[EXPERIMENT] manufacturing a research project

[yrizoud]

I've just thought of a neat trick with the current Openxcom engine : It's possible to make a buildable thing that unlocks a new research project.
You can test with the attached ruleset :
- Your engineers can manufacture Weapon facility
- Once built, your scientists can research Weapon facility
- This research topic unlocks the items New Pistol and New Rifle for use and manufacture (in this example, just copies of the laser rifle and pistol)

Disadvantage:
1) the manufactured item will have the same name as research project, so you're limited to names that somehow make sense to first build and then spend some time using/studying : "gauss prototype", "particle accelerator", "plasma testbed", "psionic study module", "Global array sensor"
2) Player is not notified of new research project
3) Can't prevent from building more than one, though it's not useful.

Benefits:
1) Gives something for your engineers to do, for example at campaign start
2) Can incur a cost of specific items, for example 10 sectoid corpses
3) The monetary cost alone can make it unavailable at game start
4) These costs are visible, so the player can see beforehand that he has to accumulate 10 sectoid corpses for a reason.

[Falko]

i had a similar idea to make elerium more sparsely available

there is a new "refined Elerium" item
newer crafts use this a fuel and ammo manufacture uses this

to get "refined Elerium" you need first
find elerium
research elerium
research elerium-reaktor
manufacure elerium-reaktor -> size big enough to fill 2 storage facilities (+money +100 elerium)
research elerium-conversion -> needs/consumes reaktor+50 elerium -> unlocks elerium-conversion
elerium conversion has a 5 elerium -> 2 "refined Elerium" rate
at this point you can use "refined Elerium"
research powersource
manufacure elerium-reaktor2 -> size big enough to fill 2 storage facilities (+money +200 elerium)
research elerium-conversion2 -> needs/consumes reaktor2+100 elerium -> unlocks elerium-conversion2
elerium conversion2 has a 3 elerium -> 2 "refined Elerium" rate
research [something else avenger?]
manufacure elerium-reaktor3 -> size big enough to fill 3 storage facilities (+money +400 elerium)
research elerium-conversion3 -> needs/consumes reaktor3+150 elerium -> unlocks elerium-conversion3
elerium conversion3 has a 1 elerium -> 1 "refined Elerium" rate

so you can invest up to 1000 elerium to get the 1:1 conversion ratio or save >500 elerium and live with a not optimal conversionrate

[jackstraw2323]

Interesting. I'm swaping out regular elerium in my conversion for a weaker isotope version. I'd just started to consider the possibility of refinement into regular elerium which in my setting has past "peak elerium" and is now very expensive. This gives me something of a path for possible conversion so you can manufacture a blaster bomb with regular elerium. I might still do some fiddling as I'm trying to balance the game elements which are new while keeping continuity with original xcom.

[NoelBuddy]

Neatness!

I was contemplating something similar for researching alien tech, in a way that would reflect more the process of reverse engineering something you sorta kinda have some idea how it works.

It would go:

aquire UFO Navigation
research UFO Navigation
unlocks Navigation prototype for manufacture
make one and start researching it
have it do a getOneFree where the list has several "nothing useful learned" results so they have a chance at progress but may have to build a few prototypes... here's where I got hung up, I don't know how to tell the player to stop building prototypes once they've gotten everything they can out of it... realistically that could happen, but it doesn't make for good gameplay. On the one hand if you have only one success among the possible outcomes you could have it say something like "we've learned all we can hope to from this"... but if you have potential progress in two areas I'd hate for people to find one and then think they should move on, and I don't want to set up a system where you could get a success, don't realize you should move on and build/research 10 more of the same prototype when the only possible further outcomes are a bunch of "better luck next time" messages.

So in short, I like the idea and haven't figured out a way to use it well.

[jackstraw2323]

That's another avenue I was considering. Including an item that's a story research item, and includes a list of several get one frees, most of which are useless, but one which would open up other research avenues. Say the one research path forward would be required for Cydonia or Bust. That way you could simulate trying to crack an encrypted computer that would self destruct if it failed. I.E. 1 out of 6 would work. So maybe you'd get it exactly the first time if you were lucky? But I'm probably being overly ambitious with my research tree and should scale it down a bit as I get into the thick of it. I've been sidetracked on a new HWP sprite at the moment that's important for a lot of my research tree. So once that's done I can incorporate and start thinking about how I want research and engineering to flow in regards to the economy I'm setting up.

[Falko]

make one and start researching it
have it do a getOneFree where the list has several "nothing useful learned" results so they have a chance at progress but may have to build a few prototypes...

dont see how that can be acomplished
"needitem: true " follows  STR_RESEARCHNAME == STR_ITEMNAME
if the research is done you cant research it again

to make navigation or pwer source or ... more difficult
try this
use "items" to add
STR_NAVI_MEDIUMSCOUT to medium scout
STR_NAVI_HARVESTER to harvester
STR_NAVI_LARGESCOUT to large scout
...
make researchobejects
STR_NAVICOUNT_3_1
cost0, points: 0
unlocks: NAVI
depends: MEDIUMSCOUT, STR_NAVI_HARVESTER, STR_NAVI_LARGESCOUT
STR_NAVICOUNT_3_2
cost0, points: 0
unlocks: NAVI
depends: MEDIUMSCOUT, STR_NAVI_HARVESTER, STR_NAVI_TERROR
...
that way you get navi as if you research navis from 3 different ufos
but thats a lot of tedious work (without scripting)

[yrizoud]

getOneFree only works with alien interrogations. I've tested by giving the factory item "liveAlien:true", it seems to work !

- If "spend researched items" option is OFF, the item is kept. It's only proposed for research as long as one of the "getOneFree" topics is remaining. This looks very nice !
- If "spend researched items" option is ON, the item needs to be rebuilt every time. Useful, but then it means you can build "one too much", which gains you nothing.

In any case this is quite hackish, I wouldn't be surprised if after your base is attacked the factory item was counted as an alien capture (Score, and displayed in detention list)
 

[Arthanor]

Pretty cool idea! I'll have to think of how to use that. The prototype idea is pretty cool!

A quick comment: you can use the "producedItems" property of manufactured object to make something with a different name from the research project it will unlock. Similarly, by using dependencies you can unlock manufacturing projects that have different names from the research.

Also, you do get a warning for new manufacturing options, just not for research. But you never get messages for research unlocked by items (like alien weapons) any ways. A player should regularly go through the list of projects to pick what to research next so that's not too big of a problem.

I like the idea of using engineers in research. Been trying to think of a way to do that for my harder/slower research mod.

[NoelBuddy]

getOneFree only works with alien interrogations.

I've used getOneFree semi successfully on research projects that don't require items, you finish the project and are given one of the listed topics completed but the original project is only available to be researched once... I was hoping adding a needItem: clause would fix that.

Perhaps you could make a chain of prototype research projects that each one would have a smaller list of possible failures, so:

acquire UFO part research it
  getOneFree:
                      UFO part
                      Prototype UFO part1
                      Prototype UFO part1
                      Prototype UFO part1
                      Prototype UFO part1
                      Prototype UFO part1
if you get prototype part1 then build one and research it
 getOneFree:
                      UFO part
                      Prototype UFO part2
                      Prototype UFO part2
                      Prototype UFO part2
                      Prototype UFO part2
and so on until if your luck totally sucks you get to prototype part5 which has only UFO part as it's possible result.

I like the idea of using engineers in research.

Likewise, was thinking of these things while trying to figure out a way to make firing the initial 10 engineers a tougher choice than is the cost of hiring replacements worth it for the extra bunk space for scientists before the first living quarters are completed.

[HelmetHair]

Oh and Shit.

Okay... well I know that my weekend is going to be shot to shit tinkering with this.

I guess that means I will need MORE BASEOXZS*JK@B9

So many possibilities... This would allow for a WHOLE wide range of useful tech breaking the theorem into practicum. I really think that they meant "technicians" when they defined engineers.... but WTFE they said engineers so I am on fucking board with them making better alien killing tools... especially for making toys not quite so crazy.

WAIT A SECOND!!!!

Okay now I need to know if when you complete a research project if you can define something like "we can now buy".

Is that even possible?

Anyone?

-hh

**Edit**

No, it is NOT possible to have a research project allow you to purchase more or different things as the game progresses. Now I shoot a request to the OXE thread,..

[Meridian]

getOneFree only works with alien interrogations.

This limitation has been removed in the latest nightly.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Disadvantage:
1) the manufactured item will have the same name as research project, so you're limited to names that somehow make sense to first build and then spend some time using/studying

If you use the producedItems rule, you can name the project one thing and have it produce something else.
Example:

Code: [Select]

  - name: STR_WEAPONS_FACILITY
    producedItems:
      STR_RESEARCH_WEAPONS: 10I used a bit of clever English: you've got "weapons" that you will "research" (they are "research weapons"), so you are going to "research" these "weapons", you're going to "research weapons".