Country/Funding expansion Mod idea

[Antan]

I will expand on this in much more detail at a later time, and I do mean later.

It has always bothered me that you could lose a nation despite doing everything you can to stop incursions. There have been games where I am everywhere and still end up losing nations I was literally stationed in. I have not played the new Xcoms by Fraxis but I have bought the first one for almost nothing. I read and heard the interface with the nations was much improved and expanded.

My first mod once I learn how to program is to bring a new face and depth to the nations funding, how they interact with the game/player, and more. The basic idea is you can see how good or bad you are doing with a nation as a percentage, see if someone is getting close to defection, if a nation defects you have the ability to get them back. These are just some very basic ideas. I will expand on this much more in the future.

I would like to be able to create a mission structure around recapturing a nation after defecting. A scripted mission where you attack the nations capitol or something and defeat the current government secretly. Perhaps take out an alien impostor leader and return that nation to Xcom.

These are just a few ideas and some may stay while others go. If you have any suggestions please post. I will be learning C++ soon as a part time hobby to make mods for this game. Wish me luck I am green to programming. Lots to read and learn.

Antan

[Arthanor]

Recovering countries which have defected is a commonly requested feature, as players hate losing, even partially. Many (myself included) aim to finish the game with all countries still firmly funding XCom.

You can already sort of see how happy a country is by their funding and funding change. But it is not a % happiness.

One very simple way of doing things would be to allow a country which has defected to be given money (instead of the country providing money), which would represent a part of the XCom funding dedicated to infiltrating/cleansing the country. So something like:

- Current defection mechanisms
- Once a country has defected, it gives no funding, but also keeps decreasing it's "funding number" into negatives.
- XCom can dedicate funds to recovering a country, thus overcoming the negative "funding number". If a country's "funding number"+XCom contribution goes back into positives, it opens up a "cleansing mission" where XCom must eliminate the alien infiltrators. Winning recovers the country, losing means a huge hit to the "funding number"

[Antan]

I like the break down there. I will make sure to review this when I implement a mod for countries. I like how the funding works so you can pay into the country to help bring them back to the fold. I have no issue with losing countries I just want the option to get them back. Its frustrating when one leaves but you don't really know why or cannot see it coming and try to avoid it.

Antan

[hellrazor]

Hm.. and how would make the player able to recover defected countries gameplay wise?

[DoxaLogos (JG)]

He mentioned attacking the capitol.  Maybe when a country defects a new mission is generated that is similar to a terror mission, but with more aliens than a normal terror mission and at the capital of the country.  Maybe the ratio of terror units to normal units is higher or maybe all ethereals and sectopods.

My first thought when I think about recovering defectors is eliminate those alien bases inside the borders of the country first.  Maybe that can be combined with this capitol infiltration mission and all must be completed before a country can be won back to X-COM's side. 

I do understand the reason of the defections is to force the player to go to Cydonia, but I still think nation recovery could be worked out out in a way to still make it the player's best interest to eliminate the alien threat.  So recovering defected countries should be very costly such as multiple missions that are difficult to accomplish for getting the country back, or as Arthanor suggested: pay money to the defected country.

[Arthanor]

Add a button in the funding UI to "invest in covert OP", and then determine the amount. If you invest less than the country loses, you'll have to make up for it in another month, but at least the country's corruption won't rise as much. If you invest more, you are reducing the corruption amount.

Once the "corruption level" stops being negative, a special mission (similar warning sign as terror mission) pops up where you fight against aliens in the local alien infiltration HQ, and maybe against their human pawns as well (negative points for killing humans in battle, no points for stunning them). It would make sense to have a % chance of the special mission appearing, which is reduced by the presence of alien bases within the country. It would also make sense that a country's corruption would be impacted by alien activity relative to XCom activity, just like funding, which is why I originally talked about "funding number", just allowing it to go negative once a country defects, to represent corruption.

If you are successful in the mission, the country joins you with initially a small contribution (it can't give much since it is investing in rebuilding its own infrastructure) but over time, with good XCom points in the area, you can get them to raise their funding again. And since they start with low funding, they are more vulnerable to being turned by regular alien activity (scared back into collaboration), which makes sense too.

[DoxaLogos (JG)]

I think this could work.... now just find someone to code it

[Arthanor]

Yeah.. maybe I should do like Antan and learn C++ as a hobby!

[DoxaLogos (JG)]

Well, I know C++, but having family of 4, it's hard to find time to code.  I'll still need to work on my mod installer (Python).  What little time I do get to myself, I don't feel like coding

[Arthanor]

Fair enough! I use to spend time developing my mod, but then I discovered Piratez and the pleasure of just playing a mod someone else develops

I've dabbled in modifying OXC, but it is not super simple to get into, even though I have some experience programming in other languages.

[Antan]

This community is so exciting! To see other players who love this game possibly more than me is exhilarating. I only found this website three days ago and I am hooked.

I like the corruption idea. I will add it to my notes. Personally my favorite part of XCOM was just continuing to play. I always wanted the game to have a much longer timeline to succeed and possibly an option to just keep going. My plans are to make a mod that does just that with a lot of changes. Mark my words this is a long timeline project.

I had the same idea with alien bases in defecting nations and clearing out the nation before the final mission to covertly take back the government of that nation. My goal is to make a mod that prolongs the game significantly and allows you to go to cydonia when you get the tech or later. Perhaps I would make it so despite best efforts some nations in the early months would likely defect and you would have to regain or neutralize them before taking on the cydonia mission.

I like the option to put money into covert ops for nations as well. I always felt there was to much money for veteran players because we could really get cranking as the game progressed if we just survived long enough. Another money sink that helps suck up funds but in a fun way would rock.

Also as you lose more nations the aliens become stronger. With nations to wage war from the alien activity would really pick up in those nations but then in other nations as they try to cause defections there to. It would add a layer of intrigue and difficulty to the game and of course more missions and such!

This is a huge work in progress hinging greatly on my ability and speed at learning to program. I have the spare time I just have to make the effort.

Please continue to post any ideas. I need them to refine this process.

Antan

Dumb question incoming. To mod you do have to know how to program correct? I don't see any way around this?

[Warboy1982]

no, modding requires little to no actual programming knowledge. all the modding is done through the ruleset files, which are human-readable plain text. there's a wiki page devoted to decrypting what all the values mean over on ufopaedia.

[Antan]

So something like the nation/funding could be done just by changing the ruleset files? I will be reading those at work in my free time for sure.

Antan

[Arthanor]

To expand a bit more:

Modding is considered to be restrained to using the features already in the game to do more things. You can add alien races, new weapons/armors/tanks/crafts/base module/countries/funding/prices easily via modding, and you can also add new maps/terrains and change/add missions, although this is a little bit (ha!) more involved. Although it might sound like not that much, you can do a HUGE amount by modding. UFO-Redux by Hobbes is probably the most daring mod at the moment, as it adds something to everything. Hobbes' work on terrain is a must, but I think his work on missions is also really interesting. The FMP is also an example of modding gone big.

Adding new mechanics that don't exist to the game is something entirely different, which is not really done (much) since the main effort has been concentrated on making the game and improving the UI. Yankes and Meridian are the only people who are actively implementing new mechanics right now, with Yankes having done a crazy amount of work in OpenXCom Extended (OXCE) to add new mechanics for modders, while Meridian did a lot for UI but also some mechanics (added to OXCE, making OXCE+). Shoes also developed a mechanic to reward soldiers with medals, but now that his work has been merged into the main branch, I guess he is not really developing stuff on the side any more.

Finally, XPiratez by Dioxine is a great example of modding + new mechanics, as it is a mod built upon OXCE/OXCE+.

For most of what you want to do (make the game longer and tweaks things), you do not need to program in C++ and can restrict yourself to modding. If you want to add new mechanics (like recovering countries that defect from XCOM), then you need to change the program. New mechanics is not really what most think of when thinking modding, and it requires a different skill set (programming as opposed to the more graphic/planning work of modding).

If you don't already know how to program, I would suggest you concentrate on modding in the parts of what you want to do that can be modded, and once you are done with that and comfortable with OpenXCom, you can dive into coding. Unless you really want this specific mechanic or really want to learn C++ now.

[Antan]

Great explanation. I will do both! I have always wanted to learn how to program anyways so I will just work at it slowly and maybe put more time into modding at first as I learn to program.

Appreciate the info.

Antan