(Mod Concept) Dynamic UFO Spawns

This mod has moved to this thread.

Im insterested on this one, sounds awesome, I hate wave system.

Where is the download link?

A quick relevant question - is it possible to mod in another mission type (presumably using components from the existing ones) while keeping all the existing types?

Where is the download link?

Patience! It's barely out of my brain

A quick relevant question - is it possible to mod in another mission type (presumably using components from the existing ones) while keeping all the existing types?

I don't know for sure, but I'm fairly confident that this is impossible. While there are various variables associated with the existing missions types that you can mod, I think the code which calls specific mission types and makes the missions do stuff is all embedded in proper game code. Indeed, the above idea is in part a work-around of precisely that problem. (If it were possible, I'd just add a load of extra mission types and get variety that way!).

Whoah, kabill, those are some very good ideas!

To my game taste, I dont like very much the possibility to skip full techs when you got a more advanced stuff. To me it sounds like skiping game content. I think it's possible the tech to be attached to each other like forming a progressive scale, right? I mean... you can get advanced aircrafts while still using ballistics in ground missions if you want, but you wouldn't be able to get MAG before laser or such.

By the way, your mod idea adds something that I miss very much: easy alien bashing missions. I dont like the game to be easy, but when the game forces you to always be playing on the same tier against the aliens, sometimes I miss the fun of feeling that I improved when facing weak aliens with a high skilled team with top gear. I mean... I love tough missions that who demands the most of me, but those missions are long, sometimes stressful, and doing it over and over again at each wave quickly makes it repetitive and wearing. Sometimes I just want to be rewarded with an easy mission where I can fully enjoy my advanced stuff against aliens that will make me think "I can believe those guys gave me problems once!"

By the way... I think you idea and TD Into Darkness mod fit very well together, since both improves the progress scale of the game (and it's not the first time you guys work had that synergy). You guys should talk to each other more! Hahaha!

Whoah, kabill, those are some very good ideas!

To my game taste, I dont like very much the possibility to skip full techs when you got a more advanced stuff. To me it sounds like skiping game content. I think it's possible the tech to be attached to each other like forming a progressive scale, right? I mean... you can get advanced aircrafts while still using ballistics in ground missions if you want, but you wouldn't be able to get MAG before laser or such.

Yeah, as I say I'd rework the tech tree slightly to ensure there's no way to completely skip over techs. You could do it sort of, by research the tech and going straight onto the next level of tech without building the existing one first, but you'd still be gated through it (most techs are already like that, to be honest, but I'm not sure how well it applies to some of the top tier aircraft and MAG weapons definitely don't require Plasma or Laser weapon research.)

By the way, your mod idea adds something that I miss very much: easy alien bashing missions. I dont like the game to be easy, but when the game forces you to always be playing on the same tier against the aliens, sometimes I miss the fun of feeling that I improved when facing weak aliens with a high skilled team with top gear. I mean... I love tough missions that who demands the most of me, but those missions are long, sometimes stressful, and doing it over and over again at each wave quickly makes it repetitive and wearing. Sometimes I just want to be rewarded with an easy mission where I can fully enjoy my advanced stuff against aliens that will make me think "I can believe those guys gave me problems once!"

I'd not thought about that but yes, it should give that as an option for sure.

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I did a little testing last night using a prototype and it seems to work fine. There's two issues, but I can probably find work arounds:

- The large UFO tables seem to cause a lag-spike when the a UFO wave is being created in game. It's only a second or so, but I'd rather it didn't if it can be avoided. My mock-up had an iteration every ticker score up to 2000, though, and I could probably cut that down by at least 2/3 by doing it per game day rather than per third of a day (and going up to 2000 was especially cautious; for a regular game 1000 should actually be fine).

- The game chooses the UFOs to spawn based on the point at which the wave spawns, not when the UFO itself spawns. It's not a massive issue with vanilla UFO spawns which all happen close together, but I was also looking at changing the UFO wave system so that it's less clumped. This means that you could possibly get a run of several especially tough or weak UFOs, if one of those was chosen for one of the repeatable missions like Research or Ground Attack.

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On the subject of UFO waves, I was also testing an idea I had a while ago about creating more 'organic' UFO waves. In vanilla, UFOs that are part of a wave spawn within 30 game minutes of one another. What I was trialing instead was spreading UFO spawns across the entire maximum length of a wave (so 7.5 days, which is the longest gap there can be between waves). What this results in is getting a mixture of individual UFOs, small waves of a couple of UFOs, and occasionally really big waves, all produced via RNG.

Again, this will need some balancing, especially as it will make the air game overall easier (since you'll get rushed by UFOs less). It would therefore probably work best with a mod which shakes up air combat and makes that tougher too. It works in principle, though, and I'm going to have a look at playing with it further.

I really like this concept. I know the reasons WHY developers choose to do the "wave" format (Enemy Unknown, Terror from the Deep, XCOM 2012) and keep alien / player technology parallel -- because it could create some nasty balance issues, but personally? I want the alien invasion to feel like an invasion.

I want the aliens to bring the pain.

Will it suck to find a carrier as your first contact? Absolutely. But it would be awesome, amazing, terrifying, and possibly impossible -- exactly as it SHOULD be ( in my opinion ).

Kabill, you're becoming one of my favourite people among those who are not supermodels.

I really like the concept. Actually this is similar to something else that I had been complaining about. Until V19 or so, the progression of UFOs was completely linear. Once a Scout appeared there would be mo more Light Scouts, once a Corvette appeared there wouldn't be one more Scout, etc. This has fortunately been mixed up and now you get some kind of lower-tier UFOs also, which is essential for the ability to have multiple assault teams - your secondary team has to train on a few easier missions before they can tackle something tougher.

The concept of this mod would go further along these lines, and my specific proposals would be as follows:

1. This is probably obvious, but have an upper cap on what kind of UFOs can spawn early on. Suddenly getting a Corvette very early on is great, but a Carrier in the first week of the game shouldn't happen.

2. Be careful with terror missions. Perhaps put a low probability of early terror missions with high-level UFOs. The penalty for losing a terror mission is severe, so terror missions with UFOs two tiers above current tech should not be common.

3. Link weapon techs so that lasers-plasma-MAGs are a required progression, but do not link weapons to aircraft. Allow players to risk things by getting ahead in one technological area while falling behind in another.

I really like the idea of mixing up AI aggression/crew based on the mission type also. It adds more variety, and it makes the hyperwave decoder more valuable at the same time. And my favourite part is the possibility of difficult, high-risk missions with technological and financial rewards beyond the average progression.

I hope this is available for download in 10 minutes.

Those are good points. I'll take them one at a time:

1. This is probably obvious, but have an upper cap on what kind of UFOs can spawn early on. Suddenly getting a Corvette very early on is great, but a Carrier in the first week of the game shouldn't happen.

Yes, indeed. It wasn't at all clear in my original post, but the idea would be to maintain some level of progression even while making the spawns dynamic. What would probably happen is that a full list of UFOs wouldn't be available until mid-game (3-4 months in), and higher-tier UFOs would become more likely past that point or something.

2. Be careful with terror missions. Perhaps put a low probability of early terror missions with high-level UFOs. The penalty for losing a terror mission is severe, so terror missions with UFOs two tiers above current tech should not be common.

Yes, that's definitely an issue (and the same applies to base attacks). +Two tiers max sounds pretty sensible to me.

3. Link weapon techs so that lasers-plasma-MAGs are a required progression, but do not link weapons to aircraft. Allow players to risk things by getting ahead in one technological area while falling behind in another.

I think this is a really interesting idea. I think it might have to be integrated as part of a more general overhaul of air combat, though, since at the moment the higher-tier air weapons are (conceptually speaking) tied to ground combat weapons tech by necessity.

(I'm not averse to doing this and have some thoughts about how it could be made to work conceptually. But that might be part of a later draft.)

it makes the hyperwave decoder more valuable at the same time.

That's a good point that I'd not thought of.

Concerning the aircraft-weapon link, well, weapons are linked, but you could still allow better airframes to be developed independently. So that you can get Marauders despite only have Alenium warheads, if you're so inclined. Also keep in mind that prioritizing airframes could also mean going for a larger dropship earlier. Compensate for weaker weapons by bringing in extra troops with an early Shrike, for instance.

Great! Full Support. I'll start testing right away when this is out!

As others have also pointed out, tech skipping should be prevented not only for this mod but also for the vanilla game, it is possible now to get higher tier weapons, armor, aircraft, tanks before you build lower tier ones if you so choose to wait.

Just can't wait for release when all these mods will also be released.

Concerning the aircraft-weapon link, well, weapons are linked, but you could still allow better airframes to be developed independently. So that you can get Marauders despite only have Alenium warheads, if you're so inclined. Also keep in mind that prioritizing airframes could also mean going for a larger dropship earlier. Compensate for weaker weapons by bringing in extra troops with an early Shrike, for instance.

Ugh, sorry, completely misread you there. Yes, completely agree; I think that would be an important feature of the mod to allow 'tech pushing'.

Kabill pal, I run a test that possible solve technology issue.

What we can do is put 2 different ways to get a tech. For example, Alenium is reached when you get the scout, but you can put secondary way (OR)10xlightscoutdatacore.

With this solution even if a good performance player dont let the aliens reach other types of UFOs the player can continue developing research.

There shouldn't be any issues with players blocking alien progression, as progression is static and unaffected by the player (although I'm interested in playing around with alien missions giving ticker bonuses, too, based on something Max_Caine threw up a while ago).

It might be something to consider to mitigate massive bad luck with UFO spawns, though. Although I see falling behind on tech due to unlucky spawns a feature as much as a flaw, I think (it allows you to play a game of catch-up, which can be rewarding if you can pull it off).

In case anyone's interested, I just tried two things which turned out to be unsuccessful:

1) You definitely can't add new mission types. I tried both removing all the other mission types and just including one of my own, and also leaving all the default ones in but only having a new one spawning UFOs from the beginning of the game. Both instances resulted in CTD, so it's definitely not able to find new mission types.

2) You can't add in new UFO content files. Or, you can, but it only seems to add crew if the loadout file is one of three types (andron, caesan or sebillian). Using another alien type, or a different string altogether, will spawn the UFO but it will have no crew during a ground mission. Therefore an additional variant could be added in for light scout and scout UFOs, as they only have caesan and sebillian variants. But all the other UFO types already use the three alien types, so you can't add any extra types for those UFOs.

Therefore, it's looking like dynamic UFO spawning is the only way to increase crew variation in ground missions significantly (at least if you want concurrent variation, anyway).

1) You definitely can't add new mission types. I tried both removing all the other mission types and just including one of my own, and also leaving all the default ones in but only having a new one spawning UFOs from the beginning of the game. Both instances resulted in CTD, so it's definitely not able to find new mission types.

Sounds like the number of mission types could be hardcoded, perhaps the coders could be convinced to take a look at that?

I'm not sure it's just the number: I think there's something in the source code which calls from a specific list. From what I can tell, each mission type has hard-coded functions which it uses to determine what to do (for example, the terror mission type must have some code somewhere that tells it to go and do a terror attack), so I presume you'd need access to the source to be able to add in the stuff to make the mission type work, and then alter the code to actually have it as a possible mission type.

I was kind of aware of this before I did the test, mind. But I wanted to try it out just to be 100% sure.

Is there sufficient time to politely ask the dev team to give some extra room for modding then or is it too late?

I thought about it a while back, but as it was increasingly clear that they were going to be busy right up to the deadline fixing bugs, I figured it was better not to. Changing things like that would likely only add further issues, and a functioning game is much better than an easily modded one!

Is it possible to make a landed Ufo cause funding loss, say for as long as it is landed? Sort of like an infiltration mission.

No, there's actually no direct relationship between UFOs landing and funding loss. Funding loss only occurs from the events you see popping up on the geoscape. In game-mechanics terms, UFOs landing exists purely for the purpose of having landed UFOs.

(I'm trying to remember whether one of the mission types - it would be research - has a ticker increase variable for landing. It definitely has something like that, but it might be for abduction events rather than landing.)

In principle, though, you could set certain UFO types to increase the invasion ticker and have them tend to land and stay landed for a while. That would create a penalty for allowing UFOs to remain on the ground - even if you wait for them to take off so you can shoot them down, you've still suffered X hours worth of ticker increases which you could have countered by immediately engaging the UFO with a ground assault.

That's sounding like a reasonable idea, actually.

Is it possible to make a landed Ufo cause funding loss, say for as long as it is landed? Sort of like an infiltration mission.

Just to follow up on this, I kind of found a way to do it but it's a bit broken.

The research mission type has a variable controlling the likelihood of abduction events being triggered (which negatively reduce funding). UFOs on the ground don't cause events, but by turning the landing chance and abduction chance up to full, the UFO will always cause an event, land for a number of hours, take off, cause another event, land again, and so on. It's more or less a simulation of causing relationship damage as a result of landing, although you can still counter it by shooting down the UFO immediately when it takes to the air.

The problem, however, is that if the UFO can't land because it's over water, it just keeps spamming events without landing. This was causing nations to drop from their starting funding amount to 0 within a single wave's length. So sadly I don't think its usable.

The ticker idea should be plausible, though, especially if some UFOs are given a high landing chance.

EDIT: No, wait, I can turn off funding damage for abduction missions over water. So it might still be possible. Would need to balance out the chances a little (the files say the chance of there being a mission is per hour, but testing they're generating more than one event per hour, so that could be toned down a bit). But still might work as an idea - increasing landing chances for UFOs generally is something I'd like to do for some missions anyway.

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.

Here, then, is an outline of what I'm thinking of changing. Obviously, all of this will need tested and tweaking in practice. I figured it would be worth doing some paper analysis first, though, and comments/discussion is, of course, most welcome:

Wave System:

- 1 Wave is spawned every 2.5 - 7.5 days (same as vanilla)

- UFO spawn-in time can happen up to 7.5 days after the wave begins.

- The number of UFOs spawning will remain at their vanilla values.

The rationale behind this is to create 'organic' waves produced by RNG, rather than forcing them. In principle (and testing suggests this happens), UFO activity will be low-to-moderate most of the time, but the game will throw large waves at you occasionally as the waves can overlap one another.

Part of this is to create a feeling of constant activity. But it's also intended to make it harder for the player to pick their targets, since you don't know when the next UFO spawn is going to be.

Ticker System:

- Alien escalation will increase naturally at a rate of 1 per day.

- Various UFO missions will increase the ticker faster while the UFO is in play.

The idea behind this is to try and diversify the alien mission types and encourage strategic selection of UFO targets. By making some missions cause relations damage and others cause the ticker to increase more quickly, the player must choose which is a priority when faced with multiple UFOs.

Missions:

- Scout missions will drive the ticker upwards the strongest amount. Not sure exactly how much, but probably the equivalent of 1 tick/day. There will be a moderate chance of these UFOs landing (10%/hour). They will have relatively weak, defensive crews compared with other missions.

- Research missions will drive the ticker up a little (~1/2 tick per day), but also cause some relations damage. There will be a strong chance of these UFOs landing (25%/hour). They will have moderately strong crews relative to other missions.

- Ground attack missions will cause no ticker increase but significant relations damage. They will have a strong chance (25%/hour) of landing and strong, aggressive ground crews relative to other missions.

- Bombing missions will be changed so that they use regular UFO types rather than bombers/strike cruisers (this allows more variation in crew/AI types). They will cause no ticker increase but significant relations damage, as well as having a chance of spawning an aerial terror site (5%/hour, same as vanilla). They will never land, and have weak crews compared with other missions.

- Air Superiority missions will sometimes spawn with a bomber or strike cruiser UFO, which will be re-balanced to support the fighters. Otherwise, they will work a la vanilla.

- Terror missions will work a la vanilla, although I may reduce the number of days between terror missions from 25 to something lower (15?). These will have the strongest ground crews.

-Base Attack missions will also work a la vanilla, again possibly with a reduction in the number of days between missions (from 30 down to 20?). These will have the strongest ground crews.

- Base Construction missions will work a la vanilla. They will have strong crews, but will be more defensive.

- Supply missions will grant a significant boost (somewhere between +5 and +10) to the ticker score if they are able to complete their supply mission. They will have moderate crews and tend to be more defensive.

The main missions spawned will be Scout, Research and Ground Attack missions. All the others will probably be less common.

In principle, I like the idea of unshackling Terror, Air Superiority and Bombing missions entirely so that they can happen more frequently or even more than once a wave, but giving them a low spawn chance. This will make them more dynamic - which is the point of the mod! - but might prove to be too difficult to balance. So it'll be an experiment to see if it can work well.

UFO Spawns:

- 0: Light scouts (high); scouts (low). Basic missions only (scout, research, ground attack).

- 50: Light scouts (medium); scouts (medium); corvettes (v. low).

- 100 (October): Light scouts (low); scouts (high); corvettes (low).

- 150: Light scouts (v. low); scouts (medium); corvettes (medium); landing ship (v. low).

- 200 (November): Light scouts (v. low); scouts (low); corvettes (medium); landing ship (low). Advanced mission types added (terror, base attack, supply, construction, bombing).

- 250: Light scouts (v. low); scouts (low); corvettes (medium); landing ship (medium); cruisers (v. low).

- 300 (December): Light scouts (v. low); scouts (v. low); corvettes (medium); landing ship (medium); cruisers (low).

- 350: Light scouts (v. low); scouts (v. low); corvettes (medium); landing ship (medium); cruisers (low); carriers (v. low)

- 400 (January): Light scouts (v. low); scouts (v. low); corvettes (medium); landing ship (medium); cruisers (low); carriers (v. low); battleship (v. low)

- 450: Light scouts (v. low); scouts (v. low); corvettes (low); landing ship (medium); cruisers (medium); carriers (v. low); battleship (v. low)

- 500 (February): Light scouts (v. low); scouts (v. low); corvettes (low); landing ship (medium); cruisers (medium); carriers (low); battleship (v. low)

- 550: Light scouts (v. low); scouts (v. low); corvettes (low); landing ship (medium); cruisers (medium); carriers (medium); battleship (low)

- 600 (March): Light scouts (v. low); scouts (v. low); corvettes (low); landing ship (medium); cruisers (medium); carriers (medium); battleship (medium)

For comparison, current UFO spawns (v22.10; likely to be less of a jump near the end for full release, though, from what Chris has said): https://www.dropbox.com/s/ficjiaejhqlc3aw/UFOs.xlsx

This is a draft. I was going to write something more complex, but I figured this would give a fair impression of the overall progression. Generally, there's intended to be a bias towards introducing the tougher UFOs on the tougher mission types first, to ensure high risk in exchange for earlier tech drops. Might need some balancing, though, to ensure you don't get murdered by super high level spawns (Base Attacks and Terror Missions being critical here).

I've not listed Air Superiority there, as it's a separate issue, but I'll put them in from the start of the game and have progression occur similarly to the above.

It's worth noting that the figures here are written assuming vanilla ticker progression overall. In practice, it's likely that the ticker will increase faster as the game goes on, as more UFOs will spawn which in turn will make the ticker increase faster.

It would be useful if you could draw the original values opposed to those you plan. This way it's easier to track how the proposed changes will impact the game.

Ugh, yes, I meant to do that. Added a link to the post above.