Base Simplification Ideas

[mungrot]

Ugh.

I hope I'm not too late for the living quarters issue.

I am completely opposed to the changes, and not because Xcom did it, or it feels strange, or just because it's different and I don't like things that are different.

It's because it'll be one less facility to give your base shape; One less facility to defend. So what happens if I decide to build a base dedicated completely to research. All it needs is labs? It would LOOK way off, where would I house all the scientists? Living quarters would actually hamper me since they'd take away space for more precious labs, and, if aliens assault the base, the defending garrison would be spread along the entire base including living quarters making it painful and difficult to defend. As it should be.

A world without living quarters would be a world without glue.

[Name]

In a world without glue we have ductape....

But still well said : D

[GizmoGomez]

If we decide to do away with LQ and use the barracks, put a hatch/ladder going down to a LQ-esk structure under the labs when you do base defense missions. Just say that there are LQ under the labs specifically for scientists in the building description, or something to that effect, and voila, problem solved.

Just make them small, like 20 lab coats each or something like that. Same deal for the technicians.

Or, we can just leave the LQ in, but make it a 1x1, and only house up to 20 lab coats and techies. Then, have a separate barracks for soldiers, also a 1x1, housing maybe 10. This would fit the soldiers taking up 2 slots idea that came up earlier, and would provide a good way to mix the current system with a newer, more modular design.

In fact, I actually like that idea much more than the LQ under the lab design. But, if we absolutely have to nix the LQ (which I don't see why we would have to), that set up would work nicely, I think.

[TrashMan]

And that's exactly why they are treated as nameless drones bought and sold in bulk.

Because details like names of individual scientists and their careers are really pointless because there's no gameplay associated with it.

If there is more gameplay associated with scientists - like there is with soldiers - then I would agree. But as it is, it would add nothing to the game.

Also, while you CAN cram soldiers and civies/scientists together if necessary, even in the smallest and most uncomfortable bunks, you're not gonna design a research base with an explicit purpose to do that.

You're gonna WANT separate quarters so each can focus on their jobs better.

Edited March 4, 2013 by TrashMan

[HWP]

You're gonna WANT separate quarters so each can focus on their jobs better.

Separate rooms would be useful. Scientists work days, troops work watches, don't want them to wake each other up.

But I seriously just don't see why they should necessarily be different. How exactly do you propose the living arrangements should differ between spec ops soldiers and engineering staff?

[GoodGuyEddy]

How exactly do you propose the living arrangements should differ between spec ops soldiers and engineering staff?

One room is plastered with posters of strippers poledancing around a rifle. The others have posters of strippers poledancing around wrenches.

[crusherven]

HWP, your typical soldier (in the US, 20 y. old) is willing to put up with much more spartan living arrangements than your typical scientist or engineer, who is more likely to be in his 40s or older.

[zolobolo]

Please redirect this if in wrong topic but just started out with the beta, and noticed that garage does not show tanks in base building menu. Since the room itself is pretty generic it may be useful to show the tanks (especially if only 2 can be placed in one garage) on the base layout menu analog to the hangars. It would provide a nice overview of the tanks available to a base, free space and also make the garage stand out and make it easier to identify giving each bases more character. On the downside it would have to be checked if the tank is currently out for a mission-or just leave the picture there until it gets destroyed moved or sold.

[MikeV37]

Do what you must to the Labs and Workshops, but Please don't do the SOTS research system! I hated it! The damnable scientists would always go overbudget, I just wanted to shoot them all instead of funding them.

[Beanchilla]

I think if costs and things are balanced the current way it plays out is perfect.

I'm completely comfortable balancing workshop size and the number of scientists/workers within each building.

I think balancing your bases production is a lot of fun honestly. Micromanaging can be a chore but it's also a strange zen like experience in Xenonauts.

I like it. I suggest keeping it the way it is and simply balancing it further as development moves along

[Kaorimoch]

My idea would be

1. Change the base to a 6x4 arrangement for building.

Instead, have building that are fixed to a base when a base is constructed, ie a hanger for the troop carrier, radar station, living quarters etc. Allow players to upgrade the fixed buildings. Bases always have particular buildings as a stock standard.

2. Instead of hiring or firing engineers and scientists,

(a) have each project cost more to represent the cost of the research or in building the asset. More research / workshops can reduce the time and cost. Less micro management with staff.

(b) Have the player start with a certain amount of scientists at the beginning and allow them to recruit more based on the friendliness of particular areas. Friends with Africa? Hire Mr Mwambe the scientist in February as a one off cost. Review each countries offerings each month. Add specializations to recruitable staff. Don't have the scientists stuck to one location, have them as a floating number that exists between bases. If you have 30 staff but only 20 of room in your lab facilities, you need to build more to take advantage of your staff numbers.

© Make specific Recruit/rescue scientist/engineer missions. (eg CERN is under attack, rescue the place by eliminating the forces there for +5 scientists and better chances of recruiting scientists later).

3. Improve detection chances with additional radar stations, rather than range.

It will screw up players decisions to create base locations.

If you did want to look at ways to implement increasing range -

(a) You could include an option to increase range a bit at the cost of additional funds per month to represent the increase electricity costs (or patrol costs) which would become prohibitively more expensive as the range increased. That would encourage people to build bases to lower the monthly costs for radar monitoring.

(b) You could upgrade the radar station to a satellite station (or allow a satellite station to be built if a radar station existed there) to increase the range (or allow a separate area to monitor in a particular location close to the base to cover funny looking areas like Alaska, New Zealand or the UK).

I like making decisions on the bases as it provides a welcome reprieve from the constant deploys of soldiers.

[DNK]

I like the current system - or the original XCOM system, which is basically preserved. Modifications that would be nice:

Cheaper base build costs - it would be nice to have more smaller bases and specialized bases, but with startup costs so high, I usually can't justify it.

Smaller bases (6x6 or 5x5) - I like this idea, as it forces more specialization and more bases in general.

Any installation with radar should be highly visible to aliens (radar is a huge positional giveaway IRL). Basic base defenses should act as a repellant, though, severely decreasing the chances of an attack, but with an increasing need as the game progresses. So, for the first few months, a single defense battery should suffice anywhere to prevent a base attack, but later on 2 or 3 might be necessary as larger ships come into play. Also, defenses reduce the number of aliens that do enter the base regardless, perhaps reducing some of their health as well, randomly.

Command centers - should be optional, should be the most expensive part of a new base (so the actual costs is like $50K but the command center is $200K or something), and should be a requirement for only some of the buildings. So, everything but hangars doesn't require them basically. Why do you need a command center if there are no military units to command?

I think adding all of these would add a lot to this part of the game.

[GizmoGomez]

Um... Aircraft are military units. Just saying.

Also, command centers are required for base defense missions. What would happen if your single hanger got assaulted and the aliens had no objective?

[jazzglands]

Regarding Chris's original design ideas:

I like having to deal with staffing, but I don't think my enjoyment would be seriously impaired if I didn't have to deal with it. There's still a lot of strategic play on the geoscape with multiple bases, equipment management, squad management, and so on. I don't think I'd really miss having to hire/fire my techies. A lot of people have been talking about controlling upkeep, but it seems like you could just tie the upkeep cost of labs/workshops to the amount of scientists/engineers currently working on a project. It's the same thing as judiciously hiring and firing your techs, but you don't have to to the busywork of clicking around the hire/fire buttons.

Eight soldiers per barracks seems pretty low to me. I'd say the base should start with two and the barracks building should be 1x1 if you really wanted 8 soldiers per barracks. That could just be me and my play style though I guess.

Overall, those ideas seem like it would gear the play more toward managing your buildings and less toward managing staff/balance sheets and I think that's a positive change.

[thothkins]

Some interesting recent thoughts...

Instead, have building that are fixed to a base when a base is constructed,

Players like to customise their base layout, os being prescriptive isn't always best. I'd even want to have more freedom on the starting base. I'd even want to place the command centre.

2. Instead of hiring or firing engineers and scientists,

I was toying around with a system where their was no funding money as such, but based around relationships/resources with the funding nations. So, ability to conduct research & engineering would be greatly affected by the resources available, including personnel.

I quite like the floating pool of top scientists jetting around the funding resources. I'd like the apocalypse hirign system to add to that too.

3. Improve detection chances with additional radar stations, rather than range.

UFO:AI splits out the bases along similar lines to this. It's a path that can lead to the eventual removal of base management as such, or a fair amount of fiddling with finding nation resources. Strike Bases are pretty much what can be left.

(a) You could include an option to increase range a bit at the cost of additional funds per month to represent the increase electricity costs (or patrol costs) -

there was a previous thread on power stations being more a part of the game. This was without knowledge of EU2012 at the time. Here it is by GizmoGomez

[GizmoGomez]

there was a previous thread on power stations being more a part of the game. This was without knowledge of EU2012 at the time. Here it is by GizmoGomez

Ha, I'm happy you pointed out that I didn't know about that aspect of EU2012 at the time. Thanks for being awesome Thothkins!

[DNK]

Um... Aircraft are military units. Just saying.

Also, command centers are required for base defense missions. What would happen if your single hanger got assaulted and the aliens had no objective?

Yes, everything EXCEPT hangers DOESN'T require a center. In other words, ONLY hangars require centers.

What was the objective in XCOM? Kill all or be killed, I recall. Seemed to work just fine.

[thothkins]

Ha, I'm happy you pointed out that I didn't know about that aspect of EU2012 at the time. Thanks for being awesome Thothkins!

And thank you for the kind compliment.

Yes, everything EXCEPT hangers DOESN'T require a center. In other words, ONLY hangars require centers.

I can just see the posts as players struggle to figure out if they need a command centre for this base or that base and if they are immune to alien attacks. I see the point, but it's a step away from the simplicity that's there at present. As Gizmo said, it's a peg to hang base defence around, so every base has one.

Some other base facility threads

Max Caine started off the aesthetics of base design thread with a post well worth reading.

Jean Luc's Base Spread and the reasons for also looks at altering functionality

Max Caine again with Suggestions on extending base usage

Mordenkien's page about Pancakes in History has nothing to do with base design, but came up in the search and is a tribute to our favourite Commissar.

[DNK]

Not a huge fan of simplicity personally

[thothkins]

Yet such a simple straightforward reply

Yeah, that was one of my type-it-as-it-is-rather-than-what-I-like bits of posting.

It is incredibly hard to please everyone, or anyone.

I hummed at the infinite storage for infinite weapons, but it works.

I still really don't like auto upgrades to facilities. You struggle to build everything else, but they appear by magic.

I like a variety of facilities, as long as they serve a purpose, either logically or game related. So I can see the value in having a capture the flag administrative hub command centres, but I then bemoan the absence of say a rec room to increase soldier morale following psychic attack, or the lack of a separate alien containment facility.

[DNK]

More structures would be nice, yes. I would have hoped for an increase in structure types rather than a simplification. That was not one of the over-complicated parts of XCOM. Having separate living quarters for soldiers and other people would be nice, with the soldiers' having training quarters attached, while normal living quarters had more rec space and book storage (it was the 70/80s after all).

Other things might be that you need to have clear 1-tile wide access (hallways) between the workshops and hangars/gargaes to be able to build craft/vehicles. Adding hallways also adds a bit of fun to base design. Having additional spaces just for relaxation/etc would also be nice. Cheap places that give soldiers/engineers/researchers benefits but cost little. Just taking up space and allowing for more base specialization and perhaps personal aesthetics. I imagine this stuff can be modded in fairly easily, though it's a bit early for it right now in the development process.

I think the most important thing to making base design more challenging/fun and requiring more bases is space restrictions, either through limiting the amount of people who can work/live in a given building, or just making the bases smaller, or perhaps making specific structures (hangars) larger.

Edited July 5, 2013 by DNK

[ThunderGr]

Not a huge fan of simplicity personally

Same here.

[thothkins]

More structures would be nice

You get a garage

A quick look at Base Facilities gives me this rough list:-

[table=width: 730, class: grid, align: left]

[tr]

[td] Facility Name [/td]

[td] In Game? [/td]

[td] Game Function [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Command Center [/td]

[td]Yes [/td]

[td]Base is lost if command centre is overun in a Base Defence mission [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Defence: Various Types [/td]

[td] Yes [/td]

[td] Affects enemy numbers in the event of a base defence mission [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Access Lift [/td]

[td]No [/td]

[td]Acts as channel for aliens in Base Defence Missions [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Force Fields [/td]

[td]No [/td]

[td]Increases base defence firing opportunities during Base Defence Missions. [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Psionic Shields [/td]

[td]No [/td]

[td]Hides thoughts of base personnel to reduce chance of alien detection and Base Defence Missions. [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Base Defences [/td]

[td]No [/td]

[td]In-base security devices to slow attacking forces in Base Defence Missions [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Hanger [/td]

[td]Yes [/td]

[td]Controls no of aircraft that can be built/ stored at any time. (Acts as channel for alien base attacks - not in Xenonauts.)[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Garage [/td]

[td]Yes [/td]

[td]Control no of vehicles that can be built/stored at any time.[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Laboratory - various types [/td]

[td]Yes [/td]

[td]Controls scientific capability of the base/ speed of research [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Workshop - various types [/td]

[td]Yes [/td]

[td]Controls manufacturing capability of the base/ speed of production [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Living Quarters: Various types [/td]

[td]Yes [/td]

[td]Controls total personnel numbers on base available to be assigned to key areas. [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Detection: Various types [/td]

[td]Yes [/td]

[td]Controls detection chance/ detection range of base. [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Alien Containment/ Interrogation [/td]

[td]Yes in part [/td]

[td]Promotes alien research through control of numbers that can be held. (incorporated into Labs in Xenonauts with excess aliens destroyed) [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Stores [/td]

[td]Yes in part [/td]

[td]Promotes manufacturing by limiting stockpiling. [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Training Center [/td]

[td]Yes in part [/td]

[td]Maintains/increases stats, aids return to active duty, learn skills.(On it's way out in Xenonuats) [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Training Center: Psionic [/td]

[td]No [/td]

[td]training and control of psionic implantation or devices for use in the field.[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Medical Bay: Various types [/td]

[td]Yes [/td]

[td]Improves recovery time of soldiers/ required for certain procedures. [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Recreation Room [/td]

[td]No [/td]

[td]Improves morale of soldiers (affected by panic losses on missions) [/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Generator [/td]

[td]No [/td]

[td]Influences building strategy through power allocation/availability.[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

So, the game does pretty well in getting the basics in there. You could argue that stores doesn't have a function beyond it's role, and that Training is stunted. A lot of the rest is expanding on what's there. Living quarters for soldiers an then staff, Labs and workshops for separate functions etc.

Obviously, I'd love a Psi-Lab, but that 's just me

[GizmoGomez]

Perhaps to make the instant base upgrades less unrealistic, we could have to manually decide when to upgrade the building, and then that building will be unavailable for X days.

For example:

I have a missile defense, then I research the laser requirement for the base defense lasers. A button, "Upgrade" appears over my base layout representation of the missile defense. When I press it, a popup comes up asking if I want to upgrade by facility, rendering it useless for X days. After the X days, I have a shiny new laser defense in the place of the old one.

Sound good?

[thothkins]

ah, but what if:-

It's the medical centre being upgraded. You take on a number of casualties, and suffer yet more damage by fielding reduced/ weakened squads.

or

What if your base defence is getting upgraded, just as you get a sequence of base attacks. You're faced with the full quota of aliens each time.

In the OG, you could build the new facilities alongside the existing ones, so there was always some capacity for that facility in place. Why weaken your capabilities if you have plenty of spare space in your Base Layout?

Unless the magic construction pixies who build these things overnight need to cannibalise the old facility for parts of the new one