"Invasion? What invasion?" - March 1999 and not single ufo spotted

[ciqasty]

Hi!

First of all - great mod. It's been a long time since I was sucked in like that by game. The setting, music, complexity, diversity, huge amount of possibilities are just wow. Very climatic mod, it's like xfiles (which I am a great fan of) but expanded. I just can't find words to describe it so let's agree on "everything is awesome".

Here comes my question though. Spoilers below so read on own risk.

In my current game it is 1999 March, I am past promotion 3, all cults contained. Currently most missions are related to alien hybrids (convoy interceptions, but just got the red hybrid stunned so should be some progress), occasional syndicate (had a mission with very high building) or zombie (stuck on live infector not caught alive) and cyberweb fortress (researched, no mission yet). The problem - it is 3 months into invasion, 4 bases are primed and ready with interceptors waiting and there are not even single UFO to shot down. Council is all happy, same goes for all countries. I have small/large radars in each base, I think I researched everything related to alien tech I could (except some weapons, autopsy and maybe alien origins or something like this)

To be honest I think I only had 3 ufo's missions during pre invasion time, all were "military shot down UFO" and on my current save there is another mission with hybrid seductress meeting aliens in forest - that is another ship.

Am I missing something or the delay is expected?

Edit:
XCF version 2.8
OpenXcom version official 7.8

[krautbernd]

Mission/UFO generation is RNG based. Even if you have all the perequesites for mission to be generated there is no guarantee that a given mission will spawn.

You can check missionScripts_XCOMFILES.rul to look up the chances and timeframes missions/UFOs are set to spawn.

[Juku121]

Yeah, the mod is chock full of tiny mission chances. At the beginning of the invasion, there's about a 1/3 chance per month to not generate any alien missions at all. Which means it's not impossible to fail to get even a single UFO for the first 3-4 moths of the mission in about 1-5% of playthroughs. Which is not inconceivably rare.

You also might not have spotted the UFOs, since radar coverage might not be total at that stage of the game.



Honestly, I don't know why Solarius changed the OG method of getting at least one guaranteed alien mission per month, of random type, to every type rolling its own (tiny) dice.

[ciqasty]

Thanks for replies, I can adapt to this. Though after reading some topics where it was stated that it is very important to delete cults before January or it will be hard after invasion I kinda hoped there will be like real invasion

After 3 - 4 months there should be more right?

[Juku121]

Though after reading some topics where it was stated that it is very important to delete cults before January or it will be hard after invasion I kinda hoped there will be like real invasion

The cultists have their own little tricks to make the invasion more dangerous/interesting. Too bad you killed them all.

After 3 - 4 months there should be more right?

Well, until you hit later stages of the invasion (beginning around month 30-35, so the later part of 1999), you still have the ~1/3 chance per month to roll zero UFO missions. Probability being what it is, since you're already in such a situation the chances of getting a repeat occurrence are the same as those of landing where you are were in the first place.

Once a mission gets going, it'll entertain you for a while, depending on what exactly it is.

[krautbernd]

Honestly, I don't know why Solarius changed the OG method of getting at least one guaranteed alien mission per month, of random type, to every type rolling its own (tiny) dice.

Have there been any recent changes to UFO spawn chances? In all my pre-2.8(?) playthroughs I got at least two early landings (early alien research from what I can tell) which were always fun to tackle.

Why are Sectiod's backs so shankable? Just knife the little shits in the back and collect massive early game payouts XD

[Juku121]

Have there been any recent changes to UFO spawn chances?

Not that I know of. The change I mentioned came about around 1.0, and there was a reduction of the individual probabilities some time after that.

Why are Sectiod's backs so shackable?

You should ask a doctor Sectiod Medic about that.

[krautbernd]

You should ask a doctor Sectiod Medic about that.

*Sectoid medic acquired some unnecessary ventilation and is currently not available for questioning*

[Solarius Scorch]

Honestly, I don't know why Solarius changed the OG method of getting at least one guaranteed alien mission per month, of random type, to every type rolling its own (tiny) dice.

Kauz me brain hurtz from dat.

[Juku121]

Er, from what? Some sort of region management? Because from a brief look, why can't you just have one 'terror' mission set with 'missionWeights' and another normal one?

[Solarius Scorch]

Er, from what? Some sort of region management? Because from a brief look, why can't you just have one 'terror' mission set with 'missionWeights' and another normal one?

Yes, the "one mission per region per month" works fine for vanilla, but we have too many factions with their custom arcs and such. Besides, such a schedule doesn't fit my vision of the aliens very well; if anything, I'll be moving further away from this model and make alien missions even more like human arcs.

[Juku121]

Custom arcs are one thing but as long as alien missions are still essentially interchangeable, what exactly is the problem with using 'missionWeights'? I am mainly asking because I want to understand what the considerations are here, not because I'm advocating for a change.

[ciqasty]

Just a heads up - everything seems to be good after few months - ufo's are appearing, bases, embassies are there - all good

Cerebreals one shoting my best men in power armors are a nightmare though 

[ciqasty]

Aaand right now, after taking alien base and 2 hybrid embassies.
November 1 small UFO,
December also 1 UFO, also small.
I get a bunch of other missions though, yet alien activity is quite low.

I noticed those small UFOs look different when approached by interceptor - yellow/gold with 2 red dots (kinda like looking at ufo from the back). Are those gold UFOs I Am supposed to capture?
Because so far they just get destroyed by 1 missile.

[Juku121]

You mean one of these?

Did you play TFTD? In that case, these should look familiar. If not, shoot them with something weaker. I don't think you really get a lot of mileage out of those, though.

If/when you see an actual 'gold' UFO, now these are quite important to take down and capture their crew. Easier said than done, tough.