Talk:Alien Submarines

Survey Ship and Escort

From what I can tell, everything in the game, the UFOpaedia entries, the Transmission Resolver data, everything indicates that the one with the two IBAs and the two interior rooms IS the Survey Ship. That USO is more easily shot down/destroyed, comes with only one alien, and the UFOpaedia entry for the Survey Ship matches its design (the two windows being separated over a wider flat portion). The Escort is the one with only one IBA and no internal rooms. These aren't so easily destroyed, come with 4+ aliens and have the windows close together and sloping sides, like in the Escort UFOpaedia entry.

I intend to fix this in the wiki entries unless someone objects. Magic9mushroom 06:19, 20 August 2009 (EDT)

I object! :) This is believed to be a bug, the Escort and Survey Ship have been swapped around in the game. XcomUtil fixes this. The UFOPaedia entries are correct. Maybe make a note of the bug on both wiki pages? Spike 11:21, 20 August 2009 (EDT)

The UFOpaedia entry for Escort matches the picture seen in the interception window when intercepting an "Escort", which matches the smaller design (adjacent portholes, which is listed on here under Survey Ship). The UFOpaedia entry for Survey Ship matches the picture seen in the interception window when intercepting a "Survey Ship", which matches the larger design (separated portholes, which is listed on here under Escort). It's a huge stretch to call it a bug when absolutely everything agrees. The fact of the matter is, a "Survey Ship" within the (unmodified) game for all intents and purposes is the design with the separated portholes and the interior rooms. The entries in this wiki should reflect that. Xcomutil is a separate issue, and while that should be noted on the pages, and the oddity of the situation (Survey Ship bigger than Escort) should also be noted, it hardly makes sense to confuse people coming to the wiki for the first time based on us thinking that a particular feature of the game is unintended. Magic9mushroom 04:13, 21 August 2009 (EDT)

The interception screen pics might also be swapped. Inteck (from StrategyCore) caught one issue where the Fleet Supply Cruiser and the Battleship pics were swapped in the interception screen. But it should be noted that both interception screens have 2 portals while the real Escort ship map design doesn't even have a single one. Then again, the real Survey Ship's pic is indeed smaller than the real Escort.

Actually, you're wrong. The larger ship, which you term the "real" Escort, has 2 portals on the battlescape. They're on either side of the door. This pattern matches the UFOpaedia entry and interception pic for Survey Ship, both of which have two separated portals. The smaller ship, which you term the "real" Survey Ship, has 2 portals right next to each other, which matches the UFOpaedia entry and interception pic of the Escort.

I actually noticed the Fleet Supply Cruiser/Battleship issue myself. THAT should be noted as a swapping, because the interception and UFOpaedia pic do not match the Battlescape (which is obviously right, because it matches the UFOpaedia text). However, in this case, every in-game source agrees. Magic9mushroom 05:10, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

In my defense, the portals on the larger ship don't look anything like the portals on the smaller ship.--Zombie 11:34, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

All information points to the fact that the two ship designs were accidentally swapped when they were added to the game. The real survey ship only has 3 spawn points whereas the Escort has 6, not to mention that the real survey ship doesn't have any internal doors while the Escort has 2. Is this intended? I highly doubt it. The designers/programmers had to whack this game out in a short amount of time and a lot of mistakes were made. They were trying to base the USOs off the UFOs from the first game but messed it up. --Zombie 09:04, 21 August 2009 (EDT)

This is possible. However, the fact that they're swapped everywhere you can possibly look in the (unmodified) game means that we really should discuss the larger, 3-room vessel as the Survey Ship and the smaller, 1-room vessel as the Escort, with probably a note on both pages saying that this is anomalous and could be unintended. Magic9mushroom 05:10, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

One theory which I came up with a while back is that the map programmers confused the two ships because they look so similar (well, small). It's not that big of a stretch to assume that the person who was responsible for designing the ship layout was not the same person who implemented them in-game, who confused and swapped the two maps, but correctly based the map in the Battlescape against the interception pic in the Geoscape/USOPedia.

However, just because somethings technically "agree" in-game, there are other glaring inconsistencies which don't agree. The spawn points is one of them and the sheer complexity of the real Escort craft forces a person to really sit down and think about it for a while. Also, look at what happens in the Geoscape: the smaller ship has the correct size class (very small) and the correct sonar blob (which is based off of the class I'd imagine), same goes for the larger ship. In fact, all the stats you would associate with each craft are correct in every respect (weapons, weapon range, speed, etc). But when you go on a mission, the map (and more importantly the size) doesn't reflect the stats in the Geoscape. That's the deciding factor.

I agree that it should be made more apparent on the two craft pages that there are major discrepancies, but wouldn't go so far as to swap the two articles here just to match some observances in-game. When you boil this all down, it is nothing more than an unfortunate mixup with the maps. It's pretty obvious to me, but I guess to those who do not study the game files or the executable, it's easier to accept the craft are that way intentionally. --Zombie 11:34, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

I also have a fix for this up in StrategyCore's files section. It includes a route fix as well. --Zombie 20:16, 20 August 2009 (EDT)