(Mod Concept) Dynamic UFO Spawns

[Solver]

With all respect to this plan, I would like to first see at least one version that just sticks to the original idea - more randomization of the UFO types and crews, but without other changes with far-reaching implications about the strategic game, such as those mission-related changes you list.

If for no other reason, then playing with dynamic spawns first would make it more clear what other strategic changes are required, if any, to complement this. Also, then you won't go overboard with the difficulty. Dynamic UFOs will likely increase the overall game difficulty anyway, and if you complement that immediately with "unshackled" Terror missions and stronger crews, that could be too much.

In a nutshell, I suggest growing additional changes iteratively.

[KevinHann]

Or just offer two packs to download

[kabill]

@Solver: yes, you're right. I've accidentally rolled into some other stuff (as I said in the post above, I've gotten a bit carried away) and the dynamic UFO system should easily work independently of other suggested changed.

This said, I'm inclined to add in the 'long wave' format still, because it actually helps somewhat with the randomisation. Since all the UFOs for the wave are selected at the moment the wave is spawned, all the UFOs for a given mission will be of the same type. Having longer waves will spread them out a bit, and by allowing waves to overlap allow UFOs different UFOs on the same mission to occur concurrently. It will also avoids being spammed by higher level UFOs all in one go, as at least they'll be spread out a little bit (usually).

[kabill]

Update: Version 0.1 is live. Compatible with final release.

I've gone for a least-change approach as Solver suggested above. The mod includes:

- Dynamic UFO spawns, as per the original plan. I more or less stuck to the outline above in terms of their frequency. I did a test through to ticker count ~750 and got a fair spread of UFOs. It's maybe not perfect - for some reason the game likes to clump spawns of the same mission type together in the same wave so you end up with a run of similar UFOs. Nevertheless it seems to work pretty well.

- Varied crew loadouts. I've used the vanilla loadouts as a base for difficulty and tweaked for different mission types. The variances are less noticeable on the smaller UFOs because there's less aliens and alien classes to play around with, but there's significantly differences in the later ones in terms of crew composition if not crew strength. The main differences are swapping between races. For example, supply and construction missions tend to be Harridan heavy as, lore-wise, Harridans are supposed to be engineers. While on more aggressive mission types, I've opted for Wraiths instead. In others, there's a pure-base-race composition, etc.

- Organic waves: This is important, I think, to maximise the mixing up of concurrent UFOs. My tests imply this works pretty well, although I've not done a proper test actually trying to shoot things down.

I've not given this a proper play test yet; that's my next plan. I'm going to add in Max_Caine's Flying Circus mod, as I think that will counter any reduction in difficulty due to the less clumped UFO spawns (and I want to try the mod anyway.) It'll need some tweaking, however, as I've re-purposed Bombers and Strike Cruisers for this mod. If anyone's interested in running the two mods together like me, I'll upload a second version assuming Max_Caine's OK with that.

Thoughts for the Future:

- Revised crew loadouts: I want to have another pass at this to try and mix up especially the smaller UFOs a bit more.

- Dynamic crew loadouts: The game can handle random numbers of alien types on ground missions, but it seems for final release this has not been made use of. In keeping with theme of the mod, I'm tempted to randomise some of the alien numbers just to help mix things up a little more.

- Other geoscape gameplay changes. The other changes I listed above I'm probably going to keep in a separate mod. Once this version's been tested and balanced a bit, I'll knock up the 'expansion' as an addition.

[Solver]

Awesome! I am currently doing one clean playthrough of the final Xenonauts build, but will try this out for the next playthrough.

[Caaygun]

Ok, so I've been looking through the game files and thinking about what could be done with this idea. I've started to get a bit carried away, drifting from specifically the original idea to a more general shift in the strategic level play............ in turn will make the ticker increase faster.

Yes! bring it on. Just can't wait for all this.

Update: Version 0.1 is live. Compatible with final release.......

......, I'll knock up the 'expansion' as an addition.

I'm playing with flying circus and your mod already on a new game. Quite good for now.

Edit: now I noticed they both have aircrafts.xml, I probably broke your aircrafts.xml file when copying over.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Caaygun

[kabill]

Edit: now I noticed they both have aircrafts.xml, I probably broke your aircrafts.xml file when copying over.

The changes are relatively small. I think this is all of them:

1) Change the speed of Bombers to 2400 and Strike Cruisers to 2800 (this is because I replaced them with regular UFOs for bombing missions and use bombers/strike cruisers for air-superiority missions instead);

2) Make sure Scouts are set so they can land (it's one of the last columns); and (for a closer-to-vanilla experience)

3) Halve all of the air-strike cash values.

I'm 99% sure there aren't other changes.

Also, as an aside, I actually have a file with the other geoscape changes in ready to go. I've not released it because of comparability issues and because I wanted to play through the game without them first so I have a base-line for comparison, but you're welcome to use it/I can tell you what you need to change (not much) if you're interested.

[Caaygun]

Also, as an aside, I actually have a file with the other geoscape changes in ready to go. I've not released it because of comparability issues and because I wanted to play through the game without them first so I have a base-line for comparison, but you're welcome to use it/I can tell you what you need to change (not much) if you're interested.

Yes please I'd like that. I don't have that much time to play but still you'd get some feedback. I'll just start the game and play through with it (some weeks probably as I grind every mission).

[kabill]

Ok, all the changes are in gameconfig.xml.

To avoid incompatability with whatever else you're running, I'll put instructions here:

---

(All of these variables are close together, more or less in the middle of the file)

UFO funding penalties:

Abduction: land = 20; sea = 10

Airliner: land = 30; sea = 15

Minor Civilian Attack: land = 40; sea = 20

Major Civilian Attack: land = 80; sea = 40

Major Military Attack: land = 80; sea = 40

Idle ticker value = 0.000772

UFO wave timing = 0.6

UFO wave timing reduction = 1.0

Max mission start delay = 10800 (this should already be set if you're running dynamic UFOs)

Alien base discovery chance = 5

Alien base discovery chance cycle = 15

Research mission tickers per minute = 0.000386

Alien base supply ticker: 5 (make sure you don't change the alien base ticker per minute one instead by accident!)

Base attack mission delay = 20

Terror Mission delay = 0 (see note below on this)

Scout mission ticks per minute: 0.000772

Construction mission delay 1 = 20

Construction mission delay 2 = 15

Construction mission delay 3 = 12

Construction mission delay 4 = 10

(I might not have changed those last ones).

---

Note about terror missions: The intention here was to allow terror missions to spawn naturally rather than blocking them, but reduced their chance of spawning those missions to low. If you're going to do this, go to the Terror Mission XML file and change its spawn chance to something like 15. Based on previous testing of things, this shouldn't spawn a terror mission any more than twice a month on average, and not even that maybe.

Alternatively, if you don't want to be a test-subject for that change, just leave the days/terror mission variable alone.

To be very clear, I've not tested any of these values and they might completely unbalance the game one way or another. It's a first pass, so don't be surprised if it all goes terribly wrong!

[Caaygun]

UFO wave timing = 0.6

I assume this is Ufo wave Timing Variation which was previously 0.5 ?

I also made the terror mission changes of 0 delay and 15 chance.

I have FitH and Lore+, Oppressive UI, Flying Circus and Dynamic Ufo(merged aircrafts.xml file), v1.1 game version. Playing Veteran.

Above changes on top of all that.

So let's see just how bad the aliens will hand me my ass now.

Thanks for all your hard work.

[kabill]

Cool. Thanks for having a look at this and hope it works reasonably well!

(Yes, you got the right thing with the UFO wave timing)

[Solver]

Playing with this. Kabill, is the number of UFOs overall supposed to go up? My impression so far is that I am seeing more UFOs, after the first month of play.

[kabill]

Nope, there shouldn't be any changes to the number of UFOs. Aside from the kinds of UFOs that spawn and their crews, the only thing I changed was the wave spawn in time and that should have no effect on the number of UFOs actually spawning.

[Solver]

Interesting. First days of October, and I've just shot down my 20th UFO. Either an unforeseen effect of some mod change or just my luck here.

[kabill]

*Shot down* 20? In a month! Wow.

I can only assume it's absurd RNG (or a new bug). In my own game, where I've gotten almost through October, I'm detecting my 12th UFO. I just checked the download file to make sure I'd not accidentally changed something else, and everything is as it should be. So I can only assume you're just having a crazy game with every single UFO wandering through your radar range.

If you've got time, you could do a quick test and load up a new game and let it run for a month to see if you get the same again. But if you do, I've no idea what might be causing it.

[Solver]

Yeah, that was first week of October, and 20 shot down. I wasn't counting, but I shot down yet another and it appeared as CRASHSITE-20, so...

Then again I also had aliens display the best shooting accuracy I've seen today. I think my RNG is trying to tell me to go to bed today, that's it.

[Solver]

Anyone else playing with this? I am still getting higher than usual amounts of UFOs with this mod, and that's just with 2 bases spotting.

[kabill]

Is that still the same game?

I've just gotten to the end of November myself, and have detected 20 UFOs which seems about right. The only issue I've got at the moment is that I've had a chance to basically do every single ground mission, due to how they've been spaced out. But, on the other hand, I've skipped some early Landing Ships that have been flying around as I've not had the air power to deal with them (not with their fighter escorts as well, anyway!)

[Solver]

That was the same game, yeah, I'll be starting a new one tomorrow. In that playthrough, I had shot down 40 UFOs by the end of November. Was also swimming in money because of that, something went definitely wrong.

Loved the dynamic part, though. My very first mission was a Scout, then there was a nicely organic mix of Corvettes and Landing Ships. Really good stuff. Heavy Fighters showed up earlier, don't know if this was due to the mod or not.

[kabill]

Yeah, I think heavy fighters can turn up sooner than normal. Either from early or mid November, I think.

I've been enjoying the mix too. Up to where I've gotten to, at least, it seems relatively balanced. I've just bagged a Landing Ship just before the start of December, so I've got a week or two's head start on research. But I've still got loads of projects to do, so it's not really put me ahead much.

I'm a bit concerned about the UFO waves, mind. It has felt a bit easy to get all the UFOs, although it's starting to get tougher as a result of Flying Circus (I've not managed to get a handle on Corvettes entirely, so I've suffered some set-backs as a result). Shall see how it goes when I'm properly in the mid-game.

[TacticalDragon]

Kabill I review all your work and your a genius!

All the logic understanding of how to randomize the UFO draw system is marvelous.

I'll make some test and I'll write back.

[Solver]

Yes, thus far I have a few balance-related concerns from the effects of this mod.

1. Shooting down single UFOs is simple. Wave balancing needs work, perhaps with waves being a bit more similar to vanilla while retaining the UFO variety within them.

2. Possibly as a side effect of the above, I got no terror missions. A lone terror UFO is easy to shoot down.

3. Love the ability to get ahead in research due to shooting down a bigger UFO earlier, but come to think of it, it is not actually that much of an advantage. It's nice to get a Scout first and so get Alenium explosives a week or two earlier, but they don't really matter until Corvettes come. On the other hand, getting to Corsairs quicker can be useful due to the earlier appearance of Heavy Fighters. Then yet on the other hand, you're just shifting invasion progression earlier and that's all?

[kabill]

Thanks for the comments. Some (rather extensive, apparently!) thoughts in return:

1. Shooting down single UFOs is simple. Wave balancing needs work, perhaps with waves being a bit more similar to vanilla while retaining the UFO variety within them.

As much as it pains me to say this, I'm inclined to agree. I'm not sure I want to change it yet, as I want to see what it's like in the mid-late game, but sadly in practice the long waves haven't worked as well as it looked like they would from my run-through tests.

(One possibility I've considered is increasing the downtime of aircraft. However, this only really makes a difference if they're damaged, and unless you're playing with air combat mods it's fairly easy to win most air combat encounters without damage which means it probably wouldn't help).

2. Possibly as a side effect of the above, I got no terror missions. A lone terror UFO is easy to shoot down.

I'm uncertain how much this is due to the mod. I don't know how far you've played through, but Terror Missions only start appearing from ticker-point 200 (i.e. beginning of November) and - in accordance with the vanilla game - they're limited to one mission every 25 days. So, basically, the game gets one chance of spawning a terror mission every month. While this mod probably does make it a bit easier to block terror missions because the UFOs are less bunched, it's not difficult in the vanilla game to spot terror mission UFOs (they've probably got an escort with them) and bring them down as a first priority. In other words, even in vanilla I'm not certain its hard to stop terror missions so long as they fly within radar range.

(As a point of comparison, even before the 1 terror mission/month change, I could play the game basically without terror missions. In the longest game I played, getting up to the beginning of March, I had only two terror missions. And that was with them spawning about twice as often as they do now).

What I'd be inclined to do, then, is roll back some of the changes that have been made to terror missions to allow them to spawn more often. Personally, I think I'd prefer unshackling them completely (as I describe above in relation to the broader geoscape changes I suggested), giving them a low chance to spawn but not limiting them other than making them 1/wave. They'd be less predictable that way, and in principle spawn more frequently and therefore be more likely to get through.

3. Love the ability to get ahead in research due to shooting down a bigger UFO earlier, but come to think of it, it is not actually that much of an advantage. It's nice to get a Scout first and so get Alenium explosives a week or two earlier, but they don't really matter until Corvettes come. On the other hand, getting to Corsairs quicker can be useful due to the earlier appearance of Heavy Fighters. Then yet on the other hand, you're just shifting invasion progression earlier and that's all?

I think the early tech advantage will become more important as the game goes on. The tech tree is fairly limited early in the game regardless, which is possibly why it doesn't feel that important. (It doesn't help that Scouts have been changed to allow them to be downed by a single unenhanced Foxtrot, which does sadly make Alenium Torpedoes a bit pointless until Corvettes).

In terms of shifting the invasion progress, that's only kind of true. All the UFOs in the game can spawn earlier than they can in vanilla, but their propensity to do this is low. So, to take heavy fighters as an example, you *might* get heavy fighters earlier, but you also might not. And, in any case, you're as likely to spawn regular fighters than heavy fighters. So having Corsairs earlier is useful for dealing with earlier occurrences of heavy fighters, but unless you're really unlucky it wouldn't be the same as in vanilla where as soon as heavy fighters show up, that's all that does.

---

Overall, my impression is that the mod makes relatively little difference to the first few months of play. This is actually to be expected, as there's only a small number of UFO and mission types available until the start of November. Similarly, the tech tree is less intense, and the ground crews are small and have a limited range of unit types so there's not much to mix up there, either. As such, the variance the mod is - in principle - supposed to produce doesn't really kick off until around the beginning of November, which in the game I've been playing is kind of when I've started to notice it.

In theory, the point at which I am at the moment (just about to enter December) is when it should come into its own. Crusiers (and soon after Carriers) should start turning up occasionally, and there'll be enough UFO and mission types to have things mixed up a lot. On paper, anyway. I'll see how it turns out in practice (but I'll remain hopeful 'til then).

(I guess it's worth adding that low impact is not necessarily a bad thing, either. I deliberately designed the first version to be as conservative as possible, so the fact that it's making only a small difference is reasonable to me. The UFO spawn timings definitely need some looking at at some point, though.)

[Solver]

Very good points here.

Regarding the waves, I suppose it will be difficult to make it work. The Geoscape has been built around rare but tight and powerful UFO waves. UFOs that come alone become mincemeat because waves are supposed to provide a challenge in numbers.

As for terror missions, yes, they've also been odd in the recent vanilla builds. I preferred it a few months ago, when you could end up with a terror mission as soon as Corvettes appeared. Just like in the original game, it made terror missions more tense because they could come without you being well prepared. Now that you can only get them in November at the earliest, managing to shoot the first one down means you get no terror missions until December... not as good, IMO. I think the Dynamic UFO mod should treat them differently. Allow terror missions to spawn with a small interval, and to potentially come earlier, aiming for less predictability.

Another thing related to this mod conceptually, base attack missions. Is it possible to mod the "first base priority"? According to Chris, aliens can attack any base, but tend to prefer earlier ones. In my experience, this means they always attack the first base. I have only been able to get attacks on my 2nd base intentionally, by first losing the main base and then fast forwarding the game for 2-3 months. I would like a situation where there's an actual possibility of my subsequent bases coming under attack so that it becomes important to defend them.

[kabill]

UFO waves: Yes, I think you're right. The only solution other than using the vanilla system is to change up air combat so that it's much more difficult/resource intensive. I'm looking at a mod to do that, but at the same time I appreciate that many players won't like that. I imagine what I might do is make two versions, one using the vanilla wave system and one which messes with air combat too, for maximum choice.

(Incidentally, if you want to try the mod using the vanilla wave system for your next game, it's an easy change. Just change 'Max mission start delay' from '10800' to '30' in gameconfig.xml)

Re: Terror Missions - Cool, I'll see about changing that for the next version I do. I might reduce the penalty for failed terror missions to compensate, mind, as they're very high at the moment (-500, I think) and since you can end up with 'out-of-depth' UFOs causing them, it might be a bit harsh at the moment if that's not reduced.

Re: Base Attacks - I don't think so, no. You can change how often base attacks occur, but all of the scripting for the UFO missions is hard-coded. This said, increasingly the likelihood of base attack missions might help a little bit (the more frequent they are, the more chance there is of them targeting a second base, in a sense), and in any case they suffer from a similar problem to terror missions. Wouldn't increase them by much, mind, but a bit more might help. (Also, I like mission diversity; one of the sad things about the game is that the better you play the geoscape/air game, the less mission diversity you get as you shoot down all the UFOs before they can cause the special missions!)