Research Time

[DrunkZombie]

Hi.  Overall I love the game.  It is a nice modern version of Xcom with improvements in the right places.  One question I have is about the time it takes to research.  Maybe I am doing something wrong, but it seems to take a long time to research things.  I've researched the inititial Laser Tech, Alien Origins and a couple of alien corpses.  I built a lab in my second base and hired 10 more scientist, giving me a total of 20.  This way I have two research projects going at a time.  Still it seems to take months to complete a project.  At this rate I feel it will take decades to get most of the projects done.

[Nokim]

Total 20? Are you joking? You should have at least 40 on one of you bases for quick research. I would recommend you to build 4-5 labs in first base. This will left you enough space for soldiers and interceptors. Don't build defence on first base - soldiers and SAM sites (if you want) near it is enough. On start you can buy most of required items and you need more research then production. So the second base is for quick production - 4-5 workshops (with at least one UFO yard near it). It's always better to have one big team on one project then many small teams on many projects.

[H-Hour]

Research times for the early tech -- when players have just 10-20 scientists -- are a bit long. We hope to balance this a bit better for 2.5. Thanks for playing.

[geisthund]

I too started with 10 researchers in my first multifunctional base.
I soon realized after building my second base (with multifunctional intent) that research was taking too long, so I made it a specialized research base.
From that point on my bases were either research, manufacturing or multifunctional depending on location. A research base typically had 50 scientists, and a manufacturing 50 engineers. (it took quite long to recruit so many engineers, but it really paid off nearer the end of the game... thus far anyway)
Something I liked was that bases can be close together - therefore I have a cluster of manufacturing bases built around a ufo storage for stripping down UFOs fast, and for making new ones in tandem.

[Tyrranus]

the lack of scientists and manufacturers combined with tech times IS a crippling bitch but in my thread http://ufoai.org/forum/index.php/topic,6863.0.html as well as here the developers have stated they're workin on those issues so here's hoping for 2.5!!



....now if only I could play as the aliens sorry Devs I had to!

[Nokim]

....now if only I could play as the aliens sorry Devs I had to!

I would like that too. But alien economics (resources distribution) should be different from PHALANX so it's something not understandable why aliens with their super technology is so weak and limited in resources. That's something that bothers me - why they don't keep attacking my bases? They already know it's location. Only nine attacks (all at same base) during campaign - it's strange. There is no any defense like missile or laser batteries, SAM sites near base etc. Just pair of Stilettos at any base shooting down anything smaller then Harvester.

[DrunkZombie]

Total 20? Are you joking? You should have at least 40 on one of you bases for quick research. I would recommend you to build 4-5 labs in first base. This will left you enough space for soldiers and interceptors. Don't build defence on first base - soldiers and SAM sites (if you want) near it is enough. On start you can buy most of required items and you need more research then production. So the second base is for quick production - 4-5 workshops (with at least one UFO yard near it). It's always better to have one big team on one project then many small teams on many projects.

Thanks for the advice.  If so many scientist are needed, why do the labs hold so few?  In Xcom I used to use about 100 scientist, but you only needed 2 labs to do that.  When I saw that this games labs only held 10 I assumed things were scaled down.

[Triaxx2]

I think it'd be easier to get research moving if we got new recruits a little faster.