Ambush blips

[alex3337]

I'm not sure if this is a suggestion, a bug, or a request ...

In the final mission of my new Aliens campaign I want to use "Ambush" blips. They way I'm doing it is having alien entry points that will be active for a single round. They show up, a blip comes through, and then it closes again. You never know where they may show up ...

The lurking rule still applies: a blip has to wait 1 turn to come out of such entry if there's a soldier less than 6 squares away from it.

Thats' where the problem appears: the new entry was announced, but you never get a warning about the lurking blip, and it does not even show on the scanner because the entry is no longer there. However, the aliens will "appear" from it just fine ...

That's nastier than what I wanted it to be. At least, you should get a warning, and a solid triangle on the scanner, so that you can move away from it, or set OW, or pray louder ...

My preferred fix would be for the lurking blip to show up on the scanner, and for the commander to issue a warning, even if the entry is no longer "officially" active.

Most likely too late for 1.02 ...

[Niklas]

You will only get one commander message on new round and new entrypoints have higher priority than lurking blips.

[alex3337]

Ok, I see the point. It's my fault for opening new entries every turn that I don't get the lurking blip warning. I tested it setting a 1-turn break between ambushes, and you *do* get the warning ... but not the blip in the radar, so you don't know where they are lurking :scared:

Could it be fixed so that entries with lurking blips would show in the radar, even if they are inactive?

It should just be a slightly longer condition on the radar code ... (begging)

if (entry->start >= current && entry->end <= current)

becomes:

if ((entry-> start >= current && entry->end <= current) || entry->lurking)

(just guessing what the code looks like)

[Niklas]

I think the easiest way is to have normal lurking blips that are only activated on a specific round OR when in LOS. That is however something for the future...

[alex3337]

But would those blips be restricted by the lurking rule?

If so, it's exactly the same problem. If not ... it's a killer. Even in SH, the ambush blips had to be placed 6 squares away from a marine.

In any case, I've play-tested my mission, and so far it works well. Since I only activate 1 ambush on a give turn, it's self-obvious where the lurking warning comes from.

[Niklas]

Blips placed on map when mission starts are not forced to wait one round before moving and will not be informed by the commander when they do become active. Currently they are activated on round 1 but it wouldn't need that much change to fix it...