Storms over former XCOM members | Controlling abductions

[Drakous79]

Great job Johnny!

 

Seems logical to send scouts first, but bringing down an abductor in the first month is a nightmare with Avalanche missiles. Would be more convenient to tie ship's type with a month and send out only one instead of two. But it's an idea for time, when we can write new scripts.

 

Thinking of it, ShowUFOsOnMission mechanic for abductions in the original game is weird, because there has to be a satellite in order to detect those ships. So a player sees only ships detected by nearby satellite in crowded areas like Europe, or ships in countries with new satellite coverage, that have been already planned as abduction target that month.

[anUser]

Hey guys you've done a great work here. Thanks for all the code and explanations. I'm sure I'll use some of it myself... when (and if) I can make myself clear with so many stuff...

 

I don't get this:

 

UFO-13 | 09. 12. | Supply Barge - Scout Target
UFO-14 | 12. 12. | Battleship - Terrorize Populace, Russia
UFO-15 | 18. 12. | Large Scout - Abduct Specimen, Argentina
UFO-16 | 19. 12. | Large Scout - Abduct Specimen, Germany
UFO-18 | 19. 12. | Large Scout - Abduct Specimen, Nigeria
UFO-17 | 19. 12. | Battleship - Destroy Satellite
UFO-19 | 21. 12. | Abductor - Abduct Specimen, Germany
UFO-20 | 21. 12. | Abductor - Abduct Specimen, Argentina
UFO-21 | 21. 12. | Abductor - Abduct Specimen, Nigeria
_________ 21. 12. | ABDUCTION - Nigeria, Germany and Argentina
UFO-22 | 21. 12. | Battleship - Destroy Satellite
_________ 22. 12. | COUNCIL - Bomb disposal
UFO-23 | 23. 12. | Battleship - Destroy Satellite
UFO-24 | 25. 12. | Battleship - Destroy Satellite
UFO-25 | 26. 12. | Battleship - Terrorize Populace, Russia
_________ 27. 12. | TERROR - Saint Petersburg, Russia

As you see, I've got 3 large scouts, 3 abductors and just 1 abduction mission. And 2 battleships and just 1 terror mission.

• 3 large scouts ignored ... 3 abductors ignored ... 3 abduction sites.
• 2 of 3 large scouts shot down ... only 1 spawned abductor ignored ... 1 abduction site!
  Got only one abductor after shooting down two large scouts so they are connected! That's crazy.
• 3 large scouts ignored ... 2 abductors ignored and 1 abductor shot down ... 2 abduction sites.
  Strange is that abduction mission did not happen once, after toasting one of abductors.
• 3 large scouts shot down ... no abductors ... no abduction sites.

• The 1st terror battleship ignored ... the 2nd terror battleship ignored ... 1 terror mission after the 2nd TB.
• The 1st terror battleship shot down ... the 2nd terror battleship ignored, but came sooner, between 15. - 18. 12. ... 1 terror mission after the 2nd TB.
• The 1st terror battleship ignored ... the 2nd terror battleship shot down ... no terror mission!
  Well, then what is the first battleship good for? Carrying more crew for later terror mission? I think I'll try to count aliens in St. Petersburg...
  Edit: Ok, I counted it, 10 units in every case.

 

... do you mean here that by shooting down a scout, when the abduction happened, you only had 2 destinations to choose from? That'd be awesome. If so, how can I make it?

 

It is still unclear to me how this ShowUFOSonMission works. Does it show every ufo flying around the earth or only where you have a satellite? If it's the second one, and I'd hex edit that function to make it picks every country for abductions, could I recreate the scenario I mentioned avobe? I picture it like this: I can see 2 ufos flying in countries where I have satellites, it happens that I manage to shoot both of them down, and then next day an abduction mission prompts out with only 1 destination, the one corresponding to the ufo I haven't seen 'cause of satellite coverage (assuming they pick 3 destinations for abductions). Is it really so awesome?

 

Btw I'm curious to see how you put all this together, there's so many related settings (ufo stats, panic, loot, map rotation, etc) I'd like to see some "comprehensive / integrated" setup. I'm not asking for a mod, but just a small list of tweaks and settings that work well together, that'd be cool.

[johnnylump]

Both Warspace and Long War mods make use of this.

 

ShowUFOsOnMission=1, without any upk changes, will show terror battleships in countries that you have a satellite.

 

To see abductions, you have to make upk changes, as well, because satellites almost always prevent abductions from spawning. I suggest you look through the "Long War upk changes" and "Interesting upk stuff I've found" (for Warspace).

 

But with the upk changes, and a satellite, you'll see a large scout and, if the scout survives, an abductor going to the city where the abduction takes place. If you shoot down the scout or the abductor, the abduction won't happen.

 

The problem there is that large scouts are pretty easy to kill after midgame, making it easy to prevent the abductor from ever spawning. Via another upk change, you can "turn off" the feature that kills the mission when the large scout goes down.

Edited March 6, 2013 by johnnylump

[anUser]

ok man I just needed to take a break and look at it again... now it makes sense. I was wondering why I hadn't stumbled upon such case... obviously, 'cause game prevents abductions from happening where's a satellite.

 

Via another upk change, you can "turn off" the feature that kills the mission when the large scout goes down.

 

I missed that one. So with this other upk change, what happens after you shot down the scouts? Do you get the abductors flying as well or directly the abduction missions?

 

btw, is there any way to prevent terror mission ships to be shown? It is ridiculous when you face a battleship by the end of the second month....

[johnnylump]

 

ok man I just needed to take a break and look at it again... now it makes sense. I was wondering why I hadn't stumbled upon such case... obviously, 'cause game prevents abductions from happening where's a satellite.

 

 

 

Yeah, a lot pre-upk editing mods claim to show you the abductors on missions, but nobody actually tested that to see if it's true. You almost never see them without upk changes.

 

 

 

I missed that one. So with this other upk change, what happens after you shot down the scouts? Do you get the abductors flying as well or directly the abduction missions?

 

 

 

If you set abductions to continue despite the loss of the scout, the abductor appears and beelines to the city, so you have a chance to shoot it down. It's an appropriate level of challenge, I think.

 

 

btw, is there any way to prevent terror mission ships to be shown? It is ridiculous when you face a battleship by the end of the second month....

 

 

 

Recall that terror missions tend to go to the country with the highest panic, and it's unusual early game for that to be a place you have a satellite.

 

There are probably some upk changes to hide it. Or you could change the battleships to other ships. In my mod (long war), I send a supply ship first, then the battleship. (By default and unlike abductions, shooting down the first ship does not prevent the terror mission.)

 

I've also reduced panic from UFO encounters; you take a 1 block panic hit from ignoring a UFO, but no hit from attacking and disengaging.

[anUser]

I'll have to try it myself, it sounds promising

How do you handle crashed ufos? I must admit I don't even know the default behaviour cause I do all the missions, but having more ufos flying around I guess I'll want to skip some... do they trigger abductions or some other mission, incur in panic, etc?

[johnnylump]

The panic stuff is in defaultgamecore.ini

 

Relating to UFOs, you've got the following

- panic for ignoring a UFO (not intercepted)

- panic for a UFO escaping (that you intercepted but failed to shoot down)

- panic for shooting down a UFO (usually a negative number, for a reduction in panic)

- panic for successfully assaulting a UFO in a ground mission (usually a negative number)

 

Ignored UFOs also generate satellite-hunter UFOs, the glowy ones, usually a large scout or a battleship. Certain UFOs do not generate a hunter. The chance of the hunter UFO downing a regular or stealth satellite is also in defaultgamecore.ini. You can also assign panic for having a satellite shot down (default is -2, iirc).

 

Unfortunately, the ignored-escaped divide can lead to a gamey response in which players can intercept and then flee from every UFO and never have to deal with a satellite hunter.

 

In my mod, I do this:

- Ignored UFO 1 panic

- Escaped UFO 0 panic

- shooting down UFO 0 panic

- Assaulting a UFO -1 panic

 

To overcome the gamey outcome above, I've also rescripted the hunter-generation function so that both ignored and escaped UFO sometimes generate a hunter. That's more than a simple two-byte upk change, though. (There's still some gamey-ness in panic avoidance, but I throw so many UFOs at the player I can't insist they shoot them all down to avoid panic).

 

I've also increased the number of regular UFOs per month to 5, and I'm working on stuff that upgrades UFOs during the game, so scouts still present some kind of challenge later in the game.

[anUser]

I've been playing for a while with the changes posted here, and made a couple of improvements I'd like to share:

 

1) Remove scouts and supply ships preceding abduction and terror mission

 

code:

XcomStrategyGame.XgStrategyAI.BuildObjectives(): just remove the first line after BuildObjective 5 and 6 (the one corresponding to the first, weak ship). You can replace them for 0B's and it keeps the same visrtual size. Function ends up looking like this:

 

function BuildObjectives()
{
    BuildObjective(1, false);
    AddUFOMission(1, 1, 4, 0, -1, 7);
    BuildObjective(3, false);
    AddUFOMission(3, 1, 4, 4, -1, 7);
    BuildObjective(2, false);
    AddUFOMission(2, 1, 4, 2, -1, 7);
    BuildObjective(4, false);
    AddUFOMission(4, 1, 5, 7, -1, 1);
    BuildObjective(0, false);
    AddUFOMission(0, 10, 4, 0, -1, 5);
    BuildObjective(5, false);                                                                                            
    AddUFOMission(5, 3, 6, 5, 0, 0);
    BuildObjective(6, false);                                                                                        
    AddUFOMission(6, 20, 8, 5, 0, 7);
    BuildObjective(7, true);
    AddUFOMission(7, 1, 9, 1, 100, 0);
    AddUFOMission(7, 4, 9, 5, 0, 3);
    //return;    
}

reason: with increased ufos flying around it was kinda too much, and it didn't make much sense to me to have all this ufos that had no other purpouse than fighting my interceptors or defending other ufos on mission. I'm no particular fan of this ufo combat, and although I like it having a tactical component I'd rather focus on ground combat. Still got to play it throughly but in theory it should make I see less ufos flying, and also it'll make if you shot down an ufo to prevent an abduction you'll assault an abductor, not a scout. Not sure if that's good though

 

 

2) Give each abduction a random number of destinations

 

code: in XcomStrategyGame.XgStrategyAI.GetNumAbductionSites(): since the SW 4th spot is bugged 'cause UI editing current limitations, the whole function can be used at will. With this code here it first gets a random number within 0 and 4, then caps it up to 3 if it was greater, and caps it down to 1 if it was lower. This way 3 destination abduction got more chances

 

function int GetNumAbductionSites()
{
    return Max(Min(Rand(4), 3), 1);                                                                                                                    
    //return ReturnValue;    
}

reason: with only 1 destination per abduction I was able to intercept all of them, so I got no panic penalty, now the idea is that there are some panic you can't avoid unless you have satellites in those countries.

 

 

Now to the doubts:

- I couldn't find where to control landed ufos. Someone has managed to change how that works?

- With modified ship weapons, does it work consistently blowing up ufos and not getting crashed ufo mission vs shotting down ufo and getting crashed ufo mission? Does DGC.ini's PANIC_UFO_SHOOTDOWN affects it the same if shot down or destroyed?

[Zervo]

sorry, but does anybody know how to enabled abduction missions on countries with satelitte in the EW?

 

I tried to find the hex code given in the 1st/2nd post, but found no luck.

I can't find it in the EW exe

[Tycus]

<..>

I can't find it in the EW exe

First, it is not in exe, second you might want to find functions themselves in UE Explorer, and look on them in token view (since hex code most likely changed because of last patch), then make new replacement code based on old one, and you good to go. You might want to check tutorials, thought, if you unfamiliar with modding XCOM http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Modding_XCOM:EU_2012#Tutorials - it is a bit outdated, but best we have here.

Also I might be updating this (as it is one of keystone features in my mod) - so stay tuned.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Tycus