Geoscape Balance Discussion V20 Stable Candidate 1

[Aaron]

Right; because at Goldhawk Interactive we never do things by half measures, we have new set of hard-swing Geoscape balance changes for you to try out!

The main things are: Air combat should be tactically easier, though later UFO speeds will still quickly outclass Condors. Auto-resolve should also produce slightly more "fair" results now.

Additionally, I have heavily reduced the cost of hangars, as it turns out you need a lot of them and they were expensive when added to the cost of aircraft too. I've reduced the costs of the few other structures - though the specific ones escape me at the moment.

Biggest change is a huge boost to national funding levels, but also an increase in the damage UFOs can do to that level - and the rewards you get for stopping them. This should hopefully lead to more dramatic game, but time will tell (actually you guys will, here, in this thread; that's why I made it).

Here the change list for Geoscape balance for reference:

- Geoscape funding increase, to re-emphasise national support

-- Increased the player starting funds from $750000 to $1000000

-- Increased the funding provided by each nation by roughly 70%(!)

-- Initially all countries will provide the same funding level (may be tweaked later)

-- Tweaked relations values to compensate for geographic area (UFOs spend more time over larger countries)

- Base building changes to make them much faster to come online, though a larger initial outlay

-- Increased the cost of building a base to $500000

-- Halved Command Center upkeep from $250000 to $125000

-- Reduced Command Center build time from 20 to 10

-- Reduced Radar build time from 20 to 10

-- Reduced Hangar build time from 10 to 5

-- Reduced the building and maintenances costs of various base structures, very significantly reduced in the case of the Hangar

- UFO balance changes to make both victories and failures more pronounced

-- Approximately doubled the relations penalty caused by UFO activity over a country (including terror attacks)

-- Increased UFO attack rate during their flight, to make sure attacks actually happen

-- Very large increase in the relations benefit provided by shooting down a UFO, e.g. from 6 to 40 in some cases

-- Reduced the health of UFOs to approximately 70% of their previous values

-- Reduced auto-resolve strengths of UFOs accordingly

- Disabled the "system damage" for interceptors in air combat

- Reduced speed of "heavy" UFO projectiles to make dodging easier

- Halved turn speed of UFOs to encourage more manoeuvring around them

- Light Scouts have, after a bloody battle, been reduced down to slightly slower than Condors

- Scouts have had their speed increased significantly, but health reduced; they will require Foxtrots to catch reliably

- Balanced other UFO speeds so that there is a gradually increasing curve, rather than two tiers

- Also changed some UFO speeds to avoid matching human aircraft speeds; now you can either catch them, or they obviously outrun you

- Slightly increased damage of Avalanche Torpedoes, as they did not conform to the rule of slightly out-damaging light fighter weapons

[legit1337]

EDIT: Sorry wrong thread.

Geoscape feels much better now that condors can catch a light scout.

Loving the new nation funding too. It's good for the early game but I need to test more to test balance in the lategame.

Edited December 14, 2013 by legit1337

[StellarRat]

ATA is VASTLY better now. I can actually work my Condors around behind some of the bigger ships. Also, the nation funding increase/decrease from successful shoot downs, terror clean up, etc... all MUCH better. I've actually made it to January without going broke. Managed to get three bases up. The way nations relations work is much, much better. It actually makes sense now. As far as the Geoscape goes, to me this is home run so far. My biggest frustration has been with a few bugs that have forced me to reload. But, the game play is great.

BTW, is there anyway you can make the enemy projectiles in AC a different color from the FOF shadow? Red on red is hard to see. White or blue would be awesome.

Another problem: Fighters should ARM FIRST then receive fuel. I had a base attack that could have been easily defeated if my jets could have left with even 10% fuel, but a full ordnance load out. You don't need much fuel to CAP your own airbase.

Edited December 16, 2013 by StellarRat

[cb1987]

I think that the current Geoscape balance is vastly improved over v7. The speed distinction between light scouts and scouts is great and rewards players who go for early foxtrots, without crippling players who focus on other research. The slower turning speed and slower heavy projectile speed does make the corvette/landing ship seem a bit weak when they are alone, perhaps they could be buffed a touch. However, when they have escorts I think the difficulty is perfect so I'm not too sure, maybe just increase the number that spawn with fighters (could increase with difficulty if it doesn't already).

I'm glad the maintenance costs and new base setup time are a bit more forgiving now. I can just about manage 3 bases with 3-4 interceptors in each if I expand early and don't lose too much funding.

I'm not sure if its a result of the increased UFO attack rate, but the alien bombers seem much more effective now, inflicting a lot of casualties if they aren't stopped, which I like.

[Max_Caine]

More of a UI thing really, but could you flag zero-day research so it doesn't cause the new research window to pop up? There's no need for the new research window to pop up when you get things like autopsies automatically, and it's just confusing.

[Ol' Stinky]

If we're talking UI things:

• Sometimes the "select target location" window reappears if you cancel launching planes.
  It's quicker for me to press "q" and click on a random place on the map to check the status of my interceptors than to root around my base, so I'd also prefer it if the select inteceptors screen came up before the location selection prompt.
  
• In the soldier equipment screen, weapon/item tooltips can cover up a soldier's inventory. Not a huge deal, but it looks unintentional.
  
• I'd love a more detailed "items have been delivered to your base" message. "5 scientists have arrived at Northern Africa base. [Go to Research] [Go to Base] [Cancel]", "5 scientists, 5 engineers and 1 Condor has arrived at Central America base. [Go to Research] [Go to Manufacturing] [Go to Aircraft] [Go to Base] [Cancel]".
  I can live without the extra shortcut buttons, but I really want information on deliveries. Also on my list of requests: outstanding orders. Maybe in the Stores screen so that the player has a reason to go there before manufactured weaponry overtakes standard stock (and they're not used by the main base)?
  
• The Xenopedia entry for the Hunter does mention that it has a longer sight range, but I think it'd be helpful to show how much. Maybe put "Visual Range: +2" at the bottom of the list of stats in both the Xenopedia entry and in the Garage.
  
• In the manufacturing screen: when something costs additional resources (i.e. alien alloys), it'd be nice if it displayed how much I had. So if I was making a laser pistol, I'd see: "Required: 2 alien alloys. You have 2,000 in stock."
  
• Ready airplanes trigger a message after they've finished rearming/refuelling/repairing/being retrieved, the same way alien disruptions come up. So, for example, "10:53: Condor - 5 at Northern Africa Base is ready."
  
• When you have multiple bases, it's not uncommon to get a whole load of UFOs at once. If several UFOs appear, it's hard to know what aircraft to send to which UFO and in what numbers. I don't know the best way to help with this: maybe an option to skip past all the alerts and set the map to speed 1, so that I can see what's going on? Or perhaps having the region the UFO's appeared/how many other UFOs are in the region in is enough to help.

---

I'm up to Corvettes now, at early November. Airstriking seems fair so far: roughly it seems to be ~2/3rds of what I'd get from doing the mission myself (and with no losses). I am a bit worried that by airstriking the stuff my second base intercepts, I'm going to run short of alenium in the future. Early alenium (in Sep!) means that the first Corv wouldn't have been a huge deal, even if the AI wasn't currently docile. I'm looking forward to getting some feedback on funding changes.

Oh, also, one side effect of slower turning speed is that the default waypoint for Foxtrots can have them drift into a Corv's line of fire; manual waypoints seem to be the way to go.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Ol' Stinky

[Chilly]

A refund when decommissioning aircraft would be nice. I don't like how fighters vanish into thin air

[Aaron]

You are supposed to get a refund, but it broke at some point - it is on the list of things to fix.

[Redwallzyl]

i think its still to hard. playing on normal i never gain enough money to offset the areas i cant reach which means they continue losing money which in turn leads to not gaining any money for badly needed upgrades. I'm stuck with 5 foxtrots and a condor for the whole world with steadily decreasing funds and mounting attacks. the turnaround time with planes is to slow and i cant catch even the cruisers. it takes a day to shoot down one large ship with the others causing funding loss that the downed ship could never compensate for.

[StellarRat]

i think its still to hard. playing on normal i never gain enough money to offset the areas i cant reach which means they continue losing money which in turn leads to not gaining any money for badly needed upgrades. I'm stuck with 5 foxtrots and a condor for the whole world with steadily decreasing funds and mounting attacks. the turnaround time with planes is to slow and i cant catch even the cruisers. it takes a day to shoot down one large ship with the others causing funding loss that the downed ship could never compensate for.

Playing on "Normal": I'm in January I've got three bases up with two radars and at least three jets at each one. I have pretty good coverage except Indonesia and South American. My funding is actually increasing overall. I think you need to review your strategy. Over-expansion too early on is the biggest mistake most players make. My downfall the last time was I hired too many scientists at the start. I've got 15 at one base right now that's it. My current tech is Foxtrots, Alenium explosives, stun gas, laser weapons and Wolf armor. Edited December 16, 2013 by StellarRat

[llunak]

This is a follow-up to my opinion that the funding may be still broken (posted at http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/8344-V20-Experimental-Build-8-Available!?p=94226&viewfull=1#post94226 by mistake instead of here). In short, I think the economic model is now doable, but it probably should be tonned down a bit on easier levels, at least initially (if it's not already better there).

I tried to start two games, one again just for the first 2 months, without any ground attacks. This time I started in the US (which I consider to be a poor choice, but I except a number of players will do that). During the entire September I detected only a single UFO heading for South America and that was all, not a single kill (no terror or bombing either). Summary screen was of course awfully red and I ended with -300k$ change. However, during October I got ready another base in Mongolia and I actually ended October with no significant decrease in funding. I didn't continue this testing game any further.

For the second game I played normally, including ground combat, research, etc. I play on Veteran (which may be perhaps still a bit easy for me, but Ironman makes testing things hard). Primary base located in Libya and although initial budget is not enough, I managed to gain enough money in ground combat missions to have a second base intercepting already during September. I shot down 9 out of 12 UFOs detected (i.e. not counting those with only events). My funding change was only -67k$ (roughly +20k$ in each areas I covered, and various losses elsewhere: NAm: -21, EU: +20, NAf: +24, In: +17, SU: +17, SAm: -10, CAm: -67, ME: +24, SAf: 0, Au: -70). I had only 1.3M upkeep (5 Condors, 15 scientists, 15 engineers, 14 soldiers), so the 1M$ profit allowed me to start another base in North America. During October I shot down 12 out of 18 UFOs detected (I think, based on their serial numbers, I think I shot down few UFOs above sea). I had 2 aerial bombings in North America out of my effective reach by their time, but I had already stable funding with about no change in total (NAm: -121, EU: +19, NAf: +50, In: +16, SU: +67, SAm: -40, CAm: -33, ME: +49, SAf: -8, Au: 0). By now my upkeep 2.1M (7 Condors, 3 Foxtrots, 15 scientists, 15 engineers, 19 soldiers) almost matched funding 2.4M, so this appears to be the ceiling for easy expansion. Halfway in November, with 7 Condors and 5 Foxtrots, predicted funding change is already +75k$, and my upkeep equals the funding income, so any actual development money comes from ground combat missions (I only airstrike if I can't do a ground combat mission). I'll see how the game continues.

All in all:

- It appears that it's possible to have a stable budget with this new economic model, but it's not exactly easy, and fast expansion is probably a necessity. It's quite probable to have one or more regions drop their funding to only 100k$ by the end of November or even October.

- Air combat difficulty seems about right to me. I occassionally lose and have crashlanded interceptor(s), but I can keep up and shoot down most UFOs that I detect. (Ground combat is easy in comparison to this, especially because of aliens often sitting in their cover and not minding getting shot at from a safe distance until getting enough hits to die.)

This is however on the Veteran difficulty with me playing it (I can play Superhuman in UFO:EU with ease). If hunting down UFOs and the economy are this tough on easier difficulties too, I think less experienced players won't be able to keep up. And having a game like I had with the starting base in the US, the first report about decreasing funding by 300k$ would have probably made some players quit the game. So, as already said in my previous post, I suggest to reduce the negative impact on funding by some factor during first few months, at least on easier difficulties. Otherwise I think the margin for error is rather small. I hope this helps.

[Assoonasitis]

I also think the balance has been much improved since V7. I never understood how aliens were able to consistently outrun my aircraft whilst piloting sheds.

[legit1337]

@assoonasitis

Modern jet aircraft are pretty much airtight armchairs strapped to rocket engines lol.

Back to the point at hand though, I'm glad condors can catch light scouts too. In the lore it said alien craft were ill-suited for atmospheric flight, so it makes sense that their first craft entering our atmosphere would be outmatched in speed by one our our jets.

[Redwallzyl]

the problem is condors don't seam to be able to catch anything as far as i cant tell foxtrots are much more useful.

[StellarRat]

@Redwallzyl - The trick is to attack the aliens when they are headed towards your airbase instead of when they are headed away. That way your Condors just have to cut them off instead of chasing them. Once you've actually entered AC speed isn't nearly as important as the aliens will always try to engage instead of running away.

[Redwallzyl]

the lose tons of money in the first few days should be fixed. you should make a grace period for the first group of invaders. you cant possibly intercept the ships that appear on the outer side of the world and only a few even come into your range.

[legit1337]

I agree with people saying that light scout missions hurt your funding too much... I lost half the funding for the soviet union (from 250k to 130k) in the FIRST MONTH, simply because I decided to put my first base in north america.

IMO the chances for a light scout/scout causing an event on the geoscape need to be toned down a little, or the funding hits resulting from light scout/scout missions need to be toned down to 2-5k instead of the 5-10k it is now.

Also I think the foxtrot needs a range increase. I get barely outside of my radar range and I'm already out of fuel (sending it with 2 condor escorts).

[Aaron]

Losing funding initially is the intention. At the opening of Xenonauts the world is supposed to be in crisis - aliens are invading! Your job is first to stabilise the situation, and then to go on to beat the enemy - not to take an already stable situation and putter along to inevitable victory.

@legit1337: If you are escorting Foxtrots with Condors then their range will be limited to that of the Condor, as squadrons cannot be split. Foxtrots by themselves should have quite a bit more range than the standard radar range, and they themselves carry powerful radars to help them chase down lost contacts.

[winterwolves]

The economic balance is feeling pretty good to me so far. I definitely expect to lose funding for the first two or three months, but not so fast I can never expand.

Seems to me it should be made so that if you play well, you can stabilise without losing any countries, but is you make a few mistakes you might lose one, more mistakes, you lose more.

That is about the balance that see at the moment. Playing on normal FYI.

[Solver]

I find the initial funding loss to be okay. You lose funding in the first month, but can already make some back in the second. When you have 2 bases capable of shooting down UFOs, that becomes a possibility. My main problem economy-wise so far is money to manufacture equipment. I'm getting funding from the nations, enough to slowly build up my bases and expand radar/hangar capabilities, but then there's very little left for making equipment.

[Aaron]

New build is out - Stable Candidate 1! - but the changes are relatively minor so let's just keep this thread going.

The relevant changes are:

- Aircraft now correctly grant the player their sell value on decommissioning

- Reduced the quantity of Alien Alloys granted from crashed UFOs by about 50%

- Reduced the initial number of UFOs per wave from 4 to 3, and the maximum number from 8 to 6

[Assoonasitis]

New build is out - Stable Candidate 1! - but the changes are relatively minor so let's just keep this thread going.

The relevant changes are:

- Aircraft now correctly grant the player their sell value on decommissioning

- Reduced the quantity of Alien Alloys granted from crashed UFOs by about 50%

- Reduced the initial number of UFOs per wave from 4 to 3, and the maximum number from 8 to 6

Bolded is the best balance change ever. This will make the game so much less unforgiving.

[StellarRat]

Reduced the initial number of UFOs per wave from 4 to 3, and the maximum number from 8 to 6

It's really funny, I was going to post that suggestion and just hadn't had time yet! LOL. I was going to say for "Normal" difficulty I think the number of UFOs should be cut by about 1/3. You read my mind Aaron. I think the 20.8 number would be good for "Veteran" settings.

I 100% agree with this change!

[Skitso]

Seems in my next game I might up my difficulty to normal. Good sounding balance changes!

[Hairyscreech]

Thought I should repost this here as I posted it in reply to a post in the negative for ground combat thread but it seems pretty relevant here too.

Ok, I'm further through this build than any of the previous so feel I can at least make balanced comments here.

The current balance is working fine with possibly just a slight too much of a lean to the air side, its no way near as bad as in some of the previous versions where it was win in the air or die on the ground and with the recent changes to the air combat your much less likely to get left behind by the pace of the invasion.

Yes it is possible to beat a lone interceptor with a pair of condors (plasma cannon and plasma explosives) but a wave of 3 heavy fighters will leave you a condor down and its not something you can keep up wave on wave and still keep a reasonable number of birds in the air.

Corsairs are actually of use in 20.8, the seriously short range of the condors and their lack of speed is really what makes that one, however agreed it probably isn't worth going for more than 3 before the jump to marauders as the research would be done by then and getting up the tech tree is do of die.

Alloys and E115 is a limiting factor, I was spending a little too much time nukeing the site from orbit just to be sure and found I was a bit short on E115, so it was back to doing some ground missions to get the number up. I have found I am doing about 1 in 3 which feels about right.

Nation rating makes sense for downing the ships, by shooting them down your A) stopping them from carrying out there evil plans and B) killing all the aliens as they will die within a few hours in our atmosphere anyway. Thus as far as the conventional military handling them all they would have to do is seal off the area and with until they began to die off, simply mopping up the groggy ones.

Perhaps the answer to the air strikes making things a bit too easy is to reduce their cash value to make them less financially viable and give say 5-10 relation points for doing the mission.

This would put a double pressure on, as there would be cash, relations, tech and resources at stake.

I know this is straying a little from the main point here but with so much stake in the speed of research would it be worthwhile doubling the size and cost of the research lab, doubling its capacity and starting the base with 15 of 30 scientists?

30 is really the minimum number you need to keep pace with the invasion and get through the amount of research topics in the game, this change would make that much more obvious to inexperienced players without overtly pointing it out in a tool tip.

"Hey that lab takes 30 techs and I only have 15, better hire some more to help with the research."

I don't think its clear that there is a need in the first month to get a second lab up and running really and without it your in real danger of being swamped before you have the guns to fight back.

EDIT - Oh one thing, is anyone else finding that their interceptors are crashing from low fuel even if you agree to return to base on the low fuel warning? Keep having this happen and its probably the main reason I lose aircraft, I am assuming this is not supposed to happen right?

Edited December 19, 2013 by Hairyscreech