odds scumming of mindworm capture

[bvanevery]

Details odds scumming of mindworms

odds scumming of mindworms

Did you know that if you play with the "Confirm odds before attacking" preference, you can actually tell whether you're going to capture a mindworm or not?  If you're going to, you'll just capture it!  If you aren't going to, then you get the Confirm Odds warning.  Then you can even cancel your attack.  When I got surrounded by mindworms, I tried doing this to a whole bunch of different mindworms in succession.  Eventually I found one that I got a capture instead of a battle.  So now my Recon Rover is going to slip out scott free!

This odds scumming trick doesn't seem to work when applied to the same mindworm over and over again.  I just tried backing out of an Isle vs. Isle combat repeatedly.  20 times in a row, no capture.  I wouldn't be shocked however if you could alternate back and forth between 2 adjacent mindworms indefinitely, until you finally capture one of them.  Either that or it's "once and locked" per mindworm.  Still you've got 8 tries against a surrounding explosion of mindworms, with this trick.

I tried another experiment, 4 mindworms next to me.  I rotated between them for 20 tries, never got a capture.  So I think it is "once and locked" per mindworm.  You can try all 8 that surround you, but you may not get a capture.  Still, 8 chances is better than 1 chance!

[Geo]

Never noticed this before. But I can't remember being in a position were my unit was completely surrounded by native life.

[Vidsek]

  When popping a pod, I get the 8 natives (mostly worms but sometimes launchers mixed in) option far too often    Clearly the dev gods meant it to be a "HA HA You Loose" chance.

  I agree that in-game experience suggests the capture/fight chance is locked in.  Until someone tests it to destruction or decodes the .exe, I'll run with that.

  I also have noticed the "insta-capture or odds warning" feature, and have used it to give me a more informed choice at times.

  I call it "save scamming" and use it for testing (like you do) and as a dirty workaround for bugs that can't be modded or haven't been .exe patched.

[bvanevery]

I think of "save scumming" as when you actually save a game, try something out, then load your saved game if it doesn't work out.  That's a much slower process than "odds scumming", which has basically no time cost at all.

Well, there's the time cost of being continuously pestered by odds warnings, but I actually needed that recently, trying to understand the innards of the combat system.  Since I kicked version 1.26 of my mod out the door, I don't need that anymore, but I still find myself mildly interested in looking at the odds.  Especially since I upped the Sensor Array defense bonus to 50%, and it can be really difficult to get an offensive weapon in the early part of my mod.  Extra defensive bonuses like that, can be the difference between life and death.