Miscellaneous

[GillWoman]

This topic is designed for small issues, too small for new topics. I'll start:

 

1. MC. Do you know, that if you MC a civillan, wait one turn and shoot him (don't MC him in the second turn) he'll be considered as alien killed (but without a corpse)

2. How to find the information about the mission of a ship etc. ? I want to see the difference between a scout and a supply ship...

3. Biodrones are invincible for phosphorous weapon - my man shot him three times from a gas cannon - orange bolts. NOTHING...

4. If you can't beat an alien - stun it. It's easier - especially for lobsters.

5. Do you always go to T'leth? I have leviathan and T'leth, but I am still playing.

Actually, T'leth after researching it costs you points like a colony.

6. Is a reaction fire from DPL possible?

7. Please don't move it into AC

[jman4117]

This topic is designed for small issues, too small for new topics. I'll start:

 

1. MC. Do you know, that if you MC a civillan, wait one turn and shoot him (don't MC him in the second turn) he'll be considered as alien killed (but without a corpse)

2. How to find the information about the mission of a ship etc. ? I want to see the difference between a scout and a supply ship...

3. Biodrones are invincible for phosphorous weapon - my man shot him three times from a gas cannon - orange bolts. NOTHING...

4. If you can't beat an alien - stun it. It's easier - especially for lobsters.

5. Do you always go to T'leth? I have leviathan and T'leth, but I am still playing.

Actually, T'leth after researching it costs you points like a colony.

6. Is a reaction fire from DPL possible?

7. Please don't move it into AC

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

1. Yes, it swaps the flag from neutral to xcom, then from xcom to alien.

2. You need a Transmission Resolver

3. Incendieries do very little damage to anything from the actual hit, you have to several turns for health to drop. Use gauss, sonic, or gas cannon ap/he to deal with them in one round.

4. Very true. Stun, then grenade.

5. T'leth is the final mission. It's a long three parter, so wait until you are fully prepared to go.

6. Yes, it can even be fired on land by reaction fire. Generally a suicidal event, but it is possible if you have high reactions.

7. I can't anyways.. ^^

[[NKF]]

1. Just a minor oversight in the original UFO that was carried over and not fixed in TFTD. Not a problem - civilians don't have any value (I mean score value) when they are alien. It's better than killing a civilian while it's still under civilian AI.

 

2. The transmission resolver, or do you mean the image of the USO in the intercept screen?

 

3. Incendiary weapons work in mysterious ways. The standard is the damage-over-time which we are all probably familiar with - enemies receive damage every turn while they're standing in flames. The other is the even more mysterious impact damage, which does impact damage to each and every unit on the map that's standing in fire. The strength of the impact damage and long term fire damage has nothing to do with the power of the phosphor shell or torpedo that you see in the ufopaedia. That only controls the blast radius. As biodrones are quite tough and have lots of health, they would indeed take a while to harm with phosphor. Besides, the gas cannon can only shoot so many shells a turn.

 

4. Stunning things is simply ridiculous, and makes the thermal shok launcher one of the most formidable weapons in the game. The only thing it won't work against is your SWS.

 

5. Having won the game a few times, the final mission doesn't appeal to me all that much. I only do it if I want to see the end-game movie. Compared to UFO's end-game mission, TFTD's was a bit of a dissapointment no matter how many PWT torpedos they threw at me in the first part. The rest was just.. eh.

 

I haven't personally seen any points lost after researching T'Leth. If anything that'll be due to actual colony or USO activity somewhere around the globe (pinpoint it with the graphs).

 

 

6. I've seen it happen, and I cursed it every time. Stupid aquanaut reaction firing a DPL into my whole squad just to get a crummy charging tentaculat. The cure was worse than the ailment. It doesn't happen all that often though, thankfully. The easiest solution is to just leave the DPL empty. You can only fire one a turn anyway so loading it on demand shouldn't be too much of a problem unless you're doing a lot of running about.

 

7. These are legitimate questions. Now if you were asking which was the cutest alien, then yes, it would be tossed into containment - or at the very least moved to general-general.

 

- NKF

Edited June 11, 2005 by NKF

[[Blehm 98]]

yeah, i did consider ACing or closing this... but it does have some at least slightly usefull stuff. It'll probably turn out to be a usefull info thread or something

[GillWoman]

BTW: This topic is for discussing everyone's issues. I am so selfish...

 

Thanks for answering, but I still don't know how to see the informations. When I click on the Ufo with right button, the screen centers on it, when I click on it with the left button, it shows me the same information as when it appeares the first time. What do I have to do? I have a transmission resolver (actually about 3 of them and a standard sonar). Do you have standard sonars? I use them, because when you click on the base info, it is wide detection and short detection.

 

Also: how do train your guys in MC Lab?

 

PS: Thanks blehm for not throwing this into AC. I thought, that topics like:

how to... when... where... and so on only make a junk out of forum.

[[NKF]]

All mission information should be picked up the moment the USO gets within range of your transmission resolver. You won't see any of the extra information if the USO is detected with your ship radars or your standard sonar (large or small).

 

If you're looking at the detection abilities in the base info screen - the bars are meaningless and are only useful for keeping a count of how many sonar modules you've got at that base.

 

See, the game can only operate one of each three sonar modules at any given time (edit: per each base), and the sonar all have set detection ranges (basically each sonar has a detection range just slightly further away from the other).

 

The large and small sonar can be built together and their sonar detection abilities stack. The transmission resolver surpasses the other two completely, but will still stack with their abilities. However building several of the same modules at the same base does not offer any benefit whatsoever, except perhaps for base defence layout purposes and aesthetics.

 

Note: If you've got the resolvers but you're still not picking up anything, then if you installed the transmission resolver with a game editor and it built it immediately as opposed to giving it a '1 day' build time, the editor probably did not set the transmission resolver up properly. In effect, you've got a dud transmission resolver.

 

--

 

For MC training - lab assignment always happens just as the new month starts. Once set, the assignments cannot be changed until the next month.

 

--

 

The thread would have to be far more frivolous, off-topic or a nonsensical one-liner post to be AC'd. How-to questions that get binned are generally within the category of questions that get asked far too often or if the answer is right there on the screen but the question is asked anyway.

 

Ultimately though you're at the whim and mercy of anyone reading the thread that has moderator powers.

 

- NKF

Edited June 11, 2005 by NKF

[Selmak]

4. Lobstermen are great practise targets for soldiers with less sophisticated weaponry. I'm not sure if the improvement is due to damage done or number of hits though. So long as you have someone ready to take it down if it gets too close to your marksmen, I would shoot a Lobster to death rather than use too many Shok bombs.

 

6. If you're worried about undesirable reaction fire, you can bleed TUs from your aquanaut with the little zero button. You must right-click to use it though.

 

8. Note that if you transfer aquanauts between bases, they stop training at an MC Lab even if there is spare capacity at their new base.

 

This means, by the way, don't start building an MC Lab unless you will complete it by the month's end. I remember that much from the USG. And always have the 'nauts you want to train, at the base by the end of the month

Edited June 11, 2005 by Selmak

[testarossa]

4. Stunning things is simply ridiculous, and makes the thermal shok launcher one of the most formidable weapons in the game. The only thing it won't work against is your SWS. - NKF

 

 

Except try to stun a lobster man, bio drone, triscene, or a xarquid and you're in for a world of hurt. Unless you get lucky and knock em out first shot.

[[NKF]]

Well, if you're using thermal tazers, then yes. Possible, but difficult.

 

Shok bombs on the other hand are the bane of lobstermen and any large unit, so it should knock them out almost completely, A second one is generally in order if the first one didn't get a good damage roll. They're just ridiculously powerful when they get a good damage roll.

 

With thermal shok launchers, you have the luxury of standing beyond the alien's visible range (20 - 21 tiles away from it) and it will not be able to retaliate during the turn if it's alerted after your first shot did not knock it out. Aliens cannot retaliate against something they cannot see.

 

Also, use the MC Reader to check the TU status of the alien before you ever try to stun them up close. It's hard to get the M.C. Reader right away in the early in the game due to its stupid MC Lab requirement even though it' doesn't need MC Skill (which also involves capturing a Deep Ones or Calcinite), but when you do get it, it should always be used by your reserves to check the alien before you attempt a melee attack or a short distance ranged attack.

 

- NKF

[testarossa]

Yes you are right about that but imagine this scenario: Shipping route mission, one of those cruise ships on the second half with the tight upper levels. There are commonly Triscene and Xarquid up there which both have very high HP, and reactions especially in Superhuman. In those tight halls and rooms if you fire a thermal shok (you really can't fire from out of thier sight) and it doesn't stun they will blow you away. Really the best weapon is MC, but in terms of weapons a sonic pulser is a mush better bet because you can get around the corner without evoking a response, and 7 out of 10 times 1 well placed pulser will do it.

 

Don't get me wrong I like the thermal shok I just think it has a time and a place, and besides I really just like hearing em scream

[[NKF]]

If you cannot put yourself out of danger and the option of hiding and waiting a few turns is not available to you, then yes, a sonic pulser would be better. The advantage of a grenade over the shok launcher is that a thrown grenade will not provoke a reaction attack if the unit is looking away. On the other hand, if it's looking at you, the entire act of priming and throwing the grenade will often provoke a reaction attack, because priming and throwing is a very costly activity on your TUs, and as reactions and TUs are very closely related, you are just as likely to get shot at after tossing a grenade as with the shok launcher.

 

A previously prepared grenade on the other hand does wonders, as it only costs 25% to throw plus the TUs you need to spend to move it into your hand, which is a lot cheaper than loading and firing a shok launcher or going through the whole arm, prime and throw routine for grenades. Assuming your TU bar is still quite high enough to keep your reaction level greater than the terror unit, you should be able to make your getaway without provoking an attack of opportunity.

 

Hmm, you know, this reminds me. Must start keeping notes of exactly when reaction levels of the attacker and defender are compared for determining an attack of opportunity.

 

- NKF

Edited October 9, 2005 by NKF