Jump to content

To promote the use of a variety of tech


Recommended Posts

There has been quite a bit of discussion where ideas were brought forward with the intent of having the soldier take more than just "recently unlocked" tech onto the field. In Xcom 1994, once you has plasma weapons, you did not take lasers into the field. I thought this thread could bring forward ideas that would want to make the player take a variety of tech out into the field.

My idea is tied around a game theory example of soccer player versus soccer goalie in a penalty shot. Does he shoot left, right or center? (see this article to get an idea of what I mean: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/06/the-economics-of-penalty-kicks-in-soccer/58001/)

So to take the late game as an example, the player could take Ballistics, Laser or Plasma into the field, and the aliens could use pro-Ballistic, pro-Laser or pro-Plasma armor into the field. The aliens would use game theory and probability to attempt to predict what tech you will field, based on your past choices, and use the appropriate armor; it's up to the commander to mix things up. So there would be diminishing returns in always running Plasma, as eventually the entire alien force would be running pro-Plasma armor. But maybe running all Plasma and then raiding a base with Laser weapons would catch the aliens entirely off guard. This would make unlocking some Tier 4 tech a trick up ones sleeve, as you could save it to raid a particularly difficult to beat target and be guaranteed not to run into any pro-Tier 4 armor, as the aliens would have never seen it coming.

In the early game, this kind of weapon/armor rock-paper-scissors gives a different kind of power boost to the tech tree. Unlocking lasers isn't awesome because they "do more damage", but because the aliens aren't fielding pro-Laser armor. This way, all the weapons can be "even", but unlocking them gives you an extra dimension on the battlefield. They can each excel at something (lasers being more accurate is the common trope), but the commander will still need to run multiple techs to ensure balance. Unlocking lasers and then running them all the time also might not be an optimal strategy, because then you will run into pro-Laser armor more often. Maybe it will be best for your sharpshooter to run Laser in order to take down important targets, while the rest is running Ballistics. The aliens could run a 2:1 ration of pro-Ballistic:pro-Laser, but what does the officer wear?

The implementation of this idea rests on a very robust game theory model for the aliens. Maybe such a model is impractically complicated and won't work, as there are too many variables at play here. The aliens would have to "learn" how you attack downed UFOs, landed UFOs, terror missions, base raids, base defenses and the ratios of weapons you use in order to make smart decisions, otherwise they will be to easily gamed. They will also have to "learn" who typically runs what tech; maybe your best men always run the "worse" tech, so then the aliens would have to equip their best men with the "worse" armor. 

Edit: A more scholarly document: http://www.matthew-hoelle.com/1/75/resources/document_691_1.pdf ; they discuss the soccer example at page 53, which is page 63 of the pdf.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Strictly technically speaking, laser and plasma are both heat-based (direct energy transfer), so armor that is good against one would also work against the other.

Rather than rock-paper-scissors play, simply have the weapons with pros (lasers have accuracy, plasma has damage) and cons (lasers have low damage, plasma has short range and long cooling sycle)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, TrashMan said:

Strictly technically speaking, laser and plasma are both heat-based (direct energy transfer), so armor that is good against one would also work against the other.

Rather than rock-paper-scissors play, simply have the weapons with pros (lasers have accuracy, plasma has damage) and cons (lasers have low damage, plasma has short range and long cooling sycle)

The problem with that approach is that you only need one type of advanced weapons for the whole game, though - you find the type that most matches your preferred playstyle and then there's no reason to get the other ones because they're not actually upgrades, they're just different. That gives a very short tech tree and arguably it's even worse than the X1 system where the weapon types are straight upgrades you have to work through.

I think the idea in the OP has some merit in that it would make the different types of weapons useful without forcing such a linear tech tree on the player, and also it would make the aliens feel a bit more reactive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Up to now alien capabilities in a mission have been determined by race, ship size/mission, and game phase. That's what makes Quantum Cryptography useful in arming for a mission. "Dynamic enemies learning from player actions" is always popular, but the simplest application would of course be to spawn aliens with equipment well-suited to whatever the Xenonauts are bringing to bear in a given mission. On the other hand, this would imply that all aliens go into battle expecting to be shot down for a deathmatch with the same group of enemy soldiers, every time. Relating to the proposed change of teleportation vs. air transport, if both are included then counterbalanced alien equipment could reflect a drawback of the latter in initiative delay of physical transit.

(Tidbit: Looking at other XCom derivatives, UFO: Alien Invasion encourages the use of ballistic weapons in late-game missions by permitting research of "encased plasma" ammunition.)

 But I don't believe there is a need for a game to balance all weapons equally against each other, less so categories of weapons. This doesn't need to feel like Age of Empires. 

Reasons for equipping soldiers with particular weapons can be tactical or strategic.

Tactically, all the missions the Xenonauts in the original game undertake are search and destroy operations (or breach and clear, if you like) against a delimited opponent and area: commandos ideally, souped-up SWAT less charitably. A more clever AI would be the first step in promoting a variety of loadouts. A second step would be more varied maps for the AI to take advantage of, and the possibility of longer engagement ranges. This would make plasma especially suited for urban operations, Mag suited for long-range engagements (e.g. storming across an open field toward a UFO while neutralizing or suppressing enemy fire). Assuming armor in Xeno2 works well (such that it's not tantamount to softening up an MBT with pistol-caliber rounds), Mag weapons would be necessary to bring down Androns reliably, the other options being heavy explosives or concentrated fire from plasma or laser weapons. (A third step should be mentioned, though potentially the most difficult to adequately implement, would be to permit more forces to engage in one battle, permit alien and friendly air support, or reinforcements...)

Strategically, there are issues of economics and procurement, as well as consideration of the enemy's counterpart. That's trickier to discuss here since it calls for a holistic appraisal with all other game aspects, but setting the humans aside the simplest principle is to give the aliens more options to work with. The Xenonauts X-Division mod makes an attempt at this by giving the enemy a buttload of new weapons and categories, but I have mixed feelings for that approach. As for how alien procurement works, insofar as this game doesn't become a grand strategy simulation I don't think it should matter or be accounted for: their armaments are effectively unlimited and loadouts, when not directly influenced by Xenonaut resistance, depend either on (more or less obscure) cultural factors and mission protocols. 

Importantly, some missions simply should be easy, just as in X1 Scout capture is inherently easier than Carrier or Battleship capture. To a point it shouldn't matter what you bring to these missions. If the aliens have a hard time, t

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the idea of the aliens reacting. As far as I'm aware, that kind of game-theory isn't used in many games. Enemies are usually pretty flat, at most, levelling up as you progress to crank up the difficulty - though that levelling up is usually fairly linear too e.g. +5 to all stats. If they built up a resistance to individual weapon techs then it would also encourage you to move along with your research: either to reach a less resisted tech or to prevent the over-resistance of an earlier one.

In xcom apoc it felt as though there were some form of reaction in the aliens' tech progression, in that each new item they brought to the field was usually pretty good at countering the last item you'd researched. Indeed, I'd be just as interested in seeing this kind of resistance. So if you employ a lot of one tech then the aliens develop the alloys in their armour to resist that particular type of damage. This could go as far as you intentionally pushing one tech type to the ultimate resistance level, at which point the aliens bring something really exciting to the field that is both a hard-counter but also a valuable research item for the xenonauts. Thus, resistance would be a dangerous road with a reward at the end; whereas playing it safe with a mix of techs would not offer the same achievement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@desertoth Great write up, I agree with a lot of your points. Especially that not all aliens would be equipped to the teeth in all missions; this could provide some of the early game ease and mid-game rookie training missions. It's reasonable for a scout to expect to outrun an interceptor. Maybe some of the bigger UFOs would carry more specialized equipment, like grenades or stun grenades. Your approach sounds very much real, and it makes me realize that mine very much treats this as a game, as if both the AI and the player are gearing up for a tactical fight, and they have to try and guess what the other is bringing. If all your suggestions would be realized, I think we would have a robust Planetary Defense game, but it might not resemble Xcom or Xenonauts very much!

@Ninothree The idea of forcing the AI to deploy advanced weaponry in order to capture it crossed my mind too! I love the idea of an escalation happening, where the draw backs of "going in too deep" is that the weapons get so powerful that collateral damage is unavoidable. Alien armor being so thick that you have to level a city block to penetrate it, or switching to puny lasers and melting it. 

The game AI War: Fleet Command is said to have a pretty robust AI, but I haven't played it enough to see it shine. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Chris said:

The problem with that approach is that you only need one type of advanced weapons for the whole game, though - you find the type that most matches your preferred playstyle and then there's no reason to get the other ones because they're not actually upgrades, they're just different. That gives a very short tech tree and arguably it's even worse than the X1 system where the weapon types are straight upgrades you have to work through.

I think the idea in the OP has some merit in that it would make the different types of weapons useful without forcing such a linear tech tree on the player, and also it would make the aliens feel a bit more reactive.

Nope.

I never said there should be no tiers, nor resistances. Maybe you should read my posts in weapon upgrade thread?

Lasers tier 1, lasers tier 2, lasers tier 3 - continous or pulse? X-ray laser? UV laser?

Ballistics tier 1, ballisitics tier 2, ballistics tier 3 - improved rifles, more efficient gunpowder, caseless ammo, rail/coil tech (???), advanced munitions (AP, incendiery, FMJ, tracer, etc..), etc..

Plasma tier 1, plasma tier 2, plasma tier3 - improvements in cooling and weight mostly.

Given that each weapon type would have strengths and weaknesses, that in itself would be an incentive to mix weapons.

* * *

Lasers - long range, superbly accurate, damage falloff with range (defraction/diffusion)

Standard ballistics - reliable, highest RoF, different ammo types

Coil/rail weapons - high armor penetration, lower RoF, overpenetrates soft targets, no advanced munitions

Plasma - massive damage, short range, low RoF, unwieldy, splash damage

You can play around and have differences not only between weapon types, but also tiers, which makes even a lower tier weapon useful sometimes. For example, pulse laser vs. continuous laser - continuous is a beam that you can sweep over an enemy or an area, making it impossible to miss (unless the enemy is in cover), but damage is lower and depends on hitting the same spot, which is difficult. Thus instead (or in addition to) of accuracy determining if you hit or miss, it instead determines the % of damage (from the weapons maximum) you do. Pulse lasers (think 40K lasgun) function more like normal rifles, so its' easier to miss ,but each pulse delivers more energy on target.

Even after you research coilguns/railgun, advanced "regular" kinetics would still be usable - heck , I see them as separate weapon branches, not tiers. This works even better, as you have 2 weapon categories with 2 different weapons in each category and 2 defense categories (thermal/kinetic)

Because the capacitors need to be charged and high energy requirements, coilguns can't compete in terms of rate of fire, especially for heavy weaponry (power armor + minigun, which IMHO, should be the most potent standard human weapon), nor can they use various ammo types, but coilguns/railgun are more accurate and have insane penetration. Heck, railgun and coilgun can easily be different tiers (I see coilguns as superior to railguns)

 

In fact, instead of researching the entire FAMILY of weapons, I'd rather research them individually, with each research weapon reducing the cost of the next one (laser rifle, laser pistol, laser sniper are different researches). It might also prevent the "fakeness" of each weapon type having all weapon categories (pistol, rifle, shotgun, sniper, heavy), even when it should totally suck in it - like a plasma sniper or a laser shotgun

* * *

Straight upgrades are BORING AS HELL - I'd rather have no upgrades at all (and indeed, I remember playing fantasy games that subverted the typical weapon hunt by having you stick with just 2-3 basic weapons trough the game. I liked it far more than I thought I would.)

Besides, what's wrong with fighting with mostly your preferred weapon? What if I don't like plasma weapons at all - both in visual design and conceptually? I HAVE to use them

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting ideas from everyone. Most likely I'll do a big new post on this topic at some point; it's something that almost everyone has some thoughts they want to contribute and it'll probably be best to collate everything into a single place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
Quote

In xcom apoc it felt as though there were some form of reaction in the aliens' tech progression, in that each new item they brought to the field was usually pretty good at countering the last item you'd researched. Indeed, I'd be just as interested in seeing this kind of resistance. So if you employ a lot of one tech then the aliens develop the alloys in their armour to resist that particular type of damage. This could go as far as you intentionally pushing one tech type to the ultimate resistance level, at which point the aliens bring something really exciting to the field that is both a hard-counter but also a valuable research item for the xenonauts. Thus, resistance would be a dangerous road with a reward at the end; whereas playing it safe with a mix of techs would not offer the same achievement.

I think this builds on the OP's post and is a great idea.

Another approach is to make new technology you have just discovered inherently dangerous. 

Consider a rookie soldier with a certain stat  (accuracy for example) below some threshold.  Every time they fire a T2 or T3 tech weapon there is a reasonably probability of the weapon misfiring or blowing up in their hands.  Thus the use of advanced tech has to be 'earned' by individual soldiers forcing a player to continue the use of lower tech's for longer or accept the risk of injury or death to their soldiers.  Technologies could be used to lower this threshold - meaning that a player is not frustrated by an inability to field an experienced team in order to safely use T3 weapons provided they research a few other areas.  But it would encourage the continued use of lower tiers to manage risk for a longer period of the game other than the X1 system of monetary expense and manufacturing time being the sole restrictions. 

If you balanced the amount of time taken to make the weapons safe you could give players some interesting tech choices;

In tactical gameplay

1. Field lower tiers and limit the new researched tiers to their vets to avoid or lower the risk.

2. Field high tier weapons on the whole squad but accept the higher risk.

In geo-scape research

1. Spend an amount of time making the tier safe for universal use (say 30% of the time it would normally take to get to a new weapons tech).

2. Speed through to the next tech avoiding the 'make safe' tech tree and continuing with strategy 1 or 2 in gameplay.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
On 4.4.2017 at 10:03 AM, TrashMan said:

Straight upgrades are BORING AS HELL

Yeah, this is the main point for me. Palette swap isn't very exciting. Though even the original game had weapon tiers in 3x3 grid (I'd say heavy cannon might get a pass for having ammo types, tho) it was OK because there was many additional weapons outside that grid. Original game also tried a bit of that RPS armor game by having some late game units be vulnerable to laser, but I bet most players went all plasma and blaster launcher anyway.

I maintain that the specializations are the best approach with weapons. The new tier should be clearly better overall, but the old ones should have enough niche that the player may want to take a few of them even if he wouldn't have to logisticswise. Lasers and better should be deadlier than ballistics, but ballistics could keep the niche of having the grenade launcher with payload shells. Lasers would keep the most accurate sniper even when plasma and MAG weapons rule the field. Plasma could remain the king of brutal, short range splash, though some shielded enemies might be resistant to plasma specifically. For MAG, I don't really care if they overshadow the ballistics completely. They are the late game tech, right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...