Search the Community

While I am aware that Chris has firmly stated that he does not want manufacturing to be profitable, I believe that, at least for some items, players should be able to turn at least a marginal profit. Far from being a case of "I want it to happen", I have thought through the matter and have come up with three reasons why I believe profitable manufacturing would fit in the game: it aligns with the "realistic" nature of the game, it mitigates the newer limiting factors and it will allow players who have bad starts to continue playing an otherwise "hopeless" game. To begin, we'll look at the realism factor. Consider the following: "local forces" present in many maps eventually start to use higher-tier weaponry (lasers, plasma, etc.). Now, where did the local forces get these weapons? Issued by their governments, no doubt. Where did the governments get the weapons, though? One could argue that they simply devised the weapons through their own tireless research. This seems valid, because all alien weaponry is sold after a mission for a small profit. The argument cannot apply, however, based on the research tree: two important pieces of research-namely Alien Alloys and Alenium-are kept exclusively by the Xenonauts team. Without these research items, it is safe to assume that world governments could not replicate Xenonaut technology, and must therefore receive the technology from them. It stands to reason that an organization which requires financial backing would seek alternate streams of revenue, as well. These two ideas put together-exclusive access and manufacturing capability of a technology and a need for further funding-create a situation where the Xenonauts organization would be in a prime position to manufacture the technology and then sell it off for a small profit, supplementing their operations budget just enough to make saving the planet a little bit easier. Second under consideration are the new limiting factors that have been introduced to the game. The first factor is extremely limited space: laboratories and workshops accommodate at most 15 workers and living quarters support only 35 personnel each. Each of these modules requires two spaces in a base, and each base can accommodate up to 32 spaces of modules. A manufacturing base, assuming it has a garage, hangar and general stores, can provide accommodations and working space for up to 140 technicians. Also add in the costs of hiring personnel and constructing a base and base upkeep. Such a base would cost $1.65 million to construct, an additional $1.4 million to staff, and $127,500 monthly just in upkeep, and would still take nearly a month to produce the top-end craft in the game at its current build time. The other limiting factor is the resources required; for almost every project a workshop can produce, there is some material cost in Alien Alloys and Alenium, which are both very finite resources. With these considerations, it is easy to see that manufacturing almost anything for monetary profit would result in a net loss of resources, which mitigates the potential imbalance of a player being able to produce, for example, Jackal armour for profit and thus granting access to "unlimited" funding. Finally, consider that some players in the very early game have very bad luck: whether alien spawn patterns are outside radar detection range or players are simply unable to catch and down UFOs over land or any other of a number of problems, the early game can be very discouraging for a player. Add to this the fact that without being able to raid UFOs players have no access to funding, and that overall funding from nations tends to drop off rapidly and it can be easily seen that one bad month early on-perhaps the second or third month-and the player is in a bad spot. One or two missions where many soldiers are lost later and the player is forced to restart his or her game, not due to playing poorly, but due to a number of factors outside his or her control making the game unplayable. This is a frustrating situation and is not at all fun, and for what reason do we play games other than to have fun? Allowing players who are behind in such a way to turn a profit by manufacturing items and selling them off means that no game becomes completely lost before the alien invasion even begins to ramp up. This is doubly important in Ironman mode, where a player cannot simply reload a bad situation and limit the loss of soldier life. In one small scout mission, a player has only to lose six soldiers for the mission to be unprofitable and seven for there to be a loss of funds. First and foremost, games are about having fun, and a large factor of fun is the playability of the game. By considering the realistic nature of the game, its current limiting factors and how large an impact too-limited funds can have on a player, we can see that marginally profitable manufacturing poses many benefits to the player and can simultaneously increase the "fun level" and decrease the "frustration level", making the game overall more enjoyable.

Hi Guys. Have start to build with 15 mechanics a foxtrot intercepter. Have enough money (150 k) for this. I see on screen, that they need the time 2 days and 16 hours...but there are no progress. Where is the problem? Is this a bug or do I make somethings wrong. I mean i know how to build a plane...but this time it just dont workd pleas help. thanks

Don't deduct monthly maintenance cost for buildings still under construction. Cancelling manufacturing should return at least some of the production cost of already started items.

Our X-COM inteligence defence unit discovered alarming trend in our fighting capabilities. 1- New directives from Above reduced the maximum number of soldiers in our default landing chopper to 8 (in v18.x). Those landing choppers are barely half full when they arrive to fight alien scum. Thanks to that, adding vehicles to our operations is contraproductive. Not only they are bigger and easier to hit, their guns are so inacurate we believe alien malware is corrupting their targeting units. What is worst, adding vehicles further limit the number of soldiers on mission. No missions, no training -> dead soldiers. Training fresh soldiers later is horrible pain, as enemies are more and more dangerous and our soldiers more and more dead. Few of our more brain-limited analysts recommend turning those dead soldiers into zombies and sending them first as cannon fodder. Not a bad idea if geeks find a way to do it. 2- Another sabotage was discovered in our own manufacturing labs, as plans for crafting Foxtrots were modified and half their missile hardpoints eliminated. They can't shoot down even small scouts without reloading at base! Here is hoping new explosive tech will change that, but we are sure enemy will adapt. Not to mention they are throwing more and bigger ships at us all the time. 3- We are not sure if this is actually sabotage or just normal geek behavior, but our scientists refuse to give us progress on the stuff their are researching. I mean, look at them - the more you add, the happier they are, but you have no way of knowing if they will finish the project in a day or a year. We are not sure if they understand the difference, really. 4- Our engineers are extremely lazy *and* corrupt - thats the only explanation we can give you why it takes ten engineers four days to build one laser rifle. For 40k. Look at the market, we can sell it at best for half as much, and it's unique class of weapons. Later on, we noticed some project that involve staggering number of engineers that took month or more. We are fighting a war here, aircrafts going down in flames and pieces and they are sitting there, sipping beer and taking huge salaries. 5- The prices we can sell our developed technology are laughable. There is no way we can support our horrible economical situation with manufacturing and selling for profit. I vividly remember whole bases dedicated to producing advanced weapons for sale in the first invasion, all those years ago. Militaries world-wide were taking all we could produce and then some. Good old days... 6- While everything we buy is ridiculously expensive, including buildings and I have to repeat the manufacturing problems, we have only two sources of cash - selling alien weapons that noone can use and monthly funding, if you can call it funding at all. We need to expand worldwide, but we can't even pay for hangars, living quarters and radar. 7- Aliens started sabotaging their UFOs, our only source of Alenium. Two months of shooting down every UFO that moves (again, sorry for that Boing, it looked really suspicious on radar) and doing every available mission even on planes that landed on their own and we managed to gather only ten units of Alenium. As awesome power sources go, its no use if we can't get our hands on much more of that stuff. 8- Our engineers are lazy, we already established that. Thats the only explanation why reloading and refueling takes so long. They are probably taking a nap or two while doing it. I am sure we will uncover more alien interference later on, but thats enough for a start.

You know the more I think about my playthroughs and the more I think about beginning aircraft... Why do we buy condors, but build foxtrots? Later planes we build makes complete sense. But Why not treat Foxtrots like Condors and buy them. This would free up early to early mid manufacturing for actually making armor and weapons for our soldiers and planes. Granted with the new recoverable interceptors might make it less needed. But I still think the idea has some merits.

I was in engineering and selected to build a hunter. Nothing happened, so I clicked a few more times. I finally realized that I did not have a garage, so stopped clicking. I clicked the geoscape button and time whizzed by. An alien craft appeared, but the game did not pause or give a notification. I hit space bar and tried to click the craft, to no avail. Then I clicked on something else, I am afraid I am not sure what (perhaps the launch interceptors button, or a base icon) and the "no garage space" notification came up. I cleared it, then it came up a few more times (because I had tried several times to build the hunter. What do they say about trying the same thing and expecting different results?). After clearing the hidden messages an "alien craft detected" box popped, and things went back to normal.

So as the thread name says...After you upgrade to plasma...Local forces get laser weapons. What's weird is that they don't become mass produced.You still have to craft them even though military uses them... This is just a quick suggestion...Sorry if I'm late and someone else posted this...

Hey guys. Thx for a great game, loved the beta. I think that most of my suggestions/bugs have already been posted. A few that I have not seen; 1) A third stance – lie down. Better accuracy, more cover options, and be able to have three units in a row. One lies, one crouched and one standing, with each shooting over the others. 2) Manufacturing of laser clips, advanced grenades, rocket grenades etc. I really don’t like that these items are free and in unlimited supply. It makes things too easy, and kind of breaks the economic system. Perhaps implement for insane difficulty? (3 Additional diplomacy. Be able to lend money, at high interest from countries that you have a good relationship with. Or perhaps barter, recruit expensive mercenaries for a limited period. Etc etc.) Have stopped playing at wolf armour, I want to enjoy the full game later on. When is the full game coming? Thx again for making a great game for a grumpy old school gamer (1977). Now I can stop complaining that the games were better 10-15 years ago 

So what did I do to try and find a way around !? Tried different base, different empty hangar .. Made sure more then enough building materials were available. Decommisioned every single plane in one base in favor of 1 to be build Corsair .. Everything to no avail .. Again frustrating and a clear reminded why not to get to excited about a game when still in beta :-P The hourse and joy I loose in this way are killing my mood.

Hey! Just started playing Xenonauts and I love it! I have a quick question regarding manufacturing. Already sifted through a few sources but couldn't find an answer: Is it possible to manufacture stuff even when lacking the neccessary funding? I just queued up a Condor Interceptor and while adding techs to the order the build time decreased even though I am lacking the funds. Hope somebody can clarify. Thanks!

For the ammo used by higher-tech weapons (lasers and plasma - I'm assuming that's all there is, don't correct me if I'm wrong. ) - does ammo use up alenium? In the deployment screen there's infinite ammo, but some of the xenopedia entries hint that they do. The alenium research talks about managing it carefully, and I believe the laser weaponry research says something about recharging it at the base with alenium. With the lack of tooltips anywhere (especially with production costs) it's hard to tell where all of my stocks are going. I really don't like the idea of needing to worry about running out of alenium just because I want to shoot my weapons.

I searched the forums for this, sorry if it needs to be redirected. V18 with HF3 looks beautiful btw, great work. Ive noticed this issue before and am not sure if its an intended feature. When starting a new game, after researching the high speed interceptor, trying to build one (setting the production quantity from 0/1 to 1/1) results in the error 'no hangar space available' or somesuch. I've just started, and there is a free hangar. However, in the vehicle loadout screen under interceptors the high speed interceptor being built is shown (with rad art I might add). Something doesn't seem to be reporting correctly or I am missing it. Can someone help collect my marbles? Cheers ~Katz

Having a few specialised workshop bases, would it be possible for a Research or Manufacturing Completed go to the specific base of the research or manufacturing that's actually been done. At present, it goes to the first base.

1. Interceptor's plasma torpedo launcher with unlimited ammo producing 8 hours (one full workshop) Plasma grenade (same technology tear, single use) producing 1 day 16 hours (same workshop, 5 times longer!) Isn't something not right here? 2. Corsair interceptor needs 60 days to produce (Ok, 15 days in my 4-workshop main production base). It's only a 2nd-generation replacement for mass light interceptor Condor (not a last super battleship), and if I want to replace Condors on all my intercept bases, I need at least 10 of them. Assuming there will be at least one (or two?) more generation, producing time will grow accordingly, and I have to build not only planes - how long game duration is expected? 5 years of in-game time? 10 years? Maybe there is an extra zero in config file?

Am I the only one who thinks that the manufacturing of laser weaponry is taking a little too long? Based on last night's experience, they are taking about 240 man-hours to make a laser rifle. In just a few days, I can make a Mig Interceptor, or a couple of laser rifles. Just seems too long to me. The reason I'm whining about this is because I finally am able to build these things, but the moment the research is unlocked, I'm fighting armored Caesans and Sebillians. These are almost impossible to kill with small arms (I've killed zero with assault rifles), and I'm only having mediocre results with LMG and sniper rifles. I really need laser weapons.

I've researched the Mig-32, but when I click on an empty Hangar, the only option presented is to buy an F-17, which can't catch anything. Any suggestions on something I'm missing to build Migs?

Yet i have the materials and the workers are already being payed?

Great remake, excited fort the potential. I have looked for a similar post, I am using v10 and have researched the miG but am only presented the option to purchase f-17's cant seem to figure out how to change the aircraft to purchase. Is this an issue, or am i just missing something.

Currently missiles do not consume on use, but this is a bug. Currently It might take me 9days to produce 10 missiles which is fine considering they last me forever. But if consumed I will use them up in 2 sorties. My suggestion would be batch building alenium missiles so that 1 day = 5/10missiles with 25 technicians. That way you can use down time to recover. My worst day so far has involved 1 base making about 10sorties over 24hrs with 9 interceptors. I used up about 40/50 missiles in that 1day. Technicians used for missiles also severely impact other production times. 25 sets of wolf armour can take 80days with 25 technicians. The other 25 are making missiles. Wolf armour also seems to have a rediculous build length for marginal gain. Made worse when wounded units lose all their equipment.

So i know this is more of a balance issue, but this one was bugging me while replaying ufo again. While you could produce your own plasma ammo in ufo, it was more of a last resort, since it used really much elerium and you need really much ammo. You mostly used the ammo you found on dead aliens. Now i really really like the idea that you are not simply using alien technology, but are advancing your own technology based on the alien technology you find. But what i wanted to ask is: Will producing Laser clips use Alenium, too? I know it would be reasenable, but considering how hard it is to find these rare meterials, and considering how much ammo you need, it basically would push you into not using new technology, but to hold on to your normal weapons as long as possible.

First, I apologize if these points have been covered elsewhere already. I've searched here and haven't found anything on them, but I haven't perused the entire forum yet! Plus I haven't pre-ordered yet and thus haven't tried the Alpha version to see how things work in game so far. Descriptions. One thing that bugged me about most games of this type is that your soldiers in the field find a dead alien and his weapon, pick it up and... 'Oh, it's a plasma rifle'. Names of technology (or aliens themselves) are immediately apparent when they show up in most of these types of games. Personally I'd prefer placeholders based on the order in which they show up in game ('Alien-Type Alpha', 'Alien Rifle 01' etc) and once research has been done then replace these placeholders with 'plasma rifle' etc. With placeholder variables the names can be replaced everywhere in the game fairly easily (if care is made in the placeholder names versus the final names) Reverse engineering. Are alien artifacts going to be manufacturable (if that's a word)? In Xcom1 once you research plasma rifles you could build them and the ammo for them easily and that always seemed odd to me. I can understand making a version of the ammo for it (works on alien weapons, but gives less shots or something), and making a human designed weapon based on the technology but copying the alien tech perfectly despite the vast gulf between the two techs always seemed silly. Plus having one research field for reverse engineering then another (or more than one) for understanding the underlying tech and then reproducing it seemed more realistic