(Mod Concept) Dynamic UFO Spawns

[Solver]

Agreed on the terror missions. Currently a failure will outright make an average-relations region defect, and I'd like the penalty to remain heavy, but it should be toned down a bit if frequency is increased. As for base attacks, I've long suspected that there's simply a bug in the calculation, that the early-base bias is such that attack missions will always target the first base.

I really appreciate this mod though It doesn't need to be an overhaul, but decreasing the UFO predictability is a very good thing.

[Solver]

Agreed on the terror missions. Currently a failure will outright make an average-relations region defect, and I'd like the penalty to remain heavy, but it should be toned down a bit if frequency is increased. As for base attacks, I've long suspected that there's simply a bug in the calculation, that the early-base bias is such that attack missions will always target the first base.

I really appreciate this mod though It doesn't need to be an overhaul, but decreasing the UFO predictability is a very good thing.

[kabill]

Update: I've uploaded a new version of the mod with some minor tweaks in accordance with the discussion over the last page or so. Terror missions are now unlocked, so can strike at any time (though no more than 1/wave), but their likelihood should be low enough that you won't see more than two terror mission UFOs per month (hopefully!) and the penalty for failure is reduced from -500 to -300. I've also halved the time between base attack missions so that they can happen every 15 days rather than every 30 days (although their chance of spawning is also very low). The new version also uses the vanilla UFO wave format.

For anyone playing the mod (is there anyone else?), I'm quite happy to hear feedback on either version. I'm going to keep playing using the old version to see what happens going into the mid-game, so it'll be interesting to see how they compare.

It doesn't need to be an overhaul, but decreasing the UFO predictability is a very good thing.

No, it doesn't need to be an overhaul, although I think there should be room for a more radical version of the mod as well. I think what's going to happen now though is that I'll work on balancing the mod along its current lines, and then look at radicalising it as a completely different project. I should probably thank you for encouraging me to do that, otherwise I'd have probably gone in straight at the deep end!

[TacticalDragon]

Thanks for the Terror reductions.

The appearance of terror missions stay the same way as vanilla, maybe you dont have any of them, but I already complete 2x terror missions with this mod.

Kabill the work looks great, I really enjoy that in late waves aliens still use ligther UFOs, but I suggest you a single thing... make the system draw more UFOs per wave. The game difficulties is reduced proportional to the time in game, in late game waves aliens cant sacrifice a draw slot for a scout... did you understand? Im f@cking bad in english -.-'

[Solver]

Update: I've uploaded a new version of the mod with some minor tweaks in accordance with the discussion over the last page or so. Terror missions are now unlocked, so can strike at any time (though no more than 1/wave), but their likelihood should be low enough that you won't see more than two terror mission UFOs per month (hopefully!) and the penalty for failure is reduced from -500 to -300. I've also halved the time between base attack missions so that they can happen every 15 days rather than every 30 days (although their chance of spawning is also very low). The new version also uses the vanilla UFO wave format.

Nice! Sounds like a step in the right direction.

I think what's going to happen now though is that I'll work on balancing the mod along its current lines, and then look at radicalising it as a completely different project. I should probably thank you for encouraging me to do that, otherwise I'd have probably gone in straight at the deep end!

I'm in full agreement here. There's certainly room for radical mods, but for changes that can stand on their own, it's nice to have mods such as this one. And I am enthusiastic here because this is probably at the top of my mod wishlist, the relative predictability of UFOs compared to the original game is one of the elements of the game that I don't like much. I also like the UFO breaching mod, but that one's less important in a way.

[kabill]

Thanks for the Terror reductions.

The appearance of terror missions stay the same way as vanilla, maybe you dont have any of them, but I already complete 2x terror missions with this mod

And there's the frustrating thing: it is in fact perfectly possible to get a number of terror missions using the vanilla system, but it's more or less down to luck. If you're fair at the air combat game, it pretty much comes down to whether you detect the relevant UFO or not - if it flies over your radar zone, you'll shoot it down; if it doesn't, you'll get a terror mission.

I'm not massively convinced there's anything that can be done about this without a serious restricting of the geoscape game, though. It's something I'm interested in as a project (that's my long-term goal), but in the context of this mod I can't do a lot to fix it. I'd rather push the game towards having more using this mod, though, just to ensure that you can't completely block them. It will punish unlucky players and players less good at the air game, but I guess so long as you're aware of that possibility before playing the mod it's reasonably fair!

Kabill the work looks great, I really enjoy that in late waves aliens still use ligther UFOs, but I suggest you a single thing... make the system draw more UFOs per wave. The game difficulties is reduced proportional to the time in game, in late game waves aliens cant sacrifice a draw slot for a scout... did you understand? Im f@cking bad in english -.-'

You mean increase the number of UFOs spawning per wave? That's not a bad idea. Just upping the top end would probably be enough (maybe from 7 to 10 max). I'll probably leave it until I've played through to the end game before actually changing it, but it was a concern when building the mod that the late game might see a reduction in difficulty as the UFOs can only get easier compared with vanilla. Increased UFO count seems a good way to solve that.

EDIT:

And I am enthusiastic here because this is probably at the top of my mod wishlist, the relative predictability of UFOs compared to the original game is one of the elements of the game that I don't like much.

Well, then, glad to be of service!

Edited June 5, 2014 by kabill

[Solver]

For overall Geoscape balance, some of Chris's changes in the last builds are important. Funding from loot has been cut, and early UFO waves now do more damage to funding, so you get less money early on, so it's difficult to establish a 3rd base as early as you could before. And of course 3 bases is what can give you coverage of most of the world, as with 2 bases you leave a significant chunk not covered. This would ordinarily mean that terror missions can get through, but the earliest possible terror missions were delayed almost to the point where you can build your 3rd base even with the lower funding.

It's totally fair though that being better at air coverage decreases the chances of terror missions. It was the same way in the original.

[kabill]

This is true. Although the funding damage probably isn't replicated in this mod, as air superiority missions don't spawn as early and Ground Attack missions, which were more or less supposed to replace them in the early game, are broken and don't do any funding damage presently.

The base change is potentially significant, although in all honesty I always used to build base 2 in October and 3 in November, so it's no change for me! That said, I'm not really sold on the change, as it seems to have led to a single base-building strategy (October/November expansion) as anything quicker is more or less impossible, and anything slower will punish you too much in terms of funding damage. Even though I never did it, day 1 second base seemed like a legit strategy to me.

[Solver]

Maybe you should reimplement the early air superiority missions from vanilla? In my one playthrough with the mod so far, I did feel like there's a lot more money... actually in the current unmodded game, building a 3rd base in November is quite hard, and a second base is necessarily delayed to October.

[kabill]

Hmm, I was about to add it in and re-upload, but it turns out that I've already set air superiority missions to happen about mid-way through September. I think that's a week later than in vanilla, but it seems fine there to me.

I imagine, then, the cash difference will be from two things: firstly, since there's an extra mission type spawning early on (Ground Attack), the air superiority missions are, relatively speaking, less likely to spawn than in vanilla. Secondly, you did get many UFOs, which probably helped the money issue.

In any case, if the Ground Attack bug gets fixed, everything should be more or less in line.

[Solver]

So, about that version. Seems to work much better. I got the occasional surprise such as an early Landing Ship among the other waves, and a Light Scout in November, which is cool, and the difficulty feels much more in line with the base game, which is also good. No more craziness with 20 shot down UFOs in a month either.

In the meanwhile maybe you need to update the mod for Xeno 1.03

[kabill]

That's good to know. Just before, I was porting all my mods onto a backup copy of the game while updating to the new version and forgot to add in the wave system v0.1 of this mod used. I think I'd forgotten how intense the waves can be!

In terms of updating, I'm not sure whether there's anything to update. The only changes which would affect the mod are the Terror Mission timings and the (hopefully temporary) removal of air superiority missions. I could implement the terror mission change, but I'm not sure the v0.2 system is likely to be much different. Unless it's causing you get get spammed by terror attacks, I'd be inclined to leave it as it is. As for air superiority, I think I'd rather leave it in and risk crashes (not that I've had any) until it's know for certain that this was the major cause of the equipment screen bug. I like air superiority missions, and it would be a shame to lose them.

[Solver]

Fair point, I suppose you could say that the Terror change in 1.03 is actually similar to what you had in v0.2.

[kabill]

Yeah, in theory they should produce terror missions about as often, only in the mod it will be more random (i.e you can't be certain that there won't be two terror mission waves in a row).

I'm not ruling out changing it, mind, but as long as the player doesn't get spammed by them I think I'd prefer it to be more random.

[Solver]

Heads-up kabill, your gameconfig.xml has the 1 million base cost which has been changed by Chris.

[Caaygun]

Well I broke my game trying to get the latest patch and keep mods up to date. I was tracking the file change date and manually reinsterting modded files but at some point I had to wipe and reinstall. Can't decide what to do now. I was excited finally I could play with the mods now that development is over but perhaps I better wait until this last equipment CTD is solved. I haven't had it after release, modded and vanilla with laptop and desktop.

[kabill]

@Solver: Thanks, yes, I totally forgot. I might hold back on updating it for now, because it's an only a single change, but I can tell you were to find the value if you want to change it for yourself and you don't know where it is.

@Caaygun: I don't know what mods you're using, but the recent updates haven't really changed very much. I'm still running mods that were designed for v1.0 without problem.

The only things I can think of that might be an issue are:

- Base costs;

- Terror mission timings (depending on whether you're using this mod or not);

- Air superiority (but if you're not experiencing the equipment tab bug, that probably doesn't matter);

- Some Xenopedia typos.

Other than that, I think everything else is source-code related which mods should be fine with.

[Solver]

Yeah no worries, I already changed the file to reflect the new base costs myself

[kabill]

Cool. I'll make sure it's in the next update anyway. Although I'm tempted to hold back on mod updates until final final release now.

Edited June 6, 2014 by kabill

[Solver]

Well, you might want to update anyway due to the Ground Attack situation.

This is what a Ground Attack UFO spawns, many events:

And this is what happens at the end of the month:

[kabill]

You posted before I could finish editting the post above!

Here's some thoughts about what to do about it:

1) Roll ground attack missions back to ticker time 150 as in vanilla. Nothing else needs to change; the existing list will still work find.

2) Reduce the funding damage caused by GA UFOs to 1/2 or 1/4 its current value. (I think it's 40 at the moment, so reduce it down to 10-20?).

3) Make them land more often (increase up to 50% landing chance?) While they're on the ground, they can't cause funding damage events.

4) Reduce the chance of them spawning from 75 to something lower (say, 30).

Any of these might work; some might work in conjunction with one another. I'm not sure I like the first option, personally, as it will make the early game play out almost exactly the same as vanilla.

The second solution might be ok, but might make ground attacks a bit rubbish later on.

Option three may or may not work well, but I like more landings as a general rule anyway.

Option four reduces mission variance but might be the best solution.

Sadly, "reduce the chance of an event occurring" isn't an option - unlike all the other mission types this is hard-coded.

(Sorry your game got blitzed. I didn't realise how powerful ground attack missions were when I put them in sooner!)

[Solver]

This mod shouldn't play like vanilla, but I think it's fine that the differences between the mod and vanilla ramp up with time.

Personally, I'd go with a mix of 1 and 4. Reduce their spawning chance a bit, from 75 to maybe 50, and change the minimum ticker. I'm not familiar really with how ticker values map to time, but I'm thinking enable them starting in mid-September (ticker 50?), as opposed to the vanilla mid-October. Still increases early game variance (and probably difficulty a bit), but allows you to be safe from ground attack missions the first couple of waves.

In fact I think I'll make those changes myself now and try them out.

[kabill]

That doesn't sound unreasonable. A spawn chance of 50 should be half the chance of spawning a research or scout mission (which seems fair, although truthfully I don't know exactly how the spawn chance values work). Pushing back Ground Attacks to 50 does put it mid-September, which gives an early grace period and will also dilute them a bit with air superiority missions too.

[Solver]

And so I did, got my first ground attack UFO in mid-September. An early Corvette. However, it by itself caused about 200k in funding loss before disappearing. That might be too much also, but if so, that's a vanilla balance problem.

[kabill]

Yeah, that sounds quite extreme. Assuming no vanilla changes, might need to nerf the funding damage as well.