Game Data

[Pumpkinhead]

For those who don't have access to the Official Strategy Guide by Dave Ellis, I've started compiling a few pages of the tabular data:

 

So far, the only complete page is Scoring

 

While the Alien Deployment page is complete save one table.

 

I'm hoping to one day make my UFOpaedia the be all and end all of UFO technical data

[Zombie]

Umm... at the bottom of those pages it says copyright Atari. Last time I looked, David Ellis was the author of the Official Strategy Guide, and therefore copyrighted by Prima Publishing. Better make some sort of disclaimer because otherwise it could be confusing, or worse, plagiarism.

 

I might be bursting your bubble, but just copying the tables from the OSG does not make your UFOpaedia any better than it. Quite a few of the tables have erroneous values so unless you double-check them, you will just be repeating the same fallacious data. Please do not make this mistake! Nothing discredits an author more to me than giving false imformation. If you need some help, I have double-checked (sometimes quadruple-checked) and corrected some of the tables because I am in the process of writing a Comprehensive Strategy Guide for X-COM. I would be more than happy to send this information along to you!

[Pumpkinhead]

I'm not trying to be "better" than the OSG. I just want to make my site have all the game data it can. If you've found mistakes in the data I'd be glad to see your corrections.

[Blehm 98]

Highly interesting. It is *couph* better than xcomufo's one, and allows ou instant access to just about any ufopedia thing. i shall post something at xcomufo.com/forums now about this

[Puasonen]

Nice! I have wondered how the points go in geoscape view, thanks!

[Pumpkinhead]

I've completed some more tables. Here's the list so far:

 

Battlescape

Alien Deployment

Bases

Finance

Research

Scoring

[Jman4117]

IIRC it takes 8 TUs to stand from a crouch.

[Pumpkinhead]

Thanks, I'll change it now.

 

All of this data is taken directly from the OSG, so any mistakes are Dave's, not mine

[Blehm 98]

According to teh research thing it takes 50 scientist 1 hour to do laser weapons, and 2 to do laser pistol. maybe i should pester scott again about why xcomutil won't work for my xcom on xp

[Zombie]

*sighs* I can see this thread turning into a real can of worms.

 

Here are some of my revisions for the Battlescape section. The major flaw with the OSG's Time Unit Usage table is that it gives a disclaimer about transferring objects from one place to the ground. It does not show the number of Time Units it takes to do the reverse action right next to the forward action (like my table). I think this makes my table easier to read, as well as listing every possible combination!

[NKF]

You know, for fixed inventory movement, you could actually put them into a neat table which you can cross reference. Look down the first column for the source, then look at the top row for the destination, then bang you get your answer! Right hand to right hand? 0! Right hand to left hand? Er, I think it was either 4 or 8.

 

By the way, wasn't unloading a weapon 15 TUs?

 

The game seems to like performing specific actions at certain times. Sort of like how in X-Com Apocalypse all the stores are restocked by the end of ever week. Makes sense that way, I guess. What part of the globe does the game use to determine time? GMT?

 

In UFO, for producing items that have very short build times, it always seems that they require a full day for the entire project to be completed. Or hang on, was this research? I forget. But it annoys me when I want to build, say a bunch of gauss clips in TFTD. It should only take a few hours, but I have to wait until the end of the day for the report to come in that the task is finished.

 

Hang on, don't answer the last two paragraphs. I'm just rambling because I'm trying to avoid doing something else I'm meant to be doing.

 

- NKF

[Pumpkinhead]

I think the time is GMT, from what I remember noticing last time I cared to look.

[Pumpkinhead]

The OSG does not give the ranges for Strength, Psi Strength, and Psi Skill which is why I researched a random sampling of rookie soldiers. So this table really is a conglomeration of the OSG's and mine, not strictly the OSG's.

I had those figures hand-written in my OSG, but I had no idea where I had gotten them from

[Ki-tat Chung]

how about the USG? thats alright ith data, esp with the TU thing, Kuo-dude has already gotten it into a table, but i think you might want to ask him before uring the data. he also has a heap of other data as well.

[Zombie]

Yes, game time is expressed in GMT!

 

Researching items always gets rounded to the day. Pretty convenient for the scientists: If they get done with their project early, they do not tell anyone. They just milk it till the end of the day (or the beginning of the next, depending on how you look at things)!

 

NKF Posted on Jun 23 2004, 05:59 AM

You know, for fixed inventory movement, you could actually put them into a neat table which you can cross reference. Look down the first column for the source, then look at the top row for the destination, then bang you get your answer! Right hand to right hand? 0! Right hand to left hand? Er, I think it was either 4 or 8.

 

By the way, wasn't unloading a weapon 15 TUs?

 

I thought of the cross referenced table when designing mine. I think this is like the mileage chart between cities. Right? Find one city in the left of the chart, and another at the top, and where they meet, there is your answer. There are quite a few problems with this type of table which is why I decided not to implement it.

 

First, there is always the line where the same two things meet, for example: backpack to backpack or belt to belt. I suppose you could represent this example as 0 instead of like the mileage chart usually uses: "---". Only now you have an ugly line of zeros running through your table. And we all know that selecting an item and then placing the item back where you found it is just like looking at it.

 

Second, cross referenced tables are large. Usually authors make the typeset smaller to display all the data on one page. Users of the chart always seem to complain that the numbers are too small to read. If you cannot read the numbers, most likely you will not use the table! What is the sense of making a table if nobody is going to use it?

 

Distinguishing between left and right is also quite useless. For example: moving an object from your right hand to your left shoulder takes the same amount of time units as moving the object from your left hand to your right shoulder. All you would be doing is repeating the same info!

 

So shifting an object from one hand to another takes 4 time units, not 8. Loading a weapon uses 15 time units, while unloading the same weapon takes only 8! Makes sense because in real life it is usually a whole lot easier to unload a weapon rather than load it!

 

As for using the USG for data... let me just say this: almost every table is flawed in some respect. Sorry to be so blunt, but there is no way to sugarcoat blatant mistakes in my book! Don't get me wrong, I like this guide and the way it is organized, and I consider Kasey Chang an asset to the X-COM community. But Pumpkinhead is correct in using the OSG for data, it has a lot more of it and it is more sound.

[NKF]

Consider your belt:

 

You decide to holster your mighty pistol to pick up a heavy plasma. You look at your belt and suddenly realise that a High Explosive is obstructing the placement of the gun. Solution, move the high explosive from the belt to a different position in the belt! You pull out your handy chart and it says 0 TUs! Yay! Then feel a bit silly that you're referring to a table in the middle of the battle.

 

There's only a finite number of locations in your inventory. It's shouldn't be terribly enormous. Left arm, Right arm, left leg, right leg, left shoulder, right shoulder, belt, backpack and the ground. Or if you want to cut out the opposites, you'd have less. Though you'd want to list two numbers for when moving between similar slots. One for moving between opposites, and one for putting the object back into the same slot area.

 

 

Ah, and now for some information I really don't know why I take the pains to gather manually (when there are easier ways that are not known to me). It's not in the ufopaedia, and it might be in the OSG, though I don't have a copy of my own to refer to.

 

Ranged turret weapon information!

Note, this is information about the turret weapons mounted on terror units and tanks. These weapons differ from normal ranged weapons in that they do not physically exist (they're built into the unit), their ammo is always finite, they do not get affected by items held in the hand (in fact, they override both hand), and they aren't affected by kneeling. They are still affected by the number of wounds and the percentage of your health.

 

I'll start with the familiar weapons (you can refer to their damage in the ufopaedia):

 

HWP Armour Piercing Cannon

Aim: 90% Acc, 80% Tus

Snap: 60% Acc, 33% Tus

 

HWP Rocket Launcher

Aim: 115% Acc, 75% TUs

Snap: 55% Acc, 45% TUs

 

HWP Heavy Laser Cannon

Aim: 85% Acc, 75% TUs

Snap: 50% Acc, 33% TUs

 

HWP Plasma Cannon

Aim: 100% Acc, 60% TUs

Snap: 86% Acc, 30% TUs

 

HWP Blaster Launcher

Launch: Variable Accuracy, 66% TUs

 

Now for the less familiar:

 

Celatid Plasma Cannon (can fire in an arc when used by AI)

Aim: 110% Acc, 60% TUs

Snap: 75% Acc, 30% TUs

 

Note, I don't know how much damage these things deal, but it's capable of dealing 200+ Raw damage to an unarmoured soldier. Take away the double damage modifier, that means it's base damage is well over 100+!

 

Cyberdisc Plasma Cannon

Same as Celatid except it does not arc. Also has potential of dealing 200+ damage against 0 armour.

 

Sectopod Plasma Cannon

Same as Celatid plus:

Auto: 50% Acc, 35% TUs

 

Note, for some reason, while this weapon can also deal 200+ damage, it seems to have a much harder time doing it than the cyberdisc and celatid. It seems to like settling around 150 or so. So it must be slightly weaker than the previous two plasma cannons. But toss in the auto mode and it's lethal.

 

All I can say is: Thank goodness for armour! It really makes these ridiculously powerful weapons seem less imposing.

 

- NKF

[Pumpkinhead]

The damage for those terror units are in the OSG:

 

Celatid: 140

Cyberdisc: 130

Sectopod: 100

 

And as a side-note, the H2H units' damage are equal to their strength:

 

Silacoid: 70-82

Chryssalid: 110-128

Reaper: 90-105

Zombie: 84-98

 

(Quoted in "Beginner-Superhuman")

[Pumpkinhead]

I know this isn't technically "game data", but I've created a page with all of the animated X-COM unit GIFs I've made:

 

GIFs

[Blehm 98]

I am going to use them for an avatar, is that okay?

 

interesting, reapers and sectopods have the EXACT same animation. The only difference is the different skins

[Pumpkinhead]

Sure, use away!

[Zombie]

NKF Posted on Jun 25 2004, 04:09 AM

 

Solution, move the high explosive from the belt to a different position in the belt! You pull out your handy chart and it says 0 TUs! Yay! Then feel a bit silly that you're referring to a table in the middle of the battle.

 

Isn't it obvious that repositioning or rearranging objects on a body part area costs you 0 time units?!! My reasoning for not including the 0 TU shifts was because I thought everyone knew this! I think that maybe a blanket statement before the table should say something like "Shifting objects around a body part area use 0 time units - hence these movements are not shown".

 

You are a smart guy, NKF (and the other members of this site are also smart). So why would you need (or want) to look at a table stating the obvious 0 TU shifts? If you want this information for the newbies, then wouldn't a blanket statement cover it? For the less obvious movements, looking at a TU table during a battle is not silly, it is smart!

 

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

 

Ok, for those HWP/Terror Unit shooting stats, a couple of things need to be explained. The accuracy that NKF states is the accuracy of the weapon mounted on the tank. This is not the actual accuracy you will witness during a battle. The real accuracy (the OSG calls it "Base Chance To Hit") is determined by multiplying the weapon accuracy by the firing accuracy of the tank divided by 100.

 

Since the Firing Accuracy of all the tanks is 60%, finding the Base Chance To Hit for say, the Tank/Laser Cannon using a snap shot would be:

50% * (60%/100) = 30%. When you click on the "hand" where the weapon is located, a screen pops up showing the Base Chance To Hit accuracy for each type of shot available. For the Tank/Laser Cannon it shows 30% for the snap shot so everything checks out.

 

As for giving the Time Units to fire for a tank in a percent, I have to ask WHY!!! When a soldier wants to shoot a weapon, the number of time units to fire it depends on the total number of time units the soldier has. Since this number is variable because there are soldiers with different TU, a percentage is used to find how many TU are needed for that shot. (Any soldier may use a weapon that another soldier has).

 

On the other hand, when a tank wants to shoot its weapon, you know the number of TU that the tank has (70 for the ground-based, and 100 for the hovering). Why calculate the TU number when a concrete value can be given? This value remains the same for that tank because a plasma hovertank cannot use a ground-based HWP laser cannon, for example. It is a lot easier to see the actual number during battle, than calculating it manually!

 

Here are my HWP and terror unit tables:

 

First, the basic tank info...

                                                Psionic -----ARMOR-----
Tank Type  TUs Sta Hea Bra Rea Fir Thr Str Dam Str Skl  Fr  L/R  Re/Un
Cannon      70 100  90 110  20  60  0   60  60 100  0   90   75   60   
Rocket      70 100  90 110  20  60  0   60  85 100  0   90   75   60
Laser       70 100  90 110  20  60  0   60 110 100  0   90   75   60
Plasma     100 100  90 110  30  60  0   60 110 100  0  130  130  100
Launcher   100 100  90 110  30  60  0   60 140 100  0  130  130  100

Next, the firing accuracy info...

                       Weapon          Time Units        Base Chance
                      Accuracy          to Fire             to Hit
Tank Type          Snap   Aimed      Snap   Aimed       Snap   Aimed
Tank/Cannon         60%    90%        23      56         36%    54%
Tank/Rocket Lnch    55%   115%        31      52         33%    69%
Tank/Laser Cannon   50%    85%        23      52         30%    51%
Hovertank/Plasma    85%   100%        30      60         51%    60%
Hovertank/Launch    --%   120%

[Blehm 98]

Celeatids sometimes kill with 1 hit, and sometimes never hit anything, and sometimes shoot civilians with 10 shots and the civilians don't die. Does the game give celatids a really odd roll or something?

[Pumpkinhead]

Personally I think percentages are good. I suppose from a statistical point of view they're more useful, whereas from an in-game point of view, actual TUs would be. I like to be able to compare the different %'s to know what fires faster etc. Plus, in my mind, seeing 33%, I know I can get 3 shots off, and if it's over 50%, I know I can only get 1. But that could just be me

 

Q: Why, in your terror unit table did you quote the TUs as solid numbers when the units' TUs are variable depending on skill-level?

 

eg. You've said that a Celatid's snap shot is 21 (instead of 30%), but this doesn't hold true in the Superhuman skill where 30% of the Celatid's TUs is actually 24.6.

 

Q: How did you find out that the H2H aliens all use 14 TUs for their respective attacks? Does this change with skill also or is it a default 14?

 

Ps - Thanks for the extra info! I'll be sure to use this power for good and not evil

[Pumpkinhead]

Celeatids sometimes kill with 1 hit, and sometimes never hit anything, and sometimes shoot civilians with 10 shots and the civilians don't die.  Does the game give celatids a really odd roll or something?

I'm not 100% sure on this myself, but from what I understand (based on NKF's posts), the damage of any weapon is randomised within ±100%, so effectively 0-200%, which means that in theory, if anyone shot a civilian 10 times, there's always the possibility that they wouldn't die.

 

To "never hit anything" however, is always possible if the unit's base-chance-to-hit is anything less than 100%. In the case of the Celatid, it's 55% accurate with aim, so there's still a 45% chance it will miss!

[NKF]

I meant in reality, if you were running about being chased by aliens, you wouldn't ask the alien to stop what it was doing so you could have a look at a reference guide.

 

I'd treat the table more as a curiosity for anyone interested in such data rather than an essential life or death tool (well, it would come in handy if you want to move an item you accidentally stacked, but don't want to end up getting into an infinite loop where you cannot put anything down).

 

---

 

One other reason to list the turret weapons in percentages is in the event you decide to bolt the turret onto some other unit or change the unit's stats.

 

Granted, this is not useful if you plan to play the game as it is. It's more useful from a modding point of view (like using X-Comutil's advanced tanks). And as pointed out, aliens have their stats adjusted by difficulty level. And as your normal weapons are considered in percentages, I feel it natural to think of the tank weapons in percentages as well.

 

- NKF