Played 3.4 snap as SH/IM, now in Jan 1998. A few notes, especially on RNG balancing:
- Major Zombie Infestation is the only way to obtain a Zombie Infector and progress along that path (and also get TNI). The chances of getting it are however rather low. 2*10 % chance starting month 6. So far I have only had it once, and killed the infectors by accident. Maybe increase the chances a bit? At least one of the mission scripts could be higher and maybe have an additional researchTrigger STR_ZOMBIE_INFECTOR: false.
- I researched all cult networks in June 1997 (I often delaying researching them, and do all of them at the same time so that I will get at the same time promo II and explosives license; that way outposts can be dealt with more reliably). Otherwise I got relatively balanced set of outposts, but a Black lotus outpost spawned in July (where I accidentally killed the witch) and the next one in November, so I had to wait until Nov 1997 to get the Osprey. The chance of getting a hideout is 8*6 %. Maybe some of these should have a higher chance, but with researchTrigger: STR_(CULT)_OPERATIONS (or the respective liutenant) set to false. This would ensure a higher chance to get an outpost until you have managed to capture and research the relevant cult liutenant, while still keepign them spawning as currently even after researching it.
- I have made similar observations wrt. Cult Forward Bases before (sometimes you might get delayed with a cult for 6-12+ months), but this has so far not been a problem. An interesting thing was that Dec 1997 spawned two BL forward bases and also the shrine, so I obtained two BL avatars and get BL HQ in Jan 1998.
- When milking out the dossiers (I always have all the basic ~40 dossiers and then some more researched by the end of 1997), I got Natasha Morozova and her hideout mission very early, in Oct 1997. The same thing could occur with Lo Wo (I was lucky and have avoided that dossier so far). So, no Osprey yet. Luckily I had a good spawn and managed it with a helicopter. But you can get these one-time missions early, when you will have difficulties dealing with them if you get unlucky RNG. I'd suggest adding a ResearchTrigger to these, for example STR_(CULT)_OPERATIONS set to true, which would at least cut off the very early spawns. You could get into similar problems with certain other onetime missions, but they can usually be prevented. For example, you could get David Vincent's dossier early, but you can choose when you want to do that mission by not researching MIB agent until you are ready to deal with it (I usually start MIB research after Promo III in early 1998, often from a MIB pilot/executor/enforcer captured from the environment mission). Likewise, you could get Gertrud Ellison mission early (even before you have Alien Containment..), but this requires really bad luck.
Other notes wrt. 3.4 snap:
- no significant changes so far, but looking at the changelogs, I'm most curious about the changes to MIB retaliation missions, adding a stealth bomber retaliation in addition to dropship and their "final" retaliation missions. This has made me slightly more hesitant to research the MIB tree before I have something to shoot them down (i.e. Kitsune) - I don't want a stealth bomber retatiation succeeding against one of my bases at least before I'm ready to deal with them (= weapons that go through heavy MIB armors).
- SS forgot to disable "testMission" generation (which has so far fired every month) leading to increased Crop Circle zombie missions.
