Open Questions

This page contains a list of gameplay mechanics which hasn't yet been entirely analyzed or discovered and other interesting stuff. One can conceive of this page as a wishlist/TODO for X-COM analysis and for UFOpaedia X-COM 1 articles. It's possible that some of the questions below have already been answered here or in other forums, or that more questions are unanswered, so edit freely!

• Air Combat Mechanics: Control of range, attack modes. UFO damage & accuracy. Multiple attackers. Plus equivalent TFTD issues.

• Accuracy_formula: How is the path for 'missed' shots calculated? Does it vary per weapon type? What is the spread per distance?

• Battlescape_Map_Generation: How X-COM equipment is placed in the case of base missions? Do map modules that contain craft have their usual nodes loaded or not?

• Operation of the AI is not fully understood. See Alien movement patterns, Alien Inventory Use, Wish_List_(EU)#Alien_AI, Wish_List_(TFTD)#Battlescape (non-use of melee weapons, use of grenades, etc).

• Alien_Missions: How are Alien missions generated and how do the player's action influence the generator? Are all countries (except Russia) doomed to fall under alien influence, assuming indefinite gameplay where player downs all UFOs perfectly? We know that:

• The mission generator assigns a Research mission to the region of the player's first base at game start, with ETA of 2.5h (unlike the usual ETA for 0/0).

• The OSG says (per Difficulty Levels article) the Aliens are more likely to abandon or delay missions on lower difficulty.

• Scoring-wise, Alien missions are considered successful once the landed UFO takes off. Missions can succeed more than once.

• Alien Infiltration in its final stage can't be stopped, even if all the UFOs are shot down before landing.

• Alien Retaliation (once X-COM base is discovered) mission generation can only be stopped by letting the aliens land and defeating them. Otherwise the aliens will just send more battleships.

• Alien Terror missions can be stopped by blowing up (or scaring away) the Terror ship.

• Is there 100% certainty that Russia will never be subverted (has anyone seen it occuring to Russia?) Perhaps it depends on the game version?

• What are the "internal balancing mechanisms" spoken about by Julian Gollop here? Does this have anything to do with the mission generator?

• As your organisation becomes stronger (through research & score), more powerful aliens start to appear with larger weapons. Catch is, the stronger the aliens get, the stronger X-COM gets, so the "mechanisms" aren't all that effective once you've got your more important research projects done.

• Add something about the X-COM novelizations. I've been informed that they were horrendous...

• Many years ago (about 1998?), a copy of the Diane Duane novel was passed around amongst the alt.games.x-com regulars. My memory's rather sketchy but I recall a standard pulp sci-fi with some X-Com words thrown in. The scale of the novel was much larger - I believe there was a part where hundreds oT troops stormed out of an Avenger to assault an alien base. Apart from that, I don't remember much. Off the Rails 18:08, 2 February 2011 (EST)
• There is a Vladimir Vasiliev book in russian. It is named "UFO: Враг неизвестен" http://fantlab.ru/work10017