UFOpaedia - User contributions [en]

User:Tequilachef

2013-10-30T22:17:19Z

Tequilachef: major revamp of page.

Since there are several links in this Wiki to this page i will keep it mostly unchanged from now on. Some edits are down below.

== Council Funding Only ==

=== Rules ===

* Not selling any alien artifacts, corpses or UFO components
* Not selling any X-Com made Equipment
* Thus only getting money from the funding nations (and by selling surplus earth equipment like rifles or stingray launchers)
* No exploits!
* No farming (Alien supply missions may not be intercepted, alien bases may only be attacked to be destroyed)
* No reloading if something goes wrong! Saving in Battlescape is allowed, but only for backups if the game crashes.

This makes the game much harder and much more fun.

=== Finances ===

When expending money, always keep in mind that you only will get oney ONCE a month! As soon as you are out of money you cannot manufacture, hire personell or buy equipment. Remember what costs might come to you for the rest of the month! Important:

* For manufacturing
* Replace losses on the battlefield (one or two terror missions can push this one up quite well)
* Replace equipment (Ammunition for earth weapons, grenades)

Huge one-time costs that need to be planned ahead are:

* Hyper wave Decoders, Mind Shields and Psi Labs (each damn expensive but worth every penny)
* Psi Amps (160,000$ each)
* Interceptors with twin plasma beams (1,042,000$ each)
* Starting base defense makeover (excluding additions like radar/alien containment/etc): building 2 new hangars, filling up the old hangar squares with 8 general stores to avoid "paying for dirt" (pays off after 2 months, you'll need a lot of room anyway), building replacement for living quarters at choke (total of 2,000,000$)
* New bases (if you plan to build up decent base defenses):
** 3 hangars (Alien spawn points!!)
** 2 general stores
** 1 living quarters
** a small garrison for base defense (I normally take 10 soldiers)
** equipment for those soldiers (weapons, ammunition, medikits, maybe armour)
** radar or decoder
** crafts
** transfer costs for crafts & equipment
** additional capabilities (workshops for craft construction, psi labs, backup laboratory/alien containment, backup storage)

Before making any expenses, calculate what you are going to need over the month. Will hangars be completed? You might want some savings for an interceptor. Is important research coming up? Save some money for the Psi-Labs/Hyperwave Decoders/Whatever.
If you are low on soldiers between the last 5 to 3 days of a month, do not hire new ones until only 71 hours of the old month are left. This saves the salary for those soldiers for the new month.
10 Engineers are far enough for the first few months. You won't have the money for excessive manufacturing, anyway.

=== Research ===

Everything that saves money should be researched immediately.
* The first to go should be Medi Kit. Although expensive in production, everytime a soldier is saved by those you save 40.000$!
* Next up should be alien weaponry. Although you need ammunition for it, the weapons themselves are for free. Equipping a squad with laser rifles costs a fortune. Also remember that all X-Com made equipment destroyed in battle has to be replaced, what costs money again!
* I therefore suggest plasma rifles. They combine supreme accuracy with good firepower, which is needed to bring down terror units and to kill most aliens with one hit. Additionally, plenty of ammo for plasma rifles can be found during the first months.
* This unlocks the plasma cannon research, which does not require ammo and therefore saves money, too.
* Alien grenades are quite nice, too. All alien equipment, except for those useless plasma pistols should be researched and used!
* When using personal armour of all kind remember that losing a soldier in one of those costs even more than 40 grand! Only use those for your best men!
* Psi Labs are expensive! Be very careful with soldiers currently in psi training, if possible keep them out of battles at all. Build your psi labs in multiple bases and in those that lay in remote areas. Shuffle your Base garrisons for psionic training and send wounded soldiers to training since they cannot do anything else, anyway. After that train your most talented soldiers excessively, you wont have many of them!

=== Tactical Combat ===

One of the big bills is hiring replacements. Therefore keeping your soldiers alive should be top priority. Some tricks to reduce your soldiers' mortality rate:
* Throw a smoke grenade out of your craft in the first turn. Do not exit, all aliens have full TUs at the beginning of your first turn and will therefore be able to reaction fire on your troops.
* Think of bringing an incendiary rocket to light up night missions and to burn down jungles.
* Electro Flares are an absolute must-have for night missions. If one lights your own troops, blast it with a grenade or pick it up.
* Employ psi puppets if necessary.
* Tanks cost a whole bunch of money and are very vulnerable to reaction fire. Better use 10 soldiers for the same money.

=== Scoring ===

Obtaining huge amounts of score points is your top objective. Those will increase your payment by the funding nations. Normally, a score around 3,000 points will result in a remarkable increase in funding. This is absolutely necessary to cover rising maintenance costs, which come with global radar coverage and multiple interceptors.
Some tricks to keep your employers happy:
* Every UFOpaedia entry gains points. Save autopsies and other alien research for worse months.
* If you have a nice amount of points and the monthly report is near, keep possible sources for points (alien bases, downed UFOs) untouched. Taking them when already having enough points would be waste.
* Downing UFOs earns points, destroying them in air combat doubles them! Having plasma beams...
** makes those points absolutely free
** gives the chance of destroying medium scouts and very rarely even large scouts (more free points, the ground assault would cost money and endanger squad and equipment for 200 points or less)
** hugely improves your capability of taking down terror ships and supply ships!
* Points cost money! Every tactical mission that gains points costs money. This can go from a few thousand for ammo up to some hundrets of thousands for killed soldiers. remember that wounded soldiers still receive salaries while doing nothing, so soldiers being wounded cost, too. Therefore leave downed UFOs when having enough points halfway through the month.

=== Emptying the stores ===

Although selling stuff is forbidden, there is no reason you should not be allowed to destroy it. Sell surplus equipment or corpses, then "destroy" the money by building and destroying base facilities or buying and then selling items. A nice spot for that is the position of the starting base original living quarters. This improves the defenses of your base while keeping down the paying for dirt bug.

=== Conclusion ===

Originally, I had written here how easy the game still was. Now, I still struggle to finish this with XComUtil installed and therefore the difficulty bug tamed (I did non realize before: I hab done this on beginner difficulty!). Now it looks quite different! I restarted almost a dozen times, each time refining my strategy. Once I did it... well, almost. I realized that by some wicked collaboration of xcomutil 9.6 and UFO DOS 1.2, infiltrated funding nations will CONTINUE to pay money (see bug huntin' section). I had had too much money. Trying again :)

=== Legacy ===

When I wrote this 6 years ago I wouldn't have thought that this might actually inspire anyone. I found out that this "mod" made it's way into some big fan-made project. I'm thinking of suggesting it to the openxcom guys for implementation.

Anyways, seeing that my idea is apprechiated is just great :)

== Bug Huntin' ==

After my return here after 6 years of abstinence, I took a shot at the game again... and discovered several things I never saw anywehre here. Listed here:

=== Source of "Paying for Dirt" bug discovered ===

(Text Identical to [[Talk:Known_Bugs]])

Well, I never have read this anywhere (which kind of strikes me as odd, thinking of how obvious this one seemed to me... And i have NO programming background whatsoever), so I'll post it here, hoping that there are still some active members willing to try and verify my findings. If so, please comment here, because then I will inform bladefirelight to include this in any upcoming xcomutil release. If it had been discovered before, well then I just wasted some time here. Comment below, I will delete this entry.

As the main bug page mentions, when dismantling a facility still under construction the premium will only be paid once it would have been finished. This suggests some connection between paying the premium and building time. Looking into the infos here: BASE.DAT, I quickly discovered what the problem was: When a facility is dismantled, the Bytes related to the location of base facilities are updated correctly. HOWEVER the game omits to update build time to FF (which is "will never finish", an entry only found on unused squares). If the facility is finished when it is dismantled (or destroyed during combat), then the 00 in the build time byte will stand. If it was under construction, the value indicating the remainig build time will continue to tick down towards 00 as if the facility was still there.

Now at the end of the month the following seems to happen: The game checks for ANY 00 entry in the build time bytes, and if there are 00 entries, it will look up in the location bytes the type of structure to determine the amount of maintenance for that 00-construction-time-square. When it finds "dirt", then it will charge the 80 grand (my guess would be that those are somewhere hard-coded).

This explains all phenomena related to this bug, like a dismantled hangar costing 320.000 grand or the premium only popping up after the build time of a dismantled facility that was under construction has expired.

Now the fix is pretty easy: Open the BASE.DAT in a hex-editor and change the bytes in question to FF!

=== Invincible South Atlantic Base ===

As noted here: [[Access_Lift]], it is possible to build a base in the South Atlantic Area. As noted here: [[Open_Questions]], the Aliens will always spawn a research mission right at the start in the area of your first base. I tested that, edited some decoder coverage in a new game. When the first base is in the South Atlantic, then this mission never happens. NO mission will EVER happen there. Therefore, this base is IMMUNE TO RETALIATION (except you dismantle an access lift when an UFO it on it's way there and the attacking force will randomly change to another base).

I'm not really sure about that one, but if it stands true, this might even be an issue for OpenXCom.

=== Funding Nations Regain Bug ===

Might be a combo of UFO 1.2 Dos and XComUtil 9.6. Will update later. too tired...

Talk:Known Bugs

2013-10-30T21:51:50Z

Tequilachef: Paying for Dirt: Source of Bug discovered!

= Classification etc =

== Bugs vs Exploits ==

Could someone comment please on the distinction between a bug and an exploit, and where to put each one? I would guess that a bug is something that undesirable and an exploit "might be" desirable, if you want to cheat. But what about exploits that happen by accident, or bugs that need to be forced to happen?

I was going to add the Research Rollover bug to the Exploits sections, but they seem to all be under construction. What's the agreed approach?

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 04:16, 15 March 2008 (PDT)

* i think that an exploit is somthing you can trigger and gain an advantage from. a bug may or may not have a known trigger, and does not give an advantage if it does.
: All exploits are bugs, either in implementation or design. When using a bug to gain advantages that bug is used as an exploit (you are exploiting the bug). [[User:FrederikHertzum|FrederikHertzum]] 13:39, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

:: IMHO, Laser Pistols Gifts to train reactions is an exploit, but it does not involve any bugs. It merely exploits the fact that laser pistols will not penetrate the front armor of Flying Suits. [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 16:31, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

::: I guess the point is to differentiate if it's a bug that's being exploited to your advantage, or it it's something confined within the game mechanics that you are exploiting to your advantage (even if using it as intended). -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 02:31, 11 May 2011 (EDT)

:::: Another definition: An exploit is
::::: a) a move allowed by game interface
::::: b) that sidesteps another part of the game mechanics
::::: c) and creates inadequate advantage for the moving player in the process.
::::: An exploit is not a bug, but it can be connected with a bug, if the latter allows a move mentioned in a). Most obvious exploits render whole parts of game mechanics obsolete (see b) above), because they are always more advantageous. In games that feature equal terms for AI and the player, an exploit can be discerned simply by the fact that AI does not use it (sadly this is not true in X-COM). Clear exploit in X-COM: Transfer soldiers = no monthly payment. Suspect exploits: grenade layout. Most probably not an exploit: Sniping (although the inequality with AI is suspect). Clearly not an exploit: dropping weapons to prevent Psi mass murder (this one is made exploitable by the AI unable to pick up weapons, but is not an exploit per se).--[[User:Kyrub|kyrub]] 05:30, 11 May 2011 (EDT)

The dropping weapons sort of turns into an exploit if you do the "everyone suspect of being a psi weakling drops their weapons at the end of the turn. They all pick up their weapons again if unpsied in the next turn." The grenade layout or grenade hot potato is probably not what the game designers had in mind, but I shudder at the thought of someone who only played X-com then joined the army pulling the pin out of his grenade and then dropping it into his haversack or slinging it on his belt. [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 07:43, 11 May 2011 (EDT)

: Yeah, I think we agreed somewhere that shoving live grenades in your pockets and not having them go off is madness. The relay however is not sensible but certainly possible if only a very short one (if with a live grenade), or to toss a grenade forward and prime it at the second to last person. Or more reasonably, something like a stick of dynamite with an extra long fuse. Even that's very dangerous.

: By the way, what does everyone here think of using the mind probe to check if it's safe to attack an alien while standing in full view of it, or if you're right up next to it? I've been using it a lot lately (in lieu of the psi amp), so you could say I've been exploiting the mind probe to my advantage to help me with my decision making. But is that counted as a cheat since I'm picking my moments to attack up close when the enemy cannot return fire? -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 03:30, 12 May 2011 (EDT)

:: When identifying a mechanic as an "unfair exploit" (as opposed to just a "tactic"), perhaps a simpler checklist is this (though Kyrub's is spot-on):

:: a) Is this something the developers should've expected players to do?
:: b) Is this something the developers could've easily prevented?

:: If the answer to both is "yes", then it seems fair game to me. For eg, sniping at aliens: The game KNOWS whether the soldier can see the target (you get a flashing indicator if so), and so it would've been trivial to prevent it. Is it something the regular gamer will try? Certainly; therefore it can be considered expected behaviour. Ditto for using the Mind Probe to make attacks without fear of reaction fire; those things aren't cheap, they sell for a bunch, so it stands to reason that they'd have tactical value!

:: Things like the transfer bug are clear exploits. The devs would've implemented that system so that, if you order personal near the end of the month, you don't end up paying for them twice before they ever arrive - but in the process, they forgot that "purchase" transfers are treated in the same way as "between-base" transfers. To fix one scenario without breaking the other, they'd've needed to code in some extra stuff so the game could tell the difference - they probably just figured the regular gamer would never notice, assuming they ever realised the problem existed.

:: The "dropping weapons" thing is a little trickier to work out - yes, the devs should've seen it coming, but would it've been easy to fix? Aliens could've been twigged to either ignore un-armed soldiers... but those soldiers could re-equip next turn. Aliens could also've been twigged to attack randomly... but that would make their psi powers far LESS effective! I suppose the fix, if any, would've been unarmed melee attacks, but the implementation they went with seems to be the next best thing IMO.

:: In regards to the "grenades in inventory" thing, it's probably common knowledge by now, but they DO go off in the alpha of the game. Presumably someone made a conscious decision to change that, though it could still just be an accidental bug. -  [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] ([[User_talk:Bomb_Bloke|Talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bomb_Bloke|Contribs]]) 09:02, 12 May 2011 (EDT)

Sniping at aliens is a very bizarre case, since almost all players will fall prey to the aliens sniping at you long before they snipe the aliens. The behaviour of the aliens to step within sight radius, take one step back, then fire without fear of retaliation *looks* and *feels* like clear exploitation of the rules, but the computer can't be a cheater, can it? So we humans carry that one step further. Mind you, I think X-com would be in trouble if the aliens could snipe you from across the map once they know your positions... especially since the aliens have cheating "if I spot 1 human, I spot ALL of them" abilities. Especially on maps where the aliens get Blaster Bombs...

An interesting note about sniping and LOS: When I first played Xcom, my first mission was in the jungle. Because of all those plants, when my first soldiers spotted an alien, after he shot at him, I tried to make my 2nd soldier open fire and was informed "NO Line of Fire". I could only get my 2nd soldier to fire by positioning him in such a way that I got the flashing number. Henceforth, I assumed that you could ONLY fire at the aliens when the flashing number was there. LOL. LOF. LOS.

Transfer bug wise, I thought that the devs merely programmed the game to count how many staff were currently in the base, then deduct that from Xcom coffers? As far as ordering personnel near month end goes, you end up paying salary for them if you order them more than 48 hours from month end, right? "realistically", they should make staff draw salaries based on when they were hired, but this would be too much effort.

"dropping weapons" would have been easy enough to fix... just teach alien AI how to pick up weapons. Like they did in Apocalypse.

As far as grenade relays go, if you ever join the army, and you toss a live grenade at your squadmate, you're gonna be court martialled! lol. Xcom grenades are weird cause they presumably come with a computer console where you program them or something that takes a lot of TU, if I already have a grenade in my hand I don't think it takes long to prime it compared to throwing it...

Pretty clear exploit/bug is tossing grenades through the ceiling? That breaks all laws of realism/logic/whatever, and I'm sure the devs didn't plan for THAT to happen! [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 18:18, 12 May 2011 (EDT)

: Turns out the "spot one, spot all" thing was wrong all these years. However, units can be "spotted" by sniping an alien, hitting it, but failing to outright kill it; this may have contributed to the misconception.

: The game considers the base to have the correct amount of personal as soon as you initiate a transfer - if a base has room for ten people, you can't send two groups of ten, as soon as the first is in transit the game will correctly recognise that the destination is now filled up and won't allow you to send any more. Likewise, if you hire soldiers, they'll count towards the allowance of more promotions in your ranks before they ever arrive at a base. That is to say, the payment system deals with personal counts in a different way to every other system in the game, making it look like it's intentional (if badly exploitable) behaviour. In terms of transit times, those seem to vary, I know a purchase of scientists takes 72 hours to arrive.

: Er, yes, getting aliens to pick up weapons would've indeed fixed the dropping thing. Shoulda thought of that...

: The grenade thing is indeed unrealistic however you look at it. Certainly throwing the things through ceilings is a bug, and its use is a large exploit. -  [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] ([[User_talk:Bomb_Bloke|Talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bomb_Bloke|Contribs]]) 20:02, 12 May 2011 (EDT)

:: Then how do the aliens "spot" the psi weakling to target him for psi attacks? Doesn't the game ALWAYS start blasting the juiciest target, regardless of LOS? Or is it just coincidence? [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 22:22, 12 May 2011 (EDT)

::: They really have to "[[UNITPOS.DAT#8|spot]]" the target before they can blast them (however, it appears that later in a campaign this rule gets broken). If they've only spotted a psi-''resistant'' trooper, they typically won't bother to make attacks at all. There's a lot of relevant information in [http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/Can-alien-attempt-Mind-control-Pani-t8115.html this thread]. -  [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] ([[User_talk:Bomb_Bloke|Talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bomb_Bloke|Contribs]]) 23:28, 12 May 2011 (EDT)

: Your talking about your post on http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/Can-alien-attempt-Mind-control-Pani-t8115.html&pid=96123&mode=threaded#entry96123 ? Well, I'd just like to point out a massive flaw in your testing logic. You forgot that aliens will launch psi attacks based on chance of success, and chance of success varies based on distance from aliens. In other words, it could easily be that the aliens only attempted psi when your soldier was within sight of them because your soldier was now NEAR to them and therefore they had a strong chance of success.

: Also, as you have noted, it appears that your rule gets broken. In fact, it is not uncommon at all for the Ethereal Commander who is boxed up in the Command Center to launch psi attacks on victims who are separated from him by several layers of walls, as long as their proximity to him is near enough. [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 21:19, 13 May 2011 (EDT)

:: Those are valid points. I've hence built a somewhat more robust testing scenario, which you may wish to [[:Image:Alien Psi Demonstration 1.rar|try for yourself]].

:: The save game consists of cloned Ethereal soldiers (all cranked up to 100 psi strength/skill), and many clones of a single trooper (most of whom have the same psi values). The Ethereals are all cooped up in a sealed room in the SW of the map, with a single trooper who has 140 psi strength/skill.

:: Directly outside the building is another trooper who only has 1 strength/skill. In the NE of the map, in another sealed room, is a soldier with 40 strength/skill. Before placing him there, I had him shoot one of the Ethereals just once, resetting index 8 of his UnitPos record to 0. Only he and the trooper inside the room with the Ethereals have hence been "exposed" to the aliens, but the "best chance of success" is obviously the psi-weakling directly outside the building.

:: If you load the map and end turn, the aliens will first attempt to take control of the dude on the other side of the map, then get to work on the guy in the room with them. Once they've taken these two, they'll completely ignore all other units.

:: In short, aliens can't use psi attacks on a unit UNLESS their UnitPos[8] index is set to less then that of the alien's intelligence stat. -  [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] ([[User_talk:Bomb_Bloke|Talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bomb_Bloke|Contribs]]) 05:41, 14 May 2011 (EDT)

::: Good one. That test definitely proves a lot, rather conclusively. [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 06:53, 14 May 2011 (EDT)

== Bugs vs Limits ==

''(Discussion continued from [[Talk:Known Bugs#Soldier Recruiting Bugs Tested|Soldier Recruiting Bugs Tested]])''

The "Soldier Recruiting Limit" is not a bug, it is a limitation of the game. Therefore, this should be removed from the page. If we want it somewhere else (like a new page such as [[Game Limitations]]), that would be appropriate. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:42, 9 November 2008 (CST)

::Not sure that's necessarily the best idea, Zombie, since many of the entries on the Known Bugs article(as well as some entries on the Exploits pages) are limitations of the game engine. On just a brief glance through, the following caught my eye as engine limitations: Manufacturing limit, Storage limit, Purchase limit, 80-item limit, Proximity Grenade limit, Large units not waking up from stun, Interception last shot bug, Alien UFL radar blitz-through bug(Passing through the detection range of a radar before the detection check comes up), Free manufacturing, free wages, UFO Redux, point-scoring with Ctrl-C, permanent MC of chryssalids, Zombie-MC resurrection of agents, alien inventory exploits, anything involved with bad collision detection, extinguishing fire with a Smoke Grenade, and even your personal favorite, denying the aliens access to their own spawn points. So in conclusion, maybe it should just be left as it is; conversely, all of these entries could be kept where they are and also on a Game Limitations page, or we could leave the headers there and link them over to the appropriate topics on Game Limitations. What do you think? [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 10:21, 9 November 2008 (CST)

: I agree with AQ (great list of examples by the way - and the Smoke/Fire limit would be another). Many, if not most, of the bugs are "Limitations" but they are logically inconsistent and not what a player would expect to happen: they are imposed by (at best) memory limitations or (at worst) design/programming oversights. I think the easiest thing to do would be to change the title of the page to Known Bugs and Limitations, or put an explanatory note at the beginning of the section to explain that "Bugs" is taken to included "Limitations". [[User:Spike|Spike]] 13:16, 9 November 2008 (CST)

By the strictest sense of meaning, a "bug" is a mistake or error on the programmers part. Limitations imposed by design or memory are not the same creature as the people involved were consciously aware of the decision. I suppose that to the normal player, any type of behavior which is unexpected/unwanted is automatically dumped in the bug category because to them there is no difference. To those of us who study the game files however, the two are unequivalent. Programming oversights, yes, those are bugs.

Some of those limitations AQ mentions are (to me at least) bugs: free manufacturing, free wages, permanent MC of Cryssies (or actually any alien for that matter), Zombie resurrections and collision detection. Large aliens not waking up from stun is again, a bug. The programmers obviously had some issues when dealing with large units in general and never quite got it right. They made some progress in TFTD by trying to fix mind controlling each section of a large unit, but royally screwed it up by selecting the next 3 entries in UNITPOS.DAT no matter what they pointed to.

Perhaps it's just my background in logic which makes me want to push for a separate category for limitations. Then again, as long as everything is listed somewhere I'm happy. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 22:06, 9 November 2008 (CST)

: Actually, taking a look through the page as a whole there are various other Limits described, and the distinction between Bugs and Limits is made quite rigorously throughout - not just in the Soldier Limits and Bugs section, where the Soldier Recruiting Limit is referred to as a Limit whereas other bugs (such as paying salaries for soldiers you can't recruit) are referred to as Bugs. So we maybe just need to rename the pages "Bugs and Limits" and add an explanatory note on the distinction. From a user point of view, rather than a programmer point of view, a bug is an unexpected (inconsistent or illogical) behaviour, so for that reason I think it makes sense to keep them on the same page but try to ensure they are all correctly classified as Bug or Limit.

: By the way, it could be hard to absolutely distinguish Bugs from Limits as I suspect there are going to be some grey areas where you would have to second-guess the intentions and decisions of the coders to know for sure if something was a designed-in Limit, or just an oversight (Bug). [[User:Spike|Spike]] 06:50, 10 November 2008 (CST)

::If we distinguish in this manner, I suggest the definition of "Limit" should be, "Something imposed by the game files or engine as a limitation, most likely in context to the capabilites of the then-current personal computer." More succinctly, anything that was done to allow the game to run acceptably on what was then a PC. This would include both the Soldier and 80-Item limits, the spawn limit(40 units per side), Smoke/Fire limit, and some of the others listed. (The Purchase limit was probably more of a convienence for the programmers than anything, but it is clearly an intended feature.) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 13:11, 10 November 2008 (CST)

: I would add to this that sometimes a Limit may be imposed as a game design / gameplay decision, rather than in order to conserve a constrained resource in the platform (=PC). Also, I would suggest that ''intended'' Limits are Limits, but ''unintended'' consequences of Limits are Bugs. Obviously, making this distinction involves some guesswork. But I would guess that while the limit on total smoke/fire hexes was an intended Limit (to conserve PC resources), the ability to put out fires with smoke grenades and disperse smoke with IC rounds is probably an unintended consequence of the Limit, and so should probably be considered a Bug. Similarly, Base Defence spawn points are probably an intended limit, but the ability to flood spawn points is an unintended consequence of this, and thus a Bug (and an Exploit). (Spawn points should have been shared out 50/50, not humans-first). [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:07, 11 November 2008 (CST)

::The limit on Soldier and Interception craft were probably more of a limit imposed because they capped the file and figured that X-COM wouldn't ever need more than 40 interception craft or 250 soldiers. (And I've never needed that many, case in point.)

::As for spawns, its actually difficult to take advantage of it in any reasonably established base. X-COM can spawn up to 40 soldiers in a base defense mission(tanks count as 4 soldiers), as a limit of LOC.DAT. Aliens have the same limit. So in order to take advantage of the bug, the base needs 40 or less spawns total. The Access Lift has 8 spawn points, General Stores(weapon-handling) has 11, Living Quarters has 8 more. This is 27 Spawns just getting soldiers in a base and armed. (Although the General Stores can be cut out if you perform the bug properly). Large Radar and HWD have 6 spawns(Small Radar has 2), and Hangar has 15. So overall, the "Spawn prevention" can be hard to take advantage of with all but the smallest bases. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 14:48, 11 November 2008 (CST)

Just to clarify, X-COM interception craft are not capped at 40 ships. LOC.DAT has a cap of 50 "things" on the geoscape screen at a time. This is shared between X-COM bases, X-COM ships, alien bases, seen or unseen UFO's, terror sites, crash sites, landing sites and waypoints. In a perfect game world with little alien activity and normally constructed bases, the max number of X-COM craft possible is 44: 5 bases with 8 hangars each plus one base with 4 hangars (or any combination thereof). If you illegally modify your base layout with an editor to get rid of the access lift, the max can be increased to 45 ships (9 hangars in 5 bases). Once clogged, all alien activity will cease.

The base defense limit of 40 units exists because of UNITPOS.DAT which has a cap of 80 entries total (tanks occupy 4 entries in this file). Auto-win missions in a base defense mission by clogging all the spawn points with X-COM units isn't as tough as it sounds, especially if your base is small or doesn't contain hangars. The main thing is getting your full quota of 40 units to spawn (meaning you should try not to have any tanks as they count as 4 units but only occupy one spawn point). This limits the base size to something like 5-6 modules depending on what you build. Still, even having more than 6 modules isn't bad as it forces aliens to spawn intermingled between your troops. With 40 armed guys staring in every direction, you can get positions of all the aliens in the first round and possibly even kill them all (depends on weapons and alien race of course). --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 20:12, 11 November 2008 (CST)

: I would say that Limits are the CAUSE of bugs... also, I feel that fire/smoke limit can be called a bug, because a player normally has no way to tell this, other than observation. Whereas the game DIRECTLY and CLEARLY informs you whenever you hit the 80 item or 250 soldier limits, which is more fair. [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 15:22, 23 March 2009 (EDT)

Also IMHO it is not true that, say, 250-soldiers limit is a real game bug. In fact, it is not, it is just a rule of the game, or its limitation. And it is unimportant what its reason is (such or another way to store game data).

A bug is, by definition, an unexpected and involuntary result of programmers' work. However, we can only guess what the programmers wanted to attain, so this definition is both unpractical and impossible to be applied. It would be better to assume that a bug is a feature which has negative influence in the game. To clarify: the (un)famous 250-soldiers limitation does not harm in practice, as the number is really enough to play the game. But the even-more-unfamous 80-item limitation does harm and it has negative consequences - it is enough to recall the disappearing of bodies during some missions.

OK, there is no objective criteria to judge whether a feature of the game is a bug or just a limitation. But sometimes subjective criteria have to be enough. Otherwise, we would have to consider the 8-bases limit a bug. Does it make any sense? And if no, what is the difference between the 8-bases limit and the 250-soldiers limit? I feel neither is a bug. Because neither leads to further negative consequences.

And further, IMHO the buggy nature of some game features is quite obvious. If you cannot send more than 100 "parcels" of items at the same time, it is still not the bug. But if you must pay for an item you are trying to send but you cannot do it - it is a bug, perhaps everybody will agree. And similarly: the 255-scientists limitation is not a bug. But the strange behaviour of the game when you bought the 256th scientist is a bug. It would be just a limitation if the game did not allow to buy another scientist. But it allows while it cannot serve the 256th scientist properly, and that is why it is a bug.

So, I vote for removing the 250-soldiers limit from the bug list. If I am wrong in it, please add to the list also:
# 8-bases limit,
# maps with limited terrain (why should they be limited?),
# base area and base facilities limit (why wouldn't we be able to have 10 hangars in a base?),
# etc.

In yet other words, in my opinion it is not enough to show that the game does not allow to have more certain items or to do more certain actions. In order to count this among bugs, we should show that it really harms during playing the game, or just bears negative consequences.

[[User:Sherlock|Sherlock]] 03:52, 27 December 2012 (EST)

= Specific Bug Discussions =

== Misc Technical Bug ? ==

''(The context of this discussion seems to have been lost)''

This is a technical bug that doesn't happen to everyone and one this article wasn't really meant to chronical - but we won't turn away helping a fellow player if it can't be helped. It's just that there are so many random crash points in this game that it would take far too long to find them all or come up with solutions for them.

Certainly, the transfer crash can happen to some players, but it's not one that can be reproduced easily. It's just like the random crash that some players get when they research a floater medic. It crashes the game for some of us, but others don't seem to notice it at all.

It really depends on your hardware and OS setup, whether or not your copy of the game is damaged or your savegame is damaged, etc.

Does it happen in all games or just this one savegame?

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

-----

== "Invisible Muton" bug ==

Upon shooting repeatedly a Muton, it sometimes plays its "death" animation without sound (as if falling unconscious) and it is no longer displayed in the screen, while remaining visible to my soldiers (I can center the screen and the cursor appears yellow over them). Under this state, they cannot be targeted by Stun Rods. They may play their death animation anytime they get shot, until they truly die, when they emit their characteristic sound and leave a corpse (along with any items carried).

I'm quite fond of laser weapons, maybe this happens more often with those.

Also, though I remember experiencing this quite often fighting Mutons, it may happen to any other high health race.--[[User:Trotsky|Trotsky]] 02:59, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

-----

Never seen that one myself. Another "unpatched game" thing maybe?

There's a (very rare) bug that allows your soldiers to live if they become stunned by an explosion that happens to kill them. Sometimes the game will register their death, and THEN register that they've been stunned. In every case I've seen this happen, however, the unit will have such a low amount of health that a single fatal wound will render it dead (again) on the next turn. I have a vague memory that other players may have been able to get a medkit to the scene on time...

I dunno if that's related to your issue at all (I doubt it, but... meh). I'd advise using a Mind Probe on the alien the next time it happens so you can check the aliens stun/health levels.

- [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]]

----

I'm pretty sure I've seen this with Mutons. Possibly Chrysallids as well, another high health, high armor creature. They were still readily killed by shooting the place they are. Good thought on the MP, BB

---[[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 08:51, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

----

I've been known to have a dying muton(in fire) to spin around and then switch to the female civilian death animation. With the scream and everything. Even got a civilian death registered at the end of the mission. And this didn't just happen once, but on another separate occasion.

Hmm. shape-shifting reptilians in the game! LOL! Happens alot [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]]

Unusually enough, I once had a sectopod die and then drop a tank corpse. I was using the Lightning at the time for my troop carrier, so you can imagine my surprise.

Then there was one occasion where a floater dropped a snakeman corpse. Let's not even get into the sort of things the aliens like to stuff themselves with.

Your invisible alien bug is quite common, although there appears to be many causes for it. I think one involves a full object table when it comes to invisible aliens in bases. But it can also happen in ordinary missions as well. I'm guessing the game may have tried to do something in the wrong order, and sprite information for the unit may have been lost or corrupted along the way.

Having had an experience where all the chryssalids become invisible in one base defence mission was quite a shocker. I fixed this by saving the game, quitting and then restarting the game. If you ever get an invisible alien again, try this and see if it helps. If it doesn't, well, just keep a careful watch on your map and any alerts that pop up as you play.

There's a similar but less severe bug where a dead alien will still leave its centre-on-unit alert button, but this goes away shortly after you move or turn.

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

----

That last bug happens when exploding Cyberdiscs kill nearby Sectoids, doesn't it?--[[User:Trotsky|Trotsky]] 23:56, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

----

This is a pretty easy one. I guess this bug occured on UFO recovery on a battleship, an alien base assault or a base defense mission? As soon as there are too many items on the map, the game saves some item slots for the equipment to be displayed (since it is more valuable and more important to research). This would also make stun weapons lethal if the stunned aliens would vanish. therefore the game has a failsafe if an alien is stunned (or badly wounded and becoming uncontious). The downed alien's stun level is set exactly on its left health points therefore resurrecting it instantly. This cycle is broken when the alien is finally killed. This means if you want to stun an alien in such a situation you have to destroy some items first.

- by tequilachef (April 4th 2007)

== Vanishing snakemen ==

I've known snakemen to become invisible when standing on a hay bale. On the first occassion I had a poor tank getting shot while spending numerous turns looking for it. On the second occasion I had an alien under Psi-control, left it on the hay bale, and couldn't find it next turn. - Egor

---

This is not limited to snakemen. Hay bale block visibility quite much when a unit is standing on it. Two possible solutions:
- Destroy the hay before entering
- Shoot at the hay. If it is destroyed any unit on it will become visible (as long as no other bales are blocking the line of sight). You might also hit the enemy directly.

I Dnt know if the aliens are affected by this diminished sight, too. My guess would be no.

- By tequilachef (April 4th, 2007)

== Blaster Bomb Bug ==

I'm currently playing through X-com UFO Defense, I have the collectors edition version. I'm in the process of trying to catch a live alien commander and the blaster bomb bug is making this very difficult. If i remember correctly a commander is always in the command center of the the alien bases. The problem is anytime i get close there is always a dude with a blaster launcher up there that tries to kill my troops. When they try to fire it down at me the bug kicks in and they blow up the whole command room and all the aliens in it because they can't figure out how to get the blaster bomb down the grav lift thing in there. This is making it very dificult to actually catch a live commander. Anyone have any ideas for tactics or anything to breach that room without the aliens trying to fire a blaster launcher up there? - eL Hector

: I can suggest two possible solutions. The first is to wait outside the command room for the alien to move closer to you. If it comes out of the room or if you know it has moved down the lift, you then burst in and stand right next to it to stop it from firing the blaster. This is risky because there could very well be a heavy plasma toting alien in there. The other is to use a small launcher and launch it up at the ceiling near where you think the alien with the blaster is standing. -[[User:NKF|NKF]]

== Disappearing Ammunition ==

I have observed that problem with X-COM 1.2, modded with XCOMUTIL. My stun bombs and heavy rocket missiles, along with clips for the auto cannon went missing.
[[User:Vagabond|Vagabond]]

------

Just run a test using my 1.4 DOS version with XComUtil but my stun bombs didn't disappear: 30 + 1 back in the base they came from, same number after I went tactical and I dusted-off immediately. Are you running XComUtil with Runxcom.bat or did you simply run Xcusetup?

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 22:12, 22 February 2007 (PST)

:Is it a case of hitting the 80-item limit?--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 12:28, 23 February 2007 (PST)

------
With runxcomw.bat, as everytime. Apologies, I retested and it seems like I was mistakened, but I could have sworn that I lost them dang stunbombs. Had to manufacture some. I will test some more, using four heavy weapons and seeing whether their ammunition disappears at all. Thanks. [[User:Vagabond|Vagabond]]

==MC at end = MIA?==

I am sure I have seen this again recently, where I won a mission with no casualties (I thought), but the last thing I killed was a Commander that had been chain MC'ing a psi-attack-magnet trooper, and that trooper was listed as MIA at the end (presumably because he was on the enemy side at the end of combat). Is this a bug, or is there another way to get MIA's on a completed mission that I might have missed?

Since then I have been waiting for the leaders to panic at the end before killing them (or waiting for a rare resist), so I can safely exit, but am I being overcautious?

--[[User:Sfnhltb|Sfnhltb]] 13:45, 27 February 2007 (PST)

If the trooper was mind controlled on the turn you killed the last alien it will be listed as MIA. No bug there :)

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 18:16, 1 March 2007 (PST)

Huh, why would that happen - your soldier should recover the very next round, why would he go MIA?

--[[User:Sfnhltb|Sfnhltb]] 18:20, 1 March 2007 (PST)

Doesn't make sense to me as well but that's how the game works.

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 15:05, 2 March 2007 (PST)

----

It seems that regaining control of units under enemy mind control works different for alien and human players. My guess: aliens under human MC are reverted to alien control AFTER THE ALIEN AND BEFORE THE HUMAN TURN while human units under alien control are reverted RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TURN. This explains three different phenomenons:

- The discussed MIA "bug" (he unit would be returned in the next human turn, but since it never starts it is lost. The mission is still won since no unit with a "genuine alien" marking is left)

- The fact that a mission is lost when the last human falls under MC while it is not won when this happens to the last standing alien (the aliens get their unit back before their turn starts and therefore have a unit left to pass the "anyone alive?" check, the humans would have no unit left to start a turn with. They WOULD have as soon as the turn starts, but no unit left before turn means bust)

- The fact that aliens still can see all an MCed human saw at the end of the human turn that follows the MC while this is not vice versa (The MCed human can give information to the alien side before reverted while an MCed alien is reverted too early). The result is that aliens can control a human indefinitely without having any alien seeing him until the MC is disrupted for one turn.

All confused? Then I did a good job! No seriously, this must be the explanation, I couldn't think of any other way.

- By tequilachef (April 4th, 2007)

: You're absolutely correct on the first two points. It's a sequence issue - you never get round to recovering the unit before the new turn starts, so you end without any units whatsoever. Makes senses too since the aliens would continue to continue to mind control that same unit over and over indefinitely.

: The third point however: The aliens don't need to know the location of the last MC'd unit. They know the location of all your troops whether they've seen them or not from the very start. They appear to give you a few turns of grace where they won't attack you outright (unless, from my observation, all your soldiers are incredibly weak). This is evident because all of the aliens will eventually make their way towards the nearest soldier even though their movement pattern may seem semi-random. Also, they know where you are because they can initiate psionic attacks without having seen any of your troops. They generally go after the weakest troops first.

: Just to add a semi-related point, but from the alien's perspective. If an MC'd alien unit is in the exits when you abort the mission, this alien is not recovered and in fact simply vanishes. Any equipment it was carrying is recovered, unknown artefacts or otherwise. You could possibly think of this as their version of MIA. However, the aliens differ ever so slightly in that if it's the last alien standing and under temporary mind control by the player, the mission doesn't end straight away. But I guess this is only because the player has everything under control, whereas in the other scenario, the Ai is in control.

: -[[User:NKF|NKF]]

My observations show that, at least in some versions of the game (tested with clean DOS 1.4 version, under DOSBox), the game crashes at the end of the human turn if all alien units which are still alive, are Mind-Controlled. If it was confirmed, it would be another not-listed-yet (serious) bug.

[[User:Sherlock|Sherlock]] 17:52, 26 December 2012 (EST)

== Crash Site in the atlantic ocean ==

That's right, my game generated a crash site on water. Here are the details:

- Crash Site a bit southeast of the USA (which was infiltrated a few days before by sectoids, resulting base had already been taken out), but certainly not on land.

- UFO: battleship, floater, alien harvest

- Geoscape: 8 X-Com Bases, 1 (known) Alien base, 2 other crash sites, 1 other (known) flying UFO (though almost worldwide decoder coverage), 3 X-Com Crafts out, 1 waypoint

- Date: January 2000

- Most Interesting: The Craft that downed the ship was a recently finished Firestorm (first human-alien hybrid craft I had built, I know this is lame for that date. Limited myself on 25 Scientists to improve the challenge) equipped with twin plasma. I had it built and equipped in Antarctica and then transferred to Europe. This base had no Elerium, a fact that enabled me to use the infinite fuel exploit which was in effect when downing the UFO. My craft was only slightly damaged when doing so. The battleship was the first target assigned to the craft, it came directly from my base.

- When shot down, the UFO was not targetted by any other craft.

- I had not lost or sold a single craft to that point.

- When sending a squad to the crash site the game didn't crash but generated a farm land ground combat terrain.

- I was not able to reproduce the bug from the savegame dated 2 hours before downing the UFO

Well guys, any intelligent guesses? I still have the savegames (before and after downing)! If you want to have a look, write here.

- By tequilachef (April 5th 2007)
----
: Well I'm sure you know about crash sites that are near land can sometimes actually be on water, so I'm going to assume that this site is well far away from any land mass. Could it be a weird entry in GEODATA\WORLD.DAT that has a land mass out in the ocean? Also are you sure the game didn't crash? Sometimes when it does it will load the previous mission (and usually 90% are at farm terrain). Are you sure it generated a new map and not load the last one?
:No real guesses but maybe some starting points to look at. I've probably stated some obvious situations you know about and have accounted for, but it never hurts to double check :D
- [[User:Pi Masta|Pi Masta]] 14:23, 5 April 2007 (PDT)

== Inconsistencies in MCing Cyberdiscs and Sectopods ==

I experienced, that when MCing one quadrant of a large terror unit any action it does only affects this quadrant (especially use of time units). That means, when TUs are up for one part, MC another one and continue firing. This however does not work out when moving the unit while it is not under complete control. The TUs used up by the resulting reaction fire from the rest of the unit is also deducted from the TUs "your" part has left (making it impossible for the controlled parts to return fire). This however only happens under reaction fire, not if "your" part fires on it's own. I don't know if this comes up when uncontrolled parts shoot by themselves in the alien turn, since this is hard to find out.

: That's because large units literally are made up of four separate units. They only share the same set of general stats (in unitref.dat). Unfortunately the 'under mind control flag' is unique to the four units, not the shared stats! So you in effect have multiple units under different control sharing the same stats. So if you move and it results in a reaction from the unit, it will spend the TUs you're using.
: Successful mind control automatically fills up the unit's TUs, so each mind controlled sector gets to move or attack again until there are no more sectors to mind control. Useful way of turning reapers into long range scouts!
: In TFTD, they attempted to fix this bug, but in fact made it much-much worse! The only way to mind control the unit properly is to control the upper left quadrant. Only! Any other quadrant will result in a partial (clockwise) control, and you may gain control of units other than that unit, or may even get into situations where you gain permanent 'partial control' of a large unit you haven't even sited. Wackiness all around!

:- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

== Facility Dismantle Bug ==

Boba: I've never experienced this bug myself in all my games in the Collectors Edition. It may very well vary from computer to computer.

-[[User:NKF|NKF]]
:I, however, have experienced it. I lost an entire month's worth of playtime because I couldn't solve it. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]]

::Anyone, any ideas on why it might vary from PC to PC? -[[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]]

:::I'd check other factors before blaming a given system. Assuming no mods are being used the most obvious is the order in which you initiated the construction of the modules. Then we've got which one was due to be completed first, and I'm sure there's a few other things to test out. Usually, a player won't cancel in-progress modules on a regular basis, so you wouldn't expect this bug to turn up often. - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 01:53, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

:Easy way to reproduce: build 2 General Stores. Now delete the "second one" (see offset 16-39 in [[BASE.DAT]] for the order). Wait for the first one to complete. It'll crash immediately after the "end of construction" dialog. A fix is available [[User:Seb76#Bug_Fixes | here]]. [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 15:52, 22 July 2008 (PDT)

== Manufacturing Limit Bug ==

Unfortunately, Mike, no you did not get it correct. It is the raw number of hours needed to complete the project, not the projected hours. I discussed this on the X-Com Forums a few months back at the following link: http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242027760&st=0&#entry164411

I did tests at the time in regard to the accuracy of the data given there, but I've lost the results. I'll quickly redo the tests in the next hour or so. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 19:00, 8 June 2007 (PDT)

:Tests complete. The breakpoints for every item were exactly where I predicted, regardless of number of engineers assigned. (I ran up a huge queue of items at my dedicated factory base on an old game, and then assigned whatever engineers would fit onto one project at a time, canceling projects as data was confirmed. This is only semi-random, but it serves our purposes.) I did run into a single issue, though. It appears that despite having 5 empty hangars at a (different!) base, the workshop there could not queue up more than 3 of any one craft at a time, thus making this bug impossible to replicate with the Firestorm or Lightning, as you must be producing more than three for the bug to occur. However, it still works with the Avenger. Later, I shall see about constructing a dedicated Hangar base with 7 hangars in order to attempt to replicate the bug. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 19:33, 8 June 2007 (PDT)

::Sounds great, Arrow. Why not post a simple example that shows how the problem works. As in, "with 1 Eng and 2 Avengers you might think X, but no, it's Y". And please delete my example. And it's a fine pleasure to meet you! Cool - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]]

:::When you say the usual resources are used by the "lost" resources, that includes cash, right? It sounds like if you're willing to foot the extra bill [[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Manufacturable_Prices|money/component-wise]], this could be used to build Avengers slightly faster then normal.

::: The usual time is 34000 hours. Double that and subtract 65535 and you're left with a paltry 2465 hours. Even a single workshop squad of 10 engineers will pull that off in a little over ten days. - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 01:53, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

::::Sadly, this exploit doesn't work, because the high bit is stored SOMEWHERE. I lack a hex reader and have no code reading skills to speak of, so I'm a bit limited here. If you set up a Workshop as you described, the game would take all the time for 2 Avengers, all the resources for the same, but in the end only produce 1 Avenger. Meanwhile, I'll run more tests on the resources thing. I could swear it consumes the resources, but I'll double check.

:::::There is no need to store the high bits if the actual completion condition (assuming adequate money) is "number made is number ordered", which wouldn't reference the hours remaining at all. - [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 01:49, 9 Oct 2007 (CDT)

::::Tests done; I was unable to replicate the 'disappearing item' trick,(Which I didn't test for last night) even with Avengers! It appears I was wrong; this still counts as a bug, though, because the wraparound is a problem.

::::Ironic that so much of this discussion centers around Avengers, because that's where I discovered this in the first place! [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 06:48, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

----

I'm revisiting XCOM and was working on [[Manufacturing Profitability]]... Arrow, can you (or anyone else) say a little bit more on the Known Bugs page about this [[Known_Bugs#Manufacturing_Limit_Bug]]? It's not clear to me exactly what the bug does, except that it understates hours. Is that all?... does it still take the (non-buggy) amount of time, still use all the same resources, still make the same number, etc.? It sounds like it could be a drastic bug - or is it only a very superficial one, a display bug for the hours? It sounds like you're leaning toward this latter.

Also on a semi-related note... I could swear I saw much more detailed info on the [[Known_Bugs#Facility_Maintenance_Costs]] issue... IIRC, the incorrect amount that's charged for maintenance, depends on exactly where a facility is in the base. IOW, different "rows" of the base cost different amounts. Could somebody provide a link there, and/or flesh the bug out better?

Thanks! - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 11:22, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

:I've actually seen the bug work both ways, but I've only been able to actually replicate the more superficial version of the bug. So the bug report up is about a superficial bug that drastically understates production time. If you wish to make this clearer, you have my blessings. As well, that 'different charging based on location' is dealt with here: http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Talk:Base_Facilities ; however, the table has been broken with the Wikiupgrade, and I lack sufficient knowledge of HTML table code to fix it. But it should be of use to you. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 11:26, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

::Cool, I fixed [[Talk:Base Facilities]] but also re-organized and expanded [[Base Facilities]] so that it includes that bug in detail, as per Talk... this is an important issue that should be up front. I see that there's a separate [[Maintenance costs]] page, but I can't see having something so important (the maintenance bug explanation) all on its own page (which makes for a rather short page) rather than together with all the rest of the base facility info. If others agree (or don't care), I'll move anything remaining on Maintenance Costs to the Base Facilities page, then delete Maintenance Costs and re-route links. And if somebody does care, then please move my new section to Maintenance Costs, and move all the links, etc. Oh also I put in more words on your Manufacturing Limit Bug - how does it look? - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 16:37, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

:Looks pretty good, although it'll wrap fully; if you ask for 120000 hours, it won't be displaying 'almost no' time. The way I discovered it was when building two Avengers; I ordered two, paid for two, waited for two...and got one. But as said, haven't managed to repeat it, so until I do, we'll leave it like that. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 18:00, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

::I just revised and put in your specific example, because it's certainly possible some of us die-hard players will order up more than 1 Avenger at a time - and it's guaranteed it'd be a pain if 1 of them disappeared, laugh. I wasn't sure how concrete you were on that example but now I hear you say, you are sure it happened at least once. - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 18:33, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

:I have a question concerning the manufacturing "bug" which eats a craft in production due to wrap-over of the byte. Arrow (or whoever did the test), did you have a large quantity of craft already built at your bases? If so, I think this bug has more to deal with clogging up [[CRAFT.DAT]]. See, that file has a limit of 50 entries. Each craft takes up one record and each base you have built also consumes one spot. 8 bases allows 42 craft to be housed, while 6 bases allow 44. If you try to buy or manufacture craft once the file is full, nothing shows up in the game even if you have hangar space available. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 19:00, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

::Huh, I never knew that. I don't see it listed on the Bugs page... I'll stick it in there. I've never approached that number, but some folks might. - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 19:07, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

:I was able to continue building other Avengers after that project, and they appeared correctly, so I do not believe that is the issue. In any event, I have a very bad case of 'archivism' and probably still have the save game and the CRAFT.DAT file around on my system; in fact, I think I was playing it a few days ago. I can see if I can find it and upload it; it created a 'hole' in the Avenger fleet numbers, where Avenger's x and x+2 were built, but x+1 was not. I'll look for it tonight and tomorrow and upload it to the wiki if I find it. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 19:10, 8 October 2007 (PDT) EDIT: I found the file; I have 28 Avengers and 1 Skyranger in my employ. All Avenger numbers EXCEPT #2(Avenger-2) are accounted for, and I have not sacked or lost any Avengers. So this is where the hole and 'eaten' Avenger is. If anyone wants the CRAFT.DAT file from this game, I'd be happy to forward it. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 21:20, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

::Sure, send it my way and I'll take a look at it. (Might as well send me the whole saved game as I may want to look at the other files too). I have tried to recreate this bug by manufacturing 1, 2 and 3 Avengers at a clip but all of them always show up. Don't know what else I could do to get this problem to crop up. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 21:32, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

:File emailed. On the side, I've tried the same thing, and never been able to repeat the bug. It's been months since the first discovery, so I can't recall whether it was the first or the second Avenger that didn't appear. So maybe it was just a fluke. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 21:57, 8 October 2007 (PDT)

== Unconscious Enemy in Equipment Screen ==

The following happened to me repeatedly over the last few days.

In the last tactical Mission a live alien has been captured. When now beginning an UFO crash recovery mission this type of alien (same race and rank) appears in the equipment screen before the mission starts, meaning I can give it to any of my soldiers.
If I do so I can store the alien in the skyranger for the duration of the mission and, if it gains consciousness, kill or stun it at the end of it. A pile of equipment without a corpse will be in the UFO, indicating that the stunned alien is not some kind of duplicate but instead has been taken from the aliens of this mission. This is supported by the fact that in those missions the maximum number of crew members has not been surpassed.
If I do not do so the Alien will be placed in the crashed UFO. Whether it is unconscious or not I do not know, but the fact that it is completely disarmed when encountered in the battle suggests that it is.

So far it seems the following is necessary for the bug to occur:
# An alien has to be captured alive in the last tactical combat
# It has to be of the same race and rank as one of the aliens in the new tactical combat

So far this only worked...:
# If the new tactical combat was an UFO crash recovery of a medium scout.
# For floaters and mutons
# For soldiers and navigators
# If the alien in the last mission was stunned by normal weapon fire (although I do not think this is important) and not picked up (again, not likely to be important) or destroyed (which would mean it has to be actually captured)

It seems NOT to depend on the following:
# The type of the last mission (were, so far: Ground assault battleship, crash recovery large scout, base defense)
# Which squad or vessel was involved capturing the alien
# Where it is locked up
# If it has been transferred since capture or not

Would be interesting to know:
# What happens if the alien in the inventory screen is the only survivor
# If the alien in the invenory screen is one of the aliens randomly killed in the crash or not (it is likely to be one of the killed aliens, so far the equipment piles were always within the UFO)
# If this is not limited on crashed medium scouts: Does this work with terror units? What about large ones?

Maybe this is related to the proximity grenade bug (transfer of item properties to next tactical combat).

Additionally, in one of those mission a part of the terrain was not generated correctly. It was in farm terrain (The house on the right square, or north east square, in [[Image:Terrain-cult.gif|this pic]]). The outer wall right to the right window of the southern wall (1st Floor) was missing. Directly outside of the hole was a floor tile. I could walk a soldier through the wall, but he fell right through the tile. Dunno if this has to do with the stunned alien bug.

Version is collectors edition (the one from abandonia.com).

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

When a mission starts, the GeoScape engine generates the unit and object tables (in MissDat's [[OBPOSREF.DAT]], [[UNIPOS.DAT]], and [[UNIREF.DAT]]) before "shutting down". The Tactical engine then generates the maps, places the aliens on it, and blows up the UFO (if need be). Whether or not map generation and the subsequent events happen before you equip your soldiers I don't yet know.

The test would be to check the aforementioned files to see if they contain an unconcious alien, and/or the body.

Note that you can't see the bodies of large units on the ground (they count as four seperate objects covering four seperate tiles, so allowing the user to pick one up would essentially let you rip them apart).

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 06:35, 5 August 2007 (PDT)

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

I honestly have no idea of how all those files work. But I still have a savegame in battlescape that is in one of those missions. So if anyone wants to have a look at those files...

I forgot to mention: I reloaded a geoscape savegame shortly before the battle to recreate the bug, but it seems that reloading in geoscape before the buggy battle eliminates the bug. I guess his should narrow down the possible reasons...

--------

Next time it happens, backup the aforementioned files before you start another mission. I'm afraid a savegame wouldn't be of much help.

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 00:54, 7 August 2007 (PDT)

== Soldiers moved to outside of combat screen ==

Hi, I've got a DOS version of UFO:EU, and I've encountered a bug in the tactical combat. Sometimes (rarely) a X-COM soldier changes its location on the map on player's turn start and is placed on outside of the map, one tile north from the (north) border of the field. AFAIR the unit is then selectable (you get the flashing highlight when cursor is above), but is stuck outside of the field. Has anybody encountered this bug? It seems to happen randomly, but more frequently during the terror missions and on early turns (so maybe it's caused by high number of player/alien/civilian units?). --[[User:Maquina|Maquina]] 08:16, 3 September 2007 (PDT)

:I've never encountered this bug in CE of UFO. Presuming AFAIR means "As Far As I Recall," what exactly was the soldier doing? Any equipment data, location, or stat info might help us pin it down. Were afflicted soldiers always carrying a specific equipment set or weapon? Where were they on the map before they got moved? Did they get bumped a few spaces, or teleported halfway across the Battlescape? Does it happen more often on a specific difficulty?(Your theory would suggest this would happen most commonly on Superhuman) Against a certain type of alien? Best of all, if you can recreate the situation in a game, save the game and then you could upload the save file to the forums or this wiki, and the rest of us could take a look for ourselves and the code divers could root around for the cause. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 15:03, 3 September 2007 (PDT)

:: I've had this happen to me several times in UFO and TFTD. I don't know if it's specific to the Dos version or if it can happen in the CE as well. Sometimes the soldier ends up beyond the boundary of the map right at the start of the mission, at other times it happens after you load a game. This game is glitchy, which is the source for so many of its bugs, so your soldier's coordinates are probably getting corrupted to the point where they are -1 on either the X or Y axis of the maps's normal boundaries. For me it's commonly along the top edge of the map. I don't ever recall it happening mid-mission, only at the start or after a load. I cannot faithfully say whether it happened with or without XComutil, but that could be one of the possibly many causes for this. - [[User:NKF|NKF]]

:: I don't play UFO often, so I rely on just several campaigns played. This happens rarely (I've encountered this bug twice in my last campaign with ~80 missions played), but if you haven't seen this happen then it probably doesn't show up in the CE edition. In my experience the soldier is moved always beyond the north/top map border. I think (but I'm not sure) that this affects the first soldier from the team more commonly than others (or maybe even exclusevily?). The equipment/armor carried is probably not relevant, since the units moved this way don't have any special stuff, and this bug shows up on different stages of the gameplay (ie. sometimes when you have ordinary rifles, sometimes when all your units got heavy plasmas and power suits). --[[User:Maquina|Maquina]] 04:12, 4 September 2007 (PDT)

'''MY ramblings have been moved to my discussion page''' [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]]

==Great Circle Route==

Should we have the Great Circle Route bug noted on this page at all? [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 20:33, 6 October 2007 (PDT)

: what is the great circle route? [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 07:56, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

:: Pick two points on a globe, then hold a thread or string taut at those two points. That practically minimizes the length of the thread/string on the globe. You're now looking at a great circle arc (or route), the shortest distance between two points on a globe. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 11:15 March 2009 (CDT)

: Just as a line is the shortest distance between 2 points on a flat plane, a great circle is the shortest distance between 2 points on the surface of a sphere. The bug, by the way, is that aircraft in the game ''don't'' follow this shortest, "great circle" route. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:38, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

:: What a grand sounding name, for something so simple, lol. ... I thought you were talking about when you tell your soldiers to go from point A to point B, and for some reason they figure that Zone A and Zone B are really far apart, despite actually being side by side. (I shot a hole through a wall, clicked to walk to the other side, and my idiot soldier walked one big circle... to use the door! And got ambushed and killed by an alien. ... dum dum DUMB DUMB.)
:: Even the more modern games have problems with their pathfinding algorythms. Admittedly, games like Baldur's Gate had to do it in realtime.
:: On a semi-related note, I remember this guy called E-man, he was chasing a guided laser beam that was going to kill his girl, around the world, but he couldn't outrun it since he couldn't break the speed of light, only equal it by changing into a Laser himself. So... inspiration! He turned into a very powerful laser, and made a shortcut THROUGH THE EARTH... the straight line beats the great circle route, lol.
:: Thanks for the reply guys [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 15:56, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

Added to article. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 16:41, 3 September 2012 (EDT)

==Bug not listed: Missing soldiers during base defense==

I encountered an interesting bug concerning base defense missions:
My base got attacked while about 30 soldiers and 10 HWPs were present. The usual equipment assignment screen was skipped and the mission started instantly with only the HWPs spawned at the map. Not even a single soldier bothered to show up... *sigh*
Although this turned out to be in my favor (you should have seen the puzzled Ethereals trying to panic my tanks) I´d like to avoid this bug if possible. I was able to reproduce this bug several times and with different bases.
Can anyone explain this bug and/or tell me how to avoid it?

Game version: Collectors edition. - [[User:NewJoker|NewJoker]]

-----

Well, ideally, we need to know what your base's construction was to be sure of this, but I think the most likely circumstance is that the HWPs took up all the spawn points. HWPs have maximum priority for spawning(followed by Soldiers, and then Aliens), so if you have enough of them garrisoning a base, it's entirely possible that soldiers and aliens won't spawn. However, this doesn't explain why the soldiers didn't start stealing the Alien spawn points...in any event, you might want to take the save game file, zip it up, and get ready to email it. I'm sure [[User:Zombie|Zombie]] would be quite interested. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 15:28, 13 November 2007 (PST)

-----

It's not the spawn points, it's a [[UNITPOS.DAT]] limitation. A maximum of forty records (out of the total of eighty) are allocated for your units, and tanks (which take up four records each) get first pick. Having ten tanks means there's no room left for anything else.

Ditch one HWP and you should see four units take it's place. - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 16:42, 13 November 2007 (PST)

-----

I´ll try with a decreasing number of tanks and report the results. As I wrote above having only HWPs isn´t too bad dependent on what enemy is attacking. [[User:NewJoker|NewJoker]]

----

This should be mentioned in the [[ExploitsE#Base Defence Mission Spawning Issues]] section. The Bugs/Exploits really need to be sorted and consolidated. - [[User:NinthRank|NinthRank]] 16:57, 13 November 2007 (PST)

-----

The limitation to 40 records seems to be the case; each tank I dumped got replaced by four soldiers.
So this can be used to effectively manage unit combination. Thanks for the quick replies! [[User:NewJoker|NewJoker]]

==Bug not listed: Ufo Gold (Windows Vers. abandonia.com) crashing when plasma defense is finished==

I recordnized this bug a few times now. (with hacked AND unhacked game)
If i place a plasma defense in 7 bases at the same Time and they are finished at the same Time, the game crashes sometimes.
In hacked game, it seems to crash even more when Alien containment is finished, plasma defense, shield defense...etc.
couldnt find it here...greetz

: I somehow doubt the sourcing is the issue. [You may want to fund the next XCOM series game with a Take2 re-release of UFO :)] More generally: the game only reports the construction of a given type of facility once, no matter how many bases it completes at simultaneously. I've only tested this in vivo with three-of-a-kind at once across six bases, however. It does seem reasonable that some sort of counter of undisplayed completions would "overflow" (attaining crash). -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 10:05, Feb. 28 2008 CST

::I've encountered this bug myself with General Stores, actually, not just Plasma Defense(which I never build). EDIT: Some quick tests seem to show that there's a chance the game will crash any time two base facilities are done at the same time, regardless of whether they're in the same base or not or if they're the same facility.(although it seems to happen MUCH more in the event they're in different bases.) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 10:13, 28 February 2008 (PST)

== Soldier Recruiting Bugs Tested ==

Just to note that I have positively tested and replicated the bugs listed under the new(ish) section [[Known Bugs#Soldier Recruiting Bugs|Soldier Recruiting Bugs]]. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 18:08, 19 March 2008 (PDT)

==Floater Medic Bug==

I have not thus far encountered the Floater Medic Bug; in fact, Floater Medics are often used to fill up my Rogue Gallery with interrogations. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 06:50, 24 April 2008 (PDT)

Strange, it would always occur in my version. I don't remember where I got it from, but I
know it was a download from the internet. Using the XCom Hack v2.5, I viewed the alien in
the Alien Containment edit. I now have Type (race):____, and a Rank: Soldier for the
Floater Medic. It might just be corruption, but I do not have the resources to look into
it. [[User:Muton commander|Muton commander]] 19:24, 12 May 2008 (Pacific Time Zone)

I've never encountered it either. [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] 07:47, 23 July 2009 (EDT)

I think this only happens in the CE version. A disassembly of the code reveals that the stack to hold the matrix for what topics have not yet been researched is too short. It seems that those who ported the code from DOS doubled the local variable sizes blindly. There is already a problem that there are two-few bytes necessary for the entire alien organism section of the UFOpaedia, but double the expected size of the registers and it fills up quite easily unless a lot of autopsies and interrorgations have already been done. The only other situations that are handled by the same routine are the navigator revealing mission data or engineers revealing ship data, but there isn't enough topics in either section to overflow the stack variables. - [[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] 08:27, 22 June 2013 (EDT)

==Strength Overflow==

During one of my games with TFTD I noticed a really annoying thing happen during battles.
As my troops rose up the 'stat.' ladder they got better and better (as you'd expect), until they hit about 50 strentgh and completely lost the ability to throw anything.
Even trying to throw something tiny like a grenade or flare into the adjacent tile resulted in the 'Out of Range' message being displayed.

Anyone come across this before?
This was in TFTD CE.
[[User:Tifi|Tifi]] 07:55, 27 April 2008 (PDT)

:This is fairly well documented. The pathfinding algorithm for throwing objects will balk if anything is in the way of the throw and refuse to allow you to throw. What's happening is that your soldiers have become so strong that their throws are intercepting the 'ceiling' of the Battlescape(the top of L3), and as such the game thinks that the throw is blocked(because in order for the throw to complete, the object would have to be tossed up to the nonexistant L4). There's two ways around this:

:The Normal Way: Try shorter throws, throwing from lower heights, or throwing while kneeling. Beyond that, possibly get some new troops.

:The Sneaky Way: Manually edit the Strength scores of your soldiers in [[SOLDIER.DAT]] so that they're back to a usable strength level. If you set "Initial Strength" (offset 46 decimal or 2E hex) to 0 and "Strength Improvement" (offset 57 decimal or 39 hex) to a value of 50, you can permanently lock the soldiers at 50 strength. (You can lock them higher than that if you so choose, but not lower.

:Other than this, there's no workarounds I can think of offhand. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 08:10, 27 April 2008 (PDT)

:: There's normally no problem with the max level of 70 in open settings. However TFTD has a lot of low ceilings such as in the shipping lane missions and colonies, and the lower ceilings impairs your throwing quite a bit. In addition to shorter throws/kneeling, try moving out from under any overhangs if there is one just above you. - [[User:NKF|NKF]] 12:33, 27 April 2008 (PDT)

== Bug not listed: Sticking your head through the ceiling ==
This is something I just discovered: When you step on a small object inside of a building your soldier sticks his/her head through the ceiling and can see what's upstairs. You can even see the soldiers head coming out of the floor and that soldiers can shoot aliens upstairs. When I did this the alien I saw/shot was facing the other way, but I guess you could get shot if the alien was facing you. [[User:RedNifre|RedNifre]] 17:34, 11 May 2008 (PDT)

:That's not listed under "Bugs" because it's covered under "Exploits", right here: [[Exploiting_Collison_Detection#See_Through_A_Ceiling]] [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 18:26, 11 May 2008 (PDT)

:: I don't know if it was ever covered anywhere, but there's this neat trick that might sound similar to the walk-through-'wall object'-wall trick except that it involves your unit climbing slopes. They'll appear as though they've gone up a level, but are actually not on that level. They only visually appear to be there, but are really still on the bottom level.

:: It happens a lot when walking up the desert or forest slopes. I think the trick involves standing on ground level, and then ordering the unit to 'move' into the hill rather than setting the waypoint while on level 1. The soldier will move up the slope and perhaps stop on the slope or even reach the top of the slope, but will still appear when you're only viewing the ground map layer. The soldier is really still on the ground level, but will have elevation offset.

:: One really interesting way of using this trick is in the mountain region. If you can find a cliff face and a low hill nearby, you can literally have your soldier scale the cliff by standing the soldier on the hill, and then walking towards the cliff. It's ridiculous, but your soldier never quite reaches the top of the cliff tiles, so ends up walking up a slope.

:: On a side note, standing at the top of the ramp of the Skyranger is the same as standing on ground level - you're only offset a bit. This means that smoke on level 1 and the sides of the Skyranger will not provide protection when you're at the top of the ramp.

:: On another related note in relation: In TFTD (doesn't happen a lot in UFO), you might find it difficult to toss grenades onto underwater slopes. To remedy this, raise the level up by one. It might look like you're tossing at air(and you are), but it'll get the grenade where you want it. Odd, but true. I must remember to put this in the grenade explanation section. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 23:11, 11 May 2008 (PDT)

== Base Defence bug that causes a crash? ==

Does anyone know about a bug in a base defence mission that causes the game to crash? The game keeps crashing on the 4th or 5th alien turn.

:I've encountered that myself, but it should be noted that overall, X-COM is not the most stable game and is prone to crashing often at anytime. The differences between the hardware it was designed for and the hardware we're running it on cannot be helping matters at all; it's really a small miracle it even runs without an emulator in the first place(I've got games from 1999 that will bluescreen my machine instantly). As such, I'm not sure it's worth noting as a bug, since it's a 'game feature'(albeit a detrimental one). In any case, what're you doing letting the aliens attack you anyways? ;) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 21:33, 18 July 2008 (PDT)

:It sounds like an alien is in one of the outlying locations and attempting to destroy the top floor item. Possibly a radar or defense station. - [[User:Morgan525|Tycho]]

== Sources for a DOS4GW transplant ==

I was specifically thinking of the LucasArts Dark Forces demo, but I half-recall the actual source I used when testing that ~1999 was Id's DOOM. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 16:03, 7 August 2008 (CDT)

== Phantom Carried Casualty ==

You are carrying an unconscious soldier in one hand, and the soldier dies of his/her wounds. The dead soldier remains visible on the "left hand / right hand object" battlescape display, but is no longer visible in the inventory display. The problem can be fixed by moving another object into the same hand.

I've seen this bug with UFO Extender by [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] - possibly might be something to do with his manipulation of the inventory screen, rather than a general bug. I believe I've also seen this with other objects that were being carried in the hands, disappearing from the Inventory screen, but I'm not sure. I don't think it's an item limit bug, as XcomUtil shows 40 item slots free. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 08:58, 21 September 2008 (PDT)

:I think it has to do with the KO units KIA mod. Its doesn't take into account units held so when it tries to detemine where to place the corpse, there is no location. The routine doesn't undo the item-carried-sprite-ID byte for the holder. -[[User:Morgan525|Tycho]]

== Civilians As Enemies to MC'd Aliens ==

I ran across this issue a few times and just wondered if you guys experienced this. I MC'd a part of a Reaper (I always do the lower left for large aliens) on a Terror Site, then moved it a few squares. It suddenly stopped dead in it's tracks and then the alien spotted indicator increased by 1. When I clicked on the indicator to see where the enemy unit was, it brought me to L2 of the large apartment complex. However, nothing was there. When I sent a Flying-Suited soldier up there to peek in the window (eeek! A peeping tom!) he saw a female civilian standing there. This type of problem has happened numerous times to me so it's not a once-off thing. Maybe it's a LOS issue? Or maybe an alien indicator problem? Or a combination of the two? Don't know, but I'm curious if you guys have seen it. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 23:40, 19 December 2008 (CST)

:There are a lot of major issues with MC'ing 4 square aliens. One of them being that you could accidentally MC an alien far off in the corner of the map, IIRC? Anyhow, maybe you should have tried MC'ing all 4 squares of the reaper and see if that changed things. -[[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]]

The long-range MC of other aliens when Mind-Controlling large aliens is only present in Terror From The Deep, due to a workaround to try and resolve the earlier bugs(and exploits) associated with controlling one square of a large unit at the time. In TFTD, successfully MC'ing part of a Large unit will also grant you control of the next three units in UNITPOS.DAT, in order. If you didn't MC the upper left portion of the large unit(the first UNITPOS entry for any large unit), you can potentially wind up in control of other aliens. So this doesn't apply to UFO. As for Zombie's issue, never seen it. And finally...Jasonred, on Talk pages, please indent your statement with colons so it differentiates from other people's comments, and sign your posts with 4 ~'s, like I will now do. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 10:42, 19 February 2009 (CST)

==Elerium Base Bug==

Jasonred: This bug has long since been known about. Elerium units on the Battlescape can be picked up by shooting away the power source; this one item counts as 50 units, and as such ANY elerium item spawned on any Battlescape counts as 50 Elerium. This issue with your own Elerium spawning as collectable loot in a Base Defense mission only occurs in older DOS versions, and is at the whim of the 80 item limit. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 21:55, 18 February 2009 (CST)

:Base defense does not seem to follow the 80 item limit in that DOS version. There are a lot of bugs that have long been known about. However this one was not included in the ufopedia for some reason.
:Also, the main thing about this bug is that it does not potentially double your elerium stores. It potentially multiplies them 50 times.
:... First time this happened to me, I was pretty flabbergasted. Here I was being conservative with my limited Elerium, refraining from blowing up UFOs when possible, when I perform a base defense and gain 3000 Elerium from it. Holy spit. -[[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]]

Alright, my error. Thanks for clarifying. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 10:42, 19 February 2009 (CST)

==HWP Fusion Bomb and SWS PWT Displacer Ammo Manufacturing Cost Bug==

At a cost of $15000, 400 Tech hours, 5 Zrbite, and 8 Aqua Plastics, this is the exact same cost as the HWP Fusion Bomb from X-COM EU, converted over to the equivalent TFTD resources. As such, it shouldn't be counted as a bug, since it is clearly what Mythos intended. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 09:55, 15 November 2008 (CST)

:Hmm, in that case maybe it should be treated as a generic game engine issue and not a TFTD specific issue - but I still think it's a design error. Can you think of any logical reason why the SWS/HWP version of the ammo should be more expensive (in cost and in materials) than both the craft ammo and the (more powerful) personal ammo? It makes no logical sense. Hence I think it's a design error. Nothing can be inferred from the fact it's unchanged from XCOM-EU, that doesn't imply any deliberate decision. It could just be the replication of an original error in XCOM-EU. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 11:17, 15 November 2008 (CST)

:: I can think of a logical reason to justify this: X-Com doesn't understand the technology as well as the aliens do (which is obvious, given the length of time each side has known the tech). Handheld Blaster/Blaster Bombs are just a copy of the alien design and therefor relatively cheap and efficient, but that can't be mounted on a turret. So X-Com has to make a new design, and they obviously didn't do that good a job as the aliens would have done. This explains Tank/Plasma being weaker than Heavy Plasma too. (Why is FBL Craft ammo cheaper than the tank ammo though? Maybe X-Com gave up on/simplified the guidance system and made it just a "dumb" cannon shell/torpedo instead which doesn't have multiple waypoints? Or maybe they just did a better job there?). [[User:Cesium|Cesium]] 04:07, 25 November 2009 (EST)

:Whilst we discuss it, I'll park my original text in here:

* ''Displacer/PWT ammo cost bug - at over $100,000 total cost per round, the ammunition for this SWS weapon is far more expensive to manufacture (both in money and rare materials) than the equivalent ammo for the Aquanaut-carried Disruptor Pulse Launcher, or the craft-based Pulse Wave Torpedo, despite being less powerful than either. This would seem to be a design mistake.''

See Also [[Talk:Displacer/PWT]]

:: I don't like the higher cost either, but I think it's a tradeoff of expense and quality for the convenience of portability. Sort of like an MP3 player to the gramophone... or maybe that's not a good comparison. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 13:43, 15 November 2008 (CST)

A better comparison might be a desktop computer to a laptop. As a general rule, laptops are more expensive, but a similarly priced desktop gives you more power. Desktops are cheaper and offer power, laptops are more expensive and offer portability(though the gap is rapidly narrowing). [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 13:49, 15 November 2008 (CST)

:I think those are good analogies. But they don't apply in this case. To continue your analogies: We are paying mainframe prices for a clunky desktop that has only laptop processing power, and we're buying a mainframe for desktop prices. The vehicle version ("desktop") - is ''less'' portable and ''less'' powerful than the personal version (DPL = "laptop"), ''less'' capable than the craft version ("mainframe") - and costs ''more'' than either of the others in total cash and in materials. In particular, it makes no sense that the small missiles on the SWS use up ''more'' of both Zrbite and Aqua Plastics than the Craft version. Do we really think it's logical that a tactical battlefield round, less powerful than its man-carried equivalent, takes more explosive and structural material to produce than both the more powerful man-carried version and also more than the air-to-air round that has 60km range and can take down a major alien combat craft? There is a clearly perverse bang-per-buck here, on every measure. My sincere belief is that this was an original mistake in the XCOM-EU engine that got copied into TFTD as well. The craft round should have the higher base price, but the material requirements that are currently assigned to the SWS/HWP round. It's debatable whether the SWS/HWP rounds should be more expensive than the man-carried rounds. But what I don't think is debatable is that is not logical for the SWS/HWP rounds to be more expensive than the craft rounds. It's clearly a mistake. Even in game balance terms, the only thing the HWP/SWS rounds have going for them is conserving "80-Item Limit" space, which I severely doubt was ever a game design consideration since it's just an awkward programming compromise. Any advantage inherent in the HWP/SWS is already reflected in the very high platform cost - there is no need to inflate the ammo costs as well. The bottom line is that a round for a (mini-)tank does not cost more, does not use more materials, than the same type of round for a long range anti-aircraft weapon that has much greater damage capacity and penetrating capacity. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 14:35, 15 November 2008 (CST)

I'm going to add this to the bug list now. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 16:06, 25 February 2009 (CST)

:Still don't think this is a bug though. Just because it's more expensive to manufacture than the hand-held or craft-mounted ammo, it doesn't mean the stats are wrong. Perhaps the programmers wanted to balance the tactical portion of the game a little more by making the ammo cost more for tanks. It doesn't have to be logical to be intended. Now if you had proof which said that the ammo was supposed to cost less but the stats were wrong, then yes, I'd agree. So if you boil it all down it comes to a disparate logic issue, not a bug.--[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 21:31, 25 February 2009 (CST)

::I have to side with Zombie here. While the ammo may be disproportionately expensive, by the definition used on the rest of the page for bug, it doesn't fit. All the other bugs are errors in program logic or function or routines that are unintentional problems with the game, most of which are not warned of ahead of time. The ammo for the tank costs exactly what is listed and operates entirely as intended, whereas the rest of the bugs are not intended game features. Even if the numbers were entered wrong, that would be a data entry error, not a program bug. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 00:28, 26 February 2009 (CST)

:If it was a data entry error, I'd consider that a type of bug... assuming we had proof of the goof so to speak. LOL. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 00:49, 26 February 2009 (CST)

:: It feels too specific an entry to be a data entry error.

:: I'm reminded of the high explosive. I know, I know - it's not an exact parallel to the FBL issue. A High Explosive is practically two grenades. Double weight, double bulk. Slightly above two times the damage. However, it costs five times the price of a standard grenade. Even though you're paying more for not-as-much, I don't think that could be considered a bug. A rip off, yes, but not a bug.

:: Here's a thought: Think about the immediate benefits each of the two controversial ammo types give back to you. Aircraft ammo = activity points. Tank ammo = loot. Yes, I know that aircraft ammo also generate crash sites, but you still have the ground combat to contend with.

:: One other thought: With careful management of your ammo, you'll probably never spend any elerium on the handheld version's ammo. Could it be the handheld that's really at issue here rather than the others? In the end I feel that it doesn't really matter. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 03:38, 26 February 2009 (CST)

: I'm with Zombie that a data entry error is a bug (we have other examples), but also agree some proof is probably needed. And I agree with NKF that in the scheme of things, it doesn't really matter much. I don't think the HE pack is a good comparison (though the HE pack should be heavier) as it's reasonable to pay disprortionately more to get additional power at the same tech level. The fusion weapons are a case of paying more to actually get ''less'' power. I am not bothered by the handheld vs vehicle balance, not least because the game generally makes handheld weapons better than their vehicle equivalents, so I can accept that as an across-the-board design decision.

: I can also see a game balance argument ''if'' we believe that Fusion Tank ammo is more of an overall game-winning weapon than craft Fusion Bombs. But I'm not sure I agree with that statement. And even if it's true, and there's a game balance argument (in which case it would apply equally to handheld Fusion launchers), it's still illogical. The less powerful, battlefield warhead should not cost massively more in exotic materials than the much more powerful air to air warhead that brings down Battleships. I agree though that just because it's illogical does not prove it's a bug (i.e. unintended). [[User:Spike|Spike]] 07:48, 26 February 2009 (CST)

Ok we more or less seem to be in agreement that this isn't a bug, but it is very confusing/illogical. Maybe we can shift the "bug" text from the article page and roll that into the [[Hovertank/Launcher]] and [[Displacer /P. W. T.]] pages now. Feel free to combine any text from the discussion above if necessary. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 09:22, 26 February 2009 (CST)

: Unless we can ''prove'' it's a data entry error (unlikely), how about calling it an "Anomaly" instead of a bug? [[User:Spike|Spike]] 10:59, 26 February 2009 (CST)

Looks like plain old game imbalance to me.
The way I see it, Hovertank Plasma and Launcher were meant to be stronger. Much much stronger. Let's look at Tank Cannon, Launcher and Laser. The logic is that it's a tank mounted weapon, so the tank can carry a much larger and more powerful version of the same weapon, right?
It's pretty stupid that a Hovertank Plasma is weaker than the Heavy Plasma... you could just mount a Heavy Plasma on a Hovertank and get them exactly equal. In fact, I suspect that the hovertanks were ALSO meant to have more powerful weapons than the man-portable versions.
Unfortunatly, the game designers then realised that this made the hovertanks far too powerful. So... the programmers nerfed the power of the hovertank weapons. BUT they forgot to lower the ammo costs. [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] 11:20, 26 February 2009 (CST)

: Well you are opening up a much larger issue there. The Fusion weapons are an anomaly, an inconsistency. But handheld weapons are more powerful than equivalent vehicle weapons across the board, consistently. So that looks like a deliberate design decision, not a mistake. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 17:33, 26 February 2009 (CST)

:: There are two exceptions to the rule: Tank/Cannon: 60AP vs. Heavy Cannon 56AP. Tank/Laser: 110 Laser vs. Heavy Laser: 85 Laser. The hovertank\plasma only differs by a measly 5 (an extra 0 - 10 damage, which means a lot vs. UFO inner hull armour). I guess the trend here was to moderate the area effect tank strengths. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 23:22, 26 February 2009 (CST)

I'd have to agree with you there Spike. This wasn't a mistake, however odd it may seem. It was a deliberate attempt to try and balance the game. Below is a table I created ages ago for my (now defunct) strategy guide detailing the HWP's and what handheld weapon corresponds to it. When you stick them side-by-side, it really becomes apparent that the programmers were trying to base the HWP weapons off the handheld weapons somewhat. The only thing that doesn't follow a nice and distinct scheme is the damage. That's what is the clincher. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 20:26, 26 February 2009 (CST)
 
<table {{StdCenterTable}} class="sortable">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left" width="150">Tank Type</th><th width="70">DAM</th><th width="80">Snap</th><th width="90">Aimed</th><th width="90">Aimed</th><th width="80">Snap</th><th width="70">DAM</th><th align="right" width="140">Handheld</th></tr>
<tr><th align="left">Tank/Cannon</th><td>60</td><td>60%</td><td>90%</td><td>90%</td><td>60%</td><td>561</td><th align="right">Heavy Cannon</th></tr>
<tr><th align="left">Rocket Launcher</th><td>85</td><td>55%</td><td>115%</td><td>115%</td><td>55%</td><td>87.52</td><th align="right">Rocket Launcher</th></tr>
<tr><th align="left">Laser Cannon</th><td>110</td><td>50%</td><td>85%</td><td>84%</td><td>50%</td><td>85</td><th align="right">Heavy Laser</th></tr>
<tr><th align="left">Hovertank/Plasma</th><td>110</td><td>85%</td><td>100%</td><td>100%</td><td>86%</td><td>80</td><th align="right">Plasma Rifle</th></tr>
<tr><th align="left">Hovertank/Launch</th><td>140</td><td>--%</td><td>120%</td><td>120%</td><td>--%</td><td>200</td><th align="right">Blaster Launcher</th></tr>
</table>
1AP rounds. 
2Average between the Small and Large Rocket.

: Hold up! Tank rounds do 60AP. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 23:22, 26 February 2009 (CST)

So what's wrong? The table says 60 for the Tank/Cannon and 56 for HC-AP. Those are correct, no? --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 23:41, 26 February 2009 (CST)

: Sorry, didn't realise it was two tables side by side (or rather mirrored). Eyes only noticed the left side of the table. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 23:53, 26 February 2009 (CST)

:: If the Hovertank Launcher did 200 damage, or worse if the Hovertank Launcher did EVEN MORE damage than the Blaster Launcher... that would make them easily the most deadly things on the map. As it is, the hovertank launcher is already pretty overpowered, even with 140 power.

== DOS4GW - What the heck is it? ==

It's been ages since I had to remember this stuff, so those who remember clearer than I do, forgive me if my descriptions aren't accurate. Hopefully the general idea will come across.

Back in ye olde days of computere gamynge - and where there were more E's to go around, memory handling was a tricky beast to handle. Computer memory is divided into several different categories. Conventional, extended and I think expanded. I might be jumbling the terminologies for the last two a bit. Doesn't matter - memory was just cut up into small segments. The two most common memory types to PCs at the time were pretty small but were readily available. The third one - the most expandable (aka the chip with its massive 4 Megs of RAM you just spent your whole month's allowance on!), wasn't as easy to get at.

To get access to the higher memory that was available to the computer, special memory handlers had to be used. Drivers like HIMEM, emm386, etc were used.

DOS4GW is one such handler that lets the game access the computer's available expanded memory. Lots of games that came out at the time use this. Doom, Duke Nukem 3d, Syndicate, Ultima Underworld, X-Com UFO/TFTD, etc. LOTS of games. Any time you ran a game from the dos console and you saw the Dos4GW message flash by briefly it would be assisted by it (well, it stayed on the screen for ages back when processors were slower!).

It took the hassle out of memory handling and let the game access the available memory on the computer as one big flat block of memory to play with.

So what was meant in the article was to simply replace the dos4gw.exe with a more up-to-date version from another game. I think the way to tell its version was just in the message that it displayed. You can just run the dos4gw.exe file in a console window. It'll give an error, but the message it shows will indicate its version. UFO 1.4 uses Dos4gw 1.95, for example.

-[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:22, 6 March 2009 (CST)
:DOS4GW also switched the processor from 16bit to 32bit mode. [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 13:58, 6 March 2009 (CST)

== Clipping ==
I have a new bug. Its harmless. I have a savegame (EU CE - modified game) which has a sectoid within another sectoid. In the alien turn, one secturd walked off the roof and dropped down <s>onto</s> into another. (I guess there DNA is indentical afterall, so they 'become one' with the world). If you want the savegame (superhuman edited using UFOloader, UFO Mod v1, xcomed, Khor Chin WeapEdit v0.1) drop me a request on the my page somewhere. [[User:EsTeR|EsTeR]] 01:40, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

: Not something many would encounter, but definitely something that can happen. Units can occupy the same physical space, but the game cannot display them all. It'll only draw one of them. Actually saw this effect happen back in the early days of XComutil when it gained the ability to manually add new aliens into a battlescape. It did this by slotting them into the same spaces occupied by existing aliens. Then the fun would happen when you saw a couple of Mutons suddenly walk out of a sectoid. Not sure how the game determines who gets hurt when struck by a bullet. May very well depend on the order they are stored in the unitpos.dat file.

: There are a couple of ways you can replicate this in-game, but I can only provide theories on how you could do it. Such as shooting the ceiling above you and letting the unit drop through, or moving a tank off a ledge and getting its non-primary segments land directly on top of another unit. By the way, the rear end of tanks get stuck in walls if you attempt to move north or east off any ledges. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 02:18, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

: Ok, so as long as others know about this, then all is good. I had never seen it and was doing alot of head scratching until I shot the alien.

== Berserk HWP crashes the game ==
In the article page it mentions that aliens which go berserk with their integrated weapons will crash the game. This is only true for Mind Controlled aliens (or units under X-COM control) - alien controlled units which go berserk do not crash the game. I tested an MC'd Celatid just now and it doesn't crash the game either, though it doesn't immediately go berserk - it waits another turn for some odd reason. Someone want to check this to verify my results? --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 20:31, 27 December 2009 (EST)

==HWP Morale Loss==

HWPs have 110 Bravery, which [[Morale#Effect_of_Bravery|normally prevents morale loss]], but I wonder if they can still lose morale due to loss of units with a morale-loss modifier. It'd depend on how the math is done. If, for, example, the -20 to morale for a dead unit is static, then multiplied by any [[Morale#Officers|morale loss modifier]], then reduced by 2 for every ten point of bravery, any officer death without another officer on the field will necessarily reduce HWP Morale.

It all depends on how the equation plays out and when modifiers are added. For sake of this post, I propose the following as the morale-loss equation: 20*(rank death modifier)-((Bravery-10)/5)*(1.00-Leadership bonus)=Morale Lost. (Rather than using 22 as a base, I'm going to assume Bravery is internally decremented by 10 for this equation as 0 Bravery is impossible without editing and it makes the math easier for the purpose of the example.)

It makes sense to me that rather than having 110 bravery hard-coded as an exception to "No morale lost", it simply works the same way in the normal equation, but is high enough that it negates most morale loss events, as even if an officer is killed, another officer is usually left on the field to help negate the penalty. That said, if a large portion of the team is wiped out at once, any surviving officers may not be able to negate it all, allowing tanks to start having noticeable morale loss.

So with the death multipliers, we can determine that every XCOM officer killed has a set death value. Rookies and Squaddies are -20, Sergeants are -24, Captains are -26, Colonels -30, and Commanders -35.

For example, under this theory, if a Sergeant is killed with no other ranked units on the field, a Squaddie with 50 Bravery would lose 16 Morale. (20*1.2-(50-10)/5*1.00=16). A HWP would, at the same time, lose 4 morale. The Sergeant's death is worth -24 Morale, and without another officer on the field to ameliorate the loss, the Tank's bravery only can 'absorb' 20 points of the morale lost. If it was instead the Commander lost, with no other officers on the field, the HWP would lose instead 15 points of morale, given that a Commander's death (20*1.75) is worth a whopping 35 points of morale loss if no other officers are present.

And if you have, say, four colonels and the Commander on rear/psi duty, and some alien flings a grenade or a blaster bomb into the back of the Skyranger and blows all three of them up and they were the only officers, the HWP has now lost 55 morale, which gives it a 10% chance of panicking/berserking on the next turn!

In the end this'll probably need to be tested for accuracy, but those are my thoughts right now.

Also, for the record, most units that berserk go to 255 TUs while still using the original TU-expenditure calculations; it's part of what makes berserk units so dangerous. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 19:34, 11 January 2012 (EST)

:Tested it under vanilla CE. Took a squad out containing just about every rank there is (commander + colonel + captions + sergeants), plus a tank. Blew up and killed all soldiers with a single blaster bomb shell, leaving just the tank, which lost no morale (sorry).

:I also brought a group of rookies along with a single commander + tank, and killed just the ranked unit. Tank lost no morale. A rookie with 60 bravery lost 17 (which matches the loss predicted by the formula currently on the morale page), whereas under your formula he should've lost 25.

:Still, you're on the right track. I've long had my own theory as to why tanks have been known to lose morale. Take a look at [[UNITREF.DAT#42|UNITREF.DAT[42]]] - this is the offset that stores a unit's rank. Notice something? The value gets higher as the X-COM unit's rank gets higher. Works in ''reverse'' for aliens, for whatever reason. I sorta figure it's so killing a mind controlled alien commander doesn't mess with your morale too badly, but there's a big problem with that theory and you can probably tell what it is...

:If the highest this figure gets for an X-COM unit is 5 (commander rank), then a killing a mind controlled alien ''terrorist'' with a rank value of ''7'' should net an even higher morale loss penalty. And indeed it does - I took a rookie and a tank to a terror mission, mind controlled and killed a terrorist, and the tank lost 10 morale. Guess it would've lost six if I'd taken a commander instead of a rookie, but that's still something.

:Note that the formula on the morale page does ''not'' account for this - it states that at bravery 110 the alien's death loss multiplier would always be applied to a base morale loss of 0, but that's obviously wrong. You're spot on in saying that the base morale loss figures are not totally dependant on bravery, and the "death loss" penalty is applied first. Would probably require a few more trials to determine what that penalty ''is'' for alien soldiers and terrorists though.

:Just for kicks, I edited a plasma tank to have 0 morale. It panicked in the normal way (either sitting still or charging off to the SE). When it berserked, the game crashed as soon as I dismissed the status message. -  [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] ([[User_talk:Bomb_Bloke|Talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bomb_Bloke|Contribs]]) 18:54, 12 January 2012 (EST)

:: Thought I'd give it a spin. I sent a laser tank in with a squad and had it start shooting at team members. Each time it killed an ally, it would lose morale. Once it was under 50 morale, I waited until it panicked. Since I was playing the dos version, the game didn't crash but I suspect a memory leak of some sort may have occurred that would normally shut down the CE version. What would happen in CE if a soldier were to be edited and granted a tank turret, and then made to panic? Would the game crash? I'm just wondering if it's related to the weapon as opposed to the fact the tank is a treated as a large unit. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 00:43, 13 January 2012 (EST)

::: Ah, friendly fire! Thought I'd tested for that, but obviously not...

::: Oddly enough, now that I try it, I see that the twenty point hit for killing a unit on the same side can be adjusted by the leadership bonus of the victim. Eg, kill a lone commander and his 35% penalty reduction takes the extra morale lost from 20 down to 13 (which is exactly how much a tank will lose, given that it otherwise wouldn't lose any at all).

::: Of course, this completely messes up my theory about alien soldier/terrorist ranks overriding the 110 bravery score. It doesn't. My tank "only" lost 10 morale because the alien's rank acted as a 50% leadership bonus... Though I suppose that's still interesting to know, because it suggests that keeping a simple alien soldier under mind control is more effective then risking your own commander in the field.

::: I took an otherwise unarmed rookie and assigned him a tank cannon + ammo. He could manually fire this weapon in much the same way a tank can. Forcing him to berserk crashed CE, under DOS he just spun around. -  [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] ([[User_talk:Bomb_Bloke|Talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bomb_Bloke|Contribs]]) 21:20, 13 January 2012 (EST)

== 80-items limit on CE edition ==

I have the feeling that the 80-items limit does not apply to the CE edition and is instead a 110-items limit (at least during base defence). Can anyone confirm? [[User:Seb76|Seb76]] 16:24, 24 February 2010 (EST)

:I believe this limit was increased for TFTD. Maybe it was also increased for the CE edition of UFO, and only ever applied to the DOS edition of UFO?? [[User:Spike|Spike]] 20:03, 11 March 2010 (EST)

== Paying for Dirt in TFTD ==

I have the steam version of TFTD and am unable to replicate this bug. Testing with the starting base, I dismantled a few modules, added up my income and expenses, and it reconciled with my cash at the beginning of the next month. I even tried again, dismantling every module except the access lift, and once again saw no income discrepancy. Am I missing something, or is it possible this bug was actually fixed in TFTD? --[[User:Jewcifer|Jewcifer]] 12:18, 16 March 2012 (EDT)

:'twas probably fixed. It would indeed be helpful to add a small note to bugs on this page which are EU-specific but not obviously so (like this one). -  [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] ([[User_talk:Bomb_Bloke|Talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bomb_Bloke|Contribs]]) 17:14, 16 March 2012 (EDT)

::Every now and then I get the urge to test some of the more important bugs myself in my steam version of TFTD. Perhaps I will make a more complete effort and record the results somewhere on the wiki. --[[User:Jewcifer|Jewcifer]] 12:08, 21 March 2012 (EDT)

== Paying for dirt: Source of bug discovered! ==

Well, I never have read this anywhere (which kind of strikes me as odd, thinking of how obvious this one seemed to me... And i have NO programming background whatsoever), so I'll post it here, hoping that there are still some active members willing to try and verify my findings. If so, please comment here, because then I will inform bladefirelight to include this in any upcoming xcomutil release. If it had been discovered before, well then I just wasted some time here. Comment below, I will delete this entry.

As the main bug page mentions, when dismantling a facility still under construction the premium will only be paid once it would have been finished. This suggests some connection between paying the premium and building time. Looking into the infos here: [[BASE.DAT]], I quickly discovered what the problem was: When a facility is dismantled, the Bytes related to the location of base facilities are updated correctly. HOWEVER the game omits to update build time to FF (which is "will never finish", an entry only found on unused squares). If the facility is finished when it is dismantled (or destroyed during combat), then the 00 in the build time byte will stand. If it was under construction, the value indicating the remainig build time will continue to tick down towards 00 as if the facility was still there.

Now at the end of the month the following seems to happen: The game checks for ANY 00 entry in the build time bytes, and if there are 00 entries, it will look up in the location bytes the type of structure to determine the amount of maintenance for that 00-construction-time-square. When it finds "dirt", then it will charge the 80 grand (my guess would be that those are somewhere hard-coded).

This explains all phenomena related to this bug, like a dismantled hangar costing 320.000 grand or the premium only popping up after the build time of a dismantled facility that was under construction has expired.

Now the fix is pretty easy: Open the BASE.DAT in a hex-editor and change the bytes in question to FF!

== Minimized Interceptor Bug (Ufo CE) ==

Maybe this bug is not just related to saving, because I had a similar problem last night. The game didn't crash, but it kept restarting the same Battlescape mission.
One Avenger (A-3) was pacing a Battleship, while another Avenger (A-1) was sent to pick up the pieces of a Terror Ship that had been shot down by an Interceptor. Despite having no weapons (oversight on my part), A-3 wanted to attack the Battleship, but I minimized the screen, hoping it would land.
While the screen was minimized, A-1 landed at the Crash Site from the Terror Ship and started this mission. Right after finishing it, I got the message that A-3 was ready to land next to the Battleship. Happy that I'd get the loot, I started the mission.
After cleaning it out, I got the usual Loot and Promotion screens and went back to the Geoscape. A few seconds later, I was back in the equipment screen and the Battleship Mission started again. I played it once more, because - hey - additional loot, right? Err... no. At the end, I got the correct Loot screen for this attempt and the very same promotion I had gotten in the first attempt (A Rookie from another base promoted to Sergeant).
Got back to Geoscape and a few seconds later back to the Equipment screen. I aborted this mission (same Battleship again), got back to Geoscape and - you guessed it - back to the Equipment screen. After aborting this mission as well and getting back to Geoscape, I used the few seconds I had to go to 'Options' and 'Abort Game'. Maybe I could have made A-3 disengage from the Battleship since I think I saw them both on the Geoscape, a yellow diamond and a red plus, but it was pretty late by that time.
--[[User:Matzebrei|Matzebrei]] 15:06, 15 May 2012 (EDT)

== Activity Overflow Bug ==

This is a potentially campaign-ending bug. This was seen in the Steam distribution, DOS version (on Windows 2003 Server EE). Not sure if UFO Extender was being used - probably it was. End of Jan 1999 turn shows an extreme negative/underflow Monthly Rating score, which in turn is caused by extreme overflow of UFO Activity levels. Note that that funding "score" - the increased funding by countries - was very positive at the same time!:

[[File:dissatisfied customers.png]]

UFO Activity, by Areas and by Countries, is literally off the chart. Clearly some kind of integer overflow:

[[File:ufo-areas.png]]
[[File:ufo-countries.png]]

X-Com activity is also off the chart:

[[File:xcom-areas.png]]
[[File:xcom-countries.png]]

In addition to the likely outcome that I will lose the game in Feb 1999, it means I can't use the graphs to detect UFO activity outside of my radar coverage.

I have only seen this bug once, and (probably very unusually) I am running under Windows 2003 Server EE (!!). My hunch would be that's the cause, Windows 2003 Server is not the best games platform. :)

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 07:22, 3 September 2012 (EDT)

Further information:

I don't necessarily lose the game in Feb or March 1999. The Monthly Ratings from Feb onward are just based on the current month, not historical score to-date. However it still greatly increases the risk of suffering from the [[Known_Bugs#Losing_My_Favourite_Game|Losing My Favourite Game]] bug - which also greatly complicates doing too many controlled experiments on this Activity Overflow bug, because a few restores of the saved game quickly leads to X-Com Project termination (and humanity's doom).

Possibly the Activity Overflow bug is caused by an initial value of the score (or an array of score values) not being correctly zeroed at the start of the game. See this graph, which shows a negative score in May 1998, prior to the start of the game in Jan 1999.

[[File:Prehistoric_negative_score.png]]

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 08:48, 3 September 2012 (EDT)

I encountered the same Activity Overflow Bug in Windows 7 using Steam version, Windows option with UFOExtender latest version.

[[User:Humbe|humbe]] 2012.10.04 09:05 UTC

I encountered the same bug at end of january with latest xcomutil patched CE version (with only bug fixes patched) with ufo extender newest version running (close to default options). Got many saves from that first month. Even if loading very early save where I had done no missions yet, and just did stuff in base, graphs still show negative for various periods in 1998. Sounds more like corruption than something actually overflowing to me.

[[User:Archlight|Archlight]] 18:34, 24 September 2012 (EDT)

== Bad Paths Bug ==

I suggest to add bad paths on UFOs maps to the article, as another bug in the game.

[[User:Sherlock|Sherlock]] 09:25, 26 December 2012 (EST)
:That sounds reasonable to me. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 10:03, 26 December 2012 (EST)

=Cleanup needed=
Hmm this whole Talk page needs a cleanup. A lot of the Not Listed bugs, should be listed, or are listed. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 10:03, 26 December 2012 (EST)

:So, before it will be made, yet three more observations.

:1. There is no possibility to give back (to stop hiring) a plane without craft weapon.

:2. Alien Reproduction is unavailable in a normal game without hacking/save editing. This is probably connected to further errors on maps. A bug/error/programmers' oversight of the some kind is present in TFTD where it is impossible to obtain Examination Room. It is so because many tiles on maps are wrongly assigned to game's objects. Namely, [[Examination Room (TFTD)]] is treated as Alien Implanter - but there is plenty of errors of this type, on various maps (perhaps also in UFO: EU).

:3. Among soldiers in UFO:EU, there are Russians. Some non-Slavs may not know that Slavic (also Russian) family names have different masculine and feminine forms. For example, Petrov, Belov, Likhachev, Gorokhov, Chukarin, Andianov, Voronin, Maleev are all masculine names; women must be called Petrova, Belova, Likhacheva, Gorokhova, Chukarina, Andianova, Voronina, Maleeva respectively (however, a rule that the feminine form is always made by adding -a is wrong, e.g. Tolstoy - Tolstaya). The soldier's name Mikhail Gorokhova (which is possible in UFO: EU) is just ridiculous (for everyone who has even little knowledge about Russian things). Tatyana Petrov is also an impossible combination. X-Com creators probably assumed that family names are the same for men and women in all languages, and, as a result, they made only mechanisms for storing masculine and feminine forms of first names, not family names. But taking reality under consideration, this is a bug.

: [[User:Sherlock|Sherlock]] 16:22, 26 December 2012 (EST)

== Common bugs vs. UFO EU specific bugs ==

I believethere is one more thing that needs to be cleaned. Namely, both EU and TFTD share the same game engine, so some bugs are common for them both. However, there exists a page with a list of TFTD bugs, and it is clear (or: should be clear) which of the bugs are specific for TFTD. I think the same should be done with EU specific bugs: to hold them apart from bugs common for both games. Some bugs exist in both games but manifest themselves differently (like problems with mind-controlling of big aliens) - they are not true common bugs.

Or even more: one could expect a clear information by each bug, in which game and in which version of the game the bug occurs. And whether a patch exists or not. Sometimes such information is given now, and sometimes it is not. And if one does not know exactly which versions are affected by the bug, it should also be mentioned clearly.

[[User:Sherlock|Sherlock]] 04:13, 27 December 2012 (EST)

== Rename page title to indicate which game this refers to? ==

I was looking for a list of bugs related to XCOM Apocalypse, and it took me a while to realize this was about a totally different game. There are 4 games (not counting the 2 opensource projecrs) here on UFOP - maybe that could be reflected in the article aswell?
[[User:Panzerlol|Panzerlol]] 20:35, 31 March 2013 (EDT)

Talk:Open Questions

2013-10-05T15:30:40Z

Tequilachef: Adding question to the "mandatory initial alien research" mission

Geoscape alien mission abortion??? Never heard of that...
Can anyone shed a light on this?
--[[User:Volutar|Volutar]] 00:40, 3 October 2011 (EDT)

: That's my fault. I was just restating "run away" as "abort mission". But actually I don't have any evidence that a UFO that runs from air combat, also aborts its mission. I can't remember if they attempt to return to the mission, or what they do. But UFOs will definitely attempt to break off air combat some of the time - as you found in your code dig I guess. (Good work by the way!). [[User:Spike|Spike]] 07:15, 3 October 2011 (EDT)

:: Okay then. So it's just an intercepted UFO escape action. This "open questions" list should be renewed, and all new things inserted where they need to be. Also there are another sections in ufopaedia with "unanswered" things, shouldn't they be in one place? I want to clarify all "unknown" things. --[[User:Volutar|Volutar]] 07:31, 3 October 2011 (EDT)

::: Agreed - done. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 21:22, 4 October 2011 (EDT)

== X-Com The Novel ==

In response to the open questions on the novel, I do have a copy, which I should probably take some time to re-read. From what I remember, indeed the scale of how the X-Com bases and troops were moved was quite enormous toward the end.

The novel itself was just a small snippet in the life of a commander being assigned to set up a new base, finding it was built practically on top of an alien base, and finally dealing with it (this is where we get hundreds of troops). Not really an epic start to end story, and it jumps right in the middle of things with Lightnings, Power Suits, Heavy Lasers, Heavy Plasmas, etc.

It would be standard fare for the casual sci-fi reader who might get puzzled by the technology thrown about in it. For a fan, perhaps slightly disappointing because it's not true to form.

There was one sore point I have with it where what seemed to be building up to be an epic mission with the male lead (or now that I reflect on it, just a support character) was simply skipped.

The best part of it was the opening chapter, which is coincidentally the teaser chapter that was published on-line for all to read.

There were other teaser novellas put out for TFTD too. Would be nice if we could gather them all here. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 02:05, 5 October 2011 (EDT)

----

Can you lose Russia to the aliens?--[[User:Ditto51|Ditto51]] 04:24, 8 July 2012 (EDT)

: I haven't personally verified this, but losing Russia to the aliens appears to be possible only in 1.0; it has never been seen in (thus thought impossible for) 1.2, 1.4, and Collectors Edition. -- [[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 04:48, 8 July 2012 (CDT)

== The first Research Mission ==

This is mentioned in here and my experience is the same, HOWEVER this seems not to stand true if your first base is in the south atlantic! As pointed out [[Access_Lift|here]] it is possible to build a base in that area. Initial tests of mine showed that the research mission is not started anywhere on the globe (quickly built bases everywhere and hex-edited some decoders into them). Could this mean that alien missions within the south atlantic region are per se impossible? And if that is so, does that also mean that any base located there is immune to alien retaliation?

Base Defence

2013-09-26T12:25:29Z

Tequilachef: /* Destruction Of Base Facilities */ Added paying for dirt note

==Briefing==
An Alien vessel has landed nearby. Our base is in severe danger. As per standard procedure all non-combat personnel and X-COM craft have been evacuated. Alien units will enter the base via hangar doors or the access lift. Defend the base and its vital installations at all costs - this is a fight to the death.

"this is a fight to the death" - implies that when you hit Abandon Mission, X-COM forces decide it is better to die and take the enemy with them, rather than admit defeat, and blow the base up.

== Battleships ==

An inbound [[Battleship]] on a "[[Alien Retaliation|Retaliation]]" mission means there is a high chance that a Base Defense mission is in the offing for you. These ships will come in at a very low altitude and at their top speed. They obviously do not care about the well being of the craft, to run it that hard in a full atmosphere!

You can bring down these battleships with sufficient [[Base Defense Measures]], but the game is programmed to just send another on the exact same mission. (To be precise, the game does not check/remove the "X-COM Base detected, send in the battleship" flag).
It has been proven that about 6 or 7 [[Fusion Ball Defences]] with [[Grav Shield]] (total defensive strength 6000) can hold off incoming battleships (hull strength 3000) indefinitely, but since you get no bonus for blowing a battleship out of the sky, not even to monthly score, it is better to let them land eventually and just run the mission. Once you've run the mission, win or lose, the attacks stop coming. The aliens are content that they've done sufficient damage.

Blowing the battleship out of the sky with Aircraft Interception ALSO seems to uncheck the Battleship assault flag, so keep that in mind.

Only battleships actually assault your base. Don't worry too much about other alien craft on "Retaliation" missions, they're just scouts. Shooting these down far away from your base may confuse the aliens as to where your base actually is. Shooting them down will also ruin their base finding mission, saving your base until the next scout is sent to replace the first.

If you decide to dismantle the base while there is a battleship enroute to attack it, the battle ship will head for that base's ex-location anyhow. It will then realise it's been duped, BUT, after consulting its alien masters, will simply head to the next closest base. In a straight line, top speed. HOWEVER, once it arrives there, it will realise that they only have the lift access codes to your old base, and will then simply hang there hovering over your base for ages and ages. In fact, this is due to the nature of the code which sends out the scouts. If successful, it sets the "aliens know where base is" flag, and applies it to the next battleship launched on a retaliation mission. This flag is only removed after a battleship actually manages to land and send troops inside your base. This flag is not removed by base defence blowing up battleships, craft blowing up battleships (I think), or, as I just mentioned, by removing that base entirely. Nor is this flag restricted to that base in particular.

== Battle Tips ==

A good [[Base Layout Strategy]] is of paramount importance here. Make sure your base is designed to make it easy to defend.

You really want everybody at home for a base defense mission. If you're caught with your Skyranger off at some UFO crash site, you'll have to defend the base with a rookie, two guys on crutches that were in med-bay, and the antique [[Tank/Cannon]] you hadn't got around to selling yet. And in Collector's Edition, you don't get to use the injured guys in med-bay. Even worse, if you don't have a single soldier who is fit for duty, you lose the base automatically. Yes, even if you have 10 Ace soldiers who only have 1 day of recovery remaining, 10 Hovertank Launchers and 5 Hovertank Plasma, and you managed to *almost* destroy the incoming battleship with your 6000 defence strength... you still automatically lose.

Losing or abandoning the battle means losing the base, and everything in it. Although sometimes you can still come out with a positive score for your trouble.
Any aircraft which are assigned to this base will be lost... even if they are outside the base at the time. Your Interceptor enroute for shootdown will abruptly self destruct. Your Skyranger with your best soldiers returning from a successful Alien Base Assault will crash and burn.

In battle, the odds are in your favor. You know the layout, it's fully lit (even the Hangars give 20 tiles of vision, despite visual effects to the contrary), and you (should have) designed in choke points.

Equipment assigned to your craft is available for base defense missions, unless the craft is out of the base. Equipment loaded on craft in the base becomes part of the general 80-item pool. If it were otherwise, your psionic troopers would likely be useless for want of Psi-amps.

Battleships will unload both regular aliens and their associated [[Terror Units]]. You won't ever see the battleship, but you will get to see all those nifty modules you've been constructing in the Base Planner view, close-up! Base modules have two levels. Soldiers will normally spawn/start in Living Quarters and Storage modules. Aliens spawn/start in Hangars and the Access Lift.

A soldier with a [[Motion Scanner]] in an upstairs closet near the access lift combined with a [[Tank/Rocket_Launcher|rocket tank]] at standoff range will keep the aliens at bay until the rockets run out. ''-see also [Stewart's] strategy on xcomufo.com forums.''

[[Blaster Bomb]]s can clear your base in just a few turns, if you launch a few into the hangars and access lift. ''The problem is getting the program to supply your soldiers with blaster bombs before hitting the 80-item limit.''

Hovertank/Launchers are almost as good at clearing out your base, except for the fact that their missiles are more prone to inaccuracy and often veer off and blow up against the wrong walls. ''Since the game has a "free ammo for HWP in base defence" bug, I don't see HOW you can lose as long as you keep 3-4 of these things in every base.''

Doing too much damage to a room can also [[#Destruction Of Base Facilities|collapse it]], and you will lose that room permanently. Any rooms that can only be accessed by going through the collapsed room will also be lost. Spawn-point rooms such as Living Quarters, Stores, Access Lift, and Hangars (plus the Alien Containment chamber) can't be collapsed.

You can recover lots of alien weapons from a successful base defense. In at least one version of the game, there is a bug where you can collect an extraordinary amount of Elerium, enough to start selling it.

It might be best to disarm all your psi-weak soldiers at this base if there are Ethereals or Sectoids attacking.

If you built a General Stores near the Access Lift, the double doors are a great place for ambushing aliens as they leave the Access Lift. Each chamber will hold two soldiers. Eight soldiers stepping out and firing one or two bursts of laser or plasma shots will almost guarantee that no alien penetrates further into your base. Also, so long as no soldiers or tanks are visible during the aliens' turn, they will not make psi attacks (visible to any alien, not just the psionic alien). The [[Destroying Terrain#Terrain structures|doors]] have a damage rating of 75, which means they will withstand an alien grenade detonated right beside them. This tactic has one downside against Sectoids: Cyberdisks will explode when killed at the chokepoint and destroy a large proportion of the loot.

Alien Weaponry that has been researched can be used for Base Defense even if it's ammunition has NOT been researched. In other Missions you simply cannot load the ammo in your transport, but when defending a base this is not necessary. The clips will be labeled as alien artifacts, but can be used as if research was finished (except that it cannot be thrown).

''[A somewhat unorthodox strategy, forced by necessity, paid off for Zombie: "I armed my best soldiers with the stun rods, hid them in the General Stores next to the Access Lift, and went to work. Every round a Snakeman would appear from the Access Lift, and every round one of my soldiers would stun the alien while another veteran grabbed the body and hauled the poor alien upstairs for observation. I was laughing so hard I almost peed my pants!" - as copied from strategycore. Mental picture of a Snakeman with a pillowcase over his head, zipcuffed arms behind his back, old army sock stuffed in the mouth, being heaved into a darkened storeroom on top of his buddies. "We get $20K for each, alive or dead, right?" --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 08:34, 14 Oct 2005 (PDT) ]''

== To Surrender or Not To Surrender ==

There are only two costs incurred when you lose a base:
# You lose the base and everything in it;
# You lose points for the soldiers and tanks that died defending the base.

The loss of the base is presumably erased from the annals of history. It's all kept very hush-hush from the public. The non-combat staff and all ships that were at the base are disbanded and are not lost in the battle. X-COM ships vanish without a trace, probably stolen by wretched engineers. The deaths of the soldiers on the other hand are a lot harder to explain, and friends and families are bound to make inquiries.

Therefore, if you find yourself in a situation where you are defending a base against an enemy that you have no hope of winning against, should you surrender without a fight, or fight it out? You will need to base this on who you are fighting with and what you have to fight them with.

For example, a fresh batch of recruits in jumpsuits armed with regulation standard pistols and rifles against an elite squad of [[Ethereal]]s and [[Sectopod]]s. This can be classed as a hopeless battle should you not be able to utilise the weapons used by the attackers. In a situation like this, you should cut your losses and surrender without a fight.
This will incur a 0 point penalty along with the loss of the base.

On the other hand, should it be against [[Floater]]s, you could push on and try your luck.

Alternately, you could also try to kill as many raiders as you can before surrendering.
As long as you did not lose any soldiers in the process, you will get a positive score for losing the base. If this is an option, go for it. If not, don't.

It is understandable that some commanders may be too proud to go down without a fight. There is nothing wrong with that, but do try to consider the consequences of any actions before taking them.

'''Note:''' All of the above relates to raids on bases when you have more than one base. If you are put into a situation where you cannot save your very last base, then you should consider restarting the game.

''If you have have advance warning about a base raid that you're going to surrender-- i.e., a hyperwave decoder, or you can see that battleship making a beeline for your base on a normal radar-- take the time to transfer as much as you can out of that base to other bases before the raid hits.
If you've got free hangars in other bases, transfer the craft, save any elerium there, and transfer out all the personnel you can.
An obvious thing, but can be quickly forgotten in the shadow of a battleship. --[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 17:36, 22 Nov 2005 (PST)''
:You should always transfer pretty much EVERYTHING out of a base even if you expect to win easily. In base defense missions you WILL hit the 80 item cap. You need to thin out your extra gear before the aliens get there by selling the stuff you don't really need and transferring the stuff you want to keep. You don't want to defend with just smoke grenades and electro-flares. My tiny radar bases always have a general stores for that purpose.--[[User:Brunpal|Brunpal]] 01:06, 11 August 2008 (PDT)

''As stated earlier, the aliens can attack your base pretty early (especially on superhuman; For example, I got my first raid before laser pistol research was done!)There can sometimes even be Base Defense mission on Veteran on the first month (I got mine on January 8th against Sectoids and i had to quit because they had psi abilties and all I had were rifles and pistols with only 4 people with laser rifles but everyone was going berserk) - pistols and grenades may work well against sectoids, but are pretty worthless against cyberdiscs - still, even in this case, the answer should be clearly "not to surrender!" - In the early stage of the game, there are two ways of winning against cyberdiscs: first: get a soldier to stand near it and provoke a reaction shot by a different alien and hope it hits the disc, leads to its death and doesnt let it explode. Or just stun it - 2-3 soldiers with stun rods do a great job there, especially in a base with its plenty of cover.. '' [[User: Player11]] 23:47, 23 oct 2006

==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>4-8</td><td>6-10</td><td>8-12</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</td><td>1</td><td>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>2</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders***</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>0-2</td><td>2-4</td><td>4-6</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>9-15</td><td>14-20</td><td>22-28</td></tr>
</table> 

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Ethereals use Ethereal Leaders in place of Navigators, Medics, and Engineers. 
<nowiki>**</nowiki>Snakemen use Snakeman Soldiers in place of Medics. 
<nowiki>***</nowiki>Mutons use Muton Soldiers in place of Medics, Leaders and Commanders.

== Destruction Of Base Facilities ==

Excessive damage to the structure of your base can result in some [[Base Facilities (EU)|modules]] being completely destroyed, ''even if'' you win the overall battle.

Certain modules have "special" tiles in them, and if ''all'' of these are visibly damaged (or completely obliterated), then that module will be considered lost. Furthermore, if any other modules used the destroyed areas for passage to the access lift, they'll be forfeit as well!

Fortunately, these tiles only exist on the upper floors of your base, and the aliens make no attempt to target them once they encounter your troops (... if they ''don't'' encounter your troops, they'll spend the first few dozen turns beelining these tiles - and if they're allowed to reach one under the CE version of the game, when they fire it'll crash). While explosions on the lower floors may damage the upper flooring, they leave the ''furnishings'' unscathed - ''even if'' the floor gives way completely, they'll still hang safely in midair. Presumably the builders had the foresight to attach them to the ceiling with wires.

For example, the [[Fusion Ball Defences]] contain eight gun arrays made up of four tiles each. All 32 of these must be destroyed in order to take out the module.

<table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th>Module</th><th>Targets</th><th>Module</th><th>Targets</th></tr>
<tr><td>[[Grav Shield]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-gravshield.gif]]</td><td>[[Small Radar System]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-smallradar.gif]]</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Hyper-wave Decoder]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-hyperwave.gif]]</td><td>[[Workshop]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-workshop.gif]]</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Laboratory]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-laboratory.gif]]</td><td>[[Missile Defences]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-missile.gif]]</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Large Radar System]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-largeradar.gif]]</td><td>[[Laser Defences]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-laser.gif]]</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Mind Shield]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-mindshield.gif]]</td><td>[[Plasma Defences]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-plasma.gif]]</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Psionic Laboratory]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-psilab.gif]]</td><td>[[Fusion Ball Defences]]</td><td>[[Image:targets-fusion.gif]]</td></tr>
</table> 

The remaining modules - the [[Access Lift]], [[Alien Containment]], [[General Stores]], [[Hangar]] and [[Living Quarters]] - are completely indestructible, and can take any amount of damage without danger of collapse.

Note that squares that have been emptied due to battle damage fall victim to the "paying for dirt" bug. See [[Known Bugs]] for more info.

== Bugs ==
Base defenses can be DEADLY.

But not for the reason you think.

*When you have more than 80 items present at a base, the game will only make available the first 80 items on the stores list (See '80-item Limit' in [[Known Bugs]].) . This will result in conventional weapons/stun rods/electroflares/etc. being available instead of lasers/plasmas. To prevent this there are 3 possible solutions before that Battleship strikes the base:
1) Transfer the unwanted items to another base. 
2) Load your transports (if there's any) with the unwanted items and launch them before the UFO lands. This saves the work of having to transfer those items back but if the base gets destroyed the transport will disappear and the waypoint to which it was headed will remain visible for the rest of the game. 
3) [[Spring_Cleaning_Tips|Sell unnecessary stuff]]. ''"Imminent Alien Invasion Yard Sale! Everything Must Go!"''

* If you had 40 heavy plasmas in your base and forgot to get rid of those 40 smoke grenades, all your troopers would be lacking the clips for the heavy plasma. Good luck defending a base with nothing but 40 smoke grenades. ''[Darksun: Lucky for my stupid self, I had a couple of laser tanks to convince the aliens to lend me some ammo.]''

* A relatively easy way to counter this problem is to keep your stores of "conventional" weapons low and keep 20 or more [[Laser Rifle]]s in base inventories. Laser Rifles are high on the inventory list and are distributed before most other items. As they do not require ammo, any laser is immediately combat-ready.

*Another ANNOYING bug I find is the disappearing bodies and booty from aliens. This is related to the 80 item bug problem.

*Also much feared is the dreaded "walled off section" or [[Known_Bugs#Base_Disjoint_Bug|Base Disjoint Bug]]. Sections of your base along the extreme south and east edges will often be separated from each other by dirt walls. Heavy plasma and blaster launchers are needed in this scenario to excavate the dirt. Soldiers spawning in Stores or Living Quarters here may be trapped for the duration.

*A much nicer bug is that [[Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWP]]'s automatically get a free load of ammo (which is added to your stores if unused). Note you still need at least one soldier as aliens landing at an unguarded base - or a base defended only by HWP's - take it without a fight.

*If you have a combination of many soldiers and few spawn points, soldiers will start taking alien spawn points. Which usually means less aliens (unless you built a lot of hangars).

*The last point also applies to aliens: if the aliens don't have enough spawn points they will start using the X-COM ones, which can turn base defense into a nightmare!

Masochists: at superhuman, you get the same quantity of aliens as in the battleship, e.g. +25 aliens, +8 terror units. To get the full compliment to attack your base, you need AT MINIMUM 2 hangars. (Unless you want aliens to spawn in general stores downstairs corridor). Four hangars guarantee maximum alien load if you use 15 soldiers and conservative loadouts. ''I usually defend with 10 guys, 2 tanks VS four hangars. LasR ''

* On a related note, X-COM can only have a maximum of 40 soldiers on base defence. HWPs are prioritized and will be spawned before any soldiers. Each HWP counts as 4 soldiers. Therefore a base with 9 HWPs will only spawn 4 soldiers. Having 10 HWPs in base might cause your game to crash. (it will attempt to create the Equip Soldier screen but will face problems).

*Elerium collection from a base defence mission can only happen if elerium pods are generated in the battlescape. If you have 10 units in storage, the game will generate 10 pods in the base, given sufficient space in the object table. But because the way the game automatically converts 1 pod into 50 units at the end of the mission, you're basically getting 5000% more elerium from your own pods (those that don't get destroyed, anyway). None of them come from the aliens! This will only happen in earlier versions of the game.

==See Also==

*[[X-Com Base Terrain]]
*[[Base Layout Strategy]]
*[[Alien Retaliation]]

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

Known Bugs

2013-09-26T12:23:24Z

Tequilachef: /* Paying For Dirt */ typo

== Game Destroying Bugs ==

These are the list of the worst bugs of them all, because they can render your entire game unplayable. Until a fix/ workaround is found, these bugs result in your entire X-com campaign being scuttled:
* [[Minimized interceptor bug]]
* [[Big text bug]]
*[[Small window bug]]

== Base Construction Bugs ==

=== Base Disjoint Bug ===
Base facilities built along the right or bottom edges of the base building area may end up being cut off from each other by dirt walls, a bug in the routine meant to keep soldiers from accidentally exiting the map edges during [[Base Defense]] missions. The dirt walls can be knocked down by Blaster Bombs or excessive amount of heavy plasma fire during combat but are otherwise unbreakable.

[[image:bdb.gif|center|Base Disjoint Bug]]

The walls marked in white are removed if there is an adjacent module. All green modules are not affected while the yellow modules are. The red module will be sealed off completely if anything smaller than a hangar is placed here at any given time.

[[XcomUtil]] works around this problem by stripping out the walls entirely in all the base modules.

The bug can be profitable if the hangars and the lift are accessible only through in these areas - you can gather and supply all your soldiers heavily without aliens interfering, then knock a hole in the wall and cover the area with explosives and blaster launcher fire.

===Displayed Base Maintenance Costs===
Although X-COM charges the right monthly fees for base modules, the maintenance fee displayed ''in the base info screen'' is always wrong. The displayed number is actually based on the placement within the base grid, '''not''' the price displayed in the in-game UFOpaedia. However, at the end of the month, the right fee is deducted. For more information, see [[Base_Facilities#Displayed_Base_Maintenance_Cost_Bug]]. The Geo finance Graph shows a correct maintenance summary ([[LIGLOB.DAT]], updated once a month). Also see the next section.

===Paying For Dirt===
If you take down any facility in any base that you own and leave bare dirt, then you will continue to pay maintenance on it. But not at the old rate of whatever the facility cost per month, filling the hole back with dirt means it needs special attention at all times by specialists. In fact for every square of dirt you have that used to be a facility you will pay 80k per month. Thats 320k per hangar you take down. There are only two known ways to stop paying this premium - if you completely dismantle the base you stop paying any money for it, or if you build over all the spaces that you have vacated. In fact as soon as you start building the new facility you stop paying the premium, as well as not having to pay the cost of the new facility until it is complete.

If you start a facility and change your mind before it is complete, after the time when it would have completed you will start paying this 80k premium on that land as well.

Note that this also applies to facilities that have been destroyed due to battle damage in [[Base Defense|Base Defense]] missions. If you have lost a facility in a base defense mission and you cannot afford to replace the original facility, consider building something cheap here to keep down this bug.

===Base Facility Dismantle-Construction Crash===
In the Collectors Edition version, dismantling a facility while its construction is in progress can cause a crash when a second facility on another base square completes its construction. To work around this, dismantle a facility only after its construction is complete. If you have already dismantled such a facility, build something like a general stores on the same square to avoid the crash. It is not known if this crash happens intermittently or always, or if it happens on most versions of the game or just the Collectors Edition.

===Radar Stacking===
Despite the "Short Range" and "Long Range" detection bars displayed on each base's Information screen, only one radar of each type will be used at each base. Building additional radars of the same type will have no effect. One short and one long are useful until the [[Hyper-wave Decoder|Hyper-Wave Decoder]] makes both of them obsolete.

===Phantom Radar===
When you dismantle detection equipment such as a radar or hyperwave detector, the related detection ability of the base does not decrease until a new facility of some kind is built in that base. Until a new facility is completes building at that base, the base continues to use this "phantom radar".

This bug allows you to "upgrade in place", for example building a new Hyper-Wave Decoder over the top of an existing Large Radar, and retaining the detection capability of the Large Radar until the Hyper-Wave Decoder completes building. (Unless something else completes building first).

===Fixes for Base Construction Bugs===

As mentioned above, [[XcomUtil]] prevents the Base Disjoint bug (crudely). The [[User:Spike#Base_Fixer|BaseFixer]] utility corrects the Paying for Dirt, Phantom Radar, and Radar Stacking bugs. BaseFixer can be used manually on saved game files, or automatically via XcomUtil's hook mechanism.

==Geoscape Bugs==

===First Radar Detection Data bug===
When a UFO is detected by a radar, you get certain data on it depending on the type of radar that detected it. If the UFO later enters the range of another radar while staying in the range of the first, you will continue to get the initial data given, even if the new radar is more powerful than the first! So if you detect a craft with a [[Small Radar System]], then the UFO moves into the range of a [[Hyper-wave Decoder]], clicking on the UFO will only give you the data as if the Small Radar detected it, so long as it remains in the Small Radar range! In effect, the data you get about a UFO is determined when you first detect it, and not changed after that until you lose detection on the craft with the radar that first detected it.

This bug most commonly shows up when a UFO is first detected by a patrolling aircraft and then remains in the range of the aircraft while also entering the range of a Hyper-Wave Decoder.

=== Minimized Interceptor Bug ===
One fairly consistent cause of crashes is saving the geoscape game during a UFO standoff, with a [[UFO Interception]] window minimized to an icon. The next mission after that point will likely dump you to the green text screen, and perhaps an earlier battlescape mission instead of the proper one. What it seems to do is zoom back out of the combat too far when the fight is over, eventually causing the crash once it has gone a couple of steps further than it normally allows you.

'''Solution:''' Open up [[UIGLOB.DAT]] in a hex editor. Change hex offset 0x06 to 00. This will reset the number of minimized interceptor windows to zero. Your interceptor unit can be selected to either return to base or continue on to complete its ground assault mission. ''NOTE: Make sure to back up your save game before editing it.''

''-- I was able to recover from this state by quickly sending in another interceptor ([[Firestorm]]) to take over, which allowed my first interceptor ([[Avenger]]) to break off and go home without crashing the game again. After the shootdown I overwrote the buggy savegame. --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 03:11, 22 Aug 2005 (PDT)''

''This happened to me also. I fixed it by replacing "[[UIGLOB.DAT]]" in the save folder with the same file from another saved game (from the same campaign a month earlier) [[User:bylund|bylund]] 00:15, January 12, 2007 (GMT+01)''

=== Interceptions: Last Shot Always Misses ===
When using Cautious attack when [[UFO Interception|intercepting a UFO]], your craft will stay at the maximum range of your longest-range weapon. When using Standard attack, your craft will stay at the maximum range of your shortest-range weapon. (Usually players use two weapons of the same type, so Cautious and Standard attack will behave the same in this regard.)

As soon as the craft fires its last shot (expending all its ammo), it will drop back to "Standoff" range (70km). This will make it appear that the UFO has backed away while the last missile(s) are in-flight, causing them to miss.

In order to hit a UFO with your last salvo of missiles (Stingrays, Avalanches, or Fusion Balls), you must switch to "Aggressive" attack before the last salvo reaches the UFO. This will cause your craft to close in with the UFO, allowing the missiles to be in range when they reach the UFO. However, Aggressive attacks will also bring you within range of the UFO's weapons, so you should hit the "Disengage" button as soon as the last salvo hits.

===Elerium-fueled Craft Bug===
A [[Skyranger]] or [[Interceptor]], once dispatched, will return to base when its fuel supply has dropped to a level that it will only have just enough fuel to return to base. Craft fueled by Elerium-115, however, will always report the "Low Fuel" message as soon at the fuel supply is 50% depleted, no matter where they are on the globe. This significantly shortens the already minute time that a [[Firestorm]], [[Lightning]], or [[Avenger]] can be dispatched to patrol.

===Medic Research Bug===
Every single time a Floater Medic is found and researched, the game crashes after it is interrogated! I [[muton commander]] used a hack system to view the alien's profile, and it was a Commander with no race attached. This is probably the cause, but I have no explaination for why this situation occurs.

Addendum:

Based on report from various players, the crash appears to happen with medics in general, and isn't confined just to floaters.

''The portion of the code that is responsible for selecting the unresearched alien topic to provide when completing the research on a medic is the problem. The array that holds the avaiable topics, so that one can be randomly selected, is four bytes too short. If a player has never researched an alien species or performed an autopsy, the program will crash after it displays the random alien topic. This is because the portion of memory that holds the return address for the function has been overwritten by the array creation code and upon completion of this subroutine, the game is directed to an invalid memory address. This error won't occur if the player performs two autopies, alien interrorgations or a combination of both before researching a medic.'' [[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] 21:04, 22 June 2013 (EDT)

===Never-ending Retaliation Bug===
Some times the aliens will send a [[battleship]] on a [[Alien_Retaliation|retaliation mission]] to the "wrong" base. F.ex: the [[Hyper-wave_Decoder|hyper-wave decoder]] may report its destination as South East Asia, but the ship will actually fly to your base in North America and attack it.

Even if the battleship succeeds in getting past the base defences and its crew is subsequently defeated, the aliens won't "forget" the base's location as they normally do and instead keep sending another battleship every week or so. If your base is constructed with [[Base_Layout_Strategy|defendability]] in mind and crewed by experienced operatives this will net you heaps and heaps of alien weapons, corpses and prisoners very quickly. The downsides are, of course, playing the same base defence mission over and over again and having to maintain a garrison there at all times.

More research is needed to find out what causes this bug, but it ''could'' have something to do with [[Mind_Shield|mind shields]] being finished between the scouting and assault parts of the aliens' retaliation mission.

=== Great Circle Bug ===

The shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere is called a Great Circle. The wayfinding algorithm used by XCom aircraft has unfortunately never heard of this. XCom aircraft tend to move toward, and then along, lines of latitude. This is inefficient in terms of time, fuel, range and time on station. The inefficiency is most evident when crossing over the poles, and least evident when moving east-west or west-east.

As a workaround, you can set manual waypoints to approximate the Great Circle route.

Note that this does not seem to affect combat interception of moving UFOs, or at least not as much. Intercept courses seem to be continually updated, and head straight toward the current position of the UFO (also not an optimum algorithm, but that's another story).

=== Geoscape Intercept Bugs ===

==== Side-On Intercept Bug ====

Unlike fighter controllers since at least the 1930s, X-Com ground controllers and/or onboard avionics are incapable of calculating a predictive course for a target that is moving, at a known course and speed, laterally relative to its bearing as seen from the intercept base (so that the bearing from the base is constantly changing). In other words, in any situation except when the alien craft is heading directly toward/away from the X-Com craft/base, a non-optimum interception course is used. Instead, X-Com craft simplistically just keep heading toward the current bearing toward the target. This results in inefficient parabolic intercept courses, rather than efficient straight line courses toward a predicted intercept point. If the alien craft is faster, parabolic courses often fail to intercept, or give very brief interception windows, that would have been avoided by a proper predictive, straight-line course.

==== Head-On Intercept Bug ====

It is not possible for a slower-moving X-Com craft to intercept a faster-moving Alien craft, even if the X-Com craft is directly ahead of the alien craft and waiting in position to intercept it. This is true whether the X-Com craft is stationary, or flying in the same heading as the alien craft and at nearly the same speed. Even if the alien craft moves right through the X-Com craft's exact position while travelling only slightly faster than the X-Com craft. Interception only occurs if the alien craft voluntary slows down for long enough for the X-Com craft to catch it.

(It's true that such interceptions would be difficult, whether attempted head-on at high closing speed - extremely brief period to fire - or tail-on at low closing speed - very easy for the alien to avoid entering X-Com craft's weapon arcs by breaking away. So it could be argued that making these interceptions impossible is just a simplification of the fact that they would be much more difficult than normal interception combat.)

==== Instant Getaway Bug ====

If you park an interception craft directly over a touched-down alien craft, the alien craft will still escape, if the alien craft has superior maximum speed. The alien craft basically seems to instantly accelerate to its maximum speed, with no concept of progressive acceleration. Interception only occurs if the alien craft voluntary slows down for long enough for the X-Com craft to catch it. This probably has the same root cause as the Head-On Intercept Bug (arguably it is a special case of the Head-On Intercept Bug).

== Battlescape Bugs ==

=== Load bug after successful mission ===
After you finish a game you have saved and load the same game file again - the alien side goes first! I think it may be caused when you succesfully complete the mission and you get a notification like that the alien has died beacuse of no alien containment. The game still thinks that it is the aliens' turn. So when I load the mission again- the aliens move first. If you load the same saved game again it will be OK. [[User:ElfKaa|ElfKaa]]

=== Faulty Large Units ===
If you move a tank off a northward facing ledge, the rest of the tank will sink into a wall (if there is one), and cause the tank to get stuck. This won't happen if the tank moves off a south facing ledge as the primary quarter will fall after the rest of the tank. Aliens can also get stuck this way.

Another, potentially annoying bug occurs when a large unit's graphics become messed up. During a base defense mission, a rocket tank may end up looking like 4 silacoids bunched together.

===Unconscious Units are items===
This is actually an intentional programming choice... but it leads to several consequences which are bugs.

Firstly, any unconscious unit can be killed instantly by even a weak explosion, like being nearby an exploding AC-HE shell... even a Muton with 125 Health or an X-com agent in Flying Armor whose high armor ratings normally make him immune to AC-HE damage.
Secondly, no experience is gained for killing enemies in this manner.

You can prevent an unconscious unit's death from an explosion by picking it up... if a blaster bomb strikes the carrier and kills him, the unconscious unit will safely fall to the floor, unharmed.

Unlike a conscious unit (not wearing x-com armor), an unconscious unit can laze about in the middle of a fire without taking damage, since a UNIT standing in fire takes damage, but an unconscious unit is an item, which all ignore fire.

Forcing an MCed alien to pick up an unconscious X-com agent and carry him in its right hand can cause weird things to occur when you release the mind control. I think the game might crash when the alien tries to shove the agent into its magic pocket.

If a non-flying unconscious unit wakes up while being carried by a flying unit, it will gain some sort of temporary hover ability. (I once placed an unconscious Chryssalid in my flying agent's backpack. A few turns later, some growls and screams were heard from overhead.)

Save space! Each conscious unit takes up 1 tile (4 tiles for large units). An unconscious unit does not use up the tile... this might conceivably be useful if you wanted to abort a mission, but several panicked units were preventing other agents from boarding the skyranger...
X-com agents refuse to ride piggyback or be picked up while conscious. So, if you want a non-flying unit to reach an 2nd floor place with no stairs or elevator, you will have to knock him out, then either throw him up, or have a flying unit pick him up and drop him... and presumably administer stimulant.

This also leads to the INVISIBLE UNIT glitch. Frequently happens during Base Defence missions, since the item table is usually maxed out. Basically, the item table is so full that killed units do not leave corpses. However, this also means that unconscious units do not turn into the Unconscious Unit item. The KOed unit will disappear from sight, but will still be visible as a red number and as a blue/yellow dot on overhead map. Since the unit is still a unit and not an item, you will be able to shoot it with projectile weapons and kill it. ALSO, this method enables you to raise any unit's stun bar all the way to 255, since you can still increase the stun meter, despite them already being unconscious.

===Funky Fire===
If a unit (alien or friendly) is on fire or standing in flames, an [[Incendiary]] explosion ''anywhere else on the map'' will do a small amount of damage to it, even if you just shoot an IC round at a random patch of ground.

Similarly, if a unit (friendly units only) is standing in smoke when an incendiary explodes, it will take stun damage. This makes the combination of incendiary munitions and smoke quite hazardous until such time as all troops are armored.

<s>There is a [[Talk:Incendiary#Incendiary_Bug|working hypothesis]] for</s> The cause of this bug is that each and every Incendiary explosion triggers the "Smoke and Fire" routine: applying fire damage, applying stun damage from smoke, calculating fire and smoke spreading, and "catch on fire" checks for units in fire.

Note that X-Com units wearing any kind of armor are immune to fire damage and IC-induced stun damage. Xcom HWPs are immune to stun, but take 40% damage from Incendiaries and WILL get killed quite efficiently by funky fire.

=== Collectors Edition Blaster Bomb Bug ===

Also known as Vertical Waypoint Blaster Bomb Bug.

In the Collectors Edition of UFO, the [[Blaster Launcher]] has a bug that prevents it from going up or down on the same tile. Or in other words, you cannot change the elevation of the missile vertically on the same tile.

Instead of flying down (or up) to the next waypoint, it will instead fly directly to the south at the pivot waypoint. Relative to the screen, this would be the lower left side of the screen.

This does not happen if you plot the waypoints at an angle. Or, if the blaster bomb flies right off the map, it will reappear at the proper waypoint as long as there are additional waypoints placed after the vertical move. The bug makes it impossible to fire Blaster Bombs up or down elevator shafts. Aliens are also affected by this bug.

The Blaster Bomb bug in turn permits the [[Tactical Exploits#Milking Alien Bases|Elevator Shielding - Base Milking Exploit]], which provides unlimited risk-free experience and ultra-low-risk booty, so fixing it is a Good Thing. Base Milking in general is a legitimate tactic, but doing Base Milking risk-free via the Elevator Shielding is just an exploit.

This bug also applies to the [[Disruptor Pulse Launcher]] in TFTD.

===Blaster Launcher Dud Shells Bug===

Shots which have only one waypoint, or explode before reaching their first waypoint, leave the Blaster Launcher showing 0 rounds, but still containing a dud shell which must be unloaded before the launcher can be reloaded. On earlier versions of the game (pre-Win CE) this also happens with reaction fire, and with 1-waypoint shots that fly off the map.

=== The trouble with Mines in General ===

Proximity mines are strangely implemented in UFO and TFTD. While they behave as you would expect them to half of the time, the mines do not behave like conventional weapons.

First, experience attribution is awarded to the person that sets off the mine.

Secondly, the armed states for [[Proximity Grenade]]s in both UFO and TFTD are NOT stored in save games. If a proximity grenade is primed, then the game is saved and reloaded, the grenade will not only not go off as it should, but the "Prime Grenade" action will still be absent, so it's impossible to re-arm it.

=== Grenade Timer Behaviour ===

A primed explosive (Grenade, High Explosive, Alien Grenade) will not explode if it's still in your inventory (hand, belt etc) when the timer runs out. It will only detonate when it's on the ground. If your soldier falls unconscious or gets killed, the primed explosive will be counted as being on the ground. Then it will blow up, likely taking out your gear and body. This 'feature' allows for the hot potato or [[Grenade Relay]] strategy which is fairly unique to X-COM where a live grenade well past its use-by date can be passed from squad member to squad member.

For a more a detailed explanation on detonation conditions, see [[Understanding Grenades]].

=== Mountain Map ===
Due to a bug in the way this tileset was created, when you shoot the ground, it doesn't burn up - it turns into a tree stump.

Because the stump is on object, as opposed to actual ground, any objects that were in the tile already (for example, UFO hulls or the landing gear of your craft) get replaced by these stumps, making it seem as if they were destroyed.

Tree stumps don't take much damage, so they often get burnt up immediately if an explosive goes off, leaving nothing but burnt ground behind. It is easier to view the effects of this bug by shooting the ground instead.

For more details, see [[Explosions#Mile-High_Madness|Mountain Madness]].

=== What just exploded? ===
In some versions of the game, a bug allows an armed proximity mine to transfer its properties to some other item in the next mission, which then may explode unexpectedly. (If the item is left on the floor of the XCOM craft, it will explode as you walk past it.) This problem can be rectified by reloading the game -- as a precaution, save before you move your first soldier.

=== Door jam ===
If a door is open when a game is saved on the Battlescape and that game is subsequently restored, the door will remain open for the remainder of that mission.

=== MIA Bugs ===

A number of bugs cause units to be unexpectedly listed as MIA. In the case of X-COM units, this also means the soldier is permanently lost from your roster, probably along with any armour/equipment carried.

====Mind Controlled Soldiers go MIA====
If you complete a mission successfully while a [[soldier]] is currently [[Mind Control]]led he will be listed as MIA at the end of the combat. This is quite an easy bug to fall into as on any [[Sectoid]] or [[Ethereal]] mission the only, or most powerful, psionic aliens will usually be holed up in the bridge or command centre, which is the likely location of the final combat turn.

====Stunned Mind Controlled Soliders go MIA====
Similarly an X-COM soldier who was Mind Controlled by the aliens and then stunned (usually by X-COM), and who is still stunned at the end of the mission (victory or abort), will count as MIA. Presumably the game does not set the ownership flag on the unit back to XCom's side until the unit wakes up.

====Mind Controlled Aliens Count as MIA if you Abort====
If you happen to abort a mission with any Mind-Controlled aliens under your control, who are NOT in the dropship, the computer tallies them up as "X-COM Operatives Missing In Action." Thus, every Mind Controlled alien left behind when you dust off is -20 points to your score! If you're leaving anyways, avoid this by bringing them back to the ship or mowing them down on the way back to the ship.

In the Playstation version of the game, any aliens under Mind Control at missions end are considered captured and hence, this bug is not a factor.

====Stunned, Carried, Not Dropped Soldiers are MIA on Abort====

If a soldier is stunned anywhere outside the transport and then carried back to (or thrown into) the transport for an Abort, they are still considered MIA. The game considers them to be still at the location where they were stunned and picked up from. You must drop the soldier on the ground in the transport in order to recover them back to base in an Abort. Throwing into the transport does not work.

====Stunned Inside, Thrown Outside Soldiers not MIA on Abort====

A soldier who is stunned inside the transport and then thrown (not dropped) outside the transport prior to a mission Abort does not count as MIA, but is successfully recovered back to base. This is presumably because throwing does not reset the location of the unit.

===20 Proximity Grenade Limit===

The array used to denote armed [[Proximity Grenade]]s is limited to 20 entries, meaning you are limited to 20 active mines at a time. The 21st and subsequent Proximity grenades can be primed like normal and will give appropriate messages, but they will not detonate even when the normal trigger conditions are met. Note that Proximity Mines that have detonated or otherwise been destroyed are removed from the array, freeing up positions; the limit is 20 ACTIVE Proximity Grenades at one time. In normal gameplay, this is probably not a restriction, in light of the [[Known_Bugs#80-Item_Limit|80 Item Limit]], since you'd need to have more than 1/4th of the cargo space in the dropship filled with Proximity Grenades.

===Base Defense Elerium bug===

On DOS versions of UFO Defense, Elerium pods may spawn as items from the base stockpile during a Base Defense bug. Each pod represents 50 units of Elerium and will be normally collected after the mission, same as any other item such as Heavy Lasers or Blaster Bombs. HOWEVER. The program will potentially generate 1 elerium POD for every 1 UNIT of elerium in your inventory. Thus, if you had only 10 lasers and 50 Elerium listed in your Sell screen, you would see 10 lasers and 50 Elerium Crystals in your Soldier Equip Screen, which would translate to 50 Elerium pods and 10 lasers scattered around your base. This equals 2500 Elerium, BTW. You basically have the potential to multiply your elerium stocks by 50.

===Berserk HWP crashes the game===

Admittedly, this is unlikely to arise under normal play. But, anyhow, your HWPs can only lose morale by killing friendly units. Not much for each unit killed, either. Anyhow, a berserk HWP will crash the game. (except for the Hovertank/Launcher, which does not fire when it goes berserk.)
Likewise, if you MC a cyberdisc or Sectopod and have it kills lots of aliens, it'll go berserk and crash the game. The error happens because of an oversight from the developers: the built-in weapons of HWP are handled differently from handed weapons, no OBDATA.DAT entries exist for them. The berserk code will try to access the nonexistent entry, resulting in a crash. The Celatid has yet to be tested.

''The part about HWPs only losing morale by blue-on-blue isn't true: I had a rocket tank go berserk on me in a terror mission when a floater blew up my whole force with a single grenade in the first alien turn. The game crashed alright; I have the CE version with UFOextender.--[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]] 08:24, 11 January 2012 (EST)''
:''Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I clearly remember an very bizarre incident like yours but where the rocket HWP panicked (all other X-COM units had just been killed) but the game didn't crash (I play the DOS version) and the tank shot all its rockets randomly until it ran out of ammo. I remember that its TU numbers being while firing showed 255 TUs or some other impossible value (I hadn't done any manual edits). I don't remember if it crashed at the end but it did fire!'' [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 10:47, 11 January 2012 (EST)
::''And this reminds me of yet another panicked HWP incident but involving a Cannon HWP. I was expecting it to waste all its ammo (based on my previous experience) but it only fired a few shots and the TU level didn't went up crazy.'' [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 10:47, 11 January 2012 (EST)

===Limited Unit Slots - Battlescape Crash===

This tends to arise during Base Defence Missions. The game is was designed to be limited to 40 soldiers/hovertanks and XXXX aliens for a total of XXXX . Having a full complement of soldiers during a Superhuman difficulty base defence will max out these limits. Thus when either side starts playing around with mind control too much, something goes wrong causing the entire game to crash.
It might also be something to do with maximum items on the battlescape.
In any case, the workaround seems to be killing aliens and destroying items on the battlescape... doesn't always work, but it seems to help.
You might want to make several in-battle saves for these situations, even if you normally play Ironman mode.

===Left arm fatal wound instead of torso (energy penalty)===

According to UFO Defence [http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/7760/x-com%20ufo%20defense%20manual.pdf manual], torso fatal wounds affect energy replenish rate, which is logical. But in the game fatal wounds of the '''left arm''' affect energy replenish rate, '''not the torso'''. Which is an obvious coding bug (though not a fatal one).

== Character Inventory Bugs ==

=== Alien Inventory Stacking Bug ===

'''WARNING:''' When examining an Alien's inventory (via an Exploit), you will see that sometimes the alien will stack multiple items of equipment on the same slot - its right leg. It's not always obvious that there are multiple objects in the slot until you 'pick up' the first object and can see other objects still in the slot.
Before you remove an item from the Alien's right leg, make sure you have enough time units to place it somewhere else. If you run out of time units, you will likely have to force a quit and cannot save your game. It '''may''' be possible to move the item to the left leg slot for 0 TUs, '''if''' the item will fit in that slot. If not, you will have to terminate the game. (Press ALT-TAB to get to any other window, then CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up Task Manager, and then terminate the process that corresponds to the game).

=== XComUtil Inventory Stacking Bug ===

A problem similar to the Alien Inventory Stacking Bug can also occur for X-COM Soldiers, when using XComUtil. The algorithm used to assign weapons in XComUtil MUST assign all weapons to troops, so if there are more weapons than soldiers, excess weapons are stacked onto the leg slot of the first soldier in the dropship. This was a deliberate choice by Scott Jones to make this encumbrance obvious to the player. This can be readily corrected in the "equip soldiers" screen before a mission. Else, see "Alien Inventory Bug", above.

=== Item-stacking Bug ===
It is possible to put more than one item in a given spot. When an item is stacked with a [[Stun Rod]], this can make it possible for X-COM soldiers to perform "melee" attacks. See [[Item Stacking Bug]] for more details.

===Carrying Unconscious Units===
If one of your soldiers is carrying an unconscious unit in their hands and the unit either wakes up from stun or dies, they will be removed from the Inventory display, but will still appear to be in the carrying soldier's hands in the Battlescape. Clicking on the phantom body in the Battlescape will crash the game!
This error can be easily cleared by switching to the Inventory screen and moving another item into the hand that used to be carrying the body. Even swapping the gun to the other hand will do. Refer to : [[Unconscious#Bug|Unconscious]].

===Disappearing Ammo===
Partially-used clips in alien or X-COM weapons disappear at the end of a mission. This dictates that you should try to use clips that are not full. However, in DOS versions of the game, you can unload used clips to recover them as full clips with the tradeoff of all loaded clips (used or otherwise) will count as spent and disappear (this shouldn't seem to be a problem, until you start using blasters and will find that you're running out of ammo fast). You can also use [[XcomUtil]] to recover partially used clips. Even when used clips are discarded, you will still get credit ([[Scoring|score]]) at the end of missions for recovering them.

When aborting a mission, any full clips loaded in any alien weapons brought back to the transport/access lift will not be recovered unless the clips are unloaded first. This includes [[Blaster Bomb]]s and [[Stun Bomb]]s.

=== Ammo Weight Bugs ===

In general, the game engine handles the weight allocation of ammo/clips '''loaded into weapons''' very badly. There was a good design to handle ammo weight, but it was not properly implemented. As a result there is a set of bugs relating to ammo/clip weight and encumbrance that share overlapping causes and effects.

==== Equip Phase Ammo Load Error ====

The game routine for placing ammo into weapons at the beginning of the equip phase does not correctly set all object and unit values. It should set the ammo as loaded into the weapon, the weapon as being held by the soldier, and the map position of the weapon and the ammo as the same as the soldier. Looks like it does not do one or more of these things. Whatever values the game doesn't set, do get set if you manually load or reload the weapon, either during the equip phase, or during the game.

Specifically, the game's auto-equip functions at the beginning of the equip phase fail to set offset 0x04 of the [[OBPOS.DAT]] record to point to the soldier who owns the ammo. These functions leave the value = 0xff, which implies "on the ground". They also leave the ammo location as being the equipment pile, rather than the location of the soldier. The other values are set correctly. Manually loading ammo into a weapon, during the equip phase or during combat, correctly sets all values. The ownership points to the soldier and the location to the soldier's location.

This bug is the cause of [[Known_Bugs#Weightless_Loaded_Ammo|Weightless Loaded Ammo]]. Probably the only other impact of this bug is that XComUtil can't detect the fact that the ammo is loaded into the weapon, for the purpose of AutoCombat. It might have other subtle effects on any utilities that deal with equipping soldiers.

====Weightless Loaded Ammo====

Ammo that is automatically pre-loaded into a weapon at the start of the Equip Phase of a mission does not initially count towards any soldier's carried weight (Encumbrance). If the weapon is subsequently unloaded during the Equip Phase or later in the mission, the soldiers encumbrance will ''increase''. This will probably only be noticed if the unloaded clip was not discarded (e.g. because it was not fully empty). This is due to a bug in the game's original weight calculation routine that was uncovered (but not caused) by Seb76's inventory screen improvements.

The Weightless Loaded Ammo bug slightly advantages X-Com. It leads to a set of relatively minor exploits. Using this bug, you can get weak soldiers to carry heavy weapons with (usually) a single clip and no TU penalty. For weapons that use multiple ammo types (which auto-equip with AP by preference), by manipulating the overall supply of ammo of different types you can to some extent persuade the auto equip algorithm to load your preferred ammo type for these weaker soldiers.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 22:51, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

==== Displaced Ammo Weight ====

'''Guidance: Apart from weapons pre-loaded by the game, be sure to unload any weapons before dropping them. Drop, pick up and transfer ammo only when it is not loaded into a weapon.'''

Dropped ammo clips that are still loaded into dropped weapons are not un-assigned from the unit carrying them. The weight of the ammo / clips continues to count against the unit's [[Time Units#Encumbrance|Encumbrance]] as 'displaced weight' that can't be removed by ordinary means. This is an original game bug that only becomes apparent when using mods that display the unit's current encumbrance. The effect continues until the ammo is unloaded (either by the original holder picking up the weapon again and unloading it, or someone else picking it up and unloading it). Once the ammo is unloaded, its weight is applied to the actual current holder, only, and is released from the original holder.

This bug also applies during the Equip Phase, if one soldier loads a weapon, drops it, and another soldier picks it up.

In some senses this bug is the opposite of the Weightless Ammo Bug, and each bug has probably tended to obscure the effects of the other. For example, clips affected by the Weightless Ammo Bug (clips automatically loaded by the game) are not so obviously affected by this bug, since their displaced weight is 'carried' by the Equipment Pile rather than any specific Soldier. (In another sense, this is the same bug, with the weight displaced to the Equipment Pile rather than to another soldier.)

See [[User_talk:Seb76#Inventory_screen_ammo_weight_bug|this discussion]] for more information on this bug.

==== Ammo Weight Exploits ====

As noted above, Weightless Ammo is, in itself, a minor exploit, since it provides some extra penalty-free carrying capacity in combat.

On the face of it, the Displaced Weight Bug is not an exploit, since for every decrease in weight on one soldier there is a corresponding increase in weight on another soldier. However the Displaced Weight bug could potentially be exploited by having one soldier first load and then drop a lot of weapons, and then move away from the resulting pile to allow others to pick up. This would create a reserve of weapons where all the ammo weight was being 'carried' by this "weight sink" soldier, freeing up encumbrance for other soldiers. For example, all recon and front line soldiers required to be mobile could get reduced weight, at the expense of a single soldier having extremely reduced mobility/TUs. However, as the game's auto equip routines already load all initial weapons with weightless ammo, this would only be useful after combat had been progressing for some time, for reloads rather than initial loads, and it would require the squad to regroup around this "sink", or ferry weapons to/from the "sink". It might be most useful with Rocket Launchers (high weight, high ammo weight, one round before reload).

Hypothetically, Displaced Weight could be exploited to overflow the Weight value of a unit and allow that unit to carry massive weight with minimal encumbrance. For example, carrying 32 rocket launchers and 32 rockets (ammo weight 256) into combat. There is not enough Equip space in the Equipment Pile to manipulate this equipment pre-combat, as the loaded weapons must be dropped, and there is only enough space for 20 rocket launchers in the Equipment pile, so the remaining manipulation would have to be done during combat time (and over more than one Battlescape square). However, it looks like the Weight subroutine and the value it returns into are both bigger than 2 byte numbers (256). There is no way to push Displaced Weight into the 32,000 or 64,000 range with using some kind of game file editing or hacking/modding.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 09:06, 29 September 2012 (EDT)

== Storage and Transfer Bugs ==

=== 80-item Limit ===
When loading up your Avenger for a massive UFO assault or arming soldiers for a [[Base Defense]] from your overflowing stores, you will likely hit this limit.

You only get a max of 80 items, and you don't get to choose which ones, so you may end up with 80 clips and no rifles for the base defense.

The solution is timely housekeeping. Sell off your spare personal equipment. See our handy [[Spring Cleaning Tips]], and also [[Managing the Item Limit]] for ideas.

Another bug concerning this limit happens when there are unresearched (alien) items in your stores during a base defense mission. Even though the item cannot be used during the mission, the game still allows you to equip your soldiers with them. This rarely happens as the alien items are very low on the item list, but if your base is lean and mean with under 80 items total, everything will spawn regardless of research.

===Sticky Craft Transfer Fee glitch===
As pointed out by [[User:Zombie|Zombie]] and [[User:Danial|Danial]], transferring any craft causes '''''all subsequent transfers to have that cost added to it''''', for as long as the craft is in transit. Additional craft in transit will add additional fees. (This has also been called the Exponential Transfer Fee bug, although it's actually additive, not exponential.)

Example (all numbers are only approximations):
Cost of pistol transfer (↔ = to or from)
EU ↔ USA 80
EU ↔ Asia 100
USA ↔ Asia 120

Cost of craft transfer
EU ↔ USA 1600 ''Notice how transfer fees always work as relative percents,
EU ↔ Asia 2000 ''probably on a distance-based formula
USA ↔ Asia 2400

Cost to transfer '''pistol''', after transferring craft from EU to Asia for $2000
EU ↔ USA 1680 (80+1600)
EU ↔ Asia 2100 (100+2000)
USA ↔ Asia 2520 (120+2400)

The cost of the craft transfer "sticks" to '''all''' subsequent transfers, until the craft arrives - although it acts on a proportionate basis, which is probably distance related.

Unfortunately, this cost is '''additive'''. That is to say, if you transferred a second craft from EU to Asia while the first was still in transit, it would cost $4000 ($2000 plus $2000 - it too suffers from the glitch!), it would then cost e.g. $4100 to transfer a pistol from EU to Asia. Having even more craft in transit would add even more fees.

This only appears to happen with aircraft, although it does happen for them all. So try to transfer aircraft individually, and not transfer anything else while you do - assuming you aren't awash in money. (The bug will cost you in the low thousands of dollars per craft being transferred.)

A related problem is that, if you are in the Transfer screen, start to transfer a craft, and then cancel because you remembered you wanted to send something else first - if you then try to Transfer something on that same screen, ''it will still get the sticky craft fee added''. Try it and see. You have to back up out to the main Base screen and hit Transfer again, to get rid of the sticky fee from a canceled craft transfer.

===Fuel dump on transfer===
Transferring a craft with 100% fuel will dump it somewhere along the way.
When it arrives at its destination, its fuel gauge will read empty (ie: 0% FUEL), but it will be listed as ready. If you launch your craft for a mission (any mission will do) its fuel gauge will still read empty.
 
This can be [[ExploitsA#Infinite_Fuel|exploited]], but it is very annoying if you want to quickly turn around a troop transport for another mission.
 
You can force a refuel by sending out the craft and immediately recalling it back to base.

===Transfer Limit cash eater===
Only 100 items can be in transit at a time. (Here, a transfer of e.g. 200 Elerium counts as one "item". Also, all soldiers are counted individually.) If you go over the limit, you will get a warning that there is no more transport capacity. If you STILL try to transport something after getting the warning, the item will stay where it is, but the transportation cost still gets deducted. Bad if you're shuffling expensive aircraft. The extra cost isn't that bad. Recovering just one alien weapon will likely cover the money you will lose to this bug over the course of a game.

{| {{stdTable}} width = "80%" align = "center"
|- {{stdTable Heading}}
| Tip
|-
| To Clarify what constitutes an item in the transfer screen, think of them as batches of X amount. For example, if you transfer 200 alien alloys now, and then decide to transfer another 50 alloys later, this will count as two items in transit. Now, when you look at your transfers, you'll now have two items. Two batches of alien alloys, one with 200 units and the other with 50 units.
|}

=== Transfer crash ===
If you transfer something to another base the game crashes right after acknowledging the transfer price.

Solution: Start UFO, select English language, finish your transfer, save game, restart with your normal language settings (http://www.xcomufo.com/x1faq.html)

===Purchase Limit===
The purchase limit for any item you buy via the purchase screen is 255 per line item, because it is a one-byte field. However, the impact of this bug is small, for if you have space remaining in your 100-item transfer queue, you can immediately order another 255 of said item as another line item.

===Storage Limit===
You can not store more than 9,999 of any one item in the general stores at a specific base at one time. However, this will likely only happen with [[Alien Alloys]] or [[Elerium-115]].
Still, consider yourself warned. If you're coming close to the limit, consider transferring the extra to other bases or even selling it, as any extra collected beyond the limit will 'disappear' and be wasted.

===Exceeding Storage Limits===

The storage capacity of a base is normally limited by the capacity of the General Stores. However this can be exceeded in a number of ways:

* By exploiting some of the Base Storage Anomalies (see below)
* By storing surplus equipment in transport aircraft (up to the 80 item limit). Note that if both the aircraft and the base are full, you can no longer move equipment between the aircraft and base (in either direction).
* Anything manufactured at the base will be stored there regardless of the base's General Stores capacity.
* Anything captured on a mission by an aircraft operating from the base will be stored at the base, regardless of the base's General Stores capacity.

These could perhaps be considered minor exploits.

===Base Storage Anomalies===

There are some quirks in how the game calculates, and displays, base storage capacity used and available. These quirks are not all consistent with each other, which leads to some strange behaviour. A typical example would be moving a set of items out of Stores, immediately trying to put the exact same set of items back into Stores, and this failing due to "insufficient space". A more detailed discussion is in [[Talk:Base Stores#Base Stores Anomalies]].

===Exceeding Storage Limits when Transferring Craft===

Usually you can't transfer crafts to bases without capacity for them as you'll get an error when you press the Up arrow. However, if you press the Down arrow when the craft quantity is already at 0, the game will still think you're removing crafts from the destination base and "add capacity", so you can then press the Up arrow again to transfer the crafts without error. This doesn't work with other transferable items.

Once you've broken the limit once, you don't need to do this trick anymore as the error won't show up again (the game probably doesn't check for negative capacity). You can also exceed storage and personnel capacity this way, as Transport Crafts will carry their contents over. For example, if you press the Down arrow on a Skyranger with 14 soldiers, the game will "add capacity" for 1 craft and 14 personnel on the destination base.

You can also orphan crafts this way by removing a base with crafts but no hangars, which can cause all sorts of weird behavior.

===50 Unit Limit for Captured Aliens[[http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Alien_Containment#Functionality]]===

You can only ever have 50 captured aliens in [[Alien Containment]] at any time, no matter how many you build, no matter what base they're in.

== Soldier Limits and Recruiting Bugs ==

=== Soldier Recruiting Limit ===

There is a hard limit in the game of 250 X-COM soldiers in total across all bases (not 250 per base).

The error message that pops up when you try to hire more is:

"NO MORE SOLDIERS ALLOWED"

"You have already recruited the maximum number of soldiers."

=== Soldier Recruiting Bugs ===

Also there are 3 bugs related to recruiting soldiers:

* You still get charged for Soldiers you try to purchase above the No More Soldiers limit.
* The error message that appears when you hire too many soldiers must be dismissed (click OK) once for each soldier over the limit, i.e. up to 255 times.
* You get also charged for Soldiers you try to purchase above the Transfer Limit (100 at a time).

=== Soldier Battlescape Limit ===

In the Battlescape, there is a limit of 40 X-COM soldiers that can participate in any battle. Tanks/HWPs each count as 4 soldiers against this limit. Unless you use custom-modified aircraft, you will only see this limit in a Base Defence mission. In a Base Defence mission, all tanks/HWPs will be deployed first, in preference to soldiers.

== Manufacturing and Research Bugs ==

=== Zero Unit Manufacturing Exploit ===

If you start a manufacturing project with zero items to build, close the screen, and then go back to assign staff and a non-zero build amount later, the first item is built for free. If you only build one item at a time, you can build them all for free. Obviously, this is cheating. It's also a bit tedious. It might be excusable if you're really short of money.

=== Research Rollover ===

At midnight, research projects are checked for completion in the order shown on your Projects screen (which is the same order as for picking new Projects, for [[RESEARCH.DAT]], etc.). But X-COM does not track the effort of individual scientists, so when a project ends, its scientists can be re-assigned before the game checks the next project.

The upshot is that you can re-use scientists from completed projects as long as you put them on projects (existing or new) that are [[RESEARCH.DAT|farther down the list]] than the one that just finished. And if you assign more scientists than projects need, you can finish multiple projects immediately!

To best use this exploit:
*If projects (new or existing) have equal priority to you, start new scientists at the top of your list (the [[RESEARCH.DAT|lowest-numbered]] project) and work them "down" from there. This minimizes the number of times that scientists wind up at the end of the project list (where you can't exploit them).
*It works especially well later in the game if you have a full complement of scientists (practical limit of 250 at a base) and apply them to the many "fluff" alien, corpse, and alien-room projects that [[Research_Technical_Details#Research_Time|average less than 250 research days]]. You might finish a lot at once.
*If using it, you don't have to worry about "wasted" research effort due to allocating too many scientists to a project on its last day. Unless you're at the end of the project list, wasted scientists can be re-used, too - sometimes many times.

=== Overcrowded Engineers And Scientists ===
In the Dos version (probably the others as well) if you hire more than 255 engineers in a single base, the number of engineers in the base will read a negative number once the 257th engineer arrives. Any Engineers engaged in projects will continue to work on them, but if you cancel the project you will lose engineers until you have lost 255 of them.
This bug also affects scientists. It may be exploitable to pay a negative salary at the end of the month.

If you hire exactly 256 scientists or engineers, the total rolls over to zero. You pay zero salaries, and the resulting free Manufacturing / Research is limited only by the capacity of your Factories / Laboratories. Also works in TFTD.
 
NOTE: you need to make sure that not all of their projects finish at the same time.
Otherwise, you would be stuck with 0 'available' workers/scientists, i.e. unable to assign them to a new project.

===Manufacturing Limit Bug===
The number of hours remaining on a [[Manufacturing_Profitability#Profit_tables|manufacturing project]] is stored in a two-byte integer. If you build enough items that the total number of Engineer Hours required for construction is above 65535 hours, it will wrap around to 0 hours and display from there. Typically this drastically understates the amount of time that will be spent working on the items, but strictly speaking, it only subtracts 65k hours (so a huge project like 120k hours would still show ~55k hours' worth of Engineer time needed).

This bug is not dependent on the number of engineers assigned to the project; it is a function of the number of engineer hours needed. You will most likely run into it when trying to build 2 Avengers at the same time or when queuing up large orders of items in bulk, such as armor or Laser Cannons. As a practical example, the number of Avengers needed to trigger the bug is 2. The number of Laser Cannons is 219. Toggle back and forth between 218 and 219 laser cannons at the beginning of a project to see the effects.

It is known with certainty that this exists as a display issue - the screen will say you need less time than you should when you go over 65536 Engineer hours. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] is also sure he's seen it eat an Avenger... he ordered two but only got one, even though it took the time, and cost the money, for two. He's tried to replicate this and hasn't been able to, however. So it clearly is at least a superficial display issue, and may be more than that ... possibly dependent on even something else. In any event, keep an eye on projects with more than 65k Engineer hours (and report back here!)... or just avoid going that high.

===Manufacturing Completion Time Display Bug===

If you start a new manufacturing project at 00:01, and the screen displays a completion time of 5 hours, you might expect the work to complete at 05:00 or 05:01. In fact it will complete at 06:00, one hour longer than indicated.

The reason for this bug is that the time left to complete a project is decremented by the game by one hour, every hour, on the hour(XX:00).

This display behaviour is consistent with what is shown while manufacturing is in progress. For example, if time remaining is shown as 0 hours, the work will complete at the beginning of the ''next'' hour. In effect, the displayed number is the integer-truncated form of the real time remaining. In the first example given above, the real time to completion is 5 hrs 59 min, misleadingly truncated to 5 hrs.

===Manufacturing Rate Interruption Loss===

In addition, as a result of integer truncation (see previous bug, Manufacturing Completion Time Display Bug), every time production stops, you lose an hour of manufacturing. Therefore, for most efficient production, manufacture in large batches (or increase batches while they are still in progress) to keep manufacturing as continuous as possible.

===Manufacturing Rate Limit===

There is a maximum production rate of one unit of any given type per hour per base. For example, though Alien Alloys / Aqua Plastics require 100 Engineer/Technician Hours per unit, even with 250 Engineers/Technicians you can only produce 1 unit per hour.

===HWP Fusion Bomb Ammo Cost Bug===

The HWP Fusion Bomb ammunition type, and its TFTD equivalent the ammunition for the SWS PWT/Displacer, appear to have the wrong manufacturing costs.
The vehicle version is ''less'' portable and ''less'' powerful than the personal version (Blaster Bomb), ''less'' capable than the craft version (Fusion Bomb) - and costs ''more'' than either of the others in total cash and in materials. In particular, it makes no sense that the small missiles on the HWP/SWS use up ''more'' of both Elerium/Zrbite and Alien Alloys/Aqua Plastics than the Craft version.

To correct this error, the craft round should have the higher base price, ''and'' the material requirements that are currently assigned to the SWS/HWP round. (It's debatable whether the SWS/HWP rounds should be more expensive than the man-carried rounds.) More discussion is on the talk page of this article.

== UFOPaedia Errors ==

=== UFOPaedia Craft Weapon Hit Probability Bug ===

There is a bug in the in-game UFOPaedia. It mistakenly reads the damage value field when reporting the hit chance for a craft weapon. Hence:

* Cannon shows 10% not 25%
* Avalanche shows 100% not 80%
* Laser Cannon shows 70% not 35%
* Plasma Beam shows 140% not 50%
* Fusion Ball shows 230% (!!!) not 100%

Possibly the reason this bug was missed during testing is that the first weapon in the data files, Stingray, actually does have Damage equal to its hit probability.

In the CE version, this is the problem piece of code:
.text 45B2CC: 0F BF 4E 06

Change the 06 to 04. The offset may not be correct for everyone but it should be close. I don't know the offset in the DOS version.
[[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] 06:27, 1 April 2012 (EDT)

=== UFOPaedia Craft Weapon Reload Rate Bug ===

From empirical research it looks like the reload rates of craft weapons are not stated correctly in the UFOPaedia. For example, the rates of fire of the Laser Cannon and Plasma Cannon are actually the same as each other, and they are both about six times slower than the regular Cannon (so about 12s) - whereas the UFOPaedia entry gives the reload times (inverse of the rate of fire) as being:

Cannon 2s
Laser Cannon 4s
Plasma Beam 6s

Similarly the UFOPaedia shows the Fusion Ball as having 3/5 the rate of fire of a Stingray missile, with the Fusion Ball being slower than an Avalanche missile; but empirically the Fusion Ball and Stingray have the same rate of fire, and so the Fusion Ball is faster than the Avalanche. See the discussion in [[Craft_Combat_Mechanics#Observed_Rates_of_Fire|Craft Combat Mechanics - Observed Rates of Fire]] for more details, but keep in mind recent code digs have clarified the picture from this initial rough approximation. It seems reasonable to assume the actual reload rates are coming from a different part of the executable, different to the locations used populate these values that are displayed in the UFOPaedia. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 23:25, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

== Other Bugs ==

=== Difficulty Bug ===
The DOS version has a problem where no matter what difficulty level you choose, it will revert to "Beginner" level after the first mission. This is caused by one incorrectly set bit in all DOS versions of the game (1.0 through to 1.4). The Collectors Edition Windows port (also commonly known as UFO Gold or CE) does not have this problem. To check your [[Difficulty Levels|Difficulty Level]]:
*Look at offset 60 in [[IGLOB.DAT]]. (If this file is only 60 bytes long, you've got the bug!)
*Look at [[Alien Stats|statistics for aliens]] in your game with a [[Mind Probe]] or [[Psi-Amp]]

To fix the Difficulty Bug, you can install [[XcomUtil]] and it will repair this bug. Alternately for those familiar with hex editing, you can fix this bug by referring to the appropriate section on the [[GEOSCAPE.EXE#XCOM: UFO Defense DOS Versions, difficulty setting bug | GEOSCAPE.EXE]] article and manually setting the incorrect byte to its proper value.

:[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/X-COM This TVTropes page] has been known to state that due to the bug, players asked the developers to increase game difficulty. The rumour goes that a new bug was supposedly introduced as a result, where TFTD's difficulty would reset to Superhuman instead of Beginner. The facts of the matter are that, while the overall difficulty of the game ''was'' increased, TFTD does manage to correctly keep track of which specific mode you're supposed to be playing in.

=== Chrysallid / Tentaculat Difficulty Bug ===

Stats of Chrysallids or Tentaculats that emerge from Zombies during combat have stats that ignore the difficulty level.

=== Big Text Bug ===
There are a few bugs in XCOM, especially early versions, that can build up and make the game unstable enough that it crashes and prints out a screen full of green 40-column text, essentially debug or memory dump information useless to you.

You can also forced a crash by pressing CTRL-C at the start of a new game (DOS only). If you don't have any missions automatically saved within the [[Game_Files#Missdat_Files|MISSDAT]] folder, you will get this big text to appear. Typically it is green for Enemy Unknown, and blue for Terror From The Deep. Other colours have been observed such as pink, purple, brown and yellow.

In the dos version, the text that you see is simply a memory dump in mode-13h (the 320x200x256 colour screen resolution) and the text colour is based off the changes to the palette that the game made. The batch file coordinating the two main programs [[Geoscape]] and [[Battlescape]] often succeeds in soldiering on after a crash. In the Windows version of the game, the game simply crashes back to the desktop, unless you're using the [[XcomUtil]] split executable variant (which uses a batchfile).

Some things which will tend to cause this problem:
* Overzealous use of Psi

At least some of the instability crashes can be fixed by replacing the DOS/4GW dos extender with a later version from another DOS game.

[http://syndicate.lubie.org/synd/html/synd_patches.php One of these], for example. Link to Syndicate fansite, instructions included.

=== Cash Rollover Bug ===

When your cash balance goes over $2,147,483,647, it will rollover and become $-2,147,483,647. Which means your game is done for, unless you use an editor. Fortunately, by the time you accumulate this much cash, you have usually completed all necessary research to win the game.

=== Losing My Favourite Game ===

There is a check whether the "Has X-com received a financial warning?" flag has been raised. If no, a warning is issued and the flag is raised. If yes, then the game ends, and the flag is lowered. HOWEVER, this flag is erronously not connected to any particular savegame, it is global across all savegames. This allows strange results when saving and loading games.

== See Also ==

=== [[Known Bugs (TFTD)]] ===
For bugs that '''only''' affect X-COM: Terror From The Deep.

[[Category: Oddities and bugs]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Known Bugs

2013-09-26T12:22:55Z

Tequilachef: fixed link

== Game Destroying Bugs ==

These are the list of the worst bugs of them all, because they can render your entire game unplayable. Until a fix/ workaround is found, these bugs result in your entire X-com campaign being scuttled:
* [[Minimized interceptor bug]]
* [[Big text bug]]
*[[Small window bug]]

== Base Construction Bugs ==

=== Base Disjoint Bug ===
Base facilities built along the right or bottom edges of the base building area may end up being cut off from each other by dirt walls, a bug in the routine meant to keep soldiers from accidentally exiting the map edges during [[Base Defense]] missions. The dirt walls can be knocked down by Blaster Bombs or excessive amount of heavy plasma fire during combat but are otherwise unbreakable.

[[image:bdb.gif|center|Base Disjoint Bug]]

The walls marked in white are removed if there is an adjacent module. All green modules are not affected while the yellow modules are. The red module will be sealed off completely if anything smaller than a hangar is placed here at any given time.

[[XcomUtil]] works around this problem by stripping out the walls entirely in all the base modules.

The bug can be profitable if the hangars and the lift are accessible only through in these areas - you can gather and supply all your soldiers heavily without aliens interfering, then knock a hole in the wall and cover the area with explosives and blaster launcher fire.

===Displayed Base Maintenance Costs===
Although X-COM charges the right monthly fees for base modules, the maintenance fee displayed ''in the base info screen'' is always wrong. The displayed number is actually based on the placement within the base grid, '''not''' the price displayed in the in-game UFOpaedia. However, at the end of the month, the right fee is deducted. For more information, see [[Base_Facilities#Displayed_Base_Maintenance_Cost_Bug]]. The Geo finance Graph shows a correct maintenance summary ([[LIGLOB.DAT]], updated once a month). Also see the next section.

===Paying For Dirt===
If you take down any facility in any base that you own and leave bare dirt, then you will continue to pay maintenance on it. But not at the old rate of whatever the facility cost per month, filling the hole back with dirt means it needs special attention at all times by specialists. In fact for every square of dirt you have that used to be a facility you will pay 80k per month. Thats 320k per hangar you take down. There are only two known ways to stop paying this premium - if you completely dismantle the base you stop paying any money for it, or if you build over all the spaces that you have vacated. In fact as soon as you start building the new facility you stop paying the premium, as well as not having to pay the cost of the new facility until it is complete.

If you start a facility and change your mind before it is complete, after the time when it would have completed you will start paying this 80k premium on that land as well.

Note that this also applies to facilities that have been destroyed due to battle damage in [[Base Defense|Base Defense]]missions. If you have lost a facility in a base defense mission and you cannot afford to replace the original facility, consider building something cheap here to keep down this bug.

===Base Facility Dismantle-Construction Crash===
In the Collectors Edition version, dismantling a facility while its construction is in progress can cause a crash when a second facility on another base square completes its construction. To work around this, dismantle a facility only after its construction is complete. If you have already dismantled such a facility, build something like a general stores on the same square to avoid the crash. It is not known if this crash happens intermittently or always, or if it happens on most versions of the game or just the Collectors Edition.

===Radar Stacking===
Despite the "Short Range" and "Long Range" detection bars displayed on each base's Information screen, only one radar of each type will be used at each base. Building additional radars of the same type will have no effect. One short and one long are useful until the [[Hyper-wave Decoder|Hyper-Wave Decoder]] makes both of them obsolete.

===Phantom Radar===
When you dismantle detection equipment such as a radar or hyperwave detector, the related detection ability of the base does not decrease until a new facility of some kind is built in that base. Until a new facility is completes building at that base, the base continues to use this "phantom radar".

This bug allows you to "upgrade in place", for example building a new Hyper-Wave Decoder over the top of an existing Large Radar, and retaining the detection capability of the Large Radar until the Hyper-Wave Decoder completes building. (Unless something else completes building first).

===Fixes for Base Construction Bugs===

As mentioned above, [[XcomUtil]] prevents the Base Disjoint bug (crudely). The [[User:Spike#Base_Fixer|BaseFixer]] utility corrects the Paying for Dirt, Phantom Radar, and Radar Stacking bugs. BaseFixer can be used manually on saved game files, or automatically via XcomUtil's hook mechanism.

==Geoscape Bugs==

===First Radar Detection Data bug===
When a UFO is detected by a radar, you get certain data on it depending on the type of radar that detected it. If the UFO later enters the range of another radar while staying in the range of the first, you will continue to get the initial data given, even if the new radar is more powerful than the first! So if you detect a craft with a [[Small Radar System]], then the UFO moves into the range of a [[Hyper-wave Decoder]], clicking on the UFO will only give you the data as if the Small Radar detected it, so long as it remains in the Small Radar range! In effect, the data you get about a UFO is determined when you first detect it, and not changed after that until you lose detection on the craft with the radar that first detected it.

This bug most commonly shows up when a UFO is first detected by a patrolling aircraft and then remains in the range of the aircraft while also entering the range of a Hyper-Wave Decoder.

=== Minimized Interceptor Bug ===
One fairly consistent cause of crashes is saving the geoscape game during a UFO standoff, with a [[UFO Interception]] window minimized to an icon. The next mission after that point will likely dump you to the green text screen, and perhaps an earlier battlescape mission instead of the proper one. What it seems to do is zoom back out of the combat too far when the fight is over, eventually causing the crash once it has gone a couple of steps further than it normally allows you.

'''Solution:''' Open up [[UIGLOB.DAT]] in a hex editor. Change hex offset 0x06 to 00. This will reset the number of minimized interceptor windows to zero. Your interceptor unit can be selected to either return to base or continue on to complete its ground assault mission. ''NOTE: Make sure to back up your save game before editing it.''

''-- I was able to recover from this state by quickly sending in another interceptor ([[Firestorm]]) to take over, which allowed my first interceptor ([[Avenger]]) to break off and go home without crashing the game again. After the shootdown I overwrote the buggy savegame. --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 03:11, 22 Aug 2005 (PDT)''

''This happened to me also. I fixed it by replacing "[[UIGLOB.DAT]]" in the save folder with the same file from another saved game (from the same campaign a month earlier) [[User:bylund|bylund]] 00:15, January 12, 2007 (GMT+01)''

=== Interceptions: Last Shot Always Misses ===
When using Cautious attack when [[UFO Interception|intercepting a UFO]], your craft will stay at the maximum range of your longest-range weapon. When using Standard attack, your craft will stay at the maximum range of your shortest-range weapon. (Usually players use two weapons of the same type, so Cautious and Standard attack will behave the same in this regard.)

As soon as the craft fires its last shot (expending all its ammo), it will drop back to "Standoff" range (70km). This will make it appear that the UFO has backed away while the last missile(s) are in-flight, causing them to miss.

In order to hit a UFO with your last salvo of missiles (Stingrays, Avalanches, or Fusion Balls), you must switch to "Aggressive" attack before the last salvo reaches the UFO. This will cause your craft to close in with the UFO, allowing the missiles to be in range when they reach the UFO. However, Aggressive attacks will also bring you within range of the UFO's weapons, so you should hit the "Disengage" button as soon as the last salvo hits.

===Elerium-fueled Craft Bug===
A [[Skyranger]] or [[Interceptor]], once dispatched, will return to base when its fuel supply has dropped to a level that it will only have just enough fuel to return to base. Craft fueled by Elerium-115, however, will always report the "Low Fuel" message as soon at the fuel supply is 50% depleted, no matter where they are on the globe. This significantly shortens the already minute time that a [[Firestorm]], [[Lightning]], or [[Avenger]] can be dispatched to patrol.

===Medic Research Bug===
Every single time a Floater Medic is found and researched, the game crashes after it is interrogated! I [[muton commander]] used a hack system to view the alien's profile, and it was a Commander with no race attached. This is probably the cause, but I have no explaination for why this situation occurs.

Addendum:

Based on report from various players, the crash appears to happen with medics in general, and isn't confined just to floaters.

''The portion of the code that is responsible for selecting the unresearched alien topic to provide when completing the research on a medic is the problem. The array that holds the avaiable topics, so that one can be randomly selected, is four bytes too short. If a player has never researched an alien species or performed an autopsy, the program will crash after it displays the random alien topic. This is because the portion of memory that holds the return address for the function has been overwritten by the array creation code and upon completion of this subroutine, the game is directed to an invalid memory address. This error won't occur if the player performs two autopies, alien interrorgations or a combination of both before researching a medic.'' [[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] 21:04, 22 June 2013 (EDT)

===Never-ending Retaliation Bug===
Some times the aliens will send a [[battleship]] on a [[Alien_Retaliation|retaliation mission]] to the "wrong" base. F.ex: the [[Hyper-wave_Decoder|hyper-wave decoder]] may report its destination as South East Asia, but the ship will actually fly to your base in North America and attack it.

Even if the battleship succeeds in getting past the base defences and its crew is subsequently defeated, the aliens won't "forget" the base's location as they normally do and instead keep sending another battleship every week or so. If your base is constructed with [[Base_Layout_Strategy|defendability]] in mind and crewed by experienced operatives this will net you heaps and heaps of alien weapons, corpses and prisoners very quickly. The downsides are, of course, playing the same base defence mission over and over again and having to maintain a garrison there at all times.

More research is needed to find out what causes this bug, but it ''could'' have something to do with [[Mind_Shield|mind shields]] being finished between the scouting and assault parts of the aliens' retaliation mission.

=== Great Circle Bug ===

The shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere is called a Great Circle. The wayfinding algorithm used by XCom aircraft has unfortunately never heard of this. XCom aircraft tend to move toward, and then along, lines of latitude. This is inefficient in terms of time, fuel, range and time on station. The inefficiency is most evident when crossing over the poles, and least evident when moving east-west or west-east.

As a workaround, you can set manual waypoints to approximate the Great Circle route.

Note that this does not seem to affect combat interception of moving UFOs, or at least not as much. Intercept courses seem to be continually updated, and head straight toward the current position of the UFO (also not an optimum algorithm, but that's another story).

=== Geoscape Intercept Bugs ===

==== Side-On Intercept Bug ====

Unlike fighter controllers since at least the 1930s, X-Com ground controllers and/or onboard avionics are incapable of calculating a predictive course for a target that is moving, at a known course and speed, laterally relative to its bearing as seen from the intercept base (so that the bearing from the base is constantly changing). In other words, in any situation except when the alien craft is heading directly toward/away from the X-Com craft/base, a non-optimum interception course is used. Instead, X-Com craft simplistically just keep heading toward the current bearing toward the target. This results in inefficient parabolic intercept courses, rather than efficient straight line courses toward a predicted intercept point. If the alien craft is faster, parabolic courses often fail to intercept, or give very brief interception windows, that would have been avoided by a proper predictive, straight-line course.

==== Head-On Intercept Bug ====

It is not possible for a slower-moving X-Com craft to intercept a faster-moving Alien craft, even if the X-Com craft is directly ahead of the alien craft and waiting in position to intercept it. This is true whether the X-Com craft is stationary, or flying in the same heading as the alien craft and at nearly the same speed. Even if the alien craft moves right through the X-Com craft's exact position while travelling only slightly faster than the X-Com craft. Interception only occurs if the alien craft voluntary slows down for long enough for the X-Com craft to catch it.

(It's true that such interceptions would be difficult, whether attempted head-on at high closing speed - extremely brief period to fire - or tail-on at low closing speed - very easy for the alien to avoid entering X-Com craft's weapon arcs by breaking away. So it could be argued that making these interceptions impossible is just a simplification of the fact that they would be much more difficult than normal interception combat.)

==== Instant Getaway Bug ====

If you park an interception craft directly over a touched-down alien craft, the alien craft will still escape, if the alien craft has superior maximum speed. The alien craft basically seems to instantly accelerate to its maximum speed, with no concept of progressive acceleration. Interception only occurs if the alien craft voluntary slows down for long enough for the X-Com craft to catch it. This probably has the same root cause as the Head-On Intercept Bug (arguably it is a special case of the Head-On Intercept Bug).

== Battlescape Bugs ==

=== Load bug after successful mission ===
After you finish a game you have saved and load the same game file again - the alien side goes first! I think it may be caused when you succesfully complete the mission and you get a notification like that the alien has died beacuse of no alien containment. The game still thinks that it is the aliens' turn. So when I load the mission again- the aliens move first. If you load the same saved game again it will be OK. [[User:ElfKaa|ElfKaa]]

=== Faulty Large Units ===
If you move a tank off a northward facing ledge, the rest of the tank will sink into a wall (if there is one), and cause the tank to get stuck. This won't happen if the tank moves off a south facing ledge as the primary quarter will fall after the rest of the tank. Aliens can also get stuck this way.

Another, potentially annoying bug occurs when a large unit's graphics become messed up. During a base defense mission, a rocket tank may end up looking like 4 silacoids bunched together.

===Unconscious Units are items===
This is actually an intentional programming choice... but it leads to several consequences which are bugs.

Firstly, any unconscious unit can be killed instantly by even a weak explosion, like being nearby an exploding AC-HE shell... even a Muton with 125 Health or an X-com agent in Flying Armor whose high armor ratings normally make him immune to AC-HE damage.
Secondly, no experience is gained for killing enemies in this manner.

You can prevent an unconscious unit's death from an explosion by picking it up... if a blaster bomb strikes the carrier and kills him, the unconscious unit will safely fall to the floor, unharmed.

Unlike a conscious unit (not wearing x-com armor), an unconscious unit can laze about in the middle of a fire without taking damage, since a UNIT standing in fire takes damage, but an unconscious unit is an item, which all ignore fire.

Forcing an MCed alien to pick up an unconscious X-com agent and carry him in its right hand can cause weird things to occur when you release the mind control. I think the game might crash when the alien tries to shove the agent into its magic pocket.

If a non-flying unconscious unit wakes up while being carried by a flying unit, it will gain some sort of temporary hover ability. (I once placed an unconscious Chryssalid in my flying agent's backpack. A few turns later, some growls and screams were heard from overhead.)

Save space! Each conscious unit takes up 1 tile (4 tiles for large units). An unconscious unit does not use up the tile... this might conceivably be useful if you wanted to abort a mission, but several panicked units were preventing other agents from boarding the skyranger...
X-com agents refuse to ride piggyback or be picked up while conscious. So, if you want a non-flying unit to reach an 2nd floor place with no stairs or elevator, you will have to knock him out, then either throw him up, or have a flying unit pick him up and drop him... and presumably administer stimulant.

This also leads to the INVISIBLE UNIT glitch. Frequently happens during Base Defence missions, since the item table is usually maxed out. Basically, the item table is so full that killed units do not leave corpses. However, this also means that unconscious units do not turn into the Unconscious Unit item. The KOed unit will disappear from sight, but will still be visible as a red number and as a blue/yellow dot on overhead map. Since the unit is still a unit and not an item, you will be able to shoot it with projectile weapons and kill it. ALSO, this method enables you to raise any unit's stun bar all the way to 255, since you can still increase the stun meter, despite them already being unconscious.

===Funky Fire===
If a unit (alien or friendly) is on fire or standing in flames, an [[Incendiary]] explosion ''anywhere else on the map'' will do a small amount of damage to it, even if you just shoot an IC round at a random patch of ground.

Similarly, if a unit (friendly units only) is standing in smoke when an incendiary explodes, it will take stun damage. This makes the combination of incendiary munitions and smoke quite hazardous until such time as all troops are armored.

<s>There is a [[Talk:Incendiary#Incendiary_Bug|working hypothesis]] for</s> The cause of this bug is that each and every Incendiary explosion triggers the "Smoke and Fire" routine: applying fire damage, applying stun damage from smoke, calculating fire and smoke spreading, and "catch on fire" checks for units in fire.

Note that X-Com units wearing any kind of armor are immune to fire damage and IC-induced stun damage. Xcom HWPs are immune to stun, but take 40% damage from Incendiaries and WILL get killed quite efficiently by funky fire.

=== Collectors Edition Blaster Bomb Bug ===

Also known as Vertical Waypoint Blaster Bomb Bug.

In the Collectors Edition of UFO, the [[Blaster Launcher]] has a bug that prevents it from going up or down on the same tile. Or in other words, you cannot change the elevation of the missile vertically on the same tile.

Instead of flying down (or up) to the next waypoint, it will instead fly directly to the south at the pivot waypoint. Relative to the screen, this would be the lower left side of the screen.

This does not happen if you plot the waypoints at an angle. Or, if the blaster bomb flies right off the map, it will reappear at the proper waypoint as long as there are additional waypoints placed after the vertical move. The bug makes it impossible to fire Blaster Bombs up or down elevator shafts. Aliens are also affected by this bug.

The Blaster Bomb bug in turn permits the [[Tactical Exploits#Milking Alien Bases|Elevator Shielding - Base Milking Exploit]], which provides unlimited risk-free experience and ultra-low-risk booty, so fixing it is a Good Thing. Base Milking in general is a legitimate tactic, but doing Base Milking risk-free via the Elevator Shielding is just an exploit.

This bug also applies to the [[Disruptor Pulse Launcher]] in TFTD.

===Blaster Launcher Dud Shells Bug===

Shots which have only one waypoint, or explode before reaching their first waypoint, leave the Blaster Launcher showing 0 rounds, but still containing a dud shell which must be unloaded before the launcher can be reloaded. On earlier versions of the game (pre-Win CE) this also happens with reaction fire, and with 1-waypoint shots that fly off the map.

=== The trouble with Mines in General ===

Proximity mines are strangely implemented in UFO and TFTD. While they behave as you would expect them to half of the time, the mines do not behave like conventional weapons.

First, experience attribution is awarded to the person that sets off the mine.

Secondly, the armed states for [[Proximity Grenade]]s in both UFO and TFTD are NOT stored in save games. If a proximity grenade is primed, then the game is saved and reloaded, the grenade will not only not go off as it should, but the "Prime Grenade" action will still be absent, so it's impossible to re-arm it.

=== Grenade Timer Behaviour ===

A primed explosive (Grenade, High Explosive, Alien Grenade) will not explode if it's still in your inventory (hand, belt etc) when the timer runs out. It will only detonate when it's on the ground. If your soldier falls unconscious or gets killed, the primed explosive will be counted as being on the ground. Then it will blow up, likely taking out your gear and body. This 'feature' allows for the hot potato or [[Grenade Relay]] strategy which is fairly unique to X-COM where a live grenade well past its use-by date can be passed from squad member to squad member.

For a more a detailed explanation on detonation conditions, see [[Understanding Grenades]].

=== Mountain Map ===
Due to a bug in the way this tileset was created, when you shoot the ground, it doesn't burn up - it turns into a tree stump.

Because the stump is on object, as opposed to actual ground, any objects that were in the tile already (for example, UFO hulls or the landing gear of your craft) get replaced by these stumps, making it seem as if they were destroyed.

Tree stumps don't take much damage, so they often get burnt up immediately if an explosive goes off, leaving nothing but burnt ground behind. It is easier to view the effects of this bug by shooting the ground instead.

For more details, see [[Explosions#Mile-High_Madness|Mountain Madness]].

=== What just exploded? ===
In some versions of the game, a bug allows an armed proximity mine to transfer its properties to some other item in the next mission, which then may explode unexpectedly. (If the item is left on the floor of the XCOM craft, it will explode as you walk past it.) This problem can be rectified by reloading the game -- as a precaution, save before you move your first soldier.

=== Door jam ===
If a door is open when a game is saved on the Battlescape and that game is subsequently restored, the door will remain open for the remainder of that mission.

=== MIA Bugs ===

A number of bugs cause units to be unexpectedly listed as MIA. In the case of X-COM units, this also means the soldier is permanently lost from your roster, probably along with any armour/equipment carried.

====Mind Controlled Soldiers go MIA====
If you complete a mission successfully while a [[soldier]] is currently [[Mind Control]]led he will be listed as MIA at the end of the combat. This is quite an easy bug to fall into as on any [[Sectoid]] or [[Ethereal]] mission the only, or most powerful, psionic aliens will usually be holed up in the bridge or command centre, which is the likely location of the final combat turn.

====Stunned Mind Controlled Soliders go MIA====
Similarly an X-COM soldier who was Mind Controlled by the aliens and then stunned (usually by X-COM), and who is still stunned at the end of the mission (victory or abort), will count as MIA. Presumably the game does not set the ownership flag on the unit back to XCom's side until the unit wakes up.

====Mind Controlled Aliens Count as MIA if you Abort====
If you happen to abort a mission with any Mind-Controlled aliens under your control, who are NOT in the dropship, the computer tallies them up as "X-COM Operatives Missing In Action." Thus, every Mind Controlled alien left behind when you dust off is -20 points to your score! If you're leaving anyways, avoid this by bringing them back to the ship or mowing them down on the way back to the ship.

In the Playstation version of the game, any aliens under Mind Control at missions end are considered captured and hence, this bug is not a factor.

====Stunned, Carried, Not Dropped Soldiers are MIA on Abort====

If a soldier is stunned anywhere outside the transport and then carried back to (or thrown into) the transport for an Abort, they are still considered MIA. The game considers them to be still at the location where they were stunned and picked up from. You must drop the soldier on the ground in the transport in order to recover them back to base in an Abort. Throwing into the transport does not work.

====Stunned Inside, Thrown Outside Soldiers not MIA on Abort====

A soldier who is stunned inside the transport and then thrown (not dropped) outside the transport prior to a mission Abort does not count as MIA, but is successfully recovered back to base. This is presumably because throwing does not reset the location of the unit.

===20 Proximity Grenade Limit===

The array used to denote armed [[Proximity Grenade]]s is limited to 20 entries, meaning you are limited to 20 active mines at a time. The 21st and subsequent Proximity grenades can be primed like normal and will give appropriate messages, but they will not detonate even when the normal trigger conditions are met. Note that Proximity Mines that have detonated or otherwise been destroyed are removed from the array, freeing up positions; the limit is 20 ACTIVE Proximity Grenades at one time. In normal gameplay, this is probably not a restriction, in light of the [[Known_Bugs#80-Item_Limit|80 Item Limit]], since you'd need to have more than 1/4th of the cargo space in the dropship filled with Proximity Grenades.

===Base Defense Elerium bug===

On DOS versions of UFO Defense, Elerium pods may spawn as items from the base stockpile during a Base Defense bug. Each pod represents 50 units of Elerium and will be normally collected after the mission, same as any other item such as Heavy Lasers or Blaster Bombs. HOWEVER. The program will potentially generate 1 elerium POD for every 1 UNIT of elerium in your inventory. Thus, if you had only 10 lasers and 50 Elerium listed in your Sell screen, you would see 10 lasers and 50 Elerium Crystals in your Soldier Equip Screen, which would translate to 50 Elerium pods and 10 lasers scattered around your base. This equals 2500 Elerium, BTW. You basically have the potential to multiply your elerium stocks by 50.

===Berserk HWP crashes the game===

Admittedly, this is unlikely to arise under normal play. But, anyhow, your HWPs can only lose morale by killing friendly units. Not much for each unit killed, either. Anyhow, a berserk HWP will crash the game. (except for the Hovertank/Launcher, which does not fire when it goes berserk.)
Likewise, if you MC a cyberdisc or Sectopod and have it kills lots of aliens, it'll go berserk and crash the game. The error happens because of an oversight from the developers: the built-in weapons of HWP are handled differently from handed weapons, no OBDATA.DAT entries exist for them. The berserk code will try to access the nonexistent entry, resulting in a crash. The Celatid has yet to be tested.

''The part about HWPs only losing morale by blue-on-blue isn't true: I had a rocket tank go berserk on me in a terror mission when a floater blew up my whole force with a single grenade in the first alien turn. The game crashed alright; I have the CE version with UFOextender.--[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]] 08:24, 11 January 2012 (EST)''
:''Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I clearly remember an very bizarre incident like yours but where the rocket HWP panicked (all other X-COM units had just been killed) but the game didn't crash (I play the DOS version) and the tank shot all its rockets randomly until it ran out of ammo. I remember that its TU numbers being while firing showed 255 TUs or some other impossible value (I hadn't done any manual edits). I don't remember if it crashed at the end but it did fire!'' [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 10:47, 11 January 2012 (EST)
::''And this reminds me of yet another panicked HWP incident but involving a Cannon HWP. I was expecting it to waste all its ammo (based on my previous experience) but it only fired a few shots and the TU level didn't went up crazy.'' [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 10:47, 11 January 2012 (EST)

===Limited Unit Slots - Battlescape Crash===

This tends to arise during Base Defence Missions. The game is was designed to be limited to 40 soldiers/hovertanks and XXXX aliens for a total of XXXX . Having a full complement of soldiers during a Superhuman difficulty base defence will max out these limits. Thus when either side starts playing around with mind control too much, something goes wrong causing the entire game to crash.
It might also be something to do with maximum items on the battlescape.
In any case, the workaround seems to be killing aliens and destroying items on the battlescape... doesn't always work, but it seems to help.
You might want to make several in-battle saves for these situations, even if you normally play Ironman mode.

===Left arm fatal wound instead of torso (energy penalty)===

According to UFO Defence [http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/7760/x-com%20ufo%20defense%20manual.pdf manual], torso fatal wounds affect energy replenish rate, which is logical. But in the game fatal wounds of the '''left arm''' affect energy replenish rate, '''not the torso'''. Which is an obvious coding bug (though not a fatal one).

== Character Inventory Bugs ==

=== Alien Inventory Stacking Bug ===

'''WARNING:''' When examining an Alien's inventory (via an Exploit), you will see that sometimes the alien will stack multiple items of equipment on the same slot - its right leg. It's not always obvious that there are multiple objects in the slot until you 'pick up' the first object and can see other objects still in the slot.
Before you remove an item from the Alien's right leg, make sure you have enough time units to place it somewhere else. If you run out of time units, you will likely have to force a quit and cannot save your game. It '''may''' be possible to move the item to the left leg slot for 0 TUs, '''if''' the item will fit in that slot. If not, you will have to terminate the game. (Press ALT-TAB to get to any other window, then CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up Task Manager, and then terminate the process that corresponds to the game).

=== XComUtil Inventory Stacking Bug ===

A problem similar to the Alien Inventory Stacking Bug can also occur for X-COM Soldiers, when using XComUtil. The algorithm used to assign weapons in XComUtil MUST assign all weapons to troops, so if there are more weapons than soldiers, excess weapons are stacked onto the leg slot of the first soldier in the dropship. This was a deliberate choice by Scott Jones to make this encumbrance obvious to the player. This can be readily corrected in the "equip soldiers" screen before a mission. Else, see "Alien Inventory Bug", above.

=== Item-stacking Bug ===
It is possible to put more than one item in a given spot. When an item is stacked with a [[Stun Rod]], this can make it possible for X-COM soldiers to perform "melee" attacks. See [[Item Stacking Bug]] for more details.

===Carrying Unconscious Units===
If one of your soldiers is carrying an unconscious unit in their hands and the unit either wakes up from stun or dies, they will be removed from the Inventory display, but will still appear to be in the carrying soldier's hands in the Battlescape. Clicking on the phantom body in the Battlescape will crash the game!
This error can be easily cleared by switching to the Inventory screen and moving another item into the hand that used to be carrying the body. Even swapping the gun to the other hand will do. Refer to : [[Unconscious#Bug|Unconscious]].

===Disappearing Ammo===
Partially-used clips in alien or X-COM weapons disappear at the end of a mission. This dictates that you should try to use clips that are not full. However, in DOS versions of the game, you can unload used clips to recover them as full clips with the tradeoff of all loaded clips (used or otherwise) will count as spent and disappear (this shouldn't seem to be a problem, until you start using blasters and will find that you're running out of ammo fast). You can also use [[XcomUtil]] to recover partially used clips. Even when used clips are discarded, you will still get credit ([[Scoring|score]]) at the end of missions for recovering them.

When aborting a mission, any full clips loaded in any alien weapons brought back to the transport/access lift will not be recovered unless the clips are unloaded first. This includes [[Blaster Bomb]]s and [[Stun Bomb]]s.

=== Ammo Weight Bugs ===

In general, the game engine handles the weight allocation of ammo/clips '''loaded into weapons''' very badly. There was a good design to handle ammo weight, but it was not properly implemented. As a result there is a set of bugs relating to ammo/clip weight and encumbrance that share overlapping causes and effects.

==== Equip Phase Ammo Load Error ====

The game routine for placing ammo into weapons at the beginning of the equip phase does not correctly set all object and unit values. It should set the ammo as loaded into the weapon, the weapon as being held by the soldier, and the map position of the weapon and the ammo as the same as the soldier. Looks like it does not do one or more of these things. Whatever values the game doesn't set, do get set if you manually load or reload the weapon, either during the equip phase, or during the game.

Specifically, the game's auto-equip functions at the beginning of the equip phase fail to set offset 0x04 of the [[OBPOS.DAT]] record to point to the soldier who owns the ammo. These functions leave the value = 0xff, which implies "on the ground". They also leave the ammo location as being the equipment pile, rather than the location of the soldier. The other values are set correctly. Manually loading ammo into a weapon, during the equip phase or during combat, correctly sets all values. The ownership points to the soldier and the location to the soldier's location.

This bug is the cause of [[Known_Bugs#Weightless_Loaded_Ammo|Weightless Loaded Ammo]]. Probably the only other impact of this bug is that XComUtil can't detect the fact that the ammo is loaded into the weapon, for the purpose of AutoCombat. It might have other subtle effects on any utilities that deal with equipping soldiers.

====Weightless Loaded Ammo====

Ammo that is automatically pre-loaded into a weapon at the start of the Equip Phase of a mission does not initially count towards any soldier's carried weight (Encumbrance). If the weapon is subsequently unloaded during the Equip Phase or later in the mission, the soldiers encumbrance will ''increase''. This will probably only be noticed if the unloaded clip was not discarded (e.g. because it was not fully empty). This is due to a bug in the game's original weight calculation routine that was uncovered (but not caused) by Seb76's inventory screen improvements.

The Weightless Loaded Ammo bug slightly advantages X-Com. It leads to a set of relatively minor exploits. Using this bug, you can get weak soldiers to carry heavy weapons with (usually) a single clip and no TU penalty. For weapons that use multiple ammo types (which auto-equip with AP by preference), by manipulating the overall supply of ammo of different types you can to some extent persuade the auto equip algorithm to load your preferred ammo type for these weaker soldiers.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 22:51, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

==== Displaced Ammo Weight ====

'''Guidance: Apart from weapons pre-loaded by the game, be sure to unload any weapons before dropping them. Drop, pick up and transfer ammo only when it is not loaded into a weapon.'''

Dropped ammo clips that are still loaded into dropped weapons are not un-assigned from the unit carrying them. The weight of the ammo / clips continues to count against the unit's [[Time Units#Encumbrance|Encumbrance]] as 'displaced weight' that can't be removed by ordinary means. This is an original game bug that only becomes apparent when using mods that display the unit's current encumbrance. The effect continues until the ammo is unloaded (either by the original holder picking up the weapon again and unloading it, or someone else picking it up and unloading it). Once the ammo is unloaded, its weight is applied to the actual current holder, only, and is released from the original holder.

This bug also applies during the Equip Phase, if one soldier loads a weapon, drops it, and another soldier picks it up.

In some senses this bug is the opposite of the Weightless Ammo Bug, and each bug has probably tended to obscure the effects of the other. For example, clips affected by the Weightless Ammo Bug (clips automatically loaded by the game) are not so obviously affected by this bug, since their displaced weight is 'carried' by the Equipment Pile rather than any specific Soldier. (In another sense, this is the same bug, with the weight displaced to the Equipment Pile rather than to another soldier.)

See [[User_talk:Seb76#Inventory_screen_ammo_weight_bug|this discussion]] for more information on this bug.

==== Ammo Weight Exploits ====

As noted above, Weightless Ammo is, in itself, a minor exploit, since it provides some extra penalty-free carrying capacity in combat.

On the face of it, the Displaced Weight Bug is not an exploit, since for every decrease in weight on one soldier there is a corresponding increase in weight on another soldier. However the Displaced Weight bug could potentially be exploited by having one soldier first load and then drop a lot of weapons, and then move away from the resulting pile to allow others to pick up. This would create a reserve of weapons where all the ammo weight was being 'carried' by this "weight sink" soldier, freeing up encumbrance for other soldiers. For example, all recon and front line soldiers required to be mobile could get reduced weight, at the expense of a single soldier having extremely reduced mobility/TUs. However, as the game's auto equip routines already load all initial weapons with weightless ammo, this would only be useful after combat had been progressing for some time, for reloads rather than initial loads, and it would require the squad to regroup around this "sink", or ferry weapons to/from the "sink". It might be most useful with Rocket Launchers (high weight, high ammo weight, one round before reload).

Hypothetically, Displaced Weight could be exploited to overflow the Weight value of a unit and allow that unit to carry massive weight with minimal encumbrance. For example, carrying 32 rocket launchers and 32 rockets (ammo weight 256) into combat. There is not enough Equip space in the Equipment Pile to manipulate this equipment pre-combat, as the loaded weapons must be dropped, and there is only enough space for 20 rocket launchers in the Equipment pile, so the remaining manipulation would have to be done during combat time (and over more than one Battlescape square). However, it looks like the Weight subroutine and the value it returns into are both bigger than 2 byte numbers (256). There is no way to push Displaced Weight into the 32,000 or 64,000 range with using some kind of game file editing or hacking/modding.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 09:06, 29 September 2012 (EDT)

== Storage and Transfer Bugs ==

=== 80-item Limit ===
When loading up your Avenger for a massive UFO assault or arming soldiers for a [[Base Defense]] from your overflowing stores, you will likely hit this limit.

You only get a max of 80 items, and you don't get to choose which ones, so you may end up with 80 clips and no rifles for the base defense.

The solution is timely housekeeping. Sell off your spare personal equipment. See our handy [[Spring Cleaning Tips]], and also [[Managing the Item Limit]] for ideas.

Another bug concerning this limit happens when there are unresearched (alien) items in your stores during a base defense mission. Even though the item cannot be used during the mission, the game still allows you to equip your soldiers with them. This rarely happens as the alien items are very low on the item list, but if your base is lean and mean with under 80 items total, everything will spawn regardless of research.

===Sticky Craft Transfer Fee glitch===
As pointed out by [[User:Zombie|Zombie]] and [[User:Danial|Danial]], transferring any craft causes '''''all subsequent transfers to have that cost added to it''''', for as long as the craft is in transit. Additional craft in transit will add additional fees. (This has also been called the Exponential Transfer Fee bug, although it's actually additive, not exponential.)

Example (all numbers are only approximations):
Cost of pistol transfer (↔ = to or from)
EU ↔ USA 80
EU ↔ Asia 100
USA ↔ Asia 120

Cost of craft transfer
EU ↔ USA 1600 ''Notice how transfer fees always work as relative percents,
EU ↔ Asia 2000 ''probably on a distance-based formula
USA ↔ Asia 2400

Cost to transfer '''pistol''', after transferring craft from EU to Asia for $2000
EU ↔ USA 1680 (80+1600)
EU ↔ Asia 2100 (100+2000)
USA ↔ Asia 2520 (120+2400)

The cost of the craft transfer "sticks" to '''all''' subsequent transfers, until the craft arrives - although it acts on a proportionate basis, which is probably distance related.

Unfortunately, this cost is '''additive'''. That is to say, if you transferred a second craft from EU to Asia while the first was still in transit, it would cost $4000 ($2000 plus $2000 - it too suffers from the glitch!), it would then cost e.g. $4100 to transfer a pistol from EU to Asia. Having even more craft in transit would add even more fees.

This only appears to happen with aircraft, although it does happen for them all. So try to transfer aircraft individually, and not transfer anything else while you do - assuming you aren't awash in money. (The bug will cost you in the low thousands of dollars per craft being transferred.)

A related problem is that, if you are in the Transfer screen, start to transfer a craft, and then cancel because you remembered you wanted to send something else first - if you then try to Transfer something on that same screen, ''it will still get the sticky craft fee added''. Try it and see. You have to back up out to the main Base screen and hit Transfer again, to get rid of the sticky fee from a canceled craft transfer.

===Fuel dump on transfer===
Transferring a craft with 100% fuel will dump it somewhere along the way.
When it arrives at its destination, its fuel gauge will read empty (ie: 0% FUEL), but it will be listed as ready. If you launch your craft for a mission (any mission will do) its fuel gauge will still read empty.
 
This can be [[ExploitsA#Infinite_Fuel|exploited]], but it is very annoying if you want to quickly turn around a troop transport for another mission.
 
You can force a refuel by sending out the craft and immediately recalling it back to base.

===Transfer Limit cash eater===
Only 100 items can be in transit at a time. (Here, a transfer of e.g. 200 Elerium counts as one "item". Also, all soldiers are counted individually.) If you go over the limit, you will get a warning that there is no more transport capacity. If you STILL try to transport something after getting the warning, the item will stay where it is, but the transportation cost still gets deducted. Bad if you're shuffling expensive aircraft. The extra cost isn't that bad. Recovering just one alien weapon will likely cover the money you will lose to this bug over the course of a game.

{| {{stdTable}} width = "80%" align = "center"
|- {{stdTable Heading}}
| Tip
|-
| To Clarify what constitutes an item in the transfer screen, think of them as batches of X amount. For example, if you transfer 200 alien alloys now, and then decide to transfer another 50 alloys later, this will count as two items in transit. Now, when you look at your transfers, you'll now have two items. Two batches of alien alloys, one with 200 units and the other with 50 units.
|}

=== Transfer crash ===
If you transfer something to another base the game crashes right after acknowledging the transfer price.

Solution: Start UFO, select English language, finish your transfer, save game, restart with your normal language settings (http://www.xcomufo.com/x1faq.html)

===Purchase Limit===
The purchase limit for any item you buy via the purchase screen is 255 per line item, because it is a one-byte field. However, the impact of this bug is small, for if you have space remaining in your 100-item transfer queue, you can immediately order another 255 of said item as another line item.

===Storage Limit===
You can not store more than 9,999 of any one item in the general stores at a specific base at one time. However, this will likely only happen with [[Alien Alloys]] or [[Elerium-115]].
Still, consider yourself warned. If you're coming close to the limit, consider transferring the extra to other bases or even selling it, as any extra collected beyond the limit will 'disappear' and be wasted.

===Exceeding Storage Limits===

The storage capacity of a base is normally limited by the capacity of the General Stores. However this can be exceeded in a number of ways:

* By exploiting some of the Base Storage Anomalies (see below)
* By storing surplus equipment in transport aircraft (up to the 80 item limit). Note that if both the aircraft and the base are full, you can no longer move equipment between the aircraft and base (in either direction).
* Anything manufactured at the base will be stored there regardless of the base's General Stores capacity.
* Anything captured on a mission by an aircraft operating from the base will be stored at the base, regardless of the base's General Stores capacity.

These could perhaps be considered minor exploits.

===Base Storage Anomalies===

There are some quirks in how the game calculates, and displays, base storage capacity used and available. These quirks are not all consistent with each other, which leads to some strange behaviour. A typical example would be moving a set of items out of Stores, immediately trying to put the exact same set of items back into Stores, and this failing due to "insufficient space". A more detailed discussion is in [[Talk:Base Stores#Base Stores Anomalies]].

===Exceeding Storage Limits when Transferring Craft===

Usually you can't transfer crafts to bases without capacity for them as you'll get an error when you press the Up arrow. However, if you press the Down arrow when the craft quantity is already at 0, the game will still think you're removing crafts from the destination base and "add capacity", so you can then press the Up arrow again to transfer the crafts without error. This doesn't work with other transferable items.

Once you've broken the limit once, you don't need to do this trick anymore as the error won't show up again (the game probably doesn't check for negative capacity). You can also exceed storage and personnel capacity this way, as Transport Crafts will carry their contents over. For example, if you press the Down arrow on a Skyranger with 14 soldiers, the game will "add capacity" for 1 craft and 14 personnel on the destination base.

You can also orphan crafts this way by removing a base with crafts but no hangars, which can cause all sorts of weird behavior.

===50 Unit Limit for Captured Aliens[[http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Alien_Containment#Functionality]]===

You can only ever have 50 captured aliens in [[Alien Containment]] at any time, no matter how many you build, no matter what base they're in.

== Soldier Limits and Recruiting Bugs ==

=== Soldier Recruiting Limit ===

There is a hard limit in the game of 250 X-COM soldiers in total across all bases (not 250 per base).

The error message that pops up when you try to hire more is:

"NO MORE SOLDIERS ALLOWED"

"You have already recruited the maximum number of soldiers."

=== Soldier Recruiting Bugs ===

Also there are 3 bugs related to recruiting soldiers:

* You still get charged for Soldiers you try to purchase above the No More Soldiers limit.
* The error message that appears when you hire too many soldiers must be dismissed (click OK) once for each soldier over the limit, i.e. up to 255 times.
* You get also charged for Soldiers you try to purchase above the Transfer Limit (100 at a time).

=== Soldier Battlescape Limit ===

In the Battlescape, there is a limit of 40 X-COM soldiers that can participate in any battle. Tanks/HWPs each count as 4 soldiers against this limit. Unless you use custom-modified aircraft, you will only see this limit in a Base Defence mission. In a Base Defence mission, all tanks/HWPs will be deployed first, in preference to soldiers.

== Manufacturing and Research Bugs ==

=== Zero Unit Manufacturing Exploit ===

If you start a manufacturing project with zero items to build, close the screen, and then go back to assign staff and a non-zero build amount later, the first item is built for free. If you only build one item at a time, you can build them all for free. Obviously, this is cheating. It's also a bit tedious. It might be excusable if you're really short of money.

=== Research Rollover ===

At midnight, research projects are checked for completion in the order shown on your Projects screen (which is the same order as for picking new Projects, for [[RESEARCH.DAT]], etc.). But X-COM does not track the effort of individual scientists, so when a project ends, its scientists can be re-assigned before the game checks the next project.

The upshot is that you can re-use scientists from completed projects as long as you put them on projects (existing or new) that are [[RESEARCH.DAT|farther down the list]] than the one that just finished. And if you assign more scientists than projects need, you can finish multiple projects immediately!

To best use this exploit:
*If projects (new or existing) have equal priority to you, start new scientists at the top of your list (the [[RESEARCH.DAT|lowest-numbered]] project) and work them "down" from there. This minimizes the number of times that scientists wind up at the end of the project list (where you can't exploit them).
*It works especially well later in the game if you have a full complement of scientists (practical limit of 250 at a base) and apply them to the many "fluff" alien, corpse, and alien-room projects that [[Research_Technical_Details#Research_Time|average less than 250 research days]]. You might finish a lot at once.
*If using it, you don't have to worry about "wasted" research effort due to allocating too many scientists to a project on its last day. Unless you're at the end of the project list, wasted scientists can be re-used, too - sometimes many times.

=== Overcrowded Engineers And Scientists ===
In the Dos version (probably the others as well) if you hire more than 255 engineers in a single base, the number of engineers in the base will read a negative number once the 257th engineer arrives. Any Engineers engaged in projects will continue to work on them, but if you cancel the project you will lose engineers until you have lost 255 of them.
This bug also affects scientists. It may be exploitable to pay a negative salary at the end of the month.

If you hire exactly 256 scientists or engineers, the total rolls over to zero. You pay zero salaries, and the resulting free Manufacturing / Research is limited only by the capacity of your Factories / Laboratories. Also works in TFTD.
 
NOTE: you need to make sure that not all of their projects finish at the same time.
Otherwise, you would be stuck with 0 'available' workers/scientists, i.e. unable to assign them to a new project.

===Manufacturing Limit Bug===
The number of hours remaining on a [[Manufacturing_Profitability#Profit_tables|manufacturing project]] is stored in a two-byte integer. If you build enough items that the total number of Engineer Hours required for construction is above 65535 hours, it will wrap around to 0 hours and display from there. Typically this drastically understates the amount of time that will be spent working on the items, but strictly speaking, it only subtracts 65k hours (so a huge project like 120k hours would still show ~55k hours' worth of Engineer time needed).

This bug is not dependent on the number of engineers assigned to the project; it is a function of the number of engineer hours needed. You will most likely run into it when trying to build 2 Avengers at the same time or when queuing up large orders of items in bulk, such as armor or Laser Cannons. As a practical example, the number of Avengers needed to trigger the bug is 2. The number of Laser Cannons is 219. Toggle back and forth between 218 and 219 laser cannons at the beginning of a project to see the effects.

It is known with certainty that this exists as a display issue - the screen will say you need less time than you should when you go over 65536 Engineer hours. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] is also sure he's seen it eat an Avenger... he ordered two but only got one, even though it took the time, and cost the money, for two. He's tried to replicate this and hasn't been able to, however. So it clearly is at least a superficial display issue, and may be more than that ... possibly dependent on even something else. In any event, keep an eye on projects with more than 65k Engineer hours (and report back here!)... or just avoid going that high.

===Manufacturing Completion Time Display Bug===

If you start a new manufacturing project at 00:01, and the screen displays a completion time of 5 hours, you might expect the work to complete at 05:00 or 05:01. In fact it will complete at 06:00, one hour longer than indicated.

The reason for this bug is that the time left to complete a project is decremented by the game by one hour, every hour, on the hour(XX:00).

This display behaviour is consistent with what is shown while manufacturing is in progress. For example, if time remaining is shown as 0 hours, the work will complete at the beginning of the ''next'' hour. In effect, the displayed number is the integer-truncated form of the real time remaining. In the first example given above, the real time to completion is 5 hrs 59 min, misleadingly truncated to 5 hrs.

===Manufacturing Rate Interruption Loss===

In addition, as a result of integer truncation (see previous bug, Manufacturing Completion Time Display Bug), every time production stops, you lose an hour of manufacturing. Therefore, for most efficient production, manufacture in large batches (or increase batches while they are still in progress) to keep manufacturing as continuous as possible.

===Manufacturing Rate Limit===

There is a maximum production rate of one unit of any given type per hour per base. For example, though Alien Alloys / Aqua Plastics require 100 Engineer/Technician Hours per unit, even with 250 Engineers/Technicians you can only produce 1 unit per hour.

===HWP Fusion Bomb Ammo Cost Bug===

The HWP Fusion Bomb ammunition type, and its TFTD equivalent the ammunition for the SWS PWT/Displacer, appear to have the wrong manufacturing costs.
The vehicle version is ''less'' portable and ''less'' powerful than the personal version (Blaster Bomb), ''less'' capable than the craft version (Fusion Bomb) - and costs ''more'' than either of the others in total cash and in materials. In particular, it makes no sense that the small missiles on the HWP/SWS use up ''more'' of both Elerium/Zrbite and Alien Alloys/Aqua Plastics than the Craft version.

To correct this error, the craft round should have the higher base price, ''and'' the material requirements that are currently assigned to the SWS/HWP round. (It's debatable whether the SWS/HWP rounds should be more expensive than the man-carried rounds.) More discussion is on the talk page of this article.

== UFOPaedia Errors ==

=== UFOPaedia Craft Weapon Hit Probability Bug ===

There is a bug in the in-game UFOPaedia. It mistakenly reads the damage value field when reporting the hit chance for a craft weapon. Hence:

* Cannon shows 10% not 25%
* Avalanche shows 100% not 80%
* Laser Cannon shows 70% not 35%
* Plasma Beam shows 140% not 50%
* Fusion Ball shows 230% (!!!) not 100%

Possibly the reason this bug was missed during testing is that the first weapon in the data files, Stingray, actually does have Damage equal to its hit probability.

In the CE version, this is the problem piece of code:
.text 45B2CC: 0F BF 4E 06

Change the 06 to 04. The offset may not be correct for everyone but it should be close. I don't know the offset in the DOS version.
[[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] 06:27, 1 April 2012 (EDT)

=== UFOPaedia Craft Weapon Reload Rate Bug ===

From empirical research it looks like the reload rates of craft weapons are not stated correctly in the UFOPaedia. For example, the rates of fire of the Laser Cannon and Plasma Cannon are actually the same as each other, and they are both about six times slower than the regular Cannon (so about 12s) - whereas the UFOPaedia entry gives the reload times (inverse of the rate of fire) as being:

Cannon 2s
Laser Cannon 4s
Plasma Beam 6s

Similarly the UFOPaedia shows the Fusion Ball as having 3/5 the rate of fire of a Stingray missile, with the Fusion Ball being slower than an Avalanche missile; but empirically the Fusion Ball and Stingray have the same rate of fire, and so the Fusion Ball is faster than the Avalanche. See the discussion in [[Craft_Combat_Mechanics#Observed_Rates_of_Fire|Craft Combat Mechanics - Observed Rates of Fire]] for more details, but keep in mind recent code digs have clarified the picture from this initial rough approximation. It seems reasonable to assume the actual reload rates are coming from a different part of the executable, different to the locations used populate these values that are displayed in the UFOPaedia. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 23:25, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

== Other Bugs ==

=== Difficulty Bug ===
The DOS version has a problem where no matter what difficulty level you choose, it will revert to "Beginner" level after the first mission. This is caused by one incorrectly set bit in all DOS versions of the game (1.0 through to 1.4). The Collectors Edition Windows port (also commonly known as UFO Gold or CE) does not have this problem. To check your [[Difficulty Levels|Difficulty Level]]:
*Look at offset 60 in [[IGLOB.DAT]]. (If this file is only 60 bytes long, you've got the bug!)
*Look at [[Alien Stats|statistics for aliens]] in your game with a [[Mind Probe]] or [[Psi-Amp]]

To fix the Difficulty Bug, you can install [[XcomUtil]] and it will repair this bug. Alternately for those familiar with hex editing, you can fix this bug by referring to the appropriate section on the [[GEOSCAPE.EXE#XCOM: UFO Defense DOS Versions, difficulty setting bug | GEOSCAPE.EXE]] article and manually setting the incorrect byte to its proper value.

:[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/X-COM This TVTropes page] has been known to state that due to the bug, players asked the developers to increase game difficulty. The rumour goes that a new bug was supposedly introduced as a result, where TFTD's difficulty would reset to Superhuman instead of Beginner. The facts of the matter are that, while the overall difficulty of the game ''was'' increased, TFTD does manage to correctly keep track of which specific mode you're supposed to be playing in.

=== Chrysallid / Tentaculat Difficulty Bug ===

Stats of Chrysallids or Tentaculats that emerge from Zombies during combat have stats that ignore the difficulty level.

=== Big Text Bug ===
There are a few bugs in XCOM, especially early versions, that can build up and make the game unstable enough that it crashes and prints out a screen full of green 40-column text, essentially debug or memory dump information useless to you.

You can also forced a crash by pressing CTRL-C at the start of a new game (DOS only). If you don't have any missions automatically saved within the [[Game_Files#Missdat_Files|MISSDAT]] folder, you will get this big text to appear. Typically it is green for Enemy Unknown, and blue for Terror From The Deep. Other colours have been observed such as pink, purple, brown and yellow.

In the dos version, the text that you see is simply a memory dump in mode-13h (the 320x200x256 colour screen resolution) and the text colour is based off the changes to the palette that the game made. The batch file coordinating the two main programs [[Geoscape]] and [[Battlescape]] often succeeds in soldiering on after a crash. In the Windows version of the game, the game simply crashes back to the desktop, unless you're using the [[XcomUtil]] split executable variant (which uses a batchfile).

Some things which will tend to cause this problem:
* Overzealous use of Psi

At least some of the instability crashes can be fixed by replacing the DOS/4GW dos extender with a later version from another DOS game.

[http://syndicate.lubie.org/synd/html/synd_patches.php One of these], for example. Link to Syndicate fansite, instructions included.

=== Cash Rollover Bug ===

When your cash balance goes over $2,147,483,647, it will rollover and become $-2,147,483,647. Which means your game is done for, unless you use an editor. Fortunately, by the time you accumulate this much cash, you have usually completed all necessary research to win the game.

=== Losing My Favourite Game ===

There is a check whether the "Has X-com received a financial warning?" flag has been raised. If no, a warning is issued and the flag is raised. If yes, then the game ends, and the flag is lowered. HOWEVER, this flag is erronously not connected to any particular savegame, it is global across all savegames. This allows strange results when saving and loading games.

== See Also ==

=== [[Known Bugs (TFTD)]] ===
For bugs that '''only''' affect X-COM: Terror From The Deep.

[[Category: Oddities and bugs]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Known Bugs

2013-09-26T12:21:21Z

Tequilachef: Paying for Dirt applies to facilities destroyed in base defense

== Game Destroying Bugs ==

These are the list of the worst bugs of them all, because they can render your entire game unplayable. Until a fix/ workaround is found, these bugs result in your entire X-com campaign being scuttled:
* [[Minimized interceptor bug]]
* [[Big text bug]]
*[[Small window bug]]

== Base Construction Bugs ==

=== Base Disjoint Bug ===
Base facilities built along the right or bottom edges of the base building area may end up being cut off from each other by dirt walls, a bug in the routine meant to keep soldiers from accidentally exiting the map edges during [[Base Defense]] missions. The dirt walls can be knocked down by Blaster Bombs or excessive amount of heavy plasma fire during combat but are otherwise unbreakable.

[[image:bdb.gif|center|Base Disjoint Bug]]

The walls marked in white are removed if there is an adjacent module. All green modules are not affected while the yellow modules are. The red module will be sealed off completely if anything smaller than a hangar is placed here at any given time.

[[XcomUtil]] works around this problem by stripping out the walls entirely in all the base modules.

The bug can be profitable if the hangars and the lift are accessible only through in these areas - you can gather and supply all your soldiers heavily without aliens interfering, then knock a hole in the wall and cover the area with explosives and blaster launcher fire.

===Displayed Base Maintenance Costs===
Although X-COM charges the right monthly fees for base modules, the maintenance fee displayed ''in the base info screen'' is always wrong. The displayed number is actually based on the placement within the base grid, '''not''' the price displayed in the in-game UFOpaedia. However, at the end of the month, the right fee is deducted. For more information, see [[Base_Facilities#Displayed_Base_Maintenance_Cost_Bug]]. The Geo finance Graph shows a correct maintenance summary ([[LIGLOB.DAT]], updated once a month). Also see the next section.

===Paying For Dirt===
If you take down any facility in any base that you own and leave bare dirt, then you will continue to pay maintenance on it. But not at the old rate of whatever the facility cost per month, filling the hole back with dirt means it needs special attention at all times by specialists. In fact for every square of dirt you have that used to be a facility you will pay 80k per month. Thats 320k per hangar you take down. There are only two known ways to stop paying this premium - if you completely dismantle the base you stop paying any money for it, or if you build over all the spaces that you have vacated. In fact as soon as you start building the new facility you stop paying the premium, as well as not having to pay the cost of the new facility until it is complete.

If you start a facility and change your mind before it is complete, after the time when it would have completed you will start paying this 80k premium on that land as well.

Note that this also applies to facilities that have been destroyed due to battle damage in [[base defense]] missions. If you have lost a facility in a base defense mission and you cannot afford to replace the original facility, consider building something cheap here to keep down this bug.

===Base Facility Dismantle-Construction Crash===
In the Collectors Edition version, dismantling a facility while its construction is in progress can cause a crash when a second facility on another base square completes its construction. To work around this, dismantle a facility only after its construction is complete. If you have already dismantled such a facility, build something like a general stores on the same square to avoid the crash. It is not known if this crash happens intermittently or always, or if it happens on most versions of the game or just the Collectors Edition.

===Radar Stacking===
Despite the "Short Range" and "Long Range" detection bars displayed on each base's Information screen, only one radar of each type will be used at each base. Building additional radars of the same type will have no effect. One short and one long are useful until the [[Hyper-wave Decoder|Hyper-Wave Decoder]] makes both of them obsolete.

===Phantom Radar===
When you dismantle detection equipment such as a radar or hyperwave detector, the related detection ability of the base does not decrease until a new facility of some kind is built in that base. Until a new facility is completes building at that base, the base continues to use this "phantom radar".

This bug allows you to "upgrade in place", for example building a new Hyper-Wave Decoder over the top of an existing Large Radar, and retaining the detection capability of the Large Radar until the Hyper-Wave Decoder completes building. (Unless something else completes building first).

===Fixes for Base Construction Bugs===

As mentioned above, [[XcomUtil]] prevents the Base Disjoint bug (crudely). The [[User:Spike#Base_Fixer|BaseFixer]] utility corrects the Paying for Dirt, Phantom Radar, and Radar Stacking bugs. BaseFixer can be used manually on saved game files, or automatically via XcomUtil's hook mechanism.

==Geoscape Bugs==

===First Radar Detection Data bug===
When a UFO is detected by a radar, you get certain data on it depending on the type of radar that detected it. If the UFO later enters the range of another radar while staying in the range of the first, you will continue to get the initial data given, even if the new radar is more powerful than the first! So if you detect a craft with a [[Small Radar System]], then the UFO moves into the range of a [[Hyper-wave Decoder]], clicking on the UFO will only give you the data as if the Small Radar detected it, so long as it remains in the Small Radar range! In effect, the data you get about a UFO is determined when you first detect it, and not changed after that until you lose detection on the craft with the radar that first detected it.

This bug most commonly shows up when a UFO is first detected by a patrolling aircraft and then remains in the range of the aircraft while also entering the range of a Hyper-Wave Decoder.

=== Minimized Interceptor Bug ===
One fairly consistent cause of crashes is saving the geoscape game during a UFO standoff, with a [[UFO Interception]] window minimized to an icon. The next mission after that point will likely dump you to the green text screen, and perhaps an earlier battlescape mission instead of the proper one. What it seems to do is zoom back out of the combat too far when the fight is over, eventually causing the crash once it has gone a couple of steps further than it normally allows you.

'''Solution:''' Open up [[UIGLOB.DAT]] in a hex editor. Change hex offset 0x06 to 00. This will reset the number of minimized interceptor windows to zero. Your interceptor unit can be selected to either return to base or continue on to complete its ground assault mission. ''NOTE: Make sure to back up your save game before editing it.''

''-- I was able to recover from this state by quickly sending in another interceptor ([[Firestorm]]) to take over, which allowed my first interceptor ([[Avenger]]) to break off and go home without crashing the game again. After the shootdown I overwrote the buggy savegame. --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 03:11, 22 Aug 2005 (PDT)''

''This happened to me also. I fixed it by replacing "[[UIGLOB.DAT]]" in the save folder with the same file from another saved game (from the same campaign a month earlier) [[User:bylund|bylund]] 00:15, January 12, 2007 (GMT+01)''

=== Interceptions: Last Shot Always Misses ===
When using Cautious attack when [[UFO Interception|intercepting a UFO]], your craft will stay at the maximum range of your longest-range weapon. When using Standard attack, your craft will stay at the maximum range of your shortest-range weapon. (Usually players use two weapons of the same type, so Cautious and Standard attack will behave the same in this regard.)

As soon as the craft fires its last shot (expending all its ammo), it will drop back to "Standoff" range (70km). This will make it appear that the UFO has backed away while the last missile(s) are in-flight, causing them to miss.

In order to hit a UFO with your last salvo of missiles (Stingrays, Avalanches, or Fusion Balls), you must switch to "Aggressive" attack before the last salvo reaches the UFO. This will cause your craft to close in with the UFO, allowing the missiles to be in range when they reach the UFO. However, Aggressive attacks will also bring you within range of the UFO's weapons, so you should hit the "Disengage" button as soon as the last salvo hits.

===Elerium-fueled Craft Bug===
A [[Skyranger]] or [[Interceptor]], once dispatched, will return to base when its fuel supply has dropped to a level that it will only have just enough fuel to return to base. Craft fueled by Elerium-115, however, will always report the "Low Fuel" message as soon at the fuel supply is 50% depleted, no matter where they are on the globe. This significantly shortens the already minute time that a [[Firestorm]], [[Lightning]], or [[Avenger]] can be dispatched to patrol.

===Medic Research Bug===
Every single time a Floater Medic is found and researched, the game crashes after it is interrogated! I [[muton commander]] used a hack system to view the alien's profile, and it was a Commander with no race attached. This is probably the cause, but I have no explaination for why this situation occurs.

Addendum:

Based on report from various players, the crash appears to happen with medics in general, and isn't confined just to floaters.

''The portion of the code that is responsible for selecting the unresearched alien topic to provide when completing the research on a medic is the problem. The array that holds the avaiable topics, so that one can be randomly selected, is four bytes too short. If a player has never researched an alien species or performed an autopsy, the program will crash after it displays the random alien topic. This is because the portion of memory that holds the return address for the function has been overwritten by the array creation code and upon completion of this subroutine, the game is directed to an invalid memory address. This error won't occur if the player performs two autopies, alien interrorgations or a combination of both before researching a medic.'' [[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] 21:04, 22 June 2013 (EDT)

===Never-ending Retaliation Bug===
Some times the aliens will send a [[battleship]] on a [[Alien_Retaliation|retaliation mission]] to the "wrong" base. F.ex: the [[Hyper-wave_Decoder|hyper-wave decoder]] may report its destination as South East Asia, but the ship will actually fly to your base in North America and attack it.

Even if the battleship succeeds in getting past the base defences and its crew is subsequently defeated, the aliens won't "forget" the base's location as they normally do and instead keep sending another battleship every week or so. If your base is constructed with [[Base_Layout_Strategy|defendability]] in mind and crewed by experienced operatives this will net you heaps and heaps of alien weapons, corpses and prisoners very quickly. The downsides are, of course, playing the same base defence mission over and over again and having to maintain a garrison there at all times.

More research is needed to find out what causes this bug, but it ''could'' have something to do with [[Mind_Shield|mind shields]] being finished between the scouting and assault parts of the aliens' retaliation mission.

=== Great Circle Bug ===

The shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere is called a Great Circle. The wayfinding algorithm used by XCom aircraft has unfortunately never heard of this. XCom aircraft tend to move toward, and then along, lines of latitude. This is inefficient in terms of time, fuel, range and time on station. The inefficiency is most evident when crossing over the poles, and least evident when moving east-west or west-east.

As a workaround, you can set manual waypoints to approximate the Great Circle route.

Note that this does not seem to affect combat interception of moving UFOs, or at least not as much. Intercept courses seem to be continually updated, and head straight toward the current position of the UFO (also not an optimum algorithm, but that's another story).

=== Geoscape Intercept Bugs ===

==== Side-On Intercept Bug ====

Unlike fighter controllers since at least the 1930s, X-Com ground controllers and/or onboard avionics are incapable of calculating a predictive course for a target that is moving, at a known course and speed, laterally relative to its bearing as seen from the intercept base (so that the bearing from the base is constantly changing). In other words, in any situation except when the alien craft is heading directly toward/away from the X-Com craft/base, a non-optimum interception course is used. Instead, X-Com craft simplistically just keep heading toward the current bearing toward the target. This results in inefficient parabolic intercept courses, rather than efficient straight line courses toward a predicted intercept point. If the alien craft is faster, parabolic courses often fail to intercept, or give very brief interception windows, that would have been avoided by a proper predictive, straight-line course.

==== Head-On Intercept Bug ====

It is not possible for a slower-moving X-Com craft to intercept a faster-moving Alien craft, even if the X-Com craft is directly ahead of the alien craft and waiting in position to intercept it. This is true whether the X-Com craft is stationary, or flying in the same heading as the alien craft and at nearly the same speed. Even if the alien craft moves right through the X-Com craft's exact position while travelling only slightly faster than the X-Com craft. Interception only occurs if the alien craft voluntary slows down for long enough for the X-Com craft to catch it.

(It's true that such interceptions would be difficult, whether attempted head-on at high closing speed - extremely brief period to fire - or tail-on at low closing speed - very easy for the alien to avoid entering X-Com craft's weapon arcs by breaking away. So it could be argued that making these interceptions impossible is just a simplification of the fact that they would be much more difficult than normal interception combat.)

==== Instant Getaway Bug ====

If you park an interception craft directly over a touched-down alien craft, the alien craft will still escape, if the alien craft has superior maximum speed. The alien craft basically seems to instantly accelerate to its maximum speed, with no concept of progressive acceleration. Interception only occurs if the alien craft voluntary slows down for long enough for the X-Com craft to catch it. This probably has the same root cause as the Head-On Intercept Bug (arguably it is a special case of the Head-On Intercept Bug).

== Battlescape Bugs ==

=== Load bug after successful mission ===
After you finish a game you have saved and load the same game file again - the alien side goes first! I think it may be caused when you succesfully complete the mission and you get a notification like that the alien has died beacuse of no alien containment. The game still thinks that it is the aliens' turn. So when I load the mission again- the aliens move first. If you load the same saved game again it will be OK. [[User:ElfKaa|ElfKaa]]

=== Faulty Large Units ===
If you move a tank off a northward facing ledge, the rest of the tank will sink into a wall (if there is one), and cause the tank to get stuck. This won't happen if the tank moves off a south facing ledge as the primary quarter will fall after the rest of the tank. Aliens can also get stuck this way.

Another, potentially annoying bug occurs when a large unit's graphics become messed up. During a base defense mission, a rocket tank may end up looking like 4 silacoids bunched together.

===Unconscious Units are items===
This is actually an intentional programming choice... but it leads to several consequences which are bugs.

Firstly, any unconscious unit can be killed instantly by even a weak explosion, like being nearby an exploding AC-HE shell... even a Muton with 125 Health or an X-com agent in Flying Armor whose high armor ratings normally make him immune to AC-HE damage.
Secondly, no experience is gained for killing enemies in this manner.

You can prevent an unconscious unit's death from an explosion by picking it up... if a blaster bomb strikes the carrier and kills him, the unconscious unit will safely fall to the floor, unharmed.

Unlike a conscious unit (not wearing x-com armor), an unconscious unit can laze about in the middle of a fire without taking damage, since a UNIT standing in fire takes damage, but an unconscious unit is an item, which all ignore fire.

Forcing an MCed alien to pick up an unconscious X-com agent and carry him in its right hand can cause weird things to occur when you release the mind control. I think the game might crash when the alien tries to shove the agent into its magic pocket.

If a non-flying unconscious unit wakes up while being carried by a flying unit, it will gain some sort of temporary hover ability. (I once placed an unconscious Chryssalid in my flying agent's backpack. A few turns later, some growls and screams were heard from overhead.)

Save space! Each conscious unit takes up 1 tile (4 tiles for large units). An unconscious unit does not use up the tile... this might conceivably be useful if you wanted to abort a mission, but several panicked units were preventing other agents from boarding the skyranger...
X-com agents refuse to ride piggyback or be picked up while conscious. So, if you want a non-flying unit to reach an 2nd floor place with no stairs or elevator, you will have to knock him out, then either throw him up, or have a flying unit pick him up and drop him... and presumably administer stimulant.

This also leads to the INVISIBLE UNIT glitch. Frequently happens during Base Defence missions, since the item table is usually maxed out. Basically, the item table is so full that killed units do not leave corpses. However, this also means that unconscious units do not turn into the Unconscious Unit item. The KOed unit will disappear from sight, but will still be visible as a red number and as a blue/yellow dot on overhead map. Since the unit is still a unit and not an item, you will be able to shoot it with projectile weapons and kill it. ALSO, this method enables you to raise any unit's stun bar all the way to 255, since you can still increase the stun meter, despite them already being unconscious.

===Funky Fire===
If a unit (alien or friendly) is on fire or standing in flames, an [[Incendiary]] explosion ''anywhere else on the map'' will do a small amount of damage to it, even if you just shoot an IC round at a random patch of ground.

Similarly, if a unit (friendly units only) is standing in smoke when an incendiary explodes, it will take stun damage. This makes the combination of incendiary munitions and smoke quite hazardous until such time as all troops are armored.

<s>There is a [[Talk:Incendiary#Incendiary_Bug|working hypothesis]] for</s> The cause of this bug is that each and every Incendiary explosion triggers the "Smoke and Fire" routine: applying fire damage, applying stun damage from smoke, calculating fire and smoke spreading, and "catch on fire" checks for units in fire.

Note that X-Com units wearing any kind of armor are immune to fire damage and IC-induced stun damage. Xcom HWPs are immune to stun, but take 40% damage from Incendiaries and WILL get killed quite efficiently by funky fire.

=== Collectors Edition Blaster Bomb Bug ===

Also known as Vertical Waypoint Blaster Bomb Bug.

In the Collectors Edition of UFO, the [[Blaster Launcher]] has a bug that prevents it from going up or down on the same tile. Or in other words, you cannot change the elevation of the missile vertically on the same tile.

Instead of flying down (or up) to the next waypoint, it will instead fly directly to the south at the pivot waypoint. Relative to the screen, this would be the lower left side of the screen.

This does not happen if you plot the waypoints at an angle. Or, if the blaster bomb flies right off the map, it will reappear at the proper waypoint as long as there are additional waypoints placed after the vertical move. The bug makes it impossible to fire Blaster Bombs up or down elevator shafts. Aliens are also affected by this bug.

The Blaster Bomb bug in turn permits the [[Tactical Exploits#Milking Alien Bases|Elevator Shielding - Base Milking Exploit]], which provides unlimited risk-free experience and ultra-low-risk booty, so fixing it is a Good Thing. Base Milking in general is a legitimate tactic, but doing Base Milking risk-free via the Elevator Shielding is just an exploit.

This bug also applies to the [[Disruptor Pulse Launcher]] in TFTD.

===Blaster Launcher Dud Shells Bug===

Shots which have only one waypoint, or explode before reaching their first waypoint, leave the Blaster Launcher showing 0 rounds, but still containing a dud shell which must be unloaded before the launcher can be reloaded. On earlier versions of the game (pre-Win CE) this also happens with reaction fire, and with 1-waypoint shots that fly off the map.

=== The trouble with Mines in General ===

Proximity mines are strangely implemented in UFO and TFTD. While they behave as you would expect them to half of the time, the mines do not behave like conventional weapons.

First, experience attribution is awarded to the person that sets off the mine.

Secondly, the armed states for [[Proximity Grenade]]s in both UFO and TFTD are NOT stored in save games. If a proximity grenade is primed, then the game is saved and reloaded, the grenade will not only not go off as it should, but the "Prime Grenade" action will still be absent, so it's impossible to re-arm it.

=== Grenade Timer Behaviour ===

A primed explosive (Grenade, High Explosive, Alien Grenade) will not explode if it's still in your inventory (hand, belt etc) when the timer runs out. It will only detonate when it's on the ground. If your soldier falls unconscious or gets killed, the primed explosive will be counted as being on the ground. Then it will blow up, likely taking out your gear and body. This 'feature' allows for the hot potato or [[Grenade Relay]] strategy which is fairly unique to X-COM where a live grenade well past its use-by date can be passed from squad member to squad member.

For a more a detailed explanation on detonation conditions, see [[Understanding Grenades]].

=== Mountain Map ===
Due to a bug in the way this tileset was created, when you shoot the ground, it doesn't burn up - it turns into a tree stump.

Because the stump is on object, as opposed to actual ground, any objects that were in the tile already (for example, UFO hulls or the landing gear of your craft) get replaced by these stumps, making it seem as if they were destroyed.

Tree stumps don't take much damage, so they often get burnt up immediately if an explosive goes off, leaving nothing but burnt ground behind. It is easier to view the effects of this bug by shooting the ground instead.

For more details, see [[Explosions#Mile-High_Madness|Mountain Madness]].

=== What just exploded? ===
In some versions of the game, a bug allows an armed proximity mine to transfer its properties to some other item in the next mission, which then may explode unexpectedly. (If the item is left on the floor of the XCOM craft, it will explode as you walk past it.) This problem can be rectified by reloading the game -- as a precaution, save before you move your first soldier.

=== Door jam ===
If a door is open when a game is saved on the Battlescape and that game is subsequently restored, the door will remain open for the remainder of that mission.

=== MIA Bugs ===

A number of bugs cause units to be unexpectedly listed as MIA. In the case of X-COM units, this also means the soldier is permanently lost from your roster, probably along with any armour/equipment carried.

====Mind Controlled Soldiers go MIA====
If you complete a mission successfully while a [[soldier]] is currently [[Mind Control]]led he will be listed as MIA at the end of the combat. This is quite an easy bug to fall into as on any [[Sectoid]] or [[Ethereal]] mission the only, or most powerful, psionic aliens will usually be holed up in the bridge or command centre, which is the likely location of the final combat turn.

====Stunned Mind Controlled Soliders go MIA====
Similarly an X-COM soldier who was Mind Controlled by the aliens and then stunned (usually by X-COM), and who is still stunned at the end of the mission (victory or abort), will count as MIA. Presumably the game does not set the ownership flag on the unit back to XCom's side until the unit wakes up.

====Mind Controlled Aliens Count as MIA if you Abort====
If you happen to abort a mission with any Mind-Controlled aliens under your control, who are NOT in the dropship, the computer tallies them up as "X-COM Operatives Missing In Action." Thus, every Mind Controlled alien left behind when you dust off is -20 points to your score! If you're leaving anyways, avoid this by bringing them back to the ship or mowing them down on the way back to the ship.

In the Playstation version of the game, any aliens under Mind Control at missions end are considered captured and hence, this bug is not a factor.

====Stunned, Carried, Not Dropped Soldiers are MIA on Abort====

If a soldier is stunned anywhere outside the transport and then carried back to (or thrown into) the transport for an Abort, they are still considered MIA. The game considers them to be still at the location where they were stunned and picked up from. You must drop the soldier on the ground in the transport in order to recover them back to base in an Abort. Throwing into the transport does not work.

====Stunned Inside, Thrown Outside Soldiers not MIA on Abort====

A soldier who is stunned inside the transport and then thrown (not dropped) outside the transport prior to a mission Abort does not count as MIA, but is successfully recovered back to base. This is presumably because throwing does not reset the location of the unit.

===20 Proximity Grenade Limit===

The array used to denote armed [[Proximity Grenade]]s is limited to 20 entries, meaning you are limited to 20 active mines at a time. The 21st and subsequent Proximity grenades can be primed like normal and will give appropriate messages, but they will not detonate even when the normal trigger conditions are met. Note that Proximity Mines that have detonated or otherwise been destroyed are removed from the array, freeing up positions; the limit is 20 ACTIVE Proximity Grenades at one time. In normal gameplay, this is probably not a restriction, in light of the [[Known_Bugs#80-Item_Limit|80 Item Limit]], since you'd need to have more than 1/4th of the cargo space in the dropship filled with Proximity Grenades.

===Base Defense Elerium bug===

On DOS versions of UFO Defense, Elerium pods may spawn as items from the base stockpile during a Base Defense bug. Each pod represents 50 units of Elerium and will be normally collected after the mission, same as any other item such as Heavy Lasers or Blaster Bombs. HOWEVER. The program will potentially generate 1 elerium POD for every 1 UNIT of elerium in your inventory. Thus, if you had only 10 lasers and 50 Elerium listed in your Sell screen, you would see 10 lasers and 50 Elerium Crystals in your Soldier Equip Screen, which would translate to 50 Elerium pods and 10 lasers scattered around your base. This equals 2500 Elerium, BTW. You basically have the potential to multiply your elerium stocks by 50.

===Berserk HWP crashes the game===

Admittedly, this is unlikely to arise under normal play. But, anyhow, your HWPs can only lose morale by killing friendly units. Not much for each unit killed, either. Anyhow, a berserk HWP will crash the game. (except for the Hovertank/Launcher, which does not fire when it goes berserk.)
Likewise, if you MC a cyberdisc or Sectopod and have it kills lots of aliens, it'll go berserk and crash the game. The error happens because of an oversight from the developers: the built-in weapons of HWP are handled differently from handed weapons, no OBDATA.DAT entries exist for them. The berserk code will try to access the nonexistent entry, resulting in a crash. The Celatid has yet to be tested.

''The part about HWPs only losing morale by blue-on-blue isn't true: I had a rocket tank go berserk on me in a terror mission when a floater blew up my whole force with a single grenade in the first alien turn. The game crashed alright; I have the CE version with UFOextender.--[[User:Amitakartok|amitakartok]] 08:24, 11 January 2012 (EST)''
:''Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I clearly remember an very bizarre incident like yours but where the rocket HWP panicked (all other X-COM units had just been killed) but the game didn't crash (I play the DOS version) and the tank shot all its rockets randomly until it ran out of ammo. I remember that its TU numbers being while firing showed 255 TUs or some other impossible value (I hadn't done any manual edits). I don't remember if it crashed at the end but it did fire!'' [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 10:47, 11 January 2012 (EST)
::''And this reminds me of yet another panicked HWP incident but involving a Cannon HWP. I was expecting it to waste all its ammo (based on my previous experience) but it only fired a few shots and the TU level didn't went up crazy.'' [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 10:47, 11 January 2012 (EST)

===Limited Unit Slots - Battlescape Crash===

This tends to arise during Base Defence Missions. The game is was designed to be limited to 40 soldiers/hovertanks and XXXX aliens for a total of XXXX . Having a full complement of soldiers during a Superhuman difficulty base defence will max out these limits. Thus when either side starts playing around with mind control too much, something goes wrong causing the entire game to crash.
It might also be something to do with maximum items on the battlescape.
In any case, the workaround seems to be killing aliens and destroying items on the battlescape... doesn't always work, but it seems to help.
You might want to make several in-battle saves for these situations, even if you normally play Ironman mode.

===Left arm fatal wound instead of torso (energy penalty)===

According to UFO Defence [http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/7760/x-com%20ufo%20defense%20manual.pdf manual], torso fatal wounds affect energy replenish rate, which is logical. But in the game fatal wounds of the '''left arm''' affect energy replenish rate, '''not the torso'''. Which is an obvious coding bug (though not a fatal one).

== Character Inventory Bugs ==

=== Alien Inventory Stacking Bug ===

'''WARNING:''' When examining an Alien's inventory (via an Exploit), you will see that sometimes the alien will stack multiple items of equipment on the same slot - its right leg. It's not always obvious that there are multiple objects in the slot until you 'pick up' the first object and can see other objects still in the slot.
Before you remove an item from the Alien's right leg, make sure you have enough time units to place it somewhere else. If you run out of time units, you will likely have to force a quit and cannot save your game. It '''may''' be possible to move the item to the left leg slot for 0 TUs, '''if''' the item will fit in that slot. If not, you will have to terminate the game. (Press ALT-TAB to get to any other window, then CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up Task Manager, and then terminate the process that corresponds to the game).

=== XComUtil Inventory Stacking Bug ===

A problem similar to the Alien Inventory Stacking Bug can also occur for X-COM Soldiers, when using XComUtil. The algorithm used to assign weapons in XComUtil MUST assign all weapons to troops, so if there are more weapons than soldiers, excess weapons are stacked onto the leg slot of the first soldier in the dropship. This was a deliberate choice by Scott Jones to make this encumbrance obvious to the player. This can be readily corrected in the "equip soldiers" screen before a mission. Else, see "Alien Inventory Bug", above.

=== Item-stacking Bug ===
It is possible to put more than one item in a given spot. When an item is stacked with a [[Stun Rod]], this can make it possible for X-COM soldiers to perform "melee" attacks. See [[Item Stacking Bug]] for more details.

===Carrying Unconscious Units===
If one of your soldiers is carrying an unconscious unit in their hands and the unit either wakes up from stun or dies, they will be removed from the Inventory display, but will still appear to be in the carrying soldier's hands in the Battlescape. Clicking on the phantom body in the Battlescape will crash the game!
This error can be easily cleared by switching to the Inventory screen and moving another item into the hand that used to be carrying the body. Even swapping the gun to the other hand will do. Refer to : [[Unconscious#Bug|Unconscious]].

===Disappearing Ammo===
Partially-used clips in alien or X-COM weapons disappear at the end of a mission. This dictates that you should try to use clips that are not full. However, in DOS versions of the game, you can unload used clips to recover them as full clips with the tradeoff of all loaded clips (used or otherwise) will count as spent and disappear (this shouldn't seem to be a problem, until you start using blasters and will find that you're running out of ammo fast). You can also use [[XcomUtil]] to recover partially used clips. Even when used clips are discarded, you will still get credit ([[Scoring|score]]) at the end of missions for recovering them.

When aborting a mission, any full clips loaded in any alien weapons brought back to the transport/access lift will not be recovered unless the clips are unloaded first. This includes [[Blaster Bomb]]s and [[Stun Bomb]]s.

=== Ammo Weight Bugs ===

In general, the game engine handles the weight allocation of ammo/clips '''loaded into weapons''' very badly. There was a good design to handle ammo weight, but it was not properly implemented. As a result there is a set of bugs relating to ammo/clip weight and encumbrance that share overlapping causes and effects.

==== Equip Phase Ammo Load Error ====

The game routine for placing ammo into weapons at the beginning of the equip phase does not correctly set all object and unit values. It should set the ammo as loaded into the weapon, the weapon as being held by the soldier, and the map position of the weapon and the ammo as the same as the soldier. Looks like it does not do one or more of these things. Whatever values the game doesn't set, do get set if you manually load or reload the weapon, either during the equip phase, or during the game.

Specifically, the game's auto-equip functions at the beginning of the equip phase fail to set offset 0x04 of the [[OBPOS.DAT]] record to point to the soldier who owns the ammo. These functions leave the value = 0xff, which implies "on the ground". They also leave the ammo location as being the equipment pile, rather than the location of the soldier. The other values are set correctly. Manually loading ammo into a weapon, during the equip phase or during combat, correctly sets all values. The ownership points to the soldier and the location to the soldier's location.

This bug is the cause of [[Known_Bugs#Weightless_Loaded_Ammo|Weightless Loaded Ammo]]. Probably the only other impact of this bug is that XComUtil can't detect the fact that the ammo is loaded into the weapon, for the purpose of AutoCombat. It might have other subtle effects on any utilities that deal with equipping soldiers.

====Weightless Loaded Ammo====

Ammo that is automatically pre-loaded into a weapon at the start of the Equip Phase of a mission does not initially count towards any soldier's carried weight (Encumbrance). If the weapon is subsequently unloaded during the Equip Phase or later in the mission, the soldiers encumbrance will ''increase''. This will probably only be noticed if the unloaded clip was not discarded (e.g. because it was not fully empty). This is due to a bug in the game's original weight calculation routine that was uncovered (but not caused) by Seb76's inventory screen improvements.

The Weightless Loaded Ammo bug slightly advantages X-Com. It leads to a set of relatively minor exploits. Using this bug, you can get weak soldiers to carry heavy weapons with (usually) a single clip and no TU penalty. For weapons that use multiple ammo types (which auto-equip with AP by preference), by manipulating the overall supply of ammo of different types you can to some extent persuade the auto equip algorithm to load your preferred ammo type for these weaker soldiers.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 22:51, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

==== Displaced Ammo Weight ====

'''Guidance: Apart from weapons pre-loaded by the game, be sure to unload any weapons before dropping them. Drop, pick up and transfer ammo only when it is not loaded into a weapon.'''

Dropped ammo clips that are still loaded into dropped weapons are not un-assigned from the unit carrying them. The weight of the ammo / clips continues to count against the unit's [[Time Units#Encumbrance|Encumbrance]] as 'displaced weight' that can't be removed by ordinary means. This is an original game bug that only becomes apparent when using mods that display the unit's current encumbrance. The effect continues until the ammo is unloaded (either by the original holder picking up the weapon again and unloading it, or someone else picking it up and unloading it). Once the ammo is unloaded, its weight is applied to the actual current holder, only, and is released from the original holder.

This bug also applies during the Equip Phase, if one soldier loads a weapon, drops it, and another soldier picks it up.

In some senses this bug is the opposite of the Weightless Ammo Bug, and each bug has probably tended to obscure the effects of the other. For example, clips affected by the Weightless Ammo Bug (clips automatically loaded by the game) are not so obviously affected by this bug, since their displaced weight is 'carried' by the Equipment Pile rather than any specific Soldier. (In another sense, this is the same bug, with the weight displaced to the Equipment Pile rather than to another soldier.)

See [[User_talk:Seb76#Inventory_screen_ammo_weight_bug|this discussion]] for more information on this bug.

==== Ammo Weight Exploits ====

As noted above, Weightless Ammo is, in itself, a minor exploit, since it provides some extra penalty-free carrying capacity in combat.

On the face of it, the Displaced Weight Bug is not an exploit, since for every decrease in weight on one soldier there is a corresponding increase in weight on another soldier. However the Displaced Weight bug could potentially be exploited by having one soldier first load and then drop a lot of weapons, and then move away from the resulting pile to allow others to pick up. This would create a reserve of weapons where all the ammo weight was being 'carried' by this "weight sink" soldier, freeing up encumbrance for other soldiers. For example, all recon and front line soldiers required to be mobile could get reduced weight, at the expense of a single soldier having extremely reduced mobility/TUs. However, as the game's auto equip routines already load all initial weapons with weightless ammo, this would only be useful after combat had been progressing for some time, for reloads rather than initial loads, and it would require the squad to regroup around this "sink", or ferry weapons to/from the "sink". It might be most useful with Rocket Launchers (high weight, high ammo weight, one round before reload).

Hypothetically, Displaced Weight could be exploited to overflow the Weight value of a unit and allow that unit to carry massive weight with minimal encumbrance. For example, carrying 32 rocket launchers and 32 rockets (ammo weight 256) into combat. There is not enough Equip space in the Equipment Pile to manipulate this equipment pre-combat, as the loaded weapons must be dropped, and there is only enough space for 20 rocket launchers in the Equipment pile, so the remaining manipulation would have to be done during combat time (and over more than one Battlescape square). However, it looks like the Weight subroutine and the value it returns into are both bigger than 2 byte numbers (256). There is no way to push Displaced Weight into the 32,000 or 64,000 range with using some kind of game file editing or hacking/modding.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 09:06, 29 September 2012 (EDT)

== Storage and Transfer Bugs ==

=== 80-item Limit ===
When loading up your Avenger for a massive UFO assault or arming soldiers for a [[Base Defense]] from your overflowing stores, you will likely hit this limit.

You only get a max of 80 items, and you don't get to choose which ones, so you may end up with 80 clips and no rifles for the base defense.

The solution is timely housekeeping. Sell off your spare personal equipment. See our handy [[Spring Cleaning Tips]], and also [[Managing the Item Limit]] for ideas.

Another bug concerning this limit happens when there are unresearched (alien) items in your stores during a base defense mission. Even though the item cannot be used during the mission, the game still allows you to equip your soldiers with them. This rarely happens as the alien items are very low on the item list, but if your base is lean and mean with under 80 items total, everything will spawn regardless of research.

===Sticky Craft Transfer Fee glitch===
As pointed out by [[User:Zombie|Zombie]] and [[User:Danial|Danial]], transferring any craft causes '''''all subsequent transfers to have that cost added to it''''', for as long as the craft is in transit. Additional craft in transit will add additional fees. (This has also been called the Exponential Transfer Fee bug, although it's actually additive, not exponential.)

Example (all numbers are only approximations):
Cost of pistol transfer (↔ = to or from)
EU ↔ USA 80
EU ↔ Asia 100
USA ↔ Asia 120

Cost of craft transfer
EU ↔ USA 1600 ''Notice how transfer fees always work as relative percents,
EU ↔ Asia 2000 ''probably on a distance-based formula
USA ↔ Asia 2400

Cost to transfer '''pistol''', after transferring craft from EU to Asia for $2000
EU ↔ USA 1680 (80+1600)
EU ↔ Asia 2100 (100+2000)
USA ↔ Asia 2520 (120+2400)

The cost of the craft transfer "sticks" to '''all''' subsequent transfers, until the craft arrives - although it acts on a proportionate basis, which is probably distance related.

Unfortunately, this cost is '''additive'''. That is to say, if you transferred a second craft from EU to Asia while the first was still in transit, it would cost $4000 ($2000 plus $2000 - it too suffers from the glitch!), it would then cost e.g. $4100 to transfer a pistol from EU to Asia. Having even more craft in transit would add even more fees.

This only appears to happen with aircraft, although it does happen for them all. So try to transfer aircraft individually, and not transfer anything else while you do - assuming you aren't awash in money. (The bug will cost you in the low thousands of dollars per craft being transferred.)

A related problem is that, if you are in the Transfer screen, start to transfer a craft, and then cancel because you remembered you wanted to send something else first - if you then try to Transfer something on that same screen, ''it will still get the sticky craft fee added''. Try it and see. You have to back up out to the main Base screen and hit Transfer again, to get rid of the sticky fee from a canceled craft transfer.

===Fuel dump on transfer===
Transferring a craft with 100% fuel will dump it somewhere along the way.
When it arrives at its destination, its fuel gauge will read empty (ie: 0% FUEL), but it will be listed as ready. If you launch your craft for a mission (any mission will do) its fuel gauge will still read empty.
 
This can be [[ExploitsA#Infinite_Fuel|exploited]], but it is very annoying if you want to quickly turn around a troop transport for another mission.
 
You can force a refuel by sending out the craft and immediately recalling it back to base.

===Transfer Limit cash eater===
Only 100 items can be in transit at a time. (Here, a transfer of e.g. 200 Elerium counts as one "item". Also, all soldiers are counted individually.) If you go over the limit, you will get a warning that there is no more transport capacity. If you STILL try to transport something after getting the warning, the item will stay where it is, but the transportation cost still gets deducted. Bad if you're shuffling expensive aircraft. The extra cost isn't that bad. Recovering just one alien weapon will likely cover the money you will lose to this bug over the course of a game.

{| {{stdTable}} width = "80%" align = "center"
|- {{stdTable Heading}}
| Tip
|-
| To Clarify what constitutes an item in the transfer screen, think of them as batches of X amount. For example, if you transfer 200 alien alloys now, and then decide to transfer another 50 alloys later, this will count as two items in transit. Now, when you look at your transfers, you'll now have two items. Two batches of alien alloys, one with 200 units and the other with 50 units.
|}

=== Transfer crash ===
If you transfer something to another base the game crashes right after acknowledging the transfer price.

Solution: Start UFO, select English language, finish your transfer, save game, restart with your normal language settings (http://www.xcomufo.com/x1faq.html)

===Purchase Limit===
The purchase limit for any item you buy via the purchase screen is 255 per line item, because it is a one-byte field. However, the impact of this bug is small, for if you have space remaining in your 100-item transfer queue, you can immediately order another 255 of said item as another line item.

===Storage Limit===
You can not store more than 9,999 of any one item in the general stores at a specific base at one time. However, this will likely only happen with [[Alien Alloys]] or [[Elerium-115]].
Still, consider yourself warned. If you're coming close to the limit, consider transferring the extra to other bases or even selling it, as any extra collected beyond the limit will 'disappear' and be wasted.

===Exceeding Storage Limits===

The storage capacity of a base is normally limited by the capacity of the General Stores. However this can be exceeded in a number of ways:

* By exploiting some of the Base Storage Anomalies (see below)
* By storing surplus equipment in transport aircraft (up to the 80 item limit). Note that if both the aircraft and the base are full, you can no longer move equipment between the aircraft and base (in either direction).
* Anything manufactured at the base will be stored there regardless of the base's General Stores capacity.
* Anything captured on a mission by an aircraft operating from the base will be stored at the base, regardless of the base's General Stores capacity.

These could perhaps be considered minor exploits.

===Base Storage Anomalies===

There are some quirks in how the game calculates, and displays, base storage capacity used and available. These quirks are not all consistent with each other, which leads to some strange behaviour. A typical example would be moving a set of items out of Stores, immediately trying to put the exact same set of items back into Stores, and this failing due to "insufficient space". A more detailed discussion is in [[Talk:Base Stores#Base Stores Anomalies]].

===Exceeding Storage Limits when Transferring Craft===

Usually you can't transfer crafts to bases without capacity for them as you'll get an error when you press the Up arrow. However, if you press the Down arrow when the craft quantity is already at 0, the game will still think you're removing crafts from the destination base and "add capacity", so you can then press the Up arrow again to transfer the crafts without error. This doesn't work with other transferable items.

Once you've broken the limit once, you don't need to do this trick anymore as the error won't show up again (the game probably doesn't check for negative capacity). You can also exceed storage and personnel capacity this way, as Transport Crafts will carry their contents over. For example, if you press the Down arrow on a Skyranger with 14 soldiers, the game will "add capacity" for 1 craft and 14 personnel on the destination base.

You can also orphan crafts this way by removing a base with crafts but no hangars, which can cause all sorts of weird behavior.

===50 Unit Limit for Captured Aliens[[http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Alien_Containment#Functionality]]===

You can only ever have 50 captured aliens in [[Alien Containment]] at any time, no matter how many you build, no matter what base they're in.

== Soldier Limits and Recruiting Bugs ==

=== Soldier Recruiting Limit ===

There is a hard limit in the game of 250 X-COM soldiers in total across all bases (not 250 per base).

The error message that pops up when you try to hire more is:

"NO MORE SOLDIERS ALLOWED"

"You have already recruited the maximum number of soldiers."

=== Soldier Recruiting Bugs ===

Also there are 3 bugs related to recruiting soldiers:

* You still get charged for Soldiers you try to purchase above the No More Soldiers limit.
* The error message that appears when you hire too many soldiers must be dismissed (click OK) once for each soldier over the limit, i.e. up to 255 times.
* You get also charged for Soldiers you try to purchase above the Transfer Limit (100 at a time).

=== Soldier Battlescape Limit ===

In the Battlescape, there is a limit of 40 X-COM soldiers that can participate in any battle. Tanks/HWPs each count as 4 soldiers against this limit. Unless you use custom-modified aircraft, you will only see this limit in a Base Defence mission. In a Base Defence mission, all tanks/HWPs will be deployed first, in preference to soldiers.

== Manufacturing and Research Bugs ==

=== Zero Unit Manufacturing Exploit ===

If you start a manufacturing project with zero items to build, close the screen, and then go back to assign staff and a non-zero build amount later, the first item is built for free. If you only build one item at a time, you can build them all for free. Obviously, this is cheating. It's also a bit tedious. It might be excusable if you're really short of money.

=== Research Rollover ===

At midnight, research projects are checked for completion in the order shown on your Projects screen (which is the same order as for picking new Projects, for [[RESEARCH.DAT]], etc.). But X-COM does not track the effort of individual scientists, so when a project ends, its scientists can be re-assigned before the game checks the next project.

The upshot is that you can re-use scientists from completed projects as long as you put them on projects (existing or new) that are [[RESEARCH.DAT|farther down the list]] than the one that just finished. And if you assign more scientists than projects need, you can finish multiple projects immediately!

To best use this exploit:
*If projects (new or existing) have equal priority to you, start new scientists at the top of your list (the [[RESEARCH.DAT|lowest-numbered]] project) and work them "down" from there. This minimizes the number of times that scientists wind up at the end of the project list (where you can't exploit them).
*It works especially well later in the game if you have a full complement of scientists (practical limit of 250 at a base) and apply them to the many "fluff" alien, corpse, and alien-room projects that [[Research_Technical_Details#Research_Time|average less than 250 research days]]. You might finish a lot at once.
*If using it, you don't have to worry about "wasted" research effort due to allocating too many scientists to a project on its last day. Unless you're at the end of the project list, wasted scientists can be re-used, too - sometimes many times.

=== Overcrowded Engineers And Scientists ===
In the Dos version (probably the others as well) if you hire more than 255 engineers in a single base, the number of engineers in the base will read a negative number once the 257th engineer arrives. Any Engineers engaged in projects will continue to work on them, but if you cancel the project you will lose engineers until you have lost 255 of them.
This bug also affects scientists. It may be exploitable to pay a negative salary at the end of the month.

If you hire exactly 256 scientists or engineers, the total rolls over to zero. You pay zero salaries, and the resulting free Manufacturing / Research is limited only by the capacity of your Factories / Laboratories. Also works in TFTD.
 
NOTE: you need to make sure that not all of their projects finish at the same time.
Otherwise, you would be stuck with 0 'available' workers/scientists, i.e. unable to assign them to a new project.

===Manufacturing Limit Bug===
The number of hours remaining on a [[Manufacturing_Profitability#Profit_tables|manufacturing project]] is stored in a two-byte integer. If you build enough items that the total number of Engineer Hours required for construction is above 65535 hours, it will wrap around to 0 hours and display from there. Typically this drastically understates the amount of time that will be spent working on the items, but strictly speaking, it only subtracts 65k hours (so a huge project like 120k hours would still show ~55k hours' worth of Engineer time needed).

This bug is not dependent on the number of engineers assigned to the project; it is a function of the number of engineer hours needed. You will most likely run into it when trying to build 2 Avengers at the same time or when queuing up large orders of items in bulk, such as armor or Laser Cannons. As a practical example, the number of Avengers needed to trigger the bug is 2. The number of Laser Cannons is 219. Toggle back and forth between 218 and 219 laser cannons at the beginning of a project to see the effects.

It is known with certainty that this exists as a display issue - the screen will say you need less time than you should when you go over 65536 Engineer hours. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] is also sure he's seen it eat an Avenger... he ordered two but only got one, even though it took the time, and cost the money, for two. He's tried to replicate this and hasn't been able to, however. So it clearly is at least a superficial display issue, and may be more than that ... possibly dependent on even something else. In any event, keep an eye on projects with more than 65k Engineer hours (and report back here!)... or just avoid going that high.

===Manufacturing Completion Time Display Bug===

If you start a new manufacturing project at 00:01, and the screen displays a completion time of 5 hours, you might expect the work to complete at 05:00 or 05:01. In fact it will complete at 06:00, one hour longer than indicated.

The reason for this bug is that the time left to complete a project is decremented by the game by one hour, every hour, on the hour(XX:00).

This display behaviour is consistent with what is shown while manufacturing is in progress. For example, if time remaining is shown as 0 hours, the work will complete at the beginning of the ''next'' hour. In effect, the displayed number is the integer-truncated form of the real time remaining. In the first example given above, the real time to completion is 5 hrs 59 min, misleadingly truncated to 5 hrs.

===Manufacturing Rate Interruption Loss===

In addition, as a result of integer truncation (see previous bug, Manufacturing Completion Time Display Bug), every time production stops, you lose an hour of manufacturing. Therefore, for most efficient production, manufacture in large batches (or increase batches while they are still in progress) to keep manufacturing as continuous as possible.

===Manufacturing Rate Limit===

There is a maximum production rate of one unit of any given type per hour per base. For example, though Alien Alloys / Aqua Plastics require 100 Engineer/Technician Hours per unit, even with 250 Engineers/Technicians you can only produce 1 unit per hour.

===HWP Fusion Bomb Ammo Cost Bug===

The HWP Fusion Bomb ammunition type, and its TFTD equivalent the ammunition for the SWS PWT/Displacer, appear to have the wrong manufacturing costs.
The vehicle version is ''less'' portable and ''less'' powerful than the personal version (Blaster Bomb), ''less'' capable than the craft version (Fusion Bomb) - and costs ''more'' than either of the others in total cash and in materials. In particular, it makes no sense that the small missiles on the HWP/SWS use up ''more'' of both Elerium/Zrbite and Alien Alloys/Aqua Plastics than the Craft version.

To correct this error, the craft round should have the higher base price, ''and'' the material requirements that are currently assigned to the SWS/HWP round. (It's debatable whether the SWS/HWP rounds should be more expensive than the man-carried rounds.) More discussion is on the talk page of this article.

== UFOPaedia Errors ==

=== UFOPaedia Craft Weapon Hit Probability Bug ===

There is a bug in the in-game UFOPaedia. It mistakenly reads the damage value field when reporting the hit chance for a craft weapon. Hence:

* Cannon shows 10% not 25%
* Avalanche shows 100% not 80%
* Laser Cannon shows 70% not 35%
* Plasma Beam shows 140% not 50%
* Fusion Ball shows 230% (!!!) not 100%

Possibly the reason this bug was missed during testing is that the first weapon in the data files, Stingray, actually does have Damage equal to its hit probability.

In the CE version, this is the problem piece of code:
.text 45B2CC: 0F BF 4E 06

Change the 06 to 04. The offset may not be correct for everyone but it should be close. I don't know the offset in the DOS version.
[[User:Morgan525|Tycho]] 06:27, 1 April 2012 (EDT)

=== UFOPaedia Craft Weapon Reload Rate Bug ===

From empirical research it looks like the reload rates of craft weapons are not stated correctly in the UFOPaedia. For example, the rates of fire of the Laser Cannon and Plasma Cannon are actually the same as each other, and they are both about six times slower than the regular Cannon (so about 12s) - whereas the UFOPaedia entry gives the reload times (inverse of the rate of fire) as being:

Cannon 2s
Laser Cannon 4s
Plasma Beam 6s

Similarly the UFOPaedia shows the Fusion Ball as having 3/5 the rate of fire of a Stingray missile, with the Fusion Ball being slower than an Avalanche missile; but empirically the Fusion Ball and Stingray have the same rate of fire, and so the Fusion Ball is faster than the Avalanche. See the discussion in [[Craft_Combat_Mechanics#Observed_Rates_of_Fire|Craft Combat Mechanics - Observed Rates of Fire]] for more details, but keep in mind recent code digs have clarified the picture from this initial rough approximation. It seems reasonable to assume the actual reload rates are coming from a different part of the executable, different to the locations used populate these values that are displayed in the UFOPaedia. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 23:25, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

== Other Bugs ==

=== Difficulty Bug ===
The DOS version has a problem where no matter what difficulty level you choose, it will revert to "Beginner" level after the first mission. This is caused by one incorrectly set bit in all DOS versions of the game (1.0 through to 1.4). The Collectors Edition Windows port (also commonly known as UFO Gold or CE) does not have this problem. To check your [[Difficulty Levels|Difficulty Level]]:
*Look at offset 60 in [[IGLOB.DAT]]. (If this file is only 60 bytes long, you've got the bug!)
*Look at [[Alien Stats|statistics for aliens]] in your game with a [[Mind Probe]] or [[Psi-Amp]]

To fix the Difficulty Bug, you can install [[XcomUtil]] and it will repair this bug. Alternately for those familiar with hex editing, you can fix this bug by referring to the appropriate section on the [[GEOSCAPE.EXE#XCOM: UFO Defense DOS Versions, difficulty setting bug | GEOSCAPE.EXE]] article and manually setting the incorrect byte to its proper value.

:[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/X-COM This TVTropes page] has been known to state that due to the bug, players asked the developers to increase game difficulty. The rumour goes that a new bug was supposedly introduced as a result, where TFTD's difficulty would reset to Superhuman instead of Beginner. The facts of the matter are that, while the overall difficulty of the game ''was'' increased, TFTD does manage to correctly keep track of which specific mode you're supposed to be playing in.

=== Chrysallid / Tentaculat Difficulty Bug ===

Stats of Chrysallids or Tentaculats that emerge from Zombies during combat have stats that ignore the difficulty level.

=== Big Text Bug ===
There are a few bugs in XCOM, especially early versions, that can build up and make the game unstable enough that it crashes and prints out a screen full of green 40-column text, essentially debug or memory dump information useless to you.

You can also forced a crash by pressing CTRL-C at the start of a new game (DOS only). If you don't have any missions automatically saved within the [[Game_Files#Missdat_Files|MISSDAT]] folder, you will get this big text to appear. Typically it is green for Enemy Unknown, and blue for Terror From The Deep. Other colours have been observed such as pink, purple, brown and yellow.

In the dos version, the text that you see is simply a memory dump in mode-13h (the 320x200x256 colour screen resolution) and the text colour is based off the changes to the palette that the game made. The batch file coordinating the two main programs [[Geoscape]] and [[Battlescape]] often succeeds in soldiering on after a crash. In the Windows version of the game, the game simply crashes back to the desktop, unless you're using the [[XcomUtil]] split executable variant (which uses a batchfile).

Some things which will tend to cause this problem:
* Overzealous use of Psi

At least some of the instability crashes can be fixed by replacing the DOS/4GW dos extender with a later version from another DOS game.

[http://syndicate.lubie.org/synd/html/synd_patches.php One of these], for example. Link to Syndicate fansite, instructions included.

=== Cash Rollover Bug ===

When your cash balance goes over $2,147,483,647, it will rollover and become $-2,147,483,647. Which means your game is done for, unless you use an editor. Fortunately, by the time you accumulate this much cash, you have usually completed all necessary research to win the game.

=== Losing My Favourite Game ===

There is a check whether the "Has X-com received a financial warning?" flag has been raised. If no, a warning is issued and the flag is raised. If yes, then the game ends, and the flag is lowered. HOWEVER, this flag is erronously not connected to any particular savegame, it is global across all savegames. This allows strange results when saving and loading games.

== See Also ==

=== [[Known Bugs (TFTD)]] ===
For bugs that '''only''' affect X-COM: Terror From The Deep.

[[Category: Oddities and bugs]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Talk:Elerium-115

2007-12-29T17:56:16Z

Tequilachef:

Has anyone ever came across an issue in the CE version of UFO in which a landed UFO gets assaulted and my guys leave the Power Source intact, however, at the summary screen at the end - there is no elerium, although the power source appears?? I'm confused - I don't understand how that could have happened! I've only seen it once so far - could have been data corruption... not sure :s - [[User:Phoenix|Phoenix]]

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

Elerium is the very last item to be spawned in a battlescape map (first X-Com equipment, then alien equipment, then Elerium).

If you brought too many items to the battle site, it's possible that there wouldn't be room in memory for the Elerium. Bring along enough stuff and you can also deprive the aliens of their equipment.

Was the Elerium visible during gameplay (little purple stun bomb thingy sitting on the power supply, or white + on the radar)? If so, try picking it up (the power supply won't explode if you just shoot it).

-[[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]]

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

Cheers for that Bomb Bloke - I haven't seen it happen again, as there has always been elerium on the missions that I expect it. After having a read through this site, about the object table overflowing, I can understand how that can happen. I'll keep an eye out for it in the future. Cheers again! :) - [[User:Phoenix|Phoenix]]

----

If you used explosives (grenades or cannons) near the power source, it's possible the Elerium was destroyed (damage=20) while the power source remained intact (damage=50) --[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 21:33, 8 May 2006 (PDT)

----

Re the "mining near Cydonia" issue. As per the UFOpedia:

"It is not naturally found in our solar system and cannot be reproduced."

However, in X-Com 3, [[Transtellar]] mines the stuff from Mars (and brings back regular shipments). Therefore, there must be a reserve near Cydonia.

While there is no official explanation, a meteorite seems to be the most likely cause of this.

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 21:41, 31 May 2007 (PDT)

:My apologies. I do not have access to X-Com: Apocalypse, and was basing my data merely on what was said in the game. In light of the new information, it can be reverted if you desire. `[[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 21:56, 31 May 2007 (PDT)

----

Tequila, I've been away a while and am just noticing your "1 Elerium" section. '''Very''' interesting thoughts! Thanks for that bit of armchair science!!

But I can think of a couple of issues... on the one hand, surely at least the Avenger is space-worthy, which could mean it may fly in little or no atmosphere. This is also probably at least potentially true for all the researched craft, since they all use elerium engines and alien alloys, and are originally designed based on researching UFOs (all of which are space-worthy). Also known as, why not make is space-worthy, if you're designing something strong enough to face UFOs. (Even 1990s fighters could fly very high in the atmosphere, with a principle reason for not going to space being there's no air for their jet engines... but Elerium does away with that concern.) On the other hand, you left out of your calculations the price to be paid for fighting off gravity. That's surely energy expensive! (Look how big rockets have to be.) So you might consider toning down the drag factor... and introducing a big gravity factor, if you care to have another go at it.

I also really like the alternate approach to playing XCOM on your [[User:Tequilachef]] page. A few small conceptual constraints which make a huge difference in game play (a.k.a. there's always a real risk of losing).

- [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 17:34, 10 October 2007 (PDT)

----

You are right I guess. I formerly had the gravity issue included by that:
"Now we take that keeping the craft at max speed only uses 95% of required energy per mission..."
I now changed that to 75%, which seems more likely to fit but is still far from exact.
In reality, the aspect of overcoming gravity would create a VERY complex mathematical problem. Flying higher lowers the atmospheric density and therefore atmospheric drag, but raises fuel requirements for obtaining flight height. Considering that complex flying maneuvers might be necessary for interception and that the starting height might vary from base to base no absolute solution exists. Constant calculations by computers would be a necessity.
Remember: Both atmospheric density and gravity depend on height (or distance from gravity source) and are both differential equations. If anyone reads this and has loads of time, feel free to work out that one. Else, I would prefer those educated guesses ;)

- tequilachef

:It's worth noting that while the UFO Power Source may be incredibly efficient in Elerium use, there is no guarantee that this is so in regards to the alien weapons. In fact, given the size of a power unit, I'd say it's more likely that the weapons are extremely inefficient in Elerium use. (Especially the heavy plasma clip; 3 times the Elerium for one-third more shots and just over double the killing power of the [[Plasma Pistol]].) We also don't know exactly where that Elerium used in construction of the grenade(or anything else) goes; it's quite possible that only a fraction of it goes into the charge/warhead and some is used in the creation of functional parts. Also, it should be noted that explosions do NOT scale linearly; twice as large a warhead on an atomic or hydrogen bomb does not equal twice the explosive power. In addition, it's been theorized that the explosion from UFO Power Sources is not from the impact; its from trying to start the UFO's engines in order to escape incoming X-COM troops before it's ready(thus why the aliens are killed immediately before the X-COM turn begins, and not when the UFO crashes.)

:Of course, since this is fiction, it really doesn't matter, just thought I'd bring a few things to the table since you seem interested in scientific accuracy. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 15:53, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

:: After running the numbers myself (54000nm in 10hr is, indeed, 10000km/hr - or about 278m/s) I can say that the quoted figures are slightly off. According to some quick research the density of air at that altitude is the same as the density of air at sea level. However, I used the classic formula of the drag equation:
::: Fd = 1/2ρv2CdA
::where ρ is the density of the air, v is the velocity, Cd is the coefficient of friction and A is the surface area. Using this we get Fd = 1/2 1.293 * (2782) * 0.3 * 20 - or about 299,785 Newtons of force. For total power requirement we use the Power Requirement equation P=FdR, where Fd is the result of the preceding Drag equation and R is the range - stated as being 100,000km (100,000,000m). Solving that equation we find that we require 2.99785*1013 Joules of energy. This figure, following the figures, is 75% of the total available power from the Elerium, so the total available power is 3.99712848*1013 Joules. With c equal to 299,792,457m/s plugged into Einsteins famous equation of: E = mc2 we get a result of 4.4*10-4 kilograms. However, this is stated as being 99% of the total, so we have a full load of Elerium fuel for the Avenger of 4.49*10-4kilograms. That is, 4.49 '''grams''' of fuel - and as the Avenger is stated as carrying 12 units of Elerium, the result is that each unit is 0.37 grams - that's right, 37 '''centigrams''' of Elerium per fuel unit. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 18:23, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

::As for a Terror Ship containing 200 units of Elerium, if my above math is correct (as I believe), the result of that Elerium detonating at 100% conversion, isn't even equivalent to a 2 Megaton nuclear device. (200 units is about 74grams - direct conversion of all that mass would release about 6.65*1015 Joules of energy. 1 Megaton is equivalent to 4.185*1015 Joules. This places a 200 unit, 100% efficient explosive at about 1.6 Megatons in size. IIRC the largest nuclear device ever built was around 200 Megatons. (Note that the edge of non-overpressure damage for a 1 Megaton blast is around 20 Miles) - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 22:12, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

:Damn, this is all very cool armchair stuff. I just added a link at [[Realistic_Equivalents#Elerium-115]]. If anyone wants to summarize/move all this conjecture there, that's fine, but it sounds like it's still a moving target, as it were. And the E-115 page is a good enough place, anyway. - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 22:42, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

:::I've found an error in my above math. The velocity is 2778m/s, not 278m/s - this makes the force 29,930,555 Newtons. (call it 2.993*107 for simplicity) This makes it 2.993*1015 for the used power, or 3.99*1015 Joules. That works out to 0.0444kg, but, as stated, this is assumed to be 99% due to the 1% inefficiency - so it's 0.0449kg. Makes it 449 grams of Elerium covering 12 units, or around 37 grams of Elerium per unit. This would give a Terror Ship about 7.5 kilo's of Elerium - at 100% efficiency the amount of generated energy would be 6.74*1017 joules released. That would be equal to about 16 thousand megatons - the "Gigaton" designation comes in at 4.184*1018 Joules. This would be enough to shatter the Earth. However, this assumes that all generators detonate at the same time, there is no "material scattering" effect from the first blast(s) and that the Elerium converts at 100% efficiency. None of these things are likely to be true. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 22:54, 2 November 2007 (PDT)
::::Bah, make that around 160 Megatons. This means that there have '''''still''''' been larger nuclear bombs produced on Earth. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 23:03, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

:Very cool. For one thing though, UFO Power Sources do not "chain react", as recently posted at [[UFO_Crash_Recovery#Power_Source_Explosions_and_Elerium_Recovery]]. In the extreme case of the Terror Ship, if 1 PS explodes, it wastes all 3 of the others so that they don't explode. However, isolated PSs can all (independently) explode, as in the case of the Battleship. I have to say though I never saw the earth shatter... clearly those UFO walls are pretty heavy armor. ;) - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 23:08, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

::That's the point I was making. At only 160MT absolute potential for the 200 units of Elerium onboard a Terror Ship, well... That's assuming that all four cores go simultaneously and the Elerium converts at 100% in the "wild" reaction. The truth is that a single core going actually would disrupt the functioning of the other cores - by causing a scattering of the Elerium. As we can assume that each of the four cores contains 50 units, the math shows that each core is capable of somewhere between 39.5 and 40 megatons at the absolute limit. But that is in a perfect reaction - where the Elerium converts 100% to energy. The fact is that an uncontrolled reaction - like that which causes an explosion - is far from ideal, and would be, at most, 90% efficient, if not closer to 50%. And that also assumes that the Elerium's conversion releases the energy in an even mix of heat, pressure and radiation. The more likely result - seeing as how Elerium is capable of being used as a power source for pistols and other compact weapons - is that it releases a lot of easily converted radiation - likely in the form of high-energy beta particles. This isn't to say that Elerium can't have an explosive form of reaction - just that the way it's used in the reactors is probably as a beta-particle and heat generator, and potentially even X-Ray and Gamma-Ray source (both of which can be used with forms of photovoltaics to generate electricty). If they go for the efficient side, then the reaction used in reactors is more than 50 percent focused towards directly convertable forms of energy. Truthfully, I'm guessing that they focus it at 75 to 80 percent "hard radiation" (beta, gamma-ray and x-ray) output. This means that such a reactor going super-critical and exploding wouldn't do a lot of physical damage from the blast, but it would irradiate quite a bit. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 14:41, 3 November 2007 (PDT)

:::I thought along similar lines. Your typical old-fashioned Hiroshima-style fission bomb contains like what, 10kg of U-235? Or whatever is the critical mass. But most of it is vaporized and sent flying in all directions as soon as things really get hot. Only a small amount actually reacts before the rest is blown apart. And this in a device that's meant to explode. IIRC, in Chernobyl none of the fissionable material actually exploded – excess heat produced a lot of steam which forced the lid open, then air rushing in allowed the graphite to catch fire and burn for days. In effect all fissionable material was wasted (in the sense of "not recoverable") yet in terms of explosions, it was nothing special. --[[User:Schnobs|Schnobs]] 19:01, 3 November 2007 (PDT)

:I've written a [http://shadowwolf.keil-draco.com/solver.py.txt program in Python] that solves all the equations - including the Barometric function for atmospheric density. On running it and giving it all the above parameters I've learned that even my "corrected" figures are off. An Avenger is carrying about 25.5 grams of Elerium, which makes each unit about 21/8 grams. This would give a Terror Ship a full load of 425 grams of Elerium, and a "perfect conditions" explosive potential of around 9Mt - the MIRV warheads on most missiles in the US arsenal during the 1960's was larger than that. Taking [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed's]] reminder that Elerium reactors do not chain-react and [[User:Schnobs|Schnobs']] reminder that nuclear explosions never use the whole mass of the available material - a "high-end" estimate of material that reacts would be 50% - this would leave us with a single-reactor explosion of 1.25Mt - about four hundred times the total combined destructive potential of the (in)famous "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1944. However, the quoted figure for the size of the fireball for a 1Mt nuclear device (the US Minuteman Missile) is .96km. So the fireball from a 1.25Mt device is going to be about 1 mile. This says nothing about the area damaged or destroyed by the pressure-wave that a nuke generates. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 01:21, 4 November 2007 (PST) (corrected later - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 02:24, 4 November 2007 (PST))

::Based on the 11 tile blast radius of any power core and the 2.26 meter per tile conjecture we can see that the blast diameter of a power core is approximately 50 meters. With a 960m blast diameter being what is expected from a 1 Megaton bomb, and a 48m one from a 20 kiloton bomb, we find that the power cores detonation is right around 20 kilotons. That means that about 1 gram of material has been consumed for the explosion. In other words, not even a single unit of Elerium detonates. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 21:09, 4 November 2007 (PST)

:::I don't know where or how you came by the figures of 960m or 48m respectively, but have some doubt as to what they actually mean. Pictures from the japanese cities are not conclusive (bomb was touched off high above ground, many wooden buildings might have withstood the actual blast but we won't know as they burned to the ground anyway). However, from chemistry class I remembered an explosion in a fertilizer plant ([http://www.bufata-chemie.de/reader/ig_farben/pics/1-4-3_01_oppau-big.jpg picture]) that was rated in kilotons. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion Wikipedia] speaks of 1-2kt and a 90x125m crater, which would be like 40x50 tiles in UFO scale. This explosion happened at ground level, the buildings were brick or concrete. Looking at the picture, I don't think any explosions in UFO, not even Blaster Bombs, are anywhere near kiloton scale. --[[User:Schnobs|Schnobs]] 10:51, 5 November 2007 (PST)

::::The values come from the [[wikipedia:Nuclear weapon yield|Wikipedia article about Nuclear Weapons Yield]]. On that page is an equation that can determine yield from blast radius and time after the start of the blast and a diagram of blast radius based on yield. In said diagram it lists the blast diameter of a 1 Megaton bomb (W59 - the Minuteman 1) at .96km - ie: 960 meters - and the blast radius of a 20 kiloton bomb ("Fat Man" - the "gun type" uranium fission device dropped on Nagasaki) at 48 meters. Note that this is the size of the fireball and not the damage radius caused by a nuclear weapons overpressure event.

::::The city of Hiroshima sits inside a natural "Bowl" or depression in the landscape. The "Little Boy" bomb is estimated to have only been 13 kilotons and the damage effect was multiplied because of the airburst (IIRC, "Little Boy" detonated some 100 feet about the ground) and the damage was magnified by the shockwave from the detonation reflecting off the hills surrounding the city. It was nearly the same for the higher yield "Fat Man" device that was used against Nagasaki. (In fact, if I remember my High School history classes correctly, it was the geography of the two locations that was the reason for them being chosen as targets).

::::In conclusion I'd like to say that I doubt that the reactor explosions themselves are nuclear in nature. It is much more likely that they originate from sources very similar to the cause of the explosion at Chernobyl. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 15:30, 5 November 2007 (PST)

:While it doesn't change the ultimate conclusion of "not even a single unit detonating", I'd say any more then 1 meter per tile is being more then a bit generous. 2.26 meters suggests the average unit is over a meter and a half wide, and somewhere over three meters tall. Where did that value come from?! - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 22:29, 4 November 2007 (PST)

:::It came from [[User_talk:Danial|here]]. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 22:38, 4 November 2007 (PST)

::::Correct. [[User:Danial|Danial]] has estimated that each tile is approximately 2.26m2 on his [[User talk:Danial|talk page]]. I have no interest in this, really, other than of an academic nature, since it can be used to estimate the yield of the device that created the fireball. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 15:30, 5 November 2007 (PST)

::::If [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Blokes]] 1.6x1.6x2.4 meter size of a single tile is correct, then a Reactor has a blast diameter of 35.2 meters. Using the "Radius from Yield" equation of R = (Et2/ρ)1/5 we can solve to find the actual yield of the device. I'll run that equation later, but I'm estimating that the yield is less than 10 kilotons. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 16:21, 5 November 2007 (PST)

::::Okay, assuming that the explosion is at sea-level (ρ = 1.2550kg/m3) and the explosion covers the entire 11 tile radius at the end of a TU (using [[User:Danial|Danials]] 1.71m/s speed estimate we can see that a TU is 18.7s based on the 20 tiles a soldier with 80TU's can cover) we can solve the above equation for bomb yield. (that is, E=R5ρ/t2) and arrive at a yield of about 6060.71 Joules of power - about 1.5 '''microtons'''. This seems to indicate that the estimate of the length of a TU is wrong, or that the explosion does not consume an entire TU. If we accept that the TU length is correct and that the explosion does not consume an entire TU - highly unlikely that an explosion would take 18.7 seconds to occur anyway - and run with a figure of 1/1000th of a TU (0.0187s for the explosion to occur) we find that the explosion is much more powerful 6060714855.6 J - or about 1.4 tons. And the figure will continue to rise the shorter the time-span for developing to that diameter is. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 17:03, 5 November 2007 (PST)

::::Using [[User:Danial|Danials]] estimate of 2.26m per tile the result is a bit more — 34077375066.3 J - about 8.1 tons. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 17:18, 5 November 2007 (PST)

::::Note: The Trinity test has been officially stated as having been 20 kilotons. Based on examination of the released videos of that blast [[wikipedia:Geoffrey Ingram Taylor|one scientist]] has calculated it's power at about [[wikipedia:Nuclear weapon yield#Calculating yields and controversy|22 kilotons]]. (The numbers he used were: R = 140m, t = 0.025, ρ = 1 - using those same numbers we can see that he arrived at a value of 86051840000000 J – about 20.6 kilotons) What the preceding means is that the above stated equation (E=R5ρ/t2 is correct :P - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 17:55, 5 November 2007 (PST)

::::Sadly, [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] has pointed out an error in my math regarding the length of a TU. I used the 20 tiles in 80 TU's as a base for the equation, multiplying the '20 tiles' by the distance of 1.6 meters per tile. However, I must have been out of my mind in reporting 18.7 seconds per TU. Running the numbers by hand (on a piece of paper!) I've found that 20*1.6*1.71 makes that 80 TU turn approximately 55 seconds long. Dividing that by the 80 TU's in said turn we find that each TU is about 0.69 seconds long. Re-running the above stated equation with the reactor detonation taking 1 TU and 1/1000th of a TU we get the following results:
::::* 1 TU: 3,572,876 J - not even 1 ton
::::* one thousandth of a TU: 3,572,875,919,360 - 854 tons
::::If we use [[User:Danial|Danials]] 2.26m per tile figure we find that 1 TU is 0.97 seconds long. Solving the above equation using the 2.26 meters and 0.97 seconds per TU figure we have the following numbers for the size of a reactor cores explosion:
::::* 1 TU: 10,302,987 J - again, not even 1 ton
::::* one thousandth of a TU: 10,302,987,085,467 J - 2.5 kilotons
::::As you can see, the size of a tile not only affects the length of a TU (0.69s for a 1.6mx1.6mx2.4m tile, 0.97s for a 2.26mx2.26mx2.4m tile) but also the apparent yield of a reactors explosion. Now, as noted before (I think I mentioned it anyway), 1 gram of matter converting to energy creates an explosion of around 20 kilotons. This means that, if a reactors explosion is nuclear in nature, it's using about 1/10th of a gram of Elerium to create the result.
::::Finally, I did forget to mention that the figure only applies if the reactor detonations fireball creates the 11 tile damage radius and it is not the result of other features of a nuclear detonation. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 18:29, 5 November 2007 (PST)

:::::Stepping away from all previous figures and estimating a tile as being 1.71m2, and using the bog standard human walking rate of 1.71m/s we find that, since it takes a rookie an average of 4 TU's to cross one tile that a single TU is 1/4 of a second. Using that together with the above stated 1.71m2 tile size we get the following results:
:::::* 1TU: 37,675,928 J - about 0.009 tons
:::::* one thousandth of a TU: 37,675,928,185,077 - about 9 kilotons
:::::Again, this assumes that all the damage seen inside that 11 tile radius was caused by the fireball. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 18:57, 5 November 2007 (PST)

::::::These "initial fireballs" are a somewhat artificial concept, allowing you to gauge the yield of a nuclear weapon. But equalling it to any distinguishable radius of destruction is nonsense. I suggest you refer to [[wikipedia:Effects of nuclear explosions#Direct effects]] instead. --[[User:Schnobs|Schnobs]]

:::::::I see your Wikipedia article and raise you the one that spawned the equation I used - [[wikipedia:Nuclear weapons yield#Calculating yields and controversy. I never said "Initial Fireball" and that isn't an "Artificial Concept". Each Nuclear Detonation creates a "Fireball" of varying size, simply because, in pure fission reactions, it causes the air to superheat and in Fusion reactions, because that is what the insanely hot, reacting plasma is - a mass of super-hot plasma. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 19:23, 6 November 2007 (PST)

::::::::A value of 200m for the Nagasaki Bomb struck me as a trifle odd. Ain't that a bit small? Also, what's this talk about a precise fireball size? Shouldn't it just get larger and larger until it eventually dissipates? So, when exactly will the fireball have the stated size?

::::::::I therefore read that article and a followed a few source links (hint: each picture has an article of it's own). Apparently, the given size refers to the moment when the shock wave will overtake the plasma; the air at the shock front will be heavly compressed, hence also hot and bright, but nowhere as bright as the plasma; also, the shock front is incandescent, eclipsing the fireball inside (I'm really struggling for words here, I hope you still get what I'm trying to tell). It was me who called it an initial fireball because it happens after a few milliseconds. Check that Trinity photo -- it's dated 25ms and depicts the shockfront, not the fireball. Maybe I should have named it not "artificial but an "abstract" concept, though. But I still hold the opinion that it's too simple to equal the burst pattern on a UFO floor to the size the fireball happens to have by the time the shock front catches up. --[[User:Schnobs|Schnobs]] 14:14, 7 November 2007 (PST)

:::::::::Ah, okay. I can't argue with that. And you are right, that picture is from the moment when the shock front ovtertakes the plasma. If memory serves, it's the shock front that does the damage, so I'm probably wrong in the figures, although thinking about it, there is no real way to apply the equation in the manner that I did. At that, it might be impossible to apply it at all.

:::::::::As to the small size of the fireball from both the Fat Man and Little Boy devices, you have to remember that both Hiroshima and Nagaski are located in natural depressions in the terrain. They are something like bowls, low plains surrounded by hills and mountains. The shock front was powerful enough that, when they contacted the surrounding terrain, they reflected back into the bowl. So the cities were destroyed by more than the initial shockwave and fireball - they got hit by the shockwave at least twice. And the area directly under "Ground Zero" (both bombs were air burst - Fat Man had a radar proximity trigger) got hit even worse, because it was caught by the shockwave and used as a reflector for the shockwave. - [[User:Shadow|Shadow]] 07:42, 8 November 2007 (PST)

::::::::::If you absolutely want to gauge the yield of a power source explosion, I suggest you compare it to the damage done by something we know. How many grenades stacked on top of each other would it take to damage the UFO interior (walls & floor) in the way a power source explosion does? Then look up the amount of explosives in a typical hand grenade and there you go. As to fireball size... there's an old saying, comparing arguments like this to the paralympics. Yet I can not resist.

::::::::::a) the size stated in that wikipedia article is by no means the final size. It's not as if the fireball would reach a certain size and suddenly vanish. It grows ever larger and starts to rise, becoming the cap of the mushroom cloud (by then it's no longer a ball and merely glowing, of course). Defining the fireball size as "the size at the moment when the shockwave catches up with the fireball" is somewhat arbitrary, but you've got to draw the line somewhere. And this definition refers to a time when it's still most certainly a ball, and it'S size directly related to the yield of the bomb (that is to say, other factors like terrain, wind, air pressure, moisture etc are relatively insignificant). That's alright for an article that deals with yield (as in kt or MT equivalents); damage is something else entirely, covered in another article.
::::::::::b) "Overtaking" sounds as if the shockwave would start somewhere inside the fireball, but of course the shockwave is not a seperate effect. It's the result of all the superheated air trying to expand rapidly. Some sources say the shockwave "detaches from" the fireball, which seems more apt.
::::::::::c) I guess you've misunderstood the Mach Stem: the reflected shock front moves faster in air that has already been accelerated by the main shock front; the reflected front will therefore catch up and combine with the main shock front, reinforcing it. ([http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Mach_effect_sequence.png diagram]). That's reinforcement, not amplification: the shock wave will not become more forceful because of the Mach effect, but it will lose power at a slower rate (which means same damage over a larger area). Please note that the development of the Mach Stem does not depend on any terrain features (in fact, a flat surface may be as good as it gets). In the past few days I've read more than I ever wanted to know about nuclear explosions, but all sources go along the lines that the valley at Nagasaki served to confine the damage, not a single word about reinforcement or amplification. Maybe destruction in the valley was so complete that a possible reinforcement would have made no difference any more. --[[User:Schnobs|Schnobs]] 13:42, 8 November 2007 (PST)
:Great armchair discussion, folks. Now if only you could bring some biology into it, I might jump in. Re: the indentation, I think the [[Talk:Main_Page#Discussion.2Ftalk_page_proposed_format|general idea]] is to only indent about 4-6 levels deep, then reset back to one. Also - and I hope I don't seem picky here, I love the flow of ideas - it seems like sometimes super and subscripting might be used better. A simple e.g. "m/s" is acceptable for meters per second, and sometimes it seems like e.g. "R = (Et2/ρ)1/5" might better be R = (Et2/ρ)1/5. On my PC, the extra super- and sub-scripting seems to be messing with line overlap.
:All that aside, please keep going! It's an interesting reality check, to check back from e.g. the damage of a standard grenade, to back-evaluate the damage caused. One crazy thing about X-COM explosions is how they have "hard wired" edges, as seen in e.g. [[Explosions#Playing_With_Fire]]. That's hard to figure into the parlor computations. The standard grenade is the only explosive that does not have "artificial clipping" of its blast radius performed. - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 17:04, 9 November 2007 (PST)

Wow, never would have guessed that me being bored on a train and trying to kill time by this would start such a long discussion. Well... nice :)
- tequilachef

Elerium-115

2007-12-29T17:50:22Z

Tequilachef: /* How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? */

Elerium, otherwise known as element 115, is the energy source for all alien techonologies. Mined from reserves near [[Cydonia]], it has a variety of uses. However, it cannot be found on Earth...

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS56.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Size: 1 high x 1 wide
*Weight: 3
*Sell Price: $5000</td></tr></table>

== Obtaining Elerium ==
Elerium cannot be synthesized on Earth; it can only be obtained from [[UFO Assault]]s or [[Alien Base Assault]]s. Elerium is housed within [[UFO Power Source]]s, and is very fragile. If upon starting a UFO assault you find a [[UFO Power Source]] to have been destroyed (as a result of a crash landing), its Elerium will surely have been destroyed as well. Be careful about using explosives near intact UFO Power sources, as the Elerium within is easily toasted!

At the end of a successful mission, any Elerium contained within intact UFO Power Sources will be automatically collected and returned to your base. If for some reason you need to end a mission prematurely, you can still collect Elerium by hand, by shooting open a UFO Power Source (generally with a plasma weapon). For more on securing Elerium in this way, see [[UFO Power Source]]s.

Perhaps the most efficient way to gain a stock of Elerium is to find an Alien Base and attack the [[Supply Ship]]s as they land nearby. Leave the base intact to attract more supply ships, as the Elerium is worth more than the score penalty (150 units per intact Supply Ship).

UFO Power Sources can also be found in ''some'' Alien Bases, if they have a particular base "module". You can raid such a base without having to win the mission, and have a soldier carry the Elerium back to the entry lift and then abort (see [[Alien Base Assault#Smash And Grab]] for more details). Attacking the base's Supply Ships is likely to be a safer and more reliable source of Elerium, however; see [[UFO Recovery Values#Alien Base Assaults]] for more details.

On the map, Elerium appears as a purple ball (the same graphic as a [[Stun Bomb]] on the ground). This object is worth 50 points of Elerium. During [[Base Defense]], some of your own Elerium from stores may appear on the battlescape. This is a Good Thing if you win the mission, as each unit is represented as a pod and can be recovered for ''fifty'' units. This is probably a bug and appears to be absent from the Collector's Edition.

== Uses ==
'''Don't sell Elerium.''' Although you do have the option to do so, this is to be highly discouraged. It is used to fuel the [[Firestorm]], the [[Lightning]], and the [[Avenger]]. It is also used, in varying amounts, to [[manufacture]] most [[Alien Artefacts]], [[Flying Suit]]s, and various other technologies. Given that you can only obtain Elerium in the battlefield, selling it is not a good idea. If you choose to, it will fetch you $5,000 per unit.

== Elerium In Reality ==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium Ununpentium], the temporary name for synthesized element 115, was only created briefly in atomic laboratories in 2004 and is not the subject of much research. However UFO 'researcher' Robert Lazar made several [http://www.beyondweird.com/element115.html claims] about E-115 in the 1980's. For example, it would be the only element that had a gravitational field extending past it's own atomic 'shell'. This deviance from the normal rule would be so significant that perhaps the technologies seen in the [[X-Com Series]] could become a reality - anti-gravity devices used for both flight and particle acceleration.

== How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? ==
Since some information about the physical laws that rule Elerium-related technology is given in the game this question can be answered to some extend. To fit elerium into the laws of physics, some basic facts have to be “chosen”. The only way to equal an amount of elerium to an amount of power is to calculate the power needed by elerium-propelled crafts. I chose the “Avenger” for this calculation. Since it is the most advanced craft built by X-Com we can assume it has maximum efficiency, which eases the maths a bit.

I also assumed that the weight of the elerium item that can be picked up in combat (3 weight units) can not be used to deduct the actual mass of elerium in this item.

First we have to find the “Avenger”s maximum speed in SI units.

r * f / t = v

With r as range (54000 nautic miles), t as time that the craft needs for that range (10 hours) and f as factor translating nautic miles into kilometres (1.852) the maximum speed v is almost exactly 10,000 km/h.

The required power for maintaining this speed can be deducted solely from atmospheric drag.

F = v^2 * RHO * A * C_d /2

P = F*r

With v as velocity (10,000 km/h), RHO as density of atmosphere (see below), A as area where the drag applies to the craft (for the “Avenger” this would be roughly estimated 20 m^2), C_d as drag coefficient (since the “Avenger” should be constructed quite well I estimated 0.3) and r as range in kilometres (100000), F is the force applied by atmospheric resistance and P the total power over total range that is used to overcome this resistance.

I took 5000 ft. as average flight height to estimate the atmospheric density. This means that RHO roughly equals 0.85.

The velocity has to be [m/s] and the range has to be [m] to fit for the following formulas.

Therefore follows: F = 1.968 * 10^7 kN and P = F * 10^9 = 1.968 * 10 ^16 kNm

Now we take that keeping the craft at max speed only uses 75% of required energy per mission, since combat situations as well as turning, starting and landing (overcoming inertia) use extra power. Now we use Einsteins most popular formula to calculate the required mass from our power requirements:

1,968 * 10^16 / 0.75 = m´ * c^2

Therefore follows: m´ = 291.555 g

Taking into account that “only” 99% of mass is converted into energy:

m = 291.555 / 0.99 = 294.5 grams , which is the mass carrying the “Avenger” for 100.000 kilometres!!!

Since an “Avenger” is fuelled with 12 units of elerium, one unit wheights roughly 25 grams, which means one UFO power source carries about 1.25 kilogram of elerium. This also means that the explosions of UFO Power Sources after crashing are BY FAR too small. An explosion in which less than 0.1% (around 1 gram) of the contained Elerium is transformed into energy had more explosive force than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Shooting down a terror ship with 4 power sources destroyed would therefore almost certainly end the battle for Earth... by completely vaporizing it :/ And keep in mind: An alien grenade contains 25 grams of elerium, enough to destroy the USA (or kill Chuck Norris).

[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

Alien Artefacts

2007-12-29T17:46:37Z

Tequilachef:

'''Alien Artefacts''' are all forms of equipment, weapons and ammunition used by the aliens. X-Com will only score points for recovered Artefacts that have not yet been [[research]]ed (Elerium-115 will still make points for "UFO Recovery" though). The following items are [[Equipment Recovery|recoverable]] from [[UFOs]], [[Alien Base Assault|Alien Bases]], [[Terror Mission]]s and [[Base Defense|X-Com Base Defense Missions]] (although Elerium-115 cannot be recovered from the latter two):

*[[Plasma Pistol]]
**[[Plasma Pistol Clip]]
*[[Plasma Rifle]]
**[[Plasma Rifle Clip]]
*[[Heavy Plasma]]
**[[Heavy Plasma Clip]]
*[[Small Launcher]]
**[[Stun Bomb]]
*[[Blaster Launcher]]
**[[Blaster Bomb]]
*[[Mind Probe]]
*[[Alien Grenade]]
*[[Elerium-115]]
[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

Elerium-115

2007-11-02T19:19:31Z

Tequilachef: /* How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? */

Elerium, otherwise known as element 115, is the energy source for all alien techonologies. Mined from reserves near [[Cydonia]], it has a variety of uses. However, it cannot be found on Earth...

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS56.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Size: 1 high x 1 wide
*Weight: 3
*Sell Price: $5000</td></tr></table>

== Obtaining Elerium ==
Elerium cannot be synthesized on Earth; it can only be obtained from [[UFO Assault]]s or [[Alien Base Assault]]s. Elerium is housed within [[UFO Power Source]]s, and is very fragile. If upon starting a UFO assault you find a [[UFO Power Source]] to have been destroyed (as a result of a crash landing), its Elerium will surely have been destroyed as well. Be careful about using explosives near intact UFO Power sources, as the Elerium within is easily toasted!

At the end of a successful mission, any Elerium contained within intact UFO Power Sources will be automatically collected and returned to your base. If for some reason you need to end a mission prematurely, you can still collect Elerium by hand, by shooting open a UFO Power Source (generally with a plasma weapon). For more on securing Elerium in this way, see [[UFO Power Source]]s.

Perhaps the most efficient way to gain a stock of Elerium is to find an Alien Base and attack the [[Supply Ship]]s as they land nearby. Leave the base intact to attract more supply ships, as the Elerium is worth more than the score penalty (150 units per intact Supply Ship).

UFO Power Sources can also be found in ''some'' Alien Bases, if they have a particular base "module". You can raid such a base without having to win the mission, and have a soldier carry the Elerium back to the entry lift and then abort (see [[Alien Base Assault#Smash And Grab]] for more details). Attacking the base's Supply Ships is likely to be a safer and more reliable source of Elerium, however; see [[UFO Recovery Values#Alien Base Assaults]] for more details.

On the map, Elerium appears as a purple ball (the same graphic as a [[Stun Bomb]] on the ground). This object is worth 50 points of Elerium. During [[Base Defense]], some of your own Elerium from stores may appear on the battlescape. This is a Good Thing if you win the mission, as each unit is represented as a pod and can be recovered for ''fifty'' units. This is probably a bug and appears to be absent from the Collector's Edition.

== Uses ==
'''Don't sell Elerium.''' Although you do have the option to do so, this is to be highly discouraged. It is used to fuel the [[Firestorm]], the [[Lightning]], and the [[Avenger]]. It is also used, in varying amounts, to [[manufacture]] most [[Alien Artefacts]], [[Flying Suit]]s, and various other technologies. Given that you can only obtain Elerium in the battlefield, selling it is not a good idea. If you choose to, it will fetch you $5,000 per unit.

== Elerium In Reality ==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium Ununpentium], the temporary name for synthesized element 115, was only created briefly in atomic laboratories in 2004 and is not the subject of much research. However UFO 'researcher' Robert Lazar made several [http://www.beyondweird.com/element115.html claims] about E-115 in the 1980's. For example, it would be the only element that had a gravitational field extending past it's own atomic 'shell'. This deviance from the normal rule would be so significant that perhaps the technologies seen in the [[X-Com Series]] could become a reality - anti-gravity devices used for both flight and particle acceleration.

== How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? ==
Since some information about the physical laws that rule Elerium-related technology is given in the game this question can be answered to some extend. To fit elerium into the laws of physics, some basic facts have to be “chosen”. The only way to equal an amount of elerium to an amount of power is to calculate the power needed by elerium-propelled crafts. I chose the “Avenger” for this calculation. Since it is the most advanced craft built by X-Com we can assume it has maximum efficiency, which eases the maths a bit.

I also assumed that the weight of the elerium item that can be picked up in combat (3 weight units) can not be used to deduct the actual mass of elerium in this item.

First we have to find the “Avenger”s maximum speed in SI units.

r * f / t = v

With r as range (54000 nautic miles), t as time that the craft needs for that range (10 hours) and f as factor translating nautic miles into kilometres (1.852) the maximum speed v is almost exactly 10,000 km/h.

The required power for maintaining this speed can be deducted solely from atmospheric drag.

F = v^2 * RHO * A * C_d /2

P = F*r

With v as velocity (10,000 km/h), RHO as density of atmosphere (see below), A as area where the drag applies to the craft (for the “Avenger” this would be roughly estimated 20 m^2), C_d as drag coefficient (since the “Avenger” should be constructed quite well I estimated 0.3) and r as range in kilometres (100000), F is the force applied by atmospheric resistance and P the total power over total range that is used to overcome this resistance.

I took 5000 ft. as average flight height to estimate the atmospheric density. This means that RHO roughly equals 0.85.

The velocity has to be [m/s] and the range has to be [m] to fit for the following formulas.

Therefore follows: F = 1.968 * 10^7 kN and P = F * 10^9 = 1.968 * 10 ^16 kNm

Now we take that keeping the craft at max speed only uses 75% of required energy per mission, since combat situations as well as turning, starting and landing (overcoming inertia) use extra power. Now we use Einsteins most popular formula to calculate the required mass from our power requirements:

1,968 * 10^16 / 0.95 = m´ * c^2

Therefore follows: m´ = 291.555 g

Taking into account that “only” 99% of mass is converted into energy:

m = 291.555 / 0.99 = 294.5 grams , which is the mass carrying the “Avenger” for 100.000 kilometres!!!

Since an “Avenger” is fuelled with 12 units of elerium, one unit wheights roughly 25 grams, which means one UFO power source carries about 1.25 kilogram of elerium. This also means that the explosions of UFO Power Sources after crashing are BY FAR too small. An explosion in which less than 0.1% (around 1 gram) of the contained Elerium is transformed into energy had more explosive force than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Shooting down a terror ship with 4 power sources destroyed would therefore almost certainly end the battle for Earth... by completely vaporizing it :/ And keep in mind: An alien grenade contains 25 grams of elerium, enough to destroy the USA (or kill Chuck Norris).

[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

Talk:Elerium-115

2007-11-02T19:09:24Z

Tequilachef:

Elerium-115

2007-11-02T18:38:40Z

Tequilachef: /* How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? */ Changed the math

Elerium, otherwise known as element 115, is the energy source for all alien techonologies. Mined from reserves near [[Cydonia]], it has a variety of uses. However, it cannot be found on Earth...

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS56.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Size: 1 high x 1 wide
*Weight: 3
*Sell Price: $5000</td></tr></table>

== Obtaining Elerium ==
Elerium cannot be synthesized on Earth; it can only be obtained from [[UFO Assault]]s or [[Alien Base Assault]]s. Elerium is housed within [[UFO Power Source]]s, and is very fragile. If upon starting a UFO assault you find a [[UFO Power Source]] to have been destroyed (as a result of a crash landing), its Elerium will surely have been destroyed as well. Be careful about using explosives near intact UFO Power sources, as the Elerium within is easily toasted!

At the end of a successful mission, any Elerium contained within intact UFO Power Sources will be automatically collected and returned to your base. If for some reason you need to end a mission prematurely, you can still collect Elerium by hand, by shooting open a UFO Power Source (generally with a plasma weapon). For more on securing Elerium in this way, see [[UFO Power Source]]s.

Perhaps the most efficient way to gain a stock of Elerium is to find an Alien Base and attack the [[Supply Ship]]s as they land nearby. Leave the base intact to attract more supply ships, as the Elerium is worth more than the score penalty (150 units per intact Supply Ship).

UFO Power Sources can also be found in ''some'' Alien Bases, if they have a particular base "module". You can raid such a base without having to win the mission, and have a soldier carry the Elerium back to the entry lift and then abort (see [[Alien Base Assault#Smash And Grab]] for more details). Attacking the base's Supply Ships is likely to be a safer and more reliable source of Elerium, however; see [[UFO Recovery Values#Alien Base Assaults]] for more details.

On the map, Elerium appears as a purple ball (the same graphic as a [[Stun Bomb]] on the ground). This object is worth 50 points of Elerium. During [[Base Defense]], some of your own Elerium from stores may appear on the battlescape. This is a Good Thing if you win the mission, as each unit is represented as a pod and can be recovered for ''fifty'' units. This is probably a bug and appears to be absent from the Collector's Edition.

== Uses ==
'''Don't sell Elerium.''' Although you do have the option to do so, this is to be highly discouraged. It is used to fuel the [[Firestorm]], the [[Lightning]], and the [[Avenger]]. It is also used, in varying amounts, to [[manufacture]] most [[Alien Artefacts]], [[Flying Suit]]s, and various other technologies. Given that you can only obtain Elerium in the battlefield, selling it is not a good idea. If you choose to, it will fetch you $5,000 per unit.

== Elerium In Reality ==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium Ununpentium], the temporary name for synthesized element 115, was only created briefly in atomic laboratories in 2004 and is not the subject of much research. However UFO 'researcher' Robert Lazar made several [http://www.beyondweird.com/element115.html claims] about E-115 in the 1980's. For example, it would be the only element that had a gravitational field extending past it's own atomic 'shell'. This deviance from the normal rule would be so significant that perhaps the technologies seen in the [[X-Com Series]] could become a reality - anti-gravity devices used for both flight and particle acceleration.

== How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? ==
Since some information about the physical laws that rule Elerium-related technology is given in the game this question can be answered to some extend. To fit elerium into the laws of physics, some basic facts have to be “chosen”. The only way to equal an amount of elerium to an amount of power is to calculate the power needed by elerium-propelled crafts. I chose the “Avenger” for this calculation. Since it is the most advanced craft built by X-Com we can assume it has maximum efficiency, which eases the maths a bit.

I also assumed that the weight of the elerium item that can be picked up in combat (3 weight units) can not be used to deduct the actual mass of elerium in this item.

First we have to find the “Avenger”s maximum speed in SI units.

r * f / t = v

With r as range (54000 nautic miles), t as time that the craft needs for that range (10 hours) and f as factor translating nautic miles into kilometres (1.852) the maximum speed v is almost exactly 10,000 km/h.

The required power for maintaining this speed can be deducted solely from atmospheric drag.

F = v^2 * RHO * A * C_d /2

P = F*r

With v as velocity (10,000 km/h), RHO as density of atmosphere (see below), A as area where the drag applies to the craft (for the “Avenger” this would be roughly estimated 20 m^2), C_d as drag coefficient (since the “Avenger” should be constructed quite well I estimated 0.3) and r as range in kilometres (100000), F is the force applied by atmospheric resistance and P the total power over total range that is used to overcome this resistance.

I took 5000 ft. as average flight height to estimate the atmospheric density. This means that RHO roughly equals 0.85.

The velocity has to be [m/s] and the range has to be [m] to fit for the following formulas.

Therefore follows: F = 1.968 * 10^7 kN and P = F * 10^9 = 1.968 * 10 ^16 kNm

Now we take that keeping the craft at max speed only uses 75% of required energy per mission, since combat situations as well as turning, starting and landing (overcoming inertia) use extra power. Now we use Einsteins most popular formula to calculate the required mass from our power requirements:

1,968 * 10^16 / 0.95 = m´ * c^2

Therefore follows: m´ = 291.555 g

Taking into account that “only” 99% of mass is converted into energy:

m = 291.555 / 0.99 = 294.5 grams , which is the mass carrying the “Avenger” for 100.000 kilometres!!!

Since an “Avenger” is fuelled with 12 units of elerium, one unit wheights roughly 25 grams, which means one UFO power source carries about 1.25 kilogram of elerium. This also means that the explosions of UFO Power Sources after crashing are BY FAR too small. An explosion in which less than 0.1% (around 1 gram) of the contained Elerium is transformed into energy had more explosive force than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Shooting down a terror ship with 4 power sources destroyed would therefore almost certainly end the battle for Earth... by completely vaporizing it :/

[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

Cyberdisc

2007-08-28T06:55:57Z

Tequilachef: /* Notes */

[[Image:cyberdisc.gif|right|Cyberdisc]]
'''Cyberdiscs''' are an alien [[Terror Units|terror unit]] accompanying [[Sectoid]]s. As with all terror units, they can be encountered on [[Terror Mission]]s, [[Base Defense]], with a [[Terror Ship]] or [[Battleship]], [[Alien Base Assault]]s and finally in [[Cydonia]].

The Cyberdisc's only means of attack is its plasma beam doing an impressive 130HP damage. The Cyberdisc has another characteristic which makes it rather deadly, and that is, it can explode upon death with an average GZ strength of 120 and damage radius of 7 (diameter 15). Upon targeting a Cyberdisc, be wary of this blast radius as your soldiers, or perhaps a wandering [[Civilian]], could find themselves in a world of hurts.

==Statistics==
'''TUs:''' 62-72
'''Health:''' 120
'''Energy:''' 90-105
'''Reactions:''' 64-75
'''Strength:''' 90-105
'''Bravery:''' 110
'''Firing Accuracy:''' 30-70
'''Throwing Accuracy:''' N/A
'''Psi Skill:''' N/A
'''Psi Strength:''' 100-116

'''Damage:''' 130
'''Accuracy-'''
'''Snap:''' 75%
'''Aimed:''' 110%
'''TUs-'''
'''Snap:''' 30%
'''Aimed:''' 60%

==Live Specimen==
This miniature flying saucer is an automated terror weapon armed with a powerful plasma beam. The anti-grav propulsion gives it a big advantage in difficult terrain. Its primary function is destruction and terror in the service of the [[Sectoid]] race.

==Autopsy==
[[Image:cyberdiscautopsy.gif|right|Cyberdisc - Autopsy]]
The Cyberdisc is well shielded and is particularly good at withstanding explosive ammunition. The primary anti-gravity system is too badly damaged to gain any understanding of its functioning.

Note: you may have difficulty getting an intact corpse because of its explosive nature. Shoot the Cyberdisc to kill it when its one level above the ground, it drops down to ground level, hits the ground and becomes a corpse, THEN the explosion goes off where it was just hovering: ie: at one level off the ground. Guaranteed works if corpse falls flat.

==Notes==
The following are some miscellaneous notes on the Cyberdisc:
* The Cyberdisc takes 0.8x damage from armour-piercing weapons.
* It takes 0.6x damage from high explosives.
* It has a flat profile (smaller than a Sectoid), making for a harder target (per square).
* Takes up 4 squares on the battlescape.
* Has very high health.
* Has very high strength.
* Very high [[Psi Strength]], making it harder to mind-control and/or panic.
* Can attack up to 3 times in one turn. It fires with such frequency that many commanders have mistaken it for an auto-shot.
*On any mission where the Sectoids have their Cyberdisc terror unit, they will also have a Leader capable of [[Psionics]].
**However, not all missions with Sectoid Psionics will have Cyberdiscs.
* Take this hovering manhole cover down with Heavy Rockets, Heavy Cannon, High Explosive packs, or Alien Grenades. Laser Pistols work okay, and Laser Rifles work very well. Forget standard rifles - they're just too tough. If two Cyberdiscs are close together, the self-destruct explosion from one may be enough to bring down the second.
* Although they cannot be stunned, cyberdiscs seem to take damage from [[Stun Rod|stun rods]] and will not explode if they are finished by one. This is very useful if a cyberdisc on an battleship ground assault spawns in the small storage room, 1st floor right north to the access lift, what otherwise might make it necessary to sacrifice some soldiers to kill it. This at least gives your men a chance.

==See Also==
*[[Sectoid]]
*[[Bio-Drone]]
*[[Mind Control#Mind controlling 4-square units - a bug|Problems with mind control]]

[[Category:Alien life forms]]

Cyberdisc

2007-08-28T06:53:46Z

Tequilachef: /* Notes */ adding cyberdisc/stun rod tip

[[Image:cyberdisc.gif|right|Cyberdisc]]
'''Cyberdiscs''' are an alien [[Terror Units|terror unit]] accompanying [[Sectoid]]s. As with all terror units, they can be encountered on [[Terror Mission]]s, [[Base Defense]], with a [[Terror Ship]] or [[Battleship]], [[Alien Base Assault]]s and finally in [[Cydonia]].

The Cyberdisc's only means of attack is its plasma beam doing an impressive 130HP damage. The Cyberdisc has another characteristic which makes it rather deadly, and that is, it can explode upon death with an average GZ strength of 120 and damage radius of 7 (diameter 15). Upon targeting a Cyberdisc, be wary of this blast radius as your soldiers, or perhaps a wandering [[Civilian]], could find themselves in a world of hurts.

==Statistics==
'''TUs:''' 62-72
'''Health:''' 120
'''Energy:''' 90-105
'''Reactions:''' 64-75
'''Strength:''' 90-105
'''Bravery:''' 110
'''Firing Accuracy:''' 30-70
'''Throwing Accuracy:''' N/A
'''Psi Skill:''' N/A
'''Psi Strength:''' 100-116

'''Damage:''' 130
'''Accuracy-'''
'''Snap:''' 75%
'''Aimed:''' 110%
'''TUs-'''
'''Snap:''' 30%
'''Aimed:''' 60%

==Live Specimen==
This miniature flying saucer is an automated terror weapon armed with a powerful plasma beam. The anti-grav propulsion gives it a big advantage in difficult terrain. Its primary function is destruction and terror in the service of the [[Sectoid]] race.

==Autopsy==
[[Image:cyberdiscautopsy.gif|right|Cyberdisc - Autopsy]]
The Cyberdisc is well shielded and is particularly good at withstanding explosive ammunition. The primary anti-gravity system is too badly damaged to gain any understanding of its functioning.

Note: you may have difficulty getting an intact corpse because of its explosive nature. Shoot the Cyberdisc to kill it when its one level above the ground, it drops down to ground level, hits the ground and becomes a corpse, THEN the explosion goes off where it was just hovering: ie: at one level off the ground. Guaranteed works if corpse falls flat.

==Notes==
The following are some miscellaneous notes on the Cyberdisc:
* The Cyberdisc takes 0.8x damage from armour-piercing weapons.
* It takes 0.6x damage from high explosives.
* It has a flat profile (smaller than a Sectoid), making for a harder target (per square).
* Takes up 4 squares on the battlescape.
* Has very high health.
* Has very high strength.
* Very high [[Psi Strength]], making it harder to mind-control and/or panic.
* Can attack up to 3 times in one turn. It fires with such frequency that many commanders have mistaken it for an auto-shot.
*On any mission where the Sectoids have their Cyberdisc terror unit, they will also have a Leader capable of [[Psionics]].
**However, not all missions with Sectoid Psionics will have Cyberdiscs.
* Take this hovering manhole cover down with Heavy Rockets, Heavy Cannon, High Explosive packs, or Alien Grenades. Laser Pistols work okay, and Laser Rifles work very well. Forget standard rifles - they're just too tough. If two Cyberdiscs are close together, the self-destruct explosion from one may be enough to bring down the second.
* Although they cannot be stunned, cyberdiscs seem to take damage from stun rods and will not explode if they are finished by one. This is very useful if a cyberdisc on an battleship ground assault spawns in the small storage room, 1st floor right north to the access lift, what otherwise might make it necessary to sacrifice some soldiers to kill it. This at least gives your men a chance.

==See Also==
*[[Sectoid]]
*[[Bio-Drone]]
*[[Mind Control#Mind controlling 4-square units - a bug|Problems with mind control]]

[[Category:Alien life forms]]

Medium Scout

2007-08-28T06:40:21Z

Tequilachef: /* Additional Information */

==General Information==
A medium sized scout vessel that poses little threat to earth forces. Normally appears before larger vessels during missions.

==Additional Information==
This ship isn't a big threat. [[Avalanche]] missiles will put it down, usually.

Ship carries ONE [[UFO Power Source|power source]], and two [[UFO Navigation|Navigations]].

This is a one-level ship, octagon-shaped, with no interior walls and the power source in the center of the craft.

Several aliens will be inside the ship and a few outside during missions. Sometimes the aliens can hide behind the power source so be sure to check the corners after breaching the doors!

If you're unlucky, and the power source was destroyed during the crash, there'll be a nice big hole in the ship during [[UFO Crash Recovery|recovery]]. The location of the hole varies. Feel free to toss big explosives into the hole as there will be no [[Elerium-115|elerium]] to recover anyway. This might, however, destroy the equipment that was carried by those aliens killed in the crash.

==Notes==
*If there's no other way to enter aside from the hatch, your best bet may be to set up a firing line outside-- the sort used in [[Reaction Training]]-- and wait them out. The aliens will usually start coming out soon after turn 20. Anyone trying to charge through that hatch will probably run into at least 2, usually more, aliens on the inside waiting to shoot anyone who comes through.

==Recoverable Components==
<table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Item</th>
<th>Sell Price</th>
<th>Quantity</th>
<th>Value</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Power Source</td><td>$250,000</td><td>1</td><td>$250,0000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Navigation</td><td>$80,000</td><td>2</td><td>$160,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Food</td><td>$5,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Surgery</td><td>$38,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Entertainment</td><td>$20,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Examination Room</td><td>$9,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Alloys</td><td>$6,500</td><td>11</td><td>$71,500</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Elerium-115</td><td>$5,000</td><td>50</td><td>$250,000</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Totals</th><td>$731,500</td></tr>
</table> 
Also see [[UFO Recovery Values#Medium Scout|UFO Recovery Values]].

==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>2-4</td><td>3-5</td><td>4-6</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Navigators</td><td>1-2</td><td>1-2</td><td>2-3</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Medics</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Engineers</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Leaders</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</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>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>3-6</td><td>4-7</td><td>6-9</td></tr>
</table> 

==Floor Plan==
[[Image:MediumScout.gif]]

==Terrain Maps==
[[Image:UFO_110MAP-L1.JPG|Level 1|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_110MAP.JPG|Level 2|thumb|left]]

 

==See Also==
[[Small Scout]] 
[[Large Scout]] 
[[Abductor]] 
[[Harvester]] 
[[Supply Ship]] 
[[Terror Ship]] 
[[Battleship]]

[[Category: UFO (UFO Defense)]]

User:Tequilachef

2007-08-24T07:06:35Z

Tequilachef:

Currently I am trying to finish the game on superhuman and with "Council Money Only".

== Rules ==

* Not selling any alien artifacts, corpses or UFO components
* Not selling any X-Com made Equipment
* Thus only getting money from the funding nations (and by selling surplus earth equipment like rifles or stingray launchers)
* No exploits!
* No farming (Alien supply missions may not be intercepted, alien bases may only be attacked to be destroyed)
* No reloading if something goes wrong! Saving in Battlescape is allowed, but only for backups if the game crashes.

This makes the game much harder and much more fun.

== Finances ==

When expending money, always keep in mind that you only will get oney ONCE a month! As soon as you are out of money you cannot manufacture, hire personell or buy equipment. Remember what costs might come to you for the rest of the month! Important:

* For manufacturing
* Replace losses on the battlefield (one or two terror missions can push this one up quite well)
* Replace equipment (Ammunition for earth weapons, grenades)

Huge one-time costs that need to be planned ahead are:

* Hyper wave Decoders, Mind Shields and Psi Labs (each damn expensive but worth every penny)
* Psi Amps (160,000$ each)
* Interceptors with twin plasma beams (1,042,000$ each)
* Starting base defense makeover (excluding additions like radar/alien containment/etc): building 2 new hangars, filling up the old hangar squares with 8 general stores to avoid "paying for dirt" (pays off after 2 months, you'll need a lot of room anyway), building replacement for living quarters at choke (total of 2,000,000$)
* New bases (if you plan to build up decent base defenses):
** 3 hangars (Alien spawn points!!)
** 2 general stores
** 1 living quarters
** a small garrison for base defense (I normally take 10 soldiers)
** equipment for those soldiers (weapons, ammunition, medikits, maybe armour)
** radar or decoder
** crafts
** transfer costs for crafts & equipment
** additional capabilities (workshops for craft construction, psi labs, backup laboratory/alien containment, backup storage)

Before making any expenses, calculate what you are going to need over the month. Will hangars be completed? You might want some savings for an interceptor. Is important research coming up? Save some money for the Psi-Labs/Hyperwave Decoders/Whatever.
If you are low on soldiers between the last 5 to 3 days of a month, do not hire new ones until only 71 hours of the old month are left. This saves the salary for those soldiers for the new month.
10 Engineers are far enough for the first few months. You won't have the money for excessive manufacturing, anyway.

== Research ==

Everything that saves money should be researched immediately.
* The first to go should be Medi Kit. Although expensive in production, everytime a soldier is saved by those you save 40.000$!
* Next up should be alien weaponry. Although you need ammunition for it, the weapons themselves are for free. Equipping a squad with laser rifles costs a fortune. Also remember that all X-Com made equipment destroyed in battle has to be replaced, what costs money again!
* I therefore suggest plasma rifles. They combine supreme accuracy with good firepower, which is needed to bring down terror units and to kill most aliens with one hit. Additionally, plenty of ammo for plasma rifles can be found during the first months.
* This unlocks the plasma cannon research, which does not require ammo and therefore saves money, too.
* Alien grenades are quite nice, too. All alien equipment, except for those useless plasma pistols should be researched and used!
* When using personal armour of all kind remember that losing a soldier in one of those costs even more than 40 grand! Only use those for your best men!
* Psi Labs are expensive! Be very careful with soldiers currently in psi training, if possible keep them out of battles at all. Build your psi labs in multiple bases and in those that lay in remote areas. Shuffle your Base garrisons for psionic training and send wounded soldiers to training since they cannot do anything else, anyway. After that train your most talented soldiers excessively, you wont have many of them!

== Tactical Combat ==

One of the big bills is hiring replacements. Therefore keeping your soldiers alive should be top priority. Some tricks to reduce your soldiers' mortality rate:
* Throw a smoke grenade out of your craft in the first turn. Do not exit, all aliens have full TUs at the beginning of your first turn and will therefore be able to reaction fire on your troops.
* Think of bringing an incendiary rocket to light up night missions and to burn down jungles.
* Electro Flares are an absolute must-have for night missions. If one lights your own troops, blast it with a grenade or pick it up.
* Employ psi puppets if necessary.
* Tanks cost a whole bunch of money and are very vulnerable to reaction fire. Better use 10 soldiers for the same money.

== Scoring ==

Obtaining huge amounts of score points is your top objective. Those will increase your payment by the funding nations. Normally, a score around 3,000 points will result in a remarkable increase in funding. This is absolutely necessary to cover rising maintenance costs, which come with global radar coverage and multiple interceptors.
Some tricks to keep your employers happy:
* Every UFOpaedia entry gains points. Save autopsies and other alien research for worse months.
* If you have a nice amount of points and the monthly report is near, keep possible sources for points (alien bases, downed UFOs) untouched. Taking them when already having enough points would be waste.
* Downing UFOs earns points, destroying them in air combat doubles them! Having plasma beams...
** makes those points absolutely free
** gives the chance of destroying medium scouts and very rarely even large scouts (more free points, the ground assault would cost money and endanger squad and equipment for 200 points or less)
** hugely improves your capability of taking down terror ships and supply ships!
* Points cost money! Every tactical mission that gains points costs money. This can go from a few thousand for ammo up to some hundrets of thousands for killed soldiers. remember that wounded soldiers still receive salaries while doing nothing, so soldiers being wounded cost, too. Therefore leave downed UFOs when having enough points halfway through the month.

== Emptying the stores ==

Although selling stuff is forbidden, there is no reason you should not be allowed to destroy it. Sell surplus equipment or corpses, then "destroy" the money by building and destroying base facilities or buying and then selling items. A nice spot for that is the position of the starting base original living quarters. This improves the defenses of your base while keeping down the paying for dirt bug.

== Aftermath ==

After having tried this I must say it is still quite easy to win the game. Well I must admit I got lucky in few respects (all alien retaliations against my starting base were floaters or mutons, those only after having psionics; having 8 out of 20 soldiers with psi strength over 80, 4 of those with 99 or 100; never having to defend any secondary base) but I also suffered some mayor busts (lost my first skyranger in april, the second one in may (both of course with almost every soldier and all X-Com equipment I had) with a terror assault following up I could not respond to; losing the USA and 2,400,000$ with them in July).
I think I can say with good tactics for battlescape and the early and excessive use of heavy weapons, grenades, smoke grenades and flares many soldiers survive in your service for quite a time. As soon as plasma rifles, armour, blaster launchers and psionics come in the battle for earth is likely to be won. Although the loss of my primary base would have been a mayor setback, I think I would have survived if it had come after may.

== Second Attempt ==

This time it looks quite different. Although I never have lost any craft, I have other setbacks that really lower my chances to win. Right now I struggle with capturing a commander ("Ah, alien base mission... argh, mutons! Oh no wait, Infiltration! Damn, ethereals"). My attempt to assault an ethereal base failed gloriously, and two attacks on sectoid bases did not do it. My base in which I was constructing my Avenger (although hidden away on hawaai and equipped with a mind shield) was found by ethereals after one single scouting mission and destroyed with my half finished Avenger in it. And to top it of, it's february 2000 and half of the funding nations are already gone. Losing Japan or South Africa would force me to start dismantling bases...

Battleship

2007-08-24T06:59:49Z

Tequilachef: /* General Conclusion */ its "avenger", not "avegner", stupid me...

==General Information==
The battleship is the largest and most powerful [[UFOs|alien craft]]. It is normally the primary alien mission craft, equipped with powerful weapons and numerous crew members.

==Additional Information==
Great care should be taken while engaging one - be it a ground assault or recovery, or aerial interception. Battleships always show up as Very Large on a radar profile, and often maintain very high cruising speeds.

===TFTD Note===
[[TFTD]] also has Battleship. However in there it's not the strongest. The TFTD version of the Battleship is...the [[Dreadnought]].

===Statistics===
*Radar Profile: Very Large
*Maximum Speed: 5000 knots
*Damage Capacity: 3000 units
*Weapon Power: 140 units
*Weapon Range: 65 km
*Missions used in: Base, Infiltration, Retaliation, Harvest, Abduction

==Alien Missions==
Battleships are normally associated with retaliation, base construction and Infiltration missions, however, unlike Terran Battleships the alien battleship can fulfill a very diverse set of mission profiles. Unlike [[Supply Ship]]s, [[Terror Ship]]s, [[Harvester]]s, or [[Abductor]]s, a Battleship's presence does not lend itself to one or two specific [[Alien Missions|alien missions]]. For an [[X-COM]] Commander tracking a Battleship using radar, he or she must observe the Battleship's movement patterns in order to guess its mission. The Commander must then take appropriate measures to deal with the battleship. He or she may even choose to ignore the Battleship, as their size and firepower require an extensive commitment of personnel and equipment that may not justify the attack. Though not often, Battleships can occasionally accomplish nothing, with no penalty aside from a slightly raised [[UFO Activity]] graph. (''See: Alien Retaliation'') 
 
Battleships can be involved in the following missions:

===Alien Base===
The construction of [[Alien Base Assault|alien bases]] are marked by heavy UFO activity in rural areas. In addition to the scouts and Supply Ships sent by the aliens to survey the potential base site, a Battleship is sent to construct the base after the new site has been determined, and also to transport the valuable alien commander. It is possible to capture the Battleship's commander at this time, while it is vulnerable.
Construction of the base will not stop even if the Battleship and its commander are captured. 
 
''[Alitorious: I've heard both that it works and doesn't work, so I'm not sure if you can interrogate these commanders or not. Maybe it depends on the version of the game?]'' 
 
''[ [[user:NKF|NKF]]: Oh yes they will. A commander's a commander's a commander. The game doesn't distinguish. The problem only arises if you don't have the right prerequisites for the tech you want the commender to unlock.]'' 
 
At any rate, it is much easier to find the commander on the bridge of a Battleship than inside the maze of an Alien Base.
If a Battleship lands in a rural area as part of a large force, then it is likely to be on an Alien Base mission. If all ships of an Alien Base construction force are shot down or assaulted, then the Alien Base has no chance to be built. 
 
''[Alitorious: I might be wrong about that, actually.]'' 
''[ [[user:NKF|NKF]]: Well, it's only the battleship that matters. You should be able to stop base construction if the battleship is shot down before it lands.]''

''[ [[user:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]]: Shooting down a battleship en route for base construction does not prevent the base from being constructed. However, other ships may be sent out to scout the area prior to construction, and shooting these down will delay or prevent the construction ship being sent out. The battleship can be sent out on either, or both, missions, so it's difficult or impossible to distinguish a scouting battleship from a constructing battleship. ]''

===Alien Infiltration===
Two Battleships are always the primary component in the final phase of an infiltration. The Battleships are part of a large force of five ships sent, much like in Alien Base missions. However, ships involved in an Alien Infiltration mission will instead land in urban locations. Battleships contain the alien "diplomats" who will attempt to persuade one of Earth's countries to cease funding X-COM, and form a [[pact]] with the aliens. The alien "diplomats" leave the ship immediately after landing, however, and continue their goal of signing a pact with one of Earth's countries regardless of what happens to their base ship. This means that a ground assault on the UFO will not always prevent the aliens from accomplishing their mission. The only possible way to prevent a pact-signing would be to shoot down the Battleships before they can reach their target city. 
 
Battleships are most often seen on this type of mission. When two Battleships, and usually a force of smaller craft, are in the same region, then it is most likely on an Alien Infiltration mission. This can be confirmed when the craft land near or in the cities and no [[Terror Mission]] begins.

===Alien Retaliation===
Alien Retaliation missions have two main components: Search, and Destroy. The Battleship quite often fulfills the "destroy" component for obvious reasons - it's the troop carrier. The heavy firepower of a Battleship is required to breach any barricaded underground [[Hangar]]s or [[Access Lift]]s, and they contain the troops, weapons, and terror units for the subsequent assault on any [[Base Defense|X-COM Base]] itself. 
 
After unloading its troops, a Battleship on a retaliatory mission will return to space immediately. It is thus impossible to assault the Battleship itself after the base has been defended. 
 
Any Battleship that is going to attack your base will head on a direct path for the base at near-maximum speed. It is thus impossible to shoot down the Battleship except with the Avenger, or with base defenses. Even then, I sadly bemoaned once as an Avenger tried a close tail chase to stop one attacking a base. And failed. Intercept them from the front. If a Very Large craft is detected on a direct course for one of your bases, then start [[Base Defense|base defense]] preparations immediately. 
 
If [[Craft|X-COM craft]] are successful at downing all alien scout craft on a retaliatory operation, then the Battleship itself must search for your base. Despite the Battleship's formidable strength, one thing it does seem to lack is scanning and sensing equipment. It is rare that a Battleship searching for your base will ever find it, so these Battleships can be safely ignored. 
 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: Not battleships. Other scouts are dispatched to scout. It is possible to mislead for a short time by shooting down the scouts further and further away from your base. I wouldn't count on it though. Also, not to forget, there will be a ceaseless stream of Battleships until one manages to break in.]''

''[Alitorious: Well, of course they send scouts in first. I've just noticed that if you keep downing all the scouts, then eventually they send the Battleship in anyways. This Battleship doesn't attack your base, though, and seems to be searching for your base just like the scouts.]''

''[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]]: Battleships will be sent on scouting missions if you shoot down the smaller scouting craft. I'm pretty sure this is a game-wide pattern-- when smaller ships are interdicted, a battleship will be sent to do their job.''

 

Battleship movement on an Alien Retaliation mission is characterized by either a fast, direct course for one of your bases, or a repeated "weaving" pattern around where many UFOs have been downed recently. They will only land to attack your base. A Battleship searching for your base will soon give up and head for space.

 

[[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] : If, for some reason, you coincidentally decided to dismantle the base (possibly to relocate?), and there is a battleship actually enroute to attack your base, the battle ship will head for that base's ex-location anyhow. It will then realise it's been duped, BUT, after consulting it's alien masters, will simply head to the next closest base. In a straight line, top speed. HOWEVER, once it arrives there, it will realise that they only have the lift access codes to your old base, and will then simply hang there hovering over your base for ages and ages.
In fact, this is due to the nature of the code which sends out the scouts. If successful, it sets the "aliens know where base is" flag, and applies it to the next battleship launched on a retaliation mission. This flag is only removed after a battleship actually manages to land and send troops inside your base. This flag is not removed by base defence blowing up battleships, craft blowing up battleships (I think), or, as I just mentioned, by removing that base entirely. Nor is this flag restricted to that base in particular.

===Alien Harvest===
It seems that if X-COM forces are successful in downing or assaulting many [[Harvester]]s, then the aliens will send their glorious Battleships to do the dirty work in the hopes that X-COM does not have the resources to attack them. Or maybe they hope you just won't want to waste the effort. 
 
Battleships on harvest missions will fly and land in rural areas. Sometimes they work in pairs. 
 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: To top it off, harvest missions are harmless in comparison to retaliation and infiltration missions.]'' 

===Alien Abduction===
The Battleship will sometimes participate in Alien Abduction missions. Like its participation in Harvest missions, this occurs only when X-Com has already been successful in preventing lesser craft from doing the job.

== Intercepting Battleships ==
===Speed===
Despite being the largest class of ships, alien Battleships have four powerful [[Elerium-115]] [[UFO Power Source|power sources]], and as such can travel through Earth's atmosphere at a surprisingly high speed - they have been known to travel at over five thousand knots during atmospheric entry and exit. Because of this, it is very difficult for [[Craft|X-COM craft]] to intercept a Battleship during these phases of its flight. X-COM Commanders must usually wait for the Battleship to slow down as they approach their mission zone in order to intercept it.

===Weapons===
When X-COM forces have engaged a Battleship, the commander and pilots must be extra cautious. The battleship's primary weapons have a range of sixty-five kilometres - greater than that of long-range [[Avalanche]]s or [[Plasma Beam]]s. 
 
Do not send [[Interceptor]]s to attack a Battleship or heavy losses will be expected. A direct hit from a Battleship's primary weapons are enough to incinerate an Interceptor in one or two hits. Even the very durable [[Skyranger]] will only survive a few hits. It is recommended that commanders only intercept Battleships using Alien-Terran Hybrid craft. 
 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: Or short of that, have interceptors attack in groups. This'll cut the Battleship rate of fire to 1/n-th its normal speed as it fires sequentially on each ship in range.''] 
''[ [[User:JellyfishGreen|JFG]]: It's possible. Have multiple fighters at standoff, then send in the Skyranger first as a damage soak, and follow him with Interceptors to dump their ordnance. (This is a surprisingly similar method to using a Journeyman and Berserkers to beat the final boss in Myth II.) I prefer the ground assault, though. ]'' 

===Armour===
A Battleship is also incredibly well armoured. Native terran technology - [[Cannon]], [[Stingray]]s, and [[Avalanche]]s - have little chance of downing a battleship unless used in high quantity. Anything less than an [[Avenger]] with twin [[Plasma Beam]]s is not recommended, and even an Avenger will sustain moderate damage when intercepting a Battleship. [[Fusion Ball Launcher]]s may be effective, but only when intercepting with three or more craft. 
 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: If you've gone absolutely mad, consider twin [[Cannon]]s on an Avenger!]'' 
''[ [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]]: ... Next, tell us: how many Cannon Avengers does it take to down a battleship? ;)] '' 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: Two - minimum. A single avenger will be down by 1/4th of its armour before it even gets its cannons in range.'']

===General Conclusion===
Although it may be possible to eventually design a hybrid craft that can go toe-to-toe with a Battleship, it is recommended that any aerial assault be undertaken with multiple craft , and with maximum available firepower. 
 
''Addendum: The Alien-Terran Hybrid craft class [[Avenger]] is capable of one-on-one engagement with a Battleship. However, very heavy damage will be inflicted on the Avenger, which must be repaired prior to further flights. Considering the complexity of the craft, however, repair times are extensive and border on the time taken to manufacture a new Avenger. Multiple Avengers, with [[Firestorm]]s or [[Lightning]]s as support if avaliable, are still recommended in order to assault a Battleship. This has two mayor advantages. First, by using multiple crafts your firepower raises and the time the battleship has to inflict damage to your craft lowers, therefore also lowering the overall damage that has to be repaired. Second, repairing Avengers takes quite a time. However, if the damage is distributed to 4 Avengers they will be repaired all at a time. The overall damage will therefore be dealt with much faster. Only negative aspect, as mentioned below is the temporary loss of up to 4 Avengers.''

''Alternate opinion: There is a lot to be said for the "gang up on the Battleship" theory, but I prefer single-Avenger assaults. If there are multiple Avengers available, I use only one to intercept, and suck up the long repair time. Rotate the damaged Avenger out of the high-activity regions, and rotate a fresh Avenger in. I find this preferable to having multiple avengers knocked out for a shorter period of time, since if another Battleship comes along quickly, you'll have two or three Avengers out of commission, instead of just one.'' --[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 13:19, 22 Nov 2005 (PST)

'''In conclusion''', choosing aerial engagement of an alien battleship is a very high-risk. If a commander does not have sufficient or well-equipped craft to deal with this threat, it is recommended that he or she instead wait until the Battleship lands and assault it with ground forces if possible. The weapons systems of a Battleship are not activated while it is not in flight, so the transport faces little threat of return fire.

== Assaulting/Recovering Battleships ==
===Mission Spoils===
Assaulting a landed or downed Battleship with ground forces is a dangerous operation. However, a success is well worth it. A Battleship has four [[UFO Power Source|power sources]], and two hundred units of [[Elerium-115]]. On top of that, Battleships carry many [[Alien Entertainment]] and [[UFO Navigation]] units, and vast quantities of [[Alien Alloys]]. Because the crew size is so large, one can find large amounts of alien [[Weapons|weapons]] and ammo, including deadly [[Blaster Bomb]]s. In addition, every rank of alien can be found on a Battleship, including commanders if the Battleship is on an [[Alien Base]] creation mission.

===Ground Threats===
The Battleship carries a large crew compliment. These are often equipped with [[Heavy Plasma]]s and [[Alien Grenade]]s, which pose a large threat. In addition to the regular alien species, their asoociated [[Terror Units]] accompany them on Battleships. Last but not least, some officers on a Battleship are armed with the dreaded [[Blaster Launcher]]. Squad leaders must be careful in their deployment of personnel on the battlefield.

===Battleship Layout===
The Battleship itself consists of three levels. The ground level has five "legs," one on each corner and one in the center. The corner legs cannot be entered from the outside, as they house the valuable elerium power sources. The center leg has two doors that give accesss to a wide central lift. The doors are large enough to allow passage of [[Cyberdisc]]s, [[Reaper]]s, and [[Sectopod]]s, so they can also be used to allow [[Heavy Weapons Platforms]] access to the UFO. This pair of doors is the only access point in or out of the Battleship, therefore a siege is very effective here. However, a siege may attract hostile blaster bombs, so use the tactic with discretion. Alien Engineers can sometimes be found taking care of the power sources in one of the outer legs. 
 
The second level has four major hallways (or two, if you look at it that way). Each leads to a small lift that accesses the four outer pods holding the Power Sources. There are three main rooms, two of which seem to be used for storage. One is filled with the red spheres and cylinders on blue support legs that we have not yet identified. The fourth room contains an alien entertainment complex. 
 
The central lift also extends to the third and topmost level of the Battleship. Unlike the level below it, the lift on this level is in a small room. This level of the UFO has lots of smaller rooms and tight corridors, making it very dangerous. There are two rooms which appear to be the navigation room, and bridge. Both rooms have the distinctive blue chairs, yet only one has any navigation modules. For some reason, the two rooms are on opposite sides of the ship. The third level is also where X-COM forces are most likely to find any Alien Navigators or Alien Leaders, or possibly even the commander if present.

===Entry===
Heavy Weapons Platforms can enter the central lift and navigate much of the second floor, however the lift on the third floor is closed off via small doorways. HWPs are very useful for opening the main doors on the bottom level and allowing soldiers to fire at any aliens inside, or to send a blaster bomb up into the interior of the UFO. 
 
Forced entry using a Blaster Bomb is often used, as it also reduces the risk of succumbing to an alien ambush on the second or third floors. The four corner legs can be one entry point, although elerium may be damaged from such an entry. If [[Flying Suit]]s are avaliable, then an entry from the third level is also an effective tactic that also minimizes the risk of damaging elerium. Entering via the top floor also gives a good chance of surprising and capturing alien officers. A pincer movement, with two or more fireteams working from multiple entry points, is a very effective tactic while storming a Battleship. 
 
==Recoverable Components==
<table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Item</th>
<th>Sell Price</th>
<th>Quantity</th>
<th>Value</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Power Source</td><td>$250,000</td><td>4</td><td>$1,000,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Navigation</td><td>$80,000</td><td>4</td><td>$320,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Food</td><td>$5,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Surgery</td><td>$38,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Entertainment</td><td>$20,000</td><td>24</td><td>$480,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Examination Room</td><td>$9,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Alloys</td><td>$6,500</td><td>231</td><td>$1,501,500</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Elerium-115</td><td>$5,000</td><td>200</td><td>$1,000,000</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Totals</th><td>$4,301,500</td></tr>
</table> 
Also see [[UFO Recovery Values#Battleship|UFO Recovery Values]].

==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>4-8</td><td>6-10</td><td>8-12</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</td><td>1</td><td>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>2</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>0-2</td><td>2-4</td><td>4-6</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>9-15</td><td>14-20</td><td>22-28</td></tr>
</table> 

==Floor Plans==
'''2nd Floor:''' 
[[Image:Battleship_2.gif]]

'''1st Floor:''' 
[[Image:Battleship_1.gif]]

'''Ground Floor:''' 
[[Image:Battleship_0.gif]]

==Terrain Maps==
[[Image:UFO_160MAP-L1.JPG|Level 1|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_160MAP-L2.JPG|Level 2|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_160MAP-L3.JPG|Level 3|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_160MAP.JPG|Level 4|thumb|left]]

 

==See Also==
[[Small Scout]] 
[[Medium Scout]] 
[[Large Scout]] 
[[Abductor]] 
[[Harvester]] 
[[Supply Ship]] 
[[Terror Ship]] 

[[Category: UFO (UFO Defense)]]
[[Category: Tactics]]

Battleship

2007-08-24T06:58:03Z

Tequilachef: /* General Conclusion */

==General Information==
The battleship is the largest and most powerful [[UFOs|alien craft]]. It is normally the primary alien mission craft, equipped with powerful weapons and numerous crew members.

==Additional Information==
Great care should be taken while engaging one - be it a ground assault or recovery, or aerial interception. Battleships always show up as Very Large on a radar profile, and often maintain very high cruising speeds.

===TFTD Note===
[[TFTD]] also has Battleship. However in there it's not the strongest. The TFTD version of the Battleship is...the [[Dreadnought]].

===Statistics===
*Radar Profile: Very Large
*Maximum Speed: 5000 knots
*Damage Capacity: 3000 units
*Weapon Power: 140 units
*Weapon Range: 65 km
*Missions used in: Base, Infiltration, Retaliation, Harvest, Abduction

==Alien Missions==
Battleships are normally associated with retaliation, base construction and Infiltration missions, however, unlike Terran Battleships the alien battleship can fulfill a very diverse set of mission profiles. Unlike [[Supply Ship]]s, [[Terror Ship]]s, [[Harvester]]s, or [[Abductor]]s, a Battleship's presence does not lend itself to one or two specific [[Alien Missions|alien missions]]. For an [[X-COM]] Commander tracking a Battleship using radar, he or she must observe the Battleship's movement patterns in order to guess its mission. The Commander must then take appropriate measures to deal with the battleship. He or she may even choose to ignore the Battleship, as their size and firepower require an extensive commitment of personnel and equipment that may not justify the attack. Though not often, Battleships can occasionally accomplish nothing, with no penalty aside from a slightly raised [[UFO Activity]] graph. (''See: Alien Retaliation'') 
 
Battleships can be involved in the following missions:

===Alien Base===
The construction of [[Alien Base Assault|alien bases]] are marked by heavy UFO activity in rural areas. In addition to the scouts and Supply Ships sent by the aliens to survey the potential base site, a Battleship is sent to construct the base after the new site has been determined, and also to transport the valuable alien commander. It is possible to capture the Battleship's commander at this time, while it is vulnerable.
Construction of the base will not stop even if the Battleship and its commander are captured. 
 
''[Alitorious: I've heard both that it works and doesn't work, so I'm not sure if you can interrogate these commanders or not. Maybe it depends on the version of the game?]'' 
 
''[ [[user:NKF|NKF]]: Oh yes they will. A commander's a commander's a commander. The game doesn't distinguish. The problem only arises if you don't have the right prerequisites for the tech you want the commender to unlock.]'' 
 
At any rate, it is much easier to find the commander on the bridge of a Battleship than inside the maze of an Alien Base.
If a Battleship lands in a rural area as part of a large force, then it is likely to be on an Alien Base mission. If all ships of an Alien Base construction force are shot down or assaulted, then the Alien Base has no chance to be built. 
 
''[Alitorious: I might be wrong about that, actually.]'' 
''[ [[user:NKF|NKF]]: Well, it's only the battleship that matters. You should be able to stop base construction if the battleship is shot down before it lands.]''

''[ [[user:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]]: Shooting down a battleship en route for base construction does not prevent the base from being constructed. However, other ships may be sent out to scout the area prior to construction, and shooting these down will delay or prevent the construction ship being sent out. The battleship can be sent out on either, or both, missions, so it's difficult or impossible to distinguish a scouting battleship from a constructing battleship. ]''

===Alien Infiltration===
Two Battleships are always the primary component in the final phase of an infiltration. The Battleships are part of a large force of five ships sent, much like in Alien Base missions. However, ships involved in an Alien Infiltration mission will instead land in urban locations. Battleships contain the alien "diplomats" who will attempt to persuade one of Earth's countries to cease funding X-COM, and form a [[pact]] with the aliens. The alien "diplomats" leave the ship immediately after landing, however, and continue their goal of signing a pact with one of Earth's countries regardless of what happens to their base ship. This means that a ground assault on the UFO will not always prevent the aliens from accomplishing their mission. The only possible way to prevent a pact-signing would be to shoot down the Battleships before they can reach their target city. 
 
Battleships are most often seen on this type of mission. When two Battleships, and usually a force of smaller craft, are in the same region, then it is most likely on an Alien Infiltration mission. This can be confirmed when the craft land near or in the cities and no [[Terror Mission]] begins.

===Alien Retaliation===
Alien Retaliation missions have two main components: Search, and Destroy. The Battleship quite often fulfills the "destroy" component for obvious reasons - it's the troop carrier. The heavy firepower of a Battleship is required to breach any barricaded underground [[Hangar]]s or [[Access Lift]]s, and they contain the troops, weapons, and terror units for the subsequent assault on any [[Base Defense|X-COM Base]] itself. 
 
After unloading its troops, a Battleship on a retaliatory mission will return to space immediately. It is thus impossible to assault the Battleship itself after the base has been defended. 
 
Any Battleship that is going to attack your base will head on a direct path for the base at near-maximum speed. It is thus impossible to shoot down the Battleship except with the Avenger, or with base defenses. Even then, I sadly bemoaned once as an Avenger tried a close tail chase to stop one attacking a base. And failed. Intercept them from the front. If a Very Large craft is detected on a direct course for one of your bases, then start [[Base Defense|base defense]] preparations immediately. 
 
If [[Craft|X-COM craft]] are successful at downing all alien scout craft on a retaliatory operation, then the Battleship itself must search for your base. Despite the Battleship's formidable strength, one thing it does seem to lack is scanning and sensing equipment. It is rare that a Battleship searching for your base will ever find it, so these Battleships can be safely ignored. 
 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: Not battleships. Other scouts are dispatched to scout. It is possible to mislead for a short time by shooting down the scouts further and further away from your base. I wouldn't count on it though. Also, not to forget, there will be a ceaseless stream of Battleships until one manages to break in.]''

''[Alitorious: Well, of course they send scouts in first. I've just noticed that if you keep downing all the scouts, then eventually they send the Battleship in anyways. This Battleship doesn't attack your base, though, and seems to be searching for your base just like the scouts.]''

''[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]]: Battleships will be sent on scouting missions if you shoot down the smaller scouting craft. I'm pretty sure this is a game-wide pattern-- when smaller ships are interdicted, a battleship will be sent to do their job.''

 

Battleship movement on an Alien Retaliation mission is characterized by either a fast, direct course for one of your bases, or a repeated "weaving" pattern around where many UFOs have been downed recently. They will only land to attack your base. A Battleship searching for your base will soon give up and head for space.

 

[[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] : If, for some reason, you coincidentally decided to dismantle the base (possibly to relocate?), and there is a battleship actually enroute to attack your base, the battle ship will head for that base's ex-location anyhow. It will then realise it's been duped, BUT, after consulting it's alien masters, will simply head to the next closest base. In a straight line, top speed. HOWEVER, once it arrives there, it will realise that they only have the lift access codes to your old base, and will then simply hang there hovering over your base for ages and ages.
In fact, this is due to the nature of the code which sends out the scouts. If successful, it sets the "aliens know where base is" flag, and applies it to the next battleship launched on a retaliation mission. This flag is only removed after a battleship actually manages to land and send troops inside your base. This flag is not removed by base defence blowing up battleships, craft blowing up battleships (I think), or, as I just mentioned, by removing that base entirely. Nor is this flag restricted to that base in particular.

===Alien Harvest===
It seems that if X-COM forces are successful in downing or assaulting many [[Harvester]]s, then the aliens will send their glorious Battleships to do the dirty work in the hopes that X-COM does not have the resources to attack them. Or maybe they hope you just won't want to waste the effort. 
 
Battleships on harvest missions will fly and land in rural areas. Sometimes they work in pairs. 
 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: To top it off, harvest missions are harmless in comparison to retaliation and infiltration missions.]'' 

===Alien Abduction===
The Battleship will sometimes participate in Alien Abduction missions. Like its participation in Harvest missions, this occurs only when X-Com has already been successful in preventing lesser craft from doing the job.

== Intercepting Battleships ==
===Speed===
Despite being the largest class of ships, alien Battleships have four powerful [[Elerium-115]] [[UFO Power Source|power sources]], and as such can travel through Earth's atmosphere at a surprisingly high speed - they have been known to travel at over five thousand knots during atmospheric entry and exit. Because of this, it is very difficult for [[Craft|X-COM craft]] to intercept a Battleship during these phases of its flight. X-COM Commanders must usually wait for the Battleship to slow down as they approach their mission zone in order to intercept it.

===Weapons===
When X-COM forces have engaged a Battleship, the commander and pilots must be extra cautious. The battleship's primary weapons have a range of sixty-five kilometres - greater than that of long-range [[Avalanche]]s or [[Plasma Beam]]s. 
 
Do not send [[Interceptor]]s to attack a Battleship or heavy losses will be expected. A direct hit from a Battleship's primary weapons are enough to incinerate an Interceptor in one or two hits. Even the very durable [[Skyranger]] will only survive a few hits. It is recommended that commanders only intercept Battleships using Alien-Terran Hybrid craft. 
 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: Or short of that, have interceptors attack in groups. This'll cut the Battleship rate of fire to 1/n-th its normal speed as it fires sequentially on each ship in range.''] 
''[ [[User:JellyfishGreen|JFG]]: It's possible. Have multiple fighters at standoff, then send in the Skyranger first as a damage soak, and follow him with Interceptors to dump their ordnance. (This is a surprisingly similar method to using a Journeyman and Berserkers to beat the final boss in Myth II.) I prefer the ground assault, though. ]'' 

===Armour===
A Battleship is also incredibly well armoured. Native terran technology - [[Cannon]], [[Stingray]]s, and [[Avalanche]]s - have little chance of downing a battleship unless used in high quantity. Anything less than an [[Avenger]] with twin [[Plasma Beam]]s is not recommended, and even an Avenger will sustain moderate damage when intercepting a Battleship. [[Fusion Ball Launcher]]s may be effective, but only when intercepting with three or more craft. 
 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: If you've gone absolutely mad, consider twin [[Cannon]]s on an Avenger!]'' 
''[ [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]]: ... Next, tell us: how many Cannon Avengers does it take to down a battleship? ;)] '' 
''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: Two - minimum. A single avenger will be down by 1/4th of its armour before it even gets its cannons in range.'']

===General Conclusion===
Although it may be possible to eventually design a hybrid craft that can go toe-to-toe with a Battleship, it is recommended that any aerial assault be undertaken with multiple craft , and with maximum available firepower. 
 
''Addendum: The Alien-Terran Hybrid craft class [[Avenger]] is capable of one-on-one engagement with a Battleship. However, very heavy damage will be inflicted on the Avenger, which must be repaired prior to further flights. Considering the complexity of the craft, however, repair times are extensive and border on the time taken to manufacture a new Avenger. Multiple Avengers, with [[Firestorm]]s or [[Lightning]]s as support if avaliable, are still recommended in order to assault a Battleship. This has two mayor advantages. First, by using multiple crafts your firepower raises and the time the battleship has to inflict damage to your craft lowers, therefore also lowering the overall damage that has to be repaired. Second, repairing Anevgers takes quite a time. However, if the damage is distributed to 4 Avengers they will be repaired all at a time. The overall damage will therefore be dealt with much faster. Only negative aspect, as mentioned below is the temporary loss of up to 4 Avengers.''

''Alternate opinion: There is a lot to be said for the "gang up on the Battleship" theory, but I prefer single-Avenger assaults. If there are multiple Avengers available, I use only one to intercept, and suck up the long repair time. Rotate the damaged Avenger out of the high-activity regions, and rotate a fresh Avenger in. I find this preferable to having multiple avengers knocked out for a shorter period of time, since if another Battleship comes along quickly, you'll have two or three Avengers out of commission, instead of just one.'' --[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 13:19, 22 Nov 2005 (PST)

'''In conclusion''', choosing aerial engagement of an alien battleship is a very high-risk. If a commander does not have sufficient or well-equipped craft to deal with this threat, it is recommended that he or she instead wait until the Battleship lands and assault it with ground forces if possible. The weapons systems of a Battleship are not activated while it is not in flight, so the transport faces little threat of return fire.

== Assaulting/Recovering Battleships ==
===Mission Spoils===
Assaulting a landed or downed Battleship with ground forces is a dangerous operation. However, a success is well worth it. A Battleship has four [[UFO Power Source|power sources]], and two hundred units of [[Elerium-115]]. On top of that, Battleships carry many [[Alien Entertainment]] and [[UFO Navigation]] units, and vast quantities of [[Alien Alloys]]. Because the crew size is so large, one can find large amounts of alien [[Weapons|weapons]] and ammo, including deadly [[Blaster Bomb]]s. In addition, every rank of alien can be found on a Battleship, including commanders if the Battleship is on an [[Alien Base]] creation mission.

===Ground Threats===
The Battleship carries a large crew compliment. These are often equipped with [[Heavy Plasma]]s and [[Alien Grenade]]s, which pose a large threat. In addition to the regular alien species, their asoociated [[Terror Units]] accompany them on Battleships. Last but not least, some officers on a Battleship are armed with the dreaded [[Blaster Launcher]]. Squad leaders must be careful in their deployment of personnel on the battlefield.

===Battleship Layout===
The Battleship itself consists of three levels. The ground level has five "legs," one on each corner and one in the center. The corner legs cannot be entered from the outside, as they house the valuable elerium power sources. The center leg has two doors that give accesss to a wide central lift. The doors are large enough to allow passage of [[Cyberdisc]]s, [[Reaper]]s, and [[Sectopod]]s, so they can also be used to allow [[Heavy Weapons Platforms]] access to the UFO. This pair of doors is the only access point in or out of the Battleship, therefore a siege is very effective here. However, a siege may attract hostile blaster bombs, so use the tactic with discretion. Alien Engineers can sometimes be found taking care of the power sources in one of the outer legs. 
 
The second level has four major hallways (or two, if you look at it that way). Each leads to a small lift that accesses the four outer pods holding the Power Sources. There are three main rooms, two of which seem to be used for storage. One is filled with the red spheres and cylinders on blue support legs that we have not yet identified. The fourth room contains an alien entertainment complex. 
 
The central lift also extends to the third and topmost level of the Battleship. Unlike the level below it, the lift on this level is in a small room. This level of the UFO has lots of smaller rooms and tight corridors, making it very dangerous. There are two rooms which appear to be the navigation room, and bridge. Both rooms have the distinctive blue chairs, yet only one has any navigation modules. For some reason, the two rooms are on opposite sides of the ship. The third level is also where X-COM forces are most likely to find any Alien Navigators or Alien Leaders, or possibly even the commander if present.

===Entry===
Heavy Weapons Platforms can enter the central lift and navigate much of the second floor, however the lift on the third floor is closed off via small doorways. HWPs are very useful for opening the main doors on the bottom level and allowing soldiers to fire at any aliens inside, or to send a blaster bomb up into the interior of the UFO. 
 
Forced entry using a Blaster Bomb is often used, as it also reduces the risk of succumbing to an alien ambush on the second or third floors. The four corner legs can be one entry point, although elerium may be damaged from such an entry. If [[Flying Suit]]s are avaliable, then an entry from the third level is also an effective tactic that also minimizes the risk of damaging elerium. Entering via the top floor also gives a good chance of surprising and capturing alien officers. A pincer movement, with two or more fireteams working from multiple entry points, is a very effective tactic while storming a Battleship. 
 
==Recoverable Components==
<table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Item</th>
<th>Sell Price</th>
<th>Quantity</th>
<th>Value</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Power Source</td><td>$250,000</td><td>4</td><td>$1,000,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Navigation</td><td>$80,000</td><td>4</td><td>$320,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Food</td><td>$5,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Surgery</td><td>$38,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Entertainment</td><td>$20,000</td><td>24</td><td>$480,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Examination Room</td><td>$9,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Alloys</td><td>$6,500</td><td>231</td><td>$1,501,500</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Elerium-115</td><td>$5,000</td><td>200</td><td>$1,000,000</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Totals</th><td>$4,301,500</td></tr>
</table> 
Also see [[UFO Recovery Values#Battleship|UFO Recovery Values]].

==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>4-8</td><td>6-10</td><td>8-12</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</td><td>1</td><td>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>2</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>0-2</td><td>2-4</td><td>4-6</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>9-15</td><td>14-20</td><td>22-28</td></tr>
</table> 

==Floor Plans==
'''2nd Floor:''' 
[[Image:Battleship_2.gif]]

'''1st Floor:''' 
[[Image:Battleship_1.gif]]

'''Ground Floor:''' 
[[Image:Battleship_0.gif]]

==Terrain Maps==
[[Image:UFO_160MAP-L1.JPG|Level 1|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_160MAP-L2.JPG|Level 2|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_160MAP-L3.JPG|Level 3|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_160MAP.JPG|Level 4|thumb|left]]

 

==See Also==
[[Small Scout]] 
[[Medium Scout]] 
[[Large Scout]] 
[[Abductor]] 
[[Harvester]] 
[[Supply Ship]] 
[[Terror Ship]] 

[[Category: UFO (UFO Defense)]]
[[Category: Tactics]]

Talk:BACK01.SCR-BACK17.SCR

2007-08-22T17:09:31Z

Tequilachef: Wallpapers out of X-Com BAckgrounds?

A wallpaper from an ufo background would be great! Does anyone know how to get one specific background in one specific tint in a good resolution? In this case I am looking for the soldiers screen in orange or green tinting.

Base Layout Strategy

2007-08-20T21:38:32Z

Tequilachef: /* Secondary Base Design */ Adding glitch information

Your base will, at some point, be raided by angry aliens looking for revenge for all those UFO's you've taken out. Unlike most places you'll have to fight, you have control over the layout of your base, so design it wisely.

The key point for base defensibility is to minimize the number of points of entry. Aliens usually come down into your base through hangars and the access lift (although they can emerge on other locations - see the last comment on [[Base_Defense#Bugs]]). If you group your hangars with the access lift, then build only one module connecting to this part of your base, that module becomes a choke point for base defense. A long chain of rooms becomes a long choke point ripe for mining with Proximity Grenades and other dirty tricks. This way, you can line up all your units against one point of entry instead of having to spread them out to cover four or five.

The access lift is always the first unit built, so it becomes the obvious candidate for this single point of entry. Place it on the grid so you leave enough room to build hangars on one side of the lift, and everything else on the other side. I'd recommend building a General Stores on the lift opposite the hangar. A general stores is needed for any base, and it gets completed quickly. Once the general stores are completed, build all new facilities (except hangars, of course) off of that.

==Overhauling the Starter Base==

At higher difficulty levels, alien retaliation can often come MUCH sooner than you might be ready for-- before you have base defenses built, and before you have powerful weapons to arm your troops with. Considering that the access lift and all hangars serve as entry points for the invaders, the starter base has all the defensive virtues of a screen door:
<center>{{UBK|=
|dirt|dirt|hangar1|hangar2|dirt|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|hangar3|hangar4|dirt|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|lift|quarters|dirt|dirt|=
|dirt|small_radar|stores|lab|workshop|dirt|=
|hangar1|hangar2|dirt|dirt|hangar1|hangar2|=
|hangar3|hangar4|dirt|dirt|hangar3|hangar4|=}}</center>
The hangars and lift are distributed as widely as possible through the base, giving the aliens a wealth of breech points and enabling them to assault any defenders from all sides.

With this in mind, I recommend a partial rebuild of your initial base ASAP. Build two hangars next to the topmost hangar to replace the lower two, and a living quarters down between the two lower existing hangars to replace the one next to the access lift. Place any other new modules on the lower half of the screen, where they will not touch the lift or the new hangars.

As the new living quarters and hangar are completed, dismantle the old ones. It should now look something like:
<center>{{UBK|=
|hangar1|hangar2|hangar1|hangar2|hangar1|hangar2|=
|hangar3|hangar4|hangar3|hangar4|hangar3|hangar4|=
|dirt|dirt|lift|dirt|dirt|dirt|=
|large_radar|small_radar|stores|lab|workshop|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|quarters|containment|dirt|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|=}}</center>
Of course, place any other new facilities with a mind to preserving the new choke-point at the grav lift (i.e., nothing adjacent to the top hangars.) This layout isn't as fortified as many new-build bases can be, but it's a good compromise between defendability (one choke-point at the lift), available space, expedience (it converts from the standard layout in minimal time), and, especially, cost. It only costs the price of two hangars and a living quarters ($800,000) to overhaul your base this way-- a cost that can be covered by the proceeds from, say, one small landed UFO. It does however accrue base [[maintenance costs]] of $720,000 per month due to a [[Known Bugs#Paying For Dirt|bug]].

===Variations===

The previous example was a one chokepoint base that is easy to defend, however it is by no means the only way to build the base. Don't be afraid to try different variations of the base to suit the strategy that you intend use.

If you want to attack the aliens from two sides, the simple addition of an extra module can modify the one-chokepoint base into a two-chokepoint base. For example:

<center>{{UBK|=
|hangar1|hangar2|hangar1|hangar2|hangar1|hangar2|=
|hangar3|hangar4|hangar3|hangar4|hangar3|hangar4|=
|dirt|dirt|lift|dirt|small_radar|dirt|=
|large_radar|small_radar|stores|lab|workshop|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|quarters|containment|dirt|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|=}}</center>

The above base is designed to work like the popular defendable base layout, but also provides a second access point into the hangars. Although this means you have to spread your soldiers out to cover both points, so do the aliens.

With this example in particular, the small radar module provides an empty hallway. If you like to use rockets, this one access point gives you a clear shot into the hangars. A few well placed rockets can cut down the opposition considerably.

If you really like to use rockets but can only handle aliens entering the map through one entry point, consider the following variation.

<center>{{UBK|=
|hangar1|hangar2|hangar1|hangar2|hangar1|hangar2|=
|hangar3|hangar4|hangar3|hangar4|hangar3|hangar4|=
|dirt|dirt|lift|dirt|small_radar|dirt|=
|large_radar|small_radar|dirt|lab|workshop|dirt|=
|dirt|containment|quarters|stores|dirt|dirt|=
|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|=}}</center>

It may take a while to re-order the base in this manner from the starting setup, but the end result provides you with a clear firing corridor into the hangars with plenty of cubbyholes to hide in. All of the aliens will have to funnel through the small radar module, which is an open space with no place for the aliens to hide.

One disadvantage of this base however is that if the workshop suffers too much structural damage, all facilities past the small radar will be destroyed as they'll be disconnected from the access lift.

No matter what layout you eventually use, remember that the more complicated it is the longer it may take to construct and the more money it will cost. The last example requires moving a module that was already present in the default base. i.e. the general stores.

== Secondary Base Design ==

With your second and subsequent bases, you can build it securely right from the beginning. The most secure design uses the Access Lift as a choke point between the hangars and the rest of the base, as pictured above, but puts it to the side, out of the way, and also adds a long corridor between the Access Lift and the rest of the base:
<center>{{UBK|=
|quarters|quarters|quarters|quarters|workshop|workshop|=
|stores|dirt|quarters|quarters|workshop|workshop|=
|hyperwave|dirt|stores|mind|workshop|psi|=
|lift|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|=
|hangar1|hangar2|hangar1|hangar2|hangar1|hangar2|=
|hangar3|hangar4|hangar3|hangar4|hangar3|hangar4|=}}</center>
Be sure not to put the Access Lift on the southern or eastern borders of the map to avoid the [[Known Bugs#Base Disjoint Bug|base disjoint bug]].

If three hangars are not needed, additional base facilities can be added, as long as they are not placed adjacent to the hangars:
<center>
{|
|-
|
{{UBK|=
|quarters|quarters|quarters|quarters|workshop|workshop|=
|stores|dirt|quarters|quarters|workshop|workshop|=
|hyperwave|dirt|stores|mind|workshop|psi|=
|lift|dirt|dirt|dirt|psi|psi|=
|hangar1|hangar2|hangar1|hangar2|dirt|psi|=
|hangar3|hangar4|hangar3|hangar4|dirt|psi|=}}
|
|
|
|
{{UBK|=
|quarters|quarters|quarters|quarters|workshop|workshop|=
|stores|dirt|quarters|quarters|workshop|workshop|=
|hyperwave|dirt|stores|mind|workshop|psi|=
|lift|dirt|quarters|psi|psi|psi|=
|hangar1|hangar2|dirt|psi|psi|psi|=
|hangar3|hangar4|dirt|psi|psi|psi|=}}
|}
</center>

- [[User:tequilachef|tequilachef]]: Remember that the Aliens need enough spawn points when attacking your base. If they do not have enough they will use X-Com spawn points, which makes the carefully planned choke point practically useless since you will be ambushed from inside your own living quarters and general stores. Three hangars and the access lift are enough to cover every possible attacking alien force. Therefore I think the two beforementioned base layouts are practically useless!

==Floor Plan Comparison==
Here's a comparison of the '''ground floor''' plans for X-COM base modules, in case it helps you design your base. For images, follow the links or see [[Xcom_and_Alien_Bases#XCom_Base|X-COM Base Module Images]]:

*'''3-wide "central plus sign" corridors:
** 1-wide doors along NW to SE path: [[Living Quarters]], [[Laboratory]], [[Workshop]]
** 1-wide doors along SW to NE path: [[Alien Containment]], [[Psionic Laboratory]]
** 2-wide doors along SW to NE path: [[General Stores]]

*'''Central room:
** 1 1-wide door, 2-wide corridors: [[Laser Defences]] (SW door), [[Plasma Defences]] (SE door), [[Fusion Ball Defences]] (NE door)
** 2 1-wide doors, 2-wide corridors: [[Large Radar]] (SW & NE doors)
** 2 1-wide doors, 3-wide corridors: [[Grav Shield]], [[Hyper-Wave Decoder]], [[Mind Shield]] (all have SW & SE doors)

*'''Unique modules:
**Wide open ground floor: [[Small Radar]]
** "P" design of [[Missile Defences]] - no ground level doors; can force particular paths
** [[Hangar]]
** [[Access Lift]]

Most modules have a fairly open second story, with the exception of [[Missile Defences]], [[General Stores]], [[Alien Containment]], and the [[Psionic Laboratory]]. Still, half of the rest have a fair amount of clutter that might hide aliens.

==Notes==
*Corridors attaching to the right topside of a hangar (on the grid, the east side of the north wall) corner come through a ground-level hangar door. Corridors attaching anywhere else don't get a door. See picture at [[X-Com_Base_Terrain]].
*The ideal case is to have your choke point aligned vertically on the base grid, lined with general stores. The general stores have large, doublewide doors that open out onto the vertical corridor. These doors will give your your troops and tanks cover, and let them pop out to make attacks at will.
*It is also desirable to have a base facility containing a door directly facing the Access Lift (such as the [[Hyper-Wave Decoder]]). A scout can pop out at the beginning of a turn and spot units coming down the corridor without risk of being shot due to the [[reaction fire triggers#mutual_surprise|"mutual surprise" rule]]. Other units with indirect-fire weapons (grenades and blaster launchers) can then safely attack the spotted alien(s). Direct-fire weapons can also be safely used if a thick-enough [[Smoke Grenade|smoke cover]] is present.
*Troops will spawn primarily in the Living Quarters and General Stores . Tanks will spawn mostly in the General Stores. You might want to cluster these units around your choke-point so your units will be where you need them.
*When constructing a base, be very careful that you avoid the [[Known Bugs#Base Disjoint Bug|Base Disjoint Bug]] where modules along the right and lower edges of the map can get sealed off. Improper placement will often end up forcing you to cut through the very tough walls and dirt blocks with heavy plasmas or tank lasers. However, with proper placement of modules, the sealed off walls can be very advantageous in controlling the flow of aliens. [[XcomUtil]] users cannot take advantage of this as the setup tool for this utility automatically rips out the walls.

==See Also==
*[[Base Management]]
*[[Base Defense]]
*[[Base Defense Measures (UFO Defense)]]
*[[X-Com Base Terrain]]

User:Tequilachef

2007-08-20T19:32:51Z

Tequilachef: /* Scoring */

Elerium-115

2007-08-20T09:52:15Z

Tequilachef: /* How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? */

Elerium, otherwise known as element 115, is the energy source for all alien techonologies. Mined from reserves near [[Cydonia]], it has a variety of uses. However, it cannot be found on Earth...

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS56.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Size: 1 high x 1 wide
*Weight: 3
*Sell Price: $5000</td></tr></table>

== Obtaining Elerium ==
Elerium cannot be synthesized on Earth; it can only be obtained from [[UFO Assault]]s or [[Alien Base Assault]]s. Elerium is housed within [[UFO Power Source]]s, and is very fragile. If upon starting a UFO assault you find a [[UFO Power Source]] to have been destroyed (as a result of a crash landing), its Elerium will surely have been destroyed as well. Be careful about using explosives near intact UFO Power sources, as the Elerium within is easily toasted!

At the end of a successful mission, any Elerium contained within intact UFO Power Sources will be automatically collected and returned to your base. If for some reason you need to end a mission prematurely, you can still collect Elerium by hand, by shooting open a UFO Power Source (generally with a plasma weapon). For more on securing Elerium in this way, see [[UFO Power Source]]s.

Perhaps the most efficient way to gain a stock of Elerium is to find an Alien Base and attack the [[Supply Ship]]s as they land nearby. Leave the base intact to attract more supply ships, as the Elerium is worth more than the score penalty (150 units per intact Supply Ship).

UFO Power Sources can also be found in ''some'' Alien Bases, if they have a particular base "module". You can raid such a base without having to win the mission, and have a soldier carry the Elerium back to the entry lift and then abort (see [[Alien Base Assault#Smash And Grab]] for more details). Attacking the base's Supply Ships is likely to be a safer and more reliable source of Elerium, however; see [[UFO Recovery Values#Alien Base Assaults]] for more details.

On the map, Elerium appears as a purple ball (the same graphic as a [[Stun Bomb]] on the ground). This object is worth 50 points of Elerium. During [[Base Defense]], some of your own Elerium from stores may appear on the battlescape. This is a Good Thing if you win the mission, as each unit is represented as a pod and can be recovered for ''fifty'' units. This is probably a bug and appears to be absent from the [[Collector's Edition]].

== Uses ==
'''Don't sell Elerium.''' Although you do have the option to do so, this is to be highly discouraged. It is used to fuel the [[Firestorm]], the [[Lightning]], and the [[Avenger]]. It is also used, in varying amounts, to [[manufacture]] most [[Alien Artefacts]], [[Flying Suit]]s, and various other technologies. Given that you can only obtain Elerium in the battlefield, selling it is not a good idea. If you choose to, it will fetch you $5,000 per unit.

== Elerium In Reality ==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium Ununpentium], the temporary name for synthesized element 115, was only created briefly in atomic laboratories in 2004 and is not the subject of much research. However UFO 'researcher' Robert Lazar made several [http://www.beyondweird.com/element115.html claims] about E-115 in the 1980's. For example, it would be the only element that had a gravitational field extending past it's own atomic 'shell'. This deviance from the normal rule would be so significant that perhaps the technologies seen in the [[X-Com Series]] could become a reality - anti-gravity devices used for both flight and particle acceleration.

== How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? ==
Since some information about the physical laws that rule Elerium-related technology is given in the game this question can be answered to some extend. To fit elerium into the laws of physics, some basic facts have to be “chosen”. The only way to equal an amount of elerium to an amount of power is to calculate the power needed by elerium-propelled crafts. I chose the “Avenger” for this calculation. Since it is the most advanced craft built by X-Com we can assume it has maximum efficiency, which eases the maths a bit.

I also assumed that the weight of the elerium item that can be picked up in combat (3 weight units) can not be used to deduct the actual mass of elerium in this item.

First we have to find the “Avenger”s maximum speed in SI units.

r * f / t = v

With r as range (54000 nautic miles), t as time that the craft needs for that range (10 hours) and f as factor translating nautic miles into kilometres (1.852) the maximum speed v is almost exactly 10,000 km/h.

The required power for maintaining this speed can be deducted solely from atmospheric drag.

F = v^2 * RHO * A * C_d /2

P = F*r

With v as velocity (10,000 km/h), RHO as density of atmosphere (see below), A as area where the drag applies to the craft (for the “Avenger” this would be roughly estimated 20 m^2), C_d as drag coefficient (since the “Avenger” should be constructed quite well I estimated 0.3) and r as range in kilometres (100000), F is the force applied by atmospheric resistance and P the total power over total range that is used to overcome this resistance.

I took 5000 ft. as average flight height to estimate the atmospheric density. This means that RHO roughly equals 0.85.

The velocity has to be [m/s] and the range has to be [m] to fit for the following formulas.

Therefore follows: F = 1.968 * 10^7 kN and P = F * 10^9 = 1.968 * 10 ^16 kNm

Now we take that keeping the craft at max speed only uses 95% of required energy per mission, since combat situations as well as turning, starting and landing (overcoming inertia) use extra power. Now we use Einsteins most popular formula to calculate the required mass from our power requirements:

1,968 * 10^16 / 0.95 = m´ * c^2

Therefore follows: m´ = 230.175 g

Taking into account that “only” 99% of mass is converted into energy:

m = 230.175 / 0.99 = 232.5 gramms , which is the mass carrying the “Avenger” for 100.000 kilometres!!!

Since an “Avenger” is fuelled with 12 units of elerium, one unit wheights roughly 20 gramms, which means one UFO power source carries about 1 kilogramm of elerium. This also means that the explosions of UFO Power Sources after crashing are BY FAR too small. An explosion in which only 0.1% (or 1 gramm) of the contained Elerium is transformed into energy had the explosive force of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Shooting down a terror ship with 4 power sources destroyed would therefore almost certainly end the battle for Earth... by completely vaporizing it :/

[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

Elerium-115

2007-08-20T09:48:31Z

Tequilachef: /* How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? */

Elerium, otherwise known as element 115, is the energy source for all alien techonologies. Mined from reserves near [[Cydonia]], it has a variety of uses. However, it cannot be found on Earth...

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS56.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Size: 1 high x 1 wide
*Weight: 3
*Sell Price: $5000</td></tr></table>

== Obtaining Elerium ==
Elerium cannot be synthesized on Earth; it can only be obtained from [[UFO Assault]]s or [[Alien Base Assault]]s. Elerium is housed within [[UFO Power Source]]s, and is very fragile. If upon starting a UFO assault you find a [[UFO Power Source]] to have been destroyed (as a result of a crash landing), its Elerium will surely have been destroyed as well. Be careful about using explosives near intact UFO Power sources, as the Elerium within is easily toasted!

At the end of a successful mission, any Elerium contained within intact UFO Power Sources will be automatically collected and returned to your base. If for some reason you need to end a mission prematurely, you can still collect Elerium by hand, by shooting open a UFO Power Source (generally with a plasma weapon). For more on securing Elerium in this way, see [[UFO Power Source]]s.

Perhaps the most efficient way to gain a stock of Elerium is to find an Alien Base and attack the [[Supply Ship]]s as they land nearby. Leave the base intact to attract more supply ships, as the Elerium is worth more than the score penalty (150 units per intact Supply Ship).

UFO Power Sources can also be found in ''some'' Alien Bases, if they have a particular base "module". You can raid such a base without having to win the mission, and have a soldier carry the Elerium back to the entry lift and then abort (see [[Alien Base Assault#Smash And Grab]] for more details). Attacking the base's Supply Ships is likely to be a safer and more reliable source of Elerium, however; see [[UFO Recovery Values#Alien Base Assaults]] for more details.

On the map, Elerium appears as a purple ball (the same graphic as a [[Stun Bomb]] on the ground). This object is worth 50 points of Elerium. During [[Base Defense]], some of your own Elerium from stores may appear on the battlescape. This is a Good Thing if you win the mission, as each unit is represented as a pod and can be recovered for ''fifty'' units. This is probably a bug and appears to be absent from the [[Collector's Edition]].

== Uses ==
'''Don't sell Elerium.''' Although you do have the option to do so, this is to be highly discouraged. It is used to fuel the [[Firestorm]], the [[Lightning]], and the [[Avenger]]. It is also used, in varying amounts, to [[manufacture]] most [[Alien Artefacts]], [[Flying Suit]]s, and various other technologies. Given that you can only obtain Elerium in the battlefield, selling it is not a good idea. If you choose to, it will fetch you $5,000 per unit.

== Elerium In Reality ==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium Ununpentium], the temporary name for synthesized element 115, was only created briefly in atomic laboratories in 2004 and is not the subject of much research. However UFO 'researcher' Robert Lazar made several [http://www.beyondweird.com/element115.html claims] about E-115 in the 1980's. For example, it would be the only element that had a gravitational field extending past it's own atomic 'shell'. This deviance from the normal rule would be so significant that perhaps the technologies seen in the [[X-Com Series]] could become a reality - anti-gravity devices used for both flight and particle acceleration.

== How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? ==
Since some information about the physical laws that rule Elerium-related technology is given in the game this question can be answered to some extend. To fit elerium into the laws of physics, some basic facts have to be “chosen”. The only way to equal an amount of elerium to an amount of power is to calculate the power needed by elerium-propelled crafts. I chose the “Avenger” for this calculation. Since it is the most advanced craft built by X-Com we can assume it has maximum efficiency, which eases the maths a bit.

I also assumed that the weight of the elerium item that can be picked up in combat (3 weight units) can not be used to deduct the actual mass of elerium in this item.

First we have to find the “Avenger”s maximum speed in SI units.

r * f / t = v

With r as range (54000 nautic miles), t as time that the craft needs for that range (10 hours) and f as factor translating nautic miles into kilometres (1.852) the maximum speed v is almost exactly 10,000 km/h.

The required power for maintaining this speed can be deducted solely from atmospheric drag.

F = v^2 * RHO * A * C_d /2

P = F*r

With v as velocity (10,000 km/h), RHO as density of atmosphere (see below), A as area where the drag applies to the craft (for the “Avenger” this would be roughly estimated 20 m^2), C_d as drag coefficient (since the “Avenger” should be constructed quite well I estimated 0.3) and r as range in kilometres (100000), F is the force applied by atmospheric resistance and P the total power over total range that is used to overcome this resistance.

I took 5000 ft. as average flight height to estimate the atmospheric density. This means that RHO roughly equals 0.85.

The velocity has to be [m/s] and the range has to be [m] to fit for the following formulas.

Therefore follows: F = 1.968 * 10^7 kN and P = F * 10^9 = 1.968 * 10 ^16 kNm

Now we take that keeping the craft at max speed only uses 95% of required energy per mission, since combat situations as well as turning, starting and landing (overcoming inertia) use extra power. Now we use Einsteins most popular formula to calculate the required mass from our power requirements:

1,968 * 10^16 / 0.95 = m´ * c^2

Therefore follows: m´ = 230.175 g

Taking into account that “only” 99% of mass is converted into energy:

m = 230.175 / 0.99 = 232.5 gramms , which is the mass carrying the “Avenger” for 100.000 kilometres!!!

Since an “Avenger” is fuelled with 12 units of elerium, one unit wheights roughly 20 gramms, which means one UFO power source carries about 1 kilogramm of elerium. This also means that the explosions of UFO Power Sources after crashing are BY FAR too small. An explosion in which only 0.1% (or 1 gramm) of the contained Elerium is transformed into energy had the explosive force of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

User:Tequilachef

2007-08-18T10:42:04Z

Tequilachef: Addint "Aftermath", some other edits

Currently I am trying to finish the game on superhuman and with "Council Money Only".

== Rules ==

* Not selling any alien artifacts, corpses or UFO components
* Not selling any X-Com made Equipment
* Thus only getting money from the funding nations (and by selling surplus earth equipment like rifles or stingray launchers)
* No exploits!
* No farming (Alien supply missions may not be intercepted, alien bases may only be attacked to be destroyed)
* No reloading if something goes wrong! Saving in Battlescape is allowed, but only for backups if the game crashes.

This makes the game much harder and much more fun.

== Finances ==

When expending money, always keep in mind that you only will get oney ONCE a month! As soon as you are out of money you cannot manufacture, hire personell or buy equipment. Remember what costs might come to you for the rest of the month! Important:

* For manufacturing
* Replace losses on the battlefield (one or two terror missions can push this one up quite well)
* Replace equipment (Ammunition for earth weapons, grenades)

Huge one-time costs that need to be planned ahead are:

* Hyper wave Decoders, Mind Shields and Psi Labs (each damn expensive but worth every penny)
* Psi Amps (160,000$ each)
* Interceptors with twin plasma beams (1,042,000$ each)
* Starting base defense makeover (excluding additions like radar/alien containment/etc): building 2 new hangars, filling up the old hangar squares with 8 general stores to avoid "paying for dirt" (pays off after 2 months, you'll need a lot of room anyway), building replacement for living quarters at choke (total of 2,000,000$)
* New bases (if you plan to build up decent base defenses):
** 3 hangars (Alien spawn points!!)
** 2 general stores
** 1 living quarters
** a small garrison for base defense (I normally take 10 soldiers)
** equipment for those soldiers (weapons, ammunition, medikits, maybe armour)
** radar or decoder
** crafts
** transfer costs for crafts & equipment
** additional capabilities (workshops for craft construction, psi labs, backup laboratory/alien containment, backup storage)

Before making any expenses, calculate what you are going to need over the month. Will hangars be completed? You might want some savings for an interceptor. Is important research coming up? Save some money for the Psi-Labs/Hyperwave Decoders/Whatever.
If you are low on soldiers between the last 5 to 3 days of a month, do not hire new ones until only 71 hours of the old month are left. This saves the salary for those soldiers for the new month.
10 Engineers are far enough for the first few months. You won't have the money for excessive manufacturing, anyway.

== Research ==

Everything that saves money should be researched immediately.
* The first to go should be Medi Kit. Although expensive in production, everytime a soldier is saved by those you save 40.000$!
* Next up should be alien weaponry. Although you need ammunition for it, the weapons themselves are for free. Equipping a squad with laser rifles costs a fortune. Also remember that all X-Com made equipment destroyed in battle has to be replaced, what costs money again!
* I therefore suggest plasma rifles. They combine supreme accuracy with good firepower, which is needed to bring down terror units and to kill most aliens with one hit. Additionally, plenty of ammo for plasma rifles can be found during the first months.
* This unlocks the plasma cannon research, which does not require ammo and therefore saves money, too.
* Alien grenades are quite nice, too. All alien equipment, except for those useless plasma pistols should be researched and used!
* When using personal armour of all kind remember that losing a soldier in one of those costs even more than 40 grand! Only use those for your best men!
* Psi Labs are expensive! Be very careful with soldiers currently in psi training, if possible keep them out of battles at all. Build your psi labs in multiple bases and in those that lay in remote areas. Shuffle your Base garrisons for psionic training and send wounded soldiers to training since they cannot do anything else, anyway. After that train your most talented soldiers excessively, you wont have many of them!

== Tactical Combat ==

One of the big bills is hiring replacements. Therefore keeping your soldiers alive should be top priority. Some tricks to reduce your soldiers' mortality rate:
* Throw a smoke grenade out of your craft in the first turn. Do not exit, all aliens have full TUs at the beginning of your first turn and will therefore be able to reaction fire on your troops.
* Think of bringing an incendiary rocket to light up night missions and to burn down jungles.
* Electro Flares are an absolute must-have for night missions. If one lights your own troops, blast it with a grenade or pick it up.
* Employ psi puppets if necessary.
* Tanks cost a whole bunch of money and are very vulnerable to reaction fire. Better use 10 soldiers for the same money.

== Scoring ==

Obtaining huge amounts of score points is your top objective. Those will increase your payment by the funding nations. Normally, a score around 3,000 points will result in a remarkable increase in funding. This is absolutely necessary to cover rising maintenance costs, which come with global radar coverage and multiple interceptors.
Some tricks to keep your employers happy:
* Every UFOpaedia entry gains points. Save autopsies and other alien research for worse months.
* If you have a nice amount of points and the monthly report is near, keep possible sources for points (alien bases, downed UFOs) untouched. Taking them when already having enough points would be waste.
* Downing UFOs earns points, destroying them in air combat doubles them! Having plasma beams...
** makes those points absolutely free
** gives the chance of destroying medium scouts (more free points, the ground assault would cost money and endanger squad and equipment for 100 points or less)
** hugely improves your capability of taking down terror ships and supply ships!
* Points cost money! Every tactical mission that gains points costs money. This can go from a few thousand for ammo up to some hundrets of thousands for killed soldiers. remember that wounded soldiers still receive salaries while doing nothing, so soldiers being wounded cost, too. Therefore leave downed UFOs when having enough points halfway through the month.

== Emptying the stores ==

Although selling stuff is forbidden, there is no reason you should not be allowed to destroy it. Sell surplus equipment or corpses, then "destroy" the money by building and destroying base facilities or buying and then selling items. A nice spot for that is the position of the starting base original living quarters. This improves the defenses of your base while keeping down the paying for dirt bug.

== Aftermath ==

After having tried this I must say it is still quite easy to win the game. Well I must admit I got lucky in few respects (all alien retaliations against my starting base were floaters or mutons, those only after having psionics; having 8 out of 20 soldiers with psi strength over 80, 4 of those with 99 or 100; never having to defend any secondary base) but I also suffered some mayor busts (lost my first skyranger in april, the second one in may (both of course with almost every soldier and all X-Com equipment I had) with a terror assault following up I could not respond to; losing the USA and 2,400,000$ with them in July).
I think I can say with good tactics for battlescape and the early and excessive use of heavy weapons, grenades, smoke grenades and flares many soldiers survive in your service for quite a time. As soon as plasma rifles, armour, blaster launchers and psionics come in the battle for earth is likely to be won. Although the loss of my primary base would have been a mayor setback, I think I would have survived if it had come after may.

User:Tequilachef

2007-08-16T15:09:58Z

Tequilachef: "Funding nation only"

Making the Game Harder

2007-08-15T13:03:56Z

Tequilachef: Financing solely by funding nations

This page is intended for players who finish the game frequently on the highest difficulty and would like to keep the challenge alive.

Naturally it is quite easy to handicap yourself while playing the game: using only conventional weaponry, no armor, fighting only on night missions, etc. However, the idea here is not to go those extremes but to identify a number of exploits/cheats/tactics that make the game easier.

Feel free to try any of these ideas (or all of them!). Some may make the game very hard but not impossible to win.

==Don't use game exploits==

All strategy guides for UFO have plenty of mentions to [[Exploits]]. Their influence on [[Battlescape]]/[[Geoscape]] varies, here's a list of those that you should avoid and their consequences.

===Alien Inventory Screen===

Although you are not supposed to be able to access an alien's inventory screen when you mind control it, there is a [[Exploits#Alien_Inventory_Screen|way]] to do so. This allows for nasty things like priming grenades and dropping them at the feet of the alien.
Another thing to consider is to stop using [[Psionics]] all together (see below).

===Faulty Collision Detection===

A full description can be found on [[Exploits#Faulty Collision Detection|here]]. This exploit allows you to bypass map chokepoints (such as UFO doors) which can be used by the aliens to ambush your soldiers.

===Free Wages/Manufacturing/Fuel===

These exploits are commonly used to prevent your finances from going negative at the end of the month or to keep your planes flying for free. The [[Exploits#Free_Wages|Free Wages]] avoids having to pay your scientists/engineers/soldiers' salaries. Most of your monthly expenses are made of those, so having to pay for your 250 scientists makes financial matters more hard to deal with.

==Excessive Firepower==

===Heavy Plasmas===

Don't equip the majority of your squad with [[Heavy Plasma|Heavy Plasmas]].

===Blaster Launchers===

To put it simply: the weapons are too powerful and thus the temptation to overuse them too great. Completely destroying a map is fun at start but butchering the aliens gets boring after a while. Either do not use the weapons or only bring 1 on each mission.

===Enlarged Squads===

Restrict your squad regarding soldiers and tanks. Never use more than 14 plane slots to bring units into a battlefield (the capacity of a Skyranger).
The logic behind this is that you can easily outnumber the aliens, especially if you are facing small UFOs thus assuring victory.
Also, smaller squads allow for quicker play (you don't have to move 26 units each turn) and they make your soldiers more memorable, since you'll remember more their heroic achievements (or stupid deaths).

==No Psionics==

[[Psi-Amp|Psi-Amps]] completely unbalance the game towards the human player. Even 1 Psi-Amp is bad enough for the aliens, but to bring a squad full of psi-trained soldiers will mean that all the aliens will be mind controlled during the first turn (including even [[Cyberdisc|Cyberdisks]] or [[Sectopod|Sectopods]]. Once you start, the uncertainty and the risk will go down, and so will the fun.

The same applies to [[Mind Probe|Mind Probes]] since those devices can be used to screen aliens for their rank or to check if they will reaction fire.

Finally, the use of [[Psionic Laboratory|Psi Labs]] should be restricted to screening troops but not training them, since they can't use Mind Probes or Psi Amps. A harder setting would be not to use them at all and only find out during a fight who are the psi weaklings.
==XComUtil's Features==

[[XcomUtil]] is a game enhancer that was actually designed to make the game harder, although many of its features can be used the other way around.
There are 2 ways to use XComUtil, both of which can be used to increase the difficulty, the [[XcomUtil#The_XcuSetup_configuration_program|XcuSetup]] installation program and the [[XcomUtil#The_XcomUtil_command|XComUtil]] command.
===XcuSetup configuration===

When you run XcuSetup to install XComUtil a number of queries will be asked regarding which features you'll want to implement.

*''Do you want to use the improved starting base?'' (No)

With the improved starting base you start with an [[Alien Containment]] already built, your radar is upgraded and you'll start with additional scientists and engineers. It will also be designed to maximize defense.

*''Do you want to use the alternate starting base?'' (No)

This retains the optimal defensive layout but doesn't add the extra facilities/personnel.

*''Do you want to use the improved Tanks/Weapons?'' (No to both)

*''Do you want to use the new laser weapons?'' (Yes)

With this option chosen your lasers will require Elerium to be built (supposedly to act as power cells). This also prevents you from building plasma weapons (but not clips), thus preventing you from selling [[Plasma Pistol|Plasma Pistols]] and [[Plasma Rifle|Plasma Rifles]] since the aliens will stop using those.
It also makes [[Laser Cannon|Laser Cannons]] and [[Fusion Ball Launcher|Fusion Launchers]] a lot less attractive to sell because of the time required to build them and the [[Elerium]]/[[Alien Alloys]] necessary for their construction. Be prepared for the blow on your finances...

*''Do you want research help from captured aliens?'' (Yes! Yes! Yes!)

To make the game REALLY hard try this feature.
First, it will increase the research times of most items tenfold or more, especially regarding the alien technologies. Instead of having to wait days or a week for a certain technology the time will increase to months. With a little bad luck you will be stuck to lasers and no armor when the [[Muton|Mutons]] and [[Ethereal|Ethereals]] start showing up.
Second, the only way to speed research (other than having 250 scientists on all bases) is to capture live aliens, forcing you to bring a few [[Stun Rod|Stun Rods]] for all missions. It is not required to have an Alien Containment present to receive the research help but remember it only reduces the time of the research being done at your starting base.

==Financing solely by funding nations==

Do not sell any alien equipment, corpses or UFO components. Do not sell manufactured Equipment. Only genuine earth technology (like rifles or avalance launchers) or researched aircraft (since they don't bring in money) may be sold. This not only adds some realism to the game (seriously, who would pay 334,000$ for some metal ball that lets you know the stats of your wife? And which government on earth would allow the possession of plasma weapons to other nations, or even civilians?), it also makes it significantly harder. In february for example you have around 6,000,000$ to cover base maintenance, wages, crafts, manufacturing and losses on the battlefield. This leaves not very much! Building new bases, hiring more engineers or just building a second laboratory is almost impossible. But it is definitely more fun than having worldwide radar coverage and 16 interceptors by the end of march.

Elerium-115

2007-08-12T09:38:51Z

Tequilachef: Adding "How much Elerium is "1 Elerium"?

Elerium, otherwise known as element 115, is the energy source for all alien techonologies. Mined from reserves near [[Cydonia]], it has a variety of uses. However, it cannot be found on Earth...

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS56.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Size: 1 high x 1 wide
*Weight: 3
*Sell Price: $5000</td></tr></table>

== Obtaining Elerium ==
Elerium cannot be synthesized on Earth; it can only be obtained from [[UFO Assault]]s or [[Alien Base Assault]]s. Elerium is housed within [[UFO Power Source]]s, and is very fragile. If upon starting a UFO assault you find a [[UFO Power Source]] to have been destroyed (as a result of a crash landing), its Elerium will surely have been destroyed as well. Be careful about using explosives near intact UFO Power sources, as the Elerium within is easily toasted!

At the end of a successful mission, any Elerium contained within intact UFO Power Sources will be automatically collected and returned to your base. If for some reason you need to end a mission prematurely, you can still collect Elerium by hand, by shooting open a UFO Power Source (generally with a plasma weapon). For more on securing Elerium in this way, see [[UFO Power Source]]s.

Perhaps the most efficient way to gain a stock of Elerium is to find an Alien Base and attack the [[Supply Ship]]s as they land nearby. Leave the base intact to attract more supply ships, as the Elerium is worth more than the score penalty (150 units per intact Supply Ship).

UFO Power Sources can also be found in ''some'' Alien Bases, if they have a particular base "module". You can raid such a base without having to win the mission, and have a soldier carry the Elerium back to the entry lift and then abort (see [[Alien Base Assault#Smash And Grab]] for more details). Attacking the base's Supply Ships is likely to be a safer and more reliable source of Elerium, however; see [[UFO Recovery Values#Alien Base Assaults]] for more details.

On the map, Elerium appears as a purple ball (the same graphic as a [[Stun Bomb]] on the ground). This object is worth 50 points of Elerium. During [[Base Defense]], some of your own Elerium from stores may appear on the battlescape. This is a Good Thing if you win the mission, as each unit is represented as a pod and can be recovered for ''fifty'' units. This is probably a bug and appears to be absent from the [[Collector's Edition]].

== Uses ==
'''Don't sell Elerium.''' Although you do have the option to do so, this is to be highly discouraged. It is used to fuel the [[Firestorm]], the [[Lightning]], and the [[Avenger]]. It is also used, in varying amounts, to [[manufacture]] most [[Alien Artefacts]], [[Flying Suit]]s, and various other technologies. Given that you can only obtain Elerium in the battlefield, selling it is not a good idea. If you choose to, it will fetch you $5,000 per unit.

== Elerium In Reality ==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium Ununpentium], the temporary name for synthesized element 115, was only created briefly in atomic laboratories in 2004 and is not the subject of much research. However UFO 'researcher' Robert Lazar made several [http://www.beyondweird.com/element115.html claims] about E-115 in the 1980's. For example, it would be the only element that had a gravitational field extending past it's own atomic 'shell'. This deviance from the normal rule would be so significant that perhaps the technologies seen in the [[X-Com Series]] could become a reality - anti-gravity devices used for both flight and particle acceleration.

== How much Elerium is „1 Elerium“? ==
Since some information about the physical laws that rule Elerium-related technology is given in the game this question can be answered to some extend. To fit elerium into the laws of physics, some basic facts have to be “chosen”. The only way to equal an amount of elerium to an amount of power is to calculate the power needed by elerium-propelled crafts. I chose the “Avenger” for this calculation. Since it is the most advanced craft built by X-Com we can assume it has maximum efficiency, which eases the maths a bit.

I also assumed that the weight of the elerium item that can be picked up in combat (3 weight units) can not be used to deduct the actual mass of elerium in this item.

First we have to find the “Avenger”s maximum speed in SI units.

r * f / t = x

With r as range (54000 nautic miles), t as time that the craft needs for that range (10 hours) and f as factor translating nautic miles into kilometres (1.852) the maximum speed x is almost exactly 10,000 km/h.

The required power for maintaining this speed can be deducted solely from atmospheric drag.

F = v^2 * RHO * A * C_d /2
P = F*r

With v as velocity (10,000 km/h), RHO as density of atmosphere (see below), A as area where the drag applies to the craft (for the “Avenger” this would be roughly estimated 20 m^2), C_d as drag coefficient (since the “Avenger” should be constructed quite well I estimated 0.3). and r as range in kilometres (100000) F is the force applied by atmospheric resistance and P the total power over total range that is used to overcome this resistance.

I took 5000 ft. as average flight height to estimate the atmospheric density. This means that RHO roughly equals 0.85.

The velocity has to be [m/s] and the range has to be [m] to fit for the following formulas.

Therefore follows: F = 1.968 * 10^7 kN and P = F * 10^9 = 1.968 * 10 ^16 kNm

Now we take that keeping the craft at max speed only uses 95% of required energy per mission, since combat situations as well as turning, starting and landing (overcoming inertia) use extra power. Now we use Einsteins most popular formula to calculate the required mass from our power requirements:

1,968 * 10^16 / 0.95 = m´ * c^2

Therefore follows: m´ = 230.175 g

Taking into account that “only” 99% of mass is converted into energy:

m = 230.175 / 0.99 = 232.5 gramms , which is the mass carrying the “Avenger” for 100.000 kilometres!!!

Since an “Avenger” is fuelled with 12 units of elerium, one unit wheights roughly 20 gramms, which means one UFO power source carries about 1 kilogramm of elerium. This also means that the explosions of UFO Power Sources after crashing are BY FAR too small. An explosion in which only 0.1% (or 1 gramm) of the contained Elerium is transformed into energy had the explosive force of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

Alien Missions

2007-08-06T14:39:36Z

Tequilachef: /* Alien Supply */

UFOs are sent out periodically to conduct a number of types of '''Alien Missions''', some of whom the purpose is fairly inscrutable, others are fairly obvious in their reasoning. Especially once the [[Hyper-Wave Decoder]] is deployed knowing the mission of the aliens can help make strategic plans for further actions that the aliens may attempt in the near future.

==Alien Research==
The Alien research mission is used for collecting basic data on Earth and its inhabitants. Small vehicles are predominantly used, with occasional landings in deserted areas. This type of Alien activity poses the least threat to X-COM, with little concern from governments or the public.

==Alien Harvest==
The Aliens have many uses for Earth's fauna. Animals are abducted secretly, and returned with various organs removed. Cattle mutilations are predominantly reported along with [[UFOs|UFO]] sightings. This type of Alien activity causes great concern by governments and considerable anxiety amongst the population. This type of activity occurs mainly in farming land. The theory behind the 'Alien Harvest' suggests that Alien races originally "seeded" the planet with its flora and fauna, and now they have returned to reap the harvest they have sown.

==Alien Abduction==
This is the most insidious form of Alien activity. The abduction by Aliens is widely reported, despite the Aliens' attempts to erase the experience from their victims' memories. Abductees report being subject to humiliating physical examinations, including impregnation of alien foetuses and bizarre genetic experiments. The purpose behind this activity appears to be linked to genetic mutation and manipulation of the Aliens own genetic material. This activity causes great alarm, and occurs in populated areas or cities.

==Alien Infiltration==
Earth governments can be infiltrated by Alien agents which are Human in appearance. This can result in official contact between Aliens and governments at the highest level. The climax of this activity is characterised by intense [[UFOs|UFO]] activity in the vicinity of major cities. The aliens will attempt to sign a pact with an earth government by offering knowledge of their superior technology. In return, the government will allow the Aliens to conduct their activity unhindered. This Alien mission represents the worst threat to X-COM. If a government agrees to a pact then its funding will cease.

Five UFOs take part in an Infiltration mission, landing in both the target and neighboring countries. Two of these are often [[Battleship]]s. It has not been conclusively shown that shooting down the Battleships or [[UFO Ground Assault|assaulting the landed ships]] will stop the infiltration from succeeding. See the [[Talk:Alien_Missions|talk page]] for discussion on this matter.

When a country is sucessfully infiltrated an alien base will be created in or near the country. Always check for alien bases after infiltration missions. This way you can get points by destroying it and know how much money you will lose at the end of the month.

==Alien Base==
Aliens will construct secret underground bases in remote locations. After some initial reconnaissance flights some intense [[UFOs|UFO]] activity will occur as the base is being built. These bases are known to contain experimental labs for human abductees, and supplies for further activity in the region. The presence of Alien bases will generate a large amount of reported Alien activity without the presence of UFOs. In order to locate a base, an [[Craft|X-COM craft]] must patrol an area for a few hours to stand some chance of detection. An [[Alien Base Assault]] will remove the threat but should never be taken lightly.

There is no limit to the number of alien bases that can be built, but there is a limit as to how many can exist on the globe at the same time. Only fifty Geoscape Tokens (bases, waypoints, ships, etc) that can exist on the globe at any given time, and because you have to share this space with pretty much everything that you can interact with on the Geoscape, you can only have as many Alien bases as there are unused slots.

==Alien Terror==
When the Aliens [[Terror Mission|terrorise]] a city, they will deploy some [[Terror Units|special forces]] with awesome powers. [[Civilian]]s will be directly threatened, and governments will be forced to evacuate whole areas. The main purpose behind this activity is to generate sufficient public hysteria so that governments will threaten the X-COM project.

==Alien Retaliation==
If X-COM [[Interceptor]]s are being particularly successful in shooting down [[UFOs]] then the Aliens may take some [[Alien Retaliation|retaliatory]] action. This could result in a direct attack against an [[Base Defense|X-COM base]]. However, the aliens have to find an X-COM base in order to attack it, and provided UFOs are kept away then there should be little danger of an assault.

==Alien Supply==
Once an Alien base is constructed, then it is resupplied on a regular basis by a special [[Supply Ship|supply vessel]]. If one of these vessels is detected while landing then it is certain that an Alien base is nearby.

Piracy time. You may want to let the Alien base exist, just for millions of dollars plundered from the Supply "Blimps". Arrrrrr, avast ye Space-Lubbers!

Note that supply ships on supply missions are always at a speed that makes them impossible to be shot down by interceptors, even shortly before landing or after taking off. This means they can only be attacked on ground unless new aircrafts have been researched and built. Since they will certainly land this would be a waste of elerium since your craft will need some for the intercepion and the elerium in the ship might be destroyed.

==See Also==
[[Alien Life Forms]] 
[[UFOs]]

[[Category:Missions]]

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-08-05T17:06:17Z

Tequilachef: /* Unconscious Enemy in Equipment Screen */

did anyone find ANNOYING! the airbourne intercept window of TFTD when flying over water?

Annoying:

Intercept a USO over land then follow it and it may (should) fly out towards to water. The aliens don't usually go straight into the drink so the "Unable to continue pursuit while airbourne" window comes when flying over water "return to base" OR "continue pursuit" as the options. If you'd press the 'continue pursuit', it would just display the window again. The only way to continue pursuit was to click it maybe 10 or 20 times before the aliens submerged. This is nuts! Are there any work-arounds to this than just pressing the "return to base" button?

just checking up ?

== Difficulty Bug ==

We should for historical reasons outline the "Difficulty Bug" that [[XcomUtil]] has saved most of us from. Any takers? --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]]

-----

That would only require two or three short lines. Something like this:

'' " Because of one or two incorrectly set bytes in all dos versions of the game( 1.0 through to 1.4), no matter what difficulty was selected, the difficulty bug would reset to beginner at the end of the first mission. XcomUtil performs a very minor tweak that corrects this problem. This bug was officially fixed in the Collectors Edition Windows port (also commonly known as UFO Gold). " ''

Or perhaps something a bit more succinct, and with less commas. Ha!

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

-----

This is a technical bug that doesn't happen to everyone and one this article wasn't really meant to chronical - but we won't turn away helping a fellow player if it can't be helped. It's just that there are so many random crash points in this game that it would take far too long to find them all or come up with solutions for them.

Certainly, the transfer crash can happen to some players, but it's not one that can be reproduced easily. It's just like the random crash that some players get when they research a floater medic. It crashes the game for some of us, but others don't seem to notice it at all.

It really depends on your hardware and OS setup, whether or not your copy of the game is damaged or your savegame is damaged, etc.

Does it happen in all games or just this one savegame?

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

-----

== "Invisible Muton" bug ==

Upon shooting repeatedly a Muton, it sometimes plays its "death" animation without sound (as if falling unconscious) and it is no longer displayed in the screen, while remaining visible to my soldiers (I can center the screen and the cursor appears yellow over them). Under this state, they cannot be targeted by Stun Rods. They may play their death animation anytime they get shot, until they truly die, when they emit their characteristic sound and leave a corpse (along with any items carried).

I'm quite fond of laser weapons, maybe this happens more often with those.

Also, though I remember experiencing this quite often fighting Mutons, it may happen to any other high health race.--[[User:Trotsky|Trotsky]] 02:59, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

-----

Never seen that one myself. Another "unpatched game" thing maybe?

There's a (very rare) bug that allows your soldiers to live if they become stunned by an explosion that happens to kill them. Sometimes the game will register their death, and THEN register that they've been stunned. In every case I've seen this happen, however, the unit will have such a low amount of health that a single fatal wound will render it dead (again) on the next turn. I have a vague memory that other players may have been able to get a medkit to the scene on time...

I dunno if that's related to your issue at all (I doubt it, but... meh). I'd advise using a Mind Probe on the alien the next time it happens so you can check the aliens stun/health levels.

- [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]]

----

I'm pretty sure I've seen this with Mutons. Possibly Chrysallids as well, another high health, high armor creature. They were still readily killed by shooting the place they are. Good thought on the MP, BB

---[[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 08:51, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

----

I've been known to have a dying muton(in fire) to spin around and then switch to the female civilian death animation. With the scream and everything. Even got a civilian death registered at the end of the mission. And this didn't just happen once, but on another separate occasion.

Unusually enough, I once had a sectopod die and then drop a tank corpse. I was using the Lightning at the time for my troop carrier, so you can imagine my surprise.

Then there was one occasion where a floater dropped a snakeman corpse. Let's not even get into the sort of things the aliens like to stuff themselves with.

Your invisible alien bug is quite common, although there appears to be many causes for it. I think one involves a full object table when it comes to invisible aliens in bases. But it can also happen in ordinary missions as well. I'm guessing the game may have tried to do something in the wrong order, and sprite information for the unit may have been lost or corrupted along the way.

Having had an experience where all the chryssalids become invisible in one base defence mission was quite a shocker. I fixed this by saving the game, quitting and then restarting the game. If you ever get an invisible alien again, try this and see if it helps. If it doesn't, well, just keep a careful watch on your map and any alerts that pop up as you play.

There's a similar but less severe bug where a dead alien will still leave its centre-on-unit alert button, but this goes away shortly after you move or turn.

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

----

That last bug happens when exploding Cyberdiscs kill nearby Sectoids, doesn't it?--[[User:Trotsky|Trotsky]] 23:56, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

----

This is a pretty easy one. I guess this bug occured on UFO recovery on a battleship, an alien base assault or a base defense mission? As soon as there are too many items on the map, the game saves some item slots for the equipment to be displayed (since it is more valuable and more important to research). This would also make stun weapons lethal if the stunned aliens would vanish. therefore the game has a failsafe if an alien is stunned (or badly wounded and becoming uncontious). The downed alien's stun level is set exactly on its left health points therefore resurrecting it instantly. This cycle is broken when the alien is finally killed. This means if you want to stun an alien in such a situation you have to destroy some items first.

- by tequilachef (April 4th 2007)

== Vanishing snakemen ==

I've known snakemen to become invisible when standing on a hay bale. On the first occassion I had a poor tank getting shot while spending numerous turns looking for it. On the second occasion I had an alien under Psi-control, left it on the hay bale, and couldn't find it next turn. - Egor

---

This is not limited to snakemen. Hay bale block visibility quite much when a unit is standing on it. Two possible solutions:
- Destroy the hay before entering
- Shoot at the hay. If it is destroyed any unit on it will become visible (as long as no other bales are blocking the line of sight). You might also hit the enemy directly.

I Dnt know if the aliens are affected by this diminished sight, too. My guess would be no.

- By tequilachef (April 4th, 2007)

== Blaster Bomb Bug ==

I'm currently playing through X-com UFO Defense, I have the collectors edition version. I'm in the process of trying to catch a live alien commander and the blaster bomb bug is making this very difficult. If i remember correctly a commander is always in the command center of the the alien bases. The problem is anytime i get close there is always a dude with a blaster launcher up there that tries to kill my troops. When they try to fire it down at me the bug kicks in and they blow up the whole command room and all the aliens in it because they can't figure out how to get the blaster bomb down the grav lift thing in there. This is making it very dificult to actually catch a live commander. Anyone have any ideas for tactics or anything to breach that room without the aliens trying to fire a blaster launcher up there? - eL Hector

: I can suggest two possible solutions. The first is to wait outside the command room for the alien to move closer to you. If it comes out of the room or if you know it has moved down the lift, you then burst in and stand right next to it to stop it from firing the blaster. This is risky because there could very well be a heavy plasma toting alien in there. The other is to use a small launcher and launch it up at the ceiling near where you think the alien with the blaster is standing. -[[User:NKF|NKF]]

== Disappearing Ammunition ==

I have observed that problem with X-COM 1.2, modded with XCOMUTIL. My stun bombs and heavy rocket missiles, along with clips for the auto cannon went missing.
[[User:Vagabond|Vagabond]]

------

Just run a test using my 1.4 DOS version with XComUtil but my stun bombs didn't disappear: 30 + 1 back in the base they came from, same number after I went tactical and I dusted-off immediately. Are you running XComUtil with Runxcom.bat or did you simply run Xcusetup?

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 22:12, 22 February 2007 (PST)

:Is it a case of hitting the 80-item limit?--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 12:28, 23 February 2007 (PST)

------
With runxcomw.bat, as everytime. Apologies, I retested and it seems like I was mistakened, but I could have sworn that I lost them dang stunbombs. Had to manufacture some. I will test some more, using four heavy weapons and seeing whether their ammunition disappears at all. Thanks. [[User:Vagabond|Vagabond]]

==MC at end = MIA?==

I am sure I have seen this again recently, where I won a mission with no casualties (I thought), but the last thing I killed was a Commander that had been chain MC'ing a psi-attack-magnet trooper, and that trooper was listed as MIA at the end (presumably because he was on the enemy side at the end of combat). Is this a bug, or is there another way to get MIA's on a completed mission that I might have missed?

Since then I have been waiting for the leaders to panic at the end before killing them (or waiting for a rare resist), so I can safely exit, but am I being overcautious?

--[[User:Sfnhltb|Sfnhltb]] 13:45, 27 February 2007 (PST)

If the trooper was mind controlled on the turn you killed the last alien it will be listed as MIA. No bug there :)

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 18:16, 1 March 2007 (PST)

Huh, why would that happen - your soldier should recover the very next round, why would he go MIA?

--[[User:Sfnhltb|Sfnhltb]] 18:20, 1 March 2007 (PST)

Doesn't make sense to me as well but that's how the game works.

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 15:05, 2 March 2007 (PST)

----

It seems that regaining control of units under enemy mind control works different for alien and human players. My guess: aliens under human MC are reverted to alien control AFTER THE ALIEN AND BEFORE THE HUMAN TURN while human units under alien control are reverted RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TURN. This explains three different phenomenons:

- The discussed MIA "bug" (he unit would be returned in the next human turn, but since it never starts it is lost. The mission is still won since no unit with a "genuine alien" marking is left)

- The fact that a mission is lost when the last human falls under MC while it is not won when this happens to the last standing alien (the aliens get their unit back before their turn starts and therefore have a unit left to pass the "anyone alive?" check, the humans would have no unit left to start a turn with. They WOULD have as soon as the turn starts, but no unit left before turn means bust)

- The fact that aliens still can see all an MCed human saw at the end of the human turn that follows the MC while this is not vice versa (The MCed human can give information to the alien side before reverted while an MCed alien is reverted too early). The result is that aliens can control a human indefinitely without having any alien seeing him until the MC is disrupted for one turn.

All confused? Then I did a good job! No seriously, this must be the explanation, I couldn't think of any other way.

- By tequilachef (April 4th, 2007)

: You're absolutely correct on the first two points. It's a sequence issue - you never get round to recovering the unit before the new turn starts, so you end without any units whatsoever. Makes senses too since the aliens would continue to continue to mind control that same unit over and over indefinitely.

: The third point however: The aliens don't need to know the location of the last MC'd unit. They know the location of all your troops whether they've seen them or not from the very start. They appear to give you a few turns of grace where they won't attack you outright (unless, from my observation, all your soldiers are incredibly weak). This is evident because all of the aliens will eventually make their way towards the nearest soldier even though their movement pattern may seem semi-random. Also, they know where you are because they can initiate psionic attacks without having seen any of your troops. They generally go after the weakest troops first.

: Just to add a semi-related point, but from the alien's perspective. If an MC'd alien unit is in the exits when you abort the mission, this alien is not recovered and in fact simply vanishes. Any equipment it was carrying is recovered, unknown artefacts or otherwise. You could possibly think of this as their version of MIA. However, the aliens differ ever so slightly in that if it's the last alien standing and under temporary mind control by the player, the mission doesn't end straight away. But I guess this is only because the player has everything under control, whereas in the other scenario, the Ai is in control.

: -[[User:NKF|NKF]]

== Crash Site in the atlantic ocean ==

That's right, my game generated a crash site on water. Here are the details:

- Crash Site a bit southeast of the USA (which was infiltrated a few days before by sectoids, resulting base had already been taken out), but certainly not on land.

- UFO: battleship, floater, alien harvest

- Geoscape: 8 X-Com Bases, 1 (known) Alien base, 2 other crash sites, 1 other (known) flying UFO (though almost worldwide decoder coverage), 3 X-Com Crafts out, 1 waypoint

- Date: January 2000

- Most Interesting: The Craft that downed the ship was a recently finished Firestorm (first human-alien hybrid craft I had built, I know this is lame for that date. Limited myself on 25 Scientists to improve the challenge) equipped with twin plasma. I had it built and equipped in Antarctica and then transferred to Europe. This base had no Elerium, a fact that enabled me to use the infinite fuel exploit which was in effect when downing the UFO. My craft was only slightly damaged when doing so. The battleship was the first target assigned to the craft, it came directly from my base.

- When shot down, the UFO was not targetted by any other craft.

- I had not lost or sold a single craft to that point.

- When sending a squad to the crash site the game didn't crash but generated a farm land ground combat terrain.

- I was not able to reproduce the bug from the savegame dated 2 hours before downing the UFO

Well guys, any intelligent guesses? I still have the savegames (before and after downing)! If you want to have a look, write here.

- By tequilachef (April 5th 2007)
----
: Well I'm sure you know about crash sites that are near land can sometimes actually be on water, so I'm going to assume that this site is well far away from any land mass. Could it be a weird entry in GEODATA\WORLD.DAT that has a land mass out in the ocean? Also are you sure the game didn't crash? Sometimes when it does it will load the previous mission (and usually 90% are at farm terrain). Are you sure it generated a new map and not load the last one?
:No real guesses but maybe some starting points to look at. I've probably stated some obvious situations you know about and have accounted for, but it never hurts to double check :D
- [[User:Pi Masta|Pi Masta]] 14:23, 5 April 2007 (PDT)

== Inconsitencies in MCing Cyberdiscs and Sectopods ==

I experienced, that when MCing one quadrant of a large terror unit any action it does only affects this quadrant (especially use of time units). That means, when TUs are up for one part, MC another one and continue firing. This however does not work out when moving the unit while it is not under complete control. The TUs used up by the resulting reaction fire from the rest of the unit is also deducted from the TUs "your" part has left (making it impossible for the controlled parts to return fire). This however only happens under reaction fire, not if "your" part fires on it's own. I don't know if this comes up when uncontrolled parts shoot by themselves in the alien turn, since this is hard to find out.

: That's because large units literally are made up of four separate units. They only share the same set of general stats (in unitref.dat). Unfortunately the 'under mind control flag' is unique to the four units, not the shared stats! So you in effect have multiple units under different control sharing the same stats. So if you move and it results in a reaction from the unit, it will spend the TUs you're using.
: Successful mind control automatically fills up the unit's TUs, so each mind controlled sector gets to move or attack again until there are no more sectors to mind control. Useful way of turning reapers into long range scouts!
: In TFTD, they attempted to fix this bug, but in fact made it much-much worse! The only way to mind control the unit properly is to control the upper left quadrant. Only! Any other quadrant will result in a partial (clockwise) control, and you may gain control of units other than that unit, or may even get into situations where you gain permanent 'partial control' of a large unit you haven't even sited. Wackiness all around!

:- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

== Facility Dismantle Bug ==

Boba: I've never experienced this bug myself in all my games in the Collectors Edition. It may very well vary from computer to computer.

-[[User:NKF|NKF]]
:I, however, have experienced it. I lost an entire month's worth of playtime because I couldn't solve it. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]]

::Anyone, any ideas on why it might vary from PC to PC? -[[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]]

:::I'd check other factors before blaming a given system. Assuming no mods are being used the most obvious is the order in which you initiated the construction of the modules. Then we've got which one was due to be completed first, and I'm sure there's a few other things to test out. Usually, a player won't cancel in-progress modules on a regular basis, so you wouldn't expect this bug to turn up often. - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 01:53, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

== Manufacturing Limit Bug ==

Unfortunately, Mike, no you did not get it correct. It is the raw number of hours needed to complete the project, not the projected hours. I discussed this on the X-Com Forums a few months back at the following link: http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242027760&st=0&#entry164411

I did tests at the time in regard to the accuracy of the data given there, but I've lost the results. I'll quickly redo the tests in the next hour or so. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 19:00, 8 June 2007 (PDT)

:Tests complete. The breakpoints for every item were exactly where I predicted, regardless of number of engineers assigned. (I ran up a huge queue of items at my dedicated factory base on an old game, and then assigned whatever engineers would fit onto one project at a time, canceling projects as data was confirmed. This is only semi-random, but it serves our purposes.) I did run into a single issue, though. It appears that despite having 5 empty hangars at a (different!) base, the workshop there could not queue up more than 3 of any one craft at a time, thus making this bug impossible to replicate with the Firestorm or Lightning, as you must be producing more than three for the bug to occur. However, it still works with the Avenger. Later, I shall see about constructing a dedicated Hangar base with 7 hangars in order to attempt to replicate the bug. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 19:33, 8 June 2007 (PDT)

::Sounds great, Arrow. Why not post a simple example that shows how the problem works. As in, "with 1 Eng and 2 Avengers you might think X, but no, it's Y". And please delete my example. And it's a fine pleasure to meet you! Cool - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]]

:::When you say the usual resources are used by the "lost" resources, that includes cash, right? It sounds like if you're willing to foot the extra bill [[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Manufacturable_Prices|money/component-wise]], this could be used to build Avengers slightly faster then normal.

::: The usual time is 34000 hours. Double that and subtract 65535 and you're left with a paltry 2465 hours. Even a single workshop squad of 10 engineers will pull that off in a little over ten days. - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 01:53, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

::::Sadly, this exploit doesn't work, because the high bit is stored SOMEWHERE. I lack a hex reader and have no code reading skills to speak of, so I'm a bit limited here. If you set up a Workshop as you described, the game would take all the time for 2 Avengers, all the resources for the same, but in the end only produce 1 Avenger. Meanwhile, I'll run more tests on the resources thing. I could swear it consumes the resources, but I'll double check.

::::Tests done; I was unable to replicate the 'disappearing item' trick,(Which I didn't test for last night) even with Avengers! It appears I was wrong; this still counts as a bug, though, because the wraparound is a problem.

::::Ironic that so much of this discussion centers around Avengers, because that's where I discovered this in the first place! [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 06:48, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

== Unconscious Enemy in Equipment Screen ==

The following happened to me repeatedly over the last few days.

In the last tactical Mission a live alien has been captured. When now beginning an UFO crash recovery mission this type of alien (same race and rank) appears in the equipment screen before the mission starts, meaning I can give it to any of my soldiers.
If I do so I can store the alien in the skyranger for the duration of the mission and, if it gains consciousness, kill or stun it at the end of it. A pile of equipment without a corpse will be in the UFO, indicating that the stunned alien is not some kind of duplicate but instead has been taken from the aliens of this mission. This is supported by the fact that in those missions the maximum number of crew members has not been surpassed.
If I do not do so the Alien will be placed in the crashed UFO. Whether it is unconscious or not I do not know, but the fact that it is completely disarmed when encountered in the battle suggests that it is.

So far it seems the following is necessary for the bug to occur:
# An alien has to be captured alive in the last tactical combat
# It has to be of the same race and rank as one of the aliens in the new tactical combat

So far this only worked...:
# If the new tactical combat was an UFO crash recovery of a medium scout.
# For floaters and mutons
# For soldiers and navigators
# If the alien in the last mission was stunned by normal weapon fire (although I do not think this is important) and not picked up (again, not likely to be important) or destroyed (which would mean it has to be actually captured)

It seems NOT to depend on the following:
# The type of the last mission (were, so far: Ground assault battleship, crash recovery large scout, base defense)
# Which squad or vessel was involved capturing the alien
# Where it is locked up
# If it has been transferred since capture or not

Would be interesting to know:
# What happens if the alien in the inventory screen is the only survivor
# If the alien in the invenory screen is one of the aliens randomly killed in the crash or not (it is likely to be one of the killed aliens, so far the equipment piles were always within the UFO)
# If this is not limited on crashed medium scouts: Does this work with terror units? What about large ones?

Maybe this is related to the proximity grenade bug (transfer of item properties to next tactical combat).

Additionally, in one of those mission a part of the terrain was not generated correctly. It was in farm terrain (The house on the right square, or north east square, in [[Image:Terrain-cult.gif|this pic]]). The outer wall right to the right window of the southern wall (1st Floor) was missing. Directly outside of the hole was a floor tile. I could walk a soldier through the wall, but he fell right through the tile. Dunno if this has to do with the stunned alien bug.

Version is collectors edition (the one from abandonia.com).

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

When a mission starts, the GeoScape engine generates the unit and object tables (in MissDat's [[OBPOSREF.DAT]], [[UNIPOS.DAT]], and [[UNIREF.DAT]]) before "shutting down". The Tactical engine then generates the maps, places the aliens on it, and blows up the UFO (if need be). Whether or not map generation and the subsequent events happen before you equip your soldiers I don't yet know.

The test would be to check the aforementioned files to see if they contain an unconcious alien, and/or the body.

Note that you can't see the bodies of large units on the ground (they count as four seperate objects covering four seperate tiles, so allowing the user to pick one up would essentially let you rip them apart).

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 06:35, 5 August 2007 (PDT)

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

I honestly have no idea of how all those files work. But I still have a savegame in battlescape that is in one of those missions. So if anyone wants to have a look at those files...

I forgot to mention: I reloaded a geoscape savegame shortly before the battle to recreate the bug, but it seems that reloading in geoscape before the buggy battle eliminates the bug. I guess his should narrow down the possible reasons...

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-08-05T17:05:48Z

Tequilachef: /* Unconscious Enemy in Equipment Screen */

did anyone find ANNOYING! the airbourne intercept window of TFTD when flying over water?

Annoying:

Intercept a USO over land then follow it and it may (should) fly out towards to water. The aliens don't usually go straight into the drink so the "Unable to continue pursuit while airbourne" window comes when flying over water "return to base" OR "continue pursuit" as the options. If you'd press the 'continue pursuit', it would just display the window again. The only way to continue pursuit was to click it maybe 10 or 20 times before the aliens submerged. This is nuts! Are there any work-arounds to this than just pressing the "return to base" button?

just checking up ?

== Difficulty Bug ==

We should for historical reasons outline the "Difficulty Bug" that [[XcomUtil]] has saved most of us from. Any takers? --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]]

-----

That would only require two or three short lines. Something like this:

'' " Because of one or two incorrectly set bytes in all dos versions of the game( 1.0 through to 1.4), no matter what difficulty was selected, the difficulty bug would reset to beginner at the end of the first mission. XcomUtil performs a very minor tweak that corrects this problem. This bug was officially fixed in the Collectors Edition Windows port (also commonly known as UFO Gold). " ''

Or perhaps something a bit more succinct, and with less commas. Ha!

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

-----

This is a technical bug that doesn't happen to everyone and one this article wasn't really meant to chronical - but we won't turn away helping a fellow player if it can't be helped. It's just that there are so many random crash points in this game that it would take far too long to find them all or come up with solutions for them.

Certainly, the transfer crash can happen to some players, but it's not one that can be reproduced easily. It's just like the random crash that some players get when they research a floater medic. It crashes the game for some of us, but others don't seem to notice it at all.

It really depends on your hardware and OS setup, whether or not your copy of the game is damaged or your savegame is damaged, etc.

Does it happen in all games or just this one savegame?

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

-----

== "Invisible Muton" bug ==

Upon shooting repeatedly a Muton, it sometimes plays its "death" animation without sound (as if falling unconscious) and it is no longer displayed in the screen, while remaining visible to my soldiers (I can center the screen and the cursor appears yellow over them). Under this state, they cannot be targeted by Stun Rods. They may play their death animation anytime they get shot, until they truly die, when they emit their characteristic sound and leave a corpse (along with any items carried).

I'm quite fond of laser weapons, maybe this happens more often with those.

Also, though I remember experiencing this quite often fighting Mutons, it may happen to any other high health race.--[[User:Trotsky|Trotsky]] 02:59, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

-----

Never seen that one myself. Another "unpatched game" thing maybe?

There's a (very rare) bug that allows your soldiers to live if they become stunned by an explosion that happens to kill them. Sometimes the game will register their death, and THEN register that they've been stunned. In every case I've seen this happen, however, the unit will have such a low amount of health that a single fatal wound will render it dead (again) on the next turn. I have a vague memory that other players may have been able to get a medkit to the scene on time...

I dunno if that's related to your issue at all (I doubt it, but... meh). I'd advise using a Mind Probe on the alien the next time it happens so you can check the aliens stun/health levels.

- [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]]

----

I'm pretty sure I've seen this with Mutons. Possibly Chrysallids as well, another high health, high armor creature. They were still readily killed by shooting the place they are. Good thought on the MP, BB

---[[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]] 08:51, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

----

I've been known to have a dying muton(in fire) to spin around and then switch to the female civilian death animation. With the scream and everything. Even got a civilian death registered at the end of the mission. And this didn't just happen once, but on another separate occasion.

Unusually enough, I once had a sectopod die and then drop a tank corpse. I was using the Lightning at the time for my troop carrier, so you can imagine my surprise.

Then there was one occasion where a floater dropped a snakeman corpse. Let's not even get into the sort of things the aliens like to stuff themselves with.

Your invisible alien bug is quite common, although there appears to be many causes for it. I think one involves a full object table when it comes to invisible aliens in bases. But it can also happen in ordinary missions as well. I'm guessing the game may have tried to do something in the wrong order, and sprite information for the unit may have been lost or corrupted along the way.

Having had an experience where all the chryssalids become invisible in one base defence mission was quite a shocker. I fixed this by saving the game, quitting and then restarting the game. If you ever get an invisible alien again, try this and see if it helps. If it doesn't, well, just keep a careful watch on your map and any alerts that pop up as you play.

There's a similar but less severe bug where a dead alien will still leave its centre-on-unit alert button, but this goes away shortly after you move or turn.

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

----

That last bug happens when exploding Cyberdiscs kill nearby Sectoids, doesn't it?--[[User:Trotsky|Trotsky]] 23:56, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

----

This is a pretty easy one. I guess this bug occured on UFO recovery on a battleship, an alien base assault or a base defense mission? As soon as there are too many items on the map, the game saves some item slots for the equipment to be displayed (since it is more valuable and more important to research). This would also make stun weapons lethal if the stunned aliens would vanish. therefore the game has a failsafe if an alien is stunned (or badly wounded and becoming uncontious). The downed alien's stun level is set exactly on its left health points therefore resurrecting it instantly. This cycle is broken when the alien is finally killed. This means if you want to stun an alien in such a situation you have to destroy some items first.

- by tequilachef (April 4th 2007)

== Vanishing snakemen ==

I've known snakemen to become invisible when standing on a hay bale. On the first occassion I had a poor tank getting shot while spending numerous turns looking for it. On the second occasion I had an alien under Psi-control, left it on the hay bale, and couldn't find it next turn. - Egor

---

This is not limited to snakemen. Hay bale block visibility quite much when a unit is standing on it. Two possible solutions:
- Destroy the hay before entering
- Shoot at the hay. If it is destroyed any unit on it will become visible (as long as no other bales are blocking the line of sight). You might also hit the enemy directly.

I Dnt know if the aliens are affected by this diminished sight, too. My guess would be no.

- By tequilachef (April 4th, 2007)

== Blaster Bomb Bug ==

I'm currently playing through X-com UFO Defense, I have the collectors edition version. I'm in the process of trying to catch a live alien commander and the blaster bomb bug is making this very difficult. If i remember correctly a commander is always in the command center of the the alien bases. The problem is anytime i get close there is always a dude with a blaster launcher up there that tries to kill my troops. When they try to fire it down at me the bug kicks in and they blow up the whole command room and all the aliens in it because they can't figure out how to get the blaster bomb down the grav lift thing in there. This is making it very dificult to actually catch a live commander. Anyone have any ideas for tactics or anything to breach that room without the aliens trying to fire a blaster launcher up there? - eL Hector

: I can suggest two possible solutions. The first is to wait outside the command room for the alien to move closer to you. If it comes out of the room or if you know it has moved down the lift, you then burst in and stand right next to it to stop it from firing the blaster. This is risky because there could very well be a heavy plasma toting alien in there. The other is to use a small launcher and launch it up at the ceiling near where you think the alien with the blaster is standing. -[[User:NKF|NKF]]

== Disappearing Ammunition ==

I have observed that problem with X-COM 1.2, modded with XCOMUTIL. My stun bombs and heavy rocket missiles, along with clips for the auto cannon went missing.
[[User:Vagabond|Vagabond]]

------

Just run a test using my 1.4 DOS version with XComUtil but my stun bombs didn't disappear: 30 + 1 back in the base they came from, same number after I went tactical and I dusted-off immediately. Are you running XComUtil with Runxcom.bat or did you simply run Xcusetup?

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 22:12, 22 February 2007 (PST)

:Is it a case of hitting the 80-item limit?--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 12:28, 23 February 2007 (PST)

------
With runxcomw.bat, as everytime. Apologies, I retested and it seems like I was mistakened, but I could have sworn that I lost them dang stunbombs. Had to manufacture some. I will test some more, using four heavy weapons and seeing whether their ammunition disappears at all. Thanks. [[User:Vagabond|Vagabond]]

==MC at end = MIA?==

I am sure I have seen this again recently, where I won a mission with no casualties (I thought), but the last thing I killed was a Commander that had been chain MC'ing a psi-attack-magnet trooper, and that trooper was listed as MIA at the end (presumably because he was on the enemy side at the end of combat). Is this a bug, or is there another way to get MIA's on a completed mission that I might have missed?

Since then I have been waiting for the leaders to panic at the end before killing them (or waiting for a rare resist), so I can safely exit, but am I being overcautious?

--[[User:Sfnhltb|Sfnhltb]] 13:45, 27 February 2007 (PST)

If the trooper was mind controlled on the turn you killed the last alien it will be listed as MIA. No bug there :)

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 18:16, 1 March 2007 (PST)

Huh, why would that happen - your soldier should recover the very next round, why would he go MIA?

--[[User:Sfnhltb|Sfnhltb]] 18:20, 1 March 2007 (PST)

Doesn't make sense to me as well but that's how the game works.

[[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 15:05, 2 March 2007 (PST)

----

It seems that regaining control of units under enemy mind control works different for alien and human players. My guess: aliens under human MC are reverted to alien control AFTER THE ALIEN AND BEFORE THE HUMAN TURN while human units under alien control are reverted RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE HUMAN TURN. This explains three different phenomenons:

- The discussed MIA "bug" (he unit would be returned in the next human turn, but since it never starts it is lost. The mission is still won since no unit with a "genuine alien" marking is left)

- The fact that a mission is lost when the last human falls under MC while it is not won when this happens to the last standing alien (the aliens get their unit back before their turn starts and therefore have a unit left to pass the "anyone alive?" check, the humans would have no unit left to start a turn with. They WOULD have as soon as the turn starts, but no unit left before turn means bust)

- The fact that aliens still can see all an MCed human saw at the end of the human turn that follows the MC while this is not vice versa (The MCed human can give information to the alien side before reverted while an MCed alien is reverted too early). The result is that aliens can control a human indefinitely without having any alien seeing him until the MC is disrupted for one turn.

All confused? Then I did a good job! No seriously, this must be the explanation, I couldn't think of any other way.

- By tequilachef (April 4th, 2007)

: You're absolutely correct on the first two points. It's a sequence issue - you never get round to recovering the unit before the new turn starts, so you end without any units whatsoever. Makes senses too since the aliens would continue to continue to mind control that same unit over and over indefinitely.

: The third point however: The aliens don't need to know the location of the last MC'd unit. They know the location of all your troops whether they've seen them or not from the very start. They appear to give you a few turns of grace where they won't attack you outright (unless, from my observation, all your soldiers are incredibly weak). This is evident because all of the aliens will eventually make their way towards the nearest soldier even though their movement pattern may seem semi-random. Also, they know where you are because they can initiate psionic attacks without having seen any of your troops. They generally go after the weakest troops first.

: Just to add a semi-related point, but from the alien's perspective. If an MC'd alien unit is in the exits when you abort the mission, this alien is not recovered and in fact simply vanishes. Any equipment it was carrying is recovered, unknown artefacts or otherwise. You could possibly think of this as their version of MIA. However, the aliens differ ever so slightly in that if it's the last alien standing and under temporary mind control by the player, the mission doesn't end straight away. But I guess this is only because the player has everything under control, whereas in the other scenario, the Ai is in control.

: -[[User:NKF|NKF]]

== Crash Site in the atlantic ocean ==

That's right, my game generated a crash site on water. Here are the details:

- Crash Site a bit southeast of the USA (which was infiltrated a few days before by sectoids, resulting base had already been taken out), but certainly not on land.

- UFO: battleship, floater, alien harvest

- Geoscape: 8 X-Com Bases, 1 (known) Alien base, 2 other crash sites, 1 other (known) flying UFO (though almost worldwide decoder coverage), 3 X-Com Crafts out, 1 waypoint

- Date: January 2000

- Most Interesting: The Craft that downed the ship was a recently finished Firestorm (first human-alien hybrid craft I had built, I know this is lame for that date. Limited myself on 25 Scientists to improve the challenge) equipped with twin plasma. I had it built and equipped in Antarctica and then transferred to Europe. This base had no Elerium, a fact that enabled me to use the infinite fuel exploit which was in effect when downing the UFO. My craft was only slightly damaged when doing so. The battleship was the first target assigned to the craft, it came directly from my base.

- When shot down, the UFO was not targetted by any other craft.

- I had not lost or sold a single craft to that point.

- When sending a squad to the crash site the game didn't crash but generated a farm land ground combat terrain.

- I was not able to reproduce the bug from the savegame dated 2 hours before downing the UFO

Well guys, any intelligent guesses? I still have the savegames (before and after downing)! If you want to have a look, write here.

- By tequilachef (April 5th 2007)
----
: Well I'm sure you know about crash sites that are near land can sometimes actually be on water, so I'm going to assume that this site is well far away from any land mass. Could it be a weird entry in GEODATA\WORLD.DAT that has a land mass out in the ocean? Also are you sure the game didn't crash? Sometimes when it does it will load the previous mission (and usually 90% are at farm terrain). Are you sure it generated a new map and not load the last one?
:No real guesses but maybe some starting points to look at. I've probably stated some obvious situations you know about and have accounted for, but it never hurts to double check :D
- [[User:Pi Masta|Pi Masta]] 14:23, 5 April 2007 (PDT)

== Inconsitencies in MCing Cyberdiscs and Sectopods ==

I experienced, that when MCing one quadrant of a large terror unit any action it does only affects this quadrant (especially use of time units). That means, when TUs are up for one part, MC another one and continue firing. This however does not work out when moving the unit while it is not under complete control. The TUs used up by the resulting reaction fire from the rest of the unit is also deducted from the TUs "your" part has left (making it impossible for the controlled parts to return fire). This however only happens under reaction fire, not if "your" part fires on it's own. I don't know if this comes up when uncontrolled parts shoot by themselves in the alien turn, since this is hard to find out.

: That's because large units literally are made up of four separate units. They only share the same set of general stats (in unitref.dat). Unfortunately the 'under mind control flag' is unique to the four units, not the shared stats! So you in effect have multiple units under different control sharing the same stats. So if you move and it results in a reaction from the unit, it will spend the TUs you're using.
: Successful mind control automatically fills up the unit's TUs, so each mind controlled sector gets to move or attack again until there are no more sectors to mind control. Useful way of turning reapers into long range scouts!
: In TFTD, they attempted to fix this bug, but in fact made it much-much worse! The only way to mind control the unit properly is to control the upper left quadrant. Only! Any other quadrant will result in a partial (clockwise) control, and you may gain control of units other than that unit, or may even get into situations where you gain permanent 'partial control' of a large unit you haven't even sited. Wackiness all around!

:- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

== Facility Dismantle Bug ==

Boba: I've never experienced this bug myself in all my games in the Collectors Edition. It may very well vary from computer to computer.

-[[User:NKF|NKF]]
:I, however, have experienced it. I lost an entire month's worth of playtime because I couldn't solve it. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]]

::Anyone, any ideas on why it might vary from PC to PC? -[[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]]

:::I'd check other factors before blaming a given system. Assuming no mods are being used the most obvious is the order in which you initiated the construction of the modules. Then we've got which one was due to be completed first, and I'm sure there's a few other things to test out. Usually, a player won't cancel in-progress modules on a regular basis, so you wouldn't expect this bug to turn up often. - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 01:53, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

== Manufacturing Limit Bug ==

Unfortunately, Mike, no you did not get it correct. It is the raw number of hours needed to complete the project, not the projected hours. I discussed this on the X-Com Forums a few months back at the following link: http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242027760&st=0&#entry164411

I did tests at the time in regard to the accuracy of the data given there, but I've lost the results. I'll quickly redo the tests in the next hour or so. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 19:00, 8 June 2007 (PDT)

:Tests complete. The breakpoints for every item were exactly where I predicted, regardless of number of engineers assigned. (I ran up a huge queue of items at my dedicated factory base on an old game, and then assigned whatever engineers would fit onto one project at a time, canceling projects as data was confirmed. This is only semi-random, but it serves our purposes.) I did run into a single issue, though. It appears that despite having 5 empty hangars at a (different!) base, the workshop there could not queue up more than 3 of any one craft at a time, thus making this bug impossible to replicate with the Firestorm or Lightning, as you must be producing more than three for the bug to occur. However, it still works with the Avenger. Later, I shall see about constructing a dedicated Hangar base with 7 hangars in order to attempt to replicate the bug. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 19:33, 8 June 2007 (PDT)

::Sounds great, Arrow. Why not post a simple example that shows how the problem works. As in, "with 1 Eng and 2 Avengers you might think X, but no, it's Y". And please delete my example. And it's a fine pleasure to meet you! Cool - [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed]]

:::When you say the usual resources are used by the "lost" resources, that includes cash, right? It sounds like if you're willing to foot the extra bill [[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Manufacturable_Prices|money/component-wise]], this could be used to build Avengers slightly faster then normal.

::: The usual time is 34000 hours. Double that and subtract 65535 and you're left with a paltry 2465 hours. Even a single workshop squad of 10 engineers will pull that off in a little over ten days. - [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 01:53, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

::::Sadly, this exploit doesn't work, because the high bit is stored SOMEWHERE. I lack a hex reader and have no code reading skills to speak of, so I'm a bit limited here. If you set up a Workshop as you described, the game would take all the time for 2 Avengers, all the resources for the same, but in the end only produce 1 Avenger. Meanwhile, I'll run more tests on the resources thing. I could swear it consumes the resources, but I'll double check.

::::Tests done; I was unable to replicate the 'disappearing item' trick,(Which I didn't test for last night) even with Avengers! It appears I was wrong; this still counts as a bug, though, because the wraparound is a problem.

::::Ironic that so much of this discussion centers around Avengers, because that's where I discovered this in the first place! [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 06:48, 9 June 2007 (PDT)

== Unconscious Enemy in Equipment Screen ==

The following happened to me repeatedly over the last few days.

In the last tactical Mission a live alien has been captured. When now beginning an UFO crash recovery mission this type of alien (same race and rank) appears in the equipment screen before the mission starts, meaning I can give it to any of my soldiers.
If I do so I can store the alien in the skyranger for the duration of the mission and, if it gains consciousness, kill or stun it at the end of it. A pile of equipment without a corpse will be in the UFO, indicating that the stunned alien is not some kind of duplicate but instead has been taken from the aliens of this mission. This is supported by the fact that in those missions the maximum number of crew members has not been surpassed.
If I do not do so the Alien will be placed in the crashed UFO. Whether it is unconscious or not I do not know, but the fact that it is completely disarmed when encountered in the battle suggests that it is.

So far it seems the following is necessary for the bug to occur:
# An alien has to be captured alive in the last tactical combat
# It has to be of the same race and rank as one of the aliens in the new tactical combat

So far this only worked...:
# If the new tactical combat was an UFO crash recovery of a medium scout.
# For floaters and mutons
# For soldiers and navigators
# If the alien in the last mission was stunned by normal weapon fire (although I do not think this is important) and not picked up (again, not likely to be important) or destroyed (which would mean it has to be actually captured)

It seems NOT to depend on the following:
# The type of the last mission (were, so far: Ground assault battleship, crash recovery large scout, base defense)
# Which squad or vessel was involved capturing the alien
# Where it is locked up
# If it has been transferred since capture or not

Would be interesting to know:
# What happens if the alien in the inventory screen is the only survivor
# If the alien in the invenory screen is one of the aliens randomly killed in the crash or not (it is likely to be one of the killed aliens, so far the equipment piles were always within the UFO)
# If this is not limited on crashed medium scouts: Does this work with terror units? What about large ones?

Maybe this is related to the proximity grenade bug (transfer of item properties to next tactical combat).

Additionally, in one of those mission a part of the terrain was not generated correctly. It was in farm terrain (The house on the right square, or north east square, in [[Image:Terrain-cult.gif|this pic]]). The outer wall right to the right window of the southern wall (1st Floor) was missing. Directly outside of the hole was a floor tile. I could walk a soldier through the wall, but he fell right through the tile. Dunno if this has to do with the stunned alien bug.

Version is collectors edition (the one from abandonia.com).

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

When a mission starts, the GeoScape engine generates the unit and object tables (in MissDat's [[OBPOSREF.DAT]], [[UNIPOS.DAT]], and [[UNIREF.DAT]]) before "shutting down". The Tactical engine then generates the maps, places the aliens on it, and blows up the UFO (if need be). Whether or not map generation and the subsequent events happen before you equip your soldiers I don't yet know.

The test would be to check the aforementioned files to see if they contain an unconcious alien, and/or the body.

Note that you can't see the bodies of large units on the ground (they count as four seperate objects covering four seperate tiles, so allowing the user to pick one up would essentially let you rip them apart).

- [[User:Bomb Bloke|Bomb Bloke]] 06:35, 5 August 2007 (PDT)

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

I honestly have no idea of how all those files work. But i still have a savegame in battlescape that is in one of those missions.

I forgot to mention: I reloaded a geoscape savegame shortly before the battle to recreate the bug, but it seems that reloading in geoscape before the buggy battle eliminates the bug. I guess his should narrow down the possible reasons...

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-08-05T11:23:28Z

Tequilachef: Adding new bug

Scoring

2007-08-04T22:02:49Z

Tequilachef: /* Alien Casualties */ Points for captured Aliens

==X-COM Scoring==
X-COMs performance is measured by way of a score that accrues monthly and is used in part to make the decisions of the funding countries in both their council deliberations on the organisations success, and also when making their individual judgements to change funding levels.

===Interception===
X-COM receive points each time a UFO is destroyed or grounded. Note that if a UFO 'crashes' (per Intercept popup) over the ocean, it only counts as 'grounded' as the funding countries cannot be sure the aliens do not have the ability to repair craft and return from an underwater crash site, and there is no way to do a [[UFO Crash Recovery]] in the oceans to be sure.
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width="60%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th>UFO Type</th>
<th>UFO Destroyed</th>
<th>UFO Grounded</th></tr>
<tr><td>Small Scout</td><td>100</td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td>Medium Scout</td><td>150</td><td>75</td></tr>
<tr><td>Large Scout</td><td>250</td><td>125</td></tr>
<tr><td>Harvester</td><td>500</td><td>250</td></tr>
<tr><td>Abductor</td><td>500</td><td>250</td></tr>
<tr><td>Supply Ship</td><td>800</td><td>400</td></tr>
<tr><td>Terror Ship</td><td>1000</td><td>500</td></tr>
<tr><td>Battleship</td><td>1400</td><td>700</td></tr>
</table>
</center>

X-COM lose points if one of their own craft are destroyed.
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width="50%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th>Craft Type</th>
<th>Craft Destroyed</th></tr>
<tr><td>Skyranger</td><td>-200</td></tr>
<tr><td>Interceptor</td><td>-250</td></tr>
<tr><td>Firestorm</td><td>-250</td></tr>
<tr><td>Lightning</td><td>-300</td></tr>
<tr><td>Avenger</td><td>-400</td></tr>
</table>
</center>
===Battlescape Missions===
During an X-COM battlescape mission, points can be gained or lost by the following actions.

Note that if you abort the mission without completing it, you still get points for performing the actions below. Specifically, you have to kill aliens and/or drag stunned aliens, equipment, and/or [[Elerium]] back to your ship (or base green area - NOT the red elevator area). Aliens that were killed in a UFO crash (already dead when you got there) do not count. (Briefly visiting a crash site, then dusting off, doesn't get you any points - you have to do things to get points.)

Also note that generally speaking, you get more points from Destroying small UFOs, than for Crashing them and then completing a ground mission. The reverse is true for large UFOs. (Compare Destroying vs. Grounding points vs. Points you can walk away from a Crash with.)

However, the [[UFO Recovery Values|salvage value]] of UFOs may be of greatest importance -- and no equipment can be recovered from destroyed UFOs. The greatest possible recovery value can be gotten from UFOs which are attacked after they land under their own power -- although that earns you no [[#Interception|Interception]] points.

==== Mission Objectives ====
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width="50%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th>Action</th>
<th>Points</th></tr>
<tr><td>Civilian killed by X-COM</td><td>-50</td></tr>
<tr><td>Civilian killed by Aliens</td><td>-30</td></tr>
<tr><td>X-COM soldier MIA</td><td>-20</td></tr>
<tr><td>X-COM soldier killed</td><td>-20*</td></tr>
<tr><td>HWP destroyed</td><td>-20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Civilian Saved</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Base destroyed</td><td>500</td></tr>
</table>
</center>

* This increases as the soldier gains rank and experience.

==== Alien Casualties ====
X-COM receives point for capturing or killing an Alien during a battlescape mission.
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width="60%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th>Race/Rank</th>
<th>Killed</th>
<th>Captured*</th></tr>
<tr><td>Floater Soldier</td><td>12</td><td>24</td></tr>
<tr><td>Floater Navigator</td><td>14</td><td>28</td></tr>
<tr><td>Floater Medic</td><td>16</td><td>32</td></tr>
<tr><td>Floater Engineer</td><td>18</td><td>36</td></tr>
<tr><td>Floater Leader</td><td>25</td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td>Floater Commander</td><td>35</td><td>70</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sectoid Soldier</td><td>10</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sectoid Navigator</td><td>12</td><td>24</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sectoid Medic</td><td>14</td><td>28</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sectoid Engineer</td><td>16</td><td>32</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sectoid Leader</td><td>20</td><td>40</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sectoid Commander</td><td>25</td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td>Snakeman Soldier</td><td>15</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Snakeman Navigator</td><td>17</td><td>34</td></tr>
<tr><td>Snakeman Engineer</td><td>20</td><td>40</td></tr>
<tr><td>Snakeman Leader</td><td>28</td><td>56</td></tr>
<tr><td>Snakeman Commander</td><td>36</td><td>72</td></tr>
<tr><td>Ethereal Soldier</td><td>20</td><td>40</td></tr>
<tr><td>Ethereal Leader</td><td>30</td><td>60</td></tr>
<tr><td>Ethereal Commander</td><td>40</td><td>80</td></tr>
<tr><td>Muton Soldier</td><td>15</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Muton Navigator</td><td>17</td><td>34</td></tr>
<tr><td>Muton Engineer</td><td>19</td><td>38</td></tr>
<tr><td>Reaper</td><td>25</td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td>Chryssalid</td><td>25</td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td>Silacoid</td><td>20</td><td>40</td></tr>
<tr><td>Celatid</td><td>20</td><td>40</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sectopod</td><td>30</td><td>60</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cyberdisc</td><td>20</td><td>40</td></tr>
<tr><td>Zombie</td><td>18</td><td>--</td></tr>
</table>
</center>

<nowiki>*</nowiki> You will only receive 10 points for capturing any alien species + rank combo already in containment. ''[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]]: What about ones that have been researched & are no longer in containment? Needs more testing.'' ''[[User:Tequilachef|tequilachef]]: I repeatedly got zero points for capturing Reapers while already having a bunch of them in containment, but not researched.''

==== Item Recovery ====
Collection of Alien artifacts, equipment, and corpses also gain X-COM points.
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width="50%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th>Item</th>
<th>Points</th></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Alloys</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Grenade</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Blaster Bomb</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Heavy Plasma Clip</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Mind Probe</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Plasma Pistol Clip</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Plasma Rifle Clip</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Stun Bomb</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Entertainment</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Food</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Surgery</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Examination Room</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Celatid Corpse</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Chryssalid Corpse</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cyberdisc Corpse</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Plasma Pistol</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Reaper Corpse</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sectopod Corpse</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Silacoid Corpse</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Plasma Rifle</td><td>4</td></tr>
<tr><td>Small Launcher</td><td>4</td></tr>
<tr><td>Blaster Launcher</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Elerium-115 (Per 50 units)</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Ethereal Corpse</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Floater Corpse</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Heavy Plasma</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Muton Corpse</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sectoid Corpse</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Snakeman Corpse</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>UFO Navigation</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>UFO Power Source</td><td>20</td></tr>
</table>
</center>

==== Evaluations ====
An evaluation on your total score is given at the end of each mission.
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width="60%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th>Ranking</th>
<th>Score</th></tr>
<tr><td>Excellent</td><td>501 or better</td></tr>
<tr><td>Good</td><td>201 to 500</td></tr>
<tr><td>OK</td><td>1 to 200</td></tr>
<tr><td>Poor</td><td>-199 to 0</td></tr>
<tr><td>Terrible</td><td>-200 or worse</td></tr>
</table>
</center>

===Research===
X-COM also receive points for the completion of research projects.
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width="50%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th>Research Project</th>
<th>Points</th></tr>
<tr><td>Plasma Pistol Clip</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Plasma Rifle Clip</td><td>6</td></tr>
<tr><td>Heavy Plasma Clip</td><td>7</td></tr>
<tr><td>Blaster Bomb</td><td>10</td></tr>
<tr><td>Craft Laser Cannon</td><td>10</td></tr>
<tr><td>Heavy Laser</td><td>10</td></tr>
<tr><td>Laser Pistol</td><td>10</td></tr>
<tr><td>Laser Rifle</td><td>10</td></tr>
<tr><td>Laser Weapons</td><td>10</td></tr>
<tr><td>Stun Bomb</td><td>10</td></tr>
<tr><td>Laser Defenses</td><td>15</td></tr>
<tr><td>Tank/Laser Cannon</td><td>15</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Grenade</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Flying Suit</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Medi-Kit</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Motion Scanner</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Personal Armor</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Plasma Pistol</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Power Suit</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Psi-Amp</td><td>20</td></tr>
<tr><td>Craft Fusion Weapon</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Craft Plasma Weapon</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Fusion Defenses</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Grav Shield</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Hovertank/Launcher</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Hovertank/Plasma</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Hyper-Wave Decoder</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Mind Probe</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Mind Shield</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Plasma Defenses</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Plasma Rifle</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Psi-Lab</td><td>25</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Abduction</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Alloys</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Entertainment</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Food</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Reproduction</td><td>30*</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Surgery</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Heavy Plasma</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>New Fighter Craft (Firestorm)</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>New Fighter-Transporter (Lightning)</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Small Launcher</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>UFO Construction</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>UFO Navigation</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>UFO Propulsion</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Ultimate Craft (Avenger)</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>Blaster Launcher</td><td>40</td></tr>
<tr><td>Elerium-115</td><td>40</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Autopsies (Each)</td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Interrogations</td><td>50**</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Origins</td><td>60</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cydonia or Bust</td><td>60</td></tr>
<tr><td>The Martian Solution</td><td>60</td></tr>
</table>
</center>

<nowiki>*</nowiki> Alien Reproduction is normally not accessible (or researchable) during the game, but you can add one to your General Stores via hacking.

<nowiki>**</nowiki> You receive 50 points for each new [[UFOpaedia]] entry generated by an alien interrogation. A given alien can generate several UFOpaedia entries, or none at all. (See [[Research#Researching aliens|Researching aliens]] for more information.)

==Alien Scoring==
Aliens score points for various actions as well.
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width="60%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th>Alien Action</th>
<th>Score</th></tr>
<tr><td>Each UFO that flies over the Earth</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Each UFO that lands</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Each day an alien base exists on Earth (Per base)</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>A harvest mission is performed successfully</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>An abduction is performed successfully</td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien base is built</td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td>Aliens sign a pact with a funding country</td><td>150</td></tr>
<tr><td>A terror site is ignored by X-COM</td><td>1000</td></tr>
</table>
</center>

==Losing The Game==
You can lose the game in the following ways:

* If are in debt over $1 million at the end of any month, after funding and maintenance has been calculated, the council will cancel the project 50% of the time. It doesnt matter how much debt you have, as soon as you go one dollar past the million in debt you face the same odds of being axed. The warning they give about not going over $2 million when you are in debt like this and get away with it for a month presumably should read $1 million.
* If you have two consecutive "bad" months in terms of score--
** '''-900''' (Beginner)
** '''-800''' (Experienced)
** '''-700''' (Veteran)
** '''-600''' (Genius)
** '''-500''' (Superhuman)
* If all X-COM bases are captured by Aliens. (But you can dismantle your last base and stay in the game, if you have enough money to start a new one - see [[Access_Lift|Access Lift]].)
* If you fail your attempt to destroy Cydonia!

==See Also==
[[ALIEN.DAT]] - Where the Alien's score is kept track of 
[[XCOM.DAT]] - Where score from missions and interceptions is tracked 
[[UIGLOB.DAT]] - Where scores generated from research completion is stored 

[[Category: data tables]]

Plasma Rifle

2007-08-04T09:50:22Z

Tequilachef: Adding Tech tree comment

The plasma rifle is a very good weapon, far outclassing the [[Plasma Pistol]]. On accuracy it has the best Auto and Snap fire of all the weapons in the game (although curiously the [[Heavy Plasma]] is more accurate when aimed) and it's powerful enough to kill most aliens with one shot.

Although there's nothing wrong with this weapon, it is rarely used, because the heavy version is better in most respects.

Researching the Plasma Rifle and its clip allows you to begin the [[Plasma Beam]] and [[Hovertank/Plasma]] projects.

The aliens have apparently bought the argument that the [[Heavy Plasma]] is better and tend to abandon other plasma weapons a few months into the invasion. Consequently, if X-Com wants to continue to use the plasma rifle, Elerium has to be used in manufacturing ammunition for it.

== Stats ==
Plasma Rifle:
<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>

Plasma Rifle Clip:
<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>

[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

Alien Artefacts

2007-08-04T09:48:16Z

Tequilachef:

'''Alien Artefacts''' are all forms of equipment, weapons and ammunition used by the aliens. X-Com will only score points for recovered Artefacts that have not yet been [[research]]ed. The following items are [[Equipment Recovery|recoverable]] from [[UFOs]], [[Alien Base Assault|Alien Bases]], [[Terror Mission]]s and [[Base Defense|X-Com Base Defense Missions]] (although Elerium-115 cannot be recovered from the latter two):

*[[Plasma Pistol]]
**[[Plasma Pistol Clip]]
*[[Plasma Rifle]]
**[[Plasma Rifle Clip]]
*[[Heavy Plasma]]
**[[Heavy Plasma Clip]]
*[[Small Launcher]]
**[[Stun Bomb]]
*[[Blaster Launcher]]
**[[Blaster Bomb]]
*[[Mind Probe]]
*[[Alien Grenade]]
*[[Elerium-115]]
[[Category:Equipment (UFO Defense)]]

Base Defence

2007-08-03T19:03:07Z

Tequilachef: /* Battle Tips */

==Briefing==
An Alien vessel has landed nearby. Our base is in severe danger. As per standard procedure all non-combat personnel and XCom craft have been evacuated. Alien units will enter the base via hangar doors or the access lift. Defend the base and its vital installations at all costs - this is a fight to the death.

== Battleships ==

An inbound [[Battleship]] on a "[[Alien Missions#Alien Retaliation|Retaliation]]" mission means there is a high chance that a Base Defense mission is in the offing for you. These ships will come in at a very low altitude, at about their top speed. They obviously must not care about the well being of the craft to run it that hard in a full atmosphere!

You can bring down these battleships with sufficient [[Base Defense Measures (UFO Defense)|Base Defense Measures]], but the game is programmed to just send another on the exact same mission. It's been proven that about 6 or 7 Fusion Ball Defenses with Grav Shield (total defensive strength 6000) can hold off incoming battleships (hull strength 3000) indefinitely, but since you get no bonus for blowing a battleship out of the sky, not even to monthly score, it's better to let them land eventually and just run the mission. Once you've run the mission, win or lose, the attacks stop coming. The aliens seem to forget where the base is...

Only battleships actually assault your base. Don't worry too much about other alien craft on "Retaliation" missions, they're just scouts. Shooting these down far away from your base may confuse the aliens as to where your base actually is. Shooting them down will also ruin their base finding mission, saving your base until the next scout is sent to replace the first.

== Battle Tips ==

A good [[Base Layout Strategy]] is of paramount importance here. Make sure your base is designed to make it easy to defend.

You really want everybody at home for a base defense mission. If you're caught with your Skyranger off at some UFO crash site, you'll have to defend the base with a rookie, two guys on crutches that were in med-bay, and the antique [[Tank/Cannon]] you hadn't got around to selling yet. Mind you, the odds are still in your favor. You know the layout, it's fully lit, and you (should have) designed in choke points.

Equipment assigned to your craft is available for base defense missions, unless the craft is out of the base. Equipment loaded on craft in the base becomes part of the general 80-item pool. If it were otherwise, your psionic troopers would likely be useless for want of Psi-amps.

Battleships will unload both regular aliens and their associated [[Terror Units]]. You won't ever see the battleship, but you will get to see all those nifty modules you've been constructing in the Base Planner view, close-up! Base modules have two levels. Soldiers will normally spawn/start in Living Quarters and Storage modules. Aliens spawn/start in Hangars and the Access Lift.

A soldier with a [[Motion Scanner]] in an upstairs closet near the access lift combined with a [[Tank/Rocket_Launcher|rocket tank]] at standoff range will keep the aliens at bay until the rockets run out. ''-see also [Stewart's] strategy on xcomufo.com forums.''

[[Blaster Bomb]]s can clear your base in just a few turns, if you launch a few into the hangars and access lift. ''The problem is getting the program to supply your soldiers with blaster bombs before hitting the 80-item limit.''

Hovertank/Launchers are almost as good at clearing out your base, except for the fact that their missiles are more prone to inaccuracy and often veer off and blow up against the wrong walls. ''Since the game has a "free ammo for HWP in base defence" bug, I don't see HOW you can lose as long as you keep 3-4 of these things in every base.''

Doing too much damage to a room can also collapse it, and you will lose that room permanently. Any rooms that can only be accessed by going through the collapsed room will also be lost. Spawn-point rooms such as Living Quarters, Stores, Access Lift, and Hangars can't be collapsed.

You can recover lots of valuable [[Elerium-115]] and alien weapons from a successful base defense. In at least one version of the game, the amount of Elerium recovered is extraordinary, enough to start selling it.

Losing or abandoning the battle means losing the base. Although sometimes you can still come out with a positive score for your trouble.

It might be best to disarm all your psi-weak soldiers at this base if there are ethereals or sectoids attacking.

If you built a General Stores near the Access Lift, the double doors are a great place for ambushing aliens as they leave the Access Lift. Each chamber will hold two soldiers. Eight soldiers stepping out and firing one or two bursts of laser or plasma shots will almost guarantee that no alien penetrates further into your base. Also, so long as no soldiers or tanks are visible during the aliens' turn, they will not make psi attacks. The [[Destroying Terrain#Terrain structures|doors]] have a damage rating of 75, which means they will withstand an alien grenade detonated right beside them. This tactic has one downside against Sectoids: Cyberdisks will explode when killed at the chokepoint and destroy a large proportion of the loot.

Alien Weaponry that has been researched can be used for Base Defense even if it's ammunition has NOT been researched. In other Missions you simply cannot load the ammo in your transport, but when defending a base this is not necessary. The clips will be labeled as alien artifacts, but can be used as if research was finished (except that it cannot be thrown).

''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: Elerium collection from a base defence mission can only happen if elerium pods are generated in the battlescape. See, if you have 10 units in storage, the game will generate 10 pods in the base, given sufficient space in the object table. But because the way the game automatically converts 1 pod into 50 units at the end of the mission, you're basically getting 5000% more elerium from your own pods (those that don't get destroyed, anyway). None of them come from the aliens! Until this is verified for 1.4 and 1.4ce, it is safe to say that this will only happen in earlier versions of the game.] ''

''[ [[User:Zombie|Zombie]]: I tried this out today on my 1.4ce, and just like I thought, no Elerium spawned.] ''

''[A somewhat unorthodox strategy, forced by necessity, paid off for Zombie: "I armed my best soldiers with the stun rods, hid them in the General Stores next to the Access Lift, and went to work. Every round a Snakeman would appear from the Access Lift, and every round one of my soldiers would stun the alien while another veteran grabbed the body and hauled the poor alien upstairs for observation. I was laughing so hard I almost peed my pants!" - as copied from strategycore. Mental picture of a Snakeman with a pillowcase over his head, zipcuffed arms behind his back, old army sock stuffed in the mouth, being heaved into a darkened storeroom on top of his buddies. "We get $20K for each, alive or dead, right?" --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 08:34, 14 Oct 2005 (PDT) ]''

== To Surrender or Not To Surrender ==

There are only two costs incurred when you lose a base:
# You lose the base and everything in it;
# You lose points for the soldiers and tanks that died defending the base.

The loss of the base is presumably erased from the annals of history. It's all kept very hush-hush from the public. The non-combat staff and all ships that were at the base are disbanded and are not lost in the battle. X-Com ships vanish without a trace, probably stolen by wretched engineers. The deaths of the soldiers on the other hand are a lot harder to explain, and friends and families are bound to make inquiries.

Therefore, if you find yourself in a situation where you are defending a base against an enemy that you have no hope of winning against, should you surrender without a fight, or fight it out? You will need to base this on who you are fighting with and what you have to fight them with.

For example, a fresh batch of recruits in jumpsuits armed with regulation standard pistols and rifles against an elite squad of [[Ethereal]]s and [[Sectopod]]s. This can be classed as a hopeless battle should you not be able to utilise the weapons used by the attackers. In a situation like this, you should cut your losses and surrender without a fight.
This will incur a 0 point penalty along with the loss of the base.

On the other hand, should it be against [[Floater]]s, you could push on and try your luck.

Alternately, you could also try to kill as many raiders as you can before surrendering.
As long as you did not lose any soldiers in the process, you will get a positive score for losing the base. If this is an option, go for it. If not, don't.

It is understandable that some commanders may be too proud to go down without a fight. There is nothing wrong with that, but do try to consider the consequences of any actions before taking them.

'''Note:''' All of the above relates to raids on bases when you have more than one base. If you are put into a situation where you cannot save your very last base, then you should consider restarting the game.

''If you have have advance warning about a base raid that you're going to surrender-- i.e., a hyperwave decoder, or you can see that battleship making a beeline for your base on a normal radar-- take the time to transfer as much as you can out of that base to other bases before the raid hits.
If you've got free hangars in other bases, transfer the craft, save any elerium there, and transfer out all the personnel you can.
An obvious thing, but can be quickly forgotten in the shadow of a battleship. --[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 17:36, 22 Nov 2005 (PST)''

''As stated earlier, the aliens can attack your base pretty early (especially on superhuman; For example, I got my first raid before laser pistol research was done!) - pistols and grenades may work well against sektoids, but are pretty worthless against cyberdiscs - still, even in this case, the answer should be clearly "not to surrender!" - In the early stage of the game, there are two ways of winning against cyberdiscs: first: get a soldier to stand near it and provoke a reaction shot by a different alien and hope it hits the disc, leads to its death and doesnt let it explode. Or just stun it - 2-3 soldiers with stun rods do a great job there, especially in a base with its plenty of cover.. '' [[User: Player11]] 23:47, 23 oct 2006

==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>4-8</td><td>6-10</td><td>8-12</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</td><td>1</td><td>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>2</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>0-2</td><td>2-4</td><td>4-6</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>9-15</td><td>14-20</td><td>22-28</td></tr>
</table> 

== Bugs ==
Base defenses can be DEADLY.

But not for the reason you think.

*When you have more than 80 items present at a base, the game will only make available the first 80 items on the stores list (See '80-item Limit' in [[Known Bugs]].) . This will result in conventional weapons/stun rods/electroflares/etc. being available instead of lasers/plasmas. To prevent this there are 3 possible solutions before that Battleship strikes the base:
1) Transfer the unwanted items to another base. 
2) Load your transports (if there's any) with the unwanted items and launch them before the UFO lands. This saves the work of having to transfer those items back but if the base gets destroyed the transport will disappear and the waypoint to which it was headed will remain visible for the rest of the game. 
3) [[Spring_Cleaning_Tips|Sell unnecessary stuff]]. ''"Imminent Alien Invasion Yard Sale! Everything Must Go!"''

* If you had 40 heavy plasmas in your base and forgot to get rid of those 40 smoke grenades, all your troopers would be lacking the clips for the heavy plasma. Good luck defending a base with nothing but 40 smoke grenades. ''[Darksun: Lucky for my stupid self, I had a couple of laser tanks to convince the aliens to lend me some ammo.]''

* A relatively easy way to counter this problem is to keep your stores of "conventional" weapons low and keep 20 or more [[Laser Rifle]]s in base inventories. Laser Rifles are high on the inventory list and are distributed before most other items. As they do not require ammo, any laser is immediately combat-ready.

*Another ANNOYING bug I find is the disappearing bodies and booty from aliens. This is related to the 80 item bug problem.

*Also much feared is the dreaded "walled off section" or [[Known_Bugs#Base_Disjoint_Bug|Base Disjoint Bug]]. Sections of your base along the extreme south and east edges will often be separated from each other by dirt walls. Heavy plasma and blaster launchers are needed in this scenario to excavate the dirt. Possible that heavy explosives might work too, I'm not sure. Soldiers spawning in Stores or Living Quarters here may be trapped for the duration.

*A much nicer bug is that [[Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWP]]'s automatically get a free load of ammo (which is added to your stores if unused). Note you still need at least one soldier as aliens landing at an unguarded base - or a base defended only by HWP's - take it without a fight.

*If you have a LOT of soldiers, enough to fill all your spawn points, soldiers will start taking alien spawn points. Which means less aliens. ''- much kudos to [Zombie]''

*The last point also applies to aliens: if the aliens don't have enough spawn points they will start using the X-COM ones, which can turn base defense into a nightmare!

Masochists: at superhuman, you get the same quantity of aliens as in the battleship, e.g. +25 aliens, +8 terror units. To get the full compliment to attack your base, you need AT MINIMUM 2 hangars. (Unless you want aliens to spawn in general stores downstairs corridor). Four hangars guarantee maximum alien load if you use 15 soldiers and conservative loadouts. ''I usually defend with 10 guys, 2 tanks VS four hangars. LasR ''

==See Also==

*[[X-Com Base Terrain]]
*[[Base Layout Strategy]]

[[Category:Missions]]
[[Category: Tactics]]

Base Defence

2007-08-01T11:27:00Z

Tequilachef: /* Battle Tips */ Adding "Alien Weaponry" Tip

==Briefing==
An Alien vessel has landed nearby. Our base is in severe danger. As per standard procedure all non-combat personnel and XCom craft have been evacuated. Alien units will enter the base via hangar doors or the access lift. Defend the base and its vital installations at all costs - this is a fight to the death.

== Battleships ==

An inbound [[Battleship]] on a "[[Alien Missions#Alien Retaliation|Retaliation]]" mission means there is a high chance that a Base Defense mission is in the offing for you. These ships will come in at a very low altitude, at about their top speed. They obviously must not care about the well being of the craft to run it that hard in a full atmosphere!

You can bring down these battleships with sufficient [[Base Defense Measures (UFO Defense)|Base Defense Measures]], but the game is programmed to just send another on the exact same mission. It's been proven that about 6 or 7 Fusion Ball Defenses with Grav Shield (total defensive strength 6000) can hold off incoming battleships (hull strength 3000) indefinitely, but since you get no bonus for blowing a battleship out of the sky, not even to monthly score, it's better to let them land eventually and just run the mission. Once you've run the mission, win or lose, the attacks stop coming. The aliens seem to forget where the base is...

Only battleships actually assault your base. Don't worry too much about other alien craft on "Retaliation" missions, they're just scouts. Shooting these down far away from your base may confuse the aliens as to where your base actually is. Shooting them down will also ruin their base finding mission, saving your base until the next scout is sent to replace the first.

== Battle Tips ==

A good [[Base Layout Strategy]] is of paramount importance here. Make sure your base is designed to make it easy to defend.

You really want everybody at home for a base defense mission. If you're caught with your Skyranger off at some UFO crash site, you'll have to defend the base with a rookie, two guys on crutches that were in med-bay, and the antique [[Tank/Cannon]] you hadn't got around to selling yet. Mind you, the odds are still in your favor. You know the layout, it's fully lit, and you (should have) designed in choke points.

Equipment assigned to your craft is available for base defense missions, unless the craft is out of the base. Equipment loaded on craft in the base becomes part of the general 80-item pool. If it were otherwise, your psionic troopers would likely be useless for want of Psi-amps.

Battleships will unload both regular aliens and their associated [[Terror Units]]. You won't ever see the battleship, but you will get to see all those nifty modules you've been constructing in the Base Planner view, close-up! Base modules have two levels. Soldiers will normally spawn/start in Living Quarters and Storage modules. Aliens spawn/start in Hangars and the Access Lift.

A soldier with a [[Motion Scanner]] in an upstairs closet near the access lift combined with a [[Tank/Rocket_Launcher|rocket tank]] at standoff range will keep the aliens at bay until the rockets run out. ''-see also [Stewart's] strategy on xcomufo.com forums.''

[[Blaster Bomb]]s can clear your base in just a few turns, if you launch a few into the hangars and access lift. ''The problem is getting the program to supply your soldiers with blaster bombs before hitting the 80-item limit.''

Hovertank/Launchers are almost as good at clearing out your base, except for the fact that their missiles are more prone to inaccuracy and often veer off and blow up against the wrong walls. ''Since the game has a "free ammo for HWP in base defence" bug, I don't see HOW you can lose as long as you keep 3-4 of these things in every base.''

Doing too much damage to a room can also collapse it, and you will lose that room permanently. Any rooms that can only be accessed by going through the collapsed room will also be lost. Spawn-point rooms such as Living Quarters, Stores, Access Lift, and Hangars can't be collapsed.

You can recover lots of valuable [[Elerium-115]] and alien weapons from a successful base defense. In at least one version of the game, the amount of Elerium recovered is extraordinary, enough to start selling it.

Losing or abandoning the battle means losing the base. Although sometimes you can still come out with a positive score for your trouble.

It might be best to disarm all your psi-weak soldiers at this base if there are ethereals or sectoids attacking.

If you built a General Stores near the Access Lift, the double doors are a great place for ambushing aliens as they leave the Access Lift. Each chamber will hold two soldiers. Eight soldiers stepping out and firing one or two bursts of laser or plasma shots will almost guarantee that no alien penetrates further into your base. Also, so long as no soldiers or tanks are visible during the aliens' turn, they will not make psi attacks. The [[Destroying Terrain#Terrain structures|doors]] have a damage rating of 75, which means they will withstand an alien grenade detonated right beside them. This tactic has one downside against Sectoids: Cyberdisks will explode when killed at the chokepoint and destroy a large proportion of the loot.

Alien Weaponry that has been researched can be used for Base Defense even if it's ammunition has NOT been researched. In other Missions you simply cannot load the ammo in your transport, but when defending a base this is not necessary. The clips will be labeled as alien artifacts, but can be used as if research was finished.

''[ [[User:NKF|NKF]]: Elerium collection from a base defence mission can only happen if elerium pods are generated in the battlescape. See, if you have 10 units in storage, the game will generate 10 pods in the base, given sufficient space in the object table. But because the way the game automatically converts 1 pod into 50 units at the end of the mission, you're basically getting 5000% more elerium from your own pods (those that don't get destroyed, anyway). None of them come from the aliens! Until this is verified for 1.4 and 1.4ce, it is safe to say that this will only happen in earlier versions of the game.] ''

''[ [[User:Zombie|Zombie]]: I tried this out today on my 1.4ce, and just like I thought, no Elerium spawned.] ''

''[A somewhat unorthodox strategy, forced by necessity, paid off for Zombie: "I armed my best soldiers with the stun rods, hid them in the General Stores next to the Access Lift, and went to work. Every round a Snakeman would appear from the Access Lift, and every round one of my soldiers would stun the alien while another veteran grabbed the body and hauled the poor alien upstairs for observation. I was laughing so hard I almost peed my pants!" - as copied from strategycore. Mental picture of a Snakeman with a pillowcase over his head, zipcuffed arms behind his back, old army sock stuffed in the mouth, being heaved into a darkened storeroom on top of his buddies. "We get $20K for each, alive or dead, right?" --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 08:34, 14 Oct 2005 (PDT) ]''

== To Surrender or Not To Surrender ==

There are only two costs incurred when you lose a base:
# You lose the base and everything in it;
# You lose points for the soldiers and tanks that died defending the base.

The loss of the base is presumably erased from the annals of history. It's all kept very hush-hush from the public. The non-combat staff and all ships that were at the base are disbanded and are not lost in the battle. X-Com ships vanish without a trace, probably stolen by wretched engineers. The deaths of the soldiers on the other hand are a lot harder to explain, and friends and families are bound to make inquiries.

Therefore, if you find yourself in a situation where you are defending a base against an enemy that you have no hope of winning against, should you surrender without a fight, or fight it out? You will need to base this on who you are fighting with and what you have to fight them with.

For example, a fresh batch of recruits in jumpsuits armed with regulation standard pistols and rifles against an elite squad of [[Ethereal]]s and [[Sectopod]]s. This can be classed as a hopeless battle should you not be able to utilise the weapons used by the attackers. In a situation like this, you should cut your losses and surrender without a fight.
This will incur a 0 point penalty along with the loss of the base.

On the other hand, should it be against [[Floater]]s, you could push on and try your luck.

Alternately, you could also try to kill as many raiders as you can before surrendering.
As long as you did not lose any soldiers in the process, you will get a positive score for losing the base. If this is an option, go for it. If not, don't.

It is understandable that some commanders may be too proud to go down without a fight. There is nothing wrong with that, but do try to consider the consequences of any actions before taking them.

'''Note:''' All of the above relates to raids on bases when you have more than one base. If you are put into a situation where you cannot save your very last base, then you should consider restarting the game.

''If you have have advance warning about a base raid that you're going to surrender-- i.e., a hyperwave decoder, or you can see that battleship making a beeline for your base on a normal radar-- take the time to transfer as much as you can out of that base to other bases before the raid hits.
If you've got free hangars in other bases, transfer the craft, save any elerium there, and transfer out all the personnel you can.
An obvious thing, but can be quickly forgotten in the shadow of a battleship. --[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 17:36, 22 Nov 2005 (PST)''

''As stated earlier, the aliens can attack your base pretty early (especially on superhuman; For example, I got my first raid before laser pistol research was done!) - pistols and grenades may work well against sektoids, but are pretty worthless against cyberdiscs - still, even in this case, the answer should be clearly "not to surrender!" - In the early stage of the game, there are two ways of winning against cyberdiscs: first: get a soldier to stand near it and provoke a reaction shot by a different alien and hope it hits the disc, leads to its death and doesnt let it explode. Or just stun it - 2-3 soldiers with stun rods do a great job there, especially in a base with its plenty of cover.. '' [[User: Player11]] 23:47, 23 oct 2006

==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>4-8</td><td>6-10</td><td>8-12</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</td><td>1</td><td>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>2</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Commanders</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Terrorists</td><td>0-2</td><td>2-4</td><td>4-6</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>9-15</td><td>14-20</td><td>22-28</td></tr>
</table> 

== Bugs ==
Base defenses can be DEADLY.

But not for the reason you think.

*When you have more than 80 items present at a base, the game will only make available the first 80 items on the stores list (See '80-item Limit' in [[Known Bugs]].) . This will result in conventional weapons/stun rods/electroflares/etc. being available instead of lasers/plasmas. To prevent this there are 3 possible solutions before that Battleship strikes the base:
1) Transfer the unwanted items to another base. 
2) Load your transports (if there's any) with the unwanted items and launch them before the UFO lands. This saves the work of having to transfer those items back but if the base gets destroyed the transport will disappear and the waypoint to which it was headed will remain visible for the rest of the game. 
3) [[Spring_Cleaning_Tips|Sell unnecessary stuff]]. ''"Imminent Alien Invasion Yard Sale! Everything Must Go!"''

* If you had 40 heavy plasmas in your base and forgot to get rid of those 40 smoke grenades, all your troopers would be lacking the clips for the heavy plasma. Good luck defending a base with nothing but 40 smoke grenades. ''[Darksun: Lucky for my stupid self, I had a couple of laser tanks to convince the aliens to lend me some ammo.]''

* A relatively easy way to counter this problem is to keep your stores of "conventional" weapons low and keep 20 or more [[Laser Rifle]]s in base inventories. Laser Rifles are high on the inventory list and are distributed before most other items. As they do not require ammo, any laser is immediately combat-ready.

*Another ANNOYING bug I find is the disappearing bodies and booty from aliens. This is related to the 80 item bug problem.

*Also much feared is the dreaded "walled off section" or [[Known_Bugs#Base_Disjoint_Bug|Base Disjoint Bug]]. Sections of your base along the extreme south and east edges will often be separated from each other by dirt walls. Heavy plasma and blaster launchers are needed in this scenario to excavate the dirt. Possible that heavy explosives might work too, I'm not sure. Soldiers spawning in Stores or Living Quarters here may be trapped for the duration.

*A much nicer bug is that [[Heavy Weapons Platforms|HWP]]'s automatically get a free load of ammo (which is added to your stores if unused). Note you still need at least one soldier as aliens landing at an unguarded base - or a base defended only by HWP's - take it without a fight.

*If you have a LOT of soldiers, enough to fill all your spawn points, soldiers will start taking alien spawn points. Which means less aliens. ''- much kudos to [Zombie]''

*The last point also applies to aliens: if the aliens don't have enough spawn points they will start using the X-COM ones, which can turn base defense into a nightmare!

Masochists: at superhuman, you get the same quantity of aliens as in the battleship, e.g. +25 aliens, +8 terror units. To get the full compliment to attack your base, you need AT MINIMUM 2 hangars. (Unless you want aliens to spawn in general stores downstairs corridor). Four hangars guarantee maximum alien load if you use 15 soldiers and conservative loadouts. ''I usually defend with 10 guys, 2 tanks VS four hangars. LasR ''

==See Also==

*[[X-Com Base Terrain]]
*[[Base Layout Strategy]]

[[Category:Missions]]
[[Category: Tactics]]

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-04-05T16:55:01Z

Tequilachef: /* MC at end = MIA? */ formating

Mind Control

2007-04-04T23:14:32Z

Tequilachef: Adding "Mind control and alien artefacts"

Mind Control is the deadliest use of [[Psionics]] by [[Ethereal]]s or higher-ranking [[Sectoid]]s. After [[Psionic Laboratory|Psi-Lab]] training, your soldiers can attempt mind control themselves using the [[Psi-Amp]].

A successful Mind Control attack by an alien immediately converts the soldier to the alien's side for the duration of the turn and gives them a full complement of TUs to do actions with - such as shooting teammates in the back. The soldier will continue to be on the alien's side for your next turn, will use reaction fire on your own troops, and will even be represented on the map as an alien red dot when spotted. At the start of the alien's next turn, the soldier will revert back to your side (unless the enemy has performed yet another successful Mind Control attack). The same applies in reverse when you control an alien.

Wary commanders recommended dropping weapons and grenades if you fear your men may become mind-controlled (or even panicked to the point of becoming berserk - berserked soldiers shoot the nearest individual, which is almost always your own team). Mind controlled troops will even take weapons out of their backpack or reload them. Anyone who has been successfully mind controlled should be marked as psi poor (rename them on the Soldiers screen), and fired or used only for non-psi missions (no Ethereals or high-ranking Sectoids).

''Psionic control is so taxing, it only lasts for a limited period of time (that turn). It has to be re-established every turn. During this round, control is absolute, and even outright killing of the controller isn't going to snap the victim out of it, much less mere distractions. Even if no orders are given, and the controlling unit dies, the victim will still obligingly take potshots (reaction fire) at former team mates. ''

Note that aliens under mind control are considered 'friendlies' and do not give you credit or experience if you shoot them. Also, if one of your soldiers is under alien control when the last alien is shot to end the mission, that soldier will become [[Known Bugs#Mind Controlled soldiers go MIA|MIA]].

== Mind controlling 4-square units - a bug ==
The alien robotic ground support weapons ([[Cyberdisc]]s and [[Sectopod]]s) have psi receiver circuits which allow them to be directed psionically by their squads, much as our own [[HWPs]] use a radio link. However, these units are even more difficult to control than Ethereals. Furthermore, studies have shown that all "large" alien species in fact have a brain/ control module implanted in each of their four quarters. Each successful mind control attempt will only affect one quarter, leading to... strange things. Such as being able to attack, or be attacked by, the other quarters. Or the other three quarters take the fourth for a ride - and the creature basically attacks you as usual.

== Mind control and stunning ==
* If you stun your soldier while they are under alien mind control, they will be on your side when they recover. This is an effective way to save lives.
* The flag that remembers which side a unit was on before they were mind controlled has some bugs. The most obvious is that a mind controlled [[Civilian]] will always revert to Hostile - so arming them using the [[Exploits#Alien_Inventory_Screen|inventory screen exploit]] will not result in free support fire, but rather additional enemies.
* A less obvious bug is that a zombie under your mind control, when killed, will hatch a hostile Chrysallid that turn - who will revert to your control at the end of the turn. See [[Gaining permanent control of a Chryssalid/Tentaculat]].

--[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 06:11, 26 Aug 2005 (PDT) & notes from Jasonred

== Mind control and reaction fire ==

Alien units will take reaction shots at other aliens that you have mind-controlled, but your soldiers will never take reaction shots at a fellow soldier who has been controlled by aliens. If one of your units is armed and mind-controlled, kill or stun them quickly ''on your turn''. If they are fully disarmed (this includes all grenades!), they are harmless, and furthermore your other units will not attack them.

== Mind control and alien artefacts ==

Even if you have not researched a weapon an alien is carrying itself can use it when under your control. This comes in quite handy if you have to destroy that outer UFO wall but couldn't fit in the blaster launcher into research schedule.

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-04-04T23:05:08Z

Tequilachef: Adding "Inconsitencies in MCing Cyberdiscs and Sectopods"

Buying/Selling/Transferring

2007-04-04T22:57:32Z

Tequilachef: /* Transfers */

== Purchase Times ==
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width ="60%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}>
<th>Item</th>
<th>Time (Hours)</th>
<th>Time (Days)</th></tr>
<tr><td>All Personnel</td><td>72</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Skyranger|SKYRANGER]]</td><td>72</td><td>3</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Interceptor|INTERCEPTOR]]</td><td>96</td><td>4</td></tr>
<tr><td>Craft Weapons</td><td>48</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Craft Missiles</td><td>48</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cannon Rounds (×50)</td><td>96</td><td>4</td></tr>
<tr><td>HWPs</td><td>96</td><td>4</td></tr>
<tr><td>HWP Ammo</td><td>48</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td>All Weapons</td><td>24</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>All Ammunition</td><td>24</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>All Equipment</td><td>24</td><td>1</td></tr>
</table>
</center>

== Non-Manufacturable Prices ==
<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width ="80%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}>
<th>Item</th>
<th>Cost ($)</th>
<th>Sale Price ($)</th>
<th>Wage/Rental ($/month)</th></tr>
<tr><td>Soldier</td><td>40,000</td><td>0</td><td>20,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>Scientist</td><td>60,000</td><td>0</td><td>30,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>Engineer</td><td>50,000</td><td>0</td><td>25,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Skyranger|SKYRANGER]]</td><td>500,000</td><td>0</td><td>500,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Interceptor|INTERCEPTOR]]</td><td>600,000</td><td>0</td><td>600,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Stingray|Stingray Launcher]]</td><td>16,000</td><td>12,000</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Avalanche|Avalanche Launcher]]</td><td>17,000</td><td>12,750</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Cannon]]</td><td>30,000</td><td>22,500</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Stingray Missiles</td><td>3,000</td><td>2,400</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Avalanche Missiles</td><td>9,000</td><td>7,200</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Cannon Rounds (×50)</td><td>1,240</td><td>1,012</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Tank/Cannon]]</td><td>420,000</td><td>340,000</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>HWP Cannon Shells</td><td>200</td><td>100</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Tank/Rocket Launcher]]</td><td>480,000</td><td>360,000</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>HWP Rockets</td><td>3,000</td><td>2,250</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Pistol]]</td><td>800</td><td>600</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Pistol Clip</td><td>70</td><td>52</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Rifle]]</td><td>3,000</td><td>2,250</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Rifle Clip</td><td>200</td><td>150</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Heavy Cannon]]</td><td>6,400</td><td>4,800</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>HC-AP Ammo</td><td>300</td><td>225</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>HC-HE Ammo</td><td>500</td><td>275</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>HC-I Ammo</td><td>400</td><td>300</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Auto_Cannon|Auto-Cannon]]</td><td>13,500</td><td>10,125</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>AC-AP Ammo</td><td>500</td><td>400</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>AC-HE Ammo</td><td>700</td><td>560</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>AC-I Ammo</td><td>650</td><td>520</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Rocket Launcher]]</td><td>4,000</td><td>3,000</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Small Rocket</td><td>600</td><td>480</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Large Rocket</td><td>900</td><td>720</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>Incendiary Rocket</td><td>1,200</td><td>960</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Grenade]]</td><td>300</td><td>240</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Smoke Grenade]]</td><td>150</td><td>120</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Proximity Grenade]]</td><td>500</td><td>400</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[High Explosive]]</td><td>1,500</td><td>1,200</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Stun Rod]]</td><td>1,260</td><td>945</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Electro-flare]]</td><td>60</td><td>40</td><td></td></tr>
</table>
</center>

== Manufacturable Prices ==
These are the build prices "straight up", as shown in the [[manufacturing]] screen. For a more in-depth look at manufacturing, including labor costs, exotic components, etc., see [[Manufacturing Profitability]].

<table {{StdCenterTable}} width ="100%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}>
<th>Item</th>
<th>Cost ($)</th>
<th>Sale Price ($)</th>
<th>Hours</th>
<th>[[Workshop|Workspace]]</th>
<th>[[Alien Alloys|Alloys]]</th>
<th>[[Elerium-115|Elerium]]</th>
<th>[[UFO Power Source|Power]]</th>
<th>[[UFO Navigation|Navigation]]</th></tr>
<tr><td>[[Fusion Ball Launcher]]</td><td>242,000</td><td>281,100</td><td>400</td><td>6</td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Laser Cannon]]</td><td>182,000</td><td>211,000</td><td>300</td><td>6</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Plasma Beam]]</td><td>226,000</td><td>267,300</td><td>500</td><td>8</td><td></td><td>15</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Fusion_Ball_Launcher#Fusion_Balls|Fusion Ball]]</td><td>28,000</td><td>53,300</td><td>600</td><td>6</td><td></td><td>4</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Tank/Laser Cannon]]</td><td>500,000</td><td>594,000</td><td>1,200</td><td>25</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Hovertank/Plasma]]</td><td>850,000</td><td>980,000</td><td>1,200</td><td>30</td><td>5</td><td>30</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Hovertank/Launcher]]</td><td>900,000</td><td>1,043,000</td><td>1,400</td><td>30</td><td>8</td><td>25</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[HWP Fusion Bomb]]</td><td>15,000</td><td>31,500</td><td>400</td><td>25</td><td>8</td><td>5</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Laser Pistol]]</td><td>8,000</td><td>20,000</td><td>300</td><td>2</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Laser Rifle]]</td><td>20,000</td><td>36,900</td><td>400</td><td>3</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Heavy Laser]]</td><td>32,000</td><td>61,000</td><td>700</td><td>4</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Motion Scanner]]</td><td>34,000</td><td>45,600</td><td>220</td><td>4</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Medi-Kit]]</td><td>28,000</td><td>46,500</td><td>420</td><td>4</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Psi-Amp]]</td><td>160,000</td><td>194,700</td><td>500</td><td>4</td><td></td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Heavy Plasma]]</td><td>122,000</td><td>171,600</td><td>1,000</td><td>4</td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Heavy Plasma Clip]]</td><td>6,000</td><td>9,590</td><td>80</td><td>4</td><td></td><td>3</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Plasma Rifle]]</td><td>88,000</td><td>126,500</td><td>820</td><td>4</td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Plasma Rifle Clip]]</td><td>3,000</td><td>6,290</td><td>80</td><td>4</td><td></td><td>2</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Plasma Pistol]]</td><td>56,000</td><td>84,000</td><td>600</td><td>3</td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Plasma Pistol Clip]]</td><td>2,000</td><td>4,440</td><td>60</td><td>4</td><td></td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Blaster Launcher]]</td><td>90,000</td><td>144,000</td><td>1,200</td><td>5</td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Blaster Bomb]]</td><td>8,000</td><td>17,028</td><td>220</td><td>3</td><td></td><td>3</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Small Launcher]]</td><td>78,000</td><td>120,000</td><td>900</td><td>3</td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Stun Bomb]]</td><td>7,000</td><td>15,200</td><td>200</td><td>2</td><td></td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Alien Grenade]]</td><td>6,700</td><td>14,850</td><td>200</td><td>2</td><td></td><td>2</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Mind Probe]]</td><td>262,000</td><td>304,000</td><td>1,200</td><td>4</td><td></td><td>1</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Personal Armor]]</td><td>22,000</td><td>54,000</td><td>800</td><td>12</td><td>4</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Power Suit]]</td><td>42,000</td><td>85,000</td><td>1,000</td><td>16</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Flying Suit]]</td><td>58,000</td><td>115,000</td><td>1,400</td><td>16</td><td>5</td><td>16</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Alien Alloys]]</td><td>3,000</td><td>6,500</td><td>100</td><td>10</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[UFO Power Source]]</td><td>130,000</td><td>250,000</td><td>1,400</td><td>22</td><td>5</td><td>16</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[UFO Navigation]]</td><td>150,000</td><td>80,000</td><td>1,600</td><td>18</td><td>3</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Firestorm]]</td><td>400,000</td><td>0</td><td>14,000</td><td>30</td><td>65</td><td></td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Lightning]]</td><td>600,000</td><td>0</td><td>18,000</td><td>34</td><td>85</td><td></td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Avenger]]</td><td>900,000</td><td>0</td><td>34,000</td><td>36</td><td>120</td><td></td><td>2</td><td>1</td></tr>
</table>

== UFO Recoverable Prices ==

<center>
<table {{StdCenterTable}} width ="40%">
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}>
<th>Item</th>
<th>Sale Price ($)</th>
</tr>
<tr><td>[[Elerium-115]]*</td><td>5,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Alien Corpses]]</td><td>20,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Alien Food]]</td><td>5,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Alien Entertainment]]</td><td>20,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Alien Surgery]]</td><td>38,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Examination Room]]</td><td>9,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[UFO Construction]]**</td><td>20,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Alien Reproduction]]**</td><td>40,000</td></tr>
<tr><td>[[Alien Habitat]]**</td><td>100</td></tr>
</table>
</center>
<nowiki>*</nowiki> Elerium-115 is the only useful item in the game that can never be bought or manufactured (only recovered from UFO and Alien Base assaults), so it is recommended that you never sell it. 
<nowiki>**</nowiki> These items cannot be recovered from a UFO. They are game "artifacts" which can only be added to your inventory via an editor.

== Transfers ==
*All items and personnel take anywhere from 6 to 16 hours to transfer between bases, dependent entirely on distance. The minimum is 6 hours, even if your bases are right on top of each other! ''If anybody wants to test the fee schedule, it is probably directly related to transfer costs, so these might be able to be used to estimate or confirm each other. -[[User:MikeTheRed|MTR]]
*Transfer fees appear to be distance-related. This has not been well investigated, but for an example, see [[Known_Bugs#Sticky_Craft_Transfer_Fee_glitch|here]].
*The transfer queue can only have a maximum of 100 line items in it. "Line items" means that e.g. a one transfer of 50 Alloys only counts as one line item.
*Items transferred in a Troop Transport all only count as one line item (for the Transport). Also, you are only charged the cost of the transferring the Transport. ''(Tip courtesy NKF.)'' This can be a good way to move stuff if your transfer queue is near full. But don't forget about the [[Known_Bugs#Sticky_Craft_Transfer_Fee_glitch|Sticky Craft Transfer Fee]] when moving craft - every subsequent transfer has the cost of that craft's transport added to it, for as long as the craft is in transit!
*Transferring anything that is alive (soldiers, scientists, engineers and captured aliens) is FREE!

== See Also ==
*[[Known_Bugs#Transfer_Limit_cash_eater|Transfer Limit cash eater]]
*[[Hiring/firing]]
*[[Manufacturing Profitability]]
*[[UFO Recovery Values]]
*[[Economics]]

[[Category:data tables]]

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-04-04T22:51:11Z

Tequilachef: Added a few details

User:Tequilachef

2007-04-04T22:33:50Z

Tequilachef:

If you wish contact set a short edit under my text in the discussion page

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-04-04T22:31:31Z

Tequilachef:

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-04-04T22:19:31Z

Tequilachef: /* MC at end = MIA? */ Answered this and two other phenomenons

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-04-04T22:04:04Z

Tequilachef: /* Vanishing snakemen */ Answer

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-04-04T22:01:06Z

Tequilachef: /* "Invisible Muton" bug */

Talk:Known Bugs

2007-04-04T21:59:37Z

Tequilachef: /* "Invisible Muton" bug */ Found the reason fpr the "bug"

Alien Missions

2007-03-29T18:26:28Z

Tequilachef: Adding a report and a detail about infiltration

UFOs are sent out periodically to conduct a number of types of '''Alien Missions''', some of whom the purpose is fairly inscrutable, others are fairly obvious in their reasoning. Especially once the [[Hyper-Wave Decoder]] is deployed knowing the mission of the aliens can help make strategic plans for further actions that the aliens may attempt in the near future.

==Alien Research==
The Alien research mission is used for collecting basic data on Earth and its inhabitants. Small vehicles are predominantly used, with occasional landings in deserted areas. This type of Alien activity poses the least threat to X-COM, with little concern from governments or the public.

==Alien Harvest==
The Aliens have many uses for Earth's fauna. Animals are abducted secretly, and returned with various organs removed. Cattle mutilations are predominantly reported along with [[UFOs|UFO]] sightings. This type of Alien activity causes great concern by governments and considerable anxiety amongst the population. This type of activity occurs mainly in farming land. The theory behind the 'Alien Harvest' suggests that Alien races originally "seeded" the planet with its flora and fauna, and now they have returned to reap the harvest they have sown.

==Alien Abduction==
This is the most insidious form of Alien activity. The abduction by Aliens is widely reported, despite the Aliens' attempts to erase the experience from their victims' memories. Abductees report being subject to humiliating physical examinations, including impregnation of alien foetuses and bizarre genetic experiments. The purpose behind this activity appears to be linked to genetic mutation and manipulation of the Aliens own genetic material. This activity causes great alarm, and occurs in populated areas or cities.

==Alien Infiltration==
Earth governments can be infiltrated by Alien agents which are Human in appearance. This can result in official contact between Aliens and governments at the highest level. The climax of this activity is characterised by intense [[UFOs|UFO]] activity in the vicinity of major cities. The aliens will attempt to sign a pact with an earth government by offering knowledge of their superior technology. In return, the government will allow the Aliens to conduct their activity unhindered. This Alien mission represents the worst threat to X-COM. If a government agrees to a pact then its funding will cease.

Five UFOs take part in an Infiltration mission, landing in both the target and neighboring countries. Two of these are often [[Battleship]]s. There is limited conclusive evidence to say whether shooting down the Battleships or simply assaulting a landed ship will stop the infiltration from succeeding. Results will vary greatly no matter the outcome.

When a country is sucessfully infiltrated an alien base will be created in or near the country. Always check for alien bases after infiltration missions. This way you can get points by destroying it and know how much money you will lose at the end of the month.

- 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.

==Alien Base==
Aliens will construct secret underground bases in remote locations. After some initial reconnaissance flights some intense [[UFOs|UFO]] activity will occur as the base is being built. These bases are known to contain experimental labs for human abductees, and supplies for further activity in the region. The presence of Alien bases will generate a large amount of reported Alien activity without the presence of UFOs. In order to locate a base, an [[Craft|X-COM craft]] must patrol an area for a few hours to stand some chance of detection. An [[Alien Base Assault]] will remove the threat but should never be taken lightly.

There is no limit to the number of alien bases that can be built, but there is a limit as to how many can exist on the globe at the same time. Only fifty Geoscape Tokens (bases, waypoints, ships, etc) that can exist on the globe at any given time, and because you have to share this space with pretty much everything that you can interact with on the Geoscape, you can only have as many Alien bases as there are unused slots.

==Alien Terror==
When the Aliens [[Terror Mission|terrorise]] a city, they will deploy some [[Terror Units|special forces]] with awesome powers. [[Civilian]]s will be directly threatened, and governments will be forced to evacuate whole areas. The main purpose behind this activity is to generate sufficient public hysteria so that governments will threaten the X-COM project.

==Alien Retaliation==
If X-COM [[Interceptor]]s are being particularly successful in shooting down [[UFOs]] then the Aliens may take some [[Alien Retaliation|retaliatory]] action. This could result in a direct attack against an [[Base Defense|X-COM base]]. However, the aliens have to find an X-COM base in order to attack it, and provided UFOs are kept away then there should be little danger of an assault.

==Alien Supply==
Once an Alien base is constructed, then it is resupplied on a regular basis by a special [[Supply Ship|supply vessel]]. If one of these vessels is detected while landing then it is certain that an Alien base is nearby.

Piracy time. You may want to let the Alien base exist, just for millions of dollars plundered from the Supply "Blimps". Arrrrrr, avast ye Space-Lubbers!

Note that supply ships on supply missions are always at their top speed, even shortly before landing or after taking off. This means they can only be attacked on ground unless new aircrafts have been researched and built.

==See Also==
[[Alien Life Forms]] 
[[UFOs]]

[[Category:Missions]]

Supply ship

2007-03-22T14:45:20Z

Tequilachef: /* General Information */

==General Information==
The supply vessel is used during the construction of alien bases, for supplying existing bases or for infiltration missions. It carries [[Alien Food|alien food]] containers and a [[Alien Surgery|surgical]] chamber.

==Additional Information==
You usually don't want to shoot these down, as most of them actually land for supply missions to alien bases. You can get a nice steady supply of [[Elerium-115|elerium]] this way.

This ship has 3 [[UFO Power Source|power sources]] and 4 [[UFO Navigation|navigations]].

The race aboard this ship is the same thats inside the base under resupply. --[[User:60.241.66.150|60.241.66.150]]

==Plan Of Attack==
=== 1. Ground floor: Power ===
Best tactic here involves a 2 stage attack on the ship: securing the hatches and securing the lifts. It's best to storm both hatches simultaneously; this prevents the aliens within from swarming one door from all sides.

If the power sources have exploded due to a crash, there will be little left of the inner walls on this floor, and often holes in the ceiling exposing the middle floor. You shouldn't have shot it down, really.

Once you have moved soldiers onto each of the one-square lifts on the ground floor, you can prepare for the final assault at some leisure, due to the aliens' typical reluctance to shoot straight down a gravlift. You can, of course, shoot straight up at them. Throwing grenades up the lifts can be very effective as well.

=== 2. Middle floor: Supplies ===
The assault on the middle floor can be executed as a pincer attack from both lifts if you cut through the wall of the three-story lift with [[Heavy Plasma]].

=== 3. Top floor: Bridge ===
The assault on the bridge often proceeds like this:
*1. Secure the lift exit with 3 or 4 soldiers. Check those corners!
*2. Set up snipers to cover the north hallway with reaction fire.
*3. Optionally send a team through the winding south hallway.
*4. Use splash damage from [[Grenade]]s to take down the bridge guards before you turn the corner.
*5. Flank the bridge door. Bust in. Confront the leader cowering behind the navigation consoles and take him down as you see fit.

Alternatively, cut through the bridge's walls with a [[Heavy Plasma]] (see [[Destroying Terrain]]).

==Recoverable Components==
<table {{StdCenterTable}}>
<tr {{StdDescTable_Heading}}><th align="left">Item</th>
<th>Sell Price</th>
<th>Quantity</th>
<th>Value</th></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Power Source</td><td>$250,000</td><td>3</td><td>$750,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">UFO Navigation</td><td>$80,000</td><td>4</td><td>$320,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Food</td><td>$5,000</td><td>20</td><td>$100,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Surgery</td><td>$38,000</td><td>2</td><td>$76,000</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Entertainment</td><td>$20,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Examination Room</td><td>$9,000</td><td>0</td><td>$0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Alien Alloys</td><td>$6,500</td><td>141</td><td>$916,500</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Elerium-115</td><td>$5,000</td><td>150</td><td>$750,000</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3">Totals</th><td>$2,912,500</td></tr>
</table> 
Also see [[UFO Recovery Values#Supply Ship|UFO Recovery Values]].

==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>5-11</td><td>6-12</td><td>7-13</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</td><td>1</td><td>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>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><th>Totals</th><td>9-15</td><td>10-16</td><td>14-20</td></tr>
</table> 

==Floor Plans==
'''2nd Floor:''' 
[[Image:SupplyShip_2.gif]]

'''1st Floor:''' 
[[Image:SupplyShip_1.gif]]

'''Ground Floor:''' 
[[Image:SupplyShip_0.gif]]

==Terrain Maps==
[[Image:UFO_170MAP-L1.JPG|Level 1|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_170MAP-L2.JPG|Level 2|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_170MAP-L3.JPG|Level 3|thumb|left]][[Image:UFO_170MAP.JPG|Level 4|thumb|left]]

 

==See Also==
[[Small Scout]] 
[[Medium Scout]] 
[[Large Scout]] 
[[Abductor]] 
[[Harvester]] 
[[Terror Ship]] 
[[Battleship]] 
[[UFO_Ground_Assault#Assaulting_Supply_Ships_with_JFG|Assaulting Supply Ships with JFG]]

[[Category: UFO (UFO Defense)]]
[[Category: Tactics]]