If you're curious about exact details, here's everything you want to know about base defense facilities:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,8460.0.html
The short answer is 4 OC radars in a base means never seeing those pesky demons again if you decide it's worth the expense You can get by with as little as 2 if you want to reload (a lot). Flak cannons are much more cost effective but needs "cannon defenses" which needs a lot of random techs to get like humanist soldier, lacc/spitfire and light cannon. Flak towers are pretty much trash, just use the radars if you want defense and don't have cannons.
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Yeah, I read that post and I think my main takeaway then was "I'm not giving up that much space to building defenses!".
If they only raid me every once in a while, I'm good with them bringing me loot via delivery instead of takeout. It does mean I need to keep a few troopers on hand in each base, but since I'm (happily) mistaken about the usefulness of peasants and slave soldiers in the current version, I'm good using them for that too. A dog for sensing, a few decent guns, an LMG maybe, some demo & some anti-tank, and call it done. And I think I'm actually pretty close to Cannon Defenses, just need one more thing to unlock Krazy Hanna and the path is basically there.
Regarding spy zepellins being useless: I made that comment back when all of the military ships were HKs, now the skies are (slightly) less dangerous. Still probably not worth it, but it's not quite as a bad anymore. The zeppelin is a nice way to shove more gals into a mansion mission if you want to squad wipe even more gals more looters.
Also: Expeditions are pretty cheap if they get shot down, so you can use those if you want. When I was trying a convoy/expedition game I actually sold my radar and just used an expedition that never returned to base and just delayed mission expirations and acted as radar xD
Yeah, I think your post was one of the major contributors to me thinking about that. Probably won't bother with Pigeon now, and I've started 2 more bases since then (so up to 4), but if I get zeppelins soon, I may use one or two to cover holes. I'll have to look to see where I'm at with research, compared to say, hyperwave decoders (which I'm pretty sure are not close yet).
I can safely say it was all of it in this case. Not that it really matters much, the "big" armors tend to hard stop most things at there tech level, so taking more hits then a smaller unit is kinda irreverent. Taking 6 extra pistol hits does not matter if the pistol has zero ability to penetrate.
Yeah, exactly, taking a few extra hits for zero damage is pretty irrelevant!
In fact, if the "bigger" armor can better block a buddy standing behind it, that's actually a good thing.
As far as the debate on save usage, where I am on that is that my free time is valuable, and limited, so with what I do have, I want to enjoy playing, particularly this and other mods as a new experience. But I don't want to redo a whole bunch of stuff, because that means some of my time got "wasted". I don't mind losing troopers, or having a lot of them spend a long time injured, but I don't particularly want to lose a lot of game progress either. So a base wipe, yeah, I might have to think about reloading, but at the same time, as I said above, I don't mind over-preparing for something that might never happen. I do take a lot of extra gear with me on missions to be prepared for unforeseen circumstances (like the first time I ran into Zombie Troopers). But at the same time, I do save during combats, more to guard against a crash (and that's more my computer than the mod, by the way). I'm not going to reload because I got ambushed, or did something stupid. I have also saved as a "test" before trying new things from time to time, but, as it happens, for nearly all of those, I've accepted the outcome of the test and moved on. But I don't care about e-penis size, so I'm not going to play super hard core challenge mode or anything similar. I play for my own entertainment. Sometimes that does mean reloading and replaying something, because it is fun to solve the tactical puzzle.
Thanks for everyone's input!