So how do i exactly turn off turn 20 rule for aliens in Openxcom ?

[kodamaqq]

Hey there! I m currently playing Final Mod Pack on Ironman, and i find the game enough hard already to give aliens opportunity to see all my troops after turn 20. I m tired of being flanked by a last remaining chrysallid  appeearing from nowhere, sprinting half of the map and killing 10 people, before i can bring him down with weapons that do much less damage than in the original game.

I know that i have to edit something, but i could not understand what exactly.

Tried adding

cheatTurn: 999 to openxcom\standard\xcom1\alienDeployments.rul but that does not seem to work.

Would appreciate if someone tells me what i m doing wrong.

[Meridian]

Hi,

1/ first of all, the aliens DO NOT see your troops after 20 turns. That's simply not true and never was.

When the cheating is activated, the following happens:
- the passive aliens (e.g. leaders inside of the UFO) become active and will be forced to scout, i.e. eventually come out of the UFO... but they do this BLINDLY and RANDOMLY
- all aliens will prefer combat if possible... they will not try to escape or to set up ambushes so much
- your units will be marked as "previously spotted"... which is DIFFERENT than being visible... aliens will use this information for some minor calculations, but almost all of them are just cosmetic and you will never notice any real difference... with two exceptions:
- the first exception is Psi attacks, because they can be performed without actually seeing your units... if you want to turn this off, there is a standard mod called "UFOextender_Psionic_Line_Of_Fire", which will require that the alien must also see your units to perform the attack
- the second exception is Blaster Launcher

2/ secondly, your example with the Chryssalid is completely false... and also the best counter-example:
a/ the last Chryssalid would cheat already after turn 10... when there are 2 or less aliens remaining, the cheat turn is halved (20 / 2 = 10). So if the Chryssalid could cheat (and let me repeat that they cannot!), then it would start hunting you much sooner
b/ majority if not all Chryssalids don't spawn as passive aliens, so the cheat turn doesn't make them much more active than they already are... unless they are stuck somewhere by accident
c/ since Chryssalids have only a melee weapon, they NEVER set up ambushes; also they almost never try to escape (btw. escape is considered only when they are seen, so irrelevant for our case)... so again the cheat turn doesn't make them change this behavior either
d/ lastly, the Chryssalids don't have a psi weapon or a blaster launcher, so they can't cheat with that either
Bottomline: the Chryssalids behave 99% the same before the cheat turn and after the cheat turn


3/ If I still didn't convince you that changing the cheat turn won't help you... you can change it in the alienDeployment.rul, but you must do it for each deployment separately. It's not a global setting, but an attribute of a deployment. Example of changing the cheat turn for the terror mission deployment and supply ship deployment:

Code: [Select]

alienDeployments:
...
  - type: STR_TERROR_MISSION
    cheatTurn: 999
...
  - type: STR_SUPPLY_SHIP
    cheatTurn: 999
...


[R1dO]

Since Meridian already gave the most informative post i could only add some minor tips:

The file you want is called `alienDeployments_FMP.rul` and you have to use the listed code variable (see post above) to each "type" listed there.
Depending on the dependencies it has on vanilla missions (only Solarius can answer that) you might have to do the same process for each `type` listed in the vanilla `alienDeployments.rul` (the one you already found).

P.s. Instead of editing core files and mod files it is usually better to create your own mod that overrides the defaults, but that is another discussion.

[kodamaqq]

Wow! Thanks for being so informative, you actualy convinced me to improve my skills instead of tweaking the game.

About that chrysallid he was waiting for me at the 2nd floor of the terror ship at turn 23. He used the hole in the floor to jump down and kill all my team, since i was not expecting a chrysallid ambush and moved everyone inside. He did that after i opened the door to the last room, seeing a remaining leader and a chrysallid, i could not run away That convinced me to try to disable turn 20, cuz i thought HE KNEW what to do.

But you re right, i should just get better lol.

[Meridian]

They do not actively go after your (not visible) soldiers.
After the cheat turn, they just start randomly running around like headless chickens.


AI doesn't receive any information.
AI reads information from the common game state, using the rules programmed by the developers.

Maybe in other words, they (always) have the information, but they don't use it... only for some very minor calculations, which you can find in the source code (or take my word that it's negligible), it's impossible to explain that in simple words.


The rules that were programmed are meant to:
1. before the cheat turn... use "extra" information only to speed up some calculations, not to give AI any unfair advantage
2. after the cheat turn... same as above + use "extra" information also to HELP THE PLAYER to finish the mission, for example when the last alien is stuck somewhere or you missed it when you were scouting/sweeping a bigger map (e.g. an alien base)... nobody likes bug hunts and the designers/developers just wanted the gameplay to not come to a halt

[LuckyClover]

So whats really happened here was that chrysallid simply spot kodamaqq soldiers in a regular way and becose they have ultimate super-duper big number of time units they were able to get his men in very dirty way (this is why it felt for him like cheating)-at the end real question here was not about game mechanics but how to fight against enemy who have really tons of movment and super power malee atack

its mostly gathering soldiers toghether so they can support themself in fight and place them in the way that they cannot be easly suprised and can react fire ...
do You guys know some other tactics in this type of situations? (other than run to skyranger)

I also have question if soldier have primed explosion and was atacked by chrysallid and changed into zombie will it explode on him or not?
I never tried doing something like that before 

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I think what was broken was the chryssalid all along.

[RogerSanchez]

Wow thank you for the information, I will know what awaits me.