Upcoming mission changes

[kikimoristan]

i'm assuming terror missions have been the focus to de-hardcode but base, retaliation and defense are halfway there.

[Hobbes]

i'm assuming terror missions have been the focus to de-hardcode but base, retaliation and defense are halfway there.

Yup. The issue is really the consequent 'missions' that result from ALIEN_BASE (ALIEN_SUPPLY and ALIEN_BASE_ASSAULT) and ALIEN_RETALIATION (BASE_DEFENSE), since it seems impossible to assign different alienDeployments for those missions than the vanilla ones (wasn't needed for TFTD implementation).

[Solarius Scorch]

I think this is impossible to achieve because the missions assigned to alien/xcom bases seem still hardcoded. You can get a different alienDeployment for the UFO that is generated on an Alien Retaliation by using the SpawnUFO property, but that only works when you shoot and assault the UFO since there's no way to determine the alienDeployment used on the actual Base Defense

I've been trying to create a separate MJ12_SUPPLY mission for a Base but the game only generates the vanilla ALIEN_SUPPLY mission, even by adding missionWeights. And there's simply no way through the ruleset to assign a MJ12_BASE_ASSAULT deployment in case I try to assault the base.

Ah, so that's what I feared. My attempts to make a proper MiB terror seemed to indicate the same thing.

Hmm, can we at least have more retaliation UFOs? As in, weaker UFOs which succumb to the defences more easily?

[kikimoristan]

i think developers are focusing first on TFTD support and second on extra features . the idea is implement TFTD, fix bugs  then add extra features and possibly hybrid game . those features are needed only if you have different factions of aliens but i;m also assuming first thing is to make TFTD data files work as a separate game that is. hybrid will come later and will probably have to be a mod rather than using same data due to palette differences.


so engine works as intended both tftd and ufo get to use their own  data and for both all typs of missions work fine (right now)  by themselves.

[Hobbes]

Ah, so that's what I feared. My attempts to make a proper MiB terror seemed to indicate the same thing.

Hmm, can we at least have more retaliation UFOs? As in, weaker UFOs which succumb to the defences more easily?

Hm. This is something I was going to try today, to create a new alienMission, with the corresponding alienDeployment, to see if the game automatically loads deployments with the same name as the missions, or if it is hardcoded.

You can change the number and type of UFOs of any mission. 

EDIT: Yup, Alien Terror seems pretty much hardcoded as well. I've tried to create a separate alienMission with a #3 objective and everything spawns as they should but I never get the terror site markers or alerts.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, I just got an Alien Retaliation mission in Pretoria with Men in Black. Thing is, the Men in Black are not enabled for terror missions at all - they were supposed to have their own terror missions, with separate deployment and such.

Moreover, when I landed on the mission, there was no city at all, just a savannah with no civilians and many MiB carrying plasma guns...

[Hobbes]

Well, I just got an Alien Retaliation mission in Pretoria with Men in Black. Thing is, the Men in Black are not enabled for terror missions at all - they were supposed to have their own terror missions, with separate deployment and such.

Moreover, when I landed on the mission, there was no city at all, just a savannah with no civilians and many MiB carrying plasma guns...

You aren't clear on if the mission was Retaliation or Terror.

[Hobbes]

I'm getting a very weird crash when trying to replicate TFTD's Artifact sites on UFO.

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_MJ12_OPERATIONS
    points: 50
    objective: 3
    spawnZone: 4 #Mission zone for terror missions
      - ufo: STR_MJ12_OPERATIONS_08
        count: 1
        trajectory: P6
        timer: 9000
        objective: true
Usually the last UFO on a Terror mission has a P7 trajectory (to land on a missionZone 3), but I changed it to P6 (landing on MissionZone 4) since the spawnZone is defined for missionZone 4. I have also the alienDeployment as the following:

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_MJ12_OPERATIONS_08
    terrains:
      - PORTTFTD
    alert: STR_PORT_ATTACK
    briefing:
      palette: 2
      music: GMENBASE   
    markerName: STR_TERROR_SITE
    duration: [4, 10]
The UFO is generated but once it reaches a missionZone 4 and lands, I get a Visual C++ error message stating:
Assertion failed!
Program: ...
File: Ruleset/RuleRegion.cpp
Line: 204
Expression: 0 && "Invalid zone number"

[Solarius Scorch]

You aren't clear on if the mission was Retaliation or Terror.

I meant Terror. Sorry, I was a bit drunk AND during a meeting.

Anyway, judging from your experiments, it looks like we need either a fix or a better explanation... My bet is on the first option, since this is all new code.

[Hobbes]

I meant Terror. Sorry, I was a bit drunk AND during a meeting.

Anyway, judging from your experiments, it looks like we need either a fix or a better explanation... My bet is on the first option, since this is all new code.

Ah... sounds like a fun meeting.

In any case, it should be possible to have different types of aliens assigned to different types of missions, by adding additional mission entries on alienMissions.

[Arthanor]

I was wondering if it is possible to create additional types of monthly missions. Currently you get terrors (objective: 3, I think?) picked every month, and than another picked from everything else.

Adding a new monthly mission (bringing the total to 3/month) which would also be picked from a special set (objective: 4? 5?) could allow a "monthly side mission" which involves other factions (Solarius' hybrids, a human sect that worships aliens, maybe even a new type of infiltration where one country falls and then launches raids on others).

[Hobbes]

I was wondering if it is possible to create additional types of monthly missions. Currently you get terrors (objective: 3, I think?) picked every month, and than another picked from everything else.

Adding a new monthly mission (bringing the total to 3/month) which would also be picked from a special set (objective: 4? 5?) could allow a "monthly side mission" which involves other factions (Solarius' hybrids, a human sect that worships aliens, maybe even a new type of infiltration where one country falls and then launches raids on others).

Unfortunately it still isn't possible to change the frequency and type of the scheduled missions (although it is possible to choose the type of the first alien mission, which is Research).

[Arthanor]

Too bad.. maybe in the future.

[volutar]

Unfortunately these changes aren't helping to implement TFTD sea/artefact mission types either.

+ Island/Port terrors being part of mission zone3 are easily done with -1/-2 types, but I still couldn't find where I can put custom briefing text depending on terrain type.

- Sea terrors and artefact terrors are not related to specific geographic regions per se. Despite they can be initiated by region-related mission type of activity, in fact their coords are taken from the "global" location lists. (In opposite to logic of city/port/island-based terror sites, which are fully region-related).

- Sea terror coord list consists of 48 different unnamed locations, with last 5 USED locations kept in the save (not to repeat same location). Type of terrain - cruize/cargo is chosen randomly, 50/50. I simply failed finding where to put this global location list.

- Artefact terror coord list consists of 36 different unnamed locations, with last 12 locations kept. List is also shared between regions, and have no place in current structure.

- I couldn't find how to make STR_ALIEN_TERROR a kind of an alias, or some META-MISSION type mission with ability to have some inner-distribution, weights through months/waves and references to specific missions. Also there is a need to have ARTEFACT mission spawned only 12 times, and then - ratios of terror missions gotta be changed (artefact is zeroed -> others are filling proportionally).

- Terror types through months:

Code: [Select]

  0,1,2 : 100% port/island attack
  3,4,5 : 40% port/island attack, 60% cruize/cargo ship
  6, ... : 20% port/island attack, 30% cruize/cargo ship, 50% artefact (after 12 artefact missions spawned it becomes 0%)


[Hobbes]

Unfortunately these changes aren't helping to implement TFTD sea/artefact mission types either.

+ Island/Port terrors being part of mission zone3 are easily done with -1/-2 types, but I still couldn't find where I can put custom briefing text depending on terrain type.

Custom briefing text is added automatically by including a String named STR_CUSTOM_MISSION_NAME_BRIEFING: The aliens have attacked blah blah blah

- Sea terrors and artefact terrors are not related to specific geographic regions per se. Despite they can be initiated by region-related mission type of activity, in fact their coords are taken from the "global" location lists. (In opposite to logic of city/port/island-based terror sites, which are fully region-related).

- Sea terror coord list consists of 48 different unnamed locations, with last 5 USED locations kept in the save (not to repeat same location). Type of terrain - cruize/cargo is chosen randomly, 50/50. I simply failed finding where to put this global location list.

- Artefact terror coord list consists of 36 different unnamed locations, with last 12 locations kept. List is also shared between regions, and have no place in current structure.

It isn't a problem to assign MissionZone locations that actually are outside the Region. I discovered this by accident with the Terrain Pack when I added cities to the Atlantic/Indian/Pacific regions that were actually located in Europe, Asia, etc. The activity graphs will display the mission sites as being in the wrong regions though, although this might happen as well on the original TFTD.

In fact knowing that there are global location lists for Ships/Artifacts makes things easier. I was under the wrong impression that the location of  sites were randomly selected on the ares of MissionZones 1 or 2 or 4.

I can try adding a list of 84 locations to the MissionZone 3 of all regions and set those locations as either texture -3/-4, one being for Ship Attack, the other for Artifact Site.

The issue is to prevent missions from happening again on the same locations.

- I couldn't find how to make STR_ALIEN_TERROR a kind of an alias, or some META-MISSION type mission with ability to have some inner-distribution, weights through months/waves and references to specific missions. Also there is a need to have ARTEFACT mission spawned only 12 times, and then - ratios of terror missions gotta be changed (artefact is zeroed -> others are filling proportionally).

- Terror types through months:

Code: [Select]

  0,1,2 : 100% port/island attack
  3,4,5 : 40% port/island attack, 60% cruize/cargo ship
  6, ... : 20% port/island attack, 30% cruize/cargo ship, 50% artefact (after 12 artefact missions spawned it becomes 0%)


As SupSuper said, it is possible now to add monthly missionWeights to the entries on alienMissions. The game will use them when selecting between missions with the same objective.

The only issue is having ARTIFACT_SITE only spawned 12 times, although I always thought until now that this was merely 'fluff text', i.e., it was mentioned in the game but had no practical effect. This because you'd have to play for years of game time until you got 12 artifact sites.