[DONE] Making more UFO sizes attack your base

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I'm sure this has been discussed before but I can't figure out what keywords to use to find it.

I want more UFO sizes to attack your base, so it's not always a battleship, especially earlier on. If I could make first or second-month attacks tend toward being a large scout, then there'd be some purpose for installing 1-2 missile defense early in the game. As it stands, it's plasma or fusion defense, before that no point in putting up any at all. Also, battleships traveling 5000 knots have a high chance of avoiding detection all the way to your base, while any slower ship has a much higher chance of being detected in transit, giving you a chance to react and shoot it down. Lastly, most ships can be caught by Firestorm but battleship can only be caught by Avenger.

Ideally I'd like to be able to make all of these changes:
1.) make final retaliation ship spawn type vary
2.) make ship type choice weighted based on progression (maybe alien tech level)
3.) make alien deployment depend on the attacking ship

If I can do at least the first piece, I'll be happy. If the attacking ship varied between battleship and terror ship, there's no need to change the deployment since their crews are roughly equal, but the hit points of the incoming ship would depend greatly on which ship was attacking you.

[Hobbes]

Ideally I'd like to be able to make all of these changes:
1.) make final retaliation ship spawn type vary
2.) make ship type choice weighted based on progression (maybe alien tech level)
3.) make alien deployment depend on the attacking ship

1) is possible, you just need to create several Retaliation alienMissions and assign to each a different ufo. Then you set the missionScript with research triggers for each Retaliation to start/end (like Alien Origins/Martian Solution/etc.). The issue is that this only applies to the scripted Retaliations and not those who are spawned from ufo shootdowns, and in that case the Retaliation is chosen randomly from all the missions tagged with objective 4.

3) is currently impossible

[The Reaver of Darkness]

3) is currently impossible

Neat stuff!

I was taking a peek at the missionScripts file and I see this:

Code: [Select]

  - type: beginnerRetaliation
    missionWeights:
      0:
        STR_ALIEN_RETALIATION: 100
I wonder: is it possible to design my own retaliation missions including the attack on the base plus its own unique deployment section, with the missionWeights rule determining which mission is selected?


edit: I have successfully made a terror ship attack my base. I think I made the game weight terror ships pretty high on both research retaliation as well as difficulty retaliation. It's a push in the right direction, but still I think the majority (if not vast majority) of retaliation missions will be triggered by shooting down UFOs, which is why I really wish there was a ruleset to declare stats relating to that missionScript. It remains undeclared despite being one of the most important missionScripts in the game. We also need a way to determine a mission's choice of deployment and map, including if it's an X-Com base assault. It'd be cool to then have a way to determine a unique crashed state based on what weapons were used against a craft, or how much damage it sustained above its crash threshold. This would be useful both for making unique craft weapons with effects other than damage as well as determining things like how many aliens get through when your defenses fail to shoot down the alien ship.

[Meridian]

1) see Hobbes' answer

2) in mission script, you can use either game month and/or locked/unlocked research to affect which mission -- from 1) -- to spawn

3) is available in OXCE/OXCE+

You can define different weapon loadouts for a landing/crash site and for a mission site (e.g. base defense).
You can also define them differently for each race if you want.

Code: [Select]

ufos:
  - type: STR_UFO_TYPE
    craftCustomDeploy: STR_BATTLESHIP_1 #override craft default weapon deploy.
    missionCustomDeploy: STR_TERROR_MISSION_2 #override mission default weapon deploy.
    raceBonus: #bonus stats per race.
      STR_SECTOID: #name of race that bonus apply.
        craftCustomDeploy: STR_BATTLESHIP_3 #override craft default weapon deploy.
        missionCustomDeploy: STR_TERROR_MISSION_4 #override mission default weapon deploy.

4)

It'd be cool to then have a way to determine a unique crashed state based on what weapons were used against a craft, or how much damage it sustained above its crash threshold. This would be useful both for making unique craft weapons with effects other than damage as well as determining things like how many aliens get through when your defenses fail to shoot down the alien ship.

The missions are easy enough already.
Don't think any developer will agree to implement something to make the base defense even easier.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Don't think any developer will agree to implement something to make the base defense even easier.

Who says it'll be easier?Being able to change it will allow for making it harder as well! But what I want to do is make it more variable. If I wanted to make it easier, I could simply change the deployment to put fewer aliens in. What I really want to do is make a small number of base defenses have a non-zero usefulness.

[Meridian]

Who says it'll be easier?Being able to change it will allow for making it harder as well!

Uhm... how?

[Nord]

As example - early cruiser retaliations with 6-7 enemy.

[Meridian]

How is that harder than (current) early battleship with 20+ enemies?

[yrizoud]

It's harder than "no battleship retaliation ever, because you can prevent them entirely when you know the game internals"

[Meridian]

Fine, feel free to do it... just wanted to say I don't see any use for that.

- If your knowledge of xcom internals is so deep you know how to prevent (early) retaliation missions (you can't prevent late ones), you wouldn't be looking for easy-ass ones I guess... but maybe I'm wrong and people do indeed want to play base defense which feels like small/medium scout on easy difficulty
- Also, early on (before you have at least 3-4 bases), the chance that the retaliation will spawn in your region is tiny... and even if it does, the chance that they will find your tiny radar outpost base is small too

But yeah, go ahead... take away from us the only way how an experienced player can actually lose the game: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5287.0.html

[The Reaver of Darkness]

But yeah, go ahead... take away from us the only way how an experienced player can actually lose the game: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5287.0.html

I'm not trying to lose the game. I prefer to see my mistakes building up, rather than suddenly losing and not knowing what happened. But my modding efforts won't take anything away from you, so I don't see why you object so strongly. If you think my mods are too easy, you can just not install them. There are plenty of hard-mode mods for you to use.

[Meridian]

I was just trying to understand how it can make the game harder... and nobody really answered yet, or I'm too stupid to understand, also possible. I still think it only makes the game easier.

As for the link... I was just trying to use it as (positive!) example. I haven't installed any of your mods yet, so I can't say if they make the game easier or not. And that's not even the point... why do we digress? You can make any mods you wish, that's what modding is all about.

So, I'll repeat my question again:
If we implement a feature that decreases the number of aliens spawned in base defense mission based on the damage taken... how can it be used to make the game harder (or same difficulty), not easier?

EDIT: this is the original statement that caught my attention:

Who says it'll be easier?Being able to change it will allow for making it harder as well!

[The Reaver of Darkness]

So, I'll repeat my question again:
If we implement a feature that decreases the number of aliens spawned in base defense mission based on the damage taken... how can it be used to make the game harder (or same difficulty), not easier?

I didn't say anything about implementing a feature that decreases number of aliens. I want the power to choose how many aliens spawn in varying situations, to make it not always the same but differ based on interesting factors.

The part I mentioned about decreasing aliens based on damage to the incoming ship was but one point among several around this topic, and even that could be used to make the game harder if it gave the modder enough control. You could make MORE aliens drop out of a craft that was almost destroyed, if for whatever reason that's what you wanted to do.

The way I'd use it might involve making an even bigger and scarier UFO with even more aliens that only spawns in late game, has a high chance of making it through your defenses, but if you shoot at it enough you might reduce the aliens coming in to numbers you can handle.

[Nord]

Or you can make so many aliens deployed from almost destroyed ship as now they are deployed total. And bigger amount from undamaged. Or, maybe, heavy units from undamaged ship, as additional sectopod with normal cyberdisc-sectoid crew.
I'm just agree that now any type of defense except blaster(or pwt in tftd) are completely useless. Yes, someone can build 10 - 15 laser defense modules, but it is rare situation. And rare player mind state, i think.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Yeah, in fact that's a pretty good idea! A mothership which spawns only once per game, when the aliens start to think you're about to win and they want to make one last ditch attempt to remove you from their (your) planet. The higher your difficulty, the larger and stronger the ship.

On superhuman, you'd need so many defense facilities to shoot it down that you'd have to cannibalize significant parts of your base. But if you can damage it halfway then half the aliens arrive dead and the mission is still easier. It'll always target your largest base but if you lose that base you can still probably win the game. Not too rough, but gives the aliens sort of a "backed into a corner" attitude. On beginner, the mothership would be barely stronger than the battleship.

The different power levels of the mothership could be determined by making five different ships which carry the same name but show on different difficulty settings.

Yes, someone can build 10 - 15 laser defense modules, but it is rare situation. And rare player mind state, i think.

I did it once though. I used to like the sound the laser defense made so much that I made a base called LaserFence and made the border of the base all laser defenses. I never got to see the thing in action, unfortunately.

Yes, it has always bothered me the binary nature of base attacks. Either they all get in or none of them do. I want some middle ground, so there's a reason to ever install defenses before you have fusion defenses and a grav shield.