Alien Advancement (TFTD)

[Zombie]

Yes, because MS-Edit starts its rows and columns with 1, you have to add 1 when converting decimal offsets into MS-Edit row/cols.

Thanks very much.

 

Actually, I didn't notice this since I was editing the dos executables, but the UFO executable has the rows lined up nicely at 100 columns. If you were to work at 10 columns instead of 100 columns, they'd be laid out like Kyrub's data above. Much easier to inspect and change. It's just a pain to scroll though!

Meh, 100 column widths work out just as well. lol

 

Ok, for the CE version of TFTD the tables start at 494717 - 101 (to account for MS Edit) = 494616 (dec) or 78C18 (hex).

 

- Zombie

[kyrub]

I looked up the odds for various terror sites appearing.

 

Jan - March: 100% Port / Island map

April - May: 40% Port / Island map; 60% a ship map

July - : 20% Port / Island; 30% ship map; 50% Artifact / Alien ship

After 11 Artifact / Alien ship maps: 40% Port / Island map; 60% a ship map

 

Hopefully I understand the data correctly.

[magic9mushroom]

I looked up the odds for various terror sites appearing.

 

Jan - March: 100% Port / Island map

April - May: 40% Port / Island map; 60% a ship map

July - : 20% Port / Island; 30% ship map; 50% Artifact / Alien ship

After 11 Artifact / Alien ship maps: 40% Port / Island map; 60% a ship map

 

Hopefully I understand the data correctly.

 

1) What is "alien ship"?

 

2) I've always seen Artefact Sites appear at 00:30 at the start of a month, with no sub activity prior. :-/

[Alienated]

That is supposed to mean aliens attack shipping route, that is terror site on a liner.

 

Oh, wait a minute. I guess the poster means after you destroy eleven synomium devices, you no longer get artefact sites because T'leth is supposed to be the 12th target as the UFOpaedia says there are 12 special objectives. But as far as I have been told, the artefact sites are infinite in practice. In this meaning, Artefact / Alien ship means the pyramid site and the base with the synomium device that is not a ship unless it is a huge ship in the seabed.

[magic9mushroom]

That is supposed to mean aliens attack shipping route, that is terror site on a liner.

 

He distinguished between "ship map" and "alien ship". "Ship map" presumably means shipping route, so I was wondering WTF "alien ship" meant.

 

Oh, wait a minute. I guess the poster means after you destroy eleven synomium devices, you no longer get artefact sites because T'leth is supposed to be the 12th target as the UFOpaedia says there are 12 special objectives. But as far as I have been told, the artefact sites are infinite in practice. In this meaning, Artefact / Alien ship means the pyramid site and the base with the synomium device that is not a ship unless it is a huge ship in the seabed.

 

Hmm...

[kyrub]

Alien ship - That seems to be an error from me, apologies. The artefact side is referred to 2 maps, one of them being named "aship". I somehow forgot the map was a 2-parter and I assumed there are 2 variants of special (artefact) mission. I probably even invented the term 'alien ship', the terrain somehow reminded me of a complicated ship. Sorry for confusion. My bad.

 

Oh, wait a minute. I guess the poster means after you destroy eleven synomium devices, you no longer get artefact sites because T'leth is supposed to be the 12th target as the UFOpaedia says there are 12 special objectives. But as far as I have been told, the artefact sites are infinite in practice.

What, there is such an information on in-game UFOpaedia? I read somewhere on internet there were 8 sites, but this is a crap info. The code definitely specifies 11 artefact type of mission to stop them appearing afterwards. Then again, someone would have to test if it really works so, as there may be bugs in it (like the counter not being saved - reloaded properly). But on surface, it certainly is there working.

 

 

2) I've always seen Artefact Sites appear at 00:30 at the start of a month, with no sub activity prior. :-/

The point being...?

[NKF]

You know, it occurs to me that anyone who has tested the 8-artefact site theory (prompted by the game text) to be incorrect may only have tested it to 9 ~ 10 sites. 11 and over, now that's a good number to test.

 

As for artefact sites occuring on 0:30, it happens. That would be one of the pre-scheduled terror sites that don't need any scouting runs beforehand.

 

- NKF

[magic9mushroom]

Alien ship - That seems to be an error from me, apologies. The artefact side is referred to 2 maps, one of them being named "aship". I somehow forgot the map was a 2-parter and I assumed there are 2 variants of special (artefact) mission. I probably even invented the term 'alien ship', the terrain somehow reminded me of a complicated ship. Sorry for confusion. My bad.

 

 

What, there is such an information on in-game UFOpaedia? I read somewhere on internet there were 8 sites, but this is a crap info. The code definitely specifies 11 artefact type of mission to stop them appearing afterwards. Then again, someone would have to test if it really works so, as there may be bugs in it (like the counter not being saved - reloaded properly). But on surface, it certainly is there working.

 

 

 

The point being...?

 

 

You know, it occurs to me that anyone who has tested the 8-artefact site theory (prompted by the game text) to be incorrect may only have tested it to 9 ~ 10 sites. 11 and over, now that's a good number to test.

 

As for artefact sites occuring on 0:30, it happens. That would be one of the pre-scheduled terror sites that don't need any scouting runs beforehand.

 

- NKF

 

So let me get this straight.

 

- Alien Terror is scheduled by the aliens.

 

- EITHER a series of Subs appear, culminating in a Battleship that causes a Terror Site

 

- OR a Terror Site appears randomly and unpreventably

 

- OR an Artefact Site appears randomly and unpreventably?

[kyrub]

I did some more research and it seems you were basically right.

 

A terror site is automatically scheduled on the beginning of a month. Based on the rolls I described in the post above:

 

 

1) a terror mission is scheduled on 2:30 of the first day of the month, which creates to a battleship sent either to an island or a port. Technically, an entry in the Missions.dat is created, which is handled accordingly later. If you shoot down the battleship, no terror happens.

 

2) a ship terror mission is created. It cannot be prevented. The mission takes place immediately, which is next 30-minute check (0:30). Technically, a special flag is set to 53h (Loc.dat entry for ship terror).

 

3) an artefact site mission is created, cannot be prevented. The mission takes place immediately, which is next 30-minute check (0:30). Technically, a special flag is set to 54h (Loc.dat entry for artefact mission). The artefact mission counter is increased by 1.

[Alienated]

What, there is such an information on in-game UFOpaedia? I read somewhere on internet there were 8 sites, but this is a crap info.

"Deep in the oceans there lie ancient sites used by the Aliens to contact their stellar cousins. Each of these twelve sites contains a synomium device, a powerful Alien technology. Now with their war machine on the march the Aliens are re-activating these sites to widen their Molecular Control net, we must destoy these sties at all costs." This quote is part of the Alien Origins research report.

[magic9mushroom]

I did some more research and it seems you were basically right.

 

A terror site is automatically scheduled on the beginning of a month. Based on the rolls I described in the post above:

 

 

1) a terror mission is scheduled on 2:30 of the first day of the month, which creates to a battleship sent either to an island or a port. Technically, an entry in the Missions.dat is created, which is handled accordingly later. If you shoot down the battleship, no terror happens.

 

What happened to the scouts? :/

 

2) a ship terror mission is created. It cannot be prevented. The mission takes place immediately, which is next 30-minute check (0:30). Technically, a special flag is set to 53h (Loc.dat entry for ship terror).

 

3) an artefact site mission is created, cannot be prevented. The mission takes place immediately, which is next 30-minute check (0:30). Technically, a special flag is set to 54h (Loc.dat entry for artefact mission). The artefact mission counter is increased by 1.

 

Okay, that's what I've observed.

 

(The unavoidability of ship missions is one of the most annoying things in that game. Artefact Sites are hard, but at least they're somewhat interesting.)

[kyrub]

@Alienated

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Interesting.

 

What happened to the scouts? :/

You mean there are scouts preceding the battleship in the game? I really did not play it through for a long time, pardon my ignorance.

 

(The unavoidability of ship missions is one of the most annoying things in that game. Artefact Sites are hard, but at least they're somewhat interesting.)

Yep. Although I find 12 artefacts sites cap foolish as well, I mean, who wants to play it more than 3 times?

As for the big ships missions: I just finished the TFTD extender where you can optionnally reduce the odds of their appearance and you can remove the 2nd stage (the lower deck becomes another variant of the ship mission in fact).

[Alienated]

Kyrub, your interpretation may be wrong because the artifact mission counter may be an ordinary type. The first mission is 0 and the 12th one is 11. That means you are supposed to get no more artifact site after 12.

 

And the aship may mean ancient ship. Here the ancient means several million years old space ship (65) used for interstellar travel. I suppose they land like a meteor because they just can not slow down. The pyramids above the "shipwreck" are meteor prisms but of course a real meteor prism looks not like that. So the second stage of the artifact mission is actually the inside of one of the twelve space ships accompanying the mother ship called T'leth.

[Zombie]

I'm just going to add the graphs I did a few posts back except I fixed the months and retooled them in MS-Excel 2013. Sorry if it doesn't look exactly the same as I'm still getting used to the program. I even optimized them with PNGGauntlet.

 

Alien Probe

 

Alien Interdiction

 

Alien Resource Raid

 

Alien Infiltration

 

Alien Colony Expansion

 

Alien Surface Attacks

 

Floating Base Attack

 

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

What do the graphs show? Average?

[Zombie]

What do the graphs show? Average?

 

The graphs show the probability of an alien race happening for a specific mission type over the full length of the game. Let's take the Alien Probe mission graph for example. (Please refer back to my previous post, first image).

 

Aquatoids have a 70% probability of showing up for an alien probe mission in Dec-Jan, they drop to 60% for Feb-Mar, drop to 30% for Apr-May, drop to 20% for Jun-Jul and stay the same 20% till the end of the game. Gillmen start at 30% for Dec-Jan, stay at 30% for Feb-Mar, increase to 40% for Apr-May, drop to 10% for Jun-Jul and then increase to 20% till the end of the game. Etc, etc.

 

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

Ah, thanks!