Talk:Alien Infiltration (Apocalypse)

Mention base attacks?

I think it should be mentioned that if an X-Com base is targetted for Subversion (which is rather likely, since it seems to prioritise organisations the aliens don't like), then the UFO will insert troops (creating a base defence mission) rather than performing Micronoid Rain. (As an aside, this is the only way to encounter the drop squads of Probes, Fast Attack Ships and Bombers.) Magic9mushroom (talk) 05:11, 15 October 2018 (CEST)

"Called alien infiltration weight"

Are you sure about this? Apoc'd uses in-file names when they're available, but it makes up some of its own as well and I think this is one of the latter. Magic9mushroom (talk) 07:49, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I think you're right; I'll remove that bit. Darkpast (talk) 10:29, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Subversion/Micronoid Rain

Can anyone confirm that this actually does something? My testing (by setting the alien missions for week 1 to be all Subversion and reloading a bunch of times) hasn't shown any organisations getting flipped in over 100 cases of Micronoid Rain. I know that if an X-Com base is targetted you get a base defence instead of the Micronoid Rain animation, but other than that I haven't seen anything occur from this mission. Magic9mushroom (talk) 08:05, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

In my limited experience, they never managed to flip an organisation either. A stab in the dark - have you tried it on an organization that has been partially infiltrated already? In other words, is could be tied to the orgs infiltration percentage. Darkpast (talk) 10:45, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

There was also some talk about it here (seems a flat percentage based on difficulty level, but could be influenced by other factors as well): http://openapoc.org/threads/task-micronoid-rain.224/ Darkpast (talk) 10:50, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I was trying it with everything partially infiltrated, because I'd heard that too.

I suppose one possibility is that it's plot-locked, as I suspect is the case for the Apocalypse Mission (more on that in a minute). Another is that it's version-dependent, which is a horrible possibility in its own right. Magic9mushroom (talk) 12:35, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I asked about this in the OpenApoc boards here, and it seems it's not a "insta-flip" attempt at all - the UFOs are basically just looking for your base in order to perform a ground assault. I can confirm that once your base is targetted by the "rain" effect, every following mission of this type will send a UFO to insert troops into your base - this being in fact the whole point of the mission.

Given this, I think this mission type should be filed under "Retaliation" rather than "Infiltration". We also probably need a new name for this mission, since both "Subversion" and "Micronoid Rain" are misleading. I'm open to suggestions. Magic9mushroom (talk) 05:44, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Nice work figuring that one out. Maybe "Base Assault"?. Darkpast (talk) 11:01, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Hey, I don't deserve the credit for figuring it out. I chased it up; that's all.

I think "Assault" definitely needs to be in there, as I can't really think of another term that fits "send a bunch of soldiers into a building to shoot up the inhabitants". Not sure if "Base" needs to be specified; I can see arguments either way (unlike an air attack, this is specific to X-COM Bases). "Attack" should probably also be renamed "Bomb" or perhaps "Air Raid", since it's not the only form of attack (there's this, and there's dropping an Overspawn).

There are quite a few pages with vague purposes around here, some of which seem to overlap, and some spring cleaning and/or name changes are probably wanted; we've got Alien Infiltration, Cityscape Fighting, UFO Incursions, Alien Ship Combat, Dimension UFO Combat, Mission Types, Alien Dimension (which has all the UFO spawn data and list of alien buildings awkwardly crammed onto it), and I'm not even sure if there are a couple of others. I think we need to hammer out a plan for what pages we want to exist and what we want to have on which page.

A list of stuff that needs to go somewhere:

The Alien Dimension (the research topic)

Guide to fighting UFOs

List of alien missions (Infiltration, Assault, Bomb, Overspawn Drop, Apocalypse - or whatever we want to call them)

List of alien mission probabilities by week

List of alien mission fleets

List of UFO spawns per week

List of tactical missions (Investigation, Raid, UFO Crash, Base Defense, Alien Dimension building - special attention to the one-aircraft rule for UFO crashes, conditions for Base Defense and the special rules for Alien Dimension buildings)

Guide to what happens once aliens are dumped into the city by Infiltration (the nuts and bolts of how aliens mature/die off, produce Infiltration percentage, generate Alerts, and what Alien Takeover means)

List of buildings in the Alien Dimension

General guide to the structure of the endgame path i.e. research hybrid craft -> go to the Dimension -> research The Alien Dimension -> research building 1 -> do building 1 -> research building 2 -> etc. (special attention to the Apocalypse trigger and end to UFO spawns when the Control Chamber is destroyed)

If I've missed something, let me know, and let me know any ideas for how to sort and arrange all this. Magic9mushroom (talk) 10:37, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, some thoughts:

What bothers me is that we have "Alien Ships" and "UFOs" in the same wiki, and that is confusing. The game generally uses the term "UFOs", right?

"UFO Incursions" is a good name since it's actually used in-game. I'd place spawn data, mission chances and fleet data there (the availability of UFOs directly influences the fleet and mission choice, after all).

There should definitely be a page listing all the UFO Missions. This would contain general information on each mission. Sub-pages can be made for specific missions, most of all Infiltration because there is a lot of info to cover regarding that one. "Air Raid" sounds good ("Bomb" could be confusing, especially when using Search).

"I think there's no need for separate "Alien Ship Combat" and "Alien Dimension Combat" pages. I'd suggest combining the info there into a single page and renaming it "UFO Combat" or "UFO Interception". I think even "Cityscape Fighting" is superfluous.

Illegal Fliers could IMO be treated separately, on a page covering the various hostile actions committed by Organizations.

"Mission Types" should probably be renamed to "Tactical Mission Types".

Still not sure about the Alien Dimension. The research topic should probably get its own page, but I'm not sure where to put the general info on what's inside it and endgame path. Darkpast (talk) 15:51, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

UFOpaedia uses "Alien Craft", both as the name of the section and in the names of the components (Energy Source/Control Systems/Propulsion). Cityscape Hostile Vehicles tab calls them UFO until they've been researched and by their actual name later. Research calls them "UFO Type X" when you're selecting them for research and by their actual name when you get the "Research Complete" message. The mission briefing when recovering one mentions a "crashed UFO". The manual refers to UFOs - it is important to note that the manual is written from a game-start perspective. I'd be more comfortable calling them "Alien Craft" since the literal meaning of UFO seems to be at least somewhat involved here - both the cityscape and the research screen use it as a placeholder while they're unidentified, and stop using it later (like how the inventory and research screens use "Alien Artifact" for stuff until you work out what it actually is). "Alien Ships" isn't anywhere I can find; it's probably a fan reference to how over half the craft have the word "ship" in them.

Yep, UFO Incursions is used in-game.

I agree regarding "Dimension UFO Combat" being unworthy of a separate page (it's also a very clunky name). "Cityscape Fighting" isn't a terrible name for vehicle combat - but "Vehicle Combat" is probably better since the manual uses it.

We could call corporation actions "crime".

The manual uses "Tactical Combat Mission" 36 times and "Tactical Mission" 12 times (most of the latter in one section; I think there may have been a missed memo). We could possibly omit the word "Types" from the name of the article for brevity ("Tactical [Combat] Missions (Apocalypse)").

If we really wanted to split hairs we could put the information about the Alien Dimension at "Alien Dimension" and the research topic at "The Alien Dimension" (the name of the research topic), but that could be confusing in and of itself. Magic9mushroom (talk) 04:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Very well, "Alien Craft" is fine by me, then. It will also help differentiate them from the UFOs in the original game. All instances of "Alien Ships" should be replaced with "Alien Craft".

Agree about "Vehicle Combat".

Apoc'd uses "Organized Crime" - Not the best perhaps, but I think it's a better description than just "Crime" since it implies the involvement of organisations.

"Tactical Combat Missions (Apocalypse)" sounds good.

Hm... I think you're right about not splitting the Alien Dimension after all. How about having the page first cover the research topic, then a brief description of the Dimension and X-COM's general objectives there? Also, the Alien Buildings need to be covered in some way. I'm not sure whether an "Alien Buildings" page is needed, or is a simple section containing a list plus a link to the "Tactical Combat Missions/Alien Dimension Buildings" (or whatever it will be called) enough. The UFO Growth table should definitely go elsewhere; it really doesn't fit. Darkpast (talk) 08:18, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Technically, this is a mission of terror

Technically, this is a mission of mixed terror and capture followed by infiltration due to infected people and for a good number of aliens should not affect infiltration it should be another indicator like an alien level of building control that can add, for example, 50% to infiltration