Author Topic: Suggestions on how to improve the mod  (Read 238538 times)

Offline legionof1

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #270 on: June 21, 2016, 05:30:33 am »
something....odd at the very least is going on. I started a new run to see how the early game was as a break from the helleurium capsule grind. And several abortions later(woot relearning) a pattern of huge negative score spikes is occurring in about 1/4 of starts. It not actually a serious danger to the player as its not happening months in a row but its...weird.

The only things i know of with that much negative score are peacekeeping, conversion, secret bases and pogroms. Pogroms shouldn't be scoring and the others need multiple occurrences to get the values of between -1200 to -1500 that i have seen. And thats after 300ish positive points. I don't know what the techs are worth so more positive points.

The best i can figure is occurring is that its chain conversion missions which i have seen alot of in my late game campaign. Every 8-10 months i get between 3-8 conversions back to back.

For that matter there are big streaks of other types of normally generated missions. Big batches of excavators and imperial probes are pretty common.

This feels like "poor" randomization coding to me. I mean i dont have a sufficient sample size to prove it but the streak tendency is worrisome.

Offline khade

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #271 on: June 21, 2016, 08:33:36 am »
I got a score like that after three missions of around 300 points each, end of month I was at -1500. I don't have the skill to check it out, and decided to just restart, but I do have a save that is only a few days before the month end, if that could help, it's already negative. My second run didn't have the negative spike, at least not the first month.

In an earlier game I got an endless stream of temple ships, do those succeeding have score to cause this sort of thing?

Offline Gunner-chan

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #272 on: June 21, 2016, 08:45:39 am »
I checked my save, very closely, apparently a base went up super early and that was likely causing the cascading point drain to a lose I couldn't prevent at all. That would explain it... Though I don't know if it's a misconfiguration or a freak accident.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #273 on: June 21, 2016, 02:05:49 pm »
Hmm... the only solution of conversion/base building appearing early would be disabling the vanilla missions early-on (custom-tailoring is too work-sensitive)... and replacing them with a smaller list of missions (surveys, raids, extractors etc.) that only later switches to the full list.

Offline karadoc

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #274 on: June 21, 2016, 02:25:41 pm »
I got a negative score once in my current playthrough. It didn't bother me much. Certainly it didn't bother me as much as in the next month, when a country adopted the zero-tolerance policy. :(

I don't think you need to add more early-game missions.

Actually, I'm wondering if maybe the early game missions open up too many research options. In my current game, I still haven't got the Bonaventura; but I do have some pretty advanced tech, and a seemingly endless amount of research opportunities. From early missions and landings, I've got guild and academy engineers, guild rep, church matron, and stacks of different low ranking captures. I even managed to capture an ESPer who happened to be standing right outside my ship at the start of a progrom. I've seen cruisers land - but decided not to try to take them on yet. I'm starting to think that I could probably win the game without ever shooting down a single ship!

Maybe that's all fine; but I'm not deliberately trying to play the no-shooting-down-ships strategy. It's just happening because all these other resources are presenting themselves to me. And I'm a bit worried that I'll leap-frog over most of the air game by getting advanced ship tech before I get basic ship tech.

As I said, I still don't have the Bonnie, and I'm not sure what I need to research to get it. I can however research fighter construction and heavy attack craft... so I don't have a shortage of ships as such.

[edit]
To clarify, I'm not trying to suggest that something should be changed. I'm just sharing my thoughts and experiences. I'm not dissatisfied with how my playthrough is going, and I expect that other playthrough will be different and interesting in other ways.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 02:38:28 pm by karadoc »

Offline karadoc

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #275 on: June 21, 2016, 02:29:58 pm »
I am adding [search] to:
- new research
- new manufacture
- ufopedia
- stores
- buy/purchase
- sell/sack
- equip craft
- inventory
- maybe memorial ?

Did I forget something?
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but search is missing from transfer between bases. ("ship")

Offline Bloax

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #276 on: June 21, 2016, 03:57:01 pm »
Yeah, he noticed and fixed that later.
Nicely spotted though.

Offline ivandogovich

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #277 on: June 21, 2016, 04:43:18 pm »
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but search is missing from transfer between bases. ("ship")

As Bloax mentioned, its available in his latest executable build here: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.0.html
Down load the linked file in the first post and use it replace to the one in your OpenXcom_XPiratez folder.

@Dioxine:  If your intent is to give the player a "soft start", ie, let them play only the early game "easy" missions with the occasional landing, I would agree with disabling the vanilla missions. 
As an example, the Base Building wave can be a huge boost forward, due to a massive cash influx from captured ship parts.   This however, relies on these ships "landing" in the view of the initial small radar.  If the base goes in somewhere outside the range of detection, the Airbus is too near sighted to ever detect it and also too short legged to get to about half the globe.  Then that negative point drain is pretty much unavoidable.   
I'm not sure what other missions cause the same point drain, but I think your early mission design is intended to allow the player to slowly train the gals and keep the lights on with temple raids, rodeos, towers, warehouses, and science stations.  Beyond that, its going to be RNG that delivers landings within view.  And right now it kinda feels like RNG is really the primary factor in the early game.  Either you get a "Lucky" start, or an "Unlucky" one with negative points and stuff you can't see or can't reach.  (I caveat all of this by saying I've only played the early game once, with a Lucky start, but I'm also considering all of the other feedback I've heard on the forums. )

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #278 on: June 21, 2016, 05:09:06 pm »
There is no 'lucky' w/o 'unlucky', it's a sad reality. If I want a player to be able to make a heist that's waaay above his current standing, it has to have bad consequences as well when the dice roll badly for him; all I can do is cushion the fall a bit, but hand-to-mouth existence proves a good challenge for bean-counters.
I can, however, push some of the more punishing missions to later months. Peacekeepings, Sway Govts, Secret Bases can be safely pushed back w/o hurting the 'super-lucky great heist' potential. Assaulting gunships or shrine ships with the starting crew borders on insanity, however this creates a challenge for the most hardcore players - the ceiling should always be very, very hard to get to :)
This approach won't save you from the predations of negative score, but will lessen the impact; a few new starting missions would help to mend it a bit further. It is important that score can be mended by research as well... which should be displayed more openly to the player.
The idea is to create an early yearning to get either Pachyderm (to gain global range, good speed and +2 troops) or Jetbike (to gain the ability to intercept, especially easy & safe civilian targets). Maybe I should add a very early-buyable ship with better range and speed than Airbus, at a cost of 1-2 troops, because airbus->pachyderm is already a quantum leap :).
This will probably be an Aircar, and also there will be (later) an Airtruck, slower than Airbus with 9-10 capacity (including unique 8-9 HWP capacity for budding beastmasters and necromancers [this will be a surprise]). This will make for a choice of 3 battery-powered (very low running costs) crafts.

Offline ivandogovich

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #279 on: June 21, 2016, 05:24:28 pm »
I think the "Air Car" idea is great.  If I could add one request: better radar.  Giving you a "patrol" craft with longer reach, before the pigeon similar to vanilla skyranger in terms of loiter time and detection.  With only 4 crew slots it makes it that much harder to even go after the "easy" missions. :)

Edit: Imagine that "Temple Raid" beyond Airbus range:  you really might go for the snatch and grab with only four crew members instead of clearing the map.  Same with Rodeos, and scorps, etc.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 05:26:50 pm by ivandogovich »

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #280 on: June 21, 2016, 05:36:21 pm »
Radar craft will be yet another thing (someone proposed a biplane); good radars on the early aircars would be perhaps too much... Sure it forces the player to build moar hangars, but hangars aren't that expensive. Although upgrade from abysmal to poor radar is possible for the Aircar. The first couple of months aren't really a good place for radar crafts, as it'd allow far too early global reach (and make stationary radar bases a poor alternative). So I definitely agree with your suggestion for moar patrol possibilities, but we can't go overboard; stationary radars need to matter, and early base placement needs to matter as well (notice how new hideouts are the cheapest in remote, low-traffic areas) .

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #281 on: June 21, 2016, 05:36:46 pm »
I think the "Air Car" idea is great.  If I could add one request: better radar.

Hmmm... Dragon raiders! :D

Offline legionof1

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #282 on: June 21, 2016, 08:13:20 pm »
A HWP focused craft sounds interesting but its HARD to get them before a well tended barracks of gals renders them pointless.  My advanced campaign has single digits worth of hwp aside from the hordes of cyclopes since those things just dont die.

The fact that you have to STUN a terror unit WITHOUT WOUNDING to get half of them is....a pain in the ass to put it mildly. Even the mechanical ones that you dont have to stun for need a 2 to 1 ratio of killed analogues to build. Not counting the corpse lost to research.

By the time its "safe and easy" to get what you need to make them the gals are already better in every respect. Baring extreme good fortune.

There needs to be more easily attained HWPs to make a craft like this worthwhile.

Something needs to exist to bridge the gap between parrots and dogs and the tanks, converted cyberdisks and sectopods. 

 


Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #283 on: June 21, 2016, 08:19:18 pm »
There needs to be more easily attained HWPs to make a craft like this worthwhile.

Something needs to exist to bridge the gap between parrots and dogs and the tanks, converted cyberdisks and sectopods.

Hmm, that sounds like a looted academy drone... But would it be worthwhile? It's not very durable, has poor weapons and while it's a good scout, I think parrots are better...

Offline Rince Wind

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Re: Suggestions on how to improve the mod
« Reply #284 on: June 21, 2016, 08:21:58 pm »
Soo bears! That shoot lasers from their eyes. 2x1 unit.
Also the armoured cars the bandie use.