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)

Yeah, have you actually verified any of this? I'm 100% sure that the Mutant Alliance and S.E.L.F. info is wrong, for example - your relations with the relevant org need to be at least 0, or Hybrids/Androids will not be available at all (so they will definitely not be available if the org is unfriendly). The bit about Synthemesh is at least half-wrong, too - the city is always fully repaired at midnight. And you can't buy equipment from hostile organizations at all, so the claim that being unfriendly or better with Cyberweb makes *more* weapons control systems available, while technically true (because the number available is zero if Cyberweb is hostile), is an odd and awkward way of putting things to say the least. Darkpast (talk) 01:01, 10 November 2021 (CET)

The city's not necessarily fully-repaired at midnight. Levelled buildings will only be repaired one height-level at a time. I think there's also some sort of global cap on how much repair work can be done per day, although I'm not certain about that. Magic9mushroom (talk) 18:12, 26 May 2022 (CEST)

Fair enough, I hadn't really notice that before. But my main point is that I see no evidence to back up the vast majority of what the Tips Book claims regarding the effects of alliances. Darkpast (talk) 21:59, 27 May 2022 (CEST)

Alliance effects

Upon my request, Skin36 was kind enough to investigate the code in order to determine whether good relations have the effects claimed in the Tips Book. After checking 10 different organizations, the effect is a resounding "no". In fact, the only noticeable effect is that non-Human recruits will not be available if X-COM's relationship with the SELF/Mutant Alliance is less than 0, as detailed by Magic9Mushroom here: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Talk:Agents_(Apocalypse)

Furthermore, I have done in-game tests and concluded that being allied with Sanctuary Clinic or Nanotech has no effect on Agents' healing rates. Likewise, being allied with Synthemesh has no visible effect on building repair rate: they always seem to be repaired one level (floor) per day.

Therefore, the information from the Tips Book will soon be removed unless someone comes up with conclusive evidence to the contrary. Darkpast (talk) 21:48, 11 July 2022 (CEST)

Funding or Funds Does Not Matter

Bankrupt organisations cannot buy new vehicles.

False.
Replacement of vehicles by "bankrupt" orgs is always completed on the new day. Their funds, or lack of, is irrelevant. I've tested this already ...way too much.

• Well I have just tested this by bankrupting Marsec and guess what - no new vehicles. To be specific, I set their funds to zero using Apoc'd, destroyed their entire fleet, then leveled their buildings, driving them into negative funding. I waited two days and they did not replace their vehicles. So either we're doing something different, or this varies between different versions of the game.

• Also, destroyed vehicles aren't always replaced by the same vehicles. Instead, each organization has a chance of buying new vehicles each hour (not day!) and will do so - I don't exactly how it chooses which vehicles to buy and when they have "enough". So, let's say Marsec has 3 Hoverbikes and 2 Hovercars. If you destroy them, they'll buy new vehicles, but it might not be the same number and type.
• Some organizations start with no vehicles (such as the Government), while others have a lot (gangs, Megapol), but how often they buy new ones seems to be based mostly on their funding. I think this should be mentioned.
• It should be mentioned that Megapol doesn't use Phoenix Hovercars or Hoverbikes.
• Can Illegal Flyers really be sent by anyone? I've only seen it done by infiltrated organizations, the gangs and Megapol. But I haven't tested it exhaustively.
• I have definitely seen organizations scramble unarmed civilian vehicles (such as the Rescue Transport) when their buildings are attacked. I've also seen civilian vehicles appear in their vehicle pools, though these do not seem to be the ones you see driving from one building to another.
• Have you ever seen an organization use a vehicle with non-default weapons or upgrades?
• Megapol and the gangs do start with Stormdogs, and Megapol has a Griffon, but they never seem to deploy them. I guess this doesn't have to be mentioned here, but it may fit under "unused features". Darkpast (talk) 00:26, 28 October 2022 (CEST)

FUNDING

Apoc'd: set half orgs to $3,8000,000,000, set other half to have $500,000,000. give car pool qty 25. Make them all hostile.

Savegame: illegal flyers for all (eleven lots of ten sequences were tested. One every 5minutes = 550 minutes approx of constant fights). Let them fight all day and night (add ten more illegal flyer actions each time when needed), but not past midnight.

What happened: Illegal flyers scheduled for same day stopped happening eventually = orgs have run out of vehicles. Vehicles do not get replenished at the start of a new hour otherwise the illegal flyer actions would continue on and on (vehicles run out confirmed by checking savegame each time i've replenished the 'actions'). Any forced illegal flyer actions I made, I did not make them stretch into the new day.

• start of a new day, orgs with negative money replenished some (random marsec combat variants just the same as those with postive funds. Checked with vehicle park. It confirmed that money does not matter to re-stock vehicles. ... even it is one vehicle.
• Without editing the new-day vehicles pools, money, relations, or vehicle qty in pool, I made more illegal flyers actions possible for this next 24hr period. "Bankrupt" orgs and Rich orgs commenced launching vehicles for illegal flyer actions when I scheduled. I did this to confirm that the vehicles were actually present at the orgs buildings and not as a 'future buy order' or something.
  

This means vehicles are bought for new day irrelevant of funds.

FLYERS
Alot of orgs have to be almost 100% hostile to launch against their enemy. The most common ones are gangs obviously but any org will do it. The first to launch, besides gangs, are those orgs which unfriendly/hate each other at game start. Playing the game long enough and see Lifetree starts attacking Sanct. Megapol against Gov. Muties against everyone. It all happens but they really have to strongly hate each otherwise you'll get treaty signed.

CIV VEH
Yes, they launch concurrently but it would be dumb to launch unarmed crafts first when under attack. The game (seem to) sequence all craft to launch irrelevant of their use. The reason (needs more testing) that civ vehicles go first is due to them being traffic and the game codes them to launch first (under attack or not) to make the city seem alive otherwise the org would be launching combat types instead to act like general traffic. If it were distraction technique, its a very bad way of making one.

UPGRADEs
Nope! it is always the default layout. This mentioned within the Traffic page (i think hope).

Stormdog and Others
Add it to cut items page!