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Talk:Alien Missions

2022-11-02T05:11:35Z

Keybounce: /* Aborting an enemy mission? */ new section

== No interceptors, only skyrangers, to protect bases ==
I'm curious, can people tell me if the aliens will ONLY retaliate against bases if the player is shooting down UFO's, and won't retaliate against the player always attacking UFO's while landed.

Having recently tried Superhuman for the first time, I was caught off-guard when the aliens retaliated against a base in early March for me shooting a single UFO down (in February, I think) near that base. It wasn't even in the same country... I got the impression that simply being in the same world-region draws the attack.

I decided to restart the game from scratch, disbanded all my interceptors, and only attacked UFO's using Avengers following them until they landed... this actually worked extremely well... I have the alien menace under control so far, and I've saved tons of money by not having interceptors, avalanche missiles, hangars, and all the other support infrastructure.

However, I'm actually a little disappointed that the game lets you get away with this no-intercept strategy. I think next game I will come up with a strategy to go back to interceptors with "hardened" bases very early in the game (though how I'll get cash for that, I have no idea).

If I were to come up with one improvement to the game, it would be to make air-superiority more essential throughout the game... I would make the UFO's "aggro" vs. Skyrangers -- if they spot a nearby Skyranger they will attack and destroy it! Later in the game, I would make the Battleship ALWAYS attack any SLOWER craft it spots in the air... the idea is to wear down the player's air assets and knock him out of the sky. As the game currently is, you really don't need air-superiority if you have ground-superiority!

[[User:Eric|Eric]] 21:57, 12 July 2006 (PDT)

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I've had more or less the same experience as you with Retaliations: after shooting down only one UFO, I got regular visits from a Retaliation scout on that continent.

Ground Assault-only works pretty well, but there are several cases where Interception is preferable:

* When the UFO doesn't make a landing at all (Retaliation scouts don't, for instance, and bigger ships often don't know where to land if you kill their scouts beforehand);
* Infiltration missions (4 or more ships show up at once, and unless you have 4+ Skyrangers, you'll need to shoot down one or more craft); Harvesters often show up in pairs, too;
* Distance (unless you've got multiple Skyrangers posted around the world, you might not be able to reach a UFO before it takes off again);
* Night missions (If the UFO arrives at its target at dusk, it'll probably leave before daybreak; it's easier to down it, then storm it at your leisure);
* Terror Ships (I bloody hate terror missions).

--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 10:31, 12 July 2006 (PDT)

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To be fair, after running a few non-related tests that involved getting a HWD from the very start, I have noticed that the very first UFO you spot can begin on retaliation mission.

Interceptions - or rather - shoot-downs do attract them, that's for sure.

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

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I ran into the "latency" issue with using Skyrangers, but came up with a workaround: I figured out each month what region the aliens were focusing on -- Australasia in February 1999, for example. My main (first) base with my Skyranger was on the NORTH POLE!!!, so obviously catching a UFO scout picked up on radar over Australasia before it disappeared was extremely unlikely -- a 12 hour one-way trip -- and if I did it would probably be at night anyway. Well, my workaround was, once I figured out Australasia was "targeted", I would send the Skyranger down there on a regular schedule, timed to arrive an hour or two before dawn -- the immense fuel capacity of the Skyranger allows it to loiter on station, over Australia, for over 12 hours before returning. It would then spend the next 12 hours or so refueling and then be ready for the next mission -- thus I could have a Skyranger in the region of alien activity during daylight every other day. Turns out the aliens would frequently show up early in the day and land during daylight with the Skyranger right nearby -- I snagged several UFO's on the ground in Australasia this way.

Another strategy I came up with was placing my bases specifically to be equidistant around the globe -- the idea being to pick up the UFO's far outside the target region -- South Asia in March, for example, is picked up over New Zealand -- giving me plenty of warning to launch a Skyranger... by the time the UFO has picked a landing spot, the Skyranger is close enough to snag it on the ground during daytime. My bases are on the north/south poles, baja california, north africa, taiwan, fiji, paraguay, and madagascar -- roughly on the tropics every 60 degrees. I have Skyrangers based from the poles -- the rest are listening posts (and eventually interceptor bases).

[[User:Eric|Eric]] 21:57, 12 July 2006 (PDT)

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Interesting approach. In terms of global coverage, I usually wait until I've got the Hyper-Wave to build most of my bases. One per continent generally does the trick.

Could you detail your build-out sequence more? When do you build additional bases, how many Skyrangers do you have, and when do you acquire them?

--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 22:58, 13 July 2006 (PDT)

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Yeah I'm currently torn regarding the hyperwave decoder issue... not too long after I get my bases built, the radar systems become "obsolete".

The idea is to have a "picket defense" -- rather than putting a base smack in the middle of each "high value" country, distribute bases evenly and try to pick up enemy UFO's inbound when they're far away from the high value country, and (eventually once the bases are built up) I can send multiple interceptors to converge on the UFO, because I have plenty of advance warning on where it is going.

OK, to detail my build plan: I build X-ARCTICOM first -- what can I say, I'm a fan of symmetry... it also has the benefit of being at the "center" of the northern hemisphere. I of course build an Alien Containment facility on day one. In my current game, I scrapped the third hangar and the 2nd interceptor... but if I had to do it over, strictly from a "winning" standpoint, I would scrap both of the southern hangars and both interceptors... the Skyranger is all that's required early on. But, I'm starting to think the no-intercept approach is a little cheesy so I'm trying to work out how to play the game "honest" while still maintaining my basic strategy.

On day one, I begin construction of X-NOAMERICOM, on the southern tip of Baja California. All future bases are added as money becomes available, but I give them extremely high priority in terms of funding... each base gets just long range and short range radars -- they are listening posts. The idea is, I'm trying to prevent the aliens from having any open spots they can harrass with impunity early in the game (my first Superhuman game, Australia signed a non-aggression pact in either February or March). As funding becomes availabe, the buildout is as follows:

X-NOAFRICOM (on the Prime Meridian and the Tropic of Cancer -- saharan desert)

X-SEASIACOM (western tip of Taiwan -- the closest I could get to E120 degrees)

X-AUSTRALCOM (actually in Fiji, closest to the international date line and Tropic of Capricorn)

X-SOAMERICOM (roughly paraguay -- W60 degrees and Tropic of Capricorn)

X-SOAFRICOM (Madagascar, closest to E60 degrees and Tropic of Capricorn)

X-ANTARCTICOM (south pole)

Technically the latitudes should be a tad closer to the equator to be truly equidistant (I worked the trig out once) but the tropic circles are easy to find on a map, have a pleasing simplicity to them, and the "high value real estate" is closer to the poles than the equator anyway, so nudging the bases a little closer to the poles works just fine.

The idea is to build a mirror of X-ARCTICOM down at X-ANTARCTICOM -- again, this provides both redundancy and also makes it easier to cover the southern hemisphere.

As I happened to play the game I only had one Skyranger until I built up X-ANTARCTICOM, but if I did it over again, I would probably go with two per polar base and 20 soldiers at each base -- enough for 10 men + 1 HWP per Skyranger. Then once X-ANTARCTICOM was built I would transfer one of the veteran squads from X-ARCTICOM down south and draft some new soldiers for both bases.

But, the idea is to give the the listening posts absolute top priority. Also, I've found that it's not ineffective to build small+large radars prior to the invention of the hyperwave decoder... they do the job... just not as well as the HWD. If I had to do things over, actually, I would postpone HWD research for better interceptor tech... and then once I have great interceptor bases, I would worry about having perfect UFO detection. Not that I'm opposed to HWD's... it's just a question of priorities. It's also more in keeping with what the game designers intended... they expected us to have to slug it out with simple radar tech for a while.

[[User:Eric|Eric]] 17:44, 14 July 2006 (PDT)

== More info on mission waves ==

Every mission wave will be carried out by one alien race, typically in one continental zone over one month. Regular mission waves will consist of just a few small ships, increasing in size. These are the bread and butter missions for X-COM. Retalition waves consist of a series of scouts, increasing in size, ending with a battleship. If any of them detects the base then a new battleship will head straight for the base and attack it, otherwise the retaliation wave ends harmlessly.

The medium sized harvester and research ships have a different pattern, the same ships landing repeatedly until you deal with them. Large terror ships arrive once a month to terrorise cities but can also make extra unexplained flights without landing.

Alien bases are usually constructed by the simultaneous landing of a small ship, two large supply ships, and a battleship in the same zone. It's a good idea to recover at least the small ship to see what type of alien is building the base. Thereafter, two supply ships each month fly quickly into the base and depart, too quick for interceptors and distant skyrangers. - Egor

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Something I noticed from a game I played when I made all my bases nearly impregnable with Fusion Ball Defenses and Grav Shields: The aliens seem to have a limited queue of missions. Since they were unable to break into any of my bases and had a large number of bases on Earth, the only missions I ever saw were Battleships on retaliation runs and Supply Ships on supply runs. On my newer file, where I use garrisons instead of flak, I see a lot of different types of ships on different types of missions.

--[[User:Dumas|Dumas]] 13:36, 8 November 2006 (PST)

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That is the FIRST decent reason I have seen to build base defense and avoid the tactical battles. With no infiltration or terror missions to worry about, the game becomes a lot easier. I wonder if the scenario can be easily reproduced?

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 14:32, 8 November 2006 (PST)

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I think I only managed to get the defenses up after I'd lost almost all the funding countries to infiltration. It definitely did cut down on the Terror missions, though. The Harvest, Abduction, etc. also went down a lot. The large amount of research required to obtain Fusion Balls would make it impractical, I think. You would need to assault an Alien Base or large UFO (I'm not sure which ones carry Blasters) for the Blaster Launcher (or take one on a base defense mission). The Grav Shield requires even more time for development since it follows the Lightning. And of course you have to do research for armour and troop weapons, too.

Add on top of that the high cost of the defenses ($1.2Mil for the Shield, $800K per Launcher...say, $5.2Mil for five Launchers and a Shield) and the month-long construction, and I'm not so sure that base defense missions are worth avoiding. Also, the Battle ships seemed to come every five minutes or so.

--[[User:Dumas|Dumas]] 15:01, 8 November 2006 (PST)

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It sounds like good points, both ways... it sounds potentially really interesting, but it's also true that timing is everything... Many of us can probably get to a stable place where we've usually retained every country by the time we have the Hyperwave, ships, and men to shoot down or let land anything we want... At which point the cash is also rolling in and lots of defenses can be made... But once you reach that point, it becomes kind of moot, the need to channel UFO waves away from infiltration and terror... Hmm. Unless one is playing particular self-imposed variants (like, no Psi attacking), the rush for Hyperwave, Psi, and Avenger is probably the quickest course to domination. Hmm... - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 15:39, 8 November 2006 (PST)

== Retaliation Tradeoffs ==

Some people seem to indicate that shooting down a Retaliation Scout will intensify retaliation efforts, as if in some cases it's better to just hope the scout doesn't find the base. This seems a little strange on the surface, given there's already a retaliation mission underway, and in the end the key is to prevent the scout from finding your base -- shooting it down would seem to guarantee that.

However, I also read that retaliation scouting is performed by a series of ever larger craft until they find the base.

This makes me wonder if perhaps what's really going on is that shooting down a smaller scout will cause the next-larger and more dangerous scout to quickly appear... so it accelerates the escalation of retaliation scouting efforts by the aliens. I'm guessing that perhaps the larger the scouting UFO, the better its base detection capabilities. Perhaps you're better off risking a small scout wasting time looking, than to shoot down several UFO's until you have battleships scouting the area and posing a far greater threat.

The upshot being, if you have total air-superiority -- HWD coverage spotting everything, backed up by plenty of heavily armed Firestorms/Avengers to knock anything and everything immediately out of the sky -- go ahead and actively thwart the retaliation scouting missions, but if you only have limited air-defenses, you're better off crossing your fingers that they don't spot your base before the end of the month (the retaliation scouting mission terminates at the end of the month, yes?).

[[User:Eric|Eric]] 13:59, 9 December 2006 (PST)

* If the scout does not find your base, shooting down a retaliation scout has the same effect as shooting down any other UFO: the next retaliation scout UFO is delayed. Shooting down anything near your base can start a series of Retalation Scouts, as can simply scoring a lot of points.
* If your base is ''not'' found by any UFOs in the Retaliation mission series in [[MISSIONS.DAT]] (including the searching Battleships), the series will end normally.
* I do not know what the representation of a base being targeted for a base defense mission is, in the save files. It seems to be more of a fact about a base.

-- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 17:07, 10 December 2006 (CST)

LOL... I should have known that it was a waste of time for me to speculate on the inner workings of the game, when this group has already thoroughly dissected the game files and know how almost all of it works. Reading that MISSION.DAT page almost ruined the game for me... I'll have to make sure not to study it too much... the amazing thing about X-COM for me was always the mysterious behavior of the aliens.

[[User:Eric|Eric]] 07:13, 11 December 2006 (PST)

==Retaliation and Defenses==

:''Once your base is located, they will continuously send Battleships at the base until one breaks through your defences. They will not stop until this happens.''

Does this mean that base defenses are all basically valueless (except maybe Mind Shield), unless you basically want to get stuck with a constant stream of battleships attacking you over and over leaving little room for anything else to happen in the game (probably make for a very high score I guess)?

I have never really bothered with defenses because its more interesting to do the base defense missions to vary things from time to time, but seems a little odd that it is set up like this. Would the retaliations stop at the end of a month?

--[[User:Sfnhltb|Sfnhltb]] 00:26, 4 March 2007 (PST)

: That is correct. They just keep coming until one comes through. Well, one for each group of aliens targeting that base, that is. I think we have discussed either on the wiki or on one of our associated web forums that destroying the battleship this way does not generate any activity points. But getting more concrete data always helps.

: The only real benefit of having impenetrable base defenses would be if you need some time to prepare for the battle, either through getting more soldiers, more equipment or going so far as to reshape the corridor layout in your base. Once you're ready, reduce the effectiveness of your defences and have at it.

:- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

::It suddenly occurs to me that since base defenses don't reduce the number of aliens that show up unless they shoot down the battleship altogether (right?), then they're totally useless unless they're impenetrable (and then you'll have to see the base defenses screen constantly).--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 02:29, 4 March 2007 (PST)

:::Well like a lot of things, if a battleship is destroyed by defenses is left up to chance. I've seen 3 Fusion defense hits take out a battleship, and 3 hits that don't. If you have less than optimal defenses like say 2 Fusion defenses and a shield (effectively 4 fusions) you will repel a good amount of attacks on the base, and hopefully the first one in case you didn't know it was coming (which I guess is absurd as you should have HWDs if you have good enough defenses) or you're not prepared for a battle (those HWPs aren't built quite yet). Hopefully the first few times the attack wouldn't get through, but in time it should. I remember Tsereve complaining how the aliens got through his defenses (which were pretty good, 3 or 4 fusion balls and a grav shield). The likely-hood of them penetrating it was less than a percent (I think). So I guess they are never truly 'impenetrable', but it's easy to get improbable odds.

:::It's kind of a wacky theory or situation to need it though, by the time you have these uber-defenses, the aliens should be putty in your hand. All in all I believe you get zip for shooting down a UFO this way, not even score (if there is a score it's little and less than the score from saving your base). Compare that to the spoils of the base defense and it seems rather obvious. I'll admit that I don't like base defense missions (especially early on) as I seem to do bad with them (getting better).

:::If I get around to working on PyXCOM some more, one of the things I'm hoping to 'add' is that base defenses will lower the number of aliens seen in combat, by simply 'simulating' the damage they would do and removing aliens before combat. (Exact scaling of such reduction I'm not sure of)
:::My 2 cents --[[User:Pi Masta|Pi Masta]] 18:51, 4 March 2007 (PST)

::::If the next battleship in the sequence had to find out the previous was blown up, prep, and come into earth with a few hours delay then I could see some point to them, as you could marshal your defenses to some extent while the first few are knocked out, transfer across some soldiers and weapons etc, and then let them in (which I guess if you had big enough defenses to hold them off, would probably involved disbanding your grav shield or something, which is fairly extreme thing to have to do). With it being a few minutes, it would just be a drag to have to wait out hundreds of battleship attacks while you got ready. And the same point you made - how can you have that much air defense in a base, but not enough ground defense, its far cheaper and easier to get together some soldiers, a few half decent weapons, and a few hwps on each base and beat up them up the first time they come for any reasonable strategy I can think of. --[[User:Sfnhltb|Sfnhltb]] 19:03, 4 March 2007 (PST)

::Mostly my point was the "lesser" defenses are really pretty pointless: you either build a superdefense or it's useless (provided you like watching the defense screen repeatedly anyway). One aspect of the game the devs failed to tune right. Can't complain; base defense is still fun.--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 00:56, 5 March 2007 (PST)

==What does it take for Alien Infiltration to be successful?==

- I (tequilachef) had the following situation: After two failed attempts to infiltrate China (I had shot down every single UFO participating in the infiltrations, even the battleships) one single battleship returned on an infiltration mission (i am absolutely certain China was not infiltrated at this point). I shot down the UFO over India and checked the area for an alien base just to be certain... China had been infiltrated. Then I tried the following: I reloaded an savegame about 2-3 days before the battleship turned up. I ordered my Avengers (8 in total) to take up positions all over the globe. Even when shooting down the craft rigth after entering the atmosphere and thereby sending it to the ground of the antarctic sea (which is about 10.000 miles from China) the infiltration was successful. This made me wonder how infiltration works. My most intelligent guess was that even infiltration attempts that fail get the aliens some "infiltration points" for that specific country or area, depending on how long the UFOs are operational. This would explain why there was just one craft on that mission and why infiltrating China was sucessful. The ailens were only short very few points! My question to all the X-COM scientists around here: have you discovered the mechanics behind infiltration? Have you seen similar situations?

Zombie says, "According to my preliminary results, Russia cannot be infiltrated in the CE version of X-COM so losing the game by this method is impossible." (Jun 16, 2005, StrategyCore forums)

Several players have however offered a different opinion on this matter and have lost Russia.

: Precident from alien base operations would suggest that the infiltration occurs when the last UFO enters earth atmosphere--[[User:(name here)|(name here)]] 09:15, 27 August 2008 (PDT)

For every single other (non-retaliation) mission, shooting down a ship doesn't stop the next ships from arriving, it ONLY delays them. However, shooting them down can keep the aliens from scoring points, or prevent them from deploying a terror mission or building a base. (Right? They don't repeat those if shot down, correct?) What about infiltration missions, though? The battleships don't need to land to be successful. Are you doomed to suffer infiltration no more than two months after the mission is initiated, and keep losing countries like that forever? [[User:Sowelu|Sowelu]] 20:39, 4 March 2011 (EST)

== How do missions work ==

I'd like to know how missions work. In previous games (back in the 90s) I've seen quite a few abductors and harvesters. Now, not a single one. Is it possible that my early interception has become too good? Will the aliens cancel missions? Alternatively: in [[MISSIONS.DAT]] it says that downing one UFO will delay the arrival of the next one on the same mission... is there a maximum time per mission, so if the last ships are delayed too long they won't come at all?

All I see once HWDs are up are retaliation, infiltration, and terror missions. Incidentally, neither of these can be prevented by downing scouts. So is it just bad luck when I never get a harvest or abduction mission? --[[User:Schnobs|Schnobs]] 16:00, 29 October 2007 (PDT)

: The maximum time to the next UFO in a series seems to be on the order of three weeks (this is a soft number). Note that Terror sites can be prevented by downing Terrorships. If there indeed is a "maximum missions at once" limit (don't have hard confirmation), Infiltration will clog things up eventually because it loops back instead of terminating. --[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 11:11, 30 October 2007 (CDT)

== Supply mission probabilities ==

Every day, each alien base has a 5% chance of spawning a supply mission. If someone wants to play with this, the probability is dictated here (gold edition):

.text:00441DC6 cmp ax, 6
.text:00441DCA jnb short continue
[[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 11:28, 9 March 2008 (PDT)

==Alien Origins, Martian Solution, Cydonia/Bust==

They aren't alien missions. Can we move them to a separate page? I don't know the wiki code to do it though. Same goes for the template.

: Simple enough - copy and paste the relevant bits, then paste the contents into a new article. Edit the old article to remove the bits you moved. Voila!

: To edit any templates that are used in a page, open that page's edit screen, then check the bottom. You'll see a list of templates that are currently in use by the page since the last save. Click on them to bring any of them up and then edit them as you would a normal page.

: With the above topics though, they are probably better covered in the research section or any section that covers missions that you can go on, like terror missions or base attacks. On the other hand, they are also not listed on the page as alien missions and just listed as related topics. They do lead to the end-game mission, which is a mission certainly but not a job the UFOs perform. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 03:02, 30 July 2009 (EDT)

It certainly doesn't belong in the Alien Missions template or page, since there's no relation either through Alien Navigators or in terms of needing the mission data for the game-ending research. It really belongs in a separate page, maybe "Alien Research"? After all, that's what the UFOpaedia category is called, and AO/tMS/CoB are more Alien Research-ish than the Alien Mission data. So I'd want to move "Alien Research" to "Alien Research (Alien Mission)" and create a separate page for the AO/tMS/CoB called "Alien Research". This ok? And would it be worth listing the TFTD AO/tUT/T,tA'sC there too? [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] 05:36, 31 July 2009 (EDT)

: I agree the Research discussions don't really belong on this page. But rather than creating a new page, there is already a category page "[[Research]]", which is linked from the site homepage, and also from this page in the See Also section. The various articles linked-to off this category page cover most of the topics you're discussing. I would suggest instead that you review those articles and see if anything needs adding to clarify these issues around Alien Origins etc - quite possibly they do need updating. I'm not sure it makes sense to add a new page called Alien Research - with a few exceptions (the laser weapons, medkits, motion sensors), all Research is Alien Research of one kind or another. So possibly remove the references from the current page and replace them with a very brief summary and pointer(s) to the appropriate Research page(s)? [[User:Spike|Spike]] 10:07, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

They do sort of form a unit, but maybe it's covered sufficiently elsewhere on the site. The reason I thought of such a name was because it's research into the aliens themselves (ie where are they from, what are they doing, how do we stop them). [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] 08:27, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

:Yes the "Research into the nature of the Alien threat" is conceptually related. It's almost the opposite of what's on this page, which is the Aliens' own activities. I think a cross-reference to Research is what is needed, and maybe an edit to a Research page (or a new Research page) to specifically discuss these related topics. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:57, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

== UFOs over Russia ==

Just a comment on the last update:

UFOs do appear over Russia. It's the withdrawal of Russia as a funding nation that is difficult to achieve. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 15:46, 6 January 2012 (EST)

== Aborting an enemy mission? ==

Is it possible to abort an enemy mission, or force it to fail?

Is the only consequence of shooting down ships being just a delay in the next ones? Once a mission starts, does it always eventually succeed?

Do all bases eventually get built? 
Do all government infiltrations succeed in taking out a funding nation? 
Etc. 
Do your actions actually accomplish anything?

What I think I'm reading here is that all you can do by shooting things down is delay the next wave. And if you shoot down enough things, and delay them long enough, then you eventually reach the point of so many aliens in the air at once, with so many missions being active at once, that you are overwhemed -- which matches my play observations around april.

So is shooting down UFO's actually counter productive? If they are going to do things, is it better to let them have "normal spacing", so you can avoid being overwhelmed later on?

Can you actually accomplish anything with downing the scouts and light ships?
[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] ([[User talk:Keybounce|talk]]) 06:11, 2 November 2022 (CET)

Talk:Alien Missions

2022-11-02T05:03:09Z

Keybounce: First entry had no title, messing up the ToC.

Talk:MISSIONS.DAT

2022-10-23T05:13:51Z

Keybounce: Forgot to sign it

Some questions [Zaimoni: now answered empirically]:
* What is going on with the start time for 0/0 on Research missions? The Jan 1999 one is always 2.5h, but I recently saw an Antarctica Research mission at 3d for 0/0.
* How consistently does the time to the next UFO react to a successful Battlescape game? (I just saw a Retaliation 1/1 go from 7Eh to 136h upon successful completion.)

--[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 6:50 Sept 21 2006 CDT

I couldn't understand much of your research but it made me wonder about one question: is it possible to determine the amount of UFO missions and their types that you will see during a month (and also the areas?). Or are those set in a total random fashion?

If so this could be considered as spoilers but it could also be used for an article describing alien strategy on the field manual.

--[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 18:39, 21 September 2006 (PDT)

MISSIONS.DAT is a spoiler, definitely. It stores the time (in 30-minute increments) for all non-Supply scheduled UFOs that have not arrived yet. While it won't tell you all of the UFOs arriving in the month, it will positively ID arrival time, mission, physical type, and race of each one in the queue. I'm in the middle of redocumenting it.

My current conjecture is that the 0..3 sequence indexes the "size" of the UFO. The legacy content just listing ufo-c coordinates is misleading (it seems to be enumerating the visible sequence of ufos), but I want to positively observe the entire sequence of ufo-c/ufo-sub-c pairs before updating.

At all times, the current mission types and areas are in MISSIONS.DAT...except for supply missions. You really want a Hyperwave Decoder covering each alien base you're harvesting. So far, Beginner and Superhuman schedule the same at the beginning of the months after Jan 1999: 1 Terror mission, one non-terror mission. I don't know the criteria for scheduling Retaliation missions. (I've never seen them show up except immediately after Battlescape missions, but that obviously isn't exhaustive.]

Particularly interesting: Battlescape messes with the arrival time of the next mission after the one you're cleaning up on. This needs more careful analysis (e.g., is it just mission completion?)

--[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 22:35 Sept 21 2006 CDT

The increase in time to next UFO occurs either (or both) at shootdown, or at the start of the Battlescape mission. Since I used XCOMUtil interceptor with six soldiers for this test, I can't tell which one. No change between the beginning and the end of the Battlescape mission. [But a genuine Terrorship will happen soon enough...that gets a no-crew Interceptor and a full Skyranger.]

--[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 23:51 Sept 21 2006 CDT
:After a shootdown, the next UFO for that mission is delayed between 1 and ~9 days ( the formula is 48+RAND()*400 half hours ). A retaliation mission will be scheduled if RAND()*100 < 4*(24-difficultyLevel).
:If RAND()*100 < (50-6*difficultyLevel), the retaliation mission will use the same zone as the shot UFO, else it'll be the zone containing the base the craft in coming from. The first UFO is scheduled in 100 half-hours (the value is taken from the table I speak of later at the bottom of this page).
:[[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 18:56, 12 July 2008 (PDT)
<hr>

I don't think I'll be continuing this savegame, but I just had a Feb 1999 that only generated a new Terror Mission. The other mission...not visible. [I may have messed it up — I did edit the Jan 1999 Terror mission from Europe to Southern Africa.]

--[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 10:38 Dec 30 2006 CDT

== Retaliation ==

Zaimoni, I've been thinking about the comment about HWD's activating retaliation missions from the start. Are you able to check the mission types of the first couple of UFOs through mission.dat without editing the HWD stats onto the base? I'm not entirely convinced that retaliation missions are instigated by having a hyperwave decoder (stats or the module).

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

: Yes, I can check (and have checked) that by hex editor. [It's a moderately different game with total information on arrival times and mission types...much easier to resume after a month or so hiatus.] I haven't tested with a game whose Hyperwave detection was edited.

: I normally save immediately after starting a new game to apply my custom soldier editor to the game. While I'm at it, I check MISSIONS.DAT. I have always gotten two missions: a Research mission in the same region as my starting base, and a terror mission with a decidedly non-uniform random distribution of location that I haven't bothered to try to analyze.

: I'm not sure whether there's a random component to getting a Retalation series scheduled by shooting down the first Research UFO, or whether it's just hypersensitive to some sort of detail. If the series is not significantly interfered with, the base defense mission would happen 2-3 weeks in.

: --[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 3:23 Mar 20 2007 CDT

Just ran some quick checks, nothing too intensive.
* Editing hyperwave detection in a hex editor: no obvious effect, but would have to tweak the initial MISSIONS.DAT (move the Terror Act to within range) to be absolutely sure. The game does not transmogrify Research UFOs in real-time; I need to test Terror UFOs.
* Start a new game after abandoning one: race information is not cleared in MISSIONS.DAT, but other information is cleared. In particular, both ufo-c and subufo-c are overwritten to their defaults.

--[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 23:11 Apr 11 2007 CDT

'''so''', the question which should be asked:

Is it too difficult to make an editor which changes the sequences? I dunno anything with hex-editors, programming, high level mathematics, etc. It would be interesting to have an opportunity to spawn multiple UFO everyday and not be able to shoot them all down as which is the case for the current mode of EU (and TFTD). The only thing that comes close to something of this current scenario is an inflitration mission where you have 5+ alien ships all at once and not having the capability to deal with them all. I dunno... i just wish having more tweaks to make it harder would be a good thing as opposite to just using editors to dull the technology of xcom to increase difficulty.

Six terror sites at once??? hell yeah! [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]]

: It should be safe to create Retaliation acts and Terror acts by directly editing MISSIONS.DAT, there will be no internal consistency issues with other files. Editing existing entries in MISSIONS.DAT to other valid entries should be safe (note that not all mission types have been authoritatively mapped). Editing duration should be safe, but problems could happen with invalid races or UFO c/sub-c pairs. Creating other mission types will require counter-editing ACTS.DAT. I haven't specifically checked the behavior of ZONAL.DAT when spawning new acts.

: The ufo-c/ufo-sub-c pair 0/0 is always valid, at least.

: Research, Base, Terror, and Retaliation have fully documented ufo-c/ufo-sub-c pairs. I haven't done any verification at all for Abduction or Infiltration.

: Changing the relative durations between UFOs, time delays incurred when shooting down UFOs, or number of missions spawned per month, requires finding that information first. --[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 10:16 Oct 17 2007 CDT

Just a note to add to this section lest I forget, and as late follow up to the notes that re on the page: back when I first got the idea that the first UFO was on a retaliation mission, I did not know that there was a 2% chance for every UFO to generate a retaliation mission. Armed with this knowledge, this is probably the sequence of events that happened to me at the time: I shot down the first UFO, recovered it and then got my base attacked. The 2% might've triggered then. This would very well the impression I had that UFOs could start on retaliation missions. They don't, but they can generate an attack. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 03:10, 3 June 2010 (EDT)

== Alien missions data discovered in geoscape.exe [finally ;-)] ==

OK guys, here's a big one: alien missions data is located in the executable at offset 0x70E70 (gold edition) ; it starts with these values (all 16bit words):

.data:00470E70 structAlienMission <5, 1, 0, 12Ch>
.data:00470E70 structAlienMission <6, 1, 2, 104h>
.data:00470E70 structAlienMission <7, 2, 4, 12Ch>
.data:00470E70 structAlienMission 5 dup(<0FFFFh, 0FFFFh, 0FFFFh, 0FFFFh>)
...
It goes on for 64x4x2 bytes (7 mission types and possible data for additional 'supply' type mission).

Every mission type has 8 entries consisting of 4 words.
First word is the ship type, second is the number of ship of this type to spawn successively (each uses the same time counter), and 4th correspond to the time counter in [[MISSIONS.DAT]]. 3rd one is unknown for now.

The example below is for research mission: one small scout (type 5), then one medium scout (type 6) and finally 2 large scouts (type 7).
The time counter is calculated like this: time*RAND()+time/2.
Anyone care to hack the binaries to confirm this? [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 10:58, 9 March 2008 (PDT)

: Time calculation looks good for those UFOs with randomized time (there are a few known exceptions). -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 10:16 10 March 2008 (CDT)

: It would be very good to locate what controls fixed vs randomized times for the normal missions. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 10:59 13 July 2008 (CDT)

The 3rd word of missions is UFO_trajectory_type. It refers into table at address .data:00471070. So there are 10 types of trajectories possible, with maximum 8 waypoints.
.data:00471070 ufo_10_types_52___ dw 5 ; UFO_Waypoint_count
.data:00471070 dw 5, 0, 0, 1, 5, -1, -1, -1; UFO_Waypoint_Site
.data:00471070 dw 4, 3, 1, 1, 2, 0, 0, 0; UFO_Waypoint_Altitude
.data:00471070 dw 100, 74, 28, 47,100, 0, 0, 0; UFO_Waypoint_Speed
.data:00471070 dw 3000 ; Ground_Timer
--[[User:Volutar|Volutar]] 05:59, 14 April 2011 (EDT)

The 3rd "word" is called a ''Mission Plan'' in the dev notes I have. As Volutar mentioned, there are 10 types, and I'll list the internal descriptions here

Plan Description
0 Low level reconnaissance
1 Intense low level reconnaissance
2 Occasional landings
3 Occasional abductions
4 Systematic abductions
5 Reconnaissance for base
6 Establishing base
7 Visit major cities
8 Destroy <nowiki>[X-COM]</nowiki> base
9 Base Supply

--[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] ([[User talk:Zombie|talk]]) 06:10, 31 July 2018 (CEST)

==Clarification pls==

- So all these missions, once started, will continue in the precise sequence no matter what?

:: Yes; only most of these tables have been verified by inspection of the savegame files in a hex editor, however. Infiltration has not. Matching the savegame file behavior against the in-game data Seb76 has located is tricky. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]]

- What about the whole thing with whether it's found the site or not (e.g. Terror Ships finding/not finding a city to raid, Battleships finding/not finding your base)? Does this apply to all missions?

:: The base assault battleships are not on the Retaliation Act sequence, they're controlled by [[XBASES.DAT]]. Reverse-engineering how the Retaliation Act ships find bases hasn't been precisely done yet (don't let the UFOs get too close to the base), mind shielding reduces the range at which a UFO can spot a base.

::: So the two battleships that don't ever spot your base are unrelated to the battleships that come if you're spotted? [[User:magic9mushroom]]

:::: Correct. I've had entire Retaliation Acts cycle without scheduling a base attack battleship, but this was with [[XBASES.DAT]] never flagging a base for retaliation.

:: As for Terror Ships: whether a UFO lands or not, appears to be controlled by its ufo-c/ufo-sub-c indexing. If they have orders to land, they won't have problems finding an appropriate site. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]]

::: So that means that of the two Terror Ship indexes you have listed, only one occurs in any given mission? [[User:magic9mushroom]]

:::: For all act types, the indexes are incremented in strictly increasing order (with all ufo-sub-c indexes run through before the ufo-c index is incremented). It may take more than one hour for a ufo to reach hyperwave detection with incomplete hyperwave coverage. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]]

:::::So are there two Terror Ships per mission or not?

:::::: The separation between Terror Ship 2/0 and Terror Ship 3/0 is a few days, so it's conceptually two missions with one Terror Ship each with the Terror Act. Empirical research into ufo behavior suggests that if they are not shot down, Terror Ship 2/0 never lands, while Terror Ship 3/0 always lands (and gives you a terror site). -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]]

- With the infiltration, what does the "it starts again" mean? Does that mean that once an infiltration mission has started in a zone, endless infiltrations will run there until all countries there are infiltrated?

:: Infiltration is the only mission type that loops. It will continue even after all countries in the zone have been infiltrated. Russia is empirically immune to infiltration in all versions higher than DOS 1.0. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]]

::: So what happens at the conclusion of an Infiltration mission after all countries in the zone are infiltrated? Does a country outside the zone get infiltrated? Does no country get infiltrated? [[User:magic9mushroom]]

::::Nothing happens. Was rather fortunate to experience this a few times - and when I ran a no-funding-country scenario where I edited the save and flagged all the countries as withdrawn. Rather amusing to see them infiltrate an already infiltrated country and yield no results. In this case, the only real impact is the area activity points, which the neighbours will notice. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 05:30, 10 August 2009 (EDT)

- It says the order for infiltrations is Terror ship -> Battleship -> Supply ship -> Battleship, but my own experience contradicts this - I shot down each UFO in an infiltration run, and the sequence was Terror ship -> Supply ship -> Battleship -> Battleship.

:: While Infiltration has not been verified by me in-game yet, the tables all assume that all UFOs in the sequence are detected. This is more interesting if this was with the Hyperwave Decoder. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 8:42, 9 August 2009 (CDT)

::: It was with a Hyper-Wave Decoder and I shot down each before the next appeared. [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] 04:07, 10 August 2009 (EDT)

:::: All eight are in the executable, in the order specified in MISSIONS.DAT. However, the four mentioned are pretty much "in a row": the sixth should arrive exactly one hour later after the fifth, and so on. That is, you have one hour to shoot down the Terror Ship to delay the three others by ~2 weeks. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 9:37, 10 August 2009 (CDT)

::::: Well, it was days between detecting each one. They definitely arrived in the order Terror Ship, Supply Ship, Battleship, Battleship.

:::::: See it in the executable, fixing that now. (Mapping duration from executable to empirical is tricky, as is estimating turning points and landing counts.) -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]], 9:37, 10 August 2009 (CDT)

Thanks in advance. [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] 04:14, 9 August 2009 (EDT)

I understood what mean third entry in section Alien Data Missions at executable file.
As I said in forum Seeing speeds of USO sub we can determine the mission of this USO sub even without transmission resolver - even in january 2040
Every USO sub in every missions (interdiction, colony, probe and other) have unique speeds and we can determine mission of USO on their speed
And we can determine what amount of times a sub touch down on his mission - because every mission has unique rule for touch down USO subs
And we can determine what amount of time USO Sub will touch down on their mission - because every Sub in every mission has unique and ALWAYS equal amoun of time to touch down (p.s. this time we can see in file Loc.dat)

And third entry - it's index of speeds of sub.

I have table of speeds of all USO subs. Where can locate it?

== Non-scheduled Terror Missions ==

What is it known on terror missions which are NOT in MISSIONS.DAT? At least in TFTD, such missions are, as a rule, on the 1st of each month, 1:00 (are they always ship route attacks?). Saving the game before the attack but after the midnight (1st, 0:00), and next loading and continuing it, always leads to a mission in the same (exact) location, on the same type of the ship, and with the same alien race (or Mixed Crew). Only numbers of particular creatures of a given race can change. So, the mission properties must be stored somewhere between the midnight and 1:00 (when the attack occurs). The game must store this information somewhere, and it is not MISSION.DAT for sure.

Such a first-o'clock alien terror mission does not influence the normal, scheduled alien missions (so, it is even possible to have another terror mission just few hours after the first one, if only the other mission had been scheduled). Where is it stored?

Does a similar phenomenon occur in UFO:EU as well?

[[File:Nstm.zip]] - a set of savegames for tests, the explanation inside.

[[User:Sherlock|Sherlock]] 20:24, 30 January 2013 (EST)

:It's in [[LOC.DAT]]. As in, the terror site already existed before it became visible to you, so you actually saved AFTER the attack started. -  [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] ([[User_talk:Bomb_Bloke|Talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bomb_Bloke|Contribs]]) 02:02, 31 January 2013 (EST)

== Addresses ==

I'm not great at this sort of thing so I'd like to know if the following is correct. Zaimoni's example, ''"E.g. infiltration(3) in Europe(4) would have the offset 3*8+4*(7*8)=0xF8"'' means the entries are ordered by missiontype*8 + region*56 (respectively from [[ACTS.DAT]] and [[ZONAL.DAT]]) ???

Running that logic through excel I generated the addresses below. I guess they make sense; it could look like what's going on in-game though I don't have any saves where I am dead-certain what missions are running... which is what brought me to this page... :)

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:90%;"
|-
! Adr.Hex !! Mission
|-
| 0 || Research in North America
|-
| 8 || Harvest in North America
|-
| 10 || Abduction in North America
|-
| 18 || Infiltration in North America
|-
| 20 || Base in North America
|-
| 28 || Terror in North America
|-
| 30 || Retaliation in North America
|-
| 38 || Research in Arctic
|-
| 40 || Harvest in Arctic
|-
| 48 || Abduction in Arctic
|-
| 50 || Infiltration in Arctic
|-
| 58 || Base in Arctic
|-
| 60 || Terror in Arctic
|-
| 68 || Retaliation in Arctic
|-
| 70 || Research in Antarctic
|-
| 78 || Harvest in Antarctic
|-
| 80 || Abduction in Antarctic
|-
| 88 || Infiltration in Antarctic
|-
| 90 || Base in Antarctic
|-
| 98 || Terror in Antarctic
|-
| A0 || Retaliation in Antarctic
|-
| A8 || Research in South America
|-
| B0 || Harvest in South America
|-
| B8 || Abduction in South America
|-
| C0 || Infiltration in South America
|-
| C8 || Base in South America
|-
| D0 || Terror in South America
|-
| D8 || Retaliation in South America
|-
| E0 || Research in Europe
|-
| E8 || Harvest in Europe
|-
| F0 || Abduction in Europe
|-
| F8 || Infiltration in Europe
|-
| 100 || Base in Europe
|-
| 108 || Terror in Europe
|-
| 110 || Retaliation in Europe
|-
| 118 || Research in North Africa
|-
| 120 || Harvest in North Africa
|-
| 128 || Abduction in North Africa
|-
| 130 || Infiltration in North Africa
|-
| 138 || Base in North Africa
|-
| 140 || Terror in North Africa
|-
| 148 || Retaliation in North Africa
|-
| 150 || Research in South Africa
|-
| 158 || Harvest in South Africa
|-
| 160 || Abduction in South Africa
|-
| 168 || Infiltration in South Africa
|-
| 170 || Base in South Africa
|-
| 178 || Terror in South Africa
|-
| 180 || Retaliation in South Africa
|-
| 188 || Research in Central Asia
|-
| 190 || Harvest in Central Asia
|-
| 198 || Abduction in Central Asia
|-
| 1A0 || Infiltration in Central Asia
|-
| 1A8 || Base in Central Asia
|-
| 1B0 || Terror in Central Asia
|-
| 1B8 || Retaliation in Central Asia
|-
| 1C0 || Research in Southeast Asia
|-
| 1C8 || Harvest in Southeast Asia
|-
| 1D0 || Abduction in Southeast Asia
|-
| 1D8 || Infiltration in Southeast Asia
|-
| 1E0 || Base in Southeast Asia
|-
| 1E8 || Terror in Southeast Asia
|-
| 1F0 || Retaliation in Southeast Asia
|-
| 1F8 || Research in Siberia
|-
| 200 || Harvest in Siberia
|-
| 208 || Abduction in Siberia
|-
| 210 || Infiltration in Siberia
|-
| 218 || Base in Siberia
|-
| 220 || Terror in Siberia
|-
| 228 || Retaliation in Siberia
|-
| 230 || Research in Australasia
|-
| 238 || Harvest in Australasia
|-
| 240 || Abduction in Australasia
|-
| 248 || Infiltration in Australasia
|-
| 250 || Base in Australasia
|-
| 258 || Terror in Australasia
|-
| 260 || Retaliation in Australasia
|-
| 268 || Research in Wilderness
|-
| 270 || Harvest in Wilderness
|-
| 278 || Abduction in Wilderness
|-
| 280 || Infiltration in Wilderness
|-
| 288 || Base in Wilderness
|-
| 290 || Terror in Wilderness
|-
| 298 || Retaliation in Wilderness
|}

--[[User:Tlist|Tlist]] ([[User talk:Tlist|talk]]) 13:46, 25 May 2014 (EDT)

== Something's off with Zombie's numbers ==

I hate to contradict the great Zombie, but the countdown timers here seem to have an off-by-one. The numbers as they are now predict a 3x Abductor flotilla for Abduction, a 2xLarge Scout+Terror+Supply+2xBB flotilla for Infiltration, and a Medium Scout+Large Scout+2xSupply+BB flotilla for Base, but in all three cases the first of those is not actually part of the flotilla. We need to fix this, but I'm not sure how because I don't know where the data is in GEOSCAPE.EXE (I have DOS version). Can anyone help me out here? [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] ([[User talk:Magic9mushroom|talk]]) 07:34, 31 August 2019 (CEST)

Okay, I've got it. It ''is'' an off-by-one. The time index associated with a UFO in the data files is not the countdown timer to that UFO. It's the amount of time ''added'' to the countdown timer when that UFO is spawned - i.e. the timer for the ''next'' UFO. The countdown timer for the first UFO in the mission is presumably set during mission creation, and is not stored with the rest of the mission data (this explains why it can be different for the first vs. subsequent Alien Research missions, as that one is not generated in the usual fashion).

As such, I'm going to move all the times given (which are correct, but misinterpreted) down one row, and put question-marks in the top row (since I don't actually know most of them, except Terror which I empirically know to always be 2.5h). [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] ([[User talk:Magic9mushroom|talk]]) 08:46, 31 August 2019 (CEST)

== Aborting an enemy mission? ==

Is there any way to abort an enemy mission, or will it always run through every ship in the list, and ultimtely succeed?

In particular, once an infiltration mission starts, will some country *always* defect no matter what?

Once a terror mission starts, will some city *always* be terrorized no matter what?

Once a base construction mission starts, will a base always be built?

Destroying scouts and other ships will *delay* these; is there any way to actually prevent them?

Similarly, will base retaliation missions eventually always succeed?

[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] ([[User talk:Keybounce|talk]]) 07:13, 23 October 2022 (CEST)

Talk:MISSIONS.DAT

2022-10-23T05:11:56Z

Keybounce: /* Aborting an enemy mission? */ new section

Info (OpenXcom)

2016-04-03T23:08:34Z

Keybounce: /* What is X-COM? */

== What is X-COM? ==

[[Info|Haha you're kidding right?]]

X-Com (with the dash) is a simulation of an alien invasion of earth. It is composed of two parts.

In part 1, you are focused on globe-level activities: Tracking UFO actions around the world (possibly shooting them down, or sending troops to the sites of ship landings), keeping governments happy with your actions, getting funding money from various governments, and spending it on soldiers and equipment.

In part 2, you are in a turn-based, tactical, grid-based combat simulation, with fog-of-war; your goal is generally to defeat (capture or kill) the aliens in that battle. More accurately, you are scored based on a variety of functions (aliens killed, innocent bystanders killed, etc), and your goal is to be positive. It is possible to have to flee but still have positive points (considered a marginal victory -- you might not have stopped the aliens, but you did enough damage that your funding nations will be happy enough).

Most, but not all, of these battles will involve an alien ship, either intact or damaged.

The overall gameplay alternates between globe-level, and single-battlefield level, until either your forces are completely wiped out, or you have defeated the enemy invasion.

== What is OpenXcom? ==

[[OpenXcom]] is an open-source clone of the original [[X-COM]], licensed under the GPL and written in C++ / SDL. It was originally founded by [[User:SupSuper|SupSuper]] in February 2009, and has since grown into a small development team surrounded by a very supporting community.

The goal of the project is to bring back the tried and true feel of the original with none of the issues. All the same graphics, sound and gameplay with a brand new codebase written from scratch. This should give it:

*'''Fixability''': Play the game natively without any need for emulators or fancy hacks, with none of the limitations and bugs that plagued the original. No more 80-item-limit, personnel limits, funding overflows, disconnected facilities, broken proximity grenades, floating soldiers, etc.

*'''Moddability''': Tweak the game to your heart's content. Sure the original was pretty good, but maybe you just think it could be that bit better. A nicer base layout, better laser weapons, maybe challenge yourself with a custom game mode, or just put in all the crazy stuff you've always wanted! None of it is hardcoded.

*'''Flexibility''': Port the game to any platform you like, customize it to your liking, or use it to make your own far-fetched remakes. The code is fully documented and open-source so anyone can take a crack at it.

== Milestones ==

The OpenXcom past, present and future development history

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Version !! Release date !! Changes
|-
| '''0.1''' || [http://openxcom.org/2010/10/version-0-1-is-here/ October 17th, 2010] ||
* Engine
* Geoscape
* Basescape
|-
|'''0.2''' || [http://openxcom.org/2011/01/version-0-2-is-out/ January 28th, 2011] ||
* Language strings
* Saved games
* Battlescape
** Terrain generation
** Basic units
** Basic pathfinding, fog of war, lighting
|-
|'''0.3''' || [http://openxcom.org/2011/09/holy-crap-its-version-0-3/ September 1st, 2011] ||
* Items
* Purchasing
* Selling
* Transferring
* Ufopaedia
* Options
* Platform-specific Folders
* Battlescape
** Item equipping, firing, throwing
** Environment: fire, smoke, explosions, damage, kills
** Unit stats
** AI Phase 1 (patrol, aggro)
|-
|'''0.4''' || [http://openxcom.org/2012/08/incoming-version-0-4/ August 14th, 2012] ||
* Research
* Manufacture
* Rulesets
* Battlescape
** Terror sites
** Debriefing, scores, experience and skill ups
** Large units and other alien units
** Special items (medi-kit, motion sensor, proximity grenade, psi-amp, mind probe, blaster launcher, electroflare)
|-
| '''0.45''' || [http://openxcom.org/2012/11/the-handymens-version/ November 5, 2012] ||
*Ufopaedia
*Modular rulesets
*New options
*Man page / command-line help
*Logging
|-
| '''0.9''' || [http://openxcom.org/2013/05/its-finally-here-version-0-9/ May 7, 2013] ||
* Alien Missions
* Scoring
* Graphs
* Victory/Defeat
* Difficulty levels
* Geoscape
** Live alien capture
** Psionic training
** Multiple dogfights
* Battlescape
** All alien units, items and abilities
** Alien base, X-Com base and Cydonia missions
** AI Phase 2 (grenades, blaster launcher, taking cover)
* Intro/Outro
* Control Options
* Advanced Options
* Display Filters
|-
| ''' 1.0 ''' || [http://openxcom.org/2014/06/openxcom-1-0/ June 13, 2014] ||
* Everything vanilla
* Options and extra features
* Mod support
* Save backwards compatibility
|}

[[Category:OpenXcom]]

User talk:Zarn

2011-09-05T23:37:06Z

Keybounce: Supermen.zip version 2 seems broken

== Supermen.zip version 2 seems broken ==

I've run two different unzip programs on superman version 2, and they both claim that the zip directory is missing.
--[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] 19:37, 5 September 2011 (EDT)

File talk:SuperMen.zip

2011-09-05T04:48:20Z

Keybounce: /* Broken second version? */ new section

I can't see who added the virus warning, otherwise I would leave him/her a message. The file is completely safe. I have authored it myself (I may have the turbo pascal source somewhere) and this can be verified with an antivirus program. Those who are in the know can find the supermen.exe checksum in the exclusion list of NOD32 antivirus (see [[Supermen]] for reason).
[[User:Zarn|Zarn]] 06:08, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

: That's just a standard warning that is added to all binary files as a matter of course. Thanks for being careful though with your file - and thanks for providing it, much appreciated! [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:51, 7 September 2009 (EDT)
::kthx [[User:Zarn|Zarn]] 12:56, 7 September 2009 (EDT)

== Broken second version? ==

The second version seems to be broken.

User talk:BladeFireLight

2011-09-05T04:16:23Z

Keybounce: /* What's the proper way to suggest changes to XComUtil? */

Big Welcome Back to BladeFireLight! Your expertise has been sorely missed. I see you have already started checking out the general Wish Lists and the the Wish List for Seb76's UFOLoader. Should we start a Wish List for XComUtil? Or would a combined wish list make more sense? [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:34, 6 January 2010 (EST)

----

Separately, he's only doing CE. I will only add features that can be applied both EU and TFTD Dos and Windows, as I'm a TFTD DOS fan. I like my game running like it's on a 386 :) (I will do game specific fixes like Zombie and Bomb Bloke's Unified EU patch is going to be included in 9.7) --[[User:BladeFireLight|BladeFireLight]] 13:55, 6 January 2010 (EST)

== What's the proper way to suggest changes to XComUtil? ==

What is the proper way to suggest changes to XcomUtil?

Do you follow the forums over at XComUfo.com?

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242035152

It looks to me like the stats for the pistol and laser pistol are reversed -- the LP is supposed to be faster and more accurate, but actually the normal pistol is. I know people say that the pistol is too strong of a starting weapon, almost as strong as the riffle, and I'm thinking this is the problem point.
--[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] 00:16, 5 September 2011 (EDT)

User talk:BladeFireLight

2011-09-05T04:15:49Z

Keybounce: /* What's the proper way to suggest changes to XComUtil? */ new section

Talk:XcomUtil

2007-07-12T07:31:02Z

Keybounce: New development?

== Misc ==
There's still a lot more stuff that could be added here. Also, I've never used some of the flags mentioned, especially those concerning Geoscape/Game executable. More info from those who have used them would be nice.

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 07:56, 9 Nov 2005 (PST)

== Difficulty Bug ==

are there any standalone patches the fix the difficulty bug, or does one just copy over the geoscape.exe file to a new Xcom folder once its patched by using XcomUtil 9becuase of no other alternatives... as you can see, I'm not a fan of it).

I don't know about any patches that fix the difficulty bug. BladefireLight has made a patch that changes the craft back to their original configuration. It can be found [http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8656 here at the XcomUtil forums]

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 18:59, 9 Nov 2005 (PST)

----

The difficulty bug is only found in XCOM 1.0, and is fixed with the XCOM 1.4 patch, isn't it?

---[[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 20:16, 9 Nov 2005 (PST)

Unfortunately, no. For the PC, the difficutly bug is only officially fixed in the Windows port - or as I like to call it, 1.4ce.

P. S, it also pays to look at the header whenever posting anything onto the wiki to see if your cookies have let you down and your automatic login setting has been unchecked. This avoids your handle from turning into a mere user IP.

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

== Backups of .rmp files ==
Hey, I wrote up a thingo about the patched geoscape.exe. I'm not sure about the edited Xcom base tiles though, i guess the backups would be called XBASE##.XCU, and the edited, corrected tiles would be XBASE##.MAP. I'm not sure on this because there are *.RMP files within the MAPS folder. Has anyone played around with cutting and pasting things and found out which ones to move to a new fresh install of the game? Thx [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]]

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The RMP files are the files used by the AI and I don't think XcomUtil changes those, so the backup .xcu files are the older .map files.

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]]

[[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]]: Ok, i'll look into it. Just always thought that RMP go in the routes folder, and maps in maps folder. Yet, there seems to be both types in the maps folder. I guess i'll have a play when i swap puters to fire up Xcom1.

== Is there an X-COM mod editor? ==

Is there something out there that lets people do their own mods to the game, such as changing/adding/removing weapons, technology trees, graphics, etc?

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There's at least one editor that allow to change the weapons: http://www.jennana.com/projects/xcomed.php.
As for the graphics/maps the only way to do it is manually.

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 18:18, 13 January 2007 (PST)

== RMP files ==

Xcomutil does modify the rmp files when generating ship layouts. it just backs up all of them by default.

--[[User:BladeFireLight|BladeFireLight]] 21:50, 15 January 2007 (PST)

== end of development ==

Should we note that Scott has oficialy stated he will no longer be deloping xcomutil?

--[[User:BladeFireLight|BladeFireLight]] 21:53, 15 January 2007 (PST)

Done.

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 07:28, 16 January 2007 (PST)

== New development ==
Where do we write to discuss new development? In particular, I just found out that the EQL flag to generate an equipment list can only be done on turn 1 -- and it took me a couple of turns moving equipment around inside the craft before I had everyone at the right cargo level (no one overloaded).
--[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] 00:31, 12 July 2007 (PDT)

Exploits

2007-01-07T00:26:29Z

Keybounce: Repairing damaged UFOs

== To Do List ==
For writing up

* Free HWP ammo during base defense
* Phantom base radars (See temporary notes in [[User Talk:NKF | NKF:Talk]] for now)
* unit overcrowding preventing aliens from spawning in base defense
* Destroying unique alien type/rank combos by way of transfering to a throw-away base with a containment + lab (nothing else necessary), starting research on the uniques, dismantling base completely. Repeat ad infinitum. Not exactly a very exciting exploit, but a useful one to know.

== Alien Inventory Screen ==
When controlling an alien through [[Psionics]], you can't directly see their inventory by clicking the inventory button. (Where DO Sectoids keep their grenades, anyway?) However if you switch to a human soldier, and check his inventory, you can use the arrows in the top corner to cycle through your units - including your "new recruit". Be careful though, as the game will often stack all the equipment in one location - if you pick an item up with the cursor, you won't be able to return if to it's original location (as there is already something there), so you'd better have enough TUs to put it somewhere else!

This trick is handy for getting aliens to drop their grenades, as well as their weapon. If you're feeling particulary vindictive, you'll prime the explosive while you're at it.

It's also useful for giving an alien a different weapon, especially [[Pistol|peashooters]] which are harmless to armor but encourage the alien to do something other than shake in their boots during [[Reaction Training]].

== Faulty Collision Detection ==

The mystical art of moving solid objects through other solid objects.

=== Throw Through Ceilings ===

Most explosives (grenades, HE packs) can be chucked up through ceilings to land on the floor above. This is useful if you don't know where enemies are exactly, but you know where they are roughly. Use a big enough boomstick (HE rounds, pointed at ceiling) and you'll probably kill anyone in the vicinity of the blast.

=== Corner Tile Tricks ===

Diagonal exterior UFO tiles aren't a well-defined boundary. A grenade thrown onto the same square from outside will detonate inside the UFO. An unconscious volunteer thrown onto the same square from outside will awake inside the UFO. (Except if he's sharing the tile with a live grenade.) A Flying Suit can sometimes fly up into a UFO from beneath a diagonal overhang. 
 
Note: This trick will also work with any wall that occupies the entire tile - i.e. any tile with a wall that you cannot walk into. Almost all the sides of most X-COM troop transports consist of these, and all outer walls along the West and Northern sides of UFOs are made of these as well.

=== Walk Through Wall Trick ===

This trick ties in with the corner tile trick, as it makes use of any wall that occupies an entire tile. 
 
As mentioned, you can fly up into some walls. For soldiers that cannot fly, you can walk into these walls if your starting location is on a different elevation than the destination. 
 
For example, if you're standing on the second floor of a barn with a nearby wall shot-out that's just to the West of a [[Large Scout]]. If you stay on the same level and move your movement cursor to a point that would walk your soldier (assuming you could walk on air) to a spot just above one of the UFO outer hull walls. Then walk. Your soldier will walk, drop and then step right into the wall. From here, you can either walk into or out of the UFO as you please - or you can throw a high explosive right into the ship and take one step away to get behind the safety of the hull. 

=== Moving a Large Unit Up Stairs and Sinking it into A Wall ===
Tanks are built up of four units, which make up each of the quarter. The primary quarter, the part that has all the vital statistics, is the upper left or north-west quarter when viewed from the overhead map, or the topmost when viewed in the battlescape. 
 
When moving a tank up or down different elevations, mainly via stairs or dropping it off the edge of a wall, the game only uses the primary quarter for collision detection. So you can easily move a tank up narrow stairs (or through a narrow cave - but that's not related to this). 
 
If you move a tank off a northward facing ledge, the rest of the tank will sink into a wall (if there is one), and cause the tank to get stuck. This won't happen if the tank moves off a south facing ledge as the primary quarter will fall after the rest of the tank.

=== Seeing Through Ceilings ===

When a unit stands on raised terrain (such as a ramp), its head gets raised, bringing up its field of vision. This can allow you to see through the ceiling in some instances, for example, if a soldier stands on a barrow of hay his head may stick up high enough to let you see the contents of the upper floor.

== Infinite Fuel ==

This trick is great for saving Elerium-115. When you finish building a new ship, load it out with weapons (dual Plasma Cannons are recommended) and wait for it to have the "Ready" status. Then, transfer it to another base. Immediately after it arrives, tell it to go to a random point on the globe (preferably where you have no bases) and have it patrol in the area. Clicking on it will show that its fuel tank is 0% full. This ship will now have unlimited fuel until it returns to base. This works best on Firestorms, as they have the same number of guns as the Avengers yet cost less.

Note: After downing a UFO, this ship will automatically head back to base. Be sure to send it on patrol again before reaching base, or you will lose the unlimited fuel feature. Because of this, it helps to keep it patrolling as far away from its base as possible.

== Free Manufacturing ==

In the Workshop screen, choose an item to be manufactored, but assign no engineers to it. Also, make sure it's set to produce 0 of the item. Click OK, then go back and assign as many engineers as you want (preferably as many as possible). This time, change the quantity to 1. When the production is finished, you will have gotten one of the selected items--for free! Doing this with tanks and then selling them works wonders on your finances.

Note: Although it may be tempting to create fleets of free Avengers like this, you must still have adequate hangers, severely limiting your options. Still very useful, though!
 
 
''NKF Quick notes'':
* It doesn't matter if you assign engineers to a 0 item build project, because the engineers will be taken off the project anyway.
* In a similar but completely opposite vein, if you start a project with a certain number of items to build, the required cash for the first item (and perhaps materials) will instantly be taken from you. And if you cancel the project before the job is done, you will not be refunded. It's mainly a loss if you're low on resources, otherwise most players won't even notice the fact that the resources for the first item were never refunded. This doesn't happen if you start a 0 item build project, and then assign staff and a build amount later. This in effect makes the first item in the build list free.

== All Terror Missions During the Day ==

During the night, the aliens have a severe visability advantage over your soldiers. I'm sure every X-Com player has fallen victim to a night-time terror mission at least once. Those days are now over. When a Terror Mission comes up, simply equip a Skyranger with all the manpower and firepower you'll need to defeat the aliens, and have it patrol just beside your base. (Game) minutes before the hour changes (e.g. at 1:56), have the Skyranger target the Terror Site. After the hour changes (e.g. at 2:03), have the Skyranger patrol in place again. Repeat this before and after the hour changes until daylight. You see, Terror Sites only disappear on the hour, and they won't disappear if they're targetted by a craft. So if you make sure it's targeted as the hours change, you can stall for time until daylight!

Note: Or, you could just use Scott T Jones's wonderful tool known as Xcomutil. Running the RunXcomW.exe program allows you to make all missions in the light of day, regardless of actual game time. A lot easier to use Util. . .

== Grenades: Pass the Experience Trick ==
'''(Or who gets the experience when you "drop" a grenade)''' 
 
Some commanders may have noticed that a soldier that drops a primed grenade rather than throwing it will often not get credited for the damage or killed enemies. 
 
There is a very odd explanation for this. The game attaches an ownership to the grenades. It will rememeber who last threw the grenade so it can credit the right person with experience. Unfortunately, the game only assigns the ownership to a grenade ''after'' it has been thrown, but not when it's dropped or picked up. 
 
So who gets the experience if its dropped? All X-COM owned grenades, at the very start of the mission, default to the very first soldier on the transport, or the very first armoured weapons platform if you have one. This means that if a grenade is dropped rather than thrown, all experience goes towards the very first soldier in the list, or the tank. 
 
Can we move the ownership around and pass the experience to soldiers of our choice? Definitely! Just have the person you want to get the experience throw the grenade, then get someone else to carry and drop it to where it can be useful. Just remember to not throw it again. 
 
The method of deployment for these grenades will be left as a practical exercise to the commander. Be creative, or be heartless - it's all up to you! 
 
The biggest advantage of this unusual pass-the-experience technique would be to provide training for frail soldiers that would prove to be more of a detriment in combat than out of it - yet another reason for commanders to not sieve troops based on poor combat statistics.

== Mind Control Madness ==

Whenever you mind control another unit, it automatically returns to the alien side at the end of the aliens' turn. This is true even if you mind control a [[Civilian]].

While saving civilians leads to higher scores, "removing" them from play in this way then killing them off as aliens removes the risk of a score penalty should they be fall into trouble.

[[Gaining permanent control of a Chryssalid/Tentaculat]]

==Exponential Mind Control==
''Any'' creature with psionic skill can use a psionic amplifier. Therefore, you can take control of, say, an Ethereal and then toss it a psi-amp, use the alien inventory bug mentioned above, and have him pick it up. You can then use the Ethereal's psionic talents to take over other aliens. With the right application of psi-amp relay tosses and mind control, this can have an exponential effect.

An extreme case: I've used a squad of as little as three troopers (one mind controller, two psi-amp tossers) to take conquer a large scout's worth of aliens (on max difficulty) in one round.

Of course, by the time you've got troopers with sufficient psionic talent to overcome psi-capable aliens, you probably don't need this trick.
--[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 23:47, 9 December 2005 (PST)

== Fire ==
===Just how does it work?===
NKF quick notes:
(I might be duplicating something here, but I'm just jotting these down quickly before I forget)

* Fire does two types of damage to units. Impact and damage over time.
** Damage Over time: Standing in fire or actually being on fire.
** Impact damage: The weirdest and most unusual damage of all.
*** Anyone standing in fire: Receives hit-point damage every time an incendiary shell explodes
*** Anyone standing in smoke: Same as above, but take stun damage instead of hit-point damage.
* Fire does a fixed amount of damage. The damage of an incendiary weapon only determines how large the spread of the fire will be. So an autocannon incendiary shell is just as powerful as an incendiary rocket -- the only difference is the blast area.
* Fire and Smoke use the same object table, and being limited, can get used up very quickly and attempts at producing more fire or smoke will not work. Incendiary impact damage will still work on any units in fire/smoke.
JFG adds: Please see my [[Incendiary]] topic

== The Numbers ==
More on this later.

'''Downright cheatin' - be warned!'''

== Helpless Tactical Mission ==

'''NB This doesn't work on the CE (Windows) version of UFO/TFTD - only the DOS version'''

The way this all works is based on the previous tactical in which you went really well and completed it. If the current tactical mission you are on does not go well, press CTRL-C. What has just happened is your current mission has ended with the results of the previous mission. That is, the score, items, corpses, Elerium, and stat increases are carried forward to this mission, from the last. Soldiers will get experience again even if they didn't come on this current mission and are back at base.

What is 'CTRL-C'?
 Xcom1 and Xcom2 are DOS games (disk operating system...not denial of service). A command used in DOS is "break" which is keyed in as CTRL-C. What this keypress does is halt the current process. Xcom1 & 2 have a failsafe to "crashing", by returning to the previous "good" process, which was a completed tactical mission.

How to Cheat?
 Setup:
 Do a tactical mission with a landed (not crashed) Battleship. Avoid using any weapons that consume ammo (including the tank) eg: use Laser Rifles instead. Make sure no soldiers die, or tanks. Don't use grenades, flares, etc. Try to do this mission in a 'bean counter' mindset. On the very last turn of the mission (you need to guess it) save your game in a new slot, and then don't overwrite it from here on. Now end the tactical mission normally and continue to play your game normally as well.

Using It:
 Later on when you do your next tactical mission and are able to move your guys off the craft, just press CRTL-C. The mission now ends with the results from the Battleship tactical mission.

Cautions:
 If you happen to complete a tactical mission by accident, or you abort the current mission, the results of this mission will be stored in the "MISSDAT" folder, overwriting automatically the previous tactical mission. To get your Battleship mission back, save the game '''RIGHT NOW''' in your usual spot (you should be back in geoscape view if you have just completed your mission). Load the Battleship mission, then end it. The mission results are now refreshed in the MISSDAT folder. Now load your game normally and keep playing. When you next play a tactical mission, just press CTRL-C.

Disclaimer:
 USE ONLY AT YOUR OWN RISK. Can corrupt data and such. UFOpedia.org, or myself are not responsible if this cheat blows up your computer or '''ANYTHING''' else.

[Amr40]-some how the game logged me doing this and after i had done it three time it sent a battleship to my base everytime I clicked on a time speed other than 5 sec's. Can i have confirmation that this happens to anyone else or is it just my version?

== Free Wages ==

At the end of the month, all your soldiers, scientists and engineers collect their pay checks. Unless, of course, they are in transit between bases, in which case they are unable to reach the guy holding their paychecks before he closes up shop.

That is to say, the game forgets to add them to your monthly expenses.

The trick here is to have labs and workshops in two bases, and just before each month ends, relocate your staff. They can start working as soon as they arrive, and you don't have to pay them - saving you anywhere up to several million dollars each month.

This trick does not appear to work with leased aircraft (Interceptor, SkyRanger). Whilst being transferred, the costs of these aircraft disappear from the Base Information - Monthly Costs screens. However, if the end of month occurs while the aircraft are being transferred, the lease costs are still deducted from the XCom funds.

== Fog of War Scouting ==

The 3D cursor shows the terrain inside it, regardless of whether you have explored the tile or not. While the obscure shapes shown don't mean much to novice players, veterans will soon recognise tiles, and then the map segments they are native to. For example, you can easily find a UFO by looking for the destinctive wall patterns, and the power supply in the center. Or, you could use this to bombard locations such as command centers, or places you know aliens spawn at the beginning of play, with early Blaster Bombs.

== Extra Ammo Collection ==

Any clips in weapons at the end of combat are discarded, unless they have not been used at all. If you unload all weapons, then ALL clips will be added to your stores.

== Dead Man Switches ==

Grenades will only detonate when they are on the ground and when their timer has counted down. Timers will continue to count down regardless of location, but if the grenade is not on the ground, it will not explode. This means that you can set all the grenades to a time of "0" at the beginning of play, or at an earlier turn, and throw them when it's tactically feasible.

This is a double-edged sword, however, because should a unit fall dead or unconcious the grenade will hit the ground and promptly take out anything in the near vicinity... which may (or may not) work to your advantage. This tactic encourages keeping your troops far apart. If you anticipate the soldier will have a very high chance of being killed, it may be wise to use the "pass the experience" trick as described earlier before handing the soldier an armed grenade.

Proximity mines can be defused by saving, quitting the game, restarting it then reloading the game. You can still drop on top of them with a flying suit, or by dropping from a hole in the roof in order to safely pick them up.

==My Pet Alien==

When in a situation where large terror units exist (ie Cyberdics, Reapers or Sectopods), there is a handly glitch that I noticed. Mind Control the unit by taking over only one quadrant of the creature - use the time units to kill other aliens or scout the area. Once they've run out, mind control another quadrant and do the same all over again. This can be repeated until all four quadrants have been MC'd (or the unit goes crazy and shoots itself - whichever comes sooner!)

==Repairing damaged UFOs==

Want to stop a UFO from doing it's mission? Shoot it down. Want to get a full load of engines and elerium? Leave it alone for about 2 days. The longer you wait before launching the ground assault, the smaller the hole and smoke, and eventually the craft will be completely repaired.

Note that you will also get a full complement of enemy soldiers -- all the dead will come back to life when you do this.

(You may want to save the game before landing, so you can resume waiting if the UFO was not fully repaired when you attacked.)

[[Category: Oddities and bugs]]

Talk:Battleship

2007-01-07T00:02:19Z

Keybounce: /* Ground assault on a battleship */

== Ground assault on a battleship ==

I've had good luck attacking a battle ship by the "reaction wall" technique. This is where a large number of soldiers line up in sight/fire range of the exit door, but do NOT enter.

This is all about reaction fire. As soon as the door opens, your units will open fire on any alien.

This works fine ''as long as the doors close every turn''. As soon as something blocks the door, '''abort'''.

If a door panel is destroyed, or if something large blocks the door open, then a blaster bomb can come out and clobber your team. Suddenly, your setup is no longer secure.

This does rely on your team not being mind controlled. That works as long as no one can be seen by the enemy -- make sure you have "swept" any outside aliens before you go for the seige -- or that you are not facing sectoids/etherials.
--[[User:Keybounce|Keybounce]] 16:02, 6 January 2007 (PST)

Talk:Battleship

2007-01-07T00:01:58Z

Keybounce: Ground assault on a battleship