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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Tuning Terror Missions


dteviot

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There have been a couple of people saying that terror missions are too frequent.

Well, according to http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=MISSIONS.DAT, terror missions should occur at a rate of 1 per week (approximately.) And in TaskFactory.cs, this is the rate they?re launched at. So if someone can tell me where the error is, that would be nice.

The other point that needs to be checked is the scoring for a Terror mission. If not intercepted, then the aliens get 1000 points for the region that owns the city the mission is at. However, if the city also lies within a funding country, the aliens get an additional 1000 points for the country. I?m not sure this should be done. Zombie, can you please tell me how the score is broken down in that case? Thanks.

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There have been a couple of people saying that terror missions are too frequent.

Well, according to http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=MISSIONS.DAT, terror missions should occur at a rate of 1 per week (approximately.) And in TaskFactory.cs, this is the rate they?re launched at. So if someone can tell me where the error is, that would be nice.

At least from what I've seen during the many years of playing the original game, an actual Terror Mission happens about once a month, not a week. MISSIONS.DAT gives the approximate timetable of UFO's spawned for a particular mission, and in the case of the terror mission it sends 4 ships:

  1. Medium Scout: 2.5 hours after mission type finalized. Just flies around, not sure if it ever lands.
  2. Large Scout: 1 week after the Medium Scout ended. Here again, just flies around and scouts a region.
  3. Terror Ship 1: Spawns 1 week after the Large Scout mission ends. I'm fairly sure this one never lands - it just scouts.
  4. Terror Ship 2: Spawns 1 week after Terror Ship #1's mission ends. This craft flies around for a little, then lands at a city somewhere in a region and forms a Terror Site. This is the end of the line though - if the Terror Ship was sent and shot down or formed a terror site, the mission is terminated.

So adding the numbers up, I get about 3+weeks between terror missions which matches what is observed. I guess you didn't understand what was presented in MISSIONS.DAT. :Coffee:

 

The other point that needs to be checked is the scoring for a Terror mission. If not intercepted, then the aliens get 1000 points for the region that owns the city the mission is at. However, if the city also lies within a funding country, the aliens get an additional 1000 points for the country. I'm not sure this should be done. Zombie, can you please tell me how the score is broken down in that case? Thanks.

You have it correct. The penalty is applied to both the country and region. Honestly, I don't know what role the region score plays in the grand scheme of things. It isn't used to calculate the happiness rating of countries at the end-of-month report. The only thing the region score affects are the graphs (which is handy for players who are trying to figure out what region to build their next base at). :shrug:

 

- Zombie

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There have been a couple of people saying that terror missions are too frequent.

Well, according to http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=MISSIONS.DAT, terror missions should occur at a rate of 1 per week (approximately.) And in TaskFactory.cs, this is the rate they?re launched at. So if someone can tell me where the error is, that would be nice.

At least from what I've seen during the many years of playing the original game, an actual Terror Mission happens about once a month, not a week. MISSIONS.DAT gives the approximate timetable of UFO's spawned for a particular mission, and in the case of the terror mission it sends 4 ships:

  1. Medium Scout: 2.5 hours after mission type finalized. Just flies around, not sure if it ever lands.
  2. Large Scout: 1 week after the Medium Scout ended. Here again, just flies around and scouts a region.
  3. Terror Ship 1: Spawns 1 week after the Large Scout mission ends. I'm fairly sure this one never lands - it just scouts.
  4. Terror Ship 2: Spawns 1 week after Terror Ship #1's mission ends. This craft flies around for a little, then lands at a city somewhere in a region and forms a Terror Site. This is the end of the line though - if the Terror Ship was sent and shot down or formed a terror site, the mission is terminated.

So adding the numbers up, I get about 3+weeks between terror missions which matches what is observed. I guess you didn't understand what was presented in MISSIONS.DAT. :Coffee:

:doh:

That's my mistake, I interpreted "Landing sites of Terrorships are terror missions, not ground assault missions" as each "UFO involved in a terror mission", not the "Terrorship UFO type "

Thanks Zombie

 

The other point that needs to be checked is the scoring for a Terror mission. If not intercepted, then the aliens get 1000 points for the region that owns the city the mission is at. However, if the city also lies within a funding country, the aliens get an additional 1000 points for the country. I'm not sure this should be done. Zombie, can you please tell me how the score is broken down in that case? Thanks.

You have it correct. The penalty is applied to both the country and region. Honestly, I don't know what role the region score plays in the grand scheme of things. It isn't used to calculate the happiness rating of countries at the end-of-month report. The only thing the region score affects are the graphs (which is handy for players who are trying to figure out what region to build their next base at). :shrug:

- Zombie

Could it be "end of month score, to see if you've lost the game"?

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Could it be "end of month score, to see if you've lost the game"?

It's possible. The countries score doesn't account for all the activity around the world, so the regional score would be more accurate. Nobody has tested this so it's just conjecture. :P

 

- Zombie

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