Anyone spare a minute to help me out - Adjust terror mission geoscape timer?

[sniggles]

Hi guys, i was hoping i could easily adjust the terror mission timer using a ruleset.

To be clearer - i want to double the time a terror mission remains on the Geoscape before you have to engage.

I am not that good at tactical battles and hate trying these missions at night.

Don't want to 'turn on' all battles in daylight option as i enioy the odd UFO encounters at night for an extra challenge (and at my own pace)

Just my personal pet hate - want to be able to have enough time to advance to daylight to do a terror mission if i want.

Is there an easy way to lengthen the time or is it hardcoded.

Appreciate any help or advice.

[Meridian]

It should be possible to change the ruleset... you'll have to play with ufoTrajectories (property groundTimer), but I didn't try it yet, so I can't say for sure.

Anyway, there is a much easier way... just have the terror mission targeted with some secondary craft until it becomes day (or whenever you feel you need to take off with your primary craft)... it won't disappear.

To see what I am talking about, you can check this example: https://youtu.be/zzMIiYTUMzU?t=11m58s

[sniggles]

Thanks for the quick reply Meridian.

Yeagh - I know about the tactic with targeting the terror site to keep it 'active' and this is what i have been doing and is not too much trouble but feels like a gimmicky game mechanic and kinda breaks the immersion a bit.

Looked at those references you mentioned in the main game ruleset (Xcom1Ruleset.rul) - ufo trajectory ground timers.

There are nine reference id's from PO to P9 with only the last one named as a 'RETALIATION_ASSAULT_RUN'

So without knowing what PO to P8 represents i don't really want to go changing stuff out of my depth.

It could be we are completely on the wrong track and none of those references belong to the geoscape terror mission timer.

Anyway - until someone who knows a bit more comes along i will carry on with the 'targeting' trick.

[sniggles]

Just tried adding a zero to all the ground timers P0 to P9 and no luck - had a terror mission and timer was unaffected - still dissapeared in a number of hours so maybe it is hardcoded.

[NoelBuddy]

I'm not sure that messing with trajectories would do anything, Terror ships are directed by the trajectories, but once it hits the city it turns into a Terror Site.  In the alienDeployment: section find the STR_TERROR_MISSION entry and add "shade: 0" if you want to make all terror sites always daylight without affecting the other missions

The trick Meridian mentioned with targeting it is your best bet and also evidence of hardcoded behavior, other landings controlled by the groundTimer don't react to being targeted.

Am currently experimenting with UFO landings, will report back if I find anything else.

[Warboy1982]

it's a random number between 4 and 10 hours

https://github.com/SupSuper/OpenXcom/blob/master/src/Savegame/AlienMission.cpp#L421

[sniggles]

Thanks for the technical info Warboy, nice to know the exact calculations going on.  Also thanks NoelBuddy for the advice about "shade: 0".  Sounds good enough for me - made a quick ruleset to force daytime using that code.  Problem solved.

OKAY - I know it might not be realistic to land at night but the terror site is daytime - but hey - whose to say my troopers were too scared to come out of there little shuttle and decided to play cards until morning before deployment!

All those nasty rumors of sectoids running around with anal probes - can you blame them - LOL!