Modifiying Special Council Missions and City Abductions??

[Ferenczy]

Is there any way to increase the number of :

1. Council missions/ per month

2. City Abduction missions....mid to late game

 

I tend to enjoy those moreso than downed ufos.

 

The result i'm looking for is:

1. Less downed ufo but more resourses per crash/landing

2. More council missions, for better terror control and rewards

3. More city abductions (less Terror Missions?) with greater number of enemies (sectoids in particular)

 

Thanks.

[fys]

No idea how to increase the council mission rate. Some event chances and spawn number control could still be hidden in scripts somewhere and haven’t made it into the DefaultGameCore.

 

If someone doesn’t like downed UFO assaults then a couple of settings in DefaultGameCore can still be considered:

 

ShowUFOsOnMission=0

(Keep this to default 0. Many mods change this to 1. If you don’t see them coming then you don’t need to shoot them down. All abduction and terror missions will be available then. No idea if even some UFOs are related to council missions, possibly not.)

 

UFO_INTERCEPTION_PCT=0 ; Chance that a UFO will require interception

(Same here like above. No idea which mission related UFOs are these which require interception; maybe only scouts and such. Theoretically, this setting could only be valid if you set ShowUFOsOnMission to 1. Then there is a chance (PCT=x) some UFOs evade detection from satellites, no matter what.)

 

LATE_UFO_CHANCE = 100

EARLY_UFO_CHANCE = 100

(I don’t know what missions these extra UFOs have in mind but maybe they could lead to additional abduction or terror missions.)

 

UFO_LIMIT = 5

(Can’t hurt to increase this setting as high as possible. Possible though that additional ones have only scout purpose then. Shooting down UFOs reduces panic (PANIC_UFO_SHOOTDOWN=-1). AFAIK there is no panic increase if you ignore UFO wrecks.)

 

UFO_ELERIUM_PER_POWER_SOURCE=25

UFOAlloys=30 ;eShip_UFOSmallScout

UFOAlloys=60 ;eShip_UFOLargeScout

UFOAlloys=80 ;eShip_UFOAbductor

UFOAlloys=100 ;eShip_UFOSupply

UFOAlloys=130 ;eShip_UFOBattle

UFOAlloys=60 ;eShip_UFOEthereal

MIN_WRECKED_ALLOYS=0.5

MAX_WRECKED_ALLOYS=0.9

MAX_LOST_WRECKED_ELERIUM=0.75

MIN_LOST_WRECKED_ELERIUM=0.5

(These settings offer the possibility to increase the resources per ship. If you don’t want to assault many then increase those. Alternatively, you could also decrease the Elerium and Alloy requirements of researched and constructed technology.)

Edited October 25, 2012 by fys

[Ferenczy]

Thanks!...that points me in the direction i want to go.

 

Tried this:

COUNCIL_DAY=20

; Not sure but I believe its the minimum number of days that must pass before a new council mission is offered

COUNCIL_RAND_DAYS=7

; Not sure but I believe its the RANDOM number of days AFTER the minimum above that the next council mission will appear. SET BOTH TO 1 to have them every day??? NEED TO TEST!!!

 

Setting both to 1 ...I show no noticiable difference on a saved game...but havent tried on a new start. Wonder if....

COUNCIL_DAY=100 <----maybe a percentage?

COUNCIL_RAND_DAYS=1

 

....would work better...

 

has anyone tested this?

[jocan2003]

I am quite interested with that if somebody can manage to increase the number of council mission, i love them even tho they are repetitive, still like them tho.

[fys]

COUNCIL_DAY/COUNCIL_RAND_DAYS only sets the monthly valuation report. I've set it to 30 without any random days, and the report always appears at end of each month.

[Deunan85]

Maybe I have not play enough, but I thought the council report happened at the end of every month. Have you tried changing the value to something small and been forced to be evaluated by the council multiple times in the same month? If so did this give you the monthly benefits of income from countries?

[PepprmintButler]

COUNCIL_DAY/COUNCIL_RAND_DAYS only sets the monthly valuation report. I've set it to 30 without any random days, and the report always appears at end of each month.

 

Lol, council report happens at the end of the month no matter what.

 

According to my testing, COUNCIL_DAY/COUNCIL_RAND_DAYS actually control the duration before council requests expire (like "get 3 of items x and we'll give you y engineers"), with duration = day+(some value equal or inf to rand_days) and have no relation whatsoever with council mission frequency. They're certainly not controlling council evaluation frequency.

[Ferenczy]

hmmm...

 

So far we have:

1. Determines Report at end of month...Pretty Sure thats not it.

2. Determines when Council mission expires after it is given....Quite Possible. (Endorsed by others)

3. Determines how often a council mission is given...Hoping this is it. (Endorsed by others)

 

still looking for a definitive answer

[fys]

Heh, yes, that was some garbage investigation of mine if any at all. I did some serious testing now to make it up.

I did two tests on impossible diff where I fast-forwarded with removed panic increase to see what missions you get. Each test was done with a fresh restart after doing the first combat mission. Afterwards, I didn’t do anything but forwarding time.

 

COUNCIL_DAY = 20 (vanilla)

COUNCIL_RAND_DAY = 7 (vanilla)

19th March: Extraction Mission

2nd April: Satellite Request (always 20 days time limit)

17th April: Satellite R.

2nd May: Satellite

20th May: Satellite

25th May: Extraction Mission

2nd June: Satellite

29th June: Satellite

13th July: Satellite

25th July: Bomb Disposal Mission

8th August: Satellite

22th August: Satellite

8th September: Satellite

21th September: Satellite

27th September: Extraction Mission

…

 

COUNCIL_DAY = 1

COUNCIL_RAND_DAYS = 0

1st March: Escort Mission

13th April: Satellite Request (always 20 days time limit)

30th April: Satellite R.

2nd May: Escort Mission

19th May: Satellite

6th June: Satellite

20th June: Satellite

2nd July: Bomb Disposal Mission

16th July: Satellite

4th August: Satellite

18th August: Satellite

2nd September: Asset Recovery Mission

…

 

I was curious and set once following settings to reduce UFO activity:

ShowUFOsOnMission=0

LATE_UFO_CHANCE = 0

EARLY_UFO_CHANCE = 0

UFO_LIMIT = 1

UFO_INTERCEPTION_PCT=0

As result, there were less UFOs hovering around but this had no influence in number of terror, abduction and council missions.

 

Looks like COUNCIL_DAY/COUNCIL_RAND_DAYS only shifts the council missions (Bomb Disposal, Target Extraction, Escort, Asset Recovery, ?) in each following months around: March, May, July, September..

Besides those council activities, there have always been two abduction missions in each month.

A terror mission also always appears in the other two month-intervals where no council mission takes place: April, June, August… No council setting had influence in the date when abduction and terror missions appeared.

I see no way in DefaultGameCore at least to manipulate the council mission frequency. You can make them appear earlier in these months but not more often.

What’s interesting that these Council requests seem to adapt according to your researched tech maybe. I had no sectoid corpse requests although they were available after the first mission.

 

The answer to more council missions must somewhere lie in a game script well packed away from nosy amateur modders.

Edited October 26, 2012 by fys

[graaa]

It appears then that there is one council mission or council request hardwired PER month, and the COUNCIL_DAY = 20

COUNCIL_RAND_DAY = 7 only determines WHEN it will take place in that month.

 

so once it happens, its over until next month and the timer restarts. Changing the values really low will have it occur earlier, keeping the values vanilla will have them occur near the end of the month.