Triscenes

[The Veteran]

You can stun all of the 2x2 units in the game. Xarquid, Triscene and Hallucinoids... Only problem is, they tend to become stunned in your turn then move around in their turn anyway... Like Blade says you have to stun them more than once or they won't stay stunned. Even though in your next turn they'll be a pile on the ground again they still have reaction fire... It's quite strange

[Ki-tat Chung]

whaa.....?

ok, you lost me there...

[NKF]

In order to fix a few bugs with the 2x2 sized units, they've introduced some more bugs. The large units, ( for me, it's mostly the hallucinoids) tend to behave very oddly in TFTD. Some parts die/get stunned, but other parts remain conscious.

 

In UFO you could mind control individual quarters with little trouble. In TFTD, they tried to fix this to some extent -- but only if you control the right quarter. You control less and less of the terror unit as you move around it clockwise. Now, quarters sometimes seem to act independantly after a while (quarter getting up after the rest of it was destroyed), or are actually parts of other large terror units (i.e. the quarter still belongs to its owner, but it's referencing the stats of another terror unit - thus it's still moving about when the unit should be dead -- and the other unit has a chunk missing). Sometimes loyalty flags of certain quarters of the large units don't get inverted properly once mind control ends, or mind controlling one portion of a large unit causes you to gain control of one quarter of another 2x2 unit on the map.

 

If the game makes any attempt to consolidate existing unit records whenever certain records are deleted (i.e. a unit is killed), and it's not properly clearing the destination slot before copying all the stats over as it should (back in the old days, cutting corners was what made games very fast), then there's no wonder it's happening. (same goes for the mysterious ammo clips in corpses bug in UFO - the corpse was created in the item slot of a gun that was previously destroyed - but the game never removed the reference to whatever item that was 'loaded' into that particular object slot -- so we often get heavy plasma clips in floater corpses from time to time.)

 

This probably doesn't answer your question. It's just a bloated and not quite-to-the-point version of the following sentence: "TFTD's handling of large terror is wacky".

 

- NKF

[Niml]

hmm never had that problem just whenever i hit a hallucinoid with the stun launcher thing... when its over some buildings it just falls into pieces... like 3 parts of it are on the building but the corner of it is on the sea floor.... and even when that doesnt happen it just reads it as a corpse

[Ki-tat Chung]

yes, 2x2 units, when dead are seperated if there is a ledge or something (not sure about tanks tho). i once controlled a corner of a terror unit in UFO (can't remember wat it was called...havn't played UFO in ages. it was the robot one) and it decided to shoot itself when i moved it and it died.

[The Veteran]

That happened to me in TFTD. It was a triscene actually In UFO it's probably going to be the sectopod... Yes I know it's a robot! I don't care that it's a robot! You CAN control them!

[Sgt. Strike]

I prefer to either kill them out right, or even use stun bombs. Sorry, I can't remember the exact name, right off hand.

[Ki-tat Chung]

what, sectopods of trisecens? i recon rectopods actually look quite cool! maybe you control them because it (sectopod) is hooked up to psi like the MC system is to all those computers. it is comprolled remotly by ethereals or sectoids. sorry, ive forgoten all UFO general knowledge

[Zombie]

Hi everyone. The other day I was screwing around with the executable trying to determine which alien belongs to which entry. I thought I had it figured out but when I looked in the OSG (Official Strategy Guide) it shows the Hallucinoid has a ranged attack. Heck, even the USOpaedia claims this:

 

Possessed of a formidable, ranged, freezing blast and a close combat icy strike, the Hallucinoid is a deadly foe.

Is this true? In all the years I played TFTD, I never saw it fire anything from a distance.

 

As a test, I found a mission with a Hallucinoid. If I moved my soldier out a ways it never fired anything. However, once my man was in HTH range he was killed almost instantly (those melee attacks from the Hallucinoid are scary-powerful: 80 average damage). So what gives? Maybe I didn't move my man far enough away for the Hallucinoid to choose it's ranged attack?

 

Whatever the case, the executable does not have an entry for the Hallucinoid's ranged attack which leaves me to believe this was a feature dropped from the game. It's not in the ususal spot and a further search reveals nothing else. (Even when you MC the Hallucinoid, there isn't an installed weapon). I'm testing with the CE version, if that matters any.

 

- Zombie

[Gimli]

I believe it doesn't have a ranged attack. I've certainly never seen it used.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember an interview with a TFTD developer in which the interviewer complained about the difficulty, to which the developer said something along the lines of: "You should have seen it before we made it easier." I assume then the ranged attack got cut for that reason. And really, who wouldn't?

[Zombie]

At least I'm not going crazy. Just for giggles, let me list the Hallucinoid's "Cold Blast" stats from the OSG:

 

Damage: 120

Snap Accuracy: 70%

Aimed Accuracy: 120%

Snap TU: 50%

Aimed TU: 70%

 

So while the snap shot accuracy was nothing to sneeze at, the aimed accuracy would have been the best in the game among aliens with an integrated weapon. Combine that with the second highest damage potential and I could see how the Hallucinoid could have been nearly unstoppable had this feature added. Of course, we all know which alien gains this distinction: the Lobsterman.

 

- Zombie

[BladeFireLight]

now if you feel the game is to easy. perhaps and enterprizing hacker could figure out how to turn that back on.

[NKF]

Here I already thought the plain vanilla Biodrones were unfair due to their 100+% snaps on superhuman difficulty. I think the Triscene have something like that too. What's another underwater variant?

 

As for the Lobstermen, they do leave quite an impression when you drop a PWT on the very first one you ever meet in your lifetime only to find that it's still standing afterwards - and this just on beginner difficulty. Much fun. At least they've got an Achilles heel or two you can use against them. Three if they're without a weapon and it's underwater.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Ok, so what's up with the Xarquid? The OSG claims it has a defensive capability of squirting an ink cloud (much like the dye grenade) to obscure it's movements besides it's normal weapon. I haven't seen this either. Another feature left out by the programmers? It's not like the dye grenade is all that useful anyways.

 

- Zombie

[Gimli]

I've never seen it. I have seen a more interesting self defense... or maybe self attack weapon. If you MC one square of the Xarquid and use it as your unit, it will tend to reaction fire itself. Could be that this works for other 2x2 aliens as well, but I distinctly remember it with the Xarquid.

[Bomb Bloke]

It does, and the same is true of UFO.

 

The difference is that in TFTD, controlling one segment also takes over all of those proceding. For example, targeting the first segment (top left) will give you the entire unit; whereas if you only aim for the final segment (bottom right) that's all you'll get.

 

While we're at it, I might point out that the Deep One UFOpedia image carries a weapon, but I don't think they're ever equiped in game. However, the sprites required for that capability are present (same goes for the Calcinite).

 

UFO's Celatid also doesn't live up to it's report, if memory serves (unless it really can home in on units). I believe one of it's sprites looks a bit like an egg, too, but it could just be an oversized "bullet".

[NKF]

What's more, the Deep One's carrying a craft PWT cannon - the same type as the pair strapped to the Triscenes. Tough fellas. I have a feeling the harder game that programmers intended involved one or either of these two units to carry PWT launchers. I have a feeling the Deep ones were probably meant to be armed too, but they ended up with a pretty powerful built-in attack as it is.

 

As for the large unit MC, the game attempts to correct the bug in UFO where only a quarter got controlled. So it's logical that you might as well control all four segments at once. They solved it by having the next three unitpos slots get affected by the MC as well if the target is a large unit. This fix works very well. However, assuming that the player controls the primary quarter. They forgot that the player could launch an attack on any segment, and the MC works from the targeted segment and the next three slots, even if they belong to a different alien. This leads to some strange fun where large units you've not even sighted end up partially controlled, or if things go wackier, you might end up with permanent partial control of some of the units.

 

You know, all this could've been easily fixed if the ownership flag was stored in the unitref file.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

So it always gives you the next three slots? Must say I never noticed that one.

[NKF]

I can't recall if it always does it or if it only does it when returning the ownership at the end of the turn. Been ages since I've had access to TFTD. Might have to experiment with it a bit, I guess.

 

All I really rember is that strange things start to happen if you partially mind control large units. I'd guess that it would have no effect on the last large unit since there aren't any other entries after it, but those earlier should get some results.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

As for the large unit MC, the game attempts to correct the bug in UFO where only a quarter got controlled. So it's logical that you might as well control all four segments at once. They solved it by having the next three unitpos slots get affected by the MC as well if the target is a large unit. This fix works very well. However, assuming that the player controls the primary quarter. They forgot that the player could launch an attack on any segment, and the MC works from the targeted segment and the next three slots, even if they belong to a different alien. This leads to some strange fun where large units you've not even sighted end up partially controlled, or if things go wackier, you might end up with permanent partial control of some of the units.

 

You know, all this could've been easily fixed if the ownership flag was stored in the unitref file.

If I haven't said it before, you are a GOD NKF! Thanks for clearing up the MC issue with large units in TFTD. I always wondered why sometimes a single MC attack would control multiple units. Now I know.

 

I guess it was a brave attempt at fixing the problem like you mentioned. It comes close, but has undesired consequences from a programming standpoint. From a players standpoint, controlling multiple units from a single attack is a bonus.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

I was thinking about 2x2 units today and wondered what would happen if the terrorists were to spawn first before the aliens. Now, it is set up like this in an alien base scenario, but the terrorist which shows up first is the Tentaculat - a 1x1 terrorist so no dice. I decided to edit the executable loadout so that the terrorists show up first on a Battleship (the TFTD battleship, not the Dreadnought although that would work as well). Then I waited till a USO landed at which time I edited the craft type to a Battleship and the race as Aquatoids. When my men arrived at the mission I saved the game and checked unitref.dat. Yup, the Hallucinoids appeared first. Then I killed all of the Hallucinoids off except for the last one and used that as a testing baseline. Indeed, if you MC the last quarter of the Hallucinoid, you also gain control of 3 Aquatoid Soldiers on the map as well! Cool stuff. Obviously, you would never see this scenario happening with an unaltered game, but it proves NKF's point to the "T".

 

- Zombie