Current randomization is 50% - 100%.
So if "civilians: 16", it will be a random number between 8 and 16.
If there are no free spawn points, game tries to place them near other civilians (which should usually be successful, but has a small chance of failing if there are too many units on battlescape in total). If this fails too, civilian is not placed.
Is this enough random?
Yes, it's clear enough, thank you. However it's not the random number that is the main problem, but control over what spawns. (Sorry I haven't explained it well enough before, I failed at reading what I wrote and forgot half the sentence somehow. My bad.)
For example, I have a mission where you are supposed to rescue a council member from an assassination attempt. Civilians for this mission are: the council member, some bodyguards and some servants. With how it is now, there is no guarantee that the council member will spawn at all, or that only one spawns. If she doesn't spawn, then the mission is pretty much pointless and you must repeat it (and because you have no control over where she spawns, there's a significant probability that she will be dead anyway before you get to her, so repeating this mission will probably be inevitable even without the mission VIP). And having two or more is acceptable in this case (if awkward), but in some other mission it could be a big problem.
So, the best thing would be something analogous to alien deployments, where you could define the numbers of civilians of a particular type. I know it's probably complicated, and perhaps impractical, but I thought I'd at least ask, since you added the recoverable civilians feature already (which is a great thing).
I suggest moving these 2 to "scrapped" section.
The first one was requested by Dioxine, so I'll have to talk to him first.
The second one... why exactly? Is it because you don't want to do it, or because it's a bad design idea? If it's that you don't want to do it, then it's perfectly fine, but then I'd rather keep in on the list because, well, I still want it and it's my
wishlist after all - maybe someone else would give it a try. And if you think it's bad design, then I'd like to hear some arguments - because honestly, I have
tons of ideas on how to use it that would not be possible without it.
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And now, I actually came to this thread because I wanted to enter another request:
an additional button on the mission marker screen. Something like this:
With all the new options available - starting conditions, weather, timers, allied units and all - it becomes increasingly difficult to prepare for a mission without knowing exactly what it entails. This (optional) button would be a place to put down this information to tell the player that, for example, they will lose unequipped items (like in the mansion in
Piratez) or that they should dress appropriately for cold weather, or to bring extra anti-tank equipment. The only other place to put it is the briefing, which is too late to prepare (well, except for swapping weapons you have on board anyway).
Ruleset-wise, this would be done by adding this to the alienDeployments:
alertDescription: STR_ALIENS_TERRORISE_DESCRIPTION
And the appropriate string to the language.
If alertDescription is not present in the deployment, the DETAILS button doesn't appear.
What do you think?
