Research Tree Structure Discussion

[Gauddlike]

Actually TrashMan I did read your post, I think you may not have read my reply though.

The research project that you have to perform before you can do anything with those materials is where you find out how to safely disassemble the item.

Once you know how to take it from the wreck that information can be passed on to the recovery team doing the work in future.

Your assumption that the task is incredibly difficult is not the truth simply because that is how you wish it to work.

It may in fact be incredibly simple to remove the items once the proper method is known.

Once you know how to get the PSU out of a desktop PC it is a simple job, the tricky part would be learning how to do it and teaching others if you have never seen one before.

A car would be incredibly difficult to strip down for a Victorian era engineer, any teenager now can do it these days when the knowledge is passed on to them.

Your assertion that you do not need to do the research in order to get the equipment is false.

As you say you would not start by taking the craft apart, you would do the research project first.

After the research is done why would you need to repeat that each time you wanted to repeat the task of removing an item?

All of your further assumptions that dangerous materials may be present would be uncovered by the research undertaken into the item.

As would ways of dealing with them.

I personally doubt that boobytrapping your own spacecraft with nuclear weapons would be something even an alien would do.

I suppose it does strengthen your argument if that was the case though.

[Assoonasitis]

Question for Chris:

is MAG the last tier of weapons or plasma? Because in my playthrough I have plasma but not MAG.

Don't, uh... don't read that unless you know about the weapon tiers, I guess. That's about the weapon tiers.

[TrashMan]

Actually TrashMan I did read your post, I think you may not have read my reply though.

The research project that you have to perform before you can do anything with those materials is where you find out how to safely disassemble the item.

Once you know how to take it from the wreck that information can be passed on to the recovery team doing the work in future.

But you get the items from the very first UFO crahs without doing any research. In fact, there is where you get the UFO materials to research on to begin with - that was my point.

Yes, you can abstract for the dissasembly to be done by some recovery team - but then again you can abstract pretty much everything that way.

Your assertion that you do not need to do the research in order to get the equipment is false.

As you say you would not start by taking the craft apart, you would do the research project first.

After the research is done why would you need to repeat that each time you wanted to repeat the task of removing an item?

Who said you'd need to repeat it?

Nah, you analyze the UFO ONCE (wether globbaly for all UFO's or for each UFO type) - and after that you have dissasembly procedures for your workshops.

I personally doubt that boobytrapping your own spacecraft with nuclear weapons would be something even an alien would do.

I suppose it does strengthen your argument if that was the case though.

Iceland Incident. Craft go booom.

[TrashMan]

Your UFO disassembly system is also hassle. Some people would rather be playing the ground combat or learning about the aliens rather than messing about with disassembling a UFO in the workshop. I certainly would. You may not, of course, but to me it just seems a bit needless and I think other people would feel the same way.

I know I'm gonna sound rather brash/arrogant by saiyng this...but really?

It's a hassle to assign a workshop project?

It's literally two clicks..fire and forget.

Half of the other stuff in the game is 10 times the hassle.... like for example, moving 16 soldiers across the map.

I can understand if some people don't find something interesting and would abstract it away - after all, plenty of people found the original X-Com a hassle and that's why we got the 2012 version. And given that some love it and some hate it, it's clear you can't please everyone. One mans fun is another mans boredom I guess.

[GizmoGomez]

Personally TrashMan, I would find it somewhat of a hassle. I never played the game where that came from, I've only played the first and TFTD a little bit, so I don't know exactly what the feel was in that game, but it seems unnecessary complication.

Besides, honestly, unless I'm very wrong Chris isn't going to change his mind.

Maybe it would add something cool, but it's not getting into this game. Maybe the next one (there better be a next one. )

[Max_Caine]

Trashman, my workshops have enough to do already, thank-you. Right now they are currently day 5 out of 15 building a Scimitar Tank to frieght over to my newly built base. Before that they were 5 days building 3 suits of Wolf armour. Before that they were 1 and a half days building laser cells. My workshops don't have time to muck about chopping up UFOs. They are much too busy doing more useful things.

[PsychoLandlord]

Yeah, in this case I think the current system makes perfect sense and adding a couple extra screens on for the sake of a couple people's immersion is pointless. There's plenty of mucking about done in workshops and labs as is, having to micromanage everything would just be a waste of time.

Not that it looked like there were going to be any changes anyway. Not to mention, Trash, you're a modder. You don't like the system, change it after the fact and pass the result around.

Edited April 6, 2013 by PsychoLandlord

[Gauddlike]

But you get the items from the very first UFO crahs without doing any research. In fact, there is where you get the UFO materials to research on to begin with - that was my point.

You cannot use those items until after research.

Effectively you do not have them on hand, they are just a number on the stores sheet.

That to my mind means that you know they are present but until you do the research you cannot access them or utilise them.

Fits right in with your idea that you don't know how to remove them until you research them, as far as I can see.

Who said you'd need to repeat it?

Nah, you analyze the UFO ONCE (wether globbaly for all UFO's or for each UFO type) - and after that you have dissasembly procedures for your workshops.

Isn't that the same as the current research system?

You research how to remove the item by researching the item.

Once you know how to strip down the power supply you can strip down the same power supply no matter what kind of craft it is in.

Global for all UFO types, same effect different method.

Obviously the very different aliens in Xenonauts have more modular construction than in some other games.

Iceland Incident. Craft go booom.

Which did not occur as part of a disassembly but as a deliberate (or possibly accidental) self destruct.

A car can go up in flames after an accident, it doesn't mean there was a pipe bomb strapped to the cd player in case of theft.

I still think this discussion is more suited to its own thread in suggestions though, might be best to write up your whole idea and put it there, preferably with details on how it differs from the current system and how that improves the game.

[Sathra]

Throwing in another 'Make a thread' suggestion. As a moderator and all.

[Amiga4ever]

Anybody mentioned about Improved Combat Armour? I mean why it's available after Plasma Gun Technology instead of Alien Alloys? Alien alloys is a material. Why we need plasma technology to invite new armour?

[Sathra]

The tech to get Jackal armour? Its after plasma pistols and is about testing various materials against plasma weaponry and designing the best armour earth tech can provide.

[Amiga4ever]

I see:) Sounds ok but I think it will be good to require also Alien Alloys. We need to create armour from better materials right? So lets use alien alloys because we don't have yet a good material on earth against plasma.

[Sathra]

The next armour uses them. Need to learn how to shape the Alloys though so down those Scouts!

[Amiga4ever]

Thanks for answer:)

[Max_Caine]

Like a_beorning did, I've been able to leapfrog lasers and go straight for plasma. Did a terror mission middle of October (one guy survived). Faced Androns and Harridans and I was able to get all the plasma tech I needed to get plasma. May I make the following suggestions:

1) Scale back when terror-specific aliens become available.

OR

1a) Don't introduce the heavy stuff right away in a terror site. Keep it to plasma rifles which are plenty scary for guys in Jackal armour (heavy plasma doesn't leave anything behind!)

OR

1c) If you must have heavy stuff, stick to heavy plasmas to begin with!

2) Make laser technoloogy a prequisite of plasma tech? The only reason that makes sense is to keep a sense of order in the technology tiers.

3) Increase the plasma types prequisites. I was able to start work on plasma tech after getting heavy plasmas and snipers. Perhaps require a third type - the explody one as well?

[Assoonasitis]

Like a_beorning did, I've been able to leapfrog lasers and go straight for plasma. Did a terror mission middle of October (one guy survived). Faced Androns and Harridans and I was able to get all the plasma tech I needed to get plasma. May I make the following suggestions:

1) Scale back when terror-specific aliens become available.

OR

1a) Don't introduce the heavy stuff right away in a terror site. Keep it to plasma rifles which are plenty scary for guys in Jackal armour (heavy plasma doesn't leave anything behind!)

OR

1c) If you must have heavy stuff, stick to heavy plasmas to begin with!

2) Make laser technoloogy a prequisite of plasma tech? The only reason that makes sense is to keep a sense of order in the technology tiers.

3) Increase the plasma types prequisites. I was able to start work on plasma tech after getting heavy plasmas and snipers. Perhaps require a third type - the explody one as well?

Plasma Cannons ("the explody one") are terrifying and great because so far they've only left behind a blood smear and some equipment whenever a soldier takes a direct hit.

[Gauddlike]

You could suggest that lasers are used to generate/excite/superheat the plasma prior to firing so until you have efficient and miniaturised lasers you cannot properly weaponise plasma.

It still means you could potentially skip a step easily though as you only need to research laser weapons and you would be able to move straight on to the more powerful plasma.

To limit the speed of progression you need to limit when the pre requisites become available and plasma tech is easily recoverable from early in the game.

Other options:

Require one of each laser weapon be constructed for testing before plasma research can be unlocked?

If you have to build the weapons anyway then might as well equip your squad.

Swap tiers two and three.

Have plasma weapons copied from the aliens as tier two, then development of human specific technologies after that.

Doubt Chris wants to rewrite the lore to make a change like that though.

Plasma technology research requires a plasma containment item or plasma weapon charging station only found on larger craft, until you see how they make their own plasma weapons so effective your copies are not strong enough to make viable weapons.

[crusherven]

A lot of that has to do with what kind of terror mission you go up against. I had one game in which I faced Androns with plasma cannons in the second month. In another, I'm toward the end of December and I still haven't seen anything heavier than heavy plasma. Androns, and the heavy weapons they come with, probably shouldn't appear *quite* so early, I think. It's ok if it's a rare occurrence.

[Max_Caine]

Now that the Alien Power Source and Alenium projects have been rolled into one, could it be made clear when the first time one secures an Alien Power Source it's sent to research or Alenium is sent to research or something along those lines? And could there be an opening paragraph in the Alenium project which segues from APS to Alenium, please. This is to make it clear to the player they would not have got this project if they had not first secured an APS.

[smoitessier]

Trash Man - you've mentioned the UFO AI system for cutting up UFOs before and, while it sounds interesting, I think it's a bit too much of a departure from classic X-Com.

I also intentionally simplified the early parts of the research tree (merged the Alenium and UFO Power Source projects, for example) to reduce the number of purely lore projects that you need to research before you actually get some goodies. There's already a lag and I don't particularly want to make it worse.

The early game has a lot more to do with your workshops now the Hunter, Hunter Missiles, Jackal and Foxtrot are all manufactured items.

Chris, I'm sad the UFO Power Source projects has been streamlined. My first impression on the Kickstarter Demo really knocked my socks off, I was like wow! these guys really thought outside of the box on their take of UFO: Enemy Unknown. It made perfect sense that in a 60's setting there wasn't the technology to work around not having an Alien Blast Furnace/Forge to work these exotic materials. On a related note, after playing 18.3 HF1 for a couple days, getting to the point of Wolf Armor and Lasers, (felt a little too fast) I have a vague impression, hard to explain, that the research aspect is kind of linear now...

[Elrim]

The only complaint here is:

The tech scales to fast...

I Mean, a bunch of scientists take some alien tech, and in less than 2 months begins a Mass Production of Laser Cannons and explosives with a material they know so little about... The tech is to fast paced, maybe you could slow it down to like 3x slower than it is. At the end of the second month I barely produced 4 jackals and then wolf is already available

[thothkins]

that has been my feel of it mostly too. By the time I can build anything in decent quantities, I'm tripping over the next tier.

[Sathra]

I increased the sale price of aliens weapons by 5k in my games. Gives you more to spend (Only took 2 months to equip a team with Wolf, Laser weapons, and fill my main base!) but you've got to work at it. Research times have been increased in the new builds though, which helps spread tech out.

[Gauddlike]

How many (in game) months does Chris want an average sort of game to last?

I imagine that answer would influence what needs to be changed in a few areas, like funding, research speed, item cost, soldier progression and so on.

Equipping a full squad in two months may be bang on, slower, or much faster than he considers right.

[Sathra]

Aye. Something like 2 months at least. Couldn't expand beyond a living quarters and radar in another base, but I could have if I hadn't put all my cash toward my main base and squad.