What's up with the research spam?

[duendeinexistente]

I mean, why are there like 50 research subjects that are just "Get this inconsequential item you'll never actually use"? It should be coalesced under weapon tgroups. Like, just put all of the melee weapons together by tier. That's it. No need to have a switchblade research, a knife research, a crowbar research, a club research, and a baseball research.

Just bunch trhem together into two or three researches per game stage. XCom's UX around research is extremely crusty at every stage and if I put an item I want to forget about it for a minute or two, not to have instantly completed research spam.

[DarthTheIII]

That's kinda just how the megamodpacks are.  Pretty much everything can be researched, and theres a whole lot of stuff.  You can rightclick the research topics to hide them though, helps with clutter.

[Stormtrooper]

To be fair though I think we should instantly know the stats of a crowbar for example, without researching it. Currently there are 2 topic per weapon - item research and acquisition and I don't think it makes sense we have to figure out what a knife is. Another thing would be mag research, currently you have to research for example both gauss rifle and gauss rifle magazine separately, I don't think it adds anything to the game really. Meanwhile you can use mass drivers without separate mag research. No conventional firearm requires mag research either.

[Juku121]

I don't think it makes sense we have to figure out what a knife is.

But the eggheads aren't figuring out what a knife or crowbar is. They're rigorously testing it on dummies to verify quantified damage numbers, exactly how fast you can swing it in fractions of a second, how a wielder can increase damage right down to an exact numerical model, etc. One day is rather fast for all that, at least until X-Com gets a testing pipeline worked out.

Gauss weapons are at least partially Elerium-powered, and all Elerium-powered ammo requires researching the item.

While I'm not sure the current state of affairs makes for a better game, it's not completely arbitrary and without rhyme or reason, either.

[Stormtrooper]

Yeah I know, that's how it's explained in-game. Still doesn't change my opinion though. An international agency meant to engage in violent activities shouldn't have to spend time figuring out the characteristics of common tools of violence.

[psavola]

Yeah I know, that's how it's explained in-game. Still doesn't change my opinion though. An international agency meant to engage in violent activities shouldn't have to spend time figuring out the characteristics of common tools of violence.

I haven't personally had many issues with this (once you hide the extra research you don't want to do at the moment). But I guess an alternative would be that obtaining each promotion would also unlock all the "very basic" item research that the organization at this promotion level would be expected to have without any item-specific research.

Currently promotions are only used as a dependency for certain research (i.e. you can't research the item/item acquisition before the promotion), but there is nothing to prevent giving this information also after promotions. These could also be staggered so that a specific item research would be unlocked at Promo I, but you would get that automatically once you get Promo II, etc.

In some cases the incentive to research items would be that you could get an earlier access to those compared to the promotion where it's completely unlocked.

This approach would still keep "research spam" (which I suspect SS wants to have in the game), but some of it would just automatically disappear once you reach the next promotion or other goal post.

[Stormtrooper]

To be fair outside of the two specific examples I provided I love "research spam" because I enjoy learning about lore and stuff which this spam provides. I only don't like it when it contributes nothing, which is the case for most but not all non-conventional guns where you have to research mag separately - it only clutters research screen (which clearly wasn't designed with that many topics on mind).

The problem with researching conventional weapons I had is not about hiding extra research or in-game time, but about their stats - let's say consulting external wiki to learn damage, accuracy, TU cost and the like about dozens of guns wasn't exactly fun experience. But why did I do this? Because I already CAN equip and use unresearched guns as long as they're conventional human tech - so why can't I access ufopedia article about it? Of course researching each one is cheap, but still early on there are more important things to spend research time on. For all I care acquisition "research" could be made twice as expensive to maintain balance or something, but I'd be grateful for instantaneous access to item stats.

[Juku121]

An international agency meant to engage in violent activities shouldn't have to spend time figuring out the characteristics of common tools of violence.

I mean, IRL there are agencies and companies who do nothing but. Maybe XCF X-Com isn't on good terms with those. Not sure how a ballistics testing lab is going to regard someone asking them for kitchen knife swing speeds, but I guess money is money?

I only don't like it when it contributes nothing, which is the case for most but not all non-conventional guns where you have to research mag separately

Well, sometimes you do get something, like the ability to produce Sonic Weapons once all clips and guns are done. Or specialty ammo, which is definitely worth its own research.

But, yeah, the payoffs are small and I suppose mostly a relic of how the OG did it.

I already CAN equip and use unresearched guns as long as they're conventional human tech - so why can't I access ufopedia article about it?

Because you prioritised other things than crunching out the data of just how many points of damage your spiffy new DE does? Choices and consequences (and using an outside wiki is a mild form of cheating in this context).

I think 'bulk' conventional weapons research has been proposed before and wasn't deemed useful/fitting enough, although I don't remember the exact reasons. Perhaps one of them would be the impact it'd have on low-level enemy interrogations.

[Stormtrooper]

Well, sometimes you do get something, like the ability to produce Sonic Weapons once all clips and guns are done. Or specialty ammo, which is definitely worth its own research.

Specialty ammo is another thing I'd say, but by "contributing nothing" I did not mean "you don't get anything useful" - of course you do, starting from the ability to fire that gun if nothing else, but the step of separate mag research feels unnecessary - just lenghten the gun research and then assume you are now capable of using it once it's done, plain and simple.

I mean, IRL there are agencies and companies who do nothing but. Maybe XCF X-Com isn't on good terms with those.

I don't think another attempt at lore explanation is gonna change my opinion... I just refuse to believe nobody in something like xcom (even at the earliest stages of the project) knows any details about combat performance of an AK rifle and has to spend 5 days of scientific research on the topic... Well it gets even funnier because acquisition takes 2 days, so it seems unless you do acquisition first because you're at required promotion level you really need to figure this rifle out as if it was some alien artifact... While still being able to use it if you have one. 

Because you prioritised other things than crunching out the data of just how many points of damage your spiffy new DE does?

Yes because I believe "my spiffy new DE" isn't an alien plasma gun and data about its performance is widely available even to the general public, you can just google that kind of stuff right now, so why would a secret, international agency struggle with similar info so much as to warrant a dedicated research project?

[Juku121]

Well, one thing that would be different is that now you can get both gun and ammo research from just the gun (or just ammo). Which would be mildly different for enemies with only one small clip in the gun and no extras who are just likely to use it all up. That, and battlefield explosions destroying ammo before guns, again limiting access.

I don't really think there's a lot to be gained from that as opposed to merging the two research projects as things stand right now. But there could be things not in the mod that would make it a bit more interesting. Like being able to research and use guns somewhat earlier, but not ammo, until you unlock a new tier of power source research. So you'd only be able to use looted guns, even if you knew what they did. Research trees going off alien/shadow org weapon power tech instead of the guns themselves. Stuff like that.


And finally, it's a nontrivial amount of drudgery to eliminate these research topics, and even more if Solarius discovers he did want ammo to be a separate research line two years down the road.

nobody in something like xcom (even at the earliest stages of the project) knows any details about combat performance of an AK rifle

Early X-Com is mostly law enforcement and a few dozen agents total. I find it entirely plausible that not one of them has even handled an AK, never mind knowing precise testing data about its performance. I mean, militaries spend years on such testing even when their own soldiers know how to handle the guns and have combat experience.

It's arguable whether anything even remotely as accurate as Ufopedia info actually exists IRL for even the most well-researched guns.


5 days being too much and acquisition providing you with all data in 2 days are things I don't disagree with you about.

Yes because I believe "my spiffy new DE" isn't an alien plasma gun and data about its performance is widely available even to the general public, you can just google that kind of stuff right now...

Can you link me to a detailed terminal ballistics study on, say, a .357 DE? One with numbers and all?

[duendeinexistente]

Can you link me to a detailed terminal ballistics study on, say, a .357 DE? One with numbers and all?

http://ballistics101.com/357_magnum.php
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1006633.pdf
https://gundata.org/cartridge/83/.357-magnum-(rifle-data)/

Really? Gun ballistics is one of the very few things you can still put in any search engine and get all legitimate information. It's bizarrely easy even when I know jack about guns.

This shouldn't be research. This should be automatically unlocked one or two days after getting the gun because your quartermaster saw a new thing in the inventory and sent the appropriate company/organization a fax asking them for the data.

Imagine if Moulder and Scully saw a crowbar, it completely blew their minds, and they had to spend a week hitting dummies with it for some unknowable reason and then two more days researching how to... go to the hardware store and buy it.

[Juku121]

So, two charts with zero terminal ballistics info and a study with .357 SIG, which is a relatively rare thing in a DE. I was asking for the usual .357 Magnum DE.

And the study used a P229, a smaller and lighter gun with a considerably shorter barrel than the DE.

This is not the rebuttal you think it is.

[duendeinexistente]

So, two charts with zero terminal ballistics info and a study with .357 SIG, which is a relatively rare thing in a DE. I was asking for the usual .357 Magnum DE.

And the study used a P229, a smaller and lighter gun with a considerably shorter barrel than the DE.

This is not the rebuttal you think it is.

I quite frankly don't know nor care what's the difference between regular or terminal balistics, nor do I understand why you think it's relevant. I'm playing a videogame, not researching guns.

Also, we're getting wildly off topic here- it's pretty irrelevant how available this information that gun companies would be very interested in advertising, and most governments would be very interested in it being widely public information, is when you're a supra-government organization. As I said, even in the 90s you can send a fax, and I don't get how that's complicated. And that's not to speak of how ridiculous having to research how to buy crowbars is.

What really maters here is that it's that the UX for doing research is one of the worst perts of the game and it's not reasonable to have a bunch of topics for mostly unimportant items. Just add them to the available list automatically, or bunch it all together into maybe two or three "your researcher needs a dayto send a bunch of faxes" researches. Or as someone else said, do it along with promotions. Hell, the game already has an unconventional weapons research, why isn't that being used?

Doing a quick grep, openxcom has *150 topics* to buy items. That means around 300 research topics total. Can you say making the user spend time on the worst GUI of the game 300 times is reasonable?