Base Commander's Handbook

[NKF]

Just thought we'd have a companion thread to the Field Manual. Where the FM focuses on the Battlescape, this one will focus on the Geoscape aspect of the game.

 

I have no idea how we should go about this, but I thought I'd just get the ball rolling and see where it takes us.

 

Hmm, let me think, a few topics we can cover would include:

 

 

 

Money matters:

A profit table for item production, raw materials, engineer numbers, workshops, etc. (I'm sure we've got this hidden away on the forum somewhere).

Raiding bases (vs. destroying them)

 

 

 

Base planning:

The base disjoint bug, what it is and methods on how to take advantage of/work around it.

Destruction of base modules (maybe note a few modules that don't get destroyed by direct damage)

Truncation of entire base sections (the domino collapse effect)

 

A list of examples of bases used by players, ranging from the general (starting X-Com base) to specialised bases (psi-academies, storage facilities)

 

 

 

Radars:

How radars work (i.e. detection stacking, and why only one radar of each kind will work)

Phantom radars (getting the benefit of a radar without actually owning the radar)

Radar ranges (such as small radars being able to detect Novosibirsk all the way to Beijing) - not your usual x Km's, or whatnot as mentioned in the ufopaedia.

 

 

Aircraft:

Elerium consumption of hybrid aircraft (note, all hybrid aircraft burn up the same amount of elerium. It's just their acceleration and fuel tank capacity that really make the difference)

 

Armour:

Teleporting armour onto soldiers in transit to a field mission

 

Alien bases:

The various methods of disabling them (destroying the command centre and escaping, or eliminating all resistance)

 

Terror sites:

Keep the aliens waiting indefinitely (or waiting till daylight).

 

Retaliations:

Persistence of retaliation crews and why impregnable base defences are not always a good idea.

Short attention spans of retaliation crews. (forgetting your base location after a successful insertion of soldiers)

 

Training:

What actions improve what stats (this is probably duplicating a bit from the combat manual here - let's just use it as a recommendation on what actions need to be done to raise what stats)

 

 

There's obviously a better method of grouping the above topics and presenting them. Oh well.

 

- NKF

[Hobbes]

Phantom radars (getting the benefit of a radar without actually owning the radar)

 

Armour: Teleporting armour onto soldiers in flight

This sounds like more of X-COM's chronicles of the supernatural, like walking through walls and stuff....enlighten us please NKF

[EclipseDog]

Hobbes - If I am rememberring correctly the armour trick is that if you receive armour into your stores but the landing craft has keft already that you can still switch armors around from person to person as long as you know the trick.

 

If you try to add armors through the equip craft method it won't work, however, if you use the soldiers menu from the base it'll let you swap armors around and/or add/remove from a soldier to a base or vice versa. Neat lil trick that.

 

BTW folks - I was thinking about starting to take screenshots every time I first locate an alien craft so that by using photoshot to isolate the crafts from the picture can superimpose them all on one map and thus get an effective 'in-detection-range' sphere around the bases.

 

I think while I'm at it I'll also test to see if putting multiple radars do or don't increase its range.

 

(Me, I think they don't... it makes far more sense that they either increase your 'finding' percentage or else sweep the skies one after the other - ie: radar one sweeps, approx two minutes later radar two, approx two minutes later radar three, approx two minutes later radar four, approx two minutes radar five, then finally another approx two minutes later radar one returns it's sweep to the same spot. - Or at least that is how I would have coded it if I had a sweeping radar rather than a radiating star method.)

 

Anyway, this is obviously going to take some time to complete alone so if anyone else is willing to join in the project and has a base they'd like to test it out on (with only SR radar(s), or only HWD's, or multiple/mix radar units) please say so as it'll mean I can concentrate on just the single LR radars instead of needing to do everything myself.

 

I'm primarily starting this project to find the absolute best base positionings for maximum sky coverage over earth land mass, which could be very useful (to me at least...)

[NKF]

ED: I'll answer the question on radars right away. I found out by digging right into the base data files for this.

 

Only one radar of each type work. All others are only cosmetic - and you have to pay for them too.

 

See, each base has three detection values assigned to them. Short, Long and Hyperwave detection. IF these are set, then the base can start detecting UFOs (i.e. these ARE the radars)

 

The small radar has 10 for Short detection, 0 Long, 0 Hyperwave.

The large radar has 20 short, 20 long and 0 hyperwave.

Hyperwave decoders only have 100 hyperwave.

 

The small and large radars can actually stack their detection abilities. One small and one large radar will actually give you 30 short, 20 long, 0 hyperwave detection (I checked). So it's actually worth keeping a small radar along with the large radar.

 

Only one radar of each type will give you the above benefits. However, radar modules are hard to 'collapse', so they're still useful for connecting isolated sections of the base from the lift (more on this if we ever get round to the topic of destroying base modules). Also, there's apparently no spawn locations for aliens or X-Com units in them (or at least, none of them are ever used).

 

ED, If you go ahead and run your tests, build your base on top of Novosibirsk. If you zoom in 3 times, Beijing and Moscow (I think) are practically at either sides of the screen, making them good measurement markers. Curiously enough, those two cities are about as far as the short range radars can detect (I ran lots of tests). Large radars go at least one city further from either city. I've seen the Hyperwave decoder detect UFOs near London from Novosibirsk, or thereabout anyway. I don't know about you, but I've learnt to appreciate the small radars even more now that I realise their capabilities.

 

 

 

Hobbes: The phantom radars work like this. Every time the game 'builds' a radar (this is not the same as just having the radar there - it has to be built), the game assigns the 'radar' detection values for the base the radar was built in. Once this is set, the radar module itself can be removed, but the base's 'radar' settings do not get wiped. Therefore, the base will still continue to scan for aliens. Try it. Start a new game, then dismantle your small radar, and play for a bit. Now if you built a brand new base, it won't be able to detect anything.

 

This phantom radar will stay in effect until the next time you build a radar of any type.

 

Great way of ignoring the maintenance costs of a hyperwave decoder, eh?

 

It's rather a mild cheat. The tea money that you get to save isn't much, but it's a saving nonetheless. Oh, and you get to maintain a much smaller and easily manageable base.

 

- NKF

[EclipseDog]

I just (tentatively) completed the SR range outline. I decided to make it work anywhere rather than being location specific, but in order for that to work the user will have to take a screenshot after preparing the centerring and then superimpose the transparrent gif radar outline over that screenshot by copy & pasting it on top using a photo/bitmap editor of some kind.

 

I've used the game's zoomed out view for it, but with a bit of tweaking it can be adapted for any zoom level.

 

The key to working it is to (using a closer zoom if necessary) have your globe centered upon your base's middle clear cell (either is already at, or where it will be if you are using this to search for optimum locations) rather than the blue square surrounding it. Once properly centerred the pink outer line will show your maximum coverage area for that base.

 

Now I'm not finished with the parameter checks but so far all spots have either been inside the projected parameters or else right on the outer edge line projected without fail. Still...

 

I am going to release a few sample pictures of the current projection though... and if anyone uses those samples for actual use then I'll just consider you to be a free beta tester...

 

You can find the picture samples at https://user.aol.com/eclipsedog/radar - currently only contains a few SR's, I may eventually split that folder into subfolders and move those to the SR sub and stick in some LR's or HWD's. I also will probably slowly up the total sample shots available to demonstrate it's use in different places.

[M. Hoz]

I did'nt know the Small Radar had SUCH a short range...

It's terrifying (seriously).

[EclipseDog]

Actually there is one thing about that range that surprised me in a good way... it's just about perfect for Europe. Which means slightly smaller costs building that base if you try to be as economical as possible.

[NKF]

Would you be surprised to learn that the large radar has only a slightly larger radius? I mean, the increase is nothing as significant as the hyperwave decoders range, but the range increase isn't really all that much. Where a small radar can pick up UFOs from Novosibirsk to Beijing/Moscow, the large radar can detect from Novosibirsk up to as far as Shanghai/Berlin. But hey, an increase is still an increase.

 

I tried the overlay, and I'd say you might want to expand it slightly. It's a wee bit small, I think. I overlaid it on a base of mine, and I'm sure I've seen aliens pop into existence a little beyond the boundaries in the overlay.

 

When you spot UFOs within your radar detection radius, it doesn't mean your radars weren't picking it up until then. The UFO never physically existed in the game world (though it may have existed in potentia) until it spawned inside your radar range. Try watching the UFO until its blip falls off the radar. The spot where it dissapears should indicate the limits of your detection range. You'll also notice that UFOs that you spotted earlier that dropped off the map will - often without warning - reappear on radar the moment they reenter your detection radius. Ships that were spawned off-screen (like supply ships on supply runs, or retaliation battleships) often get picked up the instant they come within range.

 

I wonder if it's the same with aircraft radar? Hmm. Radars on your ships. Now there's an entire realm of the game I've never attempted to explore before. Must make a note... somewhere.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: I know I'm referring to Novosibirsk a lot. I'm only doing so because it's almost half way between Moscow and Beijing (in addition, it's also almost half way between Berlin and Shanghai), which makes it a good place to measure distances. You can use anywhere in the world to test this - it really doesn't matter. If you can find a spot that's of almost equal distance between several cities, then you've got a good post to measure from.

 

P. P. S: Even with all the tests and observations I've made that have led me to my conclusion - remember, I could always be wrong!

[EclipseDog]

Actually you may well be right. It's the reason I haven't released a 'finished product'. So far none of my tests since I began this have had any outside of the shown range but its a time consuming task waiting for a ship to blip into being outside of the max range and hope that your radar picks up immediately upon getting in range... although... I just thought of a way to speed it up immensely... NKF you've spoken before of using that editor to test things... does that thing have the capabilities of intentionally setting the alien ufo spawn rate to one every few seconds? :0

[NKF]

It's shocking, but this amazing tool of mine is none other than MS-Edit (and opening files in binary mode - not a very easy way of twiddling bits, I can tell you! I really should crank out a simple editor of my own...)

 

I do not yet know how to manipulate the UFOs and other things that can happen in the geoscape - though I believe there are a few here that do. Anyone care to own up?

 

But let's not dwell too much on getting the radar detection radii down to the last pixel, alright? There's plenty of other Geoscape matters we have yet to cover. Accuracy of information is, as always, paramount, but let's be careful that it does not become THE discussion.

 

- NKF

[EclipseDog]

Forget my last post... I just intentionally allowed an alien to stay unintercepted and kept taking screenshots until finally lost sight of it... 347 images later... heh.

 

You are definitely right about how the maximum limit for a small was bigger than originally project using UFO spawns. Now the question is whether that max limit you can keep them in view only works for already spotted craft or if it'll work for all of them.

 

If that's a true mark then I'm going to have to do some major refiguring since the coords for that are quite a ways bigger than when I was doing initial spawn coords. 16-20 blips for spawns, 28+ blips for tracking lost.

 

That'll make a big difference indeed if the tracking is legit for finding as well... if not... well can always create two rings, spawn checks (1) and lost tracking (2).

 

A quick edit to add a note:

 

NKF? Do me a favor when you have the time and look at the photo "SR_lost.jpg". It's the one with the revised for lost tracking factorred in... and personally I feel it is way too big for the finding part... even if it does somehow track that far. To me it looks more like the range I'd expect from a large radar.

[EclipseDog]

Those radar ranges are going to drive me nuts trying to figure out why the going away is so much bigger than the coming in... so I'm gonna just cleanse my mind from those issues for a while.

 

In other matters... hey have any of you noticed when attacking the enemies that stuns don't seem to give the same exp range as kills? I say this for two reasons.

 

First reason is that in my first mission once I had three different guys take down 1 alien each, but one was only stunned. The guy that did the stunning was only made a squaddie even though every single one of his stats was superior to either of the other two, while the other two both made sergent for their kills.

 

Second reason is partially thanks to my favorite tactic (stunning aliens then later medikitting them awake in order to kill them without worries about shots missing or not doing enough damage since only one square away when shoot at it). The problem is that sometimes you can accidently kill the last alien through reaction fire and thus have a stunned alien when you don't want one (ie: when you have yet to build a containment). I almost just accepted it and went on with the game, but in the end I did something abominable once... I reloaded to the prior turn just prior to stunning the alien. *cringes* ... Anyway ... the point is that the mission ended without any differences (aside from the reaction fire not going off) and thus I was able to kill an otherwise unconscious alien. So I get back out of the battle and I look at my soldier's stats to see how the battle affected them... and I notice that my guy who killed the alien instead of stunning it suddenly has a much higher increase of TU's and a few other stats.

 

I redid that battle a couple of times and while the exact increase each time never duped, the increase was bigger each time he killed the alien instead of stunning.

 

PS: Speaking of stunning... does anyone have any idea whether using stun guns will give exp or not... and if so which stats and how much..? Using those are one of my favorite strategies (the above mission description though was a rare injury stun not a stun weapon) and are fun so even if they don't I'll keep using them... but it would be pretty cool if they gave exp as well... although then it could be abused something fierce... (IE: Stun alien, stimulant, stun alien, stimulant, stun alien, stimulant, etc. back and forth until you used up last stim then you'd fire and kill it for humongous exp... so I guess it'd be better if it didn't give exp to use it... *sighs*)

 

PPS: Speaking of stimulants and their use... does anyone have any idea whether using medikits will give exp or not... same questions as with stun guns.

[cyrus]

'Bout the radar ranges. Have any of you noticed, that UFOs appear evenly at half an hour? So, for example, you could detect UFO at 13.00 or at 13.30 but not, say at 13.25. This is because UFO spawning moments, as well as the moments your radar detects them or loses their tracking ar alined on half an hour boders. Thus if your radar tracks high speed UFO (e.g. moving at 4500 speed) that is located at the half an hour border inside your detection range but near the border of it and moves outwards, then it will disappear after another... well right - another half an hour. By this time it may be well beyond the actual detection range of a radar. So ED, the range that you've drawn in 'SR_lost.jpg' is true only for one particular speed.

 

Speaking of craft radar ranges. They are a way too small comparing to base ranges, but nevertheless they can be used effectively at seeking alien craft. It is especially useful with SkyRangers/Tritons as they have much fuel and are capable of sustained flight (or you can peruse the unlimited fuel craft cheat for that purpose). If you detect UFO but it vanishes out of sight or in case there is an alien activity in the region not covered by your radar net you can send some crafts there to investigate and if you can detect the exact place of that activity right enough, sooner or later you will detect those UFOs. By the way, the status of detection for crafts updates every ten minutes, not half an hour.

 

Well, NKF, I don't know how to change the UFO spawning rate, but I think it is hard-coded into the Geoscape.exe. And I only managed to guess the structure of some savegame files (it's a way easy than to disassemble .exe files ). And funnily, I also use MS Edit for the purposes you've mentioned.

 

Ouff, what else did I want to say? Ah, yes bout the killing vs. stunning. The killing gives you more xp as stunning. Don't remember, I've seen somewhere an example of an outcome of a battle with xp that each soldier has gained (maybe it was on this site). Anyway, when there's place for promotions, most efficient soldier in this battle gains the next rank. So ED, nevertheless the soldier that stunned an alien has better stats, he was not the most effective soldier during this particular battle so he became only Squaddie.

 

Using of stun guns will increase your stats (at least general, such as Health, Stamina, TUs, Strength). If you use Small Launchers, any successfull shot will increase your Weapon Accuracy also. Using MedKits will not improve your stats as well as using Motion Scanners or Mind Probes.

 

And about your favourite tactic. Why do you bother using stimulants to make aliens awake if you can throw grenade at an unconcious alien and still get your improvements (or is it only in TFTD - I've heard somewhere, that killing with grenades and missiles do not count as an improvement).

[EclipseDog]

Never thought to try the grenades while they were unconscious to tell you the truth. I'll go test it now and compare exp gains to gains when stim then shoot.

 

I still may decide to do the stim & shoot method since I use laser weapons which don't need to be replaced unlike grenades or missiles, but at least I'll know what my options are.

[Jman4117]

I know the grenade thing works in TFTD but I'm not sure if it does in UFO. If may work in UFO but they don't have death screams like in TFTD.

[NKF]

Hold up everyone, the experience gained from stunning with a small launcher is exactly the same as from rocket launchers. Any and every alien hit by it will be counted as a 'succesful hit'. The larger a soldier's 'successful hit' count, the better the chance the game will raise firing accuracy and some general physical stats. Successful 'hits' are by far the most practical way of raising your stats. 'Hits' are more important than 'kills' (which only raises your kill count, and nothing more). But I think this would be best suited for the Field Manual (it might already be there) unless we're discussing the actual points gained in the mission score, or for research purposes.

 

Back to the radars:

 

 

Re s_lost.jpg: The area looks about right for the tracking of UFOs, though the actual detection of them is, as you say, probably another matter.

 

But as UFOs can spawn anywhere in the world, it's really hard to say when and where they'll appear. You might want to compare a new game with a game that you're well into.

 

Now, instead changing the spawn rates, it would be nice if we could run a controlled test by controlling the destination of a UFO (your base) and its starting position (way beyond radar range) and see when and where your radar first picks it up. This, I believe is possible.

 

By the way, now that you have a rough idea of what the small radar is like, I suggest you give it a test with the large radar, just for comparison. Note: before the game reports that the large radar is built, dismantle the small radar first. The game will remove the phantom radar just as the new one is built.

 

Or, if you want to be absolutely sure, build a new base next to your main one (on top of it, if possible) and dismantle the main base all the way down to the lift, and have a large radar built at the new lift. This will clear any existing radars for sure.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: Re grenades on corpses - It does work in UFO. Just remember to remove the equipment first, or you won't get the recovery score for the recovered artefacts at the end of the mission. Grenades on corpses will kill enemy units even if they've been edited to have 255 under armour. Ergo Grenade damage ignores armour on unconcious units. But again, this is a discussion best suited for the field manual.

[cyrus]

By the way, speaking of stunning vs. killing. I've read somewhere, that stunning yields double killing points. But I'm not sure if this is a true.

[EclipseDog]

I really wonder whether we should be moving these radar bits to a seperate thread by now... but since it started in here...

 

I just completed a tentative LR version... that is one scary radar... the UFO finding ability extends out to slightly larger than the SR losing range, while the LR losing range is so humongous it's creepy. I had a test base on the Canada-USA border... he was still tracking that UFO all the way until it finally enterred into freaking Brazil for crying out loud!

 

I don't have it up yet since I really can't believe that that thing is as big as it appears to be, and refuse to put up something that I know has to be wrong... no matter how many times it reproves itself.

 

What's really scary is the thought that the HWD supposedly has an even longer range... makes me wonder exactly how far those would be if I were testing them... sheesh!

[NKF]

It could be an idea to continue the radar discussion in another thread, then bring the final results back over here later on. Either way, it doesn't matter. We'll eventually move on to other more engaging topics.

 

By the way, now that we've established that only one module of each type of radar works, anyone have ideas regarding the purpose of the 'radar' bars in the base information screen? They're a bit misleading, aren't they?

 

 

---

 

Before I forget, I'll just toss in a few more topic ideas that we may eventually want to cover:

 

Research:

Scientist allocation on projects. Researching multiple projects in parallel vs. concentrating on one topic. (The latter is obviously the better choice)

Interrogations and benefits

Project samples, how to sell off that artefact and still research it.

Research shortcuts.

Research topics that should be left for later (i.e. redundant topics, and UFO widgets that don't really do anything)

 

Graphs:

Using the graphs as a radar for locating centres of alien activity.

 

Base location:

Reasons for your choice of base location. (Spread of favourite combat zone(s), money, land, lots of neighbours, lots of water, it's a self imposed challenge, it's your hometown, proximity to another base (for a complimentary/ temporary decoy base), you just want it there, you really cannot be bothered and just put it down at random etc.)

The cost of building a new base by area

 

Soldiers:

Calculating bed time. (I posted this in the FM thread. I think it was the number of lost health plus or mine a random value up to 50% of the lost health. So a soldier who lost 10 health will stay in hospital between 5 - 15 days)

Transfer times between bases (last I checked it was practically the same time it took for the Skyranger to fly from one base to the other, give or take a few game minutes)

 

Returning from battles:

Equipment salvaged from the battle will be at the base before the Skyranger gets home. (if you want an explanation for this, um... we can always say that the soldiers remained behind until the recovery crew had completely cleared away the crash site. Its a good excuse as any. )

 

 

HWPs:

Free ammo for base attacks.

Overstocking HWPs at a base == Bad. Why?

 

Storage matters: X-Com Packrats

Why the base modules only define the minimum of equipment, staff and planes that can be hired/purchased.

What can and can not be done when base stores are overstocked.

What happens to staff, equipment, current projects/workshop assignments, vehicles and stored aliens when a base module or an entire section of a base collapses (You lose any aliens in cryo storage, but everything else is saved)

 

 

 

 

- NKF

[EclipseDog]

One thing I want to add to this idea of using the UFO activity graph to find places that need bases or which may contain a base... is that there's a huge spike of activity in an area that has a terror site occur in it. Not everyone is aware of it for some reason, so I'd suggest it be made aware of before you start search for alien bases in an area when the only reason for the monthly spike was the terror site location.

 

Even if you totally obliterate every ufo that comes in an area except that one ufo that started terror in London, you'll see in that month's graph for England and Europe a huge spike in activity. Hell even if they didn't even bother to send a single other UFO other than the terror that'll happen, and it'll even show when you win the battle without any civi or soldier casualties while annihilating the enemy.

 

Try it some time... make a note of what country/area the latest terror site occurred in, the following month after the battle go to your graph window and spotlight that country/region and check. The area will usually show absolutely no activity two months back then a huge spike for that month the terror site occurred in, then your current month will have absolutely no activity once more (if you won the terror mission... different story altogether if you lose - hint, hint).

 

You should also at the same time look at the X-Com activity in the same area. If you landed your troops at the area and won the fight your spike for that area in that month will be exactly the same size as the UFO activity spike.

 

IMPORTANT: If the alien spike is bigger than the X-Com spike even though you won the battle then it usually means there is an alien base nearby or else they are attempting to make countries abandon you.

[EclipseDog]

Hrm forgot to add the second item... thought about just editing my last post but since it is a seperate subject putting them in seperate posts to avoid confusion...

 

Full Stock:

 

If your general stores are completely full (but you do have at least 1 unit built) you can actually continue to store more items into the hold... under certain circumstances.

• Plunder
  

Gee that was a short list wasn't it..? As far as I can tell it's the only thing that circumvents the base-stores-full coding. If you attempt to build or buy a weapon when full it'll disallow it and give a message stating you are full up. If you attempt to unload from your soldier or aircraft the same will occur. Yet when you complete an assault or recovery or base defense mission, whatever plunder you take from the aliens gets added in no matter how over the limit you get. I've had times when I had only 1 general store but over 500 elerium alone (which by itself more than filled up my maximum alotment), not to mention a bunch of other plunderred goods.

 

Under certain circumstances this can work in your favor... those being that if you set up an assault base which contains nothing other than the transport vehicle and soldiers, alien containments, and 1 gen storage. All weapons used by soldiers would either have to be items that can be picked up on the battlefield (such as plasma weapons) or else would have to have an inexhaustible supply (such as laser weaponry and stun rods).

 

Once you'd set up a base like this you could just keep stockpiling Elerium and alien alloys to your heart content in order to be prepared for harsher times. You could consider it as your own personal shopping mall, and periodically transfer over part of your overhead to other bases that have become needy and have the space.

 

There's one drawback to this trick that I've heard of (besides the fact that it is highly immoral and makes the game less fun) and that is a rumor that if you allow a surplus of goods over the limit for too long that you can eventually begin to lose stuff. I have no clue what that limit point is since I've never tried it intentionally and either sold off stock, moved it, or built extra facilities the few times that it has happened... extra gen storage units aren't all that expensive to build and maintain after all.

[NKF]

I'd imagine you'd start losing equipment the moment the count goes above 65,536 (I think they were using good old 16-bit integers for item storage).

 

If I remember correctly, you can also get around the equipment minimum storage level with goods produced by the workshop as well.

 

 

- NKF

[EclipseDog]

Hrm could have sworn I got a message saying not enough room to store it and then it closed down my production. *scratches head* Weird. Oh, well.

[EclipseDog]

If you're really thinking of producing that handbook thing there's something else you may want to include, and that is the 'finding hidden landed/crashed UFO locations without taking any actions at all' trick.

 

Want to know before stepping out of your transport exactly which direction leads to that UFO..? There's a trick that takes advantage of the sloppy coding used to hide it. The key to this trick is actually two things, first that they decided to hide things by 'darkening out' map areas you haven't yet triggered, and second that they decided to give you a movement location helper. Having said that, I'd expect practically everyone who has ever played the game to suddenly realize exactly what the trick is, but just in case I'm expecting too much I'll detail it out for everyone anyway.

 

I'm sure everyone's noticed the nice bright pink outline that shows you the current cursor location in order to erase movement confusion. That outline also will stop if it encounters any reasons you can't step in a square, such as trees, fences, bushes, walls, etc. This outline and it's breaking upon encounterring non-clear areas doesn't turn off no matter where on the map you hover it. Thus no matter how 'blackened out' an area is, you can slowly scroll your mouse cursor across the battlefield map and get an outline of everything that sits on the battlefield... including the UFO's.

 

 

The best units to do the trick with are the 4-square things such as HWPs since you can more easily spot nuances connecting two squares together, plus it cuts your time it takes to scroll the map area in half. You also will probably want to test out how the different field levels alter the readout you get from the outline trick.

 

Now it's one thing to see the outline breaks, and another matter entirely to be able to understand them and then be able to translate how the battlefield would look if lighted up, some things were relatively easy to spot while others still can give me pause from time to time, but by the time I had finished fully testing it for myself I'd gotten to the point of over 95% sucess rate on correctly identifying those off-view objects.

 

The most difficult object to master is of course the UFO's themselves simply because there are quite a few different shapes to begin with, and in the case of crash landed UFO's even then the 'standard' shape cannot be counted on for sucessful finding.

 

Take a large scout ship that crashed and has no walls available for identifying, no remaining power sources, or anything else remaining except for a single chair and a fire (Someone please tell me how a raging fire after an aircrash can possibly be hidden/blackened out?!) in the central propulsion area. (Yes, that can happen!) There aren't any walls at all to spot the thing by and that chair is really tough to identify something by when you aren't expecting to see it. I actually identified that ship by the remains of the wall scraps (there was a slight fringe at the very bottom of the outline box that fit the outline of a scout) but even then I questioned my theory until that first squaddie set eyes on it.

 

I'm testing to see if the same technique can be used to find unspotted aliens now (which would be a real coup for the code-loopers... if the testing proves positive I'm not sure if it would be better to stay mumb or let such an obvious code loop-hole unbalance the game), as I know it can be used to find aliens that have been spotted by a completely different unit that even then is too far away to be lit up.

 

... You know the more I think about this, the more I question whether it is the right thing to release this to the general public if they haven't already figured it out for themselves... this kind of power can be really unbalancing if used in certain ways, and unlike psi abilities this isn't some game-intended form of unbalance.

 

Should I edit out all mention of this from this forum... or let everyone who never thought of it have free access to that 'cheat' how-to..? Decisions, decisions...

[NKF]

Good one. It can also be used to locate aliens that are marked as 'seen' but are still hidden within the fog of war (which defeats the purpose of it being 'seen', I think ).

 

But again, this would be best in field manual thread - which covers all matters pertaining to the Battlescape. I'd like to keep this one within the scope the Geoscape, so that the two guides compliment each other.

 

For now, we're just brainstorming and putting up a variety of information that can be appreciated by new and old players alike. If we (or anyone else) ever decide to put together a manual like the Field Manual, then this will be the repository of information we can draw from.

 

There are many, many unintended 'cheat's available in the game. It's very hard to say what's a cheat and what's not. For example, you can fire rockets up at the ceiling and throw objects through the ceiling. Neither action proves fatal to the soldier, and the effects are only felt on the floor above. Firing rockets is reasonable enough - it's not your fault the ceiling didn't get destroyed in the process (though it doesn't explain why the explosion doesn't hurt your soldier). Throwing objects(grenades, mainly) through the ceiling on the other hand is a dodgy action at best.

 

These 'cheats' can indeed ruin the experience for a new player (a rare species, these days ), but on the other side of the coin, some of them do explain all the peculiarities we can't help notice and get frustrated with when we ourselves were newbies (like aliens being able to shoot through weird angles in the wall). I feel it 's better to understand the problem than be ignorant of it (particularly important with the research tree in TFTD's case). Whether or not the player chooses to exploit it is a decision he or she will have to make.

 

Of course, we could always put the really unusual bug exploits in another section with a big 'read at your own risk' warning.

 

 

- NKF