Build Time Balance Discussion

Well, I'm into month 3 now. No wolf armor yet, but was able to build full laser squad by end of month 2. I was delayed due to alloy shortage more than anything.

Started in NA, 2 lab 2 workshop 30/30 scientists/engineers.

Expanded to Europe/North Africa - built work shop, fired 15 engineer's from NA and re-hired in Africa, and moved soldier's to this base as much more activity here. Expanded radar range +1.

Just started up 3rd interceptor base in Indochina/Russia.

I'll keep posted on how the game plays out, especially once squad 2 joins the fray in a month or so.

fired 15 engineer's from NA and re-hired in Africa, and moved soldier's to this base as much more activity here. Expanded radar range +1.

That shows there should be option to transfer engineers / scientists too.

That shows there should be option to transfer engineers / scientists too.

That's a good point. I did look for one, but I don't know how often this situation arises. My motivation was because I wanted to have weapon/armor/aircraft manufacturing capability at the new base, but didn't need 45 engineer's total - waste of upkeep $$.

This is the first game I've ever done this, and also the first game I ever moved my main base of operations (although usually I start in North Africa/Europe anyway).

Build times seem to be manageable if you run a single ground team, but become a serious problem if you try to outfit a second ground team.

I keep 2 teams. The first one gets best equipment, second one gets hand-me-downs and the old dropship, and only takes easy missions.

I think build time balance is good, though I admit it feels strange when aircraft can be built faster than rifle.

http://www.filedropper.com/manufactures

Quick and rough edit of the manufacturing times.

All infantry weapons are 50% faster to build, aircraft and ground vehicles are 25% faster to build, vehicle weapons take the same amount of time as their infantry equivalent.

If anyone wants to give that a try and let us know how it feels compared to the current set up then feel free.

Just download the file and put it in the xenonauts/assets folder.

As usual back up your old manufactures.xml file so you can easily undo the changes later.

wanted to post and let you know the xml you got there makes a crash on launch for me, ( i am on experimental, steam, vista * if any of that remotely matters ) its the only thing i changed and once i reverted to my back up it works fine.

wanted to post and let you know the xml you got there makes a crash on launch for me, ( i am on experimental, steam, vista * if any of that remotely matters ) its the only thing i changed and once i reverted to my back up it works fine.

Same, just tried it now.

You sort of need a second fully staffed workshop in order to produce laser/wolf with any kind of speed. Even with two workshops going at full capacity you are still looking at 16-25 days (depending on loadout) to fully equip a squad. And I usually have 3 squads spread across 2 -3 bases by the beginning of december. So, averaging 20 days a squad, that is 2 months of build time, just to equip my men with lasers/wolf. That is not even counting the time spent on building aircraft, hunters, and jackal armor. Even with 4 fully staffed workshops you are still looking at a month or more of build time just to equip your troops.

What do you need so many squads for? Dropships can reach any place on the planet, so one squad is fine. As is one workshops for months.

Because you can't get every crashed ufo with just 1 dropship. And every crashsite is almost twice the money from airstrike. Not to mention more raw materials.

Also 1 workshop will not be enough once you start building stuff. In general I rush towards laser guns then to wolf armour because it's in reach. Building all of this with 1 workshop takes 2 months. Then in meantime you get Shrike and Corsair and the workshop get stuffed fast by the time you finish this you'll get Predator and Plasma guns... also during plasma production you'll get Sentinel and Mag guns, so yeah.

2 Workshops is minimum to not be crammed with projects.

The manufactures.xml probably got corrupted, the uploaded version causes a crash for me as well so don't bother with it.

It is a quick edit though, there are only 20 or so topics that need a quick adjustment.

What do you need so many squads for? Dropships can reach any place on the planet, so one squad is fine. As is one workshops for months.

You need at least 2 squads unless you only want to do 1 ground mission a wave.

It is also good to have a backup squad or otherwise you miss a wave if a team gets mauled. It is for rotational purposes too, so you can spread the workload around and aren't using wounded troops all of the time.

2 squads (1 per base) is pretty much mandatory. I like using 3 because it gives me a cushion, and I almost never have to airstrike for the reason of not having the manpower to do the ground mission.

I think this is probably part of the reason there is such a varied view on manufacture times as well.

If you run a single squad with some cover for injuries then the build times don't seem too bad but the more squads you add the worse the build times feel.

wanted to post and let you know the xml you got there makes a crash on launch for me, ( i am on experimental, steam, vista * if any of that remotely matters ) its the only thing i changed and once i reverted to my back up it works fine.

The xml file had an extra, blank column in. you can open it in excel and delete the column and it should work.

I'd post the file I am using, but it's giving me an "Invalid File" error when I try to upload.

So here's an update: I'm in month 4 now. Wolf and Buzzard armor has been built. I actually really like these changes. It doesn't feel super slow, and frustrating, to get the new tech, and you can now build more than 1 thing at a time and have decent build times. Basically you can dedicate 1 full workshop to producing 1 item, instead of needing 2 or more. This was highlighted when I build 2 addition Wolf and 2 new Buzzard unit's, having each base build a different armor type.

Ah must have screwed the formatting up when I originally edited it somehow.

The forum doesn't support the uploading of .xml files and it is too large to upload as a .txt so I used an external host.

http://www.filedropper.com/manufactures_1

That version should work.

It has infantry weapon construction times reduced by around 50%, ground vehicle construction times down by 25%, but I am pretty sure aircraft production times are around the same as vanilla.

It has infantry weapon construction times reduced by around 50%, ground vehicle construction times down by 25%, but I am pretty sure aircraft production times are around the same as vanilla.

Aircraft times were reduced also, unless you changed it since.

It is a new file.

I think this is probably part of the reason there is such a varied view on manufacture times as well.

If you run a single squad with some cover for injuries then the build times don't seem too bad but the more squads you add the worse the build times feel.

Agreed. It also seems okay if you're running a secondary team with the obsoleted gear, because that's not actually an increase in the amount of manufacturing required (or a minor one). But if you try to outfit two (or even more) teams with current generation gear it becomes unmanageable. In that case, I'd like to see a slight reduction in ground combat manufacture times (probably 25%-ish?) to make that playstyle more viable.

Or the law of mass production; after, say, your first 5-6 laser rifles, the manufacturing time begins to drop

Or the law of mass production; after, say, your first 5-6 laser rifles, the manufacturing time begins to drop

That would be more realistic, but it would also require coding a new system, which seems unlikely to happen.

My personal take on that would be that your first item should actually come from the research project.

That is where your functional prototype would be built.

After that the production job just duplicates it.

Increasing production speed slightly when more items have been produced may help with the problem identified previously.

Not sure if it would be worthwhile though.

Honestly I would like to see a 10-20% drop in laser/wolf armor build times. I have not made it past that so I cannot comment on plasma tech or any of the other armors. This would have a somewhat negligible build-time reduction of a few days on people who want to equip 1 squad, but has a huge impact on the larger projects (like equipping 3 squads) by bringing the build time down by a week or more.

That is saying that the difference isn't much for equipping 1 squad, but for 3 squads I get my gear out 1-2 waves sooner.

I can live with the aircraft build times increasing. I was always of the opinion they were too fast anyway.