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Bad luck


Slythe

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In my current game, I didn't get my first terror mission til about mid February, which was followed by another terror mission about a week later. Both missions went fantastically, only lost 2 civvies and no soldiers on each one. About 2 months later the next terror mission struck, and here's where my luck went south, not because of the mission itself, but because of the timing. It occurred as my Skyranger was returning from a crash recovery, so, there was no way for me to get to the terror mission in time because of the automatic 'returning to base to refuel' directive of the Skyranger. I had always wondered if something like that could happen, but it never had up until that point. I thought that maybe the game took that into account and actually wouldn't launch a terror mission until a troop carrier craft was available, but this is not the case apparently. Has this ever happened to anyone else ? It was only early April when this terror mission struck so I only had my original Skyranger and a few interceptors, which I used to keep the terror site targeted in an attempt to get my Skyranger ready but to no avail. The terror site was in Japan too of all places, number two on my funding list. Fortunately though when the month ended I got no deduction in funding from Japan, due I guess in part to me downing every other ufo during that month.
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I know in the PSX version anyway, if you're returning from a mission, you cannot redirect your Skyranger while returning from a mission. Logical I suppose, as all the captured equipment and live/dead aliens would be onboard.

 

However, your problem is VERY easily solved. The Terror site will not go away as long as you have a craft targetting it. Just send an interceptor there, and nother one when that one is about to run out of fuel. Once your Skyrange is available, send it.

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That's exactly what I tried to do Mouse, as I stated, but the timing didn't work out right. I had 3 other interceptors and sent one out to the terror site, then another just as the first one was about out of fuel, then the next, but it just wasn't enough, the Skyranger couldn't get refueled in time to target the terror site before all my interceptors were forced out of fuel as well.
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Any troop-transport will head straight back to base after a mission, or if you evacuate from a mission. Happens in all versions of the game.

 

I had an occasion once where there was a mass-infiltration strike. I shot down the smaller ships with the plasma cannons and was forced to take the two battleships that landed via direct ground assault. They landed just a few miles away from my base.

 

I only had the one Skyranger, so I thought I'd only be able to get one before the other took off. That wasn't the case. I successfully assaulted the first battleship and watched as my Skyranger returned home and started its usual rearming-refueling routine. This process didn't take very long, only a few game hours, then it was ready, so I launched it and nabbed the second battleship.

 

At other times, for normal assaults, it seems to take ages for the Skyranger to rearm and refuel.

 

Apparently the amount of fuel spent for each trip must influence how long the refueling process takes, as opposed to a preset time duration.

 

- NKF

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I actually just had the exact same situation. A swarm of base building ufos appeared right around my European base (which was my first base and home to my Skyranger). I was able to assault one landed ufo, return and refuel very quickly, then head back out for the next one, etc.
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Actually now that I think about it, when a craft is under repairs or refuelling or rearming, and you click the 'Equip craft' button then select that particular craft, it shows the progress of the current operation as a percentage, which rises at a constant rate.
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It's also amusing to note that even though the Skyranger is a non-combat ship with no weapon hardpoints, it needs to re-arm its 'weapons'.

 

Or it could always just be restocking its payload of infantry weapons, but that shouldn't take as long as it does.

 

- NKF

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I don't think reloading the infantry payload has anything to do with it, because I always leave my skyranger empty till I need it for something, when a ufo lands or crashes I change to the screen and load it up, I can then launch it immediately... It takes no time to rearm or refuel
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I just said what I said to make the inconsistency sound reasonable. :)

 

The re-arming sequence does take time, but why it's present for ships that don't have any weapon hardpoints is beyond me. If it had a gun, the rearming sequence should be as long as the re-load times as mentioned in the ufopaedia (in a perfect world anyway). But if the ship doesn't have any weapons, you'd think re-arming would just take 0 seconds.

 

Perhaps the time for a rearming sequence starts off with a set number plus the load times for the weapons.

 

Or it could be random, just like the number of days a soldier needs to heal (which is on average a random number with an upper limit that is equal or slightly greater than the amount of damage you received. Because of this, cannot work out how it's calculated, but I digress).

 

- NKF

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It's pretty apparent to me that the skyranger 'rearms' when it lands to be realistic. After it's done refueling, if XCOM were real, there would have to be an inspection team to go around it, check everything, and load some stuff up. In my fic I'm writing, the Skyranger has countermeasures that need rearming, and the 'Hot LZ cleaner' chain guns. Booya!
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