Under The Hood

Information in this section cracks open the bonnet and attempts to explain the how and why questions on a variety of aspects of the inner workings of the games, such as formulas and other odds and ends like reproduceable game bugs or useful 'glitches'. (Note this does not include technical bugs)

As we don't have the source code, quite a lot of the information here is derived from a few lonely individuals with lots of paper, calculators, pens & pencils and plenty of time on their hands to run in-game experiments in order to spot numerical patterns.

General

• How the grenade timer works
• Where do area-effect weapons harm you?
• Damage calculations
• Calculating recovery time for injured soldiers
• Calculating accuracy
• How Reactions work
• Motion scanner blip sizes
• Psionics
  • How a psionic attack works
• Throwing distances
• Item weights and how they correlate with Strength
• Why Strength does NOT improve with more weight.
• Weapon comparison tables
  • Accuracy
  • Speed
  • Damage
  • Ammo capacity
  • Weight
  • Turret comparisons
• Fire. Just how does it work?

Useful Glitches, Workarounds or Just Plain Odd Stuff

• Straight lines and the equator - getting a little more range from your ships
• Stacking bug (UFO only)
  • Activating Melee Attacks
• The Medikit heal-through-wall trick
• Throwing items through the ceiling trick
• Consequences of firing explosives at the ceiling
• Hitting multiple targets with incendiary effects
• The oddeties of mind control
  • Why civilians go rogue
  • Large units
  • Gaining permanent control of a Chryssalid/Tentaculat