Alien deployments?

[magic9mushroom]

I want to fix up the articles on Ship Rescue Missions, Artefact Sites, Alien Colony Attack Missions and T'leth.

 

However, one thing missing that I don't know how to find is the alien deployment list for each of these.

 

Does somebody happen to have these lying around, or know how to get it out of the .exe?

[sp1ke]

I suppose it's possible the tables are exactly the same as EU, just translated to the equivalent monster types? But no sorry I don't know.

[magic9mushroom]

I suppose it's possible the tables are exactly the same as EU, just translated to the equivalent monster types? But no sorry I don't know.

 

None of these missions have equivalents in EU, except T'leth (EDIT: Alien Colony missions kinda-sorta match up to Alien Bases in UFO, but we know for sure the loadout's different for at least phase 2), and even there I'd want to confirm that parts 2 and 3 both have the same loadout as Cydonia part 2.

 

EDIT: If you happen to know how alien deployments are stored in the .EXE files, I could dig them out (though we'd then have to interpret which is which), but I can't seem to figure it out.

[magic9mushroom]

Okay, so with some help from NKF, I think I've worked out what's going on in Alien Colonies.

 

The topside is deployment roster 0d, which is a randomised roster consisting of, on Beginner/Superhuman, 2-3/4-5 terrorists type 1, 1-2/3-4 terrorists type 2, 7-12/9-14 soldiers, 3-5/4-6 squad leaders, 2-3 technicians, 2-3/3-4 medics, 2-3/4-5 navigators, and 1-2/2-3 commanders, set to race 4 (Mixed Crew).

 

This translates to 3-5/7-9 Tentaculats, 7-12/9-14 Tasoth Soldiers, 3-5/4-6 Tasoth Squad Leaders, 2-3 Aquatoid Soldiers, 2-3/3-4 Aquatoid Squad Leaders, and 3-5/6-8 Hallucinoids, for a total of 20-33/31-44 aliens. There's a snag, though; UNITPOS.DAT only has 80 records (of which it appears to only want to use 79), and on Superhuman the aliens are using 49-68 of them, so if you bring a Leviathan's worth of troops (26 records), the aliens will usually overflow UNITPOS.DAT and the last few Hallucinoids won't spawn (I got 4-6, with 5 the most likely by a long way, in >25 tests). With a Triton's worth they'll usually get the full roster.

 

Then on the underside, they have deployment roster 0f, which is basically UFO's Cydonia II roster consisting of 2/4 commanders, 1/3 navigators, 3/5 terrorists type 2, 3/5 technicians. 3/5 squad leaders, 3/5 soldiers, and 1/4 terrorists type 1, set to race 2 (Lobster Men). This is not randomised. It's also the roster used in T'leth part 2 and part 3 (except there it's set to race 5, the Lobbie + Aquatoid mixed crew with Deep Ones/Xarquid/Hallucinoids/Tentaculats).

[magic9mushroom]

Okay, I'm pretty sure I've cracked artefact sites.

 

The roster for both sections is a Mixed Crew Battleship (the terror mission ship) with 0-2 added to every rank that exists (i.e. not Commander because a Battleship doesn't have that). Using the Beginner/Superhuman notation again, that's 4-7/6-9 Tasoth Soldiers, 1-3/2-4 Tasoth Squad Leaders, 1-3 Aquatoid Soldiers, 1-3/2-4 Aquatoid Squad Leaders, 1-3 Hallucinoids and 2-10/6-14 Tentaculats, for a total of 10-29/18-37 aliens in each part.

 

If you're thinking "but m9m, that's an average of like 50 aliens; I've played my share of Artefact Sites and they weren't quite that bad"... well, you're catching on. The thing is, Artefact Sites have a small map (4x4 modules), and the designers forgot to put in enough spawn points for that ridiculous amount of aliens. From my empirical testing, the first map (the pyramids) only has 12-18 spawn points, and the second (the interior) 22-29, so a decent chunk of those aliens tend to fail to spawn (the order I've listed them in is the spawn order, so the Tentaculats are the most affected; on Superhuman the first map is quite likely to not have any at all).

[Space Voyager]

Seriously? Those were meant to be far worse but there weren't enough spawn points?

 

I'm glad, Tentaculats still give me the chill...

[magic9mushroom]

Seriously? Those were meant to be far worse but there weren't enough spawn points?

 

I'm glad, Tentaculats still give me the chill...

The second phase not so much; the central room has enough spawn points to usually accommodate on Beginner and to get most of them on Superhuman. But the first phase definitely overruns by quite a bit.

 

I'm analysing ship missions now; the first phase appears to be a simple Battleship crew, but I've found one apparent glitch. Specifically, on one of my trials on a Mixed Crew ship mission, UNITREF.DAT showed two Triscenes, a Bio-Drone, and then four more Triscenes (though the latter four didn't spawn due to lack of large spawn points). That's very odd and shouldn't happen (and it didn't on previous hits of that terror site via save-reload).

 

I can provide the save if anyone wants it, but I doubt it'll be very useful since whatever it is already happened.

 

(EDIT: Also I got my first-ever look at a Triscene, and boy those things are ugly.)

[magic9mushroom]

Have confirmed the presence of Xarquid on a Mixed Crew ship terror mission, below decks.

[magic9mushroom]

Okay, apparently the lower decks are also a Battleship crew.

 

It appears that sometimes, on both upper and lower decks, a Xarquid instead of a Calcinite is substituted for the Battleship's Navigator on a Mixed Crew ship mission. My suspicion is that this is a bug in the replacement algorithm for terrorists, because the unit types go:

 

0 = Hallucinoid

1 = Calcinite

2 = Xarquid

3 = Deep One

4 = Tentaculat

5 = Bio-Drone

6 = Triscene

7+ = armed aliens

 

The races' units are specified underwater, and there's then an algorithm that changes terrorists to the land ones if it's a land mission. Obviously, for Aquatoids, Gill Men and Lobster Men it just adds 1, but for Tasoths and Mixed Crew it'd have to add 2 sometimes to get a Triscene. The Navigator rank in a Mixed Crew is supposed to become a Hallucinoid, which would be replaced by a Calcinite with a "+1", but if that "+2" is erroneously activated it'd make a Xarquid.