UFOpaedia - User contributions [en]

Murphy's Laws (X-COM)

2015-07-03T04:38:23Z

BenWaters:

==[[Battlescape|Battlescape (UFO Defense)]]==
===[[Soldiers]]===
*If a soldier can miss, he will.
**If a soldier can hit another soldier while missing, he will.
*If a soldier has a high explosive, then he will have to commit suicide for the group to win.
*If a soldier can panic, he will.
**If he is holding a primed [[Proximity Grenade]], he will drop it and start running.
**If he is holding any other primed explosive, he will drop it and stay right there.
**If he is holding something else, he will drop it and run right next to an alien.
*The probability of a soldier getting MCed is proportional to the lethality of the weapons he is carrying.
*The probability of a soldier going berserk is proportional to the number of friendly units he can hit from where he's standing.
*Your troops invariably display better accuracy and reactions when mind controlled than they do under your own orders.
**The opposite is true when you mind control an alien.
*The soldier you gave your shiny new heavy weapon to will turn out to have shitty Psi Strength and/or Morale. You will discover this the hard way.
*If a soldier has a [[Rocket Launcher]], he will get MCed while still in the craft.
*Your first unit out is always shot down.
**Your first unit out is always your commander.
*A wounded soldier will always die just before you find the last alien.
*As soon as you get better armor, the aliens get better weapons.
*[[Electroflare|Flares]] will always land where they cannot be picked up.
*If your base is attacked, you will always get [[Electroflare|flares]] instead of [[Heavy Plasma|Heavy Plasmas]].
*You will always end up short 1 TU for the action you wanted to do.
*If there is a single square where an alien grenade can hit all your soldiers at once, that is the square it will land in.
*The soldiers with the worst stats will always be the first to get promoted.
**When you build the [[Psi Lab]], you will always discover that your highly-trained officers are psi weaklings.
*On [[Ethereal]] [[Terror_Mission|Terror Missions]], you will always get the maximum number of [[Sectopod|Sectopods]] possible.
*When you have finally perfected the art of UFO assaults - [[Initial_Deployment|safe initial deployment]], proper [[Scouting|scout]] and [[Sweeping_the_Battlescape|sweep]] tactics, [[UFO_Ground_Assault#Breaching_UFOs|correct breaching methods]] - that will be the mission an enemy commander shows up with a [[Blaster_Launcher|Blaster Launcher]] and nukes your entire team while it's still on the [[Skyranger]]
*The only thing your soldiers are good for is warning each other about the Blaster Launching-wielding alien right around the corner.
**Considering the laws above, it's pretty easy to guess exactly how they warn the rest of your squad about said Blaster Launcher.
***They warn your squad with an explosion, followed by a scream.
*If a proximity grenade can land on a soldier, it will.
*A soldier with pockets full of pre-primed grenades will fall unconscious right next to your Commander.
*That point-blank reaction shot can be guaranteed by giving the guy a Rocket Launcher.

===[[Civilian|Civilians]]===
*If a civilian sees a fire, he will run into it.
*If a civilian sees an alien, he will move right next to it.
*If a civilian can block your line of fire on an alien, he will do so.
*Civilians are attracted by armed proximity grenades.
*Civilians inevitably block the doorway you need to use right before you get there.
*If a civilian is near an alien, any attempt to save him by shooting the alien will hit the civilian instead.
*Civilians will go out of their way to get shot in a Terror Mission.

===[[Alien Life Forms|Aliens]]===
*If an alien can hit, it will.
*If an alien tries to MC you, it will always succeed.
*Alien commanders will always kill themselves (with their [[Blaster_Launcher|Blaster Launchers]]) when you're on track to capture them .
*If there are [[Chryssalid|Chryssalids]], you will get at least one zombified soldier.
**You never want to know the answer to "Why did the Chryssalid cross the road?".
*If a dying [[Cyberdisc]] can blow up one of your men, it will.
*Unconscious aliens with melee attacks will wake up when you least expect them to.
*If you open a door and turn left, the aliens will all be on the right.
*Aliens are smarter than they look.
*This one is universal for all of the series:
**"Gaahh! Come back here and let me stun/melee you, you little shit!"
*Aliens can smell proximity grenades.

==[[Geoscape|Geoscape (UFO Defense)]]==
*When you need money the most, your funders will sign treaties with the aliens.
**The first country to drop funding is always the one that gave the most money.
*As soon as you get a new base built, it will be attacked.
**As soon as you get a new base fully equipped and operational, UFO activity in that area will drop to zero.
*If your fully developed base with 12 [[Missile_Defences|Missile Defences]] is successfully weathering a [[Alien_Retaliation|retaliation mission]] every couple days, the 1-in-30 battleship that makes it through will inevitably do so when all your experienced soldiers are out on missions.
*The more money you've saved, the higher the chance the aliens will do something that forces you to waste it.
**The amount of money you lose is proportional to how badly you need whatever you were saving up for.
*[[Alien Terror|Terror sites]] always appear at night.
**Or at noon, located conveniently so that night falls the second you arrive.
*If there is one tiny lake in the middle of 100 km of dry land, your [[Interceptor|Interceptors]] will inevitably shoot the UFO down over that exact spot.
*The chance that a crashed UFO's [[Elerium]] survived is proportional to how much you already have stockpiled.
*Landed UFO's will always take off before you can get to them.
**Unless they're filled with a species of alien you aren't equipped to deal with, in which case they will stick around forever.
***And when you finally get the equipment to deal with them, they fly away, never to be seen again.
****Until you have none of that equipment left to deal with them, because the base closest to them was destroyed.
*UFO's will always arrive while your [[Skyranger]] is refueling from a two day patrol.
*If you have forgotten to save the game for at least 3 missions, the game will crash.
**The game will always crash when it is the least convenient.
*If your craft is carrying no [[Electroflare|flares]] whatsoever, it will inevitably arrive five minutes after nightfall.
**If you've wasted half your [[Managing_the_Item_Limit|80-item limit]] on [[Electroflare|flares]] and incendiary ammo, you will arrive at high noon.
*[[Small Scout|Alien UFO scouts]] will always outrun your [[Interceptor|Interceptors]].
*Building a new base where there is heavy UFO activity? Seems like a good time for the Aliens to stop all activity in that area, and move it to a new area.
**That new area consists of the highest-funding countries.
*It's always exciting downing a UFO on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Too bad it's always an Ethereal-filled Battleship.

==[[Cityscape (Apocalypse)]]==
*If you're almost broke after buying a new flagship for your fleet, it will be destroyed in the next UFO incursion.
*The pride of your fleet is always stuck in alien dimension when you get attacked by a Mothership.
*UFOs carrying infiltrators always spawn at the gate you don't have covered.
*Griffon AFV is tough. The road under it is not. The tracks are just for show.
*There are only two types of vehicles that are always in abundance on the market. Blazer bikes and Stormdogs.
*While en route to a building, your craft will shoot at a Cult civilian car and demolish half of the city trying to hit it. However, the car will survive.
*Megapol is useless.
**Transtellar is annoying.
***Everyone else is both annoying and useless.
*Government's weekly paycheck,after paying the overhead, will buy you a Lawpistol clip. Maybe two.
*If your base is in a slum, a single stray shot from a light disruptor will destroy it all.
**If your base is in a warehouse, said stray shot will still hit the tile with your agents
*Hoverbike swarm is a good idea. Too bad they'll all get shot down anyway because of sheer dumb luck on the aliens' part.
*Research will always be completed right after when you needed it the most.
*After a firefight in the city, the only one to be blamed for the devastation will be you, even if it was an Overspawn that did it.
*The Overspawn will coincidentally be dropped right at your doorstep.
*The Overspawn will never, EVER get hurt from falling debris. Unless you drop the said debris and level half of the city with it.
*People Tubes can collapse from an angry glare or a single bullet.
*You're the only one who has a problem with the aliens. Every other corp has them on neutral.
*Subversion attacks WILL succeed, 100%.
*Your carefully built Dimension Probe will be welcomed by a volley of Heavy Disruptor Guns.At least it just needs to appear at the dimension just once to start the infiltration.
*Your very first invasion of the Alien Dimension will require an hour's savescumming to get it right without being reduced to scrap metal.
*You WILL forget to not to move the XCOM craft when you succeed in destroying an alien building, killing everyone in the process.

==[[Battlescape Overview (Apocalypse)|Battlescape (Apocalypse)]]==
*If your base is raided, there will be as few of your agents spawning as possible.
**Said agents will spawn as far away from the access lift as possible.
***Guess where the scientists will appear.
*If you're raiding a building, there will always be a retard with a heavy launcher.
**Despite your best efforts, he will manage to fire at least one missile.
***And he will do so even if you're breathing in his face.
****There is no way to avoid the missile and injuries or casualties from it.
*****Even if you somehow actually manage to avoid the missile, it'll bring down the building on you.
*That stupid grenade will go off at the cultist corpses and destroy all the goodies you came here for.
*If an agent in a squad gets attacked by a brainsucker, the rest of the squad won't hit it at point blank range.
**Or they'll fire a missile launcher. Guess the results.
*If you turn around the corner where you think that last alien is hiding, it'll turn out to be half a dozen of Anthropods. All armed to the teeth.
*Berserking agent will cause more chaos and destruction than all of your other agents put together. And it won't be directed at the enemy.
*If someone throws a Boomeroid at an agent, he'll try to run away from it.
**Because it will always turn out that you forgot to set him to aggressive mode.
*If you try to capture a Megaspawn, he'll die before you can stun it.
*You'd wish you gave that mind controlled agent a Toxigun instead of a Dimension Missile Launcher.
*You'll encounter cloaked and flying Skeletoids much more often than you'd like to.
*Good stuff always comes too late.
*Psi attacks are only successful when they're not necessary.
*Dynamic music always ignores what you're actually doing.
*That agent you sent to scout ahead will always be the one without a motion scanner.
*Every raid is a horrible decision between property damage and greed. Either way, you lose.
*The agent with a Mind Bender won't see the enemy until he's standing right next to it.
*You will forget to capture a live Micronoid aggregate.

==[[Enemy_Unknown_(EU2012)|Strategic (Enemy Unknown)]]==
*When you need §§§ the most, the US and Russia (which you have satellite coverage over) will pull out of the XCOM project.
*Your satellites will always be available one day too late to prevent a country from withdrawing.
**Even if it shows up before "Council Report" on the event list.
*When you do have satellites available, you will never have enough Satellite Uplink/Nexus space for them.
*When you do have Satellite Uplink/Nexus, you will never have enough satellites.
*If you have one more satellite to go before getting a continent's bonus, that last country will pull out of the XCOM project.
**The one continent's bonus you don't want to get? The aliens will ignore that continent.
*You will always be at least §1 short of buying the next level of armor/weapons for all your troops.
*If a Colonel can be checked for having the Psi gift, he won't have it.
*If a Rookie can be checked for having the Psi gift, he will.
*Your interceptor will always lose contact 0.1 seconds before the enemy UFO is destroyed.
*Your interceptor will blow up one round of fire exchange after you press the Abort button.
*Your interceptor will miss every shot.
**The UFO will have perfect aim and land every single hit.
***After an interceptor lands a few hits on a Supply Barge it's shot down. So you sortie another interceptor and it's shot down/loses contact without hitting the damaged UFO even once.
*Just a bit more than a day from getting your Colonel out of the medbay? Time for a Terror Mission!
*Just a bit less than a day from getting your Colonel out of the medbay? Time for a Terror Mission!
**Fast forwarding will result in the Terror Mission succeeding for the aliens before you can react to your Colonel getting out of the medbay.
*Just a bit more than a day before your latest and greatest research completes? Time for a Terror Mission!
*Any other time it's inconvenient? Time for a Terror Mission!
**Followed by abductions less than 24 hours later.
***Followed by a council mission less than 24 hours later.
****Followed by a Battleship coming to destroy your satellite less than 24 hours later.
*****Oh, you recently finished the Hyperwave Uplink? Here, have the Overseer UFO, 12 hours after that battleship.
******On the same continent as your surely-damaged Firestorm.
*******And once you lose ''that''... Time for a Terror Mission!
*Steam vents will be placed in inconvenient locations.
**Second floor steam vents will block your 2x2 Satellite Uplink block.
***The remaining steam vents will be on the 4th floor.
****In the corner.
*****Behind 3 solid squares of rock.
******The vent's spot is also solid rock.
*Research or Foundry upgrades will be completed one day after a critical mission appears.
*The only way you can afford the next item or facility you need, is to sell materials on the grey market.
**Specifically, just enough to not have the materials left to build it.
*When the option to start researching the various Plasma Weapons becomes available, you will not have enough Weapon Fragments.
**Heavy Floaters will also start appearing on your next mission.
**You'll also be trying to research the Firestorm.
*You will forget to equip your shiny new weapon.
**If not, your save (or at least when you last saved) may forget for you.
* .......................... Time for a Terror Mission!
*Oh, three steam vents all set up for awesome adjacency bonus! Too bad that two of them are directly underneath the Satellite Uplink!
*The only time you miss-click when accusing a country of hosting the EXALT Base, is when that country provided the most money.
**It is also the eighth country to leave!
***On Impossible difficulty.
****Ironman Mode was also on.
*****And you decided that right after you destroy the EXALT Base, you would go right on ahead and assault the Temple Ship!
******Not that you would have survived, anyways, everybody was panicking!
*Special: If you're trying to test something for this very 'paedia, the situation you're after will never occur.
**Instead, something else will happen that will give you another idea to test. Guess what will happen then.

==[[Enemy_Unknown_(EU2012)|Tactical (Enemy Unknown)]]==
*If a soldier's chance to hit is <99%, he will miss.
**Especially if the target is at 1 HP.
***Doubly so if that's your last action for the turn.
****Exponentially so, proportional to how dangerous the target is. Like a Sectopod that's now flanking several soldiers.
*If a soldier's chance to hit is 100%, he won't do enough damage to kill the alien.
**If a soldier's chance to hit is 100%, the game will glitch and turn that full-face Alloy Cannon blast into a spray of harmless confetti.
*The left mouse button is context sensitive; it will always do exactly what you didn't want it to.
*If a soldier's a heavy, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy.
**The range and blast radius of a heavy's rocket launcher will be a few tiles away from the nearest alien.
***Your heavy will never be in range to fire off a rocket.
*If a soldier's a sniper, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy FOR MOST OF THE GAME.
**A sniper will have squad sight on either a heavily wooded UFO crash/landing sight or a Terror Mission with one or two buildings that cover the entire map.
*If a soldier's an assault, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy EVEN AT POINT BLANK RANGE.
**If you activate Rapid Fire, both shots will miss a point blank Sectopod (Who has only eight health bars left) despite the second shot's hit chance being 85%.
*If a soldier's a support, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy WITH ANYTHING BUT A S.C.O.P.E. AND A LIGHT PLASMA RIFLE.
*If an alien's chance to hit is >1%, he will hit.
**If an alien's chance to hit is <1%, he will destroy your full cover.
*If an alien's mind control chance is >1%, it will work.
*When aiming at an Ethereal with the last shot of your turn, it will reflect it.
**''Especially'' if that soldier has only 1 HP.
*If the vehicle that your soldier is dashing to for cover can be set on fire, it will be.
**That is, if the soldier survives the alien Overwatch shot that will set the vehicle on fire.
***If so, then the vehicle's explosion will finish him/her off.
*Your soldier will always have the exact amount of health for a vehicle to blow him up.
*You will always reveal new enemies on your last move of the turn.
**Who will then take up flanking positions behind anyone who dashed.
*The more soldiers who perform an Overwatch reaction shot against a single alien, the more likely they will all miss.
**Soldiers who hit the alien will barely kill the alien.
***The alien, in turn, will kill your highest-ranking soldier.
****After killing the highest-ranking soldier, the other aliens will come in and mop everyone else up.
*When you have your whole squad on overwatch they will all shoot one floater.
**And then all die to his Chryssalid buddy.
*Your Revive spec medic will always be the one critically wounded.
*When trying to capture a commander with one stunner, he will be the one MCed,
*Aliens will always hit soldier's hunkering down behind high cover.
**The alien will do just enough damage to not kill him, but to cause him to panic.
***The panicking soldier will kill a soldier and start a panic chain.
*Panicking soldiers will always have 100% to hit.
*Smoke grenades will always improve alien accuracy.
**Mutons and Floaters will always throw grenades into smoke.
*If a soldier can panic, it will.
**Soldiers that panic will aim for the highest ranking officer he can see.
***Even behind high cover, on a higher elevation, and covered by a smoke grenade, a panicking rookie will still be able to kill the "protected" Colonel.
*Rockets will always fly off target.
**ESPECIALLY when you squad is surrounded by explosive vehicles and forklifts.
***At a gas station
****Then everything will explode
***** Then everything will explode and everyone will panic
******Even your SHIVs
*******And they will shoot your highest-ranked soldier
********And he will die
*********He will also have the psionic gift
**********He also has one of the highest starting and leveling Will/Aim scores you ever got, in any playthrough.
***********And he/she will also be named after you.
*Aliens will position themselves right outside the radius of a grenade throw.
**If a grenade can clip through and explode harmlessly under ground while you are trying to aim it, it will.
*When it is time to face Sectopods or Cyberdiscs, your HEAT ammo heavies will not be with you.
**When it is time to face Sectopods or Cyberdiscs, your HEAT ammo heavies will miss every shot.
*When it is time to face Muton Elites, your psionics will not be with you.
*Your soldiers are always one grid point away from moving to safely flank an alien.
*When a large UFO lands and you assault with your elite squad you will fight 3 Floaters, 3 Sectoids and a Sectoid Commander.
*When a moderate alien abduction comes up and you assault with a squad comprised of your Col. Sniper, squaddies, and rookies for training purposes, you will fight 9 Mutons (who will each throw their grenades asap), a Cyberdisc, and 2 Drones you just can't seem to hit.
*Even when you use the rookie to scout ahead, he will always stumble on no less than every enemy on the map on a single turn, who will then, with most of the laws stated above, wipe your elite squad before you can say Jenkins.
*You decide to research offensive tech first and the Arc Thrower later only to find that Sectoids have been removed from the alien roster. But after killing 7 Mutons on a map you decide to zap the last two for their weapons only to have the last group be a trio of Sectoids.
*The Overseer will only appear when you have no Firestorms.
**When you build your firestorm with dodge matrix, fusion lance, and uplink targeting, the Overseer will appear in the continent your new Firestorm is NOT stationed in
*Your MCed alien will always run out of usable turns before they can bust the asses off of some of their little alien friends.
**ALWAYS
***Especially on the final mission of the entire game.
*MCed aliens will always activate no less than two squads that were just behind them.
*Your sniper with Snap Shot will never be useful for anything, ever.
*Your sniper with Squadsight will never be in a good position.
**And when he is, a tree will block his line of sight to finish off that one alien flanking your soldiers.
*The alien with a grenade will go first. He will toss the grenade , without moving, negating any troopers on Overwatch, and removing cover from you forward trooper.
**Next alien will kill your now-exposed trooper.
***You will then have to wait 2-3 minutes for the other 9 or so Aliens to take their turn and batter your remaining troops.
****Also, it's been 5 rounds since you last saved.
*The range for a soldier flying with Archangel Armor will always be "One less than it takes to get into cover, or out of range."
*On a Battleship raid, there will always be one alien that runs away, forcing you to have to chase them down.
**Backwards.
*The game has no problem sending and activating every alien squad in an Abductor or Supply Barge at you in 1 turn.
**If not, that's because the high-level alien squad somehow noticed you from the other side of the ship.
*The council mission reward will always be either what you don't need, or not enough of what you do.
*When fighting Thin Men, you will always activate 2 squads at a time.
*When fighting Floaters, they will always Launch to flank just tiles away from your Sniper. No soldier will be close enough to help her.
*When fighting Mutons, you will activate a squad ''after'' you have finished moving at least two soldiers. Who you placed right next to each other.
**If you think two soldiers were just far enough apart to not both be hit by 1 grenade: turns out they weren't.
***Both of their cover is now gone, fyi.
*When fighting Chryssalids, they will always be at least close enough to hit your soldiers from a diagonal tile, if not closer.
*When fighting Cyberdiscs, when they are open, your hardest-hitting soldier will not be able to attack them.
**Because it opened up to kill said soldier in the previous turn.
*When fighting Sectopods, the answer to "Which soldier are they going to fire at?" The answer is always "the one taking cover behind something explosive."
**On the rare chance that it's Chest Cannon misses, the shot will still hit something explosive.
***Specifically, something that another soldier is taking cover behind.
****Whom it will then fire upon.
*When fighting a Sectopod, after your two troops have been battered by both Chest Cannon blasts despite being behind full cover and in the middle of a smoke grenade cloud, one moves and triggers a Reaction Shot.
*When fighting an Ethereal, it will either:
**Be in a different room than usual.
**Become activated when you pass within 10 feet of the door.
**Become activated when your last turn is to MC an Elite Muton or Heavy Floater that would be flanking it's buddies.
***Which it will then immediately kill.
*Your first shot with a shiny new weapon will miss.
*Despite kickstands being visible on several weapons, your soldiers do not seem to recognise their existence for steadying and making more accurate shots.
*Your Support with Sprint and a Skeleton Suit or Ghost Armor will always be one movement short of saving a civilian.
*Your soldier will make a crazy-ass, low-percentage, gun-pointing-the-wrong-way-for-some-reason Overwatch shot with your currently-most powerful weapon.... on a wounded Sectoid.
*At the point in the game when you have all continents armed with Firestorms all with Fusion Lances (Highly unlikely, especially considering the laws above) that is the only time when the Aliens give up on sending the big UFOs and start sending small scouts
*On a Battleship raid, you send in a rookie to investigate the main room, thus activating all 20+ Aliens who just "happened" to spawn in there. They will then all hide, and when you think yourself so clever for taking up positions for multi-pronged attack on the main room, it turns out, they were all on Overwatch.
**And yes, each Alien is just so positioned so that each one of your soldiers will have a chance to get shot at.
***This will occur more often on Ironman Mode.
****On Impossible Difficulty.
*****It turns out, this was also supposed to be the day that you got the only Psionic Soldier you ever found got strong enough to become the volunteer.
******Afterwards, the game will glitch so that you will never find another Psionic Soldier in your whole playthrough
*******Not that it matters, your entire elite squad got wiped out, when they had all their fancy armor and weapons.
*"Don't shoot the Elerium, don't shoot the Elerium---- shit."
**"Don't blow up the power source, don't blow up the power source ---- crap."
***"Blow power source! Blow! Blow! ---- come on!"
*Your soldier will miss the alien and shoot the meld instead.
**Especially if you have them flanked.
*When your favorite soldier gets critically injured, you clear out the Muton Elite that hurt him. Too bad there is a group of sectoids all the way across the map.
**It will take a full turn of dashing for your Sprinter support in a Skeleton Suit to reach them
***They will all proceed to hide behind full cover just out of your sight.
****When you finally see them for your Squadsight Sniper with Double Tap will hit two of them, however, there are three sectoids
*****Not that it matters, they were all on overwatch, and considering the laws above, they will all get critical shots on your soldier, and kill her
******That is, IF you find them.
*Have Frag Grenades? Any aliens in range will have four HP left.
**Alien Grenades or Mind Fray? Six.
***And it will be your only viable action: any attempts at firing a gun will miss.
****C'mon: it's not even out yet, but you just ''know'' that the only time you'll have the Needle Grenade with you, aliens WILL take cover in such a way that only ONE would be affected by it at any time.
*Speaking of Enemy Within: you shall soon become familiar with the sound of exploding Meld canisters.
**Which is Dr. Vahlen annoying voiceover.
*Two words: naughty tentacles.
*Alien: "You brought a soldier with a Med-kit, I'll just Critically wound him then..."
*"Ooh look, the last meld canister.. and..... that's a group of Muton Elites... And a Cyberdisc... or three"
*Need 5 more Meld? Check out that Heavy Floater with only one health left!
**Looks like it's running away, no biggie, you'll just follow it.
***And activate its Mechtoid Buddies!
*While you are almost finished with Confounding Light, you have one turn left to activate the train, too bad the only soldier that can make it is being Overwatch-camped by that Muton who was just air-dropped.
**Even though that move would have required a dash!
***He was also an assault that was gonna get promoted that mission. Guess which Rank.
*The mission where your Squaddie Sniper levels up is alaways the mission that Sqaud Sight would have been supremely useful for.
*Don't EVER pick favorites, they'll just die anyways
*"Ok, gene mod do-- mission, ok, reload to get my soldier. OK, mission done, now to gene mo-- damnit, 'nother mission... ok, done, finally. Allright---- oh come the fuck on, Council, I'm busy here! Now what do you waaa'''AAAHHFUCKCHRYSSALIDS!!'''"
*Yes, Meld Canisters provide full cover. If you're actually using them for that, you have only yourself to blame.
*Enemy Within. Because Sectopods really needed the ability to outright ignore half of all incoming damage.
**AND be able to freely and deliberatley target your cover: "That'ssssssssssssssssssss a nice wall you got there~!"
*Your Heavy will never be in a good spot to launch a mission/life-saving rocket.
**Eventually, you'll fire it, because "might as well."
***'''Then''', and only then, on the ''next'' turn, will they be in the perfect situation to fire that shot you just wasted.
*Training Roulette:
**You'll either get abilites that're near-useless to that class, or
**You'll get high-tier abilities on the same Ranking, forcing you to choose between them.
***Doubly so if they're abilites that would otherwise work well together.
****The game will also pick the most useless skill for that soldier when he gets promoted to Major, like close combat specialist on your sniper.
*Damage Roulette:
**Any time you need to do ''just enough'' damage to weaken an alien so that you have the maximum capture chance, you'll kill it instead. Maybe even crit it.
**Any time you need to ''very definitely'' kill an alien (like the Chryssalid that wants to eat your Medic) you'll knock it down to 1hp.
***The chance of this occurring increases significantly if this is the last action of your turn.
**Any time the aliens shoot at your soldiers they'll do the maximum possible damage, especially if they're in cover and not flanked.
**Any time the aliens shoot at your SHIVs they'll do the minimum possible damage... unless that SHIV is being used '''as''' cover.
*Hey, see that high-ground, full cover spot right over there? That looks like a ''great'' place to attack those aliens from. Go on over, pal.
**Whoops, now they're out of line-of-sight. Tough break there, buddy.
*If you find yourself needing Revive, you're doing something wrong. Too bad you always need it thanks to all of the laws stated above.
*After spending some 3-5 rounds setting up a nice blitzkreig for the bridge of a UFO, ''just'' when you're ready to open the door, the alien CO pod will 'teleport' either halfway across the map, or in the perfect spot to counterattack.
**This includes any other escorting pods, after the CO pod takes the Alien turn to open every door, revealing every soldier.
*The soldier with the arc-thrower will always be in the opposite direction that an alien you're trying to capture decides to run in.
**Followed by spending the rest of the mission chasing the alien like the LAPD. Benny Hill theme optional, but recommended.
*The international symbol of the red cross on med kits is apparently the Inter''galatic'' symbol for "Shoot me first."
*Any UFO that crashes into the ocean will be in a heavily forested area.
*The last alien alive will be a cloaked Seeker, that is now panicked and running away, in a large map. Good #&@%ing luck finding it.
**Or hasn't panicked, but it's a Terror Mission and the lone Seeker's AI has decided to kill as many civilians as possible before going after your agents. But if you split the team up to rescue more at once...
*If an alien hides behind something explosive, one of several things will keep you from taking advantage of it:
**Either you don't want to blow up the object,
**Or a soldier is in the blast zone,
***Especially if they're out of move, or there's no other safe place to move to.
**Or you don't want to destroy it's equipment/fragments.
**Or two of the above.
**Or all three.
*The farther and more obtusely placed a Meld canister is, the more likely it is that stray fire will destroy it from the other end of the map.
*Trying to overwatch-spam to let Adaptive Bone Marrow heal non-armor HP? Here, have a crit to the face.
**Courtesy of that wounded Sectoid that either only took 1 step into your POV, or didn't move at all.

==[[Long_War|Long War]]==
*You will always learn the hard way what new perks and Gene Mods the dev team has given the aliens.
**To wit: Jumping Berserkers.
*Even if you did have the muscle to take down Abductors, their flight path will only be long enough to send one interceptor against them.
**If at all.
*If you feel you're doing well: your confidence is ill-deserved.
**The alien pod with two Mechtoids, a Sectopod, several drones, and a Sectoid Commander on the other side of that door will gladly demonstrate this.
***Followed by the mixed Muton pack that just came up behind you.
****And then by those cyberdiscs that decided to say hi.
*The first two shots in Air Combat will always be critical hits.... on your interceptor.
*There are, essentially, three results to Air Combat: the UFO crash lands, it DOAs, or your interceptor is KIA.
**The result that ''will'' happen will be one of the two that you don't want.
*The first alien base will always appear (and remove a Council country from) the continent who's bonus you were hoping to get next.
*When you need meld the most, the game will glitch out and think you are doing good for some reason... so you will only get 3 meld per canister.

==[[The_Bureau:_XCOM_Declassified|Combat (The Bureau)]]==
*The agent you sent forward to flank one alien will then be fired upon by EVERY alien.
**Any agent sent forward will be flanked. Twice.
*Any attempt to make a Sectopod turn around (so you can hit it's weak point) will fail to make it turn sufficiently, if at all.
*You'll run out of ammuntion at the worst possible time.
**That includes just reloading, and flat-out running out of bullets alltogether.
*Even if you're replaying, you'll fail to notice the new weapon, or ammo sachel, that would have been really useful in the skirmish you just barely won a few seconds ago.
*There are the best kinds of weapon for a job, when entering a new skirmish. You will not be carrying it.
*You forgot to check a side-path, and just passed a checkpoint: and now you can't go back to check for ammo or backpack schematics.
**By the way, you'll need that ammo in about 5 seconds.
*Even though Battle Focus slows down time, and it's just one click, it still won't be enough time to finish hitting Heal and save an agent from dying.
**That goes double if the Agent in question is Carter.
*Like any other XCOM: An alien's location is ''always'' equal to: grenade toss range, plus explosion area, plus "just enough to not get caught in the blast."
**Meanwhile, aliens toss like they pitch for the Dodgers.
*When attepting to interact with something, the θ of the angle that will allow you to do so is inverse to how ugently you need to do it.
*The agent ability you need right now? You still need to wait for it to reload.
**When it does load, the only aliens left on the field are Sectoids and low-level Zudjari.
***When, out of frustration, you use the ability to finish off the weakling: that's when the second wave of aliens shows up.
**** They are led by a Commander, or Muton (Elite), or Sectopod, or Gunship.
*When attempting to snipe, the alien will always move at the last second.
*The distance between an agent and a Muton will aways be less than the length of it's arm.
*Alien shields and heals ''will'' go up in the span of time between firing a kill shot, and when it would've hit.
*God help you if you have a wireless keyboard/mouse, and haven't charged the battery in the last 24 hours.

[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]
[[Category:TFTD]]
[[Category: Apocalypse]]
[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]
[[Category: Bureau (2013)]]

Grenade

2015-07-03T03:44:09Z

BenWaters:

{{Ref Open | title = Grenade}}
This standard issue grenade has an accurate and sophisticated timer for precision control.
{{Ref Close | source = Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense Ufopaedia}}

{{Infobox open}}
{{Infobox module/ammo
| weapon = Thrown
| ammo = Grenade
| weight = 3
| height = 1
| width = 1
| damagethreshold =1 (?) High Explosive
| ammoimage = [[Image:BIGOBS19.GIF]]
| damage = 50 High Explosive
| capacity = 1
| saleprice = 240
| research =
| acquisition ={{Purchasing|300}}
}}
{{Infobox module/action
| action =
| cost = '''Action'''
| effect = '''TU Cost'''
}}
{{Infobox module/action
| action =
| cost = Prime Grenade
| effect = 50%
}}
{{Infobox module/action
| action =
| cost = Throw Grenade
| effect = 25%
}}
{{Infobox close}}

The humble anti-personnel fragmentation '''Grenade''' is a cheap indirect-fire weapon with a small area of effect. It is useful for attacking tight groups of enemies, attacking over obstacles, clearing obstacles or attacking around corners.

Like all grenades, it features a special timer where you can set how many ''half-turns'' must pass before it will detonate.

For a more general overview of how grenades function see [[Understanding Grenades]].

This weapon appears in ''[[Enemy Unknown (EU2012)|XCOM: Enemy Unknown]]'' as [[Frag Grenade (EU2012)|Frag Grenade]], and in the ''[[The Bureau: XCOM Declassified]]'' as [[Frag Grenade (Bureau)|Frag Grenade]]. For the ''[[TFTD|Terror from the Deep]]'' equivalent, refer to the [[Magna-Blast Grenade]].

== Tips ==
* Timers are commonly set to 0 to explode at the end of your turn or 1 to explode at the end of the alien turn.
* Will explode before doors close at the end of a turn and catch aliens that have opened any doors.
* Throwing grenades will not trigger reaction fire from aliens not facing you.
* By exploiting a bug, it can be thrown up through ceilings to explode on the floor above - see [[Exploiting_Collision_Detection#Throw_Through_A_Ceiling|here]].
* Can be thrown into diagonal walls, exploding on the far side.
* Primed grenades will not explode in inventory when the timer runs out. It will only detonate when it's on the ground. If you fall unconscious, it will be counted as being on the ground.
* Throwing Grenades improve [[Throwing Accuracy]], and also [[Firing Accuracy]] when enemies are caught by explosions. All enemies (if not mind controlled) caught in the [[Explosions|blast]] will give experience toward firing accuracy, even if undamaged (i.e., their armor absorbed it) - see [[Experience]].
* If several are set to explode on the same turn, the lowest, most north-east grenade will explode first.
* [[Grenade Relay]] allows soldiers with more [[Time Units]] to prime grenades and throw them on to front-line soldiers with less TUs, who then only incur (pickup cost+throw cost) TUs to put the grenade on target. You spend more TUs overall, but the front-line soldier will not have to spend as much.
*The last person to ''throw'' the grenade gets experience points for the hits; soldiers that only drop or pick it up do not get attribution. If no one has thrown it, your first unit gets the experience - which means it's wasted if your first unit is a tank or a dead soldier! (Tanks always come before soldiers in the unit list)
*Kneeling allows you to throw grenades farther under ceilings, landing craft, doorways, etc. Kneel to deploy smoke grenades at the base of your landing ramp on the first turn without exiting the craft.
*Grenades and [[Alien Grenade|Alien Grenades]] are excellent for destroying cover in farm and jungle terrain. Farm buildings, hedges, and trees that may be concealing aliens are readily destroyed with a single grenade. Another trick is to remove the roofs of buildings using an agent in a flying suit to reveal aliens on upper stories.
*Grenades, especially armed ones, are best stored in your shoulder or belt slots for quick retrieval during combat, costing a [[Inventory TU Table|mere]] 3 and 4 TUs respectively to move into either hand slot.

==See also==
* [[Understanding Grenades]] 
* [[Grenade Relay]] 
* [[Alien Grenade]] 
* [[High Explosive]] 
* [[Explosions]] 
* [[Inventory TU Table]] 
* [[Throwing Accuracy#Throwing Distance|Throwing Distance]] 
* [[Field Manual: Grenade]] 
{{Equipment (UFO Defense) Navbar}}

[[Category:Equipment (EU)]]
[[Category: Tactics]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Critical Wounds (EU2012)

2013-09-02T19:59:30Z

BenWaters:

After a Soldier sustains more damage than h/she has hitpoints, they will either become critically wounded or die.

== Critically wounded ==

When a soldier is critically wounded, you have three turns to save that soldier. Saving a soldier can be done by stabilizing or reviving the wounded soldier with a [[Medikit (EU2012)|medikit]] or finishing the mission before the wounded soldier bleeds out.
Each time a soldier becomes critically wounded, it will receive a permanent penalty to its willpower. After several critical wounds, it may be a good idea to sack/use a mind shield, depending on its rank.

'''Stabilizing'''

Any character with a [[Medikit (EU2012)|medikit]] can stabilize a critically wounded soldier. Move into healing range and select the "Stabilize" action. A stabilized soldier will not die from its current wounds (don't play with grenades), but will not become active again for the duration of that mission. After the mission, the soldier will be gravely wounded and will take a fairly long time to become active again.

NOTE: Aliens can and WILL shoot soldiers that you stabilize. Make sure you clear the area of attacking aliens before stabilizing the soldier.

'''Reviving'''

Reviving a soldier can only be done by a soldier in the support class with the appropriate skill. A revived unit will become active again during the mission with 33% of it's maximum hitpoints (including armor or items bonus).

NOTE: A soldier who is revived will not be able to perform any actions for the current turn. As such, be very careful when reviving soldiers who were downed out of cover; the aliens may be able to take the soldier down again quickly!

== Death ==
Death is permanent, once a soldier is dead, he/she is gone forever, unless you go back to an earlier save in which said soldier was still alive.
Every soldier that dies will have his/her name added to the memorial wall in the Barracks, where the number of missions, the number of kills, and the mission in which the soldier died is shown.

== See Also ==
* [[Gameplay_Mechanics_(EU2012)| Back to Gameplay Mechanics]]

[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]

Critical Wounds (EU2012)

2013-09-02T19:57:35Z

BenWaters:

After sustaining more damage than the Soldier has hitpoints, the Soldier will either become critically wounded or die.

== Critically wounded ==

When a soldier is critically wounded, you have three turns to save that soldier. Saving a soldier can be done by stabilizing or reviving the wounded soldier with a [[Medikit (EU2012)|medikit]] or finishing the mission before the wounded soldier bleeds out.
Each time a soldier becomes critically wounded, it will receive a permanent penalty to its willpower. After several critical wounds, it may be a good idea to sack/use a mind shield, depending on its rank.

'''Stabilizing'''

Any character with a [[Medikit (EU2012)|medikit]] can stabilize a critically wounded soldier. Move into healing range and select the "Stabilize" action. A stabilized soldier will not die from its current wounds (don't play with grenades), but will not become active again for the duration of that mission. After the mission, the soldier will be gravely wounded and will take a fairly long time to become active again.

NOTE: Aliens can and WILL shoot soldiers that you stabilize. Make sure you clear the area of attacking aliens before stabilizing the soldier.

'''Reviving'''

Reviving a soldier can only be done by a soldier in the support class with the appropriate skill. A revived unit will become active again during the mission with 33% of it's maximum hitpoints (including armor or items bonus).

NOTE: A soldier who is revived will not be able to perform any actions for the current turn. As such, be very careful when reviving soldiers who were downed out of cover; the aliens may be able to take the soldier down again quickly!

== Death ==
Death is permanent, once a soldier is dead, he/she is gone forever, unless you go back to an earlier save in which said soldier was still alive.
Every soldier that dies will have his/her name added to the memorial wall in the Barracks, where the number of missions, the number of kills, and the mission in which the soldier died is shown.

== See Also ==
* [[Gameplay_Mechanics_(EU2012)| Back to Gameplay Mechanics]]

[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]

UNIBORD.PCK

2013-09-02T19:56:30Z

BenWaters: /* General Information */

==General Information==
Background for the soldier stats screen, stored in the [[Image_Formats#SPK|SPK format]].

==Image==
[[Image:UNIBORDPCK.JPG]]

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

Talk:Realistic Equivalents

2013-09-02T19:51:21Z

BenWaters: /* Pistol and Rifle */

== Battlescape Equipment ==

=== Pistol and Rifle ===

As a note, an MP5 is not considered a battle rifle, as it is a submachine gun.
http://www.hkpro.com/mp5.htm

GazChap - I also wouldn't really consider the AK-47 to be a realistic equivalent. I've always pictured X-COM as being a very high-tech organisation. I would have thought the AK-47 would be too... raw, for X-COM. Not enough bells and whistles on it. - 21 July 2005 14:05 BST.

Not sure why would anyone use an M-16, if there is M4A1s around. Also back the reccommendation to remove the reference to MP-5, as it is just a submachine gun.--[[User:Vagabond|Vagabond]] 05:16, 1 March 2007 (PST)

I would say the US M4 was the closest equivalent - if I remember correctly that only has single/3RB burst modes; the M4A1 adds a full auto option which we dont have. It is probably the most similar looking - although not particularly close, most of the other examples dont look similar at all, even if their behaviour and usage is - obviously with modern weapons you have quite a few bullpup designs, and then stuff like the AK74 and its variants that have iconic looks and wouldnt be confused with whatever the UFO rifle would look like in real life, even by people with no knowledge of weapons. --[[User:Sfnhltb|Sfnhltb]] 10:04, 1 March 2007 (PST)

To me the X-Com rifle ''looks'' like a G3 or an FN, but given the hitting power/penetration is barely above a powerful pistol you have to accept the Rifle is only chambered in 5.56mm if not 4.85. Definitely not a muscular 7.62mm (Russian or NATO). Even then, given the closeness in power to the pistol you could argue the pistol must be a Desert Eagle, WinMag, or an exotic Remington, customised with an extended magazine (contributing to the lousy accuracy).

However I don't believe X-Com dallies with exotic weapons; for sound operational and logistical reasons (including a tight budget), I think they take the prudent course of using battle-proven weapons that are in wide service with member nations and familiar to commandos of many nations. So I would vote for an M4, or any 5.56 HK assault rifle, plus the SOCOM pistol or even the humble Browning 9mm.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 14:14, 9 April 2008 (PDT)

Yes, definitely the Mk23 SOCOM pistol. Semi auto, no burst mode, very heavy, 12rd mag, in-service date 1996, stopping power in the submachinegun range - all these things say the X-Com Pistol is the Mk23. The artwork looks like the Mk23 and the robustness of the weapon in all environments fits with the idea of pragmatic weapon choices for X-Com. Of all the realistic equivalents, I think this is the most clear-cut. I withdraw the suggestion of the Browning and the exotic heavy pistols.
[[User:Spike|Spike]] 14:36, 9 April 2008 (PDT)
: Thanks dude - I'm glad my logic has held up all these years. :) --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 12:29, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

: Aw, boo... I remember seeing some customized handguns that use Rifle calibre bullets. The stopping power... and the complete inaccuracy! Ouch!
: Then again guys, maybe outlandish exotic weapons explain your troops' utter incompetence at using them.
: Those actually MIGHT be NATO rounds in those rifles... bloody clips cost $200... in 1999 pre-inflation prices. OUCH!
:[[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 16:06, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

For the Rifle, the magazine size is that of a 7.62, although that wouldn't explain the lousy hitting power (as Spike pointed out).
A 5.56mm is the most likely, but the mag size is rather unusually small. As above, an M4 would probably work (except the mag size), and it almost looks like a tricked-out M4.
The pistol is certainly a Mk23 SOCOM.
--[[User:BenWaters|BenWaters]] 15:51, 2 September 2013 (EDT)

=== Autocannon and Heavy Cannon ===

The new 25mm XM307 [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/ocsw.htm OCSW] could rapidly fire AP and HE grenades. No rotary barrel though it does have automatic fire.
:But the OCSW is a Crew Served Weapon, requiring 2 people to carry and operate it, which is just too big for the XCom autocannon. This must be a 20-25mm weapon or absolute max of 30mm. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 21:26, 22 February 2010 (EST)

I like the xm25 for the autocannon. I think a better heavy cannon would be an xm109 Payload rifle. It fires a heavier 25mm round than the xm25. For project Xenocide, we looked at a lot of different military firearms. We based a concept on the Croatian RT-20, a very heavy antimaterial rifle that fires the 20mm hispano suiza anti aircraft cannon round. It fires a very heavy round, it is a cannon, however it's bolt action like the NTW-20. Unlike the NTW-20, though, it is not magazine fed. Since neither of those 'cannons' are really believable as weapons that one would walk around with, I think the xm109 is the best analogue. -[[User:Max Power|Max Power]] 04:38, 11 May 2010 (EDT)

: I agree the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_XM109 XM109] is a good fit. 5 round magazine (maybe 6 rounds with 'one in the chamber'?), excellent AP, variable ammo since it's compatible with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM307 XM307] ammo. So AP, HE, HEDP, HEAT and HE-I rounds are a given, and pure incendiary rounds are theoretically possible if alternative 25 x 59mm rounds were used. It particularly fits because the Heavy Cannon AP is arguably the best starting sniper weapon, and of course the XM109 is an up-chambered [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_M82 Barrett M82] heavy (.50 cal) sniper rifle. The only difficulty with the XM109 is how realistic it is to have that weapon operational in 1999. Certainly the M82-class weapons were popular with Special Forces in the 1990s. The M82 article (just referenced) says an early version of the XM109, was in the final [http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Infantry-Weapons/Objective-Sniper-Weapon-OSW-United-States.html OSW] trials in 2002, and the OSW project started in 1993 - so it's possible that secret limited field use of prototypes could've been happening in 1999, especially if they were found to be one of the few human weapons effective against the more difficult alien races. Potentially the Heavy Cannon could be based off the 1987 M82A2 bullpup configuration, which is closer in appearance to the XCom graphics. There is also mention of a rare 12-rd mag for the M82, vs 10 rds normally, so a rare 6-rd mag for the 25mm version is a possibility.

::Regarding the realism of the xm109. The 25mm grenade was already in development for the OICW project in the 1980s, I think. The xm25 has already been accepted onto the wiki page. It's a stretch, for sure, but a system like that is the only real analogue I can think of. It's more 'heavy cannon' like than a multiple grenade launcher system in that those systems are not heavy and are not cannon-like. The behaviour of a cannon or high velocity grenade firing rifle is more apt.

: The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25 XM25] would be a really nice match for the Heavy Cannon, especially the weight, appearance, and thermobaric rounds. But as it only entered prototype trials in 2005, and has a lot of advanced technology the Heavy Cannon seems to lack, I think that we must reluctantly rule that out. And it does not qualify as the Auto Cannon, as it is semiautomatic with only a 6rd magazine. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 20:01, 11 May 2010 (EDT)

=== Rocket Launcher ===

Those are freaking cheap Rocket Launchers, considering their utility... $4000 for a multi-use rocket launcher + $900 per high yield rocket? Compared to $3000 for a rifle?
[[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 16:06, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_SRAW Predator SRAW] Antitank Missile has been suggested. But the Predator SRAW was not in service until 2002 so it's highly unlikely. It's also too heavy, both in launcher and ammo, and frankly too sophisticated - a top attack fire and forget anti tank missile. The M136 AT-4 is a disposable one-shot, so that is also ruled out.

Here is why my money is on the 84mm Carl Gustav (M3 MAAWS / RAAWS in US service). The firepower and weight (9kg empty) is about right - as is the maximum 3-4 rounds per man carry over short tactical distances. In widespread use with many Funding Nations in 1999 both in regular and Special Forces. Not strictly a guided weapon but with optical sight and laser rangefinder. The ammunition matches - light and heavy HE rounds, and incendiary rounds available (shame XCom did not also take the Illumination and Smoke rounds - or the antitank rounds which might perhaps penetrate a UFO hull). Comparing its effectiveness vs contemporary armour (HWPs), the X-Com RL is clearly inferior to a Milan or a Predator (not in service in 1999?). So the"Charlie G" fits. A typical (excellent, versatile) squad-level close assault weapon of the time. Selected by US Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. For some reason X-Com quartermasters have requested the proximity safety fuses be removed - probably for classified tactical reasons they did not want the rockets to be failsafe during the first 15-70m of flight.

Price for a similar (but perhaps "gold-plated") US weapon, the MK153 SMAW, quoted at $13,000 in 2006. Advanced dual-action hyperbaric-penetrator rounds for the MK153 quoted at $4000-$5000 in 2006. Probably the Carl Gustav launcher and much more standard rounds were a lot cheaper in 1999 dollars. The Rocket Launcher price of $4,000 and the rocket costs of $750 - $1,200 are in the right ball park for the Charlie G.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 18:02, 22 February 2010 (EST)

=== Hovertanks ===

Though naturally they are based around alien technology, particularly the cyberdisk, I can't help but notice some similarities between the hovertank and the [http://www.retronaut.co/2011/01/the-avrocar/ avrocar]. Flying disk weapons are hardly a new concept in scifi, but the similarities are pretty striking. They were tested in 1961 and considered unfit for use, but maybe that was just some early branch of the XCOM high command squirreling them away.

[[User:Vivanter|Vivanter]] 11:46, 19 August 2012 (EST)

== Aircraft Weapons ==

=== Missiles ===

It's tempting to agree that the Stingray is the AIM-7 Sparrow and the Avalanche is the AIM-120 AMRAAM. Not only do the effective ranges, relative warhead power, and hit probabilities fit pretty well, but they begin with the same letters. I kind of suspect that we have read the developers' minds here, that they flipped open a copy of Jane's and just changed the names.

BUT, as sometimes happens, the developers were wrong!

Considering we are taking on aircraft that easily out run and out turn state of the art combat aircraft, the standard operational ranges of these missiles are not relevant. For what is normally a tail chase, XCom aircraft would have to get well inside the maximum operational range of their missiles to have a good chance of a hit.

So I think a better answer would be that the Avalanche is the ultra long range AIM-54 Phoenix, and the Stingray is the AIM-120. But honestly I suspect the developers just took the operating ranges at face value and didn't think about the problems of tail chasing super fast UFOs.

By the way, the cost of an AIM-120 in 1999 was about $386,000. For an AIM-7 it was $125,000. Actually very close to the ''ratio'' of Avalanche $9,000 :: $3,000 Stingray. Raising the price of these missiles to realistic levels would go a long way to making the Cannon more useful (since its ammo price would not change, see below)! It might even breathe some life into the Stingray. And encourage people not to always mount dual missile launchers.

=== Cannon ===

The Cannon would be a M61 20mm Vulcan cannon (used on most US fighters in 1999) or more likely a Mauser BK 27 (found on many European aircraft of the time and desired by the USAF), not the GAU-8 Avenger or GAU-12 Equaliser which are air to ground tankbusting weapons not found on air superiority aircraft. Also only a cannon on an air superiority aircraft and assisted by excellent targeting systems would have a range anywhere near 10km. 1km would be more typical. The Mauser is a closer fit as it is heavier than the M61 (27mm) and has about the right ammo capacity (180rds per cannon on a Tornado).

Vulcan cannon ammunition is about $30 per round (2006 prices) in bulk. Call it $24 in 1996. I imagine 27mm rounds are more. But you typically have a 1000 rds of 20mm in an aircraft, not just 200. Using the optimistic assumption of pricing 20mm rounds, is actually very close to XCom prices. $1190 for 50 rds, versus the XCom price of $1240. Remarkably close!

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 19:32, 20 February 2010 (EST)

== Criteria ==

X-Com is a very heavily stylized game and I don't think that one ought to limit their imagination to what the weapons look like. Quite frankly, some of their weapons concepts are ridiculous (however well they work stylistically). [[User:Max Power]]
:Agreed. My criteria for this article, Realistic Equivalents, in roughly ranked order, are:
#Functionality - does it match the capabilities? If there are minor differences, are these plausible as customisations?
#Chronology - Did it exist in 1999, preferably in production, but even as a possible secret prototype ?
#Deployment - Was it in use in 1999 by regular military forces or special forces, particularly of Funding Nations?
#Appearance - Does it resemble the in-game graphics?
[[User:Spike|Spike]] 04:41, 14 May 2010 (EDT)

== Elerium ==

One step closer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23849334

''"The element is highly radioactive and exists for less than a second before decaying into lighter atoms. First proposed by Russian scientists in 2004, the super-heavy element has yet to be verified by the governing body of chemistry and physics."'' [[User:Off the Rails|Off the Rails]] 11:15, 31 August 2013 (EDT)

User:BenWaters

2013-04-06T09:22:45Z

BenWaters:

Full name is '''ALEXANDER BENJAMIN WATERS'''. Use it or any variation thereof.

A highly forgettable man, known for his affinity for (killing) the [[Chryssalid]].
I'm a MIDI purist. Not just for X-Com, but also Descent, DOOM, all the oldies.
For those who care, I have a tendency to pile up alien corpses and then toss alien grenades onto the pile.
I am a fan of Orbiter Spaceflight Simulator, and wish someone would just make a damned Avenger for it already.
Anything else I should write here? Nope.
Have a nice day.

Wish List (EU)

2013-04-06T09:15:42Z

BenWaters: /* Night Vision */

X-Com is a great game and as evidence just look to the fact this wiki exists even though the game pre-dates the internet. In all it's greatness X-Com has some elements and behaviors players wish they could change. This is a repository of those desires. Some day a fan mod may make your wish come true...

= I Wish... =
State what you want AND what X-com does normally. Sign your name if you think "Oh man! That would be great!"

== Geoscape and Strategic ==

=== Geoscape Location ===

* X-Com bases only being able to be built within the borders of the Funding Nations. [[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]]

=== Aircraft ===

==== Smarter Aircraft Movement Around Globe ====
I wish all craft understood the shortest distance between two points on a globe is a curved path towards the poles. Normally a craft goes in the opposite direction than it should (towards the equator). Pain in the ass when the base in the UK sends a craft to Siberia.
--[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]]

==== Smart Interception ====

Aircraft intercepting a UFO just head straight toward the UFOs current position at all times. Unless the UFO is already on a head-on course, this results in the interceptor travelling through a closing parabolic spiral path, and often missing the UFO and ending up in a tail-chase, and then just falling further behind unless the UFO stops or reverses course. This is pretty basic stuff, fighter pilots have known how to do this better for nearly a hundred years. It is particularly important if the aircraft you are trying to intercept is moving faster than you (eg if you are flying an Interceptor).

What is needed is to plot the UFO's current course and speed (which X-Com has from radar data), and plot an intercept course. The maths for this is pretty easy (the intersection of 2 vectors) and can be implemented in a few lines of code, if we can find out where the current interception algorithm is, and patch it.

Actually the radar bearing shown on screen is only accurate to within 45 degrees. I presume that X-Com does actually know the UFO's bearing, since it can clearly track the UFO's movements. Finding where that variable is located might be different.

While we're at it, it would be nice if the UFO detection information displayed the actual bearing in degrees, rather than just the compass direction (North East, South, etc).

Even if the improved intercept algorithm only used a bearing accurate to within 45 degrees, that would still be better for remote UFOs. You might need to switch to "head straight for it" once you get to very close range. [[User:Spike|Spike]]

==== All Aircraft Weapons Useful ====

In a balanced game, all weapons should have their uses, or at least a niche, but sadly this is not so:

The Cannon is only useful for shooting down Small Scouts, and even that is practically impossible, due to the difficulty in closing to 10km range with any UFO, particularly the fast-accelerating Small Scout. The fact that its ammo takes 96 hours to arrive, when all other craft ammo types only take 48 hours, is a bizarre anomaly making the Cannon marginally even less useful - particularly since the time you would use it most is at the beginning of the game, when you do not have enough ammunition even to deploy the Cannon you already given.

The Stingray is only really useful for forcing down Small Scouts (it usually avoids destroying them) and otherwise the Avalanche is better in every meaningful way. The Stingray also takes twice as long to rearm for some odd reason, making it operationally much worse than the Avalanche.

The (unmodified) Laser Cannon is inferior to the Avalanche for more or less everything, apart from running cost. It does have a higher payload but this is hardly relevant (except perhaps in allowing the aircraft to remain on station longer, performing multiple engagements before entering the time-consuming refuel/re-arm cycle). If attacking a UFO that you would struggle to kill with Avalanches, you are unlikely to own an aircraft that would survive long enough to inflict more damage than an Avalanche when mounting Laser Cannon instead.

The Fusion Ball Launcher has a [[Talk:Craft_Armaments#Fusion_Balls_better_than_Plasma_Beams.3F|possible niche]] in fighting Battleships when mounted on Interceptors. Even then, it is difficult and expensive to have aircraft configured to fight only one enemy.

Unfortunately, the optimum path for craft weapon development is all-Avalanche followed by all-Plasma Beam. This is a shame.

Suggestions to 'tune up' the other weapons (see link below for latest suggestions/detail):

*Cannon - Increase the damage to 15 and 50% hit. So at least there is a pay-off if you manage to get in close.
*Stingray - Raise Stingray accuracy to 80% but drop Avalanche to 60%. Double the rearm rate so it can be reloaded as fast as an Avalanche launcher.
*Laser Cannon - increase accuracy to 50% and damage to 100.
*FBL - increase the ammo from 2 to 3.

It might be worth considering 'tune down' the Plasma Beam as well, particularly its stand-off range. It seems odd that humans copy alien plasma weapons and right away improve the range. It would be reasonable if the human plasma cannon had shorter range than the UFO plasma cannons, and more consistent with the ranges of other cannon weapons. (One could ask how X-Com even developed a targeting system that is accurate for direct fire at or beyond the extreme range of self-homing missiles - even if the plasma cannon itself is that accurate, how do you exploit that accuracy by aiming it?).

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 04:02, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

An alternative to tweaking the stats, is to tweak the costs. Realistic costs such as $386K for an Avalanche and $125K for a Stingray will put some pressure to use weapons that are cheaper to operate. And XComUtil has an option that substantially increases the effective build costs of Plasma Beams, making them less optimal.

See also: [[User:Spike#Balancing_Aircraft_Weapons]]

===Score for retaliation Battleships===

When a Battleship on retaliation attacks your base and is shot down, you get no score for it. This is completely illogical and it discourages any use of base defences. You should get normal 700 (or even 1400) points for it.
--[[User:Kyrub|Kyrub]] 14:05, 30 August 2008 (PDT)

: I'm not sure about this. Yes it's illogical, but it could also be a licence to get a huge score if you have a strong enough base. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:16, 3 September 2008 (PDT)

:: The impenetrable base setup would turn into a cheat. As the aliens will keep hammering the base with a battleship until one breaks through, you'll have a steady supply of points without having to really do anything. Some balancing, such as paying to rearm your defence modules, ought to be thrown in to balance things out. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 23:13, 13 September 2008 (PDT)
::: A better fix would be to remove the retaliation flag when a battleship is destroyed. If someone can post a savegame with a never-ending flow of base attacks, I may have a look at the fix. [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 01:05, 15 September 2008 (PDT)

:::: Ummm, it seems the best solution (I, for one, can't think of any better), but wouldn't it assume that only the BattleShip really locates the player's base? All those scouts for nothing? [Still the best solution, though] [[User:N|n]] 15:01, 16 August 2010 (GMT+1)

=== Tougher UFOs ===

==== The Problem ====

So let me get this straight. The first hybrid airborne weapon that humans ever build, and it immediately outclasses every weapon the aliens ever built, including their Battleship weapon? After all the Aliens have only been building plasma weapons for a few million years, us humans have been doing it for ''months''!

More to the point, once you get Plasma Beams, downing UFOs is like shooting fish in a barrel. Even Battleships aren't that exciting if you show up with enough ships.

What is needed is to push up the range, damage, and rate of fire of all the UFO weapons, particularly the UFOs you will be fighting by the time you have plasma beams. At a minimum, the weapon on a Battleship should be at least as powerful as, say, 2 Plasma Beams (as found on the XCom craft it is fighting)? Instead of slightly less than half as powerful? Compared to a single Plasma Beam, only the Battleship weapon has better range. It has double the accuracy, slightly higher damage, but half the fire rate. Net 5.7% more firepower than one Plasma Beam, but no match for 2. And the Battleship weapon of course is the most powerful in the alien arsenal.

Possible tune ups for UFOs:

*Battleship - increase to 255 weapon power, improve reload rate to 12 (from 24). Now roughly equivalent to 4 Plasma Beams in total firepower (on Beginner difficulty). Increase range to 69km, so that the Battleship commences fire as soon as an XCom craft begins its attack run. Or better, increase range to 70+km, the limit of the interception window, so that the Battleship starts firing immediately the XCom craft enters air combat range. This would disrupt XCom aircrafts' ability to form up into a flight of 4, prior to commencing their attack. Overall, this would make it much harder to down Battleships. Increasing weapon range to 70+km would also make it much harder to tail a Battleship - manual control in the Geoscape would be needed to hold off outside of combat range. Really, the Battleship should not sit there like a sitting duck. Does it think XCom are friendly?
*Terror Ship - increase range to 52 (or decrease Plasma Beam range to 42), so stand-off kills are not possible with Plasma Beams?
*Actually maybe all the larger UFOs should have weapon range 69-70+km, so they behave very aggressively toward XCom craft.

NB: Strange effects occur if weapon range goes over 70km so it's probably best to leave it at 70km rather than 75km.

NB: Also, changes to rate of fire need to be looked at carefully though because Difficulty Level also reduces reload rate for UFOs. Between Beginner (Difficulty 0) and Superhuman (Difficulty 4), rate of fire (and thus firepower) for Battleships, Terror Ships and Supply Ships increases by 24/(24-4x2=16) or 50%. But if the base reload rate for these weapons was reduced to 12, the transition from Beginner to Advanced would increase firepower '''three''' times for these 3 UFOs (less so for the smaller UFOs). It is less risky to increase the weapon power. Unfortunately there are only 2 firepower variables to play with - damage and reload rate - so there are not a lot of options, especially for the Battleship which already has weapon strength 148 out of a probable maximum of 255.

:More detail on this. For Medium Scout, Large Scout and Abductor, with nominal reload rate 48gs, the rate of fire improves +20% between Beginner and Superhuman. For Harvester (32gs) it improves one third. For Large UFOs (Terror Ship, Supply Ship, Battleship - 24gs) the improvement is +50%. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 20:28, 14 February 2010 (EST)

I think we should assume that the Battleship, which is bigger than the entire XCom base, is engaging XCom craft with its secondary weapons rather than its main armament, which could probably destroy Manhattan with a glancing hit.

I would really like to see the hypothetical Mega-Battleship go up against XCom's finest - a flight of 4 Avengers armed with dual Plasma Cannon or dual Fusion Ball Launchers. With the Battleship having 70+km range, 255 weapon power, and an effective fire rate on Superhuman triple that of the PB, it would have the firepower of 11 Plasma Beams - 36% more firepower than the whole attacking XCom force combined. To be honest I think that would be carnage, not sure XCom could win. So that would be tuning the Battleship up too much. The 3-fold increase in rate of fire when on Superhuman is just too much. Maybe just max out the damage to 255 and range to 75. This gives a 72% increase in firepower, and a challenging tactical problem for XCom (forming up and approaching under fire).

The smaller UFOs can probably stay as they are. It is not until later in the game that XCom advances so that even large UFOs are easy pickings. What is the crossover point? Maybe the medium UFOs. So it might be good to reduce the reload times of the medium UFOs from 48 / 32 to 24, a good increase in firepower.

In general I think all UFOs energy weapons should have at least as good range as the XCom energy weapons, even the Medium Scout. Again, they have been using these weapons for millions of years and we only just figured out how to copy them from the aliens, how could our weapons be better than the aliens? How did our first plasma weapon out-range and out-perform all but the hugest UFO plasma beam? And on an airframe the size of a Small Scout we mount ''two'' such weapons? On the battlefield we only are able to replicate alien weapons; how is it that in the air we are able to improve on them ''masssively''?

Perhaps there should never be a stand-off advantage, except possibly with missiles -which should be less accurate with longer range. The XCom stand off advantage is really unfair because as far as I have seen the UFOs never attempt to close to effective range, even when they are getting killed. They don't break off much, either, though I think I have seen that happen on occasion.

==== Specific Proposals ====

===== No Standoff Beam Attacks =====

Increase ''all'' UFO plasma weapon ranges to at least 55km (compared to 52km for the XCom plasma weapon). Now only launched XCom weapons (Avalanche and Fusion Ball) have standoff advantage. Probably also reduce the accuracy of the Avalanche to 60% and buff Stingray accuracy to 80%, providing both weapons with a useful niche role.

===== No Standoff Attacks =====

Increase ''all'' UFO plasma weapon ranges to 66km (compared to 52km for the XCom plasma weapon). Now ''no'' XCom weapon has standoff advantage. (The benefit of a longer range weapon is simply spending less time being fired on by the UFO.)

===== Twitchy Aliens =====

Increase all UFO ranges to 69km. They will attack as soon as XCom aircraft commence any attack run.

===== Hostile Aliens =====

Increase all UFO ranges to 70km. They will attack as soon as XCom aircraft enter intercept range. UFOs now fire first, and tailing them unchallenged is impossible.

===== Improved Medium UFOs =====

Reduce (improve) the nominal reload time of Medium UFOs, Abductors and Harvesters, from 48gs and 32gs to 24gs. This increases the challenge in the early-mid game, when XCom might first be deploying advanced weapons.

===== Improved Battleships =====

Increase damage to 255. They're firing (bigger) Fusion Balls! A Battleship now has the same firepower as one XCom Craft with dual Plasma Beams (gosh wow!). It's a start, but what if we...

===== Super Battleships =====

... also reduce nominal reload time to 18gs. Giving a further one-third extra firepower on Beginner, 60% more on Superhuman.

===== Mega Battleships =====

... or for a real challenge, reduce reload time to 12gs. A further doubling of the firepower on Beginner - a further ''four'' times increase on Superhuman. Now Superhuman Battleships out-gun the biggest fleet XCom can throw at them!

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 00:25, 19 February 2010 (EST)

: the flip side of this is weakening Xcom craft - apart from firepower issues there is also the issue of range: the ranges of the transport craft are such that really no more than 1 manned base is necessary to cover the globe for terror site defense. Setting e.g. the fuel capacity of the Skyranger to 500 results in roughly 1 base per continent required. This has interesting strategic consequences: need for more bases makes the ecomics more challenging (and thus slows down research). [[User:Emphyrio|Emphyrio]] 08:43, 9 August 2010 (EDT)

===Enforced Variant Games===

Various people like to play various variant games, such as No Alien Technology, or No Detection, or No Lethal Weapons - see for example Scott Jones' notes to XComUtil. It would be nice to have options on the game executable to enforce these scenarios. Self restraint is hard! [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:06, 3 September 2008 (PDT)

Some of these variant scenarios have been implemented in [[UFO Extender]] by [[User:Seb76#Mods|Seb76]].

===Recruit Certain Alien Types===

Consider that not all aliens are loyal to their master (most TFTD alien has a device lodged to its brain), it would be interesting (or at least cool) if we could recuit such aliens to the XCOM cause. Maybe we can remove the controling devices from captive aliens after research on that species. Or convince the head of the Snakemen that it would be far more benefit to his race to help us instead of the Ethereals [[User:L-Zwei|L-Zwei]] 23:25, 12 September 2008 (PDT).

Only certain alien types should be recruitable. Ones that should NOT be include Mutons (as they are directly controlled by Ethereals), Chrysallids (unbalancing), etc. It would be nice to be able to reverse-engineer Cyberdiscs or Sectopods, or make it that a Cyberdisc must be researched to build hovertanks/etc.
[[User:MagicJuggler|MagicJuggler]] 13:32, 18 September 2008 (PDT)
: It's pretty obvious which ones should be recruitable: non-robotic terror units that are captured alive. Chryssalids should simply do melee damage instead of impregnating (as the resulting spawn would not be mind-controlled and therefore XCOM wouldn't do it). Silacoids would be pretty ineffectual, and reapers slightly less so, but both would be disposable scouts. Celatids might actually have some use (eating through hulls with acid, and arcing over walls) but are fragile. All of these would require capturing a terror alien alive after researching Psi Amp. The two robotic units should require a live alien Engineer researched as well as UFO Construction, and the materials for building one would be one corpse of the appropriate type, Alien alloys and Elerium (to repair and refuel the husk). The Sectopod should probably be nerfed somewhat, so that it isn't quite so invincible to Heavy Plasma shots - after all, it was probably a twisted and melted modern art piece by the time it finally went down). [[User:Stubbs|Stubbs]]

=== Research ===

==== Game option: sell only researched items ====

The fact that you may sell the alien items for the best price once you get them, without any research, is illogical. Such staff would never get on the market, being top secret and potentially dangerous to the humanity.

Selling without proper research does not help the replay value of the game either: once you know the "right path" to get the best items, you simply sell anything else immediately and ignore the unnecessary research. Too easy.

Therefore I wish for this game option: unknown items are sold for 0 (including the alien corpses), the known ones for their full price. This makes the sustainable economics much harder to develop and it gives sense to the "useless" research. Last but not least, it adds a lot of depth to the gameplay: will you choose research of a new weapon you need on the field, or of a mind probe that will earn you millions in sales? --[[User:Kyrub|Kyrub]] 15:55, 6 April 2009 (EDT)

: I really like this option, it's a great idea. Makes the game harder and makes it more interesting, more varied. Gives extra value to the otherwise "useless" research paths. Good thinking! [[User:Spike|Spike]] 15:06, 24 August 2009 (EDT)

: I'd prefer that unresearched artifacts/corpses sold for a fraction of their original value (no more than 25%). It makes no sense that nobody would pay to research them for themselves. Additionally, Laser Cannon sell price needs to be nerfed. [[User:Stubbs|Stubbs]]

: This would have the added benefit that you would know if it was 'safe' or not to sell an item research wise. Coloring the un-researched items differently on the Sell/Sack screen would be good too ~ [[User:Renegrade|Renegrade]] 13:30, 19 August 2010 (EDT)

==== New Research Mechanics ====

The above comments spurred some ideas to make the research more realistic and the path to victory less obvious.

For flavor reasons, give research options vague names instead of exact names. This already exists in some research topics, such as "New Fighter Craft" instead of "Firestorm". So, research topics might read "Alien Hovertank Wreck" instead of "Cyberdisc Corpse", "Grey Alien Corpse" instead of "Sectoid Corpse" or "Alien Pistol" instead of "Plasma Pistol". The names would be revealed in the UFOpaedia entry, and certain items would then be renamed as per common sense.

Hide the ranks of aliens in captivity until they are researched (so you'd see Live Grey Alien #1, Live Grey Alien #2 if you had two Sectoids available for research). However, if you happened to have two Soldier ranks in containment, you'd only see one topic. The same rank/race combination would never appear again, but you might have to research several specimens of the same species to get the useful one you want. The alternative would be to have researched Mind Probe, which would tell you exactly what you had in containment (just as it does on the battlefield).

Once an alien or its corpse is researched, then all other instances of that alien or its body are renamed appropriately. For example, research a live Muton and Muton corpses become obvious, and vice versa. "Live Green Humanoid Alien" is also renamed to "Live Muton".

Finally, there should be a few more prerequisites in place to make less useful research more necessary. As someone else has mentioned, you should need a Cyberdisc Corpse to research Hovertanks. I'd also suggest that Psi Amp and Mind Shield require the research of Mind Probe (seeing as both entail scanning for minds as a logical first step), and that Flying Suits require Floater Corpse, Cyberdisc Corpse or a live Floater researched as an additional prerequisite (not Ethereals, as they fly with the power of their huge brains). [[User:Stubbs|Stubbs]]

:These are all good suggestions and make a lot of sense. An alternative explanation of the names (seen in some fan fiction) is that these names are not the real names, but are made up by XCom troops based on some limited battlefield experience of them. But revealing the "real" alien race names through Research is a fun idea. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 08:44, 1 September 2009 (EDT)

[[TFTDextender|TFTD Extender]] now provides options for improvements to the TFTD Research tree, to make research more logical (and less buggy). A similar exercise is possible with UFO Extender now that the location of the Research tree in the code is known. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 03:48, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

==== Dismantle researched items ====

Beginning a research project on an item should immediately remove that item from your storage. Currently it's possible to begin research on Heavy Plasma and Sectoid Corpse, then immediately sell those items, which makes no sense. Instead, we should assume that the eggheads need to dismantle an item to study it, thereby making it useless.

Completing a research topic on a live alien should create an appropriate corpse in storage, but this is less noticeable. Or do X-Com give all researched aliens diplomatic immunity and $20 for a cab fare?

:+1 to these suggestions. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 16:51, 29 November 2012 (EST)

=== Manufacture ===
* After buying the first cannon or rocket tank, that particular HWP becomes available for manufacture. Accordingly, either must be available for manufacture before laser tanks can be built (the chassis design has to come from ''somewhere'').[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]]

=== Base Managemet ===

==== Inventory management ====

I only want to keep 1 (or 0) sectoid corpse. If I have any more, sell them immediately and automatically. Sometimes having to sell all the stuff you've captured is just a chore.

Also, let me automatically repurchase goods when my stores get too low.[[User:Lobster Dan|Lobster Dan]] 13:18, 25 January 2011 (EST)

==== Monthly maintenance fees ====

Later in the game, when you are way beyond what the sponsor nations are paying you and are instead selling captured/manufactured items to fund your operation, the end of the month can be a real PITA, because you need to build up a reserve of cash to avoid being shut down for financial problems. (This was worse with the misreported funding bug.) At the least, show us in one place exactly how much we need to raise at that time.

Or make payments be done on a weekly/daily/hourly/continuously basis. This also means that I don't have to pay a same salary to someone who I hire on the 2nd or I hire on the 27th.

Oh, and the cheat of "soldiers/scientists/engineers in flight don't need to be paid" needs to be squashed while we're at it. (But watch out fixing this one without making salary payments continuous; my current strategy is to hire most people just before the end of the month, which I would need to modify to hiring just after the start of the month.)[[User:Lobster Dan|Lobster Dan]] 13:18, 25 January 2011 (EST)

==== Day Rates ====

Financial planning in the game is distorted by the fact that Engineers, Scientists and Soldiers receive a full month's pay for their first month, even if they only work one day in that month. This leads to bursts of hiring at the beginning of each month, and worsens the cash squeeze at the beginning of each month.

It would be nice if you could hire personnel at any time during the month, and they would only cost you their hiring fee (one month's salary in full), plus only as much of the first month's salary as they actually worked during that first month. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 06:48, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

=== Change date ===

1999 looks quite silly now, 13 years later and I don't think mankind has even laser weapons now. So if it's not hardcoded for some alien actions in further years, I'd move game at least to year 2020, more likely even later. [[User:mikiqex|mikiqex]] 10:30, 12 January 2012 (CET)
:As a matter of fact, we do have laser weapons now, to some extent: Humvee-mounted ground-to-ground laser, aircraft-mounted anti-ICBM laser and ground-based point-defense laser that can shoot down a variety of incoming ordinance from missiles to mortar shells, all in the experimental phase and expected to hit mass-production in a decade. But yeah, I agree with this suggestion.--[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]] 13:30, 21 March 2013 (EDT)

=== Active Alien Bases ===

Right now, alien bases don't do anything aside from increasing alien presence in a region and attracting Supply Ships. This should be remedied and I know just how to do it.

* All alien bases have a "readiness level". Initially, this is at 100% but can be reduced via base assaults. Every alien killed and certain equipment destroyed decreases this level but if the base isn't destroyed (the mission fails or gets aborted) and subsequent Supply Ships aren't intercepted/attacked on the ground, then 24 hours after a successful resupply the base's readiness level will be back at maximum. Then and only then will killed aliens respawn and destroyed/taken equipment get replaced, not before. This reduces the profitability of "base milking" smash-and-grab operations but is not the primary purpose of the mod.
* Like the name indicates, alien bases should have a more active role. That is, alien bases will frequently dispatch Small and Medium Scouts on Research and Abduction missions, crewed by the same race the base belongs to. How often this happens depends on the base's readiness level, ie. a busted-up base will be barely hanging on but a fully-functional one will be a real beehive.
* Optional: if a base is present in a country, it significantly increases the chance of the country being successfully infiltrated.
* If a base goes unmolested for too long, it will become fortified and spawn two or even three times as many aliens (as many as the tileset allows) plus it takes on a more aggressive role:
** Launches Infiltration missions into nearby areas.
** ''"Leave us the [PRESUMED ALIEN EXPLETIVE] alone!!!"'': if attacked several times in rapid succession (depending on difficulty level; happens after a single invasion attempt on Superhuman), it sends out Retaliation scouts in the general direction the attacks are coming from, looking farther and farther away after every attack.
** ''"Oh no, you don't!"'': if it had been attacked at least once, the base will attempt to intercept X-Com craft passing nearby. It does so by dispatching a scout that follows the intruder at top speed and, once within a certain distance, forces it to engage the UFO in Aggressive mode. If the UFO is faster, all other modes and the Disengage button will be disabled as well. Even if the X-Com craft can run away, the UFO will follow it everywhere unless shot down or the craft lands, in which case the aliens dispatch Retaliation scouts to find the intruder's homebase.
** The above three options all make the base more dangerous but will also increase the payoff and provide an alternative to the nerfed "base milking" tactic.

I have NO idea if these are even possible but they would be highly interesting.--[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]] 17:44, 19 September 2012 (EDT)

: +1. This is a great set of suggestions. I think the necessary manipulations of [[MISSION.DAT]] are fairly well understood. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 03:48, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

== Battlescape and Tactical ==

===Equipment Management===

All wishes are currently implemented!

===Fog of War Improvements===

I'm sure most of these would be an absolute PAIN to implement, but I figured I'd toss the ideas out here.

====Prior Recon of Battlefield====
One thing that has always irked me is X-COM has no terrain knowledge when it lands, despite having probably circled the place two or three times before landing and thus they should know at least some of the area. This would be nice, but isn't too important. Probably would be a pain to implement so X-COM would have all knowledge of external features but no knowledge of building interiors, anyways. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 22:38, 7 August 2008 (PDT)

:Yes at the very least, when you splash the UFO, it could tell you (via some miracle technology such as "satellite reconnaisance") what the terrain type is of the landing zone area. Then you could adjust equipment accordingly. And adjust your uniform camouflage (if using one of the uniform mods). [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:16, 3 September 2008 (PDT)

:: Geoscape: center on the site, then maximum zoom. Aside from having to disambiguate forest from jungle, this works fine for knowing the exact terrain you're getting into. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 10:17, 4 Sept 2008 (CDT)

:::This is already present in the game. To center the Geoscape on a specific location, right-click on the target spot. To do maximum zoom in, right click on the Zoom-In button(and the same works for Zoom-Out). Also, Jungle and Forest use the same display algorithm, but are easy to differentiate; Forest occurs NORTH of the equator, and Jungle occurs SOUTH. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 13:23, 4 September 2008 (PDT)

:Returning to AQ's original suggestion, it wouldn't be too hard would it for the dropship to "radar map" the target, and then have the basic map show up on your scanner on Turn 1? [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:22, 24 November 2008 (CST)

====Dynamic Fog====

The Fog of War in X-COM is clumsily implemented, compared to modern expectations. Everything starts out black, but after exploring, is shown...and it's kept in the same showing, regardless of whether you actually have LoS to that area anymore. It would be nice if when you no longer had Line of Sight to a particular map area, it would be cloaked in a way so that you knew the terrain, but not the units there. Since I've sometimes spent over half an hour trying to hunt down that last alien hiding in area I'd already explored. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 22:38, 7 August 2008 (PDT)

:Maybe greyscale explored but out-of-LOS areas?--[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]] 17:45, 19 September 2012 (EDT)

====Deactivate Object Radar====

Currently, in X-COM, any objects dropped in a given square show on your Battlescape, regardless of whether you have Line of Sight to the square or not. In regards to dropped weapons/grenades/equipment/dead soldiers/dead aliens, this doesn't make a large difference. But in the case of STUNNED aliens, a quick scan across the Battlescape can tell you whether the alien you stunned 10 turns ago is still down, or stood back up(the stunned alien object will disappear from the stack). Of course, since aliens which have revived from stun are almost always disarmed(and the ones that aren't probably should've been killed instead), the usefulness of this 'exploit' is reduced mainly to finding out that the last alien you're looking for is just wandering aimlessly and unarmed. Perhaps leave stacks showing the same until you regain LoS to that area? [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 22:38, 7 August 2008 (PDT)

====Crushed Buildings====

Why don't we see any crushed or destroyed buildings? Does a UFO always fall like a rock, perpendicular to the ground? No marks on the ground? Such impact would do massive damage to the land (a small meteor can do much if it has a high speed...). (Also, at the [debatedly] "real" UFO crash zones UFO parts were scattered over miles)

I'd like to see chopped buildings, entering UFO's through a barns; entering an abductor from a immediate house's roof if I have plasma and no flying suits yet. - [[User:N|n]] 15:01, 16 August 2010 (GMT+1)

: The Pocket PC remake of the game did this, though it seems the site it concern has vanished off the face of the net. Could probably find a copy if you're interested.

: By the way, you can generate a time/date stamped signature by typing four tildes (<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>). - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 23:04, 16 August 2010 (EDT)

:: Amazingly enough (is it Truman Show of me or just a coincidence :)?), my GF found a low-tech palmtop (with/in a case)... on the pavement. With no personal data and means to find the owner; when I laid my hands on it, I actually found and installed Ufo:EU there, but it wouldn't run :(. [And thanks! again for the 4 tildes name/timestamp trick] - [[User:N|n]] 19:18, 18 August 2010 (EDT)

===Restore Game from Battlescape===

It would be nice to be able to reload a saved game directly from the Battlescape "?" screen, rather than having to go through the process of Abandoning to the Geoscape. Would you need to check it was a Battlescape save and not a Geoscape save? Maybe, maybe not. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:06, 3 September 2008 (PDT)

===Grenades===

*Stun Grenades: I want flashbangs.--[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]] 22:59, 11 September 2008 (PDT)
:Instead of stunning, I'd see more effect if it would remove some TUs to units having line of sight (to be fare it should affect xcom units too). It would help against reaction fire (which is the point of flashbangs). Given that grenades detonate at the end turns, it would require a good coordination to have the grenade detonate exactly at the end of the alien turn, and just before your attack. Being able to open doors à la xcom2 would also help to throw flashbangs just before a craft assault... [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 22:03, 12 September 2008 (PDT)
::That would be good. Hard to program, potentially extremely unbalancing, but good. I considered a "debuff" kind of ability (as you suggest) for flashbangs, vs the more obvious substitution of [[stun]] for [[Explosions|HE]] damage. In the end, I picked "I want flashbangs."--[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]] 03:32, 13 September 2008 (PDT)
: Maybe flashbangs dont' work on Aliens - otherwise, XCom would use them, right? :) But seriously, I too would like flashbangs, and stun grenades / concussion grenades. Both of these would make the game easier, though. With flashbangs, you might have to compensate by just giving the aliens more TUs. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 13:33, 13 September 2008 (PDT)
::More options for the player is going to make it easier for any kind of game. Particularly of games like XCOM where the computer can't take advantage of the changes. However I don't believe a weak stun grenade (like 44 stun damage, comparable to AC-HE) would change the game much because the 80 item limit remains.--[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]] 22:21, 13 September 2008 (PDT)
* Rudimentary IFF recognition in proximity grenades, ie. it checks the unit ownership variable (the same one that gets flipped during mind control and used to cause the Hostile Civilians bug) of everyone who wanders into its sensor range and only explodes if it doesn't match the ownership of the unit that threw it. Naturally, it would be fooled by mind control and would also blow up civilians but it would minimize mine-related friendly fire...
:: ...which makes me wonder: if a proxy kills a friendly unit, does it count as friendly fire caused by the guy who planted the proxy? If not, would you make it so, just for the hell of it? [[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]]

===Night Vision===

I '''don't''' want to add night vision equipment to the game. I assume that either (1) all XCom units already have night vision gear as standard, but it's not as good as alien night vision, and the visibility that XCom units have at night is based on their standard-issue night vision gear, or (2) night vision gear does not work on Aliens. Either they do not appear on night vision, or maybe worse - maybe the aliens can manipulate night vision equipment, causing worse than normal vision, or hallucinations, and even tricking XCom units into firing on each other. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 13:33, 13 September 2008 (PDT)

:Wouldn't it be nice though if it had gradients other than "day: 20 squares" "night: 9 squares" ? Like.. "early morning/late evening: 10-19 squares" ? I find the cut off from full daylight to full night kinda disturbing. ~ [[User:Renegrade|Renegrade]] 10:41, 19 August 2010 (EDT)

:: I originally thought of this when dreaming of a Stargate-themed patch for X-COM -- but what about enemies that are invisible unless you are facing them while wielding a certain weapon designed to spot them? (Stargate fans: I'm thinking of the TERs.) [[User:Lobster Dan|Lobster Dan]] 13:18, 25 January 2011 (EST)

:Turning off the aura of light around soldiers during night missions, making the player see about as much as the soldiers do.

:Thoughts about NV equipment:
* 2x1 item that needs to be placed into a shoulder slot.
* Vision range with NV would depend on the ambient light levels:
** During daytime, they would see as far with NV as in complete darkness without.
** The darker it is, the greater the vision range, up to a maximum of 15 hexes...
** ...but complete darkness still incurs a minor penalty as most NV gear are image ''intensifiers'', NOT infrared goggles. That is, they still need ambient light to work properly.

--[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]] 13:50, 21 March 2013 (EDT)

: I think that, after a few turns in a night mission, a soldier's visual range should be increased due to natural nightvision. This does, of course, assume that all the weapons have flash suppressors, but it would make at least some sense, although would probably be difficult to implement. If it became possible, it would be even more realistic to decrease a soldier's accumulated nightvision if they are near electroflares, streetlights, or explosions. --[[User:BenWaters|BenWaters]] 05:15, 6 April 2013 (EDT)

===Throwing over stuff===
'''(Moved to Talk, as this is not a bug and so does not need fixing.)'''

===Assault Time Limit===

One of the cool things about UFO Defence is there are no time limits on the scenarios. This is great as it allows for a totally different kind of tactics and much more flexibility.
It's more of a "thinking man's game" as a result. But... arguably this is not very realistic for UFO Assault missions. If the Aliens are getting creamed, they should try to make a getaway if they can (just like XCom would). A simple way to implement this would be a hard time limit (say 20 turns?) on a UFO Assault. Another way would be to base it on Alien Morale. At a certain Morale level the aliens decide to dust off. Give the player say 3 turns warning while they rev up the engines. Then if there is still a Navigator or Engineer in the Control Room alive, the ship takes off. Any XCom troops still aboard are MIA.

You might run into problems if the UFO took off but then landed again or was shot down, generating another ground mission with potentially '''more''' Aliens than were still alive at the end of the Assault. (Still, maybe they hatch some more clones if they get time to....) [[User:Spike|Spike]] 09:51, 4 September 2008 (PDT)

: It strikes me as justified they don't do that. Troops loose in the vessel could be seriously bad. It would be nice if they dusted off on the condition that their morale was low enough or 3 X-com soldiers had the door in their sights without aliens alive outside in the latter case and no X-com soldiers on board in either case. also, if the UFO has a hole in either the command or engine room, it would have to set down before leaving the atmosphere. [[User:(name here)|(name here)]]

Taking off with troops onboard would be perfectly safe (for the aliens) and justifiable if one assumes that alien ships in flight are inherently inhospitable for humans. This is easily done by saying that they undergo accelerations that humans can't withstand (splat), can't withstand for any length of time (pass out), or that they intentionally make rapid accelerations in different directions, either normally or just if they're trying to bash some intruders around. Naturally, the aliens themselves would either be immune to these (tough physique / their built-in antigrav devices?), or be in acceleration chairs, safe from all this.

Alternatively, when you get the warning that the UFO is going to take off, you've got a certain amount of time to either get everyone '''off''' the UFO, or to get everyone '''on''' it (or as many as you can). There could be a follow-up mission that takes place in "sky" terrain, where the outdoors is either impassable (the easy way) or else instantly withdraws units from combat (flying suits / parachutes). The soldiers' goals would be to either take out the aliens and presumably safely land and salvage the UFO, or take out the UFO's means of flying (power cores / navigator?). In the latter case, they might have a certain number of turns to withdraw or be caught in the crash, with possible casualties just like the aliens, mitigated to some degree by their armour and maybe where inside the UFO they are.

In the case of a crash, there could be a final mission to finish off the surviving aliens, using the X-COM soldiers that survive the crash, and no landing craft (it's still back at the old landing site). Alternatively, you could say that there '''is''' an X-COM landing craft parked outside (with all remaining members of the original landing party), since the in-flight time / distance was presumably low and the original X-COM craft quickly packed up and flew to the new landing site. — [[User:Wisq|Wisq]] 17:11, 18 April 2010 (EDT)

Either side could try bringing in reinforcements -- if I can bring two interceptors to a fight in the sky, why can't I bring two troop transports? This starts to get complicated, but it's come up in discussion of making X-COM into an onlime multiplayer game... :) [[User:Lobster Dan|Lobster Dan]] 13:18, 25 January 2011 (EST)

===Alien AI===

*Aliens cannot pick up items, but I wish they would. If an alien has no useful weapons in inventory they should either head for cover or head for a plasma weapon. Panicked aliens drop their weapons but never seem to pick them up when they managed to pull themselves together. It would be nice if they tried to arm themselves again. --[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]] 13:55, 19 September 2008 (PDT)

:Even if it's too hard to make aliens head towards weapons (is it safe?, could it be used to trap them, not to mention the complexities of route finding) - it would still be good if an unarmed alien checked for usable weapons in every square it moved through, and at least picked up one loaded weapon or grenade per turn. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:22, 24 November 2008 (CST)

:Fixing the AI for this could be really hard. Apart from all the possible exploits by XCom, the AI is probably a really hard part of the game to reverse engineer. You could say that an unarmed alien is no threat anyway (we are only concerned about aliens without psi or built in weapons). So nothing is lost even with an exploitable method of re-arming. By exploitable I mean the XCom player can manipulate re-arming, e.g. by leaving weapons out in the open as bait for traps.

:Maybe the simplest modification would be to ''not'' drop weapons when the alien panics? This does not require delving in to the AI, just intercepting the panic effects. Dont make aliens drop any weapons when they panic. It would be reasonable to return the weapon in hand to inventory, so there is a TU cost for the alien to bring the weapon back into play again.

:This would not work for aliens who were stunned and wake up, or who were mind controlled by XCom and made to drop their weapons. But it would probably catch 80% of cases.

:Another cheat, short of fixing the AI, is just to pick up weapons that the alien walks over. It could also pick up "spare" weapons from adjacent aliens (cheating on TUs - basically just teleporting the items to the unarmed alien). Spare alien weapons are almost invariably grenades. I have not had a lot of success in getting unarmed aliens to use grenades, so more research is needed here. Maybe only certain types of aliens use grenades, or only in certain circumstances?

:Really, really cheating would be to teleport any weapon laying around the battlefield into the alien's inventory. But I think it is more fair just to say panicked aliens dont drop their equipment. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 16:13, 13 February 2010 (EST)

:Interesting research! [[User:Volutar |Volutar ]] found a disabled function in the code that makes aliens pick up items! [[Talk:OBDATA.DAT#Field_0x2D]]

* Depending on the aliens' intelligence stat, they can deliberately blast away cover with autofire if they saw any of your soldiers taking cover behind it. They already sort-of do this with grenades but not with other weapons. [[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]]
* Aliens actively using [[Scouting#Scout/Sniper Tactics|sniper-spotter tactics]], taking the high ground whenever possible. [[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]]

==== End Psi Bullying and Psi Baiting ====
When the aliens use psi attacks they always go for your guys with the most chance of failing the attack and going nuts. Is it possible to make those pesky aliens attack random soldiers, regardless of their psi skill/strength?

: Not a bad idea to randomise this a bit, because while initially this tactic helps the aliens, it becomes so predictable that it can be used against them by deploying unarmed "Psi Bait" soldiers to draw off all the attacks. (Or make aliens avoid controlling/panicking soldiers who have no loaded weapons. But then folks would just give them pea shooters and wear armour.) [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:22, 24 November 2008 (CST)

=== 80 Item Limit on Base Defense Mission ===
: Well you get the 80 item limit on every mission, but it hurts more on a Base Defence as you have more limited ability, or sometimes no ability, to manage what goes into those 80 items. I was thinking about a couple of (theoretical) ways to fix this and I hit on a new one (new for me anyway): Why not take the 80 items from the Transport(s), first Transport then second Transport until you run out of items or hit 80. This has a few benefits:
:* Ready made interface to manage the 80-item limit, the Stores <> Craft (Equip Craft) Screen.
:* If you have no warning at all, the 80 items will probably make good tactical sense in general terms, even if they are are not totally optimised for Base Defence (no proximity mines, etc).
: I think that copying the Transport inventory into the Battlescape inventory would be relatively to implement (though what do I know?). As a simplification, you could move only the inventory in the ''first available'' Transport that is present in the Base, into the Battlescape, and not bother looking in more than one place (other Transports, Base Stores) to get up to 80. It would then be a bit of a drag if your Transports are all out on a mission when your Base gets attacked though. Or perhaps inspect the inventory of Transport 1 (wherever it is in the world), and then attempt to copy its inventory, using equipment present in the Base?
: Another way of doing it which has been mentioned elsewhere is to try to reverse the order of the items in the Stores list. This has the effect of putting the more advanced weapons first, rather than the more basic weapons. There could be all kinds of unwanted side effects of this, depending on various programming issues.
: Actually there is already a fix for the 80-item limit in XComUtil. XComUtil records a standard assign weapon set for each of your troops, and then teleports those weapons to the Battlescape from your Base Stores, regardless of the 80-item limit (but still subject to the Battlescape's 170-item limit). Not 100% sure if this works for Base Defence missions though.
:[[User:Spike|Spike]] 13:22, 24 November 2008 (CST)

=== Collision Detection Bugs ===
I have noticed that sometimes you can shoot through hard objects, for example, recently I had a soldier up on the roof of a house overlooking a large scout craft. When a Sectiod moved through one of the inner doors of the UFO, my man shot him straight through the intact ufo roof!

=== Base Defence Systems Cause Alien Casualties ===

I don’t know if this is already implemented in the game? When the aliens attack your base and you defend it with base defense measures does the following occur and if not a mod maybe? When you hit the battleship with your weapons but it still gets through (e.g. you hit the battleship with some missiles before it lands) can the number of attackers be reduced accordingly. For example if you hit it with some missiles then maybe they could have a couple less soldiers attacking (could be random small amount) or when you hit with loads of stuff like plenty of fusion balls and the battleship just makes it then their attack could be reduced to a few aliens (all others got killed in the defense). As I say not sure if this is already there to some degree (not played in a long time and I’m not at that stage yet this time round).

: The general view is probably that Base Defence missions are a boon to XCOM already, so why make them any easier. At very least there would need to be more damage to the loot than there was to the Alien's combat effectiveness, otherwise this unbalances the game in favour of XCOM. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:22, 24 November 2008 (CST)

=== Alien vs Alien ===
This one is way out there. Alien v Alien battles out with main game, just random battlescape maps. Sectoid and their terrorists against Floaters and theirs etc. One side human controlled the other computer. Choice of ships involved etc.

:I actually love this idea. It might just about be possible using XComUtil, if someone is a total XComUtil guru.

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There was a utility to do this from Devisraad. it has long since been removed from his site, but someone may still have it. The basics was you renamed unit and it automatically replaced graphics flag to swap out the units. Didn't work on the Large Aliens but still was a fun mod --[[User:BladeFireLight|BladeFireLight]] 02:20, 6 January 2010 (EST)

=== Aircraft in Base Defence Battlescape ===

New graphics for the Interceptor and Firestorm on the battlescape. All your ships could remain in their hangers when the aliens attack your base. Don’t understand why Mythos did not do this originally.

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Simply for one reason: the limit on the size of the battlescape. UFO maps are usually limited to 10000 tiles (50x50x4), on Bases you have 9600 (60x60x3), the last level one being dirt. You need 3 levels to display X-COM craft. [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 14:28, 23 September 2008 (PDT)

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Could you not do it but clip off the top level of the craft - leaving the ground level and 'deck' level? It would be a cool terrain area to fight in. I like the fact that in TFTD you can still see your subs during a base defence. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:22, 24 November 2008 (CST)

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It is possible to edit the map files to include the Skyranger, but you'll have to use Xcomutil to play with that terrain and I think it would never launch during base defense missions (but I'm not sure on that - never tried editing the X-COM base terrain). [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 19:25, 4 December 2009 (EST)

----

This could be done by creating new "hangar" map modules, each containing one of the five possible X-COM craft. Bung the modules into [[GEODATA.DAT]] at index 0C, and you're done. The catch is you can't have all craft or the MCD array will overflow. The base terrain uses ~160 tiles as it is (out of the max of 256), while the craft use about 60 each (on average). Putting them all in would take the table above 300 entries (that is to say, the game'd crash).

'Cause XcomUtil already provides us with an Intercepter design made up of SkyRanger parts, I suppose the way to go would be to only implement those two craft. If you have any alien technology ships, they could either be left out ("they were fast enough to escape") or rendered as SkyRangers.

It should also be noted that bases are made up of two levels, not three. Luckily, all the craft are only three levels high, so cutting out the landing gear still works. - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 19:56, 4 December 2009 (EST)

----

Very true about the MCD limit, that's why I only mentioned the Skyranger but the Interceptor could be added as well (and would not make much sense to have your first defense mission with a nice Avenger parked on the hangar while your Interceptors are being blow to bits by Battleships). The bases are 3 levels but you can only modify two of them. The game engine automatically adds a layer of 'dirt modules' either at top or bottom. Hmmm, this just gave me an idea for the wish list... [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 20:29, 4 December 2009 (EST)

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Both alien and X-Com bases ''are'' only two levels. There must be something screwy in your game; XcomUtil maybe?

It occurs to me that removing landing gear and stuff might make it ''just'' possible to jam in the Lightning tiles as well (as the MCD requirements would also shrink slightly). That'd make it possible to add the Firestorm, too. Seems a shame to get that far then leave out the Avenger, though...

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 21:30, 4 December 2009 (EST)

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Nevermind, I completely misread your previous post. Yes, they are two levels only, could be Xcomutil that adds the 3rd level.

- [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 22:30, 4 December 2009 (EST)

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You may be able to get 3 levels in an X-Com Base but not 4. EU has a smaller amount of memory alocated. I dont know the limit but 60x60x4 will crash EU. TFTD has no problem --[[User:BladeFireLight|BladeFireLight]] 02:25, 6 January 2010 (EST)

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I got partway through this and then decided to change my methods entirely and start from scratch. So I thought I might as well post my progress anyways, as it's already about on par with the crude TFTD implementation: You always have the same craft appear in your hanger regardless of what is (or isn't!) there.

[[Image:Skyranger In Hanger.rar]]

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 05:40, 17 December 2009 (EST)

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Hey BB, a while ago I have modded the plane terrain files so that the Skyranger appears facing east instead of south. If you want to use that one (to make it a little different) let me know. [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 08:23, 17 December 2009 (EST)

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Thanks, but don't worry about it for now: it'll make the MCD arrays larger still, so I'll consider it when I get all the other stuff done.

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 17:01, 19 December 2009 (EST)

----

The completed mod is now included in my toolpack. As usual, I've only done cursory testing on it, but I'm pretty sure it's stable enough.

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 06:40, 20 January 2010 (EST)

=== Fixed firing TUs ===

Something that always bugged me was how the weapons used percentages for firing TUs. It doesn't make sense that the faster a soldier got, the longer it would take to fire a weapon.
: This is because you can't fire an automatic weapon any faster than it will shoot. However, it otherwise makes minimal sense, as you point out. I suggest two alternative solutions. Firstly, that only automatic fire modes use a fixed percentage of a soldier's time units, and other modes use a fixed number of TUs. This would entail the newer soldiers spraying and your most elite taking fast, selective single shots. The alternative is that each firing mode for each weapon entails its own formula (revealed in the UFOpaedia but essentially hidden during the battlescape) along the lines of "X% of TUs + Y TUs". Snap fire would be a low % of total plus a low fixed cost, Aimed would be a low % of total with a high fixed cost, and Auto would be a high % of total with a low fixed cost. While this is somewhat complex, in-game you wouldn't have to worry, and it accounts for what can be reduced (i.e. aiming speed) and what can never be improved by a soldier (i.e. cyclic rate of fire or time for a missile to lock). [[User:Stubbs|Stubbs]]
:: These observations are very sensible. However we also need to consider the impact on game balance. If you implement this in an even-handed way, alien rates of fire will increase as they have high TUs. Or, if you fudge it so that alien rates of fire remain the same, then X-Com's advantage will increase as the game progresses. Neither of these are desirable. It would be extremely hard to implement this and still maintain game balance. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 08:41, 1 September 2009 (EDT)
:::Each turn has the exact same duration, but is divided into TUs separately for each soldier. That's a simplification that works well in a turn-based game and reflects the fact that a soldier is fast or slow. However, weapons need to be aimed and will not fire faster than normal, thus they require a fixed percentage of the turn duration. In other words, soldiers gain movement speed, but fire at the same rate. This is both desirable and logical, just not self-explanatory. Thus, I would definitely stick to how TUs consumption is solved currently. [[User:mingos|mingos]]

=== In-flight Interception ===

Yes, I know that this idea is nigh-impossible, but I was thinking, wouldn't it be awesome to infiltrate a battleship, kill the aliens inside and escape, with the geoscape being shown zooming past underneath? Also, in a similar vein to the "aliens dust off after 3 turns" idea, after killing the aliens ( or blowing up the power cores, maybe?)you would have to get as many troops as possible to the drop ship in 3 turns(in retrospect I guess that you could only do this with the Lightning because of the doors) or the ship crashes and all troops not in the dropship are missing in action. Yes, this idea is impractical and would be really hard to program, but the idea of blowing a UFO up from the inside just seems epic to me. [[User:WolfenMage|WolfenMage]]

=== Impose cost to using Psionic attacks===

I think everyone agrees Psi attacks are too powerful. I would propose to impose a cost to using Psionic attacks. This could take the form of decreasing the physical stats after using a PSi attack (after all all: the psionic races are physically weak). This could for example lead to a soldier becoming a weakling or even fainting or dying from using psi-attack. Another possibility is to decrease mental stats (in this case the ratio would be that humans are not really being adapted to psi: you could be expected to go crazy playing mind games) leading to a decrease in psionic powers or maybe panicking or beserking the soldier using psi. Together with limiting psi attacks of MCed units proposed elsewhere this would rebalance the later game somewhat... [[User:Emphyrio|Emphyrio]] 07:22, 9 August 2010 (EDT)

: [[UFO Extender]] implements some limitations on X-Com use of Psi, making attacks Line of Sight based. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 03:48, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

=== Make losing a base less costly ===

My friends would often quit and reload after losing a base because it was so costly. It should definitely be a kick in the teeth, but even the game text suggests some ways you can recover:
1. Scientists and engineers have already been evacuated -- on a defense loss, let me transfer them to bases with open living quarters.
2. Likewise, move any ships at that location to another open hangar. (Maybe doing this requires that I have gotten advanced warning of the attack.)

: You can do all of this immediately prior to the attack, which is a small trade off if you win and a great benefit if you lose. I'm not sure you should be able to do it for free, at the instant of losing, and keep your options open until the last second. I think the game is fair and balanced as is. Well OK, maybe an option to do transfers after seeing the Base Attack screen, but before combat, would be user-friendly - it is sometimes hard to get to the Base screen fast enough to perform an evacuation before the base assault starts. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 03:48, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

=== Have captured aliens be present in base defense ===

The alien containment unit could have all my captured aliens present in jail cells. But this requires other things to happen first.

On one hand, I think it would be cool if the attackers can rescue their friends and bring them into battle. So aliens would need to be able to pick up weapons. Psi powers would suck -- it would seem nuts if a captured ethereal suddenly started brainwashing my crew right away. Maybe they all start with -50 stun, or maybe (can we do this?) psi-powered enemies have it disabled if they start the game captured.

Another issue is that each containment supposedly holds 10 aliens according to the game text, but there is no real limit in the game. Maybe we fix that 10-limit bug (which would mean that we would need to be able to kill overflow aliens), maybe we only take the first 10. And it definitely runs into tile issues.

Would the enemies in containment need to be killed/re-stunned to end the mission? Maybe being in a locked jail cell automatically counts as captured.

:The problem here is that Alien Containment works entirely differently from how it's stated. Alien Containment is instead a file of aliens captured with, IIRC, 50 slots, and it is shared across ALL bases. So you'd have to figure out some way to change the file to flag aliens as 'belonging' to a specific base. And of course, on higher difficulty modes, the aliens and their terror units already spawn most or all of their UNITPOS.DAT slots anyways. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 08:19, 12 January 2012 (EST)

=== Grenade Launchers ===
Is the US army being obstructive? Why can't we buy M79s or M203s? Shooting a grenade through a wiindow/gap is sorely missing, because of the need to arc. There is the small launcher, but that stuns. 30mm grenades come in HE, WP, Smoke, Incendary, AP and flechette (think shotgun with a 30mm bore!)

:They're not being obstructive, in fact they gave us automatic and semi-automatic grenade launchers, which we call the Auto Cannon and Heavy Cannon. See [[Realistic Equivalents#Weapons]]. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 17:46, 20 March 2011 (EDT)

::In that case, why not make the Heavy Cannon and Small Launcher fire in a ballistic trajectory, a la Celatid spit? It would make the HC even more useful until the advent of the Blaster.--[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]] 17:45, 19 March 2013 (EDT)

=== 80 item limit ===
The space available should be treated more logically; using the system base stores does. At the moment craft treat 1 heavy weapon as the same size as 1 grenade.

== Miscellaneous ==

===Fix All Bugs===

Oh no [[User:Seb76#Bug Fixes|Seb76]] already did this! :) [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:06, 3 September 2008 (PDT)

= I Wished (And My Wish Came True)... =

== Geoscape and Strategic ==

=== Fuel Ready always ===
[[User:Seb76#Mods|Implemented - here]]

I wish that I could send out craft at any fuel or ammo level. Normally craft can only leave a base if fully "ready". Craft is only "ready" at 100% fuel (or 0% fuel using an exploit) but there's no logical reason why a full tank and full ammo is required. Fully repaired... that's fine. I can live with pilots refusing to fly a plane missing a wing even if it means England is lost to aliens. 15 hours to fill a tank? Retarded but I can live with that too if I can send out a craft at 20% fuel.
--[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]]

:Actually, many modern aircraft '''do''' require the fuel tanks to be full on takeoff, and fairly empty on landing. The weight of the fuel is figured into the takeoff aerodynamics, and the tank being full prevents fuel 'sloshing' in the tanks and not actually making it to the engine. (Conversely, many aircraft need to have dispensed of much of that fuel weight before landing.) This holds for most runway-takeoff craft, but may not apply to anything with VTOL capacity; I'm unsure there.

:I do agree that non-full weapons aren't as critical, though. But from a logical standpoint, most modern aircraft should not be launched on an empty fuel tank. I also should noted that an Elerium-fueled craft with [[Known_Bugs#Elerium-fueled_Craft_Bug|50% fuel or less remaining]] will automatically return to base, regardless of distance from base. Of course, given that such craft fuel up quickly, its less of an issue there. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 22:05, 7 August 2008 (PDT)

:Hum, maybe you can try [[User:Seb76#Mods|this]]? [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 13:01, 8 August 2008 (PDT)
::Thanks! But I can't try it. I've not been able to get my copy of Xcom to run properly except on a Win98 install. VC2008 requires a more modern OS. I'm sure I could ''eventually'' figure out a way to get it running, but I tried once and wasted too much time before giving up.--[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]] 14:45, 8 August 2008 (PDT)
:AFAIK VC2008 binaries should run OK on Win98 as long as the runtime is deployed. Anyway, the loader uses CreateRemoteThread API which is not available in Win98 so don't even bother. '''However''', you can manually patch the binary if you want ;-) Data to patch (all in hexadecimal):
offset 0x41752: 2A0075 -> 18207C
:HTH. [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 14:56, 8 August 2008 (PDT)

===Base Build Stacking===
[[User:Seb76#Base Building Stacking|Implemented - here]]

At the moment you are only allowed to build next to a finished module, and you aren't allowed to plan ahead in your base construction. It would be nice to at least be able to plan more than one phase of construction in advance. This would be pretty easy to implement. There is no need to code any new "queuing system". Just place the new module next to an existing under-construction module, but increment the build time to the normal build time + the time remaining on the under-construction module (the lowest time remaining that would make the square you are building in, a legal square to build in). As a premium for build stacking, you have to pay the costs up-front. As with normal construction, all costs are non-refundable if you change your mind. (There would probably need to be some on-screen feedback for how long the module would take to build, before you were committed to building it.) [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:06, 3 September 2008 (PDT)

See also: Discussion on [[Talk:Wish List|Talk page]].

=== Keyboard shortcuts at bases ===

I wish we had (customised, maybe?) keyboard shortcuts at the base screen. Numbers (at the "base information" screen as well) would switch bases, R for research, E for equip craft, T for transfer, M for manufacture, S for soldiers, B for build new base, P for purchase+recruit (or "B" for "buy" - let people double-bind if they need it), I for base information. The doubles (soldiers/sell+sack) could be solved by using the key under the primary one (x for sell+sack). - n (16:26, 16 Aug 2010 (GMT+1))

:Keyboard shortcuts are implemented in [[UFO Extender]]. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 03:48, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

=== Soldier table ===

Soldiers should be listed in a sortable table, so I can sort them based on rank, ship order, firing accuracy, psi skills, in psi training, etc. If I want to find out my best shooters, it should be a very fast operation.

At a more advanced level: do it across bases; have filter options; sort based on formula (so I can find the soldiers with the best reaction+firing, or the best psi strength + psi skill).[[User:Lobster Dan|Lobster Dan]] 13:18, 25 January 2011 (EST)

:Sortable soldier list is implemented in UFO Extender and XComUtil. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 03:48, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

== Battlescape and Tactical ==

=== Equipment Management ===

==== Soldiers remembers THEIR equipment ====
[[XcomUtil|Implemented - here]]

I wish soldiers remembered what equipment they LAST used and start with that gear when they land. Normally soldiers grab various gear and put lots of crap on their belt. I put most things on the shoulder slots, and keep many things spare things on the ship just in case I need them. (I only want IN rounds if it's night. Stop picking them up before I shoot you in the back!) Takes forever to sort out the gear so the weakling isn't carrying all the rockets etc.
--[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]]

:This is already available in [[XcomUtil]]. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 22:07, 7 August 2008 (PDT)

====Access to Stats screens during equipment allocation====
[[User:Seb76#Equipment Screen|Mostly implemented - here]]

In Battlescape you can get to Stats screens by right clicking on one of the unit's status bars. However you can't do this in the Equipment screen. Things like Statstrings and (even more so) [[User:Seb76|Seb76]]'s modified Equipment screen with actual/max weight help. But it would be nice to be able to see exact stats. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:06, 3 September 2008 (PDT)

===Decrease Accuracy for targets out of sight===
[[User:Seb76#Range_Based_Accuracy|Brilliantly implemented - here]]

How come you can easily shoot on something you do not see?
I find the over-used scout-sniper tactic is a cheap exploit of the X-COM. The tactical game should describe a combat, not a cowardly shooting practice. It would turn into a nice feature, if there would be a penalty of (let us say) -20% to the accuracy of anybody who is firing on a target out of his current sight. This can greatly enhance the tactical depth of the game. (Seb around? ;-) --[[User:Kyrub|Kyrub]] 14:20, 30 August 2008 (PDT)

...discussed [http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Talk:Wish_list here]

===Enough Smoke===
[[User:Seb76#Mods|Implemented - here]]

It would be nice to increase the current limit on smoke/fire hexes. This is due to their locations being stored in a small, fixed length array. In effect you can only get about 3-4 smoke grenades worth of smoke or fire on the map at the same time. Being able to use smoke liberally would really open up new tactics. At the moment all you can really do is cover the LZ in smoke when you exit the transport, and maybe cover one advance over open ground. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:06, 3 September 2008 (PDT)
:I did something for that on my loader. Heavy testing is required because it is hard to be make sure smoke still works as before (testing is the hardest part actually). [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 14:09, 18 September 2008 (PDT)

=== Alien AI ===

====Aliens better with explosions====
Partly implemented [[User:Seb76#Bug Fixes|here (waypoint bug fix)]] and [[User:Seb76#Mods|here (Blaster drift)]]. ''(Possibly move this to talk, as notwithstanding these 2 bugs, apparently the Aliens are fairly safe with lethal explosives.)''

I wish that aliens using grenades or blaster bombs or stun bombs (anything that goes boom) would use more sense. They should not want to use items that go boom when they are guaranteed to be caught in the blast radius. The alien can use grenades and blaster bombs by going out of line of sight before the explosion goes off. That may not save them if the explosion blows out the walls. At least it would be less stupid then firing a point blank blaster bomb vs taking 5 steps and setting up another waypoint. Units with morale above 100 or mind controlled should still be suicidal as normal.--[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]] 13:55, 19 September 2008 (PDT)

: Actually, the aliens are quite careful with their explosives, they just seem to be prone to the occasional accident. They're not likely to fire off a blaster or grenade too close to them - as evident by the strategy where if you see an alien with a BB but can't shoot back, the safest place is to stand next to it. The blaster bomb vertical waypoint fix in the loader also eliminates the 'oops' moments where they plot a vertical right angle too close to themselves and there just happens to be a wall to the south. However, they do need more care with stun bombs as you often get to see an alien fire a stun bomb point blank into a HWP parked next to it. But I guess we are talking about three different weapon types here, so they may not be as careful with a standard firearm as they are with grenades and the BB. Wish the Apocalypse aliens at least had as much sense as the UFO/TFTD aliens. In that game, they're utterly psychotic with explosives and ignore nearby allies. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 14:34, 19 September 2008 (PDT)

=== Mind Controlled then Hostile ===
If you mind control a human (civilians) in a terror mission, they become enemies when you lose control (meaning you have to kill the poor idiots to finish the mission). Any chance that they could revert to friendlies/non enemies again when you lose control.
: Now fixed by the Seb76 loader [[User:Spike|Spike]] 19:13, 11 December 2009 (EST)

=== Mind Controlled then MIA ===
Men who are under alien control when you win become MIA, any chance they could be saved (you will have killed all the aliens after all).
: I believe XComUtil fixes this MIA issue. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:22, 24 November 2008 (CST)
:: XcomUtil 9.6 also restores all DOA if you win to. Not what was intended. This feature has been removed as of 9.7 until I can fix it. --[[User:BladeFireLight|BladeFireLight]] 02:27, 6 January 2010 (EST)
: Now also fixed by the Seb76 loader [[User:Spike|Spike]] 19:13, 11 December 2009 (EST)

=== Open Doors But Don't Enter/Exit ===

Open doors like they do in TFTD (I know this is mentioned above with the good stun grenades idea).
: Now fixed by the Seb76 loader [[User:Spike|Spike]] 19:13, 11 December 2009 (EST)

=== Warm Grenades===

Currently when you set the timer on a grenade (or HE pack), the timer runs down every turn regardless of whether the grenade is worn, held, or dropped. Then, when the timer runs out, it explodes unless it is held or worn. There is no real grenade or explosive that works this way. Once the timer (fuse) starts running, they explode regardless. However for most hand grenades, the timer (fuse) doesn't start until after you throw/drop the grenade. It would be nice to have both of these real world behaviours, and lose the game's default behaviour. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:06, 3 September 2008 (PDT)

: Technically the way the game implements grenades, they don't have a timer. At least, not as such. When you set a grenade, the game just assigns it a turn to blow up on. Once the turn has passed, the game checks to see that it's on the ground and blows it up if it is, otherwise it doesn't. I believe Seb76 has already addressed this in his patches where there's an option to make grenade blow up regardless whether they are in inventory or otherwise the moment the timer is set. X-Com Apocalypse does a good job of this. The moment the grenade is so much as moved after the timer is set, it counts down. - [[User:NKF|NKF]] 23:01, 13 September 2008 (PDT)

:: To simulate an actual timer, you would need to do something like: Every turn that a primed grenade is being held by a unit during the "explode" check, increment by +1 the turn when that grenade is going to explode. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 19:10, 14 September 2008 (PDT)
:::I think I would change quantity2 ([[OBPOS.DAT]]) to a countdown instead of a turn, and use quantity3 as a flag indicating if the count has started. This flag is set any time a turn ends and the grenade has no owner. Taking it back in your hand once the timer has started won't help and the thing must be thrown... quantity2 is decreased if quantity3 is set, and the grenade blows up as usual. [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 01:35, 15 September 2008 (PDT)

: That would be great. It would be exactly consistent with a 'spoon' type hand grenade. The timer only starts when you release the grenade, but after that it explodes at a definite time regardless of whether you pick it up or not. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:22, 24 November 2008 (CST)

Implemented in [[UFO Extender]]. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 03:48, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

= Category =
The page needs to be listed in various categories, which ones I don't know. Also links on other pages to this one would aid people finding it.

: OK how about this one: [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:21, 3 September 2008 (PDT)

[[Category:Oddities and bugs]]

User talk:BenWaters

2013-04-06T08:57:10Z

BenWaters: Created page with "Why yes, this is my talk page. You can, well, talk about things. But please don't ask me overly complicated questions. Or any questions, if you prefer."

Why yes, this is my talk page. You can, well, talk about things.
But please don't ask me overly complicated questions. Or any questions, if you prefer.

User:BenWaters

2013-04-06T08:51:00Z

BenWaters: Created page with "'''ALEXANDER BENJAMIN WATERS''' A highly forgettable man, known for his affinity for (killing) the Chryssalid."

'''ALEXANDER BENJAMIN WATERS'''

A highly forgettable man, known for his affinity for (killing) the [[Chryssalid]].