Some questions related to X-Com base positioning:

Do all the named cities (and islands) belong to organisations? In UFO: Enemy Unknown, IIRC, there were borders indicating what cities belonged to which countries (some apparently didn't belong to any funding nations) but there are none in X-Com: TftD.

It seems that Terror missions sometimes happen on spots without any visible city names. Would this indicate that also the land mass that belongs to an organisations should be covered by sonars/transmissions resolvers in order to protect that organisation or does it suffice to have the cities covered? For example, is it enough to cover Reykjavik to have the Icelandic Union under protection or must the whole land mass (Greenland) be covered?

Infiltration missions. Since the mission is to infiltrate the gov't, do all the infiltration missions happen in capitals?

Radars and Transmission Resolvers? Nautical Miles are mentioned for sure but it's hard to comprehend what exact coverage is offered by the different radars. NKF said:


The distance between Novosibirsk and Moscow is about half of my screen size, so that'd mean a small sonar should be able to detect almost everything on the screen except for the corners when zoomed in just enough to see the city names...? (Presuming the sonar coverage is circular)

I'm trying to figure out some more or less ultimate base positioning. I like the idea the manual gives about the Sea of Japan, a base placed there would cover three wellpaying organisations. A base between Asian Coalition and Arabian Bloc should also be a good spot, but regarding the question earlier about cities, I don't see any cities in the Arabian Bloc, so where do the borders go... USA pays most and should most definitely be covered, but I have a feeling one base isn't sufficient. It seems it would be wise to place a base covering the west coast (I played with the idea of placing one base in the North American Sea but it seems there isn't enough water to intercept properly from that position, but for a cheap "listening post" it might not be half bad presuming the transmission resolver doesn't work only under water, which I presume the sonar does) along with Canada with one base, somewhere between Anchorage and San Francisco perhaps? I also wonder if a base located under UK would be enough to cover Icelandic Union, Euro-Syndicate and Egyptian Cartel and maybe even parts of Euroasia? Or does the sonar and transmission resolver only work under water making it a necessity to place a base in the Mediterranean? I must say base positioning decisions were bloody bloody bloody much easier in UFO: EU...

TFTD doesn't let you engage flying subs over land, making the benefits of observing that area dubious. You don't get points just for radar coverage or random flybys.

Terror missions may occur on land, however these are all reported to you anyway (and so long as you've got the fuel, you'll always have time to respond: They don't end if you've got a craft targetting them).

I know that (I used to play this very much some 10 years ago), but to protect the organisations I should still be able to track down the USOs *near* the funders, meaning positioning bases far away from land doesn't seem to be a good strategic option...

Back then I was basing that off how far I was able to pick up a UFO before it blinked off the radar (but hadn't shot off into space yet). Tracking is slightly different from detecting. Detection radius for the various radars is a little smaller.

The wiki has a page on radar detection and includes an overlay that shows the detection range. That's not too shabby when all is said and done, but it does make the hyperwave decoder look short-ranged.

Obviously these all apply to TFTD's equivalents.

With TFTD, land doesn't really matter. It's the area of ocean owned by the various companies and cartels that matter. You might have also noticed that infiltration (interdiction?) teams land in the ocean rather than on land.

Unfortunately it's not that easy to say who owns what - at least that's what I found. A rough estimate based on the location of the labels tends to help. If any of the labels are on land, then perhaps their area does extend into land and should get a bit of protection.

I think the best way to position bases is to do it like in UFO. Look for a tight cluster of several paying groups and put a base down there. Or take your chances and protect the seas owned by the highest payer.

- NKF

Hey, that actually looks quite huge if you can almost cover whole Africa with a single hyperwave decoder... Of course, the seas are larger than continents but in UFO it should be then possible to cover the whole land area of Earth with some 4-5 bases...?


It seems that all UFOs land in the seabed every now and then, I never thought that the interdiction missions were done in the ocean though (does it make any sense? Do organisations also have underwater bases? Or do they land on the seabed and perhaps take smaller vessels to land where they finish their mission...), just perceived the landings to be for other reasons...


Then perhaps it just best to try to cover as much sea as possible of where the best funders are (Sea of Japan, North Atlantic, North Pacific and Indian Ocean?)

Think of TFTD's map as an inverted version of UFO's.

You remember in the original, shooting a craft down over the ocean "destroyed" it? Well, that's because only land was technically part of the map (note that there weren't any polygons in the ocean? Each had a different texture, according to the terrain it represented). It "made sense" that you couldn't do missions in the sea because, well, it's the sea.

In TFTD it's the other way around, only now it's the land that isn't part of the map (no polygons on the continents). Just as UFO's craft wouldn't land in water, TFTD's USOs won't touch down on land. But it no longer makes sense for downed craft to be destroyed when out of bounds, so the developers also prevented you from attacking them there.

I understand it's a technical solution but it doesn't make any sense. How do you infiltrate the gov't on the sea? Besides, at least Tritons are able to land on land (terror missions)... Okay, some of the weaponry doesn't work above sea (torpedoes), that makes sense, but why wouldn't the gauss cannon or the sonic oscillator work in air is beyond me. Maybe the game would've been to large, but I wish there were some better ingame explanations...

The game bravely tries to model what happens during an infiltration attempt, but it isn't realistic as the missions are aquatic and humans only stay on the land. That's the limitation of the game. If it were to be more realistic, the game would have to be a true combination of Enemy Unknown and TFTD. An argument could be made in the original game about aliens signing a pact with the US even though all of the UFO's landed in Cuba. It's the same idea except we are dealing with the sea now. Chalk it all up to defined territories and not actual territories. If we are talking about being realistic, how far out to sea can each country claim as it's own? 12 miles or something? That would mean the aliens would have to land in that strip to get to the country. Anyway, it's best not to think about the how's and why's as they only raise more issues than resolve.


Well, sound travels better in water than it does on land, so it would stand to reason that the sonic line of weaponry would do the same. Not sure about gauss though. You would think the air would be better.

- Zombie

Yeah, well, it's the future, who knows, maybe the laws about international water have been changed...

Does land mass hinder the sonars in any way?

The sonars shouldn't have any limitations over land. From running some tests with the sonars recently, I noticed that they tracked just fine when USO's flew over land. Of course, in real life this shouldn't be the case but it is in TFTD.

- Zombie

You'd be amazed that despite how complex this game seems, much of it is achieved by cutting corners and taking the simplest solution possible.

As for the vagueness, well look on the bright side. It lends a lot to the imagination.

I kind of like the idea of the infiltrators landing out at sea and sending a smaller vessel with a lone ambassador out to meet politicians from the country they're infiltrating. Perhaps on land or on some private cruiser out in the middle of the sea. Basically behind-the-scenes stuff like the X-Com agents tracking down alien bases.

- NKF

We're expected to believe that a damaging, underwater headshot won't always kill your troopers outright... Aquatic political meetings seem rather easy to swallow in comparison.

Well, they do have their helmets on while submerged...

The thing about helmets is, in order to damage their wearers with gunshots you need to punch holes through them...

And then your genious minions remove the things entirely on land, though this doesn't affect their armor ratings in the slightest...

These must be some really tough fish bowls that they're handing out to everyone. Not only do they withstand the extreme pressures of the deep, they can survive blasts from alien ray guns or extreme alien entertainment sound systems.

Hang on - what about air tanks?

- NKF

I always thought soldier armor had sophisticated re-breathers built-in to the suit on the back, otherwise in a normal mission most of your men would be dead from lack of oxygen. You just have to wonder what the trip is like on the way back to the base. Unless the base is deeper than the mission, all your soldiers would need to detox in a pressure chamber to thwart the bends. Maybe the transport ship cargo bay is a big pressure chamber?

- Zombie

Out of the first 3 games, I think TFTD makes the least sense. How you (and your equipment) can stay on the seabed is beyond me.
Well, not like the other games aren't. X-COM is the swiss cheese of "plot" holes.

You don't have to stay on the seabed - With extensive work into TFTD's convoluted research tree, your soldiers can learn to swim!

If you're lucky. If you're not, you need one of Blade's patches to fix the game so you can actually finish...

Is there any way to aim your weapons on a specific body parts by the way? I presume explosions do damage to the legs more likely but how do I damage the head for instance?

And do aliens receive fatal wounds?