Data corruption

Data corruption happens when the game finds unused bytes in a savegame. TFTD and UFO Enemy Unknown are nearly a clone but bytes are different, so weird things happen when files are placed in the wrong game.

Here are a few tricks.

Base on land/water

Copy loc.dat from UFO and paste in into TFTD savegame to get a base on land - and vice versa, copy loc.dat from TFTD to UFO to get a base on water.

Transformers

This function still isn't researched very much. In UFO, get an Avenger (not sure if it was Avenger, surely not Skyranger or Interceptor) then copy craft.dat and loc.dat to TFTD. Then you can end up having 2 ships named ammunition-1 and ammunition-2, nicknamed Transformers. These will have 255 coelacanth tanks and other things. The most interesting thing is that these ships will disappear once an UFO is nearby and turn into those UFOs. For example, a survey ship passes nearby your base. Your ammunition-1 will disappear and the UFO will be yours. However, the game will crash once you click on it, since it isn't assigned to any base. It may be possible to control alien ships, but it still is unknown how.

Unused Aliens or Items

It appears that when research.dat is copied from game to game, weird things can happen. There were reports of seeing research items like Zrbite Launcher or getting Tentaculat Commander. This function is however not completely researched.

Glitch Ranks

Currently only Units in Target Exit and Units in Target Entrance is known. Units in Target Exit is easily accesed by permanently control a Tentaculat see also Glitch Ranks