Editor's Note: I'd gotten an email from Fedor von Bock about being able to get two more pieces of Unkown Origin (UO) than previously known. I wondered where he found them. Well, he sort of made them by killing an alien.

His method of killing an alien is brilliant. It's the only one that's worked for me and it works consistently. Now, Fedor von Bock:

There are three [pieces of UO] from the alien sighting, three from the port crater crash, two from each secret base, then you need to give one to Psycho Bob (who steals your $99,999, cheap bastard) and the plot progresses...

The alien spaceship rescues you, and then it is possible to shoot the Interalien down, before he can return to the Abandoned Terminal! He produces another three UO! - In total you can get 12 at one time.

However... it is very difficult to shoot down Interalien, as you cannot lock onto him with your targetting computer (hence no missiles), and if you get too close your controls are shut down. Shoot him twice, and the Interalien goes to Kill Vehicle mode (he counts as an innocent, so the police file a report). If you check the debug keys he has no weapons, so just flies straight at, then around your moth keeping it inactivated forever. He doesn't lose enough power to run out of energy - the first time I tried to kill him I thought he would run out of power, run to the Light Well and you can nail him there.

However, 70 days later he was still going strong (I just left it running), and it became apparent that the low amount of recharge during the day is enough to repower his ship - he doesn't have any draining energy weapons... So you have to target him with your energy weapons, be close enough to hit him, but not close enough to have your moth controls shut down.

The AI is just like any other moth, so the method I used was to shoot him with the pulse laser until he ran off to get repaired at the Knocking Ship, then lasered him. You can't actually tell when his shields are down as you can't target him, or get close enough to see. I used a Swallow for maximum speed to get in and out of range. To see what happened, I loaded the game in again, and let him dock in the Knocking Ship for repairs, then floated outside...he comes out, paralyses your ship and the gets blown up by the Knocking Ship's death ray!. The UO cannot be destroyed, and the death ray really goes to town trying.

Editor's Summary: The idea is to do some quick damage to the Alien ship from afar. Follow him to get repairs and then hover right outside the airlock of the repair shop for him to enter. Brilliant. And, Greedy.

Captain Astro's Cheat

Captain Astro wrote me with a neat cheat. He reruns the "Alien Crash" mission, where you witness the alien crash near Light Well 3, and collects as much UO as he wants. You must use the God Hangar's "Plot Jump" to do this.