Orange Pad Re-inforcement Spawns

THIS page is not a proper article for UFOpaedia. Currently a dumpind ground for WIPs of various pages.

TEMP DUMP

Score Summary

or de-brief screen at the end of a mission Every single entity has a certain 'death score' when killed. eg: Chrysalis=3, Popper=8 etc. Every item has a corresponding score. eg: Toxigun=4, Entropy Pod=7.

• Combat Rating = amount of points acquired from a total each unit's death score, upon their death caused by X-Com.
• Casualty Penalty = X-Com losses (agent death) and any neutrals 'accidently' killed. Always negative.
• Leadership Score = {Combat Rating + Casualty Penalty + Live Aliens Captured}
• Live Aliens Captured = recovered alive instead of killed, based on death score.
• Equipment Captured =

...doing some testin to be sure

Orange Pad Re-inforcement Spawns

Every alien structure's battlescape has multiple orange-pads. There is a spawn-interval-timer for each building, becoming shorter the further X-Com progresses in destroying their home world.
Alien Appearances: Anthropod, Spitter, Skeletoid, Popper lifeforms may spawn into the building. Every other type will not appear from the orange pads.

• Pads are explosive! A small explosive may destroy the whole orange-pad-structure and the overhead.
• The orange pads allow an alien to spawn every (at best) 10seconds to (commonly) 40second intervals. The lifeforms which spawn-in are chosen randomly from the available units found normally within this particular alien structure. Testing: large aliens.
• Some pad devices have mis-matched tiles when viewed from overhead-battlescape-view. They appear normal in isometric view and this corruption does not affect their purpose.
• The spawn-timer is global for the current battlescape. If multiple orange-pad-device-structures are present, the game will choose randomly which orange pad structure the new alien will appear at hence, the timer is not seperate for each pad or pad structure.

Note: the game chooses the top-left (overhead) or northern (isometric) orange pad within the structure for spawning and chooses the same also for the spawn cell. That is: any structure placed randonly will use the same spawn-decision-location.

• Alien corpses, not weapons, may clog the pad if they were killed immediately after appearing (spawn-camping) and will halt further spawns. Avoid killing aliens until they have had a chance to exit the device and move away if 'farming' for equipment.
• Four-piece pad devices only use one pad as an active portal, the others are inactive. If the active pad is destroyed, another pad -may- become active. Typically, the orange-pad-device-structure is disabled once the active pad is destroyed.
• If bulk quantities of alien corpses are present, the newest corpse will be removed from the battlescape and will not be recovered whereas weapons and devices will not be removed if too many are present(eg: over 500 items on the ground). The game engine will become unstable. eg: a unit given a destination to move to may not have the destination-icon apear if the game screen includes the map cell with massive quantities of items. This is an indicator that the game is struggling and may crash soon. Complete the mission with your farmed items to prevent loss.
• Once too many corpses are present on the battlescape and automatic corpse reduction has started, the orange pads will not clog up. Agents can then be placed adjacent the pad and shoot-dead any new spawns immediately.
• Orange pads and the bolbus plant next to it are explosive. If any items are within a two-cell distance of the detonating orange pad, they will all be destroyed and any dropped explosives may affect item piles further via chain-reaction explosions. This will destroy your farmed equipment!

Equipment Farming

Raiding an alien building for agent equipment is possible if escape from the battlescape is chosen instead of completing the mission objective. Agents should fill their inventorys with stolen equipment since offloading items is only possible by returning to Mega-Primus.

• A line-up of troop-transports raiding one-after-another method is suitable to maximise booty and to have all agents gain combat experience and attribute increases.
• Spawning aliens are easily ambushed (caution when dying on the pad) since they appear one at a time and in unlimited quantity.
• Using non-explosive weaponry (eg: Toxigun only) will prevent explosions from destroying dropped equipment. Picking up needed armaments and dropping them somewhere high up in a man-made tunnel safe will preserve your loot however, rouge aliens may throw an explosive into your stash if they find it.
• The alien building can be raided endlessly!

Timer: 10 Seconds

Best so far...

Second Best... ‎

Overhead View Orange Pad

Corrupted Orange Pad

Food Chamber in overhead view. Isometric view displays the structure properly.

Spawn Camping

This pic reveals alot!

This was a stress-test mission within the Spawning Chamber (it has the queen) using edited values to get a uniform result.
Aliens

• Anthropods only, score = 10.
• Disruptor gun only, score = 8.

Xcom = 10 Agents

• Lawpistol = recharging: 25cap,regen5,dam=100
• other stuff: sword, x4 AP-G, Medi, Cloak, 5-piece armor.
• Items per agent = 13.
• Total X-Com items = 130 items.

Results

Equipment Score = 4616

{4616 ÷ 8} = 577

meaning 577 disruptor guns on the ground ...which is higher than the supposed limit of 500 items (130items from X-Com) = 707.

Kill Score = 56450

{{56450 - queen50pts} ÷ 10} = 5640

meaning X-Com agents killed...

5640 anthropods (this is ridiculous!)

Conservative Results

TESTING: item limit, spawn limit if any, unit death limit, artifical combat active timers
Rules: Anthropod only with single Disruptor Gun, each is equal to 1 point score. Mission must complete with no equipment destroyed, no objectives destroyed until end and no orange spawn pads destroyed prematurely, 8xagents (1x recharging lawpistol, cloak, 5xarmorpiece - 56 total items)
Test1: Spawning Chamber (has queen)
Gametime: Start 11:32. End=16:27. Last Kill=14:52
De-Brief:

Combat = 733 (less 50 for queen death score)

Equipment = 693

Notes: 683 anthros killed, items easily surpassed the supposed item limit of 500, active combat timer seems to be exact 200minutes.
Test2: Maintenance
Gametime: Start 2:21:51. End=8:11. Last Kill=6:21:51
De-Brief:

Combat = 681

Equipment = 666

Notes: 681 anthros killed, items again surpassed limit, active combat timer is exactly 4 hours (240minutes), item drop qty does not match with alien death qty. Test3: Maintenance again
Gametime: Start 2:21:51. End=14:33. Last Kill=6:01:51
De-Brief:

Combat = 668

Equipment = 666

Notes: 668 anthros killed according to score BUT add up quantity of aliens killed (8xagent's kill count from zero) and it becomes 913 kills! So now it looks like Combat rating is not correct versus actual kill count. This is becoming a headache. Items again surpassed limit and are exact as before in Test 2. Active combat timer is less than 4 hours now, being ~220minutes and also again: item drop qty does not match with alien death qty (913) but it does with combat rating 668 vs 666.

Although this is interesting for someone with no life sitting at home never needing to work (thx crypto!!) I do have better things to do... EsTeR (talk)

Conclusion So Far

• Item limit is obviously wrong! It is not 500.
• There seems to be a timer for active combat in which spawns cease. Could each building have its own unique time limit?
• Of the two examples, Anthropods qty killed is -very- close to being the same. Spawns may not be unlimited ...BAH!
• more testing is needed obviously since two results are inconsequential. lost interest.