@Bus It shouldn't as I remember having tested it back then with them active (except for the ADVENT initiative addons).
There would be problems, though, if you use Raiders and Resistance strategic spawning.
If not, I don't known.

I'd love to use this, but for whatever reason they just don't seem to spawn when their sitrep is active. Maybe it conflicts with The Hive (+ More), or MOCX (+ADVENT Initiative addons)?

@Epigamesh some of them are? The ABA Sparks are always invisible I think (though they don't show up very often), but the Advent Drones are fine when they aren't on Julian's team.

@SparraNova Are these models also invisible when they are not in Julian's team ? I don't know what could be causing this, as my mod shouldn't modify other unit appearance (though the strangest bugs can sometimes appear, especially when running a lot of mods together)

I should add to my previous comment, their HP bars don't appear either, but they still show up as targets when shooting, take damage normally, and die like normal units (though I'll need to check if they actually drop corpses as loot).

I'm having a persistent issue where some of Julian's units- the ones from other mods like the Advent Drones or ABA Sparks specifically- being invisible. They still function fine mechanically (outside of some awkward pauses while trying to hack one), but they just don't have models for some reason. This never happens with the vanilla robotic units he gets, so I have no idea what is causing this.

@Dank Potatoes This is strange. In theory, Shen last gift should have no impact. I don't know what could prevent Julian from appearing (unless having extremely bad luck : by default in the config ini, he has a 67% chance to spawn when he's still alive and the minimum forcelevel is reached)

I have had this installed for nearly a whole playthrough, and it worked great, despite my heavily modded game.
Couple of issues though:
-Julian ever appeared once, as a boss. I kept running into Advent Mecs and Sparks, but never the main man. Is it possibly because I played the Shens last Gift Mission, and killed Julian in the tower?
-I never experienced a Sectopod Prime either. I don't have ABA installed, just the standalone enemy mods you suggested. Don't know if it changes anything?

Just a heads up that Renegade Rulers is pretty broken, so the issue is likely there and not here.

@EdemBR I have tested with the hive, but not renegade rulers (I don't know why it would interfere but it might be worth a try).
The mod raiders and resistance spawning also currently prevent Julian from spawning, but, if you are not using it, I don't know what could cause this (though I would be very interested to know if you find it)

@JeffbotClassic.TTV That would be because other raiders mods (the hive exepted) use the same team as Julian.
I will try to add an exclusion in the next update, so that Julian's sitrep cannot appear when another raider one is already active.

So, just got to a mission with only robotic uprising sitrep on it, and its not working, only things that mess with teams or spawns in my modlist that im aware of is hive and renegade rulers. im using the standalones versions of advent spark, and forged sectopod and the anchor mod. Im out of ideas of why its not working, i really like the concept of this mod but i cant get it to work ;-;

the sitreps on the mission were the lost one, and waves, and robotic uprising, i was guessing because waves and lost reduces the number of enemies on the map it could be causing something

@Epigamesh I got the sitrep only once, so not sure yet

So I was using this mod and for some reason the joined the faction for fallen templars (faction mod) they werent even their normal green color just joined the templars and became purple for some reason.

@EdemBR The hive shouldn't interfere as they don't use the same team.
Other raiders mods, though, would use the same team as mine (and I haven't tested what would happen if both were to spawn together ; I preferably should add a protection to prevent this case from happening).
What sitreps were active in this mission ? Does Julian and its robots sometimes appear nevertheless, or are they always prevented from spawning (in this case, there might be something conflicting in your current modlist) ?

Maybe they use the same team?

I have the HIVE

an active sitrep? Or any on the modlist?

@EdemBR I only know about the Raider and Resistance spawning mod, which would currently prevent Julian's robots from spawning (though I still don't know why)
It should work with lost (I have seen them spawning together), and I wouldn't know why the number of sitrep would have an impact. Was there another mod spawning raiders too ?

Its possible that when there are too mant sitreps in a mission modifying anemies for this one to be ignored? i just came on a mission with lost, advanced enemies and robot uprising, but there are no robots here... im playing requien also, you think its the strep number or something else?

@Epigamesh Yea, I did notice that the targeting selections were different, I was just saying like at a quick glance without the targeting. But I get that it would be difficult due to them both using the same Templates. I was just curious, thanks

@TheCaptain Changing all the names would be really simple, but changing the names only when on Julian team would be far more complicated. Also, if you are using the unit flag mod, all units on Julian's team should use a different color for target selection (and thus be easily distinguishable from Advent)

@epigamesh Hey, I don't know how easy this would be or no, but I'm wondering if you can change the display names of the Julian Spark forces to something other than "Advent Spark" or "Advent Mec". It gets difficult to tell the pods apart when both Advent and this Sitrep are active on the map. Maybe change it to "Remnant" or something? I'm just a consumer as it is.

@Epigamesh Ah ok, so then with Spark Ruler and the standalone Spark alongside this mod, I'll have the ruler that spawns with a group of the Sparks from it's own mod, Advent squads can have the Sparks from both mods, and then the sitrep added by this mod can have Sparks from both mods.

Well, I'll try it all out and keep an eye out for any issues (I can have up to 5 sitreps on a mission, so I should run into this one pretty quick to see LMAO)

@Nom_nom_pies I don't think it will work without one of the mod's requirements.
From what I'm seeing in the inis, the Spark Ruler uses only one spark tier with a different name (and also very different from the ones I'm using, judging from the previews), whereas ABA uses three (which I'm all using for forcelevel progression).
I haven't used Spark Ruler in my campaigns so far, but I don't see why these mods would be incompatible. You should have the new sparks units (from spark rulers) appearing sometimes in my mod Julian's team (as they are added to the automated defenses lists, which I'm using), but the Spark Ruler itself will always stays on advent's side

So, question: I have the "Spark Ruler" mod ( https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2854261709 ) and that one comes with it's own regular Spark units, does that work for this mod's requirements of "A Better DLC" or "Advent Spark Standalone", and if it doesn't, then do you know if those mods incompatible with "Spark Ruler"?

@D.W I have no idea why you would be encountering this bug as this mod doesn't modify lost tower mission or elevators (though I did not tested this specifically).
Have you tried disabling this mod before the lost tower mission to see if the problem still occur ? If it does, this might be caused by one of the other mods you are using.

I encountered a bug in the DLC level of Lost Tower, where the elevator can only be used once and the soldiers behind cannot take it up, which makes this task impossible to complete

我在失落之塔这一个DLC关卡遇到了bug，电梯只能使用一次，后面的士兵无法乘坐电梯上去，这使得这个任务无法完成

I think the double sitrep (and I may be wrong) is being affected by the sitreps 2.0 mod which lets me add a custom percentage of how often sitreps show up and mean while your sitrep has its own built in percentage so may be correlated.

@JeffbotClassic.TTV Thanks for the report. I indeed forgot about the DLC missions, where it would be better to have the sitrep always disabled.
(And I don't know what is happening with the double sitrep appearance sometimes, but I will investigate this)

I just got it again and it only appeared once HOWEVER, it appeared on the mission that introduces the rulers (very strange I might add watching those snakes and robots fight each other lol) although they did kinda break cause one spawned above the map (or so I assume cause the snakes kept shooting into the sky)

@JeffbotClassic.TTV Does it appear everytime the robotic sitrep spawns (in this case, something might be happening with other mod you're using, even if I don't understand why), or was it specific to this mission with lost ?

Mission seemed normal, only one pod with reinforcements spawning, it was a lost mission and they were attacking eachother fortunately, I have not added any of your stand alone mods as far as I am aware. I really didn't see a bug other then the fact it was labeled twice

@JeffbotClassic.TTV The only explanation I would know of would be if you were also playing with Julian sitrep standalone (or with my Alternative DLC integration if you had reactivated its sitrep in this mod's config)
If that's not the case : are you playing with other raiders mods ? How does the mission plays out ? (Is it buggy, or the problem is only concerning the sitrep UI on mission's beginning ?)

I finally got the sitrep but for osme reason it appears twice? Like it says it twice in the sitreps tab?

Damb, well thank you for that anyway

@JeffbotClassic.TTV I didn't try so far to change teams as you say but I would expect it to be more difficult than a simple config edit.
As linked before, there is a mod that put lost into eTeam_One, but, again, I haven't looked into its code (so I don't know how it works).
Also, raiders mod I know of (including mine) don't have the team choice as a config parameter : this is left into the code (therefore the user can't easily change them)
Also, you won't be able, anyway, to create as much teams as you want : only eTeam_One and eTeam_Two are added thanks to the highlander.

@JeffbotClassic.TTV It is not explicitely stated in A Better Advent desccription, but you can find it in Fair Lost Targeting comments (I think I first read about it here), if you search currently at page 3.
Though it can be checked easily (as I did before commenting this) : In ABA XComAI.ini file (found under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\268500\1126623381\Config), you can find something like :
[XComGame.XGAIPlayer_TheLost]
-DistributionPercentToXCom=70
+DistributionPercentToXCom=50
These are the same ini edits realized by the Fair Lost Targeting mod (as stated in its description). So, yes, using both would be superflous (you wouldn't break anything, though)

I had some questions regarding what you said about ABA already changing the losts Ai so it has fair targeting, I can't seem to find where in the ABA it says that and just wanted to make sure that wasn't a mistake when you said "A Better Advent (so if already using ABA, Fair Lost Targetting becomes superflous)." Also adding on cause I'm not much of a modder but is it possible just to go into each factions files and place them all on different teams? like placing lost in the eTeam_one and the placing another in 2 and creating a team for 3, etc. or is that not possibe?

@jonboy Thanks !
Concerning Raiders and Resistance Spawning, users reported it prevented Julian and its robots from spawning in Alternative DLC Integration when their sitrep was active (and disabling it solved the problem). It also prevented the Hunter weapon POI from spawning (as I tested).
Sadlly, I currently do not know why there is an incompatibility here (the issue seems also to have begun occurring with newer versions of Raiders and Resistance spawning, as I remember having tested with it active when I first released the mod).

Concerning this new faction mod, now, I haven't tested if it was incompatible too, but, as the sitrep managing and spawning philosophy stayed mostly the same, I would expect so (and in doubt, I prefer to warn).

Also, yes, the AI Core should drop from T1 Julian.

Congrats on the release! Very keen to add this but just a couple of questions about the new raider faction.

What is the incompatibility issue with RedDobe's Raiders and Resistance Strategic Spawning mod since this is a 'must have' for raider factions?

Also if using the Alternative DLC Integration mod as well, does the AI Core drop after the T1 Julian is defeated?

Thanks in advance.

@LeyShade This would be really great.

@Epigamesh - It's likely a change in AI that was done so many years ago that we've gotten so used to it on our end, that amongst all the other mass amount of work we do across the Workshop, we've probably just forgotten/misremembered the exact steps we took, but chatting to you did jolt us to remember the AI thing.

Could draft a companion AI that edits the Lost at basic that could be used universally and pitch it over to you, if you're happy to throw it on the Workshop on our behalf (because we just really, really despise working with ModBuddy).

@LeyShade And of course I posted before seeing your answer.
(Though rulers should also be by default on alien team, unless you use the renegade mod)
Great to know lost target robotic invaders in your modpack. I will definitely look into it when I can.

@LeyShade Anyway, don't hesitate to report back if lost do indeed attack Julian and its acolytes in your modpack (or even if they don't, it would always be good to know)
Thanks for the link, also, I didn't know about this collection and will check it out. If you have some mod or edits that change lost behaviour as wanted, I will add them to recommendations (and to my personal modpack, granted I don't stumble upon compatibility issue). However I won't have the occasion to test it until quite some time (as I'm now away from my gaming PC)

Epigamesh - Sorry, meant to say 'Rulers', not 'Chosen'. This is what we get for phone typing in rain.

AI trees include nodes that are similar in typography to 'IsETeamLost', 'IsETeamAdvent'. These are used for targetting certain groups with abilities, as well as preventing certain groups being targetted.

Without properly looking, couldn't give exact specifics of names/functions, but the general scope works like that - Most decisions are made by AI scripts, which will call other variables to check thing, and have their own version of RNG within (RandSelector, Param). With the Lost they primiarly select targets based on their AI that references other variables to call in to decide targetting priority (viable targets), which as always, includes such as IdealRange, MoveOrShootOrOverwatch, and others.

To confirm, these Robotic invaders are attacked by the Lost (+ Hive, + Factions, + everything else) in the AML O+E without requiring any adjustments (sans normal Force Level work).

@LeyShade The Chosen are technically in the alien team, so lost should be able to target them (and I've seen them do it). Some hive occurrences are also in alien team (like the mission in hive infested city, with hive and lost, so both can fight each other)

Then it's likely the AI of the Lost, which we've greatly edited, as in their trees there is several calls that check for wether enemies are on a specific team, such as TeamXCom.

If the Lost weren't getting into fights with the Hive and Chosen, then the Lost wouldn't work correctly in the AML O+E .