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Author Topic: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment  (Read 48214 times)

Offline eleazar

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #15 on: February 06, 2008, 06:45:04 pm »
I think they should have a fixed price, and everything should have a fixed price, because this isn't an  XCOM tycoon game, or PHALANX clerk simulator. Buying and selling stuff should be very simple, and the focus should be put on production, because the workshop will be the main source for good gear, and not the black market.

Full agreement.


Ultimately, what'd be the downside? A couple of minutes to add a short code snippet?

More significant is the time spend testing and adjusting the model so it has no undesirable/unexpected effects.

Offline Winter

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2008, 12:28:18 am »
I'm not interested in random price fluctuations, they wouldn't do anything to help the game at all -- the only viable thing in my mind is the slowly rising prices as the campaign goes on and global demand for weapons increases while supplies decrease.

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Winter

Surrealistik

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #17 on: February 08, 2008, 03:03:55 am »
I completely disagree. It'd make for a more immersive game, even if it wasn't especially impactful from a gameplay perspective, and I don't think anyone can dismiss the value of prudent cosmetic enhancements. Either way though, income is never an issue as time progresses. Even if prices went up signifigantly over time it wouldn't matter. I regularily max out my cash within the first year without any problems whatsoever.

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #18 on: February 08, 2008, 03:08:07 am »
I regularily max out my cash within the first year without any problems whatsoever.

Uh, that is not a situation that will persist. Prices and income values will be adjusted to be sane.

Surrealistik

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #19 on: February 08, 2008, 03:20:03 am »
Good luck with that. Alien technology would have to sell for almost nothing in order to preclude this sort of situation, because not only do I max out my cash, I can roughly do so several times over. Downgrading the prices of the alien gear in response to the frequency of selling might work, but realistically, would the market for such novel weaponry consign them to the bargain bin after the sale of hundreds, even thousands? I think not (the world market is huge, that's less than a drop in the proverbial bucket). Even assuming that the rest of the world learned how to mass produce such technology, it would always command some sort of premium over conventional gear at least, and given the amount of weapons you recover per mission, coupled with inflation, which would also work in your favour, this is not a particularily viable solution to the issue. Inflation regardless of the amount is also for this reason rendered insignifigant. These problems readily exist even discounting profits from manufacturing.

The way I see it, you'd have to completely overhaul almost everything about UFO:AI's economics. Nerf national contributions, alien weapon yields, and increase non-equipment expenses (because increasing expenses for conventional gear means you have to increase yields for superior alien gear accordingly). Either way, inflation isn't going to have much of an impact, because you deal in alien tech, which always benefits from it, which you receive in copious amounts absolutely free, and which is always more lucrative than its conventional counterparts.

Basically, no matter how you slice it, inflation fades into complete irrelevance in terms of gameplay.

EDIT: Added minor clarifications.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2008, 05:09:25 am by Surrealistik »

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #20 on: February 08, 2008, 12:52:46 pm »
Yeah, the economics need to be completely rebalanced. Volunteers?

Ideally, the player should be able to run up a profit from nation contributions and equipment sales, but at a steady pace, offset by production costs, monthly expenditure and replacement of equipment and personnel. Building a new base should be within the player's financial grasp, but should be expensive enough to warrant a careful consideration of where to build the base, and later on make construction of non-base SAM sites a financially attractive alternative.

I think finding a good balance in all that is hard enough as it is. Price fluctuations or increases over time will only serve to complicate it more for only a small, if not insignificant, gain. That's why I support fixed prices across the board.

Offline TroubleMaker

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #21 on: February 08, 2008, 01:43:18 pm »
Price fluctuations or increases over time will only serve to complicate it more for only a small, if not insignificant, gain. That's why I support fixed prices across the board.
With all respect, I must disagree with you. Floating prices allows player to play the "secondary", FOREX-like game.

BTW, should I sell something, and its quantity on the market will eventually increase, regardless if it is X-Com developed weaponry, or alien tech, even if they're no researched yet. So, Earth's factories are capable to reroduce alen tech WITHOUT prior research it?

Well, we're - govermental organization, so, if the buyers of unknown technologies reasearching them, why can't we receive their results without wasting our time?

Getting results may be paid. For example, if some researchers (i.e. in Area-51 or in Kapustin Yar labs) already invented heavy lasers, we may BUY the blueprints of their invention and use latter to produce the guns we need. And the price may be calculated as a "distance" between our level of research on given tech and 100% multiplied by some quotient. Than closer we to final result, then lesser we'll pay.

Partly that idea become from the famous Civ-1 economic system: if you want to speed-up the building of something in your city, you pays twice than number of shields needed to finish the building normally. But if you will build something from scratch during one turn, you pays four-fold.

FrancoC

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #22 on: February 08, 2008, 01:55:50 pm »
Well it may not be as hard as it seems.

First make a rough rewamp of costs, make it a sort of beta release aivalable for download with binaries as many contributors may not be able to compile the code like myself.

I my opinion the current economy is not that bad in terms of complexity and realism, something should be changed for the first step:
1. Aircrafts cost is too low, make them ten times more
2. Buildings maintainance should cost more than personnel using them, there are so many "hidden" costs running a base that 20 scientists should not be the major cost compared to 2 research labs
3. reduce the monthly income, any way you prefer, ie: reduce the base amount for each nation, make them less happy.
This could be enough for the first step.

Second collect feedback and correct major inconsistences.
Then, only then, change the small items costs like weapons and ammo.

I whould not implement prices changes during the campaign, but if you like it, it could be done like in Age of Empires where when you sell any resource its price drops, when you buy it the price increase. Nothing more complex than that.

Please consider also to shift to weekly income vs month income so players don't have to wait a full month before being able to build or buy something may save the campaign from failure.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2008, 02:00:54 pm by FrancoC »

Offline BTAxis

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #23 on: February 08, 2008, 02:06:37 pm »
By the way FrancoC, weren't you working on an economy rebalance?

FrancoC

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #24 on: February 08, 2008, 02:15:12 pm »
 :)

Yes, I will post the scripts as patches in SF, please consider them good only for 2.2 as it may be obsolete if you introduce some changes in the code for the new version.

FrancoC

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #25 on: February 08, 2008, 02:32:56 pm »
Scripts are on SF, I can't test more because my home computer decided to take a break and I can't fix it soon.

nemchenk

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #26 on: February 11, 2008, 10:15:38 am »
I'll give them a whirl, since I've only just started the game. The first month was a bit weird, since I had just enough cash to start with to build the base I wanted, and yet on April 1st I ended up with over 3 million credits  :-\ Anyway, I'll give those scripts a try and report back...


nemchenk

FrancoC

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #27 on: February 11, 2008, 02:09:05 pm »
Within a couple of days I sould be able to post a new version including changed prices for aircrafts and buildings, maybe personnel costs.

Always consider it at alpha stage.

FrancoC

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #28 on: February 13, 2008, 11:48:44 am »
Hi, I posted on SF the new scripts.

Major changes:
- increased costs for aircraft and building maintainance;
- decreased costs for most human weapon and personnel;
- increased starting cash value;
- decreased monthly income.

Altough I did some playtest, please consider those only as a demonstration of what in my opinion should be the economy of the game, it could work as is, it is more likely that some adjustments are required.

Use the script and change any way you like. Please, just drop me a note if you like it or not.

nemchenk

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Re: Managing Mundane vs. Cutting Edge Gear and Equipment
« Reply #29 on: February 14, 2008, 05:34:42 pm »
Some initial thoughts:
* Assault Rifle/MG vs Sniper Rifle seems wrong. Rocket launcher seems too expensive -- balance should be via its ammo, which is already expensive?
* IR Goggles seem dirt-cheap.
* Flashbang vs Frag Grenade prices seem the wrong way around.
* Fuel Pods seem overly expensive for what they are.
* I'd also lower the price of the TR20 and Sparrowhawk Launchers, and up the price of their ammo. Also the Shiva ammo -- expensive gun, but should be cheap ammo. At the moment, they are pretty much the same for ammo costs.
* I think the Stiletto should not be buyable, as it's a Phalanx-only kind of unit as per 'pedia.

I'm going to have a quick think about how I would adjust these, and post back to see if you think so too...