Want a chryssalid stopped from rampaging up inside transports?

[Tsathoggua]

Quick and dirty and messy but it works.

 

Set the ramp ablaze with HC-IC or AC-IC rounds. Seems like they don't like being cooked in the shell much anymore than we do.

 

Nothing new, in that aliens avoid an inferno, but the specific application came to me just now. Most of the men were low on TU, taken to the skies, a few trainees were back at the rear, so had one toss a HC to someone beefy enough to handle it, popped two rounds onto the base and middle of the ramp, started a big fire, crisis averted, ugly little critter ran off to seek another target,and got itself MC'ed before it could get close enough to engage.

[Tsathoggua]

Afterthought-can ammunition explode through overheating if subjected to prolonged fire sources such as multiple turns being hit with incendiary rounds?

[NKF]

One possible reason for the Chryssalid's reticence is because there's no waypoint for alien pathing in the Skyranger, so the Chryssalid's not particularly tempted to go in. That's not to say it won't if it's on the attack.

 

 

Afterthought-can ammunition explode through overheating if subjected to prolonged fire sources such as multiple turns being hit with incendiary rounds?

 

This development didn't show up until X-Com Apocalypse, so fire in UFO/TFTD will burn people and environment structures like walls and foliage but not small objects like weapons or even unconscious bodies and corpses.

 

- NKF

[Tsathoggua]

By waypoint, and in particular, what do you mean by the term 'pathing'? sighted then engaging rather than search-and-recruitment? (irony intended. Cheap bastards don't even bother to give the king's shilling, just a poisoned claw in the face. Talk about cheapskate mother fuckers. What about openXcom, other variants like UFO-redux, ufoextender and suchlike? any mods known to do so? would add a 'great' new layer of realism if they did so. I say 'great' but not so great if one happens to be standing by oh, say, the 50-something blaster bombs, 25+ each rounds of HC-IC. HC-HE and IC-HE/IC-HE, and enough human+alien grenades plus HE packs to wipe out a moderately sized city such as

 

I've seen the bastards trying to give the bumrush to troops on a transport once one spots them. Rookies of course, and doubly of course, it has to be the rookies and newly promoted squaddies with the 99 psi strength but as yet no skill and carrying stun rods and plasma pistols, lasers and incendiaries:P who better when a chryssalid gets hungry and hasn't fucked a chryssalady since the trip takes off from mars:P but thankfully one new guy was strong enough to toss a HC and one to pick it up, lock&load and put some flames right in front of that olympic sprinting champion zombie-factory:P

[NKF]

By waypoint, and in particular, what do you mean by the term 'pathing'?

 

You'll have to take me quite literally on this one. Path as in a route that can followed. Waypoints being the different destinations or points in the path - sometimes referred to as nodes or vectors. Each point may lead on to one or more points. In the context of artificial intelligence, and games in particular, the term 'pathing' generally refer to the AI's ability to travel and navigate around obstacles.

 

In UFO and TFTD, each segment that makes up a map will have its own little roadmap that tell the AI how it can move the aliens through it. It's not perfect, but it does give the otherwise simplistic AI a passing resemblance of intelligence when it comes to their ability to navigate through some fairly complex layouts such as the UFOs and base interiors.

 

It's what stops an AI enemy from simply taking the shortest route to its destination (a straight line) and continuously bang its head into a corner, which you may still occasionally see in games with much larger production budgets.

 

NKF

[Tsathoggua]

AH. The waypoint part I got, afterall, no different from blaster bombs being guided, save only that more often than not, its X-com troops setting them, the AI only seeming to use the things like a bazooka, albeit a really BIG, really damaging MANPAD. Pathing I hadn't come across before. TY for clearing that up.

 

As for that last short paragraph in your above post...makes me think of how tasoth and in particular, tentaculat seem to do it in TFTD, pop out from a door, or round a corner, glide evilly towards one's best aquanauts, then right before striking, glide, albeit still evilly but less so, given that what the damnable thing is doing is buggering off again, only to go hide once more, when it COULD easily have zombified a fireteam or so.Depending on the size of the fireteam. But tentaculat in particular really do seem to make a habit of gliding right up to engagement range or a tile or two away, then sodding off again and simply parking themselves right in front of an aquanaut

 

Thus presenting itself as a neatly giftwrapped present for target training. Albeit one that you really REALLY don't want to tear the paper off with anything less than a

flurry of sonic pistol shots:D

 

Question-in openXcom, how does the 'sneaky AI' setting actually work in terms of mechanics?