Selling soliders

[pmprog]

Hi all,

 Looking good so far.

Here's a couple of suggestions you may or may not have tthought about:
1. The ability to sell a solider from their stats screen
2. When selling craft, adjust their price to recover some of the armament costs, or provide a way to disarm craft

Also some interesting reading.
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=User:Seb76

[SupSuper]

Hi all,

 Looking good so far.

Here's a couple of suggestions you may or may not have tthought about:
1. The ability to sell a solider from their stats screen
2. When selling craft, adjust their price to recover some of the armament costs, or provide a way to disarm craft

Also some interesting reading.
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=User:Seb76

Sounds good. Selling crafts should definitely account for equipped weapons, or disarm them at least (like selling Skyrangers won't sell the contents).

People keep bringing up Seb76's work, and you can be assured I'll "borrow" as many good ideas from existing fan-patches as I can. No point in letting good ideas go to waste.

[pmprog]

Yeah, I remember reading that page going "Whoa..."

I definately think you should also be able to continue the game even if all governments have crossed over if you can sustain your own income.

[Foxie]

How exactly can you "sell" a soldier? My understanding is that they are hired by you, not your property! You pay a initial training and transport fee and then you pay them wages every month. Sacking them reduces your monthly expenses and shouldn't give you extra cash.

The same goes for Interceptors and Skyrangers actually. They are only leased from earth-based cooperations and not actually owned by X-com.

But I do agree that you should at least get money for your weapons! That one was always considered a bug by me and was quite irritating.

[pmprog]

My understanding is that they are hired by you, not your property!

Of course they are. I pwns them! 

Seriously though, I meant a "Sack" button. I just wanted to get rid of the bad ones from the stats screen and not have to go into the Sell/Sack screen

[Foxie]

Aha I see. My mistake I see your point.

[battlesquid]

1 & 2. Agreed - convenient

I'd like to throw a rock into this glass of water: Anyone played Speedball II? The part of the game where you get to manage your team is quite fun. It's always exciting to see what "special" player you'll be able to trade in. I'm not going to suggest that a drastic change to the game though. It wouldn't even fit in as such. But maybe at a later develpoment stage the recruitment process could be improved - to be more interesting. Let's face it - in real life if we were to fight against aliens we'd want to have other options than to press the (+) purchase soldier button. I'd also like to see more soldier faces, maybe something like being able to hire private contractors for a higher fee (like in SB2)

Inspiration:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/speedball-2-brutal-deluxe/screenshots/gameShotId,26362/

[pmprog]

XCOM Apoc went down that approach, but not just with soldiers, but with your scientists and technicians too

[SupSuper]

But that's cheating, you'd never get any cannon fodder then!

[battlesquid]

XCOM Apoc went down that approach, but not just with soldiers, but with your scientists and technicians too

I enjoyed xcom apoc a lot too, but never cared for personification of the engineers/scientists as they're so auxiliary. I remember they had all the stats of a soldier, but can't seem to remember if you could equip them when base is attacked? If they can be equipped with the same (minding lower strength) then I suppose it's somewhat interesting. But still, to be able to defend personifying these supporting actors/actresses the game would need some more detailed research/manufacture gameplay imo.

[battlesquid]

But that's cheating, you'd never get any cannon fodder then!

Sure you do, you'd just recruit some poor and inexpensive grunts 

[pmprog]

I enjoyed xcom apoc a lot too, but never cared for personification of the engineers/scientists as they're so auxiliary. I remember they had all the stats of a soldier

Actually, they only had a "Skill" stat, it affected how much they cost, and research was done by needing Total Skill points to complete. You'd sum up all your scientists on the project (I think it was daily), and added that to your Progress. Once Progress >= Total, you had researched the item.

But still, to be able to defend personifying these supporting actors/actresses the game would need some more detailed research/manufacture gameplay imo.

I agree, and to be honest, I would like more involvement in the research side. That said, I have no idea how you could do that in the game, keeping it fun and not massively overcomlicated.

[battlesquid]

Oh that's probably right. Maybe the fact that engineers/researchers are deployed in the base defense had me confused. Well, if they are deployed they should have all Personnel stats even if they are sub par. That way even if your all your soldiers are away or died defending the base, you'd still have a chance to win. Let's say your last base defending soldier is KIA and you're left with a crew of engineers. You'd want to defend the base with them and be able to equip them even if most would die, being weak soldiers.

I have at least one idea for more involvement on the R&D side (inspired by another post here): juniors, seniors and chief. What could that bring to the gameplay? Well, it could be several things! Imagine leadership affects research/manufacture time. Starting out with maybe only a bunch of juniors, no leadership boost is present in the scientist teams. When a senior is recruited (or achieved through experience) it will grant a speed boost to research/manufacture. An even higher bonus could be granted to chief (and like the Commander rank, there can be only one Chief Scientist/Chief Engineer). Other aspects could be that you need a senior/chief to be able to take on a certain task. Or like the other post said (about scripting) there could be a level where you need to bring back your Chief Scientist that was captured/abducted/taken hostage.

I'm sure this would make the R&D aspect of the game richer, but like with other ideas it's a lot of work and perhaps a lot of change to the gameplay.

[pmprog]

I've just been playing Apoc again, I'm thinking it's the first base attack I've ever had (Apoc didn't get as much play time as TFTD), and your right, they get some stats, and you have to control them during the game. I just hid them in small rooms :-)

One other thing I noticed, is that you seemed to get charged a constant value regardless of the scientist's/engeineer's skill. Meaning just grab the highest you can, and not balance expediture and skill.

The idea of junior/senior/chief is a nice idea.