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Sometimes, I think I'd like multiple bases better if they had different archetypes.


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On ‎7‎/‎3‎/‎2020 at 2:37 PM, Alienkiller said:

That´s what I like from Phoenix Point. You don´t know what Art of abonded Bases you get. If we get the System like it´s now with the Main-Base (Atlas Base) then it will be so. But then with Buildings which have to be repaired etc. first like in Phoenix Point. Sadly we don´t have an comparition from the newest UFO Game UFO 2 Extratrerstials (similar to Xenonauts) right now, because it will come in September 2020 first.

So we couldn´t watch what´s good and bad, so we and the Devs / Freelancers have to fuge out a Base-Storyline from our Fingers and have only Phoenix Point and XCOM 1 from Firaxis as an Template if we wanna Xenonauts 2 in that Part 1.000 % better then in the Predecessor.

FYI, the Exploration aspect of Phoenix Point is getting a complete overhaul (for the better) with the next patch:

https://feedback.phoenixpoint.info/

https://feedback.phoenixpoint.info/feedback/p/base-discovery-and-activation-rework

https://feedback.phoenixpoint.info/feedback/p/exploration-rework

 

 

 

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Yep exactly such I think we should have for Xenonauts 2. The 6 big Founders have the Base locations from the abonded Xenonaut Bases / bigger Outposts and will give them step by step to Xenonauts. The Founder with the highest Panic Level or UFO / Alien Activities will open the offer (about 60 % is a good Option). There are some buildings in it, which all have to be repaired. The Repair-Costs are lesser then the 2.0 to 2.5 Million for 1 secondary base you have to build up normaly:

- 1 upgradeable Generator (normaly about 100.000 or 200.000 $ for normal Buildup)

- 1 upgradeable Radar-Station [like it´s planed instead of 3 Radar-Stations] (normaly 200.000 or 250.000 $ for 1 Radar)

- 3 Hangars for Aircrafts (100.000 $ per Hangar) [with older Aircrafts which can be sold or Upgraded / the new X-24 Interceptor Fighter]

- 1 upgradeable Workshop / 1 upgradable Lab or something similar (normaly 250.000 $ for such a Building) [if there 1 of this Buildings an Living Space which costs normaly 100.000 $ per Building]

- 1 Access Lift (Cost I don´t know anymore)

If you have to build up such a Base the cost´s are 1.000.000 $ only for the Ground. And with the Buildings you got for such a small Base are about 1.5 Million $. Atm it´s possible if you make the Tests with Cheats or sell your Storage. But you need the Materials and later Aliens for special Workshop Projects / Upgrades.

The Big Advantage from the suggested system is that you have Money over for the needed Upgrades for Fighters, Base-Buildings in the Main-Base as well as for your Ground-Forces (esp. Soldiers) / MARS / ARES-Vehicles as well as Special Projects. And new Fighters, Armors for Soldiers, Vehicles etc. you have to build up. The Xenonauts is where the big Founders orientate, not the other Way.

I had a funny thing in my last Testgame. I researched Laser Weapons and before I could build the medium to big Laserweapons Mk I, the Founder Country Military Soldiers get Shotgunlasers / Laser Rifles (after the 30 Days Time) before I had them. To this time I had first Laser Pistols, only why I had to build up 2 secondary bases with 3 Radars, 1 Generator and 3 to 6 Hangars.

That Means:

If you need only the Access-Lift, Radars and Hangars first, then the other Buildings won´t get fully repaired, which reduces the Base Costs mainly. The unused Buildings will get only small uphold repairs to that state they won´t breake down until the Buildings get needed. If you need them later on (like the Research or Production facility), then you will repair it fully.

That means too, that the Main-Base has enough Space for bigger Buildings later or something else.

 

 

 

Edited by Alienkiller
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On 7/5/2020 at 8:04 PM, Ninothree said:

Missile bases would have the added benefit of deterring any alien ground bases, but they wouldn't be so good for shooting down UFOs. As far as I'm aware, ICBMs aren't often aimed at aircraft.

From the beta video i watched recently, the Orbital Bombarment lore stated that the Earth launched 100 ICBMs towards UOO-1 but all got incinerated immediately. This lore might change afterwards but i guess the devs currently won't think about utilizing ICBMs into xenonauts arsenals and just stating that ICBMs are useless. Though i do hope that nuclear weapons would play a greater role lore-wise, relating them further with the Cold War settings.

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21 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

- 1 Access Lift (Cost I don´t know anymore)

I really really don’t see why access lifts are even necessary in the current basebuilding. It seems like a terrible holdover from the XCOM style base that give off a real outdated phone game look to anything it touches (I might be a little biased on this).

The only conceivable way to have an access lift in the game and not make it to unrealistic is to have it exclusively for missile and undersea bases with multiple levels and a 3*3 layout. If you want to put a hangar in the lowest level of the base you not only need the lifts for your personnel but another bigger place one (2*1 or 2*2) for your planes and vehicles. Base defense in these bases could become more exciting where you have to configure the lifts at defensible positions and set up kill boxes for the attacking aliens. Preventing any of their attempts to go down to the last level where they can destroy the generator and kill the base.

3 hours ago, EurekaSeven said:

Though i do hope that nuclear weapons would play a greater role lore-wise, relating them further with the Cold War settings.

The nukes are not for the aliens per se but more for your supposed “backers” and “allies”. Threatening the neutral regions to submission and calm the panic level or lower the DEFCON of NATO and Warsaw Pact using your own stock of nukes definitely seems like something I would do in an evil play through of the game. They’re going to unite in this fight against the aliens or be taken over/destroyed by Xenonauts, their choice.

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I can only say what we have now and how much it costs to build up and holding. If there are better Alternatives for the Devs and other Programming Helpers / Picture-Makers etc. then let it out. I would like to have an other Basebuild-Option / Structure-Upgrade-Option / Personal-Management to the Structures too, but the good one original is canceld. An better alternatie Base-Buildup-Screen / Personal-Management-Screen is not there. So we discuss about it what we can do with the existing older Basebuild-Screen from X1 (sadly :() to make it better and / or more interesting.

If there is comming an better Alternative the next Betas as well as Early Access, I and all others like you all will take it with Handkiss.

The Devs on Phoenix Point are reworking on that Problematic too again and get in the good Stuff from Early Access / Beta in the Basemanagement again.

Edited by Alienkiller
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5 hours ago, Xeroxth said:

If you want to put a hangar in the lowest level of the base you not only need the lifts for your personnel but another bigger place one for your planes and vehicles

So I've been playing these games since I was a child. Somehow this basic observation has never occurred to me.

My stance is always gameplay before realism, but I think it is worth re-examining the original game for what elements should actually be rebooted. I've seen Chris defend the rectangular geoscape projection because the globe version has the fault that you can't see all of it at once. Similarly, I think it is worth pulling apart the conventions around base building for the same reason.

One of the problems with removing stuff is that some bits of the old school game have nostalgic value. I kinda liked spinning the globe around whilst having the time set to fast forward. But how much did it add to the game overall? Not a lot. Same with the access lifts in base building. Does it actually make building a base more interesting or challenging? Not really, it just feels like it has been carried forward by default. But if it doesn't even make a lot of conceptual sense, then that bit has no reason to be left in. (Having said that, I do remember base defence missions in xcom did have the aliens dropping in through the hangar bays, implying a cargo lift or something).

Overall, I think a problem with thinking about base design is in figuring out what that part of the game is meant to do. As @Alienkiller says, how to make the current system more interesting. In XCOM, it was mostly about getting engineers for satellites. In Xenonauts, it was more about the radar and interceptor coverage. I think it'd be really nice if the game were balanced so you could make a choice between your base builds: labs, workshops or even training centres and additional hangars (so you could try to outnumber and overwhelm the aliens).

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10 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

but the good one original is canceld

If you mean the base building of an XCOM like vertical cross section being better than the original, I have to respectfully disagree. It was horrible especially for the implementation of base defense. It turns an entire kind of mission into a single boring repetitive scripted event as it is nearly impossible to workout the vertical cross section base into a working battle map. Not the case for the original ufo defense where you can place rooms strategically to create defensive hard points as the layout of the base in the building screen and the battle map is the same. Not to mention it look very cartoony and ridiculous compared to the atmosphere of Xenonauts. One of the first thing preventing me from even backing X2 in the first place was the fact that Goldhawk was trying to mimic the XCOM reboot formula especially in the single base, vertical build screen. Which like any game series with a small but dedicated player base, will undoubtedly alienate the original following while not doing much to draw in the reboot crowd (they already have a big budget game that caters to them, why care for Xenonauts).

5 hours ago, Ninothree said:

But how much did it add to the game overall? Not a lot.

I actually added my opinion on this on the radar thread. A flat map projection greatly warped the radar coverage and flight time for your interceptors the closer they get to the poles. Subtly pushing for certain regions to place bases for optimum coverage. On the matter of not seeing the entire map, that’s what the real time button and radar notifications are for.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎7‎/‎7‎/‎2020 at 10:32 AM, EurekaSeven said:

From the beta video i watched recently, the Orbital Bombarment lore stated that the Earth launched 100 ICBMs towards UOO-1 but all got incinerated immediately. This lore might change afterwards but i guess the devs currently won't think about utilizing ICBMs into xenonauts arsenals and just stating that ICBMs are useless. Though i do hope that nuclear weapons would play a greater role lore-wise, relating them further with the Cold War settings.

That doesn't make much sense. If the aliens have point defenses capable of shooting down 100 missiles instantly, how can any aircraft missiles (you average fighter will only carry 4-8) hit? Why aren't they vaporized?

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22 minutes ago, TrashMan said:

That doesn't make much sense. If the aliens have point defenses capable of shooting down 100 missiles instantly, how can any aircraft missiles (you average fighter will only carry 4-8) hit? Why aren't they vaporized?

The ICBM thing is not related to single UFO aircraft, but refering to ICBMs targeting towards the UOO-1. Maybe more lore about UOO-1 would explain this. In my opinion, it is a setting just to introduce the idea that you can't just simply nuke the alien fleet and ICBM is useless against alien targets. Also, I'm thinking that no matter what defence system the aliens are using, it should came from a larger craft like destroyer or dreadnoughts from the alien fleet or simply the UOO-1 itself, but not scouts and fighters.

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IRL point defenses exist against ICBMs but not more nimble missiles AFAIK.

Anyhow hardcoded base archetypes are mostly a fallback position if you can't get full customization to result in variety. E.g. "well everyone just used their freedom to build the same base 5x over, so we might as well introduce base types instead."

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I didn't read most of this as I am looking to sleep soon but I wanted to post something. I know it may have been mentioned already.

An idea for something to look at for this would be to have it be more efficient to have bases dedicated to certain things. For example certain buildings can synergise with other ones. Having airplane manufacturing right beside related facilities like a hangar could give bonuses to construction speed and reduce cost. However you could also have a weapons storage building beside the hangar too which could speed up rearming your active aircraft.

The idea could be that you could build a base that could be very efficient at 1-2 things but not everything. However there would also be nothing stopping you from building a base that can do everything adequately.

 

The one potential I could see with that though is having resource management get tedious. Having a global pool of resources, while not very realistic, would get rid of what I think might be a micromanagement wall of tedium.

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@odizzido

You mean like in the new XCOM-Series with the synergiese of Generators, Workshops and Labs. Sounds very interessting. Hopfully we get such in Xenonauts 2.

Exactly that with the 1 or 2 Base-Usage is my Idea with the secondary bases. I have tried with the existing Base-Buildup several Variants:

- like in Orignial Xenonauts (not doable, if you wanna lose 4 of your Founders)

- ATLAS-Base with 5 Standard-Fighter-Bases incl. Signal-Tower-Expansion-Stations (doable and effective)

- ATLAS-Base with 1 small Research-Base / 1 small Workshop-Base incl. a small Standard-Fighter-Base Connection and 3 Standard Fighter-Bases (works very effective)

The last 2 Variants are Cost-Effective and you split your Personal. 

What you can´t change ist the Main-Base (ATLAS-Base) with the Main-Lab, Main-Workshop etc. because the Coordination get managed from here. You can upgrade ATLAS-Base or can try to find the other Bases to split Personal (atm. you can only build the secondary bases).

 

What the Production and Storage belongs:

Your Idea is good. You wanna do it like in the old X-Com-Series. I think I know what you are wanna doing. You get the Storage for the Hangars full with the Aircraft-Rockets and the Main-Ammo for the Aircraft-Guns. But then you have to do that with the normal Soldier-Equipment too, which you get unlimited. And then you have to storage the other things from the Aliens too. How you wanna manage that?

The new XCOM-Series and UFO Extraterestials made this much more Easyer. There you have only 1 Base where the Ressources get storaged and you can build fighters and such. Like in Xenonauts 1 and 2 you got there unlimited Storage for the Fighter-Weapons. In XCOM you got unlimited Storage for Weapons, Equipment etc. of your Soldiers too.

For Xenonauts 2 I have for the Production Storage the same Idea like in new XCOM. It´s like you have now, but the Ressources get reduced for the Production in the Main-Base, where the Ressources get Storaged.

The old X-Com-Series, other Fan-Games of that Gerne and UFO Extraterestials had the Problem with the to much Micromanagement from sending that to there and Back (in UFO ET it were the Fighters only for the Secondary Bases and the minimum 1 Hangar you have to let free for the new Production Fighters and Transports).

Edited by Alienkiller
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Oh I didn't know they did that in new x-com. I assume that was in the second one, I don't recall seeing that in the first. I played the second one for like 15mins but I couldn't get past the first tactical mission, it was too crap.

Yeah having adjacency bonuses is nothing new. I think the hard part if figuring out how to make it so multiple bases are of benefit to efficiency without crippling people who single base. That sounds hard to me.

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@odizzido: Not everyone can know the full Main UFO-Titles (the full old X-Com-Series, the full UFO-After-Series, UFO ET with returning to save Earth and in Development UFO 2 ET where the history on Earth get narrated as well as the new XCOM-Series and the newest Phoenix Point) and the differences from 1980´s and 1990´s to the Mid 2k following of that Titels. I´m one of them, which played all with the strengh and weaknesses.

You mean the good old X-Com: Terror from the Deep. Yep that wasn´t easy, because the Enemys are harder to beat then in his predecessor. Why you dosen´t played X-Com: Enemy Unknown first to come in? :confused: The Storyline from the old X-Com-Series was very good, sadly 2 more Games which were in Development and get the Gapfiller of the Storyline weren´t finished. The Storyline beginns with X-Com: Enemy Unkown over X-Com: Terror from the Deep, X-Com: Interceptor and X-Com: Apocalypse. 

Good, that was an momentum in the Past. Nice, that such memorys get back, if we are thinking things for Games of that Gerne today. But Back to Topic:

Yep in UFO ET (13 or 14 Years old now), you have the Main-Base where you reseearch and build everything from fighters to Soldier-Things. Interesting fact is that you need everytime 2 Hangars free for new Fighters and / or the Troop Transport. The Soldiers every time housing in the Main-Base (in Xenonatus 2 original ATLAS-Base). Secondary Bases are Radar- / Fighter-Bases only with Self-Defense-Weapons (Ground to Air). What that title not have is the Bonuses for linked Buildungs of the same Type and some other things XCOM / XCOM2 brings in 5 Years later.

In the new XCOM-Series you have a similar System like in UFO ET. But there you see differences to the first Title (UFO Extraterestials) which is going an easyer and newer Way then all his predecessors:

- In the first Title (XCOM Enemy Unknown / Enemy Within) only the Standard-Equipment (Rocket-Launchers) for Fighters and Soldiers (light MG, Rifels, Pistols, Snipergun, Handgranade) is unlimited. 

- In the first Title (XCOM Enemy Unknown / Enemy Within) you get in the buildable Foundry only 1 Vehicle for Support, which is fully uprgardeable.

- In XCOM2 / XCOM2 WotC and XCOM: Scimera Squad you don´t have fighter Crafts, only your mobile HQ (the Avanger) as well as your Soldiers, the Ressistance and getting later in the Game an Terminator (Robot-Soldier), which you can upgrade later.

- You haven´t an seperate Storage Room, it´s already integrated in the Main-Buildings.

We have to see how Xenonauts 2 looks in the next Betas and the first Early Access Version, but good Concepts from his predecessors (XCOM, UFO ET and Xenonatus 1) and new Ideas from us / the Devs as well as not finished Ideas from the competitors get in already. :cool:

 

@ all

The only thing in Xenonauts 2 which disturbes fully is the fact that your Bases aren´t reglemented in Buildings. Main-Base (ATLAS-Base) can get every building and all secondary Bases have to bee limited only for 2 things (like Research and small fighter Base, Development and small fighter Base, only a small fighter base and / or a secondary small troop and fighter Base). 

The Problem is that a Base (like I said already) costs following atm: 1 Million only for Ground-Buying, about 1,5 Million for only a small buildup (4 Hangars, 3 Radars, Access Lift, 4 Fighters with Weapons and 1 Satellete link or an similar Base) and 2 Millions for 2 fighters more incl. Hangars. Short said exactly the same procedure like in X1. :confused: Wtf?! If you wanna buildup big Bases and atm small Bases without Cheating you lost already.

 

So we have only 2 Options for Xenonauts 2:

- financed secondary Bases from your Founders with only small expandability as an:

a) small fighter Base with Radar-Covarage (6 Hangars with fighters, Radar-Covarage and 1 Satellite Connection-Station)

b) small research Base with fighters and Radar-Coverage (2 or 3 upgradalbe Labs, 1 upgradable Living, upgradable Radar-Covarage, 4 Hangars with Fighers)

c) small workshop Base with fighters and Radar-Coverage (2 or 3 upgradable Workshops, 1 upgradable Living, upgradable Radar-Coverage, 4 Hangars with Fighters)

d) small Troop Base with fighters, a second Troop and Radar-Coverage (3 Hangars with Fighters, 1 Hangar with Transport, 1 Storage-Room, 1 upgradable Living-Room, 1 upgradeable Training-Center, 1 upgradable Sickbay)

- findable bases like in Phoenix Point with one small difference:

° abonded Xenonaut Bases which Buildings already in it, but you have to repair and bring online them first, which need some days and which you get for free from the Financers, which is the better alternative

Edited by Alienkiller
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  • 7 months later...
On 26.06.2020 at 14:11, TrashMan said:

If anything, I think you should START with 2-3 bases, tough minimally equipped (as in, mostly unbuilt).

I prefer to start the game with a large number of bases that can cover the entire planet with radar from the very beginning. However, I prefer to make the construction of factories and laboratories more expensive.I prefer to start the game with a large number of bases that can cover the entire planet with radar from the very beginning. However, I prefer to make the construction of factories and laboratories more expensive. Also, the factories and labs must be so large that you can't build more than one per base. Bases (depending on the main building) should have the following specializations:

polygon =military base;

research center = scientific base;

factory = production base;

control center = main (officer) base;

recruiting center = training base.

Edited by Komandos
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@ Kommandos: The first 2 we had in Mind too as seperat Bases, but with the difference that you have a Fighter-Squad and Radar there. That has the Reason that you can only build up Outposts if they are Secured with a fighter-alarm-crew.

The 4th Base is your Main (Officer) Base from beginning on, where all Informations, Scientific and Production Things etc. etc. get combined, organised and beginn as well as have the Archive.

The 3rd Base is the Standard-Military-Base we can build up, with Command-Center-Links, etc. etc. etc.

Interessting could be the Training Base / Recruting Center where the Soldiers get an selection Procedure from the Soldiers you can Choise in the Basemanagement-Screen.

The Bases are limited to 6 Bases maximum, like in X1, about the Money-Income and the Monthly Costs for Personal, Equipment (Fighters / Vehicles etc.), Buildings and whatever.

 

 

 

 

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@Komandos When building a new Base, you can decide for yourself what to use it for. I do not see any benefit in the fact that the developers will make restrictions for the player. We try to follow the original X-Com game. It was special precisely because the player decided everything himself.
Any simplification of the gameplay (endless ammunition for weapons of soldiers, vehicles, fighters, etc.) make the game less interesting. That's why I think simplifying Base management is a bad idea.

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When 6-9 bases are not fundamentally different from each other, this reduces their individual strategic importance. Therefore, one large military base does not differ in its functionality from many small ones. It's like in a role-playing game to recruit a group of heroes of the same class. As a result, all of them can be replaced by a single, but more cool and detailed hero. There must be at least three types of military bases.

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@Komandos: I have had the same Idea, that you have 1 or 2 big ones and the others are smaller to maximum Medium. The Money you get with maximum Outposts and give Ground Missions to the Founder-Armys to break even the monthly costs in an normal final Gameversion.

There I´m fully on your Side to have limited Bases and more smaller specialised ones with an upgradeable Radar, upgradable Outpostmanagerthing and similar.

That is the great advantage for the new XCOM-Row (esp. X-Com: Interceptor / X-Com: Apocalypse where you have limited Bases) and UFO Extraterastials where the Buildings for secondary Bases are limited to Hangars, Radar and Defense.

 

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That have to be done if we wanna we wanna save Earth. You must have Money and Material for Base-Upgrades, new Equipment for Production, Soldier-, Scientists- and Enegneer-Payments, monthly Building- and Vehicle-Costs etc.

There only work a limitation of Bases worldwide and different sizes. 1 or 2 can maximum Big, others have to be Maximum Medium Size.

Like I said, I have testet it in several Versions and it don´t belong what you do, the Money and Material is low. If you have 3 big Bases you can´t build up more and half Earth is undefended. 

 

Edited by Alienkiller
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Bases should consist of two parts:

the garrison and all the buildings necessary for it;

some HUGE specialized structure that can only fit on one base (because of its size).

 

The cost of soldiers should be such that it allows you to hire a large number of troops without much difficulty. When a conscript in wartime receives a summons to serve in the army, the monetary content is minimal.

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3 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

There only work a limitation of Bases worldwide and different sizes. 1 or 2 can maximum Big, others have to be Maximum Medium Size.

Like I said, I have testet it in several Versions and it don´t belong what you do, the Money and Material is low. If you have 3 big Bases you can´t build up more and half Earth is undefended. 

Players must decide for themselves which bases they need, large or small. They must also learn to manage their money properly. The game should not make any restrictions to simplify base management.
This is a strategy, here the player must be able to develop a gaming economy and find new sources to increase money (sale of modern weapons, fighters, construction to improve offices, etc.)

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The aliens must subject the player's bases to no less intense raids than the player makes attacks on their planes. The low combat capability of the military base garrison and the inability to successfully repel alien attacks should lead the player to defeat more than the inability to develop more military bases for financial reasons.

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