Talk:Organizations

Raids

Browsing around with Apoc'd, I see that there are several types of "raid" actions that organizations can conduct against their enemies. I'm looking for more concrete information on what the various types of raid actually mean. There exist:

Raid - this is the typical base attack using agents.

Attack - I have no idea what this is.

Illegal flyer - a flying vehicle or two attack an enemy building. Used only by Megapol and gangs.

Storm - again, no idea what this is. Used only by Megapol and gangs.

Darkpast (talk) 05:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Attack = you get a "Organisation attacked:" message on the scrollbar (e.g. "Organisation attacked: Psyke Attacked by: Megapol"). However, if X-COM is targetted nothing happens.

Raid = similar message, but if X-COM is targetted you get a base defence.

Storm = similar message, but if X-COM is targetted you get a base defence (no apparent difference in difficulty).

Illegal flyer = "An illegal flyer has been detected", and then they suicide two Hovercars/Hoverbikes (depending on current budget I think) against an enemy building (IIRC Megapol can also use Police Hovercars, and I've seen a single Valkyrie get used once, but these are pretty rare).

Note that any infiltrated organisation will use the Megapol/gangs table (which has a much higher likelihood of rolling something interesting, in addition to the "illegal flyer" possibility). When the Alien Takeover screen says "right and wrong no longer exists for these people" it's actually hinting at this. Magic9mushroom (talk) 07:08, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you. So this confirms that non-gang non-Megapol organizations don't attack you with vehicles (unless infiltrated). As for the vehicle used, it's possible it's just a random dice roll with an equal chance of each vehicle in the organization's vehicle park being selected. This would explain why Valkyries are so rare, as the gangs each have only a single Valkyrie at the beginning of the game (though they might buy more as the game progresses).

Which brings me to another question - do organizations ever send out ground vehicles to defend their buildings? I tried attacking Diablo and they never seem to bring out their Stormdogs (the gangs always begin with three each). In fact, I levelled a Diablo building and they lost a Stormdog, but I didn't get a "vehicle destroyed" message. Darkpast (talk) 08:24, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if Vehicle Parks are used for illegal flyer attacks, although the air units are definitely used for building defence (I've never seen military ground vehicles used apart from Megapol's Police Cars). Organisations can definitely buy new vehicle parks, although they can't do it instantly (it's possible to run an organisation out of vehicles, but if you come back a couple of hours later they'll have bought replacements). Magic9mushroom (talk) 17:07, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I've done more testing regarding Illegal Flyers and here's what I've concluded:

1) Illegal Flyers are taken from an Org's "Vehicle Park".

2) The game will always try to assign two attacking vehicles.

3) The game checks the vehicles in the Park in the following order: Police Hovercar, Phoenix Hovercar, Hoverbike, Valkyrie, Hawk.

4) The selection routine seems to go: is there more than one vehicle of that type in the Pool? If yes, assign it to attack the target building & repeat query. If no, go to the next type.

For example: Cult of Sirius has 2 Phoenix Hovercars, 3 Hoverbikes and 2 Valkyries. The game assigns 1 Phoenix Hovercar, but skips the other one as it is now the only remaining one in the Pool. It moves on to the Hoverbikes and assigns one. Now there are two vehicles so the attack can go ahead. It will consist of one Phoenix and one Hoverbike.

Example #2: Government has 1 Hoverbike and 2 Hawks. The game skips the Hoverbike as there is only one in the Pool and moves onto the Hawks. It selects one and assigns it to the attack. As there are no other vehicles, the attack will consist of one Hawk.

Regarding armed ground vehicles, I could never get an Org to deploy them, and it seems that a number of them disappear from the Vehicle Park every time one of the owner's buildings gets damaged. They are never replaced. Darkpast (talk) 20:24, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Some testing of my own revealed a further wrinkle - illegal Police Hovercars do not produce the "An illegal flyer has been detected" message. This means that if the time setting is on Ultra Fast, the game will skip past them - if something else stops the clock within the next half-hour or so, the attack will commence then, but otherwise it'll go away. This would seem to be why illegal flyer attacks from Megapol don't show up very often - you're only stopped a few times a day.

Organisations do also seem to have to purchase vehicles for their vehicle park, which means that if you can bankrupt an organisation AND run them out of vehicle park they should be unable to launch illegal flyer attacks (raids can occur at negative balance, though). Magic9mushroom (talk) 11:32, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Just wanted to make sure - have you seen a bankrupt Organisation launch a raid "naturally" (without using Apoc'd to schedule it)? Darkpast (talk) 07:23, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the original thing that made me say that was getting raided by Osiron during an ordinary game after they'd gone into negatives from their slums being collateral damage. Just retested by making the gangs hate me and giving them all -$1M starting money - took a while, but eventually I got raided (they were raiding each other and Megapol from the get-go, but I wanted to get a raid on X-COM to be sure). Magic9mushroom (talk) 09:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Seems there isn't much point in bankrupting them, then. Illegal flyer attacks are rare and not very dangerous if you have any craft to speak of. I'm not sure whether the Police Hovercars and Hoverbikes can even damage buildings with their weapons. Darkpast (talk) 09:28, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Megapol's Police Car and Police Hovercar patrols come out of their vehicle park; if you're hostile with Megapol, bankrupting them + shooting the cars down will eventually remove the distraction from UFO interception. Otherwise, though, I think you're right. Magic9mushroom (talk) 11:04, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion

I was thinking that it may be better to replace the "Organizations Important to X-COM" section with a "Services Provided to X-COM" overview, e.g.

Organization	Services provided
Government	weekly funding
Megapol	sells agent and vehicle equipment; limited assistance vs. Alien Craft
Marsec	sells ground and air vehicles, agent and vehicle equipment

And so on for all organizations that actually provide something to X-COM. Darkpast (talk) 09:46, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I mean, I do have a rather-detailed guide to that on my user page, but I suppose we could whip up something more concise.

The big question is whether to include Psyke and to a lesser degree Cyberweb. Psyke "sells" Psiclone, but they never have any for sale unless you sold it to them first and it's useless. Cyberweb does provide a selection of vehicle equipment, but none of the items appears to do anything. Magic9mushroom (talk) 11:15, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

My recommendation - don't include Psyke, but do include Cyberweb, with a footnote explaining the latter's items don't work as intended.

p.s. I'm also not sure about Gravball League. I'm inclined to believe it does not affect the number of recruits, but I don't have 100% proof. Darkpast (talk) 11:33, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I just did a test of thirty days' worth of humans with GBL neutral/hostile/allied, and got 39/52/43, so I'm strongly inclined to think there's no effect. Probably not enough to filter out the noise, though, so I also put in a question on OpenApoc. Magic9mushroom (talk) 13:51, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Don't forget that every Organization will buy recruits from the same pool, just as they will also buy up craft and equipment, so that will have impact on the availability as well. The increase is about the same as from SELF and Mutant Alliance. Bard (talk) 17:29, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I've seen no evidence of anything you claim there; organisation personnel are not hired or equipped with bought equipment the way X-COM's are (they and their equipment are randomly generated when a mission is started), and the max humans seen with the GB league hostile and with it allied were both 3 (SELF and Mutant Alliance switch on and off the 0-1 android/hybrid, so a similar mechanism would produce a difference). Please don't supply urban legends as fact; it just confuses matters. Magic9mushroom (talk) 06:40, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Relations do matter, here is more info from the "PC Zone X-Com Apocalypse Tips Books", though ingame already all of these are very obvious to observe: https://imgur.com/a/QJtmiaR Bard (talk) 11:47, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

And most of those tips don't work as advertised because the game came out without many announced features. The best person to ask about which actually work is to ask Chimera Kitty Of Malal, the main developer of OpenApoc, since he has extensively researched the game's source code and he'll be able to clarify what actually works ingame. You can find him at the OpenXCom discord. Hobbes (talk) 19:18, 15 October 2021 (UTC)