Jump to content

Build Time Balance Discussion


Recommended Posts

I'm in an interesting predicament in my current game, which has highlighted some concerns with build times.

Due to a bug (I think) I've lost a lot of the equipment I've built when a soldier dies (his gear doesn't return to inventory).

I'm now stressing my resources to build new equipment in time for the next wave of UFO's.

Can we discuss the balance of build times, and why they are where they are?

Why does it take the same amount of time to build 1 laser rifle, and an entire Foxtrot? Why do precision laser's take even MORE time?

I like that you have to manage resources to build advanced technology, but what is the balance reason for such high build times for soldier weapons and armor? Is it really that unbalancing to be able to produce those things quicker?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. Can we discuss the balance of build times, and why they are where they are?

2. Why does it take the same amount of time to build 1 laser rifle, and an entire Foxtrot? Why do precision laser's take even MORE time?

3. I like that you have to manage resources to build advanced technology, but what is the balance reason for such high build times for soldier weapons and armor?

4. Is it really that unbalancing to be able to produce those things quicker?

1. Yes

2. Because a Foxtrot isn't really built from scratch. It's an existing airframe modifed by your engineers to shoot down UFOs instead of US bombers.

3. The laser weapons and Wolf armor seem to take way too long to build IMO.

4. For the lower level stuff, I don't think it would make much difference at all. The limiting factor on most of that is resources and money.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One could argue that the "fiddly bits" of the weapons and the "fiddly fabrication bits" of the armor are more time-consuming than just slamming a new engine into a plane or some such. I do feel like the construction times could be trimmed down a bit. Seems like it takes forever to build any significant amount of laser weaponry sometimes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One could argue that the "fiddly bits" of the weapons and the "fiddly fabrication bits" of the armor are more time-consuming than just slamming a new engine into a plane or some such. I do feel like the construction times could be trimmed down a bit. Seems like it takes forever to build any significant amount of laser weaponry sometimes.
In the OG outfitting an entire squad with new armor and weapons didn't take very long. In Xenonauts it can take a month if you have the resources.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2. Because a Foxtrot isn't really built from scratch. It's an existing airframe modifed by your engineers to shoot down UFOs instead of US bombers.

Even looking at the Corsair, which takes 120 Man-day's (vs 40 for Foxtrot/Laser Rifle), you can produce 1 whole aircraft, from scratch (not based on existing air frame), in the time it takes to make..3 laser rifles? As it currently sits, unless you have an excess of engineering, you can make 1 thing at a time, and have to commit all your resources to it for the build time to be remotely useful.

3. The laser weapons and Wolf armor seem to take way too long to build IMO.

4. For the lower level stuff, I don't think it would make much difference at all. The limiting factor on most of that is resources and money.

I too agree that build times for certain items is a bit too high. However I am not hindered by lack of money. I'm currently in December and have 3 million of spare credits, which will be wasted on my new shiny plasma guns.

How are you managing that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If we're gonig to be talking build times, what kind of a workshop/engineer baseline are we setting here? You see, throughout most of my games, certainly up until December and even past that when I get the base build upgrade, I have 2 fully staffed workshops in total. That means I crank out a Foxtrot in 1 day, 8 hours. A laser rifle 1 day, 8 hours. To fully arm a Charlie team to my specification it takes:

Scatter Laser: 2 days

Precision Laser: 2 days

2 laser pistols: 1 day 8 hrs

2 laser carbines: 2 days 16 hrs

4 laser rifles: 5 days 8 hrs

For a total of 15 days, 8hrs. That's within 3 waves, and two of those weapons (the carbines) are additional equipment, so they go last. My team is all armed (but I wouldn't consider them fully armed) within 10 days, 16hrs, or slightly more than 2 waves. From my perspective, 2 waves doesn't seem slow to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How are you managing that?

By doing all the GC and earning twice the amount what would airstrike give?

@Max_Caine

Building a simple Laser Rifle takes the same amount of time to build a plane? I think Boeing or Airbus would like to hire those engineers.

Edited by silencer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Considering how Xenonauts is set in 1979, I'd think just the thought of creating a laser is pretty much fantasy for much of the world's scientific population.

The aliens just gave us a chance, though we're pretty much groping in the dark. Besides, think of how much effort is required in actually putting the rifle together. How exact must the power well, emitter, heat-sink, and focusing lens' be set to make sure that the rifle is effective in combat, or to simply make sure to not turn its wielder into a giant crater in the ground from an overloaded battery?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I honestly don't have a problem with manufacturing times as they are. At the moment, I value workshop space as much as lab space and I think that's a good thing. Reduce manufacturing times too much and this will disappear (StellarRat implies this above: in the OG engineers were pretty much irrelevant short of building an Avenger).

If anything has to change, then, I'd actually rather see plane manufacturing times go up. Ultimately, it's always possible to compensate for long build times by building more workshops. In contrast, if you reduce build times you're making workshops increasingly less important.

(For those who are familiar with XCOM 2012: think of the problem the game had with laboratories and research times. Labs were pointless, because research times were pretty short and you could always keep pace with the aliens with little investment. This is something the game has been criticised for. The lesson there, for me, is that Xenonauts should be looking to make it difficult to keep pace and force the player to invest to keep up.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That would only apply to a prototype - once you've created one, the next one will always takes faster because you know how to create it.

Not necessarily.

Example: The US has utilized stealth technology in the air force for decades. However, just because we've used it for so long doesn't mean that we can whip out B-2 Spirits in a a couple weeks of construction time.

Plus it's not just building the darned thing, its the testing of the weapon to make sure that it works correctly. Something as delicate as a B-2 Spirit or Laser rifle has to go through extensive trials (on a unit-by-unit) to make sure that it doesn't fail in the field just because of the cost that already went into its construction.

Especially since Laser tech is new to the 1979 humans: they don't always know what would f*ck it up at the drop of a hat, so they must iron out any production defects that arise.

Hell, there's probably a bottleneck on capable personnel in dealing with the amount of experience needed in both construction and tech.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well comparing RL to a game sometimes is not the best comparison, and I am sure that Mr. Smartpants head scientist triple check the designs right, and I am sure that such organisation as Xenonauts doesn't hire bums from the street just because they know how to handle a hammer.

Laser technology wasn't anything but new in 1979. In fact laser cutting technology was introduced in 1965 and the only thing that halted the progress was either the cooling or not being able to bring enough power and keeping the machine in normal size.

Also if we are comparing RL - the laser beam shouldn't be small "projectile" but continuous beam from point A to point B.

Bah, even so the "Gauss Gun" wasn't all that different - it was also the matter of bringing enough power to a small object.

Edited by silencer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I think you were the one who opened the door to discussing real world factors when you brought up real world companies and prototyping which are not present in the game or related to balance in any way.

It is only a short hop from there to the discussion on how prototypes are not the only thing that slows production.

Incidentally as you are likely to only ever produce a handful of each weapon type I would consider each of them to more like prototypes than mass produced weapons.

Personally I agree with Max and kabill.

The production times don't feel too high to me on weapons so if the real issue is that building an aircraft takes the same amount of time as building a high tech infantry weapon then the obvious answer would be to increase production time of aircraft.

However aircraft also have an additional balancing factor as you also need to have a hangar available so you may need to build that first.

It would be possible to give an incentive for players to build certain craft by giving them a comparatively reduced build time.

For example if lots of people skip Corsairs to go for Marauders then make Corsairs quicker to build so they are a tempting alternative.

All aircraft are not equal, it is possible for different craft in different roles to be much less complicated and time consuming to build.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

silencer, as much as I'd like to debate the concern you raise, reality is not the concern here and it isn't the premise of the OP. We're talking game balance, which often tells reality to get stuffed. If you want to argue about the absurdity of a period aircraft requiring the same amount of time as a space laser made with unobtanium and powered by handwavium to build, then go right ahead, but I won't join in. I would like to know what other people think the engineer baseline should be so we can establish the common ground on which we discuss build balance (15 engineers? 30? 45?).

EDIT: This was written in response to silencers' comment to me, and it's ended up and the end of the string of responses, but not written with those responses in mind.

Edited by Max_Caine
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Considering how Xenonauts is set in 1979, I'd think just the thought of creating a laser is pretty much fantasy for much of the world's scientific population.

The aliens just gave us a chance, though we're pretty much groping in the dark. Besides, think of how much effort is required in actually putting the rifle together. How exact must the power well, emitter, heat-sink, and focusing lens' be set to make sure that the rifle is effective in combat, or to simply make sure to not turn its wielder into a giant crater in the ground from an overloaded battery?

Actually lasers were invented in early 60's and widely available. The first laser guided weapons were used in the Vietnam War. By early 80's they were in CD players. The with laser weapons has always been making a power supply small enough for a human to carry and keeping the laser from burning out.

Edited by StellarRat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Perhaps, but we also have to remember that these are weaponized lasers, meaning that the intensity of the beam has to be orders of magnitude above what we currently are using.

Back to the topic, I think that the production times are fine. Ballistics are still useful when you are manufacturing the weapons (as long as you have two full workshops...) and are effective enough to tide you over until you bring out the flashlights and annoy everything to death.

As a side note, the laser impact animation makes it look like the weapons are firing giant blobs of strawberry jello.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No i don't think the manufacturing times are too high, they work just fine in the game. If they would be any less, the Workshops would be useless and that would be bad.

Also comparing the manufacturing time of Aircraft against weapons here is stupid, we are talking about BALANCE here. Realism has nothing to do with game balance.

But it's nothing new since this forum tends to bring Realism into every single damn balance discussion. ugh.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It does somewhat annoy me that lasers are continually portrayed as firing strawberry jello packets at sub-sonic speeds. The lasguns in Dawn of War 2 do it right, in my opinion.

You can increase the projectile speeds so the lasers just look like a red blur if you want to.

The game engine cannot handle beams due to the way it uses sprites to represent game entities.

The slower projectiles are just used so that the player can more easily visually track their shots.

There was a forum member who made a mod to better represent beams but it was not 100% effective.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If we wanted to go total smartass can we even argue that you shouldn't see the laser at all until it hits a target or has to pass through smoke or something similar with lots of tiny particles. A laser is after all a ray of light that is directed to fly in one way and one way only. That means it has the speed of light and can't be seen unless a good amount of the waves get deflected

But I think we already got used to the slow flying blobs since Star Wars :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...