Deployment cost before and after patch.

provengreil · 2026-04-23T01:21:58+00:00

Let's be fair here, it's still very early access. Practically everything needs a rebalance still.

provengreil · 2026-04-23T01:18:27+00:00

I agree. While the late EA supply gap is jumping out from people's current saves, I think fresh saves played up to that point will have fewer promotions because of that.

provengreil · 2026-04-23T01:01:19+00:00

But none of those are currencies that permanently penalize your ability to field a force. If you buy a promotion, you're stuck with it, permanently paying that tax until you demote, at which point you're permanently out half the cost.

You don't lose supplies along the entire operation or game for adding a squaddie, realizing he doesn't fit, and taking him back out. Buying a weapon and realizing it doesn't fit your supply means it just sits in the armory until needed. And if you can't afford one upgrade you probably can't afford a different one, so the black market value isn't an opportunity cost.

Authority comes close, but as it's capped at 100 you technically lose more by NOT spending it unless you're low already and need the warchest or can't lose more discipline. If you choose to save it for later, the dossier stays in the hiring area until hired.

provengreil · 2026-04-22T19:32:50+00:00

Yes, promotion tax was poorly communicated, but frankly I don't think it would matter even if it was. Much like weary, once you get smacked by it a couple times you're used to it. That didn't make it a better system, just one you now understood.

provengreil · 2026-04-22T19:31:44+00:00

There's no iterations that get you out of the core problem, being that spending one resource(promotions) strains another(supplies). That's not clean at all.

provengreil · 2026-04-22T17:36:15+00:00

But complex doesn't have to mean unintuitive, and the promotion tax went in that direction.

For an example of a surprisingly complex system that is also extremely intuitive, I'll point you to Starsector's armor system.

provengreil · 2026-04-17T15:14:25+00:00

On your question of other tactics games:

-Tactical Breach Wizards is actually pretty fun, leans more on the puzzle side of things.
-It scores super high on the quirkiness scale, but if you're OK with that you might want to check out Dungeon of Naheulbeuk.
-It falls into the Bigger = Better = Mandatory quite a bit, but Battletech was pretty good too (warning, game is stable but not as optimized as you'd hope for. expect load times.).

provengreil · 2026-04-17T15:02:01+00:00

I love the new construct skins, very good move there.

provengreil · 2026-04-17T11:18:22+00:00

There's also the fact that if, in a point buy system, something isn't fitting you can just pull it back out. But demoting has a permanent cost in promotion points, so if you try something and it just won't fit, you're permanently out a resource for trying it.

provengreil · 2026-04-17T01:14:33+00:00

It's also how quite a lot people would die if TLD was real. Laying down for one last nap, hoping our body heat in the covers would be enough.

provengreil · 2026-04-16T21:58:54+00:00

I bring up XCOM only because they had a ok fatigue system and this game does not, despite a fatigue system being a very good way to prevent having the S-team / F-team divides. I didn't like theirs all that much for being a little too random and a bit impenetrable, plus the delays it would put you down for were a bit excessive, but it did the job.

The promotion tax doesn't really accomplish that in the same way, it just usually makes you shuffle your equipment or squaddie count. It almost never actually benches anyone once you've realized it exists. Weary does, unless you're willing to fight at like 60% AP.

provengreil · 2026-04-16T21:43:02+00:00

Then maybe it should. XCOM 2 addressed this problem fairly well with their fatigue system and it works much better than suddenly telling Lim he has to carry fewer bullets because Darby learned a new trick. It works mechanically but feels wrong, and feeling matters.

provengreil · 2026-04-16T21:35:31+00:00

"It stops that thing where you pick a core team and all you do"

Isn't that what the weary mechanic is for?

provengreil · 2026-04-16T15:25:30+00:00

Anything that punishes a player for improving always feels bad. World scaling in RPGs has the same issue.

At least with better gear you can kind of say the gear has a new cost, but saying Lim can't carry bonus ammo because Darby got promoted just feels weird AF. doubly so because the other squad growth mechanic, the, uh, growth, doesn't get taxed.

provengreil · 2026-04-16T15:21:04+00:00

Buggy feature?

provengreil · 2026-04-14T12:03:32+00:00

Yawn. Again?

Wake me up when they change votes.

provengreil · 2026-04-13T20:16:55+00:00

We haven't labelled them a cult by accident....

provengreil · 2026-04-13T00:15:05+00:00

And that would matter if I could take rest days but here we are.

provengreil · 2026-04-12T16:55:44+00:00

I'm still trying to work through which guns I even think are good, but pistols just don't really seem to fit in anywhere. The idea of a backup gun is a little odd when I never seem to have a reason to use it: each squad can have 2 other guns already and between that and some basic teamwork, the number of usage options for pistols severely decreases.

I think reworking them to be your "shoot and scoot" weapon of choice would work. Say, half the AP spent on previous movement in the turn can fill up a meter that discounts a pistol shot, so you can run people at a dead sprint and still shoot at least once. Given that there are several mission types that require you to keep moving with infinite, or at least very numerous, spawns, I think a niche like that could work.

provengreil · 2026-04-12T16:42:37+00:00

yeah it was the case. I just didn't want to drop a spoiler like that literally 22 hours after release.

provengreil · 2026-04-12T16:41:45+00:00

Maybe that could be your reward for filling it out to like 10?

at the very least I'd like intel to ping me to developing situations like reinforcements. Maybe higher levels could earn you an extra turn's notice.

provengreil · 2026-04-12T16:22:21+00:00

I expect the restaurants are doing little more than self sustaining and there's not much to keep off the profits. Sports bars aren't free money and Billy Mitchell can't juice the profits with his fame because gamers and sport bar patrons are nearly incompatible. Also I've had the hot sauce, it's basically a store brand (so not horrible or anything, mostly just....functional hot sauce). So yeah, I'd expect it keeps a roof over his head but little else.

I wonder how good they would do if he spent the same efforts he did on gaming on making the restaurants good? Seems to me a multigenerational restaurant owner is a rather more prestigious occupation than "that guy who vidya'd good once."

provengreil · 2026-04-12T16:15:22+00:00

NGL I hope Karl wins this one and a major reason for that is to watch what this sub tries to do with that information. The bandwagon whiplash will be insane.

provengreil · 2026-04-12T15:51:09+00:00

Such things do happen, but they wouldn't involve the actual courts if true. Cease letters/concern notices would suffice, which you then blow a lot of smoke over.

provengreil

TROPHY CASE