Help us out: how many scientists do you have?

[H-Hour]

I'd very much appreciate it if those who are playing 2.5-dev would take the time to answer the following question.

What difficulty are you playing at?
What is the current date in-game?
How many scientists do you have?

Please, only those playing 2.5-dev. I'm trying to adjust research times to fit our new campaign schedule.

[Anarch Cassius]

Standard.

August 16th, 2084.

30 40* employed, with 44 potential candidates availible.

*Typo, sorry.

[Histidine]

Loading up an old save:

Standard
5 Feb 2085
80 scientists spread over three bases. Many of them will be laid off in a month or two when I run out of things to research, though this was with an older version of the game (pre-Hybrid Rocket, even).

(note that I've had that many scientists since at least 1 Oct 2084 where my previous save is, likely earlier)

[Nokim]

Hard
50 on main base and 20 hired for non-priority projects on other base in mid-game additionally
2085 May 28 (alien base wiped out, carrier shoot down, xvi not researched yet)

[H-Hour]

Thanks for the responses. If anyone else wants to add more, please do. I have another question to add to the mix. How are your finances? Is it difficult to pay for 70-80 scientists or are you rolling in the cash after 5-6 months?

[Histidine]

I have another question to add to the mix. How are your finances? Is it difficult to pay for 70-80 scientists or are you rolling in the cash after 5-6 months?

All nations kept at Exuberant, so monthly funding more than covers operating costs. The remainder isn't actually all that much when it comes to things like base expansion, but selling surplus alien equipment generally takes care of that.

[Anarch Cassius]

Well my 40 about to be 50 employed scientists are relatively cheap to pay, it's getting them the labs they need that hurts. I pull in 700,000 a month now and get to keep nearly 300,000 after expenses. All in all I felt like I have enough money for all I NEED to do and money leftover to improve Phalanx overall.

Really I felt like 2.4 had nice rates of happiness gain and loss for nations and 2.5 is babying me. There are so few UFOs I can't really miss them... the only trouble is abusing the range of Sparrowhawks to bring down fighters. Anything that gets in range of one is vaporized, no chance to win, but a Stilletto can just bomb them from outside their range until they go down. This would seem abusable and broken were those missiles not rather pricey. Even so it may be worth looking in to. There's never a fair fight with Fighters, one side or the other is always utterly doomed by the weapons load-outs.

The Nations have slowly crept up in happiness over time often for no reason I can explain. I complete a Mission in Oceania and sell the UFO to America and suddenly Asia is Exuberant, names of nations fudged but I have seen that sort of scenario. In 2.4 I had to work like heck to get to Happy or stop them from slipping, now I feel like I'd have to try to make them upset.

Interestingly while the Geoscape seems trivially easy now the tactical missions have become much much harder. The aliens are just fighting better. What really gets me is that auto-battle doesn't seem to have caught up and feels like a cheat. If I go in to a mission I will probably loose at least 1 or 2 people, maybe good ones, even after retrying a couple times. I have never seen a Phalanx soldier die during auto-battle.

[jcjordan]

std diff using an early Oct version
Feb 2085
40 scientists

I'll normally run 2 bases w/ 20-30 men at each if I can put that many labs at a base if I've got a bunch of research topics to work on then bring it down to 10-20 getting rid of the extra labs once research topics are low. Normally the game will have that early game rush then a lull then pick back up then go back to the lull. Right now I'm in the late game rush after the lull where I'm starting to get the hvy needler & particle weapons starting to appear.

A side request on crafts - how about adding a alien tech based transport sooner to replace the Firebird? Right now you can research/build 3 interceptors to replace the Stilletto's & Saracen's though due to the high material costs I only build the Dragons. How about dropping maybe one or 2 of them in place of an advanced transport?

[Telok]

Well I can't play right now so... None.

But when I do play it's always max scientists until I hit 100 or 110. As above the per scientist cost isn't the limiter, it's lab space and the 100,000 cr outlay.

[H-Hour]

jcjordan: it's now configured so that you can reach the Herakles dropship (12 soldiers) around the same time as the Starchaser (research a Supply UFO). After researching the Stingray in the late-game you can then research a Raptor dropship.

[Triaxx2]

Please tell me you've managed to fix the X-Com goofiness where I'd always end up researching the more advanced fighter and then wonder why the 'later' fighter was worse? I don't recall playing a single X-Com game where that didn't happen.

[H-Hour]

Each new interceptor is better than the last. But I still haven't fixed the alien materials/antimatter issue yet, so the later interceptors can be difficult to keep in the air. It will be improved before 2.5 is out the door.

[Triaxx2]

I mean I'd accidentally end up with the best one and then end up researching the older ones.

Okay, so I'm at April 5, just started with 10 scientists. Very easy campaign. Research speed seems fine. I got through lasers without much issue. Of course all I got was laser base defense and Aerial Laser. Should I have researched something else? At the moment it seems lasers are pointless. There's not much reason not to jump straight to Plasma Pistols. I've already got enough to outfit the entire squad already. (Presuming I can manage to survive that long...)

[Thurak]

on hardest difficulty I certainly have problems to get and maintain my scientists. The last game I had 70 tops but after two or three ingame months that number was reduced by 20 to make room for a work station and ten engineers when the most important ufo-building techs were researched. Not the most efficient way moneywise to scrap two labs, but on the other hand, more bases, including personal to protect them, just to disassemble UFOs were too expensive.

[Nokim]

I have another question to add to the mix. How are your finances? Is it difficult to pay for 70-80 scientists or are you rolling in the cash after 5-6 months?

Problem is money and space to build labs not paying scientists. And of course there is problem with available scientists in beginning.