Strange things in X-COM

[Zombie]

But there is always the flip-side of the coin. If your score is just one point less than the aliens score in a country, it will decrease it's funding randomally up to 20%. So if your score is teetering near the aliens score, it could go either way: either up or down. I'd rather be slightly positive than negative as a potential +20% is much better than a -20%!

[Cap'n Kyth]

Interesting. I have no ops in Australia at all, and I pick up no UFOs there, and the Ozzies like me.

 

Also, I have two alien bases yet to attack. What's my best bet on taking them out? Should I send a bunch of rookies with armour and heavy plasmas, or do I send down Captain Lyudmila and her crew to sort the aliens out?

 

Still, I'm rather proud that my first Commander is a woman. Commander Sigourney.

[Blehm 98]

actually, i don't build bases in australia and i have never lost them either

the countries i always lose are US, sometimes India, and occasionally those south american countries

[FullAuto]

There's only one.

The first country to go for me is usually the USA, after that, it varies.

[Jman4117]

For me it is either USA, UK, Japan, or Canada. Then in the next group I get France, Spain and South Africa, while Australia and Russia never seem to leave.

[Cap'n Kyth]

See, the Australians are too busy having barbeques to notice, and the Russians are too busy listening to propoganda to pay attention to the little green men!

[Kernel]

Not had time to read this whole thread yet so not sure if it's been mentioned before but...

 

It seems that the longer you leave a crashed UFO before visiting it the less damage it has.

Almost like the aliens rebuild the UFO and revive their crewmates.

 

This is just from what I've noticed during the many years of play. I've noticed it particulary if I down a UFO during the night time and wait until it's day light to raid it... I've also caught crashed UFOs that are totaly intact (including engines) after leaving them for 36hours or so.

[Ki-tat Chung]

perhaps it is intended: you crash the UFO, and after a while, it disappears. It may be because they repair the damage, and take off. But then, it doesn't explain why, if you abort a mission, the UFO still disappears. It'd be nice if you can leave, and then come back and see if you can rescue soldiers, or perhaps they made a hero of themselves!

 

edit:

@Cap'n Kyth: hey, nothing wrong with a good barbeque! mmm....flame grilled sectoid for lunch. sounds good!

Edited June 23, 2005 by Ki-tat Chung

[NKF]

The damage to a UFO is determined just before a tactical mission starts, and it's random and ranges from a completely intact UFO all the way to most, if not all, the reactors exploding very violently - and depending on the shielding, this can result in spectacular damage to the smaller ships (well, the medium scout in particular).

 

You'd notice this if you saved just before entering the battle and the reloading and replaying the battle several times. The damage will indeed vary.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

I'm gonna push this topic back in the right direction for a change.

 

Mind control a Celatid. Click on its integrated Acid-Spit weapon and target something with it. Fire off a shot and watch what happens.

 

Normal ranged weapons fire in a straight line (???). The Celatid's Acid-Spit weapon doesn't. It fires in a true (if somewhat misleading) trajectory. You would think that the programmers would have used the same type of physics for both type of weapons. (The farther from the target, the more you have to account for trajectory).

 

Still, how does one attempt to target something with the Celatid's weapon? With the "strange" physics, all the shots fall short!

 

----------

 

Here's something fun to do with Celatids if you have the time and patience. Have it fire off all 255 Acid-Spit shots. Then, watch what happens once it's back under alien control. In short, the darn thing is harmless as a kitten. * Zombie pets it and says: "Nice Celatid." *

 

This works with the Cyberdisc and Sectopod also. They are both fun to toy around with after all their shots have been exhausted.

[Bomb Bloke]

The Celatid's firing animation involves it sinking to the ground, turning into a sort of organic mortar, and firing up in the air.

 

Not sure, but I don't think I've seen this animation used in the game for a long time, for some reason...

 

Does a Celatid use firing accuracy, or throwing accuracy? I assume it uses the physics of a throw...

[Blehm 98]

that is a very good question, but since i doubt their throwing accuracy is very high, and you also have to look at the fact that it is pretty accurate, and throws aren't that accurate

[Zombie]

The Celatid actually fires those Acid drips to a target, it doesn't throw them. How do I know? Well, first of all listen to the sound a Celatid makes while performing that action. A simple throw would sound like a "woosh". Secondly, click on the acid spit weapon while the Celatid is under your control. What is the "base chance to hit" accuracy shown? On beginner it should come to 37%.

 

Remember that base chance to hit is calculated by multiplying the unit's FA by the weapon accuracy. To find a Celatid's FA, just Probe it or mind control it. On beginner, it is 50%. Divide 37 by .5 and you get 74% which is its weapon accuracy. (The OSG claims 75%. Since the game uses only integers, the actual base chance to hit accuracy is 37.5%).

 

If the game used the Throwing Accuaracy number for the Celatid, the base chance to hit would be 0% since it's TA is also 0%. (All terrorists have a throwing accuracy of 0%).

[NKF]

The Deep-One in TFTD uses an identical arcing weapon. However, it also has an auto shot option - which is rarely used. The auto shot fires in a straight line rather than an arc, but the single shot attacks do fire in an arc. (No, actually, I think the game does use it, but only AI controlled units can make it arc)

 

I don't ever remember testing it, will the game allow you to fire the celatids attack over a wall?

 

- NKF

[Blehm 98]

hmmm, probably not, because since it takes away the arc when you mind control it i don't think you can

now... how does the game do this though?

[Jasonred]

How is the reactor explosion damage applied? Judging from the hole in the top of medium scouts, it's more powerful than a Blaster Bomb!

 

On the other hand, it obviously isn't quite as bad as a BB, cause one BB in the middle of a M scout would definitely kill everything inside (MAYBE some mutons might survive)

 

Plus the blast takes out the ceiling, AND damages stuff on the ground level (inside of ship). hmm.

[Kriptor]

Some weird things:

1. My unarmored soldier was shot by a sectoid with a plasma rifle 1-2 years ago. She lost about 5 health, nothing fatal wounds.

2. On a base defence mission, a soldier killed a sectoid with a head shot. The interesting is: he used a normal pistol, the third or fourth snap shot hit the alien, which is about four base facilities away from the man.

3. https://bzsolt.next-it.hu/weird2.GIF

4. On a terror mission, a floater used it's heavy plasma, but with the sound of a small launcher.

[NKF]

Some answers to those.

 

1: This shows how random damage can be.

 

2: The answer is same to the #1. On top of that, sectoids can take double damage from almost every weapon type. The pistol, doing 26 damage, has a chance of reaching up to 52 points of damage, and as sectoids have very little armour, they can take on quite a lot of damage! It is also possible that it could have merely wounded the sectoid and the stun damage was able to knock it out. Being able to hit from such a great distance is possible with any weapon. With the pistol in particular, as you can fire it many times each turn, the odds of hitting something are a lot higher than only being able to hit something once or twice.

 

3: Base disjoint bug. See https://www.geocities.com/nkfarma/reference/bdb.html to see how it affects your base and how to work around it. You can actually make use of it as a means of sectioning off a part of your base with a wall for strategic purposes (like making sure that there's only one route to and from the access lift or to seal off two of the routes into or out of a hangar)

 

4: Try to listen to the sound made when the aliens throw their grenades. More often than not it will be a weapon firing sound.

 

- NKF

[Stun Grenade]

Weird indeed. I would have thought the soldier, sorry, unarmored soldier would have been wounded by the plasma rifle. Although this shows how random damage can be (stated by NKF) but maybe if it was something other then a sectoid, the results may be different?

[Zombie]

Nope, it doesn't matter what unit is getting the damage. It matters what the ammunition type is though.

 

Plasma weaponry always has an unmodified range of 0 to 2x the listed strength. And every number within that range happens with the same probability. This is nice to know, because you can apply this info to any alien/unit in the game as long as you know the damage modifier associated with it.

[Kriptor]

Some days ago, I've expereinced this:

https://bzsolt.next-it.hu/floatergun.GIF

(CE)

This is strange but not weird:

Some years ago, the floaters attacked a city. The whole map was a T crossroad road and park. No civilians.

[NKF]

That happens from time to time. It's caused by either data corruption, or the floater corpse is now occupying an object space that previously had that clip and some references weren't cleared. You may notice that the clip the corpse displays will exist in another weapon on the field.

 

---

 

No civilians in a terror site is indeed possible, although rare. Zombie proved this when he set out to find the exact number of units that an be generated at a terror site on any given difficulty level.

 

---

 

To add to the weirdness, if anyone's ever owned one, or seen one during the time they were popular, did you know that X-Com's high tech hardware includes Apple-IIe's? (this was well before they were known as Apple Macintosh)

 

The next time you get a base defence mission, look carefully at the computers that often appear in the siderooms. They'll be blue in colour, but they'll look very much like Apple-IIe's (or similar computers with similar cases that were around at that time - Commodore perhaps?)

 

- NKF

[Kriptor]

1. It's a stunned soldier, not a corpse.

2. I think that civilians can't spawn on park areas.

[FullAuto]

"Sgt. Johnson never left the base without her lucky pet, Floaty."

[Zombie]

2. I think that civilians can't spawn on park areas.

Did I hear the word "spawn"... I think I did! I am pretty sure that civilians can spawn in the park areas. Saw a screenshot of a 4-park terror mission that had civilians over at the xcomufo forums. Personally, I never had civilians spawning in parks simply because they normally start within buildings. That's not to say that it cannot happen though.

 

The most likely reason that you didn't see any civilians was because the game rolled a 0. It's exceedingly rare to find a 0 civilian terror mission, but they can and do happen. Welcome to the club, Kriptor!

 

- Zombie