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Author Topic: Month end procedure  (Read 4724 times)

Offline TallTroll

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Month end procedure
« on: October 08, 2013, 05:03:39 pm »
I'm playing a game of 2.5, and it struck me that the month end procedure is a bit of an oddity. In most other important aspects of the game the player has a lot of control, but at month end you just get whatever the nations decide to give you.

Would it not be better to allow the player some say over what resources they take? I certainly find there are times I would happily trade some or all of my (unnecessary) pilots/scientists/engineers for One. Good. Soldier. What about some sort of "requisition points" arrangement, where the player can prioritise certain employee types, or even just ask for more money if they don't really need anyone? For example, my current pilot roster is about 50, of whom I use 5, and have had 1 lost in battle. I doubt I'll ever *need* another pilot again, and yes I will use a few more as I build new bases and craft, but I doubt I'll ever have more than maybe 10 craft in service.

It would also be nice to be able to request soldiers with particular skills. Finding rookies who can wear even basic armour and use a rocket launcher is hard, and most months I'd happily trade all of my new employees for a trooper who can manage it.

Offline CarlosMaximus

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2013, 10:40:31 pm »
+1.

2.4 has different soldier templates, so there was a 74% chance of getting a regular soldier, 5% chance of getting a specialist in one of the combat categories (back when Heavy Weapons was a skill) and a 1% chance of getting an "elite" soldier with enhanced stats across the board. But in 2.5, we are reduced to just the standard soldier template. Is there a plan to reintroduce specialists and elites, and if not, could we request it please?

Offline H-Hour

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #2 on: October 09, 2013, 03:45:45 am »
Nations give you what they have to offer based on their competencies. Some give you more soldiers, some more engineers, some more scientists. This is part of the strategic layer.

Is there a plan to reintroduce specialists and elites, and if not, could we request it please?
No plan. Of course, you can always mod it. :) It's a very easy mod.

Offline TallTroll

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #3 on: October 09, 2013, 04:02:37 pm »
>> Some give you more soldiers, some more engineers, some more scientists. This is part of the strategic layer.

The differing rewards are pretty opaque to the player. I hadn't even realised this was the case, I thought it was all dependent on nation happiness. I don't think the nation happiness mechanic has enough slack in it to make this a way of influencing your recruiting though. I find keeping all nations happy (or as close as possible to it) challenging enough, without wanting to prioritise one who may give me an extra scientist or two, say, at the possible cost of another nation being very unhappy, even maybe stopping funding

>> reintroduce specialists and elites
>> No plan.

Why was it removed? It was very handy to have occasional good rookies, and elites were obviously even better. I cannot tell you how many times I have had elites ship home with single digit HP, having soaked a hit that would have killed any other soldier. They spent more time in hospital than anywhere else, but they saved a lot of lives, lol

Offline H-Hour

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #4 on: October 09, 2013, 05:22:18 pm »
Why was it removed?

Elites are made, not purchased.

Offline CarlosMaximus

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #5 on: October 09, 2013, 09:16:14 pm »
No plan. Of course, you can always mod it. :) It's a very easy mod.

I tried copying and pasting the "soldier" template in teams_template, and modifying the pastes, but the game only seems to recognise the first template. Am I going wrong somewhere?

Offline H-Hour

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #6 on: October 10, 2013, 10:40:01 am »
You'll need to modify the "rate" attribute of the original template as well. This is basically the percentage chance that a specific template will be used and the base template uses 100 (ie - 100% of the time).

Offline TallTroll

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #7 on: October 10, 2013, 01:57:04 pm »
>> Elites are made, not purchased.

Fair point. However, the differences between even the poorest rookie and a maxed out elite is a matter of increments rather than making the elites invincible. The increases might need to be moderated a bit compared to 2.4, since 2.5 has faster skills acquisition, but then it has encumberance and bleeding wounds too. I've noticed my soldiers generally carry a lot less gear in 2.5, since it takes quite an increase over starting strength for a soldier to be able to wear armour and carry a rocket launcher and several reloads, for example.

In 2.4, I was in the habit of loading every soldiers inventory to capacity. Everyone had a medkit, assault types carried about 10 grenades in various places, some soldiers would carry spare rockets or EMR mags so the respective wielders had more choices. In the case of the RL-wielder for instance, you can have a pistol you probably won't shoot, or 3 rockets you probably will. If you know your team has a few spare rounds with them, the pistol is much more attractive again.

With the encumberance system in place, I find it's rare for a soldier with anything other than a rifle or shotgun to fill their inventory. Indeed, for a 30 strength soldier, with 15kg capacity, combat armour and a flamethrower with its basic load of 4 shots maxes out their carry capacity. And this is fine. It forces more choices about who goes on a mission, and what they take.

However, on a month end, I end up scrolling through the new soldiers, and mark 90% of them up as dross, since they don't have the skill, the strength, or both to really contribute. You take them out and they develop, but once you have a few warm bodies, it would be much more useful to get one or two soldiers with slightly higher stats. If I could have 15 random soldiers or one with guaranteed 38+ strength, and at least one weapon stat at 24+, I'd take the latter every time now

Offline DarkRain

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #8 on: October 10, 2013, 07:25:13 pm »
You'll need to modify the "rate" attribute of the original template as well. This is basically the percentage chance that a specific template will be used and the base template uses 100 (ie - 100% of the time).
Actually, that's wrong, rate isn't percent, rather it is compared to the total rate of all available templates for a given team, for example you can have two templates one with rate 1 and the other with rate 2, and the later will be used twice as much as the former, of course you can assign them percent based rates and they'll work as expected.

(But do note that templates default to rate 0 if none given, and those will NOT be used)

I tried copying and pasting the "soldier" template in teams_template, and modifying the pastes, but the game only seems to recognise the first template. Am I going wrong somewhere?
I think you are missing a step, since there are templates for humans, aliens and UGVs you need to tell the game which templates to use with which team, in team_humans.ufo find the phalanx team, there is a list of templates, add the new templates to the list. (But keep in mind my comment about rates above)

Offline H-Hour

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #9 on: October 11, 2013, 01:51:57 am »
DarkRain to the rescue again! :)

Offline TheOnlySkyfire

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #10 on: October 19, 2013, 05:51:44 pm »
I have perfectly no problem with rookies recruited, but for the later game, it is really a risk and a hard decision to send them on a mission - they die like flies, while the elite is in hospital. I would like to see a training facility for the later game. Maybe you have to assign 2-3 trainers (some of your soldiers) and based on their stats, a group of recruits can learn faster than hanging around, slower than on duty, but fast enough to provide replacement, or for base defense.

Also cool, but maybe overcomplicated would be a "special training" - a perk.

"Special field training" gives X% in certain stats to the soldier, when fighting on missions.
"Special security training" X% in certain stats to the soldier, when fighting in the home base.

Where X can be trained (very slowly)

Or even more special, sorted at type of mission:
"Special intruder training" when attacking an alien base
"Special field training" on a normal "landing/crash" mission
"Special security training" on home base defence
"Special anti-terror training" on mission against terror attacks

Or after type of surrounding - woods, ice, city, indoor...

Something like that.

Offline Eegxeta

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Re: Month end procedure
« Reply #11 on: October 19, 2013, 06:48:49 pm »
I do wish there was some training facility in the game to help with training rookies and maybe keep your best soldiers sharp during those times where nothing happens for a while.

One game where this could have been really useful, I saw my third UFO two months into the game. So all my soldiers where basically rookies and I was up against plasma rifles I ended up starting a new game because my guys didn't have the skill to be able to fight at a distance so they wouldn't get totally slaughtered.