Vanilla UFO, interceptor with 0 fuel in flight

[Tsathoggua]

Not sure what I did here. But for some reason, now I have one interceptor in flight with zero fuel left, only still in flight and not automatically returning to base. Have been taking full advantage. Unfortunately it is not heavily armed, packing a cannon and a stingray launcher.

 

But this bugger has been flying round the world on patrol literally nonstop for weeks. What gives?

[Zombie]

Did you transfer the Interceptor by any chance? I know there's a infinite fuel bug for craft when you transfer them in some cases.

 

- Zombie

[Tsathoggua]

Yes, I transferred the craft plus some ammunition from the primary base to my second.

 

Looks like I've now got the perfect patrol plane, been keeping it on patrol duty and sending it to cover pretty much every square mile of the geoscape scouring the place for alien bases.

[magic9mushroom]

Yeah, it's listed on the Known Bugs page.

 

Basically, any craft that gets transferred loses its fuel, but it stays READY rather than REFUELLING. So you can launch it, despite it having 0% fuel. And the algorithm for checking for low fuel doesn't notice, because the fuel level never drops below the amount needed to return to base (it's already below that amount).

 

It's only really useful for combat craft. A craft that transports troops to a mission is always set to "Low Fuel" regardless of what its fuel actually is, and then it'll be refuelled and no longer bugged.

 

Scouring the globe for alien bases is pointless unless there are alien bases to find. There are zero alien bases on Earth when the game begins, and bases are only built as the result of an Alien Base or Alien Infiltration alien mission. There's roughly one of those every two months (I just painstakingly calculated that the chance for one in February is 46.86%; it gets more complicated after that, because missions that have been performed are struck from the lottery for future months and Infiltration missions repeat. The other easy case, the total sum, is that in total 27 bases will be built before alien missions run dry (50 months - 4 years and 2 months - plus possibly a bit extra if one of the base-generating missions is right at the end and runs long)).

 

So it's unlikely in an average game (finishing around October 1999 or so) that you'll have to deal with more than about 5. And there are easier ways to find them than scouring the globe at random:

 

1) Alien bases generate alien activity (at 5 points per day). Check the graphs every few days, and you'll easily be able to see which regions and countries contain bases.

 

2) An existent base will, every couple of weeks, receive an Alien Supply mission, consisting of a Supply Ship flying to the base, landing directly on top of it, and then flying off. This is a dead giveaway to the base's location.

[Zombie]

Yeah, using the infinite fuel bug to look for bases is kinda pointless as you can normally find them through the Supply Ships. The only time I'd ever use this bug is

1. When I have an Avenger with dual Plasma Cannons. Not eating up Elerium is pretty important and an Avenger can stay out as long as it's Plasma Cannon rounds are available and it isn't too shot up.
   
2. Looking for/trailing UFO's to landing sites. If you can't get to the other side of the globe in time, you can trail a UFO till it lands and then just babysit it till a transport arrives, or shoot it down if it takes off. Handy-ish if you don't have a lot of radar coverage yet.
   

- Zombie

[magic9mushroom]

Yeah, using the infinite fuel bug to look for bases is kinda pointless as you can normally find them through the Supply Ships. The only time I'd ever use this bug is

1. When I have an Avenger with dual Plasma Cannons. Not eating up Elerium is pretty important and an Avenger can stay out as long as it's Plasma Cannon rounds are available and it isn't too shot up.
    
   
2. Looking for/trailing UFO's to landing sites. If you can't get to the other side of the globe in time, you can trail a UFO till it lands and then just babysit it till a transport arrives, or shoot it down if it takes off. Handy-ish if you don't have a lot of radar coverage yet.
   

- Zombie

Surely a true master can simply guess where it's going to land and re-acquire with the Skyranger itself?

 

(I think I've memorised too much about UFO patterns, to be honest. Takes a lot of the uncertainty out when I know all UFO types instantly and can make good guesses about their missions and landing zones just from looking. I can instantly spot a Retaliation scout, for instance, by the speed pattern, and I can identify Terror from non-Terror missions by timing.)

 

But the main use I'd put it to is, indeed, when you don't have a lot of radar coverage ("Activity graph says there's an alien mission in China this month. My bases are in Europe and the USA. I know, I'll station an Interceptor there!"). That said, I make a point of not using it, because it's silly.

[NKF]

It is a silly exploit, but it could be useful in a challenge crafted specifically around it. Say no-base-radars.

 

- NKF

[magic9mushroom]

It is a silly exploit, but it could be useful in a challenge crafted specifically around it. Say no-base-radars.

 

- NKF

Hilariously enough, it would be very useful in the single-base Hawaii, but you can't perform it there.

[Zombie]

Hilariously enough, it would be very useful in the single-base Hawaii, but you can't perform it there.

 

But if you can only build a single base, you can't transfer a craft to exploit the bug, no?

 

Surely a true master can simply guess where it's going to land and re-acquire with the Skyranger itself?

 

(I think I've memorised too much about UFO patterns, to be honest. Takes a lot of the uncertainty out when I know all UFO types instantly and can make good guesses about their missions and landing zones just from looking. I can instantly spot a Retaliation scout, for instance, by the speed pattern, and I can identify Terror from non-Terror missions by timing.)

 

Meh, I never went as far as memorizing routes and such, (TBH I still don't understand the terminology used on the wiki page). Now, I could tell when a UFO was probably going to land by it's speed and if it landed before, but predicting where it was going to land, I couldn't say. That's a random point in the landmass the mission is slated to take place, and you can't get that info from UFO speeds or previous landing locations. Sure, you can send a Skyranger over to the area and just patrol, but there are times when getting a bird there in time is impossible (low on fuel, UFO takes off too soon). Besides, when you have a HWD, it takes all the guesswork out of the equation. Early on, you can just use the graphs to figure out where it'll likely be (assuming you keep an eagle-eye on the graphs).

 

But the main use I'd put it to is, indeed, when you don't have a lot of radar coverage ("Activity graph says there's an alien mission in China this month. My bases are in Europe and the USA. I know, I'll station an Interceptor there!"). That said, I make a point of not using it, because it's silly.

 

Really, I don't think I ever used the exploit until I switched over from PSX to CE, and even then, it was only for testing the functionality. I don't need a craft with infinite fuel as I managed fine without it for many years playing the PSX version where it didn't exist (at least, I never checked if it did). And there's only one time where an infinite-fuel craft would be beneficial, and that's in the tiny window where you have only one or two Avengers and too few bases for complete radar coverage. Before that, Interceptors are too weak and slow to be much use (even with dual Plasma Cannons), and after that, you'll have enough Avengers and radar coverage to track and shoot the UFO down.

 

- Zombie

[magic9mushroom]

But if you can only build a single base, you can't transfer a craft to exploit the bug, no?

 

Hence why I said "but you can't perform it there".

 

Meh, I never went as far as memorizing routes and such, (TBH I still don't understand the terminology used on the wiki page). Now, I could tell when a UFO was probably going to land by it's speed and if it landed before, but predicting where it was going to land, I couldn't say. That's a random point in the landmass the mission is slated to take place, and you can't get that info from UFO speeds or previous landing locations. Sure, you can send a Skyranger over to the area and just patrol, but there are times when getting a bird there in time is impossible (low on fuel, UFO takes off too soon). Besides, when you have a HWD, it takes all the guesswork out of the equation. Early on, you can just use the graphs to figure out where it'll likely be (assuming you keep an eagle-eye on the graphs).

 

I meant what region, not exact location. But the point is that I barely need the HWD; I know craft type and a fair bit about mission type (Retaliation/Terror/Other) just by looking, and it's not too hard to guess mission area either (though I do trail anyway).

[Tsathoggua]

Not practical to guess them with much accuracy for me. Memory loss (no, I am being serious, and do not mean absent mindedness...talking the type of memory loss thats bad enough to have someone forget they have been working all day in an atmosphere of the most unspeakable nature because SOME forgetful arse does something like measure out and weigh some thionyl chloride to finish up on some project work, turns away noticing the methanol carboy was left topless, goes to amend that and leaves the SOCl2 there forgotten until its entirely evaporated into the room, hydrolysing into SO2 and HCl gas, and to cap that royal twatup off, forgets something was heating and has it crack into some sulfide and mercaptan stinkers that old nick himself wouldn't touch with a bargepole haha. I can't remember anymore WHEN the damn flights take or or where, only predict where they are going from flight path and send the bugs a nasty surprise up ahead as well as the pilot trying to fly up some sectoid pilot's...well bits clones do not need, less said the better.

 

And my memory is only getting worse. Seizures do that sometimes. Have them, they suck, and fry my memory longterm. Although going off a bridge didn't help, nor falling out of a tree or getting my head stamped on by some pikey dirtbags.

 

I do remember though that it seems mighty quiet round here, in the time since its taken me to get UFO working on linux, although still not openXcom.