UFOpaedia - User contributions [en]

Hammerhead

2006-09-09T19:29:14Z

Milton Stanley: /* General Information */

== General Information ==
A transport and intercept craft. A replication of magnetic array systems in an X-COM ship. Although small, its design is a breathtaking technical achievement.

The Lightning is your typical 'Jack of all trades, master of none'. It neither excels at being an interceptor nor does it excel at being a troop transporter. Either role can be better filled with other aircraft, such as [[Barracuda]]s or [[Triton]]s, but the Hammerhead is a meld of both.

As an interceptor, it fails by having a short range. As a transporter, it is unable to carry [[Heavy Weapons Platforms]]. These are the main reasons why a number of [[X-COM]] Commanders frown on the usage of the Hammerhead.

As the Hammerhead is designed to carry troops, it lacks the acceleration of the [[Manta]]. This means that even though it can stay in the air for almost as long as a [[Manta]], it cannot fly very far. This does not necessarily render the Lightning useless. Though its range is limited, its acceleration still outclasses every other earth based aircraft available, making it excellent for rapid short range interceptions and ground assaults.

The Hammerhead also has much heavier armour and hull strength than the [[Manta]] and is second only to the [[Leviathan]] in terms of its ability to sustain damage. Although it may not be destroyed completely by a single attack from a [[Dreadnought]], the odds of a lone Lightning surviving an attack against a [[Dreadnought]] are substantially smaller than that of the [[Leviathan]].

The Lightning, for all its advantages and disadvantages, is best used as support for other ships with a more dedicated role rather to be relied on by itself. If you need rapid response times and don't have the Leviathan, this craft can shuttle back and forth between all those landed alien craft who are building an Alien base. Grab that Zrbite quick.

== Special Requirements ==

== Vital Statistics ==
<table>
<tr><td>Maximum Speed:</td><td>4,030</td></tr>
<tr><td>Acceleration:</td><td>9</td></tr>
<tr><td>Fuel Capacity:</td><td>60</td></tr>
<tr><td>Weapon Pods:</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Damage Capacity:</td><td>960</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cargo Space:</td><td>12</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[:Category:Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWP]] Capacity:</td><td>None</td></tr>
</table>

== See Also ==
*[[Triton]] - Standard Troop Transporter
*[[Leviathan]] - Ultimate Craft

Jet Harpoon

2006-09-09T19:14:16Z

Milton Stanley: /* General Information */

== General Information ==
[[Image:JetHarpoon.gif|right]]

The Jet Harpoon fires a high pressure jet propelled harpoon with an armour piercing tip. Normally used by divers for shark hunting and other nasty sea creatures, the harpoons have been adapted as [[X-Com]]'s standard issue underwater rifle. They can be fired both in and out of water with no loss in power or accuracy.

The Jet Harpoon is equipped with an automatic harpoon loader, allowing for a rapid firing three round burst. Extended use of automatic fire will rapidly deplete the Jet Harpoon's 10 harpoon magazine.

Because the aliens in the second invasion have tougher hides than their predecessors, the Jet Harpoon does not come off as being a powerful weapon. Nonetheless, it has sufficient stopping power to defeat most of the earlier alien races that you'll meet, such as [[Aquatoid]]s and [[Gillman|Gillmen]].

The [[Gauss Pistol]] and the [[Gauss Rifle]] quickly outmode the Jet Harpoons. Given sufficient funds, it is highly recommended that Jet Harpoon be replaced with a gauss weapon as the standard issue 'cheap' weapon. [[Gas Cannon]]s are also good Jet Harpoon replacements for strong aquanauts.

==Weapon Statistics==

'''Jet Harpoon'''
* Size: 3 high x 1 wide
* Firing Accuracy:
** 40% Auto
** 60% Snapshot
** 90% Aimed
* Firing Cost:
** 40% Auto
** 35% Snapshot
** 70% Aimed
* Buy Cost: $3,000

==Ammo Statistics==

'''Harpoon Clip'''
* Size: 1 high x 1 wide
* Damage: 32 Armour Piercing
* Ammo Capacity: 20
* Buy Cost: $200

==USOpaedia==
* This aqua-rifle is accurate and powerful, firing hollow steel harpoons from sealed packs of 10. Each harpoon has its own gas reservoir.

==See Also==
* [[Weapons_(Tftd)|Weapons]]

Heavy Weapons Platforms

2006-09-06T14:25:40Z

Milton Stanley: /* Advantages */

There are five different HWP units available to you as an [[X-COM]] Commander.

*[[Tank/Cannon]]
*[[Tank/Rocket Launcher]]
*[[Tank/Laser Cannon]]
*[[Hovertank/Plasma]]
*[[Hovertank/Launcher]]

== General Information ==
Tanks are divided into two distinct chassis types, the standard miniature tracked tank and the hover tank. The tracked tank chassis is the weaker of the two, however it is relatively cheaper on materials and can be purchased off the market. Our engineers can also reproduce a replica of the tracked tank in the workshops for the purposes of mounting our proprietary heavy laser turrets. The hovertank, a hybrid of human and alien technologies, must be built in the engineering labs. It is the most expensive, especially on exotic resources, but it comes with superior internal and external subsystems, a generous amount of armour, and comes with the ability to hover in the air much like a Cyberdisc or Ethereal.

Tanks use turrets to fire. These turrets can turn independently of the tanks themselves. For example, if you tell a tank to fire behind itself, the turret will turn and not the tank. The turret will keep its new bearing relative to the tank until it is told to fire again. Moving the turret costs 1 [[TU]] per directional change. However, the turret itself does not contain any optical perception sensors, so it cannot see an enemy if the tank cannot see it.

With the exception of the [[Tank/Laser Cannon]] and the [[Hovertank/Plasma]], you must have sufficient ammunition in your stores before loading the tank onto a transport craft. However, if one of your bases is attacked and you do not have ammunition available, any tanks will be granted with a full payload of ammunition. Any rounds remaining after a successful [[Base Defense|base defense]] will be added to your stores.

== Advantages ==
*Tanks are very rarely affected by [[morale]] loss. In order for a tank to [[Psionics|panic]], your squad must take a severe amount of losses during a given [[turn]]. (Tanks have 110 bravery)
*Tanks are not affected by [[stun]], nor can they receive [[Fatal Wounds|fatal wounds]].
*Tanks are not affected by psi attacks.
*They tend to have a greater amount of [[TU]]s then normal [[Soldiers (UFO Defense)|soldiers]] making them excellent for use as scouts. They also carry their internal weapons with no penalty, as opposed to weak soldiers who struggle with Rocket Launcher+ several reloads.
*Tanks start off with fairly decent stats, except for their Reactions, which are horrible.
*Tanks are counted as items, not staff. This lets them be stored in general storage instead of Living Quarters.
*When starting up a new base and fearing alien attacks, it's convenient to buy/send a couple of HWPs there on guard duty. You still need at least one soldier on duty there for a base defense though.
*They can take fairly heavy damage before being destroyed.
*A damaged tank is instantly repaired at the end of a mission.
*Other units can fire over the top of a tank without the tank getting hit in the crossfire.
*Tanks carry more ammunition than a soldier can. In particular, [[Hovertank/Launcher]]s and [[Tank/Rocket Launcher]]s carry more ammo than a soldier carrying a launcher and ammo can.
* More importantly, the ammo loaded in the tank one does not count towards the 80 item limit, unlike the ammunition for man-portable Blaster and Rocket Launchers.
* The tank does NOT have to manually reload its weapon. It doesn't even have to use any TUs. This is important for the Blaster and Plasma tanks. Basically, it uses a clip with many many shots, as opposed to soldiers with many 1 shot clips. Makes a difference.
*Tanks do not draw salaries. While their initial cost is large, you don't have to keep shelling out cash every month for them. Of course, for the blaster, rocket and AP tanks, the ammunition cost can far outstrip a soldier's salary.
*As expensive as they are, everything is included in the cost of the tank except ammunition. You do not need to buy weapons, armor or equipment for them. Furthermore, two of the most useful tanks-- the laser and plasma tanks-- do not require ammunition at all.
*Tanks cannot be implanted by [[Chryssalid]]s. Their bite may well destroy the tank, but at least you don't have to worry about the tank turning into a [[Zombie]].
*Hovertanks, like all flying units, can avoid physical attacks- most noticably [[Chryssalid]]s- completely by staying above ground level.
*Losing a tank affects morale the same as losing a newbie - much less than the death of a soldier of somewhat similar stats, who would probably have earned a high officer rank. Despite being a significant economic loss, the destruction of a tank doesn't trigger the panic wave the fall of a Colonel would.

== Disadvantages ==
*Tanks are much more expensive than [[Soldiers (UFO Defense)|soldiers]] - eg $420,000 vs $40,000. Their cost and usefulness are inverse with time. Ie, by the time you can afford them, they are a lot less useful as attackers. They will continue to remain useful as expendable scouts.
*They do not gain [[experience]] during combat.
*Their extra size makes it difficult to get them to certain areas - through most doorways, for example.
*It's possible for a tank to be "halfway" (one square) past a wall and be visible to enemies and vulnerable to their fire, yet unable to spot those same enemies and, needless to say, unable to return fire. A similar problem can cause tanks to get stranded in walls if they try to drop off ledges in the wrong compass direction.
*They take extra damage from explosives due to their size.
*Tanks have very low [[reactions]]. In other words, tanks draw fire. Aliens will prefer to react against tanks more often than your troops because tanks have low reaction levels - all the time.
**Many commanders consider this an advantage, however, knowing they can bring a tank in to distract the enemy from vulnerable troops. This works by making the enemy use up their remaining Time Units on an expendable decoy.
*Tanks do not have any Auto-Fire capability, a big liability in close combat.
*Most tanks have weaker weapons than their man-portable counterparts. Only the Tank/Cannon and Tank/Laser have weapons that surpass their handheld counterparts in power.
**The Tank/Rockets have missiles that are stronger than small rockets, but are weaker than large rockets.
**The Hovertank/Launchers are weaker than Blaster Bombs - 200 power vs 140 - and unable to breach outer walls of UFOs as standard blasters can.
**Plasma hovertanks are poorer than Heavy Plasmas at breaching UFO inner walls, due to a 5 point power difference (see [[Destroying Terrain]] for more details).
*Tanks cannot carry additional equipment and cannot reload once their ammunition has run out.
*The aimed shots on most tanks are not worthwhile. The gain in accuracy does not nearly match the extra time units they require. This is epecially true on the [[Hovertank/Plasma]].
*Once destroyed they are unrepairable and unrecoverable.

== See Also ==
[[Field Manual: HWP]]
[[Category:Heavy Weapons Platforms]]
[[Category: Tactics]]

Heavy Laser

2006-09-06T14:20:31Z

Milton Stanley:

The next step up from the [[Laser Rifle]], the Heavy Laser fails to impress due to its weight and lack of an auto-shot feature. These limitations reduce its value despite its greater damage rating.

Researching the Heavy Laser gives access to the [[Laser Cannon]] and [[Tank/Laser Cannon]] entries of the research tree.

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS06.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Power: 85
*Size: 3 high x 2 wide
*Weight: 18
*TUs:
** Auto: n/a
** Snap: 33% (accuracy 50%)
** Aimed: 75% (accuracy 84%)
*[[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Manufacturable_Prices|Manufacturing]]: $32,000 for parts, 700 Engineer Hours
*Sell Price: $61,000</td></tr></table>

[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

Research Tips

2006-09-04T21:51:35Z

Milton Stanley: /* Selective Alien Abduction */

== Many heads are better than one ==

(Note: the following is only a half guess at this point in time)

Like manufacturing, each project has a specific amount of research hours needed for completion. Unfortunately, research hours are not as easy to ascertain as manufacturing hours.

Each scientist allocated to a project is able to put in one research hour towards the completion of the project. Then for every hour of research time, each scientist contributes one hour towards research.

Once all the research hours are put in, the project will be declared a success at the end of the hour. (Or was it day?)

As research topics require many hours for completion, it is best to have large teams of scientists concentrate their efforts on one project at a time.

== Start your projects ==

New projects appear on the new research schedule whenever their prerequisites are met. For most alien artefacts, this is merely to have a physical sample of the artefact in storage.

A quartermaster may occasionally sell off the last remaining artefect by accident before the science team can extract enough data from the artefact to begin the reverse engineering process.

In order to minimise the damage and prevent sending the assault team on a suicide mission to retrieve another artefact sample, scientists are able to extract all necessary data from any alien artefact at the commencement of every project. Therefore, it is advised that projects should always be started as soon as possible. Science personnel need not be assigned to the project for the data extraction and should continue to focus on topics of a higher priority.

== Selective Alien Abduction==
(Or how to keep containment lean and mean)

About the only few tips I have are these:

Your alien containment is restricted to TYPES of aliens, not total numbers, AFAIK. Since there are only a limited number of types of aliens, you 1 alien containment in each of 3 bases is more than enough for all needs.

Some aliens do not reappear if researched. Basically, the X-com command says "Well, we've got enough of those, let's shoot them and sell the bodies"

In the case of live aliens, you might NOT want to start and not complete research projects, for the above reason.

Build a dummy alien containment and send everything you don't want there. EVERYTHING. (suggest you only do things like this AFTER you've finished researching Cydonia or Bust)

Bring an autocannon with explosive ammo on every mission. Since you can check an alien's type by just standing on him and picking him up, you can just toss unwanted samples into a corner and get quick and easy kills.

-

The key to keeping your containment lean and mean is to be selective when capturing your aliens. This can be done through judicious use of the [[Mind Probe]] and by examining each unconcious alien for signs of their rank. Redundant aliens should immediately be eliminated through whatever means the field commander sees fit. Otherwise, scientists will have to waste time interrogating aliens in order to make space in containment.

There are only several aliens of great importance. A random live alien, a '''navigator''', a '''leader''' and a '''commander'''. Note that a commander can provide the same information as a leader.

The navigator allows scientists to assist in further understanding hyperwave technology, and it can also be used in place of the random live alien if you have not captured one already to ascertain the [[alien origins]].

The leader and commander are required for assisting the scientists to locate the source of the alien invasion once the origins have been determined. Not before - '''after'''.

Additionally, to further research into the field of [[psionics]], scientists need a [[Sectoid]] leader or commander, or an [[Ethereal]] of any rank. To cut down on redundancy, it is recommended that the field commander attempt to abduct a leader, commander or navigator from either [[Sectoid]] or [[Ethereal]] crews.

All other aliens can provide some information, but are otherwise of little importance - although they can provide interesting but not immediately useful information. Alien soldiers in particular are heavily redundant.

== Research - the smart way, not the hard way==
(Discussion of the pros and cons of scientist by numbers (in groups of fifty))

'''Summary''' - Live Aliens:

*Soldier = useless except for "Alien Origins"
*Engineer = gives info on Alien Craft
*Navigator = gives info on Alien Mission Types (eg: Alien Harvest) and extra research (Hyperwave Decoder)
*Medic = gives autopsy info that you haven't got yet (broken in Xcom TFTD)
*Leader = late game info (plz fill in)
*Commander = late game info (plz fill in)

== See Also ==

[[Research (UFO Defense)]]<br>
[[Alien Containment]]