Im new to the game and on the first few missions. Restarted early on after finding out how long satellites take to make, and then again after getting a game breaking bug that kept me locked on a UFO interceptor menu. I am wondering if anyone has any tips for what to research? Do autopsy's do much good? I have already done Weapon and alien fragments and the first biology one. Thanks for any advice!

Edit: On Iron man mode normal if that changes anything

Do all the autopsies as quickly as you can, likewise with interogations. This opens up as many options to you as possible. After that, tend to your tactics.

I tend to use snipers as my heavy hitters so i focus on upgrading them first.

Satellites are key to keeping countries in XCOM.

Interrogations and autopsies are key to fast research - the ones that give you research credits anyway. Certainly you want sectoid interrogation for beam weapon research credit and muton autopsies and int. for basic armour and plasma weapons (I'm pretty sure those are right, take a look at the wiki page). Also if you're playing iron man, back up your save game, it'll stop you getting fucked over by a bug.

The first item I would try to research for is a SCOPE to equip to the sniper (with squad sight). Then get an armor set, whatever you can afford but carapace if you can. Then beam weapons, plasma if you can, but whatever you can afford.

Really what you need to concentrate on is satellites. The first thing you should build is a workshop to bump up your engineer count, then a power generator, then another satellite uplink. Simultaneously build satellites (3 at least, but 4 if you can afford it) while these buildings are being completed. These may require you to excavate so that your power generator is near a steam source.

All this stuff cost credits and time and are more important the research items at the beginning. To afford this I pretty much sold everything on the gray market which is why I did almost nothing in the first month. Although I saved enough stuff to research I mainly tried to keep my soldiers alive and worked to mitigate panic instead of buying items to equip. Check out the below video that I found help, it shows a tip to launching 4 satellites in the first month, not easy but doable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpVrQDw3pds

One other tip I found very helpful, don't launch your satellites until a week before the council report. This way you can optimize the encounters, reducing panic your squad instead of valuable satellites. It takes time/credits for them to go up so save them until you need them. This can make the missions more difficult since you will be playing difficult/very difficult missions exclusively.

Thanks! Will probably need to start over again anyway, but this is all good to know

I left interrogations and autopsies till I get one of the continents that give the bonus. Not sure which one gives it, but it's only two and saves a lot of days of research if you postpone it.

Personally I just go weapons, armor xeno biology then back to weapons for my main weapon killers class in that run.

@haffy: South America

Keep pumping out satellites, satellite uplinks and interceptors until everyone is covered. Also, only do the Alien Base mission when your panic rating is getting out of control, but don't wait too long, 'cus the mission scales in difficulty as your soldiers level up.