Talk:LOC.DAT
Altitude
Shouldn't the altitude be set in this file as well? Probably one of the Unknown values, and XCOM and Alien Bases might have rubbish data in them. --Pi Masta 15:27, 8 February 2007 (PST)
Count Down
I have some doubts about offset 6-7. The page says that it is the horizontal destination, it looks more like the time left before crash/terror site will disappear (or maybe the offset has two usages depending on the type of the location?). It is reset to 3 for as long as there is a craft targeting the site. Seb76 10:45, 26 April 2008 (PDT)
- As neither crash nor terror sites have meaningful destinations anyway (only start locations), there's no reason why these offsets can't be overloaded to mean something else in these cases. -- Zaimoni 14:32, 26 April 2008 (CDT)
Multiple interpretations
It turns out that LOC.DAT also contains/indexes key data for configuring alien bases. One of my attempts at manually constructing an alien base entry critically backfired.
For a Floater base, the Reapers are instantiated in a post-processing pass; they start out as Floaters at the *front* of the alien unit list. The game knew enough not to arm the would-be Reapers, but with key fields in LOC.DAT bungled the pass to convert would-be Reapers to Reapers did not execute. -- Zaimoni 21:34, 4 December 2008 (CDT)
- Alien ranks higher than Soldier also are created in a post-processing pass; their equipment, however, was templated properly based on what their rank would have been from where the entries were in the file. The proto-Reapers did not have Soldier rank either. -- Zaimoni 21:51, 4 December 2008 (CDT)
Supply ship requests
Just to jot a thought down before I forget:
Since supply ships aren't scheduled to happen as such in ACTS.DAT/MISSIONS.DAT, and are instead requested directly by the alien base, would the base's loc.dat entry store a timer that counts down between the when it makes its next supply ship request? Or are supply ships just generated at fixed times during the month?
- NKF 04:41, 30 April 2010 (EDT)