Crashed UFO timer?

Can't find it. An entry which defines how long a crash-site stays on the geoscape. There's one for landed UFO's, but that's not what I'm after. Does it exist, or have I imagined it?

I don't remember having seen it anywhere. If it's anywhere, it will be in gameconfig.xml, but I've been over that file a lot and don't recall seeing anything. It's quite possibly hard-coded.

I must have got it confused with another timer, I've looked everywhere. Shame really...it'd be a good way to force more night missions.

Maybe another option would be to drastically reduce airstrike values. This would lead to having to do more missions, thereby reducing the timing options...no more waiting until daylight, got to hit them quick. But it's a bit of a contrived workaround.

Is that a thing? I mean, holding off assaulting a crash site until daybreak? Didn't realise that - I'd actually preferred night missions becau-- wait, is your avatar wearing an Energy Dome??

*Cough*

Making crash sites go away after night would be one way of fixing this, I suppose.

Yeah, it's a good tactic borrowed from the OG. It's slightly frustrating, actually, because I love the feel of night missions but there's utterly no reason to do them and 95% of the time they can be avoided. If anyone finds a way to incentivise night missions it'll be a must-install for me!

I swapped in some really rockin' tracks as replacements for the vanilla night mission music, so yeah I really don't mind fighting at night. The lower visibility thing didn't really bother me (in fact I like the ambiance of night missions too), although I did realize it was supposed to be a handicap.

Make it easier to gain bravery after surviving a night mission, maybe? Is it even possible to do that? A small bonus to reflexes (or maybe lower TU for reactions), because your soldiers are all on edge since it's dark?

@Lune: I don't think anything like that is possible, sadly (other than as a consequence of things happening during the mission: soldiers are more likely to get killed and therefore more likely to panic!)

Maybe another option would be to drastically reduce airstrike values. This would lead to having to do more missions, thereby reducing the timing options...no more waiting until daylight, got to hit them quick. But it's a bit of a contrived workaround.

Just a thought on this. Rather than reducing air strike values, how about increasing the resource costs of manufactured items?

The lost of airstrike money probably wouldn't be all that much and could be countered by playing leaner. On the other hand, increasing resource costs means that, if you want to build all the things you want to, you literally have no choice but to do more missions. Furthermore, it incentives going after landed UFOs (due to their high resource yield) which also helps encourage night missions as you have much less control over when they're available (you could possibly combine this with a slightly higher chance of getting landings? Or more missions resulting in landings?)

Again, it's not ideal and there's almost certainly ways the player could work around it. But I thought it worth mentioning anyway.

From a modding standpoint, the first thought off the top of my head would be to re-enable ticker increments while the ufo is present on the geoscape. The imperative to get the UFO becomes the same as getting an alien base - you have to get it before it brings the thunder down.

Yeah, that works too (I made a mod that did this; I should go dig it up sometime).

Is that a thing? I mean, holding off assaulting a crash site until daybreak? Didn't realise that - I'd actually preferred night missions becau-- wait, is your avatar wearing an Energy Dome??

Are we not men? WE ARE XENO.

I'll have to look at ways to get the Devo Corporate Theme music playing at some point in the game. Maybe when the funding screen appears.

Just a thought on this. Rather than reducing air strike values, how about increasing the resource costs of manufactured items?

The lost of airstrike money probably wouldn't be all that much and could be countered by playing leaner. On the other hand, increasing resource costs means that, if you want to build all the things you want to, you literally have no choice but to do more missions. Furthermore, it incentives going after landed UFOs (due to their high resource yield) which also helps encourage night missions as you have much less control over when they're available (you could possibly combine this with a slightly higher chance of getting landings? Or more missions resulting in landings?)

Again, it's not ideal and there's almost certainly ways the player could work around it. But I thought it worth mentioning anyway.

You might be onto something there. Perhaps crashed UFO's = cash, in that they just give money for the weapons captured, and none of the resources (because they're unrecoverable). And landed UFO's is where the resources, and cash, are. I think that sounds pretty good, combined with a higher chance of landing.

From a modding standpoint, the first thought off the top of my head would be to re-enable ticker increments while the ufo is present on the geoscape. The imperative to get the UFO becomes the same as getting an alien base - you have to get it before it brings the thunder down.

How would the ticker work in such a circumstance...would it just increase the ticker, or would it provide the -$2000 funding hits, like a base does?

You might be onto something there. Perhaps crashed UFO's = cash, in that they just give money for the weapons captured, and none of the resources (because they're unrecoverable). And landed UFO's is where the resources, and cash, are. I think that sounds pretty good, combined with a higher chance of landing.

Hmm, I'd not been thinking something that extreme but yes, that could work.

Interesting thought off of that: having to capture a landed UFO in order to get the associated UFO tech (power source, armour plating, anti-grav generator and so on). You'd have to make sure that all of the UFO types with that kind of tech are capable of landing, but it would basically make assaulting some landed UFOs a pre-requisite to get advanced technology.

Regarding Max's ticker idea, no: when the UFO is on the ground, it wouldn't do anything other than make the ticker increase faster. The variables for that are all in gameconfig if you wanted to look.

A long time ago, in a build far, far away UFOs would also also cause the ticker to increment in addition to the standard ticker "count". Scouts effectively doubled the per-game-minute ticker value, and other mission types could increase the ticker value both by being present or by a set value per event generated. It's still all there in gameconfigs. My thought was that if UFOs caused the ticker to increase regardless of if they were flying or landed (which they would) then the incentive is there to go after landed UFOs whether it's night or day to prevent a new wave from being triggered too soon. Admittedly the incentive is all stick and no carrot, but it is an incentive.

EDIT: Ninja'd

Admittedly the incentive is all stick and no carrot, but it is an incentive.

It's an alien invasion. I'm sure the emphasis on sticks is entirely fitting with that.

Also, if you look at post 34 on this thread, you'll see my first-pass at doing something with the ticker times. There's other changes in there as well, so you'll need to sift through, but I thought I'd point it out in case it's useful.

In regards to nerfing alenium/alloys from crashsites, correct me if I'm wrong, but this can't be done. Directly.

A way round that would be to set the power core to blow on every crash site (or the vast majority), which I assume would kill the alenium...but maybe not the alloys?

All the resource drops for UFOs are set in the submap editor.

If you want, I can direct you to the props which have resources (it's actually not that many).

Alternatively, if you tell me what you want the numbers to be like, I could probably do it for you. It wouldn't take me very long as I know where everything is.

EDIT: Just remembered, but you'd need to download/unpack the map tiles as well. If nothing else, I can pick out and send the spectres to you to save you the trouble of having to find them.

All the resource drops for UFOs are set in the submap editor.

If you want, I can direct you to the props which have resources (it's actually not that many).

Alternatively, if you tell me what you want the numbers to be like, I could probably do it for you. It wouldn't take me very long as I know where everything is.

EDIT: Just remembered, but you'd need to download/unpack the map tiles as well. If nothing else, I can pick out and send the spectres to you to save you the trouble of having to find them.

If you gave me the spectres, is that all I would need?

Yup. They're really easy to change, too.

Link

I've packaged it such that all the spectres are in the right place.

you can edit these in the submap editor, but it might be quicker just to edit them as an xml files like you would any other. The values for alenium and alloys are right at the end of the "default" line. Changing the values will change how much they give.

Something to bear in mind: the props (e.g. engines, reactors etc.) are used in *both* crashed and landed UFOs. So if you change the resources on any of those, it will affect both types (and they're shared between UFO types too). The datacore spectres in each of the UFO folders are separate for crashed and landed (the "damaged" one is used for crashes) so that will be the easiest way to set the difference between crashed and landed UFOs.

If you want to remove tech items from crashed but not landed UFOs, that's going to be more complicated as you'll have to create new submaps for the crashed UFOs. But this will at least allow you to do the other resources very easily.

Link

I've packaged it such that all the spectres are in the right place.

you can edit these in the submap editor, but it might be quicker just to edit them as an xml files like you would any other. The values for alenium and alloys are right at the end of the "default" line. Changing the values will change how much they give.

Something to bear in mind: the props (e.g. engines, reactors etc.) are used in *both* crashed and landed UFOs. So if you change the resources on any of those, it will affect both types (and they're shared between UFO types too). The datacore spectres in each of the UFO folders are separate for crashed and landed (the "damaged" one is used for crashes) so that will be the easiest way to set the difference between crashed and landed UFOs.

If you want to remove tech items from crashed but not landed UFOs, that's going to be more complicated as you'll have to create new submaps for the crashed UFOs. But this will at least allow you to do the other resources very easily.

Thanks, I'll have a play with those.

On first viewing, it looks like the easiest way would be to do it via the datacore spectres. With the prop spectres, what determines if they are damaged/destroyed/default...is it ground combat damage, AC damage, or all under the umbrella of "power core explosion"?

Ground combat damage. The disadvantage of putting everything in the datacores is that means you can't lose resources as a result of damaging props. However, it's certainly easier unless you want to play around with the submap editor to change the props being used.

As for power core explosions, the only things that are directly affected by power core explosions are the Power Core, Alenium Reactor and Fusion Reactor props (I don't think any of the others are, anyway), although you can add/remove that property from props as you like. (I don't recommend adding it, though, as you can't control the size of the explosion and there's a bug with fire in FoW which will result in aliens inside the UFO killing themselves).

I'll probably go for datacore. I can then excuse my laziness by hamming something up for the xenopedia..."the datacore is intrinsically linked to the chassis of the UFO, and unfortunately commander, if the datacore is damaged or destroyed it appears to send out an impulse that renders other components useless, meaning we cannot salvage valuable materials from the UFO". Job done.

The datacore is actually invulnerable to stop you from losing the resources (or, it always gives the resources regardless of its damage, I can't quite remember). In my mods, I always moved all that to the actual UFO hull, since it made more sense to me.

(It's possible to change this if you prefer, though).

Kabill - how about fighters/bombers...do you know where the alloys for these are contained?

They're in aircrafts.xml. Near the end column.