Home » MODDING HQ 1.13 » Flugente's Magika Workshop » New feature: turncoats
New feature: turncoats[message #360191] Sat, 30 May 2020 03:08 Go to next message
Flugente

 
Messages:3507
Registered:April 2009
Location: Germany
While we can nowadays do several things with our spies, I feel there is still room for improvement. There aren't all that many generals to kill, and sending spies into enemy sectors just to mine intel lacks a bit... je ne sais quoi... action.



This feature aims to improve that. The idea is simple: When disguised and the enemy isn't on alert, our spies influence enemy soldiers to secretly turn sides. They have several approaches for this:

  • the basic method is to use their recruitment value. This takes into account the stats, traits, personality, disguise and recruit rating of the merc, as well as the class, level, rank of the soldier as well as sector properties. Quite a few things influence this, really.
  • another method is to additionally use seduction. How effective this is heavily depends on how attractive a merc is, and how much an enemy is attracted to their gender.
  • we can also add a bit of money to sweeten the deal...
  • ... or we can use some of our hard-earned intel to convince the soldier.
Doing so increases 'suspicion'. After a few attempts the game will inform us that we better lay low for a while, we will have to wait for a few hours before we continue. This is similar to the need to hide when blowing our cover while getting intel from enemies, as it is the same variable used.

Note that resources used will be consumed regardless of whether we are actually successful. Also note that we will need increasingly more money and intel as the game progresses. If you use this heavily I can see this becoming quite a moneysink big grin

Let's just say that this will be a lot more difficult on higher game progressions. Convincing lowly paid cannon fodder in the North-eastern swamps to switch sides is easy. Convincing blackshirts in Meduna is an entirely different game.

We will display whether an enemy is secretly a turncoat by a small symbol next to them, from this feature (I recommend turning that on).

The turncoat count is stored in a sector, so we can leave and come back later, the turncoats will still be there (not on the exactly same soldier, but a soldier of the same class). This even works with moving groups as seen in the video. If a sector has a turncoat, we see an exact troop count on the map, as well as enemy group movement direction. It thus follows that you could get an early warning of enemy movement by embedding a spy on the roads to Meduna that 'tags' any group moving through.

Until turncoats are turned, they behave just like normal enemies. After activating them, they become standard militia. Note that if we or the militia hurt a turncoat, they renege on the deal and the property is lost. They might have decided to jump ship, but they are not okay with the player using them as target practice first.

There are a few ini variables in Skills_Settings.ini:
[Covert Ops]
...

; if set to TRUE, we can try to coax enemy soldiers to become turncoats. If successful, we can order turncoats to defect to the militia later.
COVERT_TURNCOATS = TRUE

; if set to TRUE, activating all turncoats within a sector requires a radio operator
COVERT_TURNCOATS_SECTOR_ACTIVATION_REQUIRES_RADIOOPERATOR = FALSE

; a bonus to the player's rating when convincing soldiers to become turncoats. Higher is better, values in [-100; 100], default 0.
COVERT_TURNCOATS_PLAYER_CONVINCTION_BONUS = 0
COVERT_TURNCOATS_SECTOR_ACTIVATION_REQUIRES_RADIOOPERATOR is mainly there in case someone wants that extra bit of realism and decides that activating all turncoats instantly is odd. COVERT_TURNCOATS_PLAYER_CONVINCTION_BONUS is an offset to our convinction rating, the higher the easier this thing becomes.

This has been added to the trunk in r8811 & GameDir r2525. Using the new exe without the new GameDir changes your phone to put up a restraining order.

[Updated on: Sat, 30 May 2020 03:13]




I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.

If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.

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Captain

Re: New feature: turncoats[message #362008 is a reply to message #360191] Tue, 08 December 2020 18:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
David R. is currently offline David R.
Messages:1
Registered:December 2020
I am using Version: Release V1.13 (development build) (build 20.10.16) revision 8900 but I don't seem to be able to use this feature.

I have employed Elroy B. Tolken (Spy) and the settings in Skills_Settings.ini are as follows:
Quote:

; if set to TRUE, we can try to coax enemy soldiers to become turncoats. If successful, we can order turncoats to defect to the militia later.
COVERT_TURNCOATS = TRUE

; if set to TRUE, activating all turncoats within a sector requires a radio operator
COVERT_TURNCOATS_SECTOR_ACTIVATION_REQUIRES_RADIOOPERATOR = FALSE

; a bonus to the player's rating when convincing soldiers to become turncoats. Higher is better, values in [-100; 100], default 0.
COVERT_TURNCOATS_PLAYER_CONVINCTION_BONUS = 0
Elroy enters an enemy-occupied sector disguised as a soldier but when I move the cursor over an enemy and press Alt+RClick the recruit turncoat option is disabled.
I tried:
* Putting cash in Elroy's inventory
* Talking to an enemy which is far away from the others
* Creating a new female IMP character with spy trait and high wisdom value

None of them had any effect and the menu entry is always disabled.
Would you please specify the exact requirements of turning an enemy?

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Civilian
Re: New feature: turncoats[message #362775 is a reply to message #362008] Sun, 28 March 2021 18:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Brms08

 
Messages:35
Registered:June 2008
This feature is currently far too buggy. In builds 8918 and 8955, when the new recruits are "activated", the game adds a copy of the recruited enemies as militia in the tactical view but without actually removing them from the sector as enemies and because of that the sector never gets cleared of enemies. In other words, as soon as you activate them in the tactical screen, a copy of the newly recruited bunch appears on the strategic view. The other problem with it is that if you activate them without starting a turn, the game often gets stuck on the enemy's or militia's turn. No idea why it happens. I also question the logic of replacing soldiers with militia when a militia is significantly poorly equipped and less skilled. Do these soldiers become dumber and lose their equipment when recruited by the player? And why is there a seemingly hardcoded limit on how many enemy soldiers can be convinced before the remaining few gets suspicious (why should they care anyway), when every previous attempt has been successful? Makes no sense whatsoever.

[Updated on: Sun, 28 March 2021 18:55]

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Private 1st Class
Re: New feature: turncoats[message #364522 is a reply to message #362775] Sat, 26 March 2022 03:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adamos is currently offline Adamos
Messages:2
Registered:December 2010
Location: Czech republic
Hi Flugente, all,

I like this turncoat feature, however I run into some issues which you may be able to fix.

My main issue with turncoats is that they lose all gear after the battle. As I don't use the magic militia equip from vanilla, I have to equip them myself ( MILITIA_USE_SECTOR_EQUIPMENT = TRUE ). As I don't like items to magically appear, I also don't like them to magically dissapear. So if you'd be able to fix it (e.g. via dropping all equip from enemies who didn't die but would be erased to be replaced by militia)

I tried to find if there is a setting for it, but did not find any.

Also it's a bit weird that you can bribe enemy soldiers with 0$ - with highest success chance of all options (at least for spies with high wisdom and leadership).

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Civilian
Re: New feature: turncoats[message #364890 is a reply to message #360191] Thu, 22 September 2022 04:37 Go to previous message
brightsideguy is currently offline brightsideguy
Messages:1
Registered:September 2022
I'll second the request for turncoats to not lose all their gear once the fight is over (and equipping militia is on). Doesn't even have to be the gear they had while fighting, just as long as they had some form of their standard gear.

It makes it kind of not worth it to convert turncoats in the early game if you lose so many weapons in the process

.

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Civilian
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