Funding Review

Hi there,

Just a thought: The regional funding committee screen (while is very useful and informative, and well designed) leaves me wanting more. Would it be feasible to add a secondary tab (akin to the soldier review tab that shows after the mission complete screen) that shows a sort of simplistic "Income Statement" (Or Statement of comprehensive income if you like) view of income and expenditure.

Perhaps its just the accountant in me, but I don't seem to have a full understanding of where my money goes. Just a thought, it might be nice to add immersion.

What do you guys think?

I might be wrong, but I seem to recall seeing figures of where all my money is being spent.. Base screen? Can't remember and am updating to 9.4 atm.

Yeah, But isn't that base specific?

What I'm thinking is a total review of the finances. Which would makes sense since it's a performance review, so understanding of financial performance is kinda important.

I suppose It's not essential, the game is about beating back an invasion of aliens, not turning a proffit. I just thought it would be a nice feature for those on harder difficulties to get an understanding of where all their money is going.

If you were going to have a data page then it would also be nice to see the graphs that the funding countries based their decisions on.

UFO activity by area, amount of damage Sathra has done to their economy with hi-ex etc.

If you were going to have a data page then it would also be nice to see the graphs that the funding countries based their decisions on.

UFO activity by area, amount of damage Sathra has done to their economy with hi-ex etc.

Hmm... that might require more coding that it would actually be worth. The budget finance review page I'm suggesting already exists (in a form) in the game, and just needs summerising.

Adding in line graphs and such could be asking too much. But a review per region of UFO activity is a fantastic idea. So, clicking on the USA (for example) will show the number of casualties and economic impact of the alien activify in that area.

That would be nice to have. Actually. I like knowing exactly what does when and where it does it.

Hmm... that might require more coding that it would actually be worth. The budget finance review page I'm suggesting already exists (in a form) in the game, and just needs summerising.

Adding in line graphs and such could be asking too much. But a review per region of UFO activity is a fantastic idea. So, clicking on the USA (for example) will show the number of casualties and economic impact of the alien activify in that area.

It depends on how that sort of information is already going to be available to the player.

If it is going to be there in some form then summarising it at the end fo each month would be useful.

If it isn't going to be available then I want graphs!

Was playing a lot over the weekend, and I couldn't figure out why I could not pay my wages. Eventaully I figured that I can get the info I wanted by looking at the Base summary for each of my main bases. This was a bit of a chore, all told, but at lest the info was there.

I still feel that a onepager, detailing expenses for the all bases would be needed to avoid the "can't pay wages" thing.

Yes, I think it'd be useful. I'm sure we'll run the new UI past the forum when we've finished planning out all the screens. That'd be the time to demand we add the finance 1-pager. I imagine it'd take the form of a button on the Geoscape.

Adding to the 'can't pay wages' message. Can't the system work to where the governments of the world pay us 'then' we pay our soldiers, maintenance and engineers?

As for the graphs, in the original X-Com there were many ot them.

I think that was the first analytic chart package I seriously used.

In the end I did not find them very useful, probably due to the low resolutions used in those days...

In Xenonauts I would add a single graph, Activity per country/month. I would add a button to the geoscape background (under xenopedia where there is some empty space). When clicked, time would freeze, and some graphs would be shown on the continents. The world map should be displayed without the day/night overlay. Each graph could be a line or a bar chart, showing time on the x axis and ufo activity/xcom missions (two different series) on the y axis.

Clicking on any button would take the player back to the standard visualizations (base, geoscape, xenopedia, etc).

With today possibilites we could draw incredible graphs!

Look at these, as an example: http://www.layerscape.org/Content/Index/384 around the 1:45 mark. A 3d chart of seismic actvity is shown on a fully zoomable and movable earth map.

All it needs is a simple screen that lists income from various countries (with an indicator if the income from that country has dropped or increased since last month), other sources (sellign stuff) and total income.

Then you have total bases upkeep expenses (for all bases), total wages and other stuff.