aliens

Author Topic: New Mission Conditions  (Read 7232 times)

Offline Arthanor

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2488
  • XCom Armoury Quartermaster
    • View Profile
New Mission Conditions
« on: November 21, 2016, 06:19:42 am »
lol I've never been called coquette before!

But since I was checking if you were interested I guess that's sort of warranted. I honestly don't think I should ask Meridian to do something for mods since I don't actively mod anymore and actually never modded missions or aliens (for UI, yes I ask, since I do still play).

But if you are interested in my ideas for crazy mission stuff, then I'm more than happy to share :D Just didn't want to waste more of my time, and more forum space if you weren't. (I waste way too much time of forums already! Trying to cut back... a bit.. maybe..?)

Interesting victory conditions would be:
- Victory on "Abort mission" only IF you have killed all units of a certain rank, with the rank(s) passed as a parameter. This would enable "kill the HQ(s)" type missions.

- Victory on "Abort mission" only IF you have stunned and recovered units a certain rank(s), instead of killed as above. This allows "Kidnap the VIPs" type missions.

- Lose by Turn X unless you kill all units of a certain rank(s). This is the "Kill X with a short window otherwise reinforcements arrive and kill you" typical movie plot, but can also be used for the bomb scenario: the target(s) being a 0TU bomb "unit" that's made vulnerable to only to a very specific item (a medikit type item that drains HP but takes 100% TUs, so that's totally useless against anything except the bomb unit since it doesn't move. And you can decide how many "Agent-turn" it takes to disable a bomb this way, for example by giving it 2 HP and the medikit removing 1 HP. Of course, it's missing the climactic KABOOM but I believe you should be able to pick the sound/music to play on a defeat so you could have a KABOOM sound there instead.

Thinking more about it:
If that's easier, you could ask to be able to put primed explosives in enemy units' inventory, and then when Yankes implements the "primed explosives blow up in inventory", you could also make the bomb work with the current victory conditions:

1 - Put an insane explosive in a "bomb" unit's inventory
2 - Make it possible to hack a bomb "unit" as above with a tweaked medikit item before turn X. Then the player can step on the unit's tile and unprime the crazy explosive.
3 - If you don't manage, bomb goes off in geoscape. KABOOM!! :D Everybody dies.
4 - If you do manage, the mission uses the current "win by turn Y" victory condition, with Y = X+1 meaning you must have managed to disable the bomb otherwise you'd be dead by now.

If you consider catching/killing all the bombers a requirement for success, you can also use the simple "kill all" victory condition, since you have to kill the bomb "unit" to be able to unprime the explosive item.

Offline Solarius Scorch

  • Global Moderator
  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 11721
  • WE MUST DISSENT
    • View Profile
    • Nocturmal Productions modding studio website
Re: New Mission Conditions
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2016, 01:01:46 pm »
lol I've never been called coquette before!

I provide all sorts of unusual pleasures.

Interesting victory conditions would be:
- Victory on "Abort mission" only IF you have killed all units of a certain rank, with the rank(s) passed as a parameter. This would enable "kill the HQ(s)" type missions.

Very useful!

- Victory on "Abort mission" only IF you have stunned and recovered units a certain rank(s), instead of killed as above. This allows "Kidnap the VIPs" type missions.

Also very useful.

- Lose by Turn X unless you kill all units of a certain rank(s). This is the "Kill X with a short window otherwise reinforcements arrive and kill you" typical movie plot, but can also be used for the bomb scenario: the target(s) being a 0TU bomb "unit" that's made vulnerable to only to a very specific item (a medikit type item that drains HP but takes 100% TUs, so that's totally useless against anything except the bomb unit since it doesn't move. And you can decide how many "Agent-turn" it takes to disable a bomb this way, for example by giving it 2 HP and the medikit removing 1 HP. Of course, it's missing the climactic KABOOM but I believe you should be able to pick the sound/music to play on a defeat so you could have a KABOOM sound there instead.

Yep, cool as discussed before.

Thinking more about it:
If that's easier, you could ask to be able to put primed explosives in enemy units' inventory, and then when Yankes implements the "primed explosives blow up in inventory", you could also make the bomb work with the current victory conditions:

1 - Put an insane explosive in a "bomb" unit's inventory
2 - Make it possible to hack a bomb "unit" as above with a tweaked medikit item before turn X. Then the player can step on the unit's tile and unprime the crazy explosive.
3 - If you don't manage, bomb goes off in geoscape. KABOOM!! :D Everybody dies.
4 - If you do manage, the mission uses the current "win by turn Y" victory condition, with Y = X+1 meaning you must have managed to disable the bomb otherwise you'd be dead by now.

If you consider catching/killing all the bombers a requirement for success, you can also use the simple "kill all" victory condition, since you have to kill the bomb "unit" to be able to unprime the explosive item.

Maybe. :) We'll see after Yankes adds this.

Offline Nord

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 1746
  • The Gate is open.
    • View Profile
Re: New Mission Conditions
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2016, 04:38:03 pm »
Lose, IF units of some kind was killed. (Hostages, or vip rescue)

Offline Arthanor

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2488
  • XCom Armoury Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: New Mission Conditions
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2016, 09:07:53 pm »
Good idea!

Lose if certain unit get killed would be a good workaround for prisoner rescue indeed. You can't kill them or you lose and, unlike for civilians, the AI won't target them either since they're technically enemies. They'll be annoying since they are enemies and you need to stun them, but I guess it could be waved off as mind control or Stockholm syndrome.

Offline Dioxine

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 5455
  • punk not dead
    • View Profile
    • Nocturnal Productions
Re: New Mission Conditions
« Reply #4 on: November 27, 2016, 01:32:15 pm »
The problem is the definition of losing. In X-Com, losing means "lost all people, craft and equipment". Obviously there needs to be a workaround made here. Also, denying Kill Them All (&Loot), even if mission is a failure objective-wise, needs to be well explained.

Offline Nord

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 1746
  • The Gate is open.
    • View Profile
Re: New Mission Conditions
« Reply #5 on: November 27, 2016, 02:48:14 pm »
No need in immediate lose, just a huge negative score.