Too Many UFO's?

[jay_b11175]

I have to be honest, I think the last version I played was V19 stable. I just started a new campaign on normal difficulty in V21 stable an holy cow, the UFO's ramp up WAY TOO FAST! Only one month in game time and UFO's are appearing four, sometimes five at a time. I only have one base, and just starting a second. I only have 2 Condors and 1 Foxtrot. How the H. E. double hockey sticks am I supposed to handle this many UFO's? This tanks my country ratings which tanks my income, which tanks my ability to scale up my resistance, which tanks the game! Fast forward to month 4, I've only been able to develop 2 bases since most of my money has been earned through downed UFO's cause the world hates me because it's being swarmed by as many as 10 UFO's at any given moment. I've lost South America all together. I've finally been able to make 2 Marauders which may be my saving grace, but holy heck, this is not what normal should feel like...

There should either be A.) a much more gradual introduction of UFO's throughout the game (I mean number, not difficulty of ships, I think the difficulty curve is O.K.)

Or B.) a much greater reward for the UFO's you do down and clear with your troops (both monetarily and in approval ratings with nations)

Also, I must say, if there's going to be this many UFO's swarming around, at least be realistic with refuel/reload times on the aircraft, 2-3hrs. to refuel plus another 1-2 hrs. to re-arm SERIOUSLY!?!? Are we training noobs to fill the tanks for the first time, everytime? Do we need to take an hour long round trip to the local pigglywiggly's to pick up our missile warheads and cannon round before we reload? It's a goddamn alien invasion and I'm left with the "equal opportunity team" trying to figure out where the "ON" switch for the fuel pump is for over an hour...

[Beltorn]

The amount of UFOs isn't really that troublesome: building 3 foxtrots per base asap has become standard for me. The trouble is the algorithm - sometimes it is 5 around the world and sometimes its 5 in the Southern America - last place i would decide to build my first base.

Most of money for development in my game (on Veteran) comes from clearing UFOs. I'm in middle February and have 4 bases around the world: Middle East, Northern America. Australia and Southern America. Each base has 3 Foxtrots and at least 1 Condor which was already replaced with Corsairs. Middle East is the main base and has already replaced 2 Foxtrots with Marauders and is building the third Marauder and replaced both Condors with Corsairs. I have 60 engineers, 60 scientists and 14 soldiers. Overall, i have: 6 Corsairs, 11 Foxtrots, 2 Marauders and i'm building third and 1 Shrike and 1 Valkyrie - so i pay 1900k for interceptors and another 100k for Dropships, that's half of my upkeep not counting Hangars.

Trouble is funding from countries is too small - it is barely enough to pay upkeep for 4 bases with Superb and Excellent relations all over the world and few goods in regions which have lower funding. I have cleared almost every UFO i crashed and only by clearing UFOs i have enough money to build new bases and new equipment and planes. Also, i dislike that from every 4-5 UFos that have spawned i had to clear 80%.

Solutions:

It would be great if the amount of combat UFOs increased (i mean fighter wings, bombers and strike cruisers), while decreasing the amount of landing capable UFOs and we were payed for them a bit like 10k for fighter, 15 for Heavy Fighters 25 for Interceptors and 30k for Bombers and 75 for Strike Cruisers.

Europe funding level increased to rival USA and Soviet Union, i.e. starts at 400k .

Overall funding increased by 25%, but negative modifiers from UFO activity were increased by 25% too.

Adding an additional paycheck for capturing a fully intact UFO - this would be a nice bonus, but rare.

[KognaK]

Economically most optimal strategy is to place first base around Egypt and when first paycheck comes, build 2nd base in central america. Build three radars in each base to maximize detection range, they are way cheaper than new bases. This way only Australia, eastern half SU and most of indochina are in dark. Foxtrots are backbone your airforce, 2 per base is enough early and when landing ships appear build 3rd. Min 1 condor per base also required, 2 when alien fighters appear. 3rd base would be around philippines/taiwan but it's not economically important to build it early. Hardly even profitable if alien bases in the area are removed asap. Presence of bases are easy to spot from region funding level. If funding starts steadily to drain in 1k ticks, send your foxtrots to scan region and you find alien base there. I have been able to keep net funding ~1M level from the start on veteran, even I had just 2 bases until January. And top that 1M comes all sweet income from missions+airstrikes.

[dpelectric]

Wow, jeez, Beltorn and Kognak, you guys must be doing something different/better than me, cuz I'm contantly struggling with finances too. I shoot down and assault every ship I can and every base I find, and barely keep two bases of my own going. And that's with just 30 scientists and 25 engineers, late-Jan.

Kognak I didn't know you could keep an eye on your regional funding levels. How do you do that?

[KognaK]

Kognak I didn't know you could keep an eye on your regional funding levels. How do you do that?

Just hover mouse cursor on region and you'll see it top right corner instead of total.

For strategy side I'd like to add early game the air techs must be priorities. So research foxtrot, alenium and alenium explosive asap. Quite common mistake is to invest too heavily in ground combat and neglect airfleet which is basicly only real tool earn money in this game(even GC depends on it). I did same mistake in my first try and couldnt expand from my first base ever.

[dpelectric]

Just hover mouse cursor on region and you'll see it top right corner instead of total.

Thank you

[Chris]

It's odd you say that, because we've actually significantly reduced the number of UFOs in the game over the past six months / year. I believe these days there's about 30-50% less than there used to be.

[Irishguy117]

I just came back to the game too (Last time I stopped because of the UFO pursuit bug when your fighters tried to disengage and got caught in an endless cycle of new air combat until the game crashed or they ran out of fuel) and it does feel like there are more. I'm willing to bet it feels like that because we're getting much further into the game than we used too. My 9 marauders aren't enough to bag every single UFO, but I suppose they shouldn't be able to.

[Caaygun]

It's odd you say that, because we've actually significantly reduced the number of UFOs in the game over the past six months / year. I believe these days there's about 30-50% less than there used to be.

Yea I, too find them to be more managable than since v18. Also ground attack or terror ufos don't always attack if I sometimes can't manage to kill it. Though I found that I get more Foxtrots than interceptors, perhaps that's a balance issue where there are too few air superiority fighter teams? Just curious.

[silencer]

My only issue with lots of UFO's is extremely long time for refueling and rearming - considering that in later stages every UFO has an escort first you need to send a wing of Condors / Corsairs to deal with escorts then send Foxtrots to deal with capital ships - considering that there are 3-4 batches of UFOs it may take some time before you can send next wings.

[MrPyro]

I've found 1 Corsair can normally deal with 2 Fighters or Heavy Fighters (the latter is a little trickier), which normally means you can do it in one wave of Corsair + 2 x Foxtrot, assuming your missile tech is high enough that 4 torpedoes is a confirmed kill on the primary.

[oleg]

Or you can mod game and give your fighters more rockets (I end up with 3 AA and 2 torps, also 4 rockets for aliens to make it fair). Air combat is much less irritating this way while still challenging, and you doesn't need to build 10 hangars in every base to deal with all these pesky green bastards. Its way more realistic as well.

I knew Chris want shooting everything down been near impossible, but personally I doesn't find such gameplay any fun. Also, vanilla air combat is extremely unforgiving.

[Monifix]

It's odd you say that, because we've actually significantly reduced the number of UFOs in the game over the past six months / year. I believe these days there's about 30-50% less than there used to be.

Why do they have to appear all at once in big waves though? I mean I guess it makes sense in a tactical sense, but for game play I would like it more if the UFOs appeared individually, and perhaps sometimes in a big wave, but not always in a big wave as it seems to be now.

[Dranak]

Why do they have to appear all at once in big waves though? I mean I guess it makes sense in a tactical sense, but for game play I would like it more if the UFOs appeared individually, and perhaps sometimes in a big wave, but not always in a big wave as it seems to be now.

I think the idea was to require more investment in aircraft/make it harder to shoot everything down.

[Monifix]

I think the idea was to require more investment in aircraft/make it harder to shoot everything down.

Well, do they only spawn near your bases or do they spawn all across the globe? If they spawn all across the globe then you would miss a lot of UFOs early game anyway. It's kind of frustrating that you constantly have to airstrike crash sites simply because you shot down 3 or more UFOs at the same time when you haven't got multiple teams operating yet.

The same amount of UFOs but more spread out would also still manage to do the same amount of damage to your aircraft after all, so you'd still get situations where you lost a fighter or two taking down a tough target and then having to let some UFOs go, so I think it is a strange reason for choosing to clump them up.

I really liked that you got the sense that there was always a UFO around somewhere making trouble in the original games. It made the globe seem more alive with activity, and you could send out aircraft to scout in order to try to seek out a kill if you really wanted those extra alien materials. It gave more choices. Now it seems like 75% of the time there is nothing at all going on, and you can't go looking for a UFO when it's not "go time."

[Chris]

If they appear spread out, you only need one interceptor per base. It also means that you're not continually being interrupted by a new ufo every 12 hours while you're waiting for a 20-day research / workshop project to finish.

[Monifix]

If they appear spread out, you only need one interceptor per base. It also means that you're not continually being interrupted by a new ufo every 12 hours while you're waiting for a 20-day research / workshop project to finish.

Okay, I can understand that reasoning, but isn't there a compromise to be had? Perhaps decreasing the huge radar range you get having 3 radar arrays slightly would help with the problem of getting constantly interrupted?

I don't understand why you'd only need 1 interceptor for each base though? Maybe I'm doing something very wrong when I play but i often get craft damaged or destroyed trying to engage UFOs. I think this is intended? If I only had 1 interceptor, how would I take on a big UFO?

[silencer]

Maybe I'm doing something very wrong when I play but i often get craft damaged or destroyed trying to engage UFOs. I think this is intended? If I only had 1 interceptor, how would I take on a big UFO?

Well if you get damaged you definitely doing it wrong. I am not super pro top guru master interceptor but the only time I get damaged for now is when I have sidewinders and I use 1 condor per light scout. But in that era it doesn't really matter.

[Monifix]

Well if you get damaged you definitely doing it wrong. I am not super pro top guru master interceptor but the only time I get damaged for now is when I have sidewinders and I use 1 condor per light scout. But in that era it doesn't really matter.

Umm, okay... Well in that case, if one interceptor can reliably take down everything, isn't that then the problem? It's not my experience that this is true though, but then again I admit the fault may lie with me.

Edit: Honestly I can't fathom how this could be true. Some UFO's can't even be shot down with the ammo capacity that one interceptor has. And fighting a big UFO with fighter escorts is a real challenge as far as not taking any damage even when you have 3 aircraft, that just seems insanely skilled if you could do that reliably. I don't think your average player could do that, it's not how it goes down for me, and in the let's play series I'm following on youtube the youtubers often struggle a lot in air combat as well.

Edited April 7, 2014 by Monifix

[kabill]

I'm not quite sure Chris means one interceptor literally. The point is simply that if the UFOs are spread out, you can get away with much fewer aircraft and shoot everything down that comes within range, without problem and a single squadron (2 Foxtrots plus 1 Condor/Corsair) per base would be more than sufficient.

(In fairness, in my last playthrough I was able to shoot down the majority of UFOs I detected using that setup even as things stand; having the UFOs appear in dribs and drabs would make shooting down UFOs trivial.)

[Chris]

Yeah...perhaps one interceptor was a slight exaggeration, but the point is broadly what kabill just said.

[Monifix]

I'm not quite sure Chris means one interceptor literally. The point is simply that if the UFOs are spread out, you can get away with much fewer aircraft and shoot everything down that comes within range, without problem and a single squadron (2 Foxtrots plus 1 Condor/Corsair) per base would be more than sufficient.

(In fairness, in my last playthrough I was able to shoot down the majority of UFOs I detected using that setup even as things stand; having the UFOs appear in dribs and drabs would make shooting down UFOs trivial.)

Wait, so you are supposed to have like 5 interceptors pr. base? I've been going with 3 like you mention and I manage to still shoot down enough despite my lack of top gun pro air battling to where I have to airstrike some of the crash sites because I simply can't get to them all.

The issue for me isn't a lack of UFOs to shoot down, I realize that it might have sounded that way when I mentioned the ability to scout for UFO's when you needed some alien materials in the original games, but it's not that I find myself lacking alien materials much. It's simply this feeling that nothing is going on most of the time that bothers me, as well as the frustration of having more to do than I can handle when 5+ UFOs arrive at the same time.

I don't really understand why having them more spread out would mean that you could take down every single UFO. For instance in my recent Terror from the Deep playthrough, the second USO I detected was a battleship on the way to a terror mission. I had 2 long range torpedo launchers equipped and optimistically tried to engage it. Needless to say it blew my Barracuda craft out of the sky in 2 shots. I was not equipped to handle that and payed for it. That's a fair mechanic. Having so many UFOs arrive at the same time that you stand no chance taking them all down or doing all the ground missions is not a fair mechanic.

[Monifix]

Yeah...perhaps one interceptor was a slight exaggeration, but the point is broadly what kabill just said.

Okay, fair enough. I couldn't understand how that was possible

But yeah, I'd still like to ask if you have actually tried it with the UFOs more spread out, and are talking from experience? Because to me it seems that if the numbers are still the same, the UFO's would still manage to inflict the same amount of damage to my interceptors to where there would be periods where I would have to let UFOs go.

[wcanyon]

> Build three radars in each base to maximize detection range, they are way cheaper than new bases

I had no idea this was a thing... I thought they chained up in a inter-base fashion, not an intra-base fashion.

[kabill]

I don't really understand why having them more spread out would mean that you could take down every single UFO. For instance in my recent Terror from the Deep playthrough, the second USO I detected was a battleship on the way to a terror mission. I had 2 long range torpedo launchers equipped and optimistically tried to engage it. Needless to say it blew my Barracuda craft out of the sky in 2 shots. I was not equipped to handle that and payed for it. That's a fair mechanic. Having so many UFOs arrive at the same time that you stand no chance taking them all down or doing all the ground missions is not a fair mechanic.

It is a fair mechanic if the game is based around you not having to down all UFOs in order to win the game. Which, as you've stated above in your post, seems to be possible (and would accord with my experience as well).

The key point is that the UFOs in the game are broadly balanced against the (expected) tech level of the player. You never end up with a situation like you described from TFTD: you'll never get a top-tier UFO early in the game if you can't handle it. In other words, its expected that the player (with suitable skill and research/resource management) should be able to win any single individual air engagement at any given point in the game. As such, if the UFOs came in a constant stream rather than in waves, you'd be able to defeat every single one that you encounter. With the wave mechanism, you're never in a situation where you cannot possibly win an encounter, but you're seldom in a situation that you can win every single encounter that's thrown at you because you probably don't have the resources to deal with it.

I'd argue that's actually much more fair than the situation you describe in TFTD. In your example, there is literally nothing you could do to defeat that battleship. In Xenonauts, unless you screw up in some way (don't invest in air combat; screw up the minigame; whatever) any air combat can be won. You're rewarded for better play in the minigame by being able to get fighters back out quicker (i.e. less reload/repair time). And, while it's not necessary to do this to win the game, you can throw all your resources at air combat (i.e. more planes) in order to minimise the chance that you can't intercept all UFOs in a given wave. Basically, the entire air game, short of random UFO spawn locations, is within the player's hands in terms of how it's dealt with and how it plays out. I'd say that's more than fair.

But yeah, I'd still like to ask if you have actually tried it with the UFOs more spread out, and are talking from experience? Because to me it seems that if the numbers are still the same, the UFO's would still manage to inflict the same amount of damage to my interceptors to where there would be periods where I would have to let UFOs go.

Many (most?) of the UFOs that spawn lack escorts and therefore can be successfully intercepted by (usually 2) Foxtrots without *any* risk of damage. The only time I'd expect to take damage in air combat is when fighting against alien fighters (and even then its usually minimal) or against late game UFOs which have a weapon range comparable with torpedoes (meaning that you need good speed/timing management or your Foxtrots get fired on before the UFO goes down.)

As such, while I think the game could be redesigned in line with what you suggest, I think it would require a significant redesign of the air combat balance in order to make it work properly and not allow the player to destroy everything that comes into range.

Edited April 7, 2014 by kabill