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
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 AbilitiesEach 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.
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 ScreenWhen 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 ComparisonIf 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.
Phantom RadarWhat 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 SpanThe life span of the phantom radar lasts until the next base facility is built at that base. Phantom Radar: AdvantagesThe 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
|
Total Randomness
This is a work in progress
Just in case anyone's wondering what I'm doing here, I'm trying to make a template called the UFO Base Kit - or something like that. Seems okay, I guess. If you want to fiddle with it, feel free to do so.
Oddly enough, the Wiki software for this site doesn't allow default values for template parameters - so I have to manually enter 'dirt' for all the dirt sections. Ah well - next software update, I guess.
Possible entries
dirt lift lab workshop psi containment storage quarters
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.
Main page - distributions
Hi NKF. As you are thinking about the main page, could you add a place to organise "where to get it" / "distributions", and/or a place to talk about Steam? Thank you. Spike 03:20, 2 October 2008 (CDT)
- Heh, actually I was implementing something as you posted this. It's not the best and really just a hack of a solution, but it gets a link onto the main page that we can work with. It'll do for the present, but a more prominent location should be decided on eventually (I'm thinking as in an overhaul of the main page and moving the three main game menus into their respective pages). - NKF 03:34, 2 October 2008 (CDT)