[v22.8] Researching Heavy MAG before Heavy Plasma downgrades base turrets

[mekasha]

Not entirely sure how I managed to do it, but I unlocked the research option for MAG weapons and Plasma weapons at the same time (not sure if that should even be possible?). I did MAG weapons first, then Heavy Mag weapons. I had to manually change aircraft cannons from lasers to MAG weapons, but my base turrets upgraded from Laser Batteries to MAG Batteries.

I later finished out plasma research just for kicks; when Heavy Plasma finished, my base turrets turned into Plasma Batteries. Trying to demolish and construct more continues to build Plasma Batteries.

[legit1337]

Hmm... that might be trouble to fix.

The most reasonable way to code that system in the first place would be to have a tiered priority system.

If mag

else if plasma

else if laser

else if ballistic

That way you have the latest technology no matter what order you researched them. If it is not done that way and just upgrades to whatever you just researched... that is a problem.

Or maybe it is not a problem in the logic and just a simple bug involving flags or something.

[kabill]

Simplest solution to me would simply be to make MAG weapons have Plasma weapons as a prerequisite (and Heavy MAG have Heavy Plasma as a pre-req). It means you can't skip plasma research by going straight for MAG weapons, but you can still choose not to build plasma weapons if you're shooting for the latter.

[Caaygun]

There are many such issues with the research tree, also in armor, tanks, lower grade weapons, reportedly also for alien officer interrogation if you capture a base before you do normal interrogation. Higher tier items should have lower counterparts as prerequisite.

[mekasha]

I'm still not 100% sure how I managed to unlock Plasma+MAG weapons at the same time. Both research options became available at the same time after researching one of the plasma weapons, I wish I had paid more attention to which now.

[kabill]

Looking at the game files, it should be impossible to unlock Plasma and MAG weapons at exactly the same time. Plasma weapons require two of Heavy Plasma Rifle, Sniper Plasma and Assault Plasma, while MAG weapons need all of those and Plasma Cannon too. Even if you already had Plasma Cannon researched, two of the other pre-requisites would unlock Plasma before you could do the third and get MAG (unless you researched them and completed them at the same time?).

EDIT: That's not to say you didn't, it's just to say that this shouldn't be happening!

Actually, just noticed two other issues:

- The alien battle rifle has a huge (240 day) research time but doesn't seem to lead either to plasma or MAG weapons, making it redundant.

- In principle, you could skip both Laser and Plasma tech and still be able to research MAG weapons.

[Chris]

Yes, I've now made MAG weapons require the Battle Rifle.