Campaign pacing

[ChemBro]

I want to know how long in ingame months/years the game is intended to last. I'm playing the full campaign in 2.4 on easier and the game went like that:

Up until 1 (ingame) year: Almost everything discovered.
1 year: Alien base dectected, new research (Herakles drop ship and other things).
1 year, 3 months: Now almost everything discovered.
1 year, 8 months: Nothing new. Last new ship was the corrupter, particle beam cannon still missing.

Let's say, the pacing of the campaign went well until 1 year, 3 month ingame time. After that, the corrupter took some time until it showed up, the last research item I guess would be the particle beam cannon and "man-portable particle beams".

Will the particle beam cannon ever show up in 2.4? (Keep in mind, that I'm playing on easier). Why is there nothing (well, not "nothing", but about 1 to 0 research things per month) to do after 1 year and 3 months (again on easier)? There should be a virus spread, but it is still at 0% for me. I know, I can finish the game with playing the alien base mission, but I want at least see the particle beam cannon, so that my heavy could get something other in his hand than the heavy laser, I gave him at the beginning of the game.

Is there something else, that I haven't seen in the campaign, that will show up? I heard of the alien bomber ship or so. Will this ship show up?

[geever]

particle beam cannon appear around overall alien interest 500, bomber is not yet in campaign afair.

-geever

[H-Hour]

You've probably about exhausted what's in the game now. It tends to max out around around 400 alien interest, which on easy would be 400 days.

[ChemBro]

I'm guessing, I can't see what "alien interest" means? And how do I get alien interest up, besides waiting? Does it get up with me letting some missions slide?

Also: Why doesn't the virus spread go up?

[H-Hour]

You do not have any control of alien interest. It increases over a set period of time, depending on difficulty. On easy, it's every 24 hours.

[ChemBro]

So, is it possible to see the particle beam cannon on normal? And is it also possible, that the virus will spread on normal?

Edit: Ah, man. The particle beam cannon showed up the alien mission. Oh well.

[H-Hour]

In 8 saves I have from 2.4/2.5, no one has researched the Particle Beam Cannon infantry weapon. It looks like it first appears at 500 interest, so you're looking at 1 year and 5 months, approximately, on easy difficulty.

I only see one save that has XVI in nations, on very hard, at alien interest 610.

[ChemBro]

In 8 saves I have from 2.4/2.5, no one has researched the Particle Beam Cannon infantry weapon.

That is... I don't like that. I had the particle beam cannon in 2.3.

I attached my endgame savegame in the other thread. Might be helpful.

Edit: One thing... in the credits: Shouldn't it be copyright till 2012 and not 2011?

[Jon_dArc]

In 8 saves I have from 2.4/2.5, no one has researched the Particle Beam Cannon infantry weapon. It looks like it first appears at 500 interest, so you're looking at 1 year and 5 months, approximately, on easy difficulty.

Yep. I've had it show up, but that involved some substantial use of the console to increase interest during slow patches.

~J

[H-Hour]

The original plan was for the campaign to end around 1,000 alien interest, but of course we've still got a lot of late-game content to add. At the moment, it tends to end around 400 but of course the player can continue playing.

To try and better balance campaign progression in future releases, I've drawn up a rough outline of our campaign storyline/content.

** SPOILER ALERT ** Campaign Staging - This includes lots of content that isn't even included yet, so don't read this if you want to be surprised.

Please put comments in the discussion page.

[Jon_dArc]

Is there a guide somewhere to the planned role of the interest subtypes?

~J

[H-Hour]

As I understand it, alien interest in particular missions rises due to different events in the game. When the game is spawning missions, it spawns the type of missions that are most in demand.

Here is an outline of events that change individual mission interest values.