UFOpaedia - User contributions [en]

Terror Mission (TFTD)

2010-12-01T13:03:59Z

Tonicboy: /* Added Timing section */

While the aliens are usually very passive in their dealings with the human populace in general, continual interference by X-COM will lead them to attack a populated area in order to provoke X-COM to action, or preferably inaction in an effort to make them look bad in the eyes of the Council of Funding Nations, thus reduce their standing and hopefully force countries to withdraw their funding.

Traditionally, the aliens in the first alien war attacked small country towns with a low population. In the second alien war, the scope has broadened. As the new alien threat are nautical in nature, so are their targets. Terror sites now occur in small ports, island resorts and ships.

All of these are conducted on land. Though this eliminates the ability of the aliens to use their devastating torpedoes, they bring deadly terror units into battle to compensate.

There is also the Artefact Sites, where the aliens are activating synonium devices in old temples on the sea bed. Though not strictly terror missions as no civilians are involved, they have the same urgency as terror sites due to the short time frame available to you to attend to them. If they are not dealt with before the devices are restored, the blow to X-COM's standing with the Council of Funding Nations can be just as if not more disastrous than failing to attend to a terror site.

Artefact sites and ship missions are classified as two-parter missions. You must go through two maps in succession in order to clear the site. They are lengthy missions so you will need to plan your ammunition supplies accordingly.

Port and island missions are the closest to a traditional terror site that you can get and you only need to clear the infestation of aliens on the map.

For more information on the different terror mission types, refer to their respective articles.

==Timing==
Terror missions almost always occur on the first of the month, so make sure your troops are prepared for action at that time. Also, they appear during the dead of night in whichever location they have chosen and will disappear before dawn, seemingly guaranteeing that you will have to endure the additional hardship of a night mission.

However, there does seem to be a trick to get around this. Terror sites will not disappear as long as they are targeted by an X-Com craft. A couple hours before dawn approaches the terror site, send your craft in the opposite direction from the site. As dawn approaches, reroute the craft towards the terror site. The extra distance the craft needs to cover will make it so that you arrive during daylight hours, making what is normally a difficult and grueling mission a little bit easier.

==See Also==
{{Mission Types Navbar (TFTD)}}
[[Category: TFTD]]

Warlord's Foolproof Plan

2007-06-19T18:45:58Z

Tonicboy:

Here's my foolproof plan for starting off.

Sell all pistols, HC-AP ammo, the Autocannon and all ammo, the rocket launcher and ammo, and all craft cannons and ammo. (Keeping only rifles, grenades, and the [[Heavy Cannon]].)

Sack all soldiers with bravery below 40 (30 might work if they have really awesome stats other than bravery).

Buy a second [[Avalanche]] launcher and enough missiles to keep both interceptors armed. I like to keep 15 missiles in reserve.

Also buy HE and IN ammo for the heavy cannons, extra grenades, prox grenades, and smoke grenades. Flares and HE packs are also a good idea.

Recruit enough soldiers to get your squad up to 10 regulars. Then recruit 15 scientists and 5 engineers. That should max out your living quarters.

If you have the cash left, buy a rocket launcher tank and about 16 rockets.

I like to build two additional hangars on either side of the top one. I also build one living quarters at each side of the base, and a general stores and an alien containment between the two bottom hangars. Once the living quarters are built, I sell the one next to the lift, and once the hangars are built, I sell the two bottom ones. This has the net effect of making my base extremely defensible, as all aliens have to come through the lift module to get anywhere.

Your primary goal in the '''first month''' is to complete [[Laser Rifle]] research, and acquire [[Alien Alloys]]. Researching the alloys and [[Personal Armor]] is desirable, but not always possible.

As for the first terror site, I usually land, my soldiers shoot anything they can see from the back of the skyranger, and then I abort. You lose some points, but you can make them up in the second month. There's no point in getting your soldiers slaughtered at the beginning of the game.

The trick to making money early on is sales of laser pistols. Yes, rifles sell for a bit more, but the pistols produce a lot faster. Farther along in the game, the aliens will build a base close to yours. It's almost guaranteed. At that point, you can start raiding [[Supply Ship]]s on the ground. You can make millions off of these every time.

In the '''second month''', you should concentrate on getting your scientist staff up to 50. I also build a large radar in the second month. That usually sucks up most of your cash. If you can afford it, recruit more engineers. You should also have your entire squad in personal armor before the end of the month. You are likely to see another terror site this month.

After this, you can start expanding your garrison. Laser pistol production should be in full swing by now. By the end of the '''third month''', you should have a total of 100 personnel at your base. 15 soldiers, 35 engineers, and 50 scientists. I like to focus on finishing out the Laser Weapons tree by the end of this month. The Laser Tank is a nice addition to your arsenal and is ideal for terror missions. Alternatively, you can concentrate on plasma weapons, but getting the plasma cannon this early is a bit premature, as Elerium 115 will still be in short supply.

In the '''fourth, fifth, and sixth month''', you should concentrate on getting flying armor, and building enough of an elerium supply to build ten sets of armor. 160 units of elerium is enough, if I remember correctly. This is another reason that I don't worry about plasma cannons early on. You should also begin research on new craft as well. I also usually build a second base during these months. Always build new bases close enough to be supported by other bases. My favorite locations are, near Moscow for base 1, deep in Siberia for base 2, north-central Africa for base 3, Australia for base 4, Central US for base 5, Central Brazil for base 6, and usually a radar base in Hawaii for 7, and a manufacturing and research base in the antarctic for base 8.

I usually keep to one main combat base, although I have been known to station a Quick Reaction Force in the US base for terror missions. All the other bases are interception bases, and I maintain 6 interceptor craft at each one. Once my 8 bases are built, no UFO can escape me. I keep 4 Firestorms and 2 Interceptors at each base. For the US base I keep 4 Firestorms, 1 Lightning, and 1 Interceptor. At the main combat base, I keep 1 Avenger, 1 Lightning, and 1 Skyranger. On each of these is a specialized combat squad. The Avenger is the heavy duty veteran crew. It consists of 14 men, 3 hovertank plasmas, and one Hovertank Fusion. The Lightning is a QRF with 12 men with precision weapons and stun equipment. They are used for terror missions. The Skyranger is for rookie training. They get to go on all the small shootdowns. I keep a 10 man squad and 1 hovertank plasma there. Once a soldier has a few missions under his belt, I transfer him to a garrison squad. That way on a base defense, I have combat veterans available for defense.

Sometime between months 3 and 6, I try to get a [[Sectoid]] commander so that I can research psi labs. Usually, you won't see ethereals that early, so they're not an option. I like to have Psi Labs before I start heavy recruitment. Once I'm in full swing, I keep no less than a 10 soldier garrison at all bases, plus I have the 14 man combat team, the 2 12 man QRF's, and the 10 man training squad.I keep a minimum of 5 psi labs at my combat base, and do all recruitment and training there. After my manufacturing base is built, I sell all workshops and labs. I keep the two living quarters, the stores, and the alien containment. I don't bother with base defenses at the combat base due to the sheer numbers of soldiers there.

This should get you well on your way to winning the game. Keep in mind that these strategies hinge on you being able to conduct tactical missions with minimal losses. If you can't do that, you should practice the tactical missions until you're good at them.

[Warlord, Sept 25, 2002, in strategycore forums, pasted by --[[User:JellyfishGreen|JellyfishGreen]] 09:27, 4 May 2005 (BST)]

Discussion of Warlord's Plan:

Let's discuss this, from the top to the bottom.

First off, it has been argued that pistols have their uses. Personally, I never bothered with them, but...
I would keep the rocket launcher, actually. You might not need it urgently in the beginning, but by golly, there's a LOT of useful applications for the large rocket. Sell all Small Rockets, by all means.
You MIGHT want to hold onto that autocannon if you've started with a very strong soldier. Send him onto elevated ground, with explosive ammo. Make sure all other soldiers are FAR away from intended targets. I also prefer one auto-cannon with incindieries over electro flares.

I argue strongly with Warlord's hiring policy for soldiers. IF, as he says, he can get through battles with minimal losses, bravery ceases to be the most important issue. Instead, having a good sniper, one heavy weapons carrier, and 2 high reactions soldiers to ambush aliens coming through doorways should be more useful. Any sackings should be done just before the end of the month. If you're sure you don't want them, at least use them as cannon fodder... (send them thorugh doorways first, as scouts, etc).

Your first terror site... if it's Snakemen, running might in fact be a very good idea! If it's floaters... eh, kill em. Who's afraid of some big dogs? And there's plenty of one square wide places to shoot them with impunity. I'm sure you're used to sectoids, and as for cyberdisks... you know how I told you to hold onto those rocket launchers? Large rockets deal with them with ease...

I would research Plasma Cannons as early as possible, actually. This is cause I *can* use tactics to beat superior firepower on ground battles, but AFAIK, the only thing that can beat a terror ship in the air is a craft with Plasma Cannons. Plus, even your puny interceptors can knock over anything short of a battleship at NO danger to itself, using Plasma Cannons. IMHO, there's little reason to build a single Lightning or Firestar. Interceptors with Plasma Cannons, Avengers with Plasma Cannons once you can make them, and a Skyranger for base detection.

Warlord suggests building his FIFTH base in the USA??? ummm... AFAIK, there's a general concensus that US should either be 1st or second place to build your base. Maybe 3rd. But 5th? That's... mmm.

Try to capture Sectoid Leaders or Commanders as early as possible. The minute you get one, forget all other research and dump as much as you can into Psi. Once you've got Psi Amps and soldiers with strong Psi strength and skills, the game's a cakewalk. BTW, please fire all soldiers with less than 70/80 (depending on difficulty) psi strength at this point, please!

And some more bit of info:
I try to get a second base building before the end of the month in USA, I usually start in Europe (coz it costs 1M for a base there). Build 1xalien cont, 2xliving, 1xstores, 1xL.radar. immediately, then 1xlab and 1xstores when cash allows. At second base, 1xL.radar and 1xhanger asap, then 1xliving and 1xstores. When ready, trans 1xInterceptor to second base. Before end of Jan, or asap, 3rd base at China (near coast) AND buy scientents as many as room allow on Jan 30th.

''A primary goal for the first month should be to acquire an alien navigator. If you break ground on an alien containment on the first day and buy some stun rods, you have about half a month to stun a navigator. If you accept some losses on the way, you can usually pull this off. --[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 14:37, 28 Nov 2005 (PST)''

==tonicboy's analysis==
Hmmm, there are some great points here but I take plenty of issue with it as well.

*'''Hiring Engineers and starting a manufacturing program right off the bat.''' A manufacturing program will provide neglible profits until you can scale it larger than 100 engineers and there is nothing worthwhile to manufacture for use until you get medkits, which can be handled just fine with the initial free 10 engineers, and then Personal Armour. Meanwhile, it sucks money away that can be used to start a second base (see more later)

*'''Sack all soldiers with bravery below 40''' I agree with Jasonred on this one. Once you get some officers, bravery is an almost irrelevant stat. It does not affect psi-susceptibility and you shouldn't be losing so many soldiers in a mission such that their morale drops far enough to matter.

*'''Aborting the first terror site''' This really depends on where the terror site is. While it is true that the first terror site can be very tough, loss in funding due to leaving it uncompleted may be worse. If the terror site is in a high-funding country such as the US, you may lose ~$100k in funding (guesstimate). Not to be callous, but a lost soldier's life is simply money. Completing the terror mission saves you the loss in funding as well as provides valuable loot which altogether could be worth over $2mill. This is well worth many dead soldiers' lives.

*'''The trick to making money early on is sales of laser pistols''' The trick to making money early on is downing UFOs, and you can't down UFOs unless you can detect them, which is why one of your first priorities is bulding more bases to increase your radar coverage. The loot from one single UFO mission (even a medium scout) is worth over 5x the profit from a one-workshop manufacturing operation. You should build your second base the very first month and then more bases every time you get about $2-3 million to spare.

*'''Base locations''' Ok, everyone has their own preference but I think most of us here would agree that you need to concentrate on high-fnding countries, as well as spread your radar coverage more early one. My own list is Europe, US, China/Japan, S. America, Australia, Africa. Since Europe is the most expensive place to build a base, it edges out N.America as my top choice to maximize the value of the free base.

*'''Maintain 6 intercepter craft at each base''' Wow, I have never needed more than two craft at each base and usually just keep one. Six craft is really really extreme. Not only that, but why would you purposely keep a mixed fleet of Interceptors and Lightning when you can build Firestorms? Interceptors are incredibly expensive in rent and Lightnings... The only purpose of having multiple craft that I can imagine is to have a backup craft if one gets damaged. Since the only UFO that can really harm you is the Battleship, this will not happen a lot early on. A better strategy to have access to backups would be to have an extra empty hangar at each intercepting base, and then build a "hangar" base where you would just keep 2-3 backup crafts which could be transferred around the world as needed (keep it in a remote location such as Antarctica and don't intercept from there to kep it hidden).

*'''Between months 3 and 6, I try to get a Sectoid commander so that I can research psi labs''' Not research Psi until June? Ummm, I usually finish the game around June or July on Superhuman. Psi is ridiculously useful (maybe too powerful in fact) and it takes about three months from capturing a live psionic alien to having psionic soldiers (15 days to research Psi-Lab, 24 days to build it, then wait until beginning of the month, then one month to train first batch of soldiers). Since it takes so long, you should focus on capturing a live Sectoid Leader/Commander ASAP.

*'''Five Psi-Labs at combat base''' This seems pretty extreme too. By the time you get Psi-Labs, you probably have an alien base you are milking. It is child's play to get an average of 4 Psi Skill improvement per mission at an alien base and you can run alien base missions as quickly as your craft can refuel. With an Avenger, I can run 2-3 missions per day for a potential of 80-100 Psi Skill improvement IN ONE MONTH. With this kind of skill advancement, the Psi-Lab is only useful for screening unknown soldiers and does anyone actually keep around 50-60 soldiers at a time? My own recommendation is 2 Psi-Labs.

--[[User:tonicboy|tonicboy]] 11:47, 19 Jun 2007 (PST)

Exploits

2007-06-18T20:24:33Z

Tonicboy:

== To Do List ==
For writing up

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

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

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

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

== Faulty Collision Detection ==

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

=== Throw Through Ceilings ===

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

=== Corner Tile Tricks ===

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

=== Walk Through Wall Trick ===

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

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

=== Seeing Through Ceilings ===

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

== Infinite Fuel ==

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

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

== Free Manufacturing ==

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

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

== All Terror Missions During the Day ==

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

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

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

== Mind Control Madness ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Helpless Tactical Mission ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Free Wages ==

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

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

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

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

== Fog of War Scouting ==

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

== Extra Ammo Collection ==

Any partly-used clips will be discarded at the end of combat. However, in DOS versions of X-COM, partly-used clips (in X-COM or alien weapons) will be kept as full clips if they are unloaded from the weapon before the end of combat. [[XcomUtil]] also has an option to let you bring back to base any partly-used clips in weapons.

== Dead Man Switches ==

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

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

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

==My Pet Alien==

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

== UFO Redux ==

It is possible to collect loot from the same UFO two or even three times (similar to "milking" an [[Alien Base]]). If you perform a [[UFO Ground Assault]] and abort the mission before killing all the aliens, the UFO will have all its aliens and equipment restored, even if you took or destroyed its [[Elerium]]. (Bring all captured equipment/corpses back to the transport and unload the alien guns if you wish to recover the clips.)

If the UFO has another landing scheduled, it will meander around until it reaches its second landing point, at which point you can perform another ground assault. Once a UFO has no further landings scheduled, it will head off at top speed. If you have a fast enough craft, you can shoot it down and perform an additional [[UFO Recovery]] on it.

==Base Defence Mission Spawning Issues==

If there are too many soldiers and/or aliens in too small a base, their initial spawning is unusual. Soldiers can spawn in the Access Lift and Hangars. Aliens can spawn outside the Access Lift and Hangars. Some lifeforms may not spawn at all.

Why does this happen? Each base facility has certain hardcoded spawn tiles. The Living Quarters, for example, have 8 spawn tiles, 7 on the lower level in an "H" pattern, and 1 on the upper level. Soldiers usually spawn at these spawn tiles, semi-randomly outside the Access Lift and Hangars. Aliens are assigned the spawn tiles within the Lift and Hangars.

But, if the number of soldiers exceeds the number of "friendly" spawn tiles, the excess soldiers will spawn at the "alien" spawn tiles inside the Access Lift and Hangars. Similarly, if the number of aliens exceeds the number of "alien" spawn tiles, the excess aliens will spawn at the "friendly" spawn tiles in the rest of the base. If there are not enough spawn tiles for the sum of soldiers and aliens, then some lifeforms will not spawn at all. Soldiers have higher spawning priority than aliens, so aliens will be the first to go (fail to spawn). All weapons and items will still be generated, though.

This can be exploited by garrisoning a base with so many soldiers that all spawn tiles are used up. Zero aliens will spawn (but their toys will still be generated), resulting in a bloodless victory and millions of dollars of loot!

A radar base with one Large Radar or HWD, an Access Lift, and one Living Quarters, can be filled up with 22 soldiers.

But if this is considered an exploit, then what is the "ethical" thing to do? To get all aliens to spawn properly at a radar base, you would have to go out of your way and build a hangar. This would in turn affect your defence tactics, and cost you money. If you don't build the hangar, you need to recruit at least 25 armed soldiers (with the accompanying Living Quarters and General Stores), or else a Sectopod or Chrysallid will probably spawn behind friendly lines. At that point, you could argue that the computer is the one doing the cheating, and 25 soldiers seems excessive for a radar base. On the other hand, you would be fighting a reduced number of aliens, since the Access Lift only has 8 spawn tiles.

Maybe you should just shoot down the scouts.

<table>
<tr><td>Base Facility</td><td>Spawn Tiles on Lower / Upper Floor</td></tr>
<tr><td>Access Lift</td><td>5 / 3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Hangar</td><td>15 / 0</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Containment</td><td>7 / 5</td></tr>
<tr><td>General Stores</td><td>7 / 4</td></tr>
<tr><td>HWD or Large Radar</td><td>5 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Lab or Workshop</td><td>6 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Living Quarters</td><td>7 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Missile Defence</td><td>4 / 5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Defences (non-missile) or Shields</td><td>5 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Psi Lab</td><td>7 / 3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Small Radar</td><td>0 / 2</td></tr>
</table>

==Free HWP Ammo==

During base defense, any tanks spawning will get a free load of ammo. (Maybe from X-Com High Command.) If there's any ammo left in the tank at the end of the mission, the remaining ammo is added to your stores! Obviously, this is only useful with the Tank/Cannon, Tank/Rocket, and Hovertank/Launcher. However, it means that tanks make an excellent defense investment, especially if you get free HWP Fusion Bombs out of it. Note that there must be at least one soldier at the base in order to initiate a Base Defense Mission.

Caveat: At the start of the mission, ammo will first be drawn from whatever is in storage. If it's insufficient to arm all of the HWPs, the remainder is what is granted free of charge. To maximise the free ammo, do not stock any ammunition for the defender HWPs. If any are recovered, the ammunition is best transferred to a base stationed with HWPs that actively participate in field batles.

==Elevator Shielding==
Due to questionable AI, aliens will not fire at you through an elevator (either up or down), even though they can see you and you can see them. When approaching elevators, have a soldier stand on it at the end of the turn, even if this leaves them with no TU. The aliens will not be able to come up/down through the elevator, keeping you safely shielded while you bring up rear troops and prepare for a floor breach. Additionally, soldiers may be able to see aliens standing at/near the elevator above or below them and can fire on them from the safety of their "elevator shield".

==Milking Alien Bases==
This experience training exploit relies on the "Elevator Shielding" exploit. When assaulting an alien base, your soldiers will be deployed at two staging areas with a 2x2 elevator in each one. Block all eight elevator squares with a soldier and wait for the fun to begin. Just keep skipping your turn and eventually, the aliens will find your soldiers and begin to congregate under the elevator. You can now shoot at them with complete impunity and can even pick out specific soldiers who need Accuracy training. When you see that no more aliens are appearing after a few turns, get your solders onto the evactuation area and leave. The alien base is intact for you to return for additional practice later. If you happened to kill everyone the base will be destroyed, so watch the timing of the alien movement phase and take care not to kill everyone. However, the alien leader or commander will almost always stay in the command center, so this is usually not a problem. For best results, arm your soldiers with pistols to maximize the number of shots they can take on each alien. Also, it is not recommended to attempt this tactic on a Sectoid base unless you are very confident of your soldiers' psi strength. As an extra bonus, you can collect alien weapons and equipment before evacuating.

[[Category: Oddities and bugs]]

Exploits

2007-06-13T10:05:21Z

Tonicboy:

Exploits

2007-06-12T22:51:12Z

Tonicboy: /* Milking Alien Bases */

Experience Training

2007-06-11T22:12:32Z

Tonicboy: /* Firing Accuracy training */

Several advanced troop-training methods are possible in X-COM, especially once your troops are capable of mind-controlling aliens. The basic technique is to disarm the aliens, march them to a location of your choice, and have your soldiers fire at them. This technique is commonly called a ''firing squad''.

These techniques should ideally only be performed once a mission field is completely secured -- i.e., all aliens have been located, disarmed, and "rounded up".

== Mind-controlling aliens ==

Once you have a few psionically-able soldiers armed with [[Psi-Amp]]s, you can [[Mind Control]] alien units and have them do your bidding. Disarm the aliens (using the [[Exploits#Alien Inventory Screen|alien inventory exploit]]) and place them in front of the soldiers you wish to train. Hit the End Turn button so that the aliens will regain control of themselves (shooting X-COM-controlled units will not gain you experience), and fire at will.

Keep in mind that a squad comprised of several psionically-strong and skilled soldiers will need little further training of the type detailed in this article, as such soldiers can manipulate the alien forces at will.

== Psionic aliens ==

Aliens with [[Psionics|psionic]] abilities (Ethereals and Sectoid Commanders/Leaders) can allow additional specialized training techniques. Their psionic panicking attacks can be used to train soldiers' [[Bravery]] stat, and X-COM units under alien control can be used for target practice to gain experience.

Special precautions are needed when using psionic aliens for training, however. All soldiers should be disarmed (this includes grenades!), or equipped only with weapons that cannot harm a soldier in a [[Power Suit]]: standard Pistols or Rifles, or Autocannon-HE against [[Flying Suit]]s.

== Combat actions and experience ==

Depending on how many combat "actions" your soldiers perform, their stats will improve by a variable amount at the end of a mission. With one action, their stats will improve 0-1 points; with three actions, 1-3 points, with six actions, 1-4 points, and with 11 or more, 2-6 points. See [[Experience]] for further details.

Stat increases are specific to the stat exercised: making reaction shots increases your Reactions; hitting an alien increases your Firing Accuracy, using a Psi-Amp increases your Psionic Skill; throwing objects increases your Throwing Accuracy; and not panicking despite low Morale increases your Bravery.

However, there are four "secondary stats" ([[TU]]s, [[Energy]], [[Health]], and [[Strength]]) which may increase following a mission during which a soldier performs ''any'' action -- even just one. (Throwing Accuracy actions are excluded.) See [[Experience#Secondary Stats]] for full details.

All stats, both primary and secondary, have a "cap", above which they can never rise. See [[Experience#Regarding Caps]] for more details.

== Stat-specific training methods ==

=== Reactions training ===

You can train your soldiers' [[Reactions]] stat by leaving a non-mind-controlled alien within their field of view. If the alien moves, this will trigger reaction shots, thereby scoring your soldiers a Reactions "action". (See [[Reaction Training]] for more details.)

If you wish to focus on training a particular soldier, especially one with poor Reactions, you should have your other soldiers drop their weapons so they do not react first and "steal the kill".

Often a disarmed alien will not move, or will not move enough to trigger reaction shots, especially from soldiers with a very low Reactions score. "[[Laser Pistol Gifts]]" is a very effective technique in this situation. Using the [[Exploits#Alien Inventory Screen|alien inventory exploit]] again, have the alien stand on top of a [[Laser Pistol]] and pick it up.

Make sure all soldiers within the alien's [[line of sight]] are wearing a [[Power Suit]] or [[Flying Suit]] and directly facing the alien. A Laser Pistol can do a maximum of 92 points of damage, which cannot penetrate the front armor of a suit -- but it can get through the side and back armor.

Now the alien will fire at your troops to no avail, using up all its [[TU]]s. Even a soldier with a miserable Reactions score will return fire upon the alien.

To optimize the number of actions your troops perform, arm the soldier(s) you are training with standard [[Pistol]]s. Pistols are the weakest weapons in the game, and require the most shots to kill aliens -- giving your troops the most shots at an alien before it dies. (See [[Kill Modelling]] for more details.)

A pistol clip also holds 12 shots, which is a good de facto record-keeper: it approximates the 11 actions soldiers will need to perform to get maximum stat gains at the end of a mission. (See [[Experience]] for more details.) After a soldier empties the clip, reload the weapon and pass it to another soldier whose Reactions you wish to train.

A soldier does not have to hit an alien to score a Reactions action -- merely taking a reaction shot will increase the actions counter by one. Occasionally the counter will increase without even taking a shot; see Note 3 at [[User_talk:MikeTheRed#Tips on Increasing Skills]]. (There are several other good tips on that page as well.)

You can arm the alien with a standard pistol as well -- but a Laser Pistol is best as it does not require any ammo. A Laser Pistol in the hands of your troops is not recommended, as it will kill the aliens more quickly.

=== Firing Accuracy training ===

Any time one of your soldiers fires at and hits an alien unit, he or she scores a [[Firing Accuracy]] action. Like Reactions, 11 actions are the most needed to maximize stat gains -- so if during your Reactions training any of your soldiers manage to score 11 hits, they need no further training for that mission.

Each hit will score you an additional Accuracy action, even if you aim at one alien and hit another. Auto shots count as three actions, if all three shots hit. You will also score an Accuracy action for each alien caught in the area effect of an [[explosions|explosive round]] (including a [[Stun Bomb]]) -- and one explosion can strike multiple aliens. Explosions from grenades will score an Accuracy action for each alien hit as well (but not from [[Proximity Grenade]]s for some reason). The last soldier to have thrown the grenade will be awarded the experience.

One devious way to train your soldiers' Firing Accuracy is to bring one or more psi-weak soldiers into battle wearing Power or Flying Suits. Psi-enabled aliens will often [[Mind Control]] such soldiers -- and hitting any unit controlled by the aliens will score you an action.

Your entire squad can then take turns shooting the hapless puppets with a light weapon, such as a standard Pistol or Rifle. A Laser Pistol can also be used, but be careful to only hit the victims' front armor, so as to spare them from injuries. A Laser Pistol should not be given to a unit that is psi-weak and might go berserk, or worse still, get mind-controlled.

This technique unfortunately cannot be used to train Reactions, as X-COM soldiers will never take reaction shots at another soldier, even one that is under alien control and actively shooting all the other soldiers. It does however combine well with [[#Bravery training|Bravery training]], detailed below.

Shooting aliens currently under X-COM mind control will not count as an action.

For a "cheap" way to safely train accuracy, also see [[Exploits#Milking_Alien_Bases]]

=== Psionic Skill training ===

[[Psi Skill]] is the easiest stat to train. Soldiers can simply be kept in training in a [[Psionic Laboratory]] for several months (details [[Psi Skill|here]]), or they can bring a [[Psi-Amp]] onto the battlefield and muck with aliens' minds to their hearts' content.

Since a lot of training methods hinge upon mind-controlling aliens in the first place, your most psi-adept soldiers will probably get battlefield Psi Skill training automatically. Furthermore, since a successful psi attack counts as ''three'' actions instead of one (one is still scored for an unsuccessful attack), it is a trivial matter to gain Psi Skill in combat. (Just be sure to not go past 255 actions -- 85 successful psi attacks per soldier -- as this will overflow the experience counter, making it start counting from zero again. Details [[UNITREF.DAT#Psi_Skill_Experience_Counter|here]].)

=== Bravery training ===

Your soldiers will only gain [[Bravery]] experience when their [[Morale]] drops below 50. Morale is lost when X-COM units die -- but letting soldiers die is not a practical way to train. Much easier and safer is to expose your troops to psi-enabled aliens. See [[Bravery#Improvement]] for full details.

=== Throwing Accuracy training ===

Throwing Accuracy is trivial to train: each time a soldier throws any object, they will get a Throwing Accuracy action. Unlike all the other stats, performing Throwing Accuracy actions will not trigger secondary stat increases.

== Training methods not involving psionics ==

It is possible to use several of the above training techniques before your soldiers become psi-capable, although with greater difficulty and risk. However, there are still several relatively-safe techniques you can employ.

Aliens which have lost [[unconscious|consciousness]] will drop all their weapons. Aliens will never pick up objects, so once they regain consciousness, they cannot harm X-COM units. Terror units with a built-in attack (primarily [[Chryssalid]]s and [[Celatid]]s) remain dangerous at all times, however. 4-space terror units -- [[Reaper]], [[Sectopod]], and [[Cyberdisc]] -- will never regain consciousness once stunned.

Aliens which have panicked and dropped their weapons are often still carrying an [[Alien Grenade]], which they will use, so approach unarmed aliens with caution. However, grenades cannot be targeted at "mid-air" and will only damage units on the level where they explode, so soldiers hovering off the ground in Flying Suits can approach such aliens safely.

Ethereals and Sectoid Leaders/Commanders can still perform psi-attacks when disarmed, and are dangerous to engage in general except with soldiers known to be resistant to psionic attacks.

[[Silacoid]]s, because of their slow speed and lack of ranged attacks, can also be used to safely train your troops. Be sure your troops keep at least 12 spaces away to avoid their attacks (or simply hover off the ground in a [[Flying Suit]]). Silacoids' high armor (50 on Experienced level or above) also makes them excellent for Firing Accuracy and Reactions training -- a Pistol will seldom damage them, allowing many soldiers to get in some training before it dies. [[Incendiary]] rounds are particularly effective for training on a live Silacoid, as they will not harm a Silacoid at all. Incendiary rounds will also never harm a soldier wearing [[Personal Armor]] or better -- an added benefit in the event of stray shots.

Aliens which have only a melee attack (Reapers, Chryssalids, and Silacoids) can also be attacked safely by any troops hovering in a Flying Suit.

== See also ==

*[[Experience]]
*[[Kill Modelling]]
*[[User_talk:MikeTheRed#The_Experience_of_Experience|MikeTheRed - The Experience of Experience]]

[[Category: Soldiers]]
[[Category: Tactics]]

Exploits

2007-06-11T22:09:23Z

Tonicboy:

== To Do List ==
For writing up

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

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

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

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

== Faulty Collision Detection ==

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

=== Throw Through Ceilings ===

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

=== Corner Tile Tricks ===

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

=== Walk Through Wall Trick ===

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

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

=== Seeing Through Ceilings ===

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

== Infinite Fuel ==

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

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

== Free Manufacturing ==

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

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

== All Terror Missions During the Day ==

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

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

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

== Mind Control Madness ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Helpless Tactical Mission ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Free Wages ==

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

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

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

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

== Fog of War Scouting ==

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

== Extra Ammo Collection ==

Any partly-used clips will be discarded at the end of combat. However, in DOS versions of X-COM, partly-used clips (in X-COM or alien weapons) will be kept as full clips if they are unloaded from the weapon before the end of combat. [[XcomUtil]] also has an option to let you bring back to base any partly-used clips in weapons.

== Dead Man Switches ==

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

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

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

==My Pet Alien==

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

== UFO Redux ==

It is possible to collect loot from the same UFO two or even three times (similar to "milking" an [[Alien Base]]). If you perform a [[UFO Ground Assault]] and abort the mission before killing all the aliens, the UFO will have all its aliens and equipment restored, even if you took or destroyed its [[Elerium]]. (Bring all captured equipment/corpses back to the transport and unload the alien guns if you wish to recover the clips.)

If the UFO has another landing scheduled, it will meander around until it reaches its second landing point, at which point you can perform another ground assault. Once a UFO has no further landings scheduled, it will head off at top speed. If you have a fast enough craft, you can shoot it down and perform an additional [[UFO Recovery]] on it.

==Base Defence Mission Spawning Issues==

If there are too many soldiers and/or aliens in too small a base, their initial spawning is unusual. Soldiers can spawn in the Access Lift and Hangars. Aliens can spawn outside the Access Lift and Hangars. Some lifeforms may not spawn at all.

Why does this happen? Each base facility has certain hardcoded spawn tiles. The Living Quarters, for example, have 8 spawn tiles, 7 on the lower level in an "H" pattern, and 1 on the upper level. Soldiers usually spawn at these spawn tiles, semi-randomly outside the Access Lift and Hangars. Aliens are assigned the spawn tiles within the Lift and Hangars.

But, if the number of soldiers exceeds the number of "friendly" spawn tiles, the excess soldiers will spawn at the "alien" spawn tiles inside the Access Lift and Hangars. Similarly, if the number of aliens exceeds the number of "alien" spawn tiles, the excess aliens will spawn at the "friendly" spawn tiles in the rest of the base. If there are not enough spawn tiles for the sum of soldiers and aliens, then some lifeforms will not spawn at all. Soldiers have higher spawning priority than aliens, so aliens will be the first to go (fail to spawn). All weapons and items will still be generated, though.

This can be exploited by garrisoning a base with so many soldiers that all spawn tiles are used up. Zero aliens will spawn (but their toys will still be generated), resulting in a bloodless victory and millions of dollars of loot!

A radar base with one Large Radar or HWD, an Access Lift, and one Living Quarters, can be filled up with 22 soldiers.

But if this is considered an exploit, then what is the "ethical" thing to do? To get all aliens to spawn properly at a radar base, you would have to go out of your way and build a hangar. This would in turn affect your defence tactics, and cost you money. If you don't build the hangar, you need to recruit at least 25 armed soldiers (with the accompanying Living Quarters and General Stores), or else a Sectopod or Chrysallid will probably spawn behind friendly lines. At that point, you could argue that the computer is the one doing the cheating, and 25 soldiers seems excessive for a radar base. On the other hand, you would be fighting a reduced number of aliens, since the Access Lift only has 8 spawn tiles.

Maybe you should just shoot down the scouts.

<table>
<tr><td>Base Facility</td><td>Spawn Tiles on Lower / Upper Floor</td></tr>
<tr><td>Access Lift</td><td>5 / 3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Hangar</td><td>15 / 0</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Containment</td><td>7 / 5</td></tr>
<tr><td>General Stores</td><td>7 / 4</td></tr>
<tr><td>HWD or Large Radar</td><td>5 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Lab or Workshop</td><td>6 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Living Quarters</td><td>7 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Missile Defence</td><td>4 / 5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Defences (non-missile) or Shields</td><td>5 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Psi Lab</td><td>7 / 3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Small Radar</td><td>0 / 2</td></tr>
</table>

==Free HWP Ammo==

During base defense, any tanks spawning will get a free load of ammo. (Maybe from X-Com High Command.) If there's any ammo left in the tank at the end of the mission, the remaining ammo is added to your stores! Obviously, this is only useful with the Tank/Cannon, Tank/Rocket, and Hovertank/Launcher. However, it means that tanks make an excellent defense investment, especially if you get free HWP Fusion Bombs out of it. Note that there must be at least one soldier at the base in order to initiate a Base Defense Mission.

Caveat: At the start of the mission, ammo will first be drawn from whatever is in storage. If it's insufficient to arm all of the HWPs, the remainder is what is granted free of charge. To maximise the free ammo, do not stock any ammunition for the defender HWPs. If any are recovered, the ammunition is best transferred to a base stationed with HWPs that actively participate in field batles.

==Elevator Shielding==
Due to questionable AI, aliens will not fire at you through an elevator (either up or down), even though they can see you and you can see them. When approaching elevators, have a soldier stand on it at the end of the turn, even if this leaves them with no TU. The aliens will not be able to come up/down through the elevator, keeping you safely shielded while you bring up rear troops and prepare for a floor breach. Additionally, soldiers may be able to see aliens standing at/near the elevator above or below them and can fire on them from the safety of their "elevator shield".

==Milking Alien Bases==
This experience training exploit relies on the "Elevator Shielding" exploit. When assaulting an alien base, your soldiers will be deployed at two staging areas with a 2x2 elevator in each one. Block all eight elevator squares with a soldier and wait for the fun to begin. Just keep skipping your turn and eventually, the aliens will find your soldiers and begin to congregate under the elevator. You can now shoot at them with complete impunity and can even pick out specific soldiers who need Accuracy training. The alien leader or commander will almost always stay in the command center, so when you see that no more aliens are appearing after a few turns, get your solders onto the evactuation area and leave. The alien base is intact for you to return for additional practice later. For best results, arm your soldiers with pistols to maximize the number of shots they can take on each alien. Also, it is not recommended to attempt this tactic on a Sectoid base unless you are very confident of your soldiers' psi strength. As an extra bonus, you can collect alien weapons and equipment before evacuating.

[[Category: Oddities and bugs]]

Exploits

2007-06-11T21:16:48Z

Tonicboy:

== To Do List ==
For writing up

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

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

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

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

== Faulty Collision Detection ==

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

=== Throw Through Ceilings ===

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

=== Corner Tile Tricks ===

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

=== Walk Through Wall Trick ===

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

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

=== Seeing Through Ceilings ===

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

== Infinite Fuel ==

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

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

== Free Manufacturing ==

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

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

== All Terror Missions During the Day ==

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

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

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

== Mind Control Madness ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Helpless Tactical Mission ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Free Wages ==

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

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

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

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

== Fog of War Scouting ==

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

== Extra Ammo Collection ==

Any partly-used clips will be discarded at the end of combat. However, in DOS versions of X-COM, partly-used clips (in X-COM or alien weapons) will be kept as full clips if they are unloaded from the weapon before the end of combat. [[XcomUtil]] also has an option to let you bring back to base any partly-used clips in weapons.

== Dead Man Switches ==

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

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

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

==My Pet Alien==

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

== UFO Redux ==

It is possible to collect loot from the same UFO two or even three times (similar to "milking" an [[Alien Base]]). If you perform a [[UFO Ground Assault]] and abort the mission before killing all the aliens, the UFO will have all its aliens and equipment restored, even if you took or destroyed its [[Elerium]]. (Bring all captured equipment/corpses back to the transport and unload the alien guns if you wish to recover the clips.)

If the UFO has another landing scheduled, it will meander around until it reaches its second landing point, at which point you can perform another ground assault. Once a UFO has no further landings scheduled, it will head off at top speed. If you have a fast enough craft, you can shoot it down and perform an additional [[UFO Recovery]] on it.

==Base Defence Mission Spawning Issues==

If there are too many soldiers and/or aliens in too small a base, their initial spawning is unusual. Soldiers can spawn in the Access Lift and Hangars. Aliens can spawn outside the Access Lift and Hangars. Some lifeforms may not spawn at all.

Why does this happen? Each base facility has certain hardcoded spawn tiles. The Living Quarters, for example, have 8 spawn tiles, 7 on the lower level in an "H" pattern, and 1 on the upper level. Soldiers usually spawn at these spawn tiles, semi-randomly outside the Access Lift and Hangars. Aliens are assigned the spawn tiles within the Lift and Hangars.

But, if the number of soldiers exceeds the number of "friendly" spawn tiles, the excess soldiers will spawn at the "alien" spawn tiles inside the Access Lift and Hangars. Similarly, if the number of aliens exceeds the number of "alien" spawn tiles, the excess aliens will spawn at the "friendly" spawn tiles in the rest of the base. If there are not enough spawn tiles for the sum of soldiers and aliens, then some lifeforms will not spawn at all. Soldiers have higher spawning priority than aliens, so aliens will be the first to go (fail to spawn). All weapons and items will still be generated, though.

This can be exploited by garrisoning a base with so many soldiers that all spawn tiles are used up. Zero aliens will spawn (but their toys will still be generated), resulting in a bloodless victory and millions of dollars of loot!

A radar base with one Large Radar or HWD, an Access Lift, and one Living Quarters, can be filled up with 22 soldiers.

But if this is considered an exploit, then what is the "ethical" thing to do? To get all aliens to spawn properly at a radar base, you would have to go out of your way and build a hangar. This would in turn affect your defence tactics, and cost you money. If you don't build the hangar, you need to recruit at least 25 armed soldiers (with the accompanying Living Quarters and General Stores), or else a Sectopod or Chrysallid will probably spawn behind friendly lines. At that point, you could argue that the computer is the one doing the cheating, and 25 soldiers seems excessive for a radar base. On the other hand, you would be fighting a reduced number of aliens, since the Access Lift only has 8 spawn tiles.

Maybe you should just shoot down the scouts.

<table>
<tr><td>Base Facility</td><td>Spawn Tiles on Lower / Upper Floor</td></tr>
<tr><td>Access Lift</td><td>5 / 3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Hangar</td><td>15 / 0</td></tr>
<tr><td>Alien Containment</td><td>7 / 5</td></tr>
<tr><td>General Stores</td><td>7 / 4</td></tr>
<tr><td>HWD or Large Radar</td><td>5 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Lab or Workshop</td><td>6 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Living Quarters</td><td>7 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Missile Defence</td><td>4 / 5</td></tr>
<tr><td>Defences (non-missile) or Shields</td><td>5 / 1</td></tr>
<tr><td>Psi Lab</td><td>7 / 3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Small Radar</td><td>0 / 2</td></tr>
</table>

==Free HWP Ammo==

During base defense, any tanks spawning will get a free load of ammo. (Maybe from X-Com High Command.) If there's any ammo left in the tank at the end of the mission, the remaining ammo is added to your stores! Obviously, this is only useful with the Tank/Cannon, Tank/Rocket, and Hovertank/Launcher. However, it means that tanks make an excellent defense investment, especially if you get free HWP Fusion Bombs out of it. Note that there must be at least one soldier at the base in order to initiate a Base Defense Mission.

Caveat: At the start of the mission, ammo will first be drawn from whatever is in storage. If it's insufficient to arm all of the HWPs, the remainder is what is granted free of charge. To maximise the free ammo, do not stock any ammunition for the defender HWPs. If any are recovered, the ammunition is best transferred to a base stationed with HWPs that actively participate in field batles.

==Elevator Shielding==
Due to questionable AI, aliens will not fire at you through an elevator (either up or down), even though they can see you and you can see them. When approaching elevators, have a soldier stand on it at the end of the turn, even if this leaves them with no TU. The aliens will not be able to come up/down through the elevator, keeping you safely shielded while you bring up rear troops and prepare for a floor breach. Additionally, soldiers below may be able to see aliens standing at/ear the elevator above or below you and can fire on them from the safety of their "elevator shield".

[[Category: Oddities and bugs]]