Doing Every Mission - Solution?

Crash sites could simply time out faster so the player can't get to them all (dropships could be reduced in speed, not range, as well). Smaller crashes would time out faster than larger ones.

Also I'll echo my sentiment from before:

I still feel scout maps should be smaller to make early game snappier and reduce mid/end game tedium. Quick simple shootouts to get you started, there are plenty of large maps and long missions to be had later on.

Alternatively, "donating" a crash site might require a player to send some higher ranked guys to act as advisors or mission commanders. They would never die on these missions and you get money but, as a tradeoff, some of your guys would be unavailable for the duration of the mission. Donating larger sites would require more officers so you can't "spam" this kind of auto-resolve.

Like some have mentioned maybe these officers of yours could even pick out some local talent and come back with a decent recruit. So basically it's alien equipment and money vs. not risking soldiers, money and potential recruit.

I never feel obligated to clear all the crash sites and only running one dropship limits my options But you could add a certain degree of randomness to the whole affair. As soon as a UFO is shot down in a particular country a counter could start as to when that country responds and subsequently clears the site on it's own accord removing it from play rather than it just 'disappearing' as it currently does. You don't NEED to have a negative effect, other than not getting any cash or experience, but that country will, sooner or later bomb or clear the site itself if left by the player without them having to 'donate' the site. It isn't much different but it offers an explanation to the player.

As it stands you have random bombing of ships and ferry's and all that. Use the same mechanism to replace a UFO site with a 'Local forces clear and eliminate UFO crash site' after a period of time based upon the countries funding to the Xenonaught program. Low funding nations act on their own accord much quicker to do so as they simply do not trust the Xenos to act but countries that have a higher funding subsequently trust that the situation will get dealt with so the player gets more time to respond accordingly.

Perhaps even penalize the player for not dealing with those nations (Maybe both sides of the coin?) that give the player more funding to deal with the alien incursions. I know you're not looking to penalize the player for not dealing with crash sites but it really does fit the theme of the game for nations to cut funding for the Xeno's when they leave aliens running around the countryside in favour of fixing other countries alien woes.

You could have an option to carpet bomb/ICBM the site yourself so that you don't get any negative effects for not acting, or positive ones, but you'll need available aircraft/silo to do the deed. To reward the player for 'auto' dealing with the situation, you could get a minor cashflow bonus for clearing the site as well... either a flat bonus or relative to the fallen craft's size.

Don't abilities cap out at 100? I thought they did have some kind of hard cap.

Anyway, unrelated note: as thothkins says I think it's important that if the player does all the missions, he's not actually penalized by having very poor relations with the funding blocks. It's counter-intuitive - he'd just be doing his job!

I just got a TUs skill at the start of 1980 to go to 101 so maybe not

Yeah, they have a bad habit of going one more if you haven't zeroed out the capability to earn points in that score in gameconfig.

Soldier XP is always mentioned as a reason for wanting to clean up all crash sites yourself so why not attack that point?

Seconding this, I feel compelled to put my men through every encounter humanly possible if only because getting them to a point where they can shoot semi-straight or move at more than a brisk jog takes forever.

Even the slightly better than raw recruits you start with are frankly painful to use for the first two dozen missions, considering they're barely statistically on par with scrub alien non-combatants despite allegedly being hand-picked combat vets, and the gap only grows ever more obvious as the game progresses unless you force them to improve at every opportunity you can muster.

I've always thought that there being more a focus on your troops being outmatched due to technology rather than physical fitness makes more sense in context, considering all the in-game lore about their poor adaptation to terran atmosphere. Starting out, trained troops in their physical prime are being outmaneuvered and outperformed by the alien equivalent of office workers with asthma.

Perhaps putting less emphasis on increasing troops physical stats (currently being able to nearly double virtually all of them to the 100-ish range) by giving them higher default stats, but also a slightly lower maximum ceiling on improving those scores would work. Say, a troop who starts with 50 strength would only ever be able to increase it to 70 at most, meanwhile someone who started at 80 could easily max it, representing the difference in their current soldier conditioning versus the absolute best their body could ever allow for.

If this were to be implemented, I suggest adding an option to the popup that appears when you reach a crash site to the effect of "Assist Local Forces" where your team is then tied up for X number of hours (optional, depending on difficulty to code) and you get a message saying something to the effect of "Under the leadership of your Xenonaut team, the local forces were able to successfully assault the crash site with far fewer casualties than would otherwise be possible. As a gesture of gratitude for this, and the recovered technology they offer a cash bonus of $___" The end result would have to be comparable cash and standings increase to clearing it yourself (otherwise it doesn't fix the problem), which leaves the question of soldier XP as the remaining reason to run missions (including ones that pose no actual risk).

It still doesn't make a huge amount of sense (if these standing armies can clear UFOs reasonably well, why are there Xenonaut ground teams instead of just investing purely in R&D/air defense), but it does at least keep them as the tip of the spear in the fight.

Because it's no issue to take a the better part of a day to mobilize a company of troops, scramble gunships, saturate the area with direct aerial gunfire, establish a cordon around the craft, and slowly tighten it up until you had a bunch of snipers and machine gunners with interlocking fields of fire encircled around the craft as riflemen pushed up with CBRN troops and gassed the hell out of the aliens that remained inside and survived the air support

The Xenonauts accomplish this with usually not much more than a couple fire teams, in a matter of hours.

There's literally nothing the Xenonauts do early on that couldn't be replicated by national military forces once they're on the ground; they'd be difficult to deal with quickly, which is what the Xenonauts do.

If you were to add something like this, I would focus on the concept of both having different benefits and not end up with a better best situation.

It should be a supplemental mechanic.

Giving up a site would give you a small funding bonus based on UFO size.

Result = Players give up sites they cant otherwise do, extra sites that would have rotted otherwise OR they skip missions they dont feel like doing.

Players can choose to send a Chinook to a site they give up, which gives them a slightly larger funding boost, and the soldiers sent on the mission would receive experience.

Result = Players do as many missions as they can, and then create a secondary team they use to "Train" new squads of soldiers on assisted missions.

The cost of setting up a secondary team is high as it is, and then finding a good way to gain them experience normally results in negative experiences for the player.

Rookies = Greater risk to your Veterans that are babysitting them, and leveling 1-2 at a time for redundancy creates a situation of...well I need them to replace losses, but I wouldnt have taken a loss had I brought all veterans.

And by the time the missions start to grind a bit, is around the time you could use a secondary team, and outfitting and training them adds to the grind by slowing down and complicating missions. (Not to mention increases the chance of deaths doing something for the primary purpose of creating replacements for lost soldiers)

Therefore use the extra sites to train rookies, it gives the player a safe way to train rookies, and doesnt slow down their game due to having to train up rookies manually, and allows greater redundancy...which can mitigate a more dangerous balance of the game.

Lets face it, people want challenging missions where risk of death is all around them, and they want to take deaths so this risk seems real....and they want to beat every mission without loosing a soldier.

XCOM handled this conflicting desire by giving you an excess # of soldiers per mission, and made it so you WOULD take losses...which created the "Scout Fodder" tactic.

The problem was that having that many soldiers really slowed down the gameplay.

But games since have lowered/GREATLY lowered the number of soldiers and therefore had to decrease the risk of death (make the game easier)...which again risk of death is a key concept of the game...and leads to save/loading because you just CANT afford to loose that soldier...making risk of death pointless.

With this new concept you could keep the risk of death but allow players to mitigate losses better. Instead of I lost two soldiers, so now I have rookies going on missions which causes the player to have an increased risk of loosing more, starting a downward spiral OR the I'm bring rookies to train them up to replace losses, which caused me to take losses I wouldnt have had if I had brought all my Veterans.

Summary:

In order to reduce the number of missions a player does, give them the ability to turn over the rights to a crash site to a funding nation, for Points and allow then to send soldiers to assist, which essentially just gives them experience. ("Auto-Trains" them with low or no risk of death)

Therefore it isnt a situation of better/best so much, and a player isnt penalized for doing or not doing every mission.

*In reality it'd still be better to send 8 rookies with ballistic weapons on a mission against a lightly damaged Cruiser vs sending them to assist...but taking that option is asking for a failed mission unless you are a Master Level player...and even they probably would want to mess with that situation.

You could even have the assisting carry a risk of death, higher the rank the lower the chance of the soldier dieing...but deaths should be low anyways. (If a rookie dies...so what? The ones that live can be used as replacements as they level up)

Mytheos has a good point. The small UFOs popping up throughout the game are there to allow training of rookies, for the most part. How about we incorporate training rookies into the local forces bit so we don't have to do the tedious rookie-training-missions over and over again and so we can focus on the fun stuff; using already trained soldiers to take out aliens using high-tech weapons.

Under my idea, we'd have three options available to deal with crash sites (short of simply ignoring them):

a) Do the Ground Combat Normally

Same benefits as we currently have: artifacts, soldier stat increases, relationship bonus, research materials, etc.

b) Offer Crashsite to Local Forces

You can give the crash site to the local forces to let them handle it themselves.

This you a relationship boost because they get all of the artifacts, the research materials, etc.

c) Assist Local Forces

You can give the crash site to the local forces and send a dropship of soldiers to the site.

This gives you a higher relationship boost and increases the skills of the soldiers used, provided they have low stats. However, the soldiers also are unavailable for 6 (?) hours as they assist the local forces. There also could be a chance for the soldiers to be wounded or killed.

Involving Stats: If the soldier's have stats under 65 (?) then there would be a chance (I'm thinking 75%) that they would gain one skill point in that sub-65 stat. Once they hit 65 in that stat they cannot increase it by assisting local forces anymore. However, even if your soldiers aren't getting stat-ups, you still get a higher relationship boost than if using the normal "Offer Crash Site to Local Forces" option because you're giving them more (rights to artifacts vs rights to artifacts and assistance in getting them).

Involving Being Wounded: maybe 30% chance for light wounds, 10% chance for heavy wounds, 1% chance of death, otherwise 59% chance they don't take any damage.

How to incorporate into the game, as far as the UI goes:

When you click on the crash site in the geoscape and the little menu pops up, simply give another option (besides intercept/send forces) "Offer Crash Site to Local Forces". This produces option (b) above.

When you send a dropship of soldiers, and the "Begin Mission" prompt comes up, there could be another option there as well, "Assist Local Forces" which produces option © above.

Restrictions to Local Force Involvement

The local forces shouldn't be allowed to handle a UFO before you have done at least three (?) ground missions with that UFO type.

This is for several reasons:

a) You need to have an opportunity to get research materials, and if you decide not to do a crash site and simply let the local forces do it you may miss out on important datacores and other materials required for progressing.

b) You should have the opportunity to experience every awesome UFO the devs have worked on; it's only fair to them.

c) As far as lore goes, the Local Forces aren't going to assault the UFO blind like the Xenonauts do. They need interior maps, after-action reports, and reconnaissance on the enemy. Thus, once you've done three, say, corvettes, you've gathered enough intel to sufficiently brief the local forces on how to take corvettes and what to expect, and only then are they ready and willing to take the crash site themselves.

d) You shouldn't be a slacker and simply never do any missions. By forcing the player to do at least 3 missions of each UFO type you know for a fact that they will have at least three encounters with each type of UFO. This knowledge will be invaluable for balancing, I'm sure.

Important Note Concerning Relationships:

The relationship boost of doing a ground mission yourself should not be negligible. You should be able to play and win the game by doing every single crash site yourself. You shouldn't be penalized by taking the long way 'round, as it were, and having the Xenonauts never delegate their responsibilities, if you can successfully do that. Because you would be selling loot and getting more materials you wouldn't need to rely on the funding as much, so we can make the relationship boost from doing it yourself smaller than if you gave the mission to the local forces. However, it can't be too small a boost, otherwise it'd penalize the guys who want to do every mission.

Suggestion:

In the UFO reports that the science division gives the player, why not have the scientist suggest that you leave the smaller crash sites alone, and focus on the larger, more dangerous, more important ones. After all, the local forces can handle it.

EDIT: EchoFourDelta Had a Good Idea:

We'll use a light scout for an example here, though it applies to all UFOs:

We have to do light scout ground missions ourselves three times to unlock Assist Local Forces. After we Assist three times we unlock Offer Crash Site to Local Forces. This way we kind of teach the local forces how to take care of the sites themselves. Brilliant idea, E4D.

That's a really good idea, Gizmo. You could do it in a gradient, too, because after a while even assisting the local forces in this model would lose its benefit. Say assisting them becomes available after a few Xenonaut attacks on light scouts, and turning it over completely opens up after using the "assisting the troops" option a few times?

So, you'd have to first do a few of the light scouts yourself, then you'd have to assist a few times, then you'd be able to give it totally to the forces? I like that idea. I'll alter my text above to reflect the new idea.

Seconding this, I feel compelled to put my men through every encounter humanly possible if only because getting them to a point where they can shoot semi-straight or move at more than a brisk jog takes forever.

Even the slightly better than raw recruits you start with are frankly painful to use for the first two dozen missions, considering they're barely statistically on par with scrub alien non-combatants despite allegedly being hand-picked combat vets, and the gap only grows ever more obvious as the game progresses unless you force them to improve at every opportunity you can muster.

I've always thought that there being more a focus on your troops being outmatched due to technology rather than physical fitness makes more sense in context, considering all the in-game lore about their poor adaptation to terran atmosphere. Starting out, trained troops in their physical prime are being outmaneuvered and outperformed by the alien equivalent of office workers with asthma.

Perhaps putting less emphasis on increasing troops physical stats (currently being able to nearly double virtually all of them to the 100-ish range) by giving them higher default stats, but also a slightly lower maximum ceiling on improving those scores would work. Say, a troop who starts with 50 strength would only ever be able to increase it to 70 at most, meanwhile someone who started at 80 could easily max it, representing the difference in their current soldier conditioning versus the absolute best their body could ever allow for.

Out of interest, why do you assume the alien non-combatants are inherently bad at fighting rather than just being less well equipped (in terms of armour and better sensors etc)? The lore even states that they are all clones.

I've not read the full thread yet, as it's the weekend, but I'm not keen on any idea that involves an auto-resolve using Xenonaut troops. I want a distinction between the Xenonauts doing the crash site and the other option. The ground combat is the most important part of the game and I don't want to have an auto-resolve for it in any guise.

Money is useful in the game, but ultimately the researchable alien resources and soldier experience can only be gained through combat. Allowing that to be gained with no risk (or risk based on a calculation rather than gameplay) seems counter to the intended way of playing the game.

I still think the local forces just airstriking the site and hoping there's something usable left over is a plausible option.

I like your idea Chris. However, there ought to some parameters as to what sites you can simply hand off (see below.) Also, I think this might influence certain players to make an aggressive effort to attempt to achieve air superiority over the world something you said the game was not about. That can probably be prevented or maybe I'm just thinking of a problem that doesn't exist.

I really like Gizmo's/E4D's idea about having to go to a certain number of one type or another of UFO before you can hand off to the locals. I also really like his idea about requesting local assistance on a cooperative mission. That would be a very cool option and probably not too hard to add to the program. It would also solve my "Interesting situation" problem in the beta section. Two birds with one stone is always good.

Out of interest, why do you assume the alien non-combatants are inherently bad at fighting rather than just being less well equipped (in terms of armour and better sensors etc)? The lore even states that they are all clones.

Because you call them noncombatants and not something else. That means someone who doesn't participate in combat. If you name something a "noncombatant," it carries certain connotations and implications. These are random, unarmored guys who have a stash of pistols in their craft in case they go down while flying their survey and have to defend themselves. The general assumption would probably be that they're not that good at fighting, by sheer implication of their training and utilization, and on a more meta level, their stats in comparison to humans combatants and the rest of the aliens.

If we go with the 'they're all clones' methodology that leaves the question: why aren't aliens at terror sites all elite quality troops?

Why don't they all have the same TU's etc? We as players are left to assume that they may be genetic clones, but have been artificially imprinted with different knowledge.

Why? Because the aliens are mass-produced products. It is likely faster/more cost efficient to specialize them to different tasks. Non-coms have less TU's and accuracy because they're only imprinted with rudimentry aim and combat experience, but likely have better piloting and engineering skills. The higher the ranks of aliens go, it can be assumed there are less of them given the amount of knowledge/time that has to be input into their minds.

Why would this take time? In humans, neural pathways change in our minds based on knowledge gained, which takes time and highlights that learning is a process. In the cloned aliens they can speed up the process, but the neural pathways still need some time to form. For the combat clones, the neural pathways also need to adequately connect with the muscles to allow more fiber recruitment on demand (thus higher TU's and strength).

With the above, I too concluded the aliens were grown with different goals, but with some restriction to just making them all 'elite'.

This also begs the question: why aren't aliens in terror missions using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal when they'll obviously have to contend with resistance? There must be some reason why their equipment is available in a pyramid pattern.

I don't have much to add over what has already been said, I only had one thought but no idea if it's a good idea or not.

How about having a "black market" or "shadow faction" that you can sell the crash site to? May be a terrible idea but maybe something interesting could be created from it. Lore wise you would tell the nations YOU cleared it but in fact you sold it to this militant rebel/shadow faction to deal with, what bonuses/penalties this could involve I'm not sure of, my idea is just to plant this thought and possibly get it discussed and considered.

If we go with the 'they're all clones' methodology that leaves the question: why aren't aliens at terror sites all elite quality troops?

Why don't they all have the same TU's etc? We as players are left to assume that they may be genetic clones, but have been artificially imprinted with different knowledge.

Why? Because the aliens are mass-produced products. It is likely faster/more cost efficient to specialize them to different tasks. Non-coms have less TU's and accuracy because they're only imprinted with rudimentry aim and combat experience, but likely have better piloting and engineering skills. The higher the ranks of aliens go, it can be assumed there are less of them given the amount of knowledge/time that has to be input into their minds.

Why would this take time? In humans, neural pathways change in our minds based on knowledge gained, which takes time and highlights that learning is a process. In the cloned aliens they can speed up the process, but the neural pathways still need some time to form. For the combat clones, the neural pathways also need to adequately connect with the muscles to allow more fiber recruitment on demand (thus higher TU's and strength).

With the above, I too concluded the aliens were grown with different goals, but with some restriction to just making them all 'elite'.

This also begs the question: why aren't aliens in terror missions using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal when they'll obviously have to contend with resistance? There must be some reason why their equipment is available in a pyramid pattern.

Because they're operating with limited resources of their own.

Exactly, it'd be cool to see some reference to this in higher-tier research.

Shout out to Chris:

I dunno if you read my idea (with E4D's contribution, which really helps make the idea), but it wouldn't involve adding an autoresolve for the ground combat (in case it sounded like that). The local forces would be taking the site, you'd just loan them soldiers to teach them how to take the UFO, and help them do it.

If you'd be willing, could you take a minute to comment on the idea specifically? With specific feedback from you I (and everyone else) would be able to come up with better suggestions and feedback of their own.

Thank you!

Keep on making this game great!

Money is useful in the game, but ultimately the researchable alien resources and soldier experience can only be gained through combat. Allowing that to be gained with no risk (or risk based on a calculation rather than gameplay) seems counter to the intended way of playing the game.

"Free training" is a bit too easy. =)

What I suggested is a "natural" ramping up of recruit skills.

As the game progresses and as NPC forces handle their own crash sites, the recruit quality increases.

Your A team will still take losses but new recruits aren't completely useless.

Add maybe 10% "country skill decay" for months where they didn't get their own crash site and you keep the system from maxing out too easily.

Wow, awesome ideas all around. Everybody has said just about everything I'm thinking. Not to shun other ideas, because there are some really good alternatives here, but I think I personally throw my support towards air-strikes and letting local forces handle it. Plus, a mysterious grey market to sell to. After all, the government(s) have people that even Xeno wouldn't know about. In fact, it would be kind of neat to see some MIBs appear at crash sites, but I'm gonna let that thought drop.

Here's one of my wild ideas. Unfortunately, I think it would be too much effort to program for what it would ultimately present to the player. It may be a horrible idea, but even a pile of crap can start a roaring blaze.

Formation movement: To facilitate ground combat, you can drag-select multiple troops who will move in the formation they are in when you select them, using the man with the lowest TUs as the basis for TU actions until others are individually selected.

Main benefit: Ground combat can be resolved faster which means less time in a situation that can become tedious.

Other benefits: A new mechanic which adds a form of realism as well as new ways to strategize.

Main con: Programming it.

Other Cons: Deciding how this affects reaction fires and other elements as well making it just as good as micromanaging movements.

I apologize if this has already been mentioned somewhere. I'm unaware if it has.

Okay, I like the idea of choosing cash and funding or recovering stuff. Given that Xenonauts strays from realism in more ways than one, the air strike option seems plausible enough, although I would still restrict the option to medium or small craft. As the game is balanced now, I also like the idea of giving the player just a little more cash to work with.

Now for the associated issue of skill increase.

http://i.imgur.com/bb08NlK.png

Although some XCOM fans like to give names to their soldiers, develop them, and play the entire game on one base, this facet of the game never really appealed to me. It was more suitable to an actual role playing game like JA2. Of course, you really only needed one main base in XCOM (and maybe a couple of radar stations), but the way Xenonauts is developing, it seems like you are supposed to have two or three combat bases by the end of the game. The soldiers should still level up, but I think it should be tempered somewhat compared to XCOM.

Nevertheless, as Big Z puts it, the "best" way to play the game is to make your soldiers do every single scout mission to get them into fighting caliber. Rookies ARE basically worthless until they've done a dozen missions. Unless you get a soldier with a >58 in strength, accuracy, and TU, he won't be able to carry a weapon and armor. This is probably one of the most important aspects of game balance and enjoyability to consider.

I'm wondering if soldiers could get an automatic stat boost after key alien research items. Similar to the automatic upgrade to medikits, this would be automatically applied after finishing key alien specimen research items (with the explanation in the game that learning about alien biology lets us bio-engineer our own soldiers). The stat boost is applied to any soldier in the Xenonauts roster, and to any incoming rookie. I would suggest making these upgrades related to capture of the higher-tier alien races, like warriors, just so that there is some reason to capture these guys.

The bottom line: Solider skill upgrades necessary for the late game shouldn't be advanced through repetitive tedium (i.e., doing a bunch of scout missions in Wolf armor with plasma rifles). Either the soldiers should have to earn it (e.g. go up against a scout in jackal armor + laser/ballistics) or it should just be given free of charge as the game progresses.

Lemm, great idea: adds more to research, and makes sense.

It might be good to tie in such research to alien bases since they have facilities for growing and healing troops. Since there is already a precedent for the Xenonaut organization utilizing alien medical tech in the upgraded medkits, why wouldn't they utilize the technology aliens possess for other medical and ability issues?

I could see research like this:

+Alien Blood-Oxygen Transmission= retooling alien artificial hemoglobin to dope the blood of xenonaut soldiers= slight TU boost to each current and future soldier

+Alien Blood Coagulants= Xenonauts have purplish-red blood, but no longer can bleed out. Medkits would still be useful for dealing with HP damage. Late-game research obviously.

+Alien Maturation Chambers= 10% reduction in geoscape time to heal wounds.

Internal Armor Plating= Very thin and flexible plasma resistant sheeting is surgically implanted along the torso under the skin in Xenonauts to provide a last-ditch layer of protection against otherwise fatal wounds to the torso. This would provide a small armor boost to all current and future xenonauts.

+Alien Training Interfaces= Virtual combat training that taps directly into the nervous system to entice the growth of improved eye-hand coordination and reflexes resulting in small boosts to accuracy and reactions. Another version could improve strength through direct encouragement of myofibrillar hypertrophy (strength gains without size essentially) for small boosts to strength.

All of this sounds pretty gruesome, but when you think about it: the xenonaut soldiers must be very dedicated and believe in what they do. It could be assumed in game that these soldiers have previously agreed to do whatever it takes to save the Earth. Accepting biological and mechanical improvements for warfare could fall under that. Gameplay-wise it would give us more to research and would make new recruits non-sucky.

I like that idea about recovering the base artifacts. It's a quick way to add some variety, and it makes base missions a little more rewarding and interesting by turning them into mini-quests.

I can't really talk about the end game too much, but I definitely feel that new recruits need to start with at 60 average (55-65 starting range) in TU and Strength by late November, since armor is pretty much a necessity by that point. The sentinel and predator armors are supposed to provide additional mobility and strength upgrades, but they arrive too late in the game before the stat boost is necessary.

As an aside, I was reading another post on this forum that mentioned that the reduced magazine sizes really aren't a limitation, because you can just overload on ammo and dump everything in the dropship before the mission starts. Similarly, you can "carry" a riot shield and a heavy rifle or MG by dumping the riot shield when the mission starts and retrieving it before breeching the UFO, and you can level up your soldiers by doing a bunch of repetitive but easy missions.

The bottom line here is that you should try not to design the game so that it's exploitable by repetitive task,making the player wait longer, or anything like that. However, if it's impossible to design the game in such a manner to thwart the person who has too much time on his hands, then you should concede by offering a compensatory mechanism that instantly matches whatever benefit would be derived by waiting. In other words, the player shouldn't miss out by avoiding chores.

(As an secondary aside, I don't mean to make it sound like the game is in any way broken or severely imbalanced. With the exception of a few key areas, V19 is quite well balanced; I'm just trying to offer suggestions to reduce the repetitive nature so that the game can hit the 40-mission target, because I think it's more of a 100-mission game in the current state.)