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UFO Recovery & Dissasembly


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One thing I love about X-Division is actually that you have to work at getting resources out of a crashed UFO, not just in shooting it down and capturing it but actually having engineers taking it to bits for components, is this any kind of option for X2 or are we going to have to get the X-Div guys modding like hell again?

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X-Div gives you the UFO basically as an item. You can either choose to sell it (for a higher profit than you had gotten from just bombing the site, which is good as you definitely get something more out of taking the risk to do a mission) or disassemble it. Disassembly (dsb from now on) gives you some alloys and alenium, and also different UFO sub-systems. These in turn can be used to build new, advanced planesof some kind. So e.g. the amount of Asierus and Foxtrot (both use the same resources) is directly linked to how many (small and medium) UFOs you managed to raid.

There is also the boon of being able to build the Firebird, one of the best general purpose planes (remember X-Div differentiates what planes are good against which enemy) for each of the Landing craft (huge ships, e.g. Terror Carriers). There may be more, but I am not that far into the game.

Finally, you can also downgrade these systems to some extent in case you need more basic planes faster.

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You basically have to go in and recover specific pieces of UFOs regularly in order to field planes and such. It gives a nice reward loop when you can know that you need particular components from a particular thing. Like in my current XDiv run I'm hunting down all strike cruisers so I can make some upgraded missile boats, because they have the right flight computers.

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In further depth, everything from power sources to weapons systems, to multiple computer types are counted. The first UFO is always broken down for study, and there seems to be 10 or so UFO types per wave. This serves double duty of keeping stuff fresh, while also preventing spam of planes, since finances are a bit more available, and planes are a good bit more adaptable, since the UFOs are drastically tougher and faster. 

So it's kinda like playing on Insane, but with more variety, and less knowing 4 people died as soon as that sebilian rounds the corner.

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Basically what these guys said, the X-Div team pretty much made everything you could collect outside of just UFOs being disassembled part of upgrading your arsenal too, you took apart the alien guns to get cores for more powerful tech for yourselves, also butchered alien corpses for materials to make better armour.

Edited by Kaiphus_Kain
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I guess my concern about that sorta thing (and I have been experimenting with similar ideas over the past few months) is just the large amount of extra UI management it requires.

Presumably stuff like butchering corpses for materials for armour is done through a Workshop project? Is there a separate workshop project for each corpse type that produces a specific material, or is there a more elegant solution? The problem I discovered is that a complex system ends up with having dozens and dozens of workshop projects that are required to handle each possible action where the player transforms one item into another one ... and they kinda drown out the important stuff.

That's cool for players who like to have that level of detail and customisation, but not everyone wants quite that level of complexity.

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1 hour ago, Chris said:

I guess my concern about that sorta thing (and I have been experimenting with similar ideas over the past few months) is just the large amount of extra UI management it requires.

Presumably stuff like butchering corpses for materials for armour is done through a Workshop project? Is there a separate workshop project for each corpse type that produces a specific material, or is there a more elegant solution? The problem I discovered is that a complex system ends up with having dozens and dozens of workshop projects that are required to handle each possible action where the player transforms one item into another one ... and they kinda drown out the important stuff.

That's cool for players who like to have that level of detail and customisation, but not everyone wants quite that level of complexity.

Yeah it equals lots of engineering projects, each type of alien and rank produces differing amounts of materials, each gun similar, alien ballistic weapons would give ballistic cores with pistol giving 1 say and a mini-gun 3 or 4, will agree it would likely be annoying for many if it went very high level but could be interesting as just the basics kind of thing with just getting Alloys and fuels from ships by taking them to bits, modding could then add the rest for crazy folks like me :)

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@stewpidbear Depends upon the budget for art assets, I'd say. 

 

I can recover items from downed fighters as a Strategic Op. To minimise UI management, could the same be done for ordinary UFOs? You still get the option for getting a fixed amount immediately, or you can assign agents to oversee the cutting up of the UFO, and get a bonus to the artifacts rcovered, or possibly unique artifacts as a reward. Narratively, it could be described as either letting the funding bloc the ufo crashed in do most of the grunt work in removing the ufo, and paying a tithe in the form of alien artifacts tto the funding bloc, or assigning your own teams supervised by an agent - each agent assigned represents a Xenonauts team. I mean, is there any artwork for engineers/scientists that could be used so you can send engineers and/or scientists off to recover a UFO? That wold give people the option for complexity without having it forced upon them, similar to being able to airstrike a downed UFO instead of having to GC every ufo you come across. 

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9 minutes ago, Max_Caine said:

@stewpidbear Depends upon the budget for art assets, I'd say. 

 

I can recover items from downed fighters as a Strategic Op. To minimise UI management, could the same be done for ordinary UFOs? You still get the option for getting a fixed amount immediately, or you can assign agents to oversee the cutting up of the UFO, and get a bonus to the artifacts rcovered, or possibly unique artifacts as a reward. Narratively, it could be described as either letting the funding bloc the ufo crashed in do most of the grunt work in removing the ufo, and paying a tithe in the form of alien artifacts tto the funding bloc, or assigning your own teams supervised by an agent - each agent assigned represents a Xenonauts team. I mean, is there any artwork for engineers/scientists that could be used so you can send engineers and/or scientists off to recover a UFO? That wold give people the option for complexity without having it forced upon them, similar to being able to airstrike a downed UFO instead of having to GC every ufo you come across. 

Sounds like a great idea :)

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1 hour ago, Kaiphus_Kain said:

Yeah it equals lots of engineering projects, each type of alien and rank produces differing amounts of materials, each gun similar, alien ballistic weapons would give ballistic cores with pistol giving 1 say and a mini-gun 3 or 4, will agree it would likely be annoying for many if it went very high level but could be interesting as just the basics kind of thing with just getting Alloys and fuels from ships by taking them to bits, modding could then add the rest for crazy folks like me :)

How is that meaningfully different from turning the loot into materials as soon as it is researched, and then using the materials to make useful things?

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1 hour ago, Decius said:

How is that meaningfully different from turning the loot into materials as soon as it is researched, and then using the materials to make useful things?

Its more an immersion thing, just collecting a UFO wouldn't give you anything but a UFO and researching it wont automatically make reverse engineering it instantaneous, plus as Max pointed out you could have a method where this just gives you a bit more or as a way of getting some special item once for each type of UFO etc, lots of options that could add extras to a playthrough

10 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

I don´t have any Problems to recover things from downed UFO´s, landed UFO´s. Same with Aliens and Alien-Equipment since the fully playable Beta-Versions.

 

 

Not sure why you have even said this, not said there is any problem here :)

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4 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

Yes Kaiphus_Kain you have to research the UFO Typs. That was a Research before Beta-Version 6. Resarching an UFO makes the Game much more interessting again. And the Resarch should be linked with the UFO-Size.

I'm really not sure what you are on about here or why you are pointing out things that are obvious and have nothing to do with the thread? Researching the UFO's was never in doubt or going to be taken away, its a critical thing in X1 and X2.

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Yeah, scientists and engineers can theoretically be used in a strategic operation without any problems - they've already got portraits etc, and body art and so forth, and they're treated as people by the assignments system in the same way as the soldier are. We're just limiting strategic operations to soldiers at the moment because I'm already trying to play 4D chess with the Geoscape balancing, but in principle non-soldiers can be slotted right in to the strategic operations.

Having various materials in a UFO that can be processed through workshop projects and used to build items etc is already fully supported in the same way as it is in X1. In fact it's better supported because you can set %s for recovered items from the GC, so you can have specific props that sometimes might give you a rare item but usually give you something standard.

I'm more than happy to experiment with this in more detail a little later in development because the systems we have are pretty powerful and flexible ... but we need to finish building a broadly working version of X1 first, so we can test those changes in an actual working game with some semblance of gameplay rather than just trying to guess what effects they'll have on gameplay with theorycrafting. We're not too far from that point now to be honest.

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Kaiphus_Kain UFO Cores were normal Research Projects in X1 and in the not timed-limited Beta-Version for X2 from 2.x or 3.x since 6.0. After that UFO-Researches and Autopsies get automated in X2-Beta. Since the Betas comes out the Backers can test the Game.

So I like the Autopsy-Research and UFO-Research manualy back again. But I think it was automated for other Tests and will be manually again in Early-Acces.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

Kaiphus_Kain UFO Cores were normal Research Projects in X1 and in the not timed-limited Beta-Version for X2 from 2.x or 3.x since 6.0. After that UFO-Researches and Autopsies get automated in X2-Beta. Since the Betas comes out the Backers can test the Game.

So I like the Autopsy-Research and UFO-Research manualy back again. But I think it was automated for other Tests and will be manually again in Early-Acces.

 

 

Ok, think there has been a miscommunication then because that isn't what I have been talking about :)

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I guess I just don't see the immersive nature of having to click on "Order a bunch of nameless people to do their only job" periodically.

 

Honestly the entire system of setting research goals could be changed to automatic without more than a pacing rebalance.

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You can do that, but then the interresting Part of the Game goes away. The Player should choose the Research-Projects.

When he / she will Autopsy the Aliens to get Stun-Weapons or better Ammo, etc.?

Or resarch an UFO first to get better Parts for Fighters and Soldier-Armors, etc.?

Or first better Human Technology to upgrade your existing Technology first?

Like in old X-Com / new XCom and all other Clones from that like UFO Extraterstials we have played, we ever could choose the Resarch-Path. The most interresting thing is a Research-Combination (like in X-Com Terror from the Deep) where you had to choose the correct Reserach Way to get better Technology. If you choose wrong, you had to play from beginning on or an Save which is untuched. But for what we have I-Net today. 1994 / 1995 where TftD was comming out you had to use the Try & Error-Way.

But you could ever choose the Research manually.

Edited by Alienkiller
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23 hours ago, Chris said:

I guess my concern about that sorta thing (and I have been experimenting with similar ideas over the past few months) is just the large amount of extra UI management it requires.

Presumably stuff like butchering corpses for materials for armour is done through a Workshop project? Is there a separate workshop project for each corpse type that produces a specific material, or is there a more elegant solution? The problem I discovered is that a complex system ends up with having dozens and dozens of workshop projects that are required to handle each possible action where the player transforms one item into another one ... and they kinda drown out the important stuff.

That's cool for players who like to have that level of detail and customisation, but not everyone wants quite that level of complexity.

UFO AI just hada simple "dissasemble" project (you would select which UFO from the UFO yard you want to dissasemble). Naturally, the time necessary would depend on the number of engineers and UFO size, and the materials you get would depend on the UFO

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