User talk:Darkpast

Request

While you're uploading in-game images from Apoc, would you mind getting the inventory sprites of 1) alien artefacts, 2) vehicle weapons/equipment? There's none on here at the moment and I'm not sure how to do it myself. Magic9mushroom (talk) 08:07, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't know how to extract the sprites from the files; the images I uploaded are just cropped screenshots. Darkpast (talk) 17:50, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Would you mind grabbing a pic of Corporate Hoods to go with your pics of the other sorts of humans on Population (Apocalypse)? Magic9mushroom (talk) 04:33, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll grab one as soon as I get round to it. The Police pic is also kinda dark so I'll see if I can get a better one. Darkpast (talk) 07:22, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch. Magic9mushroom (talk) 08:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Acceleration

My testing in Apoc has not shown the Acceleration stat to actually do anything, so I'm kinda conflicted about whether we should include it in tables. Magic9mushroom (talk) 05:06, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I had no idea... Yeah, no point in including it if it doesn't do anything - unless possibly if this is changed in OpenApoc. By the way, does the engine's Power stat do anything? And can any vehicle's weight actually slow it down? Darkpast (talk) 06:31, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, scratch that; with hacking to extreme values I was able to get a noticeable effect out of it, or at least an effect for both Power and Weight (Acceleration = Power/Weight, though I'm not 100% sure that the 1-10 range allowed for displayed Acceleration is the real range). It seems to affect turn rate and response delay, although turn rate also depends directly on the craft (a Hoverbike with Acceleration 10 will do a 180-degree turn much faster than a Valkyrie with Acceleration 10). The issue I was having was that changing engine (without hacking the engines) also changes max speed (so I couldn't tell whether it was Acceleration or simply speed) and while changing the Weight frequently changes the displayed Acceleration the effect is imperceptible (hacking a part to weigh 20000, though, is enough to have an obvious discrepancy in turn rate and response time). Magic9mushroom (talk) 10:32, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Interesting finds, there sure is an incredible amount of detail in some aspects of Apoc, even though they're often barely perceptible in-game. Darkpast (talk) 07:39, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Wow Android civilians and other findings in Unused Game Features

Wow Android civilians and other findings in 'Unused Game Features' great finding Darkpast! thx

Graph

If needed for the "Raid Loot Table" page. Please use this and edit if you want (eg: removing terse wording):

Thank you. Before I put up the page, I still need to figure out if there's anything that affects the items spawned. I've heard that Tech Level is a factor. For example, a Lawpistol may be replaced by a Plasma Gun if Tech Level is high. I'll see if one of the coders working on OpenApoc can help. Darkpast (talk) 07:32, 6 August 2022 (CEST)

Spawned Items

The numbers indicate quantity.
Note: terse


AP Gren	1	1	1		1	1	1	1		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1				1	1	1	1
Stun Gren	1	1	1		1	1	1	1		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1					1	1	1
Prox Mine	1		1		1	1	1	1		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1				1	1	1	1
Hi-X	1		1		1	1	1	1		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1				1	1	1	1
Lawpistol	1		1		1	1	1	1		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1					1	1	1
M4000	1			1	1	1	1	1		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1			1	1	1	1
Laser Rifle	1			1																1		1
Autocannon	1	1	1		1	1	1	1		1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1			1	2	1	1	1
Plasma		1
Hvy Launch				1
Mini Launch				1
Grapple		1
Sword				1
Mind Shield				1
Mind Bender				1
Medikit		1
Motion Scan				1
Psiclone			10																10	10	10	6	6
Elerium	8	3		1	8	8	8	8	15	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	2	2	2	2	2	8	8
Meg.Head		1
Meg.Chest		1
Meg.Left Arm		1
Meg.Right Arm		1
Meg.Legs		1
Mar.Head				1																1
Mar.Chest				1																1	1
Mar.Left Arm				1															1
Mar.Right Arm				1																	1
Mar.Legs				1															1

Taking stock

EsTeR says he's gone away. I want to do some reversion/rewrites here (I didn't particularly want to wage full-on edit war, but if he's left then there's no reason to leave UFOpaedia Apoc in this state), but I wasn't around for much of this so I don't have a good idea of which pages he did and didn't affect and in particular which pieces of information he actually full-on moved from one article to another vs. newly added vs. duplicated (in the case of stuff he moved, there's the question of which page it belongs on and we need to make sure we don't lose it, but in the case of duplications we generally want to remove one of the mentions to help undo the bloat).

Do you have some idea of the shape of things? Magic9mushroom (talk) 16:40, 18 November 2022 (CET)

Sorry for replying so late, I wasn't active here for a while. Frankly, he changed most of the pages. Among other things: a) redoing the main page at https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Apocalypse. I haven't compared it to the older version, so I guess this is where any major work on the Wiki should start. b) pretty much all the pages under "Battlefield Tactics & Gameplay" have been extensively changed and information shuffled around. I've lost track of what happened. It will take a *lot* of work to rewrite this. c) the pages on Damage Modifiers, Vehicles (the general pages, not the ones about specific vehicles), and Buildings have been significantly altered. d) at least the 4 pages on unused features have been consolidated into one. I don't think the old ones have been deleted though, but at least they aren't on the main page anymore.

Other than that, I see several issues with the Apocalypse part of the Wiki, of which I would highlight: 1) his writing style was very different from the one used on most of the pages, far more suited to a fanmade guide than a wiki - though, admittedly, some of the old pages also had a very "pub talk" style with lots of "you should do XY" which isn't really suited to a wiki, either. Some pages got "trimmed" yet had IMO superfluous info added (e.g. do we really need to describe what explosive damage is?). Spelling/writing standardization would also be nice - e.g. is it X-COM or X-Com? It would also be good to refer to things consistently - e.g. not talking about Security Guards in one article, Building Security in another, and just Guards in a third. Flying vehicles or airborne vehicles? And so on. 2) there is still quite a bit of information that hasn't been verified. This is made worse by the fact that even the OpenApoc team seem to disagree on some things. For example, a lot of info on Organizations can be found floating around their Discord, but after consulting Skin36 and doing extensive in-game testing, I have found some of this info is just outright false - most glaringly, despite what some of the team claim, the Tips Book is outright wrong on the effects of allying with certain Organizations. Skin did mention he found there are quite a few places in the code that the "allied" flags are checked - but it's not obvious what they do. 3) images are often not being displayed correctly. This appears to affect the entire wiki, but is especially visible in the Apocalypse part because so many new ones were added. Darkpast (talk) 20:12, 15 June 2023 (CEST)

Hello, I'm still around.
First off, read -every single page- through the whole Apocalypse section. You will have a better understanding of what was done.
1. Most pages were not uniform with many missing pics. The alien buldings pages in particular were needing extensive work and uniformness. I think 99% of the alien dimension anything is complete beside spelling mistakes and minor formatting.
2. A wiki will become shallow and basically useless if you want to make the apoc section like wikipedia's "what not how" format and since there already is such a page, copy and pasting it here is redundant ...but is that what you both want? The whole point of these pages is concrete information which I have added to in a massive way. I have added many 'tactics and gameplay' to pages where it is useful. Expanding those sections would be the way to go and not sterilizing the page to make it like other pages (to other games) found on the internet.
3. Orgs with false information from the hint book has been mentioned in the relevant page.
4. The only pictures which do not display correctly are the title pages within the cut section and one in the citywall section. Every single page has the pictures displaying correctly.
5. Moving pages within the Apocalypse title page was done to organise topics to be together as subtitles. I think I've done a good job but the "Combat Format" should be more integrated into the "Battlescape Tactics And Gameplay" section. I haven't re-written those pages but have dumped information into them to consolidate into one section only... and not like three sub-standard pages dealing with Cut Content as was before. I didn't look good. Old pages are still around - I have not deleted moved content but chose one of the three cut content pages to become the only one.

Finally, consider this thought... if the apocalypse section has been added to heavily and cleaned up massively by me, then why are you both complaining that the work which needed to be done, has been done? If you cared about this as much as your demeanor implies then you would have made an effort to fix this section 'years' ago. EsTeR (talk) 18:11, 11 July 2023 (CEST)

We did make an effort to fix it, Darkpast especially so. Check the edit histories of the Apoc pages and you'll find one or both of us on most of them. Much of the stuff you did is not "work which needed to be done"; it's actual disagreements between us and you. The only thing I recall as truly needing cleanup prior to your bull-in-a-china-shop act is Makus' pseudo-blogging, which admittedly I did let slide mostly because it was confined to a few pages that weren't otherwise in use.

Also, I am depressed and this isn't top-priority for me (I spent a month homeless last year, for fuck's sake, and three months of this year putting together a "please don't end the world" essay), and undoing your damage is a much bigger project than telling you to stop since you've made literally thousands of edits and some of them are actually okay so simply writing a script to globally rollback everything you've ever done on UFOpaedia would not be the best idea.

I did actually try to get an admin to intervene last year (I wasn't really looking for you to be banned, just warned with teeth to stop doing the objectionable stuff), but he's mostly absentee as well and I didn't chase it up because I thought you'd left and admin rights are only useful for stopping you rather than for reverting you. Magic9mushroom (talk) 06:34, 20 July 2023 (CEST)

I have pity but some choice of words you choose go too far. Damage? If you think what i have done is damage then you go away from here. Regardless, I hope your situation improves. Stay strong. EsTeR (talk) 07:45, 20 July 2023 (CEST)

EsTeR, what you did here isn't doing "what needed to be done", it's basically hijacking the whole Apocalypse section of the wiki and turning it into your personal FAQ, which it is not - there are sites like GameFAQs for what you're trying to write. I have little free time and no wish to spend it on edit wars, especially since the admins - and the site in general - seem to be pretty much inactive, but you on the other hand seem to have hours and hours to spend here, and have no problem using them to remove anything done by me or Magic9Muchroom. That is why I stopped trying to fix things long ago, as I know you'll just change them the moment I turn my back. But I am hurt to see the pages I worked on so long butchered by you, and I have no wish to communicate with you further. Darkpast (talk) 16:22, 30 September 2023 (CEST)

If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.

Examples

Re: Overviews of Aliens (TFTD) - Bio-Drone

I notice you changed the Methods of Disposal for Bio-Drones from:

Gauss, Sonic and Explosives from as far away as possible; or Melee as close as possible.

to:

Gauss and powerful Explosives from as far away as possible; or Melee as close as possible. Stun attacks are also fairly effective. Gauss attacks and light explosives are not very effective.

This latter seems to be in error. First, you both recommended and disrecommended Gauss (I think the first one was supposed to be Sonic). Second, the reason for the recommendation of powerful HE weapons for Cyberdiscs/Sectopods/Hallucinoids is that they are in-effect weak to the damage type but have high Under Armour which blocks weak explosives. Bio-Drones don't have high Under Armour; they're just 40% resistant to HE (and aren't large), which means that both powerful and weak explosives will take longer to kill it but doesn't really discriminate between them. Eyeballing Weapon Effectiveness, you're talking two to three Sonic Pulsers per Bio-Drone, which gets expensive fast in money and item limit, and the DPT is only roughly even with far-cheaper Sonic if you're not using the carried-grenades exploit (and obviously these won't work against an airborne Bio-Drone; the Gas Cannon with HE rounds will, as well as being cheaper and saving items, but the DPT of that is way inferior to Sonic). Am I missing something? Magic9mushroom (talk) 09:13, 7 November 2023 (CET)

You are right, it was an error on my part (first was supposed to be Sonic...). Feel free to change/reword it. Darkpast (talk) 09:24, 8 November 2023 (CET)

Re:EsTeR's "previous" and "next" links

Do you think these should stay or go? They aren't humongously useful (this is a wiki, not a series of lessons that must be taken in order, and there are links everywhere) but they're not actively destructive. Whichever we decide, it should be standardised, though. Magic9mushroom (talk) 04:08, 8 January 2024 (CET)

I'd remove them for the reasons you state, and also because I find navbars/navboxes do the same job better.

Also, any idea on what catch-all term to use for the various human enemies? I don't think there is such a term in the code, and "building defence" isn't the best IMO. Darkpast (talk) 12:45, 8 January 2024 (CET)

I don't think there's a good catch-all aside from "human enemies" itself. I'd suggest, if necessary, talking around it with terms like the ones I used in the pre-EsTeR version of Tactical Combat Missions; it's a bit ugly, but I don't know a better way. Magic9mushroom (talk) 06:36, 9 January 2024 (CET)

OK, if I think of something smart I'll let you know.

And a small request - could you please verify the alien scoring on this page, when you have time? https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Alien_Missions_(TFTD)

Darkpast (talk) 19:12, 10 January 2024 (CET)