OpenXcom Forum
OpenXcom => Suggestions => Topic started by: kikimoristan on March 13, 2015, 05:12:32 am
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just a quick idea.
give a facility energyOutput and energyUse and add energy status in base information as a graph bar
before building a facility it checks money and energy output and gives an error either you don't have enough energy or enough power. if you try to dismantle a power facility and it's power is being used just say facility in use.
by default no power. this can only be used by mods/optional rul like EU2012PowerFacility
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What's the point?
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make the game more challenging
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I'm sold if elerium consuming generators can be built, and generators explode during base defense.
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sure. could work any way . just an idea
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An interesting idea, are u thinking of something along the lines of the 2012 remake?
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And decrease the maintenance cost of all facilities because the power bill is no longer included? :P
This seems mostly like a way to frustrate people: "Oh, you wanted to build something new? No more power, sucks to be you..! Better build a power plant now and come again next month for that facility you wanted." and the wasted tiles in an already cramped base size.
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I really don't think this idea would add anything positive to the game. It would only slow down an already slow process, and it would make bases even more cramped.
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that's the point. is like limited space for facilities
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I am not sold. It just a cash sink and we know cash is a problem that can be solved 2-3 months into the game.
Also in regards to space, that problem doesnt even exist. The only cramped bases I am having is the starting one (assuming no mods enabled) and thats it. Every other base once it is designed defensibly it has enough space to cram in whatever extra one needs, two or even three power generators are not going to be a hassle.
Its not going to pose a hazzard either in defense missions because you would place them away from the access lifts and hangars.
In 2012 the only purpose they served was to delay your sattelite coverage and as every gimmic in that game it was absolutely not nessessary if the game was designed as it should.
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Its not going to pose a hazzard either in defense missions because you would place them away from the access lifts and hangars.
No, since other facilities need them, they need to be built first, so they would sit right in the middle of your defense hallway.
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I understand the concept, but I personally feel it would be one more thing to juggle when there is enough to keep tabs on. Base space and money already feels scare especially early on and this sucks up more real estate. I wouldn't be upset if it was an optional "mod" though, but that sounds like quite a bit a work to put support in the game for it.
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No, since other facilities need them, they need to be built first, so they would sit right in the middle of your defense hallway.
Depends on the power requirements and what you will build first. And all things considered there is nothing to stop you from demolising them afterwards and relocate them. Which adds more hassle rather any usefull gimicks to the game and looks (and is) extremely artificial. Then as said you have to balance it with reducing maintenance costs across everything else, which is more tedious than it sounds.
Simply put you are adding a logistical sink to the game, which by default after the 3rd-4th month will become redundant (unless RNG screws you that much).
The same thing happened in UFO AI.
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that's the point. is like limited space for facilities
Make the facility you have in mind take two tiles. One for the facility, one for the "built-in" power generator.
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or how about the facility is also a storage unit of 20. so is no completely usless .
make it 1x1 and have 2 different types: power generator and elerium power generator
power generator provides 8 power
each square uses up 1 power
so you gonna need 2 /base at least
elerium power generator provides 16 power
so you need just 1 / base
if not enough power (generator is lost) in the base all research/manufacturing time is increased by 25%
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It can't hurt to have a definable sub resource. Make it so we can customise the name, see what the modders can do with it.
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or how about the facility is also a storage unit of 20. so is no completely usless .
make it 1x1 and have 2 different types: power generator and elerium power generator
power generator provides 8 power
each square uses up 1 power
so you gonna need 2 /base at least
elerium power generator provides 16 power
so you need just 1 / base
if not enough power (generator is lost) in the base all research/manufacturing time is increased by 25%
You could fake it in my extended version, Create new building named "power generator" with `provideBaseFunc: [FAKE_POWER]` and for every manufacture add
`requiresBaseFunc: [FAKE_POWER]`. Biggest limitation is that it always require only one building, but at least you can't build manufactures without prior power generator. Some building could require better power, then you can add "elerium power generator" that will have `provideBaseFunc: [FAKE_POWER, FAKE_POWER_BETTER]`. After that buildings like "plasma defence" will require `provideBaseFunc: [FAKE_POWER_BETTER]`.
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But then you need the elerium power generator to consume elerium too! ;)
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But then you need the elerium power generator to consume elerium too! ;)
What? No, if you properly use elerium, a single unit of elerium should be able to power a base for like, years. Just make the construction of the unit cost like 25 elerium, and assume that lasts to at leas the conclusion of the game.
If a weight unit is around 500 grams, then a unit of elerium is 30 grams. Which turns into about 2.6*10^15 joules of energy. Which is 722 million kwh. Which in turn is enough to power a town of 50,000 people for a year. (In the USA, that is - over here in Europe we use a little less energy).
I hope I did that math right. :P
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Looking at how much elerium is consumed by XCOM crafts, I highly doubt that it is being "properly used" :P
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From what I gathered, the crafts only use part of the energy generated, the gravity waves. Not sure where the rest of the energy goes.
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And what good would that do if we had something like this?
It doesn't fit well into the game concept the OG has. So i am not interested.
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i always figured the maintenance cost for the facility was the power bill.
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i always figured the maintenance cost for the facility was the power bill.
I totally concur!!
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At $5000 per month for even a simple storeroom, that's a whole lot of lights they have in there.
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Keep in mind that all of the computers are running DOS or Win95. It takes a lot of money to get the IT department to work with that stuff, and paying that electric bill isn't exactly easy on those computers. Maintenance workers on the alien containment structure require bonuses for dealing with the sewage system as well.
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Keep in mind that all of the computers are running DOS or Win95. It takes a lot of money to get the IT department to work with that stuff
> implying computers from 1999 had more power requirement
> implying a secret base would use Windows 95 or DOS instead of some UNIX
> even if it would, implying DOS is hard for IT engineers (except for networking, it's not made for that)
I'm afraid this argument doesn't hold water very well. :P
As for the facility itself... Well, I don't know. For the sake of immersion I'd like to see some sort of a maintenance facility, for generating power, processing waste and managing various base functions, but I'm not sure how to do it in a meaningful way.
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> implying computers from 1999 had more power requirement
> implying a secret base would use Windows 95 or DOS instead of some UNIX
> even if it would, implying DOS is hard for IT engineers (except for networking, it's not made for that)
I'm afraid this argument doesn't hold water very well. :P
This made me chuckle, thanksAs for the facility itself... Well, I don't know. For the sake of immersion I'd like to see some sort of a maintenance facility, for generating power, processing waste and managing various base functions, but I'm not sure how to do it in a meaningful way.
Rename the general stores to storage and maintenance.
Makes a lot of sense considering how little room there is in a general stores, and every base needs a general stores to start with anyway.
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Rename the general stores to storage and maintenance.
Makes a lot of sense considering how little room there is in a general stores, and every base needs a general stores to start with anyway.
Not a bad idea. Would require some additional graphics/mapping and of course being forced at the base start, along the main lift.
But what would happen if this facility was destroyed? Can it be destroyed? After all it's way more complicated, design-wise, than it seems.
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I've never had facilities destroyed. I'm not sure what people do to manage it. I don't use a lot of explosives, but I've used my fair share of blaster bombs in base defense.
My storage unit is virtually always the first facility I build in a base (since it houses tanks, and having tanks near the entrance is great in base defense). Even if it's not the first thing to be built, it's going to be one of the first. So the majority of the base is going to be disconnected from the access lift if it's destroyed (which destroys the entire base if memory serves).
It's only complicated if you choose to make it so. Virtually any functional base needs a storage unit anyway, so if it's destroyed it needs to be rebuilt or the base won't function well anyway. In my own base designs, it being destroyed usually means a near total base loss anyway.
You can gloss things over lorewise by saying you are using portable generators and make-shift solutions untill main power is back online.
If you feel like editing the map, just stick an alien power supply unit somewhere on the top floor.
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I've never had facilities destroyed. I'm not sure what people do to manage it. I don't use a lot of explosives, but I've used my fair share of blaster bombs in base defense.
It never happened to me either, but it's there and needs to be taken into consideration. (It's a bit of a pain really.)
You can gloss things over lorewise by saying you are using portable generators and make-shift solutions untill main power is back online.
Yeah, I'm inclined towards the same solution. But I guess we would need some sort of a drawback for not having the facility on base, to avoid the cheat with somehow removing the building to make more space.
If you feel like editing the map, just stick an alien power supply unit somewhere on the top floor.
That would require two different buildings, before and after the discovery of UFO Power Source... Perhaps the latter would be cheaper to run? (Pity we can't have buildings consume items on building.)
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It never happened to me either, but it's there and needs to be taken into consideration. (It's a bit of a pain really.)
I figured it out. The facilities where I do my fighting (stores and personell, mostly) are indestructible.Yeah, I'm inclined towards the same solution. But I guess we would need some sort of a drawback for not having the facility on base, to avoid the cheat with somehow removing the building to make more space.
Don't worry about cheaters. This is an optional mod. If they don't wanna deal with it, they can just turn the mod off. If they do want to deal with it they won't cheat (unless they are being stupidsilly, and you don't care about silly people.)That would require two different buildings, before and after the discovery of UFO Power Source... Perhaps the latter would be cheaper to run? (Pity we can't have buildings consume items on building.)
Nah, just claim that you are using an old power source from a pre-Xcom UFO scratch. It's been modified to output electricity only, and it does that in seemingly endless amounts, but they never figured out anything else about it, and the techs can't have it for disassembly since you need it for the power.
Or it's using a revolutionary new fusion reactor that somehow looks exactly like a UFO power source, aquired at great cost (or liberated) from a rogue nation. (Implying that the aliens have already had some success in infiltration and tech trade missions.)
Or it's just a general, non-revolutionary fusion reactor, but some joker thought it would be funny to make it look just like a UFO component.
Or it's a reactor of some kinds that just uses the rebuilt housing of a damaged power source, since even the housing is more effective at what it does than anything the humans can produce.
I'm sure there are other possibilities, but anything else I come up with now would be overly silly.
Remember - make the in-game explanation fit what you have in mind for the gameplay, not the other way around. Gameplay must always come first.
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I figured it out. The facilities where I do my fighting (stores and personell, mostly) are indestructible.Don't worry about cheaters. This is an optional mod. If they don't wanna deal with it, they can just turn the mod off. If they do want to deal with it they won't cheat (unless they are being stupidsilly, and you don't care about silly people.)
From one point of view yes, but then again it's not very elegant design. If the room is not in the game at all, it's fine, since it exists in the "sphere of abstraction", or the part of the world that is not shown at all; but if it's in the game, it should behave properly. It's a tactical game, not The Sims, and you should feel pressed into doing whatever the game allows you to do to make your job easier.
It's not that the player won't be able to resist, I just think that giving them this opportunity is simply wrong, as it hurts immersion.
Nah, just claim that you are using an old power source from a pre-Xcom UFO scratch. It's been modified to output electricity only, and it does that in seemingly endless amounts, but they never figured out anything else about it, and the techs can't have it for disassembly since you need it for the power.
Or it's using a revolutionary new fusion reactor that somehow looks exactly like a UFO power source, aquired at great cost (or liberated) from a rogue nation. (Implying that the aliens have already had some success in infiltration and tech trade missions.)
Or it's just a general, non-revolutionary fusion reactor, but some joker thought it would be funny to make it look just like a UFO component.
Or it's a reactor of some kinds that just uses the rebuilt housing of a damaged power source, since even the housing is more effective at what it does than anything the humans can produce.
I'm sure there are other possibilities, but anything else I come up with now would be overly silly.
But neither of these explanations are very persuasive, and moreover I don't understand why we need to be using alien tech from the beginning (which is really non-canon). Why can't we use a normal nuclear reactor? It's certainly good enough.
Remember - make the in-game explanation fit what you have in mind for the gameplay, not the other way around. Gameplay must always come first.
With crappy explanation you get crappy gameplay.
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From one point of view yes, but then again it's not very elegant design. If the room is not in the game at all, it's fine, since it exists in the "sphere of abstraction", or the part of the world that is not shown at all; but if it's in the game, it should behave properly. It's a tactical game, not The Sims, and you should feel pressed into doing whatever the game allows you to do to make your job easier.
Maybe we should push the devs to make the option that doesn't allow storage above your max space a standard feature of the game. (I think it does improve the game quite a bit.)
It's not that the player won't be able to resist, I just think that giving them this opportunity is simply wrong, as it hurts immersion.
I'm not saying having some kind of penalty for not having the room would be a bad thing (something like having to fight base defense missions in hte dark would be cool), I'm just saying you shouldn't worry about cheaters. There will always be players out there who will take your design to unintended fringes. While you can't ignore them completely, I think it's silly to stress over them too much at the very early design stages.
But neither of these explanations are very persuasive, and moreover I don't understand why we need to be using alien tech from the beginning (which is really non-canon). Why can't we use a normal nuclear reactor? It's certainly good enough.
Yeah, a normal nuclear reactor would probably do just fine. We could just use one of the corners (on both floors) to make it, and make it destructible as well, but only by direct hits from blaster bombs. And if possible, it should blow up spectacularly.With crappy explanation you get crappy gameplay.
No.
You make gameplay first. Build your concepts, make things fun. Then you come up with explanations, and they can be a little dinky (like construction yards being the only damn building with their own power supply). You should never change good gameplay for the sake of lore. It's something you see in games quite a lot, and (especially in MMOs), it gets patched sooner or later most of the time.
Of course, if your explanation is good enough, you break the rules. No rule should ever be set in stone. Well, stone is perhaps the perfect medium. It's sturdy enough that it resists half-hearted attempts at breaking it, but if you really want to, you can crack it. So set in stone, but not in adamantium.
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I'm not saying having some kind of penalty for not having the room would be a bad thing (something like having to fight base defense missions in hte dark would be cool),
Oh! Oh! I like this!
I'm just saying you shouldn't worry about cheaters. There will always be players out there who will take your design to unintended fringes. While you can't ignore them completely, I think it's silly to stress over them too much at the very early design stages.
I'm not stressing over them, I'm just a perfectionist sometimes. :)
Yeah, a normal nuclear reactor would probably do just fine. We could just use one of the corners (on both floors) to make it, and make it destructible as well, but only by direct hits from blaster bombs. And if possible, it should blow up spectacularly.No.
Of course it's possible! ;D
You make gameplay first. Build your concepts, make things fun. Then you come up with explanations, and they can be a little dinky (like construction yards being the only damn building with their own power supply). You should never change good gameplay for the sake of lore. It's something you see in games quite a lot, and (especially in MMOs), it gets patched sooner or later most of the time.
Well, I still disagree. Logic is as important as gameplay.
That's the problem with most games: their lack one of these. Some games are too concentrated on making sense that the gameplay suffers, usually because there's too much information to process and the UI is too complicated, or simply the game's challenge is no longer attractive (for example because they become imbalanced). Some games sacrifice logical coherency for gameplay, and they're downward stupid. Neither are good.
Of course, if your explanation is good enough, you break the rules. No rule should ever be set in stone. Well, stone is perhaps the perfect medium. It's sturdy enough that it resists half-hearted attempts at breaking it, but if you really want to, you can crack it. So set in stone, but not in adamantium.
Y- yeah! Pass the joint, bro! :)
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By the same theoram we need to have a command center in the base which will serve only one purpose: As a primary target for a base assault if it gets destroyed, but that will add another uneccesary hassle simmilar to the ones of the power facility (I already explained my position).
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By the same theoram we need to have a command center in the base which will serve only one purpose: As a primary target for a base assault if it gets destroyed, but that will add another uneccesary hassle simmilar to the ones of the power facility (I already explained my position).
Now, now, one hurdle at a time.
We already solved most of the hassle that comes with having to build it seperately. We can talk about comman centers later. (They should probably be part of a radar system.)
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Now, now, one hurdle at a time.
We already solved most of the hassle that comes with having to build it seperately. We can talk about comman centers later. (They should probably be part of a radar system.)
Maybe I was not clear. What I want to say is that to me at least (and I cant stress that enough) both the Power generation and the command center are not something that are needed in a base because the game as is doesnt actually support them without hard swings. They would just be unessessary hassles. And I threw the command center as another proposed unessessary add on.
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Considering how small X-Com bases are, there's no way you'd need more than one power generator to power it unless you were using a coal furnace or something. And considering money becomes a non-issue quickly, this would essentially become "-1 base tile mod". If you did decide that it should take a number of generators, it would become "-x base tiles mod". This wouldn't add any difficulty what-so-ever beyond the reduced base size, and even that wouldn't effect players familiar with X-Com.
TLDR; Wouldn't accomplish anything but bloat.