Talk:Triscene

For some reason, Triscenes may be present in UNITREF.DAT but not seen in the tactical game. It may be a game bug, and one of reasons for which they are so rare in some campaigns. See File:Nstm.zip savegames for testing, explanation inside the archive.

Sherlock 20:27, 30 January 2013 (EST)

I would guess this is down to a shortage of spawn points.

Not all route nodes work as spawn points. Of those that do, many have restrictions placed on them so that they only accept certain types of units (eg, if a node is too close to a wall, or in an enclosed area, it might not be able to support large four-tile units).

The Triscenes are near the end of the unit list, so by the time the game gets around to spawning them, those places they could've gone have already been used up by their smaller alien brethren (nodes can't be flagged as "large units only"). With nowhere to go, they simply don't appear.

You can actually make a killing out of node shortages during base defence. If yours lacks enough nodes to place the alien forces after your own, then some (or all) of the aliens DON'T get placed, and so you've got a much easier battle on your hands. But - and this is a big "but" - that doesn't stop you from recovering all their weapons when you win!

-  Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 02:10, 31 January 2013 (EST)

Yes, and no. As MapView shows, the Cargo00 terrain (used for the first part of a cargo terror mission) contains 24 spawn points in total (in RMP), of which 3 are "any" (all on the second level), and 1 is "flying" (4th level); the other 20 spawn points are "small" (13 on the 1st level, 3 on the 2nd, 1 on the 3rd, and 3 on the 4th level of the map). So, the rmp file is buggy as does not give enough spawn points. Both the total number of spawn points and especially the number of spawn points for large units is too small.

In the first example given in my archive (1\GAME_4) we have 2 Aquatoids, 6 Tasoths, 3 Bio-Drones, 5 (invisible) Triscenes, 1 Xarquid and 11 Civilian Males. They all would need 28 spawn points, including 6 for big units (1 Xarquid and 5 Triscenes). None of the units is flying, so there is only 23 free spawn points. Indeed, only 23 units are spawned. This explains why 5 Triscenes are not seen in the game, if we assume that they are placed last.

But in the 2nd example (2\GAME_5) we have 2 Aquatoids, 6 Tasoths, 3 Bio-Drones, 1 visible Triscene and 3 invisible ones, 1 Xarquid, 11 visible Civilian Males and 1 invisible one, so 28 units (xcomutil.exe shows only visible units why X-Com Hack v3.1 shows all units, also the invisible ones). So, 24 units have spawned even if only 23 spawn points are available. Note that in this save game 23 small units are spawned like in the previous one, and they are exactly the same types of units - but, in addition, 1 Triscene can somehow be spawned as well. Why?

Conclusions: (1) Sometimes the game can place at least one additional unit even if no span points are left (and sometimes it cannot), (2) RMP files of TFTD maps are buggy as having too small number of spawn points. I am just working on a patched versions.

Sherlock 07:21, 31 January 2013 (EST)

Oops, Bio-Drones can fly! This can explain the point (1).

Well worth posting your findings & progress in this thread, assuming you haven't spotted it already. -  Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 08:06, 31 January 2013 (EST)

Twin Cannons?

Does it really carry twin Sonic Cannons, i.e. is its weapon in any way faster firing than a normal Sonic Cannon or something? Is it even a Sonic Cannon at all, or another weapon altogether? --Darkpast (talk) 16:26, 13 November 2015 (EST)