Jump to content

Sniper Rifles, how should they be?


drages

Recommended Posts

I am working on X-Division for months and i tried many calculations about sniper rifles damage outputs.. But i still cant say i find it..

My damage calculation for a weapon tier starts with one rifle bullet damage. Then i multiply with some numbers to find out the other weapons bullet damages.. For example, let's say plasma weapon rifle bullet damage is 100 with 20 mitigation (armour penetration)..

Pistol, %90 of it.. so 90 full mitigation, 20

Carbine/shotgun.. its per pellet %33 so its 33.., half mitigation 10

Rifle, said 100.. with 20 mitigation

Heavy, like pistol %90.. full mitigation 20

Minigun %50.. half mitigation 10..

These numbers and percentages can be changed depend weapon but it works mostly..

But sniper rifles are different and hard to find out.. A sniper rifle shots "1" fire per turn.. a rifle can shot 2 burst so "6" bullet per turn. Sniper rifles got more range and accuracy of course. With those, you can make difference with regular rifles. Many ppl were against my low range rifles.. this was the biggest reason, to make them different and usefull at different positions.

The question is, why should i use sniper over rifles or opposite.. Sniper rifles should wound badly but if you got a powerful sniper which can wound or kill an enemy with one shot, why would u use a rifle?

For X-Division players, as you know, at 0.97 the rifles were overpowered and at 0.98 snipers are OP..

So i need your ideas about this.. if a rifle bullet hits for 100 with 20 mitigation, what should a sniper rifle damage of the same branch? Do not forget that you will fire 1 bullet per turn but rifles got 6 bullet with much miss chance (at rokies mostly)..

At 0.98 its 2.5x of a bullet damage and 2x mitigation and it became overpowered. so its like 250 damage with 40 mitigation and rifle got 600 damage with 6 bullet per turn.. still sniper's were OP over rifles..

Let's hear your ideas about sniper rifles damage out puts..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think snipers work as intended. Generally they are larger calibre and pack more power to take down a target and are designed to be accurate in semi auto.

The way X-Div stands. I think the first Sniper you have should be set to rifle tier stats but only a little better in terms of say accuracy. The image shows the gun merely being a HK with a scope. As does vanilla, although the next tier of ballistics gives an AWP which is a purpose built rifle. Which should suffer the "isheavy" penalty but should pack a profound punch but cost a lot to fire it and hit hard. Finding a tactic that works and a position that allows the soldier wielding it to find good ground to provide long range firing support without hindering his own self. If that makes sense?

I know this bit is gonna be rather off-topic or diverting. With the weapon rebalance I've done I set the first sniper in the Tier 1 ballistics to not be "Isheavy" but still have good range, due to optics and accurate simply because of the way you can line up targets etc. I think it works well plus it would pack a heavy hitting round, although not to the same degree that the AWP or similar would.

That's just my thoughts. General suggestion so to speak. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good idea about using or not using "isHeavy".. i am using it time to time to make different at sniper rifles. At later game when your soldiers accuracy pass 75, then they nearly dont miss with even very low accuracy weapons. I put miniguns in the mod with 3-10 accuracy to make the player miss (because they fire 20-40 bullet) but they can easily shoot the target when the range is green... so at mid game you soldiers can hit the target easily with rifles.. Snipers are nearly impossible to miss after that line even it's scope sucks..

I made the calculation 2x damage and 10+1.5x mitigation for 0.99..

X-Div 0.98 got a damage jump problem at plasma.. the damage inputs should be lesser then its. For this reason tier 3 and 4 is much more powerful then needed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think "isheavy" should be enforced to all snipers that aren't the first Tier Ballistics. Simply because although you cannot simulate things like scoping in on the target and breath control for the troops. "Isheavy" provides a decent fallback to it by enforcing a penalty when moved until the next turn. Which I suppose could substitute as a variant of breath control, and steadying your aim? Maybe that's just me.

Ohh miniguns sound fun! :D

I'd say with the limitations. As tech progress is reached the best way would be to keep the curve for the weapons slowly climbing but not to a degree where each tech feels like a massive jump except when you go from say Ballistic to Laser. In terms of things like Accuracy anyway. Damage and such when refering to laser weapons can be a wobbly one simply because of the way they work and such and trying to nail down a realistic form of them.

Thus far X-Div gives a massive variety and with each iteration in a tech branch I feel it should be a step up, but I think going from one entire tech to another should give a large boost in comparison to going from tier to another. Or making it so that each sniper has one thing it's better at. Making say the AWP be a purpose built Anti Material rifle for heavy armor, and then have another rifle designed for the less armored and slightly more fragile enemy, which won't require as much strength and TU's to shoot etc.

I'm just throwing random ideas around so I'm rambling quite a bit. Sorry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

minigunexpect.jpg



Miniguns are important...

Yes, isHeavy is very important and standart for sniper.. just only some could be different.. There is some special snipers at x-div without it..

Yeah that step goes wrong after t2.. i made aliens tougher too but t3 weapons are much more powerful..

The important line is there. AWP or not, after your soldiers get their acc enough, every sniper becomes bullseye, and when you make a weak sniper, player would choose the rifle..

minigunexpect.jpg

minigunexpect.thumb.jpg.34c0ac369eb85c50

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I suppose its a rocky road and at this moment I've no real input to help you. Sorry.

All I can imagine is making each one have a speciality. Accuracy or damage mitigation etc etc. I'll have a good ponder on it and see if I can think of anything. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I suppose its a rocky road and at this moment I've no real input to help you. Sorry.

All I can imagine is making each one have a speciality. Accuracy or damage mitigation etc etc. I'll have a good ponder on it and see if I can think of anything. :)

Stop being sorry please.. i made many special branches for new version.. many pros and cons.. we will see how it will end..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting discussion. I'm sure I will have to think about these things for my mod too. For the starting ballistic weapons the longer range and better accuracy are really important as rookies are only trained to shoot their own feet. By the end of the game I could just give all soldiers a shotgun and run around blowing alien heads, so longer range and accuracy aren't really important.

I don't think weapon tech should be all about increasing damage though. Early advancements could be about adding accuracy and they would already make you kill aliens faster as the main issue at the start is missing them. At least this is how I'm planning my mod, not all weapon changes will be about adding damage. The hard part is to identify what changes are needed and when they should become available in the game.

So for snipers: More accuracy for early game versions, more mitigation for late game versions, and they all have long range because they're snipers after all. Maybe the last tech should give a very, very long range, allowing a soldier to shoot anything that isn't blocked by walls, that would make it important.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you give a acc boost to early weapons, you lose the feeling to have rookies at the team. I can sacrifice all my soldiers easily because my weapons already shoot the enemy. You need to be carefull at tech bonus curve. If you give much already at the beginning, you cant give more at end.. The next sniper rifle wont be able to less acc then before, unless the weapon's tech is not so stable..

Killing aliens faster or not is not an issue, its a difficulty. This makes you train and save your trained soldiers. If you want to have more acc soldiers even rookies, you can easily make this at gameconfig, giving much more stats to new recruits.

As an advise, do not play with TU times and acc's of weapons so much. I mean you need to have some standards, or you lose the balance badly. For example my rifles all fire same number of shots per turn, 2x burst... same type weapons should nearly same main characteristics or suddenly something goes unbalanced without control. Even if one weapon passes the line, players will start to use only it..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've modded my snipers to have very high damage output but very low accuracy on snap and normal (something like 1/3 of rifle's). Aimed has high TU requirement (95% if I remember correctly) but has insane accuracy. So if you move and shoot, you will probably hit nothing, but if you stay put, you'll be able to hit very difficult targets, even in cover and generate high damage numbers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've modded my snipers to have very high damage output but very low accuracy on snap and normal (something like 1/3 of rifle's). Aimed has high TU requirement (95% if I remember correctly) but has insane accuracy. So if you move and shoot, you will probably hit nothing, but if you stay put, you'll be able to hit very difficult targets, even in cover and generate high damage numbers.

Can you compare the "very high damage output"? One shot or more then a rifle?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

drages, you're aware that sniper rifle damage output doesn't operate in a vaccum - you have to compare it against earlier generations of sniper rifle as well as the current generation of other weapon types. What I think you need to ask is "What happens when I spam sniper rifles and do I want it like that?". Are you looking for a ensemble where the damage out from different types work better as a team, or for a specialised setup where spamming certain weapons maximises results?

Edited by Max_Caine
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know much about X-Division and its weapons so this may or may not be useful. But here's how I've 'solved' the problem of assault vs. precision rifle in a mod I'm currently testing:

The assault rifle has two aim levels: snap (30% TU, 50% Acc.) and normal (60% TU, 100% Acc.). It also has burst mode (45% TU, 25% Acc.).

The precision rifle has three aim levels: snap (30% TU, 50% Acc.), normal (60% TU, 100% Acc.) and aimed (90% TU, 150% Acc.). It has no burst mode but 20% more damage than the assault rifle and a longer effective range.

These stats, although there's quite a lot of overlap, make for fairly different weapons. Used to take single shots, the precision rifle is better as it has higher damage and effective aim while it can also be used to take high-accuracy shots which the assault rifle cannot. However, the assault rifle's burst fire makes it much more effective at close range as the shot-range bonuses make it likely that the shooter will score multiple hits. Furthermore, while burst fire might not be effective for damage at longer ranges, it's effective for suppression while the precision rifle isn't.

I've found this to be pretty balanced. In situations where I need long-range shooting I notice when I don't have precision rifles in the squad; likewise while precision rifles are not useless in close quarters situations I definitely miss not having assault rifles. The important point, I think, is that the per-bullet damage isn't very different between the two: the precision rifle is slightly more powerful but not by a great deal by any means. The weapons are distinguished by their fire modes instead.

As such - and repeating the caveat that I know nothing about X-Divisions weapons - if you have sufficiently different fire-modes for the different weapons I suspect somewhere in the region of x1.5 regular rifle damage is probably more than enough.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

drages, you're aware that sniper rifle damage output doesn't operate in a vaccum - you have to compare it against earlier generations of sniper rifle as well as the current generation of other weapon types. What I think you need to ask is "What happens when I spam sniper rifles and do I want it like that?". Are you looking for a ensemble where the damage out from different types work better as a team, or for a specialised setup where spamming certain weapons maximises results?

The idea is to make sniper rifle and rifles useful at battle. It's overall idea between weapon types rather then in their own category. As i see from the player comments, they are mostly choose sniper or rifle.. if snipers damage is much, they play with it. If rifles burst damage is more, they leave snipers..

I don't know much about X-Division and its weapons so this may or may not be useful. But here's how I've 'solved' the problem of assault vs. precision rifle in a mod I'm currently testing:

The assault rifle has two aim levels: snap (30% TU, 50% Acc.) and normal (60% TU, 100% Acc.). It also has burst mode (45% TU, 25% Acc.).

The precision rifle has three aim levels: snap (30% TU, 50% Acc.), normal (60% TU, 100% Acc.) and aimed (90% TU, 150% Acc.). It has no burst mode but 20% more damage than the assault rifle and a longer effective range.

These stats, although there's quite a lot of overlap, make for fairly different weapons. Used to take single shots, the precision rifle is better as it has higher damage and effective aim while it can also be used to take high-accuracy shots which the assault rifle cannot. However, the assault rifle's burst fire makes it much more effective at close range as the shot-range bonuses make it likely that the shooter will score multiple hits. Furthermore, while burst fire might not be effective for damage at longer ranges, it's effective for suppression while the precision rifle isn't.

I've found this to be pretty balanced. In situations where I need long-range shooting I notice when I don't have precision rifles in the squad; likewise while precision rifles are not useless in close quarters situations I definitely miss not having assault rifles. The important point, I think, is that the per-bullet damage isn't very different between the two: the precision rifle is slightly more powerful but not by a great deal by any means. The weapons are distinguished by their fire modes instead.

As such - and repeating the caveat that I know nothing about X-Divisions weapons - if you have sufficiently different fire-modes for the different weapons I suspect somewhere in the region of x1.5 regular rifle damage is probably more than enough.

You gave rifles %100 acc shot with %60 tu.. and snipers with %150 shot with %90 tu.. i can say that an avarage soldier with acc over 70, wont miss that rifle shot with %100 so the sniper with %150 would be absolute.. you said the fire mods are important. Exactly. But you gave rifle already very good acc with less TU and it has a burst ability.. lets put them as list:

Rifle with 100 damage:

- %60 TU with %100 acc

- 100 damage

- Burst

Sniper:

-%90 TU with %150 acc

- 120

- No burst, useless at short en counters..

If you ask me, that 20 damage is not worth to use snipers here. My rifle can shoot with %100 acc already with less TU and there is only 20 damage difference. The only thing could make a difference here is "range" and it should worth it.

I dont know how the acc calculation works with soldier acc and weapon acc.. but i made tons of tests about acc with big numbered shot burst and i saw that when it's in range and soldier got about 65 acc, they mostly hit even the weapon acc is "10"... so as i say again, a shot with 100 acc and 150 acc has no difference at a mediocre soldier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You gave rifles %100 acc shot with %60 tu.. and snipers with %150 shot with %90 tu.. i can say that an avarage soldier with acc over 70, wont miss that rifle shot with %100 so the sniper with %150 would be absolute..

Don't know what the soldier stats are like in X-Division, but I wouldn't call 70 Accuracy average. But in any case, a soldier with 70 Accuracy isn't by any means sure of a hit - the difference between a 30% chance of missing and a 5% chance of missing isn't insubstantial (see calculations below).

If you ask me, that 20 damage is not worth to use snipers here. My rifle can shoot with %100 acc already with less TU and there is only 20 damage difference. The only thing could make a difference here is "range" and it should worth it.

Remember that the sniper rifle can also take a normal shot with the same level of accuracy and same TU cost. In other words, when taking single shots the sniper rifle is just a better weapon than the assault rifle. So the only time that the sniper rifle 'loses' is in an instance when you would have preferred to take a burst shot instead (and, in reverse, the assault rifle only 'loses' when you take a single shot).

In practice, I've found this to be a reasonable trade-off. But then, I'm also playing in the context of a mod which increases sight ranges which makes longer-range engagements more common (and therefore single shots more useful) as it's more difficult to close on a target for close-range burst damage.

(With all this said, I'd say x1.5 damage for the sniper rifle is probably about right in an otherwise more vanillary combat system. That's enough to be noticeable but also maintains multiple hits as the main way of causing serious damage to targets.)

I dont know how the acc calculation works with soldier acc and weapon acc.. but i made tons of tests about acc with big numbered shot burst and i saw that when it's in range and soldier got about 65 acc, they mostly hit even the weapon acc is "10"... so as i say again, a shot with 100 acc and 150 acc has no difference at a mediocre soldier.

Shot accuracy, before modifiers, is calculated as:

Soldier Accuracy x %Weapon Accuracy.

So a soldier with 60 Accuracy shooting with a Accuracy 50 shot has 60 * 50% = 30% chance to hit.

So weapons with Accuracy of 10 shouldn't have better than a 10% chance to hit at most (range modifiers notwithstanding). If you're getting something different to that, it sounds like a bug. (An exception can be made for close-range shooting since shots will scatter into the target anyway and would produce what you're describing).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see it more clearly now. I was thinking the calculation us like a addition rather then percentage.

Main game dont have armour or resistance at enemies so sadly if you don't edit enemies resistances, you lose the opportunity to use a good aspect.

At my mod rifles are more burst weapon with %45 tu burst fire with 35 acc. So to balance it with snipers I gave 2x damage and more mitigation.

but as I said I liked your point öf view. Thx!

I will try some more tests about acc calculation. But game takes some numbers strongly. . För example my sniper with 150 dmg can cause sometimes over 1000 dmg like head shot. Many mod players reported even higher numbers..

Edited by drages
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will try some more tests about acc calculation. But game takes some numbers strongly. . För example my sniper with 150 dmg can cause sometimes over 1000 dmg like head shot. Many mod players reported even higher numbers..

That's a bug. I remember it being an issue when Mikhail was making his Magnum-nauts mod The hypothesis at the time was that it's caused in some way by armour mitigation but we might have disproved that somehow. But yes, definitely a bug.

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...