What do aliens know and how do they behave?

[Catwalk]

I read a post by NKF saying that the aliens always know where all my soldiers are and that they'll start moving towards any of my soldiers who stands still. Are the specifics of this known? And how is alien behaviour determined? I read something about them patrolling until they're triggered somehow. Thanks in advance!

[Antitrust]

In TFTD? I wish they were moving towards my soldiers. They mostly stand where they are Terror misions were a torture to play... (mobs hide in the 1000s of cabins and wait till you poke into each one of them, naturally you find them in the last cabin)

[magic9mushroom]

Some wander around a lot, and start homing in on your soldiers after turn 20.

 

Some don't ever move because they don't have movement programmed in. Unfortunately this tends to happen with aliens inside confined spaces (who then use reaction fire).

 

That's what I've picked up.

[Zombie]

TFTD is a very different game from EU I'm afraid. The turn 20 thing probably still applies here, but the big issue is the routes (the routes the aliens follow). I have been studying them for a while now and there are some big differences. Take a normal 10x10 tile (map block or module) in EU: you almost always will have exit routes in each direction from within that block which means aliens will travel between all the blocks on a map. The easiest way to explain this is like an interconnected network or a spiderweb of sorts. So when turn 20 comes around in EU, all the aliens can home in on you.

 

In TFTD, the map blocks have fewer exit routes (sometimes none, sometimes only one going in a single direction). Imagine an alien is on one corner of the map while you are at the opposite side. With maybe only one way to exit a block, the alien ends up navigating to your location in a zig-zag or maze like fashion. And just like a maze there will probably be dead ends too (basically the alien is stuck as there isn't an exit to the maze). Now within a map block, routes are also restricted a bit too. Usually you'll see a linked circular route arrangement (like ring around the rosie) within a level but few to none exits to other levels in the block. It's more apparent when a structure is present like magic9mushroom mentioned. So you basically have to visit each block in a map to get all the aliens.

 

Just another way to make the game harder I suppose.

 

- Zombie