UFOpaedia - User contributions [en]

Hovertank/Plasma

2011-03-11T09:46:16Z

Sowelu:

[[Image:hovertank_plasma.png|frame|right|Hovertank/Plasma]]
[[Image:BIGOBS43.GIF|frame|Tank Turret]]
The plasma hovertank leverages off Firestorm technology and vehicle-mounted plasma weapons to provide a small, airborne weapons platform of unsurpassed mobility.

The hovertank is superior in both armor and agility to the standard tracked chassis, while mounting a powerful plasma cannon turret. In addition to its ability to hover, it can move over 50% faster. The hovertank chassis's armor is stronger than the standard tank's, and more uniformly distributed. In fact, there is only one weak point on the chassis – its underside – and even this weak spot is more resilient than the main armor of the standard tank.

The plasma beam mounted on the Hovertank is powerful and its [[Elerium]] power source powers the cannon indefinitely. It is limited to 255 charges during the course of a single battle, but is otherwise fully recharged between battles. The weapon has its weaknesses. Primarily it lacks auto-fire, and furthermore the aimed-shot costs too much for a minor accuracy gain. Finally, the plasma bolt is 5 points weaker than the man-portable [[Heavy Plasma]], reducing its effectiveness at breaching walls.

Like all tanks, its larger size precludes it from moving into confined spaces. However, its plasma weapon and generous ammunition supply allow it to blast open pathways when required.

The research requirements of the tank mean that, by the time the hovertank becomes available, commanders will typically have access to high-tech armor and alien weapons, making the hovertank less competitive with well-equipped soldiers. However, thanks to the nature of tanks and the merits of the Hovertank/Plasma, many commanders are compelled to have one accompany their troops on every mission.

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

== Vital Statistics ==
<table>
<tr><td>Cost:</td><td>Manufacture only. $850,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>Manufacturing Requirements:</td><td>1200 Engineer hours, 30 Elerium-115 and 5 Alien Alloys</td></tr>
<tr><td>Research Requirements:</td><td>Plasma Cannon, New Fighter Craft</td></tr>
</table>

{{Hover Tank Stats}}

{{HWPturret
| type=Plasma
| ammo=Plasma
| damage=110
| stowage=255
| acquisition=Purchase
| buyprice=Free
| sellprice=N/A
| aimedaccuracy=100
| adjaimedaccuracy=60
| aimedcost=60
| aimedTU=60
| snapaccuracy=85
| adjsnapaccuracy=51
| snapcost=30
| snapTU=30
}}

== Notes ==
* The plasma beam on the Hovertank/Plasma is not any more powerful than the laser on the [[Tank/Laser Cannon]]. The weapons mainly differ by the damage multipliers and the Hovertank/Plasma's superior accuracy.
* Compared to a [[Heavy Plasma]] gun, the turret's shots have noticeably greater difficulty destroying the internal bulkheads of alien craft due to a 0-10 point difference in strength. See [[Destroying Terrain]] for more details.
*The hovertank, like all flying units, can avoid physical attacks like the [[Chryssalid]]s or [[Reaper]]s by staying above ground level.
* Interestingly, the hovertank looks just like a white-colored Cyberdisk with a turret on top. Maybe it was originally intended that hovertanks were modified Cyberdisks...?

== See Also ==
[[Template:Hover Tank Stats|Hover Tank Stats]]

{{Equipment (UFO Defense) Navbar}}
[[Category:Heavy Weapons Platforms]]
[[Category:Research (EU)]]

Plasma Rifle

2011-03-08T03:05:52Z

Sowelu: Plasma rifles are great for reaction fire.

The next generation of plasma weapon, the plasma rifle is an effective rapid fire sniper rifle.

The plasma rifle improves considerably on the performance of its predecessor the [[Plasma Pistol]] in terms of damage and accuracy. It offers the best snap and auto fire accuracy of all the weapons. While not the highest, it also has 100% aimed accuracy.

The aliens have apparently bought the argument that the [[Heavy Plasma]] is better and abandon all other plasma weapons a few months into the invasion. This means that ammunition for the plasma rifle quickly becomes scarce. Once ammunition stockpiles are depleted, [[Elerium]] will need to be spent to produce more ammunition for this weapon.

Researching the Plasma Rifle and its clip is one of two options available for initiating the [[Plasma Beam]] and consequently [[Hovertank/Plasma]] projects.

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

== Stats ==
<b>Plasma Rifle:</b>
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS31.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Size: 3 high x 1 wide
*Weight: 5
*TUs:
**Auto: 36% (Accuracy 55%)
**Snap: 30% (Accuracy 86%)
**Aimed: 60% (Accuracy 100%)
*[[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Manufacturable_Prices|Manufacturing]]: $88,000 for parts, 820 Engineer Hours, 1 Alien Alloy
*Sell Price: $126,600</td></tr></table>

<b>Plasma Rifle Clip:</b>
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS41.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Power: 80 Plasma
*Ammo: 28
*Size: 1 high x 1 wide
*Weight: 3
*[[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Manufacturable_Prices|Manufacturing]]: $3,000 for parts, 80 Engineer Hours, 2 Elerium
*Sell Price: $6,290</td></tr></table>

== Recommendations ==
Although this weapon straddles the middle ground for performance in the plasma weapon family, its increased snapshot accuracy make it a very good rapid-fire rifle for training snipers in actual battle as well as a superior weapon for long-range reaction fire (which only uses snapshots).

A kneeled snapshot allows the shooter to make use of 98.9% of his or her base accuracy level while enjoying the speed of a snapshot, allowing for more attempts that equals to more accumulated experience and improved accuracy for the next mission.

A master marksman will eventually be able to consistently make 100% accurate snapshots with the plasma rifle. Once accuracy reaches or goes beyond 116, the sniper no longer needs to kneel. The sniper can even migrate to the Heavy Plasma and achieve the same level of performance by kneeling.

== Usage notes ==
The following lists how many times a soldier can fire the gun by shot type continuously in any given round and the remaining percentage of any left over TUs that cannot be spent as a shot.

* Aimed: 1 Shot, 40% Remaining TUs (enough for 1 Snap shot or 1 Auto burst)
* Snap: 3 Shots, 10% Remaining TUs
* Auto: 2 Bursts (6 Shots), 28% Remaining TUs

== Tips ==
* When loaded, weighs as much as a loaded standard [[Pistol]]. If a unit for some reason can't move around with a Heavy Plasma, this is an excellent secondary weapon.
* Unless you can achieve 100% accuracy, aimed shot takes too long for too little of an accuracy boost. Snapshot use is recommended, as it will gives you more attempts.

==See also==
{{Equipment (UFO Defense) Navbar}}
[[Category:Equipment (EU)]]
[[Category:Research (EU)]]

Talk:Alien Missions

2011-03-05T01:39:04Z

Sowelu: /* What does it take for Alien Infiltration to be successful? */

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)

----

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)

----

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]]

----------------------------------

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)

----

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)

----

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

------
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)

-----

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)

-----
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)

----

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)

Talk:Alien Missions

2011-03-05T01:38:56Z

Sowelu: /* What does it take for Alien Infiltration to be successful? */

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)

----

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)

----

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]]

----------------------------------

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)

----

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)

----

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

------
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)

-----

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)

-----
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)

----

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?

== 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)

Silacoid

2011-03-03T08:35:42Z

Sowelu: IN weapons don't give experience

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

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

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

'''Damage:''' 70-75
'''Close Combat Accuracy:''' 92%
'''TUs:''' 15

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

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

==Reactions Training==
Silacoids are perfect for [[Reactions Training]]; they will not "freeze" like disarmed humanoid aliens will, and will trigger reaction shots from even your slowest soldiers (30 Reactions). Flying troops are completely safe from Silacoids and ground troops can still outrun them (stay at least 8 squares away at all times). Their high armor (50 points in most locations) makes them quite resistant to weak weapons for training purposes (but don't use HE ammo).

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

==See Also==
{{Aliens Navbar}}
[[Category:Alien Life Forms]]
[[Category:Research (EU)]]

Talk:Cyberdisc

2011-03-03T08:33:40Z

Sowelu: /* Stun Bombs vs. Detonation */

== Stun Bombs vs. Detonation ==

Zombie, just a thought on your recent edit. Can we get a few more tests on the stun bombs against cyberdisc detonation? It's just that I caused a Cyberdisc to explode while testing the stun bombs for the stun/flare gun while running a test on my all-pistol mod.

I suppose I should test the small launcher and see if that gives me different results. The possibilities that I can see are:

* Stun bombs don't always work
* It's an obdata slot-specific trait
* It's Dos vs. CE edition difference

There's also the possibility that the cyberdisc's damage may have had something to do with it.

-[[User:NKF|NKF]] 22:45, 22 November 2008 (CST)

:Hmm, it seems as though partially-to-fully MC'd Cyberdiscs do not explode when stunned with the Stun Bomb. However, a fully controlled alien Cyberdisc will explode. Nice catch. Don't know about the Stun Rod, though it should follow the same mechanics. May need to do a rewrite of the article then. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 23:18, 22 November 2008 (CST)

:Seems as though the Stun Rod prevents a Cyberdisc from using it's auto-destruct sequence. These tests were conducted on Cyberdiscs in Mountainous terrain from a Supply Ship while on the ground (L0). The Cyberdiscs themselves were <b>never</b> mind controlled, but I did edit their integrated weapon to hold 0 shots to make it safer for my troops to approach. ;) MC status doesn't matter though, because my soldier tried it by MCing one section and still no explosion. As always, I'm using the Collector's Edition version. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 22:40, 24 June 2009 (EDT)

:Ok, a partially MC'd Cyberdisc does explode with a Stun Bomb. So will a full alien controlled Cyberdisc. However, a fully MC'd Cyberdisc will not explode when it is stunned with a Stun Bomb. So there you go. Some odd stuff going on with stunning, but at least we have an answer. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 22:55, 24 June 2009 (EDT)

:It's not (entirely) a MC issue. Early on, before I even had psi labs, I took one down safely with a small launcher. It wasn't previously damaged (I don't think, unless I missed and hit it off-screen). Importantly, I didn't hit it dead-on; the stun bomb landed next to it. Totally random idea but could it have to do with where the stun bomb lands in relation to it, kind of like how grenades can destroy each other? Seems unlikely, but hey. This was on Beginner, and using UFOExtender which I guess might throw everything off. [[User:Sowelu|Sowelu]] 03:33, 3 March 2011 (EST)

==MCed Cyberdisc MAD suggestion==

I just think it should be noted that the Cyberdisc, with a Psi Strength of 100 in '''Beginner''' difficulty, is one of the two toughest units in the game to successfully mind control(tied with the [[Sectopod]]). If you have Psi-troops capable of successfully MCing even 1 quarter of a Cyberdisc, the sectiods accompanying it (indeed, the Cyberdisc itself!) should pose little trouble. In addition, it may be more effective to just tell the MCed component to shoot one of the other three components. They'll likely reaction-fire the MCed area, and the whole thing will explode. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 13:00, 24 November 2008 (CST)

== Weapon Rankings Vs. Cyberdiscs ==

Average %TUs per kill (at Firing Accuracy=50):

Blast Bmb 38
HE Pack(XCU) 59
HvyPlas 67
Stun Bmb 101
Stun Rod 102
PlasmaR 106
HvyLas (XCU) 119
HE Pack 187
LaserR 192
PlasmaP 204
RocketLg 273
HvyLas 291
Alien Grd 333
LaserP 391
HC - AP 765
RocketSm 769
Prox Grd 962
AC - AP 1219
Rifle 3918
HC - HE 5027
Grenade 9154
Pistol 10371
AC - HE 16837

Heavy Weapon Platforms (at standard HWP FA)

Tk Cannon 549
Tk Rocket 287
Tk Laser 168
Tk Plasma 90
Tk Fusion 78

It's possible that Incendiary weapons are comparatively effective vs Cyberdiscs, since they ignore armour and ''may'' cause multiple damage to large units. However the mechanics of Incendiaries are not yet well enough understood to do exact modelling.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 19:00, 11 March 2009 (CDT)

== Cyberdisc vs. Tanks ==

Regarding the previous edit, I've always said that the Rocket tank is not good against the Cyberdisc. This was mainly from an ammo-efficiency point of view. One rocket tank has to expend a lot of rockets just to knock down a Cyberdisc - which is extremely prominent on Superhuman.

A handheld rocket launcher and HE packs are always the better answer to Cyberdiscs, but between the two starting tanks, if you had to go up against a Cyberdisc with a tank due to some desperate circumstance, I believe the cannon tank would be a slightly better choice.

It would be just as bad in that it would need about 3 - 4 hits to knock a Cyberdisc down. Since it has more ammo it can continue fighting well past the first Cyberdisc. The rocket tank on the other hand would be no more than an expensive scout/decoy after the second Cyberdisc - assuming every shot connected.

The laser, plasma and fusion tanks on the other hand are always good against Cyberdiscs. However, by the time you have access to them, you'll have plenty counter-Cyberdisc measures available to you.

-[[User:NKF|NKF]] 02:52, 1 March 2009 (CST)

:Of course, I've always been of the opinion that tanks are almost necessary on an Avenger because 80 items split among 26 soldiers means no one gets much gear. Using tanks alleviates this somewhat. Also, tanks make great expendable scouts, especially for a Psi Ops team, since you probably don't want your carefully cultivated 99 Psi Strength trooper shot by a Muton who was around the corner. This doesn't really change your base point, it just comments that tanks in the late game are great for anti-Cyberdisc purposes. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 19:28, 1 March 2009 (CST)

:: Though, by the time you have an Avenger and deadly Psi-corps, 26 soldiers is pretty much overkill... if I'm careful and really lucky, I can win it with just 1 man. But a 3 man psi-elite team is enough to beat any map. [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 21:20, 1 March 2009 (CST)

:Agreed, but redundancy is good. I usually stack 10 men in the Avenger and 4 Plasma hovertanks. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 21:23, 1 March 2009 (CST)

== Live Specimen ==

I've heard that if you mind control them and keep them until the end of the battle, you can get a live Specimen ([[User talk:Urailar|Urailar]])

== You can capture cyberdiscs. ==

If a cyberdisk is hovering when you stun bomb it, it's explosion will not usually kill it, as the explosion happens on the level above where the "corpse" falls. One sectoid terror mission is usually enough to capture one if you've using stun launchers.

::Except it still comes up as a corpse. Even if you taser it and there is no explosion. [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] 09:41, 15 August 2009 (EDT)

Agents Stats (Apocalypse)

2008-09-20T07:50:32Z

Sowelu:

==Overview==
This page aims to list all of the stats and inform as to their purpose.

===Health===
One of the most important attributes for an Agent is Health. If this ever reaches 0 (or less), the Agent is dead.

===Accuracy===
This determines how accurate your agent's shots are. The higher it is, the more likely they are to hit.

===Reactions===
Reactions determines how fast your agent reacts to threats in Real Time and Turn Based, similarly to the original X-COM. A higher value is better.

===Speed===
This determines the agent's movement speed. A higher number is a faster agent. Speed is decreased by carrying weapons and equipment (modified by the agent's Strength) so carrying too much gear slows your agent down.

===Stamina===
Agents consume stamina when running, and running out of it will force the agent to walk until they recover.

===Bravery===
When fellow agents are killed, an agent may lose bravery. If bravery reaches a critical level (or zero), the agent panics. This goes both ways - it is possible for aliens and other human forces to panic if enough of their comrades are killed.

===Strength===
This determines how strong the agent is, thusly impacting how much equipment they can carry and how fast they can travel. A higher strength is better. Strength can ONLY be increased through training at a training facility.

===Psi-energy===
Psi energy is used when making psionic attacks. It works somewhat like stamina - without psi energy, you can't make psionic attacks. Androids have 0 psi energy.

===Psi-attack===
Psi attack determines how strong your agent's psionic attacks are. The stronger they are, the more chance they have of overwhelming the target's Psi defense - but some aliens are completely immune to psionics. Androids have 0 psi attack.

===Psi-defense===
Psi defense indicates how resistant your agent is to psionic attack. The higher it is, the more chance the agent has of resisting psionic assault. Androids have 100 psi defense.

Soldier Name Stats

2008-09-16T21:15:41Z

Sowelu: Hypothesis on duplicate name checking

== Name Sets ==

There are six sets of X-COM soldier names, each composed of 20 first names and 20 last names. 5 of the 20 first names in each set are female (based on [[SOLDIER.DAT]] byte 67), denoted by an asterisk:

'''''<u>American Set</u>
Austin Bradley
* Barbara Bryant
Calvin Carr
Carl Crossett
* Catherine Dodge
Clarence Gallagher
Donald Homburger
Dwight Horton
Ed Hudson
* Evelyn Johnson
Kevin Kemp
Lester King
Mark McNeil
Oscar Miller
* Patricia Mitchell
Samuel Nash
* Sigourney Stephens
Spencer Stoddard
Tom Thompson
Virgil Webb

'''''<u>British Set</u>
Adam Bailey
Alan Blake
* Andrea Davies
Arthur Day
Brett Evans
Damien Hill
David Jones
Frank Jonlan
* Helen Martin
James Parker
* Jane Pearce
John Reynolds
* Maria Robinson
Michael Sharpe
Neil Smith
Patrick Stewart
Paul Taylor
Robert Watson
* Sarah White
Scott Wright

'''''<u>French Set</u>
Armand Bouissou
Bernard Bouton
Claude Buchard
* Danielle Coicaud
Emile Collignon
Gaston Cuvelier
Gerard Dagallier
Henri Dreyfus
* Jacqueline Dujardin
Jacques Gaudin
Jean Gautier
Leon Gressier
Louis Guerin
Marc Laroyenne
Marcel Lecointe
* Marielle Lefevre
* Micheline Luget
Pierre Marcelle
Rene Pecheux
* Sylvie Revenu

'''''<u>German Set</u>
* Christel Berger
Dieter Brehme
Franz Esser
Gerhard Faerber
* Gudrun Geisler
Gunter Gunkel
Hans Hafner
* Helga Heinsch
Jurgen Keller
* Karin Krause
Klaus Mederow
Manfred Meyer
Matthias Richter
Otto Schultz
Rudi Seidler
Siegfried Steinbach
Stefan Ulbricht
* Uta Unger
Werner Vogel
Wolfgang Zander

'''''<u>Japanese Set</u>
Akinori Akira
Isao Fujimoto
Jungo Ishii
Kenji Iwahara
* Mariko Iwasaki
Masaharu Kojima
Masanori Koyama
* Michiko Matsumara
Naohiro Morita
* Sata Noguchi
Shigeo Okabe
Shigeru Okamoto
Shuji Sato
* Sumie Shimaoka
Tatsuo Shoji
Toshio Tanida
Yasuaki Tanikawa
Yataka Yamanaka
* Yoko Yamashita
Yuzo Yamazaki

'''''<u>Russian Set</u>
Anatoly Andianov
Andrei Belov
* Astra Chukarin
Boris Gorokhova
Dmitriy Kolotov
* Galina Korkia
Gennadi Likhachev
Grigoriy Maleev
Igor Mikhailov
Ivan Petrov
Leonid Ragulin
* Lyudmila Romanov
Mikhail Samusenko
Nikolai Scharov
* Olga Shadrin
Sergei Shalimov
* Tatyana Torban
Victor Voronin
Vladimir Yakubik
Yuri Zhdanovich

Columns show first and last names for each set of 20. There is no association per se between a particular first name being next to a last name (above) - I'm simply presenting each set sorted alphabetically, and used two columns to conserve space. Any first name within a given set is liable to be combined with any last name in that set.

== Test Set ==

20 batches of 100 recruits (total N=2,000) were used as a sample. Not all possible 2,400 first and last name combinations appeared, of course, but first and last names were always associated as shown above. Thus you may see an Adam Bailey, but will never see an Adam Bradley.

510 of 2,000 soldiers were female (25.50%), almost exactly the expected 500 (25%).

No duplicate names were observed within a given batch of 100, but numerous duplicates were observed across batches. There were 969 unique names in the 2,000, with the most-duplicated name appearing 8 times. X-COM probably uses a simple method for avoiding duplicates within a batch, such as using a random pointer into the name table (based on how many soldiers you've just recruited) and then walking through the name table (instead of repeatedly randomly sampling it). In any event, regardless of how they did it, there were no duplicates within a batch of recruits, but were duplicates across batches.

<u>Freq</u> <u>Count</u> <u>Sum</u>
1 496 496
2 181 362
3 131 393
4 93 372
5 40 200
6 20 120
7 7 49
8 1 8
----- ------
969 2000

Thus, 1,431 of the possible 2,400 name combinations (2400-969) did not appear.

Frequency by nationality for the 2,000:
<u>Nationality</u> <u>Frequency</u>
B1 359
A 316
F 335
G 365
J 284
R 341

It is not known why many combinations didn't show up, while others showed up multiple times. Also e.g. why there were 284 Japanese and 365 Germans, when the expected value is 333 (2000/6) for each set. Perhaps these results are due to random chance, or perhaps the name sampler has some sort of bias that makes certain combinations or nationalities more likely than others. Or maybe my 20 batches were simply not a big enough sample, particularly if the name selector does something odd when trying to avoid duplicates. For the complete dataset (including counts), see [[Media:X-COM Soldier Names.xls]]. If anyone knows how to do statistical testing for possible biases, feel free. Probably a much larger sample (10,000 recruits?) will give a clearer picture... but it would require 100 recruit batches, bleh. ''-[[User:MikeTheRed|MTR]]

== Duplicates ==

While playing a fairly average game (less than 100 soldiers ever generated so far), I manually put stat strings on my soldiers' names. I currently have two Yoko Fujimotos with various stat strings. Considering that duplicate names aren't seen within a single game while testing names, but that I did see a second Yoko Fujimoto get generated after I changed the name of my original to Yoko Fujimoto-xs, I'm going to go ahead and say "The game probably just avoids duplicates by comparing the name it generates to each existing soldier's name". I predict that if you hire a female Russian soldier, and change her name to "Austin Bradley", you will never see another soldier generated with the name "Austin Bradley" but you might see a new soldier with her original name. This would be very tedious to test. --[[User:Sowelu|Sowelu]] 14:15, 16 September 2008 (PDT)

==See Also==
*[[Raw_recruit_statistical_likelihood|Recruit Statistics]]
*[[Soldiers]]
*[[Hiring/firing]]