Harder Research

[MKSheppard]

A simple mod to try and stretch out the game a bit more.

Pretty much everything now costs 2.5 times more to research, with some exceptions:

• Corpses. 1.25x since it's cutting up a dead body. Zombies, Chrysallids, Ethereals and Sectoids are 4x -- can you imagine the psychic afterimage left after a Etheral dies and it's triggered when someone cuts into it?
• Interrogations are 2x for most races, but Snakemen and Sectoids are 3x due to low psonics and the eggs within a snakeman, while Ethereals cost 5x -- can you imagine trying to interrogate a ethereal while keeping it from mind-wiping you? Just close your eyes and imagine the increased cost is due to everything having to take longer since the ethereal is pumped full of narcotics to keep it sleepy and dulled.
• Clips -- 1.5x multiplier because the gun(s) itself are now so expensive.
  
• Alien Alloys and Elerium 115 are 4x because these are key fundamental points of alien technologies so far beyond our knowledge of how the world works....

[Solarius Scorch]

While I (and a couple other guys here) intend to develop a better research tree, this looks like a fair temporary measure.

I especially like the interrogations. Autopsies shouldn't take more than a few days.

[Camalex97]

can you imagine trying to interrogate a ethereal while keeping it from mind-wiping you? Just close your eyes and imagine the increased cost is due to everything having to take longer since the ethereal is pumped full of narcotics to keep it sleepy and dulled.

maybe just keep shocking/tasing it? they are a psychic enemy and if you used a neurological weapon like a Taser against it that would keep if under control right? it would be quite easy in theory, position its body to where It is being held up by its limbs then, attach a ECT machine to its spine (or whatever is connected to the brain/still functional) then it could either be in too much pain or too weak neurologically to retaliate. (unless I am completely wrong about their anatomy of course)

[MKSheppard]

I've been thinking a bit and I have a few increased fluff ideas I'd like to incorporate.

1.) Change it so that you start the game WITHOUT Alien Containment.

2.) You need to grab some alien corpses; and do an ALIEN AUTOPSY, which unlocks:

ALIEN PHYSIOLOGY -- we need to understand their natural environment more; through autopsying their lungs and stomach (or equivalent) contents.

Consider -- despite humans evolving to breathe 80/20% Nitrogen Oxygen mix at 14.7 PSI (roughly); we can breathe 100% Oxygen at 5 PSI (Apollo), or 80/20 Nitrogen/Oxygen at 59~ PSI (Scuba Divers at 100 feet); for short periods without death.

In the case of 100% Oxygen at 5 PSI, you can do it for about 15+ days without ill effects, but beyond that, you risk serious problems.

So...consider the ALIENS. We know they can breathe our atmosphere for short periods of time. But can they breathe it for several weeks on end?

Same thing with food; consider how Chocolate is toxic to Dogs. Do the aliens need to avoid particular foods?

This is why IMHO, you shouldn't have ALIEN CONTAINMENT from game start; but only after autopsies.

Once you've captured a live, breathing subject in your new containment lab; you then get a new fluff text:

ALIEN PSYCHOLOGY: Can we communicate with them? Do they think like us? Once you do this, you can now interrogate aliens.

I've always found it a bit silly that you can interrogate right from the start of the game a captured sectoid engineer and get performance characteristics of an alien UFO without working out a common language or what measurement system they use.

Apparently high voltage cattle prods are universal translators.

[Solarius Scorch]

Regarding Alien Physiology: that's exactly, down to the last detail, what I submitted two days ago. Great minds think alike!

The Alien Psychology, or Alien Language, might be a nice addition; on the other hands, at least some alien species can communicate telepathically, which can be assumed to go around the language issue. (And probably cause a few problems, like you described earlier.) I'm not sure what to do about this, but it's just cosmetics.