CapnKill Posted August 31, 2010 Report Share Posted August 31, 2010 At this point I"m seeing Etherals, Mutons and Snakemen... I haven't seen a Sectoid or a Floatter in eons... aside from the last time I got my base attacked, which was Sectoids, which I assume is because they know where it is pre-mindshield installation... But should I expect Sectoids and Floaters to make a return or are they pretty much gone for good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted August 31, 2010 Report Share Posted August 31, 2010 You will bump into them occasionally, but once they start sending in the big guns you're more likely to run into Mutons more than anything (at least that's how it feels to me). You'll likely meet them again though when you assault an alien base or in the final mission. This is where the Hyperwave Decoder also comes in handy further down the line so you can see who's flying about and decide if some missions are really worth fighting - late on in the game I tend not to bother landing at every small or medium scout packed with Mutons as the death toll isn't generally worth what you get in return in terms of equipment, plus you'll be extremely lucky to get any elerium from the smaller shot-down craft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapnKill Posted August 31, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2010 Seems like right now I have more Elirium than I know what to do with, but I have just now begun building my first Alien ship, so that will start to get used up a bit. Yeah I have the Hyper Wave on 3 of my bases, so I basically just avoid all Etherals, and for some reason have not fought any Mutons yet, mainly beacause I've only downed small ships with them. Do Snakemen go away after a while as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomb Bloke Posted September 1, 2010 Report Share Posted September 1, 2010 The rarity changes a bit as the game goes on, but no races go away. At the end, Sectoids and Snakemen will be the rarest, and Ethereals the most common. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted September 1, 2010 Report Share Posted September 1, 2010 I've had a few Superhuman games where I've encountered Ethereals only a handful of times and it's 95% Mutons near the end. Wonder what brings the Ethereals out of the woodwork? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Strike Posted September 1, 2010 Report Share Posted September 1, 2010 Depending on your level, the early aliens don't die, they essentially move to the back burner. One more thing, never, ever, allow anything less than a battleship go about unscathed. It'll do more damage than good. As to Battleships, use Firestorms and Avengers on them. And as many as you can send. Probably 6 to 8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapnKill Posted September 1, 2010 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2010 Depending on your level, the early aliens don't die, they essentially move to the back burner. One more thing, never, ever, allow anything less than a battleship go about unscathed. It'll do more damage than good. As to Battleships, use Firestorms and Avengers on them. And as many as you can send. Probably 6 to 8. Yeah, I pretty much blow up anything that doesn't outrun me... Battleships I leave alone, if they land and are not Etherals then I go and throw them a party, aside from that, I try to keep the skies as clear as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Strike Posted September 2, 2010 Report Share Posted September 2, 2010 Yeah, I pretty much blow up anything that doesn't outrun me... Battleships I leave alone, if they land and are not Etherals then I go and throw them a party, aside from that, I try to keep the skies as clear as possible. Yeah, all but battleships get taken down when and where I can get them. I'll even tackle Etherals once in a while. But usually only for research. And I just usually kill all of them, except a soldier, engineer, or a technician. But only one of those, usually I kill on sight Etherals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapnKill Posted September 2, 2010 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2010 Yeah, all but battleships get taken down when and where I can get them. I'll even tackle Etherals once in a while. But usually only for research. And I just usually kill all of them, except a soldier, engineer, or a technician. But only one of those, usually I kill on sight Etherals. I tried one Etheral mission, they mind controlled 3 guys inside the sky rangers who ended up killing almost everyone. So... no thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapnKill Posted September 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2010 Go figure, last night after I completed a supply pillage mission, a round of Sectoid AND Floater UFOs showed up to try and cause some trouble... Welcome back bitches!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted July 20, 2011 Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 I'm necromancerinating this this thread only because it's close to a thread or discussion I've been trying to refer to, but for the life of me cannot recall where it was. Might not have been this forum, but some here might recall. Figured it was on the wiki, but with such a massive number of articles and the wiki's rather inadequate search feature, is proving to be a literal needle-inna-haystack process. Someone had posted a comprehensive table of showing the appearance by time probabilities for each race via a code dig via assembler. It was a good find but I didn't think to save a link to the discussion at the time. Now that I need to look it up, I suddenly feel that it's a worthy table to add to the wiki. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyrub Posted July 20, 2011 Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 I posted something which maybe fits your description for TFTD? For UFO EU the same table reads:0-1 (month)00000000000000010404000000000001010404040000000000000404040400000000000001010404000000010104040404040000000404040404040400000000000001010404 2-300000000000001040404000000000004040404040000000004040404040400000000000101040404000000000101040404040000000000000404040400000001010104040404 4-500000001030303040404000000030303040404040000000000040404040400000101030303030304000101010103030304040000010101010101040400000101030303030404 6-700000103030303040404000303030304040404040000000404040404040400010202020203030304000101010102030304040001010202020203030400000101020203030404 8+00000001030303040404000000030303040404040000000000040404040400000101020303030304000101020202030302040000010101020203030400010202020203030404 ...where 00 sectoids 01 snakesmen 02 ethreals 03 mutons 04 floaters and rows:0 Research1 Harvest2 Abduction3 Infiltration4 Base5 Terror6 Retaliation BTW, this shows quite well that ethereals are really rare, not showing up till 6 month elapsed. And even then, they don't dominate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted July 20, 2011 Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 Ah, thanks. That explains why I couldn't find it - I was searching under the wrong game. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted July 21, 2011 Report Share Posted July 21, 2011 I'm starting to tabulate the information into a table but have got one question for month 8+ base attacks. The probabilities seems to have an extra Ethereal (02) listed amongst the Muton's (03) probabilities. Does this just mean the Ethereals have a total of 40% for their appearance rate? - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Voyager Posted July 21, 2011 Report Share Posted July 21, 2011 I don't like these numbers. 404 is far too common in them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyrub Posted July 21, 2011 Report Share Posted July 21, 2011 The probabilities seems to have an extra Ethereal (02) listed amongst the Muton's (03) probabilities. Does this just mean the Ethereals have a total of 40% for their appearance rate?Yes, 40%. Although the appearance of 02 after 03 is strange (this was copied directly from the exe file), it works normally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted July 22, 2011 Report Share Posted July 22, 2011 I've just compiled the probabilities for TFTD based on the data dump you provided and I see that's got one or two similar mission where they are slightly out-of sequence as well. I started wondering if it was done that way because the game was treating the row of values like a dartboard target, for example they're loaded into an array, and the index is selected with rand()%10, and where ever the index falls, that's the race it will use. I guess it's basically the same result. Now that I've got them in decimal format, the tables are actually quite fascinating. I will start converting them into wiki tables and hopefully get them up tonight. edit: And up they are! UFO: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=A...pearance_Ratios TFTD: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=A...tios_%28TFTD%29 Thanks Kyrub. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorondor Posted July 22, 2011 Report Share Posted July 22, 2011 Excellent work, as usual, NKF! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted July 23, 2011 Report Share Posted July 23, 2011 I posted something which maybe fits your description for TFTD? For UFO EU the same table reads:0-1 (month)00000000000000010404000000000001010404040000000000000404040400000000000001010404000000010104040404040000000404040404040400000000000001010404 2-300000000000001040404000000000004040404040000000004040404040400000000000101040404000000000101040404040000000000000404040400000001010104040404 4-500000001030303040404000000030303040404040000000000040404040400000101030303030304000101010103030304040000010101010101040400000101030303030404 6-700000103030303040404000303030304040404040000000404040404040400010202020203030304000101010102030304040001010202020203030400000101020203030404 8+00000001030303040404000000030303040404040000000000040404040400000101020303030304000101020202030302040000010101020203030400010202020203030404 ...where 00 sectoids 01 snakesmen 02 ethreals 03 mutons 04 floaters and rows:0 Research1 Harvest2 Abduction3 Infiltration4 Base5 Terror6 Retaliation BTW, this shows quite well that ethereals are really rare, not showing up till 6 month elapsed. And even then, they don't dominate.Awesome stuff! Can you give me the location in the executable where this data starts? Searching the exe in MS-Edit for anything with a 0 in it is impossible. I've just compiled the probabilities for TFTD based on the data dump you provided and I see that's got one or two similar mission where they are slightly out-of sequence as well. I started wondering if it was done that way because the game was treating the row of values like a dartboard target, for example they're loaded into an array, and the index is selected with rand()%10, and where ever the index falls, that's the race it will use. I guess it's basically the same result. Now that I've got them in decimal format, the tables are actually quite fascinating. I will start converting them into wiki tables and hopefully get them up tonight. edit: And up they are! UFO: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=A...pearance_Ratios TFTD: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=A...tios_%28TFTD%29Good job NKF! - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted July 24, 2011 Report Share Posted July 24, 2011 (edited) Now that I've got them in decimal format, the tables are actually quite fascinating.Tables are nice and all, but it's kinda hard to visualize what is happening with just numbers sometimes. So I plopped all the data into an MS-Excel spreadsheet and graphed the percents by alien mission type. I first tried a line graph, but there were overlaps in the data which masked some races out - so I ended up with a 3-D line graph. Probably not my best effort, but it gets the job done : Alien Research Alien Harvest Alien Abduction Alien Infiltration Alien Base Alien Terror Alien Retaliation This makes it a little bit easier to visualize how each of the races interact with each other. - Zombie Edited July 24, 2011 by Zombie Uploaded new version of a graph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knan Posted July 30, 2011 Report Share Posted July 30, 2011 So no chryssalid terror before May, unless you provoke them into a base assault. Interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted August 7, 2011 Report Share Posted August 7, 2011 Lots of great info here, I literally drool over stuff like this. It also proves some observations: no Snakemen, Ethereals or Mutons in alien abduction missions. In the past I was called out for commenting that Mutons never carried out abduction missions, so it feels good to have data to back it up. Hopefully, the percentages hold for all versions of the game. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted September 10, 2011 Report Share Posted September 10, 2011 I just went and tried this. Edited geoscape.exe to produce Sectoids only in the first block of missions. The second block was Mutons. Mutons, and nothing else but Mutons. The third block was just the standard lot. Started a new game, edited base.dat to add a HWD to the main base and threw in some plasma cannons, fusion ball launchers and 100 units of ammo. Ran through a couple of games and the results were: January: all Sectoids February: all MutonsMarch: all Muton April: back to normal (also seems my aggressive shootdowns caused them to start using Battleships for a harvest mission) So the first block only covers January? Unfortunately Mutons form part of the third block, so it doesn't tell me if there's any overlap. However, for the first three months, there was no overlap at all. Maybe I'll go back and set the third block to, say, snakeman and try again. edit: also, much to my astonishment, the FBL doesn't have a 100% hit rate after all. I had to use two to take down a small scout. Either that or the small scout has better evasion? - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NKF Posted September 10, 2011 Report Share Posted September 10, 2011 Second run with block 3 as all snakeman, The results Jan - May: exactly the same as previous test April: mix of Mutons and Snakemen May: Snakeman only for new UFOs. Only Muton UFOs created were or the base supply runs, otherwise they don't count June: almost a repeat of May (suspect it's business as usual though - just going through the previously scheduled stuff) July: mostly snakemen but some new Muton and Sectoid UFOs on missions (business as usual) Other incidental observations: A Muton base construction fleet were on their way to the area just around the main base. I sent an interceptor out to wait for them. Immediately spotted a base nearby my own base, and the UFOs had only just been passed through the HWD detection edge and were still in transit. Interceptors do appear to be able to detect UFOs in flight, but range is short. About the horizontal width of India from Bombay to the other side. This was a previously detected UFO that had fallen out of radar range. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zombie Posted September 10, 2011 Report Share Posted September 10, 2011 edit: also, much to my astonishment, the FBL doesn't have a 100% hit rate after all. I had to use two to take down a small scout. Either that or the small scout has better evasion?Nope, it's just smaller. Size and distance plays a role in chance to hit determinations. Because the FBLs always fire at such a long distance and also the size of the Small Scout is so tiny, there is a chance FBLs will miss. With larger UFOs you are basically going to hit every time due to them being a bigger target. I don't think that the acceleration stat really comes into play if you are using an Avenger to shoot down a Small Scout, but slower accelerating X-COM craft may play a role in chance to hit (no real data on this unfortunately). My guess is no, but you never know. - Zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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