Author Topic: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96  (Read 12303 times)

Offline Arthanor

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2488
  • XCom Armoury Quartermaster
    • View Profile
WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« on: November 21, 2015, 10:40:00 pm »
X-Piratez v0.96 introduces a new mission to the mod:
Spoiler:
STR_LOC_RET_BASE, a Reticulan base mission.
This will be missing from your game unless you start a new campaign.

The way OpenXCom generates missions is a bit odd. When you launch a campaign, it generates all the possible missions for the whole game. When you save your game, instead of saving missions that have already happened so they don't happen again, OpenXCom saves possible future missions in the save file.

This means that, when upgrading to a new version of a mod with new missions added, you will never see them. This is because they are not listed in your save file from the old version (because they didn't exist when you generated your new game). When reading in the save file with the new version, since the new missions are not listed, the game thinks that they have already happened!

This is an unfortunate design choice that makes changing missions a bad thing for upgrades. If instead missions that already happened where saved, you would never have this problem. Luckily, there is a fix: You can go in your save and add the new missions, so that they can be generated from the next month onwards normally.

In order to do this:
1 - open your game save (any text editor will do)
2 - search for "alienStrategy". This is the section of the game save that keeps all the possible missions.
3 - go down to "possibleMissions"
4 - under each region, you need to add the missing missions. Note: Dioxine also changed the odds of seeing another mission, so you can fix that as well! Below is a list of all the changes: Remove the lines in red, add the lines in green. If one of the lines in red is missing, that means you already saw the mission, so don't add the following green line.

Missions to add:
Spoiler:
alienStrategy:
  possibleMissions:
    - region: STR_NORTH_AMERICA
      missions:
        Nothing changed
    - region: STR_ARCTIC:
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 25
    - region: STR_ANTARCTICA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 25
    - region: STR_SOUTH_AMERICA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
    - region: STR_EUROPE
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
    - region: STR_NORTH_AFRICA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
    - region: STR_SOUTHERN_AFRICA
      missions:
       STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
       STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 100
       STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 110
    - region: STR_CENTRAL_ASIA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 70
    - region: STR_SOUTH_EAST_ASIA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 70
    - region: STR_SIBERIA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 50
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 70
    - region: STR_AUSTRALASIA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 50
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 70
    - region: STR_PACIFIC
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60

Although this may sound like something bad happened, it didn't ;) Something great happened: Dioxine added even more awesome stuff for us to play with! :D

Enjoy!

Online Meridian

  • Global Moderator
  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 8615
    • View Profile
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2015, 10:47:42 pm »
Great job... if you posted this 12 hours ago, you would have saved me about 40 minutes of my time ;-)
Next time I will wait before I dig into the ruleset myself.

Offline Arthanor

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2488
  • XCom Armoury Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2015, 11:15:25 pm »
haha That's what you get for living in the future, you have to do things first :P

I'll keep posting here every time there is a change in the missions, so unless you need to finish a game month right at the time of the update (and generate new missions), you can rely on getting the info here next time! That way, you save 40 minutes, and maybe we get one more XPiratez episode! :D

As far as I know, missions are the only thing that are not taken care of automatically when upgrading. If only it had been coded as completedMissions to avoid repeats, instead of possibleMissions
« Last Edit: November 21, 2015, 11:20:14 pm by Arthanor »

Offline Dioxine

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 5412
  • punk not dead
    • View Profile
    • Nocturnal Productions
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2015, 03:11:56 am »
I like that the missions repeat. This makes for a living, random world, instead of just a list of stuff to notch off, levels to beat. Why would the drillers stop to drill and the passengers cease to travel? Naturally there should be 'one-off' missions, but just some special stuff, story related or whatever.

Offline Arthanor

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2488
  • XCom Armoury Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2015, 08:14:29 am »
I think if the games runs out of missions to run, it will regenerate all of the possible missions? But as it currently is (at least as far as I understand it), the game is programmed to do each mission of each region once only.

Offline Boltgun

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 252
  • [UTTERANCES]
    • View Profile
    • Piratez let's play
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2015, 09:25:10 pm »
I started playing before the reticulians were added, now I know why I never saw them. I added both base and trading and base missions.

Thank you, now we should start seeing them in my LP.

I think I have the same issues with the bandits since they were added recently too.

Offline Arthanor

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2488
  • XCom Armoury Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2015, 09:30:33 pm »
Yeah, reticulans you need to add for sure. As far as I can tell, Bandits are a race who is assigned to normal missions (distress pogroms, and a few others) so you just need the RNG to generate them, which could happen any month.

The problem is when there are new missions, as these are not added. If it is new races for old missions, then it's fine.

niculinux

  • Guest
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2015, 09:34:31 pm »
I hope this will be an isolated case,  not to be repeated with 0.97 and on..please!  :'(

edit: fixed ot (not)
« Last Edit: November 22, 2015, 09:41:42 pm by niculinux »

Offline Dioxine

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 5412
  • punk not dead
    • View Profile
    • Nocturnal Productions
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #8 on: November 22, 2015, 09:40:00 pm »
Naturally, I'll be adding new missions in new versions. But, possibly not much - the focus will be for more new races for old missions (pacing and variation), and missions spawned by an event which will activate anyway (haven't tried adding these yet).

niculinux

  • Guest
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2015, 09:43:23 pm »
Naturally, I'll be adding new missions in new versions. But, possibly not much - the focus will be for more new races for old missions (pacing and variation), and missions spawned by an event which will activate anyway (haven't tried adding these yet).

Oh..i'll take the chance..and eventually pay a visit a bit more frequent on the forum, maybe...:)

edit: and bowing to Arthanor!!
« Last Edit: November 22, 2015, 09:48:52 pm by niculinux »

Offline Arthanor

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2488
  • XCom Armoury Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #10 on: November 22, 2015, 09:50:42 pm »
Either way, I'll keep this updated with at most a few days lag (if Dioxine releases something on a busy day for me). So just check here once in a while!

niculinux

  • Guest
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #11 on: November 22, 2015, 09:52:47 pm »
[...]
As far as I know, missions are the only thing that are not taken care of automatically when upgrading. If only it had been coded as completedMissions to avoid repeats, instead of possibleMissions

Seems a mandatory feature! May someone report to developers? SjpSuper, Warboy1982, please i wish yuo're reading right now...

Offline Hobbes

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2101
  • Infiltration subroutine in progress
    • View Profile
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2015, 01:42:48 am »
The way OpenXCom generates missions is a bit odd. When you launch a campaign, it generates all the possible missions for the whole game. When you save your game, instead of saving missions that have already happened so they don't happen again, OpenXCom saves possible future missions in the save file.

A clarification: this happens for missions listed on the table (the ones that have missionWeights defined on regions), such as Harvest, Base, etc. - the possible missions (or mission table) are saved and then ticked off once they take place. Once the mission table is empty it is refilled again. And when it is refilled, it will be refilled with the current mission definitions, so you can get those new missions during your game once the table is empty.

But any missions that don't use the missionTable (like the vanilla Terror or Retaliation) can be newly generated every month when the mission script is ran. So those new missions can always be encountered when loading an older save when a new game starts.

Offline Arthanor

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2488
  • XCom Armoury Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #13 on: November 23, 2015, 03:44:28 am »
Yes, that's true. Only the ones in the table work like that, but did you see how many are in Piratez? Good luck running out! (We should count them and see, even at the rate of 2/month, that's probably a decade if not more before you face them all).

Offline Hobbes

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2101
  • Infiltration subroutine in progress
    • View Profile
Re: WARNING: Missing new mission for upgrades to v0.96
« Reply #14 on: November 23, 2015, 04:08:56 am »
Yes, that's true. Only the ones in the table work like that, but did you see how many are in Piratez? Good luck running out! (We should count them and see, even at the rate of 2/month, that's probably a decade if not more before you face them all).

I just had a look at Piratez's alienMissions and I'm not sure why this is included in all entries since this is used on missionScripts.
Code: [Select]
    missionWeights:
      0: 100
      1: 65
      12: 50

I couldn't find the missionScripts part, so I'm assuming Piratez uses the vanilla missionScript. It might better to include a customized missionScript to deal with all those different missions, by classifying them under their objectives (retaliation, terror, infiltration, etc.).