OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => The X-Com Files => Topic started by: Foxhound634 on July 19, 2022, 01:57:34 pm
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I could have sworn i terminated the black lotus, but after doing so i discovered one of their bases. Fair enough, it probably spawned before terminating. But then their missions (outpost investigation) started popping up after destroying the base. I went to check the research tree, and i guess i didn't terminate them after all...but then i saw an assassination attempt mission from red dawn, and i DID terminate red dawn many months ago, and double checked in the research tree. Is this a bug?
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And how do you expect anybody to be able to answer that, going just by what you "think" you did or did not do?
You've given us basically no information to go on - no save game, no mention of the mod version or even of the version of OXCE you're using.
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Mod version 2.5 and OXCE version 7.5.3, which anyone familiar with this problem could ask about, in case it was a known problem that should have been fixed in a recent patch. And like i mentioned in my first message, i don't "think" i terminated the red dawn...i DID terminate them, and i even double checked in the research tree. No information my ass :S
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So, are you going to post a save or not? And preferably also say if you've messed with the save or anything else (probably not, but if you want definite answers, you'd better provide full information).
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I don't know what mission that is, sine "assassination attempt mission from red dawn" doesn't seem to correspond any red Dawn mission I can think of. Sorry.
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I think it's probably STR_CULT_ASSASSINATION_ZSRR. That could be explained by a manor being left over, but not outposts popping back up again.
Edit: Only Natasha Morozova might pop up that way, and she's neither BL nor multiple outposts.
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I could have sworn i terminated the black lotus, but after doing so i discovered one of their bases. Fair enough, it probably spawned before terminating. But then their missions (outpost investigation) started popping up after destroying the base. I went to check the research tree, and i guess i didn't terminate them after all...but then i saw an assassination attempt mission from red dawn, and i DID terminate red dawn many months ago, and double checked in the research tree. Is this a bug?
By Red Dawn assassination do you mean Natasha Morozova's Hideout? It mentions she is planning an assassination in the mission briefing so this might be what you are referring to? If so this mission triggers regardless of if you have terminated Red Dawn as a one time mission (either you go to it or it expires and won't show up again) as long as you have researched her dossier, there's a similar mission with Black Lotus for Lo Wo's Refuge, again this happens regardless of if Black Lotus is terminated as long as you have researched his dossier.
For Black Lotus there is an extra mission which can spawn only once they are terminated but it is not like the usual Black Lotus missions and the briefing mentions them being terminated so if you see that one after terminating them don't worry about something going wrong.
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Here's a save file and a red dawn assassination (vip) mission, long time after terminating the red dawn.
PS: No it wasn't any of the dossier missions
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Yeah, this is STR_CULT_ASSASSINATION_ZSRR, a Manor-launched mission. You've got one visible and two invisible Red Dawn Manors still launching missions against you.
I suppose they're kinda like rural warlords now? :P
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Oh, i didn't know that some missions were independent of the cult's overarching status. So destroy the manors to stop the missions. But can manors establish new manors?
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Oh, i didn't know that some missions were independent of the cult's overarching status. So destroy the manors to stop the missions. But can manors establish new manors?
As far as I can tell from the ruleset manors only spawn as long as the cult has not been destroyed.
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Yeah, AFAICT Manors only spawn when the cult's active, and don't really go away on their own. No idea if it's even technically possible for (cult/alien) bases to become disabled. I suppose you could add an 'upgrade' that basically disables the manor, but AFAIK there's no tech trigger for that.
I think the continuing mission thing is an oversight, since adding 'interruptResearch' should make it possible to stop them from running more.
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I suppose they're kinda like rural warlords now? :P
Yeah, pretty much. :)
I think the continuing mission thing is an oversight, since adding 'interruptResearch' should make it possible to stop them from running more.
Not an oversight; the base may be isolated, but it's definitely trying to remain relevant.
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Trying to get into a rematch with the organisation that just demolished your parent org is not trying to remain relevant. It's suicide by
cop X-Com.
I sorta dislike the entire lore around how the mansions do their overt missions (a proper shadow war justification would be that they trick the local government into thinking you're some rogue entity or enemy aircraft violating their airspace, not 'dominance'). But, eh, it's pretty clear by now that our visions of how in-game justifications ought to work do not match.
I do like the idea of an early air game in principle. But not the current implementation as weak/easily baited guardians of mansions. I'd much prefer if the mansions also launched visible craft on missions and I could actually mess with those.
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Trying to get into a rematch with the organisation that just demolished your parent org is not trying to remain relevant. It's suicide by cop X-Com.
I sorta dislike the entire lore around how the mansions do their overt missions (a proper shadow war justification would be that they trick the local government into thinking you're some rogue entity or enemy aircraft violating their airspace, not 'dominance'). But, eh, it's pretty clear by now that our visions of how in-game justifications ought to work do not match.
I do like the idea of an early air game in principle. But not the current implementation as weak/easily baited guardians of mansions. I'd much prefer if the mansions also launched visible craft on missions and I could actually mess with those.
Which is why I have simply disabled parts of the mod. Cults are by now definitely overstaying their welcome. You get access/take over military airfields and fighter jets? That's the point where you get carpet-bombed into oblivion. Your silly little hoods aren't going to protect you from missiles coming at you at mach 3 any better than they protect you from regular bullets. Looks like you didn't pray hard enough to your elder god you idiots.
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Trying to get into a rematch with the organisation that just demolished your parent org is not trying to remain relevant. It's suicide by cop X-Com.
Who said anything about fighting X-Com? ???
I sorta dislike the entire lore around how the mansions do their overt missions (a proper shadow war justification would be that they trick the local government into thinking you're some rogue entity or enemy aircraft violating their airspace, not 'dominance'). But, eh, it's pretty clear by now that our visions of how in-game justifications ought to work do not match.
And many do, but not chumps like RD. They barely recognise your existence and have no real source to fight you. As clearly expressed in the mod.
I do like the idea of an early air game in principle. But not the current implementation as weak/easily baited guardians of mansions. I'd much prefer if the mansions also launched visible craft on missions and I could actually mess with those.
These are completely irrelevant things, you know? Not to mention that "cult UFOs" spawning missions are a thing.
Which is why I have simply disabled parts of the mod. Cults are by now definitely overstaying their welcome. You get access/take over military airfields and fighter jets? That's the point where you get carpet-bombed into oblivion. Your silly little hoods aren't going to protect you from missiles coming at you at mach 3 any better than they protect you from regular bullets. Looks like you didn't pray hard enough to your elder god you idiots.
I see XCF is more like a platform for personal mods now. Okay, I certainly don't mind, just let's keep it a separate topic.
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When it comes to the left over cults / hybrids being dumb, most of the bases I found was unintentional as was flying past on my skyranger on an unrelated mission and they decided to send interceptors that couldn't even catch up with the skyranger alerting me to their base and getting themselves killed. Without their leadership they really are dumb.
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Who said anything about fighting X-Com?
People who remember that last time they did that exact same thing, X-Com came, kicked their asses and killed off their higher-level support.
It's the same thing as trying to say that holding up a small shop next to the precinct is technically not suicide by cop since you're drawing on the shopkeep and not an officer. ::)
And many do, but not chumps like RD. They barely recognise your existence and have no real source to fight you. As clearly expressed in the mod.
Where? Nobody but them (and aliens) has tried shooting down any of my craft yet. With modern fighter jets, mind you, despite them not having any 'real' means to fight me, unlike the Syndicate, the MiB, UAC, etc. who are regularly... doing what to fight me in the skies?
These are completely irrelevant things, you know?
Irrelevant to what, the current thread? Perhaps. To the mod experience in general and the air game in particular, no.
Not to mention that "cult UFOs" spawning missions are a thing.
Technically, yes. In practice, I don't think I've seen a single one do this, and I kept a max-tier mansion under my radar and a stone's throw from my base for at least 2 months.
I just tried seeing if that might have been a fluke, and no. I put a max-tier EXALT mansion under my radar umbrella, and periodically checked if they'd done anything via 'genMissionCount'. They launched two missions in that time frame, STR_CULT_STREET_FIGHTING_EXALT and STR_CULT_INFILTRATION_EXALT. Neither showed any craft flying around, and neither generated a mission site, either. Since the OP was getting at least the missions themselves, something seems screwy here.
Edit: I even went back and parked an Interceptor over their base. Then watched the countdown very carefully in the save. When it hit zero, STR_CULT_INFILTRATION_EXALT just vanished from alienMissions and the 'STR_TERROR_SITE' counter went up by one. Otherwise, no UFOs, no missions, nada. Other than some counters going down and soldier stats moving up, the saves are otherwise identical. /edit
I see XCF is more like a platform for personal mods now. Okay, I certainly don't mind, just let's keep it a separate topic.
Well, that's cool enough and I do appreciate all the work that's gone into the mod. Especially the maps.
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Man, whenever I spend an hour or two on an answer, you come back in 30 minutes with a wall of text... It's not bad or anything, but I can't keep up with this (nor any normal person could). This is why I only visit the main XCF threads like once a week, else I'd never be doing anything else; and now, the same here. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but maybe you should expand your hobbies a little, or I'll have to start ignoring your immediate responses to preserve my sanity and life balance.
People who remember that last time they did that exact same thing, X-Com came, kicked their asses and killed off their higher-level support.
Yeah, I can totally see Dagonites being fazed by this...
Where?
Where you aren't ever raided by them. That's where.
Nobody but them (and aliens) has tried shooting down any of my craft yet. With modern fighter jets, mind you, despite them not having any 'real' means to fight me, unlike the Syndicate, the MiB, UAC, etc. who are regularly... doing what to fight me in the skies?
Not much yet. Yet.
Irrelevant to what, the current thread? Perhaps. To the mod experience in general and the air game in particular, no.
Irrelevant to cult "UFOs" spawning missions. Don't play dumb with me.
Technically, yes. In practice, I don't think I've seen a single one do this, and I kept a max-tier mansion under my radar and a stone's throw from my base for at least 2 months.
I added as many as made sense and time allowed. Most of their missions would make zero sense as a UFO, political influence isn't a matter of sending an armed squad.
What I could do would be adding some sort of supply missions for the manors, the same as alien supply works. Would at least help with detecting them. What do you think?
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...wall of text... It's not bad or anything, but I can't keep up with this
...maybe you should expand your hobbies a little...
Why do you think I don't have any others? :P And you haven't seen me going at it full steam yet. Haven't run into the character limit here on these forums, for example. ;D
But fair enough, I don't expect you to spend your life addressing every nitpick I have.
Yeah, I can totally see Dagonites being fazed by this...
But both EXALT and RD, definitely. Actually, even Dagonites show some caution and express a need to pull back and lay low in their 'desperation' popups.
Where you aren't ever raided by them. That's where.
The original question (when you backtrack through all the quotes) was 'where is it explicitly expressed how some factions trick governments etc to fight X-Com overtly, while the four cults are not capable of this despite being the only Earth faction to launch interceptions against you?' This is not an answer to that.
Irrelevant to cult "UFOs" spawning missions. Don't play dumb with me.
Cult 'UFO's spawning missions was never mentioned in the thread until your next sentence after 'irrelevant'.
I suppose you actually mean the air game being largely irrelevant for mansion-generated missions?
I added as many as made sense and time allowed. Most of their missions would make zero sense as a UFO...
Yeah, I can get that. But the point remains, in practice cult bases don't spawn UFOs for the player to mess with. Or spawn so few of them that the difference is academic.
What I could do would be adding some sort of supply missions for the manors, the same as alien supply works. Would at least help with detecting them. What do you think?
Sounds good. Also, getting them to fly patrols to set up retaliation (like the Aliens do) could be interesting.
Or maybe just flying out hitmen. The 'Street fighting' can actually sort of work as a UFO, too, flying in the heavy hitters. No big guys, the thing gets called off.
And something definitely needs to be done about the 'Street fighting' and 'Infiltration' missions actually not happening, fake UFOs or no fake UFOs.
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Why do you think I don't have any others? :P And you haven't seen me going at it full steam yet. Haven't run into the character limit here on these forums, for example. ;D
Dear God. :P
But both EXALT and RD, definitely. Actually, even Dagonites show some caution and express a need to pull back and lay low in their 'desperation' popups.
What exactly would you propose? I'm honestly not sure.
The original question (when you backtrack through all the quotes) was 'where is it explicitly expressed how some factions trick governments etc to fight X-Com overtly, while the four cults are not capable of this despite being the only Earth faction to launch interceptions against you?' This is not an answer to that.
It's an assumption. An axiom, if you prefer. "Starting cults are too low on the power ladder to attack X-com bases" was a decision made before the first release of X-Com Files. But of course it's not true any more, because manors are now a thing. The fact that manors still do that after their HQ is down is a side effect, and I'm not sure if can be disabled at all; but even if possible, I wouldn't do that, because that would be boring.
Cult 'UFO's spawning missions was never mentioned in the thread until your next sentence after 'irrelevant'.
I suppose you actually mean the air game being largely irrelevant for mansion-generated missions?
Yes, you put these two things in the same bloody paragraph.
Yeah, I can get that. But the point remains, in practice cult bases don't spawn UFOs for the player to mess with. Or spawn so few of them that the difference is academic.
We can't get too carried away, since players who allowed dozens of manors to appear will get completely swamped with who knows how many missions per month.
Sounds good. Also, getting them to fly patrols to set up retaliation (like the Aliens do) could be interesting.
I fear it might take away some mechanics from other organizations which should be more advanced/dangerous. Should I really put every feature in early/mid game?
Or maybe just flying out hitmen. The 'Street fighting' can actually sort of work as a UFO, too, flying in the heavy hitters. No big guys, the thing gets called off.
Not sure if this level of intelligence you have on a cult would make sense. An armoured convoy is one thing, two Skodas filled with angry gopniks is something else.
And something definitely needs to be done about the 'Street fighting' and 'Infiltration' missions actually not happening, fake UFOs or no fake UFOs.
What do you mean by "actually not happening"? Are they broken?
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What exactly would you propose?
Personally, I'd leave the post-termination mansions relatively missionless, or give them some sort of local mission set. Probably not something you'd do, since you're already invested in your present work.
Easiest thing would be to put in a Ufopedia blurb post-termination, explaining that some isolated strongholds are still holding out and weren't taken down in the general purge. Perhaps with big red exclamation marks for the more dense among us. :)
The fact that manors still do that after their HQ is down is a side effect, and I'm not sure if can be disabled at all; but even if possible, I wouldn't do that, because that would be boring.
Using retaliationOdds? But I'd actually like to get a retaliation. Nobody has invaded me yet, perhaps because I'm too successful?
And IMO fighting these same guys even after you've supposdedly rid yourself of them is also boring. YMMV.
We can't get too carried away, since players who allowed dozens of manors to appear will get completely swamped with who knows how many missions per month.
Well, then they deserve it? >:D I mean, if they're exterminating the cults on time, that won't be a problem. And I'd take too many missions over virtually none any day. At worst, the player can ignore most of the missions and concentrate on the mansions themselves.
OTOH, you're right, too many extra cult missions would also be bad, but right now I don't recall a single one. Maybe I did do one or two and don't remember, but it's still far, far on the side of 'too few' rather than 'too many'.
And getting to play with their aircraft and eliminating these missions that way would also be much more interesting than what we have right now.
I fear it might take away some mechanics from other organizations which should be more advanced/dangerous.
Should I really put every feature in early/mid game?
You do have a point here. But you already gave the cults retaliation and interception. I wouldn't mind taking retaliation away from them, and giving it to the MiB, the Syndicate, or even the Hybrids or Cyberweb.
Not sure if this level of intelligence you have on a cult would make sense. An armoured convoy is one thing, two Skodas filled with angry gopniks is something else.
Gopniks can do as they please. I'd at least want the helicopters and fighter jets to show up on radar. A Priest of Dagon taking a helicopter (and some Gillmen) to the fight doesn't sound too outlandish.
What do you mean by "actually not happening"? Are they broken?
Read my edit (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,10670.msg147797.html#msg147797). Basically, I can see them manifesting in alienMissions for a while, and when the countdown reaches zero they just... disappear.
Edit: I suppose I'll try to summarise what seems to have come out of this discussion as problems with the cults (and their air game) right now and what I think could be done to mitigate this. Others of course might have different ideas about whether these are worth solving and how.
- Problem 1 (the OP): Terminating a cult and still having to fight leftover (invisible!) manors is confusing.
Solution 1: Make a pop-up a la the 'woe is us!' messages that explains this situation.
Solution 2: Take regular cult missions away from the manors after termination. Maybe lock it behind some sort of research ("Remnants of EXALT" or whatever).
Solution 3: Replace their regular missions with less ambitious ones.
- Problem 2: Some of the mansion-generated missions seem not to work, i.e. they spawn no mission site. Infiltration and street fighting I'm sure about, maybe there are others as well.
Solution: Fix it. I'm not even sure how the current rulesets for those are supposed to work, given all the differences with the actual working missions (e.g. the OP's assassinations).
- Problem 3: There's really no regular cultist air traffic for the player to meddle with.
Solution: Make some. Gillmen being hidden in water tanks masquerading as fuel truck convoys driven to ritual terror missions, Liquidators cruising around in black helicopters, Red Dawn driving BMP's filled with gopniks to turf wars, BL Mandarins riding in private jets filled with hand-picked goons...
- Problem 4: The interceptions are a bit toothless (as Rag pointed out).
Solution: Make the manors' interception radius bigger (kinda simulating that they call in an asset from somewhere else and don't have airbases of their own). Maybe take a look at their effective speeds vs X-Com transport craft, so that anything below the Skyranger is relatively fair game and needs an escort or planning.
- Problem 5: Cultists launching regular attack helicopter and fighter jet sorties with no pushback from the local government pretty much destroys my SOD. And apparently krautbernd's, too.
Solution: See Problem 4. Make a Ufopedia entry to explain that these are not cult assets but governments being tricked into 'defending' their airspace.
- Problem 6: Cult retaliations.
Solution: Does it need one? They never retaliated against me for ~28 months and countless missions flown against them.
Edit2: I figured out what's wrong with infiltrations and street fighting. You're using non-existent fake UFOs, STR_MEDIUM_GROUND_CONVOY_{CULT_NAME} and STR_CULT_STREET_FIGHTING_{CULT_NAME}, while there's only STR_MEDIUM_GROUND_CONVOY defined as a UFO.
I suspect there may be others, too.
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Personally, I'd leave the post-termination mansions relatively missionless, or give them some sort of local mission set. Probably not something you'd do, since you're already invested in your present work.
Not really doable. A base is a base, it doesn't care about stuff like what's researched. That's pretty much the entire explanation.
Easiest thing would be to put in a Ufopedia blurb post-termination, explaining that some isolated strongholds are still holding out and weren't taken down in the general purge. Perhaps with big red exclamation marks for the more dense among us. :)
Fair point :D
And IMO fighting these same guys even after you've supposdedly rid yourself of them is also boring. YMMV.
Well, at least it's rather occasional.
Gopniks can do as they please. I'd at least want the helicopters and fighter jets to show up on radar. A Priest of Dagon taking a helicopter (and some Gillmen) to the fight doesn't sound too outlandish.
Yeah, it depends on the mission really. I get that more early "UFOs" = good.
Read my edit (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,10670.msg147797.html#msg147797). Basically, I can see them manifesting in alienMissions for a while, and when the countdown reaches zero they just... disappear.
OK, I get it now.
It might be related to some regions not having valid mission areas, or something. I'll try to debug, but it'll take time.
Edit2: I figured out what's wrong with infiltrations and street fighting. You're using non-existent fake UFOs, STR_MEDIUM_GROUND_CONVOY_{CULT_NAME} and STR_CULT_STREET_FIGHTING_{CULT_NAME}, while there's only STR_MEDIUM_GROUND_CONVOY defined as a UFO.
...or I can just read. Wow. Thank you. I'll check.
EDIT: The code looks okay. What's more, I tested Black Lotus streetfighting (only made sure that the script runs regardless of month and odds) and it works fine in the game. If it doesn't for you, could be an outdated OXE version on your side.
Edit: I suppose I'll try to summarise what seems to have come out of this discussion as problems with the cults (and their air game) right now and what I think could be done to mitigate this.
Thank you, very thoroughful. I've addressed some points already, others will get some attention at some point maybe.
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A base is a base, it doesn't care about stuff like what's researched.
It should care that it's entire parent org has been 'researched' to death. :P
The code looks okay. What's more, I tested Black Lotus streetfighting (only made sure that the script runs regardless of month and odds) and it works fine in the game. If it doesn't for you, could be an outdated OXE version on your side.
No, I was thorough. I checked saves, replaced UFOs (and trajectories) with existing ones and suddenly helicopters were popping up and creating mission sites, as opposed to the mission just vanishing from the save.
I think you're referring to the monthly CultStreetFightingLotus missions. I'm talking about the mansion-generated ones, these are different.
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It should care that it's entire parent org has been 'researched' to death. :P
Tell this to the devs. :P
No, I was thorough. I checked saves, replaced UFOs (and trajectories) with existing ones and suddenly helicopters were popping up and creating mission sites, as opposed to the mission just vanishing from the save.
I think you're referring to the monthly CultStreetFightingLotus missions. I'm talking about the mansion-generated ones, these are different.
Ah, all right, this wasn't clear.
Weird, they should work the same. I'll check...
EDIT: Tests done. The mission launches just fine from the base.
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Tests done. The mission launches just fine from the base.
Tests done. The mission launches just fine from the base.
Can you provide me with the exact scripts (alienDeployments, alienMissions, ufos, ufoTrajectories) and a save that immediately launches such a mission? Because I am entirely capable of providing a save where that does not happen. So you either changed something to make it work, tested something else again (like assassinations, which work fine), or there are gremlins at work here.
There is no issue with OXCE, either. Updated to 7.6 and it's still happening.
Also, my problem isn't getting the mission to launch, i.e. making an entry into alienMissions. The problem is getting the mission to work, i.e. spawn a mission site and/or UFO when the timer is up.
Edit: Actually, scratch that. 7.6 indeed seems to be working. No idea why it does so now and didn't before. OTOH, now a helicopter spawns an alien terror site instead of the actual mission. :o
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Can you provide me with the exact scripts (alienDeployments, alienMissions, ufos, ufoTrajectories) and a save that immediately launches such a mission?
No, I just chose a save with a manor present and edited its daily mission chance to 100%, also deleted any other possible missions.
Because I am entirely capable of providing a save where that does not happen.
So what? I know it works, I just checked with my own eyes.
Also, my problem isn't getting the mission to launch, i.e. making an entry into alienMissions. The problem is getting the mission to work, i.e. spawn a mission site and/or UFO when the timer is up.
It spawns the damn site, this is why I said it works.
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See above. There seems to have been an undocumented change in how UFOs create missions? Because I played for nearly three years, and saw exactly zero street fighting missions, and plenty of manors. Then I changed UFOs, and got cult craft spawning mission sites. Now I tested again (after recently moving from 7.5.3 -> 7.5.19 -> 7.6) to be sure, and vanilla manor missions actually work, but my changed missions turn into alien terror missions. Not sure what to make of all this. ???
Edit: Okay, I figured it out. When missions just disappeared, I was using STR_CULT_STREET_FIGHTING_EXALT and had EXALT Network researched. Alien terror appeared because after enabling cultist craft I was testing STR_CULT_INFILTRATION_EXALT, which worked fine. Now, I tried STR_CULT_STREET_FIGHTING_EXALT again, but had forgotten to specify siteType, so of course got default terror missions. So it's all WAD on the OXCE level.
As to XCF: Street Fighting, Assassinations and Retaliations work. But Street Fighting gets disabled by research and thus some of the missions become duds. Infiltration, the most common mission that never goes away, does not work.
Because you still do have the problem with nonexistent STR_MEDIUM_GROUND_CONVOY_{CULT} craft. Try to get an Infiltration to spawn and tell me it works. Then delete the _{CULT} part and see what happens.
Which is consistent with my experience as Street Fighting crops up every three months (or more) on average and gets disabled by Network research. I usually do those before manors even start appearing. So all that's left are the more specific missions, and most of those come from other sources as well. The more unique ones are Retaliation and Assassination, and both have low enough chances that you need to leave the manor alone for 3-4 months, and pray to the RNG gods to ever get one.
TLDR: Juku learns not to test a single use case, Infiltrations are still provably borked and distinct manor missions are rare as hen's teeth in an actual game that's not overrun with them.
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See above. There seems to have been an undocumented change in how UFOs create missions?
I'm not aware of any.
Not saying it's impossible, just not intended.
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See above. My mistake in leaving out siteType when I copied stuff around. OXCE works as designed.
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Indeed, cult infiltrations were broken. Thank you!
Now fixed.