40GB of hard drive space is cheap. Dedication is expensive.
I mean, 40GB is still a lot though. Let's not kid ourselves here, it's hardly a trivial part of this.
...the difficulty would be listed as "Suicidal" (Any ideas on a name other then this?).
"I Like It Rough"
I will keep that one in mind.
I would think of it more as an expansion to the difficulty range than an increase in difficulty, so would tend to offer compatibility with lower difficulty modes. I can imagine people wanting a bit more variation, and the opportunity to take an unusual risk(or an easier win), who do not feel comfortable playing a full game in the highest difficulties. But that is more of a preference thing, it is your mod...
Yeah, that's a good way of describing it, an "expansion the the difficulty range". I'll be compatible with all difficulties. The only thing is how difficult the new mission will be, especially for rookies, who, as I said, have a maximum of 9 units for a regular mission. I mean, if 14 units is a sufficiently difficult challenge for rookies, well those missions are already in the code! It might make sense (and save time) to make the rookie's special challenge the normal "Very Difficult" mission on Legendary.
17 and 20 seem like fairly obvious next steps, but can you do anything else? Like give Advent armour, and throw in a bonus faceless...
Hmm. Each of those numbers would be an extra pod. That makes a lot of sense, but I'm tempted to give Legendary an extra challenge... What else can I do? Technically anything, but certain things are easier then others. Faceless would be trivially difficult to include; in fact I really like the idea of just tossing in the faceless in addition to anything else I come up with. Faceless are really easy to do because the code for adding faceless to a mission is already
in nearly every single damn mission, it just comes with a bit of code that basically says "only if a dark event is active" (this is also true for Chrysallids, so they are also easy to include if I choose). Armor? You mean, like extra armor pips? Like that "Alloy Plating" dark event? That's doable I think, but I'd have to look into some stuff first to see how doable it is. Presumably if I can make that work, I could also add other dark events like Venom Rounds and stuff. I'd have to let the player know ahead of time though (at least for something like venom rounds; adding Faceless or Chrysalids is so much more fun if I don't warn the player). In any case, I'll look into that stuff, its a nice idea.
Perhaps it could be treated like a security review is taking place and they have some elite forces doing the inspection. So they have the effects of a couple of events to represent the elite training and equipment and they have better drop rates to go with it?
Just an idea though, you would know much better than I what you want to get out of your mod.
Hmm. Again, while I like the security review thing, it means I would have to find a way of telling the player that (maybe pre-mission commentary?). And don't worry: I need ideas, I asked for ideas, and if I don't like yours I simply won't include them.
@Misco
Suicidal missions should probably contain enemies that are normally met later in the game. Lets say you meet sectopods during midgame or Mutons during early game (normally only advent and sectoids). If you make these enemies only appear in missions that force you to evac, VIP for example, the research flow won't be interrupted.
Oh yeah. Thanks for reminding me about research. Oh yes, thats very important to remember: messing up the flow of research could be bad (although I guess it would be a good reward for success.) Hmm. Maybe different suicidal missions based on how far you are in the game. That wouldn't be too difficult to do (that is, all the work needed to do this is already needed to do anything.), so thats a nice idea.
I still don't know how often to make the missions. Hmm. I guess I can focus on making the missions first, and then see about that.