Talk:Damage Modifiers (TFTD)

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About the blades in TFTD, they are listed as Armor Piercing. Now, which damage type is effective for them AP or Blade? Or is it a combination? I also wonder about their damage range, is it 0-200% as with the guns?

- mega

Regarding OSG vs executable stats, it might be worth pointing out the differences in case a well meaning type comes along to "fix" the "errors"...

- Bomb Bloke 01:45, 6 January 2008 (PST)

Lobstermen Question

The Lobsterman article lists very different damage modifiers. Which set is correct?

From Lobsterman article:

  • Armour Piercing damage reduced by 80%
  • Phosphor damage reduced by 60%
  • Explosive damage reduced by 50%
  • Gauss damage reduced by 60%
  • Sonic damage reduced by 50%
  • Stun damage reduced by 20% (however one Stun bomb does the job)

From this table:

  • Armour Piercing damage reduced by 80%
  • Phosphor damage reduced by 70%
  • Explosive damage reduced by 70%
  • Gauss damage reduced by 70%
  • Sonic damage reduced by 50%
  • Stun damage increased by 10%

--Dumas 06:03, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

There might have been an error at the time the table in the lobsterman page was created. The cross reference table at the bottom lists the actual values that have been obtained from the game executable. These will be the correct values.
It might be an idea to revise the Lobsterman's page and remove the modifiers, and instead link to this section for reference. -NKF 21:51, 17 March 2008 (PDT)
That sounds good. I've left in the three weapon types people are most likely to be using against Lobstermen (Gauss, Sonic, and Explosive), though.--Dumas 00:04, 18 March 2008 (PDT)

New Info Concerning DM Categories

Just to point out that while reading the OSG for TFTD, it lists the Bio-Drone damage modifier category as 4. Also, in the Bio-Drones description on pgs 173-174, Dave Ellis mentions: "Bio-Drones are identical to X-COM SWSs when it comes to their susceptibility to damage". However, a code dig of the executable reveals that the Bio-Drones share category 11 with the Xarquids. The dig also shows that category 4 is used for SWSs and Displacers. Just like we thought, but at least it is verified. --Zombie 17:20, 7 April 2008 (PDT)

Hi All ! The fields Resistant to... & Vulnerable to... has different (wrong ?) information about Biodrone DM then the numbers from a table...

They do indeed. I set these tables up myself and looking back through the edit history, I see where the error occured. Back in they day, it was believed that Bio-Drones and SWS's shared column 4 on the lower table. Someon seems to have moved Bio-Drones over to column 11 with Xarquids, but did not change the upper tables. I'm not rightly sure which is correct since it was not Zombie who made the edit, so at the moment I'll leave it be. Zombie, please come by and drop your two cents in. :) Arrow Quivershaft 22:07, 18 February 2009 (CST)

I thought I may have forgotten to update the Vulnerable & Resistant listings with the correct data. Whatever the case, I changed the listings to reflect the table as that data is 100% accurate. --Zombie 23:25, 18 February 2009 (CST)

Glad we got this solved. Thanks, Z! Arrow Quivershaft 23:32, 18 February 2009 (CST)

Hi There Again ! I have some question about range attack of Trescene, Bio-Drone, Xarquid... What type of DM is use for each of them ? It became firmly established in some guidances, that Xarquids uses Gauss DM, but it look like on sonic type more... What do you think about it ? And what about melee attack of Bio-Drone: Is he use Incendiary or Melee/Drill or Electro Shock DM (Biodrone can to set on fire a purpose ) ? -Pwwwa

According to the code dig of the CE executable I did a while back, Triscenes have a damage type of 4 which translates to Sonic, Deep Ones have a damage type of 3 which is Gauss, while the Xarquid has a listed damage of 7 which would be Electric Shock. My assumption is that the Bio-Drone has a melee attack with a damage type of 6 which would be equal to the bladed/drill weapons (unproven though). Bio-Drones function in much the same way as the Silacoid did in Enemy Unknown: when it moves around the map it sets fire to/destroys the tiles it traverses during the alien's turn. It doesn't use a weapon to do this: it just happens automatically. So the alien has no control over this latent "weapon". Hope that makes sense. By the way, don't forget to sign your posts in discussion pages so everyone knows who is talking. You can do this by clicking on the second to last button in the editing bar. --Zombie 19:43, 19 February 2009 (CST)
Wasn't it Deep One turrets that had Electroshock attacks while Xarquids turrets got the gauss type damage? One of these days we should bash together a table of all the turret type weapons if we haven't already. -NKF 22:33, 19 February 2009 (CST)
I have an Excel table of the turret types in TFTD, though it's possible I messed up the ordering. Still, I'm not entirely sure if the stats are correct since it is a byte-for-byte copy of the aliens in Enemy Unknown. Needs lots of testing, is what I'm trying to say. ;) --Zombie 22:54, 19 February 2009 (CST)

Bio-Drone DM type bugged?

By the way, the Bio-Drone melee attack has no effect, at least none on aquanauts - see Overviews of Aliens (TFTD) (and discussion pages there). Perhaps this bug may be a clue to its DM type? Spike 04:52, 20 February 2009 (CST)

Maybe. (Are you thinking of the Hallucinoid?) But if you look at the damage modifiers for aquanauts (diving suit - mag. ion armor) they show no invulnerability against any damage types. This leads me to believe 1 of 2 things are happening here:
  1. The power of the Bio-Drone's [or insert terror unit name here] melee attack is set to 0, or
  2. The Bio-Drone doesn't even have a melee attack.
With turret stats being pulled directly from EU, it wouldn't surprise me the least if some of these secondary melee attacks were never implemented (or only partially at best). I may have some time this evening, so I'll try to run a few tests. --Zombie 10:02, 20 February 2009 (CST)

Slight confusion on my part as there are no Talk comments I can find on Bio-Drone, only Hallucinoid. But no confusion on the testing: I tested both, proving 1. Hallucinoid has a ranged attack and it is lethal 2. Bio-Drone has a melee attack that it uses in preference to its ranged attack, and the melee attack is completely harmless. I would not be surprised if they forgot to implement the attack or even implement entire damage types. Spike 11:05, 20 February 2009 (CST)

I ran a few trials with the Hallucinoid just now. Result? No ranged attack underwater. So it appears that the on-land/underwater flag must "turn on" (or perhaps corrupt) the Hallucinoid to give it a ranged attack on land. You have to be really careful with testing: nothing must be modified or else the results cannot be trusted. Anyhow, I'll see if I can get a proper land-based Tasoth mission to test out the Bio-Drone. --Zombie 21:33, 20 February 2009 (CST)
Thanks for checking that. I was conscious that my Hallucinoid test scenario was flawed. So the conclusion is, the Hallucinoid has an effective ranged attack on land, but not underwater. I think the most likely explanation here is a programming error, and that it was supposed to be the other way around. Since Hallucinoids almost always appear underwater it would be sensible to declare this a bug, and fix it, such that Hallucinoids get this useful ranged attack underwater, but not on land (where they rarely/never appear). The zero base accuracy for the Bio-Drone though, is that a bug, or is it intended? It certainly makes the Bio-Drone easy to beat, since you just close with it and it expends all its TUs at 0% accuracy. Especially if you kneel down (does target size give a penalty to melee attacks?). It's at least a game design flaw to give the Bio-Drone this weakness. Spike 15:47, 25 February 2009 (CST)
According to the OSG for TFTD, Hallucinoids are supposed to have two forms of attack. It doesn't mention anything about one or the other being restricted due to land/water though. So if Hallucinoids are supposed to be only underwater creatures (which I think is intended), then both methods of attack should be functional underwater. Since it can't/doesn't/won't attack with its ranged attack, its a bug.
As for the Bio-Drone, the 0% accuracy melee attack is most definitely a bug/oversight by the programmers. All the aliens in EU had a melee accuracy >0 and except for the Bio-Drone, so do all the aliens in TFTD. My beef with this is that the OSG doesn't mention the Bio-Drone having 2 forms of attack - only its ranged. But then again, all the terrorists appear to have two forms of attack anyway. Well, whichever way you slice it, it's still a bug. --Zombie 17:08, 25 February 2009 (CST)



I finally got a land-based terror mission (Gillman though, so I had to edit it to Tasoths). When I got to the mission, I edited my unarmored soldier to have 250 health, edited the 3 Bio-Drone's weapons to have 0 ammo, then let them loose. At first, it didn't seem like anything was going on: the BD was attacking, but no damage. All of a sudden I hear a civilian death scream from across the map. Right there some flags popped up. So I waited a while longer and my soldier eventually got hurt!?! All-righty, I reloaded the mission and tried again. While one of the Bio-Drones was attacking my soldier, another one targeted a civilian. After about 20+ rounds my guy got hurt again. He had 79 health left which meant the attack had a power of at least 171 (the max is probably 200, but this needs more trials to verify). Ok, so if the Bio-Drones melee attack does damage, why does it take soo long to get injured? Well, it's Melee Accuracy is 0%, that's why! I guess that 0% accuracy still means the attack will be successful eventually, it just takes a long time. Looks like this mystery is partially solved, lol. --Zombie 23:38, 20 February 2009 (CST)
More tests, and the Bio-Drone was able to kill my soldier with 1 attack. So it looks like the power is at least 250. I'll need to edit some armor in the soldier to find an upper limit. --Zombie 00:26, 21 February 2009 (CST)
Doesn't 250 damage mean that the power is at least 125? Or is that only projectile weapons? ... Does it ever use this melee attack under normal gameplay? [[Jasonred]Jasonred 09:09, 21 February 2009 (CST)
125 Average, yes (assuming the damage modifier is 100). So 250 max. And yes, the Bio-Drone does use it's melee attack under normal conditions. My first test was with a stock (unmodified) BD about 15 tiles away. It shot at my soldier for about 20 rounds then made a beeline to me and started to use melee instead. I checked the ammo because I thought the alien ran out, but there was still 200+ rounds left. Don't know what triggered this behavior, but it could be the turn 20 flag. --Zombie 09:24, 21 February 2009 (CST)
Edited my soldier to have 250 health and 200 armor and my soldier still died. So the average damage is at least 225. Most likely the Bio-Drone's Melee damage is 250 or 255 in order to fit in one byte. More testing necessary though. Edit: Hmmm... well, maybe damage isn't as high as I originally mentioned. When I looked at the stats of one of my soldiers who was "hit" by a melee attack, he had 11 fatal wounds! Now, if TFTD follows the same as EU where you can only get a max of 3 fatals for each hit, that means the Bio-Drone is attacking a minimum of 4 times per round. Guess I'll need to significantly reduce the BD's TUs to 15-19 or so and start the trials again. We'll get to the bottom of this yet folks! --Zombie 20:24, 21 February 2009 (CST)
Ok, I found out that the Bio-Drone's melee attack uses 15 TU. Once I edited that so it could only wage one attack per round, I ran a few trials in order to get an idea how much damage it dealt. After that, I edited 3 soldiers to have 250 health and 100 armor, put them up against 3 BDs and reloaded about 300 times (for a total of 900 separate datapoints or so). The biggest drop I saw was 60 health left. That translates to 190 damage points + 100 damage absorbed by armor for an effective max yield of 290 (145 average). If I can ever get BB to write me a unitref logger for TFTD, I'll run some automated trials to nail down the damage exactly. This should do for now though. --Zombie 20:05, 22 February 2009 (CST)

External USO Shell / Colony Wall type of Armour ?

Hi There! Does anyone know what type of damage modifier uses for External Alien USO Shell and Colony Walls. Some tests shows that there is not Terrain Damage Modifiers (Terrain DM works only for aquatic/surface/ship ambiance, but not for Colony and USO external shells.) Any Ideas ?

Best Regards, Pwwwa 10:27, 30 November 2009 (EST)

I wasn't aware any types of terrain used non-standard damage modifiers - figured they just took 100% from everything (which is pretty much the definition of "Terrain DM", to my understanding). Note that terrain has "hit points", and if an attack fails to do enough damage to destroy some of it in one go, it has no effect at all (hence why you can't punch through certain terrain types (eg your dropship) with repeated blasts - no weapon has a high enough damage rating to overcome the terrain armor in one shot).

If they did apply any actual damage modifiers, they'd have to be assigned by one of the undocumented offsets in the MCD files. The offset in concern would probably be set to 0 for most tiles.

Two other notes, it's a bad idea to indent your posts with spaces - that's wiki-language for "code spacing with no word wrap". You can also sign your posts easily with four tildes (~~~~).

- Bomb Bloke 06:49, 28 November 2009 (EST)

As Bomb Bloke mentioned, terrain objects have an armor which needs to be breached in order to destroy it. In the case of conventional firearms, they do between 25%-75% of it's listed damage. Most USO hulls have an armor rating of 100 which equates to a minimum weapon strength of 134 to destroy it (400 to kill it all the time which is impossible in this example due to the variable having a max of 255). Anyway, I just edited the Dart Pistol to deal 200pts of AP damage and went on a USO mission. The shots went through the hull most of the time. After editing the AP damage for terrain to be 0, the shots never made it through the hull. So the damage modifiers work, you just have to know how damage works in order to anticipate the result. ;) --Zombie 23:09, 28 November 2009 (EST)

to Zombie Well, I meant another case: High-Explosives do 50% of damage to any terrain object (and 50-150% for another) => there are 200+ points of damage is need for destruction of external USO`s wall. According the logic, if we set up HE damage modifier for terrain is 200% => any HE warhead needs 100+ points of damage for crushing the USO`s Shell. But that doesn't work! 

Test`s results: 
- Magna-Pack with 199pts of Damage and 200% HE Damage Modifier for Terrain can`t to destruct USO`s Shell;
- Magna-Pack With 255pts of damage and 0% (!!!) HE Damage Modifier for Terrain is destruct USO`s Shell, but not for another ambiance. 
==> External Walls don't use Terrain DM for Hi-Explosive.

Pwwwa 12:10, 30 November 2009 (EST)

Ah, I getcha. You're saying that modifying the damage modifier table is making no difference to these tile types, but IS affecting other stuff (eg aquatic/surface/ship ambiance).

... Well in that case, it is as I said it before: you've found something new. There must be a byte in the MCD arrays that deals with the matter.

If we can work out which DM type applies to the USO shell, from there it should be fairly easy to work out the relevant pointer and so get the different DMs for all terrain types documented.

Hmm, the page states where the tables are in the executable, but doesn't bother to mention which game version it's talking about. I assume CE, but that really needs fixing too.

- Bomb Bloke 17:55, 30 November 2009 (EST)

Just tried setting the HE DM to 0% for all targets, terrain or otherwise, and set off a 255 power sonic pulsar by a USO. It still wiped out most of the area, so I really dunno what's going on there - that doesn't match your observations at all. This was with CE; what version of the game are you running?

- Bomb Bloke 02:07, 1 December 2009 (EST)

DOS v.1.0

- Pwwwa 08:06, 4 December 2009 (EST)

Zombie modifiers

Zombie modifiers are not given in this table. Is it safe to use the ones given in the EU/TFTD combined Zombie article or in EU Damage Modifiers? Spike 10:22, 4 October 2012 (EDT)

I added the values. Not sure about Electric damage modifier for Zombies? Spike 10:01, 5 October 2012 (EDT)
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