Technical support > Feature Requests

I want to fix the quirky economy

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LordHavoc:
The economy in UFO:AI is very strange, I'm nearly broke all the time because there is no funding from nations, alien equipment sells for nearly nothing, production costs are insane, and I can't produce equipment for sale to make a profit like in the original game.

Particularly scary is the pricing of IR Goggles, which are comparable in pricing to BUILDINGS.  (187000c to produce, 18700c to buy/sell)

I would like to apply these changes:
[*]Disable autosell at end of mission, which confuses newbies immensely and is annoying when a soldier dies because it sells their inventory.
[*]Change buy cost multiplier from 1 to 3.
[*]Change sell cost multiplier from 1 to 2.
[*]Change production cost multiplier from 10 to 1.
[*]Rebalance all item/aircraft/building/base prices to make the economy work.[/list]

Additionally I would like to implement funding from nations (which I know is planned).

This would mean that manufacturing is a way to earn money (as in the original game) not something to avoid like the plague for fear of going broke (as it is now).

And that selling items on the market is only for dumping unneeded inventory, not a second storage area.  (In the original game it was not possible to buy things back from the market)

Mertu:
My thoughts.  Take or disregard as you will...

Once I figured out it was auto-selling equipment, I didn't have too much of a problem with it.  But I agree that there should be multipliers for buying/selling and that won't go well with auto-sell everything.

Auto-keep would work, but I found that rather annoying in X-Com... especially when getting close to a base's storage limit.  A more advanced option would be a post-mission yard sale: a list like the current Purchase screen showing amount of each item gained and the ability to sell it then and there, before going back to the geoscape.

(Listing how many of each item is already at the base and the ability to transfer to other bases would be useful additions.)


To me, the X-Com manufacturing system always felt like a cheat. I think it was the laser rifle (or something like that) that didn't use any elerium on construction, was relatively quick to build, and sold for a good amount over the cost.  After about four or five months, the disposition of the nations was financially irrelevant.

So I like the concept of building costing more than buying.  (I mean it costs less to buy a TV than it would to make the same thing from scratch.)  But I do agree the multiplier is a little extreme.


As a player, I would lobby for a prototyping system: No researched items can be bought until you've built one. (You could make arguments for and against the sold items being able to be purchased back before prototyping.)  The prototype costs some factor more than the base manufacturing cost (like x1.5 or x1.2).

Once you've built the prototype, you can build more yourself for the base manufacturing cost and/or the quantity of the item will increase in the Purchase screen.

(For simplicity, I'd argue that prototyping a weapon automatically prototypes the basic ammunition.  Alternate ammunition like plasma grenades/rockets may need to be prototyped.)


As for the manufacturing costs, I agree 190,000c for a 19,000c item is extreme (especially early in the game).  Maybe a sliding multiplier for manufacturing and prototyping costs using the base cost...

A very rough table:


--- Code: ---Base Cost       Manufacture Cost        Prototype Cost
0-999c          x10                     x20
1,000-9,999c    x5                      x8
10,000c-100kc   x2 (minimum 50,000c)    x3
+100,000c       x1.5 (min 200,000c)     x1.8

--- End code ---


(Now +100,000c items would cost less to manufacture than to purchase--given a x2 sell multiplier, but I'm assuming items in this price range are ships or high-end items that would require additional components and long production times that would make production for profit inviable.)

For example, I think a Bolter Rifle has a purchase price of 4,500c.  Assume that the purchase price is x3 the base price, so the base price is 4,500/3 or 1,500c.

The prototype of the Bolter Rifle would cost 8 * 1,500, or 12,000c.  After that the manufacture price would be 5 * 1,500, or 7,500c.  (But after being prototyped, more would appear in the purchase screen over time and only cost 4,500c.)

The manufacture and prototype multipliers could also be tweaked based on the difficulty level.


Thinking about it, you could do away with the whole workshop/workers system.  Instead, manufacturing capability is completely “out-sourced” and tied to nation happiness--the better you do, the more external resources you have.  But that could get complicated from both coding and user angles and is a whole other topic.

LordHavoc:

--- Quote from: "Mertu" ---Auto-keep would work, but I found that rather annoying in X-Com... especially when getting close to a base's storage limit.  A more advanced option would be a post-mission yard sale: a list like the current Purchase screen showing amount of each item gained and the ability to sell it then and there, before going back to the geoscape.

(Listing how many of each item is already at the base and the ability to transfer to other bases would be useful additions.)
--- End quote ---


My main arguement for autokeep is that it is the path of least surprise for the user, additionally it is difficult to fix/improve the current code for autosell (for instance autokeeping equipment that was brought in by soldiers who died is not currently implemented and would be difficult to implement).

Also in many cases the aliens are the source of your weaponry.


--- Quote from: "Mertu" ---To me, the X-Com manufacturing system always felt like a cheat. I think it was the laser rifle (or something like that) that didn't use any elerium on construction, was relatively quick to build, and sold for a good amount over the cost.  After about four or five months, the disposition of the nations was financially irrelevant.
--- End quote ---


Manufacturing and selling a product that no one else makes is bound to produce profit.

Manufacturing prices for conventional technology should be higher than purchasing mass-produced items on the global market, however in XCom you could not even make items that you could buy, this made more sense.

However it is probable that ALL your equipment is custom designed for the purpose of defense against aliens, and is of no interest on the global market, so all of it would be special ordered from military contractors and thus very expensive (but still less than it would cost to make it yourself).

It also makes no sense at all that you can buy things on the market that you have researched, as clearly PHALANX is the only organization that knows how to make them.


--- Quote from: "Mertu" ---Thinking about it, you could do away with the whole workshop/workers system.  Instead, manufacturing capability is completely “out-sourced” and tied to nation happiness--the better you do, the more external resources you have.  But that could get complicated from both coding and user angles and is a whole other topic.
--- End quote ---


In the original game the backstory indicated that you have the best labs and workshops in the world and hire only the best scientistis and engineers from around the world, and have direct global communication with universities and other organizations around the world, these labs and workshops are very expensive to operate but are completely up to the task of researching or manufacturing any known earth or alien technology of military interest.

This explains why you can make a profit by selling technology that you are the only producer of on the entire global market!

Personally I thought it was exceedingly cool that you had multiple income sources (salvage, production, funding).

Czert:
I agree with manufacturing cost are simply to big, my idea is make production cheper than buying equipment, but bigger than selling it (for human equipment - avaivalbe HE is currently long time produced and manufacturing perfected, but for new eresearched HE, you can make small profit)).and on alien eqipment you can make (bigger than with new HE) profit.

HaJo:
I suggest to have an unlimited market of old human equipment (rifles, ammo etc.),
and production only for new & alien items (medikit, laser weapons etc).

E.g. I would like to outfit a team of knife-throwers, but currently you
cannot buy 80 combat-knifes on the world-market :?

After a few month, the new items could get available also on the market
(a few at high prices first), and then get more+cheaper every few month.

I think the men in the workshop should make interesting high-tech items,
not boring old stuff...

This way, the player would have a choice between old, low-tech stock-items,
and new, high-tech, but limited (via capture or production) items.

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