Edit save to make it think I've done a particular research?

[Bambu]

The date is Friday, March 26th, 1999. A group of soldiers are set to land in Brazil to deal with a small UFO that has landed. They sling their weapons- shiny and slick but still mass produced earth bullshit. They were told they'd have access to the absolute cutting edge, but all they see are the same dull high-end rifles they've seen for over a year now. The ground combat goes about as well as can be expected at this point- two rookies, clad in ceramic plate, are killed. Matsumura's death is relatively painless, having been vaporized instantly by a chaser with a rifle. Cojocaru was less fortunate, plasma shearing off the side of her head. Several gruesome seconds pass before she falls dead on the ground. All of this will end in a report in some office somewhere, a statistic to be presented at the monthly hearing at the UN where command begs for higher permissions. The soldiers all wonder- what is the point of fighting a war if they can only barely procure permission to do so?

Hi. My save is past the start of the alien invasion, with aliens appearing much more frequently. For whatever reason, the game has not and will not spawn a Red Dawn cult base mission to allow me to capture the highest echelon of their infrastructure. I have tried editing the files to adjust the spawnrate, but this has yielded no fruit: it will consistently spawn lower-tier missions, but this is not necessary: I have up to the Red Ops captured and interrogated, and Red Dawn operations is researched. Promotion III depends entirely upon getting this cult out of the way but it seems impossible to actually get them to show up for me to do that.

I think this is a silly state of affairs, since Promotion III effectively hinges on proving the existence of the Secret War. They are actively invading and have been for months, I have cleared a Hybrid Embassy to prove it. But without the cult gone, I have my hands tied.

Is there, then, a means of forcing a save file to recognize that one research or another is completed? Failing that, is there some other means of getting past this point?

[psavola]

It sounds as if you are missing Red Dawn Coordinator, which can be captured at Red Dawn Forward Base missions or from Durathread Factory mission (which I suppose you have already completed; I always try to capture one from there). For the first 24 months, there's roughly 28 % chance of at least one Forward Base mission spawning. Starting month 25, there are two additional chances of 12 % each of the mission spawning. So you should have roughly 50-50 chance to get a mission each month. Look for CultBaseZSRR repeated 10 times in missionScripts_XCOMFILES.rul.

I will note, however, that you are not strictly required to terminate all cults to finish the game. Terminating at least one is enough in order to get Promotion III (if you have one of the other four prerequisites). Though terminating them is strongly advisable to avoid many, many annoyances. So you really should not have this mess even had you completed Red Dawn. If you don't have Promo III you have other, bigger problems as well (such as not fulfilling the other requirements to Promo III). In addition to dealing with Red Dawn, you should really be looking into why you haven't obtained Promo III already i.e. what you're really missing.

[Bambu]

It sounds as if you are missing Red Dawn Coordinator, which can be captured at Red Dawn Forward Base missions or from Durathread Factory mission (which I suppose you have already completed; I always try to capture one from there). For the first 24 months, there's roughly 28 % chance of at least one Forward Base mission spawning. Starting month 25, there are two additional chances of 12 % each of the mission spawning. So you should have roughly 50-50 chance to get a mission each month. Look for CultBaseZSRR repeated 10 times in missionScripts_XCOMFILES.rul.

I will note, however, that you are not strictly required to terminate all cults to finish the game. Terminating at least one is enough in order to get Promotion III (if you have one of the other three prerequisites). Though terminating them is strongly advisable to avoid many, many annoyances. So you really should not have this mess even had you completed Red Dawn. If you don't have Promo III you have other, bigger problems as well (such as not fulfilling the other requirements to Promo III). In addition to dealing with Red Dawn, you should really be looking into why you haven't obtained Promo III already i.e. what you're really missing.

They won't spawn the forward base, is what I'm saying. They refuse. I just didn't nab the guy at the Durathread factory, it was extremely dicey there.

As for the latter half... this is extremely valuable intel. Wonder what else I'm missing. Suppose I'll hop back to it, although if it is possible to convince the game I've done the prerequisite research, that would be very cool to know.

[psavola]

They won't spawn the forward base, is what I'm saying. They refuse. I just didn't nab the guy at the Durathread factory, it was extremely dicey there.

As for the latter half... this is extremely valuable intel. Wonder what else I'm missing. Suppose I'll hop back to it, although if it is possible to convince the game I've done the prerequisite research, that would be very cool to know.

If you post a save, maybe someone will help modify it or help to say what's missing. As for missing Promo III prereqs, hit 'Q' to access research tree and type in "Promotion III". Check what you're missing from "Promotion III Prerequisites" and what's the easiest of those to hit. It might be your game is difficult to salvage at this point, but at least you learn something for the next one.

[Bambu]

So I'm going through the tech tree. A red dawn coordinator is ostensibly actually necessary, since they are required to get Durathread Origins, which is required to detect Cybermad activity. I haven't even gone down that road at all.

I'm playing on a pretty old version of the game at this point (downloaded back in like, 2023-2024), picking it back up because a friend is also trying it. So I think I'm just gonna restart and go with the newer version, saw him do one of those military vs monster missions and it had a vampire with a greatsword fucking clobber a tank. New stuff looks interesting. It's disheartening that I'm past the point where these guys are common and they just don't seem to spawn but it is what it is, silver linings or whatever.

[psavola]

So I'm going through the tech tree. A red dawn coordinator is ostensibly actually necessary, since they are required to get Durathread Origins, which is required to detect Cybermad activity. I haven't even gone down that road at all.

Cyberweb is not a mandatory part of the game. It's just one of the four paths to get Promotion III. Through them - or from Mashinobi, so in theory you can skip Cyberwebs completely if you depend on capturing one from a Bank Robbery mission - you will get very useful Tactical Neural Implant improvement and other very important researches that depend on it (Helix Knight and Helix Psion, etc.). Completing Cyberwebs also gives you a transformation which you can use for those agents who are weak in PSI strength.

[Bambu]

Cyberweb is a not a mandatory part of the game. It's just one of the four paths to get Promotion III. Through them - or from Mashinobi, so in theory you can skip Cyberwebs completely if you depend on capturing one from a Bank Robbery mission - you will get very useful Tactical Neural Implant improvement and other very important researches that depend on it (Helix Knight and Helix Psion, etc.). Completing Cyberwebs also gives you a transformation which you can use for those agents who are weak in PSI strength.

Oh, I wasn't aware. I actually have done Mashinobi as a research option.

The wiki seems to imply that the Promotion III Prerequisite is the Cyberweb Dimensional Portal being taken, Alien Origins being researched, Deep One Communities being researched, and Into The Dark being researched. Is that not correct?

To be clear, I've played this mod on one older save, and had no issues with all of this, had the TNI and Helix Knight all researched and everything.

[Juku121]

The wiki seems to imply that the Promotion III Prerequisite is the Cyberweb Dimensional Portal being taken, Alien Origins being researched, Deep One Communities being researched, and Into The Dark being researched.

Or, not and.

[psavola]

Like Juku121 said.

Admittedly, the tech tree can be confusing, because Promotion III prereq indeed  has "dependency" for all four (which in itself would require all of them). But the catch is that obtaining any of the four also "unlocks" i.e. grants the  STR_MILESTONE_3_PREQ prereq. The result is that any one of the four is enough. More clearly this can be seen in https://xcf.trigramreactor.net/master/article/STR_MILESTONE_3_PREQ