Tank Destroyed scoring?

[Timbukto]

Just got -58 pts for a destroyed laser tank when Ufopaedia reports that HWP's should be -20? Is this a Ufopaedia oversight or a difference in PSX version?

 

I feel guilty about using rookies as forward expendables when UFO storming, etc...but it really appears like X-com values rookies less in most every way in terms of scoring and costs (counter-acted of course by the armor loss + potential abilities, however low reaction psi-wimps would make the most cost-effective fodder)

[Zombie]

Just got -58 pts for a destroyed laser tank when Ufopaedia reports that HWP's should be -20? Is this a Ufopaedia oversight or a difference in PSX version?

It isn't an oversight as a tank does have an initial value of 20 "victory points". However, if you bring your tank along on missions, it will gain one point per mission just like your soldiers do.

 

It's odd how the game remembers the VPs of tanks since these units do not have an entry in SOLDIER.DAT like soldiers do. Apparently the game just adds one to the VP value for each tank record in UNITREF.DAT at the start of a mission.

 

Bomb Bloke or NKF, do you have any ideas on this? I deleted unitref.dat from a Geoscape save and then went on a mission and the tank still got the proper number of VPs. Memory leak in the game somewhere? Improper allocation of VPs to non-living units? I'm confused as to how the game is able to reassign the correct number of VPs to tanks.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

Since the game doesn't differentiate between individual tanks and just lumps them together as a number (the same way as your techs and engineers), it might be the same case as how the proximity mine's armed flag gets carries over to the next mission and attached itself to whatever was in the same slot. (via not clearing the memory - though it's odd as VP is stored in unitref.dat)

 

One possible way to test this is to fill a ship with new rookies, head to a mission then dust off. Send the ship in again with a tank, scrap it and then dust off again. Then repeat the process with a batch of experienced troops.

 

Edit: forgot, what about the unitref.dat in missdat?

 

- NKF

[Timbukto]

Ok I checked the mission experience of some of my guys and the max experienced guy had 39 missions (after they succeed on this last mission). He was also the 1st position soldier in the transport (prior to the addition of tanks). So there is definitely a bug for which tanks either get the mission experience of the 1st soldier unit or perhaps the max. So 38 + 20 definitely adds up here.

 

Definitely makes the VP cost of tanks inflated if you have an old vet in the crew. Pretty certain the expendable crewmen have certain advantages anyways (i.e being able to reach 2nd floors of UFO's, etc if you get over the fact that you can deal with using expendable crewmen like an episode of Star Trek).

[Zombie]

Ok I checked the mission experience of some of my guys and the max experienced guy had 39 missions (after they succeed on this last mission). He was also the 1st position soldier in the transport (prior to the addition of tanks). So there is definitely a bug for which tanks either get the mission experience of the 1st soldier unit or perhaps the max. So 38 + 20 definitely adds up here.

Well, it isn't the max as I had a single soldier on my transport who was in slot #8 and had 2 extra VPs than the rest of my team and the tank didn't get his value.

 

Definitely makes the VP cost of tanks inflated if you have an old vet in the crew. Pretty certain the expendable crewmen have certain advantages anyways (i.e being able to reach 2nd floors of UFO's, etc if you get over the fact that you can deal with using expendable crewmen like an episode of Star Trek).

Hey look, a red shirt! I wonder how long he's going to last... um, never mind!

 

Soldiers do have some advantages over tanks like you mentioned. The nice thing about tanks is that you'll never have to pay it a salary every month like a soldier and it is impervious to stun and alien MC attacks too.

 

- Zombie

[Timbukto]

Well, it isn't the max as I had a single soldier on my transport who was in slot #8 and had 2 extra VPs than the rest of my team and the tank didn't get his value.

 

 

Hey look, a red shirt! I wonder how long he's going to last... um, never mind!

 

Soldiers do have some advantages over tanks like you mentioned. The nice thing about tanks is that you'll never have to pay it a salary every month like a soldier and it is impervious to stun and alien MC attacks too.

 

- Zombie

 

 

Well in terms of economics, the cheapest tank can pay for a single new recruit for 19 months. Now if your expendable crewman is alive after 19 months he is most likely no-longer so expendable, or is the luckiest expendable crewman ever. That or he is cowering in a hidden base somewhere and has a desk job. Or it can pay for 4 recruits for a little more than 3 months (and if they truly are expendable crewmen, than 3 months is STILL unfortunately a long term of service on superhuman...yikes talk about a horrible job). IMO as you cycle through soldiers for psi + reaction screening, you will have a good amount of expendables to use either way and you already paid the 40k signing bonus...talk about cruel efficiency, but yes it appears grunts are still the way to go for economics IMO. Finally 1 tank is probably more survivable than 1 newbie grunt, however 4 newbie grunts are probably more survivable and versatile than 1 tank.

 

Armor complicates cost efficiency a little more...I'd probably give them cover-alls against chrysalid/cyberdisc infested maps since armor makes little difference in a bad situation against those (well flying of course makes a huge diff against chrys. but I'm talking about using them to attract/bait them for the purpose of flushing them out, etc). Terror ship + 9 or so chrysalids on superhuman is truly difficult to flush out even without casualties to your best guys with flying armor without either baiting or blowing huge gaping holes into the hull.

[Zombie]

Is it just me or is "expendable" and "19 months" a contradiction in terms? That's what I thought.

 

It's hard to say whether a single rookie or a tank is more survivable. A tank is a huge target and basically a sitting duck as it's almost always in the open. Rookies can hide. A tank has a lot higher stats and better armor though which offsets this a bit. Four rookies are probably more survivable assuming you can space them far enough apart so a single grenade will not kill them all.

 

Armor makes a difference when it comes to surviving a face-to-face encounter with a Chryssalid. The cheaper types don't do too much but the Flying Suit offers some protection from the Chryssalid's attack. Then again, the best protection from this creature is to fly.

 

When I have more expendable rookies than I know what to do with, I load them all on a transport with a few veterans. Then I visit a mission with Chryssalids and let the rookies get turned into zombies. After killing the zombie and the resulting Chryssalid, I can recover and sell the corpse for $20,000. At least that cuts the overall cost of the rookie down by half. Now that's cruel.

 

- Zombie

[Timbukto]

Wow that is a horribly cruel yet great idea. Plus killing a zombie + chrys will net a very decent amount of points likely to offset the rookies death in addition to the high amounts of shots needed giving a lot of experience in reaction and target practice. Plus again the corpse definitely helps pay their signing bonus.

[Bomb Bloke]

Ok I checked the mission experience of some of my guys and the max experienced guy had 39 missions (after they succeed on this last mission). He was also the 1st position soldier in the transport (prior to the addition of tanks). So there is definitely a bug for which tanks either get the mission experience of the 1st soldier unit or perhaps the max. So 38 + 20 definitely adds up here.

Well, it isn't the max as I had a single soldier on my transport who was in slot #8 and had 2 extra VPs than the rest of my team and the tank didn't get his value.

If I'm reading Timbukto's post correctly, he was saying that he first went on some missions without tanks, so the first entry in the solder list at that time was a soldier with a VP rating of 38.

 

Then he went on a mission with tanks, so the first entry of the solder list was now a tank with a VP rating of 58. Which just so happens to be equal to that of the soldier's VP rating plus the 20 points the tank was supposed to have. That is to say, the tank inherited points off the unit that previously took up it's list slot.

 

There is no way the game can keep track of tank VP's between missions, unless all tanks have the exact same "boosted" VP score.

[Zombie]

Well, it isn't the max as I had a single soldier on my transport who was in slot #8 and had 2 extra VPs than the rest of my team and the tank didn't get his value.

If I'm reading Timbukto's post correctly, he was saying that he first went on some missions without tanks, so the first entry in the solder list at that time was a soldier with a VP rating of 38.

 

Then he went on a mission with tanks, so the first entry of the solder list was now a tank with a VP rating of 58. Which just so happens to be equal to that of the soldier's VP rating plus the 20 points the tank was supposed to have. That is to say, the tank inherited points off the unit that previously took up it's list slot.

 

There is no way the game can keep track of tank VP's between missions, unless all tanks have the exact same "boosted" VP score.

I don't think that's what he's trying to say at all. Load a tank on a transport, bring it on a few missions without getting it killed and it's VP score increases. That's the crux of the issue here, not inheritance.

 

The game does keep track of a tank's VP's somehow, so I think that NKF's idea that the game is pulling the data from UNIREF2.DAT is the most plausible at this time.

 

- Zombie

[Timbukto]

I don't think the game keeps track of a Tank's VP...I think it grabs the VP value from a soldier unit within your ranks...quite possibly the first unit or just random? I was saying that the tank's VP value was 58, and the 1st soldier I had had 38 missions upon entering the mission where the tank is destroyed.

[Zombie]

I just did some testing on this. First I sequestered uniref.dat and uniref2.dat in the missdat folder (basically removing them), then loaded a Geoscape save without a unitref.dat file and proceeded to go on a mission. When I checked the save, the tank had it's correct VPs. Second test: I directly edited the VPs of a tank on a mission to be an easily identified value of 100. Then I finished the mission, waited till the next UFO landed and sent everyone back into combat. In a fresh slot, the tank's VP was not 101 like it should, it was like everyone else. Third test: I edited Soldier.dat on a Geoscape save so that the VPs of my soldiers ranged from 97 for the first soldier in the list to 104 for the last, then went on a mission and saved in a fresh slot. When I checked unitref.dat for the tanks VP value I found it to be 97 (like the first soldier in the list). Final test: I sent just a tank on a mission with no soldiers and found it's VP value to be 97 again. So it looks like the game is just picking the first unit in the Soldier.dat list for a VP level. Solved.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

I actually had a bit of a wild theory about the game not acknowledging a tank's existence in the Geoscape (and was drawing on the first soldiers' VP's + the 20 obtained from the tank's corpse), but not entirely sure about it now.

 

By the way, another addition with the sending rookies into a chryssalid infested zone: psionics. With the neat trick of recovering zombified units with mind control, you can even recover the units as often as you wish. Unfortunately that incurs the unit's VP for every time you recover a unit, and a morale hit. Guess it'll be primarily be used to train bravery without actually losing anyone at the end of the mission.

 

- NKF