Changing misson counting/handling

[Arthanor]

I also don't absolutely need this... I will continue changing my saves as the LP progresses, because I know how to do it.
But many people don't.
And even for me it would be much more convenient.

Re-reading this, yup, it's not a "need" (as in there is otherwise no work around to do this) for those who know how to properly edit your saves. But Meridian is right that not everybody would know how to do it and the game shouldn't rely on "edit your save to fix it".

But even then, no mod maker puts out tracked changes of their alienMissions ruleset section to allow people to edit missions into their saves. Neither should they. Which means now people should also decipher modded missions and try to pick up differences? That's something I do for Piratez because I absolutely don't want to miss the chance of missions, even though I am willing to miss them or have to play a LONG time for them. But that's not something players should have to do either since it's such an easy swap of functionalities.

[Dioxine]

But even then, no mod maker puts out tracked changes of their alienMissions ruleset section to allow people to edit missions into their saves. Neither should they.

You're wrong on that. I always put any new missions on the Change Log. Sure I do it in the plain language, but it's only a single step more for an interested person to check - just look it up in the Language file to find the correct string.
My (cautious) take on that would be - by changing, we gain little, while breaking all saves, plus we force the devs to do a lot of extra work for a, well, diminishing return (most players won't ever notice). From Piratez' perspective, it's also okay: yes, 11 years refill time. BUT you need to cut this by the factor of at least 6 to see a mission, since most missions can be generated 5 or more times (once for each allowed region), so there's a good chance to see all missions in 3-year campain, PLUS it is definitely my intention that some people won't see some missions during a single playthrough

But then again, arguments for a change are sound. I don't know, honestly.

Personally, I'd prefer a third option: a simple switch that tells the game to ignore 'available missions' and always choose at random (using mission/regionWeights) from the ruleset file.

[Arthanor]

I was talking about specific information of what changed, like this:

Spoiler:

alienStrategy:
  possibleMissions:
    - region: STR_NORTH_AMERICA
      missions:
        Nothing changed
    - region: STR_ARCTIC:
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 25
    - region: STR_ANTARCTICA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 25
    - region: STR_SOUTH_AMERICA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
    - region: STR_EUROPE
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
    - region: STR_NORTH_AFRICA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
    - region: STR_SOUTHERN_AFRICA
      missions:
       STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
       STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 100
       STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 110
    - region: STR_CENTRAL_ASIA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 70
    - region: STR_SOUTH_EAST_ASIA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 70
    - region: STR_SIBERIA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 50
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 70
    - region: STR_AUSTRALASIA
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 50
        STR_MISSION_RETICULAN_TRADING: 70
    - region: STR_PACIFIC
      missions:
        STR_MISSION_LOC_RET_BASE: 60

Not just a "New mission type: this". Most people, when seeing that, will think "Cool! I can see a new mission once I update" and not know that they actually cannot generate that mission since they'd need to find and write a whole bunch of stuff in their saves that they don't know how to find/write.

Also, there is no reason to remove perfectly fine code that can handle old save, so there is no reason why this would break saves. If there's "possibleMissions" in the save, read it the old way, if there's "completedMissions", read it the new way. It is an investment of dev time, of course, and that's why it's a suggestion, not a demand. They are free to determine how they want to spend that time and I don't think we have to worry about that.

BUT you need to cut this by the factor of at least 6 to see a mission, since most missions can be generated 5 or more times (once for each allowed region), so there's a good chance to see all missions in 3-year campain,

That doesn't help in seeing new missions, since they never got a possibility to get into the generation table. You have to wait 11 game years for Piratez to generate a reticulan mission if you upgrade now and don't tweak your save, because you have to wait until you ran out of all other missions for it to generate again. Then it should take only about 3 game years to see them

PLUS it is definitely my intention that some people won't see some missions during a single playthrough

Well, with the amount of content you already have, it's a good thing we don't need to see it all to finish Waiting for the next playthrough can work too, but having the missions integrated in the current one makes it likely that it will be more novel compared to the previous, which is a plus.

Personally, I'd prefer a third option: a simple switch that tells the game to ignore 'available missions' and always choose at random (using mission/regionWeights) from the ruleset file.

An interesting alternative option, which would be easy to implement before "completedMission" since that would involve generating a whole list every load. "completedMissions" can then be built upon that, by removing what is listed in the save from the generated list.

[Hobbes]

What I don't understand is why you seem so opposed to the idea. You have nothing to lose, others have something to gain, what's wrong with it? Devs are the only ones to lose something from working on this (their time) and I'm sure they can figure out where to spend it by themselves.

It's just critical thinking, nothing personal there

Even if you don't reply to anything else... can you please explain this to me like to a man with IQ 10 please? I really don't understand what do you mean.

a/ I don't care about any starting items... why do you even mention them? We talk about missions, not items.
b/ I don't care about a SINGLE cydonia mission... I care about the dozens of missions before cydonia
c/ And last, but MOST important. If 'completedMissions' is implemented, the player DOESN'T have to restart... already next month the new missions could spawn... that's the reason why we ask for this feature

If you're modding or even just testplaying, every time you something new is added and you want to see it, you either start a new game or wait for the new feature appear on a saved game, or do some ruleset/saved game trickery. But this is from a modder POV: I completely understand that from your LPer POV things are differently, as you have described on your previous posts.

[Dioxine]

An interesting alternative option, which would be easy to implement before "completedMission" since that would involve generating a whole list every load. "completedMissions" can then be built upon that, by removing what is listed in the save from the generated list.

No, with this, we don't need this whole fight over completed missions vs. available missions. With such a switch added, 'available missions' can stay the way the are, as there would be no reason to change that mechanic to 'completed missions'. Will there be any?

[Arthanor]

If you want to repeat missions, then both possible and completed missions are obsolete: You don't need to keep track of what is possible/what was done, since you just pick from the table every time.

If you want missions to not repeat, but you want new missions from mod updates, you still need the switch from "possibleMissions" to "completedMissions", yes. Since "mission repeat" would require a generation of the table when loading saves (well, it theoretically doesn't, but it would to follow to current way of doing things), it is a stepping stone to "completedMissions" which also needs that (with the added step of removing completed missions from the table after generating it).

Basically, the "possibleMissions" idea adds nothing: It specifically prevents repeats and it is impossible to make new missions appear other than by tweaking your save. "completedMissions" makes it possible to automatically include new missions when updating mods, but also prevents repeats (because that's what it is designed to do). By skipping the last step of "completedMissions" (the removal of completed missions), you get what you want: repeats, while also integrating new missions.

As I said before: completedMissions make you lose nothing, and if implemented while keeping the current code as an alternative, doesn't even require breaking old saves that have possibleMissions.

[Dioxine]

You're right, now it makes perfect sense. Let's hope the devs find it worthy of their time