[v1.5/X:CE] Dynamic UFO Spawns (v1.0)

Well, it's almost like two separate issues. Dynamic UFOs does a great job of adding challenge and variety to the early and mid game. But once a player manages to field a number of Marauders, air superiority rather compromises everything. A larger mix of UFO types loses relevance when you can pretty much shoot down and airstrike all of them. I guess you could say, from one point of view, that the value curve of Dynamic UFOs peaks early, slowly falls closer to that of vanilla, and then drops notably with Marauders.

I'm not sure what you mean by people "putting together some ideas for crew listings" saving you a lot of work. Couldn't you just look at, say, a sebillian cruiser loadout, and substitute the same number/classes of wraiths? Or is doing that for each and every possible mission type a real pain?

Sorry, showing my lack of knowledge here again

I'm not sure what you mean by people "putting together some ideas for crew listings" saving you a lot of work. Couldn't you just look at, say, a sebillian cruiser loadout, and substitute the same number/classes of wraiths? Or is doing that for each and every possible mission type a real pain?

That would work kind of work, but there's still things to consider like support/default variants, AI types, etc. It would probably be less work than it was to produce the current lists (which took a surprisingly long amount of time), but it's still work. Someone sending me a list or proto-list would make it much more likely to happen then me having to do it from scratch, was the point.

i got a ramdon though on my mind about FTD...is possible to make a crash mission without a "ufo" itself...i mean you could just add a LOT of debris and stuff because the ufo exploded in mid air or something and then the aliens landed with capsules or drop pods (like the valkyrie)...if this could be made then adding this as a pre requisite for the valkyrie (studyng the alien pods sistem and then make the valkyries aviables).

So my main question is...its possible to make a mission without a phisical "ufo" present in the map..but full of debris..maybe the core,parts and components of the ufo(with their destroyed sprites versions)?.

That would be possible and I've thought about it before. I'm not sure whether I like it though, as it doesn't seem consistent with the the UFO lore generally (although nor is their evaporating upon destruction, I suppose). There's also a question of effort: it would involve at the very least adding some spawn points to existing maps while - in theory anyway - they should rarely get shot down properly because you should be nuking them with the Fury. So whether there'd be much return for the effort involved is questionable.

I also messed with loadouts a little bit, and confirm it's surprizing how much time and effort it can take if you think out deeply what are you doing. I've revisited all small ufos, corvettes and caesan landing ship so far giving even more variety to crews in terms of alien subtypes and AI behavior. Besides of sebillian and andron landingships, not sure if I'm going to touch bigger ships - as was said, all these tweaks lose value later in the game.

I think the data format puts a big limitation on what can be done. Eg if I want the crew to be 10 members and consist of two alien types with totally random proportion (2/8 or 5/5 etc) it can't be coded. So most alien types are coded with a very small variance, like 1-2 noncombatants, 3 guards, 2-3 soldiers, 1 officer, 0 or 1 omega - that's a crew of 7-10 persons, and most likely you won't notice big difference from mission to mission... Imagine almost the whole crew attacks you aggressively on one mission, but sits in the ufo on another (of the same mission type)... that is random loadouts

kabill could you pls guide me about the AM_ files format?

1) whats the difference between "m:airplane.alien.corvette" and "m:airplane.alien.corvette/250"?

2) rough estimation on ticker values in terms of months or weeks?

3) the row "chance" sets the probability of a ufo(s) will be spawned during each wave, right? Whereas the column "chance" distributes spawn probs of different ufo types for this mission within a wave?

1) Basically, it's needed to make the mod-loading system work. Explaining it in more detail is probably more effort that it is worth, so simply apply these rules:

- The first point at which a UFO can spawn should have the UFO entry without a prefixed number (e.g. the first time that a corvette can spawn for a mission type it should be m:airplane.alien.corvette).

- Every time subsequently, add a prefixed number which corresponds with the ticker-point at which the new entry takes effect (so if you're creating a new group of UFOs for the mission at ticker point 250, use m:airplane.alien.corvette/250 for the corvette, for example).

Hope that's clear. I've not explained it very well I don't think.

2) This varies depending on game difficulty as difficulty adjusts ticker speed slightly. But as a general rule, 100 ticker points is equal to a month.

3) Yes. Note that the mission spawn chance is quite complex, though:

- Mission types are divided into two classes: passive and aggressive.

- Aggressive missions are: Scout, Air Superiority and Base Attack.

- Passive missions are all the others.

- During each alien wave, one aggressive mission will be spawned for every three UFOs spawned in total. So if there are 3, 4 or 5 UFOs spawning in a wave, you will spawn one with an aggressive mission, whereas if there are 6, 7 or 8 UFOs in a wave, you'll spawn two with aggressive missions, and so on.

- The chance variable indicates the relative chance of a mission spawning compared with all others in the same class. So if Scout is set to 50, Air Superiority to 100 and Base Attack to 10, a Scouting mission would be 5 times more likely than a Base Attack mission to spawn and an Air Superiority mission would be twice as likely as a Scouting mission to spawn (and ten times more likely than a Base Attack).

- If a mission is set so that it can spawn only once a wave, or if the mission type is on a cooldown (e.g. with terror missions), they are not included in the chance calculation (so the more missions that are set to one/wave or on cooldowns, the more frequently other mission types will spawn across the course of the game).

Again, hope that makes some sense. The key thing is knowing about the aggressive/passive classification, as this isn't transparent anywhere in the game files.

ok pretty clear, p.3 was surprizingly complicated though

A question. Just had a battleship, containing 13 androns, 12 harridans and a praetor, land and construct a base. From what you said earlier, it seems that Dynamic UFO bases always start small, and then grow. Now, I've already learned that the androns and harridans might randomly change to other species, but will the number (26) of aliens stay the same, and most importantly, will the praetor still be present even though it's a small base?

No, each size of alien base has its own list which is generated either with the base or when the base is attacked (I'm not sure which). A large base would have a crew equivalent in size and power to a Battleship, but smaller bases will have smaller and less powerful crews. So if you're wanting to bag a Praetor you'd need to do it either by intercepting/assaulting the Battleship itself or waiting until the base has gown to its largest size.

Lol. Ok, well, all of this makes the QCC pretty irrelevant when it comes to bases. The data says that construction ship has sebillians on board? Sorry, they just magically became caesans. Wanna bag a leader? Well, those sebs might just change into androns, too. After a praetor? Um, nope, he was here, but now we're not sure where he went. Good grief

Random sebilian grunt: Sorry [Xenonaut], but our [Praetor] is in another castle!

Btw, can there be a crazy version of this mod that is completely random, like at any point in the game anything from a light scout to a battleship may spawn, no limits whatsoever?

is there a way to decrease the time between terror ufo is spawned and terror site appearance?

Btw, can there be a crazy version of this mod that is completely random, like at any point in the game anything from a light scout to a battleship may spawn, no limits whatsoever?

This might not ever actually get finished, but a large-scale mod I have part-worked out does this.

is there a way to decrease the time between terror ufo is spawned and terror site appearance?

No, there's no externalized variables for anything like that.

thats bad... I'm almost always able to maintain air superiority, so have at best one occasional terror site in a whole playthrough.

Alien terror is a big marker of the "proper" invasion atmosphere, so lacking terror sites hurts... btw I noticed the default XNT AM_ setup differs from this mod data, despite you said it's already included. Eg XNT terror missions are limited by one per wave, whereas the mod does not do this. I'll try out the latter setting, maybe I'll get lucky to see more terror sites

XNT uses a modified version of Dynamic UFOs so it won't be exactly the same.

Not really an update: Dynamic UFOs has now been added to the Steam Workshop. If anyone happens to try it there, I'd be grateful for confirmation that it's working.

Incidentally, you stated in your OP that there would still be no more than one terror or base attack mission generated per wave. Just got a carrier and a battleship both on terror missions as the first two UFOs in a wave. I deliberately let them land, simply for the challenge and the variety, and personally I think it's great. But if that wasn't your intention, and you haven't made any changes, I thought I'd mention it

Edit: And praetors on terror missions. Quite interesting

Incidentally, you stated in your OP that there would still be no more than one terror or base attack mission generated per wave. Just got a carrier and a battleship both on terror missions as the first two UFOs in a wave. I deliberately let them land, simply for the challenge and the variety, and personally I think it's great. But if that wasn't your intention, and you haven't made any changes, I thought I'd mention it

Edit: And praetors on terror missions. Quite interesting

Actually, the OP is wrong. I changed this at some point as I wanted a small chance that you could get multiple terror missions at the same time (second strike team to the rescue!) but apparently didn't update the OP accordingly.

How was the Praetor on the mission (your comment is ambivalent)? I didn't actually do this for any other reason than crew consistency: I really dislike how in vanilla the crew for a downed or landed UFO on a Terror Mission is different to the crew present during the mission itself, so I standardised them (albeit with reduced randomness in crew numbers on the mission itself to make sure they were most likely tougher than downing the UFO). Hence, Praetors on Terror Missions.

How was the Praetor on the mission?

Well, in vanilla there are two ways of getting a praetor. In this mod one of those ways is essentially removed, as I don't believe anybody can afford to let an alien base hang around until it eventually spawns a praetor (assuming that's how it works, and assuming alien bases still cause continual funding damage). So praetors on terror missions gives the player back that second possibility.

In theory, this should work well. On the mission I played, there were 27 aliens present- the toughest androns and harridans backed up by five large drones- and, as you intended, it was overall one hell of a fight. However, the praetor himself was too easy to get. As others have noted in the past, praetors seem to be largely immobile. I have seen them frequently rotate in place, but only once (in maybe 15-20 encounters) actually move. And their reactions also seem to be far too slow; I have repeatedly charged and stunned them (granted, with soldiers beginning with full TUs) without them taking a shot (perhaps because they're expending all their APs on psionics).

These weaknesses are mitigated on battleship and base control rooms by the fact that the praetors are positioned in areas that are tough to get to and surrounded by dedicated defenders. On the terror mission I played, the praetor was standing/floating right in the open, with no bodyguard (all the other aliens were following their own, more aggressive, AIs) and could be easily shot at long range or flanked from multiple directions. After completing the mission, I reloaded the beginning autosave just to see what would happen, and again, after a few turns, I found the praetor floating out in the open (albeit a different spot).

I don't know if there's a way to assign individual units to set spawn points (I'm guessing there isn't) but if there is, praetors should be placed in concealed areas, like behind cover on the second or third floor of a building. Or, alternatively, their defensive parameters should be increased, possibly by giving them a chance to NOT use all their APs on psionics on a given turn, so they could move and fire more often. As it is, exposed in the open, they're sitting ducks.

I really dislike how in vanilla the crew for a downed or landed UFO on a Terror Mission is different to the crew present during the mission itself, so I standardised them

Hmmm. But, concurrently, you're allowing the crew for a base-building mission to be completely different than the aliens that are actually generated in the base itself (again, sebs can become androns, praetors can disappear, etc.)

Hmmm. But, concurrently, you're allowing the crew for a base-building mission to be completely different than the aliens that are actually generated in the base itself (again, sebs can become androns, praetors can disappear, etc.)

I'm not "allowing" it. If I had some control over it I would fix it! But it's only the race issue that is problematic, though. It doesn't make sense for the aliens in an alien base to match the crew that built it exactly since not all those crew are going to disembark. But it does make sense that the race type would match the construction crew.

I don't know if there's a way to assign individual units to set spawn points (I'm guessing there isn't) but if there is, praetors should be placed in concealed areas, like behind cover on the second or third floor of a building. Or, alternatively, their defensive parameters should be increased, possibly by giving them a chance to NOT use all their APs on psionics on a given turn, so they could move and fire more often. As it is, exposed in the open, they're sitting ducks.

There's actually not a lot that can be done about this. There's a good chance that they're set to Command AI during the terror mission, though, so I could try changing them to something else (i.e. Passive or Aggressive) which might make them a bit more mobile.

In terms of psionics, you might be right about the AP costs. Since there seems to be a hard-coded cap on psionic use I've taken to reducing the cost of using psionics down to 1 to avoid psionic aliens screwing themselves with pointless psi abilities rather than shooting. So that might be an option too. (Incidentally, this would explain why they seem to have so few reactions - if they spend most of their TUs on psionic attacks they won't have any TUs left for reaction fire).

When you said that you standardized the crews of crashed/landed UFOs with the crew actually present on the GC, I assumed that meant you also had the capacity to do that with base generation. Guess not, which explains things. Still unsure about your core decision to have all alien bases start off small, though; there's a lot of pros and cons...

I think taking the praetor's psionic AP costs down to 1 is an excellent idea (since the hard-coded cap is already a ceiling). If they actually juked and jived and fired their nasty weapons at you- instead of just standing there- capturing one would become a whole different ballgame. In fact, I'm going to change that right now in the files and await the next terror ship

Ok, got two more battleship terror missions. Set Mind Control AP to one, gave the praetor leader a defensive AI (well before the mission ever generated) on the first one, an aggressive AI on the second. In both cases he stood out in the open (I assume on his original spawn point) and never moved. I deliberately held my troops back (after surviving the initial onslaughts) until turn 20, and then watched as all the other remaining aliens ran around juking and looking for LOS, while the praetor did a great imitation of a statue.

I know this isn't directly related to your mod, or in any way caused or influenced by it. But something is definitely "off" with the praetors (and always has been) and if you're going to offer them on terror missions as a viable capture option, maybe you might want to poke around and see if you can give them a kick in the rear somehow?

When you said that you standardized the crews of crashed/landed UFOs with the crew actually present on the GC, I assumed that meant you also had the capacity to do that with base generation. Guess not, which explains things.

No, it's just that there's separate crew lists for terror missions en-route and during the terror attack itself. Really, there should be a similar thing for base attack missions as well but there isn't for some reason.

Still unsure about your core decision to have all alien bases start off small, though; there's a lot of pros and cons...

Yeah, I think I'm a little ambivalent about it. In principle, I really dislike bases all being the same size regardless of how long they've been in play. But it does create problems. Might have to work through it again, along with overall thinking about the role that alien bases play in the game.

Ok, got two more battleship terror missions. Set Mind Control AP to one, gave the praetor leader a defensive AI (well before the mission ever generated) on the first one, an aggressive AI on the second. In both cases he stood out in the open (I assume on his original spawn point) and never moved. I deliberately held my troops back (after surviving the initial onslaughts) until turn 20, and then watched as all the other remaining aliens ran around juking and looking for LOS, while the praetor did a great imitation of a statue.

I know this isn't directly related to your mod, or in any way caused or influenced by it. But something is definitely "off" with the praetors (and always has been) and if you're going to offer them on terror missions as a viable capture option, maybe you might want to poke around and see if you can give them a kick in the rear somehow?

I can't think why this would be related to the AI properties that are accessible in aiprops; seems more likely to be special AI for the Praetor. I've got a possible work-around in mind for dealing with that, though - create a new Praetor that's of the Caesan racial type for the terror stage of terror missions. That way it should behave better, while the regular Praetor can be used in bases and on battleships so that it will display properly on the Quantum Cryptography readout.