Difference between revisions of "Terror from the Void"

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Finally, there are <i>a lot</i> of miscellaneous changes and additions, some of them quite significant, but too numerous to mention in this overview (they are however covered elsewhere in the wiki).
 
Finally, there are <i>a lot</i> of miscellaneous changes and additions, some of them quite significant, but too numerous to mention in this overview (they are however covered elsewhere in the wiki).
  
=Main mechanics and features=
+
=Main mechanics=
  
 
==Oneiric Delirium==
 
==Oneiric Delirium==

Revision as of 07:53, 9 August 2022

TERROR FROM THE VOID

A Phoenix Rising Mod

Introduction

This mod represents a particular vision of how the game can be improved as far as our current modding capabilities allow. This is to say that, as all visions, it is subjective and not everyone will agree that the game has been improved by these changes, and that we can't change everything we would want to change.

It's also a work in progress.

Phoenix Rising

We are a group of Phoenix Point fans, most of us former members of the Community Council.[pending]

Features

  • New story, told by new characters, some of them from Phoenix Project
  • Integration of all DLC into the base game, both narratively and in terms of gameplay
  • The Oneiric Delirium is back, with all new mechanics: Delirium infection, experimental treatment with adverse side effects and Void Omens
  • Revamped Pandoran progression, aircraft and air combat, Umbra, haven infestation, ambushes, etc.
  • A Legend difficulty worthy of its name and a Rookie worthy of its
  • Maximum configurability; play the game on default settings, or change them as you see fit

Main objectives

This project started as an attempt to improve the narrative structure of the base game and its DLC. However, it spiraled out of control rather quickly because in our view narrative has to be told through the gameplay: you can't say there is a terrible viral outbreak but not have any infection mechanics in the game!

Better storytelling

Most of the changes can be traced to this attempt to improve the narrative: a fight against the Third Mist, a strain of the Pandoravirus that is gradually driving the survivors of the previous Mist outbreaks insane.

However, another big set of changes has little to do with narrative and is more about dialing down the meta. This concerns, on the one hand, Pandoran progression, and on the other, the ease and benefits of aggressive exploration.

Pandoran progression

Regarding Pandoran progression, Vanilla attempts to scale it to the player's performance. The way it works is that depending on difficulty, Pandorans get a certain number of Evolution Points per day (100 on Legend, 35 on Rookie). Evolution Points advance alien research, allowing Pandorans to field stronger units sooner. In addition to the fixed amount per day, Pandorans get 10 EP every time they lose a mission, 10 EP every time a nest is destroyed, 20 EP when a Lair is destroyed, and 40 EP when a Citadel is destroyed (these numbers are the same across all difficulties). Therefore, in principle it is better to leave the Pandoran Colonies alone and harvest Haven defense missions to gain resources and rep. To counter this, variable rep penalties for not destroying revealed Pandoran Colonies were introduced at some point, but this had the effect of making revealing Pandoran Colonies unfavorable for the player: the counter to meta begat more meta and so on and so forth.

In TFTV we have removed the bonus EP given to Pandorans for losing missions and colonies. Instead, each colony and infested haven generates a certain number of EP per day. In addition, destroying a Pandoran Colony may remove a Void Omen (a temporary change in base rules that carries advantages and disadvantages for the player). Conversely, there are no rep penalties for leaving revealed Pandoran Colonies alone. However, you may want to destroy them to slow down Pandoran research and remove Void Omens.

Aggressive exploration

As for aggressive exploration, veteran Phoenix Point players will tell you that the best way to get an advantage in the game is to get a second (and then third) aircraft ASAP to explore POI and experience a windfall of resources and goodies. The optimal strategy in Vanilla is probably stealing a Helios on Day 1 and using it to explore the Geoscape with a single naked recruit; ambushes happen once in a blue moon and a naked recruit is cheap to replace anyway.

In TFTV we have made ambushes far more likely and more dangerous, but also added resource crates to them. So if you explore with an insufficiently prepared squad you will not only suffer casualties, but miss on the opportunity of collecting resources and items from the crates, and this is important, as regular scavenging missions have been reduced by half.

In addition, all aircraft, except Anu Blimp, seat 4 less passengers than in Vanilla. To increase the space for units by 4, you need to equip your craft with one of the passenger modules. The passenger modules cost half the resources and take half as much time to manufacture as a Manticore in Vanilla and the cost of all craft in the game has been, in turn, reduced by this amount. Therefore, aggressive exploration, though still possible, is no longer an optimal solution.

Finally, there are a lot of miscellaneous changes and additions, some of them quite significant, but too numerous to mention in this overview (they are however covered elsewhere in the wiki).

Main mechanics

Oneiric Delirium

The new strain of the Pandoravirus, spread by the Third Mist, will inexorably advance to its ultimate and sinister purpose unless stopped by the Phoenix Project.

Oneiric Delirium events can directly cause certain effects, such as Stamina loss among Phoenix Project operatives. However, the biggest consequence of Oneiric Delirium events concerns the appearance of Void Omens, the raising of the Delirium cap and Umbra evolution.

Delirium Infection

(Replaces Corruption from DLC4)

Delirium reduces WP by the amount of Delirium a character has. This effect is, in turn, reduced when the character is well rested: each 10 points in Stamina reduces the effect of Delirium by 1. The maximum amount of Delirium a character can acquire depends on the Oneiric Delirium: at first, it's up to a third of the character's WP, later it goes up to a half of the WP and sometime later yet, it can go as high as the character's WP.

Delirium is gained by participating in missions where Mist is present ("Delirium Areas") or suffering attacks from Pandorans with Delirium or Co-Delirium damage.

How to deal with Delirium?

Stamina

A character with full Stamina reduces the effect of Delirium by 4. This is enough to negate the effects of Delirium in the early game, when Delirium cap is low and characters don't have a lot of Willpower

Bionics

Each bionic part reduces the total Delirium the character can acquire by a third and immediately removes that much accumulated Delirium from the character. (So a character with 12 WP and 4 Delirium after installing a bionic will have 0 Delirium, and may not get more than 8 Delirium, or less depending on the current ODI level).

Mutations

Each mutated body part gives a 2% damage bonus per Delirium point, so a character with 10 Delirium and 2 mutated body parts will deal 40% extra damage with each attack.

Experimental treatment

Over the course of the game you may unlock an experimental treatment that will allow you to use Mutagens to remove all Delirium from an operative, but with a chance of suffering permanent side effects.

Other

  • Mutoids: You may also unlock and choose to incorporate into your squads genetically engineered soldiers, who are immune to Delirium.
  • Vehicles: All vehicles are immune to Delirium.
  • Mist Repellers: Mist Repellers reduce the amount of Mist on the Geoscape.

Umbra

What are the Umbra? Purple phantoms? Oil monsters? Nobody knows for sure, but it seems that they only appear in missions where operatives with Delirium are present and the more Delirium they have among them, the higher the chance of Umbra appearance. In addition, typically the Umbra will only attack characters with Delirium.

Void Omens

Void Omens are temporary changes or suspensions of ordinary game rules. There are many different Void Omens; when a Void Omen is in effect, it is shown as a special objective that describes what it does. Typically a Void Omen has a positive and a negative effect for the player: it is an invitation to change your strategy to take advantage of the positive, and minimize the impact of the negative.

Ruleset

A Void Omen has a 90% chance of appearing along with any Oneiric Delirium event that occurs after the first one.

There can be up to 4 Void Omens simultaneously on Legend, 3 on Hero, 2 on Veteran and 1 on Rookie.

Void Omens are removed when a Void Omen is not rolled with an Oneiric Delirium event, when a Lair or a Citadel is destroyed (or a Nest on Rookie), or when a new Void Omen is rolled when the maximum number of simultaneous Void Omens has already been reached.

In all these cases the Void Omen that was rolled the earliest will be removed.

Exploration

Beyond the havens, it's a dangerous world, but you need to go out there to gather supplies. Any exploration can result in an ambush, but you will always find some resources in those missions: going after them is what got your team ambushed in the first place!

A few tips:

exploring unknown locations with an undermanned or under equipped team will likely result in total loss, and the opportunity cost of not being able to gather the resources and items that you need for your war effort ambushes are tough because infinite and substantial waves of enemy reinforcements will start arriving almost immediately; if you are not confident about your chances, don't try to get to every crate vehicles are very useful for exploration; they are resilient and have plenty of cargo space

Passenger modules

All aircraft, except Anu Blimp, seat 4 less passengers than in Vanilla. To increase the space for units by 4, you need to equip your craft with one of the passenger modules. The starting Manticore comes with the FAR passenger module, which also (very slowly) recuperates the Stamina of all those on board. To manufacture additional FAR modules, you need to research the corresponding technology, which is unlocked after you research Phoenix Archives. There are two additional passenger modules that you may unlock in the course of the game.

You will notice that the passenger modules cost half the resources and take half as much time to manufacture as a Manticore in Vanilla. The cost of all craft in the game has been, in turn, reduced by this amount. Therefore, a Manticore now costs only half the amount of resources and takes twice as fast to be manufactured.

The aircraft have a modular design, and you will want to use some of them for interception (and trading), and others for exploration (because of the risk of ambushes) and transporting operatives to tactical missions.

Injuries, bionics and mutations

Operatives that suffer a crippling injury (get a limb disabled during combat) will have their Stamina reduced to 0 after the combat. So will the characters who receive a bionic or a mutation. In addition, be mindful that the Factions may react negatively to your choices regarding augmentations (who doesn't like mutations? Who doesn't like bionics? Wink-wink, nudge-nudge)

Diplomacy

All penalties to the attitude of the different factions towards Phoenix Project have been doubled, and doing story critical missions to take the diplomatic relationship with a faction to a supportive, aligned or allied level normally carries substantial penalties with the other factions.

It is still possible to get allied with all the factions, but it will take considerable effort. More realistically, you may aim at being allied with one faction, on good terms with another and on being barely friendly (or even hostile) with the remaining faction.

Pay attention to the choices in exploration and haven events, and consider them in light of your overall strategy.

Research

There are many changes to research. A lot of text was adjusted due to story changes, and some technologies have been switched or moved around their research trees. The biggest change concerns Reverse Engineering: now reverse engineering an item grants access to the underlying research. For example, reverse engineering a Deimos Assault Rifle allows researching Laser Weapons.

This is another way of obtaining faction research, in addition to stealing it, gaining access to it through Diplomacy or purchasing it at the Bazaar.

Infestation

Havens destroyed in the mist have a chance of becoming infested instead.

Pandoran Evolution

Pandorans get a certain number of fixed and variable Evolution Points per day, depending on the difficulty chosen by the player. The variable amount depends on the number and type of surviving Pandoran Colonies. Pandorans do not get any EP for losing missions or colonies. This is a major departure from Vanilla, where Pandoran Evolution scales with player's actions, especially on lower difficulty levels, where fixed amount per day is low but the variable amount from losing missions and colonies is the same on all difficulties.

Compatibility with other mods

TFTV was designed from the ground up and tested to be played with BetterClasses. It is also fully compatible with BetterEnemies, for players seeking an additional challenge. It may work with other mods as well, but that is not guaranteed.

Changes to medbay

Medbay heals 16 HP per hour

Marketplace

There are big changes coming to the Marketplace, but for now the cutscenes have been removed, all missions are deemed completed as soon as the Market is encountered, and duplicate items are no longer sold.