XMC Part 1: (Ground Combat) Version 1.0 for XCE 0.33 HF1

Just got beaten on Veteran in 6 months long war of attrition. Mainly because I started lagging behind on air tech - my ground troops we killing aliens all right, with the combination of Plasma and Elite ballistics techs.

Moreover, surprisingly enough, having 2 workshops at first base is NOT ENOUGH to carry your construction needs. I struggled to produce both enough interceptors and equipment, which made me realize that I NEED additional engineering sites in my secondary bases - something that never happened in Vanilla game, where having 2 of each facility at your HQ was more than enough. (Spoiler -was too late for me though, lol).

What I want to say - very well done! I really enjoyed that atmosphere of desperation, where I continued on fighting, despite practically being defeated already.

A couple of suggestions and a question:

1) Please notify new players about the possibility of selling alien weapons somewhere in the xenopedia\ popup menu. It helps SO MUCH to fund all your simultaneous endeavors on different fronts, while still being quite balanced ( despite earning 1.0 - 3.5 millions like every month that way, I never found myself taking a bath in cash - at all times I could definitely use more. Oh, and I tested both 2.5mill and 3mill starting funds - didnt really feel the difference, they are both at sweetspot of balance)

2) Upon researching second dropship, I realized that having 2 workshops\labs and 2 2x1 living quarters is marginally enough ( exactly 14 soldiers and 30 + 30 engineers and scientists). So, upon researching next dropships, I will have to increase living space somehow to house additional soldiers. So, my question is - is there a way to painlessly switch from two 2x1 living quarters to one large living quarters? If I understand correctly, I'd have to build living quarters in different bases and transfer my team there, then destroy both 2x1 barracks to build a larger one. But what about engineers and scientists? Do I lose\fire them? Are there any tips to avoid that?

Right now I'm thinking of building two 2x1 barracks next to engineering and labs, then research large living quarters ASAP, replace the initial barracks with that, and then replace those temporary barracks I built with second lab and workshop. Looks like it's the only way to do that right. But new players will definitely be completely unaware of needing to plan ahead their living space.

EDIT

Forgot to thank you once more for this mod, and than everyone else who's helping you. This little gem, while still somewhat rough around the edges, is damn close to being "the way Xenonauts were meant to be played".

Gonna start my new playthrough soon, this time I will concentrate on xenopedia and will report any typos I will find. How would you like those to be reported? Do I mark those myself and then post all of them in single feedback post, or do I post them as soon as I notice some?

Just got beaten on Veteran in 6 months long war of attrition. Mainly because I started lagging behind on air tech - my ground troops we killing aliens all right, with the combination of Plasma and Elite ballistics techs.

Moreover, surprisingly enough, having 2 workshops at first base is NOT ENOUGH to carry your construction needs. I struggled to produce both enough interceptors and equipment, which made me realize that I NEED additional engineering sites in my secondary bases - something that never happened in Vanilla game, where having 2 of each facility at your HQ was more than enough. (Spoiler -was too late for me though, lol).

What I want to say - very well done! I really enjoyed that atmosphere of desperation, where I continued on fighting, despite practically being defeated already.

A couple of suggestions and a question:

1) Please notify new players about the possibility of selling alien weapons somewhere in the xenopedia\ popup menu. It helps SO MUCH to fund all your simultaneous endeavors on different fronts, while still being quite balanced ( despite earning 1.0 - 3.5 millions like every month that way, I never found myself taking a bath in cash - at all times I could definitely use more. Oh, and I tested both 2.5mill and 3mill starting funds - didnt really feel the difference, they are both at sweetspot of balance)

2) Upon researching second dropship, I realized that having 2 workshops\labs and 2 2x1 living quarters is marginally enough ( exactly 14 soldiers and 30 + 30 engineers and scientists). So, upon researching next dropships, I will have to increase living space somehow to house additional soldiers. So, my question is - is there a way to painlessly switch from two 2x1 living quarters to one large living quarters? If I understand correctly, I'd have to build living quarters in different bases and transfer my team there, then destroy both 2x1 barracks to build a larger one. But what about engineers and scientists? Do I lose\fire them? Are there any tips to avoid that?

Right now I'm thinking of building two 2x1 barracks next to engineering and labs, then research large living quarters ASAP, replace the initial barracks with that, and then replace those temporary barracks I built with second lab and workshop. Looks like it's the only way to do that right. But new players will definitely be completely unaware of needing to plan ahead their living space.

EDIT

Forgot to thank you once more for this mod, and than everyone else who's helping you. This little gem, while still somewhat rough around the edges, is damn close to being "the way Xenonauts were meant to be played".

Gonna start my new playthrough soon, this time I will concentrate on xenopedia and will report any typos I will find. How would you like those to be reported? Do I mark those myself and then post all of them in single feedback post, or do I post them as soon as I notice some?

Thanks so much Rallige for all your feedback and help, If you don't Mind I will also add you to my Credits as you have done an awful lot of testing and reporting. (Unfortunately in my production release as there seemed to be quite a few late breaking issue that crept into my release build) Oh well, least we have them fixed now.

I also found switching to the larger Barracks to be problematic in game as its very hard to free up the slots. I think the only way to improve things is to try and make it available a little earlier in the game.

I am working on my vehicles mod at the moment, but I will then come back and implement everybody's suggestions. Fortunately I have not had any requests that are wildy contradicting, so I should hopefully be able to implement everything.

Yes you are definitely right about the Alien weapons returned, I forgot to let people know in game that if you want to recover the cash you have to sell them manually. I will get that updated shortly as this could prove to be a frustration for players.

Just started my new playthrough, and, as promised, I'm paying as much attention to typos as I can. But you could really make my life easier by directing me to original texts in mod folders, as in some cases I have to rewrite the whole sentences, and it takes quite a lot of time - I'd be much happier if I could just copy the originals and edit them.

EDIT

Just researched Heavy weapons rank 2, got access to SAW (mg-like m-16 thingy) and took a good look at it. I was about to take it on a mission, when I saw that it requires 80% of TU, just like LMG burst does, which, IMO, makes it much, much less attractive. While clearly not designed as assault weapons (you have 40rnd carbines for that), it definitely has to be more maneuverable than clearly much heavier LMG.

In game, following game mechanic's logic, if we have 2 soldiers with identical stats (lets say 60 STR), they will BOTH be able to travel exactly the SAME amount of tiles and fire, while IRL LMGs are clearly much more cumbersome, and during same "test" soldier with SAW would show better mobility.

The only advantage SAW has over LMG is that it only requires 55 STR to compensate recoil. But it fires much less bullets per burst ( 6 vs 10 of an LMG ) which obviously is much worse in terms of suppressing your enemies and dealing them damage ( especially since SAW and LMG accuracy is identical, if STR condition is met)

My suggestion would be making SAW bursts cheaper in terms of TU and slightly more accurate ( about 65 - 70% TU and 45% ACC against 80% TU and 35% ACC of LMG). This would clearly make SAW much more tactics - oriented weapon, while keeping LMG in its "strategic deployment weapon" niche.

If you ever consider this, you might also slightly buff LMG's suppression and HP damage - they usually use higher caliber rounds, after all ( in game it's 7.92 mm for MG42 and 5.56mm for SAW). This would separate these weapons a little bit more, and instead of slightly different clones we'll have 2 similar weapon systems, sharing idea if firing a long burst once per turn, but achieving different goals on the battlefield.

I believe that these changes won't make SAW so good that it replaces rifles\carbines on riflemen :

1) STR requirement is still there (btw, rank 2 SAW's description contradicts itself - text says, that recoil is 55, while stat menu shows recoil of 60. Not a big deal really, but you might wanna fix that.)

2) It will only be able to fire once per turn, while with rifles\carbines you could spend leftover TUs on extra shots, adding greatly to their much valued versatility.

Just started my new playthrough, and, as promised, I'm paying as much attention to typos as I can. But you could really make my life easier by directing me to original texts in mod folders, as in some cases I have to rewrite the whole sentences, and it takes quite a lot of time - I'd be much happier if I could just copy the originals and edit them.

Great Idea. The text all lives in the ..Xenonauts\assets\mods\<Modname>xenopedia.xml

Unfortunately I have 5 active mods so it will be in the corresponding mod.

However they are mostly in the ChoicesPart1 Mod.

I am thinking, if you have a spreadsheet program like excel or the equivalent you can mark the cells that you edit with a colour. Then when finished you can probably upload the whole file to this thread. I will then be able to copy the updates straight back into my latest set of xml files.

Just researched Heavy weapons rank 2, got access to SAW (mg-like m-16 thingy) and took a good look at it. I was about to take it on a mission, when I saw that it requires 80% of TU, just like LMG burst does, which, IMO, makes it much, much less attractive. While clearly not designed as assault weapons (you have 40rnd carbines for that), it definitely has to be more maneuverable than clearly much heavier LMG.

In game, following game mechanic's logic, if we have 2 soldiers with identical stats (lets say 60 STR), they will BOTH be able to travel exactly the SAME amount of tiles and fire, while IRL LMGs are clearly much more cumbersome, and during same "test" soldier with SAW would show better mobility.

The only advantage SAW has over LMG is that it only requires 55 STR to compensate recoil. But it fires much less bullets per burst ( 6 vs 10 of an LMG ) which obviously is much worse in terms of suppressing your enemies and dealing them damage ( especially since SAW and LMG accuracy is identical, if STR condition is met)

My suggestion would be making SAW bursts cheaper in terms of TU and slightly more accurate ( about 65 - 70% TU and 45% ACC against 80% TU and 35% ACC of LMG). This would clearly make SAW much more tactics - oriented weapon, while keeping LMG in its "strategic deployment weapon" niche.

If you ever consider this, you might also slightly buff LMG's suppression and HP damage - they usually use higher caliber rounds, after all ( in game it's 7.92 mm for MG42 and 5.56mm for SAW). This would separate these weapons a little bit more, and instead of slightly different clones we'll have 2 similar weapon systems, sharing idea if firing a long burst once per turn, but achieving different goals on the battlefield.

I believe that these changes won't make SAW so good that it replaces rifles\carbines on riflemen :

1) STR requirement is still there (btw, rank 2 SAW's description contradicts itself - text says, that recoil is 55, while stat menu shows recoil of 60. Not a big deal really, but you might wanna fix that.)

2) It will only be able to fire once per turn, while with rifles\carbines you could spend leftover TUs on extra shots, adding greatly to their much valued versatility.

Sounds like a plan....the way I designed the weapons for my mod was to take the vanilla ones as milestones and then invent in between weapons by function, and then I discovered it was possible to invent in between weapons of those again.

Then I made extreme version of each weapons but balanced those with greater negatives as an offset.

So really what I give with one hand, I take away the other.. meaning every weapon I created was pretty much naturally balanced against the vanilla version.

However, there are a few that probably still need a little tweaking. (like the mine launcher which is now done I think).

My SAW is a lighter version of the Machine gun, but not as accurate and long ranged as the rifle. (another in between weapon)

But looks like it does need the balance adjustment you proposed to make it work tactically.

Do you know how to implement the changes you suggested, if you do, can you play test as part of your play through.

That way you can tweak it to get the perfect balance, and me being lazy, I can just put your final stat changes directly into my mod as is.

If you are not sure how to make the changes, I can set them up and give you them in an update file for testing.

Additionally on my play through I used to take the flamethrower, and burn inside the alien vessels before going in. But I found that the flames took so long to die down, my soldiers were kicking there heals outside. If you can provide a tactical perspective on that also it would be great.

Began working on typos in Excel.

Sadly, I don't know how to change SAW's stats, so you either gonna have to tell me how it is done, or change them yourself and upload the min-fix. ( I'd like to test burst costing 65% TU and having 45% ACC. It would be better, if you could also supply me with file, containing stat set of 70% TU and 50% ACC as well, or any other combination you consider right, so that I could test them against each other.

EDIT

Hypervelocity projectiles has busted description - it only contains "The MiG-32 is a", so I can't fix it, not knowing what it is supposed to be. And I didn't make it to that project in my previous playthrough, so I don't have any idea what that research should be about.

P.S

I'll be off my PC for a couple of days, so there won't be any word form me during this period.

Began working on typos in Excel.

Sadly, I don't know how to change SAW's stats, so you either gonna have to tell me how it is done, or change them yourself and upload the min-fix. ( I'd like to test burst costing 65% TU and having 45% ACC. It would be better, if you could also supply me with file, containing stat set of 70% TU and 50% ACC as well, or any other combination you consider right, so that I could test them against each other.

EDIT

Hypervelocity projectiles has busted description - it only contains "The MiG-32 is a", so I can't fix it, not knowing what it is supposed to be. And I didn't make it to that project in my previous playthrough, so I don't have any idea what that research should be about.

P.S

I'll be off my PC for a couple of days, so there won't be any word form me during this period.

Aahha haaa now we have you hooked as a modder...

I will upload the file with your changes if you think you need it as I have created it already, however I would prefer to teach you how to tweek it yourself....

All ground combat weapons are in the mods folder at the root level of each mod.

My main mod is choices part one so the folder you would goto would be.

....\Xenonauts\assets\mods\ChoicesPart1

Then all ground combat weapon stats are held in an .xml file called

weapons_gc.xml

This particular file needs to be edited with a text editor like notepad (free windows app), however its easier if you download and install notepad++ because it colours everything nice and makes it easy to edit.

Once you open the editor you can search for the weapon name... in my mod they are all nicely spaced and the name should be intuitive.

You want to mod the rank2 SAW so search for "saw" till you find the entry for the rank2 version.

<Weapon MODMERGEATTRIBUTE="name" MODMERGE="insert" name="weapon.MachinegunSAWRnk2M16" bulletType="normal" emptySound="Empty Click 1">

<props range="25" hands="2" recoil="55" weight="8" isHeavy="0" clipSize="40" reloadAPCost="35" reloadSound="Weapon Machinegun Reload" strengthLimited="1" reactionModifier="0.5" />

<SingleShot />

<BurstFire ap="70" accuracy="35" sound="Weapon Machinegun Burst" delay="0.7" burstdelay="0.1" shotCount="8" suppressionValue="120" suppressionRadius="2" />

<GUIImage name="gui/weapons/MachinegunSAWRnk2M16.png"/>

<GroundImage name="grounditemimages/ballistic_machinegun.png"/>

<Ammos>

<Ammo name="ammo.ballistic.SawM16" type="kinetic" damage="30" mitigation="5">

<Projectile spectre="projectiles/bullet/bullet" speed="1500" showAfterDistance="60.0"/>

<Impact spectre="particles/bulletplume/bulletplume" radius="1" fireChance="5" />

</Ammo>

</Ammos>

</Weapon>

The stats are mostly obvious, but just ask about any you don't know about... Its better from now on to drop your questions under a new thread in the modding part of the forum, where it will be picked up very quickly.

Anyway this is what the entry would look like with your proposed changes.

<Weapon MODMERGEATTRIBUTE="name" MODMERGE="insert" name="weapon.MachinegunSAWRnk2M16" bulletType="normal" emptySound="Empty Click 1">

<props range="25" hands="2" recoil="55" weight="8" isHeavy="0" clipSize="40" reloadAPCost="35" reloadSound="Weapon Machinegun Reload" strengthLimited="1" reactionModifier="0.5" />

<SingleShot />

<BurstFire ap="65" accuracy="45" sound="Weapon Machinegun Burst" delay="0.7" burstdelay="0.1" shotCount="8" suppressionValue="120" suppressionRadius="2" />

<GUIImage name="gui/weapons/MachinegunSAWRnk2M16.png"/>

<GroundImage name="grounditemimages/ballistic_machinegun.png"/>

<Ammos>

<Ammo name="ammo.ballistic.SawM16" type="kinetic" damage="30" mitigation="5">

<Projectile spectre="projectiles/bullet/bullet" speed="1500" showAfterDistance="60.0"/>

<Impact spectre="particles/bulletplume/bulletplume" radius="1" fireChance="5" />

</Ammo>

</Ammos>

</Weapon>

One thing is important tho... I ask you not to mod any of the range settings in my Mod as a TacticalDragon said. "The general rules of targeting, distance and accuracy are awesome!" From TacticalDragon that is very high praise indeed, so I do not want to mess around with that part of the Mod now we have it right.

One other thing I should mention.

My mod is designed for two kinds of players the tactical gamers and those who wanted a slightly more RPG feel.

This means some of my balancing actions for weapons are slightly more subtle than what you can see from the statistics values alone... Some weapons may be slight less damaging but actually lighter or take up less squares in the inventory, making it a better choice if you fully load out your soldiers backpacks for versatility. Also things like suppression, some weapons have higher or lower suppression but the radius of the suppression really effects how the game plays out. Notice wherever possible I include this information in the pop up stats to help make the decision.

Anyway I don't want to load you down with to much info, otherwise it wont be fun for you. Just ask when you have a question...I found the other modders like drags or Max will probably answer that question and the next two that you have not even asked yet.

Have fun.

I wonder if I am allowed to add a little bit of meat to some of your xenopedia entries.

Sometimes it is required to solve some kind of logical error. In these cases I don't add much more than necessary to solve it.

But in some other cases those pages literally beg for more content. In example, that page about dermal regenerator. You can't call it a revolution in medicine and only write a couple of lines about it

So I went ahead and added a little bit of lore for it, inspired by my medical education.

While it might be awkwardly close to hijacking your xenopedia, I am in love with your mod, and my feelings are so strong that I couldn't resist I only wish your creation the best, I hope you'll understand.

I promise that my corrections and additions won't derail the lore line you have created. I even try to preserve your original wording as much as I can, but sometimes it's just impossible.

P.S

still waiting for text under "hypervelocity projectiles". Can't fix what is not there)

I wonder if I am allowed to add a little bit of meat to some of your xenopedia entries.

Sometimes it is required to solve some kind of logical error. In these cases I don't add much more than necessary to solve it.

But in some other cases those pages literally beg for more content. In example, that page about dermal regenerator. You can't call it a revolution in medicine and only write a couple of lines about it

So I went ahead and added a little bit of lore for it, inspired by my medical education.

While it might be awkwardly close to hijacking your xenopedia, I am in love with your mod, and my feelings are so strong that I couldn't resist I only wish your creation the best, I hope you'll understand.

I promise that my corrections and additions won't derail the lore line you have created. I even try to preserve your original wording as much as I can, but sometimes it's just impossible.

P.S

still waiting for text under "hypervelocity projectiles". Can't fix what is not there)

Lov that <3!

+1000!

I wonder if I am allowed to add a little bit of meat to some of your xenopedia entries.

Sometimes it is required to solve some kind of logical error. In these cases I don't add much more than necessary to solve it.

But in some other cases those pages literally beg for more content. In example, that page about dermal regenerator. You can't call it a revolution in medicine and only write a couple of lines about it

So I went ahead and added a little bit of lore for it, inspired by my medical education.

While it might be awkwardly close to hijacking your xenopedia, I am in love with your mod, and my feelings are so strong that I couldn't resist I only wish your creation the best, I hope you'll understand.

I promise that my corrections and additions won't derail the lore line you have created. I even try to preserve your original wording as much as I can, but sometimes it's just impossible.

P.S

still waiting for text under "hypervelocity projectiles". Can't fix what is not there)

Haha, Go for it.

I am fully confident you can do a better job than I did. My first pass has been concentrating on Quantity rather than Quality. I am going to go back once I finished the vehicles mod and add all the tuning and tweak suggestions that people have been so kind to help us with. Then I am going to go back over again and produce 3D drag images for the vanilla weapons. (Still getting the hang of blender). So if you are already tuning the Xenopedia entries and putting the last tweaks on the weapons then we should have this in the bag.

I can then add some more aliens or move on to maps...

Thanks again for all your help..

Regarding the "hypervelocity projectiles" I am not sure where that text went or if I ever had any....

I deleted all my old versions when I uploaded these mods.

Hopefully you can come up with something from scratch.

All right everyone, I'm back from my mini-vacation, so finally I will be able to playtest modified SAW and flamethrower.

Regarding Xenopedia - I'm about halfway through Choices1 xenopedia entries. Surprisingly, it takes quite a lot of time to edit those. Mostly because I'm a perfectionist and tend to spend up to 10 minutes, figuring out the best wording for some of sentences.

I'll probably take a break from it for one day and commit to playtesting.

EDIT

While editing weapons_gc.xml I found even more confusing stats : while in-game it states to spend 80%TU on burst of 6 shots with 35 ACC, the .xml file says that those stats are actually 70%AP, 8 shots at 35ACC. And that's even before me editing that stuff!

Please fix this confusing stuff over time - there is no point in tweaking weapons if player doesn't see the "true" stats, and thus can't make a proper decision on whether he wants to take this weapon out in the field.

All right everyone, I'm back from my mini-vacation, so finally I will be able to playtest modified SAW and flamethrower.

Regarding Xenopedia - I'm about halfway through Choices1 xenopedia entries. Surprisingly, it takes quite a lot of time to edit those. Mostly because I'm a perfectionist and tend to spend up to 10 minutes, figuring out the best wording for some of sentences.

I'll probably take a break from it for one day and commit to playtesting.

Thanks Rellige, Its nice to finally be writing "We" on my posts instead of "I". I am sure these mods are going to be so much better with more people working on them. I am thinking by the time we have done the second pass on these we can start rolling them out on steam etc. I have a list from Reactocore of great places to post, but I think we should at least finish this round of improvements first.

So, my report after like 4-5 hours spent playtesting :

1) Electromines are indeed much, much more balanced and work pretty much as intended ( though mostly usable against reapers, that charge you in straight line). Well done !

2) Both toxin grenades ( HE- like and smoke-like) are really powerful, usually oneshotting opponents if landed near them ( not sure if too powerful, though). But what is much more problematic - they cos RIDICULOUSLY low TU amount to throw ( 24 TU on my 79 TU guy, while vanilla grenades cost 48 TU to throw - everything thrown "from the belt", not messing with inventory). Consider raising their TU throw cost to much vanilla grenades - there is zero reason lore-wise for them to cost so low.

3) Flamethrower is pretty badly OP :

- Range is unexpectedly high ( IMO though, just from the look of that rather compact weapon I intuitively expected less range. I'm well aware, that portable 70's flamethrowers had some significant reach.

- AOE is pretty wide. Again, only an IMO

- Killing power spectacular - I used it to assault 3 downed corvettes, never seen a survivor of single burst

- Burst TU cost is way, way too low, allowing you to do multiple bursts ( not that you need that, lol). It was smth like 22 TU on my 73+ TU soldier.

- Flames spawn in like every single AOE tile and stay up very long.

My suggestions:

1) consider nerfing range slightly (not critical)

2) consider nerfing AOE (not critical)

3) consider nerfing damage - IMO it should NOT be an insta-kill weapon (significant)

4) consider setting TU cost of burst much higher (around 60% TU, so that multiple bursts are not possible). It's a heavy weapon after all, it shouldn't be fired more than once per turn

5) do something with fires longevity and spawning chance. I don't know the code behind spawning flames on tiles, but it would be REALLY nice if you could code in the following :

Every tile, that doesn't contain anything inflammable within it ( wooden structures, trees, wheat field, cars, gas tanks, etc ) has really small chance of spawning fire upon being hit by a flamethrower burst. This way, you will mostly see flames OUTSIDE UFOs, which is logical, considering the properties of alien alloys they are made of.

Not sure if there is a way to make tiles consider corpses inflammable - this way, fires will begin inside UFOs only if flamethrower hits one of many tiles with corpses of the ground, which is logical, as organics tend to burn very well.

4) Playtested Rank2 SAW with altered stats ( 65% TU burst cost, 45% ACC, shot count 6) and it feels kinda right. It's much more mobile, does less damage, but there is pretty much no negative tradeoff suppression-wise - additional accuracy makes those 6 shot pass closer to aliens, just enough to suppress them more or less reliably.

So the main tradeoff is less killing power = more mobility + less STR required, which is exactly what I was looking for. IMO it makes much more sense than previous tradeoff of less killing power = less STR required.

Mobility can mean SO MUCH in this game.

So, my report after like 4-5 hours spent playtesting :

1) Electromines are indeed much, much more balanced and work pretty much as intended ( though mostly usable against reapers, that charge you in straight line). Well done !

2) Both toxin grenades ( HE- like and smoke-like) are really powerful, usually oneshotting opponents if landed near them ( not sure if too powerful, though). But what is much more problematic - they cos RIDICULOUSLY low TU amount to throw ( 24 TU on my 79 TU guy, while vanilla grenades cost 48 TU to throw - everything thrown "from the belt", not messing with inventory). Consider raising their TU throw cost to much vanilla grenades - there is zero reason lore-wise for them to cost so low.

Time units have been adjusted to 48TU.. Regarding the Damage these were supposed to be powerful but expensive to produce, I wanted some powerful weapons around that are tempting, but secretly drain down the budget for the long term. However If you think they are so way off then we will have to do something. The explosive one looks actually fine for damage to me (on paper anyway), so I have adjusted the area of effect ones gas effect down a little.

3) Flamethrower is pretty badly OP :

- Range is unexpectedly high ( IMO though, just from the look of that rather compact weapon I intuitively expected less range. I'm well aware, that portable 70's flamethrowers had some significant reach.

- AOE is pretty wide. Again, only an IMO

- Killing power spectacular - I used it to assault 3 downed corvettes, never seen a survivor of single burst

- Burst TU cost is way, way too low, allowing you to do multiple bursts ( not that you need that, lol). It was smth like 22 TU on my 73+ TU soldier.

- Flames spawn in like every single AOE tile and stay up very long.

My suggestions:

1) consider nerfing range slightly (not critical)

Range is very difficult to adjust its set to only 5 already, however the game overrides your values and just makes it less accurate the further you move away from your maximum setting. What we could do with here is a new XCE setting for MAXRANGE that we could assign to this kind or weapon.

2) consider nerfing AOE (not critical)

This was a kind of open the hull to the alien ship and burn inside before entry, so don't want to drop the AOE to much, but have nerfed it a little.

3) consider nerfing damage - IMO it should NOT be an insta-kill weapon (significant)

Agreed, it should be a more soften them up weapon. I dropped the damage down to 8.

Ahh just thinking, this is important, damage scaling is on so if you use this point black it will do significantly more damage than further away. Can you let me know if you was using this close up or further away... If it was point blank then an instakill may be acceptable.

4) consider setting TU cost of burst much higher (around 60% TU, so that multiple bursts are not possible). It's a heavy weapon after all, it shouldn't be fired more than once per turn

Done

5) do something with fires longevity and spawning chance. I don't know the code behind spawning flames on tiles, but it would be REALLY nice if you could code in the following :

Every tile, that doesn't contain anything inflammable within it ( wooden structures, trees, wheat field, cars, gas tanks, etc ) has really small chance of spawning fire upon being hit by a flamethrower burst. This way, you will mostly see flames OUTSIDE UFOs, which is logical, considering the properties of alien alloys they are made of.

Not sure if there is a way to make tiles consider corpses inflammable - this way, fires will begin inside UFOs only if flamethrower hits one of many tiles with corpses of the ground, which is logical, as organics tend to burn very well.

Unfortunately, I can only seem to control all of this through just one setting, (the chance of fire), which is a shame because I would really like the flames to die away faster....If anybody else is reading and knows how to kill of the flames quicker please post.

4) Playtested Rank2 SAW with altered stats ( 65% TU burst cost, 45% ACC, shot count 6) and it feels kinda right. It's much more mobile, does less damage, but there is pretty much no negative tradeoff suppression-wise - additional accuracy makes those 6 shot pass closer to aliens, just enough to suppress them more or less reliably.

So the main tradeoff is less killing power = more mobility + less STR required, which is exactly what I was looking for. IMO it makes much more sense than previous tradeoff of less killing power = less STR required.

Mobility can mean SO MUCH in this game.

Well done for this, nothing is better for getting game balance than actually playing.

I love the way you play your games to the death even if you are losing...I always give up and throw in the towel.

I think I am gonna take a leaf out of your book and play to the bitter end as well, sounds like its more fun.

Here is the updated file with the new stats. (Not reflected in the descriptions)

http://www.mediafire.com/view/x1pp1mger4rwec5/weapons_gc.xml

I am hopefully finishing the Vehicles mod today so you can include that in you testing hopefully, As I have not had to much time to balance it.

I have had quite a tough time adjusting it so that it works well with my XCE part 1 mod but is also completely stand alone.

You can create your own fires as a smoke so you can have control of it.

You can create your own fires as a smoke so you can have control of it.

OOOOhh Nice...Do you have one you can upload for us?

Another severe balance issue I somehow forgot to mention - alenium weapons completely destroy the purpose of laser weaponry. If you are smart with your research, you WILL research both laser and alenium weapons more or less simultaneously, instantly making laser weapons obsolete, simply because :

1) Alenium weapons are "free"

2) Alenium weapons' stats are BETTER than their laser counterparts have

3) Alenium weapons are significantly lighter, than laser ones.

4) Alenium weapons have "alternative" variants

While I understand the idea behind alenium weapons, and I really like the lore behind them, the ability to research them simultaneously with or slightly later than laser weapons makes latter COMPLETELY useless.

In short - right now there is zero reason to spend money on laser weapons, when soon enough ( if not already) you have much better version FOR FREE.

I'm afraid that this problem is much deeper and will require much systemic solution than simply changing stats on these weapons, because :

1) Making alenium weapons weaker will make THEM useless instead of laser weapons

2) Buffing Laser weapons will make killing aliens a complete cakewalk ( it kinda is already with so much powerful weapons around)

You can change it with the alien resistances. So alenium weapons will be good against poor ballistic resistance aliens and lasers would be good against poor energy resistance aliances. So even their damage is same, you should have them both.

My solution might seem unpopular, but kinda logic and, ummm... realistic?

The idea is :

1) Buff both playermade laser and plasma weapons, so that their alenium "competitors" are always weaker, but helping players to survive "tech" gaps

2) Make aliens tougher from the beginning : this will compensate for buffing player's energy weapons, while also keeping players on their toes in the early game

(Finally started a playthrough with the current version available of this mod...)

I kinda hate to mention this, since I'm really enjoying abusing it, but mass producing vibranium knives is raking me in millions of $$$.

I have a workshop in my base producing these things non-stop with 30 engineers and getting tons of units that I sell from my storeroom.

In a matter of a few weeks after unlocking them, I've opened 7 new bases with 6 jet fighters each, full 3 radar coverage, 3 defence batteries and even a whole squad of soldiers chilling inside each base, in full heavy jackal armor, just in case.

Personally, this makes the tension in the geoscape vanish and render the cool surveillance balloons obsolete, when I can get rich with selling production, putting up bases that cover the whole globe, complete with full interceptor squads in all of them to destroy anything that dares enter the atmosphere.

I can only do this kind of thing with items that do not require anything else than cash to produce, so alenium and alien alloys still remain very scarce (maybe too scarce?), but the cost of production and the sale price make for a very lucrative trade for any non-advanced items.

Aside from that, I've felt the research times seemed a bit wierd, with certain things only taking a few man days, while others taking hundreds of man days in comparison, even if the task may seem similar to one another.

Also the rate at which you can research tier 3 alenium ballistics, which are also free and have unlimited ammo, makes lasers look really unappealing to manufacture and research for soldiers, except for aircraft and base defences. I think there may be a timing/pacing mismanagement in the research order or maybe make the alenium ballistic have a tradeoff of being too powerful that they explode aliens into goo, making it hard to salvage them, while lasers dont. Or maybe the alenium ballistics require laser tech before they can be researched... up to you.

Besides that, I'm enjoying ground combat and outfitting my soldiers in radically diffirent ways than I would in vanilla. I find the crossbow particularly hilarious when you attack aliens with it. *FWIP!*-- *an uncanny arrow flies accross the map silently, though fifty obstacles and through a window* --*suddenly deals massive damage to target and kills them outright*. I love those crossbows so much.

One more thing - good old Rank1 Charlie transports just as much troops (12 ppl) as Rank 2 dropship, making update itself kinda pointless

Wow there is so many replies here...

I better go deal with each one at a time.

Another severe balance issue I somehow forgot to mention - alenium weapons completely destroy the purpose of laser weaponry. If you are smart with your research, you WILL research both laser and alenium weapons more or less simultaneously, instantly making laser weapons obsolete, simply because :

1) Alenium weapons are "free"

2) Alenium weapons' stats are BETTER than their laser counterparts have

3) Alenium weapons are significantly lighter, than laser ones.

4) Alenium weapons have "alternative" variants

While I understand the idea behind alenium weapons, and I really like the lore behind them, the ability to research them simultaneously with or slightly later than laser weapons makes latter COMPLETELY useless.

In short - right now there is zero reason to spend money on laser weapons, when soon enough ( if not already) you have much better version FOR FREE.

I'm afraid that this problem is much deeper and will require much systemic solution than simply changing stats on these weapons, because :

1) Making alenium weapons weaker will make THEM useless instead of laser weapons

2) Buffing Laser weapons will make killing aliens a complete cakewalk ( it kinda is already with so much powerful weapons around)

Right lets hopefully see what we can do with this, I have checked it out and its not a deep issue after all. Its caused by a fairly superficial error.

I have just checked the stats and can see the Alenium Weapons are now more powerfull than lasers in terms of damage..

However my rank3 ballistic weapons were always designed to be dish out slightly lower damage than my rank3 lasers which are heavier and generally fire less shots. The idea was to balance it so all rank3 weapons were pretty much on par overall (using my give with one hand and take with the other method or to put it another way give with one stat remove from another)

However I ported these across to my modular mod from an old mod I wrote a long time ago, but did not check them back against the vanilla version in later releases. I wonder if either the weapons damage in the vanilla game has been reduced at some point in a version update, or I miss keyed my base damage number for Alenium weapons from the beginning...

However fixing this is not an issue, they were always designed to be slightly less powerfull than the laser weapons, to make the Vanilla more desirable if you had the money, but keep the game completely playable if you were still stuck with Alenium.

I can therefore fix this pretty quickly as my bullet damage is pretty much based on a set damage figure for a bullet, that is slight +/- depending on the weapon. Once I alter this balance will be restored, If I don't fix it, then you will also find my rank4 elite ballistics (also Alenium) will do more damage that the equivalent rank4 Plasmas and so on.

I am taking this away as an urgent fix and will upload a new copy of the mod with the adjustments...(Rats and I nearly finished my vehicle mod, but they also have alenium weapons based off the same figure...arrggh)

However you also picked up on something else. Originally all my Alenium weapons were manufactured, however after lots of play testing I went to great lengths converting them back to unlimited....

This was for the following two main reasons.

1) Game mechanics: there is No replace manufacture option or Delete manufacture option so leaving weapons in the inventory list when there were new better equivalents, made it confusing and really annoying to navigate the weapon load out screen. Setting them to unlimited allow me to replace them with uprated equivalents when researched.

2) The main reason: It made the game, slow cumbersome and boring. After playtesting it seemed much nicer accelerating through the early ballistic weapons at speed.

But making them free does now put them a little off balance with the laser weapons....

We need a plan to even this out a little I agree, however I am going to meditate on that one a little, as the change will need to be subtle.

Keep up the good work!

[EDIT]

Hi Rallige I think I have cracked it....

all the weapons are based of standard ammo damage. However I said my rank 3 alenium weapons were always meant to be a little less powerfull than the lasers, however now they are free to produce the will have to just be adjusted down in power a tiny bit more to compensate, thus redefining the balance for the overall game and making the lasers aspirational again.

If you agree the new base damage stats will look like this...

Vanilla Base Bullet Damage: 30

Carbine Equivalent Damage: 25 (-5)

Sniper Rifle Equivalent: 35 (+5)

Alenium Base Built Damage: 38

Carbine Equivalent Damage: 32 (-6)

Sniper Rifle Equivalent: 45 (+7)

Vanilla Base Laser Damage: 45

Carbine Equivalent Damage: 38 -7

Sniper Rifle Equivalent: 55 (+10)

Vanilla Base Plasma Damage: 70

Carbine Equivalent Damage: 55 (-15)

Sniper Rifle Equivalent: 80 (+10)

Vanilla Base Mag Damage: 105

Carbine Equivalent Damage: 85 (-20)

Sniper Rifle Equivalent: 120 (+15)

If this makes sense I will update all the weapons and upload a new mini update.

Basically the Alenium weapons will now be directly in between normal bullets and laser damage, however its balanced overall as they have 0 cost to produce.

I of course have left the vanilla weapons untouched, as I use these a game balance milestones.

My solution might seem unpopular, but kinda logic and, ummm... realistic?

The idea is :

1) Buff both playermade laser and plasma weapons, so that their alenium "competitors" are always weaker, but helping players to survive "tech" gaps

2) Make aliens tougher from the beginning : this will compensate for buffing player's energy weapons, while also keeping players on their toes in the early game

Hopefully my reply to your earlier post rules this post as obsolete.....(I will backup the config just in case before starting my modification of the Alenium base bullet damage) but am confident that will put it back on track.

(Finally started a playthrough with the current version available of this mod...)

I kinda hate to mention this, since I'm really enjoying abusing it, but mass producing vibranium knives is raking me in millions of $$$.

I have a workshop in my base producing these things non-stop with 30 engineers and getting tons of units that I sell from my storeroom.

In a matter of a few weeks after unlocking them, I've opened 7 new bases with 6 jet fighters each, full 3 radar coverage, 3 defence batteries and even a whole squad of soldiers chilling inside each base, in full heavy jackal armor, just in case.

Personally, this makes the tension in the geoscape vanish and render the cool surveillance balloons obsolete, when I can get rich with selling production, putting up bases that cover the whole globe, complete with full interceptor squads in all of them to destroy anything that dares enter the atmosphere.

I can only do this kind of thing with items that do not require anything else than cash to produce, so alenium and alien alloys still remain very scarce (maybe too scarce?), but the cost of production and the sale price make for a very lucrative trade for any non-advanced items.

Reactocore You Mercenary!!! Dont you know that the future of the Earth is at stake!

Seriously tho we need to patch these little leaks up. I may have miss keyed some values here and there that were not picked up in my play testing.

If you have some suggested values then I will take them as your wildest guess, is going to be better than the current value.

Aside from that, I've felt the research times seemed a bit wierd, with certain things only taking a few man days, while others taking hundreds of man days in comparison, even if the task may seem similar to one another.

Yes my reasearch is a bit fragmented, I did shorten all the Vanilla research times in my mod to allow more things to be reasearched, otherwise I found you had to keep your research field very narrow as you are against the ticker, however on reflection I should have just extended the game lenght a little more.

It sounds like you are proposing a complete research / manufacture time / cost overhaul. Do you fancy getting your sleaves rolled up and getting involved. We could use the help.

Rallige is doing a great job on Balancing and the Xenopedia. If you want to handle the Research and Manufacture / updates then we could get a really awesome version 2 produced.

Then we could get you to handle the broader distribution to other sites and the whole PR / Advertising bit. (You seem to have a talent there)

Also the rate at which you can research tier 3 alenium ballistics, which are also free and have unlimited ammo, makes lasers look really unappealing to manufacture and research for soldiers, except for aircraft and base defences. I think there may be a timing/pacing mismanagement in the research order or maybe make the alenium ballistic have a tradeoff of being too powerful that they explode aliens into goo, making it hard to salvage them, while lasers dont. Or maybe the alenium ballistics require laser tech before they can be researched... up to you.

I have a reply to Rallige that hopefully coveres this, however I love the salvage/alien goo idea and think we can use this elsewhere when game balance becomes an issue.

Besides that, I'm enjoying ground combat and outfitting my soldiers in radically diffirent ways than I would in vanilla. I find the crossbow particularly hilarious when you attack aliens with it. *FWIP!*-- *an uncanny arrow flies accross the map silently, though fifty obstacles and through a window* --*suddenly deals massive damage to target and kills them outright*. I love those crossbows so much.

Yep outfitting the soldiers for me is a major part of the fun, I am trying to keep this mod appealing to the tactical players, giving them new options so they dont have to keep using the same old rinse and repeat tactics, but also trying to give it a slightly more RPG feel for players that like the whole game immersion thing.

In my upcoming vehicle mod I have tried to involve the, Lead engineer and Recruitment guy more involved In the briefings etc.. I have no idea how its going to be received.

I am so close to finish it but spent the evening reply to important threads.

The only way to balance production profit by manufacture is making profit rates (Money / hour corelation).

This will change all manufacture times and costs.