The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel

[darkestaxe]

Edit: Some of the responses in this thread turned out to be useful to others like me who don't get/use motion scanners.
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Hmmm... lets see what is moving

OMG there's stuff! Things that moved!

Spoiler"OK lets count how many soldiers I have in range.":

1... 2... is she in range, let me count the tiles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, that's 3... 4... is he in range? lets count the tiles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 no so thats 4... is she in range? lets count the tiles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 yes thats 6 7 wait did I already count her? SHIT!

1 2 3 she was in range 4 5 he wasn't 6 was she in range, lets count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ya.

ok was that 6 or 5? Shit 1 2 3 4 5 6 wait I double counted I think

1 2 3 4 5 6 nope. 6

ok how many blobs are there. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 -- 9? There's 3 aliens in there? Oh I wasn't counting the guys in flying suits! FUCK!

7 8 is she in range? 1 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 no. wait 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ya. OK so that's ...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 right! and nine bloobs. Good, no movement, building is clear.

*PSHEEW* *AAARGH* Oh i guess there was an alien, he just didn't move.

Spoiler"Building is clear, move to the next one.":

OK how many soldiers are in range? Fuckit, lets just look.

I liked how they did it in UFO:TTS where the movement was marked in the main battlescape, but then that might be just too easy and a bit OP.

I've heard some people have found the motion scanner useful though. How? and how many?

[CoolKid]

Night terror mission when i forgot to bring flare. The scanner's just save my life more than you can imagine. It's a great equipment. Why you call it useless?

[darkestaxe]

Because without graphing out its results all it tells me is how many things there are that moved in a ten tile radius. Maybe I'm just too impatient to figure out what I can deduce from it's results.

Come to think of it I couldn't make any use of the one in Alien vs Predator either. Blips in an area just don't tell me much, and although I understand that there's a direct correlation between where they are in the environment and where they are on the scanner screen, it's not something I can just match up.

Also it tells you about stuff that's moved, so it's likely not going to tell you about ambushers. It just seems easier to wait a turn before you open a door and know you didn't walk into an ambush without enough TUs rather then checking a motion scanner, using time units, and finding out there's probably not an ambush.

I do get how it might be useful if you have no flares, though only for the tiles that are both too dark to see and inside the motion scanner range.

[CoolKid]

though only for the tiles that are both too dark to see and inside the motion scanner range.

Don't forget it can detect moving things behind walls.

Yes, it can't detect static things but the aliens should move even just one square in 1 or 2 turns (in most cases). And you can just analyze their locations. Theoritically you can kill aliens in pitch dark situation with just your soldier sprite, scanner, and flashing cursor but your soldier must spoted them with normal night line of sight.

[Falko]

Theoritically you can kill aliens in pitch dark situation with just your soldier sprite, scanner, and flashing cursor but your soldier must spoted them with normal night line of sight.

Really you need to see an enemy to kill it? whats the force-shooting for?
+ if i see the where the ufo is in turn 1 i sometimes throw a grenade in front of the entry and in many cases i got a deathscream without seeing the alien ever.

[CoolKid]

Really you need to see an enemy to kill it? whats the force-shooting for?

We didn't know their exact location. So force firing is not efficient.

And yes explosive works best.

Also you can combo smoke grenade and the scanner (Best combo ever). It can save many lives of your soldier.

[yrizoud]

darkestaxe : Motion sensor is the most life-saving piece of equipment in the X-COM arsenal. You're trolling for advice on how to use it ? 

[Solarius Scorch]

95% of my instances of using the Motion Scanner is before breaching small UFOs. I like to take a few measures (several turns) to detect what's inside and where. Besides, if I know that there is an alien inside but this turn I haven't detected it, or I did but the scanner only shows a small dot, then it means they have full TUs and are likely to fire at me straight away.

[Empiro]

The motion scanner is super useful for breaching UFOs since you know where they likely are. That said, I'd love if the game just did away for the Aliens type interface and just showed ghost "blobs" on the battlescape map itself. It'd save time from having to count squares.

[darkestaxe]

95% of my instances of using the Motion Scanner is before breaching small UFOs. I like to take a few measures (several turns) to detect what's inside and where. Besides, if I know that there is an alien inside but this turn I haven't detected it, or I did but the scanner only shows a small dot, then it means they have full TUs and are likely to fire at me straight away.

So you wait for all (or most) of the aliens to have moved before you breach the door. I can see how that would be useful, especially if your not save scumming.

[Unknown Hero]

The Motion Scanner is too much underrated. 

Some ways to use it.

First turn: you can use the tactic to pass the first turn to avoid the aliens to have full TUs. 
Second turn: use the Motion Scanner before moving your troops outside the troop transport, really efficient especially during Terror Mission with surrounding aliens at mission start; and it can save a lot of your soldier lives.

You can also check:
- what is behind a hedge ("yes! there is some aliens behind this hedge, let's throw some grenades before moving").
- what is behind a wall.
- what is inside a farm.
- what is inside an orchard covered by the trees.
- what is inside a small Ufo.
- what is inside a big Ufo ("yes! there is some aliens in the Commander Room, prepare your Stun Rods"). 

All of this without taking a risk, with only little TUs used.
The Motion Scanner is part of the standard equipment of all my soldiers.

Your soldiers are a team, use the Motion scanner this way; one soldier use the Motion Scanner ("yes! there is some aliens inside this farm"), and a second soldier can launch a Small Rocket to make some holes in the wall for better vision, and even perhaps kill one alien).

Motion scanner, Smoke Grenade, soldier with Flying Suit, best scout ever for all hidden locations. 

Smoke Grenades are a "night vision equalizer"... 

During night mission, the aliens night-time visual range is 20 tiles and the soldiers night-time visual range is only 9 tiles.
I think it's also this way in OpenXcom, I have not seen change about this in the "Differences to X-COM (OpenXcom)" Wiki page.

A fresh Smoke Grenade reduces the visual range to 4-6 tiles for everyone, the effect is reduced each turn ("A good rule to know is that every turn allows the aliens (and you) to see one tile further per 3 tiles of smoke, until all the smoke particles clear." (original XCom - Ufopedia - Smoke Grenade)); a really nice game implementation.

...Here come the Motion Scanner, with it you can see the aliens and they can not see your soldiers. XCom takes the advantage.

*

The Motion Scanner has some flaws:

First, it's a pain to use the way it's implemented in the game. 

I have a powerful computer, and I need a pencil and a piece of paper to draw a diagram and count the tiles on the combat zone. 
But more a design flaw of the game, that a true flaw of the Motion Scanner item.

Second, it only detects moving aliens, and do not indicate the already spotted aliens the previous round by the Motion Scanner if they did not move the current turn. 
Can also be considered as a design flaw of the game; the Motion Scanner can detect movement, but if it has already detected an alien the previous turn and the alien don't move, it detect no movemevent therefore the alien is still here.

I made some suggestions in this topic for the Motion Scanner:

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2279.0  --> 4) Motion Scanner.

Basically, I suggest to indicate directly on the map the spotted aliens, to remove the need to use a pencil and a piece of paper to draw a diagram and count the tiles on the combat zone. Yeah... 

I'll also make a suggestion to add a game option that allows the Motion Scanner to detect the aliens even if they does not move.

[darkestaxe]

Ya, your motion scanner idea would fix it and I would use it then.

UFO TTS did something similar and I used it in that game.

[Jstank]

hmmm thinking of new uses in conjunction with plasma torch. yesss yessss!!!

[Sturm]

Basically, I suggest to indicate directly on the map the spotted aliens, to remove the need to use a pencil and a piece of paper to draw a diagram and count the tiles on the combat zone. Yeah... 

I never bothered to do any paper mapping and I have still found motion scanner immensely helpful and life-saving.

[skyhawk]

I never used the motion scanner prior to reading this thread, and I now agree, in certain situations it can save lives. Using it is _such_ a hassle though, I'd love to see a mod/option to make it less painful. I'd even accept some amount of "error" (readings randomly sometimes off by a tile or two) if it just displayed it's reading superimposed over the battlescape.