Talk:Tactical Exploits

While reading some of the other articles, I was reminded of the 'cloning' bug that can sometimes save a soldier without armour who only has 1 turn left to live by standing in smoke and hoping that they get knocked out and killed in the wrong order.

I can't seem to remember if this counts as an exploit, but thought I'd quickly jam it in here as a reminder before it fades from my mind.

Come to think of it - it's not really cloning. Perhaps corpse substitution would be a better term? Oh well.

- NKF 21:27, 13 November 2007 (PST)

Dead Man Switches VS. Zombies

Actually, it's been noted that on occasion, a Zombie will not drop the items the soldier was carrying. In any case, while the first dropped grenade may well destroy the Zombie(and possibly the spawning Chryssalid), it will ALSO destroy the SECOND grenade. This means that what you've really done is spawned a full power Chryssalid in a place you may not have line of sight to or have any immediate disposal options. This would generally be considered a VERY BAD thing.

On an auxiliary note, since explosives in TFTD cannot be destroyed by other explosives, this tactic would work quite admirably versus Tentaculats. Arrow Quivershaft 10:57, 16 May 2008 (PDT)

However, grenades are not powerful enough to achieve an automatic kill, so again, this is a dicey tactic.--Ethereal Cereal 11:51, 1 June 2008 (PDT)

Rookie agents wearing High Explosives with a dead man switch set can make for highly effective expendable shock troops when it comes to breaching UFO entrances and clearing buildings. Just remember not to allow them anywhere near other team members until they have disposed of the explosives. Smoke grenades could be used as an alternative if you want to avoid wrecking all the expensive alien technology. --Lobosolitario 04:33, 11 July 2008 (PDT)

Elevator Shielding

NOTE: contrary to the conclusions of this discussion, it would appear that Elevator Shielding is alive and well and is used in such well known wheezes as Alien Base Milking. Spike 14:08, 19 November 2008 (CST)

Hi Tonic, I think this is the first time we've met. Well met.

I've never heard of Elevator Shielding before. I'm not playing XCOM ATM but in my recollection, they readily shoot through elevators. At least, from upper battleship floors to lower ones.

Who else has seen this alien base elevator shield?

Thanks for contributing, tb! - MikeTheRed 21:29, 21 June 2007 (PDT)

I've never seen what Tonicboy describes, but I have had troops toasted from one floor of the battleship to another. In fact, any amount of time spent on battleship raids should teach that the aliens are at least programmed to shoot DOWN lifts, because I can't count how many times that precious Commander I was after went into the top floor lift room, tried to fire his Blaster Launcher down the shaft, and turned himself into KFC. Also have lost troops to Heavy Plasma shots. However, the entrance elevator on the alien base is smaller(2x2) than the elevator on an alien battleship(3x3). So I'll present three theories that might explain what Tonicboy is seeing.

1: Aliens can only shoot down lifts, not up.

2: Aliens need a specific 'width' of elevator in order to shoot up or down through, and the Alien Base elevator is too narrow.

3: Aliens can't shoot through a space that has a unit on it, regardless of whether there is the capacity for the shot to connect or not. What's keeping the aliens from firing is not the fact that they can't shoot up or down, it's that every space on the elevator is occupied by a soldier. This means that with 9 troopers, or 5 troops and a tank, you could replicate this situation on an alien Battleship.

I have no idea which theory is correct, but I just thought I'd offer my insight. Arrow Quivershaft 21:40, 21 June 2007 (PDT)

#3 doesn't make sense because they ought to be able to shoot at a unit.

re: #2: I did a little testing on a supply ship, and aliens didn't shoot down a lift at a soldier right below them. I think I saw them take shots when the soldier moved, although that might've been another alien I didn't spot.

I've definitely seen "lift immunity" in alien bases. Have all your troops retreat to the access rooms, plug up all the upper lift spaces, and watch the aliens swarm underneath without taking any shots. (Edit out Blaster Launchers first.) This is true for CE -- is it different for the DOS version?

--Ethereal Cereal 11:45, 22 June 2007 (PDT)

I think that blaster bombs ignore elevator shielding. can't be sure if any other weapons can, but I've seen them shoot down both battleship and alien base command center lifts with blaster bombs, and only blaster bombs.--(name here) 19:07, 26 November 2007 (PST)

Yes, but it does not have to be a Blaster Bomb; any weapon can shoot up or down a lift, unless it is one of those weird situations where the Alien could shoot at you, but it will not. - NinthRank 06:19, 27 November 2007 (PST)

elevator shielding is the name for those situations. but it does not seem to apply to aliens with blaster launchers. maybe aliens don't shoot straight up or down a lift?

Only for large 2x2 or 3x3 sized lifts (alien base and command room/battleship respectively). For these, they can fire at an angle with no trouble - and so can you. In the Collectors Edition, 1x1 sized lifts give them trouble on account of the bug that sends the blaster bomb to the south of the map when any attempt to set any waypoints above or below each other occurs. You can fire it up and down a 1x1 lift if fired at just the right angle, but the AI isn't smart enough to do that.

I don't think any shielding really occurs for the lifts, myself. At least, not in UFO. It may differ slightly in TFTD, so some observations would probably be needed to round it all off.

Has anyone tried reversing the positions of the alien and the soldier to see through the POV of the alien? It might just be that the alien has a harder time spotting a unit directly below it. Perhaps some heavy use of mind control, or even simply using XComutil's SWP command might be of some help here. - NKF 20:41, 27 November 2007 (PST)

Steam Downloaded Versions

If you don't know, the Steam Versions of X-COM are all run in DOSBox, so it should be treated as a DOS type game. I found this out the hard way during a base defense where a Blaster Bomb successfully made a vertical move and killed half my team. Muton commander 16:03, 28 November 2008 (CST)

You have it backwards. The vertical move thing is a CE issue, i think. --(name here) 17:04, 28 November 2008 (CST)

In the DOS version, if two Blaster Bomb waypoints are stacked right on top of each other(on different elevations), the BB will travel them correctly. When such is done in the CE version, the Blaster Bomb will instead travel directly south from its waypoint, which often means that the firer will blow themselves up(very common for aliens in elevators). Since the post implies he lost half his team to an alien BB, this would indeed confirm that the Steam versions are DOS in DOSBox. (Which also makes sense for all sorts of reasons; far easier to run DOSBox on most modern computers than try and make them run CE.) Arrow Quivershaft 18:26, 28 November 2008 (CST)

There is discussion of the Steam Versions on their own page already. The Blaster bug is fixed by Seb76's UFOExtender Loader, if you fancy a fair fight against the aliens. ;) Spike 16:21, 29 November 2008 (CST)

Milking Alien Bases

The vertical blaster bomb bug only works if the two waypoints are stacked on each other. There are some large gravlifts in both alien bases and battleships, and I've, on rare occassions, seen the AI successfully splatter large portions of my squad by firing diagonally up an extra-wide grav lift shaft. It should also be noted that there are two ways to determine how many aliens are left with some degree of accuracy. Knowing the difficulty you're on, you can count your kills and compare them to the complement of spawned aliens. This is a bit imprecise due to the somewhat random nature of spawns, but at least you know that if you're playing on Beginner, and have killed three terror units in an alien base, there won't be any more to kill, is nice(outside of a specific exception). You can also get an idea how many aliens are left by gauging the length of the alien turn. The alien turn will get increasingly shorter as the AI runs out of units to move. Arrow Quivershaft 15:03, 1 February 2009 (CST)

I sometimes find that if you skip lots of turns and do nothing, the alien turn will gradually shorten as well. Did this a lot back when I was arming all my grenades and then waiting a few turns before deploying. Bad move by the way for an 8+ grenades per team member. Don't follow in this madman's footsteps!

One way to ensure that the mission won't end suddenly is to knock out an alien, haul it back to the entry points and get it to wake up. That way you can safely wipe out everything else in the base and take your time picking up all your groceries before heading home. You can keep your captive in control by plugging the grav lift with a tank or have some folks stand guard on the lift below. -NKF 23:06, 1 February 2009 (CST)

Panicking Alien Location

This is noted as an exploit, which I suppose is fair enough if you're going 'by the book'.
But I've always thought of it as your guys either hearing some wail of despair off in a particular direction, or seeing the movement of a panicky critter flailing about or rocking back and forth behind a barrel or something.
Not so much an exploit imho, but rather your guys actually paying attention to thier surroundings.
Tifi 14:50, 2 February 2009 (CST)

Speaking as the person who added the exploit, I agree that is a logical explanation in some situations, where the alien is reasonably near you. But as killed aliens lower the morale of all aliens on the map, its entirely possible it could be in an area you haven't adequetely explored yet(inside the UFO, for example, or in a barn you saw briefly a few turns ago but have since moved away from) or no longer have units in(wounded alien that was knocked out and woke up and is now wandering around behind your lines with low morale from alien losses and his own injuries). But thanks for your take on it!

Also recall that an alien that panics may drop his weapon, which may make them less dangerous(Mutons, Floaters, and Snakemen who aren't carrying grenades), more dangerous(any of the above who ARE packing grenades) or extremely dangerous(any psionic alien who no longer has any other weapons.) Arrow Quivershaft 15:34, 2 February 2009 (CST)