Brainstorming for slower technological progression

[Hadan]

Thanks for your help.
There still seems to be an error.
I tried hooking the dependencies to CORPSE and AUTOPSY, but the research for Alien containment doesnt show up.

I attached the ruleset, maybe you could be so good and have a look on it.

[Align]

I already did pretty much what you want in my mod, though I decided to forego a middle-hand tech.

Code: [Select]

research:
  - name: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
    cost: 150
    points: 15
    dependencies:
      - STR_SECTOID_AUTOPSY
      - STR_SNAKEMAN_AUTOPSY
      - STR_FLOATER_AUTOPSY
      - STR_MUTON_AUTOPSY
      - STR_ETHEREAL_AUTOPSY
      - STR_CHRYSSALID_AUTOPSY
      - STR_REAPER_AUTOPSY
      - STR_CELATID_AUTOPSY

...

  - name: STR_SECTOID_AUTOPSY
    cost: 0
    points: 50
    needItem: true
    unlocks:
      - STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT

(and so on for the other autopsies)
...
ufopaedia:
  - id: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
    type_id: 6
    section: STR_BASE_FACILITIES
    requires:
      - STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
    text: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT_UFOPEDIA

...
facilities:
  - type: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
    requires:
      - STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
    spriteShape: 1
    spriteFacility: 25
    buildCost: 400000
    buildTime: 18
    monthlyCost: 15000
    aliens: 10
    mapName: XBASE_08


[moriarty]

well, you only require an alien autopsy, whereas Hadan wants Alien Alloys as an additional requirement...

it would be nice if there was a way to include building upgrades and special requirements... like the necessity to improve your alien containment with alien alloy shielding in order to contain the more... volatile... aliens (chryssalids, silacoids).

unfortunately, we don't have a way to prevent only certain aliens from being put in the standard containment, and we don't have building upgrades, and I don't think we have the possibility to have buildings require special materials for building, or do we?

[Align]

well, you only require an alien autopsy, whereas Hadan wants Alien Alloys as an additional requirement...

Ah, my bad. Then you want the autopsies to unlock the dependency tech, and have the proper tech depend on alloys and the dependency tech (neither should unlock the proper tech).

Don't know about the rest, or at least probably not without something deeper than ruleset editing.

[moriarty]

Thanks for your help.
There still seems to be an error.
I tried hooking the dependencies to CORPSE and AUTOPSY, but the research for Alien containment doesnt show up.

I attached the ruleset, maybe you could be so good and have a look on it.

your research topic lists the dependency as "ALIEN_CONTAINMENT_DEP1" where it should be "STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT_DEP1"

Code: [Select]

  - name: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
    cost: 500
    points: 15
    dependencies:
      - STR_ALIEN_ALLOYS
      - ALIEN_CONTAINMENT_DEP1

other than that, everything appears to be fine

[Hadan]

Thanks, it works now 

it would be nice if there was a way to include building upgrades and special requirements... like the necessity to improve your alien containment with alien alloy shielding in order to contain the more... volatile... aliens (chryssalids, silacoids).

I wouldnt worry too much about Aliens with only "melee" weapons. Think about what an ethereal commander could do, even behind thick wall 

[hstech]

Basically, if the Psi trigger detects that it's authorised user has expired suddenly; and if it doesn't get "reset" by an engineer within a certain amount of time; then it automatically destroys itself. You'd still be able to figure out some rudiments of how the system works from the self-destroyed guns, but you'd be missing a lot.

I got an idea: Don't make it too obvious that the weapon destroyed itself. The weapon would appear normally as a research project however once researched it will turn out that it has been destroyed somehow and an alien engineer is necessary to figure out why it got destroyed and how to prevent that. Once researched, all self destructed weapons would be reduced to so much scrap alien alloys after the mission completes. The explanation would be that the self destruct mechanism destroyed the internals of the weapon while leaving the outside of the weapon largely intact.

Additionally, the weapon would self destruct immediately upon the death of its authorised user. Given the fact that aliens have enough resources to send a fully crewed and equipped battleship to your base several times a month (see https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Known_Bugs#Never-ending_Retaliation_Bug), I would suggest that they will not bother to make their weapons reusable like this and make them rather disposable. Once the alien soldier dies, its weapon will die with it and that's it.

If you manage to capture a live alien with its weapon and research it, it would be possible to tell apart live weapons from the dead ones so you would be able to skip the dead weapon research necessity.

This would waste your research time if you did the most obvious thing: kill all aliens and then collect their corpses and their toys.

[moriarty]

I found some more flaws in my ruleset, so here's an updated one... I am also currently working on simplifying it, because the whole "alien plasma weapon" - "retrofitted plasma weapon" - "human plasma weapon" thing is just a bit too complicated in my opinion.

I suggest playing this ruleset with the option that destroys alien weapons when the alien dies.

[mercy]

Thank You. Trying this out as well. I love your mods!!

[Solarius Scorch]

I really, really don't like the "alien weapon is destroyed on death" mechanics. Sorry for the harsh words, but to tell you the truth it feels extremely unconvincing, forced and gamey. A pistol is a goddamn pistol, it can't just spontaneously burst into flames like a letter from a spy comedy show. And even if it could, enough would remain to investigate it anyway (especially if we had many of them).

However, I really like everything else in this thread. Despite some initial reservations, I like the "psionic trigger" idea, the "research alien corpse to enable Alien Containment" idea and so on. I'm only worried that the game might become too hard at some point - perhaps the aliens' progress could be slowed somewhat to accommodate for much slower research? Or maybe it wouldn't be as necessary?

[Paddywhacker]

Wouldn't it be plausible that the alien weapons would have biometric sensors to lock them against misuse, and even to trigger self-destruction?  All the game needs is for it to be explained in a believable way.

[Solarius Scorch]

Wouldn't it be plausible that the alien weapons would have biometric sensors to lock them against misuse, and even to trigger self-destruction?  All the game needs is for it to be explained in a believable way.

>Able to reverse-engineer a power source based on exotic energies in under two months
>Unable to break a biometric lock in a lifetime

As you say, it should be believable.

[Align]

Well, if they use the plasma clip to overload and vaporize the weapon... I guess?

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, if they use the plasma clip to overload and vaporize the weapon... I guess?

It'd either vaporize a crater around the alien corpse or not vaporize the weapon very well.

[yrizoud]

I'd rather like a system where interrogation of multiple alien soldiers is required to unlock the entire armory.
(I started experimenting with this idea, but it gets hairy very quickly...)