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Firestorm

2015-04-27T02:54:22Z

Rookie4682: grammar fix

[[Image:firestorm.png|right|Firestorm - New Fighter Craft]]
The first X-COM craft engineered from Alien technology, the '''Firestorm''' is a direct replacement for the standard combat craft [[Interceptor]].

With a crew of one, the Firestorm has been designed around the classic "Flying Saucer" concept, with a central propulsion unit identical to those found in UFOs.

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

== How to use it ==

As a fighter the Firestorm is much faster than the [[Interceptor]], capable of travelling fast enough to keep up with almost any [[UFO]]. It also has much better armor and is not easily destroyed by enemy return fire. It therefore makes an excellent interceptor in the true sense of the word: launch, intercept, return to base. However, that's about all it can do: Due to its very low range it is incapable of shadowing the enemy and following them around half the world as you're used to from the Interceptor craft.

So you only should launch the Firestorm if you positively want to shoot down an alien craft.

Due to a [[Known Bugs#Elerium-fueled Craft Bug|design flaw]], the Firestorm must immediately return to base upon depleting half of its fuel supply, regardless of the distance it was deployed to.
<br clear="all" />

== Special Requirements ==
The Firestorm is fueled by [[Elerium-115]], so before manufacturing this craft, make sure that you have sufficient stocks of Elerium in your [[General_Stores|general stores]].

When airborne, the Firestorm consumes fuel at the rate of 1 fuel unit (1/5th unit of [[Elerium-115]], 5% total fuel) every ten minutes, regardless of the speed of the craft. The Firestorm has a maximum (radial) range of only 7,000 nautical miles, while being airborne for a paltry 1h, 40m. Its maximum (distance) range is 14,000 nautical miles, while having a total fly time of only 3h, 20m. Patrolling has no effect on fuel consumption.

One Firestorm requires 4 units of [[Elerium-115|Elerium]] for refueling. When refueling, the Firestorm receives 25% more fuel (i.e., 1 Elerium) every half hour, on the half hour. So it can take up to two hours to refuel, and will be finished fueling precisely on the turn of a half hour.

If [[Plasma_Beam|Plasma Beams]] have been fired, it will take 3 hours to re-arm, regardless of how many PB shots were used. At the turn of the first hour after refueling (measured by hour on the clock, straight up), your left Plasma Beam goes to 100 ammo. At the turn of the second hour, the right one goes to 100. Turn of third hour: Craft drops out of REARMING status and is ready to fly. Even if your craft has not fired (ammo=100), it will still wait until the next hour (straight up) going through that last REARM phase after refueling.

Firestorms are repaired at the rate of 1 HP per hour(4.8% per day), and this is updated on an hourly basis. Service is done in this order: [[Repairs]], [[refueling]], [[rearming]]. If you transfer a Firestorm between bases, it will still need refuelling and rearming when it arrives even though 12+ hours have passed (if it needed them before it left). Presumably, your maintenance personnel are hesitant to inject explosives or a highly volatile, poorly-understood alien fuel into a damaged fighter.

== Vital Statistics ==
<table>
<tr><td>Maximum Speed:</td><td>4,200</td></tr>
<tr><td>Acceleration:</td><td>9</td></tr>
<tr><td>Fuel Capacity:</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Weapon Pods:</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Damage Capacity:</td><td>500</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cargo Space:</td><td>None</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[:Category:Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWP]] Capacity:</td><td>None</td></tr>
<tr><td>Work Space Required:</td><td>30</td></tr>
</table>

== See Also ==
{{Craft Navbar}}

[[Category: Research (EU)]][[Category:X-COM Craft (EU)]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Manufacturing Profitability

2015-04-27T00:33:44Z

Rookie4682: The Psi Amp link did not go to the Psi-Amp page. Attempted to correct link

There are 35 items in X-COM that can be [[manufacturing|manufactured]], but if all costs are taken into account, only 14 of them can be manufactured for a profit.

You cannot manufacture an item until you have researched it, so you begin the game unable to manufacture any items at all. Depending on your research priorities, there are several early items that can be made for a profit: Motion Scanners, Medi-Kits, Laser Pistols and Laser Rifles. For more on research times and prerequisites, see [[Research]].

Fusion Ball Launchers and Laser Cannons can be researched in the early-mid game, and are the two most profitable items that can be produced in all of X-COM. Refer to the [[#Profit tables|profit tables]] for a detailed breakdown.

== Calculating profitability ==

To calculate true (net) manufacturing profit, the following must be accounted for:

*Manufacturing cost -- the value shown on the manufacturing screen.
*Cost of [[Elerium-115]] ($5k each) and [[Alien Alloys]] ($6.5k each), if required. Also, cost of [[UFO Power Source]](s) ($500k each) and [[UFO Navigation]] ($80k each) for XCOM craft.
*Cost of Engineer salaries, at $25k per month per Engineer. Engineers work 24 hours a day, giving them an hourly wage of $35.
*Cost of [[Workshop]]s ($35k/month) and [[Living Quarters]] ($10k/month) sufficient for the number of engineers employed.*

These costs are then compared against the Sell price, to determine profitability.

== Startup costs ==

There is a startup cost associated with manufacturing: 50 Engineers cost $2.5 million to hire and require a Workshop ($800,000 to build) and a Living Quarters ($400,000), for a total of $3.7 million. Workshops also require a lead time of 32 days to build. Since you start the game with one Workshop and 10 Engineers, your first Workshop will only cost $2.4 million to fully ramp up (the cost of 40 Engineers and one Living Quarters).

There is also a time and cost factor associated with researching profitable items -- for instance, Heavy Lasers plus Laser Cannons require an average of 880 Scientist days to research (costing about $900,000 in salary). This is in addition to the 450 or so Scientist days required to research Laser Weapons, Laser Pistol, and Laser Rifle.

== Workshop space overhead ==

Each manufacturing project takes up a fixed amount of workshop space, reducing the number of Engineers you can gainfully employ. With multiple workshops, the impact of this overhead is reduced: two workshops are proportionally 5%-7% more profitable than a single workshop would be (depending on the item being produced), and five workshops are as much as 11% more profitable.

== Profit tables ==

The following is a list of selected items that are popular with players attempting to manufacture items for profit. Note that not all these items actually turn a profit, once all costs are factored in.

'''Monthly profits, based on a one-workshop operation. Figures in thousands (000's) where noted.'''

{|
|-
!align ="left"|Item
!align ="center"|Hrs. per unit
!align ="center"|Max Engrs.
!align ="center"|Unit sell price<br>(000's)
!align ="center"|Unit cost<br>(000's)
!align ="center"|Spec. costs<br>(000's)
!align ="center"|Gross per unit<br>(000's)
!align ="center"|Units per month
!align ="center"|Labor cost<br>(000's)
!align ="center"|Net monthly profit<br>(000's)
|-
|align ="left"|''[[Laser Cannon]]''
|align ="center"|300
|align ="center"|44
|align ="center"|211
|align ="center"|182
|align ="center"|0
|align ="center"|29
|align ="center"|107.4
|align ="center"|1,145
|align ="center"|''1,968.4''
|-
|align ="left"|[[Fusion Ball Launcher]]
|align ="center"|400
|align ="center"|44
|align ="center"|281.1
|align ="center"|242
|align ="center"|6.5*
|align ="center"|32.6
|align ="center"|80.52
|align ="center"|1,145
|align ="center"|1,480
|-
|align ="left"|''[[Tank/Laser Cannon]]''
|align ="center"|1200
|align ="center"|25
|align ="center"|594
|align ="center"|500
|align ="center"|0
|align ="center"|94
|align ="center"|15.25
|align ="center"|670
|align ="center"|''763.5''
|-
|align ="left"|[[Psi-Amp]]
|align ="center"|500
|align ="center"|46
|align ="center"|194.7
|align ="center"|160
|align ="center"|5
|align ="center"|29.7
|align ="center"|67.34
|align ="center"|1,195
|align ="center"|805.1
|-
|align ="left"|[[Motion Scanner]]
|align ="center"|220
|align ="center"|46
|align ="center"|45.6
|align ="center"|34
|align ="center"|0
|align ="center"|11.6
|align ="center"|153.1
|align ="center"|1,195
|align ="center"|580.4
|-
|align ="left"|[[Medi-Kit]]
|align ="center"|420
|align ="center"|46
|align ="center"|46.5
|align ="center"|28
|align ="center"|0
|align ="center"|18.5
|align ="center"|80.17
|align ="center"|1,195
|align ="center"|288.2
|-
|align ="left"|''[[Heavy Plasma]]''
|align ="center"|1000
|align ="center"|46
|align ="center"|171.6
|align ="center"|122
|align ="center"|6.5
|align ="center"|43.1
|align ="center"|33.67
|align ="center"|1,195
|align ="center"|''256.3''
|-
|align ="left"|''[[Laser Rifle]]''
|align ="center"|400
|align ="center"|47
|align ="center"|36.9
|align ="center"|20
|align ="center"|0
|align ="center"|16.9
|align ="center"|86.01
|align ="center"|1,220
|align ="center"|''233.6''
|-
|align ="left"|''[[Heavy Laser]]''
|align ="center"|700
|align ="center"|46
|align ="center"|61
|align ="center"|32
|align ="center"|0
|align ="center"|29
|align ="center"|48.1
|align ="center"|1,195
|align ="center"|''200''
|-
|align ="left"|[[Laser Pistol]]
|align ="center"|300
|align ="center"|48
|align ="center"|20
|align ="center"|8
|align ="center"|0
|align ="center"|12
|align ="center"|117.1
|align ="center"|1,245
|align ="center"|160.4
|-
|align ="left"|[[Small Launcher]]
|align ="center"|900
|align ="center"|47
|align ="center"|120
|align ="center"|78
|align ="center"|6.5
|align ="center"|35.5
|align ="center"|38.23
|align ="center"|1,220
|align ="center"|137
|-
|align ="left"|[[Blaster Launcher]]
|align ="center"|1200
|align ="center"|45
|align ="center"|144
|align ="center"|90
|align ="center"|6.5
|align ="center"|47.5
|align ="center"|27.45
|align ="center"|1,170
|align ="center"|133.9
|-
|align ="left"|''[[Plasma Rifle]]''
|align ="center"|820
|align ="center"|46
|align ="center"|126.5
|align ="center"|88
|align ="center"|6.5
|align ="center"|32
|align ="center"|41.06
|align ="center"|1,195
|align ="center"|''119''
|-
|align ="left"|''[[Plasma Pistol]]''
|align ="center"|600
|align ="center"|47
|align ="center"|84
|align ="center"|56
|align ="center"|6.5
|align ="center"|21.5
|align ="center"|57.34
|align ="center"|1,220
|align ="center"|''12.8''
|-
|align ="left"|[[Alien Alloys]]
|align ="center"|100
|align ="center"|40
|align ="center"|6.5
|align ="center"|3
|align ="center"|0
|align ="center"|3.5
|align ="center"|292.8
|align ="center"|1,045
|align ="center"|-20.2
|-
|align ="left"|[[Personal Armor]]
|align ="center"|800
|align ="center"|38
|align ="center"|54
|align ="center"|22
|align ="center"|26
|align ="center"|6
|align ="center"|34.77
|align ="center"|995
|align ="center"|-786.4
|}

'''Legend:'''

*'''Item name''' (and Net monthly profit) will be in ''italics'' if the XcomUtil enhancer will make the item not yield profits (by adding Spec cost or by making the manufacturing project unavailable).
*'''Hrs. per unit''' are the number of hours needed by one engineer to build a single unit
*'''Max Engrs.''' equals 50 minus the amount of workshop space taken up by the project
*'''Unit sell price''' is what the item will sell for on the Sell/Sack screen
*'''Unit cost''' is what each item costs to produce, on the Production screen
*'''Spec. costs''' is $6,500 for each Alien Alloy and $5,000 for each Elerium, if any
*'''Gross per unit''' is its sell price, minus production and special materials costs
*'''Units per month''' is how many units a fully-staffed workshop can turn out: 732 hours (30.5 days) divided by Engineer hours per unit, times Max Engineers employable
*'''Labor cost''' is Max Engineers times $25,000 (monthly salary) -- plus $35,000 for Workshop maintenance costs and $10,000 for Living Quarters
*'''Net monthly profit''' is Gross profit times Units per month minus Labor cost
<nowiki>*</nowiki> The table assumes you are using one Alloy per Fusion Ball Launcher; see [[Manufacturing_Profitability#Laser_Cannons_vs._Fusion_Ball_Launchers|below]].

For a detailed listing of the profitability of all items in X-COM, with figures for 1 to 5 workshops, download [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed's]] [[Media:XCOM_Profit_Tables.pdf|XCOM_Profit_Tables.pdf]]. Or for an Excel (editable) spreadsheet, get [[Media:XCOM_Profits.xls|XCOM_Profits.xls]].

== XComUtil manufacturing profitability ==

Under [[XcomUtil]] there is an option called (slightly misleadingly) "new laser weapons" that requires the use of extra alien materials in order to manufacture almost all energy beam weapons. It also makes the human manufacture of the alien plasma beam small arms impossible (research success merely allows X-COM to <u>use</u> captured weapons). The manufacture of craft Plasma Beams is still possible, but is made significantly more difficult (ten times the labour and workspace requirement as well as additional materials). This, as Scott Jones says, "seriously changes the economics of the game", as well as the balance of firepower in the air and (to a lesser extent) on the ground.

When this XComUtil option is active there are only 7 profitable items to manufacture instead of 14.

In order of decreasing profitability per month these are:

:Fusion Ball Launcher (100%), Psi Amp (53%), Motion Scanner (38%), Medkit (19%), Laser Pistol (10%), Blaster Launcher (9%), Small Launcher (9%).

In fact the profitability of all these items is unchanged from the standard game; you still make 1,480,000 per month for the FBL with one workshop, etc. What changes is that 7 items, notably the Laser Cannon, disappear from the profitable list. But you can still get rich quick, even if the FBL is only 75% as profitable as the Laser Cannon was in unmodified X-COM.

A spreadsheet containing the analysis is here: [[Media:XCOMUtil_Profits.xls|XComUtil Profits]].

== Laser Cannons vs. Fusion Ball Launchers ==

There is an oddity in XCOM which can make the [[Fusion Ball Launcher]] (FBL) appear to be the most profitable item. The oddity is that the first FBL you produce does not require an [[Alien Alloys|Alien Alloy]] (and thus, no Alloy requirement appears on the manufacturing screen), but subsequent FBLs do. If in doubt, watch your Alloy stores while manufacturing... the first FBL doesn't use one, but each additional FBL will use 1 Alloy. This bug is due to an oddity in the [[PRODUCT.DAT]] data at offsets 8-13.

This oddity has caused a fair bit of confusion; some folks (particularly in older docs) say Fusion Ball Launchers are the most profitable.

Without the alloy, the FBL is 1.77% more profitable than the [[Laser Cannon]] (LC). (This is regardless of the number of Workshops, because both FBL and LC have a Workspace requirement of 6.) However, when Alien Alloys are taken into account, FBLs are only 75.2% as profitable as LCs; LCs make 33.0% more profit. Due to the extreme micromanagement needed to repeatedly restart manufacturing versus the minuscule gain, probably few players will build one FBL at a time - so the Laser Cannon is the most profitable item "in real life". Still, you can play however you want!

Some have said that if you have a surplus of Alloys from missions, you might consider Alloys to be free, and make FBLs. Anyone can do what they want, but if the bottom line is ''profitability'', it is clearly more profitable to make LCs (and sell excess Alloys). As stated, this is 33% more profitable than making FBLs with Alloys. ''Unless'', of course, you want to make FBLs one at a time. Then, FBLs will be 1.77% more profitable - but only because you are not incorporating Alloys. Either way - whether you make LCs or you make FBLs one at a time - the most ''profitable'' ways do not involve using Alloys (which are simply sold, once in excess). So, anyone is welcome to make FBLs with Alloys if they want to consider Alloys as a freebie... but they will not be making the most money. (They'll make 75% as much as if they had made LCs, and sold excess Alloy.)

Some have also said that LCs are more profitable because you can make ~30% more LCs than FBLs in a month, with a given number of engineers. This is a misunderstanding. While you do make ~30% more LCs, the calculations take all factors into account - number per month, cost of parts, cost to sell, etc. Compare how the ''least'' profitable item (the [[Heavy Plasma]] clip; see Factoid 1, below) got that way '''because''' you can make a lot in a month - ''but'' the parts are very expensive, versus the resale value. You have to take all factors into consideration to be precise about profitability.

For more info on Manufacturing Profitability calculations, see the [[Media:XCOM_Profit_Tables.pdf|PDF]] or, better yet, the [[Media:XCOM_Profits.xls|spreadsheet]]. The spreadsheet lets you do things like change the number of workshops, drop the cost of Alloys from the computations, etc.

It's also important to note that Laser Cannons are much more readily researched than Fusion Ball Launchers. First of all, to produce Fusion Ball Launchers, you must capture a [[Blaster Launcher]] and [[Blaster Bomb|Bomb]]. These weapons usually don't appear until several months into the game. Secondly, the average time needed to research Laser Cannons is 1,330 hours (26.6 days for 50 Scientists), whereas Fusion Ball Launchers require 2,080 hours (41.6 days). Finally, about one third of the time needed for researching Laser Cannons is spent researching Laser Pistols and Rifles, which you are likely to research early on anyway.

In summary, Laser Cannons are available much sooner than Fusion Ball Launchers, and are clearly the most profitable item in XCOM - ''unless'' you want to micromanage FBLs and build them one at a time.

=== Simplified LC vs FBL profitability ===

Take an example where you start the month with $1,000,000 and 80 alloys, 44 engineers, 1 workshop. Manufacturing FBLs and selling them will end the month with $3,000,000 and 0 alloys. Manufacturing LCs and selling them, keeping the alloys, will end the month with $ $2,968,000 and 80 alloys. Manufacturing LCs and selling them, also selling the alloys, will end the month with $3,488,000 and 0 alloys.

It's clear which is the winner.

== Notes, Tips, Tricks, Etc. ==
*The maximum number of engineers you can assign to a project, equals the number of engineer hours it requires. In other words, the game "enforces" that '''you can only build one item per hour, at most'''. Example: You can only assign 60 engineers at most to work on a plasma pistol clip, which requires 60 engineer hours. The tables above don't take this into account, but then, small-fry products are usually not made by a large operation, anyway.
*You cannot have more than one project of the same type going at the same base. (This otherwise might have been a way "around" the limit of one per hour at most.) However, you can make that thing at some other base.
*Excess/wasted Workshop and Living Quarters are only a minuscule part of your costs. Example: A large operation (four workshops) might have 184 engineers instead of the optimal 194 for Laser Cannons (because of an occasional need to drop back and making flying suits, craft, etc. - it's a balance of constantly wasted space versus occasionally wasted engineers). The "wasted" 10 WS and LQ spaces only cost $9k/month ($45k*10/50), which is only 0.11% of the $8.3M/month that the 184 engineers make when producing LCs.
*Likewise, profits generally scale linearly according to number of workshops (two full workshops make only a little bit more than twice the profit of one full workshop, etc.). Many projects only require a handful of workspace requirements, and are almost totally linear. However, some projects have a large workspace requirement, such as the Laser Tank (25). With only one workshop, the Laser Tank only makes 39% of the profit that Laser Cannons would, whereas they make 64% of Laser Cannons with five workshops. The real reason they do so poorly with one workshop is much less due to the wasted overhead of workshop and living quarters; it is mainly because you can only assign 25 engineers with one workshop, versus 44 for Laser Cannons.
*Those who know XCOM, know that it suffers from integer truncation in a number of places. This could have hurt profitability badly if it occurred there; for example, if an item needs 100 engineer hours but you only assign 99, it might have taken twice as long, and halved your production and profit potential. Fortunately, this is not the case with manufacturing; it does not truncate production time this way.
*There is an [[ExploitsA#Free_Manufacturing|exploit]] that lets the sneaky make items for free - but only one at a time.
*Another [[ExploitsA#Free_Wages|exploit]] involves transferring staff at the end of the month to avoid salaries. Eliminating salary costs makes Laser Cannons about 50% more profitable to produce.
*Factoid 1: The Heavy Plasma Clip is the biggest loss making item, due to the facts that it can be quickly made, but requires 3 Elerium. Be careful what you ask for!
*Factoid 2: Strange as it may seem, XCOM craft are ''not'' the biggest loss making items in the game, even though they are very expensive to make, and you '''can't sell them'''. (High cost, zero sales.) This is because craft take a long time to make, whereas other items can be made quickly, but incorporate expensive components. Their extreme production time overrides the fact that they can actually be sold. :P
*Factoid 3: '''120''' [[Alien Alloys]], '''30''' [[Elerium]], '''2''' [[UFO Power Source]]s, '''1''' [[UFO Navigation]] and '''36''' ''Free workspace'', a [[Hangar]] plus $900,000 are the minimum raw resources needed at a base to begin [[manufacturing]] any item. If abusing the [[ExploitsA#Free_Manufacturing|exploit]] that's all you will ever need to start production.

== Bugs ==

* In UFO: Enemy Unknown (and most likely all the other XCOM and TFTD versions) you can overflow the variable that holds the number of engineers. It is stored in a single byte, so if you get more than 255 engineers at one base, the number will wrap around. Instead of storing the correct number of engineers, it will divide the number by 256 and store the remainder.
If you get exactly 256 engineers your base will have 0.
If you want to play the game fairly, make sure there is never more than 255 engineers at a base.
If you don't mind exploiting the bug to make lots of money, then read on.

The easiest way to start this is to assign your engineers to build something.
Wait until you have enough living quarters, and then buy enough engineers to have exactly 256 (costs $12.8 million for all the engineers, so save up to get them all in 1 month and not pay any salaries). Once the 256 engineers have all arrived, the game will call it 0. You won't need to house them any longer. You won't need to pay their salaries. You'll just need workshop space for them.

There is a second bug in UFO: Enemy Unknown where it only makes sure you don't allocate an engineer when you have 0 available engineers.
It doesn't stop you if you have a negative number of available engineers.
If you have 10 engineers building a Laser Cannon and 0 engineers at the base, you will have -10 engineers available for manufacturing items.
'''THE GAME WILL NOT CARE HOW MANY ENGINEERS YOU ASSIGN AT THIS POINT.'''
Your only limitation is how much workshop space you have. If you build 17 workshops at one base, it can produce a Laser Cannon, a Fusion Ball Launcher, and an Alien Alloy every single hour.

Personally, I recommend having most of your bases with the following: 1 Access Lift (needed), 1 Living Quarters (for soldiers), 1 Hangar (with Avenger), 1 General Stores, 1 Mind Shield, 1 Hyper-Wave Decoder, 1 Psionic Laboratory, and 26 Workshops.
Then you can manufacture 1 Laser Cannon and almost 1 Tank/Laser Cannon every hour (skip the hangar for 1 every hour). These only require money to build (watch that, because if you run out and all production stops, you can't allocate any engineers) and produce large amounts of income.

There is also a [[Known_Bugs#Manufacturing_Limit_Bug|known bug]] associated with display times.

== See Also ==

*[[Workshop]]
*[[Research]]
*[[Hiring/firing]]
*[[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Manufacturable Prices]] for a list of build and sell prices for all manufacturable items (plus special materials requried).
*[[PRODUCT.DAT]] for X-COM's "source data" on manufactured items

*[[Buying/Selling/Transferring (TFTD)#Manufacturable Prices|TFTD Manufacturing Profitability]]

[[Category: data tables]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Terror Mission

2015-04-25T23:28:04Z

Rookie4682: grammar fix

{{EU2012Version}}
==General Information==

{{Ref Open | title = Terror Mission Briefing}}
Mission will be successful when all enemy units have been eliminated or neutralised. You must attempt to save the lives of any [[civilian]]s in the area by neutralising the alien menace.To abort the mission return XCom operatives to transport vehicle and click on the 'Abort Mission' icon.
{{Ref Close | source = X-COM UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown Mission Briefing Screen}}

In a political move to blacken X-Com's image, [[Terror Ship]]s with large squads of aliens are sent to terrorize small towns and cause panic amongst the populace, and then execute them after several hours. All done in an effort to show the stakeholders how ineffective X-COM is and to convince them to withdraw their financial support.

Terror missions are fought in small towns consisting mainly of urban dwellings, parks, and small commercial buildings such as food markets, store houses and gas stations.

What sets a terror mission apart from most ordinary missions is that there will be no UFO on the ground and the aliens will be scattered all over the town on the streets and hidden in buildings. An added layer of difficulty is the inclusion of panicking civilians, who get attacked by the aliens moments after the X-Com transport lands. X-Com operatives need to attempt and save as many of the civilians as they can in addition to keeping themselves alive.

Furthermore, while not unique to Terror Missions, the aliens will be accompanied by powerful "[[Terror Units|Terror Unit]]s". Each race will have a unique terror unit assigned to them that supports them by providing heavy armour, fire power or even unusual forms of attack such as zombification or arced acid attacks.

==Terror Site Generation==

Terror sites occur when:

# A Terror Site is deliberately scheduled to occur. There is a chance this may happen every month.
# An Alien Terror mission is generated and a series of UFOs are sent to scout a region to attack. If successful, a terror mission is scheduled.

When a terror mission is scheduled to occur, a terror ship will eventually appear in the atmosphere and head in a straight line to a randomly selected city in the region that it is attacking.

==Alien Deployment==
<table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Rank</th>
<th>Beg./Exp.</th>
<th>Vet./Gen.</th>
<th>Super.</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Soldiers</td><td>4-5</td><td>5-6</td><td>6-7</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Navigators</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Medics</td><td>1-2</td><td>1-2</td><td>1-2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Engineers</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Leaders</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>2-6</td><td>4-8</td><td>6-10</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>10-16</td><td>13-19</td><td>18-24</td></tr>
</table><br />

==Civilian Deployment==
The number of civilians spawning during a Terror Mission is between 0-16. Generally, expect between 8 and 16 civilians to still be alive when you arrive. However, if the aliens have wiped them all out, they'll still happily combat your squad.

==Tips & Tricks==
* The Terror UFO isn't anywhere to be found during a terror mission.
* [[Urban Terrain]] (city/suburb).
* In a terror site - worry about your soldiers first. Civilians later. Very important. This is a game, so you can choose to be a bit heartless. (It's called collateral damage)
* The gas pumps are explosive!
**There is some weird damage modelling that allows some aliens to be killed instantly by misfires that strike gas pumps.
* All buildings in the cityscape are very weak. Light gunfire can destroy fences and walls.
*To save a few more civilians than usual, limit indiscriminately firing or throwing HE rounds into unexplored areas or in areas where visibility around obstacles is difficult.
* TIME is NOT on your side. If you want a half-decent score, expand quickly and secure. The quicker you kill aliens or get them to panic, the more civilians you'll save overall.
*The aliens will have grenades and heavy plasma, but they never bring blaster bombs along on terror missions.
* Bring lots of heavy rockets and high-explosive. First people off the transport should create a "free fire" zone around the craft with them. You aren't penalized for property damage, so level the place.
* You can get a rough idea for how many civilians are left by gauging the length of the alien turn (civilians move after aliens). You can also count the number of civilian screams you hear during alien turns -- each scream is a death. To get a sure-fire count of total civilians, you can save your game, abort the mission, check the debriefing tally of killed civilians, and then reload. (Some players may view this as cheating.)

==UFOs with Terror Missions==
The city-raiding terror mission mentioned above occurs only when a [[Terror ship|Terror Ship]] is sent on an Alien Terror mission and lands on a city.

But before this happens the aliens will send a [[Small Scout|Small]]/[[Medium Scout|Medium]]/[[Large Scout|Large Scout]] which will show on a [[Hyper-wave Decoder]] as on a Terror Mission.

If you are consistent and successfully destroy the scouts, the aliens will start sending out heavier UFO classes as scouts. This will gradually increase until you finally have Battleships and Terror Ships as scouts during the last few UFOs in the Alien Terror waves.

The ship will land randomly, in some non-urban area, and behave much like you would expect to see on an [[Alien Missions#Alien_Research|Alien Research]] or [[Alien Missions#Alien_Abduction|Alien Abduction]] mission. Unlike a city raid, these scout terror missions will not include [[Terror Units]].

While the city-raiding missions cannot be ignored because of the drop in X-Com's funding and esteem that it would cause, they can be largely avoided by shooting down the scouts. Another alternative, perhaps more risky, is to try to shoot the Terror Ship before it lands.

As with any violent means of taking down UFOs, both methods may subject the interceptor's home base to [[Alien Retaliation]].

Destroying the Alien Terror UFO scouts has a chance of deterring the success of the actual Terror Mission from occurring. It will initially push back timeline when the next Alien Terror UFO will appear. (This note is as-yet uncomfirmed at this stage) If the Alien Terror scout UFOs go beyond a certain period of time since the Alien Terror mission began, their attempt to generate a terror mission will fail and they will stop scheduling scouts.

To know if a Terror Ship will attack a city, watch its flight pattern: if it immediately heads towards a city after arriving at a region, then it will perform a Terror Mission. If slows down and changes its flight course, then consider it to be a scout.

==See Also==
*[[Terror Units]]<br />
*[[Alien Terror]]<br />
*[[Urban Terrain]]<br />

{{Mission Types Navbar}}
[[Category:Missions]]
[[Category: Tactics]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Tank/Cannon

2015-04-25T06:25:24Z

Rookie4682: grammar fix

[[Image:tank_cannon.png|right|framed| Tank/Cannon]]

[[Image:BIGOBS40.GIF|right|framed|Tank Turret]]
The Tank/Cannon is the first of two [[:Category:Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWP]]s available to new [[X-COM]] Commanders.

The Tank/Cannon carries a cannon that fires powerful [[Weapons#Armour_Piercing|armour-piercing]] rounds. Up to 30 rounds can be loaded for a single mission.

While it is universally considered to be the least exceptional of all the [[:Category:Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWP]]s, the Tank/Cannon can still surpass the [[Tank/Rocket Launcher]] for ammunition longevity. Particularly when combating [[Cyberdisc]]s. Where a Tank/Rocket Launcher will rapidly deplete its ammo after combating a few of these enemies, the Tank/Cannon will often have ample supplies of ammunition left over to take down several more.

Unlike the [[Tank/Rocket Launcher]], which can still be useful in later stages of the campaign. This is due to its ability to be shipped rather than manufactured, which is often quicker than manufacturing one of the alternatives. It is a good option for bolstering a new bases defensive force. However, if the production capabilities exist in the new base then the Tank/Cannon is immediately outclassed by the [[Tank/Laser Cannon]] and the [[Hovertank/Plasma]]. Until then, its main function is to fill in any voids that the [[Tank/Rocket Launcher]] leaves behind or as a defensive option for new bases.

This weapons system is used in ''[[X-COM|UFO: Enemy Unknown]]''. In ''[[TFTD|Terror from the Deep]]'', the [[Coelacanth/G. Cannon]] is the equivalent.

== Vital Statistics ==
<table>
<tr><td>Cost:</td><td>$420,000</td></tr>
</table>

{{Tracked Tank Stats}}

{{HWPturret
| type=Cannon
| ammo=HWP Cannon Shells
| damage=60 Armour Piercing
| stowage=30
| acquisition=Purchase
| buyprice=200
| sellprice=100
| aimedaccuracy=90
| adjaimedaccuracy=54
| aimedcost=80
| aimedTU=56
| snapaccuracy=60
| adjsnapaccuracy=36
| snapcost=33
| snapTU=23
}}

== See Also ==

{{Equipment (UFO Defense) Navbar}}
[[Category:Heavy Weapons Platforms]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Heavy Weapons Platforms

2015-04-24T19:22:55Z

Rookie4682: /* Advantages */

'''Heavy Weapons Platforms''', or '''HWPs''', are small unmanned tanks. They are fast, heavily-armored, and carry specialized versions of several weapon types available to your soldiers.

The five HWP types available to X-COM commanders are:
*[[Tank/Cannon]] (Available from start)
*[[Tank/Rocket Launcher]] (Available from start)
*[[Tank/Laser Cannon]] (Requires the Laser Cannon research project)
*[[Hovertank/Plasma]] (Requires the New Fighter Craft and Plasma Cannon research projects)
*[[Hovertank/Launcher]] (Requires the New Fighter Craft, Blaster Launcher and Blaster Bomb research projects)

=== Types ===
HWPs are divided into two distinct chassis types, the standard miniature tracked tank and the hover tank.

;Tracked Chassis
[[Image:tank_body.png | left | Standard tracked tank]]
The tracked tank chassis is the weaker but more readily available and can be purchased off the market. Engineers can produce - without the aide of special materials - a replica of the tracked tank in the workshops fitted with a powerful heavy laser turret.
<br clear="all">
;Hover Chassis
[[Image:hovertank_body.png | left | Hovertank tank]]
The hovertank, a hybrid of human and alien technology, must be built. It is expensive and requires exotic resources in its manufacture, but has superior overall performance, generous layers of armour, and most importantly is able to hover in the air much like a [[Cyberdisc]].
<br clear="all">

=== Weapons ===
HWPs 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 [[Time Units|TU]] per directional change. The turret do not contain any optical perception sensors, so the turret can only see what the tank sees.

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.

A special allowance is made for protecting bases during attacks if you do not have ammunition available. Tanks will always be granted a full payload of ammunition. Any rounds remaining after a successful [[Base Defense|base defense]] will be added to your stores.

== Advantages ==
*Tanks are not affected by psi attacks. They cannot lose [[morale]], except by killing "friendly" units (which includes mind-controlled aliens).
*Tanks are not affected by [[stun]], nor can they receive [[Fatal Wounds|fatal wounds]]. (unlike alien tanks, which ARE affected by stun.)
*Tanks start off with fairly decent stats, except for their Reactions, which are extremely low.
**Tanks have greater Time Units than normal [[Soldiers|soldiers]] and also regenerate to full Energy every turn, which can be quite a big advantage when crossing rough or uphill terrain, making them excellent as scouts.
*Tanks have huge Health and massive armor, especially the Hovertanks. This lets them often remain unscathed from shots that would have killed a normal unarmored soldier, and Hovertanks can take more damage before being destroyed than even the best soldier wearing a Flying Suit, EXCEPT for explosive weapons, which do 4x damage to tanks.
*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.
*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 have better ammunition management than their man-portable counterpart. This significantly affects launcher type tanks like the [[Hovertank/Launcher]] and [[Tank/Rocket Launcher]].
** Tanks carry more (large) ammunition than a soldier can at one time.
** The ammo loaded in the tank does not count towards the 80 item limit.
** All of the tank's ammunition is loaded in a single magazine. Ammo is therefore automatically fed into the gun, and does not require 15TUs to reload after every shot.
*Tanks do not draw salaries. While their initial cost is large, you don't have to keep shelling out cash every month for them. Ammunition expenses take its place.
*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.
*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]]. This also means that tanks have a chance of surviving being bitten/clawed by a Chryssalid, unlike soldiers who are automatically zombified aka insta-killed in 1 hit.
*Hovertanks, like all flying units, can avoid physical attacks from melee aliens by hovering one tile above them.
*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.
* Hovertank/Plasma has 255 shots, which are refilled instantly for free for every battle. .. admittedly, this might be a considered a miniscule advantage, considering the amount of heavy plasma clips that Xcom ends up scavenging from aliens, especially in the late game.

== Disadvantages ==
*Tanks cannot perform Mind Control.
*Tanks are much more expensive than [[Soldiers|soldiers]] - eg $420,000 vs $40,000. Their cost and usefulness are inverse with time. When you need them for their superior mobility and defenses you cannot easily afford them. By the time you can afford them, you will already have better alternatives. They will always remain useful as expendable scouts.
*Each tank takes up four soldiers' worth of space in the transport.
*They do not gain [[experience]] during combat.
*Tanks have very low [[reactions]]. In other words, tanks draw fire. Aliens will prefer to fire on tanks than your troops because tanks have low reaction levels.
**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 a tough and expendable decoy.
*The tank's size introduces a variety of problems.
**They make bigger targets
**More damage is taken from explosives.
**They cannot pass through narrow gaps such as doorways.
**They can go up a 1 tile wide stairway (BUG), and get completely stuck upstairs, since they cannot come DOWN a 1 tile stairway.
**They can also get stuck in walls if they fall off ledges while traveling north or east.
**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 or return fire. This occurs because the tank can only see via one of its quarters. The others three quarters are blind.
* Tank versions of the various weapons are limited:
**Tanks do not have any Auto-Fire capability and their snap shots are time consuming.
**Tanks cannot re-arm during the battle.
**Though many of the weapons are very powerful, they are reduced in effectiveness thanks to the tank's own accuracy levels.
**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).
**Normal lasers have infinite ammunition for the duration of a battle, but the [[Tank/Laser Cannon]] has a limit of 255 charges, like all HWP direct energy weapons. In practise, this hardly matters.
**Launcher tanks in general have weaker missiles. [[Tank/Rocket Launcher]]s use mid-weight rockets that sit between the small and large rockets, while [[Hovertank/Launcher]] have weaker blaster bombs that cannot breach outer UFO walls.
*Tanks cannot carry additional equipment. This means they cannot pick up loot during a hit-run-abandon mission; cannot throw smoke grenades, flares, or explosive grenades; cannot equip or use medkits...
*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 especially true on the [[Hovertank/Plasma]].
*Once destroyed, tanks or their ammunition cannot be recovered.
*Tanks can go [[Morale#Panicking_and_Berserking|berserk]], although only by killing a large number of friendly units (including mind-controlled aliens). Although soldiers go berserk much more easily, and can potentially kill a huge number of fellow soldiers with friendly fire, a berserk HWP will scuttle your campaign by causing your game to crash! Note that HWP/Launchers do not fire their weapon or crash the game when berserk... a significant point considering that HWP/Launchers are the biggest cause of unintentional friendly fire, other than berserk and mind control.

== See also ==
*[[Field Manual: HWP]]
*[[Data Canister: HWP]]
*[[Tank Comparison]]s
* [[Submersible Weapons Systems|Submersible Weapons Systems for ''Terror from the Deep'']]

{{Equipment (UFO Defense) Navbar}}
[[Category:Heavy Weapons Platforms]]
[[Category: Tactics]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Large Radar System

2015-04-24T18:31:14Z

Rookie4682: /* Coverage */

== General Information ==

{{Ref Open | title = Large Radar System}}
[[Image:Base-large_radar.gif|right|100px]]
A large detection system has a range of 450 nautical miles and is linked to satellite systems for ground search. Each system has a 5% chance of detecting an average sized object every 10 minutes.
{{Ref Close| source = Enemy Unknown Ufopaedia}}
<div align="center">''(UFOpaedia text is erroneous)''</div>

[[Image:XBASE_05MAP-L1.JPG|Large Radar: Level 0|250px|right]] [[Image:XBASE_05MAP-L2.JPG|Large Radar: Level 1|250px|right]]

Radar systems provide [[UFO Detection]] for bases. The Large Radar System has both short and long range detection.

Every thirty minutes game time, the Large Radar has 20% chance of detecting a UFO within an approximate 2000-2300 mile radius and can track existing contacts up to an approximate 3000 mile radius. If you advance the time an hour or day at a time, it will make multiple checks and interrupt if a UFO is detected, setting the time to be at whatever point the detection happened (even if it is only five seconds after the last update).

Whether these chances are affected by the size of the UFO is unknown, the UFOpaedia suggest that it does play a part, but the description text is wrong about all the other details.

Large Radar Systems can be improved by adding a [[Small Radar System]] to boost the large radar's short range detection to 30%. This will not affect the 20% long range detection. Additional radars of either type have no game effect except to increase the detection meters on the Base Information page. Both types of Radar become redundant once a [[Hyper-wave Decoder]] has been installed at a base.

This [[Base Facilities (EU)|base facility]] appears in ''[[X-COM|UFO: Enemy Unknown]]''. For the ''[[TFTD|Terror from the Deep]]'' equivalent, refer to the [[Wide Array Sonar]].

== Coverage ==

Please use the following as a guide. The inner circle shows short range detection and the outer circle shows long range detection. UFOs are pinged at half hour intervals and fast ships may continue to be tracked beyond the ranges indicated before disappearing.

<center>[[Image:Approx small radar coverage (inner).PNG]]</center>

== Statistics ==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
| Construction Time:
| 25 days
|-
| Construction Cost:
| $800,000
|-
| Maintenance Cost:
| $15,000/month
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Colspan = "2" | Detection Abilities
|-
| Short
| +20
|-
| Long
| +20
|-
| Hyperwave
| 0
|}

The above detection abilities are one-time-bonuses per base. The base detection values are recalculated every time a new building is completed on a base.

== See Also ==
[[UFO Detection]]

{{Base Facilities Navbar}}

[[Category:Base Facilities (EU)]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]