Balance: avenger structure upkeep

[trihero]

I think all avenger monthly upkeep $ should be removed. Why?

1) There is already plenty of upkeep built into the game directly with faceless, and indirectly managing large rosters of soldiers and building individual items
2) Early in the game it's easy to have negative income, which just doesn't feel good or make any sense (your structures still function when you "owe" money totally doesn't make any sense)
3) part 2) causes awkward "money dumping" right before the end of the month to try to get as close as you can to zero so the negative income doesn't hurt you as much.

In vanilla it makes sense as a way to strain your supplies and it was impossible to have negative income due to each region passably generating a lot more money than upkeep, but arguably in LW2 for the above points this is no longer necessary.

If it feels like this is too much of a buff in terms of supplies, I'm ok with adding the costs elsewhere like more expensive equipment or just "bake in" the costs to more expensive buildings, but it just doesn't feel right to have negative income for so long into the game based on some structures you build in the beginning.

[trihero]

edited to make my argument more coherent, it really serves no purpose due to faceless acting as upkeep, + very awkward gamestyle where you dump money before end of month to avoid losing money

[Arcalane]

Except once you eliminate faceless from a region properly and keep them suppressed, your income is going to explode. I could be pulling in somewhere on the order of 400-600 a month if I went heavy supply on all regions!

Now, I could see a case being made for reduced upkeep, but completely eradicating it? You'd have to pull down income values accordingly.

[trihero]

Except once you eliminate faceless from a region properly and keep them suppressed, your income is going to explode. I could be pulling in somewhere on the order of 400-600 a month if I went heavy supply on all regions!

Now, I could see a case being made for reduced upkeep, but completely eradicating it? You'd have to pull down income values accordingly.

I already addressed both points:

1) upkeep is also in the form of having to keep recruiting soldiers, and installing them with individual weapons, and these weapons keep getting outdated as research progresses. It's REALLY expensive to outfit 20+ soldiers with the latest/greatest weapon/armor. I have never felt like I had enough money even with suppressed faceless + 1 or 2 liberated regions.

2) If the minor upkeep costs are removed, I would be ok with increased costs going somewhere else - you could simply uptweak faceless eating supplies for instance

The way it stands, I'm not asking for free money, but just asking for an awkward/stupid mechanic to be removed and adjusted for appropriately. Negative income encourages "the day before the month ends" dumping of money to avoid getting dinged, especially in the first few months where you aren't getting any supplies. It also doesn't make sense - if you owe money, your buildings should just shut down. It's like not having enough power for structures, it should not be possible.

[ShockmasterFred]

I'd actually say it's not punishing enough and that if you can't afford the upkeep, buildings should start to go offline. Maybe you get kind of a pass the first month, like Bradford and the crew found a way to keep things running with spit and duct tape, but the second month you can't meet your upkeep costs, things start going offline. Supplies are plentiful once you eradicate the faceless. Once you have a second region opened up, you can have one region doing nothing but turning out supplies. So, I would say put more of a hit on XCOM for balance, whereas getting rid of those costs just makes the game to easy to buy new equipment etc...

[ShockmasterFred]

I'd actually say it's not punishing enough and that if you can't afford the upkeep, buildings should start to go offline. Maybe you get kind of a pass the first month, like Bradford and the crew found a way to keep things running with spit and duct tape, but the second month you can't meet your upkeep costs, things start going offline. Supplies are plentiful once you eradicate the faceless. Once you have a second region opened up, you can have one region doing nothing but turning out supplies. So, I would say put more of a hit on XCOM for balance, whereas getting rid of those costs just makes the game to easy to buy new equipment etc...

Ahem...."too easy", not "to easy".

[trihero]

So, I would say put more of a hit on XCOM for balance, whereas getting rid of those costs just makes the game to easy to buy new equipment etc...

You don't understand, I keep saying I'm not asking for a straight up buff - when building upkeep is removed, you can have increased costs elsewhere. For instance, you can dial up the amount faceless steal, that's fine to make up for it. I'm OK with increased costs elsewhere to make up for lack of building upkeep.

It's simply that negative income "feels bad" design wise for the reasons stated - you can continue to run your structures in negative income, and negative income encourages "income dumping" before the end of the month.