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Number of terror missions, alien bases and base assaults per play through


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I do not view alien bases in the same way, quite. My problem with them currently is the opposite - the rewards for attacking an alien base more than once are negligible. It's nice to get rid of the slow relations drain, but probably not worth the risk. Especially once bases have grown to a larger size, as they then become more difficult. I tend to attack the first alien base at the earliest good opportunity, to nab all the technology, but after that I either ignore them or maybe go blow the reactor, cutting the difficulty in half.

That's part of another issue though, that I feel most late-game missions offer way too little reward for the potential risk. That is a separate problem from mission frequency, however.

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I think the problem with this actually started when we switched over to always detecting alien ship within range.

With the old, percent chance to detect, some ships would always get through, bases would pop up, terror missions would unexpectedly begin, and the first thing you would know about a base assault was the defense batteries firing.

It is just too important to win the air war, and you miss out on some cool missions. And you have to win the air war, or you lose funding.

I think this is a pretty big deal for the game, actually.

I have seen quite a few posts with "crash site after crash site" kind of comments.

Maybe I'll give the dynamic UFO spawning mod a whirl?

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The Dynamic UFO mod is a must-have in my opinion because it adds a bit of unpredictability, instead of a very linear progression of UFOs. But it doesn't really address the likelihood of terror/base attack missions, especially the latter.

The air war is very important - I've lost the game in recent versions with an excellent ground assault team just because I was doing poorly in the air and so did not have enough money to advance. That may in itself not be a problem, but it does create a weird situation that doing well in-game has a downside of decreasing game variety because it's all crash sites then.

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The Dynamic UFO mod is a must-have in my opinion because it adds a bit of unpredictability, instead of a very linear progression of UFOs. But it doesn't really address the likelihood of terror/base attack missions, especially the latter.

Now I know the numbers, I'll fix this in the next version for sure.

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I've had base and terror missions on Veteran when UFO's have slipped through my air defenses. I think the "problem" might be that if you're really good at the air game the poor aliens never get a chance to land and carry out their evil plans. I actually consider that a sign of success not a problem. Base and terror missions are a good way to get your men killed. If you really want them to happen just ignore more UFOs.

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Base and terror missions are a good way to get your men killed. If you really want them to happen just ignore more UFOs.

Although the entire point of the discussion is perhaps the player shouldn't have to "ignore UFOs" to get these if he's doing good on the geoscape.

EDIT: Damn it, Skitso!

*Goes to train reflexes in some more GC*

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The real problem with base and terror missions is they dick around too much. Just have them enter the atmosphere, fly to their destination, and carry out their objective. Right now they take the scenic route, get lost on the way, fire the naivgator, take a left at paris and then eventually remember they're supposed to be attacking you. By that time, I've shot down the entire wave. What it should do is spawn in as part of the wave and immediately make a beeline for your base, or a city, or the place they want to build. THey've already sent in scouting missions in the first month, so they know where they want to build, where I am, and where all the major population centers are.

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The real problem with base and terror missions is they dick around too much. Just have them enter the atmosphere, fly to their destination, and carry out their objective. Right now they take the scenic route, get lost on the way, fire the naivgator, take a left at paris and then eventually remember they're supposed to be attacking you. By that time, I've shot down the entire wave. What it should do is spawn in as part of the wave and immediately make a beeline for your base, or a city, or the place they want to build. THey've already sent in scouting missions in the first month, so they know where they want to build, where I am, and where all the major population centers are.

That being said don't you think a UFO heading straight for your base is most likely to get shot down without reaching it, still failing to execute any assault?

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The real problem with base and terror missions is they dick around too much. Just have them enter the atmosphere, fly to their destination, and carry out their objective. Right now they take the scenic route, get lost on the way, fire the naivgator, take a left at paris and then eventually remember they're supposed to be attacking you. By that time, I've shot down the entire wave. What it should do is spawn in as part of the wave and immediately make a beeline for your base, or a city, or the place they want to build. THey've already sent in scouting missions in the first month, so they know where they want to build, where I am, and where all the major population centers are.

UFOs on terror and base assaults used to do that, they were changed because they stood out with giant "Shoot me" signs.

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That being said don't you think a UFO heading straight for your base is most likely to get shot down without reaching it, still failing to execute any assault?

Not if it comes in the middle of the wave with a bunch of other UFOs to use as decoys. Besides, the whole point of what I'm saying is it shouldn't be in the atmosphere long enough to stand out or get noticed any more than other UFOs. Right now UFOs buzz my base all the time, I just let them do it cause they never actually attack as I systematically dismantle them in the sky.

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That being said don't you think a UFO heading straight for your base is most likely to get shot down without reaching it, still failing to execute any assault?

You won't have as much time to get them before they do their thing.

Mostly however, I think that winterwolves analysis is true: 100% detection rate is too high. Currently, Air superiority is so important for funding that you'll pour lots of resources into it, and that you're dominating too quickly to let special missions happen.

Edited by Hokum
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Let's be realistic, folks - if you see an UFO heading straight towards your base, you would do everything possible to shoot it down, including canceling other targets. Knowing that might happen you will also keep one in mind about being able to react (you can't apply the current way you play as your logic would differ when you know what may happen!) After all potentially losing a base is the toughest loss you can suffer.

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Let's be realistic, folks - if you see an UFO heading straight towards your base, you would do everything possible to shoot it down, including canceling other targets. Knowing that might happen you will also keep one in mind about being able to react (you can't apply the current way you play as your logic would differ when you know what may happen!) After all potentially losing a base is the toughest loss you can suffer.

The scenario you're picturing is clearly different from the one I'm picturing, because you're giving yourself too much time to react. In vanilla right now UFOs fly over your base all the time and do nothing. The UFO should come in with the first of the wave, launch its terror mission or base attack as you're scrambling fighters and trying to prioritize targets.

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The scenario you're picturing is clearly different from the one I'm picturing, because you're giving yourself too much time to react. In vanilla right now UFOs fly over your base all the time and do nothing. The UFO should come in with the first of the wave, launch its terror mission or base attack as you're scrambling fighters and trying to prioritize targets.

You wait until you're certain no UFOs are spawning that are flying in a straight line. Ones that are get prioritized. It's not foolproof, but was fairly reliable.

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Let's be realistic, folks - if you see an UFO heading straight towards your base, you would do everything possible to shoot it down, including canceling other targets. Knowing that might happen you will also keep one in mind about being able to react (you can't apply the current way you play as your logic would differ when you know what may happen!) After all potentially losing a base is the toughest loss you can suffer.
That's for sure! Not only that, but I usually have some spare jets at my base and AA batteries waiting. I agree that alien base attacks are exciting, but I'm going to so everything possible to stop them. They weren't that common in the OG either and you could defend against them pre-landing too. I think the larger question is how far from a consistent logical sequence of events do you want diverge to make this happen? Why not have the aliens simply drop out of orbit in landing pods right on top of your base like Star Wars? Or use transporters to beam into your base or a terror site? Edited by StellarRat
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At least that way you know the aliens are trying to do something. Besides right now terror missions are easily distinguished by the escorts until you get Quantum Cryptology Center anyway. At least that way the aliens look less incompetent than they do now, and the player can understand the reason why base attacks aren't happening. Right now the stupidity of an alien invasion that can't remember where my base is is almost distracting, and as multiple people are pointing out, isn't all that fun anyway.

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Right now the stupidity of an alien invasion that can't remember where my base is is almost distracting, and as multiple people are pointing out, isn't all that fun anyway.
Logically, they would search for and find your base and simply send every UFO in every wave to attack it. That's not much fun either.
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Logically, they would search for and find your base and simply send every UFO in every wave to attack it. That's not much fun either.

No they wouldn't, because the whole point of this invasion is poking us with a stick and seeing what we do, not obliterating all resistance. But thats no reason for the aliens to drop the stick, forget they were supposed to poke us with it, and then remember a few days later after calling frank from the other UFO cause you forgot your password for the alien map database. If base attacks are supposed to be part of the game, I should be able to tell. If you think that an alien headed straight for your base is too obvious than have it blend in with the wave for a much shorter time, or have three come at you and only one of them is the real base attack. Something that makes the Aliens look aggressive instead of stupid.

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But thats no reason for the aliens to drop the stick, forget they were supposed to poke us with it, and then remember a few days later after calling frank from the other UFO cause you forgot your password for the alien map database.
How do you know they are forgetting where your base is?
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Because I just watched a UFO on a base attack mission go from North Africa to Scotland to the Soviet Union before finally attacking my base on Rhodes. This took them almost a full day to do.

Well you should understand why they would go sightseeing considering how soon Earth will be eradicated from their PoV.

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