Talk:Silacoid

how do you get these things to attack while mind-controlled? same with chryssilaids?--(name here) 20:01, 23 December 2007 (PST)

Aside from exploiting a programming oversight, you can't. This means that Mind Control on Silacoids is limited mainly to using them as scouts or fire decoys. Same with Chryssalids, but given the high threat posed by the Chryssalid, mind controlling them is valuable in and of itself because it makes them non-dangerous; the Silacoid isn't that dangerous to begin with. Arrow Quivershaft 20:23, 23 December 2007 (PST)

Weapon Rankings Vs Silacoids

%TUs per kill (average; FA=50).

NB you don't really want to kill Silacoids, you want to use them for reaction fire and target practice, using Snap or Aimed fire with AC-Incendiary rounds that don't harm them at all. Or you could use Pistols - on average it will take nearly 2,000 soldier x turns of firing before the Silacoid is put out of its misery by Pistol fire. You'll almost certainly run out of ammo before then.

Blast Bmb	 46
HE Pack(XCU)	 70
HvyPlas	 76
PlasmaR	132
HE Pack	132
HvyLas (XCU)	133
Stun Rod	139
Alien Grd	164
RocketLg	165
AC - HE	201
Prox Grd	217
HC - HE	218
RocketSm	227
Stun Bmb	258
LaserR	        275
Grenade	319
PlasmaP	325
HvyLas	        355
LaserP	        708
HC - AP	731
AC - AP	1381
Rifle	        9120
Pistol	      177840

Spike 21:21, 27 February 2009 (CST)

Very cool, Spike! Can you say more about your modelling or method? All explosives are presumed to be at ground zero, yes?

Very cool! - MikeTheRed 21:44, 27 February 2009 (CST)

P.S. There's no telling what wikis or browsers will do with Tab characters - suggest using spaces instead.

Thanks Mike. Yes sorry I should've put a description. In a nutshell, I figure out the average armour-adjusted damage per direct hit (average of min + max, adjusted for % of range that is zero), then multiply that by the average # of direct hits per 100% TUs (assuming Firing Accuracy = 50). I then divide the target Health by the resulting value, to obtain the "%TUs per kill".

If your soldiers have a better average FA, it all scales linearly. So if you have FA=100 just cut (improve) the values by half. I picked FA=50 as its a typical starting value, and it was particularly the starting weapons I was interested in.

I tried lots of different "figures of merit" for weapons but I like this one best.

Yes all HE is a direct hit. For 4-square targets I add the reduced, armour-adjusted damage on the other 3 squares.

The very low (good) average values, such as for Heavy Plasma, will be very volatile around the average. The high (bad) numbers will be more consistent.

This Figure of Merit probably works best when the number is in the range 25% - 75%. Below that level, there is high volatilty and also I may not have accounted for overkill (minimum penetrating damage > Health) properly. Above that level, I have not accounted for reload time, nor "turn rounding errors" - such as: you can't burst-fire an AC 2.5 times a turn, you can only burst-fire it twice.

Another thing to note about this metric is that it is accuracy-weighted, so it assumes a non-trivial "firing problem". For situations such as point-blank where accuracy is not an issue, the rankings will be very different. I'll work on a different metric for point-blank.

Tomorrow I will upload the latest version of my Firepower spreadsheet, which generated these rankings. It allows you to toggle the "turn rounding" on or off. It would also be good to have others check my assumptions!

One more point: the number given is for whichever firing mode (auto, snap or aimed) gives the highest value. I should probably list what the best mode is!

Spike 22:22, 27 February 2009 (CST)