Talk:Alien Inventory Use

Aliens must completely ignore the inventory position of all equipment, except those in slot 0 and 1. They simply use slot 2 as the default universal dump where they store stuff whenever they move items out of their hand.

The aliens make no distinction between who owns the weapons, so will treat all weapons the same and will fire them based on their available weapon modes. Except aimed. I don't think they know how to use aimed shots - but haven't tested this theory yet.

I don't think the aliens have reason to unload a weapon so they probably won't ever need to do this.

But how do they decide when a weapon takes multiple ammo? I would assume that they just use whatever is loaded. When they do reload the weapon, they might not be terribly fussy with this and go with the one highest up in obdata.dat, basically AP, HE and Incendiary or small rocket, large rocket, incendiary in that order.

With the psi-amp, can the aliens really use this or will the aliens use the MC'd soldier's latent psi abilities just like any other alien? This could be easily tested with one remaining psi alien and a whole army of mediocre psi strength troops - with strong psi skill.

non-standard grenades: Smoke grenade and proximity mine. I have this funny feeling that I have seen them use smoke grenades before, since its mechanics are no different from any other grenade. It just does a different damage type. Proximity mines however are different entirely.

What about blaster launcher dud shells? Do the aliens know how to unload them?

-NKF 00:43, 3 March 2009 (CST)

Thoughts, and Proposal for AI Unloading/Reloading Test

Given the AI never does anything that could not be immediately lethal to your soldiers, I doubt that the AI has any code in it for using Smoke Grenades, an entirely nonlethal weapon. (This also may be part of why it can't use Stun Rods; they're nonlethal tech the AI normally doesn't even have access to.)

Similarly, since it's pretty well suspected that Prox Grenades were added late in the development, given the shoddy handling of the Prox Grenade matrix, it's unlikely the AI has any code to use them either.

Past that, for loading/unloading, I view it as unlikely...there's only three weapons in the game you'd ever gain a tactical benefit from unloading(unloading an unused clip to store or sell is not a tactical benefit, at least not immediately!), the Rocket Launcher, the Heavy Cannon, and the Auto Cannon. Of course, none of these are normally available to the AI.

Overall, I view it as moderately unlikely that the AI would have unloading/reloading code, due to the fact that the number of times the situation would arise is rather low. However, one possibly effective way to test this would be to give the AI(either through MC or by editing the map) no weapons other than Auto Cannon or Heavy Cannons loaded with Incendiary ammunition and carrying a spare clip or two of AP or HE, faced up against a squad of armored X-COM soldiers. Armored X-COM soldiers are immune to fire, so this would force the issue. (The Rocket Launcher could also be used, but due to the fact that the AI can 'unload' the weapon easily by firing the Incendiary rocket, the test results might be weaker.)

If the AI fires Incendiary shells at the armored X-COM agents, or does not fire at all, then it likely possesses no "unloading" code. (The AI may choose not to fire at all if it cannot damage the units; I'm not sure). If, however, your agents start getting pegged with HE or AP ammo(before the first clip runs out!), then it is clear that it can in fact unload and reload weapons. It may be beneficial to amp up the damage on the HE and AP ammo so it can present a threat to the agents. On a final thought, the Debug Mode hex edit would be useful for this test to monitor alien ammunition as well as if/when they reload. Arrow Quivershaft 00:48, 3 March 2009 (CST)