Storms over former XCOM members | Controlling abductions

[johnnylump]

 

Well, that kind of sucks then, because it's very easy to shoot down scouts.

 

Right, but it's still harder than a satellite preventing abductions entirely, sort of. (The problem is the game will not discriminate between countries with satellites and those without anymore, so you might shoot down three large scouts and get no abductions, as opposed to three guaranteed abductions.)

 

I would propose the following for the strategic game:

 

* Show UFOs on abduction and terror missions

* Abductions happen in countries with satellites

* Abductions happen up to six times a month, individually. If they overlap sometimes, that's fine.

* 1 terror mission a month (instead of every other month)

* 1 council mission a month (same pace)

* Other UFO missions at same pace

* Rewards for abductions cut to 1/3 of default; elerium and alloys for shot down UFOs reduced

* Long interceptor repair times

* Long soldier injury recovery times

* Panic increases by 1 or 2 (?) for abductions in country, 0 for continent

* Panic increases by 4 for terror in country, 2 for continent

* Panic increases by 0 for ignored and escaped UFOs. *** Why? Because otherwise orbiting a satellite otherwise creates a hazard of increased panic when you detect more UFOs but can't kill them -- that is, you become better off when the aliens attempt abductions in a country without a satellite, and that doesn't make sense. I'd prefer a satellite to be uniformly helpful, rather than raising the stakes.

* Satellites are harder for aliens to shoot down. Maybe 25 or 33 percent for regular, 5 percent for stealths. *** Why? Because if this works, you're going to have to ignore a lot of ships in the air, and choose carefully what you send interceptors after. But I don't want it to mean an autokill on your satellite.

* Possibly eliminate panic reduction for UFO assault -- again, there are fewer ways panic can go up, so perhaps there should be fewer for it to go down

* Longer research and build times; MUCH longer times for plot-related developments after arc thrower -- these essentially require you to halt your research program entirely to move forward.

* Possibly reduced alien item sale prices (because there will be a lot of bodies)

* More XP for soldier leveling up; otherwise you'll get colonels really fast with all the missions

 

What you'll see is a TON of missions from the get-go, and you'll need lots of troops and interceptors, otherwise you'll be forced to skip missions because no one is available to take them. You'll have more missions between each technological development, and far more mission before you can finish the game. I think it will feel more like a true war against the aliens.

 

I *think* the only non-DFC.ini changes are 1) allowing abductions in countries with satellites; 2) allowing more than two abductions a month and 3) reducing the number of abductions per "attempt" to one.

 

Thoughts?

[FlyingHigh10000000]

<br>

<br>Well, that kind of sucks then, because it's very easy to shoot down scouts.<br>

<br><br>Right, but it's still harder than a satellite preventing abductions entirely, sort of. (The problem is the game will not discriminate between countries with satellites and those without anymore, so you might shoot down three large scouts and get no abductions, as opposed to three guaranteed abductions.)<br><br>I would propose the following for the strategic game:<br><br>* Show UFOs on abduction and terror missions<br>* Abductions happen in countries with satellites<br>* Abductions happen up to six times a month, individually. If they overlap sometimes, that's fine.<br>* 1 terror mission a month (instead of every other month)<br>* 1 council mission a month (same pace)<br>* Other UFO missions at same pace<br>* Rewards for abductions cut to 1/3 of default; elerium and alloys for shot down UFOs reduced<br>* Long interceptor repair times<br>* Long soldier injury recovery times<br>* Panic increases by 1 or 2 (?) for abductions in country, 0 for continent<br>* Panic increases by 4 for terror in country, 2 for continent<br>* Panic increases by 0 for ignored and escaped UFOs. *** Why? Because otherwise orbiting a satellite otherwise creates a hazard of increased panic when you detect more UFOs but can't kill them -- that is, you become better off when the aliens attempt abductions in a country without a satellite, and that doesn't make sense. I'd prefer a satellite to be uniformly helpful, rather than raising the stakes.<br>* Satellites are harder for aliens to shoot down. Maybe 25 or 33 percent for regular, 5 percent for stealths. *** Why? Because if this works, you're going to have to ignore a lot of ships in the air, and choose carefully what you send interceptors after. But I don't want it to mean an autokill on your satellite.<br>* Possibly eliminate panic reduction for UFO assault -- again, there are fewer ways panic can go up, so perhaps there should be fewer for it to go down<br>* Longer research and build times; MUCH longer times for plot-related developments after arc thrower -- these essentially require you to halt your research program entirely to move forward.<br>* Possibly reduced alien item sale prices (because there will be a lot of bodies)<br>* More XP for soldier leveling up; otherwise you'll get colonels really fast with all the missions<br><br>What you'll see is a TON of missions from the get-go, and you'll need lots of troops and interceptors, otherwise you'll be forced to skip missions because no one is available to take them. You'll have more missions between each technological development, and far more mission before you can finish the game. I think it will feel more like a true war against the aliens.<br><br>I *think* the only non-DFC.ini changes are 1) allowing abductions in countries with satellites; 2) allowing more than two abductions a month and 3) reducing the number of abductions per "attempt" to one. <br><br>Thoughts?<br>

<br><br><br>I've already started work on getting that into my game, because it sounds perfect. Now I just need to figure out how to make more abductions and terror missions happen per month.

 

<div><br></div><div>The one thing I'm really not sure about is the research times and such being increased. As it is, the game is balanced so that by the time Mutons show up, you're either just getting Carapace Armor or just getting laser weapons. I tried a Marathon game once, and was still working on the scope/fiber vest/arc thrower part of the tree by the time Mutons showed up. It was a slaughter.</div>

 

 

(Also, I have no idea why that junk keeps appearing whenever I quote or use any sort of formatting in a post. It's not there when I initially post it, but when I edit it, it's definitely there, and makes it a pain to read.

Edited December 8, 2012 by FlyingHigh10000000

[johnnylump]

 

<div><br></div><div>The one thing I'm really not sure about is the research times and such being increased. As it is, the game is balanced so that by the time Mutons show up, you're either just getting Carapace Armor or just getting laser weapons. I tried a Marathon game once, and was still working on the scope/fiber vest/arc thrower part of the tree by the time Mutons showed up. It was a slaughter.</div>

 

That's a fair point -- I'm trying marathon-like games, and it's certainly difficult. I'd actually like occasional missions that the best choice is to retreat -- but that doesn't ruin your game if it doesn't happen too often. What I'd suggest is making labs powerful enough to counter the increased research times, making them a viable (and possibly even necessary) build early in the game, rather than requiring a satellite rush.

Edited December 8, 2012 by johnnylump

[Drakous79]

I find balancing "Show UFOs on abduction and terror missions" very hard, when there are more ships preparing terror/abduction. Without hyperwave relay is hard to tell, what is ship's objective and in the end I can miss abduction mission. With or without satellite jump.

 

Focusing on ships, I would go with:

• ShowUFOsOnMission = 0
  
• Abductions happen in countries with satellites.
  
• Allowing more than two abductions a month.
  
• Reducing the number of abductions per "attempt" to one (abduction sites = 1).
  
• Do something with code for scouting UFOs or do something else (will be done in 2-3 days).
  

As promised earlier, here's how to allow more abduction missions per month. It can be defined in XComStrategyGame.upk, class XGStrategyAI, function AIAddNewObjectives().

iNumUFOs = 1;
iNumAbductions = 1;

But those ones are defined as one byte, 26 in this case. For any number higher than one we need two bytes, something like 2C 06. Okay, we're screwed, because adding bytes is too close to impossible atm. Good we can steal the byte from iNumUFOs = 1.

 

iNumUFOs
iNumAbductions = 6;

SF: 0F 00 42 42 00 00 26 0F 00 43 42 00 00 26
RW: 0B 00 42 42 00 00 0F 00 43 42 00 00 2C 06

// Corrected RW code - thanks Johnny! The first 0F is now 0B.

It seems to be valid code, because the game starts without a crash and it actually works even without comma at the end of iNumUFOs. Only downside is, we are subtracting 1 UFO from the default setting per month.

 

Let me know, if it works for you. I've tried 10 abduction missions with 1 site and with 10 abduction missions with 3 sites, and have to say, it works fine with 1 site. With 3 sites, you will run out of abduction targets. 16 countries / 3 = 5 abduction missions max.

 

Also my code was swapped like 0F 00 43 42 00 00 2C 0A 0B 00 42 42 00 00, but the result should be the same.

 

Edit: Number of abductions should be [what we set] + 1, because 1 abduction is added later in AIAddNewObjectives().

Edit: Corrected RW code.

Edited December 10, 2012 by Drakous79

[FMod]

johnnylump:

That's weird. I was playing with Marathon on and further increased research times, and was starting on plasma with mutons.

How do you manage not to have researched scope/thrower/vest by then? It's a few months, while these combined take one.

 

FlyingHigh10000000: It's HTML tags. Check if you have html on somewhere.

Edited December 8, 2012 by FMod

[johnnylump]

I find balancing "Show UFOs on abduction and terror missions" very hard, when there are more ships preparing terror/abduction. Without hyperwave relay is hard to tell, what is ship's objective and in the end I can miss abduction mission. With or without satellite jump.

 

Focusing on ships, I would go with:

• ShowUFOsOnMission = 0
  
• Abductions happen in countries with satellites.
  
• Allowing more than two abductions a month.
  
• Reducing the number of abductions per "attempt" to one (abduction sites = 1).
  
• Do something with code for scouting UFOs or do something else (will be done in 2-3 days).
  

As promised earlier, here's how to allow more abduction missions per month. It can be defined in XComStrategyGame.upk, class XGStrategyAI, function AIAddNewObjectives().

iNumUFOs = 1;
iNumAbductions = 1;

But those ones are defined as one byte, 26 in this case. For any number higher than one we need two bytes, something like 2C 06. Okay, we're screwed, because adding bytes is too close to impossible atm. Good we can steal the byte from iNumUFOs = 1.

 

iNumUFOs
iNumAbductions = 6;

SF: 0F 00 42 42 00 00 26 0F 00 43 42 00 00 26
RW: 0F 00 42 42 00 00 0F 00 43 42 00 00 2C 06

It seems to be valid code, because the game starts without a crash and it actually works even without comma at the end of iNumUFOs. Only downside is, we are subtracting 1 UFO from the default setting per month.

 

Let me know, if it works for you. I've tried 10 abduction missions with 1 site and with 10 abduction missions with 3 sites, and have to say, it works fine with 1 site. With 3 sites, you will run out of abduction targets. 16 countries / 3 = 5 abduction missions max.

 

Also my code was swapped like 0F 00 43 42 00 00 2C 0A 0F 00 42 42 00 00, but the result should be the same.

 

Great! However, by reducing 1 UFO from the default setting per month, are you still seeing "random" landed and scouting UFOs on occasion, or does it eliminate them entirely?

[Drakous79]

Great! However, by reducing 1 UFO from the default setting per month, are you still seeing "random" landed and scouting UFOs on occasion, or does it eliminate them entirely?

It eliminates 1 default UFO entirely, but you can get EARLY and LATE_UFO, if a roll for it succeeds. Also in case there's not enough abduction targets, remaining abductions are converted to UFOs.

if(iAbductionsAdded < iNumAbductions)
{
iNumUFOs += iNumAbductions - iAbductionsAdded;
}

Landed UFOs are eluding me so far. They should be created from UFOs, but they have different number than flyers.

[johnnylump]

johnnylump:

That's weird. I was playing with Marathon on and further increased research times, and was starting on plasma with mutons.

How do you manage not to have researched scope/thrower/vest by then? It's a few months, while these combined take one.

 

 

I don't have Marathon on -- I just increased the base research modifier to 15 (from 6.66). I'm usually getting lasers and carapace in time for Mutons (just barely), but I am having trouble getting plasma by the time I get to heavy floaters. But I've only run through a couple of games with these settings (and I'm changing them) so it may just be poor strategy on my part :)

[Drakous79]

There is a solution, how to get UFO, we subtracted by adding byte to iNumAbductions, back. Not ideal, because we're going to lose UFO_LIMIT. Our target lies within AIAddNewObjectives() function.

 

if(iNumUFOs > class'XGTacticalGameCore'.default.UFO_LIMIT)
{
iNumUFOs = class'XGTacticalGameCore'.default.UFO_LIMIT;
}

I've changed is greater sign to is not equal. By doing so I've removed randomness of EARLY and LATE_UFO because of overwriting any iNumUFOs value with the one from DGC.ini. On the other side, this will give exactly the number of UFOs we set.

UFO_LIMIT = DESIRED_NUMBER_OF_UFOS

 

But better would be to change is greater sign to is less. It keeps randomness as long as iNumUFOs is less than what we set. If we want more UFOs, we just set the value in the ini higher. Like 5-10. If the game generates just one UFO, we would have 4-9 more with this setting. This way it still acts as the limit somehow.

UFO_LIMIT = DESIRED_NUMBER_OF_UFOS_IF_THERE_IS_NOT_ENOUGH_ADDED_BY_THE_GAME

 

if(iNumUFOs < class'XGTacticalGameCore'.default.UFO_LIMIT)
{
iNumUFOs = class'XGTacticalGameCore'.default.UFO_LIMIT;
}

SF: 07 58 02 97 00 42 42 00 00 12 20 6D FE FF FF 09 00 60 FB FF FF 00 02 60 FB FF FF 16 0F 00 42 42 00 00 12 20 6D FE FF FF 09 00 60 FB FF FF 00 02 60 FB FF FF
RW: 07 58 02 96 00 42 42 00 00 12 20 6D FE FF FF 09 00 60 FB FF FF 00 02 60 FB FF FF 16 0F 00 42 42 00 00 12 20 6D FE FF FF 09 00 60 FB FF FF 00 02 60 FB FF FF

My last thought was about changing assign sign in iNumUFOs = class'XGTacticalGameCore'.default.UFO_LIMIT to add and assign, what would add the value from DGC.ini to UFOs generated by the game. But what with the conditional? This function could really used a rewrite.

 

Hm, maybe strip off the limit and make the conditional != and += the value from DGC.ini. Change 97 to 9B and 0F to 87? Cannot test it as my game is a mess atm, with recent patch and Slingshot DLC in. Hm, I am going to play for once hehe.

UFO_LIMIT = DESIRED_NUMBER_OF_UFOS_TO_BE_ADDED_TO_THE_DEFAULT

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/XVNF6.jpg

I've done tests with UFO_LIMIT = 50 and it works. Got full satellite coverage, hyperwave relay and 10 firestorms with fusion lance in the first month in preparation... but all UFOs spawned close to my headquarters, so I could skip cheating and ignore them instead.

 

Shooting down 50 UFOs per month is really boring...

Edited December 8, 2012 by Drakous79

[FlyingHigh10000000]

johnnylump:

That's weird. I was playing with Marathon on and further increased research times, and was starting on plasma with mutons.

How do you manage not to have researched scope/thrower/vest by then? It's a few months, while these combined take one.

 

 

I don't have Marathon on -- I just increased the base research modifier to 15 (from 6.66). I'm usually getting lasers and carapace in time for Mutons (just barely), but I am having trouble getting plasma by the time I get to heavy floaters. But I've only run through a couple of games with these settings (and I'm changing them) so it may just be poor strategy on my part :)

 

Man, if I get this stuff working properly, I'll have a heck of a mod prepared for release, and a lot of people to thank for the help their research has provided.(I know nothing about reading bytecode, or even hex editing, really. I've mostly been relying on the finds of others, with balancing and a lot of INT/ini editing done by myself to get the desired effects in-game.) The ideal end-result is a game as close to the original UFO Defense, with the additions that the new engine/updated graphics added.

 

Edit: Seems I may have finally fixed that html issue I was having. Thanks for the tip, FMod.

 

Drakous79, if I understand correctly, that last edit you posted should make it so that if I set UFOlimit to 12, I'll get anywhere from 2-12 abduction missions per month, and, if I also used your earlier edit to make only one abduction mission at a time, there will only be one launched at a time?

 

And at the same time, if I kept the default abduction setting of 3 per mission, with a UFO count of 50, there could be up to 150 total abduction missions attempted, assuming I shoot them all down?

Edited December 8, 2012 by FlyingHigh10000000