Suggestion: Variable Selling Prices

[Charon]

From a programming point of view i think it would be good to implement something that can set the selling prices for items after the fact.

While i mostly think that this would be useful for modding purposes, the broader idea is that you could stimulate an economy which based on [events]. For instance you could introduce an alloy scarcity worldwide and let alloys become insanely valuable to sell.

Additionally you could attach a % chance to such [events] ( like researches ) and bundle such researches thematically together. You could either have each individidual [event] have an individual chance to trigger an [effect] or have bundled [events] share an [effect], which altogether have a 100% chance to trigger. Mix and match for best results.

This should mean minimal programming work ( although save games will have to save that information ) while increasing replayability and dynamic elements in the game.

 

While this thread is not about it, this could also be the beginning of a dynamic black market concept for the game. I want to stress that this thread is not about including a black market element in the game, i just want to point out that such element would be easy to expand on as a follow up of this technical suggestion.

[Xeroxth]

I mean having an actual black market for factional dealings and morally ambiguous organizations should be more thematically fitting for an event-based economy. As it also implies that you can not only trade resources for money but for other things like personnel, research boosts, and relations with certain factions. Because if it’s always depends upon the price, it would push for hoarding strategies from the players to just make a gigantic storage base (because we now have storage capacity now based on the last update by Chris), wait until certain events or just save scumming and then sell it for massive profits. The other thing is that, an active open economy for selling alien material and parts would be bound for the massive corporations of the NATO side to dominate it. Also it would conceptually make it look like the main focus of Xenonauts is to work more as alien poachers who mine their ships for profit rather than the only edge for humanity in the war against their invasion.

Events should pop up similar to games like the Hoi series where certain faction offer to trade some of your alien weapons for different bonuses in funding or others but they also have another effect of worsening your relations with their competitor while making the faction you help have a boost in tech sharing. This could lead to hilarious pop ups in late game that shows the results of your choice. Maybe you only funded a certain side so that leads to things like another Cuban missile crisis where the Soviets use alien augmented ships to deter the US response, or the Berlin Wall fell due to US funded contras with alien weapons breaching it. Maybe you only choose things that further cement the power of the Xenonauts in where you openly coup the government of the two sides of the Cold War and take over the world in the name of planetary security.

This could be a cool DLC idea later down the line or a mod to expand the game.