different way of handling battlescape salvaging

[Amunak]

Working for businesses in real life that sell things; selling something before they've got their hands on the product is not that usual. In my current job, we often buy parts in for a sale - which means we get the sale first, then buy the part. It might sound odd, but it happens.

Well selling was maybe a bad idea.  But it's really odd that you can start researching things you salvaged before they are at the base. If it's intended, why it doesn't work with transfers too?

Regarding the recovery. When you finish battlescape, do you return to Geoscape with the same clock time? Maybe the geo should return with (n*2)+30 minutes added (where n is the number of turns in the game). Or something like that. Though you'd probably need to be careful to update research, manufacturing, and any other craft flying on the globe.

Yes you do. There are few ways to handle this:
- the one this is handled now. Mission takes no time on geoscape. That's weird, but missions are very fast (assuming you do a large scout mission on approx. 6 turns) - it's about 3 minutes. And that can be probably ignored on geoscape.
- you could move the timeforward after mission (or better after each turn - then you could easily recognize saved games). But what about the rest of geoscape? If there are some aircrafts on move or in fight, if there is ufo heading towards your base... Would you move those corresponding to the time that pased, or would you just "stop" them in time? The former could be very dangerous for player, and the latter is illogical.
- a "proper" solution is maybe to keep the time before mission, but wait with the skyranger for about turns*30sec on ground with status "on mission". It could be maybe a little weird but because the player is no "entity" in-game (like general or something), you don't have to explain it in any way so it shouldn't look weird.

Well this was another long post, sorry. I'm happy with the way it's now too, but little tweaks are never bad

[moriarty]

- a "proper" solution is maybe to keep the time before mission, but wait with the skyranger for about turns*30sec on ground with status "on mission".

this.

IMHO, that's the only correct way. you can't just fast-forward the geoscape, because things might happen in the meantime: there are occasions where a skyranger reaches a crash site while an interceptor is tailing another UFO, waiting for it to reach land to shoot it down. if you just skip forward, what happens in the meantime? there could be decisions made.

For me, it sounds right that the transport craft should stay on the ground for (battlescape turns * 30sec) in an "on mission" state, followed by another (to be determined) period of time for the salvaging operation.

For the most part, this won't really be noticeable because geoscape time really goes by quite quickly. But it opens up a few options for modding...

I think items shouldn't arrive at the base before the transport does. That was a bad hack in the original, resulting from an over-simplification, resulting from the fact that geoscape and battlescape were two separate games (with separate executables!) that just passed values back and forth. The battlescape.exe simply told the geoscape.exe that xy was salvaged, and the geoscape.exe simply stuffed it into base storage.

This also doesn't really affect the game noticeably in terms of gameplay, it only adds a bit of realism. Plus it opens up another option for modding...



...I'm still dreaming about a mod that makes transport craft more vulnerable, with UFOs retaliating against them in the air (i.e. on the way to an alien base) as well as on the ground (i.e. while the salvaging operation for a downed UFO is still running). 

[pmprog]

Well selling was maybe a bad idea.  But it's really odd that you can start researching things you salvaged before they are at the base. If it's intended, why it doesn't work with transfers too?

Fair point. That was fixed in XCOM:Apoc, and shouldn't be that difficult to implement (he says without looking) here 

[Daiky]

Adding a frustrating, useless delay in between finishing a battle and getting the rewards for it, is improving the game experience ? I must be having another idea of a good game experience :p
So I assume when you guys play the game, after you finished a battlescape you actually make rule for yourself to wait for X hours before you let yourself research/sell items you salvaged? Because it's soo much more fun? 

[Daiky]

Sorry about my rant, but I played original xcom this weekend, and I found it very enjoyable to be able to sell and research things before the skyranger returned.
It's like: I did a good thing, I want a cookie now :p

It's not because it's unrealistic it's a bad thing: In chess you can move towers, that's not realistic. In TFTD you can throw grenades under water...

If it's for a greater mod, I can understand it.
Another example is, if you can instruct a skyranger to unload it's salvaged items in another base than it's homebase (for example if you have a base with a lot of storage space, you immediatly let the skyranger drop it's stuff there, instead of having to drop it at home base and transfer it). Then you can't have the items automatically put in the base.

[Amunak]

It's not because it's unrealistic it's a bad thing: In chess you can move towers, that's not realistic. In TFTD you can throw grenades under water...

That's perfectly legit if it flies no more then two meters away and blows up your face afterwards

But really... The fact is, that it might be simpler to be able to use the items like in original. But it's much more realistic to have the aircraft with the items wait there for sime time. Maybe make it optional?

[Daiky]

It's realistic to sell items you don't own, as pmprog says. However the fysical transaction will take place when the skyranger returns. It's just the paperwork and the payment you do beforehand, while the skyranger is still in the air.

It's also realistic to start up the research of an item you salvaged, when you give the order to start the research, what happens is that the labs or alien containment are prepared. The scientists are paged to come back from their holiday, because they have to start working, the coffee-machine is booted..... This all happens while the skyranger is flying back, and when it lands at the base, the item/alien is transfered to the lab/alien containement and actual research starts.

[luke83]

I just wanted a new mission type

[Amunak]

It's also realistic to start up the research of an item you salvaged, when you give the order to start the research, what happens is that the labs or alien containment are prepared. The scientists are paged to come back from their holiday, because they have to start working, the coffee-machine is booted..... This all happens while the skyranger is flying back, and when it lands at the base, the item/alien is transfered to the lab/alien containement and actual research starts.

You made me laugh. But what's more, it's actually true!

What do you think about  pinning the skyranger on the crashite for some time? That's the other thing we were discussing here.

[pmprog]

Adding a frustrating, useless delay in between finishing a battle and getting the rewards for it, is improving the game experience ? I must be having another idea of a good game experience :p
So I assume when you guys play the game, after you finished a battlescape you actually make rule for yourself to wait for X hours before you let yourself research/sell items you salvaged? Because it's soo much more fun? 

Personally, I'm happy with the way it was in XCOM

I'm not saying it's "improving" or more "fun"; but it's more consistant - you have to wait for the craft to return before you can rearm/refuel it.

XCOM:Apoc also forced you to bring back recovered items before you can research them, but from watching MetalCanyon's Let's Play, bringing the stuff home first makes very little game difference. Considering you can fly home in a second if you speed up time.

[moriarty]

I actually (try to) make myself wait until the skyranger lands, because I always considered the item-teleporting a bad hack

(of course I am prone to the occasional premature selling... especially towards the end of the month, when I'm not sure if the skyranger will be back before the end-of-month calculations, and I need those extra 2 million dollars to pay for my huge army of scientists...)

seriously, while selling stuff you don't have (yet) is common in actual economics, I don't think it has a place in this game. to use that as an explanation is just a cover-up of something not being done properly: namely, the transfer of items from a battlescape to a transport and then to a base.

[pmprog]

to use that as an explanation is just a cover-up of something not being done properly

Obviously the Gallop brothers agreed because they added it to Apoc; but when designing and writing a game, one of the problems is feature creep; and a question that you always need to ask yourself is "Does this add anything to the game?". If it doesn't, cut it! Even if it makes things a little less "accurate".

Games are supposed to be fun. I don't play most RPGs because they require you to "grind" repetitively in order to level up so you can progress. I'd happily pick up Street Fighter, or Mario Strikers (if I still had my Wii), etc.

I suppose you could argue XCOM is kind of like an RPG, but they give enough variation to prevent it from just grinding UFO's to level up.

[Daiky]

I'd probably better not mention that in original xcom an injured soldier gets removed from the craft and starts recovering even before the craft has returned :p
Also, don't soldiers in real battle get their promotion after they succesfully got back to base? You know, their transport can still be intercepted meanwhile :p

[pmprog]

You know, their transport can still be intercepted meanwhile :p

Oh man, you just give me a great idea ---- ambush!

Give the aliens some ambush AI. They send out a small ship to just hover around one of the bases, and after the battle, a much larger ones appear. Might seem a little evil though, but it'll make the presence of a base more obvious

[moriarty]

Oh man, you just give me a great idea ---- ambush!

Give the aliens some ambush AI. They send out a small ship to just hover around one of the bases, and after the battle, a much larger ones appear. Might seem a little evil though, but it'll make the presence of a base more obvious

that is a) a mod and b) precisely the kind of stuff I was trying to prepare for the whole time

seriously, there's a whole lot of untapped potential for geoscape tactics, but that requires some preparation, namely realistic handling of cargo. who cares if your transport is shot down on the way home if the loot has already been teleported there... with all the money from the loot, you can buy two new transports. including the soldiers. but if you actually need to worry about getting home... of course, it would be downright mean if the transport was simply blown out of the sky, but if the UFO just forced you to land, it would even give you the chance to counter-ambush: go and sweep out a tiny UFO with a transport full of elite troops, trying to coax the larger UFO into coming down to get you, then taking that one out as well...