Buying And Selling In Xenocide

[Whitewashed]

I think there should be some improvements to the buying and selling in Xenocide.

 

The smallest change is that I feel it's unnecessary to have 2 separate screens, they could easily be merged into one list.

 

Secondly I think the items should be researched before you can sell them. This would force the player to research the otherwise unnecessary alien technologies. Alternatively you sell them but you wouldn't get any cash of them. You can always dump them off somewhere but who would buy a technology that no one knows what it is and why would X-corps sell stuff they have no idea what it does. They could just as well be selling self-detonating bombs or unhatched alien eggs.

 

I also think that you shouldn't get any cash for alien corpses. Come one, who would pay 20 000$ for a dead alien? The corpses should be stored in the alien containment with the living aliens and take up a certain amount of space.

 

In the original it was very random how many aliens would fit in a alien containment and the only way to get rid of the live aliens was to research them, the same alien several times. Instead of the separate sell screen there should be a alien containment management screen where you can empty the speciments and corpses you've already researched from the alien containment to get room for new ones.

 

 

Sorry if this has been gone through already here somewhere but I haven't noticed it then.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

"Ever heard of Xarquid sushi?" -The TFTD Unofficial Strategy Guide.

 

There are plenty of uses one has for alien bodies. (McDonalds, High school biology classes, "perform your own alien autopsy" kits, the possibilities are endless...)

[MagicAndy]

I have to agree with the Cpl. even if Xcom is covert, there would still be governments and companies queueing around the block to get thier hands on a specimin.

 

As for the live aliens issue simply have a "one of each approach", one soilder/medic/nav/eng/leader/commander, from each race, and thats only 6 spaces per race. (less if you count the leader and commander as one for all races - I forget how it works).

 

After that if you get three dead aliens and one live one on a mission..well thats four corpses isn't it?

 

:flame: :alientalk:

[Puasonen]

1. I agree with buy/sell screen, it should be done like in apoc, it's very good and useful.

2. I think transfer screen should be made like in apoc too.

3. I bet there's a lot of millionaires and countrys and agencies who would pay for alien corpses.

4. That -> researching before selling is a good idea, also could be copyed from apoc. Apoc has a lot of good ideas we should copy.

Edited January 27, 2004 by Nyyperoid

[Robo Dojo 58]

Maybe some equipment could be worth money before you research it. Mostly things that have an obvious purpose or value, like alloys, guns, grenades, and aliens. I thought it was wierd that no one would want a devastator cannon until you told them how to pull the trigger.

 

Another option, is that anything you didn't research yet would be destroyed. (pretty much sell for 0$) Who knows what dangerous stuff you could be selling to those companies.

[Anthraxus]

I think that the sell price of a non-researched item should be 10-50% of the sale price of the same reasearched item. This will reflect the fact that you can now teach your clients how to use the hardware as opposed to having to figure it out themselves. This shouldn't apply to biologicals though, since anything anybody will want to do with the alien corpses will involve further research anyway.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Off topic: Hey I see someone else likes red versus blue!

 

On topic: Anyway, I feel that a buy/sell screen like apocs would be good.

[Puasonen]

That 50% from non-researched items sounds fine by me. It makes sense.

[Whitewashed]

I still think 0% for non-researched items is best. We need to hit X-corps economy hard

[Puasonen]

But it makes no sense. If you have a part of UFO, no-one cares if you have researched or not. People would pay a lot to get it and maybe even research them by themselves.

[MagicAndy]

but look at it the other way around, Xcom wouldn't want to sell alien technology to other people until it was researched. Imagine if the humming sphere in the lab was the key to victory. Throwing it unresearched into the world of seedy governments and coperate politics would be throughroughly undesirable.

 

Its not how much it's worth to the buyers, its potential value to the seller.

 

I move for a "no-sale before research" company policy m'lord.

[Puasonen]

Excellent point, would x-corps sell items which true value they don't even know yet?

[Robo Dojo 58]

I think they understand the true value of plasma weaponry, and grenades, after dragging a few rookies back.

And who wouldn't want a souvenir of a UFO?

 

I think that the more exotic items would need research (Entertainment, powersource, etc.) before being sold. But the artefacts with an obvious purpose (guns, alloys, corpses?) could be sold for a reduced price. It'd give the early game player a much-needed source of income, while limiting profits from larger UFOs/Bases without research.

 

It'd also change the player's research strategy. Instead of dashing to get the Avenger, he'd have a real incentive to research that Alien entertainment. It'd be worth the huge profit from all of those crates he has.

 

--Edit: Wouldn't this be V1.0+?--

Edited January 28, 2004 by Robo Dojo 58

[MagicAndy]

I think they understand the true value of plasma weaponry, and grenades, after dragging a few rookies back

 

If thats true then whats the point in having to research them at all, if they're so staggeringly obvious to use.

 

alien technology is supposed to be increadibly advanced. It might look of a certain value, but whose to say that, for example, fireing it creates undetectable fumes that harm primary food chain producers, and threatens life? Marginal public cost out weighs marginal private cost. Governments have to fork out for resultant deadweight social burden, X-com funding is reduced.

 

and thats just one of a hundred possible theories that could leave Xcom scientists reticent.

 

Players have access to wealth anyway: funding, they don't get much tech to begin with so selling it doesn't make sense. and if they want money, then they'll have to bear opportunity costs and increase research spending rather than buying that awfully shiny tank.

 

thats why its called resource "managment" :o

[Robo Dojo 58]

If thats true then whats the point in having to research them at all, if they're so staggeringly obvious to use.

I never said that they were obvious to use. I said that it's obvious to know what they are. (They're kicka$$ guns!) Many companies and buyers on the black market would still be interested in advanced guns, even if you don't know how the third gravity coupler* works. Even when your guys are cutting up the UFO to cart back to base, they'll find out that the alien alloys are some good stuff, and lots of people will pay for good stuff.

--Edit: People may not pay 100% for those few products that you can sell, though. They might only pay half. --

 

... but whose to say that, for example, fireing it creates undetectable fumes that harm primary food chain producers, and threatens life?

I guess the aliens wouldn't be using them, then. They have a stake in Earth's well being, too. You'd never be able to prove anything, anyways, because X-COM doesn't exist. The crops are probably dying because of some impurity in their pesticides. :wink:

 

thats why its called resource "management"

Yeah, and 90% of your resources throughout the entire game comes from selling alien technology. Making everything worthless until it's been thoroughly researched will seriously affect the balance of the game. That's why I think something in between would be a better idea.

 

--Edit:By getting rid of the major source of income for a long time, you'll have to counterbalance it somehow. Maybe those funding nations could finally be useful...--

 

*The third gravity coupler is a fictitious part of a plasma gun, invented solely for the use in this post. I have no idea what it does, but it sure makes the gun blast good. :plasma:

Edited January 28, 2004 by Robo Dojo 58

[Whitewashed]

I'm totally with MagicAndy!

 

I think the original was way too easy and by limiting the income from unresearched alien artifacts we can make it tougher and make the game last a little longer since you can't afford everything as soon as you can in the original.

[Anthraxus]

You also need to consider the argument from the point of Xcom logistics. If you can't sell anything you've not researched, your only options for those 50 Sectoid corpses that have been stinking up the store room for a week is to destroy them(not even an option in the original game) or hold them. If there are people out there willing to pay you 10 grand for one (since it is unresearched), if the whole Xcom project is deseperate for cash to build new base facilities or to replace the 9 rookies that got toasted on the last mision, why wouldn't you sell it?

 

Since Xcom was set up with the sole purpose of defending the Earth from the aliens, no matter what the cost (that's why you don't lose points for leveling the entire area of the landing site) I don't think that the organization would worry about "possible untraceable emmissions from the plasma guns". World leaders and corporations don't tend to think about the long term consequences of their policies and actions, so why would Xcorp operate differently? "If it helps advance the project, do it!"

 

It is understandable, as I stated earlier, that people won't pay $20k for a corpse when they will have to do all the research from scratch. But they might pay $10k. Then when you have done all the primary research for them they are willing to pay more because now they have some definate leads on the new cancer drug that can be extracted from the cerebral fluids of sectoids, or something.

 

Preventing the player from being able to sell off recovered items, not only destroys the main source of financial backing for most players, but also leads to a continually escalating problem of storage capacity. It could even get to the point where you can't hold any more items, but since you can't sell them, you have to wait for another month before you can try to buy a new base to build general stores in, but in order to make sure you have the funding you have to keep going on intercept missions, and having your troops leave everything behind (for people to pick up for free and take back to the office and research). It just seems like a big waste to me. Especially when you consider that all of those people/corporations that are willing to pay $250k for a UFO power source would be equaly willing to hire Bubba Joe and Tommy for $60k to cruise out to a downed UFO site and spend a few days combing the area for leftovers. They have access to radar too, so they can pick up the UFOs and see when one gets shot down.

[Puasonen]

Because this idea divides opinions, I think we could get to the agreement that unresearched items are worth 50% of the researched items. Is this acceptable for everyone?

[MagicAndy]

Many companies and buyers on the black market would still be interested in advanced guns

 

I'm going to ingnore the fact that the council of funding nations would be, let's say... hesitant about that and get to my points.

 

1. Everybody seems to think that the "no sale before research" idea would prevent ALL access to funding. Not so! Its not

 

thoroughly researched

 

its just "researched", and its not that difficult.

 

2. Consider a standard stratagy game. Resource collection takes place in a set way. If you want to increase resource collection, you buy another harvester/miner/worker/peon whatever. You speculate to accumulate.

 

Without this limit on wealth recycling. Growth of wealth is exponential. I.e. The more you get, the more you can get, the more you get the more you can get.

 

For X-com this would be selling unresearched goods to buy researched ones, and using them to get even more unresearched goods. The time contraint dissapears and thats why, if you really tried, you could complete the original game in one game-month or less.

 

This is equivalent to a (for the sake of arguement, cue WCII analogy), a peon being albe to carry 1 more gold every 20 he collected.

 

3. If the player is going to do the research anyway (and who seriously wouldn't research plasma rifles the first chance they got) then the problem is non existant. It also make the player make decisions about whether to research seemingly useless alien tech like 'tainment.

 

4. Selling is not the sole source of income. The council of funding nations are there too. Taking focus off the nations takes the pressure off the player to please them. Commercial gain should not have so strong an influence. The game is called Xenocide not "My local alien wholesaler".

 

Edit: Spelling

Edited January 29, 2004 by MagicAndy

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Yeah, but the council of funding nations didn't really provide enough money. I mean, who can scrape by on ten mil anymore?

[MagicAndy]

yeah that has to be put aside to buy the Earth a round when we win

[Puasonen]

4. Selling is not the sole source of income. The council of funding nations are there too. Taking focus off the nations takes the pressure off the player to please them. Commercial gain should not have so strong an influence. The game is called Xenocide not "My local alien wholesaler".

Buying/making and selling is one of the keys why it was so good game. That shouldn't under any case be changed! The heart and soul of the whole economy handling of the game was all that making/buying and selling! If it will be change to almost useless and more to that "all you get is the money from funders", it will ruin the game IMHO.

Edited January 29, 2004 by Nyyperoid

[MagicAndy]

sorry, that was badly put. I didn't mean change the balance of the original game to that extent.

 

50% before research is an acceptable compromise I suppose, though less would be better to put more emphaisis on the sacrifice and decision making elements of the game.

 

I'll shutup now

[Robo Dojo 58]

I'll also accept the 50% flat tax on selling unresearched goods.

 

There was a discussion somewhere about having more funding nations, giving more money to X-Corps. Having nations give more money will help counterbalance the unresearched selling penalty.

 

 

The time contraint dissapears and thats why, if you really tried, you could complete the original game in one game-month or less.

There are counterbalancing features, too. It takes over a month to build the workshops that you need, to get the Avenger done in a week. You can only do that after researching many sucessive topics, which you'd need 200 scientists to do in a reasonable time.

Uh, what I'm trying to say, is you can't beat the game much faster than three months.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

*Cough, a Hax0r could do it, cough*

[Puasonen]

Well a good haxor can finish it in the same day it starts

[Robo Dojo 58]

Are you kidding? I could beat the Aliens before the dawn of time!

 

[YOU HAVE BEATEN XENOCIDE! THE DATE IS JAN 1, 17,000,000,000 BC. WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY AGAIN? Y/N]

[MagicAndy]

ok, ok, a month was an exageration. You've got your 50%, quit mocking me.

[Whitewashed]

OK, now that we're down to 50% ...who supports to take it down to 25%? :wink:

[Anthraxus]

I think since we've gotten a a majority to agree to 50% we should let it lie.

[MagicAndy]

OK, now that we're down to 50% ...who supports to take it down to 25%? 

 

Me... but what can you do? -_-

[Puasonen]

OK, now that we're down to 50% ...who supports to take it down to 25%?  :wink:

HEY! Don't push it!

50% is "agreeable" for everyone I think.

[Robo Dojo 58]

50% is "agreeable" for everyone I think.

 

Yeah. It can be changed later, during playtesting etc. it should be easy.

 

Individual item penalties could "encourage" a player to research a certain topic, so they don't lose money on selling them/make much more money.

 

Penalties could also change based on difficulty level. Unresearched items could be sold at 100% on supereasy, but 0% on superhuman. Or you could even have to pay a "disposal fee" to dispose of unresearched items!(pay $3000 to dispose of a corpse? ) I think this might work out for everyone, and it'll give more than just tougher aliens and more UFOs at higher difficulties.

 

 

--Edit: Clarifying post--

Edited January 31, 2004 by Robo Dojo 58

[Whitewashed]

50% is "agreeable" for everyone I think.

 

Yeah. It can be changed later, during playtesting etc. it should be easy.

 

Individual item penalties could "encourage" a player to research a certain topic, so they don't lose money on selling them/make much more money.

 

It could also change based on difficulty level. Unresearched items could be sold at 100% on supereasy, but 0% on superhuman. Or you could even have to pay a "disposal fee" to dispose of unresearched items!(pay $3000 to dispose of a corpse? ) I think this might work out for everyone, and it'll give more than just tougher aliens and more UFOs at higher difficulties.

Now there's an idea!

[Anthraxus]

The scalable sales value is a great idea. I wish I had thought of it.

[demich]

There can be 3 ways of selling items:

 

-blackmarket: prices are lower but you can sell almost everything you have.

There is a chance that governments will find out that you are selling weapons to eg. terrorists/russia/usa/whatever. russia/usa/whatever may be pleased and they can increase their "official" funding but some countries can be angry and they will reduce their funding.

 

-official way - you can sell items for good price but amount of sold items(per month) is limited (3 tanks, 40 plasmas etc.)

 

oportunities

- Dr Frankenstein wants to buy some "dead specimen" for 50000$. Later in the game he will offer for example alien-frankenstain! :]]]

- Millionaire wants to buy reaper's head for 20000$ to decorate his trophy room

-Museum of Natural history offers you 100000$ for each alien spices you will find

....

[Robo Dojo 58]

I guess the idea was so good, it had to be posted twice!

 

I like the opportunity ideas for money. It looks like good stuff that should go in the Xenopoly thread.

 

I dunno about the blackmarket and official ways. When someone says "blackmarket", I think of shady people willing to pay alot of money for a small amount of goods. I believe that there would be plenty of global retailers to sell everything you have the normal way. But the black market should be limited, with bigger profits, IMO.

[SupSuper]

i had a similiar idea to blackmarket where prices are also lower. of course, quality would be also lower, but it's still useful in x-com. basically it's like buying "used" equipment

[MagicAndy]

hmm... all this different methods of selling sounds like v1+.

 

 

But Robo Dojo's scalability idea of selling stuff thts unresearched, 100% for easy, 50% for medium 0% for hard/realistic is sheer genuis.

 

Genius!

[Puasonen]

Different selling ways (blacmarket and others) are V1+ issues so that discussion should be moved there please. I think those random opportunities should be implemented though. Sounds like a good idea!

 

- Michael Jackson wants to buy a living reaper to his personal Zoo for 500000$

[MagicAndy]

Surely thats more of a v1+ easter egg thing?

[Whitewashed]

I think the random events would be too humorous for a spooky game like this...

[Robo Dojo 58]

I think the random events would be too humorous for a spooky game like this...

The Michael Jackson one made me wet my pants. :o I feel sorry for the reaper.

[Puasonen]

I think the random events would be too humorous for a spooky game like this...

They don't have to be humorous. These were just examples. We can add some creepy special events like hmm.. eh..

[Cpl. Facehugger]

The Spawn break out of Alien Containment...

Xcorps discovers hideous experiments that are being performed on human subjects in Country X (money decreases.)

Etc...

Edited March 17, 2004 by Cpl. Facehugger

[Puasonen]

..exactly!

[MagicAndy]

Its still a version 1+ idea though, because random events (in that context) wheren't in the original.

 

I beleive that selling without reseach was in the original though, which is why I will accept it, though the idea of scalable leves of this as per levels of difficulty is very appealing in V1.

[Puasonen]

We are implementing some small things to V1 too. Think about this "little" change for example. Battlescape isn't build from squares anymore. You can forget the square world as it was in x-coms. You can't calculate how many TU's does it take to walk from place A to place B by calculating the squares because there is no squares :o

 

If we are doing something this big, I don't know if changing buy/sell to apoc style and implementing some random events is that big of a change

[MagicAndy]

ah, but being able to view the battlescape in three dimensions doesn't affect gameplay balance like changing the selling and buying conditions. Changes like that will require play testing and balancing: don't we already have enought to do?

[mikker]

ah, but being able to view the battlescape in three dimensions doesn't affect gameplay balance like changing the selling and buying conditions. Changes like that will require play testing and balancing: don't we already have enought to do?

nah, why don't we discuss the meaning of life?