Xcom: UFO. Xcom Utility "Alien Research" question.

Miko2097 · 04-11-2012, 05:30 AM

I enabled this to up the difficulty of the game. Sometimes, though, there are very strange inconsistencies which I wish to discuss here. There are occassions where I find research jumps straight to excellent when I begin a new project. This is not the same as the immediate research bug that exists, but is still something I wish to ask about. Are aliens in containment used with each new project to enhance the research or is it only at the end of a stun mission this bonus is applied? My first campaign with Utility installed took many more hours of research to understand alien tech, even with 150 scientists on the case. This time around, I managed to research Heavy Plasma and it's Clip in less than half a month with 150 scientists.

Does anybody know how the game determines research with this mod?

Threesixtyci · 04-11-2012, 06:20 AM

My guess, it just adds point based on the number of aliens captured and their rank, at the end of each mission.

rokayt · 04-23-2012, 12:39 PM

I managed to research the basic plasma rifle (Hint, its snapshot and autoshot are better) setup with just fifty scientists, and no captures, in the first month. From what I have seen, scientists are able to research anywhere from zero to three scientists worth every tic where research is calculated, meaning that research rates are VERY random, like in real life.

NKF · 04-23-2012, 10:46 PM

I don't use this option myself, but the XComutil documentation has a section on this that details how it works.

From what I can see this option heavily increases the scientist hours needed to research each topic. Then, after each battle, every alien you capture will reduce the remaining research hours for your on-going research by a certain percentage based on the alien's rank.

An engineer for example will reduce the remaining time of the research topic by 50%. Say there are 400 hours remaining, this will drop it to 200 hours.

The xcomutil.cfg file has a table in it that controls what ranks contribute how much.

If there are multiple topics, the help is applied to the topic that will benefit the most from it. I assume that means the topic with the greatest number of research hours to go.

One caveat to this option is that it only benefits research at the base in the first base slot.

- NKF

04-11-2012, 05:30 AM	#1
Miko2097 Join Date: Apr 2012 Reputation: 0 Posts: 17	Xcom: UFO. Xcom Utility "Alien Research" question. I enabled this to up the difficulty of the game. Sometimes, though, there are very strange inconsistencies which I wish to discuss here. There are occassions where I find research jumps straight to excellent when I begin a new project. This is not the same as the immediate research bug that exists, but is still something I wish to ask about. Are aliens in containment used with each new project to enhance the research or is it only at the end of a stun mission this bonus is applied? My first campaign with Utility installed took many more hours of research to understand alien tech, even with 150 scientists on the case. This time around, I managed to research Heavy Plasma and it's Clip in less than half a month with 150 scientists. Does anybody know how the game determines research with this mod? Last edited by Miko2097: 04-11-2012 at 05:32 AM.

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04-11-2012, 06:20 AM	#2
Threesixtyci Join Date: Feb 2010 Reputation: 258 Posts: 2,860	My guess, it just adds point based on the number of aliens captured and their rank, at the end of each mission.

04-23-2012, 12:39 PM	#3
rokayt Join Date: May 2010 Reputation: 8 Posts: 177	I managed to research the basic plasma rifle (Hint, its snapshot and autoshot are better) setup with just fifty scientists, and no captures, in the first month. From what I have seen, scientists are able to research anywhere from zero to three scientists worth every tic where research is calculated, meaning that research rates are VERY random, like in real life.

04-23-2012, 10:46 PM	#4
NKF Join Date: Jan 2011 Reputation: 19 Posts: 195	I don't use this option myself, but the XComutil documentation has a section on this that details how it works. From what I can see this option heavily increases the scientist hours needed to research each topic. Then, after each battle, every alien you capture will reduce the remaining research hours for your on-going research by a certain percentage based on the alien's rank. An engineer for example will reduce the remaining time of the research topic by 50%. Say there are 400 hours remaining, this will drop it to 200 hours. The xcomutil.cfg file has a table in it that controls what ranks contribute how much. If there are multiple topics, the help is applied to the topic that will benefit the most from it. I assume that means the topic with the greatest number of research hours to go. One caveat to this option is that it only benefits research at the base in the first base slot. - NKF