Doing Every Mission - Solution?

[Chris]

As we're thinking about V20 now and the features we want to put in it, it's time to discuss the largest balance problem in the game: the number of missions each player will complete.

Players will generally fall into two camps: those who will do literally every mission that the game generates, and those who will do a couple of each type of crash-site and just leave the rest to rot.

The idea is actually that the player does not do all the crash sites they generate. We're balancing the game around the assumption the player does 30-40 missions during a game, total. However, to make the Geoscape strategy challenging, there needs to be a LOT more than 30 UFOs appearing over the course of the game.

Xenonauts has been specifically designed so a player is not penalised for not doing crash site missions. You don't receive any relations penalty for letting one time out. Yet some people still feel the need to do all of the missions, whilst simultaneously complaining that doing so many of each mission type rapidly became boring (I'm looking at you, Light Scouts). I thought this seemed odd and raised it on the forums - and people explained that the game actually DOES penalise you for not doing the missions.

The reason is opportunity cost - you don't LOSE anything for not doing a crash site, but you also don't gain the soldier experience, funding boost and one-off equipment sales you'd get from doing the mission. Ultimately, this is a strategy game, and the best strategy is to do all the missions...even if the cost is boredom. "Fun" isn't a useful in-game commodity so it's bad design if we're relying on player boredom to prevent them doing all the missions.

TL;DR - there has to be a gameplay benefit to not doing a crash site mission if many players are ever going to feel like they are allowed to let one time out.

I would like to add a system into V20 where the player is able to "donate" a crash site to the local forces in exchange for an immediate funding boost or a relations boost (which translate to more monthly funding). We will remove the relations boost from the current crash site completion system, so the choice will become:

• Captured alien equipment / materials, soldier experience, funding boost from selling weapons, or
  
• Risk-free funding boost, probably larger than the one from the selling captured equipment in the first option
  

I am hoping that this means most people will do a couple of crash sites for each UFO type, then will just take a funding boost for the remainder. There may be circumstances where they want to grind more, for example training up a rookie squad or turning their existing team into death machines, but that will be a genuine choice rather than 100% optimal.

I'm pretty much set on introducing some kind of choice to the game for crash sites, but I'm still open to suggestions on what that choice may be. Funding seems the most obvious one, but I'm happy to listen to alternatives. Thoughts?

EDIT - my conclusions after having read the thread can be found here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/7314-Doing-Every-Mission-Solution?p=85735&viewfull=1#post85735

[EchoFourDelta]

As long as it remains an option to still do takedowns on all the UFOs you shoot down without being penalized compared to doing what amounts to auto-completing it, that'd probably be a cool feature. The funding boost thing makes a certain sort of sense, too.

"Yes, Mr. President. A whole UFO. Blasted 'er down an hour ago. Yep, all yours, no pieces this time."

You still get the natural inclination to complete them, cuz you still need well-honed troops, and if you just sell off the crash sites, you'll never get tech; I think you've come up with a fine avenue of approach on that one.

(DISCLAIMER: I'm a fan of cranking the UFO ticker speed way down on the balance menu - hope that never goes away - cuz clearing crash sites kicks ass; I've found it fun as hell in this game, rather than the chore it could often feel like in the X-COM titles. The enhanced and I would dare say almost perfectly streamlined UI and controls contribute significantly to it, as well as the more intuitive development of ground mechanics, and the addition of the cover and suppression systems. I like grinding in games, and the variety in this one usually feels like just enough to keep things from being tedious, while still presenting the bait-and-switch benefit to it.)

Edited August 31, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[Leonidas]

Hi Chris,

I fall into the completionist camp - i'll do anything if it get's me even the slightest benefit.

I actually quite liked the implementation in the original game - as your weapons get stronger UFO's simply get destroyed all together in air combat. As your weapons grow in strength, the weaker UFO's will get blown up more easily - creating a natural progression where you simply grow out of the "starter" missions ( scouts, other small UFO's ).

You could balance the blow-up chance per UFO per weapon so you can regulate it.

Additionally you could give some small salvage reward on destroyed UFO's to offset the lack of ground mission experience / equipment recovery.

Your funding idea sounds good as well, making it a trade-off -> do i take the exp / loot / cash OR do i take the influence boost?

Would it be a possibility to test this in an experimental branch before rolling it our completely?

[Ol' Stinky]

I prefer the idea in the OP to that of disintegrating UFOs with higher tech. Vapourising UFOs is actually a disadvantage to what should be a pure upgrade - using avalanches instead of alenium torps to take down that scout would net you more money. It'd feel as though the intent is for the player to micromanage their aircraft, and downgrade missiles according to the UFO.

[n4rf]

I agree with the original idea. I'm unfortunately not able to spend too much time gaming these days, so I'd sort of like to streamline what I do in the game a bit more than I used to (though as a kid playing x-com I would just obsessively complete every mission possible.)

Maybe the option for completely destroying a ufo could be an at cost or relationship based option to have that particular nation waste the ufo with a tac nuke. Perhaps even offering an at production cost option to deliver one with a foxtrot later on that will impact local relationships if you unilaterally down a ufo with one. The last would be more work, but the first could be done seemingly in code and small ui changes.

I'm just a sucker for options.

[dmz]

I actually don't like the idea of passing a crash site to one of the funding blocks to receive an increase in relations.

- Roleplaying reason:

Xenonauts are supposed to defend the Earth against the alien invasion, shooting down an UFO and then saying "we know it's still full of aliens and that you're not trained against them as we are, but we'll sit this one out" seems to me to be the opposite. If anything, a funding block would be much happier with Xenonauts clearing out the mess, I think, as it prevents them expensive military operations and won't risk to lose any of their own militia. Considering ignored terror missions trigger a nuclear strike (with Xenonauts using a handful of soldiers instead), a downed UFO should still be a major inconvenience for the regular guys - the Xeno really feel like they are the best of the best now, with the regular forces unable to intervene without really great costs.

The funding blocks would of course be incredibly interested in UFOs, their technology and whatnot, so offering them the cleanup operation after having cleared a site should indeed boost the relations with them - effectively gifting them with a whole UFO, plus alien corpses/prisoners and alien weaponry - but it would also mean the player won't be able to skip the mission.

- Gameplay reason:

As it is right now, clearing a crash site would increase funding in two ways: it would give some money immediately and raise the funding t the end of the month. Making it an either or choice would mess up the whole economy and fixing it would lead to 3 groups of solutions, in my opinion all of them with unwanted consequences.

1. If clearing a crash site gives more money than gifting it to the funding blocks, why gift it at all? Some crash sites would still need to be given over to the funding blocks but no more than the bare minimum to keep them from deserting, as each UFO the player gives up is a loss in terms of money (and funding only equals money right now).

2. If clearing or gifting a crash site give (in the end) the same amount of money (or similar), clearing would still be the better choice because of experience and the artifacts retrieved from the field. Once the player has a solid group of experienced soldiers and good equipment, however, skipping crashed UFOs would be wisest as not to risk losing soldiers.

3. If clearing gives less money than gifting it to the funding blocks, the player would want to do the bare minimum number of missions required to level the soldiers and "sell" all the other crash sites to gain more money, which would lead to better equipment, which in turn would mean better odds for the soldiers to survive the few missions they take part in, thus diminishing the number of missions the player would need to do to train fresh rookies (as the player would have far less soldiers dead on the field to replace).

With all these 3 groups of settings, the player wouldn't in the end have a real choice, but rather a "good" choice and a "bad" choice - just as it is now, but maybe with less negative sides and more incentives to nudge towards one side or the other.

I think I'd like Xenonauts much less if something like this would make it into the game, honestly.

A solution could be making the crash sites lower relations if not taken care of, adding an option to pay the local militia to take care of it (with no change in relations), or adding an auto-resolve option for ground missions too. I think UFO:AI has the auto-resolve option, for example (according to some gameplay videos I've seen). All of this of course after having added lots of new different maps and having introduced some new UFO types to reduce the feeling of repetition. Light Scouts could for example either have a crew of cowards as well as a crew of very aggressive aliens, leaving the task of differentiating between the two to the AI: same UFO, two different mission types.

I'm aware my "solution" likely won't cut it alone, but I'd rather see it implemented than the "skip for money" option.

[Ol' Stinky]

Well, the desirability of donating UFOs changes depending on your soldiers' health. One player might risk their men to get the UFO, another might play it safe and donate. Also, like you say, you'll need to donate to keep relations from going critical and losing a funding block, and how low a player's willing to go will probably differ from person to person. I don't think it would be as clear cut as you make out.

As for the roleplaying reason, maybe require a team of xenonauts be sent out there to assist? Otherwise the local forces don't have the expertise required or whatnot. You wouldn't need to go through a ground combat, but a squad of xenonauts would be tied up for a certain amount of time as they show the local forces that you point the shooty bit of the gun away from you.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Ol' Stinky

[dmz]

It will certainly have some degree of wiggle room - and certain situations will definitely make or break a choice for you - but in the long run I don't think it will matter enough.

Choosing because of your soldier's health isn't new to this: in the current implementation of things you do the same, but with donating implemented you'd have one more reason to pass on the mission. In the end you'd be rewarded for not playing the strategic part of the game, but only the management (geoscope) part, which should instead be secondary.

As for donating not to lose a funding block, you'd only have to do it when the relations with the block go critically low if mission rewards are higher when you clear the sites. If I get 50k plus experience plus artifacts by clearing a site, why would I want to gift it if by doing so I'm only gaining 50k at the end of the month? As long as the block has the bare minimum relation level (which should be more or less constant if I down any UFO I see), I don't need to donate.

The opposite happens if actually clearing a crash site gives less than clearing it up myself: why should I bother?

But in the end, if the funding blocks can take care of aliens themselves, up to the point of paying us when we don't intervene, what's the point of Xenonauts? Surely if they can handle aliens, with the money they'd save by not paying Xenonauts they'd be able to make the same aircrafts Xeno uses to down the UFOs.

[xcomnaut]

There is really simple fix - Extend and randomise time between UFO waves.

~10 waves per month + at later game stage there is 2-4 crash sites per wave. For those who do every mission it becomes very boring and tedious fast enough. Because this is strategy game, skipping any mission is not wise, even if there is no penalty for doing that. This leads to very disbalanced games, because those who do every mission gets loads of money and experience.

V19 STABLE CANDIDATE 1

- The value of recoverable alien technology reduced by 50%

This also does not help skipping missions.

[Chris]

@Xcomnaut - extending / randomising the time doesn't really fix underlying problem that you'll need more than 30 crashable UFOs across the course of the game to have an interesting strategic game. It would help, but it wouldn't reduce the problem enough that it would go away....and it'd make the strategy less interesting at the same time. It's better to have complete freedom in terms of number of UFOs in a wave and wave timing in terms of making a more exciting game, too.

@dmz - I see what you're saying, but this is only for crash sites. The local forces can't shoot down UFOs in the first place or deal with terror sites or capture alien bases, but they might still be able to mop up the survivors of a crashed UFO. It's also not unfeasible that part of the world's agreement with the Xenonauts in the background story is that the Xenonauts have exclusive access to all crash sites of UFOs they've shot down.

In the examples you've provided, I don't see 2) or 3) as being particularly awful. In both cases you still have to do the hard / interesting work of tackling a new UFO for the first one or two times, but after that you're not required to grind it endlessly unless you actually want to.

Yes, there probably is a slight nudge based on what the optimum value gained from a crash site is - but that's far better than the current system, where the optimum is to do every single mission and the penalties for taking the "wrong" choice are quite a bit more severe than a nudge, as you get no benefit at all from skipping a mission.

I didn't say the idea would be perfect, just it would be an improvement...although in your option 2), the one we're aiming for, there's a choice there that you're not giving credit to - the choice as to when your soldiers are actually adequately leveled up and geared up and thus don't need to go on more missions. That in itself is much more of a risk / reward than the current system offers.

[Chris]

To address the "vaporizing UFOs" point, it's an interesting idea but again I don't think it helps the issue. The issue is that it is preferable to do every single crash site possible, so if you make it easier to destroy smaller UFOs all it means is that the best course of action is for the players to shoot down those UFOs using more basic weapons and then do the crash site mission.

It doesn't really address the problem that the player does not receive anything for NOT doing a crash site, so we're just banking on the boredom / laziness of the player to stop them doing every mission. It's just in this case we've added an extra layer of inconvenience in terms of re-arming fighters for them to deal with before they can get at the crash site.

That's not to say that we won't put the overdamage back in before release, because it is quite a cool effect....just that I don't think it solves this particular problem.

[dmz]

@Chris, actually I thought about that choice as well (although in a really quick manner), when I said "Once the player has a solid group of experienced soldiers and good equipment, however, skipping crashed UFOs would be wisest as not to risk losing soldiers." - that is, if I understood what you meant.

The more I think about it the more I think I dislike the idea on a roleplaying level than on a gameplay one: I'd like for the Xenonauts to actually be the organization funding blocks kind of have to look up to, being somewhat grateful when the player shoots down and clears an UFO on their land (thus raising relation levels) and being forced to try and ally themselves with aliens if the Xenonauts won't help. After all, in my experience every gameplay choice can be made viable one way or another, but certain roleplay choices are much harder to explain (that, or I'm just hard to please in this area - which is actually true).

At any rate, I'm happy my concerns have been noted and acknowledged - I still don't quite like this model, but if this is the route Xenonauts will take, I'll wait 'till it will actually be implemented to further discuss it (unless I'll come up with a way or two to improve the idea), since as much as I like the theory behind game implementations, it's harder to properly assess them without trying (that's to say, what I dislike on paper may be the best gameplay implementation ever - or not). Which, I guess, it's one of the reasons why beta versions exist. :-)

[lemm]

I only find the small UFO missions to be a chore; the bigger the UFO, the more fun it is to do. My simple solution is that UFOs could be destroyed during the air combat game (like fighters) at a rate inversely proportional to their size. Example rates:

Light Scout: 50%

Scout: 40%

Corvette and above: 33%

To balance it out, destroying a UFO would give you a relations boost slightly less than that for a successful UFO recovery.

The choice of handing the mission over to the army seems fine from a gameplay perspective, but it begs the question as to why the army can deal with aliens in ships but terror sites have to be nuked. Perhaps an alternate way to get the same effect would be to make it possible to deliberately destroy any UFO in the air combat game by firing an extra missile at it after it's neutralized, where UFO destruction is equivalent to "handing the UFO over."

EDIT:

The issue of soldier stat increases is closely related to this problem. You should probably get more of a stat reward for completing a more dangerous mission. The way I see it, solider stat increases should be solely dependent on the chance that the solider will die in combat. Perhaps a soldier would not be able to derive any benefit from securing a certain type of UFO if his statistic is above a certain threshold. For example, light scout missions cannot raise stats above 64, scout missions cannot raise stats above 68, etc etc

Edited August 31, 2013 by lemm

[B-Kun]

I don't think there is a "quick fix" for this issue, at least not without sacrificing game quality. It all depends on how much resources you want spend resolving this. Anyway, there are two ways I can think of fixing it.

1. Implement a mission Auto-Resolve feature.

2. Develop a "close air support" air-craft branch, or flying drones. This will give the player the ability to air-strike mission zones with smart weapons instead of sending troops. If the player wants to "skip missions" he can do so and still get the benefits at the price of investing into the technology and manufacturing for that benefit. This might make ground troops obsolete if you don't balance the pros and cons well. You can do something like: air strikes are quicker, and because of your quicker response the nation reputation increase more, but salvage value is decreased based on the level of your smart weapons. That way the player has to balance between higher income now, and/or long term income.

[Ol' Stinky]

An auto-resolve would probably create more problems, though. Auto-resolve's going to produce worse results than a manual ground combat, so who's going to use it? And having to dedicate R&D, manufacturing or other resources to unlock donations means that I'll never use them. There has to be an incentive to donate, otherwise it's always the wrong choice. All of the alternatives I've read in this thread so far wouldn't result in me passing up ground combat missions that are boring, they'd reinforce the status quo (apart from distinegration, which puts a straight up penalty on what should be upgrades).

Anyway, I guess my concern would be the other resources. Alien alloys aren't a problem at the moment - I tend to have the stuff lying around all over the base - but I can't imagine that'll be the case forever. Would the xenonauts get all/half/none of them for donating a UFO? And alenium's the opposite: I can't see myself skipping a scout in case I miss out.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Ol' Stinky

[EchoFourDelta]

Explain the "skipping a ground mission" as a Xenonaut precision air strike on the site rather than sending troops, and the site and everything on it is left to the nation in which it was shot down.

Xenonauts don't get the alien artifacts, they don't get the soldier experience, they don't have to take the risk of losing troops, and they get credit from the funding nation for giving them a (relatively) intact whole UFO, rather than one that got parted out with all the useful stuff taken.

With this, you have a limiting factor of them not being able to skip out too much, or you won't get decent troops trained up, and you'll lag on research as limiters; perhaps have it use an actual interceptor or something performing an action on the geoscape; heads out, expends its ammo, comes back with the mission complete and the previous conditions instituted, refuels and rearms with no damage, back in the fight, ground battle's taken care of, and you get your funding boost for the "donation." Accomplishes the idea plausibly, and perhaps adds another little thing on the Geoscape.

Thoughts?

[thothkins]

I’ll always try to complete as many ground missions as the game presents to me. That’s what I’m supposed to do. Save civilians, destroy alien incursions and gain funding to protect the planet in order to finally defeat the enemy. To avoid the mission and for there to be no repercussions, has always been a logic bomb for me on Xenonauts.

To successfully do that, only to find out that the funding nations hate me, because I don’t donate things seems mad. Gameplay over reality doesn’t work if the basic gameplay premises are flawed.

Let the locals do the job Xenonauts are paid for, in order that it helps them? 20 local troops die on a light scout mission. But that’s OK. The survivors are grateful for the experience. "At least we did better than Iceland," they are heard saying.

Thoughts:-

1) Increase the number of UFOs in a wave. I can do around 4 missions in one Chinook trip presently. Make the crash/ landed UFO sites more numerous. Reduce impact accordingly so Earth doesn't capitulate in day 1.

2) Local forces may be able to shoot some down with missiles. These would all have major damage, to minimise loot, but be available missions.

3) Let the locals shoot down the smaller UFOs earlier in the game. If the focus of the game is the ground combat, then let the locals intercept the smaller UFOs and let the player select form the available missions.

The point of the above is to give a real sense of an invasion. Make it increasingly risky to overextend on the available missions. Think more of a UFO Swarm than a Wave. Making the aliens slightly tougher will also help here.

4) Reduce the Light Scouts. Go back to their being one or two of them, but bring in the heavier craft again. That removes Light Scouts being boring. Immortal aircraft means that you can take on a number of the larger craft, but you won’t be able to take on them all. If you try, you only have to suffer a delay before getting your ships back. It is demoralising to watch the UFOs flit over the planet while you can’t touch them though. But hey, all the more resolve for getting that research done.

5) Give no extra pennies at all from ground missions. You get the stuff for research as is, and the rest all goes to the local forces. Eventually, they get nicer weapons and aircraft as a result. You get alenium and alloys from a pool if need be or have enough for research projects. So, you can have loads of ground missions, but you won’t be able to spoil the economy by selling things on the black market. The only things that will increase are your soldiers, and there are other threads for balancing that.

6) When going on a ground mission, your annoying scientist can advise you of the likelihood of getting anything valuable from it. Used in conjunction with the above, you can see if it’s worth your while.

7) From what I read, the lack of map variation plays it’s part in the “boring” tag. Once there is more variation , coupled with perhaps small terror and base attack missions, will mix things up more.

8) Just a repeat of Leonidas’ point. Powerful Xeno-weapons overkill smaller craft. You get the feel of lots of UFOs buzzing around, without the messy ground missions.

9) On any of the above, make it clear that the player won’t be able to take on every mission. That’s lacking at the moment.

The current proposal means I will spend time fussing over whether I should go on missions or donate them, rather than getting on with the game of being on the Battlescape.

I picked up on having experienced soldiers means you don’t have to go on certain smaller missions. Not so. I still go on them all, if possible. Those missions are just easier ones and I get to break in the rookies.

[Chris]

I think the idea of explaining the "donated" crash-site as being dealt with by air strikes is a good idea, though I don't think we should imply it was the Xenonauts that have done it unless we actually want to have to send the interceptors there to perform the airstrikes.

But it's certainly plausible we can have the local forces deal with the crashed UFO using excessive firepower, leaving nowhere near as much behind as would happen if the Xenonauts sent in a strike team. However, the money that the nation offers the Xenonauts in exchange for being able to do this still needs to be competitive against what the player would get from doing the mission themselves if this system is going to work...but that can be explained by the local nations just being incredibly keen to get their hands on any alien technology at all.

There's also a possible solution where the player could use their aircraft to perform these strikes, so there's an element of clean-up after each UFO wave. This is more immediate and I think initially might be more enjoyable, but I don't think it'd be the best solution here - I think it'd get old fast, take quite a lot of time to implement and probably also require a degree of explanation for new players.

So some form of airstrike on the downed craft is probably a good idea lorewise, I'm thinking. Framed in that language, it detracts less from the role of the Xenonauts as the only ones capable of really fighting the aliens on the ground.

[Elydo]

We could always combine the ideas of leaving the crash to local ground forces and sending in a squad for guidance with a funding boost. Make it so that you still have to send a squad, but then auto-resolve the combat with the rationale of them being advisers for the local forces. The xenonauts squad gets a flat rate of experience gain and a small cut of any artifacts on board at no risk to themselves, the local funding block is happy with the net gain for themselves and it also leaves a strategic consideration of tying up a squad on deployment when you might want them for something else.

You could even factor the rank of the deployed squad into the equation; higher ranks mean a larger cut of the loot and more funding gined (better tactical result) but less experience gained per soldier (as they don't learn all that much).

[EchoFourDelta]

@Chris

Maybe explaining it as the Xenonauts waiving the "salvage rights" in the spirit of being transparent, building trust? The nation in question sends in a bunch of Cobra/Hind/[Helicopter du jour of the country in question] gunships to clean up the site in question so they're not killing the crap out of all the civilians with indiscriminate airstrikes, and moving a company of troops in and locking it down so they can secure the salvage.

Keeps Xenonaut aircraft out, and keeps them portrayed with the degree of superiority and experience in their task compared to national forces, requiring only their specialized strike force to cleanly perform a task that takes considerable groups of ground troops with air support to execute equally cleanly. Also, you get the reason why they get a reasonably intact UFO; they can take all the time on the ground they like; they have it locked down - no pressure to get in and out like the Xenonauts do - so they can secure it as cleanly as they like with dozens of machine gunners and snipers and riflemen inching in, and you get your nice excuse as to why the Xenonauts can get such a fat bonus for turning it over in whole.

[Tobbzn]

It makes sense for light UFOs, I'm concerned about how this will scale to the larger ones. If I make more money donating battleships and carriers than by doing them, would it not be less risky to never do a crash site ever again once you've got the available pickups?

You'd end up in the position where you're donating all the difficult (yet fun) large sites but taking all the small sites because the skill-up system encourages short missions.

I would suggest only light sites being donatable, medium sites being as they are now, and large sites having a penalty if you leave them alone. Furthermore, I suggest making later skills take longer to rank up, so you're not guaranteed a skill-up in everything after every light scout you do.

How about doing a crash site (and getting a ship data core) slightly advances your current research, but have it on diminishing returns for each ship class?

[Josip Broz Tito]

I like the idea of tying up the crew of the chinook as advisors, with a pyramid requirement to be sent. Meaning, you can send one commander ranked soldier or 2 whatever's below that etc. to advise the locals. Higher ranked soldiers would be better at directing the locals in what to expect. This might encourage a bit of crew rotation in order to keep an officer available to advise.

Also, the larger the UFO, the higher the number of officers that are required to be sent. e.x. a medium ship might require 3 commanders or equivalents in lesser rank. This way, if you want to autoresolve a UFO crash, you have to balance between running missions to train soldiers to be able to do so vs the increased revenue. More hard choices= more fun.

Having to send 5 scientists and 5 technicians or so might be a good requirement, as they'd know how to disassemble the ships safely and give crash-courses to locals in alien tech.

I'm seeing it this way: once alien biology and the datacore for that type of UFO is researched, the option to let UFO's be handled by locals with xenonaut advisement becomes available.

The reason: in the lore it states that without a low-oxygen environment the aliens suffer toxic shock and die. What does this mean? The Xenonauts advise the local forces with how to deal with aliens outside of the craft, then a hole is punched into the UFO(previously recovered UFO's= weakpoints/structure known), then the local forces wait a day or so before sending scouts in. In the case of androns, it'll be a matter of using explosives. Locals could also use chemical weapons to suffocate/burn fleshy aliens.

I hope I wasn't to textful, however I do feel the above ideas are valid : )

[Gazz]

Once the player has a solid group of experienced soldiers and good equipment, however, skipping crashed UFOs would be wisest as not to risk losing soldiers.

That would work in XCOM:EU where a Colonel is maxed out and will never gain another improvement, no matter how small.

Xenonauts soldiers would need a visible hard cap on abilities that can be reached without diminishing returns.

Then you could reach a point where soldiers would not improve their skills from another mission.

Such a system doesn't exist. =)

Possible benefit from letting the local forces handle the UFO:

Local soldiers gain alien-fighting experience so the next time you recruit a soldier from that country, he or she has better stats.

Since recruits are spread around the countries, you have a reason for wanting many countries "with experience" instead of grooming only 2 or 3 while grabbing all other UFOs yourself.

You can make this feature even more yummy if you let the player distribute the bonus points himself.

Say, up to 1/3 or 1/4 (whatever works out) of the total is the max that can be put into a single skill.

Soldier XP is always mentioned as a reason for wanting to clean up all crash sites yourself so why not attack that point?

Edited September 1, 2013 by Gazz

[dmz]

That would work in XCOM:EU where a Colonel is maxed out and will never gain another improvement, no matter how small.

Xenonauts soldiers would need a visible hard cap on abilities that can be reached without diminishing returns.

Then you could reach a point where soldiers would not improve their skills from another mission.

Such a system doesn't exist. =)

Don't abilities cap out at 100? I thought they did have some kind of hard cap.

Anyway, unrelated note: as thothkins says I think it's important that if the player does all the missions, he's not actually penalized by having very poor relations with the funding blocks. It's counter-intuitive - he'd just be doing his job!

[EchoFourDelta]

Anyway, unrelated note: as thothkins says I think it's important that if the player does all the missions, he's not actually penalized by having very poor relations with the funding blocks. It's counter-intuitive - he'd just be doing his job!

This is important; it shouldn't be better than actually executing the ground assault, or penalizing to people that want to finish them. At that point, you're simply penalizing the people who want to play your game.