Feature discussion: custom alien missions

[Solver]

This weekend I've had the chance to continue some earlier X:CE work, and have made further progress on what I hope would be the centerpiece of X:CE 0.35 for modders. I'm still not 100% sure I'll manage to implement this in a good way (some savegame issues remain) but I'm reasonably optimistic and so it's time to solicit a bit more input on this feature, while it's convenient to do so. The feature is custom alien missions. In a nutshell, this is about opening the alien missions of UFOs up to modding.

How do alien missions work now?

There are nine alien mission types - air superiority, bombing run, terror, etc. For each mission, two moddable files affect them. There's an AM_.xml file, such as AM_Terror.xml, which determine when (in terms of ticker value) the mission can spawn and with what UFOs. Then the files in ufocontents have columns that determine the alien crew depending on the mission type.

So while the crew and UFOs are entirely moddable, what a mission does isn't. No new mission types can be added, and the behaviour of existing missions cannot be changed. For instance, a Construction mission will spawn, pick a location for an alien base and then fly around for 4-12 hours. Then it heads straight to the chosen location, lands and spends 8-16 hours building the base. After that, the UFO takes off and disappears after 1-3 hours.

Why is this feature (hopefully) coming?

Just a classic example of me using X:CE to make additions that I like to the game, really. I greatly enjoy the old Dynamic UFOs mod, and the newer UFO and Crew Diversity mod. I am sure these mods could be further enhanced with customisation of alien missions, and it could also come in handy for some big mods.

What is changing?

The behaviour of the missions, and their types, appears in a new file, alien_missions.xml. I post its contents later on, these may also inspire some useful feedback.

In this file, one opportunity is just to change the behaviour of existing missions. Some very simple changes to make would be to make missions last longer or shorter, or to change the duration of some phases.

More interestingly, new missions could be created, combining the behaviour of some vanilla missions. For instance:

• An air assault mission where a UFO attempts to intercept Xenonaut aircraft, but also does bombing runs against ground targets and could spawn an aerial terror site.
• A supply-and-attack mission that resupplies an alien base, and after that heads to terrorize a city.
• A mission with a phase where the UFO lands and causes high ticker damage only while landed.
• A hard-to-handle base attack UFO that goes for your base quickly instead of lingering around forever.

Creating new missions means you also have to create an AM_ file and add the mission to ufocontents!

Will this affect the unmodded game?

No, not if I can properly finish this feature. I'm basic the alien_missions.xml file on existing missions so that their behaviour would stay pretty much the same. So it's a new modding feature, not a rework of the existing behaviour.

Current alien_missions.xml

Questions and feedback on this are very much welcome! It's probably still missing a few elements, but this is what it looks like now, and it should be pretty close to the final working version.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<AlienMissions>
	<!-- ticksPerMinute: ??? -->
	<AlienMission name="AirSuperiority" 
	configFile="AM_AirSuperiority.xml"
	durationMin="20"
	durationMax="28"
	ticksPerMinute="0" 
	firstPhase="Approach"
	>
		<!-- airliner chance: ??? -->
		<Phase name="Approach"
			chooseInterceptTarget="1"
			airlinerDestroyChance="0"
		/>
		<Phase name="Intercept"
			interceptionPhase="1"
			interceptionFailedPhase="Approach"
			interceptionDonePhase="Passive"
		/>
		<!-- phaseTime: ??? -->
		<Phase name="Passive"
			phaseTime="0"
			nextPhase="Approach"
		/>
		<Phase name="Finished"
			finalPhase="1"
		/>
	</AlienMission>
	<AlienMission name="BaseAttack"
	configFile="AM_BaseAttack.xml"
	durationMin="-1"
	durationMax="-1"
	firstPhase="Approach"
	>
		<Phase name="Approach"
		phaseTimeMin="4"
		phaseTimeMax="14"
		chooseXenoBaseTarget="1"
		useXenoBaseForWander="1"
		nextPhase="ReachingXenoBase"
		/>
		<Phase name="ReachingXenoBase"
		attackXenoBase="1"
		/>
		<Phase name="Finished"
			finalPhase="1"
		/>
	</AlienMission>
	<AlienMission name="BombingRun"
	configFile="AM_BombingRun.xml"
	durationMin="20"
	durationMax="28"
	firstPhase="Approach"
	>
		<!-- ticksPerMinute: ??? -->
		<Phase name="Approach"
		bombingRunChance="30"
		bombingRunPhase="BombingRun"
		aerialTerrorChance="5"
		aerialTerrorPhase="ReachingTerrorSite"
		ticksPerMinute="0"
		/>
		<Phase name="BombingRun"
		phaseTimeMin="3"
		phaseTimeMax="5"
		/>
		<Phase name="ReachingTerrorSite"
		chooseCityTerrorTarget="1"
		goToCityTerrorTarget="1"
		nextPhase="AerialTerror"
		/>
		<Phase name="AerialTerror"
		phaseTimeMin="12"
		phaseTimeMax="24"
		aerialTerror="1"
		nextPhase="Finished"
		/>
		<Phase name="Finished"
		finalPhase="1"
		/>
	</AlienMission>
	<AlienMission name="Construction"
	configFile="AM_Construction.xml"
	firstPhase="Approach"
	>
		<Phase name="Approach"
		phaseTimeMin="4"
		phaseTimeMax="12"
		chooseConstructionLocation="1"
		nextPhase="ReachingBuildSite"
		/>
		<Phase name="ReachingBuildSite"
		goToConstructionLocation="1"
		nextPhase="Building"
		/>
		<Phase name="Building"
		phaseTimeMin="8"
		phaseTimeMax="16"
		buildAlienBase="1"
		nextPhase="Leaving"
		/>
		<Phase name="Leaving"
		phaseTimeMin="1"
		phaseTimeMax="3"
		nextPhase="Finished"
		/>
		<Phase name="Finished"
		finalPhase="1"
		/>
	</AlienMission>
	<AlienMission name="GroundAttack"
	configFile="AM_GroundAttack.xml"
	durationMin="20"
	durationMax="28"
	firstPhase="Approach"
	>
		<Phase name="Approach"
		airlinerDestroyChance="?"
		groundAttackChance="?"
		nextPhase="Finished"
		/>
		<Phase name="Finished"
		finalPhase="1"
		/>
	</AlienMission>
	<AlienMission name="Research"
	configFile="AM_Research.xml"
	durationMin="20"
	durationMax="28"
	firstPhase="Approach"
	>
		<!-- abductionChance: ??? -->
		<!-- landingChance: ??? -->
		<Phase name="Approach"
		abductionChance="0"
		landingChance="0"
		/>
		<Phase name="Researching"
		startOnLanding="1"
		phaseTimeMin="8"
		phaseTimeMax="12"
		nextPhase="Approach"
		/>
		<Phase name="Finished"
		finalPhase="1"
		/>
	</AlienMission>
	<AlienMission name="Scout"
	configFile="AM_Scout.xml"
	durationMin="20"
	durationMax="28"
	firstPhase="Approach"
	>
		<Phase name="Approach"
		/>
		<Phase name="Finished"
		finalPhase="1"
		/>
	</AlienMission>
	<AlienMission name="SupplyRun"
	configFile="AM_SupplyRun.xml"
	firstPhase="Approach"
	>
		<Phase name="Approach"
		chooseAlienBaseTarget="1"
		phaseTimeMin="4"
		phaseTimeMax="16"
		nextPhase="ReachingBase"
		/>
		<Phase name="ReachingBase"
		goToAlienBase="1"
		nextPhase="Supply"
		/>
		<Phase name="Supply"
		phaseTimeMin="8"
		phaseTimeMax="16"
		supplyAlienBase="1"
		nextPhase="Leave"
		/>
		<Phase name="Leave"
		phaseTimeMin="1"
		phaseTimeMax="3"
		nextPhase="Finished"
		/>
		<Phase name="Finished"
		finalPhase="1"
		/>
	</AlienMission>
	<AlienMission name="Terror"
	configFile="AM_Terror.xml"
	firstPhase="Approach"
	>
		<Phase name="Approach"
		chooseCityTerrorTarget="1"
		useCityForWander="1"
		phaseTimeMin="10"
		phaseTimeMax="14"
		nextPhase="ReachingTerrorSite"
		/>
		<Phase name="ReachingTerrorSite"
		goToCityTerrorTarget="1"
		nextPhase="Terror"
		/>
		<Phase name="Terror"
		terror="1"
		hideUFO="1"
		phaseTimeMin="12"
		phaseTimeMax="24" 
		nextPhase="Finished"
		/>
		<Phase name="Finished"
		finalPhase="1"
		/>
	</AlienMission>
</AlienMissions>

Explanation of XML commands (long)

Each mission consists of an AlienMission entry and multiple Phase entries. A mission starts in the phase specified by the firstPhase attribute, and continues until either reaching the final phase, or until the mission timer is up. The most interesting stuff happens in the Phase entries.

Generally, when a phase is complete, then the mission switches to the phase specified by nextPhase, except in special circumstances dictated by other commands.

Here's a list then of the current attributes that are in Phase, and what they mean.

phaseTime - amount of hours this phase continues for

phaseTimeMin, phaseTimeMax - if phaseTime is not specified, then the phase will continue for a random number of hours within these limits

chooseInterceptTarget - if enabled, the UFO will actively try to intercept Xenonaut aircraft in this phase. That is, the UFO will pick Xenonaut craft to target and head towards it.

interceptionPhase - denotes a special phase that is entered when the UFO intercepts Xenonaut craft

interceptionFailedPhase - specifies which phase to go to if the interception attempt fails (Xenonaut craft disappears)

interceptionDonePhase - specifies which phase to go to after interception. This also applies if the Xenonaut craft successfully disengaged!

airlinerDestroyChance - chance of spawning an "airliner destroyed" event, per hour

chooseXenoBaseTarget - if enabled, the UFO will select a Xenonaut base that will then become the mission's target

useXenoBaseForWander - if enabled, modifiers the UFO's flight pattern. It will keep relatively close to the chosen Xenonaut base and wander around it, instead of wandering randomly

attackXenoBase - requires that chooseXenoBaseTarget was provided by some earlier phase. When this is enabled for a phase, the UFO will head straight to the chosen Xenonaut base and will attack it.

bombingRunChance - chance per hour that the UFO will do a bombing run

bombingRunPhase - if the UFO decides to do a bombing run, go to the specified phase. Required if bombingRunChance is not 0.

aerialTerrorChance - chance per hour that the UFO will decide to perform aerial terror

aerialTerrorPhase - if the UFO decides to perform an aerial terror run, go to this phase. Required if aerialTerrorChance is not 0.

chooseCityTerrorTarget - if enabled, a city to terrorize will be chosen

goToCityTerrorTarget - if enabled, the UFO will head straight to the city chosen by chooseCityTerrorTarget

aerialTerror - if enabled, this phase is an aerial terror phase, so an aerial terror site gets spawned

chooseConstructionLocation - if enabled, the UFO will choose a location for a new alien base

goToConstructionLocation - if enabled, the UFO will head directly to the location chosen by chooseConstructionLocation and land there

buildAlienBase - if enabled, then an alien base gets built at the UFO's location once this phase is over. No base is built if the UFO gets captured before the phase is over

groundAttackChance - chance per hour of spawning a ground attack event

abductionChance - chance per hour of spawning an abduction event

landingChance - chance of the UFO deciding to land

startOnLanding - indicates a special phase for this mission that is entered immediately if the UFO decides to land due to landingChance

chooseAlienBaseTarget - an existing alien base is chosen as a target for this mission

goToAlienBase - UFO will head to the alien base chosen by chooseAlienBaseTarget and land

supplyBase - if enabled, the base selected by chooseAlienBaseTarget will be resupplied if this phase concludes successfully

chooseCityTerrorTarget - an appropriate city target is chosen by the UFO for a terror mission

useCityForWander - same as the corresponding command for Xenonaut bases, the UFO will wander in a pattern around the selected city

goToCityTerrorTarget - UFO will head to the city chosen by chooseCityTerrorTarget

terror - if enabled, this phase is a terror phase, so a terror site is spawned

hideUFO - if enabled, the UFO is invisible while in this phase. This is the mechanism by which terror missions work, letting you assault the terror site and not the actual UFO

finalPhase - a special argument denoting that this is the last phase in a mission, all missions should have such a phase

[Charon]

approves

This is the answer to my thread in ... 2015 ?

 

[Solver]

You can't fool me, that's Kane, not you

What do you think about the way the passive/aggressive mission division currently exists?

In terms of Geoscape modding in general, I have a half-decent mod that I'll probably also release with 0.35, at least for me that mod adds some fun gameplay elements that are overall about making the ground combat matter more.

[Charon]

26 minutes ago, Solver said:

You can't fool me, that's Kane, not you

Ah, got me.

26 minutes ago, Solver said:

What do you think about the way the passive/aggressive mission division currently exists?

Theres nothing much to say about that, the vanilla/current ones are doing the job basically well, but not dramatically strategic.

The main problem about this is that currently none is pushing in that direction makeing a mod for it. So only really people who want this feature can tell you what they need in order to make different things possible. This could end up as something which people find useful, but every modable feature has to be implemented by someone and used by a mod to fully shine.

So heres my logical mind chain: you need someone who is enthusiastic about this feature > you have none > implement as many modable features as possible so > someone is going to use it in the future

I´ve seen you implemented some code like "hideUFO", what does it do ? Are there more commands like that ?

I would make a COMPLETE rundown of every possible command/code and explain what it does, This way people will figure out if they will like it or if they want to sue it come up with better ideas.

Theres simply too less info about this to say anything for me, too less precise information for me. Pardon the bad english.

Edited July 31, 2016 by Charon

[Solver]

Right, this makes sense. I can so far say that the commands I've implemented are nothing special, they're all things that exist in the vanilla missions. I should write up a list of what the tags currently do, and that could pave the way to some additional suggestions.

[Charon]

3 minutes ago, Solver said:

Right, this makes sense. I can so far say that the commands I've implemented are nothing special, they're all things that exist in the vanilla missions. I should write up a list of what the tags currently do, and that could pave the way to some additional suggestions.

You are takeing the words right out of my mouth. This mouth:

[drages]

Now let's look what we have as the default game:

- Game Phases, currently 3 at default game..

- UFO's, good number of ufos..

- Missions, as Solver said, 9 missions..

- Crew  special per mission

- Mission's abilities: landing, terroring, air control..

What could we mod?

- We can add UFOs,

- We can change the UFO asign for missions, the crews, the mission timings (as game time), mission percentage...

--------------

What was the problem?

When you used an UFO for earlier phase, like a lightscout with weak alien crew, even you can make this UFO fly for entire game period, you would have the same crew. This is the worst penalty we had. So a light scout with weak crew was not usefull for game progress. 

Second problem is about the UFO itself. Even you could handle the crew somehow, that light scouts air combat stats will be same as the early game. So an end game xenonauts plane won't have any problem to shot down that UFO.. it's same for landing even for the cruiser..

UFO landing chance is hardcoded and does not work even edited at AM_ files. So only research mission ships are landing.

-------------

I used dynamic ufo mods too, but because the problems i counted here, that mods are only for diversity and not helping to game progression at all.

This addition will handle all problems about the crews fo different game phases so you can create a mission and put a high rank aliens in it and so a light scout ground combat would be good addition to late game. Making more mission with landing would be good for landing ufo ground combats. Changing the mission in mid air is a different thing. The question here is when the mission changed, will the crew change at mid air too? So when an UFO was at research mission and goes to terror, will it have research or terror crew?

When we think aboout the air time of an avarage UFO, will be there enough time to change mission? When we already got 9 mission and we can add more, do we need this re-mission option? Maybe some mission changing would be cool but it will make the balancing hard because of the mission percentage for every wave. An UFO with ground attack mission could assault your base when you never see it coming.. yeah it's shocking.. but a direct base assault ufo could make enough stress to you :).. Some more creative moders can use this mission changing maybe.. 

Even we can make missions with high rank crew for late game for low rank UFO's, as i said before it would be very easy to take down that UFO with new weapons and arcrafts. I think there need to be a buf option to ufo stat per mission too.. Give UFO %10 HP and %10 Damage more for ****** mission like a code in AM_ file could handle this problem and can update the low rate ufo to something challanging for late game.

-----------

As X-Division we handled the problem with "new ufos as versions of the other ufos". So we got a medium, heavy and armored scout as normal scout versions. With this we can give all the missions, crew, ufo stats and everything to that new ufos. Of course it's much more complicated progress which you need to know a bit map-maping (how the tiles work), a bit aircraft moding, aircraft weapon moding and AM_ file moding, but it gives you a crazy modding opportunities. Someone who wants a more dynamic air game only, can't handle or don'T give so much time for it, and this addition will save him for sure. 

I will use the soft coded landing for sure and create special VIP missions with low percentages. Bigger mods with new tech and weapons can use this mod to create special missions with special crew. Giving terror and base assault mission to same UFO would be cool too. Probably we will have more idea to do more unique things with this addition for sure.

-Sorry for type errors, this computer does not have english correction.

 

[Charon]

4 hours ago, drages said:

Even we can make missions with high rank crew for late game for low rank UFO's, as i said before it would be very easy to take down that UFO with new weapons and arcrafts. I think there need to be a buf option to ufo stat per mission too.. Give UFO %10 HP and %10 Damage more for ****** mission like a code in AM_ file could handle this problem and can update the low rate ufo to something challanging for late game.

I wouldnt actually go for any % buff, but rather have the UFO in question being replaced at a certain ATP count, which is basically what X-Division does.

[Solver]

I've edited the first post and added information about the tags.

[Charon]

18 hours ago, Solver said:

Explanation of XML commands (long)

Each mission consists of an AlienMission entry and multiple Phase entries. A mission starts in the phase specified by the firstPhase attribute, and continues until either reaching the final phase, or until the mission timer is up. The most interesting stuff happens in the Phase entries.

Generally, when a phase is complete, then the mission switches to the phase specified by nextPhase, except in special circumstances dictated by other commands.

Here's a list then of the current attributes that are in Phase, and what they mean.

phaseTime - amount of hours this phase continues for

phaseTimeMin, phaseTimeMax - if phaseTime is not specified, then the phase will continue for a random number of hours within these limits

chooseInterceptTarget - if enabled, the UFO will actively try to intercept Xenonaut aircraft in this phase. That is, the UFO will pick Xenonaut craft to target and head towards it.

interceptionPhase - denotes a special phase that is entered when the UFO intercepts Xenonaut craft

interceptionFailedPhase - specifies which phase to go to if the interception attempt fails (Xenonaut craft disappears)

interceptionDonePhase - specifies which phase to go to after interception. This also applies if the Xenonaut craft successfully disengaged!

airlinerDestroyChance - chance of spawning an "airliner destroyed" event, per hour

chooseXenoBaseTarget - if enabled, the UFO will select a Xenonaut base that will then become the mission's target

useXenoBaseForWander - if enabled, modifiers the UFO's flight pattern. It will keep relatively close to the chosen Xenonaut base and wander around it, instead of wandering randomly

attackXenoBase - requires that chooseXenoBaseTarget was provided by some earlier phase. When this is enabled for a phase, the UFO will head straight to the chosen Xenonaut base and will attack it.

bombingRunChance - chance per hour that the UFO will do a bombing run

bombingRunPhase - if the UFO decides to do a bombing run, go to the specified phase. Required if bombingRunChance is not 0.

aerialTerrorChance - chance per hour that the UFO will decide to perform aerial terror

aerialTerrorPhase - if the UFO decides to perform an aerial terror run, go to this phase. Required if aerialTerrorChance is not 0.

chooseCityTerrorTarget - if enabled, a city to terrorize will be chosen

goToCityTerrorTarget - if enabled, the UFO will head straight to the city chosen by chooseCityTerrorTarget

aerialTerror - if enabled, this phase is an aerial terror phase, so an aerial terror site gets spawned

chooseConstructionLocation - if enabled, the UFO will choose a location for a new alien base

goToConstructionLocation - if enabled, the UFO will head directly to the location chosen by chooseConstructionLocation and land there

buildAlienBase - if enabled, then an alien base gets built at the UFO's location once this phase is over. No base is built if the UFO gets captured before the phase is over

groundAttackChance - chance per hour of spawning a ground attack event

abductionChance - chance per hour of spawning an abduction event

landingChance - chance of the UFO deciding to land

startOnLanding - indicates a special phase for this mission that is entered immediately if the UFO decides to land due to landingChance

chooseAlienBaseTarget - an existing alien base is chosen as a target for this mission

goToAlienBase - UFO will head to the alien base chosen by chooseAlienBaseTarget and land

supplyBase - if enabled, the base selected by chooseAlienBaseTarget will be resupplied if this phase concludes successfully

chooseCityTerrorTarget - an appropriate city target is chosen by the UFO for a terror mission

useCityForWander - same as the corresponding command for Xenonaut bases, the UFO will wander in a pattern around the selected city

goToCityTerrorTarget - UFO will head to the city chosen by chooseCityTerrorTarget

terror - if enabled, this phase is a terror phase, so a terror site is spawned

hideUFO - if enabled, the UFO is invisible while in this phase. This is the mechanism by which terror missions work, letting you assault the terror site and not the actual UFO

finalPhase - a special argument denoting that this is the last phase in a mission, all missions sho

Is the last bit cut off ?

18 hours ago, Solver said:

chooseAlienBaseTarget

and

18 hours ago, Solver said:

chooseXenoBaseTarget

How does this work ? Alien Base-1 ? Give an example

 

On 9.5.2015 at 3:59 PM, Charon said:

To start things off you have to make the air fights more difficult and more important in order to induce some decision making which actually do matter instead of the dull "ah, I just shoot down every UFO i see from the most dangerous to the least dangerous one". Some mods are already on a good way to do so but I would like to make some more changes.

Furthermore I d like to see some more "aimed" moves from the Aliens. The idea which is spinning around in my head for starters is the "aimed base assault UFO" which starts half across the globe, after, lets say 3 hours of spinning around, than heading straight to the assigned base. Needless to say that this UFO should be one of the hardest to take down in terms of capability of sustaining damage as well as firepower. On the other hand the better coverage you have the sooner you will spot this type of UFO. In this kind of scenario we already have the decision inducing move which would be, assuming the aimed UFO started with a wave of UFOs, " Do I go after the small fries which damage my income or do i focus the firepower on the incoming assault ship? Do I have the menpower to defend my base and go for the other UFOs?" Making this kind of UFOs spawn in an irregular fashion as well as in a regular fashion makes things harder to predict and more about risk managment than : "This kind of UFO has a chance to spawn every wave so i just have to wait for 3 hours and if there is none coming I can go for the other UFOs/crashs sites/whatever."

Make things more unpredictable by mixing random goals, like ;research, bombing run, abducuctions; with aimed goals like terror sites, base assault missions, and base constructions. (btw let smaller scouts also do the hrm ... you know ... scouting ... for bases and such). Imagine the scenario your are going for a crash site and you have to pull back because an base assault UFO just appeared at the outer radar detection range and goes for your base. The farther away the crash site the higher the risk you wont be back in time, in which case you absolutely have to shoot the UFO down even if the 2 condors dont make it back. This makes the fight desperate. I want a month to be hard because I took a high risk and misjudged a situation on the geoscape instead of the RNG deciding for me if too many UFOs spawned and I just dont have enough air supremacy to keep up with it. This would btw also encourage more bases and more squads. An additional pre escort for the assault UFO can be send as well but these are details which can be disussed later if the idea has a good ring to it.

This would need a "Stay at least this Distances away from target" combined with a "goto***" command.

Any Chance for UFOs to spawn terror site like special missions ?

[Solver]

3 minutes ago, Charon said:

Is the last bit cut off ?

Just half a sentence, fixing.

Quote

How does this work ? Alien Base-1 ? Give an example

This logic is not affected, remains the same as in the game currently.

When choosing Xenonaut base for assault: random choice but weighed towards older bases. Bases less than one month old are not attacked.

Choosing alien base to supply: random.

Choosing city to terrorize: random selection of any city except those in lost regions.

[Solver]

12 minutes ago, Charon said:

Any Chance for UFOs to spawn terror site like special missions ?

I'm afraid other special mission types are beyond me, here we are at the limits of either what's possible to mod in the game, or of what I can figure out.

[Big Z]

Is it possible to have different mission types possibly come with a guaranteed bravery boost? Would be cool if Terror missions, or even normal Night missions would give a bravery point on principle due to how harrowing they are for the poor troops involved.

[Solver]

This is an interesting possibility for a new addition to the mission system.

[Charon]

Apart from the discussed <TargetNonLostCountry> and <TargetRandomCity> i think a <AvoidRadarCoverage> would make for interesting annoying lone wolf UFOs.

[Charon]

Quote

20:31 - Drages: i still want to use wraiths and harridans as a alone race..
20:31 - Drages: but not as a new main race..
20:31 - Drages: but additional ufos can be there with only those crews..
20:31 - Charon: if we had custom missions we could a lot ...
20:32 - Drages: yeah
20:32 - Drages: good point
20:32 - Drages: indeed
20:32 - Charon: indeed
20:32 - Drages: we should indeed the solver.
....
20:33 - Charon: yes, as custom mission it would look reasonable
20:33 - Drages: is there something we can doo about crash casulties?
20:33 - Charon: but i dont want more UFOs
20:34 - Charon: wut you mean ? death ? i guess we can mod the % on crash
20:34 - Drages: yeah i remember too
20:34 - Drages: i dont want them die at crash
20:34 - Charon: its in the gameconfig
20:34 - Charon: but its a general value
20:34 - Charon: counts for all ufos
20:35 - Drages: yeah so we need to have it %5
20:35 - Drages: it kills my balance calculations..
20:35 - Charon: than there would be no merit in shooting down UFOs
20:35 - Charon: it should be at least 30
20:35 - Drages: but i create a 40 crew battleship and as a result player fights against 20..
20:36 - Drages: the problem is hardcoded landing chance..
20:36 - Charon: is it ?
20:36 - Charon: yes
20:36 - Drages: if we could code it, yeah people should choose the landing ufos.. or wait for it..
20:36 - Charon: thats the game, RNG
20:36 - Drages: but now after p-1, %90 of the ufos dont even land..
20:36 - Charon: indeed
20:37 - Drages: RNG is out of control i try to say..
20:37 - Charon: but thats all good stuff for Solvers custom mission design no ?
20:37 - Drages: yeah but it comes late..
20:37 - Drages: i would like to have it, before that project..
20:37 - Charon: i would like to post this convo for Solver
20:37 - Drages: before that i say that lower the casulties..
20:37 - Charon: hm ...
20:38 - Drages: yeah you can..

 

[Charon]

I thought about a really annoying feature: Landing an UFO when an xenonaut aircraft is within 100 km on the geoscape, and the counterpart to this, taking off if no xenonaut aircraft is within 100 km. This should exclude dropships.