Build V18 Geoscape Balance Discussion

[Belmakor]

I can't remember if its been mentioned before but:

Couldn't you just keep the Chinook the way it is but allow one way journeys. This would effectively double the range.

This solves the majority of problems with regard to missing early Terror sites

Now obviously you wouldn't want to do this if you were going to lose all your troops AND your chinook. So instead they are put them out of action for a few days of game time after the mission (while they use less direct methods of getting back to base). This should be a secondary con, not the main one.

Then you have a trade-off.

Do I go for the terror site (and lose a 50k chinook) but keep that countries funding at 75k a month plus potentially recover some equipment to sell

Or

Do I just leave it? Because I can't even afford to lose one Chinook at the moment BUT then I might be able to afford to build a base that side of the world next month to recover the loss of council funding.

Choices are good

EDIT:

Lore-wise, you could add something like this to the Xenopedia

Our primary transport aircraft (codename: Charlie) runs on a modified mixture of rocket fuel and standard diesel along with an unstable chemical recovered during the Iceland incident. This enables us to achieve excellent power/distance characteristics while at the same time minimizing the heat signature produced from the aircraft's engines (without which it would be relentlessly targeted by the alien menace). This fuel is synthesized in copious quantities on Xenonaut site but is almost impossible to come-by elsewhere on Earth. This means the Chinooks range is somewhat limited when considering traditional methods of refuelling on route - however I am sure you will agree the trade-off is acceptable given the value we place on our soldiers and pilots lives.

Edited April 10, 2013 by Belmakor

[Gauddlike]

@ erutan the upgraded transport craft are currently faster, longer ranged and have greater capacity than the Chinook.

If range is global for the Chinook I imagine it will be the same for the others although an interesting trade off may be if they actually had less range (unable to refuel away from base?) but more speed and capacity.

Full global range on the Chinook is purely a reaction to terror missions being out of range from what I can gather.

Firstly the range of the Chinook was suggested to be too short to reach them, then it was suggested that the sites be prevented from vanishing if the craft was en route.

It is bending the mechanics to fit the terror missions which seems wrong.

If terror missions are so damaging to your relations if you cannot respond to them that you need to rework a game feature to enable them to be reached then I reckon the terror missions are what really needs to be looked at.

Terror missions in the OG had a large impact but no special allowances appeared to be made to allow you to get to them.

If you didn't have anyone close enough then you just couldn't respond.

Why does Xenonauts need to have the mechanics changed to enable the player to get to them?

Few things you could do to make them less devastating to the player:

Limit them to larger alien craft so they don't appear early in the game.

Make a second type of terror mission available early on which uses a smaller enemy craft (so less enemies) but has less relation impact.

Limit the chance of a small terror mission generating so they are somewhere around one a month (increased chance at higher ticker for the large version).

The fear of missing a terror mission is a fantastic reason to promote the spread of your bases around the globe (or across the flat map) so it seems a waste to just tag global range on to the transports just so the player has the ability to avoid missing out.

Don't hold the players hand, make them decide if spending all of their cash upgrading a single base to protect a smaller area is better for them or spreading out to cover more funders.

This design decision should then influence the final balance of the funds available to the player, not the current un-balanced funds influence the design decision.

[Assoonasitis]

@ erutan the upgraded transport craft are currently faster, longer ranged and have greater capacity than the Chinook.

If range is global for the Chinook I imagine it will be the same for the others although an interesting trade off may be if they actually had less range (unable to refuel away from base?) but more speed and capacity.

Full global range on the Chinook is purely a reaction to terror missions being out of range from what I can gather.

Firstly the range of the Chinook was suggested to be too short to reach them, then it was suggested that the sites be prevented from vanishing if the craft was en route.

It is bending the mechanics to fit the terror missions which seems wrong.

If terror missions are so damaging to your relations if you cannot respond to them that you need to rework a game feature to enable them to be reached then I reckon the terror missions are what really needs to be looked at.

Terror missions in the OG had a large impact but no special allowances appeared to be made to allow you to get to them.

If you didn't have anyone close enough then you just couldn't respond.

Why does Xenonauts need to have the mechanics changed to enable the player to get to them?

Few things you could do to make them less devastating to the player:

Limit them to larger alien craft so they don't appear early in the game.

Make a second type of terror mission available early on which uses a smaller enemy craft (so less enemies) but has less relation impact.

Limit the chance of a small terror mission generating so they are somewhere around one a month (increased chance at higher ticker for the large version).

The fear of missing a terror mission is a fantastic reason to promote the spread of your bases around the globe (or across the flat map) so it seems a waste to just tag global range on to the transports just so the player has the ability to avoid missing out.

Don't hold the players hand, make them decide if spending all of their cash upgrading a single base to protect a smaller area is better for them or spreading out to cover more funders.

This design decision should then influence the final balance of the funds available to the player, not the current un-balanced funds influence the design decision.

Skyrangers and Tritons had full globe coverage, though, albeit very, very slowly. I like the "smaller" terror missions early on, but I would also suggest that the early terror missions be relatively close to your base, the explanation being that they are alien retaliation missions designed to scare whatever area you're in into running you out of town.

[thothkins]

I'd also agree with smaller terror missions. It should be related to why the aliens feel they have to do the mission. As Assoonasitis says it could be a reaction to increased Xenonaut activity around an area. This may well indicate a Xenonaut base. So the aliens send in a few terror missions (small ones early on) to draw the Xenonauts out. Xenonauts gain the mission points and therefore finding advantages, but with the drawback that their base may be more easily located.

Larger, and later terror missions are a clear reaction to things not going the aliens way and to put pressure on funding nations to go over to their side, or else.

I've not played enough in this build to get a real feel for the longer Chinook range. It does feel as though it's going against some of the good ideas for trying to get multiple bases though.

[GizmoGomez]

I like the idea of smaller terror missions as well, maybe the first of which would be within the same region as your base? That would make the coding simpler, I think. Just somewhere in your region, instead of setting a radius around the base. Either one works, just offering a suggestion.

(I really really like this idea. Really, Chris. Like, really really. It would add a lot to the game, I think.)

[Assoonasitis]

If anything, I'd say reduce Charlie range to just outside your radar coverage, forcing players to react intelligently while intercepting and making getting additional bases a high priority.

[GizmoGomez]

I haven't had any issues that would make me want to reduce the Charlie range. I say leave that, but just make the first terror missions the mini variants that are more for drawing out the Xenonauts, and make them within the Chinook's range.

[Gauddlike]

I suggested some alien activity could be centred in the rough area of your base in the early stages a while back but it wasn't a popular suggestion if I remember rightly

In game justification was that the aliens were taking out military threats first and you were on the list.

Out of game justification was that they would be around the players base and their expanding activity would encourage the player to expand as well.

Think it was in the thread that led to the starting crash sites being generated in range of the player.

[erutan]

My base is in that little sweet spot ~egypt and my charlie can ride to south america. That seems pretty far for a chopper.

It looks like two bases can cover the globe as is, I like the idea of not being able to automatically reach every terror mission - if you don't have a second military base up in ~x months then you are at a disadvantage for global coverage, seems reasonable to me. I like a lot of the ideas for changing how terror missions appear vs. global transport ftw. IF it is global, I'd say make it a tad slower + have the upgraded transports faster/larger but not global to balance it out, but I'd really prefer things to stay as is. I'd rather have a little more funding + player agency than a one base focus.

@gaudd - I haven't really played far enough recently to see how the next level impacts gameplay. If terror missions are common before the next transport comes, there could be a charlie upgrade in between to help pace things out... you can react to terror missions but still are slow/small.

[Sathra]

Having the later dropships being faster but with a shorter range sounds good. They do have a definite advantage over the chinook with their increased carry capacity. The chinook would be slower and carry less but can reach anywhere sounds like a good tradeoff. Though the Shrike could come earlier. Reactor research maybe?

Having Retaliation spawns terror sites sounds pretty cool. Especially if they did it when they couldn't find your base. I know I ignored battleships doing retaliation since there was no real downside to do so in the original.

[crusherven]

I really don't like the idea of later dropships having shorter range. I'm not sure I'd upgrade.

I do like the idea of limiting Chinook range and forcing early terror sites to be in the general area. After a month or two they start appearing elsewhere to encourage a second base. Right now there's not much incentive to build two bases--as far as I can tell you could just decide to ignore the Americas and Australia and focus on Africa, Europe, and Asia with a single base.

[Max_Caine]

Well, the radar range is a little excessive. Couldn't that be shortened a little?

[erutan]

Interceptors still have limited range so you'd need some hangar/radar bases - I haven't gotten to further radar upgrades so i can't speak for range. I really don't think the charlie needs to go further, it's kinda silly as is. I suppose the balancing factor is eventually you'd just start losing charlies with all on board if you sent them halfway around the world without any escort (e.g. no fuel for your support).

While earlier iterations gave one too much money (being able to have two intercept bases by the second month, while working on an addition) it was a lot more interesting than this giant charlie range + trying to save up enough money to plop down one building at a time in my central american base. Having the player be able to have a functioning intercept base in the second month w/o massive sacrifice seems like a good goal - they can then choose to focus on building out soldiers there, focusing on R&D, gear, etc. While many other aspects are balanced better, the incentive to not build secondary bases dilutes the feel of the game for me.

[Max_Caine]

While we're talking about building other bases, there doesn't seem to be enough encouragement to build even radar/interceptor bases in other areas. I checked out the percent chance that UFOs have of generating events, and they are pretty small. Research missions (which are possibly the most common event generating mission type early on) have a 2.5% chance of generating an event each game hour. Ground attack missions (which are the secondmost common event generating mission early on) have a 5% chance of generating an event. I think those values need to be jacked up. If the number of UFOs generated each wave are going to be smaller, the chance that each ufo causes more havoc needs to be greater. I remember earlier builds , where the sheer number of UFOs per wave compensated for the small chance of events. That is going to have to change.

Additionally, a quarter of the mission types, including the more common ground attack and bombing run missions don't generate ticker points unless they generate an event, which slows the pace of the game down. There needs to be a bigger bodycount!

[erutan]

We seem to be at:

* terror missions should happen less in the early game vs balancing the game around them

* in contrast have more general attrition so global coverage will become necessary

* a general lean against global chinook range, unanimous at very least not ALL transports being global

* possibly have an escalating chance of UFOs targeting dropships as game progresses to punish flying w/o escort

* not enough incentive to build multiple bases (a mix of econ, ufo spawns, range, etc)

* possible tweaks to radar range to encourage multiple bases

Ideally for me you there is a mild sense of panic that you need that second base up, interceptor ~2nd month, have a secondary squad ~3rd. Miss a few terror missions, push back against the gradual loss of funding elsewhere, feel special.

Edited April 11, 2013 by erutan

[Shima]

I spent the whole night playing this damned game again. It's original E:U all over again. I love it!

Anyway, I'd like to get some sleep, so I won't join the discussion about chinook ranges. Maxbe except - miniterror missions sound great!

I got up to late march and battleships started appearing. I have researched all armors, all weapons up to Mags (I don't have fusion weapons yet, although I have researched some) and hyperdrive (though the research didn't bring any new workshop products). The research tree is quite a mess in later stages. But I understand that. Too lazy to check xml what I'm missing. But I'd say I'm pretty far. Still no upgraded dropship on the horizon though. And I haven't got a single attack on any one of my (two) bases. But I took out a few alien bases. That was fun!

I was shocked in early february when I finally managed to research Marauder and manufacture costs were whopping 7 500 000 dollars. How I am supposed to afford that?! I'm floating around a million at best. Corsair costs 400k and can take down 2 heavy figters + Cruiser/Strikecruiser by itself (provided you have the Magstorm). Also 2 Foxtrots with 8 plasma torpedoes can take down every unescorted medium/large ship up to Carrier (I didn't catch a battleship yet) with no skill required. You just let them fire all rockets, press retreat buttons and watch the fireworks. They can even kill a Cruiser/Strikecruiser accompanied by 2 heavy fighters and run away before any retaliation (Interceptors can catch them though). So far there doesn't seem to be any need for the Marauder and only ships I haven't met in battle yet are Destroyer and Battleship. Only reason for Marauder seems to be the ability to catch the largest and fastest ufos. But it is simply inaccesible at it's present cost. (Edit2: I've finally managed to take a look in the xml and realised that Marauder most likely has one more zero in it's cost by accident and 750k sounds reasonable to me. It might be even a good idea to bump it up to a million. Silly me, I shouldn't write essays like this when I'm so sleep deprived )

I think workshop projects could do some tweaking in terms of time required to finish. I have a dedicated base to manufacturing with 60 engineers (plus 30 engineer in main base) and making anything still takes weeks! I'm not sure what woud be the best balance for it but it feels like ages to produce every single item. Equipping one strike team took me about 3 months. And I think you should have at least two at this late stage of the game. And I don't even have to worry about making ammunition for my troops thanks to the lovely inventory bug

Edit1: Friendly A.I. got laser weapons around the time I got my hands on my first manufactured plasma weapon. I think that's a bit too soon. Especially if you consider that most of my main team used laser weapons for another month or two. All I was encountering at the time were sebillians (+ reapers) and caesans (+ drones) anyway.

Edited April 11, 2013 by Shima
Woke up with clear head.

[Assoonasitis]

Yo, ain't a balance thing, but could we get air combat sped up over all by, like 25-50%? Early interceptions are horribly tedious right now, and I haven't really gotten anything faster than the MiG yet.

[Chris]

Given this thread a quick read. My intention is that all dropships will have global range and later ones are faster and have more troop carrying capacity, the latter being by far the most important factor. Having thought about it, I don't think we need a gameplay reason to compel the player to have dropships at more than one base.

The reason for wanting to spread bases is partly because there won't be enough room to have all the soldier, research and workshop capacity at a single base, but mostly because you'll need them for radar coverage and interceptors.

I think that there are valid concerns over the radar ranges and the intelligence of the UFOs and the low levels of damage they cause. A boost to the relations damage they do, and possibly making base assault missions more regular (the aliens have to "find" your base first, which I'm not convinced by) to emphasise the player needing to actually defend their bases, either with turrets, soldiers or their aircraft.

Shima - yes, the marauder price was a typo and I've now corrected it to $750k. The final dropship is actually still incorrectly set to appear at the veeery end of the tech tree, so I've fixed that up to appear along with the Marauder. The middle dropship should appear around the Landing Ship though so I'll look into why that's allegedly not happening.

[Gauddlike]

Maybe the base assault missions could also be tied to an intelligence gathering mission against your funding nations?

Rather than finding your location physically the aliens could find a possible location by raiding a less defended area.

For example the aliens raid a factory near Moscow.

They find out that a batch of grenades was sent to the Xenonaut base which were transported to somewhere in southern Egypt.

This gives them a starting point.

Then the assault craft can make a beeline to that area to finely scan and locate the base, allowing an assault to begin.

They would become more common if they have two possible starting points and also if the craft was not obviously in the base area to start with and a visible threat.

Locating your base from another source would allow the enemy to head straight for your base without hanging around the area first.

That would make the intercepting craft a sudden threat that needed to be dealt with, especially if all of your interceptors/ defenders were away at the time.

It would also be less likely that you would manage/bother to intercept every intelligence gathering mission if it was not obviously scanning near your base.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Gauddlike

[TrashMan]

Given this thread a quick read. My intention is that all dropships will have global range and later ones are faster and have more troop carrying capacity, the latter being by far the most important factor. Having thought about it, I don't think we need a gameplay reason to compel the player to have dropships at more than one base.

The reason for wanting to spread bases is partly because there won't be enough room to have all the soldier, research and workshop capacity at a single base, but mostly because you'll need them for radar coverage and interceptors.

If I may suggest something Chris - have the Dropships have global max range...

BUT.....

Let them move at normal speed inside their basic operational range (small) and once outside, they slow down significantly. This is to simulate having to make stops to re-fuel.

Basicly, response time becomes a bigger issue than range, thus promting you to build bases not because you can't reach a site, but because a UFO may take off before you get there...or it may not. But it's a gamble, since you never know how long the aliens will stick around.

[erutan]

@chris - elsewhere max said the mid dropship is missing a research pre-req. Glad to hear UFO intercepts/coverage is going to matter more, it might be good to add a teeny bit more starting cash if so.

I did enjoy that process of having a second dropship base - splitting up my squad and finding a new rhythm as rookies fleshed out the ranks.

@trash - thats an interesting idea. maybe the dotted/long radar line would be operational range? There's also the disadvantage of having to fly unescorted.

[TrashMan]

You can apply the same principle to all craft.

Half speed outside of normal operational range. So you can fly with escorts too.

Of course, the problem is that fuel is already a tracked stat. How do you simulate air-refueling and/or short fuel stops when you don't use the same mechanic in combat?

Maybe a solution would be to be able to place small, cheap, refuel posts. You can't station a craft there, but it can land to partiall re-fill it's tanks. That way your craft can hop from one post to another. Altough, since re-fueling taks time, you'll still want proper bases.

Edited April 13, 2013 by TrashMan

[crusherven]

This is starting to sound more complicated than is really necessary.

[Max_Caine]

I've tried to compile a teal deer list of everything mentioned in this thread so far, so that people can catch up on what was written without slogging through all 8 pages. Here's a rough draft. Could someone go through it and point out the things I've missed?

• Adjust ticker so we see more smaller middle-sized craft
  
• Adjust alien waves so they appear more frequently
  
• Increase number of cities presnt on Geoscape
  
• Alien bases perhaps TOO influential on if you loose a country or not
  
• Nation funding not significant enough to justify a second base
  
• Cruisers give too much alienium and alloys
  
• Smaller terror missions to start with
  
• Radar range shortened a little
  
• More global attrition
  
• More reasons to build bases elsewhere
  
• Air combat: Too many battles forgone conclusion (e.g. Scout vs. Foxtrot, light scout vs. anything)
  
• Air combat: Reduce hp or overkill on light scout to encourage use of autocannon
  
• Air combat: Introduce evade function to light scout
  
• Air combat: Improve AI on UFOs to incorporate more tactical thought
  
• Air combat: Boost speed and length of evade (fighters can't evade missiles)
  
• Air combat: Give heavy fighter missiles more fuel so they can complete a second pass
  

[Gauddlike]

Also suggested that aliens assaulting your base should be able to locate its rough location from external sources rather than just flying over the top of it.