Funding conflict

[Zombie]

The current project that I am working on involves the starting funds each country contributes to X-COM in the beginning of a game. By reloading many times, you can determine what the range each country gives in relation to the total funds. I only have around 400 reloads at the moment but hope to have 1000 eventually. One thing has been bugging me the entire time: there is a conflict in funding. Let me explain:

 

Start up a new game and click on the funding menu in the Geoscape screen. It lists all the countries and their funding. More importantly, it shows a total (between $5,985,000 and $6,015,000). Nothing new here.

 

Now go back to the Geoscape screen and click on the bases menu. Below your base name and location is FUNDS (or what I call the kitty). This number is between $4,125,000 and $4,155,000 and always $1,860,000 less than what the countries are giving you. Where does this $1.86 million go?

 

I tried adding up the costs of the various structures in a new base but they come out to $3,200,000 - way too high. Adding up the cost of personnel is $1,420,000 which leaves $440,000. The price to buy all the weapons and equipment at your base is $413,320 which includes all craft weaponry, and anything loaded on the Skyranger. This still leaves $26,680 to go somewhere, close but no cigar! Can't really buy 2 Interceptors and a Skyranger for that price!

 

There are two possible conclusions to my dilemma:

1) The $1.86 million goes to building and purchasing everything at a new base - a deal!

2) There is an itemized list that can be drawn up that comes to $1.86 million.

 

So as you see, I am at a impasse. Figured that a few of your resourceful heads are better than mine. I would be grateful to hear your explanations!

[Jman4117]

Pizza and beer fund? B)

[Alan]

secret government organisations.

 

*puts on tinfoil hat*

[Neorapsta]

I'm afraid i'm the answer....

 

you see everytime someone starts a new game I get payed £2mill before tax

 

theres your missing funds

[Skonar]

The funds in question -clearly- go towards funeral deposits. Beginning of a game can be quite lethal!

[BladeFireLight]

I vote discount... the base already existed. so it was probably donated by a goverment. the missing $413,320 could be a months rent on the craft. as there initial price was also a donation.

 

or

 

it's a number chosen at random by the designers to balence the game.

if it had included all costs then there would not be enought funding to get your war on it's feet before the blackmarket income could kick in.

 

-Blade FireLight

[Zombie]

Anyone else? I was kind of hoping for a few more guesses on where the $1.86 million ends up. Though this board has been quiet lately...

 

Ok, so the cost to replace all personnel and weapons at a base is $1,833,320 which leaves $26,680 unaccounted for. If the programmers wanted to round this difference, then why did they choose $1.86 million instead of $1.80, $1.83, $1.84, $1.85 or even $2.00 million? I would have thought they would choose $1.83 million because it favors X-COMs account by $3,320, or even $1.84 million which would increase the conflict to only ($6,680). With numbers like these, I would be more inclined to to let this discrepancy pass without a second thought! It is a little hard for me to let a number like $26,680 slide by when those other two numbers would balance the funding better!

 

I believe (like most of you out there) that your original base (minus personnel and weapons) is given to you by the governments for accepting the role of protector and defender of humankind. This is because the cost to construct and equip your first base is always the same, reguardless of where it is built. If the area in which a base is located is taken into account, you could be looking at anywhere from $500,000 to $1,000,000 extra.

 

To minimize costs later in the game, and at the same time maximizing radar coverage to highest funding areas early on, it is best to build your first base in Europe. This is because it costs $1,000,000 to build a base there vs. the $800,000 for the USA. You get your first base for the same price reguardless of the area in which it is built, so you might as well take advantage of this fact. If the second base you build is in North America (as is commonplace for many players) you save $200,000!

 

Also, according to my preliminary data, the countries in Europe give an average of 27.11% of the total starting funds whereas North America comes in second at 17.18% of the total. This is yet another reason to build in Europe and then in the United States. Now if I could only persuade myself to build there first vs. USA... kinda hard for people to neglect the country in which they were born in!

 

Thanks to those who already posted replies and thank you in advance to the ones who are! I welcome all messages!

[NKF]

Heh, I was born in Asia, but my primary base is usually close to Europe. I see it mainly because it means you have more people to cover, so even if you lose a few countries, all the activity you perform in that area will still be appreciated by the remaining countries (compare that to building a base in the middle of the US and then losing it). Also, the fact that the sheer number of bonuses you can get every month (assuming a good month) tend to stack up.

 

Honestly though, it doesn't really matter where you build as long as you can do well.

 

As for the discrepencies, um, tea money?

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Seeing that this website was down for almost a week, I had some time to recalculate some numbers. I apologize to everyone that my numbers were off concerning the cost of weapons and equipment. Instead of $413,320 it is actually $473,320! Can't read my own handwriting.

The only things that you could get for the $1.86 million is either personnel, or weapons + equipment, or craft.

 

Here is a breakdown for all the costs associated with your first base:

 

$ 473,320 : Weapons and Equipment

$ 1,420,000 : Personnel (10 Scientists, 10 Engineers and 8 Soldiers)

$ 3,200,000 : Base Structures

$ 1,700,000 : Craft

$500,000 to $ 1,000,000 : Base placement

$ 2,634,000 : Maintenance + Salary

 

So depending upon where your first base is placed, you theoretically could be looking at a range of $9,927,320 to $10,427,320 if everything was charged to you.

If you neglect Maintenance and Salary charges (the month is not over), the range is $7,293,320 to $7,793,320. Ignoring the base placement fees also, you have $6,793,320!

The $1.86 million could only get 27% of everything necessary to start up a new base.

 

I guess it boils down to these things:

1) The $1,860,000 could only account for one cost at your first base (either Weapons, Personnel or Craft).

2) Hypothetically, the $1.86 million could buy the weapons and equipment plus the base placement fee.

3) $3,200,000 for the base structures is a HUGE cost, so quite a few players correctly assume that the governments just give you a pre-constructed base to start with.

(Still does not explain why you can place this base anywhere on the globe)!

4) The $1,860,000 most likely nabs you everything for the first base - A real steal!

[Bomb Bloke]

I don't have time to read through yuor findings, but I did have this happen to me:

 

At the end of the month, I got my funds, as per usual.

 

I opened the funding screen, to see that I was getting, say, about 6mil.

 

I opened my costs screen and saw that I was paying 4mil a month for base troops etc.

 

Which means my funds should have gone up 2mil.

 

However, I had 1.8mil in my account! Unless I ended the month in the negatives, this shouldn't be the case.

 

*shrugs*

[NickAragua]

Obviously, the discrepancy is due to the fact that you don't start out with a month's income, you start out with some arbitrary amount of money (I believe it's determined by the difficulty level). That is, your monthly income is completely unrelated to you starting funds. To put it in programming terms, there's some "money" variable somewhere, and at game start it gets initialized to some number, and every month it gets incremented by your income.

 

Logic-wise, well, you know how flaky some of those sponsor countries are about backing displays of force...

[Zombie]

NickAragua : Umm... just to clairfy some things. The difficulty level has no bearing whatsoever on your starting funds (always between $4,125,000 and $4,155,000) or what the countries give you (always between $5,985,000 and $6,015,000). On top of this, your starting funds are directly related to country funding by the following equation: Starting Funds = Countries Funding - $1,860,000.

 

Bomb Bloke : I can see someone is on top of the ball! What you stumbled upon was going to be my next question! Anyhow, I tested this out a while ago and was totally confused by my results.

 

Start up a new game and write down :

1) The countries funding level

2) The salary and maintenance charge ($2,579,000 for PSX, $2,634,000 for PC - but this depends on your version) and

3) Your funds (or account, or kitty).

 

Now, run through that month without purchasing, hiring, or building anything and write down those three numbers again. Because you did not hire anyone or build any base facilities, the salary and maintenance charge is unchanged. Finally, compare the numbers you get! For example, I had :

 

                    Countries Funds            Salary & Maint.       Your Funds
START(1st Month)     $5,990,000                 $2,579,000          $4,130,000
START(2nd Month)     $5,527,000 *               $2,579,000          $7,541,000

* : For the first month I had a score of -541, hence the $463,000 reduction in funding. This is an important number - see below.

 

For the start of the 2nd month, your funds should be equal to the following equation:

 

Your Funds(start month 2) = Your Funds(start month 1) + [Countries Funds(start month 2) - Salary & Maint.(start month 2)]

So plugging in the values and solving the equation for Your Funds(start month 2) you get :

 

Your Funds(start month 2) = $4,130,000 + [$5,527,000 - $2,579,000]

Your Funds(start month 2) = $4,130,000 + $2,948,000

Your Funds(start month 2) = $7,078,000

Your Actual Funds = $7,541,000 or $463,000 more than expected!!! Hmm...

 

So either your Salary & Maint is $463,000 less (highly unlikely since you did not sack anyone or remove a base facility) OR the countries are paying you $463,000 more.

Solving the above equation for current countries funds(month 2) you get :

$7,541,000 = $4,130,000 + [Countries Funds(month 2) - $2,579,000]

Current Countries Funds(month 2) = $7,541,000 - $4,130,000 + $2,579,000

Current Countries Funds(month 2) = $5,990,000 ---> or Countries Funds(month 1) !?! Hmm...

 

What this means is that even though you had a bad month, the countries are still paying you their original funding!! Am I calculating something wrong here?

I will try this with a positive score in the first month and report back tomorrow. Maybe this is a little different!

[NKF]

One thought that went across my mind when I was considering (only lightly) the funds in X-Com Apocalypse was:

 

'When do the salary bonuses actually take place? Sure the report says that the govt's suddenly reduced my fundings on the end-of-week report, but when does this budget cut actually take effect?'

 

I found my answer, but now I've forgotten it. Oh well. Still, I thought I'd toss it in anyhow.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

Ah, I see - my funding didn't add up because my pay rise had not yet come into effect. Fair enough.

 

Kinda nice to know you can slack off for a whole month and still get your full paycheck at the end of it, eh? B)

[Zombie]

BB : lol... yep, by the looks of things a bad month does not necessarily mean a reduction in funding!

I wouldn't try this too many times though, because eventually you will get a really bad month. Two of those and your game is over!

[Bomb Bloke]

True, but I was more thinking of the effects in reality. For example, stuff around all month, take the check... then quit. B)

[Zombie]

Ok, I just finished the first month with a positive score. Whew! That was a lot of work! Seriously, 8 or 9 ground assaults plus the customary terror site at the end (fortunately it was only Floaters).

My ending score was +1577 with a $804,000 increase in funding. The numbers I got were:

 

                     Countries Funds         Salary & Maint.          Your Funds
START(1st Month)       $6,010,000             $2,579,000             $4,150,000
START(2nd Month)       $6,814,000             $2,579,000             $7,581,000

 

Theoretically, my account at months end should be:

 

Your Funds(start month 2) = $4,150,000 + [$6,814,000 - $2,579,000]

Your Funds(start month 2) = $4,150,000 + $4,235,000

Your Funds(start month 2) = $8,385,000

Your Actual Funds = $7,581,000 or $804,000 less than expected!!!

 

Solving for the current Countries Fund yields:

$7,581,000 = $4,150,000 + [Countries Funds(month 2) - $2,579,000]

Current Countries Funds(month 2) = $7,581,000 - $4,150,000 + $2,579,000

Current Countries Funds(month 2) = $6,010,000 ---> or Countries Funds(month 1)!?!

 

So if you had a good month the countries are paying you less than expected! Conversely, if you had a bad month the countries are paying you more than expected!

This does not make much sense. Maybe the increase (or decrease) in funding lags a month behind. It would explain the Actual vs. Anticipated fund discrepancy a little better!

 

By the way, has anyone ever had a score of 0 for a month, or an overall funding change of 0? I would be interested to see the numbers on that!

[Bomb Bloke]

It would seem that when the funding changes, the addition (or subtraction) applies to the FOLLOWING month - not the current one. That is to say, the countries determine what they will pay you at the start of each month, and actually pay it at the end.

 

A score of 0? That's tricky. If you finish a mission with that score (that's easy enough to do), you get rated as 'poor', so I presume the same goes if you finish a month that way - you'd probably lose funding.

[NKF]

Heh, I recall at one time I just loaded up a brand new superhuman game and hit the daily time elapse mode all the way to the end of the month.

 

Absolutely nothing happened. But I got a positive score of 64.

 

Pity I cannot remember about funding changes. I don't think I got any, but I do recall I got a small positive score. Amazing when you consider the fact I did absolutely nothing.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

That's odd. I find that I'm in trouble if nothing happens, as my score seems to drain on it's own - probably due to the effects of the UFO activity I didn't detect.

 

Maybe you got some points for research or something? https://www.angelfire.com/games3/jeffy90/images/smilies/confused.gif

 

... Points for the 'new' base maybe?

[cyrus]

There are some points given for each completed research but I couldn't figure out how much. Maybe 50, hmmm...

BTW, anyone knows, where the monthly score is stored? For example, current funds, and monthly income, maintenance and expenditures are stored in file liglob.dat in every game directory, but not the score.

[Stewart]

I have also studied this you can find my results in my game notes @ XcomUFO. I noted the lowest and highest funding rates per country that I found.