Some Thoughts on Overhauling the Geoscape

so I've browsed through the discussion again, the main points seem to be:

1. increase all aircraft speed. Bigger increase for ufos making them harder to catch. Early planes mostly useful as protection against fighter UFOs

2. increase ufo landing chance & more ufos spawned to guarantee enough landings (what about time the ufo stays landed? Multiple landings per mission?)

3. reduce negative funding and ticker effect per UFOs to balance the game

4. no funding benefits for shooting down ufos (what about airstriking crashed ufos?)

5. crashlanded UFO GC gives little money/tech (configured and due to power cores explotions?)

6. bigger variety of recoverable resources from landed ufos

7. GC manufacture produces unlimited sets of weapons, makes it easy to manage several GC teams. Explosives upgrade the same way (research-manufacture-instaresearch cycle)

8. multiple teams require other operational costs to be relatively low

9. plans on changing the size/effectiveness of many buildings so you effectively get less space per base, which will make including things like base defences costly in terms of the area they occupy

10. diversifying the resources needed to make things. In particular, using alien ammo clips as power sources needed by advanced weapons which takes some of the bonus off of alloys and alenium as early-game resources

...and one more thing bothers me: how to protect the base from being suddenly destroyed while the team is on a GC mission?

I was going to do this at some point, but yes that's a fair summary I think. Thanks.

2. increase ufo landing chance & more ufos spawned to guarantee enough landings (what about time the ufo stays landed? Multiple landings per mission?)

I'm not sure about UFO landing times. To be honest, I think they're ok as they are and could even be a little shorter perhaps.

In terms of the number of times they land - either that's tied into the landing chance in the alien mission files or else there's no way to control it externally. (I'm slightly uncertain how the landing chance variable works, actually).

...and one more thing bothers me: how to protect the base from being suddenly destroyed while the team is on a GC mission?

I guess there's no way to deal with this other than either having a reserve garrison of troops or having base defences (actually, this is a good reason to have base defences even in bases which are otherwise well defended). It's worth noting that using soldiers as a garrison will be better than in vanilla if the infinite-equipment feature is enabled as you'll be able to equip your garrison properly even if the main squad is out on a mission at the time.

and btw what is "Can't Take the Sky From Me"? I've seen it somewhere but can't remember what is it about

It's an air combat mod I made which was designed to add more skill into the air combat game. I've not updated it for ages as I couldn't get it where I wanted it to be.

I do have some thoughts in relation to this mod, though. Rather than making UFOs more durable, they could do with being more agile and being better able to avoid missiles. Ideally, if you can position your planes well you'll win quickly, but this is made difficult by giving UFOs a fast turn speed, dodges, anti-missile defences and so on. Couple this with a nerf to torpedoes (most specifically, their range) and I think it might work. Ideally, then, most interceptions would require at least two aircraft because you need to lure or distract with one while attacking with another (which in itself nerfs air combat by requiring more aircraft per UFO to win).

I think i am becoming sensitive when i am sick ..

I want to say some about air combat.. i think the idea 1 big 2 escord is the best for battle but sadly as i read, its hardcoded to give ufos escords.. i think you told it..

So if it would be possible from beginning i would use it nearly all ufos with escords.. so 2 dogfighter 1 bomber vs 2 interceptor 1 big ufo would be nice..

So we dont have chance to do it.. i prefer more 3 interceptors per wave.. maybe 2-3 squadrons.. so our dog fighters will be still important..

As bombers.. the vanilla game mostly updates dogfighters... and finally u get a multipurpose ultimate craft.. u use foxtrots nearly until the latest game period.. we need to seperate that.. if u ask me, we need at least 2-3 more heavy airplanes.. heavy armored heavy torpido loaded airplanes... they will take damage for sure.. they wont be dodgers, they will be tanks..

As i know the UI allow us to use 4 missile at a plane.. so 4 missile for this heavy airplanes and 1 gun 2 rocket with good manuever ability..

And another airplane type which very fast, agile, low fire power for lure purpose.. u can use them at dogfighters or big ufos..

What did i try to say:

1. 3 airplane type:

a. Heavy Missile Carriers: Heavy, slow, well armored to survive, 4 missile points (or with 1 anti missile) - very expensive

b. Dogfighters : Anti fighter ufos.. 1 gun - 1 rocket - 1 anti-missile - normal

c. Recon : Luring other ufos.. 1 gun - 2 anti missile.. - cheap

2. More ufo fighter class*3 squadrons per wave to make dogfighters usefull..

3. Jump on the comminity coders (i think they are silent for looong times) to make escord hardcode to softcode..

4. Adding 2-3 missile carrier and racon airplanes.. maybe some special multi purposed ones (recon-dog)

I'm speaking from the perspective of a Veteran player, so YMMV but when you said "second strike team" that's where a sizable chunk of your costs are going to be. I have found it is prohibitively expensive to run a second team before you get a Shrike dropship. The cost in hiring, wages, equipment, room and board really runs too high.

A quote from Max in a different thread, just to reinforce what I'd mentioned before about the need to tweak operational costs for additional strike teams

I'm trying to think it out again, how these changes impact the 2nd part of the game...

- it's impossible to block the envasion by shooting down/airstriking everything, that's good

- one option is catching as many big UFOs on the ground as possible, and destroying smaller ones in the air. Many GC with bigger ufos, what might become annoying if there is no clear benefit (currently it's the main reason for uninvolved lategame). I doubt money can successfully play the role of the main motivator.

- what if the player just lets bigger UFOs to do what they want, chasing just the minimum for tech progress? Plasma weapons will be enough to win the game and there is not much needed to research them. Basically it will be the same game as atm but w/o airstriking crash sites. I haven't tried this, but have a feeling it might be feasible to cease the activity after November, catch a leader and a praetor and complete the Endgame by February. So what's the difference then...

...and one more thing, I think I don't fully grasp the concept of waves. Is it possible to influence the frequency of those waves by modding config files? Or completeley blur the concept so the UFOs spawn constantly by few random ships? The AM_ files set UFO types for certain ticker values, does it instruct the game to spawn the UFOs, or just outlines UFO types that spawned at the certain moment?

- one option is catching as many big UFOs on the ground as possible, and destroying smaller ones in the air. Many GC with bigger ufos, what might become annoying if there is no clear benefit (currently it's the main reason for uninvolved lategame). I doubt money can successfully play the role of the main motivator.

- what if the player just lets bigger UFOs to do what they want, chasing just the minimum for tech progress? Plasma weapons will be enough to win the game and there is not much needed to research them. Basically it will be the same game as atm but w/o airstriking crash sites. I haven't tried this, but have a feeling it might be feasible to cease the activity after November, catch a leader and a praetor and complete the Endgame by February. So what's the difference then...

This is why I've said (not here but elsewhere) that making changes to boost the late-game actually requires a much wider range of tweaks than just changing some of the geoscape stuff. I've been envisaging building these changes into a larger mod which makes more extensive changes rather than a standalone because of this.

...and one more thing, I think I don't fully grasp the concept of waves. Is it possible to influence the frequency of those waves by modding config files? Or completeley blur the concept so the UFOs spawn constantly by few random ships? The AM_ files set UFO types for certain ticker values, does it instruct the game to spawn the UFOs, or just outlines UFO types that spawned at the certain moment?

This stuff is in gameconfig.xml. One of the things I want to try (again) is to remove the wave mechanic entirely and have UFOs spawn randomly (thereby creating natural waves as a result of RNG). When I tried this with the vanilla number of UFOs it didn't work so well, but I'm hoping that with more UFOs and nerfed aircraft that it will work better.

...another way to nerf aicraft is to make it more expensive... while this means the more UFOs you shoot the more aircraft you can by, and shoot more ufos, etc, the greatly reduced bonus from crashed ufos might make this approach viable

what if we make country-funding the main money source? Basically this means reducing alien weapon prices very much and likely increasing the funding amounts.

It's good b/c first we have more ways to make big landed ufos valuable (different ufo parts not available in the smaller/crashed ships, whereas weapons selection is mostly the same). Second, we have a clear player pressure point - he can't just sit and relax in lategame b/c reputation damage will quickly cut finances and the game is lost. And he can't use the intercept-airstrike style b/c of nerfed aircraft

But I'm unsure how big the flexibility is available to the modders in the funding/reputation area... seems it's enough, just don't see where the starting funding amount is... [upd] seems it is $500 * reputation points

If anything, it would be better to reduce the importance of reputation on funding, as this would make doing ground combat more important. Currently in the late game maintaining relations with funders isn't a problem; indeed the problem is that it's too easy to do.

this is how the game currently works, yes it's easy - maintain air supremacy and don't bother about anything else.

But if you somehow nerf aircraft/air combat then GC becomes the main way to improve reputation, or slow down it's dropping. Also you can increase the reputation impact from alien missions, this should make maintaining lategame relations not an easy task as there will be many UFOs

in other words, currently noone bothers about relations/funding. So make it more valueable and harder to maintain, and if it's not possible then I agree - reducing it's importance is the next obvious step.

kabill, can you explain the meaning of config parameters like "continentModNA"? The default comment "North America modifies its funding by this value" does not make it clear to me

... and this one:

<crashsiteFundingBonus value="true" comment="Controls whether doing crash sites grants a relations bonus with the region" />

<crashsiteFundingModifier value="1.0" comment="If relations bonus for crash sites is enabled, the bonus is the shootdown bonus multiplied by this value" />

are you sure "Landing chance" parameter in AM_ files affects anything? I've tried setting it to 100, 1k and 10k for scout missions - they still nevel land

kabill, can you explain the meaning of config parameters like "continentModNA"? The default comment "North America modifies its funding by this value" does not make it clear to me

Funding for each bloc is equal to: Relations score x 500 x Continent Modifier

The variable you've highlighted is the Continent Modifier. Basically, the higher it is, the more valueable each relations point is in terms of funding from that bloc.

<crashsiteFundingBonus value="true" comment="Controls whether doing crash sites grants a relations bonus with the region" />

<crashsiteFundingModifier value="1.0" comment="If relations bonus for crash sites is enabled, the bonus is the shootdown bonus multiplied by this value" />

That's used to give relations bonuses for completing crash missions (normally this isn't the case). The second value indicates the value of the mission as a proportion of its shot-down value.

are you sure "Landing chance" parameter in AM_ files affects anything? I've tried setting it to 100, 1k and 10k for scout missions - they still nevel land

Ugh, it's not impossible that it's useless just like the escort chance. But it might also be because Scout UFOs are set by default to be unable to land. If you go to aircrafts.xml and scroll to near the end, you can set the Scout UFO type to be able to land. Do that and try again.

That's used to give relations bonuses for completing crash missions (normally this isn't the case). The second value indicates the value of the mission as a proportion of its shot-down value.

still unclear... The shot-down value is in aircrafts.xml, it gives a bonus to relations when the ufo is taken down. Then what is a "crash mission" - a GC at the crashlanded site, and it gives another bonus to relations? Does this affect landed ufos?

Ugh, it's not impossible that it's useless just like the escort chance. But it might also be because Scout UFOs are set by default to be unable to land. If you go to aircrafts.xml and scroll to near the end, you can set the Scout UFO type to be able to land. Do that and try again.

so far it looks useless. Changing aircrafts.xml did nothing as I test the very first wave which mostly consist from lightscouts and they already can land. It seems the research missions are affected by this value, though. The bad thing is research being the only mission type affected... this puts the whole mod idea under question

still unclear... The shot-down value is in aircrafts.xml, it gives a bonus to relations when the ufo is taken down. Then what is a "crash mission" - a GC at the crashlanded site, and it gives another bonus to relations? Does this affect landed ufos?

Yes, that's right. If the values were set to 'true' and '1' respectively, then you'd gain the same relations bonus for completing a crash mission as you do for shooting the UFO down in the first place.

I'm not sure how it applies to landed UFOs. I'm fairly certain that in vanilla assaulting a landed UFO gives a relationship bonus as if you'd shot it down (otherwise it would be better to shoot the UFO down first). I don't know whether the variables you've pointed out would stack with that.

so far it looks useless. Changing aircrafts.xml did nothing as I test the very first wave which mostly consist from lightscouts and they already can land. It seems the research missions are affected by this value, though. The bad thing is research being the only mission type affected... this puts the whole mod idea under question

Hmm, that's a shame. Might have a play around with it tonight to see if I can make it do anything useful or find a work-around.

... another thing that makes me sad is the limited ability to change particular mission spawn chance over time.

Eg if I want massive terror waves at certain points of the game I can't implement this... the spawn chance is constant across the whole game, the only thing you can do is prohibit certain missions in the early period

I'v been following this discussion with considerable interest. podbeliski, you should perhaps know that during development everyone had something to say about ground combat, but relatively few people had things to say about the rest of the game, so what we have is pretty pure developer thinking.

it's not I blame game developers, I'm a software developer as well so I know how tough it is to predict and plan everything the way it should be)

So, yes, it does sadly look like only Research mission UFOs can land. However, I have a kind of work-around. Since it is possible to add in new crew lists now, it would be possible to heavily weight research missions so that they tend to spawn frequently and therefore are available for attacking. It would reduce UFO mission diversity, but with more UFOs it might not be too much of a problem.

Basically, you'd end up with a situation whereby Research missions are reconceptualised as something like "harvest" missions (hence the landing) making up most (~50%?) of alien missions and other missions making up the rest.

basically, we "lose" only scout missions here, b/c construction ships will land anyway, terror missions also will, and others are not supposed to do it (bombing, ground attack, base attack). Btw I never saw supply missions yet as I don't let aliens to build bases

I just wonder is there something extra behind "it is possible to add in new crew lists now", something I don't know about?

I mean, is there some flexibility beyond what was done in "Dynamic UFOs" mod? Like several different loadouts for a particular mission/ufo combination?

And I've just tested "crashsiteFundingBonus" parameter, looks like it does not work for landed UFOs at all... what is really strange compared to a double bonus for shooting ufo + GC at a crashsite. If I'm right it's probably the best to turn off this bonus completely

I mean, is there some flexibility beyond what was done in "Dynamic UFOs" mod? Like several different loadouts for a particular mission/ufo combination?

Back in old vanilla, the alien races used in the game code were all hard coded to Caesan, Sebillian and Andron. This made it impossible to add in new crew lists because giving anything a tag other than Caesan, Sebillian or Andron wouldn't work. Solver undid all that hard-coding and added in a new file in ufocontents which allows you to add in new alien races which resolves this problem, though.

They don't actually need to be new races - all it really is is a label which the ufocontents files use. For example, as a test before I added in Caesan2 and Sebillian2 in the race.xml file and added some new ufocontents files which ended .Caesan2 and .Sebillian2. In-game, the crew lists from these loaded fine.

(In other words, it is now possible for - in principle - unlimited variety in UFO crews. This is beyond what Dynamic UFOs does, since the feature was added long after I'd started work on that mod. I might go back and make use of it at some point, but it's particularly useful here given the landing problem).#

And I've just tested "crashsiteFundingBonus" parameter, looks like it does not work for landed UFOs at all... what is really strange compared to a double bonus for shooting ufo + GC at a crashsite. If I'm right it's probably the best to turn off this bonus completely

Probably an oversight from when Solver added that in. Or in the original code, if he used some stuff that was already in game (ground missions used to provide funding bonuses a long time ago but it was removed at some point).

cool, 2 or maybe 3 loadouts for some mission/ufo combinations will be great. This allows to make an certain emphazis in AI behaviour, or in creature types.