Slowing down Alien progress

[kolt16]

I haven't tried marathon yet, don't know if that helps, but even if it does, we can't go above 1.9 as far as I know. The standard progression is already to much for the mod I'm playing. Fighting mutons with ballistic, it is an interesting experience.. :D

 

Still considering we can change the research times, prices, and income to whatever we liked, it is possible to balance mods for very long games. But for this to work correctly it's necessary to balance alien progression as well. Say for example you plan the game to be 3 times longer then the original, which is not that much considering how short the game is. This would mean you might be fighting elites with ballistics, and if you survive there is no point for higher techs and the balance is wrong, otherwise you just die out..

 

Anyway, this is a problem, and one I'd love to see solved soon. Maybe with xshape.. :ohdear:

[PepprmintButler]

I'm quite positive marathon affect alien progression speed.

If we can get into the inner workings of it, there's a good chance we'll find the variable corresponding to it. Since it's controlled by a simple float (the standard 2.0f), there's a good chance it's possible to modify it with a hex editor. The key is finding the relevant code.

[rf900]

I am playing a modded version of warspace without marathon, basically it slows tech and makes panic fluctuate less. I am in 4 months and only encountered mutons a couple of times, currently I am with lasers as I am not reseraching priority techs to keep the game going.

 

I feel that somehow the game accomodates speed to the progress, I had a lot of cassualties and had been given veteran soldiers as rewards very often. I would say not researching priority tech definetively slows the alien progress, and probably other things have influence in it, probably overall tech.

[SectoidMedic]

I just tried Marathon mode (classic). I liked the slow pace of the mode. At begginig all was smooth, with some advances in the two first moths (researched scopes and nano fiber and fenix canon) but ...At the first days of the third month I got mutons.

Marathon mode is a s***, because aliens progress is the same as in the normal mode but your is not.

[BGBailen]

Something I did while editing the .exe drastically changed alien progression. I've made a lot of changes, so I'm going to have to look exactly what changed, but I had played several games before modding, all on normal.

 

I wish I had something more substantial to tell you guys right now, I'm just posting to let you know that it IS possible, to some extent, by editing the .exe

 

The changes I've noticed-

-During the first couple missions, there was no noticeable difference.

-However, after the first two missions, I started getting missions filled with sectoids, in groups of 1-3, with occasional floaters OR thinmen, in groups of 1-3. Obviously 1 or 2 outsiders during ufo missions.

-During this time, whereas I usually had about 6-10 enemies per mission, I noticed the counts were consistently 10 or higher.

-This lasted for a solid two months, with one mission(the first terror mission) having 3 chryssalids, but no more during this two month period.

-Around the beginning of the 4th month was when the mid-level enemies started appearing regularly.

-After this, the progression seemed fairly normal

 

So basically, early game you fight more aliens, but weaker aliens. More chances to send in rooks to grind sectoids and floaters.

 

I had modified panic levels drastically, making panic more localized(events might cause more panic in one country, but none in the continent, except for abductions). This slowed down the rate of panic, and I'm pretty sure that's what did it. It seems that what determines the enemy forces' composition in a mission is panic level......although I'm sure there's another variable in there too which modifies mission difficulty. Point is, the bulk of it seems to be decided by panic. So not only do I have the option of taking on easy missions to level rooks, but I could just as easily play one of the harder missions to progress the game further.

 

But......I'm clueless as to what caused more alien spawns.

 

If you're going to play marathon mode, I'd suggest tweaking the panic rates to your liking. Personally, though, I think it's just better to design your own "marathon mode" by heavily tweaking the .exe. I have a lot of recommendations I could make to get a well-paced, resource-oriented game going for you. Right now, I have my game set up so I really have to pay attention to my cash/elerium/alloy/fragment levels at all times. Even buying a medkit could mean I can't research that tech I wanted until I get a new mission, because medkits now cause 5 alloy, in addition to cash.

 

@rf900 Some priority techs do, some don't. I think the ones that actually affect progression are pretty obvious though, like when you have to attack the base. I'm almost certain that all the priority techs before you interrogate your first alien don't affect it at all. Up to that point, panic levels had the only noticeable effect to me.

Edited October 28, 2012 by BGBailen

[rf900]

I had modified panic levels drastically, making panic more localized(events might cause more panic in one country, but none in the continent, except for abductions). This slowed down the rate of panic, and I'm pretty sure that's what did it. It seems that what determines the enemy forces' composition in a mission is panic level although I'm sure there's another variable in there too which modifies mission difficulty. Point is, the bulk of it seems to be decided by panic

 

Interesting, I have the same behavior in my modded game, also altered panic levels to rise less drastically. Had lots of missions with low level aliens, but lots of them. In a terror mission I got 27 kills, and only 7 or 8 were zombies. So that may be it, the global panic level could influence the type of aliens you encounter, I haven't captured an alien until the 6 month to keep the slow pace, will see if this changes things.