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Author Topic: Transfer quantities  (Read 4178 times)

Offline DexCisco

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Transfer quantities
« on: November 08, 2012, 05:00:43 am »
I am getting to the mid- late-game now and I have really started to notice issues with transferring items between bases.  There seems to be a maximum quantity each item that you can transfer at one time.

e.g. I tried to transfer all my Alien Materials to one base to build a ship, (6+ Harvesters worth of materials for 1 fighter?) but I could only transfer them in batches of 10.  That makes transferring 5000 materials really tough.  I got around it by selling it all, then buying it all back at the destination, but even then, with no repeat on the quantity spinner, holding shift to transfer 2 with each click instead of 1, it took 500 clicks for 1000 materials to sell, then another 500 clicks to buy it again.  I assume that will be fixed by changing the spinners in the buy/sell screen, but I believe different buy/sell prices for items in the market is on the near horizon so that would be expensive.

Some items you can only transfer one of at a time, like ship components.  I think I could transfer 3 grenades at a time.  It seems to change depending on which base you start at and go to as well.  It is just odd and I'm not sure what the purpose of it is, if any.

Might be this:  http://sourceforge.net/p/ufoai/bugs/3406/

« Last Edit: November 08, 2012, 05:53:10 am by DexCisco »

Offline geever

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Re: Transfer quantities
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2012, 08:27:39 am »
Already working on it.

-geever

Offline Anarch Cassius

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Re: Transfer quantities
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2012, 11:34:01 pm »
The price differences are in last I checked. They aren't displayed in the GUI but if you sell something and buy it back you loose money now. I haven't checked production prices. I'm hoping in the end they'll be slightly lower than sell price so you can make up for paying for the workshop and lab and maybe keep a little change.

Offline ShipIt

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Re: Transfer quantities
« Reply #3 on: November 09, 2012, 08:04:18 am »
The price differences are in last I checked. They aren't displayed in the GUI but if you sell something and buy it back you loose money now. I haven't checked production prices. I'm hoping in the end they'll be slightly lower than sell price so you can make up for paying for the workshop and lab and maybe keep a little change.

By producing items you loose money in the game. This might change in the future to make it possible to gain a small profit, but I donĀ“t think it will be printing money like in the original X-Com.

Offline Anarch Cassius

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Re: Transfer quantities
« Reply #4 on: November 09, 2012, 10:10:47 am »
My memories of original X-com are mostly of Terror from the Deep and quite faded. I never had as much chance to play it as I'd have liked. This is the second time I've heard it said that production won't be a major income source... and that's odd since I haven't seen any requests that it be one. I haven't combed the archives of the forums for them I admit but it's certainly not what people seem to be asking for lately.

I never expected Production to be a way to make lots of money, I expected it to be cheaper than buying the stuff out of store because I have to pay for workshops and workers and wait for it. Instead I pay more for the raw materials than I will apparently be able to sell the item for as of the latest patch.

The end result is to send a very strong message to the player:

Do not build anything in a Workshop unless you have no other choice. They are Skunkworks, they exist only to make the prototype which I then sell to WeponzCo or whatever and let them make the things at a reasonable price. Trying to use them for anything else is a sign of Phalanx being desperate.

Now that all seems a tad realistic on the surface. But there's two problems:

1) It just isn't fun. If 99% of the time making something in my workshop after it's been prototyped is bad economics you'd think the whole system would be abstracted in to Research itself.

2) It isn't realistic at all in the way it plays out. If these are suppose to be skunkworks then you'd think once I sell the prototype WeponzCo could produce them reasonably quickly. Certainly quicker than I could with a few general purpose workshops for making all kinds of random gear. No. They can make them cheaper than I can but not faster or in bigger batches. I'd rather by buying Nano armor in the store but they can't make it fast enough so I have to make my own in house at higher rates. 4 secret base workshops rival the production speed of the Asian Republic's factories but they can't figure out a way to a get a good deal on raw materials?

I certainly don't want printing money. Personally I think it should be a choice between getting things quickly at a higher price from the market and waiting to make your own for cheaper. Selling them would make you money even after production costs but not enough to make up much of your budget unless you really went in to production specialized bases. There might be a fortune to be made off some of this tech but the time table to do so is generally too long for very busy Phalanx.

A couple ideas for making the system more interesting. Someone was talking about the Workshops being better at making something once they've tooled up to do it. It doesn't quite take twice as long to make 2 Plasma Rifles and making 10 certainly takes no where near 10 times as long.

This is realistic and interesting. If the current costs were a baseline and making a bunch in a batch reduced that to levels below the sell prices it could be very fun and strategic.

Similarly the market produced items might take longer for their initial debut and come in much larger batches less often.

Offline geever

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Re: Transfer quantities
« Reply #5 on: November 09, 2012, 10:50:50 am »
Anarch, did you realize that you're quite much offtopic here?!

-geever

Offline Anarch Cassius

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Re: Transfer quantities
« Reply #6 on: November 09, 2012, 11:44:15 am »
I suppose but I was simply replying to the posts above in each case.

As far as the transfer bug itself. I can't replicate this in any of my bases under Win 7 64 with latest version. Every base will transfer its full load of every good I've tested.

I also have radically different transfer behavior. Click-hold transfers goods quickly and shift clicking transfers groups of 10.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2012, 11:47:07 am by Anarch Cassius »

Offline DexCisco

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Re: Transfer quantities
« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2012, 08:54:39 pm »
My transfer behavior is the same, but since I can't transfer more than a set amount at a time, the buy/sell screen is the only option, and that screen does not yet have the click-hold or shift-click features of the transfer screen.

Offline geever

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Re: Transfer quantities
« Reply #8 on: November 09, 2012, 10:10:57 pm »
bit patience please. I'm reimplementing the transfer UI system and that will fix the bug.

-geever