[SOLVED] Superhuman difficulty -aliens number problem

[mrfusionus]

Hi

Firstly, thank you for your effort to make one of my favourite games better.
Secondly, i'm quite sure there is a problem withe superhuman difficulty.

I've been playing all sort of XCOM/UFOs since 90's. Just after starting openxcom on SH diff and fighting some battles i've noticed that the number of aliens is less that it should be. (check "https://ufopaedia.org" for example). From terror mission I got 14 aliens (should be: 18-24), from base defense: 11 (should be: 22-28!), from Large Scout: 4 (should be:6-8) etc. Those numbers fit for Beg/Exp difficulty, not for SH. The diffrence during gameplay is noticable immediatly.

What worse, small number of aliens + "range-base accuracy" (great idea!)  option set to YES make SH difficulty unbearable easy, you just dont need to cover, and you can pass terror mission against cyberdiscs/sectoids with rifles armed rookies (what was almost impossible on "old" SH without R-BA option)

I've checked my savegames files, and I know that difficulty is set to: 4 (SH), but still, when I play the game the number of aliens is not correct.
I'm aware, that there are some posts, whose authors claim that "new openxcom rewrited diffiiculty" is morderous, but please, feel free to check the game on the settings I've posted.

I'd started new games 3 times, to make sure if it is not a glitch or I did make sth wrong. The openxcom seems to be installed correctly. I have steam version of Xcom.

Is there any explanation to the issue of aliens number, or maybe that was intended by openxcom authors? Is it possilble to fix it?

Thanks in advance
Best regards

[sender]

This seems to be the case. I haven't explicitly tested, but I don't think I've encountered a terror mission with more than 5 terror units. It would seem that Super Human is simply using the high range of the Beg/Exp alien appearance column rather than being randomized on the superhuman column values.

[Warboy1982]

there was a bug with the alien numbers for superhuman (details below), but in general, the numbers of aliens we use should be identical to vanilla, the problem is most likely a bottleneck caused by a lack of available spawn nodes. the same thing that limits the max number of troops in a base defence mission. if there isn't a node for them to spawn on, they sit the battle out.

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Battleship#Alien_Deployment

https://github.com/SupSuper/OpenXcom/blob/master/bin/data/Ruleset/Xcom1Ruleset.rul#L5606

you can cross-reference the data using the above links, lowQty is the minimum for beginner/experienced, highQty is the minimum for superhuman, and dQty is a "float" value. i'm not sure why they have those names, but there was a small bug in their implementation, we were checking for "> experienced" when we should have been checking "< superhuman"
you can see how it all works here.

[sender]

Here's a terror mission in which I count 10 floaters and 2 reapers. I don't think spawn points limit us this far.

If lack of spawn points are the problem then there must have been some method of spawning excess units in X-Com that OXC isn't replicating.

[redv]

Warboy, just one example:
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Battleship#Alien_Deployment
Terrorists: 0-2 / 2-4 / 4-6 (beg / vet / sup)

OpenXcom generates:
https://github.com/SupSuper/OpenXcom/blob/master/bin/data/Ruleset/Xcom1Ruleset.rul#L5743
https://github.com/SupSuper/OpenXcom/blob/master/src/Battlescape/BattlescapeGenerator.cpp#L591
Terrorists: 0-1 / 1-2 / 2-3 (beg / vet / sup)

Ruleset data is not correct.
Should be:

Code: [Select]

- alienRank: 7
  lowQty: 0
  highQty: 4
  dQty: 2

[MFive]

guys, i have found i similar problem, though i did not post a report due to the fact that the game CTD'd right before then end, but anyways, the problem was that i found 7 cyber discs in a single terror mission O.o the problem may not be just low number of critters(though i do have a few mods, though none effect the aliens)

[kevL]

dQty is prob. delta-Qty : change in Qty.

[Warboy1982]

Ruleset data is not correct.
Should be:

Code: [Select]

- alienRank: 7
  lowQty: 0
  highQty: 4
  dQty: 2

except there are TWO terrorist ranks, the missing numbers are in aliens rank 6.
mutons have silacoids AND celatids, other races have the same race listed twice for rank 6 and 7, so:

Code: [Select]

- alienRank: 7
  lowQty: 0
  highQty: 4
  dQty: 2
would become:

Code: [Select]

- alienRank: 6
  lowQty: 0
  highQty: 2
  dQty: 1
- alienRank: 7
  lowQty: 0
  highQty: 2
  dQty: 1
which is what we have.

the bug was in the battlescape generator and i already fixed it this morning, you can see the bug quite clearly here:

BEFORE

AFTER

If lack of spawn points are the problem then there must have been some method of spawning excess units in X-Com that OXC isn't replicating.

i did actually write some code to do exactly that, and it's currently used on civilians and Xcom units in the second stage of two-part missions. i intentionally didn't apply it to aliens, and i highly doubt the original had such a function (it just "lost" units)

[redv]

Yes, you're right.

[mrfusionus]

I appreciate your promptly answer.
I understand that the problem was identified and fixed -that's great!
 So, what should I do to play openxcom on SH with proper number of aliens? Should I download and reinstall openxcom again or change sth in the files I've already have?

[kevL]

If you're already using the nightly git builds:


just download the latest one and copy the executable to your openxcom directory.

( back the old one up if ya want to )

That's the simple answer. The complicated one depends on how recent the version you're running is...

[sender]

Ahh, OK. I was using the nightly build but I didn't realize the problem was fixed just yesterday, so my nightly was a day out of date in my previous tests.

Did a test with 20 each of OXC and vanilla to compare enemy spawns. Looks good. Sectoids/Floaters all spawned @ 12-14, terrordisks/reapers spawned at an average of 4.5 for OXC and 5.2 for vanilla, which is reasonably close considering the differences in maps generated and # of spawn points on each.

Didn't realize that X-Com nerfed terror spawns that much. Probably been playing too much TFTD, with its huge maps there tends to be enough room for everything 

[mrfusionus]

I've Installed the latest nightly.

 Problem solved. Working great.

Thanks.