Geoscape Balance - V21 Experimental 6

[kabill]

Ah, ok. I wasn't clear what the intent was but that makes more sense now.

In principle, I actually think that's a really cool idea. It could even be extended with different mission types having different consequences and thereby creating some strategic choice in the geoscape game in terms of which UFOs to prioritize. On the other hand, it does rely on the player understanding the mechanics behind the alien invasion ticker; if the player doesn't know that different UFOs might have different effects on the game they can't act in accordance with that. I guess that's the critical issue.

[Max_Caine]

Got ya covered there - hopefully Chris will include the ufo mission analysis mod in the community mod pack and the first mission you can pick up is the "scouting mission" which just happens to hint heavily what happens if you let scouts flit about. I got to thinking about it after realising the yield from a crashed corvette is higher than a landed scout (which makes sense I guess, corvettes are much larger than Scouts) - there's just no incentive to go after even landed scouts. All the different mission types do have their own settings for increasing the ticker - they're all set to zero. I'm guessing that te events they generate are considered enough.

[kabill]

That'd do it. (I see you've come fully prepared for this discussion!)

And even if it doesn't happen, it'd make an interesting mod.

EDIT: *But* - Scout mission UFOs don't land. Only Research mission UFOs can land (aside from the obvious base-related missions), at least according to the game files. It could be added in, though (I wasn't actually sure if this worked, but I just checked and it does).

Edited April 30, 2014 by kabill

[Max_Caine]

Ugh. The whole thing kind of hinges around the thought that ufos on scouting missions can land. If that's not part of the Grand Vision, so much for that idea, then.

EDIT: How about this one! Okay, right, landing ships do supply run, 'kay. This doesn't do anything other than provide a regular supply of landing ships to pirate, a-la OG. But what if a successful supply run boosted ticker points? That would give a reason, well, more of a reason to take down supply ships (other than aforementioned pirating).

Edited April 30, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Caaygun]

Once upon a time, scouts on scout missions would cause the ticker to increment for every game minute they were on the field, so an incentive to shoot down scouts was to help slow down the speed of the invasion. I've been experimenting with this and was wondering what people might think of bringing this back. Perhaps a scout might increase the ticker by 0.0005 ticks per minute which works out as 0.03 ticks per hour or 0.72 ticks per day, so even if you miss out on early scouts the invasion doesn't boost that hard (seeing as the big boys don't start appearing before the ticker gets to 200-300) and scouts almost dry up later on.

I think this is a great idea. Research mission Ufos could do that and the usual abductions they do. So now there is more incentive to take them out.

[kabill]

Ugh. The whole thing kind of hinges around the thought that ufos on scouting missions can land. If that's not part of the Grand Vision, so much for that idea, then.

EDIT: How about this one! Okay, right, landing ships do supply run, 'kay. This doesn't do anything other than provide a regular supply of landing ships to pirate, a-la OG. But what if a successful supply run boosted ticker points? That would give a reason, well, more of a reason to take down supply ships (other than aforementioned pirating).

Well it's an easy enough change (litterally two excel cells). I'm not sure why having more UFO landings would be problematic (more landings means more choice between resources and GC difficulty; and it also takes some of the pressure off the air combat game by providing an another way to defeat UFOs rather than shooting them down). Even without any other changes, I think there's actually a good case to be made for more UFO landings generally (even if it's just adding that property to Ground Attack and Scout missions; it doesn't really make sense for the others).

But perhaps this discussion has been had before?

In terms of supply missions and the ticker, again I like that. However, I think there's a strong imperative already to attack alien bases as they do a lot of funding damage. Adding in further penalties from the supply ships may simply make this imperative stronger.

[DNK]

Haven't played the new release, but I have to agree:

- androns from the start is too much

- corvettes from the start is too much

- both muck up an otherwise solid early game progression (a bit slow, but that's better than BAM! at the start)

[Chris]

Haven't played the new release, but I have to agree:

- androns from the start is too much

- corvettes from the start is too much

- both muck up an otherwise solid early game progression (a bit slow, but that's better than BAM! at the start)

I'm not really sure your opinion counts if you've not actually played the new release

[Chris]

The hotfix today is going to move Corvettes back a couple of weeks and we'll review the situation from there.

[kabill]

Regarding the effect of fuel on autoresolve:

IIRC, the effect of fuel on autoresolve kicks in at around 15-20% fuel remaining. However, as I realised yesterday, having 15-20% fuel remaining is not the same as having no/little combat fuel. A plane with such a small amount of fuel is already probably heading back to base and has no fuel left to fight with, therefore at the moment the system doesn't really model reamining fuel very well.

For example, yesterday I had a plane returning to base after running out of fuel chasing a UFO. They were intercepted by an alien fighter, and the autoresolver gave me a 100% chance to win even though if I'd have done it manually my planes would have fallen out of the sky.

Don't know if this is possible, but could you change it so that it factors the amount of combat time instead (e.g. penalties for 20 second combat time or less). That should solve the issue, I think.

[Max_Caine]

Quite a while ago Chris had made autopsies automatic. They were lore elements which weren't as interesting to research because you didn't get neat toys like armour or tanks. I was thinking about the story-releated research topics and I realise that I can and do put these off as the story of the game isn't as important as teching up for Wolf armour or a Maurauder. I'm not certain how other people feel about that, but I don't think the story research topics should play second fiddle. I believe when it comes to story, it should be able to compete on a reasonably even, if somewhat lumpy playing field. Then I thought "well, how do you do that easily with three weeks to go?". One way would be to provide an immediate temporal reward. The damage bonus you get for doing an alien analysis can stack with other research damage bonuses so if you got, say, a pan-alien 5% bonus for doing the alien interrogations, they would add up and be worthwhile doing more immediately then they are at the moment. Or the alien interrogation could be a gatekeeper for the analysis research (doing an analysis is easier when you know how to talk to the speices involved!).

[kabill]

Quite a while ago Chris had made autopsies automatic. They were lore elements which weren't as interesting to research because you didn't get neat toys like armour or tanks. I was thinking about the story-releated research topics and I realise that I can and do put these off as the story of the game isn't as important as teching up for Wolf armour or a Maurauder. I'm not certain how other people feel about that, but I don't think the story research topics should play second fiddle. I believe when it comes to story, it should be able to compete on a reasonably even, if somewhat lumpy playing field. Then I thought "well, how do you do that easily with three weeks to go?". One way would be to provide an immediate temporal reward. The damage bonus you get for doing an alien analysis can stack with other research damage bonuses so if you got, say, a pan-alien 5% bonus for doing the alien interrogations, they would add up and be worthwhile doing more immediately then they are at the moment. Or the alien interrogation could be a gatekeeper for the analysis research (doing an analysis is easier when you know how to talk to the speices involved!).

Yeah, I end up doing the same.

Personally, I think using the plot techs is a better solution in terms of making them important. I'm not sure small bonuses like the one you suggest would be enough of an incentive for me otherwise.

However, if plot techs are used as gatekeepers to other research projects, that will need to be very clearly signposted so that players know they need to be following the plot in order to progress their research.

Looking at the research file, I notice that 'Alien Interrogation' and the actual alien interrogation techs don't interact at all. Using 'Alien Interrogation' as a pre-requisite for the specific interrogations might work, then? (Actually, you possibly already meant that in terms of "analysis research". I read that first as being non-specific, oops).

The officer ones are more tricky. I guess you could use them as a gateway into things like the base upgrade techs (you need an officer to make sense of the stuff you've acquired?). Or something like that.

It's worth noting that there's another solution, and that's simply to make all of the plot techs free along with all the others that don't give an explicit advantage. I'm not sure I'm convinced by this, personally, but worth mentioning in any case.

[Max_Caine]

Yes, Alien Interrogation would seague very well into the specific Alien Analysis types, but I'm uncertain what the Officer Interrogation would seague into.

[kabill]

Just expanding on the idea of using officer interrogations for base upgrade related things:

When you first complete an alien base, you get the Alien Base Core research topic for free. That could indicate that a lot of tech has been recovered from the base but the research team don't know how to operate it properly and a high-ranking alien would help with this. Base Core + Officer Interrogation then becomes the prerequisite for the base upgrade (you could make officer interrogation a pre-req for the alien communications array as well, potentially).

Given that you can capture an alien officer before then, or at least during your first base assault, it doesn't necessarily have much of an impact on current game balance if you pursue it (Hmm, unless you get an Andron base). Base upgrade is also pretty good, and well worth the effort of capturing and interrogating an officer (implicitly, it also makes alien interrogation more desirable since you'd need to do that first).

[kabill]

Sorry about double-post; different topic.

Short version: The Hunter Rocket tech is pointless at the moment for a variety of reasons. It might be a good idea to scrap the tech entirely and allow a free choice between machine gun and rockets from the start, or alternative scrap the hunter research topic and move the rocket tech to where the Hunter tech currently is.

Long version (too many words for such a minor issue, really): Playing today, I found the hunter rocket upgrade tech pointless for three reasons:

- Right at the beginning of the game, there's many things I want to be researching more than it. Getting better weapons/armour for my soldiers is much better than giving the hunter some rockets, because the latter is only affecting one unit while the former is affecting many.

- Even if I did research it, it's very quickly made obsolete by Heavy Lasers. In my current game, I had heavy lasers by mid-October at the latest, and it may well have been sooner than that. (I think that's been exacerbated by vehicle weapons now being free upgrades, since previously you'd at least have had to also build the pulse laser for some additional time and expense).

- It doesn't lead anywhere, so if I don't research it before I get heavy lasers, I never have to research it (and it hangs all ugly-like in my research screen while I'm researching vastly more important things).

For all these reasons, I think the tech should go. At best, it's practically worthless; at worst its a red-herring for new players who might spend time researching it because it sounds cool, only to find an hour's play time later that they've gotten the even cooler pulse laser instead.

There's two possible solutions I can think of:

- Scrap the hunter rocket tech entirely, and have the weapon freely available along with the machine gun. Basically, the player can choose whether they want the less powerful but not over-damaging machine gun, or the more powerful but over-damagey rocket.

- Scrap the *hunter* tech and make the hunter buildable from the start. In turn, move the hunter rocket tech to where the hunter tech currently is.

Personally, I think the former solution is better, since the latter still makes the tech entirely skipable. It marginally buffs the hunter early on, but I've only seen complaints about vehicles being underpowered recently so I'm not sure that matters. It also removes a tech from the early game, freeing up a little research time. However, this could easily be added onto the Hunter/Foxtrot techs, and in any case changes over the last few months have added more to the early tech game such that losing what amounts to a filler tech I don't think is going to affect balance much at all.

[dpelectric]

IMHO, vehicles are all but worthless as they stand. They would need major upgrades for me to even consider using them in place of skilled soldiers

[legit1337]

IMHO, vehicles are all but worthless as they stand. They would need major upgrades for me to even consider using them in place of skilled soldiers

I agree completely, vehicle buffs have been needed for quite some time.

[Caaygun]

IMHO, vehicles are all but worthless as they stand. They would need major upgrades for me to even consider using them in place of skilled soldiers

I have to agree with this as well. Currently, researching aircraft upgrades and then soldier upgrades outweigh heavily the benefits that could be gained from researching tanks. So I always completely skip tanks in favor of more vital research, and just take 2 soldiers instead who provide much more facility in the field anyway.

[Gauddlike]

So what changes to vehicles would make people consider using them in the field?

Would they be better off as scouts with longer visual range and fast movement?

Maybe made into stronger tanks with much better armour?

How about extending the aircraft recovery rules to ground vehicles so they can be repaired if lost in battle?

Would people like them to be a stronger offensive platform with more powerful weapons?

How about further increasing ammunition so they just keep on giving?

Would secondary weapons like smoke launchers make them a better support platform?

How about if they shared the Sebillians immunity to smoke (built in sensors)?

Would just removing the research requirement make them an option or is it purely their performance on the ground that makes them less worthwhile than taking soldiers?

Would removing the soldier cost for taking them along help with that, at least in the chinook as it has plenty of extra space?

[Skitso]

I'd like them as a mobile cover. So much more durable and with maybe smoke launchers.

[StellarRat]

IMO, a larger ammo load, making them recoverable, and a buff to Hunter MG accuracy would go a LONG way towards "fixing" the vehicle balance. In fact, it would fix it, IMO. I find them quite useful now, but not able to fight long enough to justify the expense. Chris has been very quiet on this topic, so I don't know if any changes are planned though.

Edited May 12, 2014 by StellarRat

[kabill]

I find them quite useful now, but not able to fight long enough to justify the expensive.

Yeah, I think that's the problem that I have with them as well. I use them, and I think they definitely have a utility that's at least close to the two soldiers they replace. But they require sufficient investment, in terms of research time, base space, money and resources that they shouldn't be equal to two soldiers but *better*.

(Hmm - counter argument: soldiers take up space. In fact, a garage can house 3 vehicles in total and thus counts as 6 soldiers work of space, which is close to half of a living quarters which takes up twice as much base space. So they're actually close on space, although having more than one vehicle at a time is almost pointless since you can never take more than one on a mission at one time, meaning a lot of that space is wasted.

Also, soldiers cost money to develop, too. A soldier in Wolf armour and a standard laser weapon costs what, $80,000. Since you don't need to pay for vehicle weapon upgrades any more, the outlay on the vehicle itself is the only expense. I can't remember what vehicles cost, but I'm not sure it's as much as the $160,000 you'd need to pay to equip two soldiers, so actually vehicles might be less expensive than equivalent soldiers. Assuming you don't lose the vehicle, of course).

Personally, I think I'd be happy with some increase in their toughness (armour rather than HP) and a small increase in their ammo count. Making them recoverable also seems sensible given the aircraft recovery system What's more, since you only lose weapons and armour if you completely fail a mission (and I think it's very rare that you lose a mission which you couldn't have at some point aborted), vehicles are basically the only piece of equipment that you can lose and need to replace at the moment. If recovery was considered to be too good along with other buffs, I think an increase to vehicle costs would be reasonable to balance that out (say +1/4-1/2?)

[Gauddlike]

Thinking about it vehicle recovery is probably more work than it first appeared to me.

There doesn't seem to be a repair/rearm system for vehicles as there was with aircraft so that cannot simply be reworked and there is no hospital/healing system to be reworked for them either.

[StellarRat]

Thinking about it vehicle recovery is probably more work than it first appeared to me.

There doesn't seem to be a repair/rearm system for vehicles as there was with aircraft so that cannot simply be reworked and there is no hospital/healing system to be reworked for them either.

Huh? Are you saying it's easier or harder?

[Max_Caine]

What I believe Gauddlike is referring to is there are no existing mechanisms for vehicles that could be tweaked. Something would have to be made out of whole cloth.