Pace of Progress

[Sherelian]

Hello everybody,

I have a question on the pace of the game, that is, how fast the events, research, invasion, tech etc. goes on.

At the moment the game makes you have some great researching-progress within the first month. Further more, my entire surviving Squad is promoted to the rank of a Captian (within 1 month!).

A tank-vehicle is build in days, so are complete bases.

That does not feel right. It should be some less haste; some time to become scared by waiting; some suprises without aliens and so on.

The game should have a little bit more realistic pace of the events.

cheers

Sherelian

[thothkins]

Hi Sherelian,

There's a lot of work being put into the balancing for the reason you mention above. Later on there are any number of research topics to pick from and progress slows.

The issue of everyone being at a high rank within a couple of months is the subject of a few recent threads. Back in EU1994 there was an exploit that meant you would hire 60 troops, and the game would promote your existing soldiers as it was promotion by numbers. Then you would sack all those soldiers leaving you with a high ranking organisation. Xenonauts sought to solve that one. The ease of promotion may be too fast however.

[Mytheos]

It seems fast with that first team, but alternates take 4-5 missions to be semi-useful at that point, and 10 to be "worthy".

Considering we're (I guess) suppose to defend our bases with Missile Batteries and soldiers, leaving all Rookies to defend a base is rough, and training enough soldiers to cover your bases, is a tough thing to accomplish.

You essentially handicap yourself most of the game if you are constantly switching out personnel to get enough trained soldiers to be something more than fodder for base defense.

[thothkins]

In some previous builds I've hired extra soldiers in (capacity was higher then I think?). I then actively rotated them round by role and it did provide me with decent soldiers for as long as I got in that build. At least the start of alien bases and no doubt a few terror sites. Yes, you are sacrificing super soldiers. But they aren't that super when they sit in the infirmary

Having 3 rookies wheeze their way around a map miles behind the others isn't much good. However in terror sites, I split the rookies off into their own group and assign an experienced LMG to go with them. The LMG is pretty heavy and TU intensive, but is good for grenade/ suppressive support to the rookies.

[Chris]

The soldier progression will be nerfed in the upcoming builds, you're right that it is too fast at the moment.

Some of the other stuff is probably also a bit fast too, but as people mention above we are working on balancing that still.

[Queamin]

It was fun sending out rookies to see who knocking at the skyranger door, or more likely giving them a big push and saying it will be OK

I will need to rotate rookies more in future and if leveling up slows down that help

Edited July 24, 2013 by Queamin

[thothkins]

It may work out in conjunction with other tweaks.

For example, grenades get rebalanced. That's possibly going to result in me buying weapons and armour again. At least some funding changes will be needed, to lessen the reliance on air combat and to enable me to afford some of that. The devs have said such a thing is coming anyway. So I then have a little money to set aside for increased squad numbers to form an initial pool. Say an extra 5 soldiers at the start of the game.

[DNK]

I like limiting most progress point mission caps at about 85% of a full progression. It makes it a lot harder to keep experienced units since that experience doesn't count for nearly as much, and it makes the overall ground game a lot more challenging.

[Sherelian]

I got today this idea, to slow things a bit down. It is a tweak on the storyline, to make use of it and to improve the atmosphere in the game:

There is a very nice story at the moment, which tells us how the different states try to work out the invasion on their own. As long as they they take losses, they will pay the xenonauts. And they are in permanent touch with the military leader of other nations and the xenonauts as well.

Every nation is interested in the new military tactics, the technology and the survival. They are up to improve their troops, to intercept UFOs and to recover shot down Aliens. Why dont make it part of the Game?

Lets have some random dog-fights with some nation-airforce. There is a UFO-contact and here goes the phone-call: Are you going to intercept or shell we try?

Same for the ground-interceptions: Are you going to send troops, or shell we send the regular Army?

Both would alow the player to take breath, make a break and lick his wounds beetween the different fights. It would give him the opportunity to skip some UFOs, because he just managed to secure 4 shot-downs and just dont have the will to join right now another tacical fight.

Further it would slow things down, without causing a gap in the story and the gameplay. And it would be a great deal of fun to see other aircrafts, to watch the nations fight for their survival. As it is fun to see, how some research is indeed made out of the own bases as a kind of shared common knowledge.

Thos thoughts should be easy to implement. They would make everything more busy, filling it up with live and action, while they are slowing things down. There are already random events and they are going to condence the interactions in the game beyond the trianglye Interception---tactical-combat---Research.

so far

cheers

Sherelian