XBASES.DAT

This file records whether an X-COM base has been targeted for alien retaliation purposes.

In experimental testing, this file was found capable of converting a Retaliation mission from the type indicated from MISSIONS.DAT, to a Battleship that headed straight for an X-COM base in the region.

For a single base in North Africa, bytes 20-23 controlled the offset from the base where the Battleship headed straight to. This suggests a layout of 12 records of 4 bytes, one for each geographical region in canonical order.

0-1: nonzero if and only if a base is detected.

2-3: LOC.DAT reference of base to be targeted.

A successful base defense sets at least the first coordinate to 0.

Following may belong in Talk...not sure -- Zaimoni

• If both horizontal and vertical offset are 0, no conversion happens.
• If both horizontal and vertical offset are 1 (detected, LOC.DAT index is Skyranger-1), the resulting Battleship hovers directly over the X-COM base. No base attack occurs just from editing this file.
• If the horizontal offset is 1 while the vertical offset is 0 (detected, LOC.DAT index right), a base attack happens when the Battleship arrives.
• If the horizontal offset is 0 while the vertical offset is 1 (not detected, but bogus LOC.DAT entry pointing to Skyranger-1), a weird buggy UFO flies in, likely missing the X-COM base.

The base coordinates (0x64, 0xc8ff) were also tried. The Battleship headed for at coordinates (0xcb, 0x8c), but had destination (0x47, 0x600).