RavenX

There's at least one upgrade for the dropship, yes, I'm just not sure what it's stats are as far as speed and range.

Did you get to shoot things down with fighters stationed in your other bases? If so, what did you do with the missions that were out of range, just let them go?

LoL that's exactly why I couldn't get to that mission. The game I did get my second base up I never had a free hangar to land my dropship there. It was just a radar and 2 fighters. I put it in Russia and when they shot down a UFO my dropship couldn't get there (it would get really close and then turn back). Do you put a squad and dropship at every base or every-other base?

KSP is awesome. I just wish they'd make some more of the so far "modded parts" as official stock. Like cargo doors. Seriously, they don't have stock cargo doors. How do expect to launch a satellite from a space plane without stock cargo doors? Aside from some minor part complaints like that, it is a seriously awesome game. You really get a true sense of satisfaction and accomplishment from designing hardware and completing a self-set mission objective like going to Duna and back or making a moon base (currently the game is free play with no mission structure).

this!

They'll have changed the name to USAlien by then I'm probably leaning too heavily into research and equipping my troops then. I haven't tried expanding on a "bare bones" set up. I don't use vehicles either. Always build a med lab and more quarters, completely stock my science lab and workshop. Sometimes I hold off on the second workshop but I always have 2 research labs. I never saw the point of adding another radar either as it didn't seem to affect the detection chance but I think that'll be fixed. I always make 8 of the first armor though to help keep my troops alive. I'll try branching out just a base with a hanger and radar. I think when you build a new base though you have to plan on having hangars and fighters there as soon as the radar is active. If not all the flights you can see but don't intercept will count against you "I think". I don't know if that's been implemented in how the game counts the score against you but I think that's how it's supposed to end up working. On the latest map it looks like half of Texas isn't even part of the US lol. That's ok though I know they split the regions up the way they needed to. From what I understand though doesn't it calculate how the nations funding drops by aliens doing missions there? I thought I read somewhere here on the forums that's how that worked. No matter the exact mechanics, what's happening is the rest of the landmass just has far more traffic/missions/ however the game calculates how the funding nation's score drops or counts against you. If you start in the Americas and can't get to UFOs or missions in Russia and Asia then their funding drops so fast I can't get a base over there with fighters so I can't shoot down those UFOs. On one of the last games I played I managed to get another base up but when I shot down a UFO it was out of the range of my dropship so I couldn't do the mission. I didn't survive long enough to get another hanger built there so I could transfer my troops and dropship over so they could do the mission so I'm still a bit fuzzy on how that'll work. When I get a second base up I'll need to get a dropship and troops over there so they can do the missions.

I have a few questions, Chris. I actually fit much of that and I have experience in the industry (with references). I also really need a job I can do from home because I'm sick, which is where my questions come in. I have crohn's disease so I'm stuck here at home most of the time unless I'm only leaving the house for a few hours. Sometimes I also have unexpected flare ups which can put me in bed for a day or two at a time, usually happens once or twice a month. I would need at least 2 days off a month though for doctors appointments I have to keep and these are always on week days, usually in the beginning of a month or the end of a month. To make up for that though I have no problem working weekends and nights on any schedule and I'm a pretty decent artist with a portfolio as well, but my art skills are more of a secondary bonus compared to my other qualifications. When it comes to my availability because of health issues, unless anything like that is going on literally %90 of my time is spent sitting here in this chair. I'm sure I could put in far more hours than you could afford to pay me lol. In fact with all the hours I sit here either gaming or doing nothing, if I were to commit all that time for a job and project I love, it would probably be worth it for you to put me on salary, but we can always talk about that later down the road. Giving you just that bit of info, do you think I should apply or would you rather look for candidates without health issues first? No worries if that's the case, I completely understand. I already have my own insurance by the way so I'm not looking for a company health plan or anything.

I know what you mean with it being about tactics. I'm not bad at tactics or the game. It's just that I'm pointing out you can't successful start if you put your starting base in the Americas. Just do one thing for me and I think you'll see exactly the problem I'm having. Start a new game and put your starting base in a optimal place in the Americas. I find the place to get the most coverage over the Americas is to put your base near the top of South America. If you can start there and still end up getting multiple bases up and running then it'll show me there's a problem with something else I'm doing. If you put your starting base and end up not having the money to get another base up and running then you'll see what I mean. The only ways I can see to fix it so that you can start in the Americas and still get another base up and running is either boost the economy (which will mean you have too much money when you start elsewhere with more UFO traffic), allow the player to make some money if they're missing all the missions across the pond, or to re-distribute UFO traffic so the players starting location is irrelevant and that they have a fair chance no matter where they build their first base.

Ahh, I see now. Yes, it did get tedious doing that with small numbers. Doing so every "once in a while" when you needed the cash to build something else, that could be seen as a strategic economic choice. Doing it all the time or in mass numbers (like building a base that specialized in just manufacturing) started to point out where the system in the original was very easily abusable. We all know we don't want it to be abusable. There does need to be some leeway though. I'm going to start a new game today and see if I can get a second base up and running if I cut down on what I put in my first base. Usually when I start to build a second base I have two research labs and two workshops built in my first base. This time I'll try building my second base (in Europe) without having two labs and workshops in my first base and I'll see if that gives me enough funds. When they do get around to fully balancing out the economy though they definitely need to take into account that a large portion of the player base is going to put their first base in the Americas somewhere. While I'm sure a significant chunk of players are from outside of the US and that they will probably put their first base in Europe or Asia, the game needs to take all locations into account when it comes to UFO traffic (and hence missions that provide coverage and funding). Some players may put their base in the optimal coverage spot just for logic's sake. If I wanted to play by optimizing my starting location for the most nation coverage I'm sure I wouldn't be having problems getting a second base up and running. I don't feel I should need to "game the system" like that though to get a successful game start. If it's only balanced that way then all the players will end up putting their starting base in the same place every time they start a game and that takes a huge piece of "choice" out of the game. If I was born (or lived) in Europe I'd be putting my starting base there every game and most likely this thread wouldn't be here at all because I wouldn't be having problems with funding. I still believe the funding issue with putting your starting base in the Americas is directly linked to UFO traffic and mission frequency and not the actual funding levels and mission rewards. If you put your starting base in the Americas then you miss all the UFO traffic going over Europe, Russia and Asia. Not only do you miss the UFOs (which counts against you with the nations they fly over) but you miss the chance to shoot them down and then get the mission rewards. If you start in the Americas your income is limited to what you can see and shoot down which in the Americas is leaving out the rest of the worlds land masses. Instead of balancing out the economy to fix this it might be better to re-distribute the UFO traffic so there's more traffic where the player puts their first base. This way no matter where the player puts their base, they'll at least have the chance to make enough money to keep the game going. If you start in Europe or Russia or Asia there's a lot more chances to make money than there is if you start in the Americas. Those chances for funding opportunities is what needs to be balanced for other starting locations really, and not so much the economy. I would urge everyone to try multiple games putting your starting base in different locations and see what happens. It will become really obvious at that point why you fail in some places and not in others.

If they balance the economy that "good" then it sounds to me like it's running its-self and that if the player makes a mistake there's no way to fix it because you either can't make the money back to fix your mistake or you'll have plenty of money laying around so the mistake won't matter. There has to be leeway in the economy for both good and bad. If not then you have a economy that's "on rails" and at that point why have it at all? I don't take losses in combat and I manage to keep almost all my fighters alive during air combat. The only thing keeping me from being able to get a second base up and running is the fact that I put my starting base in the Americas, and that's not right at all. In a game like this where "Player Freedom" plays such a pivotal part in decision making the game needs to account for that freedom or there isn't any player freedom at all. If you don't put your starting base in a certain place you'll loose. If you research things in the wrong order you loose. If you build a second research lab or a second workshop too soon you loose. The game can't be on rails to that extent or it'll be a horrible failure in terms of gameplay because any "wrong decision" will lead to game over. The only real things that should lead to a game over should be having your troops wiped out in almost every mission or loosing too many funding nations. I shouldn't be loosing the game because I'm loosing funding nations because I built my base where I live (which is arguably the most powerful country in the world when the game starts in 1970's).

I'd say it being "hard to manage" is more opinion than fact. I always found it incredibly easy to manage both in OG X-Com and here. I can't believe someone even made a mod to do it for them. Just seems like something extremely lazy to me. It's not like you're micromanaging the work force or something. You click numbers up, you click numbers down, not hard or complicated or even all that time consuming. All you're doing is pushing a ticker. I'm also pretty sure "all" the maintenance isn't disabled, at least for engineers and scientists, as you pay them every month and their upkeep could be considered maintenance. I don't think there's any building maintenance yet though. XCOM2012 took the manufacture system out because they took a LOT out of the game to make it more appealing for a new generation of gamers. It was a good game sure, but it wasn't "X-Com" to me. It was a dumbed down, watered down, version of X-Com that didn't even have TU's in it. Seriously, how more "Basic" can you get than a "move and shoot" two step phase? I bought Xenonauts because I wanted a experience that was truer to the X-Com experience, which Xenonauts is. Please don't urge them to water this game down too by comparing it to XCOM2012 and the many horrid mistakes that were made with that game. To me it's just another example of "Triple A" devs treating gamers like they're all 15 year old FPS junkies who are too stupid to play strategy games and be any good at them. Jake Solomon's "That's X-Com baby!" sounds more to me like "That's watered down bullshit baby!". I would say that a lot of us who bought Xenonauts did so because we wanted a much more in depth experience than what XCOM2012 provided. If XCOM2012 gave me everything I wanted in a definitive X-Com experience then I wouldn't have needed to spend money on Xenonauts. The way they're going about balancing costs and production and mission frequency and rewards, if they're only doing it from one place on the planet, then they're doing it extremely wrong. The economy and being able to survive to get other bases up needs to be done No Matter Where the player puts their starting base. I'm American and as such I'm Always going to put my starting base in North or South America. The only time I will place my starting base outside of the Americas would be now when I'm trying to see if I can keep going long enough to get a second base if I start somewhere other than the country of my birth. When it comes to time with the game and practice, notice my join date. I've been here longer than most of the mods have. I've played every single build of Xenonauts multiple times. Not to mention I'm directly responsible for sending a lot of customers here to buy Xenonauts . Like I said in the starting post of this thread, I Don't Want it to be "abusable" like it obviously was in OG X-Com. What I would like to see is that if do loose one to many mission or have a catastrophic loss you can make that up by either selling some items you have or devoting some manufacturing time to making money. I do Not want the normal economy to be supplanted by the player being able to make and sell things as that defeats the purpose of even having the funding nation economy.

See, up until I read a thread on skill gains a few days ago I didn't even know grinding for skills was something we could do. I always give my troops a full carry load so they gain strength just by running the mission as normal. I tend to use all their TU's every turn so I get TU skill gains. Aside from those all my other skill gains go pretty slow just by playing as normal. And that explains why accuracy is always the hardest for me to work up and it's the thing I'm lacking the most by month 3 or 4. I always go straight for the kill.

Indeed. I read about the topic and then saw Chris's post on it after I had replied in the other thread so I posted my reply in both. Honestly I didn't even read any of the replies in the threads other than the OP's of both posts. Am I incredibly smart? Yes. However I'm also incredibly lazy sometimes...lol. Note: I'm just kidding on the smart thing though I would be curious to see a updated IQ score. The last time I was tested I was 25 and I'm 35 now. I'd be interested to see if there are indeed any changes (at least on paper) between then and now. Also, I'm not a math wiz. Not that I'm bad at math, I just don't remember a lot of my formulas for problems anymore as I haven't had to use them in years.

The way I see it having some fighters survive can be easily explainable, while others shouldn't survive at all. I don't mind fighters being basically indestructible, but only certain types/kinds. Early Starting Interceptors = Should Be a Total Loss when destroyed/shot down Interceptors Made From Alien Materials = Should Not Be a Total Loss when destroyed/shot down Why? Well, think of the UFO's you're shooting down. All of them except for the smallest ones can survive impact when being shot down. Even some small ones that only carry 3 Aliens can survive being shot down, thanks to the toughness of Alien Metals. Why shouldn't our mid/late game interceptors be capable of the same thing if they're made out of the same materials? So, normal human made fighters made with conventional materials should be a total loss when shot down, while those made with more durable alien materials should be salvageable after being shot down and not be a complete loss. Meaning given enough time you can repair it while not having to manufacture a new one (which is expensive and time consuming) from scratch. That seems like a nice middle ground on all this to me.

The way I see it having some fighters survive can be easily explainable, while others shouldn't survive at all. I don't mind fighters being basically indestructible, but only certain types/kinds. Early Starting Interceptors = Should Be a Total Loss when destroyed/shot down Interceptors Made From Alien Materials = Should Not Be a Total Loss when destroyed/shot down Why? Well, think of the UFO's you're shooting down. All of them except for the smallest ones can survive impact when being shot down. Even some small ones that only carry 3 Aliens can survive being shot down, thanks to the toughness of Alien Metals. Why shouldn't our mid/late game interceptors be capable of the same thing if they're made out of the same materials? So, normal human made fighters made with conventional materials should be a total loss when shot down, while those made with more durable alien materials should be salvageable after being shot down and not be a complete loss. Meaning given enough time you can repair it while not having to manufacture a new one (which is expensive and time consuming) from scratch. That seems like a nice middle ground on all this to me.

Thanks. I did sell some of my old armor as a made new armor, for a while I kept it because I planned on using it with another squad because you'll have to have one at your second base. If I put my starting base in America though I can't survive the loss of the nations in Europe and Asia long enough to get that second base up and running. I thought we'd be able to build bases where the drop-ship could land on the way to a mission on the other side of the globe but it doesn't work that way. The only way to get to a mission like that without having two squads currently is to transfer your troops and drop-ship to the other base and then launch from there, which by the time things transfer over the mission is gone anyway. One way to fix that might be to give the drop-ship unlimited range. That might be a little unrealistic as far as fuel and stuff goes but without the ability to land a drop-ship at another base along the way without transferring them there first I don't see another way to do it aside from having two squads of Xenonauts with their own drop-ship at a second base (which you can't afford if you start in the Americas). I thought about that way back in the day when the OG X-Com came out. One would think that if your entire planet, civilization and way of life were at risk, money would be the last thing people would care about. No-one would care about costs of things because if those things don't get done (building bases and weapons etc etc) then there wouldn't be a planet to defend and everyone would either be dead or slaves to the aliens. Every nation would put their all into defending a situation like that. I'd like to think that even as greedy as the human race is we wouldn't let the planet get taken over because we "couldn't afford" to pay the bill to save it. Global enslavement and destruction would probably be the only thing that would make us not care about money.

That's exactly where I place my base. I cover all of North and South America (as in I don't loose any nations there). I always end up loosing Russia and Asia and can't survive long enough to get a second base up so I can cover Europe or Asia. I can either equip a squad decently enough to survive the missions or I can try and build a second base early enough to get coverage across the pond, but if I do that my men get slaughtered because of not having adequate armor or munitions.

I don't think funding plummets or changes value. I'm pretty sure that when you make a base in the US you end up missing too many UFO's everywhere else to make enough money to be able to win or even really get a second base up and running. Try starting a new game in the US and tell me if it works for you. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, and if so I'd very much like to know so I can adjust my strategy.

What item has that kind of profit margin on it? I haven't seen that many of the mid to late game items nor many that use alloy so I don't know what kinds of profits they give. I know using lasers and the first few months of items you research you can't reach those kinds of profits. Starting in America I can't even manage to get a second base up by the end of the second month and that's with a full workshop and a full lab running research. I don't know maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Agreed. The new art is Awesome, the color scheme...not so much. I liked the darker colors as they were easier on the eyes and fit the atmosphere of the game more IMO.

I like that too, but I still feel that needs to be a *little* higher because as you mention that just covers the techs salaries and still doesn't give any profit at all. It's almost worth it to hire on techs to do your construction/equipment building and then fire them to try to avoid paying them. If you have too few techs then you can't keep your troops equipped enough to stay alive and effectively fight back. It would be nice perhaps as well if profit margin was tweaked on per-difficulty setting. Meaning maybe you'd get a little higher profit on easy but not quite as much on medium and even less on hard. That might be a little too much to hope for though considering you might need to re-balance the game 3 different times to accomplish that correctly which would be a waste of dev time and money at this stage.

Exactly. I think the main word in that sentence is "exploit". I don't want to see it abusable either by any means nor should it invalidate the real economy of making sure you have funding by actually doing your job as Xenonauts. I just want to see a "little" bit of money come from it. That way if you do loose a country or two you can still attempt a come back or "edge of your seat win". Also with all the UFO's you miss by putting your starting base in America currently, it makes getting through those first few months almost impossible. I've never put a base anywhere but America and I haven't made it far enough to even see the inside of a alien base yet for some reason. I've lost because of terror sites spawning where I couldn't get to them and having Russia and/or Asia siding with the aliens by the end of the second month killing my economy in the process when I'm still trying to get up enough money to start a second base to cover them. I do excellent in just about every combat encounter so that's not where I'm making my mistakes that are costing me the game. I'm not making too much gear, just trying to equip my troops with lasers and jackal armor, and having 30 scientists and 20 technicians. Just doing that much and putting my base in America is enough to cost me the game pretty much every time.

I was counting my outward radar range in the coverage, if I had to narrow it down I'd say yes, about 28% or so, but I didn't count Greenland as part of the North American continent though I guess it is, and yeah Alaska is out of my reach. What the game calculates though is evry UFO that flies over that you don't see or intercept counts to the score against you. There's a lot of traffic over Europe and Asia and if you can't see or shoot down those UFO's the aliens get a base over there by the end of the second month and loosing a funding block that size makes for a very hard early game in any difficulty. On the economy through manufacture, at current costs even scaling up production to a dedicated base wouldn't be feasible. You would use too many alien resources that you need to use to make equipment and vehicles to use or you would loose the game very early on as well. There is a small profit margin on a few vanilla items as it is but it's not enough to do anything with and if scaled up would just eat into other valuable resources. Play a little with current builds manufacturing and start your game in America and you'll see what I mean, I'm sure. I do indeed hope I'm jumping the gun. The best time for the devs to have feedback on it is before they do it and nail it down. I'm not complaining or anything just throwing this out there for them to see and think about (which I'm sure they are). To make manufacturing a fuller part of the integrated Xenonauts experience we should also make sure we point out the flaws it had in the OG X-Com too because it's concept was sound and worked, but because of high sale values became abusable fairly quickly. Also with this system consuming the materials you bring back from missions not only does it effect the economy but also the pacing of the game as a whole so it needs a lot of testing and balancing, which is where we come in .

I've started game after game and the economics are kind of screwed if you start in America. I never have enough cash to have a second base up and going by the time I need, unless I don't build any gear for my troops or only build one or two more aircraft and save/scum so I never lose one and have to replace it. Now, we all completely understand that in OG X-Com being able to manufacture alien gear and then sell it for high dollar value made the mid and end game of X-Com very abusable. Money became a non-issue which it shouldn't have because the system was unbalanced. It's actually easy to balance multipele different ways and being implemented right could be a very easy way to balance most of Xenonauts economic issues. The main thing being able to sell off manufactured items for a profit does for you is give you a monetary return for manufacture time invested. In OG X-Com, all they would have needed to do was cut the profit margin down on the sale of made items. Make it so you could still *help support* your economy, but definitely not make it so high it could replace your economy all together, which is the mistake the original made. That should be totally avoidable with Xenonauts especially as balancing these values is where we're at in development right now with the beta. With the right values inserted here now you can balance out a lot of issues with the rest of the economy much easier. The key is to provide a *decent*, but not overly great, profit on the time put in to make that item. As it stands right now I think Xenonauts values are a little low. Low is still the right idea here, but a little more is necessary in the early game particularly if you Don't start in the Middle East every game. With my base in America near the American/Mexican boarder I can cover almost all of North and South America. That's 1/3 of the land mass of the planet. I shouldn't lose the game because I put my first base here. The other way to balance the manufacturing/profit system is to make much of the manufacturing need rare items to make. Of course if you balance it this way there's a lot more involved deciding what items it takes to make things and judging how fast you retrieve those items during the coarse of a game, which can again lead to abuse if either the wrong items are chosen or given a wrong value. I'd say the easier way to balance it would simply be from the profit margin of sold items as deciding what makes what has mostly been decided already and it would take much more effort to change. Also, I'm playing on easy. I either need the countries in Europe and Asia not to go to the aliens by month 2 or I need the money to get something up and running over there to provide protection, which I can't afford.

I've had a couple of terror missions spawn out of range on me. I also had hoped that if we had a base in between with the resources there shouldn't be a problem with landing there long enough to refuel. I would expect the base would however at least need a Living Quarters, Hangar, and Storage (it has to keep the fuel and ammo somewhere). I was actually thinking I was doing some pre-planning there, already knowing I couldn't afford to have a second base up by then. Hmm... If it isn't possible to do that and it is possible for such a important mission as a terror mission to spawn out of range then I'd say that's an over-sight in design planning. Either the missions should be restricted to never spawn out of range (because spawning out of range would be a automatic loss), or the ability to land unexpectedly at another of your bases needs to be implemented so you can reach your mission target.