Triton window trick, known of?

[Tsathoggua]

Anybody know about this trick?

 

Just decided that the westernmost radar screen in the triton, the seat beside it, I wanted it out of the way to permit moving the troops in a manner more conducive to efficient use of available TUs. So decided to blast it out of the way. Missed, forgot weather I used a sonic pistol or rifle but one or the other.

 

Blasted off the interior armor panel to reveal the 'destroyed' tile type for the texture.

Its seethrough, My men can now look out of the triton without having to actually leave the safety of the interior, and spot whatever might be lurking in the darkness of the terror site being dealt with. Handy.

 

Just thought I'd throw this wee bone out there in case by some remote chance nobody (or indeed, somebody) hasn't yet realized it.

[Space Voyager]

Even if I did once know of the trick (and probably did not) I have definitely forgotten all about it.

[Tsathoggua]

Just blast the side panels a few times with whatever takes your fancy. Gauss rifle won't cut it, obviously you don't want to use explosives of course, it happened by accident in my last terror mission. Month 2 and straight up hordes of lobstermen, on the second difficulty level. Still carrying sonic pistols sometimes, rifles sometimes, and the very occasional cannon/stun launcher. But things went straight from gill men to lobster men, and they are being aggressive as hell. Not pretty. The first few missions were bloodbaths, and not their blood either. Barely got out of there with the triton, the best weapons available at the time being gauss rifles, pistols and gas cannon/a pair of HJC, kept loaded with WP rounds, keeping a couple of mags full of HE shells available to finish the things off. Did have stun rods but not enough to go round. The availability of sonic pulsers was probably the only thing that let anybody at all survive. Ugly didn't even begin to describe the mess that was.

 

What with the resistance of lobstermen to gauss damage all the squad were able to do by way of tactics was continually hit them with phosphorus rounds, to send them running. Each team member carrying as many WP shells as possible, and whilst only one cannon was available to fire them, have one crew member fire a round, toss the cannon to someone else, keeping a man or two to pick it up off the floor if there wasn't enough TU to throw it and play gopher, ending the turn with a couple of shots from their gauss pistol, for whatever the hell that was worth, although they quickly emptied the guns and their supply of reloads (6 mags to go between two shooters plus one in the guns, go figure. Tactic used was to turn the place into a raging firestorm leaving the bugs little chance of ever doing much, keeping them on the run, wearing them down with rounds form the tank and with gauss fire, but mostly from pulsers. Those at least make a fair bit of a mess.

 

Crude and really not pretty, and by the end you bet I was in no mood to bugger about taking prisoners or recovering sub parts. Just filled the place with grenades (had taken something like 30 of the things, plus some dye grenades for cover....really am warming to those now, they've saved one hell of a lot of lives in this game now.

 

Not much left of the sub but a few units of aqua plastics, and certainly no corpses left in the interior of the sub.

 

'hulk smash' about sums up the tactics for that mission. Crude, brutal, slow and ugly, leaving the place a smoking wasteland.

 

 

A sonic rifle seems to be able to remove the primary texture type from the panels of the triton though. Its possible to actually blow through it too with further abuse. Although don't be too surprised if the bugs shoot back, or try throwing grenades. A pulse grenade into the transport wouldn't be fun. I don't know for certain if the bugs can see IN while your looking out, but I don't think so, I think it might be a one-way view. I sure hope so. But I may be wrong. Play about some, YMMV. Still testing it myself. But it IS useful alright.

 

For reference, it was the north side panel thats sat next to the visible end of the radar/sonar screen. Theres even a seat there that prevents anything rushing through

if blasting an exit through the wall is what you are after. Can serve to snipe from or to throw grenades, light the place up etc.

 

The enemy can certainly see through, and shoot through/grenade the inside if the panels are shot out entirely though so its best done partially and used for recon post touchdown before exiting the LZ.

[Tsathoggua]

Oh, tried it again, it appears that your going to need something with a bit more kick than a sonic rifle. Hit the same panel with something like ten bolts from a blaster and it didn't remove the panel. Sonic cannon would be my go-to tool for another go. This was from the inside of the triton, same panel my team blew off last time.

 

Or maybe take the men out and set a breaching charge. Although no explosives were used to take the thing off first time (one next to western most sonar screen, tried

it with the panel next to it without success but was only armed with sonic pistols and rifles, as well as the usual (now) pair of gas cannons, pair of hydro-jet cannons/phosphor rounds so no good trying those to breach the triton..been bringing as many phosphorus shells of any kind as possible, for the purpose of sending bugs running, keeping them on their toes while someone comes in with a stunner, or to prevent lobstermen opening fire before I've had chance to wipe them out) The fail was sub-surface, whilst the time the panel came off was a terror mission on land. Might be a difference, as of course one wouldn't very well do too good trying to fly a submarine from the bottom of the ocean with a buggering great hole in the side haha.

 

But they are definitely destructible, both partially, becoming seethrough at least from the inside outwards, don't know about visibility the other way. Didn't SEEM to trigger any react-fire, and the area north of the LZ was HEAVILY infested with bio-drones, at least 4-5 of the fuckers, three of them up close and another two sniping, as well as one up on the upper NW area of the map, on top of a high tower. If it hadn't been for the coelacanth the men would have been in some deep ordure. As it was, managed to knock the sniper up on the tower down a peg or two with tank and gas cannon HE fire. Damn difficult mission, lobster men, mainly controlled with luring them with gauss rifle/pistol aimed fire to conserve ammo, wouldn't have been able to get out of that hole unscathed without medkits or any sonics other than grenades along, or if needed sending them running using incendiaries, wearing them down with the horde of grenades brought along. Could USE sonic pistols but at the time had not fully completed research into the clips, so pointless bringing any along and taking up space otherwise usable for tools of mayhem so relied on capturing a few pistols to be able to actually reliably take out those infernal drones quickly enough to avoid a massacre, and anything else, hiding out like a sneaky little git, and jumping the lobstermen with stun rods once they'd turned tail and run from the flames..right into the teams with tazers.

 

Out of the frying pan, into the freezer you might say hehehehe:D

 

Oh and how about this for an idea, untried as yet though.

 

Shoot the panel out, must be the one with the seat blocking the way for it to possibly work.

And once the team is all out (or blockade with a tank), toss stunned aliens through the hole, trapping them so if they wake up again, they have nowhere to go. If the door won't close then pop a tank in the way, facing away. Disarming the bugs of course, wouldn't do for them to wake up and pop a grenade in your ass.

[sp1ke]

Well there are known issues with sightlines where it's sometimes possible to see through terrain that is supposed to be opaque. 'Sometimes' means, I think, depending on the map and the position of the tile on the map. So maybe you rediscovered that, and the use of an explosive charge in/near your USO was just a red herring. Or just possibly, the Ancient Masters of Lore who discovered the sightline issue overlooked a dependency on the prior misuse indiscriminate firepower.

[Tsathoggua]

No explosives went off near enough the LZ to hit the dropship in their blast radius. Plenty explosives were set off, sure, but none of them close, bar dye grenades to cover the LZ.

 

There are, if I remember correctly, two tilesets for each texture type. healthy/undamaged type one, and damaged. Not sure if destroyed utterly counts in some cases as a third. It probably doesn't do so if the tile is a vertically rising one, like a triton wall.

 

IIRC, accidentally blasted a hole in my own dropship when one of the men accidentally, due to shitty laptop issues playing up,cut loose with the sonic cannon he was carrying, and blasted not a hole, at first, but blasted the surface off the interior north side wall, leaving a blank white panel. This was seethrough. further abuse resulted in its destruction and the team using it to snipe from, or to exit to avoid grenades coming through, after first leaving presents that go boom for the bugs here there and everywhere.

[sp1ke]

To me that doesn't sound like 'abuse', just physics. :-D

 

The only abuse would be that your aquanauts didn't have to swim back to base...

 

Probably what you discovered is a tile data bug, there are quite a few of those, particularly in earlier editions of TFTD. Would be good to know exactly what version of TFTD you are running, on DOS or Windows.

 

Maybe check UFOPaedia "Known Bugs" for TFTD, though the bug listings for TFTD map/tile bugs are not so exhaustive as for EU.

[sp1ke]

Yes it's there in Known Bugs - troop transport tiles are destructible, unlike in EU.

To my mind it's not a bug - it should not be safe to use heavy weapons in and around your USO. The only 'bug' is that you can damage your USO and still get back to base. But I guess from a gameplay point of view they didn't want to have players complete a mission and then pull up "MISSION FAILED - LONG SWIM HOME". :-)

 

They could have said - craft lost - crew rescued - no artifacts recovered - but that would have needed extra coding.

[Tsathoggua]

In fairness, if a transport getting blown to hell can result in a rescue then so too should the likes of missions where say, a scout craft or similar small craft, like a cruiser is taken down and a full squad is living, yet a single bug present seems to be enough to result in a full squad plus tank of choice ending up MIA.

[sp1ke]

Nah, disagree. I am content that the presence of even a single alien hostile means that the ONLY force in the world that can come in to rescue is an armed XCOM troop transport. Whereas, if the aliens are dead, I'm ok with conventional means being used to retrieve the crew. Assuming they are not too deep.

[Tsathoggua]

Not if there are ALREADY what amounts to a highly expert elite anti-alien taskforce already drawn from the worlds pool of expert, highly trained special forces, the cream of the best of the best, and a full squad down there. If its only the transport itself damaged then there are already boots (or flippers in this particular case of course)

on the ground, armed to the teeth. And that isn't taking into account occasions when there is a second, or indeed more bases each with at least one transport.

 

I actually hadn't contemplated that possibility of conventional forces being used. But they probably wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the operation given the secrecy X-com maintain. Chances are, they do all their own dirty work, and when things go south, its all dealt with in-house. I see no reason why a second transport couldn't go to the rescue of the first squad, carrying just a handful of soldiers to deal with a lone alien, or just a couple of stragglers that need mopping up. If they were actually aware of it in the first place and allowed down there, and used the appropriate liquid breathing gear (its not actually so far fetched, there was a movie even from a while back, forget the title...might have been 'sphere that featured it as a plot element, for very deep diving, and the development of the tech was featured there

and it showed a rat in a tub of liquid, coming out unharmed.

 

Didn't know at the time but it turns out that the scene was genuine and the rat in question actually WAS breathing some sort of PFC, although IIRC they cut the scene from british releases on video or something due to animal welfare issues. Seemingly though at least repeat showings later on mustn't have, because I'm english and I very clearly remember seeing the movie on TV, and seeing that rat placed in a tub of whatever PFC they were using. The divers themselves though didn't breathe the stuff when it was filmed for health and safety reasons.

 

Which I think kinda wrong really if they were going to put an animal through something they were not themselves willing to be subjected to.

[sp1ke]

I'm assuming that behind the "tip of the spear" represented by the XCom forces played out in the Battlescape and Geoscape, there are are teams with a non combat profile, such as retrieval teams and clean up teams that scour and sanitise the sites after tactical victory has been achieved. (In fact these teams are so efficent and mobile that they get all the retrieved artifacts back to base mere moments after the tactical team has dusted off... ahem!).

 

So I would be happy with a 'civilian XCom' undersea rescue vehicle that could retrieve lost subs, but which would NOT be risked if there was ANY possibility of an alien contact down there.

 

As for the idea of an armed tactical recovery mission for a lost sub - that's an interesting scenario I guess for a mod, or OpenXCom, etc.

[Kir'jaeden]

Yes it's there in Known Bugs - troop transport tiles are destructible, unlike in EU.

To my mind it's not a bug - it should not be safe to use heavy weapons in and around your USO. The only 'bug' is that you can damage your USO and still get back to base. But I guess from a gameplay point of view they didn't want to have players complete a mission and then pull up "MISSION FAILED - LONG SWIM HOME". :-)

 

They could have said - craft lost - crew rescued - no artifacts recovered - but that would have needed extra coding.

Remember the fact that trasports are rented, not bought. That could means the damaged ones are replaced by new ones immediately on special conditions from transport manufacturer. Like damaged, but not completely destroyed SWS have full health on next mission miraculously. Special clauses of rent contract, I think.

[sp1ke]

No problem with subs being repaired between missions - that already happens. What concerns me is if the sub is damaged during the tactical mission, to the point where you can't get back to base or maybe not even back to the surface. It would be cool if damaged inflicted during a tactical mission led to the transport showing damage on its return to base and having to go through the Repair cycle that interceptor subs go through after they receive interception battle damage.

 

And yes as interceptor subs are rented from the same people for similar sums of money on the same conditions, but we don't get a "courtesy interceptor sub" while our damaged interceptor sub is repaired, I can't really buy into that story. :-)

[Tsathoggua]

Anyone else turn a little pale a the thought of the insurance rates that X-com must be paying on the likes of E.g a triton, barracuda or Coelacanth chassis?

 

The remarkably high attrition rate where such rented craft as the interceptor and transport craft that X-com initially is limited to, before in-house (question-does TFTD still deduct rent costs on these craft, using just one common mechanism for handling craft on base? or is it only for the triton/barracuda?

 

And Coelacanth SWS chassis aren't rented are they, those are bought are they not?

 

 

Hm....just a thought...perhaps the BORROWING of a very short term 'courtesy transport' could be in the contracts, because transport craft are at far less risk to X-com than the likes of a barracuda, which is of course playing the role of the sharppest point of the tip of the spear, whilst the triton

can be more accurately summed up as still at the sharp end of things, but the blade edge of said spear, behind the point but just as much a functional part of it. Downed, crippled craft aren't shooting back while the triton tries to land, and while damage, and even critical, massive damage DOES occur, it does so on a far lesser frequency level compared with the likes of combat interceptors, best going for their day or not, which are repeatedly flying sorties against an enemy faster, more agile, better armored, capable often of out-flying, out-diving and massively outgunning the assault subs. Not the kind of vehicles the companies renting out barracuda and triton are going to think too safe. Because that role, isn't at all safe for those reasons.

 

But after a site is cleansed, but the troops are unable to go home, an emergency rescue to save life, limb, and whatever nasty little tools of mayhem and destruction the rapid-response tactical squads might have stashed in their packs and upon their person then time is of the essence, one cannot LEAVE them down there to wait for a repair job and not expect there to be a body count rather than a rescue.

 

I'd suggest there simply allowing the temporary use-and-return of a transport/recovery vehicle to salvage what can be of the craft (if not destroyed utterly there are still likely VALUABLE functioning systems down at the bottom of Davy Jones' locker and a team of elite forces handpicked from the cream of the crop of the world's existing special forces soldiery.

 

So the use of the courtesy 'car' would be for the duration of the pickup and drop off only. Could easily be considered in the rates already paid on rent.

[sp1ke]

The lending of subs (/aircraft) is far and away the biggest financial contribution that the Council of Funding Nations are making. The "rental" probably just covers fuel and maintenance. Effectively they are a free gift from the CFN. Including the CFN underwriting the inevitable losses. These are items costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Clearly they are accounted for entirely outside XCOM's budget; only governments can afford such things.

[Tsathoggua]

Not later on, when X-com has been slugging it out with the slime of the seas made flesh for a fair time, sp1ke.

 

Just think how much something like a manta rapid-response interceptor packing a pulse wave torpedo launcher and a heavy craft-sized sonic beam costs, fuelled by zrbite, which is a composite, according to the data, of gold and some sort of biologicals of alien origin. Although it sounds like a preferable alternative to elerium, christ only knows how that is stabilized by the true sectoids, of the first war. Blowing a power core out would irradiate the team, unless armored, almost certainly fatally.

[sp1ke]

After XCOM start producing their own craft instead of begging them from governments for a nominal fee, you get the reverse problem, which is that "in real life" XCOM could sell or rent one of these vessels to governments for probably 50 years worth of funding a pop. The sale price of any XCOM built craft should be in the billion dollar range.

[Tsathoggua]

I disagree, sp1ke.

 

If the craft are rented then they are not X-com's to sell.

[sp1ke]

I disagree, sp1ke.

 

If the craft are rented then they are not X-com's to sell.

yes, that's why you get exactly zero dollars when you give them back to the governments you rented them off

Actually I have no idea what you're talking about, sorry. Who is saying rented craft can be sold?

[sp1ke]

I disagree, sp1ke.

 

If the craft are rented then they are not X-com's to sell.

Maybe you don't understand what I'm saying

 

Starting craft - produced by corporations, paid for by governments, lent to XCOM with a nominal "rent" that's insanely below commercial rates and only enough to cover fuel, spares, and 'normal' wear and tear - not combat damage, not insurance (which is impossible on military craft anyway), not amortising the cost of replacement ("self-insurance"). In addition, the launchers and missiles are also being given to XCOM, basically for the cost of secure transportation. Launchers and missiles would cost in the hundreds of thousands if not millions.

 

XCOM Produced craft - these are clearly produced, owned and (at least mostly) paid for by XCOM. So they ought to be available for sale. The sale price would be in the hundreds of millions to billion dollar range - think of what Russia would have paid for a B1 or what the US would have paid for a Backfire, or indeed what the US pays for B1s and B2s, and for hunter killer subs.

 

So there are two things, chalk and cheese, both with insane economics but in opposite directions. A unifying explanation is that the CFN first subsidises XCOM craft in the early stages, then does the reverse when XCOM starts to build its own tech. The idea is the CFN does not allow XCOM to profit by manufacturing craft (as distinct from weapons) but perhaps keeps these profits for itself or keeps the craft for itself, while lending them to XCOM for the duration of the alien conflicts.