UFOpaedia - User contributions [en]

Chryssalid

2024-06-23T18:22:26Z

75338: Alien Stats internal link

{{EU2012Version}}

{{Ref Open | title = Chryssalid}}
[[Image:chryssalid.gif|right|Chryssalid]]
The crab like claws of this creature are a powerful weapon in close combat. The high metabolism and strength of this creature give it sped and dexterity. Instead of killing its victim it impregnates it with an egg and injects a venom which turns it into a walking zombie. A new Chryssalid will burst from the victim shortly after impregnation. Chryssalids are associated with the [[Snakeman]] race.
{{Ref Close | source = UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown Ufopaedia}}

{{Ref Open | title = Chryssalid Autopsy}}
[[Image:chryssalidautopsy.gif|right|Chryssalid - Autopsy]]
The exo-skeleton of this creature is extremely tough, but surprisingly vulnerable to explosive ammunition. The brain is well developed, and its cell growth rate very fast. The creature carries twenty eggs which are laid inside other organisms. The creature is a very effective terror weapons.
{{Ref Close | source = UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown Ufopaedia}}

'''Chryssalids''' are the alien [[Terror Units|Terror Unit]] that accompany [[Snakeman|Snakemen]].

The Chryssalid is a fast moving monster with strong armour (see [[Alien Stats]] for armour values). Its most prominent feature that sets it apart from every other alien is its melee attack. Chryssalid attacks can cause instantaneous death to civilians and soldiers by planting an egg in them and injecting them with a venom that turns them into a [[Zombie]]. The attacks ignore body armour.

A zombie created by a Chryssalid will shuffle towards X-COM forces and attempt to batter the soldiers to death. If the zombie is killed, a new Chryssalid will hatch from its carcass. Essentially, a single Chryssalid left to its own devices in a terror site will quickly multiply and populate the city with other Chryssalids.

This unique ability is the reason the Chryssalid is treated with feared reverence amongst many players. It has even been awarded the most terrifying video-game monster on several on-line gaming magazine polls a few years in succession.

The chryssalid does have several weaknesses. First and foremost, the Chryssalid is strictly a land bound alien. Flying units are able to keep well out of reach of their lethal attacks by hovering at least one level above the plane the Chryssalid is on. In open combat situations, this renders them harmless.

Like [[Reaper | Reapers]] and other melee units, they can sometimes be put off their attacks or switch targets if they are attacked with reaction fire.

In a prolonged battle, Chryssalids have a bad habit of exhausting their energy, as they can spend more energy per turn than what they can regenerate. This impacts heavily on their maximum travel distance.

==Statistics==
'''TUs:''' 110-127
'''Health:''' 96
'''Energy:''' 140-162
'''Reactions:''' 70-86
'''Strength:''' 110-118
'''Bravery:''' 100
'''Psi Skill:''' N/A
'''Psi Strength:''' 50-69

'''Damage:''' 110-118
'''Damage Type:''' <i>???</i>
'''Close Combat Accuracy:''' 80-92
'''TUs:''' 15* (See Discussion page)

==Notes==
*Beginner level Chryssalids have 110TU, and each melee attack costs 15TU. This means they can be out of visual range at the beginning of the turn and cross the 23 intervening tiles and still attack you in the same turn! But sometimes the Chryssalid will pop out of a building, run a few tiles, take a look at your soldiers, and the pop back into the cover it had before. This makes them susceptible to reaction fire since they do this several times, as long as you don't move up any further to get a better angle.
*They can perform 7 attacks per turn max at Beginner difficulty and 8 at Superhuman difficulty.
*Chryssalid Damage Modifiers: Fire 80%, Stun 90%. They aren't particularly susceptible to anything, despite the "vulnerability to explosives" mentioned above.
*[[Unconscious]] Chryssalids are as vulnerable to ordinary Grenades as any other object (which is a good thing, seeing that leaving stunned Chryssalids alive is generally a bad idea unless you can stun them again in case they get up).
**Alternately, revive it with stimulants from a [[Medi-Kit (EU)|Medi-kit]] and then finish it off with a weapon.
*If you find yourself in a Chryssalid-infested area without a flying suit, you can try heading upstairs then shooting away the stairs. This works too if you just sit on the next level the stairs are on and block the way up since a Chryssalid is considered to still be on the bottom level. Sitting at the top of Transport aircraft ramps works too.
*If you're afraid of a Chryssalid popping out of a corner while you're assaulting a base or a big UFO, place yourself below or above the Chryssalid's level and then pop out and blast it on your next turn.
*If you find a lone Chryssalid in your area and you're still using human rifles or laser pistols, you'll have to do the unthinkable, get in its face and unload the entire clip into it! It's probably not going to die even from point-blank full-auto Rifle fire, but it's sure better than shooting wildly and missing or waiting for a reaction shot that never comes.
*[[Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWP]]'s can't be turned into Zombies but a Chryssalid attack can still make a mess of them. The HWP may survive the attack but will have a serious damage.
*Chryssalids usually don't have guns; using [[Flying Suit]]s you can just hover in the air and shoot them or drop [[High Explosive]]s down on them. A flying suited soldier can potentially distract a Chryssalid to an extent since a Chryssalid next to a flying soldier will stare angrily at it as long as there aren't any other ground units running amok nearby.
*Their lack of ranged attack or flying ability makes them easy meat once you have flying armor.
*AP works but you may want to skip the rifles and go straight to Heavy Cannon or Autocannons. Human weapons don't work very well unless it's a rocket launcher or something stronger than a laser pistol. Laser Rifles are reasonably effective as long as you have about 2 soldiers firing at each Chryssalid.
*All-round armour means Chryssalids are relatively quite HE-resistant, unless the Chryssalid was spawned from a Zombie that had its under armour damaged (this carries over to the Chryssalid form). Making it a good idea to kill Zombies with ground-zero explosions.
*A horrible way to meet one is shooting a Zombie with reaction fire as it shambles in for melee... then a Chryssalid pops out and sprints at you, turning your squad into more zombies.
*The only known way to prevent a Chryssalid hatching is to land killing blows on zombies with [[Incendiary]] rounds.
*Usually Chryssalids are unarmed, so they're sitting ducks during X-Com's turn. If you have a chance to kill one you should take it before it's too late.
*If one of your soldiers was Zombified alive, and so didn't drop all its weapons, the resulting Zombie and Chryssalid will reaction fire at you aggressively (if inaccurately).
*Listen during the alien turn closely. Chryssalids howl when they spot a target.

As with all terror units, they can be encountered in the following mission types:
* [[Terror Mission]]
* [[Base Defence]]
* [[UFO Ground Assault]] ([[Terror ship|Terror Ship]] or [[Battleship]])
* [[Alien Base Assault]]
* [[Cydonia]]

==Zombification==

If a human unit (or Chryssalid under permanent control) is attacked by a Chryssalid - even once - it will become a [[Zombie]]. This happens regardless of what the other effects of the attack are, including death.

Zombification occurs at the end of a Chryssalid's series of attacks on that particular opponent. So, even though only one attack is sufficient for zombification, a Chryssalid will keep attacking the same target until it dies, is stunned, or they run out of TU.
This means that armor causes a major difference in Chryssalid attack patterns. An unarmored soldier will often die in just one hit, so a single Chryssalid will often run up to soldier A, kill and Zombify him, run to soldier B, kill and Zombify, and repeat this many times. For grounded soldiers in Flying Suits, it will often take many more hits to kill it's target, often not leaving it enough TU to go after a fresh target.

If the damage dealt to the subject was enough to kill it (usually the case), it will scream and drop its weapons in the usual way before "resurrecting" as a Zombie. Regardless there'll be no corpse left behind.

In the second case, Zombification without death, being "Zombified alive", is special, in that it does not cause units to scream or drop their weapons. No morale loss for unit death will occur, and no points for killed soldiers will be lost in this case. Armed Zombies can only use their equipment via [[Reaction Fire]], and when killed, change to armed Chryssalids (which have the same limitation).

This scenario usually occurs in the case of a Chryssalid which has been reduced to critically low Health, and will very often be a Chryssalid that was previously knocked unconscious by bonus stun damage from conventional weapon fire. This is because Chryssalid melee accuracy is affected by Health %, so a critically wounded Chryssalid will often flail away and not be able to get a single hit in. Nonetheless, even a single missed attack has 100% chance of causing Zombification.

The third option is if the attacks ended up [[Stun|stunning]] the unit. The unconscious body will fall in the usual way, but then the victim itself will be turned into a standard Zombie. The result is that the body remains and appears to belong to the (conscious) alien.

Zombie-spawned Chryssalids suffer from a oversight in the game code which means that they will always have their core stats, unadjusted by difficulty level. In difficulties above Beginner, this means that Chryssalids birthed from Zombies will have lower stats than those that spawned at the beginning of the mission, and are thus less dangerous.
'''However''', if playing in Beginner mode, armor of units is adjusted to 50% of core for all units. This means that in Beginner mode, Zombie-spawned Chryssalids will be significantly better armored than mission-start Chryssalids! So if you're playing on Beginner, make sure you are prepared to kill a Chryssalid significantly stronger than what you have been facing normally!

Any damage done to the Zombie's armor will carry over to the resulting Chryssalid, in % terms! So, if you shoot the zombie in a certain location a few times, say the rear (it doesn't matter since zombies have 4 armor all over on Superhuman), and it gets reduced to zero, the resulting Chryssalid will have zero armor in that location when it spawns! Since Chryssalids have 34 armor on all sides on difficulty above Beginner, a reduction to 0 armor is very very significant.

Zombies created during (for example) Alien Turn 3 will only be able to move and attack during (for example) Alien Turn 4.

As noted under [[Zombie]], Zombie research teams under controlled conditions have never seen a spontaneous Chryssalid hatching while the Zombie is still mobile and unharmed.
So although the Zombie packs a wallop in melee, don't shoot them if you aren't prepared to deal with the Chryssalid immediately afterwards. Run away until you can bring to bear enough firepower to deal with both the Zombie and the Chryssalid.

Chryssalids left on their own with [[civilian]]s in a [[Terror Mission]] can quite quickly raise an army of the undead. This is one of the few tricky situations where you might end up shooting civilians for their own good. And yours, of course.

However, the newly raised civilian zombies, as well as the accompanying Snakemen, tend to attack first before the chryssalid so there tend to be quite a few deaths before another zombie comes into play. So now the question is, death by plasma, strangling, and/or zombification or death by bullets, lasers, and explosives?

==See Also==
*[[Tentaculat]]
*[[Data Canister: Chryssalid]]
*[[Gaining_permanent_control_of_a_Chryssalid/Tentaculat|Exploit: gaining permanent control via psionics]]

{{Aliens Navbar}}
[[Category:Alien Life Forms]]
[[Category:Research (EU)]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Silacoid

2024-06-09T00:57:22Z

75338: /* Statistics */ Armour

'''In other languages: [[실라코이드|한국어]].'''
For the Version that appears in [[The Bureau: XCOM Declassified|The Bureau]], ''see [[Silacoid (Bureau)]]''

[[Image:silacoid.gif|right|Silacoid]]
Silacoids are an alien [[Terror Units|terror unit]] accompanying [[Muton]]s along with [[Celatid]]s. As with all terror units, they can be encountered on [[Terror Mission]]s, [[Base Defence]]s, with a [[Terror ship|Terror Ship]] or [[Battleship]], on [[Alien Base Assault]]s, and finally on [[Cydonia]].

Silacoids are the least dangerous alien of any in the game: they cannot make ranged attacks and are slow enough to be easily outrun. Their heavy armor makes them hard to damage without at least a Laser Rifle (although they are also vulnerable to any form of explosive attack). They are furthermore totally immune to fire. All of these qualities makes them the perfect alien on which to train your troops' Firing Accuracy and Reactions.

==Statistics==
'''TUs:''' 40-46
'''Health:''' 114
'''Energy:''' 80-92
'''Reactions:''' 40-49
'''Strength:''' 70-75
'''Bravery:''' 100
'''Psi Skill:''' N/A
'''Psi Strength:''' 80-92

'''Damage:''' 70-75
'''Close Combat Accuracy:''' 92%
'''TUs:''' 15
'''Armour:''' 50 all around, see https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Alien_Stats

==Live specimen==
This silicon based life form generates an enormous amount of heat. It has the strength to crush rocks which can then be ingested by the hot core. It has a primitive intelligence and can be controlled by implants or telepathic beings. It works with the [[Muton]] alien race.

==Autopsy==
[[Image:silacoidautopsy.gif|right|Silacoid - Autopsy]]
The core of the creature is extremely hot, and seems to be the basis for a digestive system. Its unique muscle system has tremendous power and speed. Its rock like skin is not harmed by fire or incendiary ammunition.

==Reactions training==
Silacoids are perfect for [[Reactions Training]]; they will not "freeze" like disarmed humanoid aliens will, and will trigger reaction shots from even your slowest soldiers (30 Reactions). Flying troops are completely safe from Silacoids and ground troops can still outrun them (stay at least 8 squares away at all times). If that weren't enough, they are completely immune to fire, which means you can train several troops on one Silacoid using multiple [[Auto-Cannon|AC-I]] clips (11 shots per soldier gives the maximum possible benefit). Their high armor (50 points in most locations) makes them quite resistant to other weak weapons as well (but don't use HE ammo). Note that your soldiers will ''not'' gain firing accuracy while using IN rounds, only their reaction levels may improve.

==Notes==
* The Silacoid's hit does 1.2x damage to unarmoured soldiers and [[civilian]]s.
* It does 0.9x damage to tanks and hovertanks.
* Silacoids take ''no'' damage at all from fire or incendiary weapons.
* They take 1.3x damage from explosives.
* Silacoids are very small (10 [[height]]), making them hard to hit "by accident", although this does not affect normal [[accuracy formula|firing accuracy]].
* If next to its target, a Silacoid can attack 2 times in one turn (3 times on Superhuman difficulty).
* Silacoids burn the ground when they move; watch for tell-tale signs of their presence by the burn trails they leave behind on the battlefield.
* You cannot hit a Silacoid with a Blaster Launcher if you fire it on the same plane that it's on. You must make the Blaster Bomb hit it from above so that it hits the ground or the Silacoid itself, hit a nearby obstacle, or hit a taller unit.

==See also==
{{Aliens Navbar}}
[[Category:Alien Life Forms]]
[[Category:Research (EU)]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

High Explosive

2024-06-09T00:44:14Z

75338: /* Stats */

Bang in a can. Bring one to UFO parties. Remember to run once lit.

'''High Explosive''' (or '''HE''') is also the name for all munitions with an [[explosions|explosive]] damage type -- from [[Grenade]]s to [[Blaster Bomb]]s.

This weapon appears in ''[[X-COM|UFO: Enemy Unknown]]''. For the ''[[TFTD|Terror from the Deep]]'' equivalent, refer to the [[Magna-Pack Explosive]].

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS22.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Power: 110 High Explosive
*Size: 1 high x 2 wide
*Weight: 6
*TUs:
**Transfer from shoulder strap to hand: 3 TU. See [[Inventory TU Table]]
**Priming: 50%
**Throwing: 25%
*[[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Non-Manufacturable_Prices|Cost]]: $1,500
*Sell Price: $1,200
*Explosion diameter: 13 tiles (see https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Explosions#HE_Statistics) </td></tr></table>

== Usage notes ==
The usual tactic is to set the timer, drop them on the ground, run away. However, they can be thrown a useful [[Throwing Accuracy#Throwing Distance|distance]] by a strong soldier, becoming good for general purpose throwing at 40 or more strength. High Explosives remain relevant all game long as they are stronger than alien grenades, capable of killing most enemies and terror units in one explosion.

Another tactic is to give the high explosive to a rookie with low stats, go into a small UFO or structure, and set the timer at 0. Be careful sacrificing rookies around UFO Power Sources as this may destroy precious Elerium!

'''Bug''': Dropping the high explosive rather than throwing it will often not attribute any hit experience to the person dropping the explosive if it hurts enemies in the blast. This is because the game will not assign ownership of the explosive to the right soldier until it is thrown.

To work around this bug, you must throw the explosive, during or well before its intended use. The explosive remembers the last person who threw it, and will award any experience to that person. This applies to all other grenades as well, with the exception of the proximity mine.

Tip: If set next to a UFO's diagonal wall, the explosion will go into the UFO and detonate navigation consoles on the far side. Roast 'em in the shell.

Tip: For strong characters who want to throw these things like grenades... be aware you can set the timer and as long as they are not on the ground, they won't explode. So you can prime them this turn, then throw them on a later turn, giving you much more movement TU.

OpenXCOM improves throwing arcs and allows grenades to be primed in the deployment menu, opening up new life for grenade lovers. Load up a "grenadier" with multiple primed Hi-Ex to create a demolition powerhouse, capable of marking multiple targets for certain death in a single turn. Do note that as per XCOM destruction rules, grenades will harmlessly destroy other grenades in their blast radius. This limits the ability to stack explosives against Mutons and Sectopods, who are most likely to survive.

== See also ==
[[Understanding Grenades]]
*[[Weapons]]
*[[Explosions]]
*[[Throwing Accuracy#Throwing Distance|Throwing Distance]]
*[[Soldiers|Soldier Stats]]

{{Equipment (UFO Defense) Navbar}}
[[Category:Equipment (EU)]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

High Explosive

2024-06-09T00:43:04Z

75338: /* Stats */ Explosion diameter: 13 tiles

Bang in a can. Bring one to UFO parties. Remember to run once lit.

'''High Explosive''' (or '''HE''') is also the name for all munitions with an [[explosions|explosive]] damage type -- from [[Grenade]]s to [[Blaster Bomb]]s.

This weapon appears in ''[[X-COM|UFO: Enemy Unknown]]''. For the ''[[TFTD|Terror from the Deep]]'' equivalent, refer to the [[Magna-Pack Explosive]].

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS22.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Power: 110 High Explosive
*Size: 1 high x 2 wide
*Weight: 6
*TUs:
**Transfer from shoulder strap to hand: 3 TU. See [[Inventory TU Table]]
**Priming: 50%
**Throwing: 25%
*[[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Non-Manufacturable_Prices|Cost]]: $1,500
*Sell Price: $1,200</td></tr></table>
*Explosion diameter: 13 tiles

== Usage notes ==
The usual tactic is to set the timer, drop them on the ground, run away. However, they can be thrown a useful [[Throwing Accuracy#Throwing Distance|distance]] by a strong soldier, becoming good for general purpose throwing at 40 or more strength. High Explosives remain relevant all game long as they are stronger than alien grenades, capable of killing most enemies and terror units in one explosion.

Another tactic is to give the high explosive to a rookie with low stats, go into a small UFO or structure, and set the timer at 0. Be careful sacrificing rookies around UFO Power Sources as this may destroy precious Elerium!

'''Bug''': Dropping the high explosive rather than throwing it will often not attribute any hit experience to the person dropping the explosive if it hurts enemies in the blast. This is because the game will not assign ownership of the explosive to the right soldier until it is thrown.

To work around this bug, you must throw the explosive, during or well before its intended use. The explosive remembers the last person who threw it, and will award any experience to that person. This applies to all other grenades as well, with the exception of the proximity mine.

Tip: If set next to a UFO's diagonal wall, the explosion will go into the UFO and detonate navigation consoles on the far side. Roast 'em in the shell.

Tip: For strong characters who want to throw these things like grenades... be aware you can set the timer and as long as they are not on the ground, they won't explode. So you can prime them this turn, then throw them on a later turn, giving you much more movement TU.

OpenXCOM improves throwing arcs and allows grenades to be primed in the deployment menu, opening up new life for grenade lovers. Load up a "grenadier" with multiple primed Hi-Ex to create a demolition powerhouse, capable of marking multiple targets for certain death in a single turn. Do note that as per XCOM destruction rules, grenades will harmlessly destroy other grenades in their blast radius. This limits the ability to stack explosives against Mutons and Sectopods, who are most likely to survive.

== See also ==
[[Understanding Grenades]]
*[[Weapons]]
*[[Explosions]]
*[[Throwing Accuracy#Throwing Distance|Throwing Distance]]
*[[Soldiers|Soldier Stats]]

{{Equipment (UFO Defense) Navbar}}
[[Category:Equipment (EU)]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Terror ship

2024-06-08T21:29:00Z

75338: /* Air Combat */ fix

==General Information==
The terror ship has a containment facility for large alien terror weapons or creatures. It is used to transport these alien terrorists into [[Terror Mission|populated areas]].

This ship appears in ''[[X-COM|UFO: Enemy Unknown]]''. For the ''[[TFTD|Terror from the Deep]]'' equivalent, refer to the [[Battleship (TFTD)|Battleship]].

==Statistics==
<table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Statistic</th>
<th>Value</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Size</td><td>Large</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Max Speed(km)</td><td>4,800</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Weapon Power</td><td>120</tr>
<tr><td align="left">Weapon Range(km)</td><td>42</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Weapon Range(range units)</td><td>336</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Damage Capacity</td><td>1,200</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Downed points</td><td>500</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Destroyed points</td><td>1,000</td></tr>
</table><br />

==Additional Information==
The Terror Ship is one of the most feared of all alien [[UFOs]]. It is fast, has weapons second only to a [[Battleship]] in power and range, but worst of all transports the deadly [[Terror Units]] that accompany aliens. As its name implies, the appearance of a Terror Ship usually bodes ill - a [[Terror Mission|Terror Site]] is usually soon to occur, but it may be on an equally devastating [[Alien_Missions#Alien_Infiltration|Alien Infiltration]] mission.

==Missions==
Terror Ships mostly engage in [[Terror Mission]]s, but they have been seen participating in [[Alien Infiltration]] missions as well. In both cases, the Large-class ship will be seen descending upon a city. However, a Terror Ship en route to terrorize a city acts alone. When the Terror Ship is part of a large flotilla, all of which are targeting urban centers, then it is likely part of an infiltration attempt. Perhaps the aliens use the threat of terrorizing a city to swing the deal in their favour.

Needless to say, commanders should shoot down any Terror Ships immediately.

==Air Combat==
This ship has a powerful weapon with a long range, capable of destroying an [[Interceptor]] in two shots. They can be safely shot down using one or more [[Plasma Beam]]s, however.

Terror ships are also extremely fast, and can outrun every X-COM craft except the [[Avenger]] at its maximum speed. Prior to landing in a city, they will slow down, at which time they can be engaged by any craft, including Interceptors.

It is possible to down a Terror Ship using two Interceptors each armed with twin [[Avalanche]] missiles, although you must hit with nearly every missile they carry. Unfortunately, when firing your last salvo of ammunition, your craft will automatically retreat to "standoff" distance, causing the missiles you just fired to go out of range and miss. (This has been fixed in OpenXCom.) To hit a UFO with your last salvo, you must switch to "Aggressive" attack shortly before it is fired. After the missiles are released, you can retreat again. If you manage to hit a Terror Ship with at least five out of six salvos of Avalanches, it will generally be shot down.

==Ship Layout==
The ship has two large doors. These are needed to allow the larger alien [[Terror Units]] to get out, but they also allow X-COM's [[Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWP]]s to get in. There are two small rooms in the upper level with no way out for large units, except for a 2x2 hole in the floor. How the aliens get their [[Reaper|Reapers]] and [[Sectopod|Sectopods]] up there is unknown. Exercise extreme caution here, as [[Chryssalid]]s will often hide out of sight until your troops pass by, and then drop down and attack from behind with devastating results.
[[Flying Suit]]s are useful here. Throwing grenades and firing explosives up there is usually a good idea.

The ship contains 8 [[UFO_Navigation|navigation units]], 8 entertainments and 4 [[UFO_Power_Source|power sources]]. Unfortunately, the power sources are very close to each other. If one power source is destroyed, it generally takes the other three with it, along with some of the surrounding walls and bits of the ceiling.
This sometimes has the nasty side-effect of leaving the bridge inaccessible without a [[Flying Suit]]. The only solution in this case is to use the exploit to fire explosives/ throw grenades through the floor/ceiling.

==Recoverable Components==
<table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Item</th>
<th>Sell Price</th>
<th>Quantity</th>
<th>Value</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Power Source</td><td>$250,000</td><td>4</td><td>$1,000,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Navigation</td><td>$80,000</td><td>8</td><td>$640,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Food</td><td>$5,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Surgery</td><td>$38,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Entertainment</td><td>$20,000</td><td>8</td><td>$160,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Examination Room</td><td>$9,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Alloys</td><td>$6,500</td><td>92</td><td>$598,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Elerium-115</td><td>$5,000</td><td>200</td><td>$1,000,000</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Totals</th><td>$3,398,000</td></tr>
</table><br />
Also see [[UFO Recovery Values#Terror Ship|UFO Recovery Values]].

==Alien Deployment==
<table width="100%" cellpadding="5"><tr>
<td><table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<caption><b>Sectoids/Floaters</b></caption>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Rank</th>
<th>Beg./Exp.</th>
<th>Vet./Gen.</th>
<th>Super.</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Soldiers</td><td>4-5</td><td>5-6</td><td>6-7</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Navigators</td><td>1</td><td>1*</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Medics</td><td>1-2</td><td>1-2</td><td>1-2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Engineers</td><td>1</td><td>1*</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Leaders</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>2-6</td><td>4-8</td><td>6-10</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>10-16</td><td>13-19</td><td>18-24</td></tr>
</table></td>
<td><table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<caption><b>Snakemen</b></caption>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Rank</th>
<th>Beg./Exp.</th>
<th>Vet./Gen.</th>
<th>Super.</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Soldiers</td><td>5-7</td><td>6-8</td><td>7-9</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Navigators</td><td>1</td><td>1*</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Medics</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Engineers</td><td>1</td><td>1*</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Leaders</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>2-6</td><td>4-8</td><td>6-10</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>10-16</td><td>13-19</td><td>18-24</td></tr>
</table></td>
<td><table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<caption><b>Mutons</b></caption>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Rank</th>
<th>Beg./Exp.</th>
<th>Vet./Gen.</th>
<th>Super.</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Soldiers</td><td>6-8</td><td>7-9</td><td>8-10</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Navigators</td><td>1</td><td>1*</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Medics</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Engineers</td><td>1</td><td>1*</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Leaders</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>1-3 + 1-3</td><td>2-4 + 2-4</td><td>3-5 + 3-5</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>10-16</td><td>13-19</td><td>18-24</td></tr>
</table></td>
<td><table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<caption><b>Ethereals</b></caption>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Rank</th>
<th>Beg./Exp.</th>
<th>Vet./Gen.</th>
<th>Super.</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Soldiers</td><td>4-5</td><td>5-6</td><td>6-7</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Navigators</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Medics</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Engineers</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Leaders</td><td>4-5</td><td>4-5*</td><td>6-7</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>2-6</td><td>4-8</td><td>6-10</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>10-16</td><td>13-19</td><td>18-24</td></tr>
</table></td></tr></table>
<nowiki>*</nowiki> Needs testing to determine actual number.

==Floor Plans==
<gallery>
Image:TerrorShip_0.gif|Level 0
Image:TerrorShip_1.gif|Level 1
</gallery>

==Terrain Maps==
<gallery>
Image:UFO_150MAP-L1.JPG|Level 0
Image:UFO_150MAP-L2.JPG|Level 1
Image:UFO_150MAP.JPG|Level 2
</gallery>

==See Also==
{{UFO Navbar}}

[[Category: UFOs (EU)]][[Category: Research (EU)]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

INTERWIN.DAT

2024-05-07T01:35:19Z

75338: /* Images */ labels sorry if I broke something

==General Information==
Ten images used by the [[UFO Interception]] display. Direct palette indexes, no compression. 88,960 bytes in total.

==Images==
<table><tr><td>
[[Image:interwin01.gif|frame|01 - 160x96]]</td><td>[[Image:interwin02.gif|frame|02 - 160x44]]
</td></tr><tr><td>
[[Image:interwin03.gif|frame|03 - 160x52 [[Small Scout]]]]</td><td>[[Image:interwin04.gif|frame|04 - 160x52 [[Medium Scout]]]]
</td></tr><tr><td>
[[Image:interwin05.gif|frame|05 - 160x52 [[Large Scout]]]]</td><td>[[Image:interwin06.gif|frame|06 - 160x52 [[Abductor]]]]
</td></tr><tr><td>
[[Image:interwin07.gif|frame|07 - 160x52 [[Harvester]]]]</td><td>[[Image:interwin08.gif|frame|08 - 160x52 [[Terror Ship]]]]
</td></tr><tr><td>
[[Image:interwin09.gif|frame|09 - 160x52 [[Battleship]]]]</td><td>[[Image:interwin10.gif|frame|10 - 160x52 [[Supply Ship]]]]
</td></tr></table>

==See Also==
* [[GEODATA]]
[[Category:Game Files]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Understanding Grenades

2024-05-04T21:01:07Z

75338: /* Article TODOs */ https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Weapons#High_explosive

This article aims to provide in-depth explanations on various aspects of how grenades behave and function in Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense and Terror From The Deep.

== Blocked Throws ==

Sometimes you will get a message that you are unable to throw a grenade or that it is out of range even though there is no apparent obstruction to the target. This can cause some players immeasurable amounts of frustration. Some of the common causes for this include:

* Low or hacked strength
* Overhead obstructions

Strength controls how far you can throw a grenade. The higher the strength, the further you can throw. If a soldiers attempt to throw beyond his or her maximum range, you will get the message that it is out of range. Strength also controls how high the grenade is likely to be tossed when making long throws.

Overhead obstructions such as a ceiling, tree canopies or even the wing of the Skyranger provide the most common reason why an otherwise clear throw may get blocked. Even when it shouldn't, the game will sometimes think that the grenade will intersect with the ceiling immediately above and stop the throw. Very high or abnormally high (hacked) levels of strength can worsen this effect as it increases how high a grenade gets thrown for longer throws. Solution for this include manoeuvring your soldier away from the ceiling for a clearer throw, shorten the throw distance, or have a weaker soldier attempt the throw.

The entire game map is also by an invisible ceiling above the top-most layer. This invisible ceiling will sometimes prevent long range throws that would otherwise be quite legal. The only solution to this is to shorten the throw.

== The Grenade Timer ==

All grenades are primed by setting their timer to a setting between 0 and 23. However, what do these numbers mean? It is easy and almost natural to assume that these numbers refer to the game turns. Yes, but not quite.

The confusion stems from the fact that each grenade timer delay does not correspond to the number of turns that you see during the alien movement phase. Each number in fact represents ''half'' a turn.

Throughout the battle, the game will have two counters that keep track of the number of turns taken in the battle. The main turn counter, the one that you see between move phases, is made up of two smaller turns. Your turn and the aliens turn. When the game reports that you are starting on turn 6 for example, each side will have taken 6 turns, making 12 turns in total. Grenades and their timer operate between these exchanges of turns between the player and the aliens.

As the turn order is always player first then the alien, even numbered turns represent the player and odd numbered turns represent the aliens. Observe the following delay settings:

0 = Explodes as soon as you end the turn, before the aliens move<br>
1 = Explodes after the aliens end their turn<br>
2 = Explodes at the end of your next turn<br>
3 = Explodes at the end of the aliens' next turn<br>
and so on.

Note that automatic doors are always closed just before you start your turn but after the aliens have ended their turn.

In general, 0 is the most common setting used as it provides a more immediate result. 1 is tactically advantageous if you are able to accurately predict where the aliens will be at the end of their turn. Higher settings are often used for demolition work when you want to give your sapper some time to retreat after placing the explosive.

In order for a grenade to then explode, it will need to fulfil '''both''' of the following conditions:

# The grenade counter has run out
# The grenade is on the ground when the turn ends

If either of these two conditions are not met, the grenade will not explode.

Except in very buggy circumstances, a grenade will never explode during a movement phase. Only between them, before either side gets control of their units.

Because of the strict detonation conditions, you can safely hold and carry a grenade even though it's well past its timer setting.

This allows you to arm grenades several turns in advance to avoid the 50% [[Time Units|Time Unit]] arming cost when the grenade is needed the most. As long as the grenades are in your inventory, they will be safe to carry. (Unless the soldier carrying them is killed or rendered unconscious - then the grenades end up on the ground and may explode if the counter has also run out).

== How The Timer is Implemented ==

Ever wondered why the delay settings for the timer begin at 0?

Rather than being assigned a number of turn and then counting down after each movement phase, a grenade is instead assigned a scheduled detonation time. This is a number that equals the current movement phase count plus the delay setting you selected.

If the current movement phase count is greater than this number, the first condition for the grenade to explode will be met.

For example, it's the 120th movement phase (that's 60 turns into the game). A soldier primes a grenade with a delay of 1. The grenade will then be set to detonate on turn 121.

When the turn ends and the aliens take over, the turn counter increments to 121. This is equal to the grenade detonation time. That's fine for now. As soon as the aliens end their turn, the movement phase counter jumps to 122. This is greater than 121, and thus the grenade's first detonation condition is met. If the grenade was on the ground, it will also explode.

If the grenade was held in the hand or inventory past this point, it will not explode. If it lands on the ground, regardless of which side is currently making the move, it will immediately explode as soon as the turn ends.

==Experience Attribution==

In order for the game to properly reward experience to soldiers who've harmed enemies with grenades, grenades carry an ownership flag to identify who to credit the experience to. Unfortunately this flag is only set when the grenade is ''thrown''. It is never set when the grenade is picked up or dropped.

When the battle starts, all grenades will have their ownership flag default to 0. This is also the same reference to the very first unit on the map. (Unit 0 - in unitpos.dat terms). This is either the soldier that starts on the equipment pile, or a tank if one is on the ship.

For example, if soldier A throws a grenade to soldier B, who then picks it up, arms it, drops it by an enemy and then runs away, any experience earned from the attack will be awarded to soldier A, not soldier B.

This unusual behaviour is clearly a bug. To avoid it, always have the soldier throw the grenade.

Proximity grenade are even more unusual and award experience to the person that sets it off. The mine layer will therefore not earn any experience produced by using the mine. At least, without stepping on it.

== Item Destruction ==

In Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense, if an armed grenade is destroyed by another explosion before it can go off, the grenade will no longer exist, thus negating the pending explosion. A stack of armed grenades will therefore only explode once.

In TFTD, grenades are given higher damage threshold that give them better protection against HE damage. Most grenades are indestructible to explosions of their own type while others like the [[Sonic Pulser]] have a negative damage threshold, making them effectively indestructible.

For more information on how explosives can destroy objects in general, refer to [[Explosions#Object_Destruction|Object Destruction]]. Refer also to [[Item Destruction Table (TFTD)| TFTD's item destruction table]] for TFTD.

== Proximity Mines ==

Due to the odd behaviour of the 20 Armed Proximity Mine flags that govern whether a proximity mine is live or otherwise, a mine that gets destroyed will not clear their armed flag. This has the possibility of passing the armed status onto another object during the battle.

If this flag is not cleared, be extra wary as any item in the battlescape that is on the ground could explode on your approach, with the explosive force of the item's strength (where applicable). The most hilarious consequence of this I have ever seen is a dead X-com agent simulating a popper and blowing up next to an aquatoid.

In TFTD, the mine armor levels are increased a little, so most light explosions should not destroy the mine too easily.

== Article TODOs ==

* Section on strategies to briefly mention pre-arming, Dead Man's Trigger, grenade relay, etc. Passing the experience trick. Then linking to the right section.
* Strength, weight, the throwing arc and an invisible ceiling.
* Make a separate companion article called Understanding Proximity Mines
* Cover a few other items mentioned in the Talk pages.
* As per https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Weapons#High_explosive an explosive will hit the Bottom Armour at the point of impact. This may be useful if you find yourself up against [[Silacoids]] in the early game.
* etc.

[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]
[[Category:TFTD]]

Experience

2024-05-04T00:32:13Z

75338: /* Primary Stats */ short form explanation of what counts as a Primary Action

__NOTOC__
== Overview ==

Experience, in X-COM, is the accumulation of combat experience by successfully performing actions. After combat, this experience is applied towards the improvement of stats.

This article discusses how experience is earned and how it affects a soldier's statistics and skills.

__TOC__
== How Experience Points Are Applied ==

Soldier stats can be divided into two areas, '''primary''' and '''secondary''' stats.

=== Primary Stats ===

*'''Primary Stats''' are stats that are directly influenced by the actions that they are associated with. These actions can be called '''Primary Actions'''. They are:
**[[Reactions]] - took reaction shot.
**[[Firing Accuracy]] - hit an enemy.
**[[Melee Accuracy]] - melee hit(?).
**[[Throwing Accuracy]] - throw anything.
**[[Psionic Skill]] - any psi skill attempt.
**[[Bravery]] - sucessfully resisting panic/berserk.

* Every time a Primary Action is taken, '''Primary Skill Points''' are earned. They count the number of successful primary actions taken. This is used to calculate how much experience is gained at the end of combat. For specifics on each stat, refer to the individual stat pages by clicking on the links above.

* The number of primary skill points earned at the end of a mission relies ''solely'' on the number of primary actions performed during combat, as shown below. Current skill is irrelevant. Whether you have the value that can be rolled for a recruit, or you are one point below the cap.

*Points assigned have a stairstep function, corresponding to a range within which points are rolled. As more actions are performed, the greater the range:

{| class="wikitable" cellpadding=3
|-
! Primary<br>Actions !! Roll<br>Range !! Average<br>Increase !! Ave. Inc. /<br> Min. Actions !! Marginal Inc. / Act. from<br>1, 3 and 6 Actions resp.
|-
| 1 - 2 || 0 - 1 || 0.5 || 0.50 || -
|-
| 3 - 5 || 1 - 3 || 2.0 || 0.67 || 0.75
|-
| 6 - 10 || 1 - 4 || 2.5 || 0.42 || 0.40, 0.16
|-
| 11+ || 2 - 6 || 4.0 || 0.36 || 0.35, 0.25, 0.30
|}
:<i>Successful '''Psi''' actions count as 3 actions. '''Bravery''' uses a different approach. See below.</i>

*Performing more than 11 actions <i>won't cause any more increase</i>. Once you reach that figure you get a 2-6 roll and that's that. (Seen in code, and tested to 200+ actions.)

*If there is a limited number of actions your squad can perform (i.e., a limited number of aliens to kill), the "Average Increase / Minimum Actions" shows the most efficient way to go first and the "Marginal Increase" how to proceed from there. The 2.0 average increase for 3 actions is best. In other words, if you let one soldier shoot 3 times instead of letting 3 soldiers shoot one time, the average increase for the squad as a whole is better (here, an average of 2.0 within the squad versus an average increase of 3 x 0.5 = 1.5 with the same three shots). Going from there, aiming for 11 actions provides the best marginal utility (0.25 vs. only 0.16 when going for 6 actions). When there isn't enough to go around, choose who and how you want to advance your soldiers and allocate actions in this order: 3 actions (0.67) and then directly to 11 actions (0.25 per additional action). While you might still want most of your soldiers to take at least 1 action to trigger secondary stat grow (see below), you should never aim for 6-10 bracket as it is better to have 37.5% of you trainees increase +4 (and the others at +2) than having all of them increase +2.5 on avg. for the same number of actions.

*The only time one might have gone for 1 action (besides for triggering secondary stat gain) is if you knew you could only get off 2 more shots, not 3. But short of cheating, [[Damage]] is always unpredictable, so instead of taking 1 shot at 2 soldiers when you think your last alien is about dead, you should probably have 1 soldier see if they can get to 3 shots. By the same token, you would prefer to take two soldiers to 6 actions instead of taking one to 9 or 10.

*Notice that any intermediate shots (e.g. your 2nd or 8th shots) are a waste of <strike>aliens</strike> er, actions unless you reach the next minimum-actions level. You can count bullets as a crude approximation, or use a utility that reads the [[UNITREF.DAT]] experience counters from a saved game for exact counts. The number of bullets you've shot will accurately reflect your Reaction counter (unless the person also did direct fire sans reacting), but knowing how many hits were landed for Firing Accuracy can be much more problematic. For a little more detail on efficiency versus experience, see [[User_talk:MikeTheRed#Another_Look_at_Primary_Point_Increases|this]].

*Psi actions are a special case. <b>Successful</b> panic or mind control (MC) attempts cause the psi experience counter to go up by <b>three</b> actions. Thus, you only need to do 4 successful MCs or panics to get all the psi skill points you're going to (4x3=an experience count of 12). But <b>unsuccessful</b> attempts only cause the counter to go up by <b>one</b>. So you need 11 failed attempts to get to the 2-6 roll range, just like for all other primary stats.

*[[Throwing_Accuracy|Throwing Accuracy]] is also an oddball. While it follows the rules for all primaries (except Bravery), it <i>only</i> increases your Throwing Accuracy. It does not trigger secondaries to increase. (It would've been too easy to increase stats, otherwise! Actually, Psi is just as easy to develop, but it takes time to research psi, and then it needs more combats to reach its cap.)
**Letting your soldiers throw 3 times just before ending a mission maximizes Throwing Accuracy growth versus your personal time spent.

*Performing more than 255 actions of a given type will cause all experience to be lost. This is known to be true for Psi actions, and is undoubtedly true for other actions as well as they are stored in one byte fields. Psi is the only place it's realistically likely. More precisely, experience gets wrapped around, and starts counting again. If you are seriously testing stats, or are challenging yourself by allowing only one psi person, the distance from 255 to 265 (255-10) is only 4.3%, or 3 to 4 MCs on top of 85 successful Psis (28 turns' worth, if they've been successfully MCing since Turn 1). Thus, this may sound scary, but you have '''nothing to fear''' unless you've had someone successfully MCing 3 times every turn, for 30 turns - and even then, just let them MC a few more. What's 10 more compared to 255?

* X-COM uses a simple but robust system where all squaddies are expected to participate, and skills increase in proportion to how often they are used.

==== Bravery ====

[[Bravery]] experience can also be gained on the battlefield, but using a different algorithm from other primary stats. The bravery stat itself is stored in increments of 10 (10 minimum, 100 maximum, with 110 possible for certain non-human units), and it can only increase by 10 points following each combat (it either gains 10, or nothing).

To gain bravery experience, a unit must have its [[Morale]] reduced below 50, where it stands a chance of panicking or going berserk. If the unit ''successfully resists'' panicking, it will gain a "bravery experience" point. Each bravery experience point gives the unit an additional ~9% chance (or an eleventh, to be precise) of gaining +10 Bravery at the end of the combat. At 11 or more bravery experience points, the +10 Bravery gain is guaranteed.

Like other primary stats, gaining one or more bravery experience points during a combat triggers secondary stat increases.

=== Secondary Stats ===

*'''Secondary stats''' increase when one or more primary actions are performed (except for throwing). Secondary stats are:
** [[Time Units]]
** [[Health]]
** [[Strength]]
** [[Energy|Energy/Stamina]]

* '''Secondary skill points''' work quite differently from primary skills: It <i>does not matter</i> how many primary actions are taken; all that matters is that you did <i>one</I> primary action (land a non-IN attack on an enemy, react to something, not panic when [[Morale]] is below 50, or use a psi attack) -- your secondaries will increase all that they're gonna. It also doesn't matter if you did more than one <i>kind</i> of primary action.

* The maximum possible increase is highest when the stat is lowest (it can increase the most when you need it the most). The amount that the stat can increase falls steadily as your secondary skills approach their caps, down to an average of 1 point (range 0-2) per combat for each stat. The overall formula is that you gain 0 to 2 points, plus a tenth (rounded down) of the remaining increase possible. (For a graph, see [[User_talk:MikeTheRed#Secondary_.22Steps.22|this]]). Thus, secondary stats which start very low should increase quickly, and will then increase less rapidly as they rise. Rookies with the lowest possible starting stats will have the following as their max possible roll:

{| class="wikitable" cellpadding=3
|-
!
! Recruit<br>Min !! Max<br>Roll !! Recruit<br>Max !! Overall<br>Cap
|-
| TUs || 50 || 5 || 60 || 80
|-
| Health || 25 || 5|| 40 || 60
|-
| Strength || 20 || 7 || 40 || 70
|-
| Energy || 40 || 6 || 70 || 100
|}

*The minimum possible roll is always zero for secondaries. Across the four secondaries, soldiers will show wide variations of luck or lack of luck following each combat, just like flipping coins. Still, the odds are that someone low will rise fast. It's real hard to roll a lot of zeros in a row when the maximum is two or more (and it always is).

*If a primary skill is over its cap, it does still trigger (non-capped) secondaries to increase, by performing it.

=== Soldier Advancement ===

Given the rules of how experience works, one can predict how long it will take soldiers to advance their attributes.

Primary skill advances can be based on hypothetical soldiers who always get:
* '''Low experience:''' 3 primary-skill experience points leading to a 1-3 roll and thus, always an average of 2 points per combat
* '''High experience:''' 11 primary-skill experience points leading to a 2-6 roll and thus, always an average of 4 points per combat
Secondary skills likewise use an average roll for advancing, according to the decreasing-slope function described above.

Because you can select or reject soldiers based on their starting stats, the more important question becomes, "which stats take the longest to advance from recruit maximum to its cap?" In other words, values above recruit max can't be "bought"... so which have the farthest to develop and should be focused on, if you want to maximize your stats?

You can use this as a basis for keeping or rejecting new recruits, or otherwise choosing which skills to develop.

The table below shows the number of combats needed for a soldier to advance from recruit maximum to attribute cap, '''on average'''. A more detailed look, including starting from recruit minimum, theoretical min and max advancement times, etc., can be found [[Media:XcomAttributeAdvancement.xls|here]] and a PDF of the same is [[Media:XcomAttributeAdvancement.pdf|here]].

{| class="wikitable" cellpadding=3
|-
! rowspan = "2" | Stat
! rowspan = "2" | Min
! rowspan = "2" | Max
! rowspan = "2" | Cap
! colspan = "2" | Experience<br>Range
! rowspan = "2" | Secondary
|-
! High
! Low
|-
! colspan = " 7"| Primaries
|-
| style = "text-align:left;" | Reactions
| 30 || 60 || 100 || 10 || 20 ||  
|-
| style = "text-align:left;" | Firing Accuracy
| 40 || 70 || 120 || 13 || 25 ||  
|-
| style = "text-align:left;" | Throwing Accuracy
| 50 || 80 || 120 || 10 || 20 ||  
|-
| style = "text-align:left;" | Psi Skill
| 16 || 24 || 100 || 19 || 38 ||  
|-
! colspan = "7" | Secondaries
|-
| style = "text-align:left;" | Time Units
| 50 || 60 || 80 ||   ||   || 16
|-
| style = "text-align:left;" | Health
| 25 || 40 || 60 ||   ||   || 16
|-
| style = "text-align:left;" | Strength
| 20 || 40 || 70 ||   ||   || 21
|-
| style = "text-align:left;" | Stamina
| 40 || 70 || 100 ||   ||   || 24
|}

=== Putting It All Together ===

* While you might focus on the <i>averages</i> stated above, the actual points assigned are <i>entirely random</i>. The <b>range</b> is what you should expect for any one soldier on any one combat mission. This follows the usual X-COM behavior of defining a range and rolling randomly within it.

* Do your best to get every soldier you are interested in developing, to get at least one primary action (not including throwing). This will trigger secondary stat increases. Then try to shoot for the big breakpoints of 3 or 11 primary actions. Doing more than 11 actions does not increase a particular primary stat any more, so give other soldiers the chance to perform actions once your favorite soldiers have maxed out on theirs.

* Any soldier can (and will!) ultimately become a maxed-out superman. (Not counting Psi-wimps with a low psi strength, who will never improve at all.) The worse a secondary stat is, the quicker it will rise. And you can try to target who performs which primary actions. Taking advantage of the breakpoints of 3 and 11 can also help you manage potential skill increases (a.k.a. targets) as effectively as possible. That said,

* Early in the game, don't spend much time or money fretting over stats. Any soldier is liable to come up snakes with their Psi strength. And every soldier can otherwise eventually become a superman.

* Once you have strong Psi soldiers, you can easily use [[Experience Training]] to optimize advancement.

*In the endgame (when you have tons of cash), if you're a micromanager and wish to have soldiers maxed across the board, the main focus when screening recruits is the stats that can't be improved - Energy Recharge (which is equal to a soldier's starting TU, divided by 3 and rounded down) and Psi-Strength. So one would screen incoming (psi-locked) rookies for TUs, keep the ones with 60 TUs (who have 20 Energy Recharge), and then put the remaining rookies through a month of Psi-Lab training and discard those with Psi-Strength below some threshold (100 might be too strict given the one-month investment of time in each, but 90 or 95 is attainable given sufficient funding and a large number of Psi-Labs). All other stats are of secondary importance, since they can be improved with experience, and as such screening will only save you time training them while further increasing the number of rookies you need in order for one of them to "pass muster".

== Regarding Caps ==
Every soldier statistic has a maximum allowed value, as shown in the table below. Your soldier will eventually have a value equal to or slightly greater than the cap. It is allowed to go over the cap the very last time you have a combat while it is still under the cap. For example, the maximum Firing Accuracy is 120. If you go into a combat at 119, do lots of shooting, and get a +5 roll, you will walk away with 124 Firing Accuracy - but it will never increase again.

Primary skills can overflow their cap by 5, and secondary skills can overflow their cap by 1, as shown here:

{| class="wikitable" cellpadding=3
|-
! Primary Stat !! Min Cap !! Max Cap
|-
| Reactions || 100 || 105
|-
| Firing Accuracy || 120 || 125
|-
| Melee Accuracy || 120 || 125
|-
| Throwing Accuracy || 120 || 125
|-
| Psi Skill || 100 || 105+'''<sup>*</sup>'''
|-
| Bravery || 100 || 100
|-
! Secondary Stat !! Min Cap !! Max Cap
|-
| Time Units || 80 || 81
|-
| Health || 60 || 61
|-
| Strength || 70 || 71
|-
| Stamina || 100 || 101
|}

:<i><sup>*</sup>Psi Skill is an exception. [[Psionic Skill#Improvement|Psi Lab]] training can continue to add 1-3 points each month after reaching the cap, and will loop the value back down to 0 if it passes 255.</i>

You have a 33% chance of getting capped at Cap+1 for secondary skills, and you have no control over what happens (barring reloading your game and ending combat again). The chance is 33% and not 50% because there are two ways to reach Cap (being at Cap-2 and rolling 2 or being at Cap-1 and rolling 1), but only one way to reach Cap+1 (being at Cap-1 and rolling 2).

For primaries, a soldier that does 11+ actions (for a 2-6 roll) every single combat mission will get Cap+5 in that primary skill <b>5%</b> of the time, on average. "Every single mission" means, without regard for the fact you're nearing the cap (and playing with the possible roll results). You can increase the odds to as high as 20%, if you use the primary increase roll ranges to inch your way up to Cap-1, then do 11+ actions on your final combat. Or you can have a 0% chance of Cap+5 if you don't pay attention and don't do 11+ actions near the cap!

== Experience training outside combat ==

With the exception of [[Psionic Skill]] training in the [[Psionic Laboratory|Psi Lab]], all stats can only be trained through combat experience.

== Rookie promotions ==

A Rookie that has gained any experience except throwing, is promoted to Squaddie (also see [[promotions]]).

==See Also==
*[[Soldiers]]
*[[Experience Training]]
*For "behind the scenes" on experience testing, see [[User_talk:MikeTheRed#The_Experience_of_Experience|this]]
[[Category:Soldiers]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Known Bugs

2024-04-23T22:14:34Z

75338: /* Interceptions: Last Shot Always Misses */ fixed

== Base Construction Bugs ==

=== Base Disjoint Bug ===
Base facilities built along the right or bottom edges of the base building area may end up being cut off from each other by dirt walls, a bug in the routine meant to keep soldiers from accidentally exiting the map edges during [[Base Defence]] missions. The dirt walls can be knocked down by Blaster Bombs or excessive amount of heavy plasma fire during combat but are otherwise unbreakable.

[[image:bdb.gif|center|Base Disjoint Bug]]

The walls marked in white are removed if there is an adjacent module. All green modules are not affected while the yellow modules are. The red module will be sealed off completely if anything smaller than a hangar is placed here at any given time.

[[XcomUtil]] works around this problem by stripping out the walls entirely in all the base modules.

The bug can be profitable if the hangars and the lift are accessible only through in these areas - you can gather and supply all your soldiers heavily without aliens interfering, then knock a hole in the wall and cover the area with explosives and blaster launcher fire.

===Displayed Base Maintenance Costs===
Although X-COM charges the right monthly fees for base modules, the maintenance fee displayed ''in the base info screen'' is always wrong. The displayed number is actually based on the placement within the base grid, '''not''' the price displayed in the in-game UFOpaedia. However, at the end of the month, the right fee is deducted. For more information, see [[Base_Facilities#Displayed_Base_Maintenance_Cost_Bug]]. The Geo finance Graph shows a correct maintenance summary ([[LIGLOB.DAT]], updated once a month). Also see the next section.

===Paying For Dirt===
If you take down any facility in any base that you own and leave bare dirt, then you will continue to pay maintenance on it. But not at the old rate of whatever the facility cost per month, filling the hole back with dirt means it needs special attention at all times by specialists. In fact for every square of dirt you have that used to be a facility you will pay 80k per month. Thats 320k per hangar you take down. There are only two known ways to stop paying this premium - if you completely dismantle the base you stop paying any money for it, or if you build over all the spaces that you have vacated. In fact as soon as you start building the new facility you stop paying the premium, as well as not having to pay the cost of the new facility until it is complete.

It is also possible to stop the 80k per month charge by hex editing the base.dat file in the save game. If you change the byte that indicates the number of days until the destroyed module from 00 to ff, you no longer pay for the dirt.

If you start a facility and change your mind before it is complete, after the time when it would have completed you will start paying this 80k premium on that land as well.

Note that this also applies to facilities that have been destroyed due to battle damage in [[Base Defence]] missions. If you have lost a facility in a base defence mission and you cannot afford to replace the original facility, consider building something cheap here to keep down this bug.

===Base Facility Dismantle-Construction Crash===
In the Collectors Edition version, dismantling a facility while its construction is in progress can cause a crash when a second facility on another base square completes its construction. To work around this, dismantle a facility only after its construction is complete. If you have already dismantled such a facility, build something like a general stores on the same square to avoid the crash. It is not known if this crash happens intermittently or always, or if it happens on most versions of the game or just the Collectors Edition.

===Radar Stacking===
Despite the "Short Range" and "Long Range" detection bars displayed on each base's Information screen, only one radar of each type will be used at each base. Building additional radars of the same type will have no effect. One short and one long are useful until the [[Hyper-wave Decoder|Hyper-Wave Decoder]] makes both of them obsolete.

===Phantom Radar===
When you dismantle detection equipment such as a radar or hyperwave detector, the related detection ability of the base does not decrease until a new facility of some kind is built in that base. Until a new facility is completes building at that base, the base continues to use this "phantom radar".

This bug allows you to "upgrade in place", for example building a new Hyper-Wave Decoder over the top of an existing Large Radar, and retaining the detection capability of the Large Radar until the Hyper-Wave Decoder completes building. (Unless something else completes building first).

===Hangar Split in Half===
In the DOS version of UFO, it's possible to place the top-left section of a hangar in the rightmost column or bottommost row of the base map, hanging it off the edge of the map. In the case of a hangar placed in the rightmost column, the "right" half of the hangar will appear on the leftmost column, shifted one row down. This is due to the game storing the base map as a 1-dimensional string of values. The hangar will still function normally, but unless both halves of the hangar are connected to the rest of the base it could make a Base Defence mission unwinnable.

{{UBK|=
|dirt|dirt|hangar1|hangar2|dirt|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|hangar3|hangar4|dirt|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|lift|stores|dirt|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|quarters|large_radar|workshop|hangar1|=
|hangar2|dirt|quarters|lab|dirt|hangar3|=
|hangar4|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|=}}

In the case of a hangar hanging off the bottommost row, the "hanging" segments will overflow into other parts of memory. There is an exploit related to this.

This bug doesn't affect Collector's Edition or TFTD, as you will receive a "cannot build here" warning if you attempt to place a hangar in an invalid position.

===Fixes for Base Construction Bugs===

As mentioned above, [[XcomUtil]] prevents the Base Disjoint bug (crudely). The [[User:Spike#Base_Fixer|BaseFixer]] utility corrects the Paying for Dirt, Phantom Radar, and Radar Stacking bugs. BaseFixer can be used manually on saved game files, or automatically via XcomUtil's hook mechanism.

All these issues are also fixed by [[UFOextender]].

==Geoscape Bugs==

===First Radar Detection Data bug===
When a UFO is detected by a radar, you get certain data on it depending on the type of radar that detected it. If the UFO later enters the range of another radar while staying in the range of the first, you will continue to get the initial data given, even if the new radar is more powerful than the first! So if you detect a craft with a [[Small Radar System]], then the UFO moves into the range of a [[Hyper-wave Decoder]], clicking on the UFO will only give you the data as if the Small Radar detected it, so long as it remains in the Small Radar range! In effect, the data you get about a UFO is determined when you first detect it, and not changed after that until you lose detection on the craft with the radar that first detected it.

This bug most commonly shows up when a UFO is first detected by a patrolling aircraft and then remains in the range of the aircraft while also entering the range of a Hyper-Wave Decoder.

=== Minimized Interceptor Bug ===
One fairly consistent cause of crashes is saving the geoscape game during a UFO standoff, with a [[UFO Interception]] window minimized to an icon. The next mission after that point will likely dump you to the green text screen, and perhaps an earlier battlescape mission instead of the proper one. What it seems to do is zoom back out of the combat too far when the fight is over, eventually causing the crash once it has gone a couple of steps further than it normally allows you.

'''Solution:''' Open up [[UIGLOB.DAT]] in a hex editor. Change hex offset 0x06 to 00. This will reset the number of minimized interceptor windows to zero. Your interceptor unit can be selected to either return to base or continue on to complete its ground assault mission. ''NOTE: Make sure to back up your save game before editing it.''

''-- I was able to recover from this state by quickly sending in another interceptor ([[Firestorm]]) to take over, which allowed my first interceptor ([[Avenger]]) to break off and go home without crashing the game again. After the shootdown I overwrote the buggy savegame. --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 03:11, 22 Aug 2005 (PDT)''

''This happened to me also. I fixed it by replacing "[[UIGLOB.DAT]]" in the save folder with the same file from another saved game (from the same campaign a month earlier) [[User:bylund|bylund]] 00:15, January 12, 2007 (GMT+01)''

=== Interceptions: Last Shot Always Misses ===
NOTE: This has been fixed in OpenXCom.

When using Cautious attack when [[UFO Interception|intercepting a UFO]], your craft will stay at the maximum range of your longest-range weapon. When using Standard attack, your craft will stay at the maximum range of your shortest-range weapon. (Usually players use two weapons of the same type, so Cautious and Standard attack will behave the same in this regard.)

As soon as the craft fires its last shot (expending all its ammo), it will drop back to "Standoff" range (70km). This will make it appear that the UFO has backed away while the last missile(s) are in-flight, causing them to miss.

In order to hit a UFO with your last salvo of missiles (Stingrays, Avalanches, or Fusion Balls), you must switch to "Aggressive" attack before the last salvo reaches the UFO. This will cause your craft to close in with the UFO, allowing the missiles to be in range when they reach the UFO. However, Aggressive attacks will also bring you within range of the UFO's weapons, so you should hit the "Disengage" button as soon as the last salvo hits.

===Elerium-fueled Craft Bug===
A [[Skyranger]] or [[Interceptor]], once dispatched, will return to base when its fuel supply has dropped to a level that it will only have just enough fuel to return to base. Craft fueled by Elerium-115, however, will always report the "Low Fuel" message as soon at the fuel supply is 50% depleted, no matter where they are on the globe. This significantly shortens the already minute time that a [[Firestorm]], [[Lightning]], or [[Avenger]] can be dispatched to patrol.

===Medic Research Bug===

The array holding live alien and autopsy data to randomly provide when an alien Medic is researched is four bytes too short. What this means in practice is that if you interrogate an alien Medic before you have at least two of these topics unlocked, the game will crash. To avoid this bug, do not research any alien Medics until you have performed either: a) two alien autopsies, b) an alien autopsy and an alien interrogation, or c) two alien interrogations of different species.

===Never-ending Retaliation Bug===
Some times the aliens will send a [[battleship]] on a [[Alien_Retaliation|retaliation mission]] to the "wrong" base. F.ex: the [[Hyper-wave_Decoder|hyper-wave decoder]] may report its destination as South East Asia, but the ship will actually fly to your base in North America and attack it.

Even if the battleship succeeds in getting past the base defences and its crew is subsequently defeated, the aliens won't "forget" the base's location as they normally do and instead keep sending another battleship every week or so. If your base is constructed with [[Base_Layout_Strategy|defendability]] in mind and crewed by experienced operatives this will net you heaps and heaps of alien weapons, corpses and prisoners very quickly. The downsides are, of course, playing the same base defence mission over and over again and having to maintain a garrison there at all times.

More research is needed to find out what causes this bug, but it ''could'' have something to do with [[Mind_Shield|mind shields]] being finished between the scouting and assault parts of the aliens' retaliation mission.

=== Early Base Defence bug ===

XBASE.DAT has 12 entries for each valid mission zone. However, the initialization routine for a new game only resets the first 8 entries. If some of these entries have leftover data from a previous game, this may spawn an alien [[Battleship]] attacking the location specified, usually your first base. This results in an unprovoked [[Base Defence]] mission, within the first two weeks of the new game! (Normally, the aliens don't try to attack your bases unless you intercept UFOs, and they have to [[Alien Retaliation|search for a base]] before a Battleship can be deployed to assault it.)

=== Cash Rollover Bug ===

When your cash balance goes over $2,147,483,647, it will rollover and become $-2,147,483,647. Which means your game is done for, unless you use an editor. Fortunately, by the time you accumulate this much cash, you have usually completed all necessary research to win the game.

''When the game was written, the largest unit that a programmer had available was 32-bits. The programmers did not make this unsigned so the largest amount that could be stored is 2 ^ 31 - 1, which is 2147483647. Incrementing this causes it to overflow to a negative number due to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two's_complement Two's complement arithmetic]''

== Battlescape Bugs ==

=== Load bug after successful mission ===
After you finish a game you have saved and load the same game file again - the alien side goes first! I think it may be caused when you succesfully complete the mission and you get a notification like that the alien has died beacuse of no alien containment. The game still thinks that it is the aliens' turn. So when I load the mission again- the aliens move first. If you load the same saved game again it will be OK. [[User:ElfKaa|ElfKaa]]

===Time Units Missing===
Very rarely when you end your first turn and all your units are inside the Skyranger in the next turn they all only have 4 time units remaining.

=== Faulty Large Units ===
If you move a tank off a northward facing ledge, the rest of the tank will sink into a wall (if there is one), and cause the tank to get stuck. This won't happen if the tank moves off a south facing ledge as the primary quarter will fall after the rest of the tank. Aliens can also get stuck this way.

Another, potentially annoying bug occurs when a large unit's graphics become messed up. During a base defence mission, a rocket tank may end up looking like 4 silacoids bunched together.

===Unconscious Units are items===
This is actually an intentional programming choice... but it leads to several consequences which are bugs.

Firstly, any unconscious unit can be killed instantly by even a weak explosion, like being nearby an exploding AC-HE shell... even a Muton with 125 Health or an X-com agent in Flying Armor whose high armor ratings normally make him immune to AC-HE damage.
Secondly, no experience is gained for killing enemies in this manner.

You can prevent an unconscious unit's death from an explosion by picking it up... if a blaster bomb strikes the carrier and kills him, the unconscious unit will safely fall to the floor, unharmed.

Unlike a conscious unit (not wearing x-com armor), an unconscious unit can laze about in the middle of a fire without taking damage, since a UNIT standing in fire takes damage, but an unconscious unit is an item, which all ignore fire.

Forcing an MCed alien to pick up an unconscious X-com agent and carry him in its right hand can cause weird things to occur when you release the mind control. I think the game might crash when the alien tries to shove the agent into its magic pocket.

If a non-flying unconscious unit wakes up while being carried by a flying unit, it will gain some sort of temporary hover ability. (I once placed an unconscious Chryssalid in my flying agent's backpack. A few turns later, some growls and screams were heard from overhead.)

Save space! Each conscious unit takes up 1 tile (4 tiles for large units). An unconscious unit does not use up the tile... this might conceivably be useful if you wanted to abort a mission, but several panicked units were preventing other agents from boarding the skyranger...
X-com agents refuse to ride piggyback or be picked up while conscious. So, if you want a non-flying unit to reach an 2nd floor place with no stairs or elevator, you will have to knock him out, then either throw him up, or have a flying unit pick him up and drop him... and presumably administer stimulant.

This also leads to the INVISIBLE UNIT glitch. Frequently happens during Base Defence missions, since the item table is usually maxed out. Basically, the item table is so full that killed units do not leave corpses. However, this also means that unconscious units do not turn into the Unconscious Unit item. The KOed unit will disappear from sight, but will still be visible as a red number and as a blue/yellow dot on overhead map. Since the unit is still a unit and not an item, you will be able to shoot it with projectile weapons and kill it. ALSO, this method enables you to raise any unit's stun bar all the way to 255, since you can still increase the stun meter, despite them already being unconscious. If you this bug occurs and interferes with your goal (capturing enemy Commander), the way to go is to destroy some of your items with explosion.

===Funky Fire===
If a unit (alien or friendly) is on fire or standing in flames, an [[Incendiary]] explosion ''anywhere else on the map'' will do a small amount of damage to it, even if you just shoot an IC round at a random patch of ground.

Similarly, if a unit (friendly units only) is standing in smoke when an incendiary explodes, it will take stun damage. This makes the combination of incendiary munitions and smoke quite hazardous until such time as all troops are armored.

<s>There is a [[Talk:Incendiary#Incendiary_Bug|working hypothesis]] for</s> The cause of this bug is that each and every Incendiary explosion triggers the "Smoke and Fire" routine: applying fire damage, applying stun damage from smoke, calculating fire and smoke spreading, and "catch on fire" checks for units in fire.

Note that X-Com units wearing any kind of armor are immune to fire damage and IC-induced stun damage. Xcom HWPs are immune to stun, but take 40% damage from Incendiaries and WILL get killed quite efficiently by funky fire.

===Tanks have full ammo during Base Defence===
HWPs in Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense and SWS in Terror From the Deep will always have full ammunition during a Base Defence mission even if there is not enough ammunition in storage to have them fully armed.

This occurs because tanks are always initialised with full ammunition when they are spawned in the battlescape. However, the game does not make the necessary adjustments to their ammunition supplies and leaves them fully armed. Any ammunition that was in storage will be consumed normally.

After the battle, any left over ammunition will be recovered and added to stores. If a base is regularly attacked, this can be [[ExploitsA#Free_Ammo_for_Tanks|exploited]] to create large amounts of ammo for free by sending away all of the ammunition to another base after each battle (particularly for Hovertanks/Launcher and Displacers/P.W.T., since their ammunition must otherwise be manufactured from alien materials).

Note that this bug will arm a [[Coelacanth/Gauss]] in Terror From the Deep, but you will not recover any ammunition from it due to its own specific arming bug.

=== Collectors Edition Blaster Bomb Bug ===

Also known as Vertical Waypoint Blaster Bomb Bug.

In the Collectors Edition of UFO, the [[Blaster Launcher]] has a bug that prevents it from going up or down on the same tile. Or in other words, you cannot change the elevation of the missile vertically on the same tile.

Instead of flying down (or up) to the next waypoint, it will instead fly directly to the south at the pivot waypoint. Relative to the screen, this would be the lower left side of the screen.

This does not happen if you plot the waypoints at an angle. Or, if the blaster bomb flies right off the map, it will reappear at the proper waypoint as long as there are additional waypoints placed after the vertical move. The bug makes it impossible to fire Blaster Bombs up or down elevator shafts. Aliens are also affected by this bug.

The Blaster Bomb bug in turn permits the [[Tactical Exploits#Milking Alien Bases|Elevator Shielding - Base Milking Exploit]], which provides unlimited risk-free experience and ultra-low-risk booty, so fixing it is a Good Thing. Base Milking in general is a legitimate tactic, but doing Base Milking risk-free via the Elevator Shielding is just an exploit.

This bug also applies to the [[Disruptor Pulse Launcher]] in TFTD.

===Blaster Launcher Dud Shells Bug===

Shots which have only one waypoint, or explode before reaching their first waypoint, leave the Blaster Launcher showing 0 rounds, but still containing a dud shell which must be unloaded before the launcher can be reloaded. On earlier versions of the game (pre-Win CE) this also happens with reaction fire, and with 1-waypoint shots that fly off the map.

=== The trouble with Mines in General ===

Proximity mines are strangely implemented in UFO and TFTD. While they behave as you would expect them to half of the time, the mines do not behave like conventional weapons.

First, experience attribution is awarded to the person that sets off the mine.

Secondly, the armed states for [[Proximity Grenade]]s in both UFO and TFTD are NOT stored in save games. If a proximity grenade is primed, then the game is saved and reloaded, the grenade will not only not go off as it should, but the "Prime Grenade" action will still be absent, so it's impossible to re-arm it.

=== Grenade Timer Behaviour ===

A primed explosive (Grenade, High Explosive, Alien Grenade) will not explode if it's still in your inventory (hand, belt etc) when the timer runs out. It will only detonate when it's on the ground. If your soldier falls unconscious or gets killed, the primed explosive will be counted as being on the ground. Then it will blow up, likely taking out your gear and body. This 'feature' allows for the hot potato or [[Grenade Relay]] strategy which is fairly unique to X-COM where a live grenade well past its use-by date can be passed from squad member to squad member.

For a more a detailed explanation on detonation conditions, see [[Understanding Grenades]].

=== Mountain Map ===
Due to a bug in the way this tileset was created, when you shoot the ground, it doesn't burn up - it turns into a tree stump.

Because the stump is an object, as opposed to actual ground, any objects that were in the tile already (for example, UFO hulls or the landing gear of your craft) get replaced by these stumps, making it seem as if they were destroyed.

Tree stumps don't take much damage, so they often get burnt up immediately if an explosive goes off, leaving nothing but burnt ground behind. It is easier to view the effects of this bug by shooting the ground instead.

For more details, see [[Explosions#Mile-High_Madness|Mountain Madness]].

=== What just exploded? ===
In some versions of the game, a bug allows an armed proximity mine to transfer its properties to some other item in the next mission, which then may explode unexpectedly. (If the item is left on the floor of the XCOM craft, it will explode as you walk past it.) This problem can be rectified by reloading the game -- as a precaution, save before you move your first soldier.

=== Door jam ===
If a door is open when a game is saved on the Battlescape and that game is subsequently restored, the door will remain open for the remainder of that mission.

=== MIA Bugs ===

The routine which checks whether units are "Missing in Action" or not has several bugs in it. Specifically:

* Soldiers that have been [[Psionics|mind-controlled]] and not yet returned to X-Com control (whether by mind-control on the final turn, or because they were stunned while mind-controlled and haven't woken up yet) will be listed as MIA and permanently lost.

* If you abort a mission while aliens are under X-COM mind-control, you will be penalised for any mind-controlled aliens outside the exit area as though they were MIA (-20 points each). In PlayStation versions of the game, this does not occur as all mind-controlled aliens at mission end are considered captured.

* The only action which resets the location of unconscious soldiers, for the purposes of the MIA algorithm, is '''dropping'''. As such, soldiers carried or thrown back into the dropship and not subsequently dropped inside will be listed as MIA and permanently lost, while soldiers stunned or dropped inside the dropship and carried or thrown outside will be recovered safely.

===20 Proximity Grenade Limit===

The array used to denote armed [[Proximity Grenade]]s is limited to 20 entries, meaning you are limited to 20 active mines at a time. The 21st and subsequent Proximity grenades can be primed like normal and will give appropriate messages, but they will not detonate even when the normal trigger conditions are met. Note that Proximity Mines that have detonated or otherwise been destroyed are removed from the array, freeing up positions; the limit is 20 ACTIVE Proximity Grenades at one time. In normal gameplay, this is probably not a restriction, in light of the [[Known_Bugs#80-Item_Limit|80 Item Limit]], since you'd need to have more than 1/4th of the cargo space in the dropship filled with Proximity Grenades.

===Base Defence Elerium bug===

On DOS versions of UFO Defense, Elerium pods may spawn as items from the base stockpile during a Base Defence bug. Each pod represents 50 units of Elerium and will be normally collected after the mission, same as any other item such as Heavy Lasers or Blaster Bombs. HOWEVER. The program will potentially generate 1 elerium POD for every 1 UNIT of elerium in your inventory. Thus, if you had only 10 lasers and 50 Elerium listed in your Sell screen, you would see 10 lasers and 50 Elerium Crystals in your Soldier Equip Screen, which would translate to 50 Elerium pods and 10 lasers scattered around your base. This equals 2500 Elerium, BTW. You basically have the potential to multiply your elerium stocks by 50.

===Berserk HWP crashes the game===

Admittedly, this is unlikely to arise under normal play. But, anyhow, your HWPs can only lose morale by killing friendly units. Not much for each unit killed, either. Anyhow, a berserk HWP will crash the game. (except for the Hovertank/Launcher, which does not fire when it goes berserk.)
Likewise, if you MC a cyberdisc or Sectopod and have it kills lots of aliens, it'll go berserk and crash the game. The error happens because of an oversight from the developers: the built-in weapons of HWP are handled differently from handed weapons, no OBDATA.DAT entries exist for them. The berserk code will try to access the nonexistent entry, resulting in a crash. The Celatid has yet to be tested.

''The part about HWPs only losing morale by blue-on-blue isn't true: I had a rocket tank go berserk on me in a terror mission when a floater blew up my whole force with a single grenade in the first alien turn. The game crashed alright; I have the CE version with UFOextender.--[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]] 08:24, 11 January 2012 (EST)''
:''Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I clearly remember an very bizarre incident like yours but where the rocket HWP panicked (all other X-COM units had just been killed) but the game didn't crash (I play the DOS version) and the tank shot all its rockets randomly until it ran out of ammo. I remember that its TU numbers being while firing showed 255 TUs or some other impossible value (I hadn't done any manual edits). I don't remember if it crashed at the end but it did fire!'' [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 10:47, 11 January 2012 (EST)
::''And this reminds me of yet another panicked HWP incident but involving a Cannon HWP. I was expecting it to waste all its ammo (based on my previous experience) but it only fired a few shots and the TU level didn't went up crazy.'' [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 10:47, 11 January 2012 (EST)

===Limited Unit Slots - Battlescape Crash===

This tends to arise during Base Defence Missions. The game is was designed to be limited to 40 soldiers/hovertanks and XXXX aliens for a total of XXXX . Having a full complement of soldiers during a Superhuman difficulty base defence will max out these limits. Thus when either side starts playing around with mind control too much, something goes wrong causing the entire game to crash.
It might also be something to do with maximum items on the battlescape.
In any case, the workaround seems to be killing aliens and destroying items on the battlescape... doesn't always work, but it seems to help.
You might want to make several in-battle saves for these situations, even if you normally play Ironman mode.

===Left arm fatal wound instead of torso (energy penalty)===

According to UFO Defence [http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/7760/x-com%20ufo%20defense%20manual.pdf manual], torso fatal wounds affect energy replenish rate, which is logical. But in the game fatal wounds of the '''left arm''' affect energy replenish rate, '''not the torso'''. Which is an obvious coding bug (though not a fatal one).

===Invisible Chryssalids===

After reloading a saved game with a mission where zombies are present, the resulting Chryssalids might be invisible. This only happens when zombies are present but all Chryssalids are either dead or KO. This issues occurs because the load-game routine only loads graphics files for active units. When the chryssalids' files are loaded, the game also loads the files for zombies but this is not true in reverse. [[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] ([[User talk:Morgan525|talk]])

===Displayed Firing Accuracy penalties from Health loss===

When one clicks on a wounded unit and examines its stat display, the unit's Firing Accuracy is shown to be lowered from its original value to (Original value * remaining health / total health). This is inaccurate; the actual effect is a much milder (Original value * (0.75 + 0.25 * remaining health / total health)). The displayed percentage accuracies when selecting a shot type are, however, correct.

== Character Inventory Bugs ==

=== Alien Inventory Stacking Bug ===

'''WARNING:''' When examining an Alien's inventory (via an Exploit), you will see that sometimes the alien will stack multiple items of equipment on the same slot - its right leg. It's not always obvious that there are multiple objects in the slot until you 'pick up' the first object and can see other objects still in the slot.
Before you remove an item from the Alien's right leg, make sure you have enough time units to place it somewhere else. If you run out of time units, you will likely have to force a quit and cannot save your game. It '''may''' be possible to move the item to the left leg slot for 0 TUs, '''if''' the item will fit in that slot. If not, you will have to terminate the game. (Press ALT-TAB to get to any other window, then CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up Task Manager, and then terminate the process that corresponds to the game).

=== Item-stacking Bug ===
It is possible to put more than one item in a given spot. When an item is stacked with a [[Stun Rod]], this can make it possible for X-COM soldiers to perform "melee" attacks. See [[Item Stacking Bug]] for more details.

===Carrying Unconscious Units===
If one of your soldiers is carrying an unconscious unit in their hands and the unit either wakes up from stun or dies, they will be removed from the Inventory display, but will still appear to be in the carrying soldier's hands in the Battlescape. Clicking on the phantom body in the Battlescape will crash the game!
This error can be easily cleared by switching to the Inventory screen and moving another item into the hand that used to be carrying the body. Even swapping the gun to the other hand will do. Refer to : [[Unconscious#Bug|Unconscious]].

===Disappearing Ammo===
Partially-used clips in alien or X-COM weapons disappear at the end of a mission. This dictates that you should try to use clips that are not full. However, in DOS versions of the game, you can unload used clips to recover them as full clips with the tradeoff of all loaded clips (used or otherwise) will count as spent and disappear (this shouldn't seem to be a problem, until you start using blasters and will find that you're running out of ammo fast). You can also use [[XcomUtil]] to recover partially used clips. [[UFOextender]] will count up all the individual rounds of ammo present and repackage them into full clips at the end of a mission, so only the leftover ammo that cannot make a full clip is discarded. Even when used clips are discarded, you will still get credit ([[Scoring|score]]) at the end of missions for recovering them.

When aborting a mission, any full clips loaded in any alien weapons brought back to the transport/access lift will not be recovered unless the clips are unloaded first. This includes [[Blaster Bomb]]s and [[Stun Bomb]]s.

=== Ammo Weight Bugs ===

In general, the game engine handles the weight allocation of ammo/clips '''loaded into weapons''' very badly. There was a good design to handle ammo weight, but it was not properly implemented. As a result there is a set of bugs relating to ammo/clip weight and encumbrance that share overlapping causes and effects.

==== Equip Phase Ammo Load Error ====

The game routine for placing ammo into weapons at the beginning of the equip phase does not correctly set all object and unit values. It should set the ammo as loaded into the weapon, the weapon as being held by the soldier, and the map position of the weapon and the ammo as the same as the soldier. Looks like it does not do one or more of these things. Whatever values the game doesn't set, do get set if you manually load or reload the weapon, either during the equip phase, or during the game.

Specifically, the game's auto-equip functions at the beginning of the equip phase fail to set offset 0x04 of the [[OBPOS.DAT]] record to point to the soldier who owns the ammo. These functions leave the value = 0xff, which implies "on the ground". They also leave the ammo location as being the equipment pile, rather than the location of the soldier. The other values are set correctly. Manually loading ammo into a weapon, during the equip phase or during combat, correctly sets all values. The ownership points to the soldier and the location to the soldier's location.

This bug is the cause of [[Known_Bugs#Weightless_Loaded_Ammo|Weightless Loaded Ammo]]. Probably the only other impact of this bug is that XComUtil can't detect the fact that the ammo is loaded into the weapon, for the purpose of AutoCombat. It might have other subtle effects on any utilities that deal with equipping soldiers.

====Weightless Loaded Ammo====

Ammo that is automatically pre-loaded into a weapon at the start of the Equip Phase of a mission does not initially count towards any soldier's carried weight (Encumbrance). If the weapon is subsequently unloaded during the Equip Phase or later in the mission, the soldier's encumbrance will ''increase''. This will probably only be noticed if the unloaded clip was not discarded (e.g. because it was not fully empty). This is due to a bug in the game's original weight calculation routine that was uncovered (but not caused) by Seb76's inventory screen improvements.

The Weightless Loaded Ammo bug slightly advantages X-Com. It leads to a set of relatively minor exploits. Using this bug, you can get weak soldiers to carry heavy weapons with (usually) a single clip and no TU penalty. For weapons that use multiple ammo types (which auto-equip with AP by preference), by manipulating the overall supply of ammo of different types you can to some extent persuade the auto equip algorithm to load your preferred ammo type for these weaker soldiers.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 22:51, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

==== Displaced Ammo Weight ====

'''Guidance: Apart from weapons pre-loaded by the game, be sure to unload any weapons before dropping them. Drop, pick up and transfer ammo only when it is not loaded into a weapon.'''

Dropped ammo clips that are still loaded into dropped weapons are not un-assigned from the unit carrying them. The weight of the ammo / clips continues to count against the unit's [[Time Units#Encumbrance|Encumbrance]] as 'displaced weight' that can't be removed by ordinary means. This is an original game bug that only becomes apparent when using mods that display the unit's current encumbrance. The effect continues until the ammo is unloaded (either by the original holder picking up the weapon again and unloading it, or someone else picking it up and unloading it). Once the ammo is unloaded, its weight is applied to the actual current holder, only, and is released from the original holder.

This bug also applies during the Equip Phase, if one soldier loads a weapon, drops it, and another soldier picks it up.

In some senses this bug is the opposite of the Weightless Ammo Bug, and each bug has probably tended to obscure the effects of the other. For example, clips affected by the Weightless Ammo Bug (clips automatically loaded by the game) are not so obviously affected by this bug, since their displaced weight is 'carried' by the Equipment Pile rather than any specific Soldier. (In another sense, this is the same bug, with the weight displaced to the Equipment Pile rather than to another soldier.)

See [[User_talk:Seb76#Inventory_screen_ammo_weight_bug|this discussion]] for more information on this bug.

==== Ammo Weight Exploits ====

As noted above, Weightless Ammo is, in itself, a minor exploit, since it provides some extra penalty-free carrying capacity in combat.

On the face of it, the Displaced Weight Bug is not an exploit, since for every decrease in weight on one soldier there is a corresponding increase in weight on another soldier. However the Displaced Weight bug could potentially be exploited by having one soldier first load and then drop a lot of weapons, and then move away from the resulting pile to allow others to pick up. This would create a reserve of weapons where all the ammo weight was being 'carried' by this "weight sink" soldier, freeing up encumbrance for other soldiers. For example, all recon and front line soldiers required to be mobile could get reduced weight, at the expense of a single soldier having extremely reduced mobility/TUs. However, as the game's auto equip routines already load all initial weapons with weightless ammo, this would only be useful after combat had been progressing for some time, for reloads rather than initial loads, and it would require the squad to regroup around this "sink", or ferry weapons to/from the "sink". It might be most useful with Rocket Launchers (high weight, high ammo weight, one round before reload).

== Storage and Transfer Bugs ==

===Sticky Craft Transfer Fee glitch===
As pointed out by [[User:Zombie|Zombie]] and [[User:Danial|Danial]], transferring any craft causes '''''all subsequent transfers to have that cost added to it''''', for as long as the craft is in transit. Additional craft in transit will add additional fees. (This has also been called the Exponential Transfer Fee bug, although it's actually additive, not exponential.)

Example (all numbers are only approximations):
<u>Cost of pistol transfer (↔ = to or from)</U>
EU ↔ USA 80
EU ↔ Asia 100
USA ↔ Asia 120

<u>Cost of craft transfer</U>
EU ↔ USA 1600 ''Notice how transfer fees always work as relative percents,
EU ↔ Asia 2000 ''probably on a distance-based formula
USA ↔ Asia 2400

<u>Cost to transfer '''pistol''', after transferring craft from EU to Asia for $2000</U>
EU ↔ USA 1680 (80+1600)
EU ↔ Asia 2100 (100+2000)
USA ↔ Asia 2520 (120+2400)

The cost of the craft transfer "sticks" to '''all''' subsequent transfers, until the craft arrives - although it acts on a proportionate basis, which is probably distance related.

Unfortunately, this cost is '''additive'''. That is to say, if you transferred a second craft from EU to Asia while the first was still in transit, it would cost $4000 ($2000 plus $2000 - it too suffers from the glitch!), it would then cost e.g. $4100 to transfer a pistol from EU to Asia. Having even more craft in transit would add even more fees.

This only appears to happen with aircraft, although it does happen for them all. So try to transfer aircraft individually, and not transfer anything else while you do - assuming you aren't awash in money. (The bug will cost you in the low thousands of dollars per craft being transferred.)

A related problem is that, if you are in the Transfer screen, start to transfer a craft, and then cancel because you remembered you wanted to send something else first - if you then try to Transfer something on that same screen, ''it will still get the sticky craft fee added''. Try it and see. You have to back up out to the main Base screen and hit Transfer again, to get rid of the sticky fee from a canceled craft transfer.

===Fuel dump on transfer===
Transferring a craft with 100% fuel will dump it somewhere along the way.
When it arrives at its destination, its fuel gauge will read empty (ie: 0% FUEL), but it will be listed as ready. If you launch your craft for a mission (any mission will do) its fuel gauge will still read empty.
<br>
This can be [[ExploitsA#Infinite_Fuel|exploited]], but it is very annoying if you want to quickly turn around a troop transport for another mission.
<br>
You can force a refuel by sending out the craft and immediately recalling it back to base.
:The zero fuel on arrival is not really a bug. The designers intended for this to happen. The actual bug is that the planes's state is not changed from "ready" to "refueling" when it arrives.-[[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] ([[User talk:Morgan525|talk]]) 07:15, 28 May 2015 (EDT)

===Transfer Limit cash eater===
Only 100 items can be in transit at a time. (Here, a transfer of e.g. 200 Elerium counts as one "item". Also, all soldiers are counted individually.) If you go over the limit, you will get a warning that there is no more transport capacity. If you STILL try to transport something after getting the warning, the item will stay where it is, but the transportation cost still gets deducted. Bad if you're shuffling expensive aircraft. The extra cost isn't that bad. Recovering just one alien weapon will likely cover the money you will lose to this bug over the course of a game.

{| {{stdTable}} width = "80%" align = "center"
|- {{stdTable Heading}}
| Tip
|-
| To Clarify what constitutes an item in the transfer screen, think of them as batches of X amount. For example, if you transfer 200 alien alloys now, and then decide to transfer another 50 alloys later, this will count as two items in transit. Now, when you look at your transfers, you'll now have two items. Two batches of alien alloys, one with 200 units and the other with 50 units.
|}

=== Transfer crash ===
If you transfer something to another base the game crashes right after acknowledging the transfer price.

Solution: Start UFO, select English language, finish your transfer, save game, restart with your normal language settings (http://www.xcomufo.com/x1faq.html)

===Storage Limit===
You can not store more than 9,999 of any one item in the general stores at a specific base at one time. However, this will likely only happen with [[Alien Alloys]] or [[Elerium-115]].
Still, consider yourself warned. If you're coming close to the limit, consider transferring the extra to other bases or even selling it, as any extra collected beyond the limit will 'disappear' and be wasted.

===Exceeding Storage Limits===

The storage capacity of a base is normally limited by the capacity of the General Stores. However this can be exceeded in a number of ways:

* By exploiting some of the Base Storage Anomalies (see below)
* By storing surplus equipment in transport aircraft (up to the 80 item limit). Note that if both the aircraft and the base are full, you can no longer move equipment between the aircraft and base (in either direction).
* Anything manufactured at the base will be stored there regardless of the base's General Stores capacity.
* Anything captured on a mission by an aircraft operating from the base will be stored at the base, regardless of the base's General Stores capacity.

These could perhaps be considered minor exploits.

===Base Storage Anomalies===

There are some quirks in how the game calculates, and displays, base storage capacity used and available. These quirks are not all consistent with each other, which leads to some strange behaviour. A typical example would be moving a set of items out of Stores, immediately trying to put the exact same set of items back into Stores, and this failing due to "insufficient space". A more detailed discussion is in [[Talk:Base Stores#Base Stores Anomalies]].

===Exceeding Storage Limits when Transferring Craft===

Usually you can't transfer crafts to bases without capacity for them as you'll get an error when you press the Up arrow. However, if you press the Down arrow when the craft quantity is already at 0, the game will still think you're removing crafts from the destination base and "add capacity", so you can then press the Up arrow again to transfer the crafts without error. This doesn't work with other transferable items.

Once you've broken the limit once, you don't need to do this trick anymore as the error won't show up again (the game probably doesn't check for negative capacity). You can also exceed storage and personnel capacity this way, as Transport Crafts will carry their contents over. For example, if you press the Down arrow on a Skyranger with 14 soldiers, the game will "add capacity" for 1 craft and 14 personnel on the destination base.

You can also orphan crafts this way by removing a base with crafts but no hangars, which can cause all sorts of weird behavior.

== Soldier Limits and Recruiting Bugs ==

=== Soldier Recruiting Bugs ===

Also there are 3 bugs related to recruiting soldiers:

* You still get charged for Soldiers you try to purchase above the No More Soldiers limit.
* The error message that appears when you hire too many soldiers must be dismissed (click OK) once for each soldier over the limit, i.e. up to 255 times.
* You get also charged for Soldiers you try to purchase above the Transfer Limit (100 at a time).

== Manufacturing and Research Bugs ==

=== Zero Unit Manufacturing Exploit ===

If you start a manufacturing project with zero items to build, close the screen, and then go back to assign staff and a non-zero build amount later, the first item is built for free. If you only build one item at a time, you can build them all for free. Obviously, this is cheating. It's also a bit tedious. It might be excusable if you're really short of money.

=== Research Rollover ===

At midnight, research projects are checked for completion in the order shown on your Projects screen (which is the same order as for picking new Projects, for [[RESEARCH.DAT]], etc.). But X-COM does not track the effort of individual scientists, so when a project ends, its scientists can be re-assigned before the game checks the next project.

The upshot is that you can re-use scientists from completed projects as long as you put them on projects (existing or new) that are [[RESEARCH.DAT|farther down the list]] than the one that just finished. And if you assign more scientists than projects need, you can finish multiple projects immediately!

To best use this exploit:
*If projects (new or existing) have equal priority to you, start new scientists at the top of your list (the [[RESEARCH.DAT|lowest-numbered]] project) and work them "down" from there. This minimizes the number of times that scientists wind up at the end of the project list (where you can't exploit them).
*It works especially well later in the game if you have a full complement of scientists (practical limit of 250 at a base) and apply them to the many "fluff" alien, corpse, and alien-room projects that [[Research_Technical_Details#Research_Time|average less than 250 research days]]. You might finish a lot at once.
*If using it, you don't have to worry about "wasted" research effort due to allocating too many scientists to a project on its last day. Unless you're at the end of the project list, wasted scientists can be re-used, too - sometimes many times.

=== Overcrowded Engineers And Scientists ===
In the Dos version (probably the others as well) if you hire more than 255 engineers in a single base, the number of engineers in the base will read a negative number once the 257th engineer arrives. Any Engineers engaged in projects will continue to work on them, but if you cancel the project you will lose engineers until you have lost 255 of them.
This bug also affects scientists. It may be exploitable to pay a negative salary at the end of the month.

If you hire exactly 256 scientists or engineers, the total rolls over to zero. You pay zero salaries, and the resulting free Manufacturing / Research is limited only by the capacity of your Factories / Laboratories. Also works in TFTD.
<br>
NOTE: you need to make sure that not all of their projects finish at the same time.
Otherwise, you would be stuck with 0 'available' workers/scientists, i.e. unable to assign them to a new project.

===Manufacturing Limit Bug===
The number of hours remaining on a [[Manufacturing_Profitability#Profit_tables|manufacturing project]] is stored in a two-byte integer. If you build enough items that the total number of Engineer Hours required for construction is above 65535 hours, it will wrap around to 0 hours and display from there. Typically this drastically understates the amount of time that will be spent working on the items, but strictly speaking, it only subtracts 65k hours (so a huge project like 120k hours would still show ~55k hours' worth of Engineer time needed).

This bug is not dependent on the number of engineers assigned to the project; it is a function of the number of engineer hours needed. You will most likely run into it when trying to build 2 Avengers at the same time or when queuing up large orders of items in bulk, such as armor or Laser Cannons. As a practical example, the number of Avengers needed to trigger the bug is 2. The number of Laser Cannons is 219. Toggle back and forth between 218 and 219 laser cannons at the beginning of a project to see the effects.

It is known with certainty that this exists as a display issue - the screen will say you need less time than you should when you go over 65536 Engineer hours. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] is also sure he's seen it eat an Avenger... he ordered two but only got one, even though it took the time, and cost the money, for two. He's tried to replicate this and hasn't been able to, however. So it clearly is at least a superficial display issue, and may be more than that ... possibly dependent on even something else. In any event, keep an eye on projects with more than 65k Engineer hours (and report back here!)... or just avoid going that high.

== UFOPaedia Errors ==

=== Craft Weapon hit probabilities ===

There is a bug in the in-game UFOPaedia. It mistakenly reads the damage value field when reporting the hit chance for a craft weapon. Hence:

* Cannon shows 10% not 25%
* Avalanche shows 100% not 80%
* Laser Cannon shows 70% not 35%
* Plasma Beam shows 140% not 50%
* Fusion Ball shows 230% (!!!) not 100%

Possibly the reason this bug was missed during testing is that the first weapon in the data files, Stingray, actually does have Damage equal to its hit probability.

In the CE version, this is the problem piece of code:
.text 45B2CC: 0F BF 4E 06

Change the 06 to 04. The offset may not be correct for everyone but it should be close. I don't know the offset in the DOS version.
[[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] 06:27, 1 April 2012 (EDT)

=== Craft Weapon reload rates ===

From empirical research it looks like the reload rates of craft weapons are not stated correctly in the UFOPaedia. For example, the rates of fire of the Laser Cannon and Plasma Cannon are actually the same as each other, and they are both about six times slower than the regular Cannon (so about 12s) - whereas the UFOPaedia entry gives the reload times (inverse of the rate of fire) as being:

Cannon 2s
Laser Cannon 4s
Plasma Beam 6s

Similarly the UFOPaedia shows the Fusion Ball as having 3/5 the rate of fire of a Stingray missile, with the Fusion Ball being slower than an Avalanche missile; but empirically the Fusion Ball and Stingray have the same rate of fire, and so the Fusion Ball is faster than the Avalanche. See the discussion in [[Craft_Combat_Mechanics#Observed_Rates_of_Fire|Craft Combat Mechanics - Observed Rates of Fire]] for more details, but keep in mind recent code digs have clarified the picture from this initial rough approximation. It seems reasonable to assume the actual reload rates are coming from a different part of the executable, different to the locations used populate these values that are displayed in the UFOPaedia. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 23:25, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

===Alien Containment size===

The UFOpaedia in-game claims that each [[Alien Containment]] module can hold 10 live aliens. This is not in fact the case; the true limit is 50 aliens in containment among all bases, regardless of how many Alien Containment modules exist (though live aliens can only be stored at bases with Alien Containment). As such, building more Alien Containment modules, or shuffling aliens around between bases, will '''not''' free up space; the only way to free up space is to research some of the captured aliens (which removes them from containment).

===Radar detection chances===

The UFOpaedia in-game claims that both Small Radar and Large Radar facilities have a 5% chance of detecting UFOs every 10 minutes. In fact, this is not the case; Small Radar has a 10% chance of detecting UFOs per 30 minutes (less than advertised), while Large Radar has a 20% chance of detecting UFOs per 30 minutes (more than advertised). Note also the [[Known_Bugs#Radar_Stacking|Radar Stacking]] bug.

== Other Bugs ==

=== Difficulty Bug ===
The DOS version has a problem where no matter what difficulty level you choose, it will revert to "Beginner" level after the first mission. This is caused by one incorrectly set bit in all DOS versions of the game (1.0 through to 1.4). The Collectors Edition Windows port (also commonly known as UFO Gold or CE) does not have this problem. To check your [[Difficulty Levels|Difficulty Level]]:
*Look at offset 60 in [[IGLOB.DAT]]. (If this file is only 60 bytes long, you've got the bug!)
*Look at [[Alien Stats|statistics for aliens]] in your game with a [[Mind Probe]] or [[Psi-Amp]]

To fix the Difficulty Bug, you can install [[XcomUtil]] and it will repair this bug. Alternately for those familiar with hex editing, you can fix this bug by referring to the appropriate section on the [[GEOSCAPE.EXE#XCOM: UFO Defense DOS Versions, difficulty setting bug | GEOSCAPE.EXE]] article and manually setting the incorrect byte to its proper value.

:[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/X-COM This TVTropes page] has been known to state that due to the bug, players asked the developers to increase game difficulty. The rumour goes that a new bug was supposedly introduced as a result, where TFTD's difficulty would reset to Superhuman instead of Beginner. The facts of the matter are that, while the overall difficulty of the game ''was'' increased, TFTD does manage to correctly keep track of which specific mode you're supposed to be playing in.

=== Chrysallid / Tentaculat Difficulty Bug ===

Stats of Chrysallids or Tentaculats that emerge from Zombies during combat have stats that ignore the difficulty level.

=== Big Text Bug ===
There are a few bugs in XCOM, especially early versions, that can build up and make the game unstable enough that it crashes and prints out a screen full of green 40-column text, essentially debug or memory dump information useless to you.

You can also forced a crash by pressing CTRL-C at the start of a new game (DOS only). If you don't have any missions automatically saved within the [[Game_Files#Missdat_Files|MISSDAT]] folder, you will get this big text to appear. Typically it is green for Enemy Unknown, and blue for Terror From The Deep. Other colours have been observed such as pink, purple, brown and yellow.

In the dos version, the text that you see is simply a memory dump in mode-13h (the 320x200x256 colour screen resolution) and the text colour is based off the changes to the palette that the game made. The batch file coordinating the two main programs [[Geoscape]] and [[Battlescape]] often succeeds in soldiering on after a crash. In the Windows version of the game, the game simply crashes back to the desktop, unless you're using the [[XcomUtil]] split executable variant (which uses a batchfile).

Some things which will tend to cause this problem:
* Overzealous use of Psi

At least some of the instability crashes can be fixed by replacing the DOS/4GW dos extender with a later version from another DOS game.

[http://syndicate.lubie.org/synd/html/synd_patches.php One of these], for example. Link to Syndicate fansite, instructions included.

=== Losing My Favourite Game ===

There is a check whether the "Has X-com received a financial warning?" flag has been raised. If no, a warning is issued and the flag is raised. If yes, then the game ends, and the flag is lowered. HOWEVER, this flag is erronously not connected to any particular savegame, it is global across all savegames. This allows strange results when saving and loading games.

=== Celatid aim bug ===

The Celatid typically misses. User Tycho has identified this is due to a bug that causes the Celatid to aim at the ground, rather than the middle of the target. The bug is being fixed in UFO Extender. The same bug may apply to the same grenade-like weapon routine used in TFTD.
:The Celatid attack uses the routine for throwing items and it defaults to using the maximum "depth" of a layer. This is usually fine since all other thrown objects that do damage cause explosions so the z-axis is important only for determining the landing point.-[[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] ([[User talk:Morgan525|talk]]) 07:24, 28 May 2015 (EDT)

=== "Seeing the future" Graph Bug ===

Noticed this in EU CE version, but probably it happens in every other, probably in TFTD too. If, for any case, you have graphs data for months you did not play yet, you will see numbers like 10240, 163780 etc. next to the vertical axis, and graphs will be totally garbled.
This can be fixed by hex-editing [[ALIEN.DAT]], [[XCOM.DAT]] and [[UIGLOB.DAT]] -- just fill the 'future' with zeros.

=== [[Game Files|Resource File]] Bugs ===

There are several issues with both UFO and TFTD's resource files. These are far too numerous to list unfortunately. The [http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/combo-x-com-game-folder-patch/ Game Folder Combo Patch] for UFO and [http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/tftd-uso-routes-fix/ USO Routes Fix] and [http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/tftd-interception-screen-fix/ Interception Screen Fix] for TFTD resolve these issues. [[User:Sherlock|Sherlock]] also has some additional fixes available.

=== Saving and Loading Oddities ===

It is possible to load an empty save game slot. Doing so will place the player at the beginning stages of the X-COM campaign however their base will be nowhere to be found on the globe. Sending an air craft out of the base will reveal it to be in the just off the coast of Africa. This is due to the game normally asking you to pick your first base location, however loading an empty save slot bypasses the routine causing the base to simply be placed on the globe's first "graph point" which happens to be off the coast of Africa. Actually attempting to play the bugged campaign will end in failure as, although things can be purchased, sold, researched, ect. like usual, your base does not exist as far an the game's engine is concerned. Any aircraft sent from the base cannot return to it, forcing the game into a stand still once you finish a battlescape mission. This bug does not affect [[TFTD]] as selecting an empty save simply dumps you back to the previous screen, regardless of whether that's the current game or the main menu.

Similarly, if you create a new base then select it in the bases menu and then immediately reload to a previous save prior to building it and open the bases menu again you will be greeted with a base screen full of [[Access Lift|Access Lifts]]. If you look at the base selection bar at the top you will notice the slot the the new base once occupied will be currently selected, though oddly empty. This is caused by the game not actively resetting the "selected base" variable unless the geoscape is restarted (either by quitting or entering a battlescape mission). Access Lifts fill the empty base due to the game not being designed to display a completely empty base grid and because they are the "default" base module type, being the first one that's always built upon creating a new base. Unlike the previous, this bug is a harmless visual anomaly. Simply selecting one of the filled base slots returns everything to normal.

==Utility bugs==

These are not bugs in X-Com itself, but in utilities often used with it. They are included for completeness.

* [[Small window bug]]

=== XComUtil Inventory Stacking Bug ===

A problem similar to the Alien Inventory Stacking Bug can also occur for X-COM Soldiers, when using XComUtil. The algorithm used to assign weapons in XComUtil MUST assign all weapons to troops, so if there are more weapons than soldiers, excess weapons are stacked onto the leg slot of the first soldier in the dropship. This was a deliberate choice by Scott Jones to make this encumbrance obvious to the player. This can be readily corrected in the "equip soldiers" screen before a mission. Else, see "Alien Inventory Bug", above.

== See Also ==

=== [[Known Bugs (TFTD)]] ===
For bugs that '''only''' affect X-COM: Terror From The Deep.

[[Category: Oddities and bugs]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Starting Your Shadowy Paramilitary Organization

2024-04-23T22:11:44Z

75338: /* Your First Month: Bodybag Bonanza */ fixed

[[Image:moneymen.png|right|Hello neighbor!]]

''' <i style="font-family:cursive;">A Handy Cut-Out Guide</i> '''<br />
Fighting back the alien hordes is a demanding and stressful job. Many new Commanders feel overwhelmed by the task, and lose sight of the many tasks vital to the smooth operation of a covert agency of the secret world government. With this in mind, your paymasters have prepared this brochure to help you get a handle on the day-to-day operations of your clandestine private war.

'''<i style="font-family:cursive;">Happy hunting!</i>'''

==<i style="font-family:cursive;">Day One: Hit the Ground Running</i>==

# '''Start on the low difficulty level.''' If this is your first time managing a secret agency, please be realistic about your expectations. While many commanders may think themselves superhumans from day one, in reality it takes a great deal of experience to defend the earth. Save the hard work for later forays.
# '''Place Your Base.''' The thing to keep in mind when placing your first base is that you want to protect the countries that are supplying your funding. Worrying about the fate of sub-Saharan Africa is a noble thing, but Sub-Saharan Africa is not going to pay your bills, at least not until someone strikes oil there. With this in mind, you want to place your first base to protect as much of your funding as possible. So, you're looking to put your base where its sensors can cover as much of your sponsorship as possible. The USA is usually your single largest contributor, while Europe contains a large collection of sponsors as well.
#'''Become Acquainted with your facilities.''' Upon receiving control of your secret underground headquarters (be sure to store the deed in a safe place!), you should [[Starting_Assets|take a tour]] of the facilities and get a feel for your new lair. Note the possible points of entry – particularly the hangars and the access lift – which have been scattered to every corner of the base, allowing an invader to enter from every side and kill your security forces without the hassle of defensive choke-points or bottlenecks. This is what happens when you contract to the lowest bidder.
#*Want to tighten up security some? Look into [[Base Layout Strategy|Overhauling The Starter Base]].
#*In addition, you will almost certainly require other facilities. A large radar system is always useful, as is alien containment for housing anything you bring back from the crash site that's still breathing.
#'''Get your staff working.''' You have a sparkling-new research facility and a crew of scientists, freshly recruited from some supervillain's doomsday project. Get them working immediately, and keep them working! Research facilities are too important to lie idle. As soon as you have new designs to produce, keep your engineers busy as well. If you don't need equipment of your own, have them manufacture items for sale on the international black market.
#*Remember, scientists and engineers are lazy and indolent. Without constant direction on what to research and manufacture, they will sit idle, running up the bandwidth bill and playing idiotic video games.
#*For research, laser weapons aren't a bad place to start. All reports indicate that the aliens have heavy firepower at their disposal, and it might be useful to even the odds some. In addition, there is always a high demand for armaments, especially if you don't ask questions about the buyers. Manufacture these high-tech wonders for your own use and for sale!
#**Stop reading newspapers. I'm sure those reports about the rebels being scorched with some new weapon are unfounded. The Generalissimo is too benevolent a dictator to use lasers on his own people.
#'''Review your troops.''' All prospective X-COM soldiers undergo rigorous [[Stats|physical and psychological examinations]]. Get a handle on their strengths and weaknesses. You might recruit a few more if their weaknesses are too numerous.
#*the turnover rate among agency security squads tends to be... high. Keep some reinforcements on hand.
#*Bravery is a key stat here. Be very suspicious of anyone who scored under 30 on the psych test.
#*Also note the physical strength of your troops. Mark out those who will be strong enough to carry heavy weapons (strength 35+), and those who will have trouble with the standard kit (lower than 30).
#*As time goes on, you'll be able to be more selective in your troop reviews. As you become more familiar with the recruitment process, and you have experienced troops to lead the rookies, adjust your recruiting practices to taste. Some Commanders prefer to use marginal troops as human shields; others carefully select and train each trooper they have.
#'''Organize Your Arsenal.''' As an anonymous leader of a conspiratorial organization, a great variety of military hardware is available to you. Many quartermasters will try to buy one of everything for their armory, but the smart commander will standardize his weapons layout for easy logistical management.
#*Early in the game, experimentation with various weapons is a good thing, but before long you should settle on a standard set of personal firearms and heavy weapons.
#*Of course, there is something to be said for having a couple of non-standard weapons lying around for those odd contingencies.
#*You should also give thought to how much non-weapon equipment your troops need. There is limited room on a troop transport, and not everyone has to carry everything.
#*We let Boris pick out your new arsenal. Bless his heart, he's thorough when it comes to armor-piercing rounds, but you might want to look into alternatives. That man would buy armor-piercing smoke grenades if they were available. Particularly, you might want some stun rods if you want to drag aliens back alive for questioning.
#*Boris also forgets that not everyone has IR vision implants. You might want some electro-flares to light up the battlefield at night.
#*Remember to keep sufficient ammunition on hand for your weapons. This is especially important for HWP's, whose failsafes will not even permit them to deploy without a full consignment of ammunition.

==<i style="font-family:cursive;">Your First Month: Bodybag Bonanza</i>==

Running a private war against an alien horde is expensive both in money and men. Expect your medbay and morgue to be well used. Fortunately, the nice men in the expensive suits can provide you with an endless line of new recruits, provided you've got the cash. However, you'll see your startup money quickly used up. Here's how to keep a handle on your rapidly-spreading responsibilities.
#'''Keep enough troops in your Skyranger.''' What with all the injuries and fatalities, it's easy to lose track of your roster until your troop transport has landed and, whoops, there's only three troops in it! Keep a sufficient number of troops on hand to replace your casualties, and make sure you assign them to transport as the current troops are injured or lost. It can be a good habit to get into to go to the Equip Craft screen for your Skyranger every time you are about to send it out.
#'''Keep your arsenal supplied.''' There's few things more frustrating than carrying a weapon into battle that you don't have enough clips for. Don't let it happen to you!
#'''Sell alien artifacts.''' It's not certain who would pay $20,000 for a bullet-ridden alien corpse, and you're probably happier not knowing. However, it is an indispensable way to supplement your income.
#*A UFO that lands of its own accord will yield significantly more useful artifacts than one which has crash-landed after air combat. When possible, try having your Skyranger shadow an alien craft and wait for it to land. Of course, it is always preferable to shoot it down rather than let it escape - Once grounded in this way, it'll be quite some time before it can take off again, so you can wait until daylight before sending in your ground forces.
#*The science division would like you to keep at least one example of each type of item for research purposes.
#** You can sell all examples of unneeded items after they've been researched, though.
#* Keeping around a large selection of research specimens may require more general stores capacity.
#*We suggest you don't sell elerium. ''Strongly'' suggest.
#'''Keep your R&D department busy.''' If they don't have work assigned to them, your scientists will just sit around and collect salaries. You remember salaries, right? Their pay will be drawn out of the common fund at the beginning of each month.
#'''Keep your engineers occupied.''' As always, if you don't need anything in particular, have them produce items to sell.
#*Be careful what you produce for the market. Not all alien technology sells profitably, particularly those which require exotic materials to build. When in doubt, stick with tried-and-true Terran designs for selling.
#'''Expand your research and manufacturing departments.''' Through the wonders of modern management, the number of tasks you can accomplish increases linearly with the number of personnel on hand-- no worries of overhead, scalability or management levels here!
#*Recruit more scientists to get research projects completed more quickly. Alien technology in particular will require extra knowledge to master. Many important projects will take an average of 400-500 man days to complete, and quite a few key ones will take twice as much effort, so your initial team of 10 will be vastly inadequate in keeping up without assistance.
#*Hire more engineers. Once you have new technology to manufacture for sale, the engineering staff can more than pay for itself, and in fact can become a major source of revenue.
#'''Always respond to alien terror missions.''' When the aliens invade a major city, you can't afford to ignore it. The bad press generated by neglecting such an event is too big a penalty to your international standing and, more importantly, your funding. Even if you have to retreat once you get there, you can't afford not to go.
#*To make things a little easier: Equip both Interceptors with Avalanche missiles, and use both to intercept and shoot down the terror ship (if you can detect it). Use ,cautious attack' to avoid return fire. However, switch to ,aggressive' JUST BEFORE the third (and final) set of missiles is fired, and switch to ,disengage' directly after that. If you don't, these last missiles will not hit their target. Refer to [[Known Bugs#Interceptions: Last Shot Always Misses | Interceptions: Last Shot Always Misses]]. NOTE: This has been fixed in OpenXCom.

==<i style="font-family:cursive;">The Battlescape: Once More Into The Breach</i>==
Before you know it, the time will come to send your Skyranger out on a mission, laden with troops and implements of destruction. While battlefield tactics can and do fill a book (See: the [[Field Manual]]), we'll focus on a few handy tips for the new commander.
#'''Disperse from the LZ quickly, and stay dispersed.''' having units concentrated in the landing zone invites concentrated fire from the aliens.
#*Any tight concentration of troops is an open target for an alien explosive device.
#*Of course, troops can only exit the transport so quickly. It's better to have a tight formation of troops within the cover of your Skyranger than mulling about just outside the exit ramp.
#*Seek cover as quickly as possible. The ramp and landing gear of the transport can provide cover for one or two units at a time.
#'''Stay coordinated.''' It's the natural tendency of a rookie soldier to strike out on his own. However, the wise commander keeps his squad's movements coordinated for mutual support.
#'''Clear The Terrain.''' Upon arrival at a landing site, you can expect several of the aliens to be dug into whatever cover they can find. Don't be afraid to use heavy firepower to remove their cover from them. Those farmhouses are probably insured, anyway.
#*The exception here is on terror missions. While urban renewal is a valid tactic, you must be careful about killing civilians.
#*Again, Boris's Armor-piercing weapon selection isn't ideal here. You may want to invest in more high-explosive and incendiary ammunition than he provided. The [[Tank/Rocket Launcher]] is especially useful for ground-clearing.
#*When entering any building or structure, make a new door rather than charging into the existing one. Entering through a a newly-made hole in a wall makes it difficult for the enemy to ambush you.
#*The one problem with this tactic is the UFO itself. More research will be required before we find a way to punch through the internal bulkheads, much less the external heat shielding, of alien craft. Until then, the only way to enter a UFO is through the existing hatches, where the enemy will be expecting us. Casualties can be expected on any close quarters battle/breaching mission of this sort.
#'''Light Up.''' If only there was some sort of night... vision... device available to the military. There isn't, though, so on any night mission you'll have to illuminate the battlefield with more primitive means. Electro-flares are cheap, and can be picked up and tossed again. For more dramatic results, use incendiary ammunition to light large areas of the map ablaze.
#*Alien forces, if not actually capable of seeing at night, are very adept at night-fighting techniques.
#'''Specialize: Scouts and snipers.''' Instead of having one troop scouting, then stopping to shoot the first thing he sees, have your scout spot targets for shooters further behind the lines. This keeps your shooters safe, while leaving your scouts enough time to find cover.
#*Make use each troop's strengths. If you have a soldier with good reactions, use him for a scout. A unit with good firing accuracy should be a sniper. Troops with high strength should carry heavy weapons.
#*[[Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWPs]] have high mobility but mediocre firing accuracy. They make for good scouts, but poor snipers.
#'''A friendly reminder from Boris:''' Please remember not to use high explosive or incendiary rounds in close quarters, you could put someone's eyes out. This is the reason for preferring the armor-piercing weapons.
#'''Adapt.''' As you gain battle experience, you can and should adjust your battle tactics to suit your style.

==<i style="font-family:cursive;">Looking Ahead: Settling In For the Long War</i>==

Congratulations! You've made it to February. As winter turns into spring, you'll discover new methods of fighting, new technology to help you win, and a new moral flexibility within yourself. As you optimize your agency for the long job ahead of you, here are some things to consider:

#'''Expand.''' When you have an extra couple million at your disposal, it's time to begin looking at building new bases. However wisely you placed your first base, there are still many sponsors outside of its surveillance bubble. Europe and North America are your two major funding centers, but Southeast Asia shouldn't be ignored either. After that, you'll want to analyze your funding report and consider how best to serve your paymasters.
#*Not every base needs to be the command HQ. Keeping all those engineers, assault squads and scientists in one base gets claustrophobic. Specialization is both a good idea and a good way to save money. You probably won't need assault squads everywhere, but radar surveillance and, to a lesser degree, interception are always useful. If your research or manufacturing arms grow too large, you could farm those out as well.
#*Farming out large personnel sections, like R&D or Manufacturing, to separate bases allows them to expand to a larger size over the long term.
#*Whatever its specialization, though, you still need to defend it. ''Any'' base is vulnerable to retaliation by the aliens. Make sure it's got a living quarters, some general stores, and a garrison of troops and heavy weapons platforms on hand to protect it.
#*Remember to design each base to make it easy to defend. Look into [[Base Defense#Base Layout Strategy|Base Layout Strategy]]
#'''Be aware of what you depend on.''' If you equip your troops with Superior Alien Military™ weapons, make sure that you have a sufficient stock of ammunition and exotic material to keep them supplied. If your stocks are running low, keep a few lasers on hand as fall-backs. These wonders of Terran technology require no ammunition, and are handy to use in those lean times.
#'''Keep an eye on your finances.''' It's easy to run into the red while beating back the alien menace. However, if you go too far into debt for too long, your paymasters may run out of patience with you.
#*Keep in mind that personnel salaries, base upkeep costs and craft leasing fees are due at the beginning of every month, at the same time as your sponsors pay you.
#*If these costs are greater than your sponsors' payments, you should keep the difference (or more) on hand at the end of the month to cover the remainder of the bills.

As you gain experience running your clandestine war, you will certainly have more questions and need more information. Please look through our handy [[Main Page|Knowledge Base]] and [[Field Manual]] as required.

'''<i style="font-family:cursive;">Good Luck!</i>'''

== See Also ==
[[Glossary]] |
[[Research]] |
[[Equipment]] <br />
[[Tricks, Tips and Hints]]<br />
[[Warlord's Foolproof Plan]] -- Another starter guide. Much more detail, with some spoilers.<br />
[[Overviews of Aliens]]<br />
[[Category:Field Manual]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Talk:Installing (OpenXcom)

2024-03-18T02:40:37Z

75338: Simple instructions

Hi. Old noob here just want to get OpenXcom working with X-Com files.

Reading the top of this article made me think that I first needed to install the original game (via Steam, easy), then install the latest patch (not easy, seems like it needs to be installed in a folder I don't have yet).

After some confusion I gather that I should 1. install the original game, then 2. install OpenXcom, then 3. install the patch, then 4. install whatever mod.

RECOMMENDATION: The above 4 steps should be in the top of the article. Make it simple for people. Unless I'm wrong?[[User:75338|75338]] ([[User talk:75338|talk]]) 03:40, 18 March 2024 (CET)