I want to fix the quirky economy

[LordHavoc]

The economy in UFO:AI is very strange, I'm nearly broke all the time because there is no funding from nations, alien equipment sells for nearly nothing, production costs are insane, and I can't produce equipment for sale to make a profit like in the original game.

Particularly scary is the pricing of IR Goggles, which are comparable in pricing to BUILDINGS.  (187000c to produce, 18700c to buy/sell)

I would like to apply these changes:

• Disable autosell at end of mission, which confuses newbies immensely and is annoying when a soldier dies because it sells their inventory.
• Change buy cost multiplier from 1 to 3.
• Change sell cost multiplier from 1 to 2.
• Change production cost multiplier from 10 to 1.
• Rebalance all item/aircraft/building/base prices to make the economy work.

Additionally I would like to implement funding from nations (which I know is planned).

This would mean that manufacturing is a way to earn money (as in the original game) not something to avoid like the plague for fear of going broke (as it is now).

And that selling items on the market is only for dumping unneeded inventory, not a second storage area.  (In the original game it was not possible to buy things back from the market)

[Mertu]

My thoughts.  Take or disregard as you will...

Once I figured out it was auto-selling equipment, I didn't have too much of a problem with it.  But I agree that there should be multipliers for buying/selling and that won't go well with auto-sell everything.

Auto-keep would work, but I found that rather annoying in X-Com... especially when getting close to a base's storage limit.  A more advanced option would be a post-mission yard sale: a list like the current Purchase screen showing amount of each item gained and the ability to sell it then and there, before going back to the geoscape.

(Listing how many of each item is already at the base and the ability to transfer to other bases would be useful additions.)


To me, the X-Com manufacturing system always felt like a cheat. I think it was the laser rifle (or something like that) that didn't use any elerium on construction, was relatively quick to build, and sold for a good amount over the cost.  After about four or five months, the disposition of the nations was financially irrelevant.

So I like the concept of building costing more than buying.  (I mean it costs less to buy a TV than it would to make the same thing from scratch.)  But I do agree the multiplier is a little extreme.


As a player, I would lobby for a prototyping system: No researched items can be bought until you've built one. (You could make arguments for and against the sold items being able to be purchased back before prototyping.)  The prototype costs some factor more than the base manufacturing cost (like x1.5 or x1.2).

Once you've built the prototype, you can build more yourself for the base manufacturing cost and/or the quantity of the item will increase in the Purchase screen.

(For simplicity, I'd argue that prototyping a weapon automatically prototypes the basic ammunition.  Alternate ammunition like plasma grenades/rockets may need to be prototyped.)


As for the manufacturing costs, I agree 190,000c for a 19,000c item is extreme (especially early in the game).  Maybe a sliding multiplier for manufacturing and prototyping costs using the base cost...

A very rough table:

Code: [Select]

Base Cost       Manufacture Cost        Prototype Cost
0-999c          x10                     x20
1,000-9,999c    x5                      x8
10,000c-100kc   x2 (minimum 50,000c)    x3
+100,000c       x1.5 (min 200,000c)     x1.8


(Now +100,000c items would cost less to manufacture than to purchase--given a x2 sell multiplier, but I'm assuming items in this price range are ships or high-end items that would require additional components and long production times that would make production for profit inviable.)

For example, I think a Bolter Rifle has a purchase price of 4,500c.  Assume that the purchase price is x3 the base price, so the base price is 4,500/3 or 1,500c.

The prototype of the Bolter Rifle would cost 8 * 1,500, or 12,000c.  After that the manufacture price would be 5 * 1,500, or 7,500c.  (But after being prototyped, more would appear in the purchase screen over time and only cost 4,500c.)

The manufacture and prototype multipliers could also be tweaked based on the difficulty level.


Thinking about it, you could do away with the whole workshop/workers system.  Instead, manufacturing capability is completely “out-sourced” and tied to nation happiness--the better you do, the more external resources you have.  But that could get complicated from both coding and user angles and is a whole other topic.

[LordHavoc]

Auto-keep would work, but I found that rather annoying in X-Com... especially when getting close to a base's storage limit.  A more advanced option would be a post-mission yard sale: a list like the current Purchase screen showing amount of each item gained and the ability to sell it then and there, before going back to the geoscape.

(Listing how many of each item is already at the base and the ability to transfer to other bases would be useful additions.)

My main arguement for autokeep is that it is the path of least surprise for the user, additionally it is difficult to fix/improve the current code for autosell (for instance autokeeping equipment that was brought in by soldiers who died is not currently implemented and would be difficult to implement).

Also in many cases the aliens are the source of your weaponry.

To me, the X-Com manufacturing system always felt like a cheat. I think it was the laser rifle (or something like that) that didn't use any elerium on construction, was relatively quick to build, and sold for a good amount over the cost.  After about four or five months, the disposition of the nations was financially irrelevant.

Manufacturing and selling a product that no one else makes is bound to produce profit.

Manufacturing prices for conventional technology should be higher than purchasing mass-produced items on the global market, however in XCom you could not even make items that you could buy, this made more sense.

However it is probable that ALL your equipment is custom designed for the purpose of defense against aliens, and is of no interest on the global market, so all of it would be special ordered from military contractors and thus very expensive (but still less than it would cost to make it yourself).

It also makes no sense at all that you can buy things on the market that you have researched, as clearly PHALANX is the only organization that knows how to make them.

Thinking about it, you could do away with the whole workshop/workers system.  Instead, manufacturing capability is completely “out-sourced” and tied to nation happiness--the better you do, the more external resources you have.  But that could get complicated from both coding and user angles and is a whole other topic.

In the original game the backstory indicated that you have the best labs and workshops in the world and hire only the best scientistis and engineers from around the world, and have direct global communication with universities and other organizations around the world, these labs and workshops are very expensive to operate but are completely up to the task of researching or manufacturing any known earth or alien technology of military interest.

This explains why you can make a profit by selling technology that you are the only producer of on the entire global market!

Personally I thought it was exceedingly cool that you had multiple income sources (salvage, production, funding).

[Czert]

I agree with manufacturing cost are simply to big, my idea is make production cheper than buying equipment, but bigger than selling it (for human equipment - avaivalbe HE is currently long time produced and manufacturing perfected, but for new eresearched HE, you can make small profit)).and on alien eqipment you can make (bigger than with new HE) profit.

[HaJo]

I suggest to have an unlimited market of old human equipment (rifles, ammo etc.),
and production only for new & alien items (medikit, laser weapons etc).

E.g. I would like to outfit a team of knife-throwers, but currently you
cannot buy 80 combat-knifes on the world-market :?

After a few month, the new items could get available also on the market
(a few at high prices first), and then get more+cheaper every few month.

I think the men in the workshop should make interesting high-tech items,
not boring old stuff...

This way, the player would have a choice between old, low-tech stock-items,
and new, high-tech, but limited (via capture or production) items.

[LordHavoc]

I have now committed my economy changes to UFO AI trunk (internal development version, not 2.0) as well as many weapon changes

At this time I kept the buy/sell prices at 1xl, this is because the menu interface is somewhat poor for a proper market (in which shipping takes time like in the original game, and orders can be modified as much as you like before actually placing the purchase/sell orders), so buy/sell have to be the same price currently.

Additionally autosell was kept because the 'floor grid' base inventory in the soldier equipment screen can not show vast amounts of items and they tend to accumulate without autosell.

Additionally production costs half the normal price (rather than using a 2x buy/sell price) for reasons of easier maintenance of the .ufo files (seeing the same prices ingame as in the data files is nicer than not).

I still believe in the higher buy than sell price, shipping times, and autokeep behaviors, but at this time they detract from the game, so when additional interface features are implemented these changes can be made.

[Czert]

Hmmm, include economy changes fluctuating of word market ? I mean more/less weapons avaivable at start of each day (and not only after mission) with developed items will be in WM after certain time ?

[vadim]

Manufacturing prices for conventional technology should be higher than purchasing mass-produced items on the global market, however in XCom you could not even make items that you could buy, this made more sense.

Makes a lot of sense

However it is probable that ALL your equipment is custom designed for the purpose of defense against aliens, and is of no interest on the global market, so all of it would be special ordered from military contractors and thus very expensive (but still less than it would cost to make it yourself).

Now this is plain weird. Let's see, the Earth is getting invaded by aliens, and they walk in plain sight killing farmers. I bet that in such a situation there would be *lots* of people willing to buy fancy guns even at insane prices, and if that goes to the organization that fights the aliens then even better!

In fact, I'd go a bit further. If you sell your fancy weaponry, make a chance of finding a civilian using one of them. One thing that was a bit weird about X-Com was that it was very strange that only one organization ever fought the aliens. Where are the farmers with shotguns? The NRA members?

Then there's the coolness factor. I'd *so* buy a laser rifle if I could afford one, even if the only thing I did with it was carving my name into a rock.

This explains why you can make a profit by selling technology that you are the only producer of on the entire global market!

This is also weird. If you're the only producer of something so incredibly cool as a plasma rifle, it wouldn't be hard to make a profit selling it to all the gun freaks out there.

If we had a real alien invasion, I bet you could find plenty people who'd go out and try to hunt an alien just for the sake of a trophy and whatever stuff they happened to carry. It would sell for insane prices, not to mention that a sectoid head would make a very impressive living room decoration.

[jhcook1999]

I think that the auto-selling feature should be removed as well. In the original game, you could have massive amounts of junk laying around, I think I once had like over 100 units in my storage room, but only 50 units max.  Realisticly, you can just leave stuff on the floor of the storage room thereby making the amount you have go over your limit, also you can have some extra room in other facilities.  Say for instance you have a new Living Quarters, but you know you're only going to use up half of it, you could use that as extra space, and since you're limited on the amount of rooms you can have per base, this is a good feature in my opinion.

I also agree fully with the idea that you can make money off of producing goods, it is realistic.  How many companies out there sell goods for less than they make it for?  If you don't make a profit, you're going to go out of business, and since there is a limit on the amount of workers you can have per base, unlike in the original, you can only make things so fast.  I don't really like the limit on workers or scientists though, I liked to research things as quickly as possible in the original.  Also I don't see how people don't like the Laser weapons as much as I do, they do great amounts of damage, have decent accuracy and in the original, had unlimited shots, meaning you could sell practically every alien weapon that you got and never had to worry about clips not to mention that I research them first and have lasers before I even see a single floater, but that's a personal preference.

[Eboreus]

Hi folks!

I am playing RC5 and was about to suggest the same changes LordHavoc did. I think they are a good idea.

I also would make standard army equipment buyable in unlimited numbers, while at the same time make them non-produceable (or at much higher costs than buying).

Oh and btw: very nice game

Eboreus

[Invader]

I totally agree with the changes, especially concening the autosell and "market"-management. I think it should be somewhat closer to the original X-COM. The "market" and player's equipment should be separated and be associated with different menu buttons.

[sirg]

I don't know who made up the economy system. In the begining I thought it was an error, that IR goggles price was same with a building, many many times much than a super advanced plasma rifle! Besides, production is just a budget black hole.

You shoudn't be able to buy back the items.
Production costs should be high for some items and low for others. Maybe it's more expensive to produce standard equipment in the workshop, while you can buy it from the factory, but it should be profitable to produce alien replicas or new researched weapons for sale.

I don't like the autosell idea. The "loot" is your reward after wining the mission, so it should be up to you what to do with it. Besides, it's illogical to sell the items before researching at least one item. maybe the autosell concept would be usefull in the case when the warehouse is full, and you have no room for any other object.
Selling alien artefacts should be very profitable.

Some items should be available only by production, like researched weapon types and alien artefacts.

In X-Com, workers were essential for building new craft. Maybe this could be a major income source, to build additional craft and sell them.

bottom line, production should be a money maker, and I don't think it would become an exploit, because you'll have to build all kinds of costly things like ammo, and crafts, besides money making items.

[MarekR22]

In my opinion autosell option is good idea but should be modified.
In shop (buy/sell) every item should have own option autosell.
In this case specific equipment would be sell if number of this items is larger then number of items leaved in storage when option was activated.
In this method storage will be controlled in smart  way. When some equipment is needed it always will be available and never chocks storage.

[sirg]

With the autosell feature, like it is now, and the buy/sell system, there is no real need for a storage area, because every sold item can be "found" on the market, after you sold it. This is so weird. It's like having a "storage buffer".

I propose that once you sold an item, it's gone. And no more buying alien artefacts from the market - you are the supplier of alien technology, right? The market should be your supplier for Earth weaponry/ammo and misc items, like medkits, goggles, armor, etc. If you research a new type of weapon, like the laser, it shouldn't be available on the market, because you built the first prototype, it's classified technology, and it should be available to you only by means of production (workshop). That would make the workshop and workers much more important.

I would like to see an inventory of the loot I got after finishing the mission, and maybe choose then what items to be sold and which ones I want to keep.

Example: once I captured some tachyon weapons and were autosold, so after I researched them (though were sold) I had to buy them back in order to equip my squad with them. Isn't that a bit odd? So, if I really want to keep an item or more I have to use a soldier as a mule that grabs and carries arround all that alien stuff.

[Gomeril]

I think it would be unrealistic to sell alien equipment, that has not been a researched. Who would buy things he cannot use and which are a safety risk (who knows the traps those cunning aliens are bound to have built in?)
This aside, I would think, that a slow, balanced progress is more important as a realistic economy. Get a good game mechanics first, add SciFi logic later.