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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Weekly Score Vs Alien Tech


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Alien technology that is used in tactical missions is clearly based on your weekly score, but UFOs follow the usual pattern independant of your score (you do not suddenly get motherships showing up in 2nd week because you did real well on 1st week).

I can't be sure of this, but it may be that alien technology in tactical missions is most probably based only on your total tactical missions score. I am sure the penalty you get from damage to city is not factored in.

In this last game I'm playing, I'm in third week, done far too many stun raids and my score is up in 26K. I tried lowering it with damaging the city, and I got it down to less than 15K, and he aliens in tactical missions still use technology up to dimension missle launchers.

I picked up an editor that can change the weekly score, gonna try that and see what happens.
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In addition to general discussion, I would like to invite anyone who spots a new piece of alien technology for the first time to post your current score into this thread. (your total positive score so far and your negative score if possible). Also note your difficulty level, as I think it may have some influence on when new tech appears.

- NKF
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Cool. I already made a list. :)

Difficulty: beginner (superhuman game got corrupted :cussing: )

Let me check my notes:

~3000..: disrupter gun
????????: boomeroid (around here) (8000, maybe?)
..10000.: devastator cannon (Probably not fully loaded until 12000)
..16000.: shields
~20000.: vortex mine?
..24000.: cloak
..28000.: entropy gun
????????: Dimension missile (Possibly 32000)
????????: Teleporter (IIRC, 40000)

I'm not really sure, but I think in superhuman the values are halved.

My current score:
Friday, Apr. 28, Week 8
Tactical missions..: 18017
Research.............: 12730
Alien incedents....: - 210
UFOs shot down...: 8850
X-COM shot down: - 260
Alien incursions....: - 412
Damage to city.....: - 3076
Current score.......: 35639

I've had very little alien activity these past few weeks, so I may have skipped some.

I've noticed major changes about every 4000 points, so I hope this helps.
My research score almost equaled my combat rating, for many weeks.


~ means about, almost, somewhere near. I don't know if they're exact. Edited by Robo Dojo 58
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  • 3 weeks later...
Ah, Alien teleporters. I finally saw my first teleporter in a building mission.
Here was my score right before the mission with the first teleporter:

Tactical missions............: 42710 (Got 1300 points from the previous mission. no teles there.)
Research completed.......: 13830
Alien alerts....................: -210
UFOs shot down............: 16800
X-COM craft shot down..:-260
UFO incursions..............: -412
Damage to city..............:-5403

--Edit: Almost forgot. It was a novice game. Yeah, I'm a total wuss. :)-- Edited by Robo Dojo 58
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Super human is really no different.

-They get tech faster. So what? You research it faster. I usually do 10bio 10quantum in my games, I can do 15 20 in superhuman.
-City is huge. Spread vehicles around the dimension gates. I've found they don't jump too far away from their original location (every dimension gate has an "area" through which they can appear).
-Aliens are faster, stronger, better. My androids are better, faster, stronger and superior compared to humans :). I've also found that aliens are total wusses in short range. At long range they use lots of stuff including vortex mines, but when you bring it close to them, they suddenly get unbelievably stupid (they try hiding behind corners, run back at full speed...)
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  • 7 months later...
I'd like to point out that the aliens don't suddenly equip all of their troops when they get the tech. They gradually equip their troops over time, obsoleting their old weaponry, and getting to the normal weapon loadout for that tech. So, if you see an alien with equipment before they should get them, he's likely going to be the only one.

When I think about it, equipment seems to come in full swing every 4000 points on beginner difficulty. The few aliens that get the tech before the 4000 point barriers are just testing out the prototypes. ^_^

I dunno why there's such a big gap between the dimension missile and the transporter, though. Maybe the game makers planned to have another alien tech, but it was never developed? There is room for one more alien tech in between. Edited by Robo Dojo 58
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  • 2 months later...
[quote name='Robo Dojo 58' date='Mar 15 2004, 08:41 AM']Cool. I already made a list. :)

Difficulty: beginner (superhuman game got corrupted :cussing: )

Let me check my notes:

~3000..: disrupter gun
????????: boomeroid (around here)
..10000.: devastator cannon
..16000.: shields
~20000.: vortex mine?
..24000.: cloak
..28000.: entropy gun
????????: Dimension missile
????????: Teleporter

I've noticed major changes about every 4000 points, so I hope this helps.
My research score almost equaled my combat rating, for many weeks.


[right][post="72035"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

Finally, using this I was able to get a disruptor gun by managing to have a score of only 3200 when I let the aliens infiltrate a building. Before I had to wait for weeks to get one from Sirius. My puzzlement comes when I had a score of only 4050, an alien already had a Devastator Cannon.
I guess in "superhuman" everything comes faster
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  • 7 months later...
I'm busy playing a game right now. I only recently started this one. So I'll edit the post when I get further.
I'm in the first week on medium difficulty.
When the aliens came for the second time I let them enter a building before I shot them to get more kills and stuff. There was an anthropod with a disruptor gun in that mission. I had about 3000-4000 points at that time.

Edit:It's now the second week: 10000 points. New ufo's attacked (type 3 and 4). That's the third ufo attack since the start of the game.
I downed all four ufo's. ALL of them have half their crew equiped with the big disruptor guns and half with the small pink ones. ALL ANTHROPOD CREWMEMBERS HAVE SHIELDS. Damnit. They've got vortex bombs and the cross-shaped follow bombs too.
Perhaps I should raid the cult a little less... But I want money! Edited by Yoni
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I've stunned quite a few aliens on these missions and captured 6 personal shields (many got destroyed). 2nd day of week two (11000 points) 4th wave of ufo's show up (type 3 and 4 again) but this time they too are equiped with shields.

I'm convinced now that the score and tech are related. I've read on the forums that shooting buildings is a good way to reduce your score. But will a very low score make aliens come with worse equipment than they had before?
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It's not rumour, it's fact. Tech updates, or downgrades as the case may be, happen at the start of each new week. You can play up to the point where they've got devestators, then if you drop your score down to 0, they'll start using brainsucker launchers almost exclusively. This is true for the tech, but I'm not sure if this controls the introduction of aliens and UFO types.

Alien equipment can downgrade if you reduce your score, but most methods of reducing your score aren't particularly helpful.

The least detrimental score killer is the opposite of a stun raid, and it can be quite expensive. It's , let's call it, a donation raid. You could gather up a lot of equipment, head into a mission, any mission, dump everything and leave. You lose points for lost equipment. Quite expensive, but you won't disturb your public relations one bit, which can be very fickle at the best of times.

- NKF Edited by NKF
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  • 5 months later...
  • 3 months later...
NFK, why do you say that is the least detrimental? I mean if you simply bomb the Cult buildings you can safely reduce your score, with much less money lost and no public relations costs unless someone really loves the cult, which I never noticed.

In other news the stupid transtellar stopped getting angrier with me every time I downed a UFO. The trick I used was to attack a stupid UFO scout with a hoverbike set on very evasive (the setting where you don't fire at all) from the side of transtellar buildings, so that the misses hit them. Well I checked with the midnight editor and the two relations bars for transtellar to alien didn't change, but something is different in the game. I downed a couple of UFOs and transtellar doesn't want any more money to become neutral again. In a previous test I got them all the way to hostile simply from shooting down UFOs wihtout doing the damage building trick. Weird.

I guess the best way to reduce score is to use the alien UFO fire to cause the cityscape damage. You get public relations boosts too. If you don't like losing the occasional hoverbike you can reload. If you don't like reloading you can use hovercars with shields. Less maneuverable, but much safer.
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It's the least detrimental because it doesn't even touch your public relations while allowing you to lose points in a controlled, if slow, manner.

As you said, if you bomb the cult buildings, anyone friendly with the cult will get a little ticked off at you. On the flip side, those that hate the cult will like you more. This shouldn't be too bad if the right companies are affected - but if the opposite occurs, it makes things difficult.

It really depends on the balance of loyalties. Letting the aliens mess up the cityscape is always a good option, just as long as you don't let your weekly score go into the negatives.

Slowing down your point gathering in the battlescape works too. Letting aliens or enemy guards escape and carefully destroying enemy weapons with light explosives does this quite well.

- NKF Edited by NKF
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Hmm, what if you target your own buildings?

With a puny weapon that can't really damage them and kill your people. You still get negative score, but do your friends get mad at you for attacking yourself, their ally? :-p

I got to test it with a manually controlled vehicle...

Anyway, stun raids give way too much, just look at the point score of a retrieved weapon (like 2 or 3 points, maybe more) and how much it costs if you sell it. While at the end of the week you pay on a 1 for 1 basis for city damage, highly efficient.

Hmm, wait, you do pay for city damage right or is it an illusion I was under?

Edited by komninosm
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You only pay for it by way of losing points - which means a possible funding cut if the government is unhappy. Otherwise city maintenance is automatic and no one appears to pay for it.

 

Hmm, shooting your own buildings has merit - but it's dangerous if you're not careful. Not too bad if it's a warehouse, but don't try to do it with a slum, particularly if it's connected to a nearby slum. (Like the the slums near the X-Com recyclotorium on the superhuman map - just to the south east of the Temple of the Apocalypse). Actually, that X-Com recyclotorium is not that bad a building to flatten. No one lives in it.

 

- NKF

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From:

The X-COM Apocalypse

Internet FAQ

v0.99

September 27, 1997

Copyright 1997 Roger Wong. All Rights Reserved.

[email protected]

Visit the website:

http://www.khan.org/~roger/games/xcom3

 

If you do well enough during the week to have a high score, the

government increases your income.

Weekly Income

Score Increase

401 5.00%

801 6.25%

1601 8.33%

3201 12.50%

6401 20.00%

12801 25.00%

However, if you do poorly, your income can be reduced, or even

terminated. X-COM funding will also be terminated if the government becomes

hostile for any reason. The decision to terminate is irrevocable.

Weekly Income

Score Decrease

-1 6.66%

-401 10.00%

-801 20.00%

-1600 25.00%

-2401 terminate

The government itself earns money each week from income tax. Every

building you destroy puts people out of jobs, and reduces the government's

income. If the government is low on funds, it will never give more than

half its current balance to X-COM as income.

 

 

I have my doubts on this government thing though. Roger could be wrong...

 

I tried it with a few hovercars with lasers and my warehouse didn't sustain any damage at all that I could see and no corp got angry at me. Not even my friends. Seems a safe way to abuse stun raids.

Man I can complete a raid in the Marsec Arms factory in almost under a minute (of real time, not game time). This seriously harms game balance. I will not use it any more. Unless I accept the extra points and what that means for alien tech. As for equipment like powerswords and marsec armor and others that I believe should be available in week 1 and in greater numbers, I will just use apocutil to set them so. No more reloading to get max number of body armor or lineage plasmas or whatever. I also promise not to do the chop-shop cheat any more, since it was wrong in the first place (hey who ever heard of free money? you can just give yourself some cash with an editor and spare yourself the in game boring, tedious micro) and with hundreds of vehicles it will be way too much.

 

PS: What X-com recyclotorium? Must go check now! Damn you.

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The recyclotorium is just a few building blocks south from the Temple of the Apocalypse on the middle western edge of the Superhuman map. Just next door to the X-Com warehouse base with the corridor layout shaped like a S on its side.

 

The chop shop, to be fair, requires that you work to earn a small amount of cash and you also end up diluting the market to the point where sales of these items will no longer be profitable after a few sales. Real companies do this as well like retailers. They buy items in bulk at a cheaper price and sell them off at higher prices. In your case you're just buying packages with their bundle discounts, and sell the parts at their standard resale price. Not to mention that you can quickly hit a vehicle limit for the week - which is bad if you don't have enough ships.

 

Besides, hoarding and selling items at full price can be done with the alien weapons as well. Just gather up devestators to a fairly sizeable amount, then sell them at full price in bulk. Or building hybrid aircraft and selling them for twice the build cost (slightly more for the Bio Trans). Hybrid aircraft sale prices don't change.

 

I suppose you can say a thin fuzzy line divides having good business sense and outright cheating. ;)

 

Using an editor to cheat (in a serious game), on the other hand, is not on. For stun raids - while it does require that you work for the equipment, the map generator regenerates everything so you end up with an endless supply and get off almost scott free (some of us have bad experiences with gung-ho rent-a-cops and armed proximity mines in a rocket dump). That's not really on either.

 

Also, nothing's stopping us from doing the same with the alien buildings. They're a mine of alien equipment if you're running low on consumables like vortex mines and dimension missiles. No one said you had to complete the mission by just being in the building. ;)

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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(some of us have bad experiences with gung-ho rent-a-cops and armed proximity mines in a rocket dump)

 

you said it man, those guys are so dumb i can't believe it.

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Oh you said x-com recyclotorium, but it was evonet recyclotorium. I know about that. Hehe, but I just tested th domino effect on the slums just to enjoy it again LOL!

 

Come on NFK, just admit it. The chop-shop is cheating. In real life you need work hours to install and uninstall equipment on a vehicle. And work hours cost money. In Apoc you can simply drag and drop stuff with no cost.

 

About guards playing catch with stuff, my guess is they try to set mines in their perimeter, but their AI also has orders about picking stuff up, like they do with psyclones and elerium so they go and pick them up. Hopefully before their timer ends. Talk about stupid AI!

Edited by komninosm
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It's a standard Evonet Recyclotorium, but it's not owned by them. Check the ownership of the Recyclotorium that's just across the road from one of your potential base sites.

 

Time works differently in Apocalypse. There's no way a soldier can jump out of an entire suit of armour, put on another, and pick up heaps of alien junk in a split second. But they can. So it's no surprise that they can gut a vehicle and reconfigure it into a monster in a split second as well. ;)

 

With the car sales, you end up sacrificing quite a lot of things like time (clicking a lot), space(for hoarding), etc. This method of earning money is finite and you can't go on doing this forever. It might help with your first Hawk Air Warrior purchase, but it pales in comparison to selling collected alien technology - or milking the aliens once you've cut down their air fleet.

 

An editor or abusing the stun raid on the other hand offers you limitless resources for less effort than it normally takes to actually earn the resources.

 

- NKF

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I was looking at the wrong Recyclotorium. An X-com owned recyclotorium. How weird! Anyway it makes my plan fool proof though. So no more stun raids for you purists :-p

The chop shop was the first abuse I figured out on my own, right when I bought Apoc, but I still have to label it as minor cheating. It's extra cash you get for almost nothing game-wise, sure you have to click a lot in real life, but it's not the same. And the only reason to change armor in combat is to fool around with entropy missiles and I don't do that when in purist mode. Unless you want to tell me that you carry aroun a spare marsec torso when you're in your full X-com disruptor armour. But that would limit inventory space way too much so it's counter-productive.

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It's definitely a mistake, but a fun one. If you've been in a recyclotorium, It pretty much explains what happens to corpses though.

 

For armour swapping, I was thinking in the context of a badly damaged entropy launcher victim running over a dead companion's body and picking up pieces of armour to replace the almost destroyed sections. Or swapping a marsec torso plate amongst a whole team of ground troops just to get them to a location that can't be reached by foot (or even getting a soldier out of a ditch).

 

- NKF

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  • 1 year later...

hello.

The table seems correct for the aliens, but in my game organisations are far ahead in terms of technology.

I have about 14000 points right now, and the aliens use boomeroids and devastator cannons. I just tried raiding marsec however and got really surprised, because they already have vortex mines, personal shields and personal cloaking. Stun raid failed, but I got some new tech to research:P. Marsec is totally clear of infiltration in my game.

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Although it wasn't me (so I can neither confirm nor deny it), you're not the first person to have that happen to either. That is quite strange as the organisations are supposed to be several steps behind alien tech and never get to get the full set.

 

Has anything strange happened in your campaign that goes beyond the usual?

 

- NKF

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everything seems pretty normal to me. I just raided Megapol, and it too has access to all technology available to corporations. The one thing that wondered me is why transtellear was allied with aliens from the very beggining of the game(our relationships dropped with every ufo downed, and no, I didn't destroy any tubes. I tested it. 5-7 ufos down means one relationship level lower. They accepted bribes the whole time though...)
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Nkf, in my games organisations get way ahead of me all the time O:

it happens seldomly on my super human games but more often on my hard and medium games.

on beginner they dont seem to even get the pink guns xD

 

Honestly, I am disappointed that XCOM can't prevent the spread of alien tech like that. If you prevent drops and mop up crews and infiltrations, corporations shouldn't be getting that kind of equipment. It's a bit odd. I mean, if they're so good and well-equipped, why aren't they fighting the aliens? I know - the game wasn't finished. But still... ;-)

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Honestly, I am disappointed that XCOM can't prevent the spread of alien tech like that. If you prevent drops and mop up crews and infiltrations, corporations shouldn't be getting that kind of equipment. It's a bit odd. I mean, if they're so good and well-equipped, why aren't they fighting the aliens? I know - the game wasn't finished. But still... ;-)

Well, the whole equipping of corporations is simply done wrong - they are randomly generated troops with weapons generated according to current difficulty level.

It would be better if corporations would have a set amount of troops and equipment like X-Com and would have to recruit troops too.

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Sorrow, this is a percentage game aside from X-coms squads..

what I mean by this is, There are Alot more staff in these buildings than those 12 or so troops with 15 or so scientists.

 

Its not done wrong at all, its just done differant from what you are saying ;)

 

Personally games that dont respawn bore me, as I no longer have anything to kill ;-;

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  • 1 month later...

My Difficulty: Superhuman

My current score @Week 40:

Tactical missions..: 20XXX

Research.............: 13XXX

Alien incedents....: 0

UFOs shot down...: 4XXXX

X-COM shot down: 0

Alien incursions....: - 12

Damage to city.....: - 3XX

Current score.......: 80XXX

 

My alien friends is still researching personal teleporter. None is brought to me yet :P

They have dimensional launcher before my tactical mission score got to 20k.

 

After allowing 1 week for the alien to "upgrade" their weapons hopefully, I let them enter the city. Both mothership and escort crews still has no personal teleporter. There was no explosion at all in the tactical mission. So no item was destroyed. No alien escaped either.

My guess is alien tactical technology is based on your tactical mission score. And maybe your UFOs shot down score determines their UFO upgrades.

 

EDIT: 10 more weeks passed. My total score is now 100k. Tactical score is 22k. No teleporter yet. I will raid CoS until i reach 40k tactical score.

Edited by simho
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Thanks NRN_R_Sumo1 :D

I have won on Superhuman many times, although Im still a wuss coz I'd load a savegame whenever I want - no ironman thingy.

 

My previous 100k score game got corrupted. Selling everything on the base still gives me 100% usage on 3 of my stores. And there r 2 "ghosts" occupying my living quarters in my Base 2. There nobody to fire but the living quarters are occupied.

Damnit.....another restart. Superhuman again of course :)

 

Now more data:

Superhuman

End of Week 1

Total score: 17XX

 

Monday of week 2

2 transporter and 2 fast attack ship showed up.

None of the antropods in fast attack ships use disrupter gun. I cleaned those 2 ships first.

Antropods in the 2 transporters use a combination of disrupter gun and brainsucker.

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  • 8 months later...

Hello fellow ufo addicts :) ,

 

Been trying to reach some kind of conclusion regarding this score vs alien tech advancements but this forum is massive of useful information.

Been reading for 2 days, almost felt like I found an information goldmine.

 

Problem is some say that damge to city makes no difference, and the only option is get your tactical score down ?

Do all upgrades happen weekly or do corporations upgrade at the end of each day ?

 

Greatful for answers as this seems to be the place to look for anything ufo =b

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From what I remember, it's the total of the score after all additions and deductions have been applied.

 

Tech updates (or downgrades - if you really work on your score) are done weekly during the Sunday to Monday changeover (basically all the majors updates like repairs to the city, market restock and when new UFOs are spawned)

 

- NKF

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'll post a comprehensive guide of what I found out about this so far:

 

Alien Equipment: updated instantaniously.

Level 1:
Total Tactical score needed: N/A
Weapon (+ Clips)															odds
Brainsucker Launcher + 1 Brainsucker Pod									40%
Brainsucker Launcher + 2 Brainsucker Pods								   30%
Brainsucker Launcher + 3 Brainsucker Pods								   30%

Level 2:
Total Tactical score needed: 1000
Weapon (+ Clips)															odds
Disruptor Gun															   70%
Brainsucker Launcher + 2 Brainsucker Pods								   10%
Brainsucker Launcher + 3 Brainsucker Pods								   10%
Brainsucker Launcher + 4 Brainsucker Pods								   10%

Grenades																	odds
1 Megapol Smoke Grenade													 20%
2 Megapol Smoke Grenades													10%

Level 3:
Total Tactical score needed: 2200
Weapon (+ Clips)															odds
Disruptor Gun															   80%
Brainsucker Launcher + 2 Brainsucker Pods								   10%
Brainsucker Launcher + 3 Brainsucker Pods								   10%

Grenades																	odds
1 Boomeroid																 20%
2 Boomeroids																10%
1 Megapol Smoke Grenade													 20%
2 Megapol Smoke Grenades													10%

Level 4
Total Tactical score needed: 4000
Weapon (+ Clips)															odds
Disruptor Gun															   40%
Devastator Cannon														   50%
Brainsucker Launcher + 4 Brainsucker Pods								   10%

Grenades																	odds
1 Boomeroid																 40%
2 Boomeroids																10%
1 Megapol Smoke Grenade													 20%
2 Megapol Smoke Grenades													10%

Level 5
Total Tactical score needed: 7000/6900/6800/6700/6600 (depends on difficulty level, from beginner to superhuman)
Weapon (+ Clips)															odds
Disruptor Gun															   30%
Devastator Cannon														   60%
Brainsucker Launcher + 4 Brainsucker Pods								   10%

Grenades																	odds
1 Vortex Mine															   20%
2 Vortex Mines															  10%
1 Boomeroid																 20%
2 Boomeroids																10%
3 Boomeroids																20%
1 Megapol Smoke Grenade													 10%
2 Megapol Smoke Grenades													10%

Devices																	 odds
Personal Disruptor Shield												   70%

Level 6
Total Tactical score needed: 12000/11500/11000/10500/10000
Weapon (+ Clips)															odds
Entropy Launcher + 3 Entropy Pods										   10%
Entropy Launcher + 5 Entropy Pods										   10%
Devastator Cannon														   70%
Brainsucker Launcher + 4 Brainsucker Pods								   10%

Grenades																	odds
1 Vortex Mine															   20%
2 Vortex Mines															  10%
3 Vortex Mines															  10%
1 Boomeroid																 10%
2 Boomeroids																20%
3 Boomeroids																10%
2 Megapol Smoke Grenades													10%
3 Megapol Smoke Grenades													10%

Devices																	 odds
Personal Disruptor Shield												   40%
Cloaking Field															  30%
Personal Disruptor Shield + Cloaking Field								  30%

Level 7
Total Tactical score needed: 22000/21000/20000/19000/18000
Weapon (+ Clips)															odds
Dimension Missile Launcher + 3 Dimension Missiles						   10%
Dimension Missile Launcher + 4 Dimension Missiles						   10%
Entropy Launcher + 3 Entropy Pods										   10%
Entropy Launcher + 5 Entropy Pods										   10%
Devastator Cannon														   50%
Brainsucker Launcher + 4 Brainsucker Pods								   10%

Grenades																	odds
1 Vortex Mine															   10%
2 Vortex Mines															  10%
3 Vortex Mines															  10%
4 Vortex Mines															  10%
1 Boomeroid																 10%
2 Boomeroids																20%
3 Boomeroids																10%
4 Boomeroids																10%
3 Megapol Smoke Grenades													10%

Devices																	 odds
Personal Disruptor Shield												   30%
Cloaking Field															  30%
Personal Disruptor Shield + Cloaking Field								  40%

Level 8
Total Tactical score needed: 42000/39000/36000/33000/28000
Weapon (+ Clips)															odds
Dimension Missile Launcher + 4 Dimension Missiles						   10%
Dimension Missile Launcher + 5 Dimension Missiles						   10%
Entropy Launcher + 3 Entropy Pods										   10%
Entropy Launcher + 4 Entropy Pods										   10%
Entropy Launcher + 5 Entropy Pods										   10%
Devastator Cannon														   40%
Brainsucker Launcher + 4 Brainsucker Pods								   10%

Grenades																	odds
1 Vortex Mine															   10%
2 Vortex Mines															  10%
3 Vortex Mines															  20%
4 Vortex Mines															  10%
2 Boomeroids																20%
3 Boomeroids																20%
4 Boomeroids																10%

Devices																	 odds
Personal Disruptor Shield + Cloaking Field								  30%
Personal Disruptor Shield + Personal Teleporter							 40%
Personal Teleporter + Cloaking Field										30%

 

UFO Equipment: updated daily

Item													 Total UFOs shot down score needed
Small Disruptor Shield								   2000/1750/1500/1250/1000
Large Disruptor Shield								   4000/3500/3000/2500/2000
Cloaking Field										   8000/7000/6000/5000/4000
Teleporter											   16000/14000/12000/10000/8000
Dimension Shifter (?)									32000/28000/24000/20000/16000

 

I'll do the guard equipment later :)

Edited by j'ordos
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  • 7 months later...

Hi folks, been lurking a couple weeks here, great forums :) I've been reading through this topic and am curious about something.

 

Tech updates (or downgrades - if you really work on your score) are done weekly during the Sunday to Monday changeover (basically all the majors updates like repairs to the city, market restock and when new UFOs are spawned)

 

- NKF

 

I recently reinstalled and got Apocalypse working (finally) on my current pc, and started a beginner game. After sorting out some starting equipment, I went straight to raiding the cult until I decided I needed a break from that, at which point my score was around 2300 or so. The first alien encounter I had in this current game was a building investigation, during which I faced a single anthropod armed with a disruptor gun and apparently a couple of brainsucker pods (spotted 2 after killing the anthropod, on the same tile it died on, one after the other), but no brainsucker launcher. So my question is, regarding the timing of alien equipment loadout upgrades - has the first game week been proven to follow special rules? I am now on the Sunday at the end of the first week, and every anthropod I've fought so far (only species encountered yet that uses equipment) has used a disruptor gun, and none has had a brainsucker launcher.

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The aliens replace their technology based on your score, so yeah, sometimes when you get too enthusiastic with killing Sirius people over and over, the aliens sometimes skip some tech you badly need for research.

Robo Dojo 58 made a list several posts earlier

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In this case, the question is whether technology is bound to usual rules for the very first week.

 

I wonder if the disrupter gun is special in this instance, and it's already unlocked but needs the score to be set to a particular level before it'll appear?

 

You shouldn't end up hiding away the brainsucker launcher though - once alien equipment becomes available, it should still appear.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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I recently reinstalled and got Apocalypse working (finally) on my current pc, and started a beginner game. After sorting out some starting equipment, I went straight to raiding the cult until I decided I needed a break from that, at which point my score was around 2300 or so.
Nice. I sometimes intentionally raid CoS to get to the 2100 breakpoint precisely because disruptor guns are so much easier to handle than brainsucker launchers.

 

The first alien encounter I had in this current game was a building investigation, during which I faced a single anthropod armed with a disruptor gun and apparently a couple of brainsucker pods (spotted 2 after killing the anthropod, on the same tile it died on, one after the other), but no brainsucker launcher. So my question is, regarding the timing of alien equipment loadout upgrades - has the first game week been proven to follow special rules? I am now on the Sunday at the end of the first week, and every anthropod I've fought so far (only species encountered yet that uses equipment) has used a disruptor gun, and none has had a brainsucker launcher.
Dumb luck. The minimum probability of a brainsucker launcher-armed anthropod is 1 in 10.
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So my question is, regarding the timing of alien equipment loadout upgrades - has the first game week been proven to follow special rules?
Not to my knowledge. However, my install (from the Collector's Edition CD-ROM) completely ignores the weekly threshold.

 

My experience is that personal equipment seems to be set by the score at the time of the "event creation" (e.g., if I'm shooting down UFOs and then send in squads to clear all of the UFOs the equipment at each UFO is what I would expect from the score when the UFO was shot down), but I haven't done anything really precise to analyze this. Whether UFOs have force shields appears to be controlled by both score at time of UFO arrival, and the difficulty level.

 

Assuming that UFO equipment has the same "weapon set" cutpoints as alien personal equipment: 4000 pts/level 4 is required for UFO force shields on Novice, while 1000 pts/level 2 is required for UFO force shields on Superhuman.

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The only time you'd find out if the equipment has changed is during an event in any case. One good way to find out for sure is to edit your score level to various levels and attack the same shot-down UFO several times and see what sort of equipment the enemies are carrying.

 

Or perhaps this is decided at the time the whole series of events occur: i.e. when the game decides to throw some UFOs into the city. However, with the very first mission, that's already in place when you start the game.

 

Nailing this tech trigger (or triggers, as the case may be) would be a good thing.

 

- NKF

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for all the feedback. I mainly brought it up because what I saw wasn't completely jiving with what the consensus seemed to be, or at least the way it's been stated, and I know how dedicated many of you are to knowing all the ins and outs of the game. Unfortunately I haven't had as much free time as I had when I posted here originally, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn't be one to go and manipulate my score extensively enough to get more definitive answers.

 

I didn't end up playing much past the point I was at when I posted, but when I have more time I will, and see how it goes.

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