New encumbrance/TU system

[Sarin]

Around 50 missions total. Because my soldiers were often injured, I purposely shot down many UFOs over water to give them time to recuperate. I was running with 12 troops from the start, 4 were backup that was assigned to team when a soldier from main team was too heavily injured to participate in mission that I couldn't avoid.

Still, those 50 missions are quite a load for single soldier. Most of the main team already reached stage where mind stat is limiting their promotion, not kills, and everyone got between 40-50 mind now.

[kurja]

Do you mean that you've reached power armour and you've only fought 50 missions total?

It took me abt 50 missions to get power armour in the campaign at the hardest level, without dedicated research bases or such particular effort. Hm or maybe it was second hardest level? Not so sure. Can I see my difficulty level choice somewhere?

[H-Hour]

Interesting. I swap out wounded and try to knock down every UFO I can over land. I've done 65 missions and I'm still about two months from even seeing heavily armoured aliens (probably three months from fielding power armour). By the time I get there, I could be nearing twice as many missions as you.

My most active soldier has seen 47 missions at this stage, so nearly 3/4. I've got 7 soldiers at 20-40 missions, another 4 or so around 10-25 missions, and another 7 at 0-10. I've lost probably 15-20 soldiers in the campaign, but maybe only 5 who had real experience. I only save-scummed once, to rescue my favourite sniper.

[kurja]

currently I have >70 missions and my by far most experienced soldier has less than 50 - most guys have 15 or less. Casualties are heavy in this war 

Interestingly my most senior soldier has the rank of sergeant. You'd think an army would need a couple officers. Does rank yet mean anything, game mechanics-wise?

[H-Hour]

Does rank yet mean anything, game mechanics-wise?

Rank once effected their monthly upkeep cost, but I think that was removed. I don't think there is any plan to have rank effect game mechanics.

[Sarin]

Interesting. I swap out wounded and try to knock down every UFO I can over land. I've done 65 missions and I'm still about two months from even seeing heavily armoured aliens (probably three months from fielding power armour). By the time I get there, I could be nearing twice as many missions as you.

My most active soldier has seen 47 missions at this stage, so nearly 3/4. I've got 7 soldiers at 20-40 missions, another 4 or so around 10-25 missions, and another 7 at 0-10. I've lost probably 15-20 soldiers in the campaign, but maybe only 5 who had real experience. I only save-scummed once, to rescue my favourite sniper.

Hm. Maybe you had higher radar coverage resulting in more UFOs detected and more missions? I started out with main base at Asia Minor, soon added radar covering south Africa, but then nothing for quite a long time as I built dedicated workshop base, and only around september 2084 I added another radar/interceptor base to cover most of Asia and Australia.

[tembero]

I think the weights could range from 33-43 starting stats, this just allows enough generally for soldiers to carry a weapon and ammo, but if you want speed bonuses you need an ammo guy and your heavy weapons can't manage much more than a monoblade without armour.

[kurja]

Hey, I think the encumbrance system is actually *supposed to* make you choose between speed and heavy equipment...

I only started this thread to point out and discuss how the current mechanic creates some silly situations/exploit possibilities.

[kurja]

speaking of which, having slept on this a bit it probably wouldn't make sense to completely remake the system to work like I first suggested. Issues that have been brought up could use some improvement however.

[kurja]

About the mission count - I always build just three bases, first one in east Europe, second one in middle America and a third one in south-east Asia/Oceania. All nations are happy (exuberant? I never found out what that actually means) with this coverage.

[H-Hour]

Hm. Maybe you had higher radar coverage resulting in more UFOs detected and more missions? I started out with main base at Asia Minor, soon added radar covering south Africa, but then nothing for quite a long time as I built dedicated workshop base, and only around september 2084 I added another radar/interceptor base to cover most of Asia and Australia.

Wow, so you've just got one interception base until September? Did you have any trouble keeping nations happy? What about the Americas? I felt nation happiness was ridiculously easy (a by-product of the reduction in UFO frequency). Just goes to show how different play styles can be. My first money went into a second interception base and then I got radar coverage up everywhere I could before September.

[Quizer]

On my newest playthrough, I've started in South America, built that base up over the first couple of months (2 workshops, 4 laboratories), then built a second base in North America. My primary goal for this playthrough is to determine ideal base locations for radar coverage by working my way around the world, which is why I started with the most out of the way place.

However, there has been a real dearth of UFOs in South America, with the result that I'm almost at the point where I can unlock power armor (I have alien body armor available to research), and my main base has only had approx. 15 missions so far.

Personally, I found it slightly easier to keep the funding nations happy in 2.4, with the constant missions. But it is still balanced; even with UFOs practically avoiding my area of the world, the few missions I've had let me keep the happiness values from plummeting.

(By the way, how significant is the happiness boost you get for selling an UFO to a nation? Is it worth taking less money for it?)

[Sarin]

Wow, so you've just got one interception base until September? Did you have any trouble keeping nations happy? What about the Americas? I felt nation happiness was ridiculously easy (a by-product of the reduction in UFO frequency). Just goes to show how different play styles can be. My first money went into a second interception base and then I got radar coverage up everywhere I could before September.

Well, worst I had was few neutral for a while, but it rose up again quickly after I built second base. I guess it's due to placement, my first base covered significant parts of three nations and very little ocean so it wasn't that bad.

I consider getting a dedicated workshop ASAP to be a necessity, to disassemble some fighters quickly and equip your interceptors with particle beam weaponry, so you can take those fighter UFOs safely with just one interceptor and you have a chance of taking out harvester coming to visit your base.

I might try another approach sometime, with hybrid workshop/interception bases.

[tembero]

My main base is in the middle east, I have 6 other bases in europe, africa, Mid afro-Europe, siberia, Russia and Madagascar, this covers all bar  the americas with radar, and I have 20 SAM sites  dotted in between, no Interceptors and I get about 3 missions a day, money is about 3,000,000 with nowt to spend it on and all but americas is exuburant, there's probably 6 alien bases out there. Dodge ball with Attack craft!!

[Denthar]

With regards to the new system, I too think the penalties are tad too harsh when you just creep over the limits, either that or some secondary items like Medkits (especially Medkits) need their TU cost reduced a bit, maybe by 25%.

On the UI front, I will say that having to manually divide the "max" weight by half when I'm kitting a soldier out to figure out what they can carry is tedious beyond reason, and if I'm being lazy, just results in extra clicking when I add something too heavy and then remove it with the next click.

I feel the  UI would be better served by showing the max carry weight *before* any TU penalties are incurred, and then simply turning red and showing the penalty when you go over the limit (ie, showing 19.5/18kg and the ilk).

The bonus AP for staying under a certain weight is a nice bonus, adds some interesting tactics to the battle field.