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Geoscape Balance Discussion V20 Experimental 7


Aaron

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I'm losing about $100k a month, for the last two months, although this is hopefully going to improve now that I've started shooting down ships that lack escorts.

By the time I'm done with enemy bases, I should have about $600k saved up, which will hopefully be enough to cover the monthly maintenance. If not for the heavy fighter wings flying about, I'd start hunting everything that pops up on the radar for extra cash. As things are, I have to be careful.

Right now I'm $1,9M on maintenance, and have $1,5M funding.

My second base will soon have hangars ready for two Foxtrots, which, with plasma explosives unlocked, should be enough to guard the area from landing ships and scouts. Next month I'll build some more hangars there, hopefully not long after the radar becomes operational.

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I'm losing about $100k a month, for the last two months, although this is hopefully going to improve now that I've started shooting down ships that lack escorts.

By the time I'm done with enemy bases, I should have about $600k saved up, which will hopefully be enough to cover the monthly maintenance. If not for the heavy fighter wings flying about, I'd start hunting everything that pops up on the radar for extra cash. As things are, I have to be careful.

Right now I'm $1,9M on maintenance, and have $1,5M funding.

My second base will soon have hangars ready for two Foxtrots, which, with plasma explosives unlocked, should be enough to guard the area from landing ships and scouts. Next month I'll build some more hangars there, hopefully not long after the radar becomes operational.

I think you're going to find that a second base will ruin you. That's what did me in.
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I have plasma explosives and the plasma cannons. And I'm on normal. And I can't reliably take anything bigger than a landing ship down. Which is terrible, because I have four interceptors and seriously four plasma torpedoes should be able to do something against the stuff that's been around since a month before I got plasma explosives.

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I have plasma explosives and the plasma cannons. And I'm on normal. And I can't reliably take anything bigger than a landing ship down. Which is terrible, because I have four interceptors and seriously four plasma torpedoes should be able to do something against the stuff that's been around since a month before I got plasma explosives.

I believe you. I was having troubles with Corvettes, Foxtrots and Alenium.
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IIRC in classic xcom a significant chunk of the income was coming from what was salvaged from alien ships. I think this is even more prominent in openxcom, where I advanced using the money from selling dead aliens and their gear, while funding was mostly supporting monthly maintenance costs, with little extras left that didn't make much difference.

Then again I could probably support myself with whatever funding I get in Xenonauts, the problem is that it would slow me down so much, most nations would sign pacts with aliens before I could expand there to improve relations. Right now the only way that seems to have a chance of achieving victory is to rush to expand against all odds, ASAP, and find ways to generate extra money to pay maintenance bills.

If I lost $300k in funding since the start, that's what an extra base would cost me (not counting interceptors), so if that base could prevent that loss, it would be making me some money instead. At least that's how it worked before, when Condors could shoot down most things, now I need to get to plasma tech to even hope that an extra base will make any difference in national rating. So if the base will pay its cost back in funding, and its interceptors will earn their maintenance in what they shoot down, I may end up with a profit, with an added bonus of less alien trouble flying around.

Most likely though, the interceptors will go down sooner than I'd hoped, earning nothing, and the region will hate me despite my efforts, making the new base a huge money sink.

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IIRC in classic xcom a significant chunk of the income was coming from what was salvaged from alien ships. I think this is even more prominent in openxcom, where I advanced using the money from selling dead aliens and their gear, while funding was mostly supporting monthly maintenance costs, with little extras left that didn't make much difference.

Then again I could probably support myself with whatever funding I get in Xenonauts, the problem is that it would slow me down so much, most nations would sign pacts with aliens before I could expand there to improve relations. Right now the only way that seems to have a chance of achieving victory is to rush to expand against all odds, ASAP, and find ways to generate extra money to pay maintenance bills.

If I lost $300k in funding since the start, that's what an extra base would cost me (not counting interceptors), so if that base could prevent that loss, it would be making me some money instead. At least that's how it worked before, when Condors could shoot down most things, now I need to get to plasma tech to even hope that an extra base will make any difference in national rating. So if the base will pay its cost back in funding, and its interceptors will earn their maintenance in what they shoot down, I may end up with a profit, with an added bonus of less alien trouble flying around.

Most likely though, the interceptors will go down sooner than I'd hoped, earning nothing, and the region will hate me despite my efforts, making the new base a huge money sink.

Actually, you made money in X-COM by building laser cannons and selling them en masse. That, or Medi-kits if your name is ClosetYeti, because apparently he hates money.

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Thanks for all the feedback guys - detailed breakdowns in particular are useful because I only have so much time to play the game, and people often play it in quite different ways.

So, tweaks for next build so far look like: Increased initial national funding significantly and tweaked maintenance costs a bit (when you start the game your total maintenance costs are 1000000, and monthly funding is 2500000), tweaked the damage done to national relations by various UFO missions to take into the account the aforementioned increase and some reductions in UFO health so that the standard for intercepting a new enemy UFO is 2 of the latest tech fighters, rather than 3. I also reduced the build time for bases from 20 to 10 days, Radars from 20 to 10 and Hangars from 10 to 5, in order to make investment in a new base pay off sooner. Given that though, I am thinking about increasing the costs of base building again, given you will hopefully have more cash on hand from national funding.

@StellarRat: I actually did reduce the turning rates of UFOs in this build to try to encourage players to use their aircraft manoeuvrability to get around them; the trouble with emphasising it too much though is it makes it obvious how simplistic the AI is for enemy craft.

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Maybe you just forgot to mention it, but one important thing I miss in your list is changing how national relations improve as a result of Xenonaut actions. I finished November in my game and I lost another 100k$ in funding and even though I could try to continue, I don't feel like that, since sooner or later I'll lose because of not being able to keep up (I don't have the resources to develop, so I e.g. have only a single laser rifle and still use ballistics - I'm only lucky that the ground combat AI is way too reluctant to fire at soldiers taking cover, so I can still quite easily win ground combat by simply firing at aliens that don't fire back until I eventually score enough hits). I simply can't get any noticeable increase in funding, anywhere, so I spend almost all made money to cover my maintenance. I don't have a perfect coverage, some UFOs that I detect do manage to get away, but I'd say I'm doing reasonably well (I don't know how to measure that well, but e.g. Sovient Union has had 0 casualities so far and the relationship is 'good', yet during 3 months it's increased its funding only from 150k$ to 155.5k$; Northern Africa, where my base is, increased 150k$ to 168k$ during those 3 months).

If the basic idea is that the majority of money comes from funding, then I don't see how it can work the way it is in 20.7 . All those changes you list sound good, but if I can't get noticeable funding increase in areas that I cover, then it probably doesn't matter that I'll have the resources to cover more areas (and BTW I have like 1 casuality per 4-5 ground missions, so I can't be such a lousy player). I expect the idea is that funding will increase if the player does at least reasonably well?

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@StellarRat: I actually did reduce the turning rates of UFOs in this build to try to encourage players to use their aircraft manoeuvrability to get around them; the trouble with emphasising it too much though is it makes it obvious how simplistic the AI is for enemy craft.

OK, well, I'm looking forward to the next build then.

Are you going reduce the speed of the enemy missiles (particularly the Scout) so we don't have to tap the space bar constantly?

As far as turns rates go, in my mind the Condor should be able to out turn even a Lt. Scout. I'm not exactly sure how you define "turning rate" since I don't know the mechanics of the code. Sometimes there is a difference between a change in facing and the size the turn arc itself. Facing rate change is the real problem since that is how the alien bring their guns to bear on the target. I know I brought a lot of points in my "thesis" thanks for looking of the suggestions everyone as made! That's one of the reasons why this is going to be such an awesome game because you guys care about what the players think. :D

Edited by StellarRat
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It is defined as turn rate in degrees per second. I gave it a bit of a try and even with the reduction it was not enough to let you really take advantage of UFOs; halved it for next version and now you can outmanoeuvre most things. Note: the Light Scout/Scout have higher turning rates than the later UFOs, so don't base assessments solely on them.

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It is defined as turn rate in degrees per second. I gave it a bit of a try and even with the reduction it was not enough to let you really take advantage of UFOs; halved it for next version and now you can outmanoeuvre most things. Note: the Light Scout/Scout have higher turning rates than the later UFOs, so don't base assessments solely on them.
Great!
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Hello,

I have been following this game for a long time, I just made the plunge yesterday and purchased it on Steam. First off, the game feels great. I love the direction you guys are taking and I love the way the developers are interacting with the users to make changes and find solutions to problems.

With that being said, there is one change that has quickly become my most serious complaint about the game. The fact that ground missions can only result in a negative score due to civilians killed needs to be addressed. I read through the forums and understand the changes were implemented in order to make airstrikes a worthwhile option, but in my opinion this change just takes away to much from the game. The mission ending screen provides a certain level of satisfaction, and to see a terrible rating at the end of each one just doesn't work.

For example, there was a UFO coming in that I tried to intercept and failed miserably when all three of my interceptors got shot down. The UFO, however, proceeded to land nearby. I sent my crew out to attack them and we succeeded. I got a terrible rating at the end of the mission, and, much to my surprise, the country (USA) decreased its funding for the month a little later. I think Ground combats have to affect country relations at least somewhat otherwise the whole funding issue becomes a mess.

I bought this game finally because I was watching a lets play on youtube (based off of V19 I believe) and the game actually looked like it was getting playable. I still believe it is very close but this change to ground combat and funding needs to be looked at again IMO. Thank you for your time.

Edited by crashed97tsi
because I hit enter in the quick reply before the post was done
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For example, there was a UFO coming in that I tried to intercept and failed miserably when all three of my interceptors got shot down. The UFO, however, proceeded to land nearby. I sent my crew out to attack them and we succeeded. I got a terrible rating at the end of the mission, and, much to my surprise, the country (USA) decreased its funding for the month a little later. I think Ground combats have to affect country relations at least somewhat otherwise the whole funding issue becomes a mess.
I'm fairly sure that Aaron and Chris are reviewing the whole nation relations vs. mission success/failure balance. I'm sure it will be fine by the release date. Keep in mind that we are totally in beta and experimental mode right now.
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The end mission screen was basically broken by this change, but it is being completely reworked soon. You will not always get a negative rating for ground missions when that is done, you just won't get a funding bonus unless it's a mission type that grants it (landed UFOs, Terror Missions etc...).

Edited by Aaron
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