Messages

1

OXCE Support / Re: [OXCE] Help a noob understand vision, fog of war & spotting enemies

« on: October 19, 2021, 06:46:23 am »

the truth is, that quote isn't exactly accurate ...

the smoke is hiding the alien until you got closer, but smoke doesn't prevent the Fog of War from lifting at max distance ...

(there could also be other, more subtle things at play, since the 2 algorithms are, more or less, distinct in the hardcode)

Ahhh, I had not considered the effect of the smoke.  I didn't realize it would affect your ability to spot aliens even on tiles you reveal.  I thought it only made enemies harder to spot when they were actually standing inside a cloud of smoke.  I mean, it makes sense, logically your vision is going to be affected if you're standing in a cloud of smoke, but it's not exactly communicated clearly in the game 

I may have to rethink my "always smoke the bottom of the ramp" tactic.  Thanks for the info!

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OXCE Support / [Feedback] Help a noob understand vision, fog of war & spotting enemies

« on: October 19, 2021, 06:04:29 am »

I am enjoying my first playthrough of X-Com, and the OXCE mod is just dandy.  That being said, the vision/LOS system often has me puzzled.  The Ufopedia entry for "Sweeping the Battlescape" states this:

At the start of the battle, one of your advantages is that the black "fog of war" accurately marks everywhere you haven't checked for alien presence. Don't lose that advantage. If you sweep and clear the battlefield properly, every square that becomes and stays lit will be a square you don't have to check for aliens again. If you have holes in your sweep or perimeter, it's much more of a nightmare to catch that last alien -- not only do you have to check the black areas but also areas you've checked before.

My understanding is that once a square is revealed and is shown to be empty, that I can rest assured that there is no alien currently occupying that tile during this turn.  However, sometimes I will find aliens after moving closer to a revealed tile on that same turn!  Observe in this ~30 sec clip I recorded (which hopefully works properly):


Backup streamable: https://streamable.com/oql364

The square between the tree and fence was clearly revealed by my tank as it was coming down the Skyranger's ramp.  I assumed it was therefore devoid of any Heavy Plasma-toting Sectoid.  However, as I scouted further, lo and behold, a Sectoid appears seemingly out of thin air on that supposedly empty tile!  Sneaky little bastard!

So, what am I not getting here?  Can aliens be hidden on tiles that are currently in LOS?  Why wasn't that Sectoid spotted the moment my tank revealed the tile he was standing on?

Appreciate any input, thanks.

3

OXCE Support / Re: Confusing Alien Infiltration Behavior

« on: October 16, 2021, 11:01:30 pm »

It's a known vanilla behavior.

Infiltration mission in a region continues forever, even if all countries were infiltrated already.

OK, thanks for the quick clarification, Meridian! 

4

OXCE Support / [Answered] Confusing Alien Infiltration Behavior

« on: October 16, 2021, 09:47:15 am »

Hello, I'm playing XCOM for the first time and I'm using OXCE as well.  I'm having fun, but some of the aliens' decisions confuse me.  For example, in my game the aliens successfully infiltrated Brazil and stopped their funding in March 1999 (as seen in attachment 1).  I figured then they would move on to infiltrating another region & country, but in April and May 1999 all they have done is launch infiltration missions in the South America region even though they already got Brazil (Attachment 2).  Is this intended alien behavior, or a bug with XCom/Openxcom/OXCE?  Are they trying to rebuild the alien base I destroyed back in March when they first infiltrated South America/Brazil?  Can aliens infiltrate countries that don't show up on the geoscape?

Again, I don't know if this is intended behavior or not.  If there's more to the Alien Infiltration missions than infiltrating funding nations, then please enlighten me.  If this question would be better asked in another location, enlighten me as well