Motion Scanners

[Danial]

Does the Motion Scanner register a unit if they stand still and fire? I haven't used one in about 10 years, so I can't recall. If it was based off TUs it would, so that's an easy way to test it.

[Zombie]

I just spent some time testing out the Motion Scanner to see how it functions in actual combat situations. For the following tests, I just used a X-COM soldier, since a Motion Scanner detects their movement the same as aliens or civilians. For tests 1-8 I did that action as many times as possible in that round until the TU were exhausted or the soldier was unable to continue that action. Also, the soldier was rooted to one spot to eliminate the movement variable.

 

1) Firing Auto-Shots of a Heavy Plasma. Result: No Motion Detected.

 

2) Keep re-looking in the same direction (PSX). Result: No Motion Detected.

 

3) Turning round and round in one spot. Result: No Motion Detected.

 

4) Kneeling/Standing until TU were spent. Result: No Motion Detected.

 

5) Transfering objects within item inventory. Result: No Motion Detected.

 

6) Priming a grenade. Result: No Motion Detected.

 

7) Throwing grenade/object. Result: No Motion Detected.

 

8) Going up and down with Flying Suit. Result: No Motion Detected.

 

So just standing in on spot and doing an action over and over doesn't register on the Motion Scanner. You could use up all the soldiers TU and still not see a blip.

 

Now, I decided to try some other tests.

 

9) Moved the soldier 1 square straight ahead (or 4 TU). Result: No Motion Detected.

 

10) Moved the soldier 2 squares ahead (or 8 TU). Result: Motion Detected! Smallest blip.

 

11) Moved the soldier 3 squares ahead (or 12 TU). Result: Motion Detected! Larger blip.

 

12) Moved the soldier diagonally (6 TU). Result: No Motion Detected.

 

Interesting fact: The Motion Scanner cannot identify walking movements of 6 TU or less. The resolution must not be sensitive enough to detect that. Two tile movements of 8 TU is detectible on the Motion Scanner and show up as the smallest blip possible. More walking = larger the blip, up until a point.

 

It seems that the Motion Scanner checks to see if a unit walked or not first. If it did, it determines if it can display the movement (6 TU or less doesn't register). If it passes this final test, it displays a blip according to either TU used for walking or the number of tiles traversed during the round. I'm guessing the Motion Scanner does not check Time Units used to display blips, it probably remembers how many tiles were traversed and displays a blip accordingly!

[NKF]

Perhaps the game may store this information, I just haven't located it yet.

 

My next thought was stamina. But then I realised stamina is only replenished at a fixed rate for each soldier, and you can often spend more than you recharge, but you don't get sensed if you start the turn exhausted. Stamina is only spent when you walk, and the scanner only picks up units that have walked...

 

What happens if you move far enough to create a blip, save the game, exit the game back to the desktop, restart the game, load the game and check your motion scanner again? If the blip is still there, then yes, the value is saved somewhere.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

Hang on, I just had another memory twig. I found a stat in the unitref.dat file a while back which went up whenever a unit moved.

 

*digs through his notes*

 

Ok, see what offset 62 in the unitref file does (Offset 0 being the first, as opposed to 1).

 

Other tests worth doing. Move a soldier, save and reload the game, and see if the solider turns up on the scanner. See if using a weapon effects the blip, after the soldier has already performed some movement.

 

Then, do some tests to see where the blip appears relative to the soldier. For example, if a soldier moves a long distance, does the blip appear where he started, near where he finishes up, or does he leave a trail of blips?

[Zombie]

Ok, I did some additional tests with the Motion Scanner as suggested by you guys.

 

1) I moved a soldier 2 tiles so that a blip appeared on the motion scanner. Then I saved the game, aborted, reloaded and checked the Motion Scanner again. Result: Just as I suspected, the blip was still there. Therefore, the game must save movement information somewhere.

 

2) I reloaded the game from #1 and then fired off 2 Auto Shot bursts of a Heavy Plasma gun with the soldier that moved. Result: Again, it was just as I guessed because the blip didn't get any bigger in size. The only way to form a blip is if a unit traversed some tiles during the round. By "traversing" I mean walking or flying (with the help of a Flying Suit for your soldiers). Either way produces a blip of exactly the same dimensions.

 

3) Blips follow a unit around. If a person moves outside the detection radius of the Motion Scanner (10 tiles out), and then goes inside, a blip appears where the soldier is presently standing. Say a unit starts outside the detection radius then moves inside, the blip will show up at the present location of the unit.

 

I know what you are thinking: "Ok smartie-pants, what happens if the guy holding the Motion Scanner moves. Will a blip show up then"? You can't fool me, I tested this out too. The blip shows up underneath the arrow which points in the direction of the guy with the Motion Scanner is facing.

 

Am I missing anything else here? Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Using a piece of equipment doesn't create a blip either. Use a Mind Probe, Motion Scanner, Medi-Kit or Psi-Amp during a round, and no blip appears.

[BladeFireLight]

Here is a simple one.. move some units arround each one one more tile then the other till each unit shows up on a scanner, then save. End the turn, now all units should not show up on the scanner. save in a new spot. Find out what is diferent in the soldier.dat and unitpos.dat for the xcom units. This should show the location of the 'tiles traversed' stat.

 

-Blade FireLight

[Bomb Bloke]

I still say the offset if 62... I just haven't had time to check it.

 

Actually, my course is finally over. Woohoo!

[NKF]

Bomb Bloke: Spot on!

 

Just had a go with it. It counts how many TUs that unit spent walking. All other actions, like turning and manipulating objects will not affect this. Only walking.

 

I don't even need to check this in the game. I'm positive that this is what influences the size of the blips on the motion scanner. We know so far that only walking influences the blips on the radar. And as this stat only stores how many TUs were spent walking... well, it makes sense.

 

Hmm, you know, you could make a logging program that logs how many TUs were spent by units for 1. walking 2. non-walking commands. The TUs spent on non walking commands would be current TUs - walking TUs. Would probably be easier to just display this information as a percentage too.

 

You know, all you'd need to do is save the game every turn, alt+tab to a dos window, run the program on the save slot which displays the information, alt+tab back, go to next turn and repeat ad nauseum.

 

Not too sure what the point would be though.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

It might be interesting to see what numbers trigger the scanner in what ways.

[BladeFireLight]

The only practical thing I see would be a way of finding the last alien. insead of using xcomuti's vis or win commands you could make all alines show up as large blips if your close enought to scan them. The only difrence with vis if you know the exact location whild the scanner would not tell you what level the aline was on.

 

-Blade FireLight

[Zombie]

Just had a go with it. It counts how many TUs that unit spent walking. All other actions, like turning and manipulating objects will not affect this. Only walking.

 

I don't even need to check this in the game. I'm positive that this is what influences the size of the blips on the motion scanner. We know so far that only walking influences the blips on the radar. And as this stat only stores how many TUs were spent walking... well, it makes sense.

Hold on a second. Are you saying that the game counts actual Time Units used during the walking phase? And it doesn't count tiles traversed like I guessed? I tested a simple scenario just the other day:

 

Remember that when you move a soldier 1 tile straight ahead under normal terrain, he uses up 4 Time Units. When he moves across the tile diagonally, he uses 6 Time Units up. If you were to move Soldier#1 3 tiles straight ahead, he uses up 12 TU, while if you move Soldier#2 diagonally for 2 tiles, he also uses up 12 Time Units.

 

So I used the Motion Scanner on a scenario where #1 moved straight ahead for 3 tiles, while #2 moved diagonally for 2 tiles. #1 had a larger blip than #2!!!!! Therefore, the game must have a "tiles traversed" value to distinguish the case where two soldiers move exactly the same number of Time Units but different number of tiles! The scanner doesn't lie!

[Bomb Bloke]

It may be the case that the game stores both the time units used, as well as the tile traversed. Or something.

 

Does offset 62 go up when you use items etc? By memory, I think it doesn't.

 

How odd.

 

What if you move the two units, save and load the game, and try the scanner again? :angel:

[Zombie]

I just tried this. Moved Soldier#1 diagonally for two tiles, and Soldier#2 straight ahead for three tiles. Both had used exactly 12 Time Units. Now I saved the game, aborted, reloaded, and checked the Motion Scanner again. Result: the blips were still there, and the soldier which moved 3 tiles straight ahead had the bigger blip. So there must be a "tiles traversed" value somewhere in the game files to distinguish same TU and different tiles movement!

[Bomb Bloke]

Ok, I thought so, but that does leave a rather interesting question... Why bother storing the TUs used for moving, if you use a different value for the scanner?

[BladeFireLight]

Any one got time to dubble check NKF's work and give a report?

 

-Blade FireLight

[NKF]

I did a comparison of three to four turns, copying and pasting each entry for each turn and pasting them against the new turn as a comparison. Only the stat that counted how many TUs that were spent seemed to have any significant change.

 

Interestingly enough, it's different for large units. A normal sized unit uses 4 TUs for each normal tile, right? A tank registered that it used 30. So one step gave 30, the next step gave 60, the step after that gave 90, and so on. Not too sure why that happened. It only used up the standard 4 TUs per tile.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

The UFOpaedia in the game says this for the Motion Scanner:

Large units, or fast moving units, will produce larger blobs.

So tanks (or 2x2 terror units) will produce a larger blip than a single unit will. Also, if a normal unit will use up 4 TU to move 1 tile, a HWP will use the same.

 

Somehow, I forgot to check out HWP's with the motion scanner. I'll do this tomorrow and check back. It should be interesting to see how much larger of blip will show up with the 2x2 units.

[Stun Grenade]

its wierd that i hardly pick anything up on those scanners... meh!

[Bomb Bloke]

Probably due to the low range.

[Zombie]

Yeah, the motion scanner has a 10 tile detection radius. Outside of this range you will not detect any movement. And even if a unit is inside this radius and only moves 1 tile, you won't detect it. It is good for finding aliens on multi-level UFO's. There isn't a height restriction, so you can detect movement right above your head!

[Zombie]

Interestingly enough, it's different for large units. A normal sized unit uses 4 TUs for each normal tile, right? A tank registered that it used 30. So one step gave 30, the next step gave 60, the step after that gave 90, and so on. Not too sure why that happened. It only used up the standard 4 TUs per tile.

A normal sized unit will require (at the least) 4 TU to move through a tile. Different terrain (like tall grass or ramps) will take more TU. However, if a normal unit (like a soldier) expends 4 TU to cross a tile, a tank will use the same amount.

 

Here is where things get interesting. I did a test with the motion scanner where a tank moved 1 tile straight ahead (4 TU). It showed 4 big blips where the tank was located. Then I moved a normal soldier until it had the same sized blip as the tank, and kept track of the number of tiles it took to produce it. It took 7 tiles to produce the same sized blip as a tank moving one tile does. 7 tiles * 4 TU/tile = 28 TU to produce the largest blip possible. This kinda agrees with your 30 TU test NKF. Yours is probably more accurate since you have a hard number, while all I have is an approximation based on motion scanner results.

 

By the way, moving a tank 1 tile ahead produces a blip, whereas a 1 tile movement by a soldier doesn't even register. Moving a tank anymore than 1 tile won't create a larger blip. The blip size is already maxed out.

[Bomb Bloke]

Ok, now the most important test... NKF, can you hex edit the number up to 255, and see what sort of blip that produces? :devil:

[Zombie]

I seriously doubt that "upping" the number to 255 will produce a blip larger than a movement of 7 tiles traversed. See, soldiers can't get a bigger blip by moving more, and HWP's stay the same for any movement they make. Anything more than 7 tiles traversed (or 28 TU) would simply be overkill.

 

Ok, say you edit in a value of 255 for TU usage. Since 28 TU produces a blip a little bit larger than two lines on the motion scanner screen, how much larger would the 255 TU blip theoretically appear? 255 / 28 = 9. The blip would be 9 times larger than a (max) 28 TU does. That's like 3/4 of the motion scanner's screen! As I said before, it seems doubtful that the scanner will make a larger blip than 28 TU. And even if it could, how would it be able to display such a large blip?

[Danial]

I wonder where the "blip" graphic is kept in the game files

[NKF]

If I'm not mistaken

 

ufograph\detblob.dat

 

16 x 16 images.

 

There are seven blip images in total, and the rest are directional cursor arrows.

 

So, seven blips, with no blip, that makes eight possible blip types on the scanner.

 

- NKF