Talk:Exploits

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Extra Ammo Exploit

Does anybody mind if I delete the "Extra Ammo" exploit? What is described there, is actually avoidance of a glitch, not an Exploit. And it's already described under Known_Bugs#Disappearing_Ammo. I'm about to flesh out the Glitch, and it's annoying to have to repeat in two places when the second's not really an Exploit. I'll do it in a week if nobody objects. If somebody objects, it stays. ---MikeTheRed 13:35, 11 December 2005 (PST)

Actually I just realized that the Extra Ammo Exploit differs from the Glitch description. It says that even clips that are partially full, become full if unloaded. I vaguely recall I tested this in the DOS version, and that my experience reflected what's described in the Glitch entry. NKF and others, do you know for sure which one is right? - MikeTheRed 17:33, 11 January 2007 (PST)

Hobbes, are you sure about that note on ammo? Nobody's directly addressed my question (above) about how this page's description differs from the Glitch page's description. I'm pretty sure the DOS version retains full clips that are loaded, like Glitch says. - MikeTheRed 07:06, 9 February 2007 (PST)

In UFO Gold, partially-used clips are lost. Unused clips are retained. This is regardless of alien/xcom technology, loaded/unloaded status. This has been verified. In at least one version of the game (I think the earlier DOS versions of xcom, as well as the DOS version of ufo, loaded clips are lost and unloaded clips are retained, regardless of used/partially-used or alien/xcom status. The exact mechanics have not been verified, but the general phenomenon has. Furthermore, clip loss is determined for each clip independently. I have never seen a version where it was all-or-nothing. This only covers one or more dos versions of xcom, the dos version of ufo, and ufo gold. - Boba 9 February 2007

Thanks Boba, I believe the wiki crew has generally been calling the Gold version, the CE (Collector's Edition) version (someone correct me if wrong). And as shown under Known Bugs (link above), I could swear someone (NKF? Zombie?) insisted that loaded, full clips in alien guns were lost in CE... IOW, you should unload full clips before ending combat. But only for CE (i.e., Gold). (Partial clips are always lost, regardless of any state.) I hope whomever said that will step up (NKF?). I agree that loaded, full clips are not lost in DOS 1.4; that's what I've mostly played with. BTW you can autmatically sign your posts by using three tildes (~~~), or four for signature and timestamp. - MikeTheRed 14:05, 9 February 2007 (PST)

Mike, we (meaning, you and I) worked on this one Sunday a long time ago. The tests I ran did indeed show that full unloaded alien clips were lost (CE, Gold, whatever). However, I just ran some quite extensive tests on this right now and it showed no difference between loaded/unloaded status with a full clip. Might have been a bug, or I might have been only looking at the end-of-mission report.
The end-of-mission report doesn't take into account clip usage - it counts what was there in the beginning, subtracts anything which was destroyed during the mission and supplies that as the number of artifacts recovered. Each pod of Elerium-115 is also considered an "artifact" (as long as it wasn't researched), so that could have compounded the problem if a comperhensive list was not created. It's possible I was only looking at the EOM report and neglected to visit the stores, but by golly, I could have sworn I did. I'll run some more tests this weekend sometime, but as it stands right now all full clips are recovered no matter what. --Zombie 15:36, 9 February 2007 (PST)
That sounds great, Zombie. And Boba, I apologize if I've got it wrong. Maybe what we're seeing is that the EOM report is wrong (or confusing?), and that caused both the Extra Ammo and Disappearing Ammo blurbs on the wiki. If I'm understanding this right. If so, we'd want to correct both of these so as to say "some folks think that {blah blah), but actually this is only due (blah blah)", or whatever. I do remember that I myself checked the stores back at base when I reviewed it for DOS 1.4. - MikeTheRed 17:18, 9 February 2007 (PST)
So what's the status of this exploit? It sounds to me like full clip, loaded or unloaded = recovered -- partial clip, loaded or unloaded = lost -- is the most up-to-date picture of it. (And consistent across all versions.) Is this definitely correct, definitely incorrect, or somewhere in between?--Ethereal Cereal 19:20, 2 March 2007 (PST)
I wonder if it was just confusion because you could easily see a loaded weapon counting as one artifact for the EOM, but if you take the ammo out it reports both seperately so it looks like you get more back (and you would get slightly more points?), but that the ammo might get separated back at base even if you leave it in. Clearly partial clips always go, alien or human, as thats the way you get through so much of every type of ammo short of explosives/rockets. --Sfnhltb 19:48, 2 March 2007 (PST)
Just my 2 cents, I could have sworn that after reading this and always unloading clips (even from dead aliens) that I started getting too many Heavy Plasma clips... Perhaps we need to just test this out once and for all. Count how many clips you have, go to a site, shoot one off, dust off, check stores. Test 2 reload and do the samething only unload a partial and a full and see what happens.
Ah, heck I have both versions I'll do it myself here. Be back with the results and hopefully wrap this up. --Pi Masta 11:10, 3 March 2007 (PST)
Ok, per my tests using DOS (ver 1.4 I believe, how do you check??) and Windows CE (even using the same save games between the two). I tested these with a Heavy Cannon, and an Auto Cannon (and a rocket launcher but never fired it, and never lost any rockets), unless alien weapons work differently they should do the same. I have concluded the following:
  • Full ammo clips (loaded and unloaded) are always kept
  • Partial ammo clips loaded in a weapon are never kept
  • Partial ammo clips unloaded are kept ONLY in the DOS version
I verified these by looking at the stores in the base afterwards, not the EOM report (which just told me 2 aliens killed from the crashed landing). The only extra thing I can see testing is if two half clips are counted as one, that is if there are 3 round left in two HC-HE, do I lose both of them, or just one? My gut tells me they went the easy way and just discarded any partial clips.
I didn't update any pages with this info yet. If no one says anything in a day or so I'll make the updates. It'd be nice for someone to confirm on this. --Pi Masta 11:47, 3 March 2007 (PST)
Thanks for doing the testing. Since I play CE exclusively, this makes my life easier: no more of this unload-if-you-think-almost-all-the-aliens-are-dead silliness. Gee, life is so complicated.--Ethereal Cereal 11:58, 3 March 2007 (PST)

Awwww, dammit. Life is complicated. Which is to say X-COM. Ahem.

I did a base raid to grab a blaster launcher so I could research it, but only got back to base with the launcher and not the bomb that was loaded in it. So I had to be the latest sucker to run this test:

  • Artefact weapon, partial clip, loaded or unloaded: no clip gained
  • Artefact weapon, full clip, loaded: no clip gained
  • Artefact weapon, full clip, unloaded: clip gained
  • Alien weapon (researched, non-artefact), full clip, loaded: no clip gained
  • Alien weapon, full clip, unloaded: clip gained

These results apply to CE. I assume that in DOS, unloaded partial clips are kept (alien, artefact, X-COM, whatever). Dunno if loaded clips in alien weapons are kept in DOS; they are definitely lost under CE.--Ethereal Cereal 17:15, 9 March 2007 (PST)

(Are we supposed to keep indenting as each comment is made? do we have a rule? anyway,)
I played DOS 1.4 and didn't think to look at the Score screen; I found that full alien clips are kept, back at base.
Eth - if you don't mind me asking - how did you test a partial Blaster clip?
hehe - MikeTheRed 19:33, 9 March 2007 (PST)
Just indent sufficiently to break the discussions up so that we know where a new post begins and If we go too far to the right just roll back a few levels and start again. Kind of like a line flush with a typewriter... if anyone remembers these relics of an ancient civilisation.
Partial blaster bomb clips - two possibilities. It was edited. The other is a dud clip. Technically that's a partial clip. - NKF
I'm waiting for his answer. ;)
Folks (in general)... can we finally kill the "extra ammo collection" section of this Exploit page, and instead simply have the Glitch that full clips are lost in CE if loaded in alien weapons? Or at least the describe this non-exploit as "versus a glitch, things act regularly in DOS...".
It's not an extra ammo exploit, it's regular ammo not lost to a glitch. - MikeTheRed 22:35, 9 March 2007 (PST)
Yeah, regarding the indenting, if you've got a back-and-forth between two users, each should stick to their prior indent level:
Me
You
Me
You
etc. Otherwise the rule is add an indent level when replying to the prior user's comments.
It wasn't a dud clip, it was merely a loaded blaster bomb. At mission end, I got the launcher, but not the bomb. (And only one artefact was scored.) Mind you, I ran these tests by grabbing the weapon, walking to the exit point/skyranger, and aborting the mission. Is it different when you end it by killing all the aliens? I'll have to check that next.
So. Mike, are you saying that in the DOS version, a full clip loaded in an alien weapon is retained? I need to know the answer with 100% certainty before I will edit the article for the last time, dammit. The exact nature of this bug has been up in the air for far too long.--Ethereal Cereal 22:37, 9 March 2007 (PST)
Ok, Eth. So let me make sure I have it straight: Pick up one Blaster Launcher, with 1 BB in it. Check stores before and after. (Plus look at the Score screen.) Yes? I'm not being obtuse here, I just want to make sure I do it right, because it seems like such a simple thing, to have such confusion over. Thanks - and yes, it's been in the air too long - MikeTheRed 22:43, 9 March 2007 (PST)
I think I have an old Battleship game near completion. I'll finish it out, noting carefully all clip counts in all weapons, before and after. I can also send it to you CE users, to see what you get, before and after. Hold on a minute. - MikeTheRed 23:05, 9 March 2007 (PST)
FWIW, in hunting around old files, here is the one where folks run to the southeast, through a solid wall of soldiers. As described here. The very first few will run through solid flanks of soldiers - after that, there are holes in the wall as more panic and often run - is this a DOS 1.4 thing? All soldiers have been set to 0 Morale and will freak when you end the turn. An interesting phenom; see that "as described" Discussion. - MikeTheRed 23:16, 9 March 2007 (PST)
During my own Bravery testing (under CE), I saw the same exact thing: I piled all the soldiers in a corner, and one or two walked through everyone to run away.--Ethereal Cereal 02:59, 10 March 2007 (PST)
Arg, something is screwy with that savegame - look how the weapons have problems being accessed. This is not to say the phenom of running through soldiers isn't real; I saw it back before this, when nothing was screwy. Something's wrong with how I restored the game, or my X-COM since I last played it. So much for a quick test of counts. I'll do it sometime in the next two weeks though; this has gone on too long. For now it's late, and a busy time for me otherwise. A.k.a. demonstrations never work. - MikeTheRed 23:43, 9 March 2007 (PST)
(This is a note to myself to remember which pages get edited after we finally straighten this out: Exploits, Known Bugs, Equipment Recovery, UFO Recovery Values.--Ethereal Cereal 01:29, 10 March 2007 (PST))
I have a big fat aha now: I finally tested all-aliens-killed, mission ends, vs. grab stuff, abort mission. Difference! When I aborted the mission, I had to unload unused clips first in order to get them, but if it was a "successful" mission, the clips were recovered regardless of loaded/unloaded status. (Loaded-but-unused X-COM ammo was not used up during an abort.)
Here's the savegame I used: Media:Weapon unloading test.zip. It's UFO-1, so you don't have to do before/after counts. There's a single sectoid remaining, and the following equipment on the map (9 artefacts total):
  • 1 Heavy Plasma (plus 1 loaded clip)
  • 1 Plasma Pistol (plus 2 clips, 1 loaded)
  • 1 Plasma Rifle (plus 1 partly-used loaded clip and 1 unloaded clip)
  • 1 Elerium
So, use the save and try this: grab any weapon (say, the pistol at the door of the UFO), run back to the skyranger with it and abort (don't bother getting everyone else back in the ranger and don't kill the sectoid). Do you get 1 artefact (and back at base, have only the pistol, not the clip, in your stores)?--Ethereal Cereal 02:59, 10 March 2007 (PST)

Repairing damaged UFOs

Want to stop a UFO from doing it's mission? Shoot it down. Want to get a full load of engines and elerium? Leave it alone for about 2 days. The longer you wait before launching the ground assault, the smaller the hole and smoke, and eventually the craft will be completely repaired.

Note that you will also get a full complement of enemy soldiers -- all the dead will come back to life when you do this.

(You may want to save the game before landing, so you can resume waiting if the UFO was not fully repaired when you attacked.)

Actually, UFO damage is random. You see, the damage done to a UFO in the battlescape is caused by the game detonating the power units with varying detonation strengths every time the map is generated. Sometimes it's only strong enough to destroy the power unit, and if there are many power units, some of the might not even be detonated at all. So there's no wait, just save the game in the Geoscape, and enter the mission. If the damage is not to your liking, reload and try and try again until you get a favourable outcome. - NKF

Keybouncer and NKF, you've both tested this likelihood versus time? Seems easy enough to do. Two related questions (have they been answered here?): 1) How long do crash sites persist?, and 2) If one Power Source (PS) blows up, yes, it will destroy E115 within a particular distance, but will it cause them to explode?

The reason I ask is that page 311 of the OSG says PSs have a 70% chance of exploding, which sounds about right to me. A table of probabilities of finding intact PSs for the various UFOs could be generated. I would have thought the answer to #2 is that they don't cause them to explode; they're not an explosive object. But in my experience, the ground floor of a Terror Ship is always the same - all four PSs are always blasted up, and the surrounding interior walls are always in the same bad shape (i.e., they're always all gone, except by the door at the south).

Anyway, a probabilistic thing would be fun to do. But the question of successive explosions has been puzzling me. Could E115 trigger something special in crashes? (Successive explosions even though it's not registered as an explosive?) E115 has always had that odd boolean checkmark at OBDATA.DAT[45]. - MikeTheRed

While I have not collected large amounts of data to show any pattern in the extent of the damage vs time, I haven't really seen any difference in damage between the moment the crash site was created or at a point just before the crash site vanishes. It's roughly the same and varies from game to game. If the UFO is repaired over time, this information will have to be stored somewhere. Craft.dat or loc.dat are probably the most likely files to watch. As for the explosions - I guess during the pre-detonation stages, the game may take into account nearby power units that get caught in the blast and detonate them as well. The 70% chance still holds true for isolated units. Can we add extra power units to the existing craft maps to test this I wonder? Or what about setting this boolean flag for enemy corpses, and crossing our fingers? Heh. That might not work. - NKF

Hehe, it might be fun to play with those booleans. Or not. ;)

I wouldn't think info has to be stored anywhere; after all, the crash site is not created unless/until you fight it. (If I remember right.) If it does "repair", it could simply be based on the time since the crash... and I guess this would basically equate to, a lower probability of PS explosion. FWIW, I never had the impression that more time meant less damage, but then I wasn't paying attention to the possibility.

I guess that, since PS explosions are performed by code that is "above" normal battlescape properties (i.e., PSs are not explosive per se), it's entirely possible they also programmed in, that they trigger successive detonations. It could be fairly easily tested, in theory... There are only 3 UFOs where PSs can "interact": Harvester (2 PSs), Supply (3), Terror (4). Supply UFOs might be the most interesting in terms of teasing out whether there are successive detonations. FWIW, straight odds (no interaction) of having 2 PSs intact is 9.00% (.32), 3 intact is 2.70%, and 4 intact is 0.81%.

Remind me, is there some quick way to "lift the fog of war" and see the whole map? Maybe with Mapview? (I don't have it installed ATM; I recently got a new PC.) If so, it would be fairly easy to see e.g. if terror ships ever vary their explosion pattern, etc. Also any differences between combat early or late after a crash.

Maybe we should move all these comments, maybe even this whole section, to Discussion? - MikeTheRed 17:43, 10 January 2007 (PST)

Moved - and discussions split up and line breaks inserted for your reading convenience. Coincidentally, Mike, it has been a while, but I'll let you decide what to do with your earlier comment up above.

As for the maps - I know XComutil has an option to clear the fog of war and make everyone on the map visible (and sets the lighting for the whole map to the brightest setting until you move). Use the command line utility's VIS command. Like so: xcomutil game_n vis wrt - game_n being the directory for your tactical savegame.

-NKF

Or the time left until the crash site disappears. That is almost certainly in the savegame, and would be worth mapping in its own right.

-- Zaimoni, 9:25 Jan 11 2007 CST

NKF - Cool, I just tried that XcomUtil and it worked like a charm. And guess what... I happened to try it on a Terror ship... and only ONE PS was blown up (although it did, of course, destroy the other 3). Damn, that seems like low odds... and OMG it instantly explodes (cough) the possibility of successive explosions. One other thing can be done via a screenshot of it... one can determine a PS's explosive strength (but maybe not its radius). (Has anybody determined this stuff yet?) Anyway here goes (dusting off Explosions memory cells):

Edited after I looked closely and got the equations right - MikeTheRed 17:48, 12 January 2007 (PST)

  • UFO floors (their "initial" tile) are destroyed out to radius 3. They need 80 HE to kill them.
  • Tiles are hit with average/2 damage; this damage decreases by 5, each tile outward from Ground Zero. So average/2 must be 80-84 at tile 3, and 95-99 at GZ.
  • Twice this value (for the average) is 190-199. A PS explosion is almost as strong as a blaster bomb. (Notice how blasters scorch UFO floor tiles out to 4 tiles, 1 more than a PS, and are average damage 200.)
  • Initial destroyed tiles are not blown through to raw earth anywhere, even at GZ. The slightly stronger blaster also does not blow through to raw earth at GZ on UFO floors. (Can someone look up the death tile armor strength for a damaged Power Source? The GZ PS was not raw earth, either.)
  • Those walls around the PSs on a Terror ship are only destroyed up to where the floor tiles were; they also are 80 initial / 50 dead tile "armor".
  • PSs at 6 straight-line radius and 3 diagonal (walking TUs means its considered 4 tiles away) are destroyed, consistent with UFO_Power_Source info that they have 50 "armor"... average/2 HE strength is 65 at radius 6.
  • All the Elerium is gone, of course... it only takes 21 HE.
  • A Snakeman was also killed, at a straight-line radius of 7 (just past the radius-6 PS). Here, the average/2 HE should be 60, and strength against units 60 to 180. It's a Superhuman game, so the lowest stats (Superhuman Snakeman Soldier) would be Health 45 and armor ranging from 16 Rear to 20 Front, for a minimum of 45+16=61 to kill. Easily enough to kill this weakest example; stronger aliens near to the edge of the blast (wherever it is) might have a chance of only being injured.

Does anyone ever remember seeing aliens injured by crash-landing? In my vague recollection of times when I MC everything, they are all either fine, or dead, at crash sites... never injured.

FWIW there wasn't any other vulnerable stuff around, to tell the whether the blast went farther than radius 7. In theory it could extend to radius 18, with a GZ strength of 190-199... but the largest blasts seen in the game are both clipped at radius 11 (blast and fusion tank).

Zaimoni, I'm sure you're right. If, of course, it's not always the same amount of time. I vaguely recall that my impression is they always lasted about 3 days (72 hours). I don't know the Geoscape files well... perhaps one of you who do, would know where to look for this? Then again it would be cake to take a savegame from just before shooting down a UFO, then see how long the crash persists. It should quickly be clear if it's always the same, to prove or disprove that. If no variation is seen with that one test UFO, a few other types (small to large) should be tested, to see if it differs by type.

- MikeTheRed 17:33, 11 January 2007 (PST)

I've seen injured aliens from pre-BattleScape power plant explosions. They're generally toast if the walk into a fire :( [This is from studying XCOMUtil reports at DIS:2.] It's more common with Large Scouts, but not unthinkable with crashed Terror Ships.

Even if it always is the same amount of time, the "in theme" way to code it would be a countdown timer (like manufacturing, research, and time to next UFO).

-- Zaimoni, 9:25 Jan 11 2007 CST

Ok I just fixed a glaring error in my math above. That's better. The soldier was practically gauranteed to be dead. FWIW a supply ship where only one "outer" PS has exploded will confirm whether 11 is the limit of the blast radius. It's probably also the best place to try to find an alien caught at the edge of the blast, to see where its edge is. Not that it's a real big deal. The probabilities of finding intact Elerium for various ships can be stated already. Probably. :)

A new wrinkle that may affect it was raised by my Terror Ship example: Only the "top most" PS exploded. And as you will recall, I had previously thought all 4 PSs exploded, and only the door and the walls near it (at the "bottom") were left. In hindsight, maybe PSs have a fixed "order" in which they explode, and what I had actually seeing is that 3 exploded (which is good for the odds of 70%) - but it was the "top 3". If the "bottom" last one had exploded, the door and walls around it would've been gone. But that's not what I remember encountering most/all the time. See? Perhaps they explode, starting from the top-most one, down. Depending on some dice roll as to how many would explode. This possible predictability in terms of the order (top to bottom) in which they are "slated to explode" could mean that e.g. seeing a particular Battleship "foot" intact tells you something about which others might be intact, at a glance (and how much E115 is left). Something worth testing with a few reloads some night.

As for effects on E115 survival probabilities in general, it looks like the Supply ship is the only ship where there is a chance for this potential "fixed order" to affect the likelihood. The central PS will always destroy the other two PS's E115. If it is more or less likely to explode due to a fixed order - if the left/top one "goes first" - this would affect the probabilities. For all other UFOs, though, the PS spacing is such that any PS explosion kills all the others' E115 - or not at all (battleship, harvester).

Thanks for the feedback on the injured guy, Zaimoni. It sounds like PS blasts are like blasters... it's possible for someone to survive it near the edge, but not likely. Combined with how I usually try to farm intact elerium (i.e., not crash UFOs), probably explains why I don't remember seeing anyone injured from crashing.

- MikeTheRed 17:48, 12 January 2007 (PST)

Did some more testing, on a Terror ship. I made a savegame with a Terror Ship crash site not yet visited, then visited it 10 times, using XcomUtil's "lights on" switch. Some observations:

  • Right Zai, there can be injured folks. Three times out of 10. One of these was stunned, even. Oddly, this stunned one briefly showed in the equipment pile at initial loadout(!), but disappeared from there once I finished the loadout (and appeared in the blast area).
  • Dead or injured guys are always standing right next to a PS. There were always 1 to 2, dead or wounded. The PS they stand next to is random, out of the 4 on a Terror.
  • Very very oddly: Out of the 10 reloads,
    • 4 had identical radius-3 UFO-floor-damage blast patterns centered on the top PS, like the first one described above. (The four includes that first one.)
    • Four had an increased level of damage (floor damage radius 5), centered on the top PS, still.
    • One had an even larger blast pattern of radius 8 or more; it could have been more, because it damaged the floor of the whole interior PS room, but did not extend past any of the walls (all were blown out). And it was still centered on the top PS.
    • The final one had floor damage to radius 4, and was centered on the left PS.

This doesn't make any sense to me. *scratches head* Ok, that's enough for now. - MikeTheRed 19:22, 12 January 2007 (PST)

So a Power Source explodes with a power = 190-199? As a quick calculation a while back, (see this post for the specifics) I determined the PS has a strength of 200 on a desert landscape. Guess that desert tiles aren't sensetive enough to pick up on that 1-10 point difference in strength you calculated.

It's easy to create your own ship designs with daishivas mapview program: just delete everything on the ground floor of a UFO and stuff a PS smack-dab in the middle. When you visit the crash site, all you see is either a PS (if it didn't explode) or a huge crater - lol.

I wonder if BB's custom tile testing landscape could be tweaked to nail the power of the explosion down exactly? If not, I suppose I could edit the alien spawn points on a ship so that they are clustered around the PS. After properly editing alien stats of the race contained in the UFO, shoot the UFO down and visit it many times. Log the alien stats near the explosion over a few thousand reloads and we should have our answer (extrapolating damage to take the extra tile into consideration). Might need to call in a favor to BB for a "special" logger for this, but hey, it's possible. Heck, it may be easier to just edit the UFO floor tile properties to show this. ;) --Zombie 23:13, 12 January 2007 (PST)

Type of Terror crash damage, n=10

Hiya Z! Yes well... in the follow-up testing, it suggests that PS explosion strength is variable. But this (and the finding) don't make sense relative to what you might've expected - i.e., just let some of the PSs blow up or not, at a fixed strength, with a probability of 70%. I get the feeling it may be jerry rigged in the code. Especially disconcerting is how there were bigger or smaller explosions - all centered on the top-most PS. 9 times out of 10.

If it helps any, here's a montage of the four types of damage seen in those 10 samples. The radius-3-floor-damage (seen 4x) is in upper right, radius-5 middle right (4x), radius 8+ lower right (1x), and radius 4 left PS is on left (1x). You can clearly see how all three of the pix on the right are centered on the top-most PS; notice the explosion blockage "shadow" due to the other PSs in the pic on the lower right. (Did I get my math right, when I said the strength seems to be 190-199 for the pic in upper right?)

I am so rusty on all the details of map editing. But if you can combine BB's numerical tiles with a UFO with no floor or interior walls, it should be good to go! Why not stick in more than one PS so we can see what it does relative to this head-scratcher of, is only one PS exploding, but with variable strength? A part of my head scratching is, with Battleships, it's clear that you don't always have only one PS explode. - MikeTheRed 09:13, 13 January 2007 (PST)

Whether Medium Scout Navigation consoles survive a pre-BattleScape power plant explosion is inconsistent. [It's relatively rare, but does happen.]

-- Zaimoni, 9:25 Jan 11 2007 CST

Huh, ok, I guess that means it can be variable even if there's only one PS. I had been thinking, maybe it was loading all the strength of multiple PSs blowing up, into that one PS that was blowing up, on the Terror Ship. (Did that make sense?) But if even a lone-PS ship has variability, that tells a lot about it.

Hellfire and damnation, lol - MikeTheRed 17:45, 13 January 2007 (PST)


I've done some testing with Supply ships - which has laid my confusion with Terror ships to rest. Obvious in hindsight, really... the first PS to explode on a Terror Ship destroys all the other PSs due to their proximity. This doesn't happen on a Supply ship, between the two "edge" PSs... which leads to some interesting pictures, when heavy blast damage is laid on other heavy blast damage. And yes, the explosion strength definitely seems to be variable. So, some things so far: 1) PSs appear to have a "designated order of explosion", 2) blast strength is variable but quite high (enough to melt UFO floors), 3) if a PS explosion destroys other PSs, they will not explode (blush), and 4) the radius of the blast appears to be quite large.

As for that radius, it's hard to pin down with these fairly indestructible floors and walls. It is probably less than 12, and my best guess ATM is 10. But it's hard, because it could be variable (including dependent on strength), and these UFOs don't give up secrets easily. Z, are you making a test setup? If so, I'll stop wasting my time. :-) - MikeTheRed 20:26, 13 January 2007 (PST)


Analyzing the various pix I've collected shows PSs can have a blast strength of 180 to 240+ (!) Average HE. That 240 could have been anything up to 260, but was constrained by walls containing damage, etc. Initial UFO Floor armor is 80 and Dead Tile UFO Floor armor is 50, which would take 260 average HE in one explosion, but this was never seen, even in the 240+ HEs which destroy both the initial PS (50 armor) and the dead PS (70 armor). 260 HE is over the "theoretical" limit of 255 HE... We can't set weapons to higher than this, but that doesn't necessarily mean the game can't, somehow. (Can't damage to units exceed 255? Did you ever try a maxxed shot weapon vs. units with maxxed health and high armor, Zombie?)

Another pic clearly shows that a PS blast of average HE 240 only has a radius of 10. Looks like 10 is the max radius for PS blasts. I say "max" because it may be smaller, if blast radius is linked to explosive strength, as it is for projectiles. My initial impression is that PSs don't follow the blast pattern for any other explosives, though.

If you are using numerical tiles Zombie, they should make things a lot clearer than I can. For one thing, I can't get exact numbers. And there are many restraints. But it must be a bit of work... you have to try to get a specific type of UFO to crash in a specific kind of terrain, right?

FWIW I might point out that quite a few of the crashed Terror UFOs looked the same (only 4 unique configs out of 10), but all 5 of the Supply crashes were unique. I guess it underlines how severe the effect of immediately destroying the other PSs can be. Try to space your PSs 11 tiles apart, Zombie. :) Or not... either way informs or confirms theories.

Interestingly, in one of my pix there is a Supply PS in the middle position that first got blasted from one side to a dead PS, then the death PS got vaporized from the other side.... and all that's left is the flames that come with a dead PS, laugh.

Ok, that's enough for now - MikeTheRed 22:23, 13 January 2007 (PST)

I have been rather busy the last couple days but I'll look into recreating a testing scenario with a custom UFO floorplan today. I think this will have to be a modified Battleship since that map has the largest editable area (30x30). However, BB's hacked desert landscape can only be used on scouts due to the MCD limits. A Large Scout will have to work for now (map size of 20x20). If I do not use BB's desert landscape (as may be necessary if we want to add extra Power Sources), I could probably create my own desert map (sans those nice numbers in BB's example) just to get an overview of the situation. All crashed UFO's will therefore have to be shot down over the desert landscape to see any changes to the terrain.

I haven't tried a maxed weapon strength with a subject having maxed armor and health yet. (I'll do this tonight to see what happens). However, if shot weapons follow explosive, then I'd assume weapon damage can go above 255. (Remember my tests with the Blaster Bomb? Subjects could receive more than 255 damage points with a direct GZ hit. The theoretical max was 300 [200*3/2] while I observed a max of 298 over 55 trials). --Zombie 13:26, 14 January 2007 (PST)

Mike, you may want to take a look at the post I made here.

I ended up using BB's numerical tileset and a modified Medium Scout map for testing the blast strength of the PS. It worked really well.

BTW, a Large Scout has a map size of 20x20 so by placing a PS at each corner of it the explosions shouldn't overlap. This may be handy for testing multiple explosions. 2 would work fine, but 4 PS modules could also be crammed on the map to check on overlap and/or the explosion order. --Zombie 18:51, 17 January 2007 (PST)

Thanks for that other post! It seems pretty clear that there's an explosion order. 9 times out of 10 probably isn't coincidence. But it could have been! Hehe - MikeTheRed 19:39, 17 January 2007 (PST)

Does anyone ever remember seeing aliens injured by crash-landing? In my vague recollection of times when I MC everything, they are all either fine, or dead, at crash sites... never injured.
I've seen injured aliens from pre-BattleScape power plant explosions. They're generally toast if the walk into a fire :( [This is from studying XCOMUtil reports at DIS:2.] It's more common with Large Scouts, but not unthinkable with crashed Terror Ships.

Probably the reason for this dichotomy is people are thinking too advanced - as if the game simulated the explosion while in the air when the UFO was intercepted. What most likely happens is the game spawns all the aliens in their starting points around the map, then fires the explosion. So only the aliens that are in the ship, near the PS, can be damaged or injured, where more realistically you might expect more to be in the vicinity (especially for medium scouts of course). Clearly this means the amount of injured aliens is going to tend to be very low compared to more realistic expectations.

Especially with the smoke of the explosion still around you could interpret this as the power systems have an emergency shut off when they are too damaged, which causes the crash, and the explosion only happens when they try to restart the engines/PS before they are fixed when the detect your team landing in the area, hence the explosion happening in the alien turn before you land. --Sfnhltb 10:46, 10 March 2007 (PST)

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