First off, I've always wondered how exactly you get your guys to increase in stats. I mean, is there any way I could 'farm' a particular stat? Like touch down and do nothing but throw 'nades to get better throwing accuracy or strength? Could anyone list what you need to do to get an increase in what specific stat?

Next, where are the 'optimal' locations to have 100% radar coverage of the entire planet? I always seem to have cracks that USOs slip into and cause me to lose tracking.

In relation to Question 2, is it worth having multiple Wide Array Sonars in one base? Or do they not stack?

Stun, HE, and Inc weapons (in ref. to editing) use the 'damage' as a range instead. Whereas it would be nice to edit the damage these things do (I HATE having to waste multiple stun shots on ONE alien ><) Can anyone explain the relation between the number and exactly how big a radius the explosion will be? I've edited the stun bombs to a 'damage' of 80, and it seems to make an explosion beig enough to hit about 9 tiles (the one to target and the other 8 immediately surrounding it.) It would be nice to find out what the number translates into exact number of tiles...

Does shooting down a USO and not landing at it (aka leaving it on the bottom) make the closest country hate you more? If so, I guess I need to start taggin' and baggin' more aliens.

Welcome!

The Ufopaedia will answer you better than I can right now at six in the morning, but feel free to speculate!

It's an awesome page....I've looked at it before. Unfortunately, it doesn't really answer any of my questions, or only answers bits and peices of the hole.

I have another question, and I can't figure why it's not on that page (or maybe I'm just missing it?) What are the requirements to get a top ranked squaddie? I know it has to do with squad size, experience in battle, etc but I want to get an upper chain of command for my base :-)

Experience answers "how do soldiers increase in stats" in far too much detail

Explosions tell you everything about the relationship between damage and blast radius.

Multiple wide array sonars in one base do not stack. One of each is enough.

Ranks has requirements for promotions.

The ufopaedia is all-knowing.

Thanks, I don't know how I managed to miss those...I checked all the links on the main page, I guess I needed to check the ones on the specific games too

Only one I had an issue with was Explosions. I felt like I needed to be a math major to understand the jibberish on that page. All I need to know is how many how many points of 'damage' an explosive needs to be able to cover X amount of tiles. I've been playing around with editing, and I think I've figured roughly the sizes I need, but no exact numbers. I know that 1 = nothing (won't damage anything) and 255 = freakin' huge.

Anyway, thanks for the reply, Ufopaedia = god.

Reverse engineering takes a bit of maths. Translating it back to english takes effort

Looks like this is what you want, extracted and simplified from the Explosions page:


if it is a weapon you fire at someone


for grenades and the blaster

Not all pages in the database link to all other pages. If you want to find something out, look for the best "close match" and you'll probably pick up a trail to the page you're actually after.

If you feel a page should link to another but doesn't, create an account and start editing!

Hang on a minute.
I thought the basic sonar/radar things had a 10% chance to detect something in any given direction over the course of 1 minute.
And increasing the number of arrays didn't boost the range or anything, it just gave a flat % increase to the detection chance for that minute, which thinking on it does make sense. :-/

What you read in the usopaedia isn't always correct. Then again, some of us have jumped right into the save files to find out how the sonars work, and ran a few controlled tests to verify our findings. We found that only one of each type can stack. The same types do not.

Brief explanation:

Every base detects USOs with three sonar types. Short and Long sonar. There is also a third type, but since we can't call it hyperwave detection in TFTD, we'll just call it Transmission Resolver sonar. This can range from 0 to 100, with 100 being 100% detection. TR is special as it also reveals mission data. If these values are not set, the base cannot pick up USOs.

A small sonar has short: 10, long: 0, TR: 0. A large sonar has short: 20, long: 20 and TR: 0. The Transmission resolver has Short: 0, Long: 0, TR: 100.

So if we build multiple small sonars, you'd expect the base's short detection to be 20 if the two stacked. They do not and the base continues to provide 10 short range detection. A small and large sonar on the other hand do stack and set the base's sonar stats to short: 30, long: 20, TR: 0. Add in a transmission resolver and you get 30, 20 and 100 respectively.

Of course, the Transmission Resolver already outclasses the other sonar in distance and picks up USOs 100% of the time, so the other two are redundant. However, before you get the Transmission resolver, the two other sonars work best when combined.

Any additional sonar of the same type has no function apart from raising the bars in the base information screen (which has no function, by the way, and is really just a means of counting your sonar) and increases the maintenance cost of the base. The only reason for building redundant sonar would be for their corridor layouts in the battlescape.

That's it, really. Really blew me away after so many years of being accustomed to redundant sonar, thinking it improved detection when it does not!

- NKF

Well that is a bugger, no?

And if it's like UFO:EU then the detection check is at every half hour, not every minute.