Alien base geoscape behavior

[ThunderGr]

Please, give us the ability to mod it. I would like the alien bases to increase alien activity on the ground in a radius around it without the presence of UFOs(as it was in the original game), instead of sucking out your income.

I find the current implementation unrealistic and unfun. Since you are watering down the air-combat under the pretence of "this is what a player playing an xcom remake would expect", please, use this logic to include in the game features that people playing an XCOM remake do, really, expect!!(BTW, complex and unforgiving air combat is, also, one of them despite you thinking otherwise as it should be relevant by the multitude of posts about it).

[Max_Caine]

Erm, I'm afraid that's not quite true. In the original game the presence of an alien base improved the alien score (both on completion of a base and daily thereafter) and had regular supply missions running to it as you can see from here. High activity in areas which have alien bases in X-com1994 was due at least in part to the regularity of supply ships coming and going. Other alien missions were not influenced by the presence of alien bases, but by what the player did.

[ThunderGr]

From the link you posted:

"The presence of Alien bases will generate a large amount of reported Alien activity without the presence of UFOs."

[Max_Caine]

Yes, that's why I wrote it's not quite true, rather than saying it's false. High activity is in part due to the presence of regular supply ships, and it's also attributable to the inital flurry of vessel when a base is created. Alien bases are a cause of detectable alien activity without the presence of UFOs required. But, as per the original game, the alien base adds to the alien score which is directly deducted from the player's monthly score. This particular mechanic is reflected by the (daily?) deduction an alien base makes to the relationship score of a funding bloc (which in turn is instantly calculated), as scoring in Xenonauts is directly applied to funding blocs and is not maintained as an overall score.

EDIT: Perphaps it would be useful to declare an alien base as the same kind of object as a UFO and allow it to have ground attack/bombing run missions. That way an alien base would steadily generate relationship-damaging missions which would be generated in a particular area, making it reasonably easy to locate. Actually, I wonder if I can do that already....

Edited July 12, 2013 by Max_Caine

[Mytheos]

You had a set of bar graphs you could look at, and you would see a much higher level of reported activity on those graphs if a country had a base in it.

You could use this to get a heads up on where you should send interceptors to scout for bases.

We dont have that bar graph info here....so if I am understanding correctly, you are suggesting countries with Alien Bases have more...pop up alert thingys?

Like UFO sighted, Plane shot down, unusual power outages and so forth?

Valid suggestion.

[ThunderGr]

@Max

Just because the alien base in the OG does more than generating alien activity without UFOs, does not mean that my statement is wrong or partially right. In fact the without the presence of UFOs rules out your argument about supply ships which are UFOs and add to the activity generated from the alien base. They are not included in it, as it is obvious from the quote.

Deduction from your score does not mean deduction from your finances because you can have a high enough score to keep or increase your finances no matter the hit by the alien base.

EDIT: Perphaps it would be useful to declare an alien base as the same kind of object as a UFO and allow it to have ground attack/bombing run missions. That way an alien base would steadily generate relationship-damaging missions which would be generated in a particular area, making it reasonably easy to locate. Actually, I wonder if I can do that already....

That sounds good .

@Mytheos

Once more, straight to the point . I guess this would be the result in Xenonaughts game terms.

Edited July 12, 2013 by ThunderGr

[Max_Caine]

THIS IS A LONG POST. It involved a lot of research. There is no TL;DR.

Fair enough, my argument about high activity is ruled out by that statement in ufopedia. Looking further into this, I have found that "alien activity" as presented on the graphs is the alien score (this is stated at the bottom of this page and the scoring page). Ergo, an alien base maintains a high activity rating by pumping out 5 points a day, which over a calendar month is a score of 150 which would be the equivalent of 5 successful harvesting missions, 3 abductions, a country signing a pact with the aliens (!) or a single UFO staying over a nation for 3 and a bit days.

This ties into funding. The reduction or increase in funding in EU1994 is dependant on the relation rating (from a value of 3 to 0) of the funding nation and the overall score of the player here's the funding page. Relationship rating is dependant the alien score is which maintained for each funding nation, and the Xcom score is also maintained for each nation. As per the overall rating, the alien score is deducted from both the individual score for each nation during the montly report, which then in turn affects the individual nation relationship rating (to what degree I haven't been able to find out yet). So both the overall score and the per-nation score affects funding. Unfortunately most alien missions in EU1994 generate a very weak score. That 150 points that a base generates in a calendar month can be countered by raiding one supply ship. (Simply grounding a supply ship is worth 400 points), so managed properly, an alien base does not have an effect on a funding nation in proportion to the amount of alien activity it generates. The only mission that generates a large, unmanageable negative score is a city terror mission (-1000).

This is fundamentally different to Xenonauts. In EU1994, the state a funding nation can be in is either a +%, no % change or a -% change to funding, based upon the difference between the individual alien score and the individual xcom score and the group decision base upon the difference between the overall xcom score and the overall alien score that month. Xenonauts has instead a relationship score for each funding bloc which is altered independantly of other funding blocs and forms the basis for the funding for that nation (relationship score multiplied by fixed funding multiplier multiplied by x # of dollars rounded up or down to the nearest 5000). The relationship score is negatively effected for every event that a UFO generates, and positively affected by shooting down UFOs and completing ground missions (the ground mission score is directly added to the relationship score, which is why missions no longer are high scoring like they were back in the day). Unlike X-Com, this score is persistent. Thus, even with weak alien scoring, the effect of alien activity is more visibly pronounced as it is calculated on-the-fly rather than at the end of the month.

So if it is known that an EU1994's alien base alien activity is equal to its alien score and if it is also known that the alien score affects relationship with the funding nation and funding, it is correct from the perspective of Xenonauts if it wants to keep with the original game to have the alien base generate an abstract value (alien score) which can affect funding.This does not make the way in which alien bases in Xenonauts operate correct, or sensible, or any other judgement one might wish to give it. It is only that the manner in which alien bases operate in EU1994 is mirrored in Xenonauts.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Max_Caine

[ThunderGr]

@Max

Nice brake down. (thumbs up)

It is understandable why the alien missions generate a weak score, since there are tons of them.

It is also understandable why per-nation + overall would affect funding.

I have the feeling that the alien score must have been used on other game areas, as well, thought I cannot prove it.

In fact, I find the XCOM94 way of determining funding very logical and well thought.

I cannot say the same with the system of Xenonaughts which seem to me like a dirty shortcut that fails to produce the same results.

However, I understand that I can kiss goodbye my hopes for being able to mod that handling...Thank you for the effort you put on that research.