"Reactive" missions/events

[justaround]

A small idea I've thought up when I was playing. Some missions, when not embarked upon are rare and lost seemingly forever, but with almost no lasting consequences. I wonder if it'd be possible to add missions or even those random events dependant on whether previous missions were done by certain point of the game, both to allow player to have another try (or experience at all) at the content previously missed in some form, and to make overall progression less linear.

I think about stuff like Red Dawn making a big offensive if Morozova is never found or defeated at all, sometimes random events talking about cleaners team sent to some past Red Dawn lodgings being taken out by some sniper and a chance for a small undercover mission where Morozova was tracked down without almost any of her comrades and the player sends underequipped, covert agents to try to take her out/in, where tactical thinking will be much more helpful than simple pistols against her customized rifle.

Or how I have seen the mission with Spider Queen, before it disappearing and not happening anymore despite years passing since then - would be nice to have development of that for players in similar situation or one's simply lost the mission. Moderately frequent regular spiders attacks in random places similar to regular strange creature sighting missions that wouldn't stop till one would track and fight (much more likely to show up till defeated) a queen again, but this time perhaps more of her kids are the armored spider variant serving as proper guards.

It'd probably take some work (depending on how developed one would want such missions) and some of it could be missed by certain players so I understand if it's just too much to do, but on chance it does sound interesting, it certainly would allow other players who missed previous content some chance at it and add to the feeling of player actions and decisions mattering more.

[Solarius Scorch]

Not sure how to do that well.

What you can do is something like this, with your example:

1) Add a research which is automatically granted by successfully completing Natasha's mission, something like STR_NATASHA_DEFEATED (hidden, unless you use the Tech tree Viewer).

2) Make a mission like this:

Code: [Select]

  - type: NatashaMorozovaHideout
    firstMonth: 25
    missionWeights:
      0:
        STR_RED_DAWN_OFFENSIVE: 100
    regionWeights:
      0:
       REGION_RED_DAWN_OFFENSIVE: 100
    researchTriggers:
      STR_NATASHA_DEFEATED: false
      STR_DESTROY_ZSRR: false
    useTable: false
    startDelay: 20
    randomDelay: 43500

This mission launches if the month is at least 25, Natasha's mission hasn't been beaten, and Red Dawn still exists.

But there are issues. If you've never fought Natasha, or never even heard of her, this mission will still happen...

[justaround]

Can the code responsible for taking some missions out of circulation upon attaining certain promotion ranks be used? If I am not mistaken and it's not just a coincidence, there is some mechanics that introduces new missions and makes other seemingly not available after certain stage of the game? At least I had game pretty reliably spawn missions like Haunted Asylum or Natasha Morozova's Hideout but only once and never again upon completion.

[Solarius Scorch]

Can the code responsible for taking some missions out of circulation upon attaining certain promotion ranks be used? If I am not mistaken and it's not just a coincidence, there is some mechanics that introduces new missions and makes other seemingly not available after certain stage of the game? At least I had game pretty reliably spawn missions like Haunted Asylum or Natasha Morozova's Hideout but only once and never again upon completion.

Yes, it's possible (if I understand correctly).
What exactly do you propose?

[justaround]

I was thinking something along the lines of:
Got rare mission A. If mission A is not completed, you've got random events B and C as well as mission D showing up. If mission A is completed, it also disables prematurely, before they would have a chance to show up B, C and D. Of course, if we'd want to go extra ambitious, we could even add completely branching paths. If mission A is complete, events/missions B, C and D get disabled but another mission E is enabled. Etc etc

Generally, it's all like the idea in the first post: "If rare mission is not stumbled upon or lost, allow some 'another chance' missions, or alternative consequence missions and events to show up later. If the player manages to do it, don't enable or disable those 'you've got another chance' missions/events".

Examples already provided for stuff like Morozova or spider queen. Probably many more could be made. Hell, I can think of and probably could write you mock up texts for many events (by 'events' I mean those popup messages describing random stuff happening, often affecting council's score) that could show up or be unavailable depending on successes in various missions, story developments etc but that's slowly moving away from the main point of this idea and even more of work for you to add them in and I don't know if you'd be interested in such.

[Solarius Scorch]

Just to be clear: if a mission pops up, and you ignore it or retreat from it or lose it, there is no change to the game. It's all the same.

However, if you manage to complete the mission successfully, then you can make it give you a hidden research which is then used to allow or disallow missions.

So about this part:

If mission A is not completed, you've got random events B and C as well as mission D showing up.

Missions or events which are supposed to happen if mission A is not completed would have to always happen anyway until this particular mission is unlocked and then completed successfully. they could be triggered by the same event as mission A, but it doesn't give us that much, since scripts are independent.

There are also mission scripts, which can use conditionals to code some basic logic (if mission A happens, then mission B doesn't, and vice versa), but I doubt that you can fine-tune it enough.

[justaround]

There are also mission scripts, which can use conditionals to code some basic logic (if mission A happens, then mission B doesn't, and vice versa), but I doubt that you can fine-tune it enough.

Maybe it couldn't be enough for the more elaborate part of the idea but it should work for the basic "if you missed a mission A, then mission B will happen" that could use it to make it that if mission B does, A isn't allowed? I mean, the same mechanics that disable certain missions at some promotions would probably work.

[Slaughter]

Talking about Marazova... Wans't she going to do a terrorist attack? Seems like being able to fight her later in her attack makes sense. Make it harder, of course.

[Solarius Scorch]

Maybe it couldn't be enough for the more elaborate part of the idea but it should work for the basic "if you missed a mission A, then mission B will happen" that could use it to make it that if mission B does, A isn't allowed? I mean, the same mechanics that disable certain missions at some promotions would probably work.

I don't know, I'm not good enough with scripting. Maybe.

Talking about Marazova... Wans't she going to do a terrorist attack? Seems like being able to fight her later in her attack makes sense. Make it harder, of course.

There are millions of possibilities, but I can only do one at a time.

Frankly, if I have to choose, I'd rather make a new mission about something else. Natasha and other such characters aren't that important.