Escort chance settings

[kabill]

To be clear, I'd be quite happy to see a proper fix for this. I just don't want to make any presumptions about what you spend your time on doing, hence the scoping for alternatives.

[Solver]

I am a bit unclear however about what the proper fix could be, such that the default game does not get screwed with.

[kabill]

Ok, some thoughts:

Firstly, it probably makes sense to have a flag for all mission types that allows you to turn on/off escorts for that mission type. Even if the current system is used for determining the chance of spawning with an escort, it increases mod-freedom if all missions can be made to spawn/not spawn escorts.

Secondly, a relatively simple solution would be to have the "escortchance" variable work as a flat % chance of spawning an escort. This would replace the current system entirely. While this would have some small impact on gameplay (you'd get escorts a bit sooner), on aggregate it will work more or less the same.

Alternatively, keep the current system but add in a % chance override. So if the escortchance variable is set to 0 or greater, it uses the flat % specified, while if it's set to -1 it uses the vanilla system.

Another alternative would be to make the thresholds used in the source code moddable. For example, being able to change it to:

< 1/5 through: no escort

1/5-4/5: % chance of escort

> 4/5: always escort

[Solver]

Firstly, it probably makes sense to have a flag for all mission types that allows you to turn on/off escorts for that mission type. Even if the current system is used for determining the chance of spawning with an escort, it increases mod-freedom if all missions can be made to spawn/not spawn escorts.

Can be done now by just removing all e: entries from the mission file, then there will be no escorts.

Alternatively, keep the current system but add in a % chance override. So if the escortchance variable is set to 0 or greater, it uses the flat % specified, while if it's set to -1 it uses the vanilla system.

Not bad, but actually also limits the possibilities quite a lot. No control over escort escalation.

I'll give this some thought. Not a fan of any solution so far, really.

[kabill]

Can be done now by just removing all e: entries from the mission file, then there will be no escorts.

This was mainly so that mission types which currently don't seem to spawn escorts ever are capable of doing so. (kottis's tests above suggested that research missions never spawned escorts, for example).

As for the solutions: no, I wasn't especially taken by them either. Sadly don't have any other ideas, though.

[kottis]

Maybe the first question should be what is the current escort system lacking off? For me that's

1) all mission /ufo types should be escort available

2) setting the escort chance for each mission / ufo type from the very beginning

3) if escalation is available - setting the escalation value for each mission / ufo type

For 1) that<#s already implemented by adding e:alien... to the AM xmls (scout and research missions escorts however has to be added in code)

For 2) and 3) it gets a little bit tricky;

with the current system you have 3) with the lack of setting the limit values exactly (lowerbound and upperbound), so just adding variables here in each AM file would be fine.

For 2) you need an additional minimum and maximum change for escorts, which only comes to play if the chance of escort from the vanilla calculation is smaller or bigger than the minimum and maximum.

So just to summarize, if you want complete freedom you need 4 additional variables in the AM files and some coding (lowerbound, upperbound, minimum, maximum).

[DarkExcalibur42]

When there's no later ship, it acts as if the next step is 1000 ticker points higher. So if Battleships appear at ticker 650, the game considers the next step to be at 1650. Meaning that Battleships would start getting escorts 250 ticker points after their initial appearance, at 900 that is.

So.... what if you modded in a new UFO type that would replace the battleship at some value earlier than 1650? Would that accelerate the rate at which Battleships received escorts? I mean... that's sort of a sloppy fix, but considering how late the Battleship shows up in game you should be able to set this fabricated UFO to a ticker value where it'll never show up but which will still encourage faster appearance of Escorts for the Battleship. Right?

[kabill]

That would kind of work (i.e. it would until you get to that ticker point).

[DarkExcalibur42]

So long as it's lower than 1650, we'll see battleships getting escorts at a faster rate (which is desirable). And so long as it's still high enough, we won't really see much of the ship that comes after it if we see it at all. I just wish I could check what the ticker was at in my current save-game. It'd give me an idea of where games end.

Plus! We could use the unused art assets from the Dreadnought for the after-battleship enemy. Then just stack on the scary mean stats so that the best way to bring it down is via the Fury. Boom. You've given yourself a very scary escalation of force in the air war.

[llunak]

So long as it's lower than 1650, we'll see battleships getting escorts at a faster rate (which is desirable). And so long as it's still high enough, we won't really see much of the ship that comes after it if we see it at all.

Wouldn't it work to be able to set the escort chance the same way UFO types are set (i.e. at minimal ticker)?

I just wish I could check what the ticker was at in my current save-game. It'd give me an idea of where games end.

I think there's an AI state debug option in gameconfig.xml for this (may require using Xenonauts_gceditor.exe).

Plus! We could use the unused art assets from the Dreadnought for the after-battleship enemy. Then just stack on the scary mean stats so that the best way to bring it down is via the Fury. Boom. You've given yourself a very scary escalation of force in the air war.

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/11009-FTD-Mod