Pumpkinhead

The question is not whether they do or not, it's how long it takes?

Yeah, but it's always fun to dream

I did another tally last night when I finally got the chance, and it did indeed match up. One thing I've always found interesting, is that you not only get points for killing the alien (Victory Points) but you also get points for their corpse. Bonus!

I'd thought of Hobbes' fanfic, but once I started reading it, I started getting too much of an X-Files vibe what with the secret society and all. X-Files has come and gone and no one would be interested in seeing all the same stuff over again, which is something that any alien-related TV will have to be careful of in the future.

Amazingly, I managed to play an entire mission without it crashing! I got down some preliminary data: Each alien soldier killed results in 6pts of morale lost to their team-mates. The navigator I killed resulted in 7pts of morale. When the MC'd Navigator killed a fellow soldier, it resulted in 10pts. However, the results were confusing for several reasons: Morale seems to be regenerated: Forgetting about a soldier I'd MC'd who had 82pts, I got back to him several turns later and he had full morale of 100pts. This regen doesn't seem to apply to all: Despite that particular Muton returning to 100pts, the Navigator I found later on, still had enough Morale loss to account for each death since the start of the mission. In other words, he hadn't regenerated at all. It doesn't seem uniform: After killing several Mutons in a forest, they all received 6pts each, yet when I went into the UFO, I found that the Mutons inside all had varying Morale. My assumption from this is that it must be based on proximity to the kill. They must have to see or hear the death to be effected. I'd like to see what sort of results you guys might come up with when you get a chance to check it out

There wouldn't be an entire episode devoted to a research item. It would quickly become a mockumentary! I was just thinking that at around every 3rd episode, something new could be revealed by the scientists to add to their arsenal. It would probably only take a few minutes of screen-time. Something more substantial, such as the UFO Power Source would have more time devoted to it as its usage would need to be shown.

I think that if this game was ever remade (as an RTS or even FPS) then the AI for the Zombie and Silacoid would have to be improved to use stealthy tactics due to the fact that you mentioned: even the slowest rookie can simply outrun them!

I've tallied up my mission results manually several times and have always gotten matching scores to the game, so I think it's safe to say that the end of mission tally is accurate

Your first one definitely seems the right one. And just to show you that this whole animation thing really is easy once you get the procedure down pat, I just created this in a whole 5 minutes: http://ufopaedia.xcomufo.com/pics/chryssalid2.gif

I've often wondered if the developers are aware of sites like this, and realise how fanatical and obsessive some of us fans really are? If so, I wonder how they feel about the fact that we sift through the workings of their game with a fine-toothed comb? Even if the comb does seem to be missing a few teeth sometimes They're probably sitting back, saying, "I wonder if they'll ever figure out the throwing distance formula?", and laughing at our struggle

I spent months putting together that bloody thing! I'm sure Pete and all the other fan-site hosts can sympathise with the whole "labour of love" concept

Most TV shows start running a little thin after about 5 or 6 seasons, so I'd rather it be kept as tight as possible myself. Plus, if it gets cut short, there's so much stuff that the audience will be missing out on.

You normally get 30pts for saving each civilian. So if they're considered alien after stunning/MC, do you not get any points at all? Q: Does anyone know the "deployment" number of civilians for Terror Sites?

As I said above though, if you think of the allegiances as "hostile" and "friendly", then of course a stunned or MC's civvie is going to become hostile. I'd be majorly pissed if some soldier smacked me in the back with a stun-rod!

Something I've been thinking about lately is the idea of a Bond-like, Q, character, working in the R&D department who at certain points in the shows path, reveal to them the new weaponry. I'm sure some of you are sitting there saying, "Well of course there would have to be." But, the reason I'm bring this up, is more to do with the show's lifespan: There are a total of 28 research-required items (if I counted correctly), and since it would be stupid to bring in 1 per episode, that rules out a 1-year series. Even a 2-year series would require a new item being unveiled every 2 episodes or less. So, what I'm asking is, do you think that a 3-year series, revealing a new weapon oo item an average of every 3rd show, would be reasonable? Or not??

I really wish my game didn't crash back to the Geoscape all the time so I could do some experimenting of my own I guess I'll just have to wait for your CSG to be released

One other thing about civilians that has always amazed me, is the fact that they seem undaunted by the presence of the aliens. They just wander around, often stopping, right in front of some nasty-lookin' beast. How can the governments expect you to save their people from this terror if their people are so stupid that they walk right up to the enemy?

Nope, they can't... They just hit you with their hands... and slowly at that Their melee attack uses 35% of their TUs, which means that they can only hit you a max of 2 times, leaving them with only 15TUs to actually get to you, so 3 squares. Even with only one hit, they need to be less than 7 squares away to actually get to you. As NKF said, as long as you've got more than 47TUs, you're pretty safe, whereas the Chryssalid it births, well, we all know about them B)

In most cases I didn't put them relative to anything, I just shifted them down 41px and they were automatically where they were meant to be. That's why I can pump them out so fast. But technically, it's the "head" that they should be attached to, because it would look weird to see the body bob up and down while the arms stayed still.

Do you think it was a conscious decision of the developers to have MC'd or stunned civvies become "aliens"? Chryssalids would become less of a problem if you could stun wandering civvies, that's for sure. Also, you could reduce your civilian losses to aliens. When you think about it though, if you were walking down the footpath and shot unconscious by some soldier in strange armour, I'm sure you'd become "hostile" upon waking too. You wouldn't realise that it was for your own good. The same would go for MC I'd imagine. On a side-note, does anyone ever use MC'd civvies as human-shields? Or use them as extra soldiers by making them pick up weapons? I think it's funny to see an armed civvie shoot, because the gun sprite is not drawn and the shot looks like it comes from their chest

All Floater ranks, as well as the Reaper, have a bravery stat of 80, so they would all panic just as easily as each other after losing 30pts.

My question has always been, why the Skyranger stays anyway? In realistic military missions taking place in hostile territory, the soldiers are dropped off, because the transport would prove to be as easy target. Imagine that: Your Skyranger lands, the soldiers move out, then *BOOM*, a Blaster Bomb destroys your ride home! As for the HWPs, I can just picture the controller sitting in some specially designated room with 3 HD flat-panel monitors in front of him displaying a 270° FOV. For him, as was mentioned, it would just be like playing a really detailed FPS, safe from the dangers of the battlefield, accounting for his (the tanks) higher bravery stat. (The only concern he would have is the HWP's half-a-million pricetag ) The fact that it has a reaction score of 20, means that the turret must pivot quite slowly.

I usually leave Zombies intact as they're less trouble than the to-be-born Chryssalid. I just have no idea how long it takes for them to "pop". The OSG says "after several turns", but I'd like to more detail. Unfortunately, my game usually quits to the Geoscape after 1 or 2 rounds, so I can't experiment for myself

How many turns does it take for a zombie to transform? http://ufopaedia.xcomufo.com/pics/zombie_die.gif