Base Simplification Ideas

[Chris]

During my playtesting, one of the things I've been thinking about is the use of the player's base. For a long time in development, the Xenonauts have been very well resourced - they start with enough cash to last several months, enough lab and workshop space to significantly expand their operations without needing new structures, plus a spare tank and three fighter jets.

I think it was originally set up this way for realism's sake, but it's not much fun to play through. Now balancing has started, it's become about giving the player choices to make. In V17.6 you don't need to expand to hire more scientists or soldiers, but even if you did, you could easily afford to do both. This isn't interesting - there's no different playstyles or experimentation there.

The conclusions I've come to is that we made everything on too large a scale, and now we need to downsize it. There's also needless complexity in some of the systems that doesn't actually add anything - we've just done it because that's how X-Com did it.

This is currently what I'm thinking:

• Bases to be reduced in size from 7x7 to 6x6
  
• Living Quarters to be abolished, replaced with Barracks that can hold 8 soldiers each.
  
• Laboratories / Workshops will hold 10 scientists / engineers, hired immediately on construction.
  
• Scientists and Engineers no longer have any monthly wages and do not fill living space.
  
• Radar buildings will now expand the radar range of a base, rather than improving detection chance. The starting base has 2 radars, so bases with only one radar have a smaller detection range.
  
• Garage buildings reduced to two vehicle capacity instead of 1.
  
• Player starts with only one Hunter, or perhaps even none.
  

What's the point of this? The idea would be to reduce the scale of everything, so the player is making important decisions immediately. Want more scientists? You need a new lab. Or would you rather spend the money on building that MIG you've just researched? Or maybe you'd like a bit more radar coverage? You get the idea.

Removing the scientists and engineers as a separate entity from the Workshop / Labs will simplify the base management, but I actually don't think it'll lose anything along the way. I was wedded to the idea of having individual control over scientists / engineers because X-Com did it, but the more I think about the more it's just more micromanagement. It's not like they can level up or change like the soldiers can, so why not just make it simple?

Removing them as individual agents means that you can have more focus on the soldiers, and have a specific Barracks building that houses them (though they are hired / fired manually as before). The benefit I see of this is mostly that with a cap on the number of soldiers you can have (unless you build a second Barracks), you'll really appreciate each soldier. And if one ends up injured, you actually have to choose whether to nurse him back to health or to fire him and replace him with a weaker soldier who can be used immediately.

The other large change is reducing the size of the base. This means you're just not going to have enough space for a base with a dropship, three interceptor bays, two labs, two workshops, two barracks and multiple radars. You'll have to specialise your bases - which should stop the single-base syndrome that frequently afflicted X-Com.

Oh, and the radars - I think this would be another good change. Currently there's no real reason to build multiple radars, but in this system you'd get the choice between building a second base or expanding the reach of your first one.

I think these changes would keep things fast and easy to understand on the Geoscape, but it won't make the game any less deep. If people have thoughts on it, feel free to post them - but if you're going to object to the plans, please give a more compelling reason than "X-Com did it that way"!

EDIT - for clarity, these ideas have been put on hold until we've tried balancing the existing system more tightly in beta...except the radar changes, which will probably be implemented.

[Hansmorg]

Will the overall founding from the supporting nations be lowered, as we will no longer have to pay millions of dollars to keep our engineers/scientists around? Or will the amount of founding remain unchanged, so we can use it to establish new bases?

It honestly makes a lot more sense to have "free" workers in your base as you do have the entire world backing you up, so lore-wise this is good. Do you think making these specialized bases will make us more vulnerable to base attacks in the non-military bases though?

And lastly, will we be able to build structures on the Geoscope? like radars, anti-air arrays, storerooms, etc? (In the future)

[Arturius]

This is currently what I'm thinking:

[1] Bases to be reduced in size from 7x7 to 6x6

[2] Living Quarters to be abolished, replaced with Barracks that can hold 8 soldiers each.

[3] Laboratories / Workshops will hold 10 scientists / engineers, hired immediately on construction.

[4] Scientists and Engineers no longer have any monthly wages and do not fill living space.

[5] Radar buildings will now expand the radar range of a base, rather than improving detection chance. The starting base has 2 radars, so bases with only one radar have a smaller detection range.

[6] Garage buildings reduced to two vehicle capacity instead of 1.

[7] Player starts with only one Hunter, or perhaps even none.

But why?

Micromanaging is good!

Instead of making game more simple we should add functionality - just like you did with Air Combat Chris !

1. Depending on how you want to resize various buildings (see below) bases could be 6x6 or 7x7.

I would personally keep them 7x7.

Or maybe a whole different approach?

If you pay initial $$$ for founding a base let's have it just like in Apocalypse, where you get bigger base with more cash.

2. and 3.

Barracks (1 tile building) seems like a good idea, but then I would keep Living Quarters (2 tiles) just for scientists / engineers. That way non-fighting staff will be separated from soldiers and you still have to care for their living conditions.

4. I think scientists / engineers should have daily wages. That would end this "can't pay maintenance" bug.

And seriously it would allow more streamlined wages politic - if I hired them on 30th I will pay just for 1 workday, just like in real life.

About not filling living space - I disagree. It would make the game too simple.

5. Good idea!

Maybe to balance things every radar need to be powered? That would introduce new base building - powerplant.

6. I agree - 2 vehicles per garage.

7. Very good idea.

2 starting hunters seems like too many.

[Chris]

The scientists / engineers aren't free, as the workshop / laboratories still have maintenance costs. And you can always build defence turrets in the non-military bases.

No, you can only build structures in bases.

@Gorlom - I can still see deleted messages

[Chris]

I don't see the appeal of managing living space. In this case you'd be limited by the work space available for the scientists, soldiers and engineers, I don't see why you need two limiting factors on it.

What's the point of having the ability to hire scientists and engineers that you can't use?

[Hansmorg]

But will there be an increase in the maintenance costs or will it stay the same?

[Gorlom]

[*]Garage buildings reduced to two vehicle capacity instead of 1.

Sorry but I'm confused by this phrasing . (mostly because I don't recall what the current value is.)

What's the point of this? The idea would be to reduce the scale of everything, so the player is making important decisions immediately. Want more scientists? You need a new lab. Or would you rather spend the money on building that MIG you've just researched? Or maybe you'd like a bit more radar coverage? You get the idea.

Removing the scientists and engineers as a separate entity from the Workshop / Labs will simplify the base management, but I actually don't think it'll lose anything along the way. I was wedded to the idea of having individual control over scientists / engineers because X-Com did it, but the more I think about the more it's just more micromanagement. It's not like they can level up or change like the soldiers can, so why not just make it simple?

I'm a bit saddened by this. I feel like I've lost something.

The other large change is reducing the size of the base. This means you're just not going to have enough space for a base with a dropship, three interceptor bays, two labs, two workshops, two barracks and multiple radars. You'll have to specialise your bases - which should stop the single-base syndrome that frequently afflicted X-Com.

Oh, and the radars - I think this would be another good change. Currently there's no real reason to build multiple radars, but in this system you'd get the choice between building a second base or expanding the reach of your first one.

Interesting hcanges. But how will the additional radars increase your radar range? by increasing the radius or the areal? Will the additional radars always increase the range by the same ammount or will there be diminishing returns?

Will building a radar only base with 35 radars (6x6 - 1) in it (close to your main base so that it can be defended) be a good idea or a horrible one?

[Gorlom]

@Gorlom - I can still see deleted messages

I decided it was more relevant in the other thread.

[Buzzles]

* Base size reduction is a good idea, both as more of a challenge and to incentivise building more bases.

* Change of living quarters to barracks and all that entails isn't a good change in my eyes. One of the bigger things XCOM 2012 got panned for was the fact it simplified a lot of the strategy layer of the game, and what you propose Chris is simplifying it rather than streamlining. Taking away more of the base management side, even though you're correct in the role it plays, isn't what people want or expect as far as I can tell. It's certainly not what I want.

That said, I wouldn't be against having both barracks and living quarters in game to ease base management. The former dedicated to soldiers, the latter between scientists and workers. You'd have to reduce the capacity of living quarters though to something like 20 or 25.

* With regards to the Radars, you do realise that having radars increase detection range will just probably just result in what you've tried to avoid with manufacturing for profit? You'll just have one or two dedicated bases for radar which grant you global or near global coverage.

If you decide to put a cap on the effect of radars, then you'll probably just find players putting in the maxmium accross a third or fourth base instead.

[erutan]

I disagree with the Radar change - I always built two radars in the alpha for the boost to detection, and range gets improved by later versions. I like that as you can't just spam radars at the beginning.

I think the laboratory/workshop makes sense - you've already paid for these buildings/maintenance and the world should be giving you people. It'll encourage a longer view, as you can't just hire a bunch of scientists, research, then fire them and hire a bunch of engineers - having a consistent team that comes with a facility you'd need to scrap makes more sense. I might boost it up from 10 - the larger number of scientists/engineers you have the more room you have to play with the differentiation of research progress.

@buzzles - EU12 was rightly panned for gutting the strategic layer, but I don't think the base building setup was considered a part of that. not being to intercept most UFOs, only a single base/skyranger, etc. research felt a little broken but engineering in EU12 felt quite good to me.

[Shoes]

If people still want scientists and engineers to exist as people so that they can manage how many to hire and whatnot, make science labs include sleeping areas, and voila. You can only hire as many scientists as you have labs, and they don't eat away at the soldier space.

I think one reason people like having scientists as a unit they have to purchase is to give the base a sense of life.

[Gazz]

Eliminating pointless micromanagement? This is an awesome notion and should be supported!

Once you build workshops / labs / barracks, you have already decided on what will happen in the base.

Having to build living space or doing the clicking to actually hire the scientists adds nothing. That's just me going through the moves. A pointless chore that I will happily wave goodbye to. =)

laboratory/workshop...

I might boost it up from 10 - the larger number of scientists/engineers you have the more room you have to play with the differentiation of research progress.

It is still differentiated by the required time. Using big numbers doesn't make a game better and doesn't change the decisions that the player makes. They are just bigger numbers. =)

The RADAR change will probably work as outlined.

What I'm wondering is if you could merge the new and old systems.

There are still different types of RADAR with different detection chances.

If you build multiples of the same type of RADAR, these add up their range. The range of other types of RADAR in that base is unaffected or only increased by a much smaller percentage.

Not sure if that would make RADAR spam basically required and if it would work with the space allocation.

Alternative:

The RADAR buildings you build increase range. The Data Analysis Centers (which need a better name) increase this base's RADAR detection chance. You can never have enough of both. Decide.

(I already hate it from a player's perspective because I want perfect! That's a very good sign!)

Having multiples of a given structure (the "adjacency boni" of XCOM) give a certain bonus - whether adjacent or not - is generally a good idea because it keeps rewarding specialization instead of having one main base and a bunch of RADAR sites.

For instance, barracks could house 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 soldiers each. Same with labs and workshops.

Multiple barracks could even very slightly increase the rate of soldier experience gain.

Multiple labs: small chance (outside of research and at random times) of "upgrade" developments to current items to become available. Just small upgrades that can shake up the strict "tier" structure of items at least a bit.

Multiple workshops could give you a chance of occasionally producing extra items... "from stuff we had kinda lying around here, y'know."

For fighter hangars: reduce rearming / refueling times with multiples.

Garages could boost the efficiency of workshops by 5, 10, 15, 20 %. Also aircraft repair speeds.

I'm sure there could be more ways for structures to interact and "buff" each other. Those are just off the top of my head.

A single base would be very inefficient in comparison. You just couldn't stack all the boni you want. =)

And even if a base had all the buildings it needs for the intended operation, there would always be something you could build... and make it work just a little better!

A little more interaction between those basic structures would give the player something to think about.

Less fiddle with many different structures... but more depth.

Don't anyone get hung up on those numbers, though! I just made them up for explanation.

Edited February 21, 2013 by Gazz

[thothkins]

On scientists:-

It’s true that as there are no scientist/ engineer skills in the game, they are essentially figures.

They do however provide that feeling that Xenonauts is an organic organisation and that you have control over the shape of that organisation. Getting people along with your Bunsen burners seems a little cookie cutter.

“Special offer! Buy this science module and get an extra egg-head free!”

More practically, if I build a lab, it comes with 10 scientists. The whole thing comes at an initial cost plus maintenance costs.

But after an initial flurry of research, I find I want to focus on Manufacturing. Money is tight. I can’t afford both. So I want to ramp down the research. Only for a while.

So, I have to demolish the research facility to avoid the maintenance costs? Assuming that wages (although not specified in the new approach) are going to increase those maintenance amounts here.

Normally, I’d just fire the scientists, but not if they are welded to the lab I can’t. That seems…odd to say the least. I can’t mothball it to save at least some money. I have to knock it down.

While there are times you may have to demolish a facility, if the costs go up due to welded personnel, it will become a more frequent decision.

No Barracks *and * living quarters? That would force players to make even more space considerations. Bah.

I do like the idea of not just losing the soldiers in a vast living area for people from different fields.

I see the logic. I’m not jumping up and down moaning about this. I just prefer it the way it is, for the reasons above about the sense of an organisation. For me, the game wouldlose a little human touch by following that one through.

I think the “micro management” thing is a bit of a red herring at times. There’s an argument that equipping soldiers here is fidgety compared to other games using rigid soldier templates and defined load outs.

But I think folks here are happy with the diversity of Xenonauts. I know I am. I like the same sort of thing with the wider X-Com like organisation and base facilities.

While the focus of Xenonauts has always firmly been about the soldiers and battlescape, I’m just as much a fan of the tech trees and the resource management side of the game. I can’t possibly be the only one. Think of having scientists and engineers as broadening the game’s appeal and as an additional selling point for the game itself.

On bases:-

All for promoting creating those additional bases. On a practical note, the UFO missions, and especially the Terror missions, mean that you will have to have at least three interceptor capable bases out there. That tightens available space left for anything else.

Could it be that they would have to be interception/ retrieval only bases, while others conduct research and detection? Need to play around more with it to see what the capacity difference would really make, particularly with later game facilities. If specialisation is pushed in this direction, could the base capacity be cut further, really ruling out multiple uses for any base? or the space offered at a price to meet it's role? small detection facility at X, larger research lab at slightly more?

On Radar:-

I wouldn’t have thought that multiple versions of the same technology would increase your range unless they are hooked up to amplify each other in some way. Surely, It would be a tech leap (Short to Long) that would increase the range?

It could be made pretty clear in Alien Invasion research text that the speed and low altitude capabilities of the UFOs lend themselves to having multiple dishes. Not having them should be reflected in the number detected within radar range/ your grumpy research director informing you that radar locks keep coming and going if the events on the geoscpae weren't obvious enough.

On Garages:-

I try not to use the vehicles, to give the troops experience, so not much of an opinion here. But that will probably change if they start getting picked off as soon as they leave the Chinook.

[Max_Caine]

A long while ago in another thread, ElTee wrote this:

Not only do you have to spend a million for a base, but you have to buy soldiers, living quarters, storage space, a hanger and chinook just to get a barebones base off the ground.

ElTee makes a very good point that there is a huge layout necessary to construct a base which can supply and transport a team of soliders. The game, as you say Chris, is supposed to focus on the soliders. But it costs too damn much (especially in the early game) to provide for more than one base of soliders, and with your earlier musings on giving dropships infinite range, the game will suffer from one-base syndrome. I would propose thothkins suggestion (in the same thread ElTee made that comment) of having certain prefabbed basic parts in a new base. A storage room, a barracks and a hangar instantly present streamlines the process of prepping a base for soliders (instead of buying and waiting for these modules to be made, each of which takes a different amount of time to construct) and focusses attention on the stars of the game - the soliders.

[StellarRat]

Oh, and the radars - I think this would be another good change. Currently there's no real reason to build multiple radars, but in this system you'd get the choice between building a second base or expanding the reach of your first one.

Realistically, adding more radar of the same type wouldn't give you more coverage. The only things that will increase your coverage from a single base: 1. More sensitive radar 2. More powerful radar 3. Better radar antenna or antenna location. My suggestion is either some type of radar upgrade OR a booster component that adds power and/or sensitivity to the system.

[Name]

Can the longer radar range inprove the chinooks range?

Or does the range quickly grow whit newer transports?

I want to see how radar range grows with more raders can we get a chart or something?

[GizmoGomez]

From a real world standpoint (trust me, I'm a physicist ), additional radar installations would do very little, if anything, for range, but would instead increase detection accuracy while covering about the same area as before. Boosting the power supplied to the dishes would increase range, though.

I say (and not because of real life physics, but because I genuinely believe it'd be better for the game) leave the radar the way it is, with additional stations increasing detection chance.

If we wanted a way to increase range, we could add a power station building to boost the power supplied to the radar array. I've outlined my ideas for that here:

New Building: Power Station

(It would make the post over twice as long, so I moved it to it's own thread. I think it could be a good idea, what do you think?)

As for replacing scientists and technicians by self-contained 10-man labs and workshops, I'm against that to an extent. I've always liked being able to hire people, even if they aren't soldiers. I don't want things to be overly simple. However, I do like the instant ten scientists/techies upon building completion (it makes sense, right? If you know you're going to need scientists, why wait until after the lab is built to hire them?), and I also like having the scientists and techies live in their places of work. Eliminating their wages is another good idea. Just pay them through the upkeep of their workplaces, that makes sense.

Perhaps the labs and workshops could come with and support ten personnel living in the building itself (like Chris said), but have additional lab space/work space open for additional personnel, should you want to hire more (10 empty slots? 20?). These additional guys would live and work in the lab/workshop, just like the original 10 that were hired initially, which means we can still eliminate the living quarters in favor of separate barracks for soldiers only (which I support, especially since it's a 1x1 building) and no extra space taken up by scientists and technicians.

This would allow those who don't like micromanaging to just buy a lab and start researching, but those of us who like that sort of thing (myself included) can still do our thing.

Also, are they officially "technicians", or "engineers"? The game says one, and I've seen most everyone else use the other. I prefer technicians, personally. It makes more sense, in the context of building things. I looked up the definitions of both names, just to be certain, and for technicians it basically said that they're highly skilled at more the technique of building things and not as much the theory of designing them, and are often part of a production process. Engineers generally design things, using more theory then technique, and let others make the products instead. In fact, I'd say that there are more engineers working under the name "scientist" then there are actually building things in the workshops, considering that designs for new material/aircraft/etc are researched in the labs before they can be built in the shops.

Sorry if this seems trivial, it probably is; I'd just like a degree of consistency (as would my engineer friend, who actually acted somewhat offended (in a comical way) when he discovered that engineers were being portrayed as people who simply built things.)

By the way, Chris, on a related note, I love the research reports dissing the techies, they're hilarious.

Edited February 22, 2013 by GizmoGomez
Clarification

[Chris]

A few good points here. I guess I can't have it both ways with the scientists / engineers, so if they came with the building they probably would have to work free as otherwise you lose the chance to shut down your labs when they're not being used to reduce maintennce without demolishing them. which means the cost would have to be frontloaded - initially expensive, less so afterwards.

This would then lead to the management game being more about unlocking a series of permanent upgrades to your organisation, with money being the limiting factor. Do you want the new dropship that increases troop capacity, or do you want more scientists? You can only afford one, etc.

This isn't inherently bad - as Erutan says, the new XCom was criticised not for how the base construction worked, but the fact that it baically WAS the entire strategy layer...

[erutan]

@gaud - I retract my earlier point on lab size, it assumes more control over personnel size which this system avoids. I was thinking more of if you have 10-50 scientists vs 20-100 scientists you have more integar values to spread out what you can expect to have researching, but nvm. research pacing in EU12 felt really off for me, but that's not here or there.

I do disagree strongly with your radar idea and lean to the status quo + gizmo.

@chris - what if you can keep maintenance costs high, but instead of just destroying a building you can deactivate/decommission/power down/mothball it? This leads to an extremely minimal upkeep, takes some time to spin up/down (obviously less than building, but enough that you aren't just micromanaging it every day), but you don't get any resources back from salvage as you would from selling it? Monthly maintenance is prorated between active/deactivated/gone.

I like not having to hire and manage workers, just have their living / working expenses as maintenance. It takes time/money to create a state of the art facility in a hardened underground bunker but there are enough people willing to join the cause once that space is available.

Edited February 22, 2013 by erutan

[TrashMan]

I don't see the appeal of managing living space. In this case you'd be limited by the work space available for the scientists, soldiers and engineers, I don't see why you need two limiting factors on it.

What's the point of having the ability to hire scientists and engineers that you can't use?

I guess technicly you can immagine them living outside of the base...but given the nature and importance of their work ...hmmm.

I'm on the fence on this one really.

Not so much on the hireing scientists, but more that tehy dont' need living quarters.

Futhermore, living quarters was a 2x1 building.... which would become unnecessary and replaced by a 1x1 building only for sodliers. That actually FREES UP space in base.

I needed 2 living quarters (for a total of 4 blocks) in my base to get any real work done. I don't see myself needing more than 2...MAAAAYBE 3 barracks.

Radar buildings will now expand the radar range of a base, rather than improving detection chance. The starting base has 2 radars, so bases with only one radar have a smaller detection range

I don't see how multiple radars on the same spot would increase range. Unless you have different types of radars.

And lastly, will we be able to build structures on the Geoscope? like radars, anti-air arrays, storerooms, etc? (In the future)

Like UFO AI? I liked that. You could expand your radard range with specialized radar installations, but they could be destroyed by aliens.

Edited February 22, 2013 by TrashMan

[TrashMan]

OK, the "suspend/power down" options is starting to sound really good.

If you really want to get rid of micromanaging/hireing scientisits individually that seems like the way to go. Still...I'd keep the living quarters building (but keep it separate from barracks). Why?

Because space is a commodity in a base and those scientists won't eat and sleep in the lab. If you want to make base building a strategic/logistic challenge, then you need buildings to build.

So basicly:

- scientists/workers auto-hired with lab/workshop built and not managed individually (reflected in building mantainance)

- for a lab/workshop to work you need enough living space. Insufficient living space results in reduced productivity (or no productivity?)

- labs/workshop can be shutdown, drasticly reducing their mantainance, but disabling any production done in them. It taks a while (hours? A day?) to shut down/activate a building.

[Jean-Luc]

-Bases to be reduced in size from 7x7 to 6x6

I like things that encourage having multiple bases.

-Living Quarters to be abolished, replaced with Barracks that can hold 8 soldiers each.

-Laboratories / Workshops will hold 10 scientists / engineers, hired immediately on construction.

-Scientists and Engineers no longer have any monthly wages and do not fill living space.

Not against eliminating the micromanagement of hiring individual scientists/engineers but I don't like the idea of them being completely "ethereal" and not requiring living space. Maybe labs and shops could have living space requirements. For example, living quarters (cap 50) = 2 labs + 2 shops + 10 soldiers (10 living space used per lab/shop).

Of course, as mentioned, this requires the ability to shut down those facilities which means the maintenance needs to be deducted incrementally (day by day basis maybe) so people don't abuse by shutting stuff down just before the end of the month.

I wonder if it's worth the hassle though. While X-Com did have a lot of micro regarding these things it wasn't completely pointless. It was tied to financial management, speed of research/construction vs. saving money and the ability to fine tune these things.

Alternatively you could have both living quarters and barracks except that LQ wouldn't have a cap and would automatically satisfy the living needs of all non-combat personnel in base (scientists, engineers, janitors, rat catchers...). Should be a 2x2 building prolly. It'd almost work like specialization branches. If you build a LQ in a new base you're sort of nudging it towards being a research/manufacture base with no soldiers in it (protected by base defence systems) while a bunch of barracks, hangars, radars and garages leave little space for non-combat activities.

-Radar buildings will now expand the radar range of a base, rather than improving detection chance. The starting base has 2 radars, so bases with only one radar have a smaller detection range.

Don't think it makes much sense based on how radar works but, if implemented, there should probably be a cap like no further benefit beyond 3-4 radar facilities. Though I still think "multiple radars = better detection, better radar (research) = longer range" approach is better.

-Garage buildings reduced to two vehicle capacity instead of 1

Did you mean increased capacity?

Edited February 22, 2013 by Jean-Luc

[Gazz]

I guess I can't have it both ways with the scientists / engineers, so if they came with the building they probably would have to work free as otherwise you lose the chance to shut down your labs when they're not being used to reduce maintennce without demolishing them. which means the cost would have to be frontloaded - initially expensive, less so afterwards.

Not necessarily.

Say the building costs it's regular (low) maintenance.

The cost for the scientists is added to the research projects.

Researching laser rifles costs you 9000 $ or whatever.

You have the exact same system as now where the work has to be paid for.

Except that instead of hiring / firing on every change of workload, the player only has to schedule the projects. After that is done, it is assumed that some unnamed flunkie does the work of hiring/firing to get the required personnel to where they need to be.

No need for an additional system of temporarily shutting down installations. No need to frontload any costs.

Exact same depth as now - only without the silly micromanagement.

It's also much more in style with the player being the Big Boss and having a staff to do these kind of things.

Would also be another potential candidate for building synergy. Every additional lab reduces total research cost by x %.

Alternatively you could have both living quarters and barracks except that LQ wouldn't have a cap and would automatically satisfy the living needs of all non-combat personnel in base (scientists, engineers, janitors, rat catchers...).

Living quarters are tucked away safely below the control room. Every base has them because the control room wouldn't be manned without it. =)

Edited February 22, 2013 by Gazz

[Chris]

Meh, I might just reduce the capacity of the living quarters and the workshop / labs. I might be able to achieve something similar without sacrificing the extra level of control that comes with hiring / firing individual scientists and engineers.

The radar change I'll probably go ahead with. The radars would give diminishing returns and would be capped at 4 per base, but as I don't see much to be gained from increased detection chance I think the only useful reason to build more radars is to extend range. I'm not particularly bothered by the lack of realism in this case.

[Name]

Chris I have been doing math and a 6 by 6 just barly makes it so we need more bases. Cool