XCOM EU Strategy Layer Mod Ideas

[snwkill]

So far I am fairly happy with balance, but I think the strategy layer needs a bit of an over-haul.

 

If possible find out what is controlling the mechanism that "issues missions", then try to only call that function when certain things happen.

 

For example, instead of the council immediately just giving you a terror mission, first create 3 or 4 spaceships, give those ships a route, and if the player doesn't have satellite coverage you won't be able to see the ships, if you do you will be able to see them and have an opportunity to shoot them down. If you fail to shoot them down or don't have a satellite covering that area then the ship lands, you then have the opportunity to take the skyranger to intercept the landed ship for x ammount of hours or minutes, if you still fail to do that then you call the function that issues out missions, give it something like 50% chance of alien abduction, 25% chance terror mission, 25% chance that it is some whacky disarm the bombs mission... These are just off of the top of my head numbers.

 

But that is all dependent on how those missions are called up, it almost appears that they are hard coded by the date, or by certain advances.

[kevinwastaken]

I'd like to see more random spaceship encounters, landings, and less "abduction missions" proportionately kind of how you are suggesting.

 

I think drawing out the strategy layer timewise would be more interesting. I want more time to shoot sectoids with bullets before moving on to mutons and lasers. Perhaps increasing everything by a time factor of 5, and including more UFO sightings would make that part of the game feel more substantial.

 

I've restarted enough times to know that the progression is strictly scripted with certain events always happening at the same time. That is... disheartening.

 

I know it would make the game easier since you'd have far more access to alien resources, but honestly I'm fine with that. I'm playing to kill aliens and have fun doing it for as long as possible. Unfortunately the strategy layer seems hollow and artificially challenging by just making you rush through the game in a linear fashion. That is not very XCOM. I love Firaxis' reimagining but it is astonishing that the 18 year old game has so much more depth in strategy.

 

I'm not even sure any of this is possible without modding tools, unfortunately.

[snwkill]

I am really interested to see what was being worked on with the 2nd wave option "marathon". Does it stretch out the scripted events, or does it do away with them entirely... I agree with you though I think it will take modding tools to really bring the strategy up to the par of what you would expect from an xcom game. For what it is, it sure is fun though.

[PepprmintButler]

Relevant, easily accessible settings are

; Strategy Game Constants
ABDUCTION_REWARD_CASH=200
ABDUCTION_REWARD_SCI=4
ABDUCTION_REWARD_ENG=4
COUNCIL_DAY=20
COUNCIL_RAND_DAYS=7
COUNCIL_FUNDING_MULTIPLIER_EASY   = 1.5f
COUNCIL_FUNDING_MULTIPLIER_NORMAL = 1
COUNCIL_FUNDING_MULTIPLIER_HARD   = 1
COUNCIL_FUNDING_MULTIPLIER_CLASSIC= 1
ShowUFOsOnMission=0		; Detect the UFOs that are carrying out abductions and terror missions
AI_TERRORIZE_MOST_PANICKED = 75
LATE_UFO_CHANCE = 50	; Chance of Aliens sending out a second UFO in the months after you've defeated the base
EARLY_UFO_CHANCE = 50
UFO_LIMIT = 2
UFO_INTERCEPTION_PCT=66	; Chance that a UFO will require interception

 

I was looking at it specifically to try and control the frequency of Council missions. I did not succeed (council_day seems to control the time limit to answer a request, and I could not verify any effect by modifying council_rand_days although it seems to be the relevant line)

 

So mission allocation (outside of the scripted events, which I doubt we can have any effect on without proper modding tools) is clearly based on a RNG. Which contrarily to the tactical mission RNG does not seem to be seeded BTW, you can reload and have completely different missions affected.

As you can see, chance of UFO appearance, etc can be fiddled with. I guess that's a start.

ShowUFOsOnMission=! should give you more UFO sightings and less abduction missions.

 

Concerning marathon, see my other post concerning the activation of Second Wave options. Did not find much, only a Float that I suppose does control how much the timeline in stretched, but no indication to the how. I just hope it's not just changing time balance settings, that would be quite underwhelming.

; Main Balance Factors
TECH_TIME_BALANCE=6.66
ITEM_TIME_BALANCE=1
ITEM_CREDIT_BALANCE=1
ITEM_ELERIUM_BALANCE=1
ITEM_ALLOY_BALANCE=1     
FACILITY_COST_BALANCE=1      
FACILITY_MAINTENANCE_BALANCE=1
FACILITY_TIME_BALANCE=1 

Edited October 12, 2012 by PepprmintButler

[snwkill]

 

 

I was looking at it specifically to try and control the frequency of Council missions. I did not succeed (council_day seems to control the time limit to answer a request, and I could not verify any effect by modifying council_rand_days although it seems to be the relevant line)

 

So mission allocation (outside of the scripted events, which I doubt we can have any effect on without proper modding tools) is clearly based on a RNG. Which contrarily to the tactical mission RNG does not seem to be seeded BTW, you can reload and have completely different missions affected.

As you can see, chance of UFO appearance, etc can be fiddled with. I guess that's a start.

ShowUFOsOnMission=! should give you more UFO sightings and less abduction missions.

 

Concerning marathon, see my other post concerning the activation of Second Wave options. Did not find much, only a Float that I suppose does control how much the timeline in stretched, but no indication to the how. I just hope it's not just changing time balance settings, that would be quite underwhelming.

[

 

Wow good work, at least there is some light at the beginning of the tunnel, hopefully that tunnel actually leads somewhere. My scripting skills don't go beyond VB scripting, and my game modding skills are pre-newbish... Is there anyway to make those numbers dynamic? So that ShowUFOsOnMission=0 could be ShowUFOsOnMission=3 if other conditions exist. Or are those just initial settings that are loaded up once and never again touched?

Edited October 12, 2012 by snwkill

[PepprmintButler]

Wow good work, at least there is some light at the beginning of the tunnel, hopefully that tunnel actually leads somewhere. My scripting skills don't go beyond VB scripting, and my game modding skills are pre-newbish... Is there anyway to make those numbers dynamic? So that ShowUFOsOnMission=0 could be ShowUFOsOnMission=3 if other conditions exist. Or are those just initial settings that are loaded up once and never again touched?

 

Nope, that showufosonmission is a 0 or 1 switch as far as I can tell. Either you set the game to show them or not. No dynamics can be introduced by just modifying that setting.

[snwkill]

Wow good work, at least there is some light at the beginning of the tunnel, hopefully that tunnel actually leads somewhere. My scripting skills don't go beyond VB scripting, and my game modding skills are pre-newbish... Is there anyway to make those numbers dynamic? So that ShowUFOsOnMission=0 could be ShowUFOsOnMission=3 if other conditions exist. Or are those just initial settings that are loaded up once and never again touched?

 

Nope, that showufosonmission is a 0 or 1 switch as far as I can tell. Either you set the game to show them or not. No dynamics can be introduced by just modifying that setting.

 

 

Whoops for some reason when I saw "showufosonmission" for some reason my brain said more ufo's spawn on map...

[PepprmintButler]

Whoops for some reason when I saw "showufosonmission" for some reason my brain said more ufo's spawn on map...

 

What you were looking for is the early/late_ufo_chance then :biggrin:

[snwkill]

So could we make at least those numbers dynamic? Even if they were only dynamic each time you loaded if you gave late_ufo_chance=(any # from 50-85), that would give the game at least some replay-ability.

 

*edit*

 

The only way I could do it is by making a batch file that loaded a script that changed the value to a random number and then launched the game.

Edited October 12, 2012 by snwkill