🚀 go-pugleaf

On 3 Jun 2003 11:26:52 -0700, en...@m-net.arbornet.org (eric) wrote:

>Is there a way to force the aliens to attack an X-Com base?

Call them names ?

Broadcast MIB 2 To Mars/Atlantis/Other Dimension ?  

They HATED that movie.  But then, who didn't ?

-- 

Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes !
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses !
And what's with all the carrots ?  
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway ?
Bunnies !  Bunnies !  It must be BUNNIES !

eric phrenetically blurted:

> Is there a way to force the aliens to attack an X-Com base?

 You could try taunting them..?

 - Mel C
 - Smells of elderberries

"eric" <en...@m-net.arbornet.org> wrote in message
news:cc50a09.0306031026.18a4d32a@posting.google.com...
> Is there a way to force the aliens to attack an X-Com base?

My impression from having played the game through 5 or 6 times is that you
can't. The likelihood of a base being attcked seems to be unrelated to
anything obvious, like its being in the territory of a country which
secedes; or its promptness in attacking nearby targets; or its being
practically on top of an alien base (which has happened to me a couple of
times - an alien base is detected a few miles away from an existing XCom
base).

Also, the game manual tells you that if you build a psi-shield (or whatever
it's called), you are less likely to be detected.

This suggests to me that there is a fixed percentage likelihood of a base
being detected, which is altered downwards once you have that base
improvement.

"The Blue Max" <brunos...@Jasta1.com> wrote in message news:<5d7feb293b59391e...@free.teranews.com>...
> This suggests to me that there is a fixed percentage likelihood of a base
> being detected, which is altered downwards once you have that base
> improvement.

I think you're probably right.  But, once a base is detected, the
aliens send a series of scout ships to the area.  If you shoot these
scout ships down, I believe you can prevent the eventual attack.  If
you ignore the scout ships, I think you'll eventually be attacked.

The progression of an alien mission (from scout to attack) is stored
in the file "AlienKnow.dat" or something similar - I'm at work now so
I can't readily check.  Has any work been done to decode this file?

thanks

In message <vl7Da.33493$9C6.1...@wards.force9.net>, Mel C 
<mel@the-eend.org.remove> writes
>eric phrenetically blurted:
>
>> Is there a way to force the aliens to attack an X-Com base?
>
> You could try taunting them..?
>
One does this by shooting *everything* down, rapidly; with extreme 
prejudice ... then they come looking for you ...
-- 
Rex M F Smith

> > You could try taunting them..?
> One does this by shooting *everything* down, rapidly; with extreme
> prejudice ... then they come looking for you ...

...or they run and hide to recover...  :)

--
Daniel Blakemore
  "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself"   - Tom Paine

"eric" <en...@m-net.arbornet.org> wrote

> I think you're probably right.  But, once a base is detected, the
> aliens send a series of scout ships to the area.  If you shoot these
> scout ships down, I believe you can prevent the eventual attack.  If
> you ignore the scout ships, I think you'll eventually be attacked.

That figures. So you can get yourself attacked once they're onto you, but
you can't do anything to attract their attention if they're not, nor can you
invite attack at a convenient time. I imagine the idea behind the OP was to
sucker them into attacking a very heavily defended base or to provoke an
attack wherein a particular alien can be captured. IME, in that situation
patience is the only option.

"The Blue Max" <brunos...@Jasta1.com> wrote in message news:<6a46740cd4660eeb...@free.teranews.com>...

> I imagine the idea behind the OP was to
> sucker them into attacking a very heavily defended base or to provoke an
> attack wherein a particular alien can be captured.

Actually, I'm not really concerned with winning the game or even doing
the research these days.  So that wasn't the reason for my original
post.  Instead, I just like to shape the game to make it more fun.  I
wanted to provoke an attack for the same reason I like to use xcomutil
to add aliens - because it makes the game harder.

At any rate, one of the datafiles in a saved game directory records
what the aliens know about XCom and how far along they are in a
particular mission.  So, it is theoretically possible to edit that
file in order to make an alien attack imminent.  I was just wondering
if anyone else had done any detective work along these lines.