Upcoming mission changes

[volutar]

Hobbes,

It isn't a problem to assign MissionZone locations that actually are outside the Region.

It makes no difference. There should be shared location list for all regions. Shared lists with N last sites being kept not to repeat.
There is no way to make that, if you will clone this list between regions. They will repeat even if there will be "no repeat" in terms of each region. Thus it must be shared, global location list. And actually - two different lists, for sea attacks (with randomly chosen type) and special case - artefacts.

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.

It's irrelevant to what's important to make TFTD (different weights through months, dynamic ARTEFACT mission affecting ratios until all of them are completed).
All your notes perhaps can be used with your mods, but they have no use for TFTD.

To make TFTD possible, this current "mission changes" should be deeply refactored. Since it doesn't allow for any limits, any anti-repeating, any dynamic month-based weights.

[Hobbes]

On yeah, you're absolutely right on your post with the issue of mission limits.

The ideas I was presenting were merely a brainstorm of what it is possible to do for the Terrain Pack, since I had before tried to add Artifact Site type missions to it but failed. I'm thinking of actually start creating a list of global locations and add it to all regions to allow for a different type of Mission Sites.

This to say that, whatever your solution to implement the dynamic mission ratios, I'll be sure to experiment with it

[Warboy1982]

the limitations on numbers of missions/types etc will come with my planned mission scripting, this is merely the first step towards that.

[kikimoristan]

what mission scripting?!?

[Arthanor]

Mission scripting uh? Seeing what the map scripts are enabling, I am very much looking forward to that!

Hopefully I can get a "civil unrest" type mission going every month, for Solarius' Hybrids and some alien loving cults. They're not worthy of replacing aliens, but they would add to the atmosphere and be great rookie training.

[XOps]

I am assuming some of that will be for implementing stuff like destroying the Synomium device?

[Hobbes]

I am assuming some of that will be for implementing stuff like destroying the Synomium device?

This should be already implemented since on the original UFO you could win an Alien Base Assault mission by destroying the consoles on the base command center.

[kikimoristan]

i really really wanna have turn timed missions like you got X number of turns to win or else you lose and cannot re-do it .

identical to any mission debriefing except it adds turns: X if turns is defined otherwise regular style.

[kikimoristan]

I am assuming some of that will be for implementing stuff like destroying the Synomium device?

I ASSUME if you make a tile flagged with destroy objective and place them in the game on a map in a mission  when you destroy all those tiles you win the mission. It has to be implemented for final mission alien brain.

[XOps]

This should be already implemented since on the original UFO you could win an Alien Base Assault mission by destroying the consoles on the base command center.

In TFTD, it would give you a message once you destroyed the device and tell the player to make their way towards the exit. I think it also changed the text in the mission complete screen. I may be wrong though. It's been a while since I've played TFTD.

I ASSUME if you make a tile flagged with destroy objective and place them in the game on a map in a mission  when you destroy all those tiles you win the mission. It has to be implemented for final mission alien brain.

That ends the game though, not just the mission. I think it's a different value in the mcd files as well. If I recall correctly, the Synomium device shares an mcd value with the alien command center console.

Edit: Looks like I was wrong about the mcd value. I guess the alien command center is something hardcoded to the game rather than the mcd.

[Hobbes]

In TFTD, it would give you a message once you destroyed the device and tell the player to make their way towards the exit. I think it also changed the text in the mission complete screen. I may be wrong though. It's been a while since I've played TFTD.

Just tested on UFO and you don't get a message once you destroy the Base Command Center. I guess my memory is playing tricks on me again.

[Warboy1982]

Just tested on UFO and you don't get a message once you destroy the Base Command Center. I guess my memory is playing tricks on me again.

yeah, that was a tftd exclusive thing, much like the notification for auto-recovery of a crashed UFO in which all the aliens were killed during the offscreen explosion.

[Hobbes]

Been using the new features in my mods and there's an unexpected result from the changes.

Previously, any terrain assigned to a texture would be overridden by terrains listed on alienDeployments or ufo entries. Or at least I was under the wrong assumption. But with the latest changes this has been reversed: terrains assigned to textures override any terrains listed on those sections.

This happened because Supsuper's rationale was that this change would allow to specify terror site terrains for specific locations such as cities. However, this applies to Geoscape textures as well, which are causing issues with some existing mods. While before I could determine a specific terrain for a UFO mission, regardless of its Geoscape texture, now that isn't possible anymore.

So I'd propose to go back and have terrains listed on alienDeployments or ufos override the ones listed under textures, unlike the present solution. It will still be possible to define specific terrains for terror sites on cities by creating an unique texture, which was the original intention behind the change, and it will allow to customize the terrain for UFOs/Terror Sites through alienDeployment or ufo entries, which was the previous system and allows for more customization.

[Dioxine]

Will it be possible to tie specific terror & base defense missions to specific deployments?
Right now, they're selected at random, afaik, so there is no way to tie a specific race(s) to a specific mission AND deployment.

[Hobbes]

Will it be possible to tie specific terror & base defense missions to specific deployments?
Right now, they're selected at random, afaik, so there is no way to tie a specific race(s) to a specific mission AND deployment.

I've already stumbled upon this issue also when I tried to make the MJ12 initial mission as an Alien Base. At the moment it isn't possible, in the future it depends if the developers have time and patience.

You can set a alienMission to a specific race, though, so that isn't an issue. The problem is to always get the same alienDeployment for a specific alienMission. 

Btw, Warboy changed the setting I mentioned in my previous post to this thread, so that terrains listed on alienDeployments override the ones assigned to textures. To me that made more sense that the opposite, since it will still possible to assign specific city terrains (asian, paris, etc.) to cities for terror sites but you're not stuck only to the terrains listed on textures.