Solar's wishlist

[Meridian]

Then you will just raze some useless crap and build these 6 buildings. What's the problem?

Problem is there is no "useless crap" to raze, everything I build is used.

But I agree that we don't need this functionality. It's a mess GUI-wise... and upgrading from e.g. large living quarters to luxury living quarters is anyway only marginally better. I can live with large quarters until end of the game.

[Meridian]

One more thing (specifically in PirateZ, not vanilla).

If I somehow painfully manage to upgrade to Luxury Barracks and Armored Vaults... I get the additional space, but I get also base defense capability... which I don't want.

It may sound strange, but Base Defense missions for me are a very good source of everything I need:
- e.g. I am waiting for 2 years now for Church crackdown (i.e. Cardinal)... I definitely don't want to shoot them down when they appear
- I also welcome Mercenaries with open arms, since they give me Synth Mesh
- all other base defenses are also great source of heavy plasmas and other goodies

The only thing which I want to avoid are star god crackdowns... since they don't give me anything.

Currently I am doing this by building 2 hideout shrouds:
- if I decide I don't want the crackdown, I keep them and they (usually) don't find me
- if I decide I want the crackdown, I dismantle them, play crackdown and then rebuild them again

With Luxury Barracks and Armored Vaults, I don't have such possibility anymore.
I cannot afford to dismantle and rebuild them each time... not because I wouldn't have enough money... but because I wouldn't have enough storage/living space.

I don't have a solution for this... just saying out loud my thoughts.

PS: maybe I could make a user setting to ask before base facilities start shooting at UFO if I want to skip this and play the base defense instead... or does anyone have any other suggestions how to handle mid/late game base defenses? How do you deal with them?

PPS: and maybe even switch to disable hideout shrouds so that I don't have to dismantle and rebuild them each time

[ohartenstein23]

That sounds like an interesting idea - would it be like a screen that has a list of functionalities at a certain base with an enable/disable toggle?  I'm imagining a new screen that's accessible from the base info page, or right-clicking on defenses/shrouds/grav shields, and has a list like this:

Defense structures: enabled / =disabled=
Hideout shrouds: enabled / =disabled=
Grav Shield: enabled / =disabled=

[Starving Poet]

I think the shroud could definitely use a geoscape notification of some type with a toggle in the base info screen or even just a right click option on the module itself - as for the defenses, how hard would it be to allow us to manually fire them instead of having them fire automatically when the UFO comes in for a landing?

[Solarius Scorch]

I think the shroud could definitely use a geoscape notification of some type with a toggle in the base info screen or even just a right click option on the module itself - as for the defenses, how hard would it be to allow us to manually fire them instead of having them fire automatically when the UFO comes in for a landing?

Yes, a right-click would be the most logical place to place it, at least for me. Though on the other hand, a new button in the base screen "DEFENSES" would be in line with the original logic, so I think both would be necessary (if it's possible at all).

And I would actually like to operate ground batteries manually.

[Dioxine]

Gah, maybe do it simpler....

>Base gets attacked
>Player is prompted: should defenses fire, or let invaders land?

[Arthanor]

Or make it even simpler: Make sure that a player's reaction to an attack is "OMG NOOOOO!!!" and then defenses always firing makes sense because you'd never want to fight the battle and likely lose a bunch of gals or the base altogether. This also is further incentive towards developing the capability to intercept military crafts so you hopefully destroy the scouting ships before they find you, making the air game the primary defense against retaliations. Then base defenses, then the desperate last stand in your base.

Given the current circumstances, fighting base defenses against all but a few enemies is a good thing. Why would a crackdown on your hideout be a good thing? I'd actually welcome the bugged constant stream of enemy battleships, combined with a ramp up of their ground crews (Ideally crews get tougher and tougher as attacks are defeated, but I know that it's not possible, so just tougher crews in general). Even a super frustrating "facilities in which walls were destroyed have a repair time during which they are not functional". You like fighting in vaults or barracks? Well, that'll be a pain now (good thing we have the "ship stuff off at the end of battle, so you could just ship the stuff/people that can't stay right now because the base just got blown up). Then you get a reason to build some traps and corridors to fight in (Which are pretty underused, at least in my game).

If the guild knows where your hideout is and you're a pain in the ass for them, why wouldn't they keep striking at it until they get you? Why would they go: "Well, Bob the guildmaster tried but really, the 20 gals in primitive armor with swords and throwing knives were too much for the PCMs and GOs he took with him.. no point in trying again. What? You think you could do it, MARSEC commander dude? Nah, I tell you, they're ninjas in there, forget it! We'll just keep losing our shipping all the time, it's ok. No, we won't hire Mercs to do the job either. And we certainly won't inform the Governor about this rebellious bunch that disturbing global trade."

I can understand giving up after searching for a month and not finding anything but losing a bunch of ships. Giving up after having found the hideout is weird and makes the factions look weak. I'd love to see combined MARSEC + Merc crackdown teams that really whoop your ass and come with real combat teams and real nasty weapons. As a compensation, reduce the speed at which they come in so they might be intercepted. Not being able to have an air defense even if your crafts are already in the air and ready is annoying. That's half the point of an air force, to defend the base against enemy flyers.

And the other alternative if you don't have an air force? Pick up your stuff and leave. That's what pirates do when actual navies find them: They go away since their only way of thriving is picking on the weak and avoiding the strong. No ridiculous "navy of pirates standing up to the imperial navy". Or if that's to be the case, then things need to be recast so that the crew actually do become a global power able to rival the factions instead of the small scale one I think they are supposed to be.

[ohartenstein23]

I think global power to rival the factions is what we're going for here - you can research things like battleships to keep in your back pocket, make your gals international superstars, and empower mutants around the globe to stand up to pogroms to the point where they have enough military power to rent and sell off the excess back to you.  Your economy can be based on manufacturing main battle tanks to sell to the highest bidder.  You build plasma weapons even more powerful than the empire's heavy designs.  Things like that are the reason why every global faction spends resources every month trying to track down your hideouts.

[Dioxine]

I'd really love to see how would you implement that 'simplest' solution (making base defenses as difficult as to be unwelcome but not an instakill for early-mid game).

[Meridian]

Just keep in mind we play games for fun.
Please don't turn my question to a nerfing/buffing flamewar.

Gah, maybe do it simpler....
>Base gets attacked
>Player is prompted: should defenses fire, or let invaders land?

Yes, something along those lines.

[legionof1]

I'm all for a simple fire/dont fire choice on the defense screen. There are times i want to get attacked and times i don't, on the same base during a game.

[KateMicucci]

Is it possible to make a ufo shot down by base defense spawn a crash site?

[Meridian]

Is it possible to make a ufo shot down by base defense spawn a crash site?

It's not currently supported, but it is (relatively easily) doable.

[ohartenstein23]

Is it possible to make a ufo shot down by base defense spawn a crash site?

Yes, but it would mess with balance of base defenses.  To 'shoot down' an incoming UFO, you have to completely destroy it - twice the amount of damage it takes to crash land a UFO.  To have it just shoot down a UFO but not destroy it would mean that only half the base defenses are required to stop the assault and every incoming UFO would crash land instead of being destroyed.

So possible with some new code, but every modder would yell at you for destroying their work in making a meaningful decision between building base defenses, letting the UFO through, or trying to shoot it down before it reaches you.

[Arthanor]

I'd really love to see how would you implement that 'simplest' solution (making base defenses as difficult as to be unwelcome but not an instakill for early-mid game).

Well, alright, maybe it's not the simplest solution because it goes and rebalances key aspects of the game. It's a simple solution to the "need to code something so I can better exploit crackdowns" since it removes the need for coding by making base defenses always desirable. From the modder's (your) point of view, It's not a simple solution since it's a lot of extra modding work. Although I do believe that it could be achieved with multiple ranks in a given factions, and retaliations only using the hardcore ranks + being given hardcore weapons, combined with having a early game variant of the races with less hardcore ranks and weapons used for retaliations (and all the required ranks/weapons already exist). I also believe it's ok for base defenses to be a losing proposition in the early-mid game, since I don't believe pirates or modern humans should be able to stand up to pissed off global factions or aliens, respectively. Hence my mention of moving to a base, as a weaker guerilla/pirate/resistance faction would do.

But I won't go further into it. Since:

Please don't turn my question to a nerfing/buffing flamewar.

Is it possible to make a ufo shot down by base defense spawn a crash site?

That would be a good alternative to making defenses not fire since having a crash site means you could get all the good loot people want and you'd fight a slightly less advantageous battle since bases are usually designed to be easy to defend, compared to UFOs that are often a pain to clear.