Production time or cost normalization

[Imposeren]

Now cost/pr.time is different for different items so items with same cost can have different production time. And that proportion does not follow any rule, and it's hard to understand what items is good for selling-production. How about balancing this in some way?

Example rule for production time:
Time = 4*Cost^(0.7)
This will balance production process but will afect realism a little. But this makes producing cheap items more resonable for use.
And makes sense in long-time producing for selling

(More time leads to better cost/time rate, but items with same cost take same time to produce)

so times for production will look like this:

Item	Cost	New Time	Old Time	Time/Cost
Assault rifle magazine	35c	48h	300h	0.73
Sniper rifle magazine	42c	54h	300h	0.78
Assault Rifle	1050c	521h	2250h	2.02
Grenade launcher	1225c	580h	3000h	2.11
Shiva rotary cannon	6000c	1765h	2500h	3.40
AA51 missile launcher	25000c	4793h	5000h	5.22

(Time mentioned for 2 workers)

[Hertzila]

The higher-ups have stated that there will not be production for selling.

[Imposeren]

Realy? But now it works and I can produce and sell something and I will even have profit.

It's sad if your words are true.

[Winter]

Production for sale is not realistic. It was a balance issue in X-COM that people have exploited to offset gameplay difficulty, and have come to rely on far too much. There is no way a small hi-tech worskhop with highly-trained staff and adaptable machinery could ever turn a profit on manufacturing, between running costs, maintenance and salaries, and when it comes time to balancing we'll make UFO:AI reflect that reality.

Regards,
Winter

[geever]

@Imposeren, your suggestion is (would be) a regression. Costs and produce times are scripted which gives us better control on them. It would be a shame if production times depended on their cost and far far from being realistic.

-geever

[Imposeren]

Then sell price must equal production price. But this modification should require modification to sell/buy procedure: it must be procedure that needs confirmation(for example you changed your mind and don't want to sell)

[geever]

Buy/Sell will be a special transfer in 2.4.

-geever

[odie]

Btw, in case we forget, we have:

1) Production have been agreed by devs not to be a 'money making' function - as like Xcom. In Xcom, (or a couple of other same genre type games i play), produced goods can be produced in large amts and sold for profits, sorta unbalancing the game. Hence, UFOAI decided not to do such a thing here.

In reality, yes u can produce something highly desired in market relatively cheaply but hard to achieve in technicalities (Because u have done the research and succeeded at it), sell it for 1000x of price (for example, since u have the onli wpn tat is effective against those bastards). hence, this makes alot of money. This is reality.

But its also reality here in UFOAI, as Winter mentioned, we dun wan it here. This is the design of game. So pls dun debate, as this has been finalized. Lol. (Though i still like xcom idea more, but i respect the design).

2) Balancing is something we will onli do, once we have most if not all the functions desired and working - which will probably not even be in 2.4 or 2.5, as a gauge. It is not critical at this juncture, but minor balancing might be done (if its grossly out of balance). Fine tuning might just have to wait.... if u cant wait, i would suggest u modify the .c file yourself.

3) On Imposeren's point on buy/sell, i suppose that buy sell at this point is zero difference? Hence buy/sell transfer is something we 'exploit'? Lol.  But as geever said, the devs will probably look into this more?


So far, i guess tat is sorta like the summary for this rather potentially dangerous conversation? lol. *Difffffffusing in process*

[Imposeren]

I just didn't know about plans (=

Yes, it'll be good if producing for money will be pointless. So why don't somebody balance this now?

A little proposition. Maybe producing something that requires UFO materials should make a little profit and anything else not?

[Ain Soph Aur]

So why don't somebody balance this now?

it would be pointless because the game (version 2.3) isn't complete at this point of time. and why balancing it - lets say - 3 times if its enough to do it one time at the end of the development cycle. wait until version 2.3 is released or do it yourself.

[Destructavator]

I'd like to point out that for something to sell, someone needs to be wanting and able to buy it - The players forces are a secret organization IIRC, and alien technology, corpses, etc., would not just be put up for public sale, but rather kept under wraps or in many cases carefully destroyed if it can't be kept anywhere.

In fact, I think it would make sense for the player to have to pay money to have some things disposed of in a way that no one can get their hands on it.

Governments typically keep sensitive stuff secret and are very careful about who gets their hands on it, especially things like alien artifacts and related stuff, and for good reason.

It really isn't like some special secret paramilitary force could just open up and have a "garage sale" whenever they want to get rid of things that use such protected and/or alien technology.

Heck even the Earth-made weapons would be inappropriate in the hands of common members of the public, even here in America where I am, with all the so-called "right to bear arms" and such, there are restrictions on military-grade ammunition and weapons of certain types, for obvious reasons.

[Bartleby]

hm.... there is always someone who needs "special" things and is able to buy or trade them.....

u can call that black market. each time u get quite fast quite much money (or other resources), but governments wont like that and u might get less money or help from them....

or like in other games there a pirates.. hm.. well... why not. maybe they need an other name.. fanatic people... there are always people that are evil enough to sabbotate or fight others for profit even if aliens attack. feeding them with weapons might raise terror-attacks. might also be new event: non-alien-attacks (terror mission vs those fanatics).

@winter:
u may be right, that production for sale is not good for gameplay.. but not realistic??? er.... atm i dont know a very small hi-tech company, that is popular enough.. well.... maybe "cray research" was. also there are today small companys that sell just a few cars in a year....

EDIT - topic: the price of a product in the real world is often not related to the time of production. a bit variation is also in game nice.

[not_that]

I'm not arguing the decision to remove producing for money. But from a realism point of view an organization like phalanx could definitely make money off production. Think about it. Phalanx organization is the only producer on earth who knows how to build plasma weapons, new advanced aircrafts, etc. With a monopoly over the entire world, Phalanx could pretty much name their own price for all the alien technology based items they produce.

[Kaerius]

Realism-wise, yeah phalanx has a monopoly and could get huge sums for alien tech.

And to completely sink destructovator's argument: phalanx is backed by every government, and it would only make sense for those governments to be the buyers of the alien tech, they'd want it to upgrade their army to help defend against these alien attacks, even if they ship off all the best-of-the-best to phalanx, I don't buy that they then sit on their laurels and waive all responsibility for defending themselves.

[Imposeren]

Countries have scientist's too. And any bought tech can be used for studying. So there is NO way for monopoly.

PHALANX can patent some tech. So this'll make some money. But this only complicates game.

New techs should increase happines of countries, IMHO