Talk:Micronoid Aggregate (Apocalypse)
Do the pools of blood from dead aliens mean, that a huge micronoid is hiding somewhere in the city, composed of thousands small micronoids escaped from the pools before the cleanerbots arrived? Waiting to burst out when it is strong enough or when X-Com have advanced enough?
- --Karp 04:28, 26 August 2008 (PDT)
Technically speaking?
Yes.
Yes, they do.
- Bomb Bloke 21:05, 26 August 2008 (PDT)
Then again, they probably don't live for very long outside of a host or in an ideal environment that is suited to them (first alien building or inside the Bomber UFO). -NKF 22:23, 26 August 2008 (PDT)
Don't listen to him, the Micronoid already have him under their control! That's just what they WANT you to think!!
Run! Run, while you still can!!!
- Bomb Bloke 02:09, 27 August 2008 (PDT)
NFK, check the biochemistry section; micronoids aren't as inept at Earth environment survival unlike other aliens. They just need a host, like an unsuspecting civilian or someone from the cleaner crew to negate poor conditions.
And Bomb: you are being observed... not watched, but observed...
- --Karp 02:29, 27 August 2008 (PDT)
It's a good thing mega primus has robot cleaners.--(name here) 08:56, 27 August 2008 (PDT)
I said "someone" as in a technician or something.
- --Karp 09:23, 27 August 2008 (PDT)
Most of the muckier and more tedious jobs get given to bots or androids. Cleaners, technicians, mobile footstools, etc. But I suppose there's always one of those hapless rent-a-cops wandering around the building that everyone employs.
How would each individual or very small groups of micronoid cell organisms fare in earth's atmosphere though? They might survive well enough if they're able to band together into their puddle form if they're outside a host. Or do they die (via sympathetic reaction or some such) when their host dies?
When the aliens do their micronoid rain attack on a building, I'm guessing they're air-dropping micronoids onto the building. There would be lots of micronoids that end up splashing onto potential hosts who haven't got umbrellas or their handy dandy nuclear rain deflectors. Then there'd be enough to meld into a lots of puddles, and with their incredible psi powers when combined end up taking over the occupants of the building. It's hard to think of their plans being foiled by an excellent drainage and gutter system or even disinfectant.
And by the way we - yes - we are merely inebriated. We are not suspicious.
- NKF 22:51, 27 August 2008 (PDT)
Kinda guessed.
Good. It's just a game. Remember... just a game.
- -Karp 22:35, 28 August 2008 (PDT)
Micronoid Aggregate = Pod People?
The Micronoid Aggregate, which is the true antagonist of the X-COM series, was possibly based on the Pod People from the 1956 Film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They are both Extraterrestrial Parasites that depend on the assimilation of other species and the consumption of their resources for their own survival. --Arima 04:21, 10 April 2010 (EDT)
- Nice possibility. Add it to Cultural Influences on X-COM page, where other possible influences are listed. Hobbes 20:40, 10 April 2010 (EDT)
Needing to damage them before stun
The article says you need to damage them before capture. This has not been my experience; I have stunned undamaged Micronoids with a Stun Grapple before. It takes a few hits, but they go down eventually (not for very long, but you can get around that by standing on them).
Will remove the note about damaging them from this page and the Capturing Live Aliens page unless someone objects. Magic9mushroom (talk) 05:06, 11 September 2018 (CEST)
- No objections here. The Stun Grapple does a base of 90 stun, and according to the stats page the Micronoids have a base of 80 hitpoints. Even with difficulty adjustment on stats that should be enough to knock out a Micronoid at full health. The damage would be more for convenience than a necessity. NKF (talk) 07:42, 11 September 2018 (CEST)
Deployment bug
I remember there's some sort of bug preventing them from spawning in the largest UFOs. Something to do with too many different aliens being present, I think. Anyone know precisely what it is? Darkpast (talk) 22:11, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, the 1 Psimorph and 3 Micronoids don't spawn in the Battleship and the 3 Micronoids don't spawn in the Mothership. I believe the issue is something to do with having too many different unit AIs running at the same time, as reducing the Megaspawn/Psimorphs/Micronoids in the Mothership from 2/2/3 (vanilla) to 1/1/1 doesn't make the Micronoid spawn, but reducing it to 0/2/3 does.
- Note that no other UFO has more than five kinds of aliens in it, except the Transporter (which probably gets away with it because one of the six is Chrysalis and they probably don't need AI). Magic9mushroom (talk) 07:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
The plot thickens. There seems to be a similar kind of limit in place for building investigations, but AFAICT the limit there is 9 types (the Chrysalis doesn't count, but Eggs do). Not at all sure why it's different. Magic9mushroom (talk) 08:06, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
- Okay, I think I'm closing in on what's going on here, but this is still tentative.
- It seems to be something about squads. Eggs and Chrysalides can go in the same squad. Brainsuckers, Multiworms, Hyperworms, Spitters and Poppers can go in the same squad. But Anthropods, Skeletoids, Megaspawn, Psimorphs and Micronoids all need a dedicated squad. And a squad can't have more than 6 members.
- So in the Transporter, you get:
- Squad 0 is the 2 Eggs and 2 Chrysalides. Squad 1 is the 2 Multiworms and the 4 Spitters. Squad 2 is the 4 Anthropods. Squad 3 is the Popper. Done.
- But on the Battleship, you get:
- Squad 0 is 6 of the Anthropods. Squad 1 is the other 2 Anthropods. Squad 2 is the 5 Skeletoids. Squad 3 is the 5 Poppers and one of the Spitters. Squad 4 is the remaining 4 Spitters. Squad 5 is the 3 Megaspawn. But now there aren't any squads left for the Psimorph and Micronoids, so those are dropped.
- And on the Mothership, you get:
- Squad 0 is the 4 Anthropods. Squad 1 is 6 of the Skeletoids. Squad 2 is the other 3 Skeletoids. Squad 3 is the 5 Poppers. Squad 4 is the 2 Megaspawn. Squad 5 is the 2 Psimorphs. No more squads left for the Micronoids, so they're dropped.
- I'm not 100% sure on this, because if you stick one of everything in a building it doesn't seem to fit quite right (you only get up to Megaspawn, whereas you should be able to get the Psimorphs). There might be an additional limit on how many alien types there are or something of that ilk; I'm not quite sure. But I think this is the vague shape of what's going on. Magic9mushroom (talk) 08:59, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
I think that last one is about the squad not wanting to take all five at once, though I could be wrong. Magic9mushroom (talk) 09:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
- Okay, I officially do not get it. The general shape of things seems solid, but there are a couple of cases that don't work the way they should. Here are some of my results (from after I got confused enough to start writing things down). Magic9mushroom (talk) 12:57, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
- There is no way to participate at StrategyCore, they have had their registration disabled for quite a while now (also not reacting to e-mails asking them to enable it). Unless you bring it up to the site admin to allow registration again, any posts there will probably not get any traction at all other than from the few active people that are still left there. Bard (talk) 18:00, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
- I mostly only posted there so I could link to it; it was a bit bulky for a talk page. I've PMed one of the staff, though. Magic9mushroom (talk) 05:48, 30 June 2020 (UTC)