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)

Concerning Psi: from my tests at the StrategyCore forums years ago, I remember finding that only troopers with a Psi-Amp and under alien control could wage psi-attacks against his ex-buddies. Fairly sure on this. --Zombie 01:14, 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)

Again, from my tests at the StrategyCore forums (I believe it's in the "Strange Things In X-COM" thread, aliens are able to reload weapons. I know this for a fact. --Zombie 01:14, 3 March 2009 (CST)

I have no doubt the aliens can reload weapons, given they have both the Small Launcher and Blaster Launcher, each one shot weapons which they use often if given the chance. I was more referring to whether the aliens can unload a clip and then load in a new one. Thus why I suggested giving the aliens a useless weapon, with ammo that could then fix this issue, if the alien would only unload the first clip. Or am I misunderstanding what you wrote entirely? Arrow Quivershaft 01:17, 3 March 2009 (CST)

Um, no. I probably misunderstood you. Anyhow, from what I remember, an alien will always exhaust a clip fully before loading in a new spare. --Zombie 01:22, 3 March 2009 (CST)

That's what I figure too, since the number of times the situation would come up is so small its hard to justify the AI code for it. But I figure it should be tested nonetheless. Arrow Quivershaft 01:25, 3 March 2009 (CST)

Dud clips might be a good test. Just make a battlescape save, then edit the obpos.dat file and set the loaded ammo clips for all alien weapons to 0.

Also just tried the smoke grenades. No, they can't use them. It might be either one of two scenarios. They are only familiar with grenades set to their default HE setting and not smoke or proximity (being later additions - so it's "alien" to them). Or the usage of some obdata slots are hidden to them. Similar how only select special items have their menus available to the player. -NKF 01:27, 3 March 2009 (CST)

Ok in 2 out of 2 tests (!) a Sectoid Navigator armed with an unloaded Auto Cannon and a selection of HE and IN clips, loaded the HE clip both times. Between the 2 tests I reversed the position of the 2 clips ( 1 in backpack, 1 in belt) in case they were just loading the first clip in the slot list. It does look like they favour HE. Alien Intel is better than we thought - they know the strengths and weaknesses of our weapons, and their troops are trained to use them!

Sadly we did not pack any AP rounds in the assault ship - the quartermaster muttered something about them being "obsolete now dat you apes got da Heavy Lasers". (Time to break out BB's editor for some more extensive testing.)

A couple of tentative observations on loading / reloading. The aliens don't reload immediately, they continue on their patrol route (or retreat?) and only reload when they spot a target. This might be a good tactic since if they spot a human, other aliens can attack the target by various means. A hive mentality at work! Spike 11:20, 3 March 2009 (CST)

Spike: Good job! That is helpful, but try to get an AP clip in there. Perhaps the alien loads the highest clip in the order. HE is before IN, and AP is before HE. Alternately, I saw a hack that edited the game to HE was the preeminent clip used by the game over AP(in order that the game would auto-load HE clips into weapons). Another suggestion: Try again by giving the alien the Autocannon with the IN clip already loaded in, along with a spare HE clip, and see what happens. Arrow Quivershaft 11:55, 3 March 2009 (CST)

Alien Encumbrance

My next trials were frustrated. I couldn't find my copy of BB's map editor so instead I tried to rank a Laser Rifle against an unloaded HC-HE. (The alien picked a loaded HC-HE over a Laser Rifle (LR) every time, regardless of what was in which hand and whether or not that weapon was "selected").

But then I was stymied when my test Alien ran out of TUs. The weight of HC, HE clip, an alien clip and the LR was over 2x its strength (32 I think). Which sounds wrong. Even more wrong, its TUs were down to about 20-30% (not the expected 50%), 12-17, and didnt seem to be regenerating at all. So it couldn't load or fire either weapon.

All of which got me wondering if there aren't other factors in TUs, Encumbrance and recovery for aliens: maybe the size factors and unitref(45) factors get used somehow? Otherwise I can't really explain why this unwounded Sectoid was basically paralysed by the weight of human equipment. Anyone got any ideas?

One thing that just occurred to me: maybe there is a bug such that weight does not get subtracted when aliens drop things, but still gets added when they pick things up. An understandable bug since that would hardly ever happen. I will check that too.

Spike 14:33, 3 March 2009 (CST)

Might I suggest using Mutons for further tests? They have a Strength of 70, and are rather easy to Mind Control. Arrow Quivershaft 15:45, 3 March 2009 (CST)