Tentaculat Attacks

[xalien]

How does it work? Do they have to penetrate armor to turn a soldier into zombie? I've seen quite often how displacers shrug off their attacks without taking any damage, so if Ion armor's front plate is even stronger than displacer's does that mean that soldier has a chance? Edited August 18, 2006 by xalien

[Yoni]

I'm not sure what makes them miss sometimes, but I don't think it has anything to do with armour. The thing with tanks is that they are not people, and thus cannot be zombified. So always send your tanks in first if you think there are tentaculats there. They can't do a thing to your tanks.

[xalien]

I know, but sometimes tanks would take damage, sometimes not and if tentaculats attack MC'ed aliens they kill them. So it shows that their attacks have a certain damage value and I was wondering if that value would fall below the armor level of the soldier would he still become a zombie or not? Edited August 18, 2006 by xalien

[[NKF]]

Against humanoids, armour is irrelevant. I ran a test with the UFO Chryssalid with a soldier and an all-around armour level of 255, and got zombified instantly.

 

It may very well count as a regular melee attack vs. the SWS, mind you. In that case it will behave the same way as the lobsterman's melee attack. If I'm not mistaken, the unit's strength level controls how hard they are able to strike a target with in-built melee attacks.

 

Against MC'd units, they die instantly. This is to prevent MC'd aliens from being zombified.

 

- NKF

[Gurluas2000]

I read somewhere there actually are people in the tanks...there is a man steering it.

[xalien]

Nah, they're remotely controlled platforms - too small to have enough space for a driver.

[Bullet-Tooth Tony]

What I have noticed - Tentaculats perform different amount of attacks on the soldiers. Sometimes, a Tentaculat hits a soldier once - and it turns to zombie, sometimes takes like five or six hits until the victum is zombified. But I don't recall any soldier being able to resist a Tentaculat until I get my turn back. Theese aliens always finish their deadly job before ending turn.

Is there a chance a soldier can get a couple of Tentaculat hits before it wastes all its TUs, but not be zombified?

[Zombie]

What I have noticed - Tentaculats perform different amount of attacks on the soldiers. Sometimes, a Tentaculat hits a soldier once - and it turns to zombie, sometimes takes like five or six hits until the victum is zombified. But I don't recall any soldier being able to resist a Tentaculat until I get my turn back. Theese aliens always finish their deadly job before ending turn.

Is there a chance a soldier can get a couple of Tentaculat hits before it wastes all its TUs, but not be zombified?

No, if the Tentaculat penetrates your armor (which basically doesn't exist to this creature) it's an instant zombification. Chryssalids, like Tentaculats can miss with their attacks so that's why sometimes it takes a while to get turned. :wink1:

 

- Zombie

[Horoma]

What I have noticed - Tentaculats perform different amount of attacks on the soldiers. Sometimes, a Tentaculat hits a soldier once - and it turns to zombie, sometimes takes like five or six hits until the victum is zombified. But I don't recall any soldier being able to resist a Tentaculat until I get my turn back. Theese aliens always finish their deadly job before ending turn.

Is there a chance a soldier can get a couple of Tentaculat hits before it wastes all its TUs, but not be zombified?

No, if the Tentaculat penetrates your armor (which basically doesn't exist to this creature) it's an instant zombification. Chryssalids, like Tentaculats can miss with their attacks so that's why sometimes it takes a while to get turned. :wink1:

So if I understand correctly, when a Tentaculat attacks, it can either hit or miss.

 

The result of a hit would be :

- soldier : instant zombification, regardless of health/armour

- alien under MC control : instant death

- tank : possible damage from regular melee attack

 

But if the Tentaculat can also miss, doesn't that mean Bullet-Tooth Tony is right, and that a soldier could (at least theoretically) survive a Tentaculat attack. I'm guessing the reason we never see it happen, is because :

1) Tentaculat attacks takes little TU's

2) Tentaculats have a high amount of available TU's

3) Tentaculats are programmed to attack only when they have enough TU's to allow multiple attacks. That would make sense, as with only a melee attack available, they have to come close, so they are likely to become cannon fodder if they miss.

 

Not sure about the last point, but I'm thinking the first 2 would even be enough to allow the Tentaculat several attacks. So it would be VERY unlikely for a soldier to survive an attack, but it would still be possible.

 

What do you guys think ?

Edited September 22, 2006 by Horoma

[Zombie]

Sure, it's possible that the Tentaculat can miss it's target and therefore allow the soldier to survive an attack. It's all about probabilities though.

 

From my tests in Enemy Unknown, I found that all melee type aliens need 15 TU for one attack. The 15 TU is a strict charge per use so the more TU's a unit has, the more times it can attack in a round. If it only has 15 available TU and is facing a potential victim, most likely it will attack.

 

But Time Units are not the only thing affecting the attack. Accuracy also does. Melee attacks are very similar to weapons in terms of how accuracy is calculated. Weapons have an inherent accuracy (Weapon Accuracy), and this percentage is multiplied by a soldiers ability to use the weapon (Firing Accuracy) to arrive at a base chance to hit the target. In the case of melee, an alien has a melee weapon accuracy which is multiplied by it's Melee Accuracy ability to arrive at the base chance to hit. For TFTD, all aliens have a melee weapon accuracy of 100%. At Genius and Superhuman skill levels the Tentculat has a Melee Accuracy of greater than 100%, so every attack it makes at these skill levels are automatically successful.

 

At Beginner, the Tentaculat has 80% Melee Accuracy (and therefore an 80% base chance to hit probability). Since it has 99 TU and it takes 15 TU/attack, it can wage 6 attacks per round (99/15=6.6=6). The probability of all 6 attacks failing is rather low so you could kiss your soldier goodbye in most encounters.

 

That's not to say a soldier can't survive though. The AI sometimes does strange things (like having the Tentaculat attack a target farther away). This wastes TU which it could put to use in more melee attacks. Also, the farther your soldier is away from the Tentaculat, the greater the chance he/she will survive. On beginner, that minimum safe distance is 22 tiles away (assuming each tile takes 4 TU to cross). You can cut this distance even more by having your soldier at a diagonal to the Tentaculat 15 tiles away. Finally, reaction shots from your soldiers will also effect AI, so the Tentaculat may decide to back off instead of attack.

 

- Zombie