Talk:Alien Appearance Ratios (TFTD)

In these tables there is only one column for "Mixed Crew", but there are two different sorts of Mixed Crew. What's going on here? Magic9mushroom 07:34, 7 February 2012 (EST)

That's because there's only one column of probabilities available in the table that is taken directly from the game executable. I think where the mixed crew types 1 and 2 come from is the equipment and rank makeup tables. NKF 01:08, 8 February 2012 (EST)

So a single Alien Surface Attacks mission with a Mixed Crew (according to this table, the only Mixed Crew mission that should ever occur) could have different (ie Tasoth-based vs. Lobsterman-based) crews on different subs? This sounds like it needs to be checked. Magic9mushroom 02:35, 8 February 2012 (EST)

I had a re-read of the relevant articles, and I see the game specifically marks them as a type 4 and type 5, yet the probability table only has one column for both. If this is the case, then the game must do a toss between the two main races at the time it decides on creating the surface attack scouting wave or instant surface attack mission. NKF 02:52, 8 February 2012 (EST)

a) Sonic research encouraging tougher aliens b) Tasoth appearance time error?

I've seen this referred to elsewhere, but I can't find it now: someone wanting to "bust the myth" that lobstermen appear later if you delay research on sonics. I'm just playing a superhuman game, and have researched all sonics pretty much as late as possible, and lobsters haven't appeared until June. It definitely feels like a very late showing, and it came just after I got my first few sonics.

I had the same occur in UFO with late appearing snakemen (& mutons and ethereals) when I delayed plasma research.

If the new appearance percentages come in on the 1st of every other month, and don't ramp up gradually, then this data supports the tentative theory for me: it has been quite marked. How well understood is the code about this?

As a second, related point, something appears to be wrong somewhere with these charts: Playing TFTD on steam, with Xcomutil being used to catch bugs and having an otherwise "classic" game, I had a Tasoth and Bio-drone cargo ship terror mission on May 1st, which should be flat-out impossible according to these tables. It's now June 16th and I still haven't seen them since.

Even though the aliens start to get the probability of appearing, that doesn't always guarantee that they'll appear. I had one game in UFO where I never even met the Mutons. Once they get a probability of appearing, missions for these races will start to get scheduled from the 1st and will not necessarily show up right away. What you'll get initially will be the leftovers from the last month.

I'm not sure about the slightly earlier Tasoth mission, unless these probabilities only affect the normal sub waves that go out searching for a terror site and the monthly instant terror missions follow slightly different rules (Or suffer a fencepost error). XComutil doesn't touch the probabilities, and I doubt the probabilities will have changed when the Dos version was ported to the CE version. -NKF 03:55, 19 June 2012 (EDT)