[submod] Tritanium Bullet Mill (0.2.0)

[HinterDemGlas]

UPDATE: It has a Basescape sprite now! Still based on General Stores, but far more cluttered, in the purple blue of AA magazines, and with a little work station in the center. The map for base defense remains unchanged. Next is translations, and then bolts.
My own latest play-through isn't anywhere near that part of the game, but I've seen comments on Tritanium ammo being heavily depreciated, because of the limited alloy supply, more crafting projects and the pushed back Alloy Foundry. I don't know if that's really (still) the case but if so that's regrettable. In my last game (way back when *shakes EXALT master cane*) Trit ammo was sweet, made mid-game kinetics like the UAC Rifle worthwhile and plugged a bit of a power gap until I got reliable lazrs and brainweapons. So just in case I decided to make a tiny submod. If it's not needed, it's still a good exercise.

I want Trit ammo production to cost an investment in alloys, but not running (alloy) costs: a bullet is much smaller than a suit of armor, and incredibly much smaller than a fighter jet. And unless you shoot it into an escaping space ship, you can probably pay a guy with a metal detector to recover most of those bullets for recycling. So I would argue two Ravens worth in Tritanium, 100 units, should cover all of your small arms ammo needs in a normal XCF campaign. Let me know if you disagree!

This mod:
-changes the UFOpedia entry for Tritanium Ammo to explain itself, please read it
-makes Tritanium Ammo research unlock a new facility which costs 100 Alien Alloys
-makes all Trit Ammo crafting projects require this facility
-removes the Alien Alloy cost from all Trit Ammo crafting projects, except certain heavy munitions and crossbow bolts and throwing knives. Minigun and LMiniG and HMG have their Alloy cost reduced to 3 and 1 and 1 respectively. Still too low, you know the Heavy quote.

And that's all for 0.1.0. I will try to figure out how to give it a better map soon and maybe do something about the "primitive" weapons. Also you may or may not be able to sell that ammo for absurd profit? I need to test that, $ costs should probably go way up. If I ever get this far in my own campaign and decide this was a good idea I will revisit and rebalance it (maybe the shop should reduce your workspace limit or something similar annoying?). And if possible add a variant only for Superhuman that is size 3x3, costs 10000 Alloys and attracts retaliation missions

Please backup your save and report all bugs if you try it out! I would be grateful. I used my own old weird endgame save for testing and almost certainly missed something!

[Solarius Scorch]

I totally understand why you decided to do so.
If there is a serious lack of titanium (which I'm not sure about), I'd rather add new ways to acquire it; but this is, well, still just a vague intention right now.

[HinterDemGlas]

To be honest, when I opened that very old save and found I had a base with two large storage facilities almost entirely full of Tritanium I kinda questioned what I had been doing for the last hour. 

But I guess I will see when I get to 1999 in 2024.

[psavola]

Based on a few campaigns, you'd usually want tritanium early (like, in 1998) and in 1999 it is necessary only for big projects (like building multiple improved labs, crafts, etc.). At that point you don't need to bother with tritanium ammo anymore, because you have likely upgraded your main armanents to other stuff (like lasers, MAGMA Pulse rifles + chem clips, TAC grenade laucnhers + gas grenades, etc.), except possibly certain special ones such as tritanium shrapnel rockets.

It seems that the easiest way to get lots of tritanium relatively early (circa 1998) is doing some MIB research, getting lucky with RNG and/or triggering them so that they send retaliation missions against you. All those MIB crafts give you far more E115 and alloys than regular alien craft give you (and you likely couldn't shoot down or recover alien crafts anyway). If you get these "MIB waves" in 1998 (like I have in a couple of latest campaigns), you will likely have something like 1000 Elerium and 500 tritanium by the end of 1998 to play with even if you have gotten zero UFOs.

[HinterDemGlas]

Psavola, thanks for the input. I admire that you play a very thoughtful, optimized style which basically defines the current "meta"... but I don't. I probably won't be triggering any apocalyptic MiB retaliation waves in 1998, at least not on purpose.

[Solarius Scorch]

Since I need to make more human factions anyway, there might be some (other than MiB) that use titanium. We'll see.

[Juku121]

This has indeed been discussed before, e.g. here (among other things). A non-XCF specific but interesting take is here.

IMO, the issues is not so much with alloy availability per se, but with timing: there is only a limited time window when alloy ammo is a good upgrade, at which time the alloy supply is justifiably scarce and usually better spent on other things.

I'm not sure singling out heavy weapons like that is a good idea, perhaps increase costs/man hours instead?

My own solution was to use multi-manufacture to lessen and unify alloy costs so that thirty tiny purse gun bullets don't use the same amount of alloys as eighty giant .50 cals. Granted, I'm a pack rat, so I tend to want massively more of everything than your average XCF player.

I also increased gains from UFOs by a factor of 10/3 in general, more for small UFOs and less for bigger ones. And a factor of 15 for bases, which includes Hybrid Embassies. Over 1k from an Embassy gave me ample supplies to squander away.

The alien invasion is getting de-emphasised compared to the OG, so something like that may or may not work, but again, this probably gives way more than necessary to a non-hoarding player.

[Xer0_Moustel]

A research to just contract out the tritanium ammo instead of having to manufacture them would likely be more choice. Personally my problems always been a matter of convenience when it came down to making things like ammunition. You got to divert engineers and workshop space to make these things, which may halt any previous projects or money making schemes (gas grenades or prods) which then needs to be doled out from base to base, which requires knowing how many guns you have there, and how much ammo can you divide up from the bulk you just made. It's to me more of an effort then I feel like it's worth, where as if I could just buy the ammo for an exorbitant price, maybe a bit of a longer transfer date, i'd hardly mind it at all.

A further thought into the manufacturing process to help balance it out; mind you, i'm not looking at the code right now, and I don't know if this is already being done off the top of my head but, making it so you get more ammo per single manufacture might be a way to get the more logistically inclined players to make it, instead of buying it. Of course, for this to work it would have to be something like two clips, with a manufacturing cost less then two (or one) of the ammo you can buy. That way you're paying more in the resource of the alien alloy then in money, while also getting it more in bulk.

[PPQ]

Honestly what I would do is take the existing option to farm out Tritanium ammo to MAGMA and expand it. In particular, push it forward a bit so that it comes sooner and let it also give you access to BlackOps tritanium ammo. That would make it a much more worthwhile investment and yet not one without tradeoffs.

[HinterDemGlas]

I probably won't be triggering any apocalyptic MiB retaliation waves in 1998, at least not on purpose.

Aaand I took out a surprise MiB ufo on a pest control mission with 2 PSGs, incendiaries and a couple dogs in early 1998. I was very lucky with enemy placement or I would've noped out of there. Got... 1 Alloy. Research time! Let's see if this has any consequences

This has indeed been discussed before, e.g. here (among other things). A non-XCF specific but interesting take is here.

Thanks for the links! One thing I realized: treating X-Com as hard sci-fi is an exercise in futility (although futile exercises can be entertaining!). The original Image Comics-style intro should probably make that point all on its own. I feel a little silly for bringing up even the "bullets small" argument now.

IMO, the issues is not so much with alloy availability per se, but with timing: there is only a limited time window when alloy ammo is a good upgrade, at which time the alloy supply is justifiably scarce and usually better spent on other things.

Based on a few campaigns, you'd usually want tritanium early (like, in 1998) and in 1999 it is necessary only for big projects (like building multiple improved labs, crafts, etc.). At that point you don't need to bother with tritanium ammo anymore

Hm, I realize the 14 day building time of the mill further cuts into the window where Trit ammo is useful. Probably not a big deal but also not optimal.

I'm not sure singling out heavy weapons like that is a good idea, perhaps increase costs/man hours instead?

The mill is designed to be kinda optional and obsolete-able: So I didn't touch explosives, shrapnel et al because you want to build those even after you replace the mill (or even never build it). Most of them aren't bullets, too. And they are reasonably popular on this forum so they probably don't need a buff.
The miniguns still burn Alloy because that's a bit of a design and flavor choice in XCF (1 vanilla minigun belt eats like 3 personal armors).

I also increased gains from UFOs by a factor of 10/3 in general, more for small UFOs and less for bigger ones. And a factor of 15 for bases, which includes Hybrid Embassies. Over 1k from an Embassy gave me ample supplies to squander away.

Get that bling! Personally I'm not ready for post-scarcity X-Com I'm not a hoarder, but I did build an "archive" base with 1 from each artifact and prisoner and the Arrow last time which slowed down a few story bottlenecks considerably.

Since I need to make more human factions anyway, there might be some (other than MiB) that use titanium. We'll see.

Rather ominous!

A research to just contract out the tritanium ammo instead of having to manufacture them would likely be more choice.

Honestly what I would do is take the existing option to farm out Tritanium ammo to MAGMA and expand it. In particular, push it forward a bit so that it comes sooner and let it also give you access to BlackOps tritanium ammo. That would make it a much more worthwhile investment and yet not one without tradeoffs.

Allocating engineer hours is the strategic heart of that part of the game tho. Buying transfer times are an interesting logistics mechanism (e.g. the HMMV) but when it comes to ammo I would simply buy a slightly bigger pile to work around it.

money making schemes (gas grenades or prods)

I don't have gas grenade production yet; does that actually make money? In my old game all "profitable" projects were actually money sinks because they didn't pay the running costs completely, and it would have strictly been better to hire less engineers.