User talk:NKF

NKF:Talk

Welcome to NKF Talk. NKF once asked the question "What is NKF Talk?" - he didn't have a clue, so he decided to make it up as he went along. NKF Talk is now NKF's personal but ultimately temporary soapbox for ... well anything NKF jolly well wants, but it will be for X-COM-related articles in this wiki, that's for sure.

NKF is referring to himself in the third person for no apparent reason - although is rumoured to be absolutely bonkers, which explains a lot.

P.S: NKF is not NFK. NFK is some weirdo that keeps stealing NKF's thunder. Also NKF doesn't have any hidden psychological meaning, and are merely initials.

The NKF-Centric TO-DO-List of Doom

• The first of the articles I'd like to see started is an "X-Com Apocalypse Starter's Guide", as I've been concentrating far too much on UFO and TFTD, might as well get started on the third game. I've written a lot about the subject on several different Apocalypse forums - it's high time to gather everything into one place. Where to begin? Time will answer that question. Hopefully not too much time.

• An article on radars to explain everything you need to know about them.
• Try to understand Wiki page transclusion to allow easy use of templates and all that.

Them Articles

Or rather, short paragraphs that will eventually lead to a larger article that may very well get a page of its own.

X-Com UFO Radar Info

Radars Hint For TFTD, substitute words where ever appopriate. For example, Radar with Sonar, Hyperwave Decoder with Transmission Resolver, etc. They have different names, but are essentially the same thing. Radars - and Terror From The Deep's radar parallel, sonar - can be installed in any of your bases for the purpose of detecting and then tracking enemy ships. Each base comes with three different radar abilities. Short, Long and Hyperwave detection. As would be expected, you can access these with the short and large radar systems, and the hyperwave decoder, respectively. Short and Long range detection function exactly in the same manner and Hyperwave detection provides the additional benefit of decoding UFO mission data. Radar Abilities Each radar can only add its abilities to the base once. Refer to the following table to see how the radars can build on each other. Table 1: Radar Ability Combinations Radar Module / Scan Type Short Long Hyperwave Small Radar 10 0 0 Large Radar 20 20 0 Hyperwave 0 0 100 Radar Combinations Sm + Sm 10 0 0 Sm + Lg 30 20 0 Sm + Hyp 10 0 100 Lg + Lg 20 20 0 Lg + Hyp 20 20 100 Hyp + Hyp 0 0 100 Sm + Lg + Hyp 30 20 100 This table was constructed by making multiple saves for each radar combination and then referring directly to the save game file for the radar values. Compare how different the values in the table are to text in the Ufopaedia. It can probably be assumed that the 10, 20, 30 and 100 values are in percentages. Therefore it we could say that 10 short range scanning will provide a 10% scan for every sweep of the radar. Once the UFO has been spotted, it'll be forever painted on your radar except when it drops out of tracking range. Radar Stats on the Base Information Screen When referring to your base details, you will see two bars representing the long and short range radars. The short range bar increases for every small radar system, and the long range bar increases for every Large Radar system and Hyperwave decoder. Although you are presented with this information, it is highly inaccurate and should never be relied on. The listing only counts how many radars are currently assigned to the base as opposed to the base's actual ability to locate enemy ships. Refer to the Phantom Radar section further along for more insight on how radars work. Brief Radar Range Comparison If we use the town of Novosibirsk as our point of reference, the tracking radius for the Small Radar can go roughly as far as Moscow. The large radar goes all the way to Berlin, and the Hyperwave Decoder can go as far as London and perhaps slightly beyond. Multiple Radars? Though it's natural to believe that installing multiple radars of the same type at a base will make your radarsmore powerful, they certainly do not. Refer to table 1 above. Notice how when two radars of the same type are combined that they do not provide any additional benefit over a single radar. This means that only one of each type of radar is able to stack its scanning abilities on top of another. In addition to the detection ability, multiple radars of the same type do NOT extend a base's detection radius or its tracking radius. Therefore, multiple radars of the same type do not work. The only multi-radar combination worth pursuing is the small and large radar combo. Once you get the hyperwave decoder, the small and large radar combo are immediately outclassed. Still, there's no harm in having a 30% and 20% contingency even if you've got 100% detection and the money to hang on to build the older modules. The only practical reason for including multiple radars of the same type would be for base layout purposes. The small radar, for example, has a clear corridor, making it a good place for combat with weapons that have a wide radius of effect. Questions on this: 1 Do you happen to know if the Radar Stacking bug also applies to TFTD Sonars? The BASE.DAT structure is different, and does not encode the detection strengths of the base there, so maybe they fixed it? 2 Now that the Radar Stacking bug is fixable (via Seb76's loader, or more crudely via my Python script), a new question arises - does it make any practical difference? Or do UFOs spend long enough inside detection range, that a 10% or 20% chance will always detect them? So at best multiple radars will give you a detection some fraction of an hour earlier, but not really increase total UFOs detected? Spike 03:43, 2 October 2008 (CDT) 1. Yes - they've moved stuff around and I think they increased the size of some entries from from words to dwords. Same thing happened with soldier.dat: They moved variables around and replaced a few 8-bit variables with 16-bit variables. So yes, TFTD base.dat still tracks short long and trans. resolver stats. 2. From personal experience, not really. The basic radars will pick up any enemy ship flying in their detection radii eventually. So yes, if you do want to make stacking radars useful, perhaps letting them pick up enemy ships faster would be the way to go. The HWD/T. Resolver just slams down a perfect 100 for detection ability, so it picks up enemy ships the instant they enter detection range. By the way, all my notes here are quite old and a lot of discussion on the radar mechanics has occurred since then. -NKF 03:59, 2 October 2008 (CDT) Actually, it would make a difference. While the regular radars are fine for detecting anything that's meandering around in the area near your base, anything that's just passing through will likely not be detected on your radars(something that can be very painful in 1-Mission X-COM.) So any UFOs just passing through your detection on their way to a mission won't be detected. Of course, on the counterpoint, since they're on a distance mission, they'll be moving pretty fast and you probably won't have the craft to be able to intercept them. Arrow Quivershaft 08:51, 2 October 2008 (CDT) To elaborate on AQ's response, all radars run their detection check every 30 minutes. In between those checks (on the hour and half-hour), nothing is detected. So every half hour the Hyperwave is perfect, but it's just as bad as the other radars on any other time slot. I would assume that if you have multiple normal radars of the same type (with a fix to allow them to work together) constructed, they would all separately run their checks every 30 minutes which would increase the chances of detecting a UFO within range. Having 10 small radars wouldn't guarantee 100% detection though, as each one still only has 10%. It's just that you have more radars which run their 10% check instead of one. Hope this makes sense. --Zombie 09:45, 2 October 2008 (CDT) The algorithm for (fixed) Multiple Radar stacking multiplies all the detection chances together, so 10 small radars have about a 65% short range detection chance. I'm tempted to try it to see if there is a discernible difference in number of detections. On the other question, can people confirm whether TFTD also suffers from a similar Sonar Stacking bug? Spike 10:44, 2 October 2008 (CDT) While I can't confirm explicitly, I'd suspect so. As a good rule of thumb, if it's a bug in X-COM(DOS version), it's also a bug in TFTD. Microprose's team did a 6-month face lift of UFO to resell it; very few bugs were fixed, just the appearance was changed and the weapons rebalanced. The code wasn't touched much. Arrow Quivershaft 10:52, 2 October 2008 (CDT) Phantom Radar What is a Phantom Radar? A base with a phantom radar, as I've coined it, is a base that is able to continue detecting ships without actually physically owning the radar. This is achieved by removing your existing radars. The game will retain the base's radar ability until another radar, of any type, is built. Basically, you're retaining the ghost of your previous radar, or radars. The modules themselves do not retain the physically ability to detect ships. It's The base itself has the ability, however the game only assigns (and recalculates, if there are existing radars) the strength of the scanning ability at the moment a new radar module is built. If you want to test this yourself, start a new game and remove the default radar and let time run. Phantom Radar: Life Span The life span of the phantom radar lasts until the next base facility is built at that base. Phantom Radar: Advantages The advantage of removing the facility will be that you can downsize your base just that bit more, making it much easier to defend. Although this can be a disadvantage if your entire strategy hinges around the lower level layout of the module. Plus, the empty dirt module will start costing you money. The phantom radar is extremely useful if you choose to upgrade your radar from an older type to a new type by simply removing the old radar and building the new radar in its place. This avoids the Paying for Dirt bug. This only works as long as the next module to be built is the radar. Otherwise the base will be flying blind in the interim. Phantom Radar: Questions Is this cheating? Depends on how you look at it. You did pay for the scanning abilities in the first place - and the cost of a hyperwave module is not cheap! On the other hand, you no longer have to pay for the maintenance of the module (except for that 80k/month for Paying For Dirt unless you immediately built over it, in which case its lifespan is fairly short anyway). That's about as far as the cheating goes. I'd say it's cheating if you're having money trouble. If you're raking in more cash than you ever need to spend, it doesn't matter if you physically own the module or otherwise. Do I really have to do this? No, but it's good to know. And it stops you from being startled if your base continues to pick up enemy ships after removing the radars. Actually, it's the whole purpose of this article. You're a bit full of yourself sometimes, aren't you? Sad, but true. I do indeed like some types of cheese. Wait, what were we talking about?

Total Randomness

UFO Base Kit

This was a work in progress. This template allows you to construct UFO base maps of your own design to insert into any of the articles of your choosing. Great for base layout discussions.

Possible entries

dirt  
lift
lab
workshop
psi
containment
storage
quarters

(Hangar quarters 1 = NW, 2 = NE, 3 = SW, 4 = SE)

hangar1
hangar2
hangar3
hangar4

small_radar
large_radar
hyperwave

(Defense modules)

grav
mind
missile
laser
plasma
fusion

Here's an example.

;How you should NOT build a base: 
{{UBK|=
|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|hyperwave|=
|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|lab|=
|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|quarters|=
|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|workshop|=
|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|dirt|quarters|=
|psi|mind|stores|stores|stores|lift|=}}

Produces:

How you should NOT build a base

And just as a quick comment on this design: Thanks to the Base Disjoint Bug, all of the above modules will be sealed off from each other.

---

Another example of the template in its intended use:

The above are examples of my standard plain vanilla listening/intercept outpost. The module placement is completely random. There is no sense to it at all - except that they are as bare-bones as possible. Due to the small number of entry points, a few well placed rockets is all that's needed to clear a large chunk of aliens before things can get nasty.

Stats Card

This slot is reserved to rough out a unit specificaitons sheet.

Vital Statistics
Time Units	Lobsterman Soldier
Energy	56-82
Health	90-133
Bravery	90
Reactions	90
Firing Accuracy	60-81
Throwing Accuracy	21-87
Strength	62
M.C. Strength	70-86
M.C. Skill	35-43
Front Armor	0
L/R Armor	78-115
Rear Armor	8-24
Under Armor	8-24

I got to thinking of the old specs cards that you got with some toys, like GI Joes - they had dossier profile cards.

---

Enforcer Weapon and Power Up Upgrade Notes

Good lord, NKF has gone insane. He's playing Enforcer!

I thought I'd dump some notes I jotted down about the most important aspect of the game while I was playing it. The unlockables. May use them as basis for the articles in the Enforcer section. Some opinions thrown in unfortunately.

Begin!

The Enforcer comes with way too many overkill weapons for you to choose from. There are a few that can prove to be a hindrance if they were to randomly spawn in front of you as you're moving. Though there are many weapons to unlock and choose from, it's often better to stick to a core set of weapons so that you can benefit from the upgrades, and there will be less chaotic spread in random weapon spawn drops to choose from.

When choosing to unlock a new weapon (with the exception of the Nuker), try not to buy it unless you've got enough data points to get some or all of the upgrades as well. It is far less effective at its default level than at its mid or full level.

Laser Rifle/Autocannon

Nothing special about this weapon except that you come armed with it when you're out of ammo for the other weapons. The Autocannon upgrade doubles the rate of fire and makes the shots a bit more erratic. It sounds like it spews out more ammunition than it really does, but still a vast improvement over the laser rifle in every way, and can stack up on its own when souped up with the damage intensifier. Upgrade as quickly as you can, but not at the expense of other more important upgrades or power ups. As the Enforcer is quite taller that most common enemies, you often have to use mouse-look to lower the aim a little.

Blade Launcher

Default unlocked weapon. Probably one of the more useful unavoidable pre-unlocked weapons due to its homing ability and data point pickup. It's weak, but its ability to home in on targets targets and boomerang on them means that you can fire a series of them into a mob and clear them out fairly quickly. Best upgraded as quickly as possible. A good lazy weapon to run into if you've in between your super weapons.

Flame Thrower

Everyone wants a flamethrower in X-Com apparently - so we've got one. Default unlocked weapon. Probably one of your weakest unavoidable weapons as you may find yourself cursing it the most. It's very annoying if you're in the middle of a hot streak with your rocket launcher when a randomly spawning flame thrower suddenly appears in your path. It should be maxed as quickly as possible as you do not want to be slowed down during a heated battle. When upgraded it chews through ammo faster as it fires three jets of flame. Visually impressive, good against mobs of low hit point enemies. Less so against tougher enemies and bosses. Enemies can block flames. Not particularly hot-streak friendly.

Shotgun

A great weapon and often a favourite. Fires a bunch of pellets that spread out as they travel. Quite powerful up close and a good way to pelt groups of easier enemies. This weapon benefits from the mouse-aim, as firing at a downward angle allows you to catch a nearby enemy with more pellets, which would usually just fly off over their heads. Best avoided on harder levels as it becomes less effective against mobs. On easier levels, it's a great way to lazily attack a bunch of weak enemies in front of you. Ammo lasts a fair while. Do not recommend getting this on harder levels, and there are much more powerful weapons available.

Freeze Gun

Not so much a weapon as a tool for stalling enemies by freezing them. They do get damage as the ice thaws off, and the thicker the coat that you lay on and the more you upgrade the gun will increase the damage. Upgrades increase the area effect nature of the ice ray, however this is not a proper area effect weapon per se. For example shooting the ground won't freeze enemies near the blast area, but hitting an enemy will. Useful for fleeing or when there are too many enemies spawning that you need to stall the respawning for a moment. Great for timed or protect missions where you need to endure the clock. Frozen enemies block the ice ray so the iced up enemies can prove to be a hindrance. This is especially true if you are surrounded by fast melee attackers like Snakemen and you've iced yourself in and the freeze ray keeps acquiring the frozen targets instead of the ones that are attacking you. Bosses do not really get affected by the freeze ray. Can be used on harder difficulty levels like XtraSpicey where there are lots of enemies to freeze. Definitely not a Hot Streak friendly weapon because it does not excel at causing damage.

Mass Driver

Fires little purple balls that bounce off walls. Upgrades increase bounce, rounds shot per attack and ammo capacity. Fully upgraded it's like a shotgun and can rapidly pound out energy balls - however immensely more powerful than the shotgun. Great indoors, and amazing against mobs of enemies. Not terribly powerful against bosses, but them's the breaks. Only downside is that ammo runs out very quickly. Reminds me of Contra's Spread gun, with added bounce.

Fusion Rifle

Linear beam rifle. Moderately powerful, instantaneous so is very accurate. Upgrades add small explosions when hitting walls and later when hitting enemies. Sniper-rifle, if you will. Good for cutting paths through mobs of enemies. Reminds me of a particular Unreal Tournament linear energy beam weapon (unsurprising as Enforcer uses the Unreal engine). Can benefit from activating mouse-look to get the aiming cross hairs to make more precise attacks.

Lightning gun

Quite an unusual but extremely useful short range weapon. It stuns enemies that it catches in its purple electric beam as long as the electricity is flowing. Upgrades allow it to zap more nearby targets. Fully upgraded, as many as nine enemies can be caught this way. Lots of ammo so it can last quite a long time before you need to pick up another weapon. Works well at taking small chunks of health out of bosses but will not stun them. Although there are better weapons available, it can be used on harder difficulty levels to great effect as it can methodically wipe out chunks of mobs easily. It is reasonably good for hot streaking as most enemies will not be able to fight back, thus keeping the hot streak bar safe.

Vibroblade XL

XL probably means X-tra Large, but that's just speculation. A propeller blade that rips apart anything that the Enforcer runs into. Part defensive, part offensive. Does continuous damage as propeller spins. Upgrades allow the propeller to deflect light enemy fire back at them. That's not very powerful in itself, but is mainly to deflect the damage away from you- which is useful against Sectoid plasma fire or rapid fire enemy weapons. You can cut a channel through easier enemies with the Vibroblade XL effortlessly. Tougher enemies will require more persistence. Really tough enemies should be avoided and engaged with ranged weaponry.

Grenade Launcher

Arguably one of the most entertaining weapons in your arsenal in addition to being quite a formidable weapon. Definitely a weapon you should try in at least one of your play-throughs. It launches small grenades that detonate on contact. The more upgrades, the more grenades are launched per shot. Individually, the grenades aren't very powerful, but as more grenades come out, the faster enemies will fall. Good speed and jumping can let you jump over mobs of enemies while raining down grenades over them. Works reasonably well on higher difficulty levels. Mini bosses fall easy to it - major bosses need more damage.

Rocket launcher

Your stock powerful weapon. Each successive upgrade adds more missiles that are fired (and spent) in each attack. Each upgrade adds different missiles, from the standard missile, seeker missiles and drunken missiles. The net effect is that a lot of firepower is thrown out at once. Not as powerful on a wide scale as the Nuker, but formidable nonetheless and a bit longer lasting. Great against mobs as missiles are fired everywhere.

Psi Cannon

A slow but moderately powerful weapon that fires a psionic blast that travels through targets. Projectile is misleading as it looks smaller than it really is. Enemies caught near the projectile can get hurt. The attack itself is quite strong and upgrades will make it detonate on hitting a solid wall into a big psionic explosion. Another upgrade will cause it to toss enemies away that don't get destroyed by the blast (except for really big enemies like the giant reaper and bosses). Useful against large mobs. Powerful, but probably not worth the data points spent to unlock and upgrade it as there are cheaper alternatives as well as the Nuker.

Nuker

Way-WAY too powerful, thus probably the most fun to use weapon. Literally wipes out mobs of enemies in one shot, thus great for combo kills and hot streaking. Balanced by having a low ammo count, but upgrades and enforcer ammo upgrades can increase amount. The mouse-look can be used effectively to drop a nuker missile right at your feet in order to clear the air around you quickly. You don't need to upgrade it too much if you're low on data points as the upgrades only add more ammo, which can be added via the enforcer's extra ammo upgrade for less the cost. Also due to the rapid respawn rate of weapons, you'll have another fresh Nuker in no time. Use in combination with the hot-streak helper when fighting mobs of basic enemies, and the damage intensifier when fighting bosses if at all possible.

Power Ups

Repair Pack

The most useful power up available. Upgrade it a few times to make each pickup more effective. Combined with the self-repair upgrades, this will keep the Enforcer alive and happy for the rest of the game. Concentrate more on this than the self-repair upgrades at first, as this is cheaper. This power up is unlocked for free.

Hot Streak Helper

Increases the rate that the hot streak bar increases. Hot streaking gives you a random powerup at set intervals as long as hot streak is in effect, with the exception of the Lazarus system, Bio Magnetic Pulse, Missile Strike, Stasis field and Invulnerator. It also temporarily upgrades weapons that have are not fully upgraded yet. Though not an essential power up, the free temporary upgrades you get while in hot streak mode are very helpful. Note that any upgrade you get will be at the same level as what you've upgraded them to. Unlocked power ups are treated as level 1.

Speed Booster

Increases your running speed. A free power up that does not need to be unlocked. Not the most important upgrade available, but handy and you do not have to upgrade it unless you have the data points to spare.

Damage Intensifier

Increases damage. Each upgrade increases the multiplier, up to a maximum of 8 times the normal attack. Definitely worth unlocking and upgrading as quickly as you can as it allows weaker weapons that aren't mob friendly like the laser rifle/autocannon and shotgun make a complete turn around. Not as important with overkill weapons like the nuker or fully upgraded rocket launcher, but extra damage cannot hurt against bosses.

Lazarus System

This power up refills your health if the Enforcer just happens to get killed during the game. A free life if you will. It's not needed, but if you find yourself getting the Enforcer killed regularly, then it can be useful. Otherwise there are better upgrades and power ups to spend data points on.

Data Point Multiplier

This power up multiplies every data point you pick up. At maximum level you can multiply data points up to 5 times their amount. Definitely well worth getting this on your first few times playing through the game as more data points will mean you can buy more upgrades goodies. If you've unlocked all your technology, researchable artifacts will be worth 1000 data points. Be absolutely sure to look for a multiplier before you pick up the researchable item if at all possible.

Bio Magnetic Pulse

This power up simply wipes out every enemy in your area in an instant. Handy but considering how much damage you'll be doing to the enemies already, may be redundant.

Stealth

This power up hides you so that enemies won't be able to acquire you so easily. Could be handy for building up the hot streak bar as you won't get shot at so much. Best obtained if data points permit.

Missile Strike

Launches an air strike and the area is blanketed in missiles. Similar to the Bio Mag Pulse in function, but not as instantaneous.

Stasis field

Freezes enemies around you. A great power up to give a few sucker punchs. Not strictly necessary but useful all the same.

Attack Bot

Those familiar with side scrollers like Gradius will be familiar with these. An independent weapon pod will orbit around the Enforcer. It is equipped with a laser rifle and will fire every time the Enforcer pulls the trigger, effectively increasing firepower. Upgrades increase the amount of laser beams. Worth getting - and as usual data points permitting.

Invulnerator

Since the time of mindless shooters incarnate, there have been invulnerability devices. This power up temporarily makes you invincible - except against falling into an endless pit.

Enforcer Upgrades

Max Speed

Upgrades the Enforcer's moving speed. You'll rarely need to buy any upgrades, but if the Enforcer just isn't moving fast enough for your play style, then it's worth spending some data points on a few speed upgrades.

Jump Jets

Increase your jumping height. Worth upgrading as much as possible for the purpose of dodging incoming fire. You have to upgrade these in order to get to some hard-to-get-to places to get BONUS balls or Researchable Items.

Ammo Capacity

Increases ammo. Due to the frequency that weapons respawn, probably not necessary. Some low ammo weapons like the Nuker would benefit from the increase, and some weapons that eat through ammo like the Grenade Launcher and Mass Driver could benefit from a larger ammo cap.

Auto Repair

Repairs the Enforcer slowly over time, up to but not beyond 100 hitpoints. If you often get your hitpoints knocked under 100 and are constantly on the run for a repair pack, then having auto repair would be beneficial. Otherwise, spending data points on repair pack upgrades would be more efficient at first.

Armour

Increases hitpoint capacity. You do not have to have more than the base 250 capacity to beat the game, it's always good to have more hitpoints. Concentrate on other upgrades first.

Professor's Choice

A set of variable one-off upgrades. The first increases your starting hitpoints to 200. The second upgrades your laser rifle into the autocannon. The final upgrade increases random weapon respawn rate. It's worth upgrading to the autocannon, though concentrate on your major weapons first.

Main page - distributions

NKF, thank you so much for all that great Apoc advice. Would you mind if I moved parts of it onto the Wiki? There is a real dearth of even basic Apoc information anywhere I can find. If I can post your points verbatim and signed as Discussion, in appropriate categories, it will be hugely useful. Spike 03:27, 17 October 2008 (CDT)

Some of it might need touching up, but go ahead. It'll add something to work off in the rather bare Apocalypse section. Some new sections like explaining how psi in Apocalypse works might also be in order, so if any come to mind please do suggest them. -NKF 03:52, 17 October 2008 (CDT)