[Nice to have] Introducing armour degredation a-la X-Com

[Max_Caine]

In the original X-Com when armour absorbed damage its rating degraded. Armour didn't degrade quickly, but if a squaddie survived a fusillade of shots the armour he was wearing certainly wasn't quite the same as it had been before. Armour degradation also occurred with alien armour but this was less noticeable as aliens tended to have less armour and a lot more HP. I presume that as armour could degrade this was supposed to insert a note of caution into players running around with their shiny new toys. But because (in my experience) the rate of degradation was so small and because power armour, an endgame armour, had perhaps a 50/50 chance of absorbing endgame weapons (heavy plasma/blaster launcher) damage in any case, armour degradation wasn't (in my research) a strong part of strategy.

In Xenonauts, armour plays a much more prominent role than in X-Com for both humans and aliens. Humans get semi-decent armour straight off the bat and 5 more suits wait to be unlocked. On the alien side, armour values ramp up quite quickly and some alien types emphasise armour – the Andron and the terror drone are good examples. Furthermore, armour is reliable. Each set of armour stops X amount of damage (depending on armour penetration). A player can know from the get-go what the different suits are likely to stop and what they aren't as compared to X-Com armour which was a crapshoot, and unlike UFO: Extraterrestrials the level of weapon escalation doesn't hideously overshoot armour research and production - at least, not at the moment. Heavy plasma weapons (the foil to Wolf armour) are introduced at about the same time as Wolf armour is introduced, but plasma rifles and plasma pistols are still in effect and a squaddie wearing Wolf armour can survive a single shot from a heavy plasma gun, which is more than can be said when the aliens in UFO:EX swap weapon types completely!

With this increased importance of armour could armour degradation be introduced? There are several good reasons why armour degradation could enhance play:

• It permits lesser powered weapons to wear down dangerous targets. Let's take an example here of the first robots you face: the Andron and the terror drone. The base-level robots have got some rockin' armour – ballistic small arms don't stand a chance, and even high-powered rifles and LMGs have difficulty getting through their thick skin. This is exactly how it should be. But as robots arrive in the transition phase between tier 1 and tier 2 weaponry, it can be difficult to get to grips with them. If lesser weapons could wear down armour by degrading it, then dangerous aliens remain dangerous, but not impossible to face. Likewise, aliens armed with light weaponry can still present a threat to squaddies in thick armour.
  
• It encourages teamwork and clever strategy. Tying in with the above point, a player whose weapons are having difficulty getting through an aliens' armour will have to think about what he's doing. If the player knows he can wear down an alien, he can use his team to harass and tire an alien before closing for the kill, instead of reaching for the biggest gun as the solution.
  
• It encourages variety within weapons loadouts. A weapon might be poor at penetrating armour or doing damage but have a bonus to chewing armour up. Such a weapon might be kept around by a squaddie to help harass and take down dangerous targets.

As far as implementing armour degradation goes perhaps the simplest way is all weapons cause the same base level of degradation, plus or minus a bonus value. That way weapons can be tuned and balanced more rapidly than if each weapon had its own “degradation” value, reduces arguments on what the value for each weapon should be, and allows degradation to consist of very small values, as the aim of armour degradation is to provide new tools for the player and alien A.I. without overwriting previous tools.

[Gauddlike]

In x-com the armour was only damaged if the enemy took health damage.

If a weapon is capable of doing health damage then it is already capable of wearing down the enemy.

Armour damage just speeds up the process.

The difference I guess is that in x-com armour had different values depending on where you were hit.

Getting shot in the back would not make you easier to kill from the front for example.

I believe in Xenonauts the armour just has a set armour value for all shots regardless of direction.

Getting shot in the face by a Ceasan would weaken you to shots in the back from Rookie McRedshirt and vice versa.

I am not saying I disagree with armour degradation in principle, having some armour degradation based on damage done could certainly make it easier to have mixed weapon loads.

For example your laser assault rifles getting a few hits into an Andron would make it easier for your ballistic armed troops to kill it once the armour is damaged.

[Buzzles]

Something you need to remember is that EU didn't have penetration. Xenonauts does. With EU you either did enough damage or you didn't, wheras in this game while that's still true to a certain extent, thanks to the penetration values you still get a bit of bleed through.

I don't think adding degrading armour would really improve gameplay, if it was at all noticable. I'd rather see a strong emphasis on damage types being taken into account.

[Chris]

It is something that might be useful, I suppose. A bit of a catch-all that makes the balancing more forgiving in case something really tough turns up too early.

It could be as simple as that every time armour stops damage, the armour value is reduced by 10% of the damage sustained (armour automatically repaired at the end of the battle). That would allow you to slowly chip away at a unit if you didn't have enough firepower.

[TornadoADV]

That sounds good, now, is it everytime armor completely stops any damage? Otherwise, I could see this making people not happy with their mid range armor being made worthless. (If armor degraded everytime it was hit, not everytime it completely stopped any damage at all.)

[sledge]

It is something that might be useful, I suppose. A bit of a catch-all that makes the balancing more forgiving in case something really tough turns up too early.

It could be as simple as that every time armour stops damage, the armour value is reduced by 10% of the damage sustained (armour automatically repaired at the end of the battle). That would allow you to slowly chip away at a unit if you didn't have enough firepower.

You could just as well flee in terror at the sight of this new indomitable foe and pray it doesn't show up again until you're ready.

First time I encountered lobster man I had 4 soldiers take shots with some puny gauss rifles and Mr crustacean not even flinching I did just that

Having fought a terror mission with fresh from the school roockies who were due to my neglect exclusively armed with assault rifles, AGAINST ANDRONS (and won by killing 2 with about the entirety of my ammo and the rest with their scavenged weapons). I thought to myself: Well that sure ain't gonna be possible once they got some brains(AI) in place. And how right that would be!

[Chris]

Any time the armour stops any damage, it loses 10% of that resistance. So if you've got Wolf armour, it has 40 resistance. If you get hit by a weapon that does 40 damage, it goes down to 36 armour. Then it'd drop to 32, then 29.

I actually quite like that idea now I think about idea more. It means that armour gives you a few extra "lives" but nobody is immune from damage. One of the issues in design terms is that some weapons get made obselete at certain points, which isn't a good thing (particularly for the alien weapons). This goes some way to fixing it.

[Chris]

Yes, I've decided that this will go in the game.

[Gauddlike]

Would that mean that getting hit by a laser weapon would only weaken you to other laser weapons?

Or will that damage reduce all resistances?

If it did then having a couple of laser users in your squad before you can equip everyone with your new weapons would not only give the squad a damage increase but potentially help their poor ballistic using brethren to kill tough enemies

That sounds good, now, is it everytime armor completely stops any damage? Otherwise, I could see this making people not happy with their mid range armor being made worthless. (If armor degraded everytime it was hit, not everytime it completely stopped any damage at all.)

Armour doesn't really stop 100% damage much unless you are using weak weapons.

It reduces the damage dealt on a hit by the value of its resistance.

With that mechanic in mind it would be counter intuitive to only damage the armour if you use a weapon too weak to penetrate it.

Damaging the armour if it fails to protect might be a better idea.

However then you might find that only weapons that don't need help getting through the armour are capable of damaging it.

You will also be unlikely to survive enough shots to completely break your armour.

It might happen occasionally but I think you would run out of health first normally.

[Max_Caine]

Yeah, alien weapons are super nasty. It does mean that non-coms with their piddly little plasma pistols and weenie terror drones are things you can't dismiss once you've gone up an armour rank or two. The lower grade aliens become....(•_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) Dangeresque! And it does mean if a C-17 gets shot down, or if iron man mode is in effect and you have a TPK*, when you break out old reliable you're not quite as damned.

*Total Party Kill.

[Khall]

On the plus side maybe pistols, with their high fire rate, will actually become a viable close-range weapon.

[TornadoADV]

Well, I'm happy. Perhaps this could mean in late game research, you can have projects that coat the armor in some sort of nanomachine (kinda like they have now, I forget the specifics, they use it in memory plastics and such on car bumpers) that either prevents this degrading or reduces it to say 5% or some such.

[StellarRat]

I think I'm in favor of gradual armor degradation too. It would be nice to think that given enough rounds on target any weapon could kill any unit, eventually (assuming your troops lived that long and didn't run out of ammo.) Obviously, I would hope that you'd have to pour dozens of ballistic rounds into some units to kill them.

[Max_Caine]

On a related point, could the rate of degredation be alterable, say in the gameconfig.xml file? That way, it makes tweaking it in beta easier.

[Gauddlike]

Base rate of degradation in the config file, weapon modifiers in the weapons_gc file makes sense.

You could leave most weapons at base value to avoid messing with them much.

[FranTorres]

Yes, I've decided that this will go in the game.

+1 to this : )

[donald007duck]

yes im glad to hear its going in game this will allow games where you run out of alien material or money to produce good weapons and allow the old ballastic weapons to slowly chew invincable armor up.

this will also help with stratagy where well placeed squad in cover with balsistic weapons can eventually kill a hardened opponent(if they survive long enough) and give a reason to spend the time getting snipers up on rofftops to weaken enemies.

note:not currently in effect(since the last time i tried) i hope the higher a trooper is the farther they can see. this also would be a good reason to climb buildings and station snipers on rooftops for their los for spotting aliens for the ground troops

[jars_u]

Yes, I've decided that this will go in the game.

[yoshimura]

note:not currently in effect(since the last time i tried) i hope the higher a trooper is the farther they can see. this also would be a good reason to climb buildings and station snipers on rooftops for their los for spotting aliens for the ground troops

That sounds good to me. The closer a troop is to the ledge of the roof anyway

What does everyone else think?

[Gauddlike]

I am pretty sure that is planned just not implemented yet.

[carnesaur]

does this affect armor permanantly or per mission.

like if a guys armor gets shot up in a mission, is it repaired after and good for the next mission, or do you have to make a new suit?

[Gauddlike]

It could be as simple as that every time armour stops damage, the armour value is reduced by 10% of the damage sustained (armour automatically repaired at the end of the battle).

I would assume damage will only last for the single battle unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Armour as a throwaway item might be interesting but I don't think it would be interesting enough to be worth the work.

[SmeggyGit]

In the original X-Com when armour absorbed damage its rating degraded.

...when the aliens in UFO:EX swap weapon types completely!

Minor point of curiosity - I don't remember armour degradation being a factor in any of the X-Com titles.

UFO != X-Com

Or are my hazy memories of Gollup's 2-disk game somewhat addled?

[Max_Caine]

If you look at a solider's stats when in the field, you'll see the armour rating for front, rear, sides and underneath. Just like other stats, these can degrade. I referred to UFO:EX in the original post to demonstrate that the level of arms esclatation in UFO:EX accelerates far more quickly than in Xenonauts (where aliens in UFO:EX switch weapon types rapidly, aliens in Xenonauts seem to upgrade to heavy versions of one type of weapon). That is to say, in UFO:EX, the aliens go from laser to plasma to ion to EECW to Particle, whereas aliens in this game go pistol to rifle to heavy rifle to <insert heavier version>, and the earlier weapon types are still present.

[SmeggyGit]

I referred to UFO:EX in the original post

Actually, you referred to X-Com, not UFO:ET -

In the original X-Com when armour absorbed damage its rating degraded.

Hence my confusion. UFO:ET is not part of the X-Com franchise.