Corpse recovery inconsistent stunned vs shot

[Dundundun]

Hi all

After storming a ship I saw three different colour shirts on the Caesan corpses lying around. The summary told me the Psion corpse was recovered for study.

I figured it may be worthwhile to get him alive, so replayed the mission and stunned all of them instead. The summary now simply tells me the Psion was executed (so no value to a live Psion, alright then), but no notification the body is recovered/available to research. This is weird - if anything the executed corpse is in better condition than one with battle damage, but in general... execution leaves a corpse behind, I should be able to use that for research, no?

Thx

[Solver]

You only get to capture one alien per race. If you've captured one Caesan, all others will be executed. In addition you get to capture the few high-rank aliens that the game lists as objectives.

[Dundundun]

My point is:

• Shoot ten round of hot plasma into a Caesan (or anyone else) and at the end of the round the very dead body is sent for analysis
• Knock it out and at the end of the round it is executed, but somehow that doesn't generate a body even though it's just as dead

Note, it's the same body (Caesan Psion), with the same utility (haven't researched one before). I'm pointing out that a combat kill generates a cadaver sent to the lab, an execution kill generates nothing.

[Solver]

Right, but those are just text. If it says "sent to research", it doesn't actually do anything unless it's your first kill of that race (in which case you get an autopsy). For killed aliens it says "sent to research", for live ones it says "executed" but in terms of the game all bodies just get discarded.

[Pave]

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In other words, unlike in "(Open)Xcom", you don't get to "sell" the corpse or live-captured-aliens. Upside to this is that the "artefacts" sell for much higher prices in comparison (which you can of course also adjust by yourself via the XML-file, if you want to).

In other words also, you won't able to sell corpses as burger-ingredients in this game.
(( A semi-reference to "Terror From Deep Guide" by  "Kuo-Sheng (Kasey) Chang", which I actually though to be the "official"-strategy-guide!,
and can be found here: http://www.xcomufo.com/tftdsg.txt ))

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[Charon]

I think you are all not getting the OPs simple note that captured aliens dont unlock Corpse research, although it should from his standpoint because whatever happens after the interrogation you should have a corpse afterwards, unless the interrogation is more intense than bullets piercing through your body in the battlefield.

 

The possible simple fix for that is to make an captured alien also unlock the corpse research, if we go along with the logic of the OP.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Charon

[Solver]

But there is no reasonable scenario where you only get a stunned alien and no corpses. There are always many aliens of the same race. If you stunned an alien, you will have also killed aliens of the same race unless you really go out of your way not to.

[Dundundun]

7 minutes ago, Solver said:

But there is no reasonable scenario where you only get a stunned alien and no corpses. There are always many aliens of the same race. If you stunned an alien, you will have also killed aliens of the same race unless you really go out of your way not to.

I don't know if I really went out of my way, but quite simply in the same battle (ie loading the same (auto)save file) if I shoot a Caesan Psion in the head during combat, I get a corpse to research the Psion in the summary; if I shoot him in the head after combat (because at the end of the scene it's unconscious, not dead, and is executed off-camera), no corpse is generated in the yellow font and no so research even though executing a prisoner sould leave me with a corpse as much as shooting it in the battle.

To be clear, it's specifically the Psion corpse that generates this particular research - I'd already researched the Caesan generic corpse, so the other corpses are useless.

[Solver]

But is there a research that requires a Psion specifically? I don't recall any. Though this is a fair point, presumably you should be able to autopsy the body of a former prisoner.

[Dundundun]

25 minutes ago, Charon said:

I think you are all not getting the OPs simple note that ... whatever happens after the interrogation you should have a corpse afterwards

No, not after interrogation: After a battle.

1. Assume the (Caesan/whatever) generic corpse is already researched
2. In the next battle find a (Caesan/whatever) Psion.

• If you shoot/blow it up during the battle (killing it), the battle summary tells you in a yellow font that a Psion corpse is available for research. Makes sense, it has bullet holes/limbs missing from the blast and is dead, but the brain is still worth a peek.
• If you sedate it/knock it out, you finish the battle with a Psion prisoner, you are informed in the battle summary that the (Caesan/whatever) Psion was executed (along with any other useless prisoners), but this act of executing does not generate a Psion corpse for research.

[Charon]

18 minutes ago, Solver said:

But there is no reasonable scenario where you only get a stunned alien and no corpses. There are always many aliens of the same race. If you stunned an alien, you will have also killed aliens of the same race unless you really go out of your way not to.

The condition to trigger this is to look for aliens which usually only spawn once in a mission, praetors for instance. If you capture a praetor on your first attempt then you have no corpse to research whatsoever. Since the corpse only leads into an xpedia there is no actual research loss, but you still dont get a corpse and no Xpedia.

And at this point you can say that its "logical" because the humans didnt kill the praetor, and it becomes a simple "logic" argument.

Looking at it from a gaming perspective you can say that not getting a corpse while getting an alive alien will need you to redo another mission, which might be hard to spawn. For people who like to complete everything a real pain in the ass.

 

And at that point its just a minor thing.

One note though, from looking at the code there were containment buildings planned so it might have just been that, some buildings not finished and with a "kill" button.

[Solver]

Yeah, I understand the situation. Not worth fixing though in any way.

[Charon]

2 minutes ago, Solver said:

Yeah, I understand the situation. Not worth fixing though in any way.

I agree.

[Dundundun]

18 minutes ago, Solver said:

Yeah, I understand the situation. Not worth fixing though in any way.

Sorry all, chasing rabbits here. I'm used to stock where these yellow events generate an actual research opportunity, while in CE it can just be a "Know your Enemy" entry without any effort. Thanks for all the responses though, lovely to see such an attentive forum :)