Failing recovery of all (1-tile, on 1-stage missions) live aliens?

[Tsathoggua]

Does anybody else keep having this problem?

 

I've been playing a genius-level game, far end of mid-way in by now, and using XcomUtil and the option to have interrogations a lot more important than otherwise, by means of research data acquisition.

 

Problem being (and I am aware that its often difficult to recover multi-tile aliens alive, such as hallucinoids, xarquid, and triscene, but I seem to be bringing back a lot fewer aliens than I'm taking alive.

 

Been arming the troops with the following :2 gas cannon, HE clip per wielder, two incendiary clips each, for flushing out enemy troops with fire, and for improving accuracy of trainee agents using gas cannon and HE shells; 1xhydrojet cannon, two phosphorus mags, one HE mag, the latter mainly for when there is a melee-capable alien stunned by conventional weapons-fire rather than deliberately by a stunning weapon and the critter is only dazed rather than smacked senseless, especially with tentaculat, the moment one of those gets stunned by ANY means, aside from initially getting one alive for research, the SOP is to blast it with a HE round and send it back to hell from whence it came. Too dangerous to let those damned things live, far, far better if tentaculats are well and truly disposed of, and until they have been thoroughly reduced to brain-juice and a few bits of chunky slime, they are considered high priority if not the highest,

 

I'm playing the DOS version via dosbox on a windows machine (I know, I know, but it isn't my pc)

and I've been sending the troops in, aside from the above, armed with a mixture of heavy sonic cannons, sonic pistols for sidearms to give those agents who either need something to protect themselves or who can take care of themselves but are also carrying heavy weaponry (got 3-4 DPL-wielding troops packing a couple of shells each, otherwise, thermal shock cannons, 2-3x, 4-5 rounds each, a handful of dye grenades, few sonic pulsers, a couple of breaching charges in order to make for a surprise entry into USOs, and many troops carrying either a thermal tazer, a vibroblade or both, plus MC disruptors for the psyker team, which atm consists of 4 out of my 5 most effective psykers, a couple of them mid-range in strength, the other three or so are one high-medium and two of them, the commander included being so innately strong that they are close to or actually maxed out, and the rest of the squad probably wonders if they are aquatoids in fancy dress.

 

So that breaks down to a LOT of enemy being downed alive, taken over by relentless psi assault, brought close, for the stunner teams to take the aliens down alive after having them walk right up next to them and wait until next turn, with snipers in close, to give the option, should stunning fail to simply shoot the targets dead. But by and large, I've been taking sometimes as many as all bar 2-3 aliens alive, but not recovering anything like the number downed but not dead.

 

For example, Taking on a lobsterman ship, large size, in which there must have been something like 20 odd aliens, maybe more. Killed 3-4 of them since there was no other option in those specific cases, but typically disarming almost all the oversized calamari, using them for a bit of scouting then knocking them out after MC'ing them, a task at which my best few psyker troops rarely fail.

 

Problem is, nothing like the quantity of KO'ed aliens seem to be coming back alive that should. What gives here? because I've been taking nearly all of the enemy, on a large ship back alive for interrogation to further the research efforts. Anyone else get this issue? and what can be done about it?

[silencer_pl]

Do they scream when they fall? If yes then you are killing them. Also why aren't you using thermal launcher? Halucinodis in general should be stunned by 1 shot. Xarquids might be useful to first weaken them by sonic pulser. Triscenes maybe more than 1 alien grenade then thermal shock launcher.

 

Remember also that downed aliens are very vurnerable to explosive damage as nothing protects them. If you fire those explosive rounds or inc rounds on their corpse they will die very easy.

[Tsathoggua]

No I know the difference between a living, and dead alien. And in this case, its lobstermen, this particular mission, last time, tasoth.

I've been knocking the lobstermen down like flies with a combination of an infiltration and close combat-oriented team entering the USO after breaching the walls in multiple points of entry backed up by sonic cannon-packing snipers and a pair of heavy weapons specialists toting flame weapons, the close combat troops being supported by a pair of decent, and a pair of VERY strong psykers. The idea being to use enemies to scout, having them toss their weapons over, check nearby doors for more enemy to take control of, and marching them up to the close combat teams, through blankets of flame layed down by the heavy weapons troops for taking down with tazers, vibroblades and if needs be, a shock launcher. Makes for a highly effective close-quarters shock-and-awe counter-lobsterman strategy in confined areas. I've killed several, most of them outside the USO, but even then, MOST of them have been taken alive. Although if needs be there is always the option of cleaning up with grenades or HE shells for when a low ranking alien is just dazed by sonics fire or HE rounds going off. There are piles and piles of KO'ed crustacea littering the sea floor, and a large vessel, so there are a lot to take down.

 

Only problem is, they don't all seem to be coming back. A lot of them are ending up just not coming back, or counted as live aliens recovered but not counting towards research. Got enough research projects on the go into alien tech and operations.

[Zombie]

How full is your Alien Containment? ASTORE.DAT (the file that holds info about your captured aliens) has a flat 50 spaces available. If it's full and you then try to capture more, those aliens will not make it in. The only way to make more room is to research an alien which will free up some space. I have this issue in TFTD quite frequently due to the high probability of aliens falling unconscious and copious use of TSL since it's so effective. Mostly happens with Lobstermen and Tasoths due to their resistances/armor/health.

 

- Zombie

[Tsathoggua]

I don't think its that. Some live ones are coming back, some aren't, single-part missions, and there hasn't been a research breakthrough on a live alien in a little while, longer than this squirrelyness with the captures. And its just happened again, despite the fact that on responding to a tactical situation, tasoth, several of them were on board the triton, because I ended up using more or less just the tank as a scout, and a psyker team to have them come to me, rather than risk anyone getting shot at. Barely a shot fired by any of the aquanauts in fact most didn't even leave the sub. Had the enemy served up on a plate so to speak, disarming them, using them as scouts to bring more tasoth into LOS. Not very sporting, but brutally effective with 5-6 pretty sharp MC troops, one of them an experienced veteran who turned out to have 100 MC strength.

[NKF]

Without a much more indepth look, I wouldn't have the foggiest as to what's happening. But since XComutil is involved, it is quite certain that it does some of its own housekeeping between the battlescape and geoscape.

 

Just to test the possibility that it might be working in conflict with itself, can can you try saving just before you end the mission and restart the game without XComutil. Then end the mission and see if that makes any difference.

 

Probably not, but at least it will knock one of the possibilities out of the way.

 

- NKF

[Tsathoggua]

Its odd, because some are coming back alive and the research data isn't getting credited.