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UFO: Enemy Unknown Alien Stats


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I have the distinct pleasure of introducing the newest site page here at StrategyCore: Enemy Unknown Alien Stats. That's right, everything you wanted to know and more about what makes Sectoids, Floaters, Etherals and Chryssalids tick. It includes statistic tables for all skill levels as well as a wealth of knowledge unrivaled anywhere. The pi
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I just completed another major research project into alien stats today. In short, I edited each alien stat in the executable and tried to link it to a unitref.dat offset. For the most part, this plan was very successful as out of the 39 stat bytes, four do not show up in unitref. (And two of those are attributes which probably only apply to unitpos). In addition, I figured out another unknown so now we are down to 8! :D

 

"So, big deal. Who cares", some of you may be saying. True, it probably doesn't affect most players of the game, but for those of us who test religiously, this helps out tremendously when looking at unitref.dat. In fact, if a stat is found in both places, it is easier (and safer) to edit a unitref value than going into the executable as the changes only hold for a mission and not the whole game. I added those unitref offsets in StrategyCore's Alien Stats page in hopes that someone who is researching this can figure out some of these unknowns. Please contact me if you happen to stumble across something! :)

 

- Zombie

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Figuring out which alien stat corresponeded to a unitref offest has had some fortunate side-effects. It allowed me to deduce a complete theoretical executable stat listing for the Zombie! Up until this point there were some major holes left for this creature, so a full listing seemed improbable. In addition, past searches of the executable yielded nothing as the list was incomplete. If anyone is willing to search it with the new string, I would be very grateful:

 

17, 7, 0, 0, 40, 84, 110, 40, 84, 0, 0, 80, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 0, 20, 0, 1, 0, 3, 3, 18, 18, 0, 13, 0, 80, 0, 4, 0, 0, 57, 0, 2, 3

 

I must mention that MikeTheRed did a comprehensive search for me a while back and came up empty-handed so it is possible that Zombie stats are not found in the executable and are calculated on-the-spot as needed. Either that, or another game file has them hidden somewhere. As always, I added this new info to the alien stats page. :D

 

- Zombie

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I doubt it. Byte 1 in the alien stats already represents rank. Besides, the Silacoid would be the "commander" as it is the only creature with a value of 5, all 2x2 units would be leaders as they have a vlaue of 4, all the other aliens and units (except Sectoids) would be specialists with a value of 3 and the Sectoids would be the grunts with 2. Unknowns 5&6 fall next to static alien characteristics (height) so one would assume that those unknowns are related to what is next to it somehow. We thought it was width, but Bomb Bloke did some limited tests and preliminary results show no difference in accuracy determinations when shooting at the alien. Any other guesses? :D

 

- Zombie

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Here's a thought - the zombie (and perhaps even the Chryssalids that hatch from zombies - unless you've verified that they default to the beginner level stats) may have the stats stored independantly of the main stat table. I'm guessing this would be somewhere in the tactical portion of the game.

 

- NKF

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Ok, is the CE executable (UFO Defense.exe) a combination of Geoscape.exe and Tactical.exe? If so, I ran a quick check through the CE again with shorter zombie string combinations and still came up with nothing. Guess I'll try the DOS Tactical.exe next. I have a sneaking suspicion that it will not be in there either. Any other places I should check before we chalk this up to the game calculating zombie stats? :D

 

Chryssalids formed from a zombe always have stats equal to the core, and those are found in the main executable. :)

 

- Zombie

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Yes, the CE executable is a combination of the two. Even with the XComutil split executable, they're still the same - they just start at different locations. The dos version would be by far the best to search for your stats.

 

Note that the stats may not necessarily be stored in the exact same manner as they were in the master stat table. You'll have to look for variables close to each other that mimic the zombie stats you're after. For all you'd know, the programmers could've manually set the variables one after the other during the turn-this-unit-into-a-zombie subroutine - and out of order.

 

- NKF

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Ah, sorry... missed the rank field in front of my nose. Guess #2: some sort of stun reduction/resistance, perhaps? Since it is highest for the compact mass of rock, and least for the fragile sectoid?

Damage modifiers for the different damage types are found in the executable in a separate location from alien stats (this includes stun).

 

I did some minor testing on stun recovery rates for the different units in the game (soldiers, tanks, HWP's, civilians, aliens and terrorists) just for the heck of it, but that number always seems to be 1 pt/turn. Unknown 4 (byte 20) of alien stats is always 1 so I thought that this may be recovery rate. Unfortunately, after editing byte 20 to 10 and alien stun to 10 in unitref and then waiting a turn the rate was still 1 pt. Darn. It may be a unitref stat as there are a couple offsets which are always 1, but I haven't found it yet. :)

 

NKF: I'm currently searching the DOS version of tactical.exe for the Zombie stats, but let me tell you it's really difficult trying to search with one value and then looking at the numbers which surround it to see if they are in the Zombie stat string. This will take a while. :D

 

- Zombie

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That's for active and alive units. The stun recovery rate seems to be 1 pt/turn (even for Reapers). So unconscious Reapers receive 4 pts/turn? Interesting! I'll have to check the other large units (Sectopods and Cyberdiscs) to see what numbers they put out. (They should recover in the same manner as a Reaper since once they are stunned they stay that way). :D

 

- Zombie

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  • 1 year later...

Due to some code cracking by Seb76 over at the X-COM Wiki we now know what three unknown alien stats are for. Two of them (remember the discussion about the elusive UNITREF.DAT [048] and [052] offsets?) represent an index into the Line Of Fire Templates (LOFTemps) so that the game can calculate how a bullet hits a unit. Nice! The other unknown is an index into the MCD list which is movement type related (walking, sliding or floating). smile.png

 

Right now there are 5 unknowns left. Not bad. Slowly but surely we will figure them all out! I made some changes to my alien stats page, to take this into account. wink.png

 

At some point in time (possibly in the near future) I'll be adding more information pertaining to the HWPs due to research by j'ordos, armorfiend and myself. Also on my list is an update to my Excel document and rewriting the parts for Melee and Psi attacks (new research indicates the TUs for each attack type isn't a universal constant like I thought but a % TU per use). blink.png

 

- Zombie

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  • 5 months later...

For the game data files, any hex editor will do. Even MS-Edit in binary mode - a most unconventional but handy way to view and edit the data since you can view everything in tabular form by adjusting the columns to display in each row.

 

- NKF

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