User talk:Tauon

First artefact site

In a recent game the first artefact site was detected September 1st. I try to write a short account in order to extract info for improving the artefact wiki page later. Given that I can reroute my most experienced crack team with 6 good MC troopers(86,95,83,93,99,81 MCstr,100+MCsk) and two mediocre troopers(96MCstr both,72,78MCsk)and 6 field troops with 70+ MC str of with 5 have decent stats(max TU, 85+ FA) all wearing Mag Armor from their mission to retrive a fleet supply cruiser to arrive at daytime this should not be too difficult. Equipment: 2 TSL with 8 shots

8 MC disruptor 2 sonic canon 5 sonic rifle 6 sonic pistol preloaded with 1 mag no spare ammo 2 thermal taser 8 vibro blades 4 thermic lance yes thats a HTH weapon for each trooper (they are strong enough to carry it spare). 2 sonic pulsers, 1 Magna-pack(had left over which I wanted to use up) 2 GC preloaded with HE (used to deal with large terror units) 1 particle disturbance sensor 1 particle disturbance grenade 1 dye grenade 3 chemical flares 1 HJC with 2 phosphor mags 6 Medikits

no DPL - can use them if I find them. But I should be fine with what I got and pick from the corpses in the first stage.

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1st turn(XCOM):

opening the triton I see no alien in immediate vicinity. I sent one field trooper to the tail end of the triton to take a peek behind. Walks into 2! reaction shots from the same position. Damn I just reached the end of the ship - got a bit careless. Anyway the trooper is unharmed, and I tun to spot the offending tasoth and take MC it. The two sonic canon shots must have hit the front plate. Proceed to spot another 5 tasoths of which 2 are set in the 2nd and 3rd floor sniper loopholes/windows of a great pyramid. Have all throw their sonic canons away. Field troops spread out.

1st(aliens)

A aquatoid emerges from the ground floor entrance of the great pyramid and fires a TSL at on of my pets - hits but fails to drop it.

2nd turn X

reaffirm control over my 6 pets, spot aquatoid soldier, MC it, spot 5 more tasoth, MC them. Throw away 5 canons & 1 TSL. All 4 corners of the map revealed.Basic features of the map known. 1 large pryramid in the NE corner(lucky, could be 2, this is where most remaining aliens should be). 1 medium with open ground floor in the SE corner(Hallucinoid are often stuck in those, but it just had a tasoth). Triton parked W of it. Further west are the Exit pyramid and futher again the 3 small solid pyramids block. Three medium pyramids north of the exit pyramid those have only a top exit usable by small floating units - those rarely contain aliens. Two more of those in the NW corner. In the north is a slightly larger pillar pyramid those can be entered and usually contain hostile forces. No terrorist units so far - strange but I recall another 1st site without top level terrorists. Maybe the artefact incidents get harder as the game progresses? The map does not seem too large as well. Use 1 tasoth pet to scout 2nd floor of great pyramid a bit.

2nd turn A

nothing

3rd turn XCOM start drilling the tasoth and pillaging the corpses for pulsers and some more sonic canons. MC reader available as loot. MC the remainder. started scouting the 8 pillar pyramid. Started removing the 2 tasoths from the large pyramid.

3rd a nothing

4th X

should upgrade to thermal drills blades take forever to drill the tasoth. Decided to take a few readers as cash loot as well. continue the culling. Not enough carriers to loot everything I guess -would need a leviathan load for that. Found a second TSL armed Aquatoid soldier in the pillar pyramid. MC all surviving aliens. Starting to move aliens towards triton to simplify looting. Guess I will pay the price for an overfull object table later.

4th a nothing

5th X

Continue looting and culling. Made a mistake and lost control of 2 pets in the great pyramid.

5th a

1 failed MC attack on one of my field troopers.

6th x

Continue looting, moving to triton, culling. Found my lost pets. Send troopers in the big pyramid and towards the pillar one. If there were hostile forces in one of the medium one they should have announced their presence by now.

6th a nothing

7th x

Pillaged all sonic cannons except the two on the upper levels of the great pyramid, several pulsers, sc reloads. I will try to get the rest of the ammo and pulsers and leave the corpses behind. Aliens moved towardsthe triton srt to run out of energy. Surviving enemy forces under my control 4 tasoth, 2 aquatoid. should i revive a stunned sq ld for additional hth exp? Still no terroists.

7th a nothing

8th x

continue as planned. Each sq ld seems to carry a reader. Nice - another million - not that I need it.

8th a nothing

9th & 10th slay the 3 remaining aliens. There were no terrorists above ground. Only 2 aq soldiers with TSL,4 tasoth sq ld & 7 soldiers all armed with sonic cannons and pulsers. I retrived all alien weapons & spares except 2 sonic cannons for extra cash. Had room for those as well but that would have cost me another 5-6 turns to retrieve. Had to leave the 13 corpses. Well 12 - failed to revive the stunned sq ld with 10 shots. Grabbed it to test whether it gets killed in stage transition.

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On to the second stage. Equipment screen - drop some of the extra stuff: 4 reader, dead tasoth, 19 sonic cannon mags(looks like I won't run out of ammo), 6 loaded sonic cannons, 2 TSL. Make sure that each soldier has a pulser and a HtH weapon, gun in hand. Start.

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1st x

all except 2 troops in starting area(lvl 3). One on lvl0,one on lvl2. Unfortunately th one on lvl 0 is a MC trooper. Has already spotted one tasoth in a room next to him. Move the MC trooper on lvl0 back to lvl 3 since he was next to the elevators. Move all 6 field troops to lvl1. MC tasoth, drop weapon,move to entrance of SW module which is visible from the elevator lvl0 room. Part of target structure spotted from elevator - target room located in NE. 1st a hidden movement

2nd x

move field troops to lvl0, MC tasoth pet, use it to scout SE module -tentaculat spotted,MC it. got ourselves a great scout(full TU,energy). Use to scout lvl1 of 2 SE modules. SW module is one merged one(serveral modules form one big structure) - no hostiles. Park tentaculat where the troops can see it.

2nd a

tasoth spotted moving a sonic cannon reaction shot floored another one in the W-most module of 2nd row from the S.

3rd x

location of spotted Tasoth identified as W-most module of 3rd row from S. rush to the location wielding a vibroblade. target spotted & MC. block lift in small cabinet with trooper, tasoth drops weapon and blocks door. Regain control over pets. Move tasoth to 2r from S & 2nd from W module -hallucinoid spotted&MC. Another tasoth spotted&MC. Tentaculat scouts 3 from W(1 tasoth(MC&drop)) in bottom row & moves into symonium elvator chamber. Found 4 Aquatoid sq ld &1 soldier & 1 tasoth sq ld and 1 soldier as well as one tentaculat. So 1 alien in each of the 5 lvl1 niches and one in each lvl2 niches. Only 1 tentaculat is a bit on the low end though. There should be more. There are still more places they like to hang around. No hullucinoid at the elevator bottom only another aqutoid soldier. Yet another aq soldier at lvl2 elevator and gotcha another tentaculat in the chamber next to the elevator(tentaculats love this place). And a tasoth sq ld lazes around there as well. Newly found tentaculat checks the command center with the symonium device. Deserted as usual. So the elevator chamber should be clear. I should start to drill aliens because Irun low on MC capacity only 6 more shots. Wait - that means I got 18 pets. 7 aq(4ld, 3so) 1 hallu 7 tasoth(2ld,5so) 3 tentaculat and 1 stunned tasoth soldier(the one that got hit with the reaction shot) and there might be more.

3rd a hidden movement

4th x

lost 1 aq pet while scouting lvl1 of the large module. Found another tasoth soldier on lvl0 to replace it. Prepare culling.

4th a hidden movement

5th x

cull 3 tentaculat & check that they are dead. cull 3 aq. 3 pistol shots take care of the hallucinoid. cull 1 tasoth. Found tasoth soldier(no 7) on lvl1 big module with 3 morale :) .

5th a hidden movement

cull 4 tasoth 1 aq.

5th a nothing

6th x

After culling 3 tasoth i run into the disappearing corpses bug. kill 2aq. There might be someone in an unusual position in the wall. All dead except one tasoth(that i know of)

6th a nothing

7th x

slay last tasoth. It resurrects as invisible so I slay it again.

7th a all dead -> colony recovery.

Ok. alien deployment 2nd stage(21 total):

4 aq sq ld 3 aq so 1 hallu 2 tasoth sq ld 8 tasoth so 3 tentaculat

Thats 34 aliens total but i only get credit for 32 kills(1live, 1 died by friendly fire).

alien killed 32 corpses recovered 29 live recovered 1 synomnium device destroyed 1

item recovery: IBA 12 mag nav 1 sub const 1 cryo 6 impl 1 aqua plast 501 reani 3

score:2220 That does not include the loot. And i brought stuff from the first stage. All but the sq ld had sonic cannons. The ld were unarmed to ensure MC attacks I guess. There were plenty of pulsers and more MC reader and extra cannon mags.

Re: Strange events

The corpse appearing in the equipment pile is a throwback to a similar bug in UFO. Not sure what's happening, but I think there might've been a glitch with the equipment assignment that resulted in one of the corpses getting assigned to the equipment pile. Or the corpses coordinates consist of rubbish memory data that was in the same memory space that it is currently occupying.

The scaling trick - ws your aquanaut ground-bound and were there any other stairs the aquanaut recently climbed prior to this? If it's what I think it is, then it's probably the same collision detection bug where the game is completely oblivious of the unit's elevation change if it climbs up stairs or drops from a ledge while travelling. In some cases, the unit may end up partially in a tile and can scale a nearby wall that normally can't be climbed.

As for the bug where transporting an unconscious alien and then having it wake up in its original location - now that's a bug I have not been able to replicate in UFO after many tries. They might have changed the unit handling a little by now, and the actual unit stats along with its world locations aren't being updating to the coordinates of the body item when it wakes up. -NKF 01:07, 17 January 2011 (EST)

re: Reactions training

I've only ever played UFO, not TFTD, but I think your troops won't use reaction fire against MCed allies.

I've had some luck doing reactions training in UFO without the inventory trick by MCing disarmed aliens and putting them inside the UFO a little distance from the outer door. Aliens can't seem to resist going through doors, though they're usually fast enough to jump back in without getting shot. But I can usually get some reaction fire if I put two or three shooters in the right places just outside the door.--Ethereal Cereal 01:22, 17 January 2011 (EST)