44 replies to this topic

[LordT]

I've gotta say something or Stewie will get all sad n' stuff, so here's my reply:
Couldn't the work-hours be used for the remake?

[LordT]

Been a while since a looked... but didn't it say what the required work houres were for different items?

[LordT]

Have you read the "When to stock up on engineers"?

Don't think so...

[Spaceman42]

Hmm. You wouldn't happen to have formulas for how the game calculates accuracy and suchlike, would you?

[Now has that entire file in quarter-page booklet form]

[Spaceman42]

How do kneeling and arm wounds fit in there? I know kneeling increases the accuracy, but I'm not quite sure about wounding...

Oh, and do you know anything about how blast damage is calculated? Distance from explosion, armour, terrain damage, and how they fit together?

[Maverick]

Explosion damage is a straight linear equation based on the distance from the blast, damage does not spread to upper levels (so if you are on a hill, yet you are still on level one of the map, you take damage, if you are flying right above a grenade, it won't hurt you at all) If you were to draw the grid and mark where the grenade lands it has a specific distance for each grenade with a linear transition from distance to damage. The damage is dependant on the range of the weapon (a blaster bomb has a greater radius than a human grenade) and the damage produced. I'll try to get this right...

.............3
.............6
.............9
3..6..9..12..9..6..3
.............9
.............6
.............3

That is pretty much the explosion grid for a 12 damage weapon with radius 4.

as far as I know, armor creates a percentage change to damage, it doesn't absorb the armor value worth of damage before damage is subtracted from your health; although that might be the case, i haven't heard for sure on that yet.

[Radoteur]

Something pretty bizarre about those blasts: I blew up the bottom level of one of the streetlights on a terror mission, and it showed it being gone, a metal stump. But when I put on the top layer, it showed a floating street light. Alien street lights.

I can't seem to find a key or whatnot of all the abbreviations. I'm going to have to make one, I guess.

Also, I read that Psi-Strength was unchangeable. What's this about using up all strength?

I haven't used Mind Probes yet, but do Psi-Amps tell the stats of enemy, or maybe you don't need to know them, when you can just panic or mind control them.

This looks like a pretty good resource, especially for weightlifting. Any idea about how much weight can be lifted per strength? I'm guessing 1 strength = 1 weight. I guess I could test it out.

Where did you get these weights? I remember reading in the USG that Heavy Plasma and Plasma Rifle weighed the same.

I think kneeling gives +10% aim.
Not sure where I read it (I think the Manual), but wounds to the chest makes energy regeneration take longer, arms make aim go down, I forget what head does, legs make TUs go down. I don't know about percentages either.
IIRC, Having something in the hand with a two handed weapon is -20%.

Those look like really good base setups. I'm trying to go with the one described in the USG, and it looks like it's going to be a long while before I get done with the 4 unit long corridor. Sure, it'll probably be very helpful in fending off attack, but I probably won't have room for any defenses.
I'm curious as to why you build so many missle defenses. Sure, you probably won't have to fend off a base invasion, but I don't really think it's worth all that building time/money. And if and when one gets an improved defense building available I will be a pain to rebuild all those.

[mamutas]

I just downloaded the file. Very impressive! Feels like a lot of work was put in.

Since, I am new to the game, it was very difficult to read not knowing the meaning of all those abbreviations. Is that possible to include the legend in the file or something?

[LordT]

What Stew means is that, if you name them, he will explain them.

[PoeticJuggler]

Stewart

do you happen to have a starting strategy guide as well? I think that would help me understand the Aircraft sheet on your game notes. It looks like you are supposed to start in a "specific spot"....hmm looking over it again it just looks like i'm not paying close enough attention. Thanks for all the effort I'll let you know if I have any questions

[Robo Dojo 58]

One thing I'd like to know is where to put my bases. No matter how I lay them out, I always get dead spots in my coverage.

[stewart]

Two ways to deal with that:

1 ) No polar bases two bonus bases in hand!!!!
2 ) What I do . . . . don't worry about it.

[pcx]

hi,
how do i read / interpret the Aircraft sheet ?

[stewart]

* In the first collumn: I = interceptor, S = skyranger, F= firestorrm etc.
* 2nd collumn GET = get new aircraft MOV = transfer to other base REF = refit with new weapons RET = retire (get rid of)
* 3rd collumn = S = stingray C = cannon, A = avalanche etc.
* 4th collumn EUR = europe, NPO = north pole, etc.

Hope that helps

[Micah]

For anyone that missed it, Stewart's game notes are back online :happybanana:

[stewart]

[solitear]

what I do is send an interceptor on regular patrol over areas i dont have radar coverage..this is ussually the USA or europe only in the early game but later when I have more bases and therefore more interceptors I can send them more places.....

they are not as effective as a permanent radar station but they will detect ufos occasionally....:-)

EDIT: first post here and didn't mean to quote stewart but there it is :-P

Edited by solitear, 11 July 2008 - 04:51 AM.

[stewart]

I forget the name of the thread but its about how quick in game time you can finish. Anyway one guy uses the graphs as his radar. Presumably he sees the activity rise, determines the region then dispatches an airplane to find the UFO.

[Zombie]

Right, the graphs are a great extender of your detection net. I used to do this quite often while playing with the PSX version of the game in order to give my troops more opportunities to train. Basically check the graphs every 30 minutes of game-time (that's when UFO's usually spawn) and if you see an increase in alien activity somewhere, send out a Interceptor/Skyranger combo to the area (Interceptor does a quick scan to nail down a location of a landing site, then the Skyranger goes there to mop up the threat). This trick works pretty good, but you still may miss the activity or your dropship may arrive too late. I went one step further: make a save about 3-4 days before the activity is scheduled to begin, then keep sending the Skyranger to the general area to see if I got lucky and located the UFO. Technically it's cheating, but not for the usual reason of winning a battle... it's the opportunity to fight in another mission.

This tactic rapidly falls apart though when alien activity is very high. Since the game automatically changes the resolution of the graphs to fit activity, you can easily miss a small UFO when there is lots of missions in an area (base building and infiltration comes to mind). Of course, when you have lots of alien activity it's usually later in the game and by then you should have the Hyperwave decoder and more bases with scanning abilities. Overall though, using the graphs early in the game is a great way to get some points or loot.

- Zombie

[NKF]

It's mainly useful for those quiet months where none of your scanners are picking anything up and you are starting to hurt financially or you are getting very anxious because you missed a terror site and need to urgently do something to repair your negative score before the end of the month.

This is generally early game stuff, but I guess it can be used as a fallback even in the later parts of the game if the level of alien inactivity feels unusual. Once the graph resolution increases, you'll have to rely on watching individual graphs for spikes in activity. Not as good as Apocalypse's graphs, but workable to a point.

- NKF

[stewart]

They're usefull later (well frankly at all times) for finding alien bases. They leave a tell-tale amount of activity.

[Zombie]

I did some minor revisions to your game notes a while back, stewart, but it was placed in an area of my hard drive I rarely visit. Well, the other day I stumbled across it again and finally finished what I sent out to do. I don't recall the changes I did before, but the issues I worked on is as follows:

• Equipment Stats: Don't remember if I changed/added anything here (might have), but I double-checked the whole page.
• Non-Soldiers: Updated all combatant stats to the core (base) stat numbers. Added/filled in all the missing entries and double-checked everything.
• Misc. Stats: Take a guess. Yup, updated the highs/lows for starting funding for each country from myself/SaintD's data. These are not the ultimate highs or lows possible though, this will have to be updated if we find the equation in the executable. Still, it is a great start. It was a long time in the making, eh stewart?
• Soldiers: Added unseen Melee characteristics, changed some stat highs, updated beneficial activities to include info about experience.

That's about it. Take a look at it when you get the chance.

 Revised_xcominfo.zip   39.21K   77 downloads

- Zombie

[stewart]

You DEFINITELY DA MAN!

I'll need to add to it myself. New base designs.

In pocket UFO if you shoot down the battleship, it leaves you alone, defenses have a purpose!!!!!!!!

I'm also investigating non-chokepoint base designs right now.

[Zombie]

A non-chokepoint base design? That's sacrilegious!

I perused your base design with the Missile Defenses as a chokepoint and it is fairly effective. But I'm wondering if you ever thought of using the other defense modules to restrict movement between areas? For instance, place a Fusion Ball defense module in the upper-right corner of a Hangar. First, the door of the hangar provides concealment between turns. Secondly, the way the FBD is situated (North-facing door), it allows your men to pop their heads out of that door and gaze into the base "proper" and catch aliens trying to enter. The men defending the bowels of the base can also look around a corner to see where an alien might be located and which direction it faces. If the alien isn't looking into the bowels, your men can toss a grenade by it or shoot freely while keeping the soldiers safe inside the defenses room with full TU. If the spotters inside the base encounter reaction fire or notice an alien is facing them, the guys in the room rush out and blast the alien at point blank range in the rear. An auto-shot at that close of range will almost guarantee a kill.

Using a Laser Defense module at the South entrances of a hangar does nearly the same thing with restricting movement, this time in the opposite direction. It lacks that extra door between the hangar and the rest of the base though. I suppose you could use a Plasma Defense module as the chokepoint where a hangar is connected to the West too. Or use a number of different defense modules to surround a Hangar. Never tried this, but it sounds interesting.

As it stands, there are not many base modules in the game which are conducive to chokepoint duty. Mostly it's the radars or the defense systems. All the other structures have the common "+" design.

- Zombie

[stewart]

Yes non-chokepoint. Here, have 40 modules back; that's more than a base! You can build faster (have the workshops online much sooner). Sure it's harder to defend but you slug it out with the aliens on every other map the game presents you; I figure, just roll up your damm sleeves.

I learned the hardway that radars are a BAD choke point. There are certain modules that the aliens target; radars being high on the list. They'll either just blaster the upper floor (destroying the module) or send a guy up and shoot at the dishes destroying them and hense destroying the module too (apparantly radar dishes hold up dirt, go figure). Choke point is destroyed and it is between the rest of your base and the lift . . . . well . . . you do the math. Hense why I have the missile defense stairs on "my" side of the choke point.

The other advantages of the missile defenses as a choke point (appart from the obvious) as compared to the other defensive modules is that it is available from day 1, cheeper to build and maintain, and has the fastest build time.

[Zombie]

Sure it's harder to defend but you slug it out with the aliens on every other map the game presents you; I figure, just roll up your damm sleeves.

I learned the hardway that radars are a BAD choke point. There are certain modules that the aliens target; radars being high on the list. They'll either just blaster the upper floor (destroying the module) or send a guy up and shoot at the dishes destroying them and hence destroying the module too (apparently radar dishes hold up dirt, go figure). Choke point is destroyed and it is between the rest of your base and the lift . . . . well . . . you do the math. Hence why I have the missile defense stairs on "my" side of the choke point.

The other advantages of the missile defenses as a choke point (apart from the obvious) as compared to the other defensive modules is that it is available from day 1, cheaper to build and maintain, and has the fastest build time.

Oh, totally agreed with the advanced defensive systems costing more/taking longer to build/time to research. I was just wondering if you considered them due to the unique lower layout.

I suppose it's possible the aliens target certain modules to destroy if they have the chance, but are they really smart enough to know that they have to knock out the radar dishes to do it? Dumb luck seems more plausible to me. Aliens: "Let's nuke that group of soldiers standing there. What? The Blaster Bomb will destroy the radar dishes above and make part of the base unusable? All the better". -OR- It could simply be the fact that a chokepoint is by definition an area where heavy fighting will take place anyway. With all that activity underneath, explosions are bound to happen there. In that case, any facility you choose as a chokepoint would be falsely construed as a "target". Right?

- Zombie

Edited by Zombie, 07 August 2008 - 10:25 PM.

[stewart]

Nope they DO target. I have seen the little buggers (after I heard shots of course) have climbed the stairs into an empty upper floor (empty = none of my guys were ever there) of a large radar and start specifically shooting the radar dishes with guns.

Zombie . . . . . . . . . . test it!



Happy birthday again!

I perused your base design with the Missile Defenses as a chokepoint and it is fairly effective.

The thing is it's not just that, it's the missile defenses with specifically a general stores to the east of it, and to the east of that something with a + lower floor plan. Recall the general stores have double-wide doors on the north/south hallway, allowing an already crouched soldier to fire after his buddy opens the door for him. The module further afield has a crouched soldier with good reactions in the middle of the hall at the extreme distance range of seeing so when the aliens come around the corner in the missile defens they get nailed right next to a wall so that autocannons ought properly be considered part of that exclusive club already containing members the mr's horseshoe and hand grenade. Also mister good reactions has no wall behind him to similarly catch a blaster bomb (they just keep flying along and away from him after they pass).

[Zombie]

Nope they DO target. I have seen the little buggers (after I heard shots of course) have climbed the stairs into an empty upper floor (empty = none of my guys were ever there) of a large radar and start specifically shooting the radar dishes with guns.

Zombie . . . . . . . . . . test it!

You can bet I will. I just wanted confirmation first.

The thing is it's not just that, it's the missile defenses with specifically a general stores to the east of it, and to the east of that something with a + lower floor plan. Recall the general stores have double-wide doors on the north/south hallway, allowing an already crouched soldier to fire after his buddy opens the door for him. The module further afield has a crouched soldier with good reactions in the middle of the hall at the extreme distance range of seeing so when the aliens come around the corner in the missile defens they get nailed right next to a wall so that autocannons ought properly be considered part of that exclusive club already containing members the mr's horseshoe and hand grenade. Also mister good reactions has no wall behind him to similarly catch a blaster bomb (they just keep flying along and away from him after they pass).

Right, I always have a General Stores next to any chokepoint. Most of your soldiers are either going to show up there or in the Living Quarters, so it's better to place those structures as close to the chokepoint as possible to cut down on the commute. Good point about having facilities with a lower "+" floor plan in back of the General Stores to allow the Blasters to "sail on past". Not that the aliens miss much, but on the off chance they do it's a good idea.

- Zombie

[stewart]

On my version. gawd bless 'em they miss with blasters; they tend to send them along the walls, so my guys kneal in the middle of the hallway

[Zombie]

Nope they DO target. I have seen the little buggers (after I heard shots of course) have climbed the stairs into an empty upper floor (empty = none of my guys were ever there) of a large radar and start specifically shooting the radar dishes with guns.

Holy smokes, I think you're right (not that I didn't believe what you said, it just seemed highly unlikely).

First test: I "constructed" a special base (with a base editor) with a couple hangars, access lift, small radar, large radar and a missile defenses at the top part of the base, then a dirt block to act as a "buffer" and finally a whole bunch of LQ's/GS at the bottom. (The Living Quarters and General Stores have lots of high priority X-COM spawn points which keeps soldiers at the lower part and leaves the upper part to the aliens). Anyway, after about 12 rounds or so (during the aliens turn) the game flashed to the missile defense module and I heard shooting. The game crashed to the desktop right after this so I was unable to determine what happened. Figuring that the dirt block may be causing the crash (2 separate mini bases within a base cannot normally happen), I made a long corridor of Small Radars, and a few Fusion defenses to "link" the two mini-bases together. At around turn 10-12 the game crashed again. Reloaded, waited, and when it was round 12 the game crashed again (this time I heard shooting noises before the game bailed to the desktop). Obviously, the aliens are shooting at a base module(s), but the game always seems to crash after this happens (I'm running the CE version). Will need to do more testing to see which module the aliens prefer to target first, and hopefully I'm able to construct a base where it allows a module to get shot up without causing a crash. Maybe I'll have better luck with the Dos version. (Game crashes with the CE version are rare for me, so this is really baffling).

- Zombie

[NKF]

I find that when this happens in base defence missions, you should copy your save over to the dos version and use it to get past the dreaded turn that causes the crash. The dos version tends to be more lenient and not as sensitive to situations that would cause general protection faults as the CE version is. It's a good excuse to own both copies.

Also, little tidbit that might be of interest, if you're playing the dos version, try and place a hangar so that it's right at the right edge of the base. If done right, it'll wrap the other two quarters of the hangar on the other side of the base, one row down. I have absolutely no idea what would happen if you played a mission with a hangar like this. It has been fixed in CE and TFTD.

How would the aliens identify which modules were what? Would it be related to the nodes? I mean the radar modules have a few nodes in them if I remember correctly, but no one spawns in them. The AI normally only shells an area when it's trying to get at a player or civilian owned unit, but could these nodes be used as targets?

For your test, it might be worth dampening the blaster bomb a bit so that it's strong enough to make a mark on the target, but not obliterate the whole area.

- NKF

Edited by NKF, 24 August 2008 - 04:38 AM.

[Zombie]

How would the aliens identify which modules were what? Would it be related to the nodes? I mean the radar modules have a few nodes in them if I remember correctly, but no one spawns in them. The AI normally only shells an area when it's trying to get at a player or civilian owned unit, but could these nodes be used as targets?

I don't think a path-finding (non-spawning) node has any bearing on this. While looking at the spawn points for all the base modules today I noticed that each RMP record has a "flag" attribute. We currently do not know what it does or how it functions. The values range from 0-8 normally. Now, in almost all the spawn points in an X-COM base, the flag is 0. However, there are certain points which have a flag value of 5. In nearly 100% of the modules the 5-value flag happens upstairs. The only "different" modules are the Access Lift (the flag of 5 happens on L0) and the Hangar (the NE, NW and SW sub-modules have these flags in a room on L0). The SE Hangar sub-module has no rooms and doesn't have any flags like this. There are two modules (Workshop and Laboratory) where there are 2 points upstairs with a flag value of 5. Finally, there's a point with a flag value of 5 in the Missile Defense module inside the "missile room". Remember my last post when the game flashed to the Missile Defense module and then I heard shots? Well, I saw the upstairs door open just before I heard shots. Coincidence? Maybe, but then again, maybe not.

There is a spawn priority flag for units in the game (meaning that if the priority value is high, a unit is more likely to spawn there). I wonder if the flag attribute we are talking about here is similar? Two 5-value points would indicate that the Lab and Workshop are high-priority targets. Makes sense as if I wanted to cripple X-COM operations on a large scale, I'd go for the jugular and eliminate the R&D hot-spots to hinder progress.

Could these be "kill" tiles, meaning if you kill the tile you destroy the module? The hangar has a sub-module without a 5-value flag and as we all know, Hangars can't be destroyed. Something to ponder.

I'm going to edit all the 5-value flags to 0 on all my base modules to see if that plays any role on alien behavior. Theoretically, if all nodes have a value of 0, the aliens can't target anything and the game should never crash.

- Zombie

Edited by Zombie, 24 August 2008 - 08:13 PM.
Some extra thoughts.

[Zombie]

I'm going to edit all the 5-value flags to 0 on all my base modules to see if that plays any role on alien behavior. Theoretically, if all nodes have a value of 0, the aliens can't target anything and the game should never crash.

Can I hear a booya? Looks like I'm right!

I edited the flag attribute from 5 to 0 for all my modules, then started a base defense mission. Never heard any shots and the game didn't crash once. So it appears that this flag governs whether an alien will attack a module or not. I haven't checked any of the other scenarios yet, but at least an unknown is crossed off the list. Thanks guys!

- Zombie

[NKF]

So, they are targets? They've certainly squeezed a lot out of the nodes. Very multipurpose. Are they only present in X-Com structures? It would be very interesting to see what would happen if you were to set a few random nodes in ordinary terrain (or better yet, the alien base) and see how they react to it - just for kicks. (actually sudden random explosions here and there could be a way to induce nervousness in players)

Well, looks like the source for one of our mystery-battlescape-crashes has been located, or at least a rough idea of what's causing it has been found. Keep up the good work - we'll have a bug-free-UFO-the-way-it-was-meant-to-be before long.

- NKF

Edited by NKF, 25 August 2008 - 11:46 PM.

[Zombie]

So, they are targets? They've certainly squeezed a lot out of the nodes. Very multipurpose. Are they only present in X-Com structures? It would be very interesting to see what would happen if you were to set a few random nodes in ordinary terrain (or better yet, the alien base) and see how they react to it - just for kicks. (actually sudden random explosions here and there could be a way to induce nervousness in players)

There are other maps where the "flag" field has a number other than 0. The command center in an alien base has three flags with a value of 5: right in the center of the lift on L1, center of the lift on L0 and right outside the door going into the "inner sanctum" on L0. Obviously we don't see aliens shelling their own structures in their base, so it may play another role. Who knows, it might only be for X-COM bases and the other flag values on the other maps might be junk. It doesn't seem likely since there appears to be a method to the madness though. As always, more testing is needed.

Well, looks like the source for one of our mystery-battlescape-crashes has been located, or at least a rough idea of what's causing it has been found. Keep up the good work - we'll have a bug-free-UFO-the-way-it-was-meant-to-be before long.

Thing is, setting those flags to 0 isn't what the programmers intended. They wanted the aliens to attack your facilities. So we'd have to find the underlying problem (perhaps in the executable) to fix this properly. Since the DOS version doesn't crash with aliens shooting your facilities, it might be possible to find that code and reapply it to the CE executable (that is, if the CE code is broken or bugged). But that seems a long way off. The best bet to avoid the game crashing in a base defense mission is to do what I always preach: fight hard right from the start and kill a lot of aliens. They will be too busy defending themselves to worry about nuking your facilities. They only start doing that when they have nothing else better to do.

- Zombie

Edited by Zombie, 26 August 2008 - 09:46 AM.

[stewart]

Make the large radar the choke point. I cant remember if each dish takes a few shots (like the brain) but there are two dishes. I think maybe you could see them getting damaged (like seeing the burnt trails of Silicoids before even realizing it the be greenie meanies a comin'). Maybe if you hear shots just look at the dishes.

Still investigating non-choke point base designs (finally got an invasion!!!!!! ). It's just sectoids. I've got 8 rookies each with Heavy Cannon, 1 AP, 1 HE, and a high explosive demolition charge. I suspect I'll be just fine. I'll post more about my studies when I'm done.

[stewart]

Sectoids dealt with.

I took the risk of priming the demolition charges ASAP. I hid soldiers in single-door rooms in pairs across the hall from each other. The one with more time/energy held the Heavy cannon the other a motion detector and charge, then switched when ammo depleted.

Sat and waited and hit targets of opportunity. Used charges on the platters.

I'll report more on my non-choke point experimentation when I have more to report.