[v1.5/XCE] Hold the Line! - A Morale and Psionics Mod

... it also seems morale drop for taking damage/suppression does not work well, I can't even figure out the mechanics. Eg just have been hit for 19hp+wounds and did not sustained any morale loss (settings are "Wounded value="-1.0", suppressed=".5")

Yeah, I've noticed that too - morale damage for suppression seems a bit flaky and doesn't always apply for some reason. Not sure it's to do with the mod though (or if it is, I don't know why it would work different to vanilla).

looks like vanilla problem...I'm just struggling to find optimal values that take this fact into account

... without the "safety in numbers" feature, I had to reduce the moraleDamage of the Fear attack to 80. The goal is same: if the attack is successful, the morale usually drops below 20, but it not necessary leads to a "morale event" b/c every point below 20 adds just 5% to the chance.

.. upd regarding morale points deduction due to being wounded/suppressed: I've set up some tests and it seems everything works fine, at least while I shoot at my own soldiers (and I've found the reason it seemed to me that suppression does not always inflict morale damage)

.. upd regarding morale points deduction due to being wounded/suppressed: I've set up some tests and it seems everything works fine, at least while I shoot at my own soldiers (and I've found the reason it seemed to me that suppression does not always inflict morale damage)

What was the reason?

the OfficerLeadership bonus can make you think the morale was not hurt while it was. I.e. the soldier has 50 bravery and 20 leader bonus, so it's shown as 70/70. If you suffer 15 morale damage the next turn you see 55/55 and can think wtf the morale is full? Only below max bravery level it starts to show like 45/50 etc

I also might not have taken into account that bullets have to hit the ground/obstacle near the soldier within the suppression range of the particular shot type, but you should be already aware of this fact...

Ah, it is that. I did wonder. I think it applies with any morale buffs, then (e.g. ones from killing aliens too).

currently morale buff for killing an alien is applied even if morale is full, is there any way to change this?

the problem is I like a substantial buff but this usually leads to 99+ morale levels later in combat...

PS

and one more possible cause of suppression not damaging morale: if suppression range is 1 the adjacent tiles are not affected. If it is 2 the diagonal tiles are not affected.

All of the actual morale mechanics are in-code so there's no way to change anything other than the values.

As for the suppression thing: that might just be due to the suppression area of the weapon. Although, if soldiers have the suppressed state applied to them and there's no noticeable morale change, then that's a problem. (This is what I've run into before, but it might be explained by already having been over maximum morale as already suggested).

already "suppressed" soldier does not suffer morale penalty from further suppression - thats for sure

Hmm, that might make some other stuff make sense (I guess morale damage is done as a proportion of the suppression damage actually taken, so if a solider is already very close to being suppressed they won't take much morale damage either).

..after few more tests, I realized the range for Fear and Paralyze attacks have no influence in the game. Set them to 1, and see no difference... can you confirm this Kabill, or it's something with my installation?

I also can't get the logic of Bezerk usage. I see they use it sometimes, but usually they don't while the situation obliges (eg I turned off all other attacks for psions/officers, set range to 50, cost to 1 and wait for a few turns near the UFO w/o any "luck", with 2 psions and an officer inside and even coming out occassionally)

... and btw I had to reduce alien kill bonus to just 2 morale points to avoid huge morale buffs, instead setting per-turn morale regen to 5 and reducing the Fear power back to default 60. Good so far

The range of psionic powers only applies a penalty rather than blocking it outright. For every tile outside of the power's range the target's defense roll is increased by 1.

As for use of psionics, I suspect that's down to the psionic AI somehow.

oh, that makes sense and I'm glad there is no bug here))

one more thing, a bit offtopic though: did you ever expirienced additional Caesan officer spawns, that should not happen? I saw this in prev XNT installation - eg two officers on a mission while there is only one in ufocontents for all missions for this ufo type? Now I clearly nailed this thing but have no clue what could be the cause

Regarding that last point, I suspect it's because an officer has been set with a particular AI type that differs from the vanilla AI type and the vanilla one hasn't been set to 0 (I had the exact same issue with Dynamic UFOs and since I set up the modular version of XNT I suspect I've made the same mistake there too. I suspect it's Corvettes where this is happening since they don't have Command AI aliens normally but I've possibly set them with Command AI instead of Defensive).

do you mean if "xenonauts\assets\ufocontents\" sets "caesan_officer_defensive=1" for all caesans corvettes missions, and then I add a mod to change officer's AI to aggressive, I have to explicitly set "caesan_officer_defensive=0" and after that "caesan_officer_aggressive=1"?

somehow I thought ufocontents is not merged but simply replaced by mods, if this is wrong then it's clear what caused more officers

Yes, that's right. Those files are merged like all other .xml spreadsheets, so any vanilla rows that aren't modded will work as in vanilla.

cool, TY

... alas, looks like something else is responsible - in my case caesan_officer_defensive was set to zero in mod's ufocontents, and there is only one mod altering loadouts.

I also tried a test - added a bunch of aggressive caesan officers to both of the vanilla scouts, ensured the mission is the one covered by vanilla files, went to GC and have not seen anything unusual across few attempts... just FYI, maybe I'll find out smth later

Update: New version is up. Also, this mod is now available on the Steam Workshop. If anyone uses it there, it would be helpful to know whether it's working properly.

Change Log:

- Added morale recovery back in (3/turn).

- Increased the threshold for panicking slightly (from 10 to 15 morale)

- Morale recovery from panicking also up (to from 20 to 30)

- Power multiplier on Fear reduced from x1.5 to x1.

- Power modifiers for other psionics all set to x0.5 (from various smaller values) but with slightly increased range penalties.

just in case someone is interested I'm sharing my edition of the mod, seems to be a final version:

[ATTACH]5785[/ATTACH]

- ufocontents are not affected by the mod

- dropping every morale point below 20 adds 5% chance to morale event

- 60% for panic, 30% for flee, 10% berserk; stabilizations 8/10/12

- morale regeneration 5 per turn

- 2 morale points to everyone for killing an alien, 1 for alien vehicle

- leader buffs reduced a bit, removed "rookie penalty" and "safety in numbers" completely

- psions have Fear only, officers have Fear+Paralyze, leaders get bezerk on top of it

- Fear is strong: range 30, strengthModifier 1.5x, morale damage as in vanilla

- Paralyze: base range 15, strengthModifier 0.5x

- Bezerk: range 10, strengthModifier 0.5x

- Mind control: range 10, 0.2x; Praetors only; not tested

- Dread: strengthModifier 0.25x, loseAP 0.25

- morale damage from wounds/suppression as in vanilla

facing one psion/officer/leader is easy, a psion+officer/leader can be tricky and there is a chance your squad will be fatally broken if the enemies are not killed quickly

zHold the Line v2.pod.zip

zHold the Line v2.pod.zip

Does paralyze work with Caesans? I might consider adding that in if it does (I figured it was the power that was broken, but maybe it's just that Reapers have no psionics AI code).

Once I'm on top of some other things - and if you want - I might add your alternative version to the OP (or alternatively you could release it as a separate mod). I suspect it will get lost buried in the middle of a thread otherwise.

yes it works perfectly

put my files as an option to OP, don't think a separate mod is necessary.

what bravery are you running your soldiers with, on average, when you test these things?

do you still get bravery points after recovery from panic state?