Thoughts on supplies and research progress

[Sir_Dr_D]

After making it into 3 or 4 months into the game, here is a an observation. You are so supply starved. The supplies that you get need to be spent on infrastructure, that you just don't have much for making items. I was finally at the point where I felt I was able to maybe investing a little into items only to realize that the supplies would be better spent on haven communication towers. Anyway, being this cash starved is not fun. If you research something cool, you would like to be able to use it. But I really don't feel that I have the money to invest in even a single laser weapon . And without being able to add to your technology it does not feel like you are advancing in the game. I also feel the following:

- I care little about science research and collecting scientists. The rate that the single scientist is researching already far outpaces the rate that the technology can actually get used. I actually like it when I get a advent datapad to research. then it makes my scientists feel they have something actually useful to do.

- I don't care about collecting alloy or elerium. This was the same with long war 1. It is very rare that I could not make something because I did not have enough of these resources. Money was always the limiting factor. Alloy and elerium is mainly background flavour.

Now I know there is more I could learn to do to get more supplies such as abusing supply raids. But I still feel that the research rate is just not balanced with the progression of other things. And I want to be excited about new science discoveries, and getting alloy rewards. And I would like to feel that investing into science labs and scientists are an important part of the game.

The solution is simple. Make alloy and elerium the primary supplies in creating items. Right now I have 21 alloys, and about 70 elerium crystals. Each item takes at least 1 alloy to make, including vests, weapons, and accessories. That is barely enough to equip 1/3 of 3 squads. And armor research takes 15 alloys. Researching elerium takes 50 crysytals. So even if building items takes 0 supplies, things are very well balanced. We have room to use technology as it is researched, but we still have to be careful with what we build. But as soon as you add supplies to the mix, we can't build anything. I think that the supply cost of every item should actually be 0.

Supplies can still be used indirectly to help build items. You can use supplies to buy alloys or elerium, from the black market. And since scientists can be used to render corpses to get alloys, paying for scientists allows for faster item creation, as well as investing in labs would. And if alloy costs of items were increased it would increase the need to 'render' corpses, to give the feeling that you always need more scientists.

Altogether I would like to see the following:
a) supplies are primarily for infrastructure
b) alloys elerium , and alien artifacts are for building items and not supplies (that way when we find an alloy cache we can be excited about it, instead of always having supplies be the limiting factor. And when we research something new we can immediately use it, giving the feeling of continuous progress. And lack of progress has been one of the biggest criticisms of Long War 2. )
c) Increasing the current alloys and elerium needed to make items will make rendering corpses relevant. (Our scientists and engineers using materials is more fun then just selling everything. And I like the rendering mechanic.)
d) I would like to see research take more time. (Right now I feel research outpaces the materials you gain to use the research. And this is when I don't even bother collecting scientists. I actually feel collecting scientists will unbalance game progress. I would rather have the feeling that researching is falling behind, so getting scientists is an actual goal. )

This all might provide too much supplies for late game balance. And that is part of the reasons for c and d above. So that we have more infrastructure needs (scientists in this case) to spend it on. And some maintenance costs, and late game upgrade prices could go up. But I do feel it will be a more rewarding game if what is needed for infrastructure, and what is needed for items are different resources.

[8wayz]

Well, there is a Supply balance in the game, but it is a bit awkwardly handled.

You can make some good supplies from 3 liberated regions for example. If you are greedy, around 200 on average per region/month.

Thus at least 600 supplies just from the liberated regions. You then add anything gained from selling items on the black market and from rewards during missions. Mid-game you can have a nice +1000 supplies/month balance without abusing supply raids.

The main issue is that you have to actively work in game to make it happen, so in essence it is the player that is balancing or even unbalancing his own campaign.

Supplies for creating items do make sense, as you need some other materials, food, fuel and power for the tools, etc.

I do not think they make sense for starting research projects, as there are already the main requirement for the Proving Grounds.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Well yeah their would be 'supplies' needed in making items, but it would be relatively small compared to other things you can do with supplies. Those could be assumed to be covered by the monthly maintenance costs. It costs 160 to build a power relay. The monthly maintenance cost of a power relay is 10. The cost to build a laser rifle is 20. So it costs more to build one gun then your monthly power supply. With those costs, it would make sense if the supplies for the gun is less then 1, considering that the guns are made from mostly alloys and elerium.

And yeah you can end up making a lot from havens, but it takes a while to build them up. And during that time you need to set guys to recruit or intel (for rescue missions), and also deal with continuous Faceless. During this time you have little supplies, but your scientist keeps making discoveries at lightning fast speeds. The little bit of supplies you do get needs to go into buildings. (AWC and a Comms facility are top priorty, but to build both of these you also need power, and then their is haven radio towers) I am sure that after a few havens are built up you can have the opposite problem, more supplies that you need. The Haven system is slow to start out, but easy to abuse later.

But having items take no supplies, but the average building maint cost average around 60 instead of 10 would probably give a more balanced progression. Then you can make choices that are strategically smart, but still get all of this new and fun technology to play around with.

[aedn]

Managing your supplies is a fundamental part of the strategy layer of the game. Your assumptions about supply are mistaken, as the game progresses the biggest bottleneck for getting items is alloy's for weapons and armor, as well as elerium cores for mid-late game items.

In the early game supply is a bottleneck to prevent you to dominate to easily. As you progress several months into the game, if you liberate a region, are successful at combat missions, and take GTS tactics like vulture you can largely resolve any supply issues by june.

Even without liberating a haven, a large group of rebels will generate 100+ supply per month, vulture is probably the single best investment of 150 supply in the game if you like doing more combat oriented missions as it gives a large boost to loot drops. Troop columns reward resources that can be sold for supply, supply raids are largely considered to be broken due to the frequency they spawn at and the excessive rewards you gain for them, and liberating a region will give you a large 3-4 month boost to supply. Liberating multiple havens results in 1000+ supply per month minimum.

Your also mistaken about scientists, they along with engineers are required to advance your technology to keep up with the aliens, and you need to have specific numbers of each to advance the story line.

[8wayz]

Raising maintenance will just cripple the early game, since it is then and there that you are building your infrastructure.

Mid to late game the rooms are in place and you focus on equipment, armor and weapons. Hence why you will need some higher costs in supplies for the higher-end items as your income can just skyrocket.

What you might try is to just lower the cost for Laser Weapons, early armors and some other equipment, to make it more accessible.

Oh, and remove most of the supplies costs from research projects.

[Sir_Dr_D]

And here is another balance. One that is probably a lot simpler.

The reason we are so strapped for supplies at the beginning is because almost everything needs to be put into expansion, because it makes the most strategic choice. The rate of supplies you get can barely keep up with the intel points. The solution then would be to slow down your initial intel. If that is slowed down you have some breathing room on what you can do with the supplies you do get.

The solution then is:
- Start the game with 0 intel points.
- Have the research that lets you contact nearby havens cost 50 intel.
- slow early game research a bit, so that it doesn't outpace the resources you have by too much.

This may sound like it would slow the game down. But I think it would make it pace better. Instead of going from no supplies to getting a sudden large increase, it would increase more linearly. And with the longer time before you need supplies to put into intel expansion you would have some freedom on what to do with what you do have. It would feel like early game you have options and not be so supply starved. And you can use technology as you acquire it, giving a feeling of progress.

And from a story perspective it doesn't make sense when you are starting off a resistance to immediately be able to expand to 3 havens, You should need to get some experience first and get some credibility and trust with your first haven.

[trihero]

The supplies that you get need to be spent on infrastructure, that you just don't have much for making items.

Can you be more explicit? What is the "infrastructure" you are spending things on, and how many supplies does it total to?

[RapidFire]

I think this idea has merit, but the issue is that there is a fundamental difference in game-design theories.

Theory 1: Make a cool game using a (hopefully) fun rules system to construct the game. This includes rules and controls for player expansion and conquest through and acquiring and spending resources.

Pros: Game mechanics and game play are simpler and definitely easier to manage from a development standpoint.
Cons: Can lead to the game artificially rationing resources in clunky ways at times

Theory 2: Make a game that is a pseudo-simulation of what "real life" would be life (if it were really happening), and try to construct your (fun) game mechanics around that foundation.

Pros: Game mechanics "feels" more like "real life" and creates fewer "What? I can't do that?" moments.
Cons: Implementation is probably more complicated, and the game play can tend to be more micromanaging in nature unless handled appropriately. Also, it is often easier for players to exploit the system for "unrealistic" performance gains.

While neither option is inherently wrong (since the point of a game is to have fun, not simulate real life, necessarily), Firaxis embraced the Theory 1 approach and implemented what I feel like is the lesser of the two options. XCOM 1 and 2 are both firmly entrenched in this design philosophy. To my pleasant surprise though, Pavonis did an amazing job in recapturing some of the real-life aspects in LW2.

The two choices to lead to inevitable consequences from a gaming standpoint, and abstractions are inevitable in either method. Since players generally excel at exploiting loopholes in order to win, both options need to keep exploits in check while still maintaining fun game play and reasonable game play mechanics.

In vanilla XC2, Firaxis doles out resources as if you are on a chain. The game is definitely fun, moreso at the tactical level (the strategic game is only a shadow of the original), but things like the monthly "now you get a supply mission" for some resources feels more like spoon feeding rather than the more organic system that LW2 implements. For example, not being able to sell your constructed equipment for a profit (even with the black market income continent bonus perk) is silly. Surely, someone would like a laser rifle and be willing to pay good money for it.

In vanilla XCOM 2, they did this in the extreme. In XCOM 1, you could sell weapons when asked, and they commanded good money then---but what? Couldn't I ask them to ask me at least? Of course in XCOM 2, with the instant/infinite-build game mechanic to speed game play, they couldn't allow selling produced items, but it illustrates one of the sometimes awkward trade offs inherent that type of design.

LW2 is better, but why can't I ever make a profit aside from a hammered-on game-balance mechanic, at least until the market saturates (yes, I understand this adds a whole 'nother level of game mechanics that would have to be implemented). It would be nice to have a more organic feel to when and why I could or could not choose to sell my constructed items. I mean, the world is a pretty big market, and the laser/mag rifle still costs alloys and elerium which are both limited resources, so it would seem difficult to exploit in LW2.

It actually feels more strange to dump hundreds of corpses on the market and people actually want to buy all of them. It would seem like the market would be more interested in weapons than corpses. In the game mechanic, you are supposedly selling the bodies with the alloy suits, but I would be striping those off before selling the corpses. It just feels clunky, but at least, LW2 allows you to "render" the corpses (even though I would just take the armor plates off the suit and throw them into a pile somewhere in engineering, but whatever).

The original XCOM allowed you to trade engineer time and capital spending for profit, which seemed fair, but apparently Firaxis did not like the idea.

[GavinRuneblade]

I see enough questions on early game supplies and corpses from new players that I think we need a guide for the 201 forum. Something that not only covers earning but also easily avoided spending mistakes (like how to rescue sci/eng rather than buy from market).

[Sir_Dr_D]

The supplies that you get need to be spent on infrastructure, that you just don't have much for making items.

Can you be more explicit? What is the "infrastructure" you are spending things on, and how many supplies does it total to?

I say the following are must, because they give you the most long term strategic advantage:
- Top priorty is the GWS, and its upgrade so you can start getting officer training as soon as possible. No spending done should slow down your ability to get these.
- Second priorty is getting a communication relay up.
- But you don't have enough power to build it so that means getting a power relay needs to come first
- In order to build the power relay you need to clear rooms to get there. Since power coils take 3 engineers for sufficient shielding, I had to buy one of the three
- then haven radio towers seems like something else that is high priority
- of items I encounted so far, the only must I have seen is the gemlin mk II
- my next highest priorty after all of the above is purchasing soldiers, from the black market.

- ALmost everything else is optional. Strategically the above everything effects your long term growth. It effects your long term economy, and solider and officer bonus that are greater the longer they are in use. But in the mean time Havens produce no supplies yet at this point as you need to build them up first. And scientists keep researching new things that you can't invest in yet, which leads to a feeling of poverty.

Longwar 1 was just more balanced economy wise, and it had a tough economy too. There when you arrived at a new research level, such as a scope, you might not be able to equip your whole squad with it right away, but at least you could purchase one and use it strategically. You can get more later. And you can do this while keeping up with your strategically important buildings. Longwar 2 doing the strategic choices just leaves you with no breathing room at all.

[trihero]

Top priorty is the GWS, and its upgrade so you can start getting officer training as soon as possible. No spending done should slow down your ability to get these.
- Second priorty is getting a communication relay up.
- But you don't have enough power to build it so that means getting a power relay needs to come first
- In order to build the power relay you need to clear rooms to get there. Since power coils take 3 engineers for sufficient shielding, I had to buy one of the three
- then haven radio towers seems like something else that is high priority
- of items I encounted so far, the only must I have seen is the gemlin mk II
- my next highest priorty after all of the above is purchasing soldiers, from the black market.

Aha I see the issue, you think you need to build power/comms early on.

Don't.

Do missions until lib3 where it's neutralize a target with +1 contact as the reward. Capture the VIP instead of killing it. This is very doable early in the game, and you can do it in the 3 regions you contact, thus easily getting up to 6 contacts without building power or comms at all.

Radio towers are not worth it until you've contacted every region adjacent to your home town.

You can also get +1 contacts from POI intel packages, although this is less reliable than lib3.

[Devon_v]

I do not think they make sense for starting research projects, as there are already the main requirement for the Proving Grounds.

The vast majority of research projects which cost supplies give you a prototype upon completion. These are practical, not theoretical, research projects. Tygan is contructing testbeds, building new iterations of the design, before finally arriving at the production prototype which Shen then can duplicate. He doesn't conjure these things out of thin air.



Personally I feel that supply income is fine. You're supposed to feel like you can't just have everything. You have to make critical choices. You have plenty of alloy and not enough cash? Sell it on the black market. Supply is a mission your rebels undertake at the expense of gathering intel or recruiting troops, it needs to be an equally important thing.

The strategic map is every bit as important as the tactical one in Long War, and there are campaign-defining choices to be made.

[trihero]

Yeah and by the way, alloys/elerium are extremely scarce in the late game. Just because you have over 100 in the early game due to those excavations hides the fact that it's hard to get a lot of them on demand, while supplies become almost superfluous at the end.

[RapidFire]

I agree that supplies need to be a little more plentiful. I'm fine with making supplies lean and having all the prioritization choices that accompany that limitation. That's fun, but in the standard LW2, you can barely breathe. While I liked the game overall, XCOM 1 did that horribly, in my opinion. Vanilla XCOM 2 was better, and while it felt like I was being spoon fed rations, I had choices that I could make about which direction to proceed.

There is a difference between getting used to the feeling of not being able to have everything you want and sucking air through a pinched straw. Just because you can get by on the current supply system doesn't mean some people would like to play via a few different different routes. It's a classic case of, and Firaxis is particularly bad about it, making the player play the game a certain way rather than designing a good game system and letting people just have fun with it.

I would rather play standard LW2, but I actually play with the Extract Corpses mod (which is reasonable in terms of what soldiers could actually do in the field), and while I feel like an undertaker every evac mission, the supply rate is still tight but better in my opinion.

[Jacke]

I agree that supplies need to be a little more plentiful. I'm fine with making supplies lean and having all the prioritization choices that accompany that limitation. That's fun, but in the standard LW2, you can barely breathe. ....

I would rather play standard LW2, but I actually play with the Extract Corpses mod (which is reasonable in terms of what soldiers could actually do in the field), and while I feel like an undertaker every evac mission, the supply rate is still tight but better in my opinion.

I also play with Extract Corpses, although I mod it to prevent XCOM carrying the heavy aliens like Mutons and Andromedons. There's always the Fulton Harness for them, though I've yet to test it. And becoming XCOM Bodysnatchers is risky enough what with enemy seeking out the troops and reinforcements dropping in.

I also add in Gremlins Grab Loot (and VIPs Grab Loot), because I think considering what those little rascals can do, why not have them spend an action and grab loot too.

There's also Elerium Grounds to help with the Elerium Core shortage in the late game. Never gotten far enough to test it, but looking at the requirements in Supplies, Alloys, and Elerium Crystals, it may be close whether it helps or not. Upgrading suits should definitely help though.

I do think a mod like Loot Pinatas is going too far, no matter how funny it might look during a battle. Do ADVENT really never empty their pockets before going out to oppress humanity?

BTW, I'm a solid fan of what Rapid Fire referred to as Theory 2 in game design: adapting as much as possible from real life, although game needs may require departing from that a bit.