MISSIONS.DAT: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 18:29, 15 September 2024

contains counters and race info on the ongoing acts. See Alien Missions for description of how acts are generated.

Structure of a mission entry

Each mission has 4 words. With 7 acts on 12 zones these are 672 bytes. E.g. infiltration(3) in Europe(4) would have the offset 3*8+4*(7*8)=0xF8.

offset	meaning
0	ufo-counter on the ufos within the mission (FFFF, the mission is not active)
2	sub-ufo-counter used for some missions
4	time-counter, 30 minutes to next ufo
6	alien race of mission

The race number is translated as follows:

 	EU		TFTD
 0	Sectoid		Aquatoid
 1	Snakeman	Gill Man
 2	Ethereal	Lobster Man
 3	Muton		Tasoth
 4	Floater		Calcinite
 5	Cydonia crew	T'leth crew

Timetable of a mission

When a mission starts, the ufo-counter is set to 0 and the time-counter to some act-depending time. The time-count is reduced every 30 minutes. When 0, an ufo will appear, the ufo-counter (or the sub-counter on some mission) will be increased and a new random time-counter for the new ufo will be set.

Note on the timing

Battlescape missions do not affect the scheduling of future UFOs.

UFO appearances are established with a base time period to which a random amount of time derived from the base time is added. The effect is that a UFO arrival will be scheduled 50-150% of the base time. When the mission is created, the first UFO in the mission is spawned when the timer reaches zero. Then the mission entry details are set for the next the next UFO in line and the timer begins counting down again.

Shooting down a UFO will immediately add 24~224 hours (1~9 days) to the timer for the next UFO in that mission.

A time followed by * denotes an exact non-randomized time of arrival.

Research

ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type 
0/0	150h	s.Scout  (start of game Research mission is 2.5h*.  This is for later ones)
1/0	150h	m.Scout
2/0	130h	l.Scout
2/1	150h	l.Scout

Harvest

ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
0/0	 130h	s.Scout   
1/0	 130h	s.Scout
2/0	 130h	m.Scout
3/0	 100h	l.Scout
4/0	 130h	l.Scout
5/0	 150h	Harvester
6/0	  50h	Harvester
7/0	12.5h	Battleship

Abduction

ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
0/0	250h	s.Scout
1/0	250h	m.Scout
2/0	300h	l.Scout
3/0	150h	Abductor
4/0	150h	Abductor
4/1	  1h	Abductor

Infiltration

ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
0/0	275h	s.Scout
1/0	275h	m.Scout
2/0	250h	m.Scout
3/0	230h	l.Scout
4/0	150h	l.Scout
5/0	  1h	Terrorship
6/0  	  1h	Supply
7/0	  1h	Battleship
7/1  	  1h	Battleship

Base

ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
0/0	225h	s.Scout
1/0	225h	m.Scout
2/0	250h	l.Scout
3/0	  1h	Supply   
3/1	  1h	Supply   
4/0	  1h	Battleship

Terror

ufo-c	time-c	 ufo-type
0	2.5h*    m.Scout
1	250h	 l.Scout
2	160h	 Terrorship
3	200h	 Terrorship

Landing sites of Terrorships are terror missions, not ground assault missions. Your radars don't want to track a Terrorship after it drops off its cargo.

sub-ufo-c is empirically always 0 for Terror acts.

Retaliation

ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
0/0	50h     s.Scout (for triggered Retaliation; 2.5h* for scheduled Retaliation in the lategame)
1/0	50h     m.Scout
1/1	50h*	m.Scout (add 146.5h* if 1/0 shot down at first turning point)
2/0	50h*    l.Scout (add 3d if 1/1 shot down at first turning point)
2/1	50h	l.Scout
2/2	50h	l.Scout (Not always...finally confirmed it could happen, no idea what factors control this one's existence.)
3/0	50h     Battleship
3/1	50h	Battleship

This mission only relates to the aliens attempting to find an unknown XCOM base in a zone. Once the location of a base is known to the aliens, a special routine in the daily activities section generates the battleship that will attack the base.

A retaliation mission is possibly generated after a successful interception. The zone the mission is set will be either the location of the interception or the zone of the base from which the interceptor was launched. The random chance of a mission being generated and the chance of which zone is selected is affected by the difficulty level of the game.

After a certain point in research or after about 9 months of game time, retaliation missions are automatically generated for each zone that contains an XCOM base at the beginning of each game month.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-contains counters and race info on the ongoing acts. At the start of the game (beginner level) research in your home zone and terror in a random zone is initiated.  After that each new month you will get two new missions, one of which is a terror mission (beginner level).
+contains counters and race info on the ongoing acts. See [[Alien Missions]] for description of how acts are generated.
 ==Structure of a mission entry==
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 	alien race of mission
-The races are:
+The race number is translated as follows:
-     Sectoid
+  	EU		TFTD
-     Snakeman
+	Sectoid		Aquatoid
-     Ethereal (need to check)
+	Snakeman	Gill Man
-     Muton (need to check)
+	Ethereal	Lobster Man
-     Floater
+	Muton		Tasoth
+	Floater		Calcinite
+	Cydonia crew	T'leth crew
 ==Timetable of a mission==
@@ Line 24: / Line 26: @@
 ===Note on the timing===
-The randomization makes it difficult to generalize ufo appearances, but there seem to be some categories:
+Battlescape missions do not affect the scheduling of future UFOs.
+UFO appearances are established with a base time period to which a random amount of time derived from the base time is added. The effect is that a UFO arrival will be scheduled 50-150% of the base time. When the mission is created, the first UFO in the mission is spawned when the timer reaches zero. Then the mission entry details are set for the next the next UFO in line and the timer begins counting down again.
- immediate	1h	0.5-2.5h
+Shooting down a UFO will immediately add 24~224 hours (1~9 days) to the timer for the next UFO in that mission.
- hard 2.5h	2.5h	2.5h
- a day		1d	20h-30h
- some days	3d	2d-5d
- a week		1w	5.5d-8.5d
- two weeks	2w	10d-18d
- longer		1m	e.g.46 days
 A time followed by * denotes an exact non-randomized time of arrival.
-Also, shooting down a UFO will immediately increase the time before the next UFO scheduled in the same act/zone.  The duration types of these delays have not been properly verified.  A casual overview suggests that when a retaliation act is not scheduled in response to the shootdown, the additional delay is of the same order as the original scheduling delay.
-If a retaliation act is scheduled in response to the shootdown, the additional delay can be of a higher order than the original scheduling delay.
-Battlescape missions do not affect the scheduling of future UFOs.
-[<i>Zaimoni</i>: need to revise the following to work on ufo-c/sub-ufo-c pairs where relevant.  Remove this comment when completely revised]
 ===Research===
-A undisturbed research mission on beginner level would look like this:
   ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
-/0	1d	s.Scout  <i>(start of game Research mission is 2.5h*.  This is for later ones)</i>
+/0	150h	s.Scout  <i>(start of game Research mission is 2.5h*.  This is for later ones)</i>
-/0	1w	m.Scout
+/0	150h	m.Scout
-/0	1w	l.Scout
+/0	130h	l.Scout
-/1	3d	l.Scout
+/1	150h	l.Scout
 ===Harvest===
   ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
-/0	3d	s.Scout
+/0	 130h	s.Scout
-/1	3d	s.Scout
+/0	 130h	s.Scout
-/2	1w	s.Scout
+/0	 130h	m.Scout
-/0	3d	l.Scout
+/0	 100h	l.Scout
-/1	3d	l.Scout
+/0	 130h	l.Scout
-/0	1w	Harvester
+/0	 150h	Harvester
-/1	3d	Harvester
+/0	  50h	Harvester
-/0	1d	Battleship
+/0	12.5h	Battleship
 ===Abduction===
   ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
-	1w	s.Scout
+/0	250h	s.Scout
-	1w	m.Scout
+/0	250h	m.Scout
-	2w	l.Scout
+/0	300h	l.Scout
-	3d	Abductor
+/0	150h	Abductor
-/1	3d	Abductor
+/0	150h	Abductor
-	1h	Battleship
+/1	  1h	Abductor
 ===Infiltration===
   ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
-	2w	s.Scout
+/0	275h	s.Scout
-	2w	m.Scout
+/0	275h	m.Scout
-	2w	m.Scout
+/0	250h	m.Scout
-	2w	l.Scout
+/0	230h	l.Scout
-	3d	l.Scout
+/0	150h	l.Scout
-	1h	Terrorship
+/0	  1h	Terrorship
-	1h	Battleship
+/0  	  1h	Supply
-	1h	Supply
+/0	  1h	Battleship
-  	1h	Battleship
+/1  	  1h	Battleship
-after this, the mission does not end, but starts again
-with ufo 0 again.
 ===Base===
   ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
-	1w	s.Scout
+/0	225h	s.Scout
-	1w	m.Scout
+/0	225h	m.Scout
-	1w	l.Scout
+/0	250h	l.Scout
-	1h	Supply
+/0	  1h	Supply
-/1	1h	Supply
+/1	  1h	Supply
-	1h	Battleship
+/0	  1h	Battleship
-if you shoot down the supplys the battleship will not come for several weeks and a retaliation mission is started.
 ===Terror===
-  ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
+  ufo-c	time-c	 ufo-type
-	2.5h*	m.Scout
+	2.5h*    m.Scout
-	1w	l.Scout
+	250h	 l.Scout
-	1w	Terrorship
+	160h	 Terrorship
-	1w	Terrorship
+	200h	 Terrorship
-Each Terrorship will cause one terror mission, if it is not shot down before it lands.
+Landing sites of Terrorships are terror missions, not ground assault missions.  Your radars don't want to track a Terrorship after it drops off its cargo.
 sub-ufo-c is empirically always 0 for Terror acts.
@@ Line 113: / Line 96: @@
 ===Retaliation===
   ufo-c	time-c	ufo-type
-/0	50h*    s.Scout
+/0	50h     s.Scout (<i>for triggered Retaliation; 2.5h* for scheduled Retaliation in the lategame</i>)
-/0	?       m.Scout
+/0	50h     m.Scout
-/1	32h*	m.Scout (<i>add 146.5h* if 1/0 shot down at first turning point</i>)
+/1	50h*	m.Scout (<i>add 146.5h* if 1/0 shot down at first turning point</i>)
-/0	52h*    l.Scout (<i>add 3d if 1/1 shot down at first turning point</i>)
+/0	50h*    l.Scout (<i>add 3d if 1/1 shot down at first turning point</i>)
-/1	?	l.Scout
+/1	50h	l.Scout
-/0	?       Battleship
+/2	50h	l.Scout (<i>Not always...finally confirmed it could happen, no idea what factors control this one's existence.</i>)
-/1	?	Battleship
+/0	50h     Battleship
+/1	50h	Battleship
-<i>Zaimoni: Don't have exhaustive information on how these get initiated, yet.  Per NKF, hyperwave detection capability can trigger this even without other X-COM activity.  Before hyperwave detection, these aren't scheduled out of thin air.  0/0 time-c is for retaliation acts scheduled in response to shooting down UFOs.
-Unlike the others, many of these times are not measuring random at all.  There may be variance between games, or other factors, but certainly no random variation for a given UFO when a sharp time is recorded.
-Shooting down a UFO <b>immediately</b> after it slows down "post-entry" [within the same half-hour block] schedules these unreliably.  (At least, this is about the only time I see it.  Empirical probability...somewhere around/under 10%, don't have a large enough sample to be more precise.)  The time that can elapse while still triggering this is not fully known, and may depend on prior BattleScape results and/or various aspects of the scoring system.)</i>
+This mission only relates to the aliens attempting to find an unknown XCOM base in a zone.  Once the location of a base is known to the aliens, a special routine in the daily activities section generates the battleship that will attack the base.
-==Using the information==
+A retaliation mission is possibly generated after a successful interception.  The zone the mission is set will be either the location of the interception or the zone of the base from which the interceptor was launched.  The random chance of a mission being generated and the chance of which zone is selected is affected by the difficulty level of the game.
-You might find that may small scouts appear at 2:30 on the first of a month. This is due to a often found count of 5 with the first ufo on a new terror mission for the month.
+After a certain point in research or after about 9 months of game time, retaliation missions are automatically generated for each zone that contains an XCOM base at the beginning of each game month.
-To make use of this knowledge might be difficult. But say, if you see a supply ship at a location without an alien base at the end of the third week of a month, it might be on a base mission. Then you should expect a second supply ship and a battleship somewhere close. If it is on infiltration you might see two battleships. If you see a first harvester/abductor, watch out for a second within three days. With a hyperwave decoder you might have more use from the mission sketches.
+==See Also==
+* [[ACTS.DAT]] - Contains actions the Aliens will embark on
+* [[ALIEN.DAT]] - Contains alien activity for graphs
+* [[ZONAL.DAT]] - Contains priorities for alien activities
+* [[UFO Flight Patterns]]
+* [[Game Files]]
+[[Category:Game Files]]
+[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]