Colony Missions and Terror Missions in TFTD

[Savior20061]

One of the more significant complaints that I would make against TFTD (after complaining about Gauss weapons) are the overly large maps.

On a general mission, capturing a USO, it isn't too bad. Really. Especially once you get Displacers.

But Alien Colony Missions are much, much too large. For starters, on the first stage, you land in three different areas of what is the same map layout. You've got the tower in the center with the MC asses and tentaculates and the secondary tower in the upper-right that has windows the aliens can shoot out off.

The second stage is where the crap just gets silly. You have THREE floors of the alien base, and all of these floors are as big as a general map in the game. Elevators, nooks, hallways, intersections all work to make each floor (again very large ones at that) a massive pain to go through.

There are dozens of aliens on this stage, but actually most of the base is literally empty space. In Vanilla, the the lobster douche commanders will be next to the control device, but otherwise the lobsterman stick to the edges of the map rather than the center, at least on the second floor. Tenta's will be buttholes and hide in nooks.

Granted, there's a way to deal with it effectively. Meridian's Rush, which involves running in with grenades, blowing up the control device, and running back out. Displacers are even more effective and made destroying colonies more of the "once or twice a month" thing that destroying bases where in UFO Defense.

But I just can't help but feel that the size of colony missions is unnecessary. Maybe mod them so that you only have to deal with one floor? And it would be random as to whether it would be the 1st floor type, the 2nd floor type, or the 3rd floor type.

Another idea is that maybe terror missions should be completely eliminated. It just seems like the game should be all underwater, all the time.  One thing that TFTD does well is the underwater environments, especially the alien colonies, and artifact sites. The rarer terrain types--like shipwreck, underwater lab, and Atlantis--are all cool and nicer to look at than a lame island or port.

I was thinking, we could have artefact sites with more varied alien set ups. Not just Tasoths and Aquatoids with tentas and jellyfish, but the whole gambit. I think all land terror units should be able to show up in the water. Including Triscenes (which that one document said were supposed to be "rays" as in stingrays I guess).

Lemme know what you think.

[Arthanor]

Nobody bit this?

I think you have a point about the size of TftD maps, but unfortunately things don't quite work as you were hoping. You cannot easily remove floors of a map, I don't think, but with the proper map script you should be able to build yourself a smaller colony (in area), which would make things a bit better any ways.

As for removing terror missions, that is entirely within the capabilities of a mod, but remember that the forced difference between land and underwater missions (can't fly, can't use some weapons) was an intended feature of the game, so removing that is making the game quite different. And if the aliens happily stay underwater, why would we care? They might be there right now and we wouldn't even know it.. dun dun dun..!

[Savior20061]

LOL, if people don't answer that's fine. It is only a suggestion after all.

Good points overall. And if it's hard for people to mod, then forget about it. I understand your point about the gameplay difference between land and sea. Land fights should probably stay for that reason indeed, and to show that the aliens want to conquer the land as well.

One thing that TfTD teaches us is that we can't play it like UFO Defense. If you are using Gauss, you can't just spam auto shot all day and eat up precious ammo. You can't brute force your way through a colony or artifact site. You have to do a smash and flee instead...preferably with a sonic displacer tank.

The issue, again, was simply that much of the alien base was empty space. The many different wall textures and "furnitures" made the place beautiful, and each floor had its own "look."

But the aliens, I noticed would, stay at the edges of the map during the stage 2 assault. Oftentimes, the northern edges. The problem isn't really in other missions. The first stage of alien colony missions, you can find aliens at every corner and hallway of the map, so the size is less of a problem.

[Solarius Scorch]

If the aliens spawn in the wrong locations, then it's easy to fix - you only need to edit map nodes, which contain spawn information.
Moreover, Openxcom handles much more nodes than the classic engine, so you can make more nodes and more routes, if necessary.

[Mackus]

Fixing too big alien base mission sites is easy. This is literally all you need:

alienDeployments:
  - type: STR_ALIEN_COLONY_P2
    width: 40
    length: 40
    height: 4

It will make second stage way smaller.

[Hobbes]

Fixing too big alien base mission sites is easy. This is literally all you need:

alienDeployments:
  - type: STR_ALIEN_COLONY_P2
    width: 40
    length: 40
    height: 4

It will make second stage way smaller.

If you only change this, you'll still face the same number of aliens but in a battlescape less than half the size (60x60x4 = 14400, 40x40x4 = 6400)

[7Saturn]

Well, to answer the OP's question: I find it a pain in the ass, as well. Especially as you will have to find either the command center or all aliens. That might not be even as bad, if the ways to a certain point on the map weren't as complex as they are. Especially with displacers you will have quite a hassle to reach certain parts of the map. Actually not rarely, you will have to go far away, finding a suitable elevator, to simply get from the first to the last floor of the same part of the map. Once I had displacers, I too only sent them to find the command center and blow it and then get the hell out of there. It's just not worth it to go through all that length of finding every last damn alien on these big honking maps. In comparison with X-COM 1, that's simply nagging.

[MyThos]

For the original TFTD "Tycho" implemented the "TFTD Extender" - an in memory mod tool where you could select an option to make these missions easier. This included removing second stage of ship terror and artifact missions and reduced levels and size of alien base missions.

If this could be done via a mod for tftd@openxcom I would pick it up right away.

[Mackus]

If you only change this, you'll still face the same number of aliens but in a battlescape less than half the size (60x60x4 = 14400, 40x40x4 = 6400)

Yup. Just as I intended.
In TFTD, real enemy is not aliens, but sheer boredom caused by need to scout every single room for that last Tasoth soldier who panicked ten rounds ago and dropped his weapons.
If this is really too small, sure, try 50x50x4 instead.