater - (4) advanced repair, (2) Advanced Flight
  • Cyberdisk - (2) tracking power up, (2) Advanced Flight
  • Drone - (2) Drone Capture, (2) Advanced Flight
  • Sectoid - (3) aim power up, (4) Xeno-Biology
  • Sectopod - (2) advanced construction
  • Thin Man - (4) Improved Med Kit

New from Enemy Within:

  • Thin Man - (2) Gas Grenade
  • Chrysalid - (2) Needle Grenade
  • Seeker Wreck - (4) Ghost Grenade

Cost in components for various items

  • UFO Power Source - (1) Firestorm, (2) Elerium Power Generator.
  • UFO Flight Control - (2) Satellite nexus, (1) Firestorm, (2) Alien Nav Computer
  • Fusion Core - (1) Blaster Launchers
peacedog
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    "Do not sell" might be a bit strong. I haven't played the reboot, but in the original game, it was often necessary to sell everything you could in the early game to get enough money to keep up with demand. This does slow down your ability to build high-end things later on, but saving too much for the future can mean you don't survive to see the future. – bwarner Oct 11 '12 at 13:32
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    Not a bit strong if you've actually played the reboot, and understand how different the economy is. It's nothing like the original. Sold items - not counting council requests - are worth much less relatively speaking here than in the original. And alien tech is more expensive to manufacture in terms of resource costs. And those resources come in at a slower rate. And that's on normal. – peacedog Oct 11 '12 at 13:34
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    You can also freely sell alien entertainment, alien surgery and alien stasis tanks. – kotekzot Oct 13 '12 at 20:20
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    Do you have a list of "important" corpses to keep around? I haven't finished the tech tree, so I'm not sure what I might need to keep around. e.g. I know I need sectoids, floaters, and disks for the interceptor minigame powerups, but until I looked at the Foundry I thought I wouldn't need Muton corpses anymore after the titan armor research (also needed for "ammo conservation"). Should I just assume all kinds of corpses will be used by something and keep them all? – RibsNGibs Oct 18 '12 at 07:39
  • @RibsNGibs - I've added some of the costs, I don't have them all at my finger tips but we'll get them into the answer over time. – peacedog Oct 18 '12 at 11:05
  • btw. what is UFO Power Source useful for? – vartec Oct 18 '12 at 12:06
  • @vartec building firestorms and the elerium generator. Keep those on hand at all times. – l I Oct 18 '12 at 12:39
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    @vartec you need one to make a Firestorm, and two to make an Elerium Power generator. You know what, I'll start listing these as well. – peacedog Oct 18 '12 at 12:41
  • dont' forget the fusion core for blaster launchers. – l I Oct 18 '12 at 12:54
  • I'll pretty much second peacedog's advice - never sell working UFO components or Elerium. I try to keep 10 of each corpse available in case I need it to produce items or fulfill council requests, and I try to keep all the Alloy and Weapon Fragments, but I'll break those rules in a pinch (say I'm broke and only need $20 more to build a satellite or something). Anything that's truly useless and safe to sell is marked that way, as you've noticed. – Damien Stark Oct 24 '12 at 18:56
  • Muton corpses don't seem to be useful for anything, but muton berserker corpses are needed for the combat stims. – Shadur-don't-feed-the-AI Nov 02 '12 at 08:35
  • you forgot 4x thin man corpses for an improved medkit – Laurence Nov 26 '12 at 10:10
  • @TheShiftExchange so I did, added. – peacedog Nov 26 '12 at 14:05
  • in my impossible game Drone Capture requires 4 drones, not 2 (not sure about the other difficulties) – Laurence Nov 27 '12 at 13:24
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    At the start of the game (particularly before the first monthly check), you get a ton of Sectoid corpses, and they are easily the most expensive item you can sell, not counting some of the rare loot from your first UFO. I assume it's reasonable to sell most of them to get that much-needed cash infusion? – Fadeway Dec 16 '12 at 17:02
  • I know you cann sell damaged UFO parts for cash, but im not sure whether or not you may given them away when other countries ask for them. –  Jan 09 '13 at 02:09
  • It would be great to update this answer with new items from Enemy Within (e.g. Seeker Wrecks x4 -> Ghost Grenade) – RibsNGibs Nov 27 '13 at 16:38
  • @RibsNGibs - done. I'll keep updating when I remember whatever it is I've forgotten to add this time! – peacedog Dec 02 '13 at 13:02
  • Adding on to Fadeaway's comment about Sectoid corpses - would be good to know whether there is any further need for corpses you encounter early in game, after you've done any research that uses them, and your gear has been upgraded to stronger stuff. – ToolmakerSteve Jul 04 '19 at 04:15
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Try to be cautious when selling certain things.

Try your hardest not to sell alloys, elerium, or weapon fragments, as you'll need those to research and engineer weapons and armor. I've also noticed that with the addition of engineering purposes, certain corpses and wreckages tend to be requested from the countries that you support. Try not to sell the following corpses, as countries tend to offer you stuff you'll need to fight the aliens:

  • Thin man
  • Floater (very few of these by late game)
  • Heavy floater
  • Cyberdisc
  • Sectopod (you usually get rewarded handsomely for these)
  • Chryssalid (hard to kill and dangerous early in the game)

These corpses are used for the powerups:

  • Sectoid - aim
  • Floater - dodge
  • Cyberdisc - tracking
  • Chryssalid - chitin plating
  • Berserker - combat stims
  • Ethereal - mind shield (very important by late game)

Other corpses don't get used as much so feel free to sell those when their bodies start to pile up...

Niro
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user42901
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