SlowBlitz

Description

This mod hooks into mission generation and overrides the mission objectives for certain mission kinds. The override can be toggled on or off for each mission kind in the mod menu.

The following overrides are supported:

• []Blitz missions, "Complete the mission in X rounds";

  []Collateral damage missions, "Destroy less than X buildings";

  []Low profile missions, "Don't kill more than X enemies" and "Save more than X civilians".

The mod will not override a primary objective, and it will not let you make the overridden mission objective harder than the original.

Blitz missions override

This override changes the round limit for the secondary blitz mission objectives. "Blitz" is what the game currently calls the "complete the mission in X rounds" objectives in the code.

It can be configured to work in two ways: a flat value override that puts the specified amount to every mission, or an addition override that adds the specified amount to the existing mission limit. By default it overrides all blitz objectives to 20 rounds, you can change the amount and the kind of the override in the mod config menu or in the UserData\modsettings.json, the latter should be changed before you run the game.

Collateral damage override

This override changes the maximum allowed number of destroyed buildings, by default it is set to 10. Note that the mission description is not changed, it seems that the game has the description for this kind of missions hardcoded to always say "3 buildings" no matter what the mission objective actually is, so on the mission overview/planning screen it will still show 3 buildings but when you start the mission you should see the actual counter as 0/10 (or whatever amount you've put).

Low profile override

Low profile is the objective that represents "Don't get more than X% killed", and it is used for both "Don't kill more than X% enemies" and "Save more than X% civilians". The latter, in fact, is treated by the game as "Don't let the enemies kill more than X% civilians" so it uses the same mechanics. By default it is set to 90%. Same as with the collateral damage, the descriptions seem to be hardcoded and don't take the actual amount into account, when you start the mission it should show as 0/9 (or whatever % you've set).

Installation

The mod comes in two flavors:

• [] The default one is without the Menace modpack loader, I've decided to make the loader optional as it leads to conflicts when several mods come bundled with the loader of different versions. Use this version if you install via ModKit or if you already have the loader. Note though that the mod needs the loader v29 or newer;

• The optional one is with the Menace modpack loader. Use this one if you don't have any other mods and you don't want to mess with ModKit.

Unpack the contents to the Mods directory of the game; if you're using the version with the Menace. ModpackLoader.dll in the archive make sure you override that loader dll only if yours is older.

To check that the mod is working check the melon loader log for this line:

ObjectiveManager. Add patch applied.

It means that the mod is hooked in. The patching itself happens only on the mission screen, after you choose a planet and start an operation you should see something like this in the log:

Patching objective Complete the mission within 12 rounds., round limit 12 changed to 20

Patching objective Save more than 60% of all civilians., max killed % 40 changed to 90

Patching objective Destroy less than 60% of all enemy forces., max killed % 60 changed to 90

Patching objective Destroy less than 3 structures., buildings limit 3 changed to 10

Known issues:

- I've seen the addition override applied to an already overridden value on autosave reload, so if you re-start the same mission and you have the addition override enabled you may see it applied each time over the previous application.

- Some mods come bundled with the older version of the modpack loader which doesn't have the modkit method that's needed for SlowBlitz, and if you install them after you install this mod you won't see the objectives because the hook crashes the mission generation process. If that happens just reinstall this mod or manually copy the modpack loader from the modkit v29 or later.

- I've changed the name of the published mod file in version 1. 1. 0, so if you had downloaded v1. 0. 0 with Vortex you'll have two copies of SlowBlitz because Vortex seems to use the published mod file name instead of the mod name to identify the things. Simply remove the version 1. 0. 0 manually.