User talk:NKF

NKF:Talk

Welcome to NKF Talk. Pardon the mess.

The NKF-Centric TO-DO-List of Doom

• "X-Com Apocalypse Starter's Guide" - kind of there. Kind of not there. Perpetually.

UFO Base Kit

The UBK is a transclusion template I created so that you could plug base layouts into your articles and discussions. Go see the template and its documentation at Template:UBK to see how to use it.

Test of Gallery markup

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Now with adjustments

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Note to self: The new wiki software is really case sensitive these days! A good thing in one respect.

Smoke Grenades

IMO they're only useful turn 1. And even that goes out the window if you have a tank. A tank is worth it in the early game, if only because it draws alien Plasma Pistol fire away from your squishy unarmoured dudes. Later on, though, when you have armour and the aliens switch to Heavy Plasma, tanks become less useful and you can bring out the Smoke Grenades. Magic9mushroom (talk) 00:02, 22 August 2014 (EDT)

Like the tank (or 4 rookies, for the budget conscious), the smoke grenade is just another tool at your disposal that you can use depending on how you like to play. The smoke grenade is certainly most useful for the initial deployment, but that's not so say that is the only time you can take advantage of it. I know I've had many occasions where I managed to save a bunch of soldiers that were stuck out in the open in full view of some aliens by throwing a smoke grenade between them. The Smoke Grenade page has some scenarios listed. NKF (talk) 03:26, 22 August 2014 (EDT)

Four rookies die to four plasma pistol shots or one alien grenade. A tank can take either and keep trucking. It's also faster.

I guess Smoke Grenades are okay if they're pre-primed and kept on the shoulder straps. Otherwise there's too big a TU cost to use opportunistically. Turn 1, on the other hand, you're not doing anything anyway because of all the full-TU aliens.

At least we can agree that Dye Grenades are terrible! Magic9mushroom (talk) 05:59, 22 August 2014 (EDT)

I'd take the tank myself as it has plenty of merits, and the later Plasma Hovertank/Sonic Displacer are superb. However those that prefer 4 rookies do argue that they are cheaper, can spread out, carry more weaponry and still take the 4 (or more) shots to dispose of. Those that live through can go onto greater things. The tank just needs one bad roll of the die and it ends up a very expensive afterthought. Bit of a RTS peon pumper meat grinder mentality going on here methinks.

Grenades are in the same boat as the smoke grenade and do cost a lot to use. That's probably why they are best relegated to the support units that back up those on the front. Then again, front-line units carrying pre-armed grenades are handy for ninja-style retreats. NKF (talk) 16:21, 22 August 2014 (EDT)

Well, like I said, the main advantage of the tank is against aliens with Plasma Pistols at the very start of the game. A tank's front plate is guaranteed to survive at least 7 Plasma Pistol shots even if they all roll absolute max (which they won't), so you can park it on the opposite side of a UFO hatch to your firing line, close in, and draw fire from the aliens coming out until they use too many TUs and get reaction-fired to death (since on Superhuman, alien Reactions are usually high enough for them to avoid taking reaction-fire from stepping out of the hatch alone). In addition, you don't lose a huge amount of firepower by going with a tank right at the start since its cannon does twice the damage of Rifles. Once you've got lasers, the tank starts to hurt your firepower significantly, and once you've got decent armour and the aliens start using heavier weapons the defensive qualities of the tracked tanks go down the drain.

HWPs do have something of a renaissance later on when you get Avengers and are running into the 80-item limit, since a hovertank, while not reaching anywhere near the firepower of four Heavy-Plasma-equipped soldiers, does have more firepower than four soldiers without guns. Hovertanks/Launcher also don't count their ammo against said limit.

In TFTD it's a whole different kettle of fish thanks to the existence of Tentaculats and the lower fire rate of Sonic weaponry. Displacers/Sonic are absolutely essential due to their ability to lure Tentaculats - taking Artefact Sites without them is almost impossible thanks to That Goddamned Room. There's also the lower clip sizes making the 80-item limit an even bigger problem.

A pre-loaded Small Launcher does a lot of the same stuff a pre-armed Grenade does, and has the upside of taking the "suicide" out of "suicide bomb". There are a lot of ways to use those things. Magic9mushroom (talk) 21:49, 22 August 2014 (EDT)

Small Launchers are certainly quite handy beyond just capturing key aliens, and the Thermal Shok Launcher in TFTD is scary indeed. But they have their own share of drawbacks as well. Deciding which to use to get the best result for the task at hand is all part of the fun I guess. NKF (talk) 03:18, 25 August 2014 (EDT)

Geocities site?

Hi. I suppose there's a good chance you might be the "nkfarma" who at one time had a page i found linked on the strategycore forums -- specifically http://www.geocities.com/nkfarma/temporary/lsc_lure.html . Did you ever manage to get those geocities pages moved to a different host? -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 11:47, 9 April 2015 (EDT)

The same. It has been a while, but I did manage to save some of the content. After reviewing it though, it was mostly trivial stuff. My most important work that was on the old Geocities page, the TFTD Research Tree Bug Avoidance Guide, survives in its current form on this wiki. NKF (talk) 02:53, 10 April 2015 (EDT)

Okay, i trust your judgement on this, even though my curiosity still makes me want to read through all that other "trivial stuff"...

As for the revert issue, your first paragraph about it is just as sensible as i presumed any admin would be. Contacting Spike just for this is not worthwhile IMO, since he's been inactive since August and this really is quite "trivial stuff" too. It's not too big a deal if the sections stays or goes... I reverted merely because i'm an inclusionist (as you might have guessed) and favour preserving all information, even if obsolete. As the saying goes, "Those who cannot remember the past are [more likely] to repeat it." -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 07:25, 10 April 2015 (EDT)

The files I recovered were mostly the media files. Some .gif and .jpgs. Mainly game screenshots and a few fan-art scribbles I did on the back of some envelopes. Two zip files containing UFO save files, one being my "Solo Floater Base Assault Challenge" and one labelled scratch.zip. A no-base start file. I still use the challenge save on occasion to relearn how to play after long periods between games. There is a html file called The Deep One Dilemma - which was the basis for research tree bug avoidance guide. Also a grenade guide I had started but only ever got round to writing up the grenade relay. That's about it. NKF (talk) 23:15, 10 April 2015 (EDT)

Pile of calcs

So I did a thing and I think it's fairly important, but I'm not really sure where to put it or what to link to it. I'm thinking call it Weapon Effectiveness (TFTD) and stick a link to it in Weapon Analysis; is there anywhere else you think it should go? Magic9mushroom (talk) 19:32, 27 April 2015 (EDT)

I did give this some thought as you were compiling the data. It can certainly be included on the Weapon Analysis page. However, I'm also thinking that the information is quite relevant to TFTD so could also take a place on the main TFTD menu. For example, if you look at the UFO section's technical section under data tables, there's a Kill Modelling subheading that follows slightly similar lines. I am however starting to wonder if that fits the data table category. Perhaps a sub heading under Analysis might be best? NKF (talk) 01:57, 28 April 2015 (EDT)

Well, the difference between this and all the data tables currently there is that this is a set of calculations rather than raw game data. And it's less like the weapon analyses we have than part of the framework on which they're based. I think I'll stick a "See also" in the TFTD section of Weapon Analysis and link it on the main TFTD menu. Magic9mushroom (talk) 06:14, 28 April 2015 (EDT)

Sorry, I was thinking aloud at the end there and forgot to put the context. I was wondering about where Kill Modelling fits in. Like your table, it's not raw game data as such. NKF (talk) 01:46, 29 April 2015 (EDT)

VIGILO CONFIDO

You say on the main page that you found VIGILO CONFIDO hidden somewhere on the Advent page. I would appreciate you specifying where those words are hidden so people can check themselves. PizzaMan (talk) 04:17, 30 May 2015 (EDT)

To be honest, I usually steer clear of promotional pre-hype until the games are finally out, so have been avoiding it. Hobbes, who added that item to the news, may know more about it. However I had a quick look anyway, and one of the links the site points to https://downloads.2kgames.com/adventfuture/images/en/ADVENT_LIES.html has part of the clue. It's just a bit of treasure hunt. NKF (talk) 04:50, 30 May 2015 (EDT)

[1] Hobbes (talk) 19:19, 30 May 2015 (EDT)

Sunken plane?

I noticed you added a TFTD bug about "sunken plane missions". What in blazes is a "sunken plane mission", and why do they have different versions of their right wings? I have no clue what you're on about. Magic9mushroom (talk) 06:58, 25 August 2015 (EDT)

I'm referencing the mission where you are recovering or assaulting an alien sub while fighting around the wreck of a sunken cargo plane. If you haven't seen it before, try looking for it. It's quite neat. There are a couple different versions of its wings.

See, when the Geoscape.exe portion of the game generates this map, it creates a 5x5 grid that forms the map outline. Each grid location is a 10x10 map chunk. Tactical.exe uses this outline to create the actual map you end up playing on.

When populating the map outline, the game first marks off the area of the map where the X-Com sub and alien sub will go. Then it attempts to install the left and right wings of the plane into the map, followed by the various parts of the fuselage and finally fills in all the holes with random 10x10 map blocks in the terrain set.

Each wing is a 20x20 map block. If it is not able to install the wing, say one of the subs is in the way, it will then try to use the small 10x10 version of the wing. If there is no space in the location it wants to place the small wing, then nothing is placed.

The installation of the left wing of the plane works fine. However, when it gets around to installing the right wing and it fails to place the big wing and tries to place the small wing, instead of checking the exact destination to see if it the area is free, it checks the completely wrong part of the map. The block at 1,1 (which I have incorrectly stated as 0,1 in the article). This means that the small right wing could potentially overwrite anything that may be in that spot.

Most of the time you probably will not even notice the difference even if the bug had occurred. But if the small right wing overwrote the landing area for your Triton for example, you'll start the map with odd bits of the wing around the Triton. Luckily the game places the Triton after the wing, otherwise I imagine you'd start the mission with floating Triton bits and your Aquanauts standing on the wing. At it is, it ends up looking like the Triton's forced its way into the wing.

Again, players might not notice this as a bug, considering the chaos of debris around the map. NKF (talk) 02:07, 26 August 2015 (EDT)

Ah, now I get you. Magic9mushroom (talk) 21:20, 26 August 2015 (EDT)

Do you have a hex address where this error occurs? -Tycho (talk) 21:43, 26 August 2015 (EDT)

Myself, no. But check this post on Strategycore for the discussion. If for some reason that link doesn't take you direct to the post, it should be on page 2. NKF (talk) 01:50, 27 August 2015 (EDT)

Drills

You mean they cost 5% TU more than we thought, and we missed it for years? Holy crap... Magic9mushroom (talk) 04:28, 22 September 2015 (EDT)

I know. Considering the drills rank amongst my favourite weapons in this game, I'm surprised I only just noticed this error. NKF (talk) 04:47, 22 September 2015 (EDT)

With this discovery, the drills' damage-per-TU is actually in strict ascending order (Vibroblade < Thermic Lance < Heavy Thermic Lance). Not that it particularly matters, of course, since most aliens are substantially overkilled by a Heavy Thermic Lance hit. Still, any objections to fixing the outdated claim that Vibroblades are the best and Thermic Lances are the worst? Magic9mushroom (talk) 05:49, 22 September 2015 (EDT)

On reflection, referencing a very old copy of the game that I'd heavily tinkered with (for the purpose of researching research!) may not have been the wisest reference to look up. Doh. Sorry, false alarm.

As to the best and worst of the drills, that is somewhat subjective and depends entirely on what you're fighting. Weak enemies and lobstermen for example are better dealt with by Vibroblades, as it provides a more efficient use of TUs. Enemies with more protection on the other hand make a good argument for the Thermic Lance. NKF (talk) 06:18, 22 September 2015 (EDT)

"Which drill is the best in which circumstance" is, indeed, one of the things I did that huge pile of calculations for. Magic9mushroom (talk) 00:49, 23 September 2015 (EDT)

Spambot missed?

I noticed you didn't ban one of the five spammer accounts in the recent attack (the one whose name started with a phone number). Did you miss it? Magic9mushroom (talk) 01:21, 8 February 2016 (EST)

I got it. I just hid the log by mistake. The bots left a bunch of pages with very long titles after they signed up. This left a lot of clutter on the Recents page after I deleted them, so I had them hidden. Unfortunately the tool for tidying up the Recents page is very rudimentary and doesn't tell you what you're updating apart from the name of the person that did the update. NKF (talk) 02:22, 8 February 2016 (EST)

Okay. My mistake. I saw the pages, though. Oh god did I see them. Magic9mushroom (talk) 04:16, 8 February 2016 (EST)

Holy crap, that was a lot of them. Anything we can do to block the flood of 'em? --Xuncu (talk) 01:28, 10 February 2016 (EST)

Holy crap indeed. Not a lot at this stage, I'd rather not anyone edit the spam. At the moment I'm indiscriminately blocking anyone creating or editing these pages so I don't want to accidentally block a legit user. I've sent a message to Pete about the situation, hope he sees it soon. NKF (talk) 01:44, 10 February 2016 (EST)

Soon as we were back online, started getting this, from Symatec/Norton, I didn't get it before:

• Threat Name: Trojan.Gen
• Location: <deleted>
  Xuncu (talk) 23:13, 17 February 2016 (EST)

My copy of Firefox is blocking the link as well, seems it's been reported as malware. Will post a message on the forum about it. The previous iterations of the file seem all right. NKF (talk) 23:35, 17 February 2016 (EST)

Tvol-bot

Thanks for the update. I promise to keep using it wisely. (This is good news too because I found-out MS Paint's eyedropper tool lies so now I have to run through the ability images again to get the colour right. >.< ) --Tvol (talk) 02:48, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Ran into some issues. Please see User_talk:Hobbes#Image_Strangeness if/when you have a moment. --Tvol (talk) 22:19, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Deletion request

Hi, I accidentally uploaded a file with the wrong name; I've moved it to the proper page now, so could you please delete the old page? I mean this one: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=File:Tacp_000.png&redirect=no Darkpast (talk) 17:39, 30 June 2020 (UTC)