Freqently getting early base defense missions

[Daemonjax]

Verified aggressive retaliation is disabled.

In several of my last playthroughs, I've gotten base defense missions the first month.  I thought it was a little odd because I wasn't playing on superhuman, but I rolled with the punches thinking I was just really unlucky (Janurary 17th).  I was successful (no casualties, except 1 tank) and went on to beat the game, so whatevs.

I just started a new playthrough (Genius, Ironman), and I got a base defense mission (sectoids) on January 11th -- the earliest one yet. 

I was victorious, but lost 2 tanks and 3 high reaction soldiers.  They died for the cause, but they will be missed.  I got a blaster launcher (and 3 bombs) out of it, so I'm thinking they screwed themselves.


I don't remember getting so many base defense missions in the first month in vanilla, especially when not playing on superhuman.  I only saw and shot down 1 UFO so far.  Is that enough for them to send a retaliation mission?  How many UFOs shot down are required before they have a chance to send a retaliation mission?  Is something screwy going on? 

I'm using August 11th nightly build, custom build for the stat tracking soldier diaries mod.

Was aggressive retaliation broken in that build (it's turned on even when the menu says otherwise)?  Because that's the only thing that makes sense to me.

[Arthanor]

Every time you shoot down a UFO, there is a chance that a retaliation mission will be launched. If it is launched, it will target either the region where the UFO was shot down, or the region where the interceptor that shot down the UFO came from. In your first month, the two are likely to be the same. It sounds to me like you were unlucky and hit that chance both time. I say unlucky, but it sounds as if you can recover from the occurrences, so it might be a good thing for the good loot you got. First terror might be a pain though..

Aggressive retaliation turns on the "ability" to discover a base for every UFO instead of just UFOs on a retaliation mission. As soon as a UFO on a non-retaliation mission finds your base, a battleship will be sent towards your base. That's a nasty one and, if you had aggressive retaliations on, it could be that the location of your base is close to well travelled UFO routes BUT, you don't, so that's not the cause. Just putting it here for completeness/telling you that aggressive retaliations has nothing to do with shooting down UFOs.

[Warboy1982]

it happens.

[Hobbes]

I don't remember getting so many base defense missions in the first month in vanilla, especially when not playing on superhuman.  I only saw and shot down 1 UFO so far.  Is that enough for them to send a retaliation mission?  How many UFOs shot down are required before they have a chance to send a retaliation mission? 

You shot 1 UFO and the aliens sent a Retaliation. Since you failed to detect any of the Retaliation UFOs they succeeded in detecting your base. When any of the retaliation UFOs detects your base it triggers immediately the Battleship that will hit your base.

If you keep getting hit in the first month, try placing your base on a different location. Some map areas are more likely to be flown by UFOs than others.

[Daemonjax]

Got it.

Yeah, I can recover. 

A base defense on the 11th is kinda rough... tight on storage space and soldiers (I had 6).  The tanks saved me. 

At the end, it was a lot of fun running a guy back to the supply room to grab the last two heavy missiles.

It came down to the last missile and a snapshot launch, taking out the last cyberdisk.  It would have been game over if he missed.

[Roxis231]

I've actually had a game where my first mission was a base defense, I hadn't even seen any UFO's before they came after me.

This was back around January/Febuary of this year - I don't have any saves from that game anymore though, so I can't remember what the settings/Skill level where.

[Meridian]

I noticed that too, well not exactly that, but something similar.

1. I shot down a couple of UFOs... and a new retaliation missions was generated
2. After just one day, a Battleship came and attacked my base directly... there were no previous scouts (I have full world coverage by hyperwave decoders, I would see them, right?)

Is this normal?

PS: if it is not normal... I have it on camera, and I have saves as well...
PS2: aggressive retaliation is turned off

[Hobbes]

I've actually had a game where my first mission was a base defense, I hadn't even seen any UFO's before they came after me.

1. I shot down a couple of UFOs... and a new retaliation missions was generated
2. After just one day, a Battleship came and attacked my base directly... there were no previous scouts (I have full world coverage by hyperwave decoders, I would see them, right?)

This is all behavior present in the original game: You didn't detect a UFO scout and it managed to detect your base. The game then skipped the rest of the UFOs on the Retaliation mission wave, and generated instead the Battleship that assaulted your base. If the AI already knows the location of the base it's pointless to send the additional UFOs to try to detect it.

Bottom line is, there are certain locations on the Geoscape's regions that increase the chance of UFOs detecting XCom bases since they are very close to the possible waypoints used by the UFOs. And since the Small Radar only has a 10% chance of detecting any UFO within its radius for every half-hour, it is very easy for a Retaliation scout to slip unnoticed and discover the base location.

If you want to know the best locations for the initial base, hit CTRL-D on Geoscape several times until it shows you the MissionZones used by UFOs (a bunch of different colored rectangles in many cases overlapping one another). Place your base out of those areas and the aliens will find it harder to detect your base. Crete in Europe for instance is one of the best initial base locations due to this (and being able to cover Europe, Central Asia and North Africa).

[Arthanor]

Yup, I always put my first base in Crete. It's got great radar coverate, a beautiful place for R&R and the aliens are scared of the Minotaur

[Meridian]

This is all behavior present in the original game: You didn't detect a UFO scout and it managed to detect your base. The game then skipped the rest of the UFOs on the Retaliation mission wave, and generated instead the Battleship that assaulted your base. If the AI already knows the location of the base it's pointless to send the additional UFOs to try to detect it.

Bottom line is, there are certain locations on the Geoscape's regions that increase the chance of UFOs detecting XCom bases since they are very close to the possible waypoints used by the UFOs. And since the Small Radar only has a 10% chance of detecting any UFO within its radius for every half-hour, it is very easy for a Retaliation scout to slip unnoticed and discover the base location.

If you want to know the best locations for the initial base, hit CTRL-D on Geoscape several times until it shows you the MissionZones used by UFOs (a bunch of different colored rectangles in many cases overlapping one another). Place your base out of those areas and the aliens will find it harder to detect your base. Crete in Europe for instance is one of the best initial base locations due to this (and being able to cover Europe, Central Asia and North Africa).

Hobbes, I am not a complete rookie.

I specifically said that I already have full world coverage with 8 Hyperwave Decoders.... which to my knowledge have 100% chance of detecting any UFOs within their range.

I am 99.8% sure that I haven't missed any scouts... and my question is if it is possible that the retaliation starts without the scouting and skips directly to an assault... if not, then I will try to find that 0.2% error on my side; or report a bug if I can't find anything after a thorough test.

[Hobbes]

Hobbes, I am not a complete rookie.

I specifically said that I already have full world coverage with 8 Hyperwave Decoders.... which to my knowledge have 100% chance of detecting any UFOs within their range.

I am 99.8% sure that I haven't missed any scouts... and my question is if it is possible that the retaliation starts without the scouting and skips directly to an assault... if not, then I will try to find that 0.2% error on my side; or report a bug if I can't find anything after a thorough test.

Oh sorry, my fault I missed the Hyperwave Decoders part. I didn't mean to lecture you, I just wanted share a little bit of knowledge that I've recently learned after playing for so many years (why Crete rocks).

 Since you had aggressive retaliation disabled and you're playing without mods that affect the decoder, then yeah your experience sounds weird. I'll also keep an eye to detect this sort of behavior.

[Daemonjax]

Bottom line is, there are certain locations on the Geoscape's regions that increase the chance of UFOs detecting XCom bases since they are very close to the possible waypoints used by the UFOs.

I guess North America is screwed, then, since that's where I always put my initial base... right where Area 51 is. 

[Dioxine]

I think there is a chance of the game spawning battleship attack run w/o any scouts, too... but I don't know if it's normal.

[Hobbes]

I guess North America is screwed, then, since that's where I always put my initial base... right where Area 51 is. 

Try placing it on the Texas-Mexico border on the coast

[Warboy1982]

I think there is a chance of the game spawning battleship attack run w/o any scouts, too... but I don't know if it's normal.

there's not. the base has to be discovered first.