Researchable Items

[Thorondor]

How did you happen to go about solving that particular predicament, Zombie ? Break out the Flying suits I suppose.

 

::

 

p.s. not that it beats insulting them into coming out, mind you...

[Zombie]

Well, my men were lucky enough to be wearing Flying Suits so they were able to gain entry by floating over the water obstruction. It's not like it was that important to finish this mission as it was only an unrelated test mission on my part and a dinky Medium Scout.

 

If my men didn't have Flying Suits, I still could have Mind Controlled one of the Sectoids which stuck it's head out and then have it shoot it's buddies inside. Even if I didn't have these conveniences I could have done some "editing" to make it possible to finish the mission: Convert the Laser Rifle to 255 damage and then turn the UFO into swiss cheese by shooting at the hull, giving my men temporary flying ability, or even giving the Sectoids 255 fatal wounds. A "normal" player with land-locked soldiers is limited to either waiting it out, loading from a previous Geoscape save or aborting.

 

- Zombie

[Thorondor]

@Zombie:

 

I grovel in the dirt before your magnificence, oh Resourceful One!

 

::

 

And me about to suggest you could try a can opener...

[NKF]

Luckily, this is a medium scout. As long as everything works as it should, all of the aliens will eventually leave the ship. The only problem is if they get into a situation where they get stuck until you get someone close enough.

 

You'll rarely get into this situation, but it's a good exercise to try and work out a solution to this problem given you've only got starting level equipment and soldiers without flight.

 

If you're patient, everything will fall into place. If the player feels that 12 turns is an eternity - ah, well, just gather up the corpses and loot and make your way back to the Skyranger. It's not complete, but it's still a small victory.

 

Larger UFOs will probably not get into this situation, as they have a much larger surface area than the medium scout's 1 module. Hmm. Would the Skyranger ever get sealed off in a corner? Perhaps not. It has a much larger area, so the odds are even greater.

 

- NKF

[Crus8r]

The Skyranger can definitely get "trapped" as well... I've had it happen several times (I sometimes place my initial base on the North Pole [it doesn't directly cover any funding nations, but it can provide reasonable response times to anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, and your ships will usually fly more directly to a target, wasting less time and fuel] and this often means more arctic terrain missions than usual).

 

One way around the problem if you've researched small launchers and brought a few, is to stun a few soldiers and toss them and their equipment across the water...you'll havta wait for them to wake up, but you can use the time for reaction training if any aliens show up before they do. You can't use a stun rod, unfortunately, but you could also use smoke (especially if you brought an autocannon with Incindiary rounds...pop a smoker, move the guys you want stunned into the smoke, then shoot something with the AC-I...the guys in smoke will rapidly accumulate stun damage that way...note that soldiers in power suits are immune to smoke damage [so are guys in flying suits, but if you have those... ])

 

Crus8r

[Zombie]

I guess stun/smoke is one method to use. Then again, if the UFO is cut off from your ship by a 20x20 terrain block on either side, you are in for a really long haul. Basically, assuming a max soldier throwing strength of 71, they will be unable to throw a soldier (22 Kevlar, 24 Power, 26 Flying) beyond about 14 tiles (at best). So the throwing soldier can only throw the unconscious units halfway. Of course, since those terrain blocks have irregular coastlines, the max distance we are looking at it 3-5 tiles.

 

Toss stunned soldiers over the first water hazard, get one to wake up and have him haul the unconscious bodies 20 tiles across the causeway to the other end of the terrain block, throw the soldiers across the second water hazard, wake up all the soldiers with stimulants while dodging plasma bolts from emerging aliens, and finally having those revived troops grab their weapons (which also need to be thrown) and start to fight. It'll be a long process for sure, no matter how you slice it. I'd much rather abort and try again for a better layout, or edit some soldier stats.

 

- Zombie

[Knan]

Hmm. Interesting. Will have to try the "stun a soldier and throw him somewhere handy" method someday. Handy way of getting to a sniper perch usually only accessible by flying suit. Stable roofs and such.

 

You say stun rod doesn't work on your own guys?

[Crus8r]

Unfortunately, no, you can't use a stun rod on friendly units (including MC'd aliens). Note also that if you use a small launcher, it may take a VERY long time for your guys to wake up (I had to wait over 100 turns once)...thats why I usually use the smoke method, if i'm not wearing power suits. It takes a lot longer to fall unconscious, but you'll wake up fairly quickly, most of the time (and using the AC-I trick can really reduce the amount of time it takes to fall unconscious in the first place).

 

While I suppose it would certainly be possible to be 'trapped' with a large lake all around you, I've never seen that...there's usually at least one place where the distance across the water is 2-3 tiles max. That said, I did once toss guys across the water only to find that they were still blocked from access to the UFO by yet more water that was out of visible range from where I tossed them across (only once though, and they were able to get close enuff to 'trigger' the last couple of aliens to come out of the UFO and play )

 

Crus8r

[Zombie]

Just to expand a bit on stun and the Small Launcher. As we all may know, once stun reaches or exceeds current health, the unit falls unconscious. However, even though a unit may have 50 current health, it can (and will) take more stun damage than health allows. (The variable limit is 255, so it could take up to 254 turns to fully recover from a worst case scenario).

 

Ok, assuming a soldier has a max health of 71, and assuming a stun bomb connects with the soldier at ground zero, I figured out how much stun a soldier could possibly take wearing each type of armor (this takes damage modifiers into consideration, and I'm assuming two shots: the first to get stun to 70 and the second stun for the full damage):

 

None: 248 stun(-70 = 178 turns)

Personal: 184 stun(-70 = 114 turns)

Power: 172 stun(-70 = 102 turns)

Flying: 162 stun(-70 = 92 turns)

 

Since stun recovery is 1 pt/turn, it could take that many turns to wake up "naturally". You can expedite the process by administering stim shots from a Medi-Kit which knock off 4 pts/dose. Assuming the above scenario you would need this many stimulant injections to wake up:

 

None: 45

Personal: 29

Power: 26

Flying: 23

 

Finally, since each Medi-Kit holds 10 injections per type, you would need the following number of kits to wake up a soldier:

 

None: 5 (4 full + 5 extra doses)

Personal: 3 (2 full + 9 extra doses)

Power: 3 (2 full + 6 extra doses)

Flying: 3 (2 full + 3 extra doses)

 

Interesting. I never really sat down and crunched the numbers before.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

The solution is to not hit your soldier dead on. Instead, stand near ground zero and look towards it. This lets you soften the blow somewhat with your front plates, and with the damage drop-off each tile you are away from GZ, you should be able to control how much damage your soldier will take.

 

This may even require multiple stun bombs, but hey, such sacrifices have to be made in order to make this insane procedure a reality.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Of course, if you don't have the Small Launcher and Stun Bomb researched none of this will really matter. Then it falls squarely on the shoulders of the Smoke Grenade. At least smoke will only impart as much stun as health allows. That makes revival fairly easy. The only drawback is that only soldiers with natural armor or Personal Armor can be stunned. That's a small price to pay for the chance to complete this type of mission.

 

- Zombie

[Crus8r]

Heh, its true that I usually have flying suits before small launchers & stun bombs, so the smoke method is far more useful to me...and is available from day 1. I'd never crunched the numbers on stun recovery either...looks like 100+ turns for recovery wouldn't be that unusual for an unarmored soldier

 

Crus8r

[Zombie]

I managed to run a few tests the other day just to see how much stun is applied to a soldier's health when they are standing in a smoke cloud and an incendiary round is detonated on the map somewhere. As we may know, a unit standing in a normal smoke cloud receives between 1 and 3 points of stun per turn. There are no stun "shells" in this situation; distance from the epicenter of a smoke grenade plays no role whatsoever in the amount of stun you get. Those probabilities are the following (based off of 2500 trials):

1. 22%
   
2. 44%
   
3. 34%
   

Figuring that the scenario would be similar, I set up my experiment in the same manner as the Smoke Grenade tests done a while back. After about ten trials were performed I took a peek at the preliminary results. The amount of stun applied when an incendiary round is detonated is between 2 and 4 points - basically 1 point more than normal smoke. What was even more surprising was that a soldier always received the same amount of stun damage across trials as long as he/she stood in the same spot in the cloud. That really cuts down on the number of trials needed to gain an understanding of what is going on. Since there were no distinct stun shells apparent, I ended up "mapping" the entire smoke grenade cloud to see what each soldier was getting for stun. Here is a screencap of my results:

 

 

A pretty good mess if you ask me. The black outlined tile is Ground Zero where the smoke grenade went off, and the numbers within each tile represent how much stun will get applied. All soldiers faced North, had the same health and were standing on clear desert sand terrain in a fresh smoke cloud. In addition, the Incendiary Rocket was the weapon of choice, not that this mattered any as the other incendiary rounds (AC-I and HC-I) produced the same results. Didn't matter where the rounds detonated on the map either (as long as they didn't veer off into the test smoke cloud that is).

 

These are preliminary results mind you. I'll need to run this again to verify the map holds for all situations.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

These are preliminary results mind you. I'll need to run this again to verify the map holds for all situations.

Okie-doke. I just ran some more tests. Because of the "messy" map I posted above, I guessed that perhaps the density of the smoke is not consistent throughout the cloud. A fair assumption to make. Now, because I was using a saved smoke cloud, any tests I ran on it would be the same. So I created a new smoke cloud and tried to map it. Bingo again! The map was completely different. So it is safe to say that different smoke clouds produce varying maps and therefore densities. Cool stuff.

 

Just as a comparison to the normal smoke cloud, I took some probabilities of each stun level happening:

• 2 - 27%
  
• 3 - 46%
  
• 4 - 26%
  

Just a little bit different from a normal stun due to smoke, eh? Of course, this is only for a sampling of 121 tiles, not 2500. But it provides a glimpse at what is happening.

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

These smoke clouds of yours - Does the stun levels relate to the smoke densities at all, or is that the same throughout the cloud?

[Zombie]

These smoke clouds of yours - Does the stun levels relate to the smoke densities at all, or is that the same throughout the cloud?

Don't know yet. My theory is that the initial smoke cloud has varying densities of smoke particles. This is because I found different 3 stun levels within the cloud (2, 3 and 4). In smoke.pck there are 3 separate densities shown. Coincidence? I think not. I'll have to test this out to verify though.

 

- Zombie

[zaimoni]

Just as a comparison to the normal smoke cloud, I took some probabilities of each stun level happening:

• 2 - 27%
  
• 3 - 46%
  
• 4 - 26%
  

Just a little bit different from a normal stun due to smoke, eh? Of course, this is only for a sampling of 121 tiles, not 2500. But it provides a glimpse at what is happening.

At only 121 samples, distinguishing between this and the theoretical 2d2 distribution isn't tenable.

[Zombie]

At only 121 samples, distinguishing between this and the theoretical 2d2 distribution isn't tenable.

I thought it was pretty clear from my post that this was a small sampling and shouldn't be taken as 100% accurate? If I ever get some time I'll map out some more smoke grenade clouds to increase the sample size, but this process takes a while. Right now I feel it is more important to nail down the mechanics of a smoke cloud as this might shed some light on the subject.

 

I just ran a very simpe test today on smoke and incendiary: I detonated a Smoke Grenade and waited until the cloud was 1 turn away from disappearing. Then I sent a solder into the thin 1x1 cloud and detonated an Incendiary Rocket. Result? One point of stun was applied. So smoke density appears to play a role in the amount of stun applied. (Or perhaps smoke around a tile plays a role too). There must be at least 4 different densities though, otherwise it would be hard to explain why I only had values of between 2 and 4 before.

 

Later today I'm going to test a smoke cloud after it has been around for x rounds. As we know, smoke spreads and appears to thicken upon standing. This may produce higher stun damages when Incendiary ammo is detonated.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

This is related to armor and Flying Suits in general. Anyhow, I was reading on the X-COM Wiki Armor page and ran across this quote:

 

In addition, if you're unhappy with the performance of your soldiers and decide to have them sacked, be sure to remove the armour before doing so. If you do not then the disgruntled soldier will take the suit home with them and you will not see it again.

LOL, I always had this picture in my mind of a younger male soldier coming home from the alien war in autumn. His mother asks if he could remove the leaves from the gutters so that rainwater could go out the downspout. "Sure!" he says. The mom doesn't hear the ladder banging on the siding so she goes outside to investigate. As she rounds a corner she finds her son hovering in mid-air wearing his stolen Flying Suit and tossing handfuls of leaves to the ground. Gets me laughing every time. (Note: in winter you could substitute shoveling the snow off the roof. It's just as funny)!

 

- Zombie