Right, so as we all know most of the races in TFTD don't have a full compliment of all the possible ranks. The only species which have all the ranks represented is the Aquatoids. But what happens when a rank is supposed to show up but can't due to the missing rank in the alien class. As we found out for EU in the Alien Deployment thread, Mutons and Snakemen substitute soldiers for the missing ranks and Ethereals substitute Leaders. I figured it would be interesting to do this for TFTD.

So what I found out was this: Lobstermen substitute a Technician for the missing Medic rank. Tasoths substitute Squad Leaders for Technicians, Navigators and Commanders and I think they substitute a Soldier for a medic. (Needs a little more research). As for Gillmen, they substitute a Squad Leader for the Medic. Not sure about what happens with a Gillman "Navigator" yet, it may get replaced with a Squad Leader as well. Getting some of these ships to show up is next to impossible so this is going to take a little while to verify everything.

- Zombie

You could forcibly change the race flag of any USOs/event that pops up to save time.

Have you got any findings for the colonies or artefact sites?

- NKF

Thanks, I'll do that.

God only knows I visited enough artefact sites just to get to the ships. (Or colonies for that matter). Problem is that the artefact sites are usually mixed with Tasoths and Aquatoids (at least for the artefact sites I visited) with some terrorists thrown in for good measure so I'm not sure what is being substituted yet. I believe that the Aquatoids are replacements for the higher ranking Tasoths. Haven't looked at the rank breakdown or a colony too close yet, but I'll do that today.

- Zombie

If it helps any, I've *just* done an Artifact Site and relay the following opposition:

Tasoth - Both Soldier & Squad Leader (12 on each level)
Aquatoid - Squad Leader only (2 on the top level, 3 underground)
Tentaculat Terrorist (6 on each level)
Hallucinoid Terrorist (2 on the top, 3 underground)

The number will probably *not* be 100% exact as I was just counting whatever I came accross with a Reader (or just looking for the more 'unique' adversaries )

May be of use as a baseline?

Possibly. Were you on beginner skill level? That's what level I use for testing. In the OSG for TFTD by Dave Ellis, it has the alien loadouts on pg 301 but it doesn't explicitly list the rank breakdown for artefact sites. Looking at your numbers, it can't be lumped in the Terror Site category. But it does match the Alien Colonies/Synomium Sites. On beginner there are 7-12 soldiers, 3-5 squad leaders, 2-3 techs, 2-3 medics, 2-3 navigators, 1-2 commanders and 3-5 terror units. I'll bet the game is substituting the Aquatoids for one of the ranks (probably techs) and Tentaculats for the other missing ranks. Obviously the Hallucinoids are the same.

--------------------

Seems as though we haven't found the race flag for the USO's yet. Not to worry though, I fooled around with that file this morning and found it in EU's craft.dat. Now to apply it to TFTD's craft.dat which is longer and the structure doesn't match.

- Zombie

Skil Level = Veteran

This would probably account for the inflated Terrorist count.
Seems I got a small draw for the soldiers though
(Even if one of them shot my Displacer up the back end and turned it to goo )

One of the things which I noticed while playing the other day was aliens toting a DPL on a Fleet Supply Cruiser. Well, I didn't notice it until the alien incinerated a few of my men. So I looked at the alien loadouts in the executable and yes indeed, aliens carry DPL's on the Fleet Supply Cruiser. Just another reason why TFTD is harder then EU.

- Zombie

You can get DPLs from hunter subs as well iirc.
Not sure about the heavy cruisers though, never seem to see them at all

'Medium' subs are lovely targets - lots of toys and not too many angry things

Right you are. Hunters have DPL's too according to my notes on the executable. Hmmm, I don't think I even saw a Hunter or a Heavy Cruiser yet. Must be just as rare as the Abductor and Harvester in EU.

- Zombie

Well, I fooled around with TFTD's craft.dat and loc.dat today to force a Dreadnought to land. It just so happened to be a Gill Man - the race I was looking for. Unfortunately, there are so many aliens present on this type of ship which makes it next to impossible to determine what rank is substituted for the Medics and Technicians. Also I didn't know what the rank ordering was in unitref.dat. What I ended up doing was editing the craft to hold Aquatoids (the only race with all ranks represented) and then slowly removed the ranks in the executable until I had the ordering figured out. After that, I edited the craft properties to hold Gill Men again and then added a Navigator and finally a Medic.

Here's the results. Gill Men substitute Squad Leaders for the Medics and Technicians for the Navigators. Hurray, one down two to go! Will work on the Tasoths and Lobstermen tonight.

Edit: Hmmm, that was easy. Lobstermen substitute Technicians for Medics. As for the Tasoths, they substitute Squad Leaders for Technicians, Navigators and Commanders; while Soldiers are substituted for the Medics. I guess it's on to the Terror/Synomium/Colonies now. At least things should go quicker due to an understanding of the substitution order and game files.

- Zombie

This post has been edited by Zombie: 1st October 2007, 4:23am

Initial results indicate that the game substitutes Aquatoid Soldiers for the Tasoth Technicians and Aquatoid Squad Leaders for the Tasoth Medics in an Alien Colony. It seems as though the missing Navigators and Commanders substitute Hallucinoids. I'll have to do a little editing in the executable to verify this completely but this is what it looks like so far.

- Zombie

Ok folks, I just confirmed the Alien Colony substitutions in my last post by directly editing the executable. According to the OSG, Synomium sites should have the same loadout as a colony, and the terror sites follow the Battleship loadouts.

While I was at it, I compared the loadout numbers in the executable tho those in the OSG. The OSG is wrong in a couple of areas. First, there is always 1 navigator (if the race supports that rank) on a Battleship. Also, it list the number of terror units at 3 for beginner and 7 on superhuman with a randomizer of 4. According to the executable it is 2 for beginner and 6 on superhuman with a randomizer of 4 (technically the terror unit class is broken apart into 2 separate entries of 1,3,2 for different species of units, but I think if one species is missing due to land/water restrictions all of the units are the same). Also, on the Dreadnought the randomizer for the number of extra commanders to spawn is 0, not 1 as is found in the OSG. At least, this is true for the CE executable. I'll need to check this on my DOS version to see if there is a difference.

- Zombie

I dont supose you have a site that lists all the offsets in the exe your messing with?

-Blade FireLight

Nope, not a site. I have an Excel spreadsheet with a detailed breakdown of everything which is known in the Enemy Unknown CE executable (which is quite a bit), and use that for finding the similar offsets in TFTD. I might have the beginnings of the TFTD CE executable map in an Excel spreadsheet somewhere with alien loadouts and some other info. If you want it, let me know.

- Zombie

Yes I would. I don't suppose you have any offsets from the dos version to?

No, but I have the DOS version of TFTD so getting those offsets isn't really that difficult. Let me work on this today and I'll send it your way when finished.

- Zombie