usmarox

So as a sudden thought...is there any chance of indexing them somehow? Either with the part number in the thread title or an index post? I just noticed the last post on “Livebirth!” Knocked it out reading order. Happy to sort out an index post if that’s agreeable?

Looking good so far. Many thanks!

Well, the first one seems to have worked out alright. Very much looking forward to the rest in due course

Well, that wasn’t the response I was expecting

Sooooo...did Kansai Arc ever get uploaded?

Because it hasn't been listed yet: Ben Fischer's Kansai Arc You'll encounter...mixed...opinions of it here; I hold it to be brilliant and a must-read. Takes a few liberties with the universe, but only in ways that make sense.

Hi all, I've got an itch to start playing TFTD again, and I'm trying to find a utility called (something like) "XCom Cryogenic Storage Facility". In short, it allowed you to import your soldiers from a UFO save to a TFTD game. I'm quite attached to my little crew of bugbusters...I suppose I could do something similar with an editor, but this way seems more elegant. And a little more fun Any pointers gladly recieved.

IIRC, the alien units all have another stat in addition to the ones listed on the stat screen. It's listed in the OSG as "intelligence", and apparently governs how much "memory" an alien unit has. Whoa. Backtrack a bit. Apparently, the aliens do cheat. A little. They have the ability to remember the position of X-Com (and I would guess civilian) units even when they would not ordnarily be able to see them (out of line of sight or whatever). Hence the "walk out, take a look, and walk back" move that seems so common in the alien turn. Based on that, I would guess that the situation here is that the Floater knows where the tanks are, and so doesn't feel the need to move. Since it has no ammo and no HTH, it doesn't feel the need to attack, either. When the tanks start moving, it goes looking for the one whose location it had buffered courtesy of the intelligence stat. Obviously, it's highly unlikely this is the whole story. If we knew that, maybe we could do something about hunt-the-last-alien syndrome....

Course, this is all kinda academic now, since we've missed it in any case, but the review I have - which apparently was a UK exclusive, so I'm assuming it was the first - was from PC Gamer April 1994. Since the UK got first release as well, I reckon said aniversary was last month. Still doesn't give us an *exact* date, mind. Pete, anyone - wanna give the Gollops a call and get the official line?

So you can miraculously create new attack classes without the docs? And without reverse-engineering anything? Not only are you one hot goddamned programmer, you're psychic, too. Ok, let's assume the bash code is still extant. Fine. How do you instantiate an attack? What arguments do you pass to it? From where? What does it return? In fact, for that matter, how'd you define a new button for the attack menu? What's the spec for that? And patching it into the existing code? Well, nothing wrong with that, but, errrmmmm....where does it go? Unless you happen to have the design doc for UFO under your bed, you're going to have to reverse engineer something.

Excellent! So all I have to do is reverse-engineer the whole of TACTICAL.EXE? Damn, if I'd know that was *all* that was involved, then I'd have done it years ago! *shakes head and sniggers*

Since I can get it playable on an Athlon 1.4GHz like that, I think the answer's probably "no"...

Well, there's absolutely no reason, in the abstract, why you shouldn't be able to run it under emulation. Of course, there is a sticking point with the whole thing. On account of TFTD never having been released for the Amiga. So if you find out how to play TFTD on an Amiga, be sure to let me know...

There was at least one DOS version distributed on CD; I picked it up on budget in about 1996. In answer to your question, Jock, those symptoms normally mean a corrupt savegame somewhere. I don't recall the details, but it's a fairly well-known problem that someone should be able to help you with.

Well, that's a crock.

Thanking you kindly, sir

Data Canister 0508c; X-COM Archives Small Arms/Ammunition M41 Grenade Family The standard-issue hand grenades used by X-COM throughout the First Alien war were all members of the M41 FOFUS group. These represented a departure from contemporary grenade design, based on the experiences of military forces in small-scale peacekeeping and regional conflicts during the late 20th century. Design conception took place in the early 1990s, following the end of the Cold War and bearing in mind the new military paradigm of multirole equipment. Existing designs, such as the L2A2 and M29A2 antipersonnel fragmentation grenades, had been found to suffer from significant operational inadequacies due to the design of the fragmentation component. Reports from the Falkland Islands conflict of 1982 highlighted this end-user dissatisfaction, where the small, high-velocity fragments produced by the notched-wire filler were often absorbed by the soft peat terrain. Similar issues were reported again during Desert Storm, where soft sand caused identical failings. With this in mind, the design team looked to the grenades of World War II - the No.36 Mills Bomb, and the MkIIA1, whose most significant distinguishing feature with respect to modern thrown explosives was a heavy cast-iron fragmentation casing, which produced larger, heavier fragments with better penetration qualities. With this in mind, the team set out to replicate the design using modern materials. In a number of trials, sponsored by government defence procurement agencies and private security concerns, a 5mm aluminium casing was found to replicate the fragmentation properties and pattern of the classic MkIIA1 'pineapple', while retaining a weight similiar to the modern designs. The revolutionary component, and the one from with the series takes it's name, was the Full-Option FUsing System. Previously, the detonation delay of the grenade was determined by the fuse charge. While a number of fuses - 1s, 3s, 5s and 10s being the most common - were available, flexibility was limited by the necessity to screw the fuse into the body before use - a simple but delicate operation rarely performed under fire. This led to ineffective grenade use, where overly long fuses were used for maximum flexibility, but at the same time providing opportunity for enemy soldiers to escape the blast, or in some recorded instances, to throw the grenade back. Attempts in the field to work around the problem, by 'cooking' grenades (i.e., allowing them to arm and start counting down before throwing them) were partially successful, but often resulted in injury to the thrower. To counter these problems, a universal fuse was created. Using a simple, electromechanical timer and detonator, the user was able to select a suitable delay at the time of the throw. A simple twist cap both broke the insulating safety seal and rotated the detonator contacts away from each other by the correct amount. The ruggedised production fuses were accurate to at least 1s in 30s, and frequently surpassed this. Although initially designed to fit only into the M41 fragmentation body, a number of adapters were produced to allow compatibility with other explosives, notably the Mk.4 WP/Smoke grenade. It's simplicity and robustness also led to a standalone version suitable for use with demolition charges. The fusing system underwent further development after entering X-COM service, ultimately being incorporated in an alien elerium charge as a human-usable alien grenade, replacing the barely-understood psychotronic mechanism originally installed. The fusing system proved so reliable and successful that it was used as the basis for the motion-sensing thrown antipersonnel mine commonly known as the prox grenade. In this variant, the twist-timer was replaced by a simple on/off switch for a crude vibration-based motion sensor. Used with both the M41 and M29 grenade bodies during the First Alien War, it was found to be extremely useful in the fast-moving small-unit environment. A final production version, introduced in 2005, incorporated a new sensing head based on X-COM research, and a remote-safe disarming system. (See also grenade, proximity grenade, smoke grenade; also cross-ref alien grenade)

Well, it's been a while since anyone posted here, but since NKF wants to know..... According to my copy of the TFTD OSG, Calcinites have a base TUs of 68. So anywhere between 27 (!?!?!?) and 81. Doubtless someone can confirm that with an MC reader, but that's the median value. For comparison purposes, a Chryssalid under the same conditions would have 119 TUs, and a Tentaculat 99 TUs.

Specificity is a perfectly good word. Either that, or the editors of all my textbooks should've been fired.

You could always dual-boot :devil: Which version of windows are you using, out of curiosity?

Stupid question for you: which version of DOS UFO are you running? If it's not 1.4, you may wish to take a look at theDosbox feedback and see if any of that helps. My experience with UFO/TFTD DOS under any flavour of windows after 98 is bad. It's probably easist to try the DosBox suggestions first.

's funny.....works fine with my GeForce 2, provided you turn graphics acceleration off before-hand.

....and the plot thickens..... I seem to be getting normal, 1000+ scors now, which is a relief, but here's some extra wierdness for you: http://www.nuttersink.co.uk/Dan/shot0002.jpg Like I said earlier, the graph axes are a little....out http://www.nuttersink.co.uk/Dan/shot0003.jpg Is that optional? The weird thing sbout this one is that when I try and get a look at the UFO, the bombs to desktop. And all this with no editing. My computer hates me.

Nope, no editors at all. Not yet, anyway :devil: Looking at it, though, it has to be some kind of buffer overrun somewhere, since I've done well enough to merit a $750,000 funding increase, so either I did stonkingly well there, and really, really badly in the rest of the world, or it's wrapped round somewhere.

Put it this way...I didn't mod the score. Hell, I didn't even realise the variable type was big enough to hold something that size :o I think I'm using some kind of loader to play it, and if it's any help the graph axes are all way of whack - using number of a similar magnitude. If it's any help, I'm playing the Collector's Edition under Win2k. - EDIT - My calculator tells me this is (at least) a 28 bit number. So I would guess the score is a 32-bit signed int. Pure randomness and speculation on my part, but hey, I guess it doesn't hurt