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.

Have a look at this: The soviet union has just been hammered, which is fair enough, I did decide to cover australasia with my third base. Still, it seems pretty harsh to be able to have this much of a change from one wave.

Is it correct that region funding is roughly calculated as: effective funding = base funding level * relations ? If so, then base funding levels could be tweaked a bit to encourage settling bases away from the "sweet spot" in north-east africa. North America and Soviet Union could have a higher base funding level than other regions (would fit the lore). Indochina and australia could also do with a little increase. In addition it would be great to add some level of randomization to base funding level and starting relations for each region. This would add replay value. You would always remember that game, where the starting parameters prompted you to make your first base i south america or australia...

The regions should have different funding levels based on their size, and isolation from other regions. This would make bases in locations other than the middle east viable. Not sure on exact numbers, but the rankings should go something like this, from greatest amount of funding to least: -North America -Russia -Indochina -Australasia -Europe -South America -South Africa -Central America -North Africa -Middle East Just a rough list FYI, some things may need to be moved around.

How do additions to monthly income work, exactly? The reputation score at the end of a crash site... What does it do? Does it actually add to the monthly income for the country? The only effects on monthly income ive been seeing are from shooting down UFOs (sometimes) or dismantling a base or a terror site. Do additions to reputation work based on how many UFOs you shoot down? Or is it based on reducing the percentage of UFOs on the whole planet? Or what? I know when there are casualties that hurts your rep, right? Like when the UFOs blow up an airliner or something... Generally, I do not understand the details and mechanics of the income system.

The mission debriefing screen displays the score for each mission, but there are more things in the game that affect your funding score, such as downed UFOs, destroyed fighters, alien activity, and so on. Perhaps the geoscape news tickers and pop-up windows could also notify the player of how each event affects his score?

I am around the second month of hotfix 4 on normal difficulty. And I can never get ahead in terms of cash. I down every ufo and complete every mission with zero difficulty. But its the events that pop up on the globe. I have been at minus 30k for both months. I have noticed that most of the incidents chain together. like 4 -7ks in a row And before I intercepted a ufo it shot of 2 events losing me more. Maybe this is a balance thing. Orrrrr maybe it all works out later.

Hi Guys. I have this situation: I am in the 3. month now day 10 i think. Udssr found is 54360 $ but I have also a minus 54360 $ . This means, after ending the mounth I will lose this nation. The question is, if I will catch some ufos in the next 20 days, do I will safe this nation or do I will lost in anyway??? I dont sure if you can safe a nation if your are at this point that you have exact the minus like the found.

I will try to explain the problem with my bad english. One day before ending of the month i have 600.000. Usd than month is ending, I see this picture whits nations which I lost und Nations where I get money from. And below i can see how much money all the nations pay me ( for example 1 million) and my profit in green color. ( for example 100.000. Usd.) But after the month is endig i dont have logakly 700.000 usd but -100.000 . Question: what the f... Going on hear? Can any budy tell me? It is normal or is this a bug? Hope you understand my problem and can help me volks.

sorry for the apparently aggressive post but the new monetary system(ver 19.4),better than the stable version is still insufficient..ok ,cost are lowered,well but expecting that a dozen of underpaid mans save the world against an overwhelming alien force is...frustrating!!!!absolutely need(my personal opinion) to at least: 1)enhancing the monthly founding of at least 200k more than the actual... 2)ability to retake lost nations 3)the abatement of fighter and every ufos increase nation's rating?? in a my new game i have in 20 oct,8250$!!!2 condor,1foxtrot,14 mans,0 armour a 2nd base with a radar array and an hangar.. the world's founding trend in a costant drop(and all,apart uf USSR hate me),the only ufo's are fighters(high risk for no gain) can i do something in that conditions??? and more,the foxtrot are underpowered!!i prefer the older asset with 4 missiles..it granted a better results..

I sacrificed my best soldiers for you people, and what thanks do I get? Funding cut after funding cut! Why? Because a bunch of hick farmers are complaining about a few sore rectums? Good grief! I'm trying to fight a war here! And now I have to explain to my soldiers' orphaned children that, "sorry, I wanted to buy your parent some armour so I wouldn't have to return their corpse to you in a dozen plastic sandwich bags, but I'm a bit strapped for cash here because some butt sore civilians are upset they got abducted for the weekend and don't think I'm worth funding any more." That's democracy for you! But seriously, I really don't think I know what I'm doing when it comes to the strategic game. My first "successful" playthrough I didn't build a second base and pumped all my cash into buying snazzy weapons and such, but lost too much funding. Probably got to the start of December and then gave up the goose. Second "successful" playthrough, built a second base in the US (probably should've gone for Russia/China), never bought a single upgraded weapon or armour, got to January 1 before funding dried up. Partly, I ended spending a crazy fortune having to replace all my fighters that keep getting blown to pieces (although admittedly I only just discovered how much control you have in that mini-game, e.g. I didn't realise you could actually move your fighters around manually, etc). Full disclosure: I never played the original X Com, so I have no carry-over information from that game. So before I start my third game, I was hoping to get some tips on how to play the strategic game. I've looked around a bit but I couldn't really find any info on that aspect of the game. Some things I'm interested in: Do I need soldiers in my second base? I kitted it out with a full compliment of soldiers and chinook, and then I'm pretty sure I barely ever used them. And so it occurred to me that maybe you just send soldiers out from the original base and the secondary bases are just for air defence. But then what about your base getting invaded (which I haven't experienced yet)? Won't I need soldiers in each base to defend against that? I recently realised that you can set your fighters to patrol the skies? What's up with that? (I haven't done it yet because I've never had enough fighters on hand to be confident to do anything with them except wait for the next round of death from the skies). Speaking of which, should I be racing to get a bunch of Migs up? I usually only have one because in some ways they seem kinda useless, and Condors are super effective for a while, but then when the big boy alien ships turn up I just get owned in the skies, and I'm outta money by then... It's not clear to me when I can safely flog off my stuff to earn money or when I can keep it. In my first game I kept it to use for research and building fancy things, and I ran out of money. Second game, I flogged it off because my second base was so expensive I couldn't afford nice things, any way. And I still ran out of money! And speaking of money, I need more of that! How do I get that? How do I get them to love me!?

after playing over 100+ hours on v18.5 and v19 2nd edition. i am left wondering the scoring mechanic and how it works. i understand missions completed results in scoring, but how does that reflect individual country by coutry standing. i sent packing 3 terror attacks and show down a load of aircraft over the EU but i still got a reduction in funding off them.. why? also does research reflect your score when it comes to your monthly report..??? what happens if you leave an enemy base alone for a while.. does it increase the chance of that country joining up with the aliens??? a full breakdown of the mechanic would be nice if anybody knows.. thank you

Hi, I just started a new playthrough on Veteran Ironman, I thought everything was going well, I had gotten my second base out had started filling it out nicely. I put my second base in NA. My first base was in the middle east. So come the switch to November North America goes -57,000 and leaves. Wait... what? Why would it even be possible that it would leave by November, I don't think I could have possibly set a base up and fixed it up there any faster than I did... I didn't let a terror mission or anything go off there, I am truly confused. Any ideas on what happened? Do I just have the worst luck in the history of man or is there some mechanic at play here I am unaware of? I ask this because I want to understand the mechanics of the game, if I did something wrong that I can fix, great... but right now the game is quite new player unfriendly so i'm left scratching my head with no idea what the hell happened to cause this. In two months my NA funding went from 120,000 to 0? With no skipped Terror mission or anything? P.S. I have a copy of the save game just before the month turn if anyone is interested in that, but for now i'll assume nobody cares that much or could gather anything out of something like that. Edit: Now I understand why all the generals look so grumpy on the startup screen.

Hi guys I'm new in this forum and sorry if my english is a little simple but it isn't my first language.. first i have to do a great greet for the developers of this awesome game. second i have a pair of questions.. i have played with the steam version(veteran) and i have locate the my first base in USSR,fine,after the first 2 months(in that time i have build a base in USA,shooted down at least 30's minor UFO and a 8's corvettes,killed dozens of aliens and developed many research very useful for the fight and the subsequent survival of the entire human race:) ) the USA abandoned the cause and cut down the foundings,ALL other nations have severely cutted down the budget and all, apart of USSR and europe have bad relation with me! i can understand a bit of hesitation and a gradual loss of prestige/money if my forces completely avoid missions and general inactivity but i have do,with 3 airplanes,a dozen of man and a miserable cash reserve MORE then the entire world's air forces and armies!!! and when a nation leave the fight\founding is lost forever or is possible a return?lesser severe found cutting and relations would be better and more realistic?the xenonauts are the best soldiers of the world after all...

I mean, logically, they should send all their best soldiers, best scientists, best engineers, donate all resources, all their radar arrays, etc etc, all for free, when it's obvious that aliens are tearing the planet apart. Maybe one angle is that the x-com project leaders know that there exist within governments factions who are brokering alliance or surrender to the aliens and are unwilling to accept the direct involvement of anyone into the project, except in the way of monetary donation, in order keep the project better secure from spies etc? I dunno... Anyone care to explain it? just for fun even

I played so many hours on the original I'm ashamed to admit it. I wish I had a couple of million dollars I could give you to develop this game and bring back that old feeling I had playing Enemy Unknown but on a 30 inch monitor. No other game ever captured me like xcom did. I know not everyone "gets it." I told my brother about this game and he just didn't "get it" I think that is the case of the negative comments. You either love this kind of game or not. I like the slow, deliberate pacing of this game. I call it "calm tension." BTW, has anyone actually met an internet forum troll? What kind of person are they? I mean, really? Can someone post a picture and profile of a troll? What kind of occupations did this kind of person have before the internet?

I've played the game for a while now, mostly checking out the releases leading up to beta, and I've had a great time. When beta came, I decided to try and see how long I could survive, since I'm new to this type of games. I've clocked about 10 hours in my current game (according to steam), and so far I think I've done pretty good. I've done 4 terror missions, 2 or 3 medium ships, and countless scouts. My team has taken very few losses, and everyone have the wolf armour, and laser weapons. The biggest problem for me now is money, I've done all the missions I can, only lost a few aircraft, manufactured minimum amount of equipment, built an extra hangar, lab and workshop, yet I'm strapped for cash. I have focused on research and manufacturing, so that my soldiers have the best equipment, both armour and weapons. I don't feel that I have wasted my money, yet my money is constantly low. At this point in my game, UFOs are becoming rarer, which significantly hampers my money making capability. The money I make quickly gets eaten up by production of either new weapons (plasma), or into new aircraft (the condor replacement). I've read around, and while I get that money is a part of the difficulty in this game, I feel like I'm missing something when it comes to making money. Is this just me, if so, what can I do differently? if not, how do you cope with it? On a slight sidenote: When did they change it so that the helicopter can't carry 8 troops and an armoured car?, and what's up with the absurd manufacturing time on the 3rd aircraft (condor replacement)? I've just researched it, and I hope it's good, because that's a huge time investment. To those that have played for a few months into the game, how many labs/workshops and scientists/workers should I aim for? Thank you for reading my post, and I hope someone has any insight to my little problem. Have a good day regardless.

First of all I'm not complaining, I know the game's still being worked on so have no problems with that, and also, I'm loving the game so far but there are a few issues i thought i would throw in here. I did a quick search on the forums to see if any of these issues / suggestions had been mentioned before, but didn't see any so if i am repeating other peoples posts, I do apologize for that. So the first thing i need to mention is tool-tips and descriptions, I've noticed that so far (I'm only up to 2nd of October or so, so not too far in) some items, weapons and vehicles have no tool-tips, or just show up as a box with the hash symbol in them "####" This is happening on the engineering section of the game when i click on; for example, the armor or the scout vehicles, there is no details of what the item actually does, protection it gives, how long it takes to build, how much it costs or sells for .. things like that. (As a secondary note, I think things you build should sell for slightly more than it costs to make, so we can earn money from not only doing missions) Second thing is I would like to build a new base ... I'm loosing money everywhere because i cant cover more than a few continents, yet when i try to build a new base I'm just told "You don't have enough money" ... Maybe a tool-tip or something showing how much it costs to build a new base would be a good idea. The third idea i had, was after a mission when it comes up with your soldiers and their increases in stats, maybe have a Number/Number effect, showing the before and after. I'm just not sure if bonuses are single points, double or more, so would be good to see a little kind of "comparison" note. The fourth thing i noticed was that the scout vehicles say they more farther than soldiers, Mine only moves half as far, I'm not sure if this is a bug, or maybe my soldiers are higher rank and therefore just have a greater movement allowance. Maybe the scout could have two options, The one it has now, or maybe a "Fast" travel, maybe increasing movement by 50% but allowing no firing ... Just a thought, as it's not much use as a scouting vehicle if its lagging behind my men ... Maybe it could gain experience, "Or" takes one of your soldiers to pilot it, therefore allowing it greater movement based on the "Pilots" skill. Last thing for now, is money. Yes i'm earning some cash doing missions, but i'm not earning enough to make a difference in the game, building new base features or bases. (as above) I'm thinking that items created should have a greater sell price, even if its only 25-50% of the build cost ... I really don't want to have to resort to cheating or editing files to make cash, would rather put my engineers to work to make it. That's it for now ... Great game, keep up the awesome work!

how does one make money? Can i sell weapons i make? What can i sell?

EDIT: We're looking for the $ multiplier that's applied to score to determine monthly funding. In gamesconfig it says it should be $1,000, but it's probably actually $500. ------------------- Anyone know if there's a multiplier that we can adjust to allow us to score ~100 in a UFO mission but not have funding jump by ~50k? (Obviously the workaround is to adjust mission scores to the 5-15 range, but that'll likely feel less fun, as well as requiring a little more work. )

As September was slow, I had speeded up the timer. Once the funding screen had appeared and closed the timer raced on at the old speed. I'd have preferred it to go to the slowest setting so I could then enter the base tab and spend my new funds without losing precious hours.

Did paypal even unfriez the accounts or whathaveyou?

Any idea how much has been raised since the Kickstarter ended? Maybe we reached a new tier/stretch goal since then.

Different regions have different funding levels. It seems to me that it probably refers to that region's base payment to X Command (or whatever it's called in Xenonauts), but does whether or not you have a base in the region make any difference? For example, I can still cover just about all of Europe with my base in Egypt, but the N. Africa funding level is lower than Europe. Does if make any difference in that sense where I put my base? Should I have gone ahead and put my base on the other side of the Mediterranean?

Is it just me or do finances feel a little on the rough side in the demo? I feel extremely dependent on - really, trapped by - the council of funding nations and their monthly check. The rewards pulled in from completed missions seem to be almost too light to be worth it (strictly financially speaking - of course you can't risk losing reputation to the council). Rewards were probably too lucrative in X-Com - just a handful of missions worth of alien tech sales could put financial issues far from the forefront of your worries - but the way it is now I'm having a hard time seeing how I could feasibly expand the operation beyond two bases. A serious lack of rewards from the completion of individual missions is keeping me quite stuck. It's not the kind of restriction that makes me feel like I have a lot of options and not enough resources to pursue them all - it feels more like I have all these options and I can't pursue any of them because there's nothing I can do to make headway financially. In short, it feels a lot like X-Com did when I was eight years old and didn't know I could sell stuff after missions. I feel that the financial rewards for successfully completing individual missions - regardless of the impact on reputation with the council - need to be higher. The risk of taking on these missions is not entirely offset by the new technology they provide for research, because those incur further costs in hiring scientists, conducting research, hiring engineers, and spending money on building that new tech. Monthly payments always seem to just do their part in maintenance upkeep and don't leave much or any room for expanding your coverage or upgrading your equipment, and that's what X-Com was always about: starting small, taking risks, reaping rewards, pulling ahead, and turning the tables. tl;dr version: I strongly recommend adding substantial financial incentives and rewards for completing individual missions.