Experienced - Base Attack on fifth day

[MyThos]

Hi,

I just downloaded version 0.9 yesterday and started a new game on "Experienced". I ordered some equipment and personnel, shot down two small scouts and played hide-and-seek with a third when all of a sudden the base is under attack !! Fresh soldiers hadn't arrived yet and so I tried defending with my start crew. To summarize: 10 dead sectoids, 3 remaining cyberdisks and no xcom survivors - Game Over!

Is it meant to be so brutal on "Experienced" already ?! Can't remember ever running into a base attack in the first month before...

Cheers,
Michael

P.S.: Almost forgot: OpenXcom is great and even though I was slaughtered brutally I will continue to play

[Volutar]

"It's the X-COM!"
Dude, do you have save file before retaliation started? It'd be intresting to look into base detection flags and alien missions on-going.

[Warboy1982]

unfortunately, and for the record, this is just a possibility, even in the original. all the retaliation behaviour is based on random number generation (albeit at low odds) you were simply unlucky.

HOWEVER! this post caused me to quadruple check the detection functions, and as a result, the odds have changed slightly in your favour.

Details here

[MyThos]

"It's the X-COM!"
Dude, do you have save file before retaliation started? It'd be intresting to look into base detection flags and alien missions on-going.

Nope, no saves. Was just fooling around with a new start. I might have saved before the first crash-site but the base defense was just so ridiculous at that time that I just went ahead without a save ...

Edit: Strange: pressed "quote" on Volutars reply but got the content for Warboy1982's reply in my text window ?! Anyway, manually fixed the quote

[MyThos]

unfortunately, and for the record, this is just a possibility, even in the original. all the retaliation behaviour is based on random number generation (albeit at low odds) you were simply unlucky.

HOWEVER! this post caused me to quadruple check the detection functions, and as a result, the odds have changed slightly in your favour.

Details here

Interesting fix. The battleship occurrence hopefully takes other variables into account as well (not just number of completed facilities) ?

[Warboy1982]

Code: [Select]

unsigned mindShields = std::count_if(_facilities.begin(), _facilities.end(), isMindShield());
unsigned completedFacilities = std::count_if(_facilities.begin(), _facilities.end(), isCompleted());
return (completedFacilities / 6 + 15) / (mindShields + 1);

as you can see it takes mind shields into account as well.
all this function does is give odds of detection.
the actual determination takes place elsewhere in the code, using the return value of this function as a percentage chance, under a bunch of other conditions.

[MyThos]

Thanks for the info.

If I get slaughtered again upon restart I will not believe in chance 

[Warboy1982]

just an fyi: you will have to switch to using git builds to see these changes.

[guitarxe]

How about terror attacks? I also just started a game yesterday, shot down a small scout over water on day 3, then on day 5 or 7 there was a terror attack =/
I've never had that happen to me in the original. Oh I'm playing on Beginner.

[Volutar]

There was weird mission period conditions. Because of that any mission came 2 times faster than it should. It also was fixed. Use latest git build.

[mercy]

I set Retaliation in Advanced Options, because it is there and I love drama. I only play Superhuman, nothing less. Same, my base was attacked very fast. After my first UFO mission I shot down a scout and of course it triggered a retaliation.

Tried to defend base with default soldiers + laser pistols, but of course we were slaughtered.   I think it's a very good option and a fresh, creative idea. Not all stories ought to be Happy End. I wish to say that short dramatic campaign had superb atmosphere and a lot of fun!

I would like to congratulate the openXCOM developers for their immense effort. You have done an awesome job!! Can't wait, what you will build into 1.0!

Thank You!!!!

[MyThos]

just an fyi: you will have to switch to using git builds to see these changes.

Thanks for the info. I see a lot of commits on GitHub: Will you make tags with sets of changes so we can reference them if we find more issues or should we just pick up from /master ?

Thanks,
Michael

[ferdibinger]

There was weird mission period conditions. Because of that any mission came 2 times faster than it should. It also was fixed. Use latest git build.

how are games saved with v0.9 affected when loaded with a nightly build version?
can we expect "normal", i.e. fixed, behaviour when old save games are loaded with a fixed version?
or do we have to start a brand new game with the fixed version to get the benefits?

in other words: when (at what point of the game) are  mission period conditions applied/evaluated?

[Warboy1982]

depends how many alien missions are currently running tbh.

the calculation for setting the timer of the "next wave" was using 25%-75% instead of 50%-150%.

meaning: the "next wave" will come 50% sooner than it should, but any wave after that will not be affected.

the effect of this will be barely noticable, but if you really want to, you can just double the "spawnCountdown" for each mission in your save at the time of update.