[XCE Only] Kabill's Tactical Armouries

I think it'd be actually fine to give them 20 or so extra resilence, if they'd in return behave more like berserk warriors going on frequent mad rampage charges towards your troops. I've zero experience tweaking the AI files though, so can't really come up with any constructive ideas how to achieve this.

I've just looked at their files and I can see that I've dropped their minimum shot accuracy considerably. So I might try raising that value to encourage them to move into close range before shooting and see how that works.

Btw, I can verify mosshadow's observations of caesans being sneaky bastards. I've also been shot in the back from buildings I've considered a non-threat while advancing towards the alien UFO. Also the new AI works really well with the Hold the Line! mod, because I usually have more xenonauts engaged at the same time in firefights and getting 1-2 xenonauts suddenly paralyzed can drastically change the set-piece. Generally, they're really fun and challenging to fight against.

This is good to hear. In vanilla Caesans always felt the lesser partner to Sebillians and while I still think Sebillians are currently more challenging, it's nice to see that Caesans are presenting their own challenges now.

Actually, your mod should make sebillians more suspectible to suppression, since you've raised the suppressionMultiplier to 0.6 from 0.5 and the percentual armor decrease shouldn't indeed be the case here since I was talking about sebillian guards, which don't have any armor. Need to test that flashbang issue a bit more. I'm pretty they were landing right next to the sebs.

Yeah, you're right. I thought maybe I reduced the suppression value on flashbangs but that's the same as vanilla; a single flashbang should therefore definitely be enough to suppress a Sebillian guard so long as it lands close, on paper anyway.

Regarding vehicles and manufacturable weapons, I think at least the Hunter is grossly overpriced at 75,000 - actually I often felt that the original 60,000 was also a bit too steep. With Armoured Assault the vehicles are really useful, but when comparing the investment as a replacement to 2 xenonauts in your dropship it very often comes down to making a decision based on economy. 75k equals to 15 expendable xenonauts (with the xce 0.32 changes, which I think is pretty fair)!!! I think the weapon manufacture prices are fine (what I've gathered from the mod files, in-game I'm just at the laser stage), but maybe the manufacture costs of the vehicles should be lowered by 30%-40% considering the extra expenses from fitting them with advanced weapons, which are not even linear improvements over the free ones. This by itself is of course a good thing, but adding a laser cannon priced at 60,000 (+rare materials) to an already pricey 75,000 chassis, which still is pretty easy to blow up even with early alien weapons is a bit too risky investment.

Regarding vehicles and manufacturable weapons, I think at least the Hunter is grossly overpriced at 75,000 - actually I often felt that the original 60,000 was also a bit too steep. With Armoured Assault the vehicles are really useful, but when comparing the investment as a replacement to 2 xenonauts in your dropship it very often comes down to making a decision based on economy. 75k equals to 15 expendable xenonauts (with the xce 0.32 changes, which I think is pretty fair)!!! I think the weapon manufacture prices are fine (what I've gathered from the mod files, in-game I'm just at the laser stage), but maybe the manufacture costs of the vehicles should be lowered by 30%-40% considering the extra expenses from fitting them with advanced weapons, which are not even linear improvements over the free ones. This by itself is of course a good thing, but adding a laser cannon priced at 60,000 (+rare materials) to an already pricey 75,000 chassis, which still is pretty easy to blow up even with early alien weapons is a bit too risky investment.

I'm persuaded by this. The prices went up a bit purely because of Armoured Assault where I'd increased the price slightly to balance the better stats. But I was always a bit unsure whether it was needed. And now with the soldier price reduction and manufacture of weapons, yes, I think the chassis itself could definitely afford to come down. I might also reduce the manufacture time too, since you have to also make the weapons.

I went and corrupted my savegames because of some tweaking and juggling mods around. Got a pretty good picture of the mod though, here's some more summarizing impressions:

I think the early laser and MAG technology should be researchable at the same time (presumably after power cell+alien alloys) like it was in Extended Armouries, to give the the soldier weapon tech tree a bit more branching structure and a more immediate choice crudely between long-range and short range specialization. Getting MAGs earlier would hardly be overpowering, since you won't be facing any armoured opponents in the early game anyway, apart from light drones and an occasional Harridan with the Dynamic UFOs installed. The advanced laser/MAG tiers becoming available could depend on researched alien weapons with similar functions, e.g. alien autocannon + carbine could unlock the rapid-fire lasers research, and so on. Generally though, the tech-tree feels fine and the different new weapon categories all feel useful (played until late MAG's). Sadly didn't get to play around with the nifty new Predator-class weapons.

As a small nitpick, I think the ballistic HK precision rifle should get it's NoDamageScaling flag back, otherwise it feels a bit underpowered.

New aircraft and infantry explosives requiring the "manufacture packet" works really well and makes these mandatory upgrades much less of a no-brainer to aquire, but without going as far as making it tedious. Really great idea. I also like the subtle variation between frag and alenium explosives, for example, frags still staying useful because of the larger blast radius. Oh, and the new C4 is a lot of fun!

I'm not sure I'm a fan of capping soldier attributes to 80. If I understand correctly the rationale behind this was to avoid soldiers becoming overpowered? I think a better way to achieve this would be just to slow the stat-gaining progress instead of introducing an artificial cap. I wonder if the level up process could be made less "gradually linear" by, for example, making the normal stat gain really rare but giving each gained medal a +2 or +3 to all stats, or something like that.

By the way, not immediatly connected to this, but do the stat boosts from your Cybernetic Armor mod's armors go over the basic stat cap? So could I still achieve 100 stat points using this mod and CA, when using an accuracy+reflex boosting armor?

Didn't do much combat with the latter aliens, so can't comment on their exact stat changes. I've had my own mod which does pretty much the same, though - removes the HP bloat and adds some armour and stat boosts to compensate. I'll definitely start a new game in future with your version, since it generally seems better thought out.

Edit: forgot to say that I really didn't mind the new damage randomness in the end. I think my initial impression was mostly caused by just seeing the numbers and having some kind of a mathematical discrepancy of not understanding exactly how much damage my weapons were supposed to cause - 50%-150% just feels much more intuitive, I guess. Actually I wouldn't mind even a 0%-200% flunctuation like in the original UFO, if I remember correctly. Hitting the higher end spectrum can really cause one of those enjoyable "CRITICAL HIT!!!" moments in an occasional tight spot

Oh, and thank you once more for your hard work with these great mods!

I think the early laser and MAG technology should be researchable at the same time (presumably after power cell+alien alloys) like it was in Extended Armouries, to give the the soldier weapon tech tree a bit more branching structure and a more immediate choice crudely between long-range and short range specialization. Getting MAGs earlier would hardly be overpowering, since you won't be facing any armoured opponents in the early game anyway, apart from light drones and an occasional Harridan with the Dynamic UFOs installed. The advanced laser/MAG tiers becoming available could depend on researched alien weapons with similar functions, e.g. alien autocannon + carbine could unlock the rapid-fire lasers research, and so on. Generally though, the tech-tree feels fine and the different new weapon categories all feel useful (played until late MAG's). Sadly didn't get to play around with the nifty new Predator-class weapons.

While it wouldn't be overpowered per se, I think MAG would always make the better choice in terms of investment compared with laser. MAG is more versatile and in the mid-game onwards is equal to or better than laser in almost all circumstances due to armour penetration, so I suspect the optimum strategy would be to invest only in MAG and ignore laser entirely.

As a small nitpick, I think the ballistic HK precision rifle should get it's NoDamageScaling flag back, otherwise it feels a bit underpowered.

I've done that for consistency's sake: that flag is exclusively used on MAG weapons to represent their high velocity. However, I'm open to maybe buffing precision rifles in some way; perhaps a little extra base damage or some natural armour penetration (AP might be nice, actually, to provide an early-game solution to Light Drones and Androns).

New aircraft and infantry explosives requiring the "manufacture packet" works really well and makes these mandatory upgrades much less of a no-brainer to aquire, but without going as far as making it tedious. Really great idea. I also like the subtle variation between frag and alenium explosives, for example, frags still staying useful because of the larger blast radius. Oh, and the new C4 is a lot of fun!

Cool, glad you felt that worked. I think I might need to play around with manufacturing times a little as in my own games I really struggle to do all the building that I want. But then, maybe that's a feature - I could always build another workshop after all.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of capping soldier attributes to 80. If I understand correctly the rationale behind this was to avoid soldiers becoming overpowered? I think a better way to achieve this would be just to slow the stat-gaining progress instead of introducing an artificial cap. I wonder if the level up process could be made less "gradually linear" by, for example, making the normal stat gain really rare but giving each gained medal a +2 or +3 to all stats, or something like that.

By the way, not immediatly connected to this, but do the stat boosts from your Cybernetic Armor mod's armors go over the basic stat cap? So could I still achieve 100 stat points using this mod and CA, when using an accuracy+reflex boosting armor?

I couldn't tell you why, exactly, but a cap of 80 just feels right to me. Truthfully, I never get soldiers up to the cap (that would require a soldier to live for at least ten if not more missions; apparently I'm incapable of securing that!). I might consider changing it, but I'd rather have a lower cap with faster progression than the reverse as otherwise it might just feel grindy getting soldier's stats up.

Regarding the point about Cybernetic Armour: yes, the stat buffs from the armour can push a soldier beyond their cap. It's possible I had this in mind when designing this mod, actually, but I don't remember.

Edit: forgot to say that I really didn't mind the new damage randomness in the end. I think my initial impression was mostly caused by just seeing the numbers and having some kind of a mathematical discrepancy of not understanding exactly how much damage my weapons were supposed to cause - 50%-150% just feels much more intuitive, I guess. Actually I wouldn't mind even a 0%-200% flunctuation like in the original UFO, if I remember correctly. Hitting the higher end spectrum can really cause one of those enjoyable "CRITICAL HIT!!!" moments in an occasional tight spot

Something must be wrong with me when the full X-Com %0-%200 variation seems to much to me. (Actually, there's a good technical reason not to do that: there's an issue where if you roll a '0' for damage the game can't cope and it hands you a super big damage number instead.)

Oh, and thank you once more for your hard work with these great mods!

No trouble. Thanks for taking the time to give me your thoughts; it's really helpful.

While it wouldn't be overpowered per se, I think MAG would always make the better choice in terms of investment compared with laser. MAG is more versatile and in the mid-game onwards is equal to or better than laser in almost all circumstances due to armour penetration, so I suspect the optimum strategy would be to invest only in MAG and ignore laser entirely.

In my opinion lasers, at least the middle-tier and higher ones, still retain their usefulness because of their superior long-range power. The improved sight range and short range bonuses in this mod really encourage keeping the distance if you want to minimize the risk of losses, and I ended up using more lasers than MAG's even in the mid-game. Then again, maybe I didn't explore the potential of the MAG weapons fully, at least I didn't realize that they had no long range damage scaling.

Cool, glad you felt that worked. I think I might need to play around with manufacturing times a little as in my own games I really struggle to do all the building that I want. But then, maybe that's a feature - I could always build another workshop after all.

Yeah, the fact that it encourages more specialization with base building and using your resources is a good thing. In my game I ended up in a situation where I was lacking 2 alenium to build alenium missiles and had enough resources to get the ground combat explosives which could have really helped against the emerging andron horde. Choices, choices...

I couldn't tell you why, exactly, but a cap of 80 just feels right to me. Truthfully, I never get soldiers up to the cap (that would require a soldier to live for at least ten if not more missions; apparently I'm incapable of securing that!). I might consider changing it, but I'd rather have a lower cap with faster progression than the reverse as otherwise it might just feel grindy getting soldier's stats up.

I had couple of soldiers with 80 at couple of stats in my latest game. Getting up to 100 before that was really rare though, but it gave those rare soldiers even more value for me to try to keep them alive at all costs. I fear that with 80 caps, late-game soldiers might just become boring jack-of-all-trades. I don't think slowing the progression would really make it grindy, it'd just make the starting stats matter more. I'd really like to explore the idea with medals I mentioned, to make soldier progression more connected to unique feats instead of just dragging them along in every mission to get that +1 to all stats after it. Maybe a +5 to a random stat for every medal aquired, or +2 to all stats respectively. Completing a mission would only give a boost to the most used stat, perhaps. Not sure if that's possible to do with the moddable game resources though.

Hey kabill, no final version/updates on this? I was planning on starting a new run with a fresh install, this mod on top.

Haven't had time. The main issue was finding some problems I recorded ages ago (like, back in February) but with insufficient detail for me to tell what the problem was when I came back to it later. I've then not had the chance to chase the problem down again.

I could maybe get an update out over the weekend with some other changes/fixes. It won't be 100% perfect, though.

Take your time, I can just do some internal tweakings to the mod myself, no need to waste time doing hasty incomplete updates since there doesn't seem to be much demand for it at the moment.

I started new game and discover that increasing range and accuracy added "reality feeling". Crossfire on existing maps now is more deadly

And idea with small pistols are perfect!

Kabill, do you thinking to do some (5-20%) additional weapons resistance depending on alien type?

For example:

Kinetic resistance - androns, drones

Energy resistance - ceasans, wraiths

It can conduce to use in GC weapons of two main type. Also it corresponding with changed tiers (kinetic-laser-MAG-plasma)

It seems that inventory actions in GC require too much time.

<HandsFreeingAP>16</HandsFreeingAP>

<HandDragAP>12</HandDragAP>

<BackpackDragAP>24</BackpackDragAP>

<BeltDragAP>16</BeltDragAP>

<GroundDragAP>4</GroundDragAP>

<ExplosiveArmingAP>20</ExplosiveArmingAP>

<ExplosiveUnarmingAP>10</ExplosiveUnarmingAP>

May be slightly reduced HandDragAP and BeltDragAP?

In GC fresh medkit shown as 10/50.

It seems that inventory actions in GC require too much time.

<HandsFreeingAP>16</HandsFreeingAP>

<HandDragAP>12</HandDragAP>

<BackpackDragAP>24</BackpackDragAP>

<BeltDragAP>16</BeltDragAP>

<GroundDragAP>4</GroundDragAP>

<ExplosiveArmingAP>20</ExplosiveArmingAP>

<ExplosiveUnarmingAP>10</ExplosiveUnarmingAP>

May be slightly reduced HandDragAP and BeltDragAP?

Not sure this is something I would want to change. Notwithstanding anything else, the high TU cost for inventory management is tied to grenade-use.

One of the things I wanted to do with this mod was add more reasons to equip pistols. Equipping them as a back-up weapon doesn't really work - ammo clips are just as light, take up less room, generally have more shots and do more damage and reload costs are still relatively low such that swapping to a pistol instead gets you at best one extra shot. With non-linear weapon development, there is some merit in having a backup weapon of a different class (e.g. a soldier equipped with a Laser Lance may carry a MAG Pistol as a backup as it has rapid-fire capability) but this is still relatively niche. So that left grenades.

Unfortunately, in vanilla grenade throwing is relatively easy even with the "no hands free" penalty for having a two-handed weapon in-hand. So to make pistols valuable to grenade throwers, I needed to increase the "no hands free penalty". That in turn required that I increase inventory management TU costs, however, otherwise there is a break whereby if you manually swap weapons it costs less TUs than using the quick-throw function. You'll notice from the numbers above that the total TUs to drop and pick up an item again (from and to the hand slot) is equal to the no hands free penalty, for precisely this reason.

As such, I can't really play around with those values without undermining pistol+grenade as a combo (which I'm reluctant to do as, in my experience, there's a strong niche for dedicated grenadiers now as otherwise a soldier usually can't move more than a tile or two and still throw a grenade). There are some issues with the current set-up (it's possible to paralyse a soldier by overloading them so much they have no TUs, resulting in a situation where they can't drop anything to unburden themselves and remove the penalty!) so maybe I should remove the GroundDragAP score to 0 again and increase HandDragAP up to 16 to compensate. But that would make sidearms slightly more rubbish as it would increase the penalty of swapping to a second weapon.

In GC fresh medkit shown as 10/50.

Really? That's weird. I was pretty sure that was working fine. I will check it my end, but can you also check to make sure you don't have another mod activated that's interfering?

Really? That's weird. I was pretty sure that was working fine. I will check it my end, but can you also check to make sure you don't have another mod activated that's interfering?

There is no other mods, which can affect on this.

In new game still "10/50"

Thanks, will check it out.

(If you want to change it on your version, open up weapons.xml and change the ammo size for the medikit to '10'. You may want to check the Advanced Medikit as well as that should be '25').

GC (normal mode) pretty difficult to pass.

Long-range accuracy reduced the chances harmless approach to UFO main door (if at least few aliens were there) at most maps.

It's just my opinion.

I've been testing this mod out - It inspired me to do another Xenonauts playthrough. I think you have many interesting game design ideas that really freshen up the game.

One things I'm curious about is the rationale behind changing the weapon AP costs and standardizing accuracy more (i.e. AP costs are generally now 30,60 or 90 %). I don't have an opinion either way at the moment, just curious.

GC (normal mode) pretty difficult to pass.

Long-range accuracy reduced the chances harmless approach to UFO main door (if at least few aliens were there) at most maps.

It's just my opinion.

I can't tell whether you mean this is a bad thing or not. Personally, I like it - it's seldom I can get through a mission without one or two casualties which means that when it happens it feels like a solid achievement. But I understand that not everyone will like this.

One things I'm curious about is the rationale behind changing the weapon AP costs and standardizing accuracy more (i.e. AP costs are generally now 30,60 or 90 %). I don't have an opinion either way at the moment, just curious.

Basically, it's because I wanted to emphasise qualitative over quantitative differences between weapons.

The Accuracy, TU cost and Damage of a weapon does not really make any difference as to how you use them. A weapon which is 50% better at hitting isn't better in any particular role over another weapon; it's better in all roles because more hits are always good. Similarly with damage. TU costs do matter more but they're also difficult to get right as TU costs affect both mobility and rate of fire and the impact of TU costs is therefore both non-linear and hard to measure (e.g. can you say how much value you get from a weapon which costs 35% TU to fire compared with 45% TU? It's so circumstantial that it's impossible to put a number on it).

As such, I figured the best thing to do was set up a standard set of values and make weapons distinct in other ways instead. So, within a weapon tier anyway, the things that give weapons roles are their bonus fire-modes (burst/aimed), reaction modifier and range. These all have a strong, qualitative effect on what a weapon can do and therefore are actually important in determining a weapon's function (i.e. burst fire is useful for suppression and CQC; aimed shots are useful at long ranges; reaction modifiers are useful in CQC and scouting; range impacts on where you can use a weapon effectively).

In other words, I came to the conclusion that there isn't any value-added to playing around with TU and Acc values and distinction was better produced via other means.

how much value you get from a weapon which costs 35% TU to fire compared with 45% TU? It's so circumstantial that it's impossible to put a number on it).

Great post!

I find it cool to have 3 shots instead of 2. It is hardly circumstantial

Great post!

I find it cool to have 3 shots instead of 2. It is hardly circumstantial

Ah, yes, well, there's two issues. The first is rate of fire - a difference of 5% can make a huge difference if it crosses over a threshold for shots per turn. But in the example I gave, the maximum number of shots per turn is the same (2), you just have more freedom of movement with the 35% attack. But how much is that freedom of movement worth? Sometimes it is worth nothing, sometimes it is worth everything (if it gets you into cover or allows a shot which otherwise you couldn't have taken). It's so hard to balance, in both ways, that in the end I figured it was better not to even try and use a standard base.

There is no other mods, which can affect on this.

In new game still "10/50"

I've checked the files and everything looks right. Haven't had chance to check in game but I don't remember there being a problem. So I'm not sure why you're getting this problem.

Trying to click on the manufacturing option "Alloy Shield Upgrade" crashes the game.

Trying to click on the manufacturing option "Alloy Shield Upgrade" crashes the game.

That's useful to know, thanks.

I just tried your mod on a freshly installed X:CE 0.34.1, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be compatible with it, could you maybe specify the compatible version in the title or main post?

It seems really nice, however during the first few minutes I already experienced some bugs.

The only mods I have enabled are the ones shipped with X:CE, except for Armoured Assault which I disabled as per your instructions.

Is Tactical Armouries ok at priority 1 in the mod list?

The first ground combat I had, the game froze during the first alien turn, however I'm not sure if it was related to it, and I didn't see anything on the logs.

The default loadout for rifleman has the wrong kind of ammo: it is equipped with an assault carbine while carrying two incompatible assault rifle clips.

There is no detailed description for any of the weapons or equipment while hovering the mouse, only the name: is it intended, to make the game kind of more realistic by not knowing exact numbers and formulas?

I just realized that those values are present in "strings - backup with weapon stats.xml", is this alternate version up to date?

I'm getting the same things Valerian is, minus the crash. The lack of weapon stats tooltips is actually kind of a dealbreaker for me, please tell me this is a bug and not intentional.

I also got the improper rifleman loadout that valerian describes, though thats something I can live with (by making my own loadouts ).

This is on a fresh CE install. Only other mods I have are the ambient noise pack that Grimples made, and your own Enhanced Crash Sites.

Literally no idea why you might be getting crashes - works fine for me. However, I am using a (at least slightly) updated version so is plausible I corrected something in that. In any case, some more information on other mods/circumstances of the crash might help?

Regarding tooltips: I did do tooltips for all/most weapons but there was an issue with the length/formatting of the strings which meant they didn't display properly or something (I don't remember the exact problem but they definitely didn't work). That's what the 'backup' strings file is - it was awaiting a revision which would make it work and I never got around to it. I'm reasonably confident most of the stats in that file are probably correct which means there is a reference for you to use. But obviously it's not in the same so not so helpful.

Regarding starting loadouts: that's just because I never updated the vanilla loadouts and because of how the mod is designed the rifleman loadout gets screwed. I was deliberately leaving this until the mod was finished to avoid having to redo it; also I always make my own loadouts at the start of the game anyway so was never a priority. But it is something I intend to resolve if I ever get to the point of being able to full-release.

I'd very much like to get all of this fixed - finishing this mod off has been at the back of my mind longer than I care for - but work is such that I just don't have the time to dedicate to it. In a few weeks it is plausible I will have some free time and can try and sort some of this (as well as release the slightly updated version). Bad it's sadly impossible for me to do anything sooner than that.

EDIT: If you're still interested in this in a few weeks time, bother me about it here. I'm more likely to do things if people chase me for them!