workshop & economics

[Max_Caine]

beorning, the bills happening before the paycheck is a bug that has reputedly (no, that's not a typo) been fixed in several builds. It never has, and has been identified as a bug more than once. Maybe Giovanni will fix it if we ask nice?

[Gorlom]

Gorlom

Maybe I was too emotional, sorry.

When I said about profit it was not "profit from a whole game point of view". It is a profit from base commander point of view.

(Yes, I know there is no such unit "base commander" in terms of game mechanics. It's imaginary person in imaginary world where events of game take place)

What is the difference? you want to make a profit defined as "get more money out then you put in". You don't want to just cover the expenses you want to make it better to have more. Sure it will cost too much to set up to be worth making a major operations of it. But you still want to break that part of the game.

Game is not a SimFactory and player is not a manager - but base commander is!

What order will give base commander to workshop when it's impossible to make some more weapon?

"Do something usefull and sell it, so your wages will not be spent in vain. Make some profit!"

It's a question of inner logic of events.

But as I understand it you want to make it automated and guaranteed successful? There is no challenge in what you want to be done

From our (gamers, developers) point of view, for good game balance, this profit must be small enough - sell price for commodities produced in a week will be just several percent more then worker's wages for the same week.

It is not enough to mantain a whole base (so there will be no "Money Farms").

It's a method for workshop not to lose money when idle.

1: you are not talking about only covering the loss you are talking about profit. Then you act as if that is not important but you keep stressing that there needs to be a profit.. Why?

2:Why is preventing the loss, game-mechanic and challenge a good thing? Other than lore explanations that is.

For workshop, such operation is "making profit".

No, for workshops such operation is "breaking even". +- zero.

For base and for Xenonauts organisation as a whole, its just mitigation of expences.

And where is the fun in making that automatic? The game will still be balanced to counter that advantage so you won't benefit from it.

And how much will it cost?

With current game mechanics I will spend at least twice in comparison with idle workers, and will have to wait 3 days before I get them back.

Sorry, but I felt the argument was slightly silly (it's just a game) so I countered with an equally ridiculous statement (gameplay wise). I didn't intend for you to take that suggestion seriously unless you are really adamant about fighting communism/socialism in all shapes and sizes.

Just because a segment of the game is not strictly following the teaches of Adam Smith doesn't mean it adheres to socialism. It is a military operation it doesn't need to be cost effective and produce enough to cover it's own butt. That is why the funding nations are funding the organization. And why the funding is dependent on how well you do. You have to look at it as a whole rather than focusing on the ill adapted and haphazard engineering department. It will never be as effective as a specialized counterpart.

PS: I have already understood what you want to do. But I do not understand why you think it is a good idea. If you want to win me over stop with the real world parallels and start with how it will affect gameplay, and why any resulting effects would be good.

Edited February 21, 2013 by Gorlom

[a_beorning]

I have already understood what you want to do. But I do not understand why you think it is a good idea. If you want to win me over stop with the real world parallels and start with how it will affect gameplay, and why any resulting effects would be good

It's simple, but it cannot be understood on pure game-mechanics level.

To me, ANY good game of ANY genre (except maybe puzzles) is somehow a role-playing game.

Not RPG in game-mechanic aspect. Not "dice-randomized game with character classes and adding bonuses for experience".

Good game creates imaginary world and allows player to fill this world with persons.

World inhabitants do live their lifes and make their desicions according to their personalities and current situation in a world they are living in. They know nothing of our game, of game balance etc.

And it's annoying to me when most natural desicon of in-world person became impossible not because of in-world causes, but because of totally out-of-world "balance reasons".

It looks like protagonist of a first-person game who can jump over 10-yards-wide chasm but cannot step over two-feet high fence.

I understand inevitability of such barriers - sooner or later - because there is no PC powerfull enough to model a universe as a whole in all its aspects.

I understand all necessity of game balance.

But I try to found a way to reconsile inner (in-world) logic of game with outer (our world) game-balance and model limitation.

My propositon was not "it's good for game balance".

It was "it's logical for in-game people, cannot we allow it without destroing game balance?"

Just because a segment of the game is not strictly following the teaches of Adam Smith doesn't mean it adheres to socialism.

It is not socialism for outside-of-game me.

It is a socialism ("you allowed to produce only things you ordered to produce, no entrprising!") for in-game persons.

And (out-of-game) I empathize to (in-game) commander.

It is a military operation it doesn't need to be cost effective and produce enough to cover it's own butt.

So why do we do all this micro-management at all?

If a game is just a military operation sim, why to bother with research, manufacture, base maintenance?

Why not to limit ourselves with supplied battle units - in a PanzerGeneral style?

Because Xenonauts (like a classical XCom) is not just a military operation sim.

[Gauddlike]

I disagree that it is logical within the game to have a top secret military production facility start making flat pack furniture or whatever when military equipment production is not required.

It may be mothballed but then that is represented adequately for me by production costs only being paid when you are actively using the facility.

When you aren't using it then you only pay the basic upkeep costs required to keep it in good working order and ready for use.

As this is a secret facility (probably on permanent alert) where they may be required at any time then it also makes sense that production staff will remain on site while the factory is not in use.

If they are required to be on site then it also makes sense that they would be getting their basic pay.

They would also likely be in charge of maintaining other base facilities and equipment, probably in the factory if available.

[Arturius]

They would also likely be in charge of maintaining other base facilities and equipment, probably in the factory if available.

And in this moment I want to throw in my two cents - you are forgetting those guys in engineering are also repairing/refuelling/rearming Xenonaut aircrafts.

Now would it be ok that the more engineers you have in a base the faster those 3 thing mentioned above are accomplished?

[Gauddlike]

I would have thought ground crew who do that kind of work would have been a different group of people to the ones servicing their gear.

Same way the soldiers are not the same people who repair and service their armour.

[Chris]

This thread ties pretty heavily into this debate: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4109-Base-Simplification-Ideas?p=52344#post52344

[Gorlom]