Talk:Submersible Weapons Systems

X-COM Turn reaction fire immunity

Just based off a question on the Strategycore Forums by user Veki, it seems that TFTD breaks the reaction fire mechanics for SWS during X-COM's turn. In other words, they're immune to reaction fire. They will get attacked during the aliens' turn, but they don't get fired on during your turn.

This appears to occur in both patched and unpatched dos versions as well as CE. Can anyone else test this out and return with their findings? What I'd really like to know is if this occurs in the Playstation edition as well, just to round things off.

While not unwelcome, it's certainly a most unbalancing feature. Note: This does not occur in UFO. -NKF 19:46, 29 May 2009 (EDT)

It's not the only aspect of reaction fire that's broken in TFTD of course. Probably this is a symptom of the general brokenness of reaction fire in TFTD - e.g. the underwater only weapons that reaction fire on land. I wonder how they managed to break it so comprehensively? And if it could be patched back together? Spike 11:29, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

Reaction fire on land with aqua-only weapons is more a case of not getting the job done thoroughly than breaking the reaction fire mechanic. See, reaction fire has always been a standard response for all off-turn units in this game that have a firearm. They made aqua only weapons through changing the fire commands by adding an extra set of conditions that check the depth of the map against certain items in obdata.dat before they let the gun fire. Sort of like the ceiling intersection check that grenades get before they're allowed to be thrown.

It's really the exact same issue that we have with the Gauss/Coelacanth arming bug: only got half of the necessary source code changes were done.

But yeah I do feel that the whole reaction fire element in TFTD feels a whole lot different from what it was in UFO. But that's probably caused by generally slower snap weapons and higher enemy stats. -NKF 03:37, 20 June 2009 (EDT)

Weirdly, I'm pretty sure that ALIEN HWP/SWP/4squares will trigger X-com reaction fire. How does the game differentiate xcom soldiers, aliens, civilians, 4 square aliens, and SWPs? Jasonred 02:57, 22 June 2009 (EDT)

There's enough information in the unitref/unitpos tables for the game to differentiate what unit's what and what sort of characteristics they possess. It might also have its own hardcoded ideas of what certain unit types are capable of (such as tentaculats being able to zombify when the AI uses its built-in melee attack command).

I think there are two similar but separate reaction fire handlers. One that works during your turn and the other that works during the AI's turn. It's not apparent in TFTD due to the lack of auto weapons, but the AI controlled units get to choose auto-shots as a response in addition to the usual snaps. During the AI's turn, your reaction fire modes will only ever go with snapshots. This is what leads me to think that your reaction fire rules and the AI's rules are handled separately. -NKF 04:09, 23 June 2009 (EDT)

Well NKF that sounds slightly better - so do you think it's fixable? I guess for that we need to wait until Seb76, or some other enterprising coder, tackles TFTD. Spike 11:51, 22 June 2009 (EDT)

Seb76 has done leaps and bounds, if not miracles, with his loader so far so I wouldn't be surprised if it evolves enough to eventually reroute the reaction fire handler to a better one. -NKF 04:09, 23 June 2009 (EDT)

I've just played my TFTD, I shot a Lobsterman with my Displacer Gauss from within his sight radius and he returned fire twice, and in fact killed my displacer. Jasonred 20:47, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

Are SWS worth it in TFTD?

From my recent playing experience on Superhuman, the answer is a resounding YES.

Firstly, when you are starting out, the survivability of the tanks is immense. Soldiers cannot even compare their armor and HP, even with Aqua Plastic Armor and Medi-Kits and getting HP from combat experience. As for Displacers, they have 12 less armor on the front than Magnetic Ion Armor, but much more armor on all other locations. And they have HUGE HP. They are much more likely to survive a severe beating than an Aquanaut, and in the event they do survive, they are immediately repaired at base, compared to Aquanaut's being weeks in hospital.

Tanks are also immune to MC and morale failure. (unless they kill aquanauts by accident). This is VERY useful before you get MC labs.

Tanks are immune to zombification. Considering the huge boost that Tentaculats got compared to Chrysalids (flying and extra 20 reactions and much harder to kill), having units that are immune to Tentaculats is a HUGE advantage during missions where they reside. Also, TFTD generally has more hard to destroy nooks and crannies where Tentaculats love to hide. A tentaculat CAN damage a Displacer, but usually won't be able to kill it in 1 turn. I believe that Superhuman Tentaculats can mangle Coelanths quite efficiently. A zombification attack has a 100% chance of zombifying an aquanaut, making it the deadliest attack in the game, other than a DPL to a group of aquanauts. Also, Sonic Cannons lack of autoshot and super high TUs mean that a soldier will almost always not have enough TU to kill a zombie AND the resulting Tentaculat in 1 turn. If you have 2 soldiers in a group, and a tentaculat manages to get one of them, the other soldier is pretty much doomed. Whereas in EU, he could probably autoshot the zombie and then kill the Chrysalid in the same turn.

Tanks have better stats than rookies. In fact it takes quite long to get your soldiers better stats than a displacer.

Tanks regain full energy every turn. This is more important than in EU, because the maps are so much larger.

The tank will only cost you 400k ONCE. As long as it survives, there is no monthly salary, like soldiers would have. The fact that a tank is much more likely to survive multiple months compared to soldiers helps too.

PWT Displacers are much weaker than a DPL armed soldier. However a D/PWT can carry 8 PWT without using any item space whereas the soldier would use up 8 item slots to carry 1 DPL and 7 ammo. That's 10% of your item limit.

Tanks SAVE ITEM SLOTS. It wasn't as big a problem in EU, where lasers have infinite ammo and Heavy Plasmas have 35 shots, but in TFTD, those 10 shots per Sonic Cannon Ammo do not get very far. You definitely need some reloads for each gun you bring into play.

Tank weakness: Cannot use M.C. Disrupters. Tanks also cannot fit through 1 space doorways.

Jasonred 20:47, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

Been playing a multiplayer game of TFTD recently and I have to say the SWS rock. They are not a necessity, but even the (unmodified) Gas Cannon Coelacanth is a fantastic machine for assisting (but not replacing) rookies at the start of the game. Cost-wise they're prohibitive, but that's less of a problem as you play. The Sonic Displacer is a truly valuable machine, and not just because it can fly on land.

I still haven't fully worked out what their game is with respect to enemy reaction fire though, as they seem to follow slightly different rules than the tanks in UFO from observation. I mean, look at their reactions and compare how often the Coelacanths attract reaction fire compared to 4 throw-away rookies with unpredictable reaction levels. -NKF 22:33, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

Multiplayer TFTD? How do you play that? Hot seat style controlling only the humans?

The Sonic Displacer can fly on land??? Really? I can't make mine fly during a base defence mission, could you double check this please?

I don't know how often rookies and tanks draw reaction fire. In fact, during my early playthroughs, I did not know that soldiers could shoot at stuff which they did not "acquire" and only shot at enemies with the flashing number on them. Ever since learning that you could snipe at enemies from far away, and that doing so meant that enemies could NOT reaction fire was a HUGE gamechanger for me. So, nowadays, I typically have the tanks as spotters and the troops just snipe at enemies from across the map. Oh yeah, it's weird how there's not much difference in accuracy between a target 20 tiles away and 30 tiles away... Jasonred 23:05, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

Multiplayer TFTD as in "pass the parcel" with the save-game. Worth pointing out that I've played through my last three or four missions by having a tank fly around and the rest of the squad sniping. TFTD maps are typically featureless, so it's usually possible to snipe from pretty much any point to any point.

TFTD tanks can indeed fly on land, including base defense missions. Though pretty much the only areas where theres room to fly in your base would be the sub-pens. -  Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 23:21, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

For the purpose of this discussion, can people clarify if they are using SWS buffed by XComUtil, or plain vanilla SWS. It makes a big difference as far as the weaker Coelecanth chassis is concerned. Nonetheless I tend to agree with Jasonred's arguments that the tougher aliens, tougher maps, lower aquanaut life expectancy and relatively tighter ammo carrying capacity improve the value of the TFTD SWS compared to the EU HWP. I tend to use them in TFTD and tend not to use them in EU. Spike 14:16, 8 May 2011 (EDT)

Isn't buffing the SWS with XComUtil cheating? I mean, SWS are already pretty strong, why do they get a massive buff? You might as well make Dart Pistols have infinite ammo, high accuracy, and do 200 damage... In the case of EU, I might see that an Xcom commander might insist on mounting the HWS Laser Cannon onto a flying chassis solely for it's ability to kill sectopods, but I don't see any reason for a Gauss, harpoon, or torpedo Displacer. Jasonred 15:18, 8 May 2011 (EDT)