power facility that is req for other facilities to operate

[Solarius Scorch]

I've never had facilities destroyed. I'm not sure what people do to manage it. I don't use a lot of explosives, but I've used my fair share of blaster bombs in base defense.

It never happened to me either, but it's there and needs to be taken into consideration. (It's a bit of a pain really.)

You can gloss things over lorewise by saying you are using portable generators and make-shift solutions untill main power is back online.

Yeah, I'm inclined towards the same solution. But I guess we would need some sort of a drawback for not having the facility on base, to avoid the cheat with somehow removing the building to make more space.

If you feel like editing the map, just stick an alien power supply unit somewhere on the top floor.

That would require two different buildings, before and after the discovery of UFO Power Source... Perhaps the latter would be cheaper to run? (Pity we can't have buildings consume items on building.)

[mrxian]

It never happened to me either, but it's there and needs to be taken into consideration. (It's a bit of a pain really.)

I figured it out. The facilities where I do my fighting (stores and personell, mostly) are indestructible.

Yeah, I'm inclined towards the same solution. But I guess we would need some sort of a drawback for not having the facility on base, to avoid the cheat with somehow removing the building to make more space.

Don't worry about cheaters. This is an optional mod. If they don't wanna deal with it, they can just turn the mod off. If they do want to deal with it they won't cheat (unless they are being stupidsilly, and you don't care about silly people.)

That would require two different buildings, before and after the discovery of UFO Power Source... Perhaps the latter would be cheaper to run? (Pity we can't have buildings consume items on building.)

Nah, just claim that you are using an old power source from a pre-Xcom UFO scratch. It's been modified to output electricity only, and it does that in seemingly endless amounts, but they never figured out anything else about it, and the techs can't have it for disassembly since you need it for the power.
Or it's using a revolutionary new fusion reactor that somehow looks exactly like a UFO power source, aquired at great cost (or liberated) from a rogue nation. (Implying that the aliens have already had some success in infiltration and tech trade missions.)
Or it's just a general, non-revolutionary fusion reactor, but some joker thought it would be funny to make it look just like a UFO component.
Or it's a reactor of some kinds that just uses the rebuilt housing of a damaged power source, since even the housing is more effective at what it does than anything the humans can produce.
I'm sure there are other possibilities, but anything else I come up with now would be overly silly.

Remember - make the in-game explanation fit what you have in mind for the gameplay, not the other way around. Gameplay must always come first.

[Solarius Scorch]

I figured it out. The facilities where I do my fighting (stores and personell, mostly) are indestructible.Don't worry about cheaters. This is an optional mod. If they don't wanna deal with it, they can just turn the mod off. If they do want to deal with it they won't cheat (unless they are being stupidsilly, and you don't care about silly people.)

From one point of view yes, but then again it's not very elegant design. If the room is not in the game at all, it's fine, since it exists in the "sphere of abstraction", or the part of the world that is not shown at all; but if it's in the game, it should behave properly. It's a tactical game, not The Sims, and you should feel pressed into doing whatever the game allows you to do to make your job easier.

It's not that the player won't be able to resist, I just think that giving them this opportunity is simply wrong, as it hurts immersion.

Nah, just claim that you are using an old power source from a pre-Xcom UFO scratch. It's been modified to output electricity only, and it does that in seemingly endless amounts, but they never figured out anything else about it, and the techs can't have it for disassembly since you need it for the power.
Or it's using a revolutionary new fusion reactor that somehow looks exactly like a UFO power source, aquired at great cost (or liberated) from a rogue nation. (Implying that the aliens have already had some success in infiltration and tech trade missions.)
Or it's just a general, non-revolutionary fusion reactor, but some joker thought it would be funny to make it look just like a UFO component.
Or it's a reactor of some kinds that just uses the rebuilt housing of a damaged power source, since even the housing is more effective at what it does than anything the humans can produce.
I'm sure there are other possibilities, but anything else I come up with now would be overly silly.

But neither of these explanations are very persuasive, and moreover I don't understand why we need to be using alien tech from the beginning (which is really non-canon). Why can't we use a normal nuclear reactor? It's certainly good enough.

Remember - make the in-game explanation fit what you have in mind for the gameplay, not the other way around. Gameplay must always come first.

With crappy explanation you get crappy gameplay.

[mrxian]

From one point of view yes, but then again it's not very elegant design. If the room is not in the game at all, it's fine, since it exists in the "sphere of abstraction", or the part of the world that is not shown at all; but if it's in the game, it should behave properly. It's a tactical game, not The Sims, and you should feel pressed into doing whatever the game allows you to do to make your job easier.

Maybe we should push the devs to make the option that doesn't allow storage above your max space a standard feature of the game. (I think it does improve the game quite a bit.)

It's not that the player won't be able to resist, I just think that giving them this opportunity is simply wrong, as it hurts immersion.

I'm not saying having some kind of penalty for not having the room would be a bad thing (something like having to fight base defense missions in hte dark would be cool), I'm just saying you shouldn't worry about cheaters. There will always be players out there who will take your design to unintended fringes. While you can't ignore them completely, I think it's silly to stress over them too much at the very early design stages.

But neither of these explanations are very persuasive, and moreover I don't understand why we need to be using alien tech from the beginning (which is really non-canon). Why can't we use a normal nuclear reactor? It's certainly good enough.

Yeah, a normal nuclear reactor would probably do just fine. We could just use one of the corners (on both floors) to make it, and make it destructible as well, but only by direct hits from blaster bombs. And if possible, it should blow up spectacularly.

With crappy explanation you get crappy gameplay.

No.
You make gameplay first. Build your concepts, make things fun. Then you come up with explanations, and they can be a little dinky (like construction yards being the only damn building with their own power supply). You should never change good gameplay for the sake of lore. It's something you see in games quite a lot, and (especially in MMOs), it gets patched sooner or later most of the time.
Of course, if your explanation is good enough, you break the rules. No rule should ever be set in stone. Well, stone is perhaps the perfect medium. It's sturdy enough that it resists half-hearted attempts at breaking it, but if you really want to, you can crack it. So set in stone, but not in adamantium.

[Solarius Scorch]

I'm not saying having some kind of penalty for not having the room would be a bad thing (something like having to fight base defense missions in hte dark would be cool),

Oh! Oh! I like this!

I'm just saying you shouldn't worry about cheaters. There will always be players out there who will take your design to unintended fringes. While you can't ignore them completely, I think it's silly to stress over them too much at the very early design stages.

I'm not stressing over them, I'm just a perfectionist sometimes.

Yeah, a normal nuclear reactor would probably do just fine. We could just use one of the corners (on both floors) to make it, and make it destructible as well, but only by direct hits from blaster bombs. And if possible, it should blow up spectacularly.No.

Of course it's possible!

You make gameplay first. Build your concepts, make things fun. Then you come up with explanations, and they can be a little dinky (like construction yards being the only damn building with their own power supply). You should never change good gameplay for the sake of lore. It's something you see in games quite a lot, and (especially in MMOs), it gets patched sooner or later most of the time.

Well, I still disagree. Logic is as important as gameplay.

That's the problem with most games: their lack one of these. Some games are too concentrated on making sense that the gameplay suffers, usually because there's too much information to process and the UI is too complicated, or simply the game's challenge is no longer attractive (for example because they become imbalanced). Some games sacrifice logical coherency for gameplay, and they're downward stupid. Neither are good.

Of course, if your explanation is good enough, you break the rules. No rule should ever be set in stone. Well, stone is perhaps the perfect medium. It's sturdy enough that it resists half-hearted attempts at breaking it, but if you really want to, you can crack it. So set in stone, but not in adamantium.

Y- yeah! Pass the joint, bro!

[pilot00]

By the same theoram we need to have a command center in the base which will serve only one purpose: As a primary target for a base assault if it gets destroyed, but that will add another uneccesary hassle simmilar to the ones of the power facility (I already explained my position).

[mrxian]

By the same theoram we need to have a command center in the base which will serve only one purpose: As a primary target for a base assault if it gets destroyed, but that will add another uneccesary hassle simmilar to the ones of the power facility (I already explained my position).

Now, now, one hurdle at a time.
We already solved most of the hassle that comes with having to build it seperately. We can talk about comman centers later. (They should probably be part of a radar system.)

[pilot00]

Now, now, one hurdle at a time.
We already solved most of the hassle that comes with having to build it seperately. We can talk about comman centers later. (They should probably be part of a radar system.)

Maybe I was not clear. What I want to say is that to me at least (and I cant stress that enough) both the Power generation and the command center are not something that are needed in a base because the game as is doesnt actually support them without hard swings. They would just be unessessary hassles. And I threw the command center as another proposed unessessary add on.

[x60mmx]

Considering how small X-Com bases are, there's no way you'd need more than one power generator to power it unless you were using a coal furnace or something.  And considering money becomes a non-issue quickly, this would essentially become "-1 base tile mod".  If you did decide that it should take a number of generators, it would become "-x base tiles mod".  This wouldn't add any difficulty what-so-ever beyond the reduced base size, and even that wouldn't effect players familiar with X-Com.

TLDR; Wouldn't accomplish anything but bloat.