Alien Materials

[ChemBro]

Okay, I want to discuss the cost of some of the aircrafts, because I think, they are a little bit too expensive, but maybe, this is intended.

I think the requirement "alien materials" for some ships is a little bit too high and the only "bottleneck" I have, when building those aircrafts. The alien ship I get the most alien material out of it is in my opinion a 100% harvester. One 100% harvester = 800 alien materials. Good. So let's look at the cost for the aircrafts and how many harvester I need for it (AM = Alien Materials, H = Harvester):

• Dragon Interceptor: 5000 AM (6.25 H)
• Starchaser-class Interceptor: 7000 AM (8.75 H)
• Stingray Interceptor: 9000 AM (11.25 H)
• Raptor-class Combat Transport 12000 AM (15 H)

Well, the other requirements like money, time to build and these alien ship things are laughable compared to the rest, because I will have 10x of these requirements, before I meet the alien material requirement. I'm playing on easier and it took me about 1 1/2 ingame months to get those 15 harvesters for my Raptor and only for one. My problem was not to disassemble them (I have at least 3 bases for that), my problem is, that I need 15 harvesters and I don't get that many missions with harvesters, so I need to wait until those missions pop up. So I was able to get the best interceptor and the best drop ship, but only for one base. And I dunno, but the cost for the Dragon and Starchaser is so high compared to the Stingray, I don't even consider them to be build.

I think, the alien material cost is too high and I would do it more like 2000, 4000, 7000, 8000 for example. It still takes time to get the alien material, but not that much and if you're impatient, you could at least build a smaller interceptor.

Again, this is only my opinion, maybe the high cost is intended, but it doesn't feel right when playing the campaign.

So... discuss!

[ShipIt]

You are right imo. This needs more balancing.

[headdie]

Perhaps making it being manufacturable might be useful, either slowly or perhaps preferably at great expense so the player can do it if they want but UFO capture would be the most efficient way to acquire it.

[Nutter]

With the exception of the Raptor, every single one of those craft fits in the small hangar, if I remember correctly.
Makes the prices laughable as they are. Think one should be making multiples out of a harvester.
Of course, that spawns a whole host of other issues.

[geever]

Perhaps making it being manufacturable might be useful, either slowly or perhaps preferably at great expense so the player can do it if they want but UFO capture would be the most efficient way to acquire it.

Alien material is producible AFAIR.

-geever

[ChemBro]

Alien material is producible AFAIR.

-geever

At least this is not possible in 2.4. Don't know about 2.5, but definitely not in 2.4.

[headdie]

the research article says you cant

[Jon_dArc]

I modified the costs to 2000, 3000, 4500, and 6000 respectively; I never actually build Dragons or Starchasers, so I can't comment on the appropriateness of those prices, but with the reduced numbers of alien craft spawning and the other demands on Alien Materials these values have seemed reasonable to me.

~J

[Salvo]

Agreed. The build cost is deffo too damn high, or alternatively, we don't get nearly enough alien materials from UFOs. Cost is simply unfair. Personally, I would cut the Alien Materials requirements by 20-30% for each craft, while also increasing the Alien Material yield from UFOs by 100%, but I'd also increase the time it takes to disassemble them.

[TrashMan]

No.

The costs are downright redicolous.

How the HELL is it possible for one small interceptor to require more materials than what can be gained from several large harvesters. You should be able to build at least 1 interceptor per harvester.

And alien attacks should be a bit less frequent.

[Sarin]

You have to realize that engineers are working with materials that are hard to process and they have little knowledge about them, and little experience processing them. You can't expect 100% efficiency working them, more like 10%.

[headdie]

when a comparatively small interceptor takes up the resources of 6.25 harvesters things are a little skewed, given the size difference 1 perhaps 2 harvesters taking into account inefficiency of materials handling but 6?

[H-Hour]

It's an alien material. We can choose whatever % recovery efficiency we want. The numbers (disassembly time and alien materials) need to be balanced according to the number of UFOs a player is able to collect and dismantle in a given period of time.

Saying something like 1 harvester = 1 small interceptor, for instance, could make it far too easy to build advanced craft, since the player is likely to face dozens and dozens of them over the course of a game. If the player is able to accumulate a vast stock of extra alien materials, it will render the UFO Yards useless late in the game.

[TrashMan]

Then have less UFO's appear. Have UFO's yield less.

It makes little sense to stock your base full of alien materials and that barely being enough for 1 fighter. It's just a massive waste of space.

[headdie]

You can even say in the background text somewhere that the material is difficult to recover efficiently and the engineers are having to discard a large proportion of the material because it is just unusable