ALIEN AI -WEAPONS

[luke83]

Question for all you experts,
 In the original game, if you disarmed a alien , would he ever try to pick up a weapon again?

[kkmic]

Never.

It only used HTH, psionics or other items in the inventory (if any).

[luke83]

hmm , i hope Dalky considers this a Bug and fixes it.

[Daiky]

I think Volutar once discovered there are traces of an AI function to pick up objects they dropped, but never worked

source : https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=OBPOS.DAT check the latest comment on bit 12 (0x0C)

It will work in openxcom.


Also: I don't think an alien should pick up human weapons and start shooting with those So a check should be done to see if the weapon is not human. But I do think aliens should be able to pick up alien weapons dropped by players...

[Volutar]

Daiky, there are number of condition when picking up is possible.
1) item is dropped during ALIEN move (including alien panic).
2) item have special flag "pickup importance" which is set only for alien items.

There are no chances of using some kind of "bate" to get aliens at fire line. So this "unused" feature of original xcom is totally safe. Though it will make panic attack almost pointless.

[Daiky]

Yeah, I need to add a similar flag.

It's true a panic attack is not the worst thing that can happen. Maybe it should only pick up it's weapon, but leave other stuff, like ammo still on the ground?

Another solution, if it's the last alien on the map, it might panic, prime a grenade and drop it and blow itself up :p Now that would be hilarious. And useful to end those boring last alien searches. You could explain it as some sort of self-destruct, to avoid being captured and being experimented on :p

(be sure to capture the commander fast, or he will self-destruct himself)

[SupSuper]

Your soldiers panicking was never a major issue either, you could pick your stuff back up once you got your TUs back, although it could take a few turns. The real issue was the threat of your soldier getting himself or others killed, presumably the same would apply to aliens?

Although it was pretty amusing to find weaponless aliens just standing around.

[luke83]

I think any weapon less aliens should walk up to you soldiers , King Hit them to knock your guys out and steal the x-com "human" weapon to execute your soldier on the ground. Just a thought

[kkmic]

Although it was pretty amusing to find weaponless aliens just standing around.

Some of them had a grenade or two up their sleeves.

Oh wait, the aliens did not had any sleeves. But they did had a magic pocket somewhere

[Yankes]

Maybe alien keep things like hamster do?
https://www.vibranthealthandwealth.com/vibrance/images/laugh/hamsterWcarrot.jpg

[hsbckb]

Another solution, if it's the last alien on the map, it might panic, prime a grenade and drop it and blow itself up :p Now that would be hilarious. And useful to end those boring last alien searches. You could explain it as some sort of self-destruct, to avoid being captured and being experimented on :p

(be sure to capture the commander fast, or he will self-destruct himself)

I can't agree more. Another method for solving the search of last alien is auto combat.

[luke83]

No, last alien should turn into rambo and come looking for you. Let it cheat like the old game did ( after turn 20) , and let it know where all your men are and have it come HUNT you down. That would save you time as it will be looking for you.

[DiceMaster]

No, last alien should turn into rambo and come looking for you. Let it cheat like the old game did ( after turn 20) , and let it know where all your men are and have it come HUNT you down. That would save you time as it will be looking for you.

I think it is better not to wait for specific turn or specific number of aliens, but check that some number of turns passed without any combat actions and no new aliens were spotted.

[Zharik1999]

It seems to be a good idea.