Research Queue

[MrAlex]

Make it possible to add new research to the queue before the end of previous ones, as is now the case for Engineering.

It often happens that a new important project appears when the current one is still in the process of research. Selecting a new project automatically cancels the current one, losing all existing progress in it. This is especially important at the start when there are few scientists and the research time is quite long.

Although it would be ideal to return the system of the old UFO, where player can simultaneously research and produce several projects simply by dividing the staff.

[Alienkiller]

With the Research-List I give you right. That should be like in Production. What the other Part of that belongs, there I aggree with you totaly. Meant is the Parallel Research like we could do in the old X-Com-Row or UFO ET. After you have 2 Labs and from the Outposts recruitet Personal, you can research f. e. an new Interceptor and at the same time Upgrades for your Infantry.

That Step by Step Research is exactly the Problem that the complete new XCOM-Row and Phoenix Point have. There you think too:

"Gaming and Programming get better and more interessting the last 15 to 20 Years. Why the Devs there didn´t look at the 2 nostalgic Games like we discuss now."

The Limitation with Lab-Capacitys / Workshop-Capacitys (6 Each per Lab / WS) are great, which exactly is one of the Nostalgic Things we get from Original X-Com-Row.

With the Difference of the new XCOM-Row, Xenonauts 2 atm. (evtl. too in UFO2ET and if it´s ready sometime XCOM 3) you can with more R & D upgrade the Labs / Workshops [without destruction of the old ones] as well as with a direct Connection getting an secondary Research-Boost with the same Personal [6 Each]. That are Features which make the Games of that Gerne interessting.

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Alienkiller

[odizzido]

At the very least progress shouldn't be wiped.

I was originally going to agree with you about having multiple projects, but then I considered lab space. How much lab space does it take up to research alenium? How much for laser weapons? I think you could make the argument that the lab has only enough work space to do one project at a time. I am currently on the fence about it. I think alienkiller said that in UFO:ET you could do two projects if you have two labs. That might be a good solution.

[MrAlex]

30 minutes ago, odizzido said:

How much lab space does it take up to research alenium? How much for laser weapons?

I did not say to divide the laboratory space. Just divide scientists into different projects. With the ability to study them simultaneously, and transfer more scientists to more important projects without canceling the progress of existing ones.

[Alienkiller]

I know what you mean MrAlex. I did that in UFO ET and the old X-Com-Row with my max. 10 or so Scientists. We can implement and try it, that´s not the Problem, but therefore we need more Research Projects at Gamestart after Invasion Analysis.

Then we have a second nostalgic Element from the older X-Com-Row and the first UFO ET-Game. The Head-Thinking of your Idea is very nice and evtl. the Devs agree to implement it.

On the other Hand that´s exactly the Problem I see at the beginning with Xenonauts 2, because the Research get the double-, tripple- or quadro-Time for the Research-Projects (belongs on the Project). In the current state you can buildup a second Lab without effect (the Buildup is not the challange), but the Personal-Catch will it be to make the Research for both or the longer Project faster. Therefore you need some Outposts with Scientists.

Ozziddo: In the old X-Com and UFO ET you can build up labs / Workshops and buy then more Scientists / Workers. The Limits are only the Labs / Workshops and the Idea of giving more or less personal to something belongs on that 2 nostalgic Games, esp. the old X-Com-Row. Short said you can assagin more or less personal to Projects with up / down Arrows.

At the Moment we can only buy more Scientists / Workers with the left / right Arrows and all get to 1 Project fully.

 

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Alienkiller

[MrAlex]

4 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

we need more Research Projects at Gamestart after Invasion Analysis.

I think we need to abandon automatic research. That each action of scientists was initiated by the player and time of scientists was spent on it. Research of ship design, orbital bombing, autopsy, etc. By the way, research on living aliens is also needed.

[Alienkiller]

Some Researches of Living Aliens are in the Game already (Sebillians and Cesans).

[geno]

Having a bunch of projects is how it worked in the first game and I assumed this was provisional until they switch to the X1 system. Did the team state what they want to do?

Edit: I think you need a different solution for the new researchs messages, since they pop-up when you return to geoscape even if you are already manufacturing the new items.

Edited January 15, 2021 by geno

[Chris]

Yeah, so this is a topic that I'm happy to chat with players about. There's two main issues here, the biggest one being whether we have a research queue or a Xenonauts 1 / X-Com style "multiple project" system.

At the moment we have a research queue, but I've set the maximum number of projects in the queue to be 1. It used to be 5 and it's easy to change back to that if we want, but I actually quite like forcing the player to choose a new piece of research each time the previous research is finished. As the game doesn't support working on multiple research projects simulatenously I don't think there is any gameply advantage to queueing up multiple researches - but I guess if that's something we can allow if players want to do.

It would be quite a lot of effort to move to the X1 / X-Com system of having multiple research projects happening simultaenously that you can split scientists between. It becomes more complicated in X2 because it's possible to mix Advanced Labs and standard Labs at the same base, so it's possible that some Scientists will be producing more research than others too (and that is very hard to show in the UI). I think the project queue is therefore more sensible.

Finally, we do need a consolidated pop-up that tells you everything that is unlocked on completion of a project (research projects, engineering projects, new buildings, etc). This pop-up would take you to the research screen and allow you to select a new research project. We then don't need to have an additional pop-up for each type of project that is unlocked, because I do often find myself coming back to the Geoscape and finding a pop-up telling me I can go to the Engineering screen and begin a project I've already started.

[odizzido]

One potential solution would be to simply have each scientist work at the average rate. I don't know the numbers, but let's say you have two regular labs each working at a speed of 1 for a total of 2, but then you get one of the upgraded labs with a 50% reduction it would be an average speed of (1+0.5)/2 for a total speed of 0.75 for each scientist. It would be a little dumbed down but it would make it, I assume, much easier to implement. Of course this would depend on capacity. If the labs each hold 10 scientists and you have 15 total then it would fill the advanced lab first for 10*0.5 and the remaining five in the regular lab for 5*1 and then averaged out (((10*0.5)+(5*1))/15) = 67% research time.

But now thinking about it that would cause the situation where if someone sees 5 days on a project they've assigned 10 people to and then sees that number go up when they start a new project......that's a problem.

hmm, I don't have any good ideas right now, but I will post what I just wrote incase someone else can come up with a solution based on what I wrote.

[MrAlex]

17 hours ago, Chris said:

possible to mix Advanced Labs

Once I played long enough and got the opportunity to build Advanced laboratories and workshops. It was not clear to me how to use them properly. One Advanced laboratory / workshop is enough, or I need to replace all old laboratories and workshops with new ones?

[Chris]

Advanced Labs take up to 6 scientists, just like a normal Lab, but the scientists working there work more efficiently. So yeah, you should ideally aim to have all your scientists in advanced labs - but they are more expensive and require more power.

[MrAlex]

On 5/20/2020 at 1:41 AM, Chris said:

Each slot can also cost power individually, so assigning a Scientist to a Radar might increase the range of the radar by 10% but also cost an additional 10 Power.

How about this idea? That the improved laboratories gave a bonus to radar range. Alternatively, the range of the radar may be increased by quantum decoder (or it's upgrade).

I just hate the idea of building two huge radars (second and third improvements). One large radar is still acceptable, but the third is usually simply nowhere to build (especially on the main base). And the removal of the previous large radar deprives the player of the opportunity to intercept ships until a new one is built. Therefore, it is necessary to somehow change the conditions to obtain the maximum range of the radar without the construction of two huge building (8 ordinary slots)

[MrAlex]

On 1/26/2021 at 12:30 PM, Chris said:

Advanced Labs take up to 6 scientists, just like a normal Lab, but the scientists working there work more efficiently. So yeah, you should ideally aim to have all your scientists in advanced labs - but they are more expensive and require more power.

Laboratories as well as workshops can be improved. Then what's the problem?

Why not just make the interface for research the same as the interface for production. With division between bases. That would be really great:
1) Ability to create research queues
2) Ability to research different projects simultaneously on several bases
3) Impossibility to start research without available components / material.