Hydrojet spawning WEIRDness.

[Tsathoggua]

Just took down a probe craft, single soldier as usual, training mission, it was packing a sonic pistol itself, but the weirdest thing was that there was a HJC, spawned on the map, in a region that had not been uncovered until then. SWS scoped it out and ran into a hydrojet cannon on the sea floor. Never seen THAT before. It registered as recovered, too. species of pilot was lobsterman btw. If thats important.

 

Thing was, I brought ONE of them with to the fight, and returned with two.

[Tsathoggua]

Another mission another weird ass spawn. zarbite outside a medium scout-cruiserish thing.

[magic9mushroom]

Zrbite outside craft I've heard of. Hydro-Jet Cannon random loot is new.

[Tsathoggua]

Just pulled two free gas cannons, ready loaded with HE shells too and more zrbite on the same map. That first hydrojet CANNOT have come from the craft (human), because we only had one along, and it was still in the hands of the commander, their sidearm, along side the standard sonic cannon, to permit them to..persuade...enemy that they don't want to go where I wish them not being. Most likely, by the means of volleys of phossy shells in the face haha. Sonic cannon to batter them with, and a hydrojet in place of a pistol for the deep-frying after. Finger-lickin'good. And for those times when, since the commander leads from the front, they do not need to poke their nose round a corner where its likely to get shot off. Comes in handy for flushing campers out of their hidey-holes.

 

Handy actually getting one of those GC, as I could send the rookie with low strength in to close range carrying merely grenades, a stunner (*waves*) (meant those in the ocean, honest, guv'nor:P) then have him pick it up and start letting rip, close up, for some support-fire and accuracy training (you DO get accuracy improvement with HE fire, don't you?)

 

I wonder what causes it. Somehow I do not picture the aquatoids, much less the tasoth as being the cuddly-feely types who would be considerate enough to stash an 'X-com lost-and-found bin' (need some explosives to stick up my ass, sir? just look through here and see whats to your liking to send us to our watery graves..) The kind of nastyass customers that could come up with such things as a biodrone and the deep ones do not really fit the picture somehow.

[NKF]

The Zrbite thing is XComutil shenanigans. For some reason the original developer for XComutil never implemented any routines to match up the Elerium/Zrbite with the power units or even safely shift them off the map. It's stayed that way ever since.

 

The game will first create the original map and place the elerium/zrbite in the correct locations. When XComutil's own map generator comes in and generates a new map, it will leave the elerium/zrbite in their original locations. In UFO for example, if you landed at a Supply Ship, you'll likely randomly run across a row of three elerium pods somewhere on the map. That's where the three power units would have been before the new map was generated.

 

The extra X-Com equipment isn't one I've ever encountered myself, but it may be Xcomutil related. It does some handling of equipment pre battle, but I must confess I've never seen it randomly spawn X-Com equipment like that.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

I'd assume the X-COM kit showing up mid-map is at least related to XcomUtil; just as USOs have pre-defined points where Zrbite should be placed, your subs have a pre-defined point where any kit your aquanauts didn't equip should go. You should be able to confirm if there're any shenanigans there by intentionally dropping something during the initial equipping stage and seeing where it ends up.

 

The weird thing is that if XCU isn't moving Zrbite or the equipment pile (didn't Blade fix that? I could swear he fixed that), it shouldn't be adding any new items to the table, either.

[Tsathoggua]

Yeah zrbite isn't much of a mystery. The bit that threw me was the fact that I had brought one, and ONLY one hydrojet cannon to the scrap in the case when it showed up. That weapon was still in the hands of the agent who's sidearm it is, being used to roast enemies out of hidey-holes and blow things up. If it were going to do its whole being in two places at one time routine and simply switch back and forth, I think likely or not it would be viewable, especially if one was checking for anomalies in anticipation of their being one. And it was not in a backpack, but in his hand, sonic cannon in one grubby mitt, hydrojet in the other, firing away.

 

Another odd thing is the gas cannons that show up, that one HJC, they all seem to be loaded with explosive ammo. Think this would change if there had been AP rounds on board? I don't use them, only HE sometimes but far more often, I use WP, and keep HE rounds for storming USOs, when using away from power sources since the enemy are close to walls usually and the splash damage is good at fighting most things that aren't tasoth or lobstermen, and even tasoth if aiming right beside the limits of their line of sight, hitting a wall next to them and keeping on hammering. Not conservative of ammo and I haven't tried it on genius, I just send some hapless rookie sod in their first haha. Have had zrbite, gas cannons several times, a hydrojet, even a torpedo launcher. And IIRC I don't THINK at the time I even HAD a torpedo launcher on board the transport.