Quartermaster

As a note, I do check the site about once a week to see how things are developing because I love this game. If anyone wants to resurrect the weapon modification program I created and has question about it, please send me a message and I will get back to you at some point.

I have always found losing armor when soldiers are wounded or killed particularly expensive and time consuming in X-Com and I suspect it is going to be even more expensive in Xenonauts given the deadliness of the aliens. Rather than having armor be destroyed when your soldier is heavily wounded or dead, would it be possible to have the Xenonaut drop a 'Damaged Armor' item that could be repaired for a discounted price at base? This would make armor feel just as costly as weapons do in the game since they persist rather than more expensive because they feel like a couple use item.

The code is in Visual Basic .Net 2010. Regarding commenting, I will take a pass through the code to improve the documentation.

I wanted to let everyone know that I will not update this in the future. About a month ago my fiance had me promise to not play computer games anymore. If anyone would like to take over maintaining this program, please send me a message and I will send you the code I have. After someone takes over maintaining the program I will still be available for assistance and answering questions regarding it.

Good find. I did not remember this from the suppression thread. I suppose it be countered by upping the suppression value (depending on how it decays by range), but that would probably be more difficult than it would be worth. Range's importance with every single attribute makes all of this balancing stuff so much more complicated. Thanks for finding that note on how suppression is affected again.

The purpose of this post is to discuss a method to modify weapons so that they have the same long range profile, but with better close range accuracy. There are two weapon parameters that have an effect on the accuracy of the weapon. The first is the Accuracy Modifier that weapon uses to different fire modes. The second is the Range of the weapon. The accuracy of the weapon is governed by the following equation. The names in () are abbreviations: Shooter Accuracy (SA) * Weapon Accuracy Modifier (WAM) * Range Modifier = Unmodified Accuracy (UA) where, Range Modifier = Weapon Operation Range (WOR) / Range To Target (RTT) IF Range Modifier > 1 Then Range Modifier = 1 On the wiki it says that Range Modifier = RTT / WOR. This cannot be the case, because weapons would get less accurate as you get closer to the target. I am, thus, assuming that this part of the equation is typed backwards. We also know that weapons do not get more accurate when within Weapon Operation Range, so when within that range the Range Modifier caps at 1 (no penalty). Conveniently, this equation can be used to modify a weapon to have the same long range profile, but with increased close range accuracy. To do this we merely need to select how accurate we want the weapon to be at close range. In this case we will modify the pistol so that it has a close range accuracy of 0.95, but is just as accurate at it's currently is at its current operational range. Since we are setting the Unmodified Accuracy to be equivalent at the operational range we will use the following format: Generally: Weapon1 Accuracy = Weapon2 Accuracy Specifically: SA * WAM1 * WOR1 / RTT = SA * WAM2 * WOR2 / RTT And After Cancellation: WAM1 * WOR1 = WAM2 * WOR2 We can now substitute our values in and solve: WAM1 * WOR1 = WAM2 * WOR2 (0.65) * (10) = (0.95) * WOR2 Weapon Operation Range 2 = 0.65 * 10 / 0.95 = 6.842 -> Rounds to 7 Here is an image of how accuracy changes by range for the old and the current weapon: The main downside with this method is that the weapon's damage is also affected by range, so you will see slight decreases in the weapon's killing power at its old range. I hope that other modders find this methodology useful.

This post is going to be a little more general about the difficulty with setting weapon properties for balance purposes before it focuses on the machine gun problem. The main weapon property that causes difficulty in balancing is the Operational Range because it simultaneously affects two properties regarding accuracy. The first is that it sets where range penalties start to apply. The second, less obvious way is that it changes the rate at which the weapon loses accuracy once range penalties start to apply. For example, if a weapon has an operational range of 30, you have to go another 15 squares before the range penalty = 0.5. If a weapon has an operational range of 10, you only have to go 5 squares for the same effect. Regarding the machine gun, the simplest way to make this weapon balanced is to modify the range rather than the accuracy modifier. This is the similar to the way that machine guns function in Company of Heroes and Dawn of War II. At long range they suppress targets just fine, but don't cause much damage. However, if you get close to the weapon it causes huge amounts of damage to the target. A more appropriate value for the range of the machine gun might be 6 squares so that it's potential damage dramatically drops. This should allow for the number of rounds to be increased so that belts are more quickly expended without making the weapon too powerful. Addendum: My Understanding of How the Accuracy Function Actually Works In The Game (Based on the equation in the wiki, but with changes based on previous forum conversations) Main Equation: Shooter Accuracy * Weapon Accuracy Modifier * Range Modifier = Unmodified Accuracy Range Modifier (the main thing that is inaccurate on the wiki) Range Modifier = Weapon Operation Range / Range To Target IF Range Modifier > 1 Then Range Modifier = 1 On the wiki it says that Range Modifier = Range To Target / Weapon Operation Range. This cannot be the case, because weapons would get less accurate as you get closer to the target. I am, thus, assuming that this part of the equation is typed backwards. We also know that weapons do not get more accurate when within Weapon Operation Range, so when within that range the Range Modifier caps at 1 (no penalty). *I am coining the term Range Modifier to refer to part of the original equation for clarity.

I was thinking about some about the unlimited number you could potentially carry and thought of a potential solution. The item could be set up to only be recovered from UFOs. This would limit the number of them in the game so that you can't use them all of the time. In game it could be argued that the item is essentially a "thank you" from the country and a promise to help in the future. As for the in doors part, would it be possible to make it a multiple shot grenade? That would force it to use a parabolic arc which would limit its ability to hit something in doors. However, I do not believe that it is possible to set up a weapon that fires multiple times and uses an arc. Maybe once the flamethrower is implemented it will be possible to use that as the basis for a multiple shot weapon with an arc.

Would there be much of a difference if you just added a weapon that was essentially a "air to ground targeting laser" that had no image for the bullets travel, but had explosions for the impact? Thematically it would appear to function in a similar way to what you want.

Very Nice.

Spawn locations are generally set by the map. With that said I do not have any suggestions for how to counter that if setting the ma is not working.

The <!--> tags indicate that the maps are commented out. I think you need to set a specific map for the part where you state that it is a town map.

Thanks!

I just used the Insert Image->From Computer method which puts a random number in [ATTACH=CONFIG] tags.

How are external doors going to be shown? Are they not going to be affected by this change or will they disappear as the walls do. Secondly, since you are already drawing the lines around the bottom of the UFO, can they be copied and pasted about X many pixels up to look something like this: By the way can someone tell me how to make the image look larger?