Airstrike rewards

[legit1337]

If I actually do a scout retrieval mission, I can get 70,000$+ on the loot. But airstriking is only 15,000$? I thought airstriking was supposed to be a viable alternative for grinding out the missions. You should at LEAST get 25k or something.

[winterwolves]

Yeah, I agree here.

I don't feel like I can afford to not do ground missions.

[silencer]

Shhhh or Chris will lower loot reward

[Tomasp3n]

Shhhh or Chris will lower loot reward

That would totally suck...

Is it possible to mod the airstrike rewards, I think they should be at least double to stay in line with what the tutorial information says, that Airstrikes are a viable alternative but without "loot" rewards.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Tomasp3n

[Solver]

Airstrikes feel worthless now. They are about 1/6th to 1/5th of the money for doing the mission, and of course no alien tech. Which means that they have basically become a button to use if my team is unavailable. It's fine that funding is mostly tied to the nations, not loot, but there's now no incentive to airstrike except as a last-ditch thing when there is no other option.

[Tomasp3n]

Yup, either that or you're a bit tired of doing three corvettes in a row. I tend to do one or two ground missions per UFO wave, and Airstrike the rest for convenience, but it always makes me feel bad to lose out on so much cash.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Tomasp3n

[Irishguy117]

I'm having to airstrike so much that I'm considering investing in an entire second team, the lost income from having to airstrike so many feels like it might actually cover the cost of a second dropship, sets of armor and weapons. And thats a really high cost.

[Solver]

That is a larger issue, then. I know you are not supposed to do every crash site, and with airstrike rewards at a decent level, that is justifiable - you're taking some cash, but also avoiding the risk of losing your soldiers. Basically, letting airstrike be a zero-risk low-reward scenario vs. the high-risk high-reward ground mission. But the current airstrike feels extremely close to zero-risk zero-reward.

[Irishguy117]

That is a larger issue, then. I know you are not supposed to do every crash site, and with airstrike rewards at a decent level, that is justifiable - you're taking some cash, but also avoiding the risk of losing your soldiers. Basically, letting airstrike be a zero-risk low-reward scenario vs. the high-risk high-reward ground mission. But the current airstrike feels extremely close to zero-risk zero-reward.

Well look at it, Airstriking a scout will get me 15k. But doing the mission will net me 70-80k. So if I can scoop up say four extra scouts a month, thats an extra 256k, total of 316k for shooting down those scouts. (I'm not entirely sure how airtriking vs ground assault works for regional funding, so for the purposes of this argument I'm going to ignore that aspect) That pays for a shrike and the soldiers within the first month counting only cash. It also significantly helps my stores of alenium and alien alloys(Or alternatively, gives me a surplus of alenium and alien alloys that I can then sell for even more profit). If we equip this team with two Scatter lasers, two Laser Carbines, and six laser rifles, along with ten suits of Wolf Armor, thats 880K. So within three months of four scouts a month, your second team has paid for itself and its equipment with the difference between airstrikes and ground assaults. That formula breaks down completely when we start picking up the occasional corvete or Landingship but I don't feel like doing all the math on that.

The point is that at the very least, the tooltip should be changed from "Air-striking gives you almost as much money" to "Airstriking gives you nowhere near as much money but is better than letting the aliens get away"

EDIT: All these calculations were done for Veteran difficulty.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Irishguy117

[dpelectric]

The point is that at the very least, the tooltip should be changed from "Air-striking gives you almost as much money" to "Airstriking gives you nowhere near as much money but is better than letting the aliens get away"

I've thought the exact same thing myself. I'm also surprised to learn that people play the game with only a single strike team; I thought at least two teams (one for each hemisphere) was a given

[Tomasp3n]

I've thought the exact same thing myself. I'm also surprised to learn that people play the game with only a single strike team; I thought at least two teams (one for each hemisphere) was a given

Really? No, I play with one team, after you get the Shrike it's not a problem going to the other part of the globe (as in it doesn't take like 2 days to get there...).

So about editing the files to incease the rewards for the airstrike, is it doable? (although I'm not sure I would, it feels like cheating if it isn't in vanilla. But maybe if I change that and go up one difficulty level to veteran my conscience will be clear anyway...)

[Irishguy117]

I always used one team before, but I think I just convinced myself to get a B team. No idea where I'm going to get the startup cash though. My problem is my A team is already taking casualties like mad. Corvettes usually wipe out all my experienced soldiers with their maddening death funnels and from there its a struggle to keep a few sergeants and lieutenants hand at all times. Starting up a team of all privates is gonna put people through the meat grinder.

[dpelectric]

I don't want to hijack this thread, since it's supposed to be about airstrike rewards, but in my opinion a B team pays for itself since you can hit theoretically twice as many crash sites that way, with the correspondingly greater financial rewards vs. airstriking everything you can't get to. And in the long run at least a few of your B team troops will survive to become high-level officers, which you can transfer to your main squad if necessary for massive assaults and the final mission...

[Tomasp3n]

Since the Dropships have so much fuel it's pretty easy to take several UFO's in succession without going back to base (their ammo is replenished between the UFO's anyway), so even if taking more crash sites would make a second team financially viable, it's even more so to simply have one and STILL do all or most of the crash sites...

[Irishguy117]

Since the Dropships have so much fuel it's pretty easy to take several UFO's in succession without going back to base (their ammo is replenished between the UFO's anyway), so even if taking more crash sites would make a second team financially viable, it's even more so to simply have one and STILL do all or most of the crash sites...

Huh, I was under the impression yuo still had to go back to base to rearm. Regardless, that's assuming zero casualties on the mission, which is unlikely.

[victorix58]

@on topic - GH reduced the airstrike reward at some point and I am actually in favor of this change. Now I have to do missions to get materials and money, and I can airstrike if it is too far away or my team is too beat up. With higher rewards, I just airstriked everything and did little actual playing. If you are sick of doing missions, you probably don't feel like playing xenonauts at the moment because that is really the main portion of the game.

[silencer]

If I remember correctly from latest change - doing Airstrike will give + on monthly income, rather than single cash surge.

[legit1337]

If I remember correctly from latest change - doing Airstrike will give + on monthly income, rather than single cash surge.

No, all funding rewards are from the shootdown. Airstriking just give you flat cash.

[silencer]

I said it wrong - the cash from airstrike was reduced but your standing with country should go up meaning at the end of the month you should get a raise. At least that is what I understood from the description.

[legit1337]

I said it wrong - the cash from airstrike was reduced but your standing with country should go up meaning at the end of the month you should get a raise. At least that is what I understood from the description.

No, all relations boosts are from shootdowns.

[Tomasp3n]

@on topic - GH reduced the airstrike reward at some point and I am actually in favor of this change. Now I have to do missions to get materials and money, and I can airstrike if it is too far away or my team is too beat up. With higher rewards, I just airstriked everything and did little actual playing. If you are sick of doing missions, you probably don't feel like playing xenonauts at the moment because that is really the main portion of the game.

I'm not sick of doing missions, I really like the GC. BUT doing three corvettes in a row every couple of days gets a bit repetetive. I don't know how many GC missions you're "supposed" to do in the game, but I've done around 40 in my current playthrough and then I've still airstriked ALOT of UFO's. I don't think asking for a little bit higher rewards from Airstrikes is a bad think, you still miss out on soldier experience, equipment etc. You shouldn't get the same amount of cash as you do from going on a ground mission, just more than you get now when you get only 1/5 of the cash when airstriking (When it says in the text information that it is a VIABLE alternative to airstrike alot of UFO's. It's not. I'm only playing normal, but on veteran I'm guessing this is even more important). Double the cash from airstrikes seems good to me.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Tomasp3n

[Solver]

Yes, the in-game text says airstrike is a viable alternative that gets you nearly as much money, while in reality you're lucky to get 20% of the money.

Funding is fairly tight in the game as it stands now. I like it, but it does make doing as many ground missions as possible a requirement. Somewhat grindy, avoiding which was the whole point of airstrikes. Doing a Corvette crash site buys me two shiny new Laser Rifles or a heavy laser weapon, an airstrike buys me a suit of Jackal Armour. It is not really comparable.

[victorix58]

I'm not sick of doing missions, I really like the GC. BUT doing three corvettes in a row every couple of days gets a bit repetetive. I don't know how many GC missions you're "supposed" to do in the game, but I've done around 40 in my current playthrough and then I've still airstriked ALOT of UFO's. I don't think asking for a little bit higher rewards from Airstrikes is a bad think, you still miss out on soldier experience, equipment etc. You shouldn't get the same amount of cash as you do from going on a ground mission, just more than you get now when you get only 1/5 of the cash when airstriking (When it says in the text information that it is a VIABLE alternative to airstrike alot of UFO's. It's not. I'm only playing normal, but on veteran I'm guessing this is even more important). Double the cash from airstrikes seems good to me.

Guess I am not that far into the game with this build. Doing forty crash sites and still needing to do them for money reasons sounds pretty extreme.

[StellarRat]

It used to be more, but was lowered at the end. My guess is that Chris didn't get all the documentation updated. I don't really have a problem with the current amount. Mostly you run missions to get materials and tech advances, so I do A LOT of airstrikes as you only need one copy of each UFO type plus some officers/leaders to keep advancing. I believe you also get a small relations bonus for airstrikes too, so you have to consider that as part of the rewards. The nation funding is FAR more important than any cash you get from running ground missions.

[Solver]

Do people really do just one or two missions per UFO type? Like, having done five or six missions by the time landing ships show up?