Research Tree Structure Discussion

[Chris]

So in the most recent update, we've made quite a lot of simplifications to the Research tree - generally splitting it into larger projects that give more rewards. These include:

• Autopsies don't need research time any more and auto-research
  
• Aircraft missiles, even advanced ones, are available in unlimited quantities
  
• The Dreadnought UFO has been removed
  
• The Saracen or the Marauder interceptor has been removed (we're debating internally which design we want to keep)
  

I thought I'd take a moment to explain the reasoning for these changes in more detail, in case people had strong feelings about them.

1) The autopsies now research automatically after you complete a mission where a corpse of that type is recovered, and no longer give a damage bonus. This is because autopsies aren't ever really going to compete with a new suit of armour or a new gun in game terms, as they are as much lore as they are of practical value. We don't want a player to be at a disadvantage for having to research them, so now they are done automatically.

This makes balancing simpler, and it also ensures that everyone gets a continual drip-drip of information on their enemies without having to worry about the "optimal" playstyle. I actually think this works better, and we'll likely add a similar pop-up for UFO types too in the future.

2) As advanced alien missiles are now just a direct damage upgrade on their predecessors, sharing identical stats in every other way, this makes sense to me. I see managing ammo like this as a bit of a chore - the game is balanced so you have to use missiles against your enemies, so there's not really a decision you can make where you don't use them, so I don't really see much point to making the player pay for them.

It also gives us a bit more fine control over the air combat balancing, as it means we can have "steps" - so a Condor might not be able to solo a Scout before you research Alenium Explosives, but it will be able afterwards. It gives more progression and helps fill in the blanks between entirely new aircraft without really requiring much micromanagement from the player.

3) The Dreadnought has been removed because the Battleship is an enormous UFO (with the Carrier not much smaller), and we don't think there's any point building any larger ships than that. It's just a bit excessive. The research tree has been tweaked a bit to represent the fact that the Battleship is now the Big Bad instead.

4) We've removed one of the interceptors because we had too many of them. There was previously four researchable interceptors, plus two dropships. That amount of aircraft simply devalued them as cool, big ticket items - you were getting a new interceptor more often than you got a new weapon tier or suit of armour.

The role of the Saracen was also a bit weird; it was a heavily-armoured "brawler" with two cannons and no missiles. But in-game that didn't really pan out particularly well, and wasn't very easy to balance. Removing it let us have 3 researchable interceptors plus an "ultimate" interceptor that functions somewhat differently to the others, which strikes us as a nice balance.

We're still deciding which of the present Saracen and Marauder designs will become the new Marauder, with the other one being consigned to the dustbin of history. Feel free to weigh in with your opinions here.

Also, in general, I think this is a good place to discuss the tech tree and its structure if you have questions or suggestions for it.

[GizmoGomez]

What was the makeup of the Saracen? Like, armor and armament?

So I can compare the two. (I've not gotten all that far in game, tbh)

[Chris]

We're not deciding to retire the role of one of the interceptors; that decision has already been made (see the OP, point 4). Instead, we're choosing which of the two aircraft will take on the role of the Marauder. You can look in the game assets under /aircraft/ to see the top-down art of both interceptors if you want to compare them.

[GizmoGomez]

No, I understood that. I was just asking, if the original Saracen was a heavy-armor cannon-toting gunfighter, what was the original other one? Same idea? Or more of a missile launcher? I don't particularly care about the specifics.

Edited April 3, 2013 by GizmoGomez
oops, my mistake

[Chris]

Oh, you were talking about the Marauder then. The original Marauder is a straightforward workhorse dogfighter, similar to the Corsair or Condor but tougher and, as it is the "final" conventional interceptor, it has two heavy missile slots and a cannon instead of two light slots and a cannon.

[GizmoGomez]

Well, if we're deciding which design we're keeping (if I gathered what you were saying correctly), the marauder is the safe option, whereas the saracen could be more awesome-er. (There's a hyphen, so it works.)

If the second to last interceptor works as a good boomer, then the final interceptor could use guns only (provided there are good enough guns to warrant the design.)

[Assoonasitis]

Well, if we're deciding which design we're keeping (if I gathered what you were saying correctly), the marauder is the safe option, whereas the saracen could be more awesome-er. (There's a hyphen, so it works.)

If the second to last interceptor works as a good boomer, then the final interceptor could use guns only (provided there are good enough guns to warrant the design.)

He's asking "which looks cooler so we can use it as the design for the Marauder?" The answer to which is and always will be the Saracen.

[Assoonasitis]

Also: can the final interceptor have two cannons and two heavy missiles? I just think that'd be cooler.

[GizmoGomez]

That'd be super awesome. I heavily support that. Like, really. It might be a tad OP initially, but isn't that kind of the point?

[Max_Caine]

Is alenium being phased out as a raw material, then? It's chief use is in ammo, and there's something of a logic disconnect if I can have unlimited quantities of alenium missiles, alenium torpedoes, weapon batteries and alenium grenades without having to supply the raw material but I have to supply alenium when making aircraft or tanks.

[GizmoGomez]

Is it used as fuel? Like, using an alenium ship consumes alenium?

[Max_Caine]

Not at the moment. Chris said a while ago that one you paid for the cost of aircraft you shouldn't have to keep paying it. And again, if alenium is being used as fuel, then why can't I prise the alenium out of my unlimited missiles and use that instead?

[Chris]

No, there wouldn't be space in the Air Combat UI for two cannons and anything else, as a cannon takes up the space of two missile slots.

So in terms of the raw materials, Alien Alloys are meant to be the general-purpose limiting factor for manufactured technology and Alenium is meant to govern the number of big-ticket items - so new aircraft and vehicles mostly. We'll probably have to significantly reduce the amount of Alenium you get from the present levels to make it viable.

There is a slight logic disconnect, but I guess I can handwave it by saying explosives can be made of low-grade Alenium (abundant) and construction requires more pure stuff.

[crusherven]

It'll have to be balanced as Chris said, but in principle I agree with not requiring alenium for ammo whole-heartedly. I almost never used elerium or xrbite for interceptor ammo. Just hated doing it.

[Gauddlike]

Autopsies:

I don't really mind this as much as I thought I might when I first read it.

The only time in the OG I researched autopsies was when my team had nothing else to work on anyway.

Is the code for the bonuses the research would have provided in and working at the moment so it can be reused for something else if desired?

Alenium weapons unlimited:

Alenium warheads are a normal warhead spiced up with several grains of sand worth of actual Alenium.

Any more and the missiles would be unpredictable and potentially volatile before firing.

You can scrape enough Alenium for several hundred warheads from a single piece of Alenium of the size used in alien power sources.

Once you research your first piece of Alenium you therefore shouldn't need any more for a long time.

Yeah it handwaves it a bit but it is still fairly reasonable, given the game mechanic is already decided.

Dreadnought:

The art for the dreadnought was a little less interesting than some of the others.

It is a pity to lose one but I imagine the ramp up from Battleship to Dreadnought wouldn't have been too great anyway due to the sizes.

Maybe the Dreadnought can be kept in the lore at least, especially if there is only one of them and it is still in orbit somewhere.

Perhaps it could escape and hide, maybe in an ocean...

Interceptor image:

The Saracen definitely has the more eye catching artwork for me, I would vote for keeping that image over the current Marauder art.

Has the current art been taken far enough to be provided for potential modders to play with?

[Chris]

Yeah, we can use the Dreadnought as the mothership. Good point.

Yes, the damage bonus code and the Marauder art will still be in the final game, just not used in our version of it.

[Max_Caine]

Can I suggest a thematic point which can reconcile having unlimited alienium-powered ammo while at the same time requiring alenium to produce big-ticket items? I would suggest creating 2 "grades" of alenium. A "common" grade, found in all weapons, smaller power sources, emergency batteries etc. which is "easily" and "readily" available from downed UFOs, and a "high-grade" form of alenium, used mostly in main power sources, is the chief source of power for UFOs and the only source of alienium suitible for big-ticket items. By having two grades of alenium, one can say that you can gather all the common grade stuff for common-grade uses, i.e. ammo, but you need to stockpile the smaller quantities of high-grade alenium for larger projects. How about that?

[Assoonasitis]

All this talk of Dreadnoughts wants me to have the final interceptor callsign be "Ironclad" just because I like that sort of imagery.

[crusherven]

Max_Caine, are you suggesting that we actually collect two grades of Alenium from UFOs, or simply that we're informed of the two grades in research?

[Chris]

Max Caine - isn't that exactly what I said in my previous post?

[Assoonasitis]

Speaking of, which document (if any) would one edit if one wanted to change the call-names of his fighters and/ or transports?

[Max_Caine]

@Chris, uh, yeah, you did, didn 't read that post fully....

[Jean-Luc]

1. Good decision if autopsies are meant to be just fluff.

2. Would it be possible to add alloy/alenium cost to the actual research just to have a bit of a limiting factor? Rationalization is that alien materials are used for stress tests and power source/fuel adaptations and such.

The idea of ammo cost in X-Com wasn't so much whether you want the ammo or not imo (referring to "big arms" ammo here) but whether you're doing well enough to afford and produce it and whether you have to sacrifice something else to obtain it.

In this case all this financial fiddling would simply be transferred to the cost of research. Not to say that research is without cost but an additional resource consideration might not hurt.

Just a thought.

[raziel1981]

Can I suggest a thematic point which can reconcile having unlimited alienium-powered ammo while at the same time requiring alenium to produce big-ticket items? I would suggest creating 2 "grades" of alenium. A "common" grade, found in all weapons, smaller power sources, emergency batteries etc. which is "easily" and "readily" available from downed UFOs, and a "high-grade" form of alenium, used mostly in main power sources, is the chief source of power for UFOs and the only source of alienium suitible for big-ticket items. By having two grades of alenium, one can say that you can gather all the common grade stuff for common-grade uses, i.e. ammo, but you need to stockpile the smaller quantities of high-grade alenium for larger projects. How about that?

Just wanted to say that I loved this idea, I think this would be a great solution for this issue.

[a333]

Dang.

Well, i'm pretty much confident with almost all of the decisions.

There was too many fighters indeed. Alenium differentiation seems logical and you have another lever to pull up the balance. Dreadnought, well, i hardly know 'er.

I should ask, how the different weapon tiers will be varied from each other? Different tiers can have some distinguishable features, which will justify the using of lower-tier weapons, making the game even more varied. One of the instruments allowing to do this was autopsies, revealing enemy weaknesses to the special effects and weapon types. Old x-com had the potential to do so, though undeveloped and mostly in the form of immunities to the flame weapons, which was underused anyway.

Tendency that is now clearly seen in the aircraft weapons, tendency of just giving the player same-but-more-powerful-gun just isn't appealing to me much. Upgrade weapon power. Armor level III. Brr.

May be i'm wrong and this is actually better decision. But i have the rights not to like it. As you have the rights to do it anyway.