Money again: Impossible to pay for 3 bases on hard difficulty?

[Viento]

Hiho!

I've been playing the hard campaign for some days now. Ingame I am in my fourth month. The difficulty of fights is great, the enemies' technology is faster (blaster rifles came up in the first 5 missions), it's even more fun than the normal mode => great.

Problem 1: It's impossible to build a third base if you want to have a bit of personell, which you need to research your stuff quickly.
Problem 2: If you know the game already, you know that you need pretty good coverage of the globe to fight against the ships that plant the virus and thus end the game. => 2 bases can't do that. Never. I managed to fail with 4 bases.

I have:
> 60 scientists
> 30 workers
> 25 soldiers.  ==> I ~500 000 cr for the personell alone
> 2 Bases (about 160 000)
> only 2 interceptors + 1 dropship

Consequence: I can pay for it if I do lots of missions and sell the stuff. But building a third base ruins me because the debts are too high.  

So just a question: How did you want the game to be played? Should Phallanx be so short of money? Are my numbers of scientists / workers just too high for this game mode?

Most important question: is it meant to be that way?

If "yes", I'm fine with that (I just started as I did in normal mode).
If "not", now you know about it.

Andy


 

[rynait]

Hello Viento and all...

in response to the ruinious funding mechanism recently implemented few months ago... I am currently "fudging" along... in easy mode, trying to out think the base construction costs.

in old revisions (ver 2.3) that I played, I was able to build 6 bases,  using this scheme.

1 or 2 base is "maximum" operations  that is, handle 50 scientists, 30 workers, between 8 to 20 soldiers, alien containment, missle defense, hangars, etcetera... all lumped and shared together (in two bases).

the other 4 bases serves as "minimum" operations. each contains one of those building ... storage, command, radar, powerplant, defenses, maybe a single hangar, living quarter (necessary to defend against cleverly !@#$ass aliens). I don't place dropships in minimum operating bases. Of the soldiers, I rotate soldiers and should not contain more than six soldier in one minimum bases.

This schema allows me to establish optimum radar coverage, transporting injured (result of alien attacking) or rotating soldiers to the maximum using transport screen.

So compounding to this is the dev's surprises in their WIP's. Example the laser defenses. The appearance of new base building might restrict choices (based on fundings) between upgrading your bases and deploying new bases trying to cover the globe with radars.

So I feel that in a way dev's are not finished with the surprises and predict balance or mod's to occurr on funding mechanisms.

I had wondered on making a singular building variant; a combined 'half' of command & 'half' of living-quarter mod. For sake of this post, calling this building temporarily "subcommand".

This is at 2/3 cost of total (command and living-quarter) cost. Somehow restrict "subcommand" support capacity to four command-required buildings (I would pick radar, one defense, power unit and one extra). And perhaps make this building researchable after alien computer technology is researched.

Is always easier to fantasize than do the hardwork.

Roy

[geever]

I've been playing the hard campaign for some days now. Ingame I am in my fourth month. The difficulty of fights is great, the enemies' technology is faster (blaster rifles came up in the first 5 missions), it's even more fun than the normal mode => great.

Problem 1: It's impossible to build a third base if you want to have a bit of personell, which you need to research your stuff quickly.
Problem 2: If you know the game already, you know that you need pretty good coverage of the globe to fight against the ships that plant the virus and thus end the game. => 2 bases can't do that. Never. I managed to fail with 4 bases.

You should not be able to cover the Earth in 4 months. So I say it's okay.

-geever

[rynait]

You should not be able to cover the Earth in 4 months. So I say it's okay.

-geever

that is definitely true.  with my approach on six bases with old revision... I build one base in two or three 'game' months.

this is because you need 100k to acquire land and entryway. then additional funds for individual buildings.

However with new revision constructing second base (in easy mode) took me three game-month of waiting to acquire the land and suffer "severe-fund manipulating" to include command, radar, powerplant, storage and defense. Not even enough credits to build living quarter.

(started playing with new revision), I am in fourth month... mulled over the figures and realized, adding Living quarters must happen approximately two more months.  that is alot longer to construct a minimum base (total of five game-months for a "minimum" base without hangar!!!)

 (only easy way... shoot down more ships in a month and sell 'alien-junk', generating extra revenue)

Roy