Did You Know That......

[LTNS]

DID YOU KNOW THAT.... if you put a civilian und esp controll, the computer counts them as dead and deducts it from your score?

[NKF]

No, you do not get your score deducted. You don't get any score for that civilian at all.

 

Look at it this way:

 

A civilian that's killed by the aliens or X-Com give you negative marks.

A civilian that's saved gives you positive marks.

A civilian that's under alien control gives you 0 marks, dead or alive(stunned).

 

How does this work? Well, every controllable unit in the map has a loyalty flag. X-Com is 0, alien is 1 and civilians use 2. In most programming languages, 0 is considered to be true and 1 (or any non-zero value) is false. So, by this reasoning, X-Com is true, aliens (or the AI(s) in general) are technically considered as false.

 

When you mind control a unit, there's another flag the unit has that gets toggled to tell the game that the unit is currently under mind control for that turn. The unit's loyalty flag is then set to the person (or AI) that mind controlled it.

 

By the end of the turn, and this is where the magic happens, the game checks for all units that have been mind controlled. If it detects any, it clears this flag and then inverts the loyalty flag. The game doesn't remember who the unit belongs to, so it swaps the temporary X-Com ownership over to the aliens. I think it's done with a simple boolean NOT operation. Not true = false (i.e. not X-Com = aliens)

 

I'm making a wild guess here but if the aliens actively mind controlled civilians (which they don't), then the civilians will be under X-Com control by the time the mind control wears off.

 

- NKF

[FullAuto]

If you use mind control on a civilian, it becomes an alien (in game terms anyway, I guess they go insane or something) and you have to kill it in order to complete the mission. Witness the red box in the corner of your screen when your men see a mind-controlled civilian. Can't work out why it happens though. Why don't your men go mad after being psyed by aliens?

Ok, mentally they would be tougher than a civillian, but being mind-f**ked by an alien as opposed to another human? Hmm

:dontgetit:

[NKF]

I think it can be summarised with the fact that the game just doesn't remember to whom the units belonged to. I'm guessing the mind control mechanics never really took the neutral AI into consideration.

 

But to get back on-topic. Did you know:

• Primed grenades will only detonate at the end of the turn when they are on the ground. While in your inventory, they're safe. However, their timer (if set to anything other than 0) will keep ticking down no matter where the grenade is placed.
  
• Sectopods and cyberdiscs are not immune to stun bombs. They can resist the effects, but when they don't, the stun bombs often knock them out completely.
  
• Explosions are mostly two dimensional, although they can go so far as to damage the ceiling, but only the tile is damaged, and not the units or objects that are standing on it.
   
  
• All explosive effects attack a unit's under armour.
  
• You can kneel while flying for the additional 1.15 accuracy multiplier.
  
• You can continue kneeling while travelling up or down a grav-lift. However, when floating anywhere other than an elevator, you can only continue kneeling when floating in a downward motion. You have to stand in order to fly up.
  
• Items dropped in the air remain in the air as long as you are in the inventory screen. Leaving the inventory screen causes them to drop all the way to the ground.
  
• The explosion from a flying cyberdisc occurs in the air and not on the ground. Even though the 'corpse' drops to the ground first.
  
• Cyberdiscs can sometimes be safely disabled without exploding if the killing blow was done with a single shot.
  
• Grenades and other objects can be thrown through the ceiling.
  
• Explosive ammunition fired at the ceiling detonate will cause damage to everything on that tile, but not below it. So, firing a rocket up at the ceiling above you is perfectly safe (for the shooter)!
  
• Certain walls aren't 100% solid and can either be entered with flying suits or items can be placed 'in' them. Examples are all the Lightning walls and the corners, and all west and north walls of a UFOs outer hull. Non-flying units can walk through these walls as long as they were on a different elevation before moving 'into' these walls.
  
• During the battle, alien power units do not explode. Theyre in a sort of a stable state, so to say. Does not apply in TFTD, where the IBA's do explode.
  
• The purple object at the base of a power unit is an elerium pod. Power units without this purple dot do not supply elerium at the end of the mission.
  
• Pistols, rifles and heavy cannons have identical snapshot accuracies (60%).
  
• The heavy plasma, standard rifle and the small launcher all have identical aimed shot accuracies (110%)
  
• The heavy plasma is just as heavy as the standard rifle, despite its bulk.
  
• Chryssalids do not hatch from zombies if the zombies are killed with an incendiary explosion (not by the flames).
  
• Medikits can work through certain walls (not counting the ones that sit in the centre of the tile)
  
• The size of the blips in a motion scanner indicate how much the unit has walked about. A large blip is a good indicator that the unit may have used up most of its TUs already. A small blip means trouble.
  
• For all large 2x2 sized units, the upper left corner is the most important section. You CAN make tanks move up and down stairs and through other very tiny spaces as long as you can get the upper left corner onto it. (For example: like the caves and tunnel in the mountain map). However, do NOT try to drop a tracked tank, reaper or sectopod off the edge of a building. It will move as far as its upper left corner and the whole unit will drop down right through the wall and get stuck. It's quite difficult to get it out again afterwards.
   
  
• In UFO, the various quarters of a large unit can be mind controlled. Every time a quarter is mind controlled, the time units are refilled. If a quarter is still under alien control, and if it has a gun, it'll often retaliate as you move about. In TFTD, controlling the upper left corner mind controls the entire unit. Controlling any other quarter only gives partial control -- and hilarity often ensues, usually resulting in control of a unit you haven't even seen yet.
   
  
• For all versions of UFO (PC versions, I'd presume) with the arrow in the inventory screen that scrolls floor items, if you pick up any object, click on the arrow and then place it down, you'll hear it drop, but it'll be invisible. Now if you pick up something else and put it on top of this invisible item, and then click the arrow, both items will appear there. If done on the ground, the items will be sorted properly. Apart from stacking two items on the same slot, this is an excellent way of dropping an item on the ground when you have nowhere to put it, but there aren't enough items to make the floor items scroll to a new 'page'. This no longer works in TFTD.
  

While some of this sounds a little wacky -- trust me, it isn't.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: I didn't mean for this list to get so big. It just grew, and grew, and now it wants me to put it through college.

[Kernel]

In most programming languages, 0 is considered to be true and 1 (or any non-zero value) is false.

Being the programmer that I am I would just like to point out that your wrong.

In most programming languages 0 means false and any number other than 0 means true.

[NKF]

Just goes to show how long I've not done any serious programming. Ah, well, in that case, X-Com is false and the aliens are true. You don't know how wrong that sounds!

 

- NKF

[Stewart]

Did you realize that . . .

 

Xcom 1 starts at noon Jan 1, 1999 not midnight.

[PvT Emil Thorsell]

damn NKF! how long did it take you to figure out all those DID YOU KNOW THAT......s???

[NKF]

1. I'm obsessed.

2. I've played the game for a while now. You can't help but spot the unusal, and try to see what causes it. The fact I started jotting down notes at one time didn't help at all.

3. I'm obsessed.

4. Spend enough time around these forums, and you'll see that I'm like a broken record. I repeat them over, and over, and over...

5. Did I say I'm obsessed?

 

You're lucky I didn't post each one as a separate post!

 

---

 

Just one more for the road:

 

On base defence missions, your HWPs will always be armed, whether or not you have ammunition for them. Hence buying/building the most expensive HWP just for base defense is a good idea.

 

I think I'll shut up now.

 

- NKF

[Squaddie01]

NKF,

 

That's a pretty detailed list but you missed this one, that the landing gear/ramp can be taken out when in mountain terrain.

[Fox]

More importantly, you can destroy UFO hulls easier with small ordinance in the mountain terrain.

[Squaddie01]

Also to clarify on this point:

 

In UFO, the various quarters of a large unit can be mind controlled. Every time a quarter is mind controlled, the time units are refilled. If a quarter is still under alien control, and if it has a gun, it'll often retaliate as you move about.

 

Although mind controlling another quarter does refill it's time units, it doesn't refill it's energy all the way. You get some energy back, but if you have exhausted all of it's energy in the previous 3 mind controls, after the 4th control, the alien may have only a few units of energy restored.

[BreakMage]

And you missed the Blaster Launcher technicalities.

 

Other than that, keep up the good work.

[NKF]

Hmm, the blaster launcher...

 

Let's see what the ol' noggin has to say about it.

• The blaster launcher leaves behind a dud clip if it is fired via reaction fire (which is a very rare occurance, I can assure you!), or if you only use one waypoint. You need to discard this clip before you can load the next.
   
   
  
• Soldier facing is ignored. You can fire the missile out your back -- the soldier will not turn around as with normal weapons.
   
   
  
• The blaster launcher in the Collectors edition of UFO (and TFTD's DP launcher) cannot cannot change elevation on the same tile. Instead, the missile will fly off to the map's relative south. I think it has something to do with a trig. function not returning the right values or somesuch. On the bright side, it can move between elevations as long as it's fired at an angle. See next note to get another idea of how to get around this.
   
   
  
• If the fusion ball flies off the edge of the map but has not yet completed its waypoint circuit, the missile wll miraculously appear at its intended waypoint and fly off to the next.
   
   
  
• The fusion ball often does not fly straight and true towards its next waypoint. It often drifts a bit. Hence why you should always leave plenty of space for the bomb between waypoints when performing percision moves in tight spaces like X-Com and alien bases. However, once it gets close enough to its destination, it'll suddenly appear at the waypoint and move off to the next as if nothing happened (set the firing speed to slowest and you can sometimes see this in action). The further away the waypoints are, the worse the drift.
  

I've a feeling I missed out something. But never mind.

 

- NKF

[Alitorious]

I wonder something about that blaster bomb bug... is it possible to 'exploit' it so that the BB teleports through walls? (Or did I misinterpret it)

 

As in, you fire it to the top floor of a battleship, make it go straight down through the battleship cieling, but it will fly off. But then, after it finishes flying off, will it be at the next wp 'inside' the battleship?

[NKF]

Yes.

 

As long as you place the pivot waypoint so that the blaster bomb flies off the map unobstructed, and as long as you place one more waypoint just after the waypoint set inside the command room (so the bomb slams into a wall), then yes the blaster bomb will fly off the map, and suddenly appear at the waypoint it should have gone to and finally fly off to the next one and slam into a wall or it'll hit anything that's in the way.

 

The bomb won't teleport if the extra waypoint isn't placed. It'll think it's ended its flight circuit and just vanish, since it didn't hit anything.

 

One thought occured to me: If it's a multi-level ship, you could place the extra waypoint one floor under, but at a slight angle. So when the bomb 'teleports', it'll slam into the floor exactly where you wanted it to go.

 

Also note another way to exploit this 'bug': this bug makes it impossible for aliens to shoot up small grav-lifts. So you can probably hold off an entire base with a lone soldier and a laser if you can get him or her to a solitary grav-lift. If you let them gather around your grav-lift, most of their casualties will be from their own BB's!

 

- NKF

 

P. S: Just a reminder, all the BB notes apply to TFTD's DPL (except the dud clip, they seem to have fixed this in TFTD), and I think the vertical movement bug in UFO CE is identical in TFTD CE, but I cannot confirm this.