How to trigger a base defense mission?

[Countdown]

Of course, if you shoot down everything that searches for your base, they won't find you.... duh.

Well then why do others have them "fairly easily" as you say? Do you not shoot down all detected UFOs that you can?

I don't shoot down the "very large" craft, but they aren't always the ones doing the retaliation searching and even when they do, they often fly right over my base without detecting (as there is only a chance of detection, not a guarantee).

[Meridian]

Well then why do others have them "fairly easily" as you say? Do you not shoot down all detected UFOs that you can?

Heck no!
In vanilla, I don't shoot down anything except Terror Ships with Chryssalids.

Everything else is much more valuable when landed.

[Thirsk]

Thirsk, just to share my experience, I too rarely have base defense missions even with though I play with aggressive retaliation on. I don't know why this is because others say they have them often, but I get maybe one in an entire campaign.

Just to test, if I just let time run without shooting down any of the UFOs I detect, I'll get a base defense mission fairly quickly. But if I play the game through properly and shoot down every UFO I detect, then I almost never get base defense missions. I agree with you that they're fun and a change of pace from the regular crash site missions, so I wish I got them more often.

Asking a follow-up question, is it "moddable" to change the chance (as a % I assume) of the aliens detecting your base when flying by? I assume this is hard-coded because I haven't seen it in the rulesets, but asking in case.

Yes, finally someone who agrees! Yea there's simply not enough of them in a campaign. I mean, just knowing you cannot afford to lose otherwise goodbye base and most likely game, it really intensifies the game. Plus having a good tour of your base is fun too

I haven't tried aggressive retaliation yet since I'm still tweaking the game here and there, but hopefully it'll have the intended effect. If only there was a way to increase detection..is it possible to edit the radar range of UFOs?

Heck no!
In vanilla, I don't shoot down anything except Terror Ships with Chryssalids.

Everything else is much more valuable when landed.

Ah I'm quite guilty of shooting everything down...lol

[Countdown]

Heck no!
In vanilla, I don't shoot down anything except Terror Ships with Chryssalids.

Everything else is much more valuable when landed.

Hmm, interesting. I always thought that was just really beneficial to attack landed supply ships and it was best to shoot everything else down because the aliens score points for "accomplishing their missions" and if you don't shoot them down they'll be more successful in turning countries against you. Also, I didn't think retaliation missions landed anyway (and if you have a hyperwave decoder you know what type of mission the UFO is on)?

[Meridian]

Also, I didn't think retaliation missions landed anyway (and if you have a hyperwave decoder you know what type of mission the UFO is on)?

Retaliation missions won't spawn, if you don't shoot down UFOs.
And the "regular" ones, which are generated monthly usually come when I already finished the game or when I'm very close to it.

And, you don't have to do every mission anyway... few missions a month is more than enough, especially when they're landed.
One landed battleship takes care of all your monthly problems.

[Hobbes]

Everything else is much more valuable when landed.

Until you have a 1000 unit Elerium stockpile sitting in one of your bases and start realizing that you don't really need more stuff.

Unless, of course, the aliens decide to raid and destroy the base that you use to store all your loot. In which case, it's sad.

[pipanni]

Edit the save.

Hi Meridian. So exactly how would I change the save file in order to trigger a base defense mission? (and yes, I also love these missions and think there's too few of them)

[pipanni]

Bump!

Anyone knows how to do this?

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Alien craft have a very narrow scan radius. This along with their limited flight paths means that several parts of the globe never or almost never get scanned, while other parts may get scanned repeatedly. To balance it out, you can increase the UFO scan radius "sightRange: 600", however this will greatly increase the odds of them successfully detecting the X-Com base. I further balanced it in my mod by adding "mindPower: 3" to the Access Lift, which required raising the Mind Shield to "mindPower: 3".
The equation for this is:
Access Lift: Mind Power X
Mind Shield: Mind Power A*X
where A is the mindPower value it previously had.

Hi Meridian. So exactly how would I change the save file in order to trigger a base defense mission? (and yes, I also love these missions and think there's too few of them)

If you get a save file that has a base defense mission incoming, you can open the save file (ideally in notepad++ set to YAML language) and find the Alien Retaliation mission which has done it. Somewhere in there it will have some flag which tells it that the x-com base has been located. You might then be able to copy that mission into your save file, but I'm not sure if it'll all work without a hitch. If your save file already has a retaliation mission ongoing, then you can simply find the flag which says it hasn't found the base and change its state.

[pipanni]

Thanks Reaver, I'll try this as soon as possible

[pipanni]

Ok, so if I edit the save game and insert this code:

- type: STR_ALIEN_RETALIATION
    region: STR_SOUTH_EAST_ASIA
    race: STR_SECTOID
    nextWave: 2
    nextUfoCounter: 0
    spawnCountdown: 10
    liveUfos: 1
    uniqueID: 710
    missionSiteZone: -1

I'll get an alien retaliation mission (I do have a base in southeast Asia, of course), and the first time I tried it a battleship appeared and attacked my base, exactly what I wanted!... except that it never worked again. Now everytime I try to trigger a base defense mission with this code (or similar, with a different location / alien species) some small ships appear looking pissed, roaming around and then just leaving. So how can I make sure the aliens willl send a battleship to attack my base instead of just flying around and then buzzing off?

By the way is the 'uniqueID' field important? Can I just put a random number?

[fortuner12a]

Well, aliens can assault your base multiple times in LW. There's no special action that triggers that (like you assault their base, which happens in vanilla). They can assault whenever they want, or when they think you are a threat to them, which means, at any moment. I had base defense before I did the alien base assault. So, if you see a large UFO heading to your base, prepare your ass. Anyway, I read some comments around to avoid Ironman when playing LW, cause it may contain bugs that break the game.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I wanted to toss this in on my previous post but I couldn't find it. Well, I eventually did find it!

Retaliation heat map