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Buckshot beta ready


StellarRat

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OK, here is the buckshot beta. What I did was to make the shotgun less armor penetrating, increase the range to match a pistol, large damage increase, reduce the clip size, and make it slower than a pistol. This should bring it roughly in-line from a comparative perspective with the rifle and pistol based on my research.

1. I would simply copy the bullet folder over with the new name "buckshot".

So, copy C:\Program Files (x86)\Desura\Common\xenonauts\assets\projectiles\bullet to C:\Program Files (x86)\Desura\Common\xenonauts\assets\projectiles\buckshot

2. In the buckshot folder replace bullet_e.png with the attached picture and rename it buckshot_e.png

buckshot_e.png

3. Create or replace the contents of bullet_e.xml with this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<!DOCTYPE sequence SYSTEM "sidewalkdtd">

<sequence name="C:\Documents and Settings\Chris\Desktop\blast-red\gunshot\bullet_e.xml" source="./bullet*.png">

<img regx="36" regy="0" name="buckshot_e" savedname="buckshot_e.png" w="0.000000" h="0.000000"/>

<framelist>

<frame regx="35" regy="-1" name="buckshot.png" w="55" h="13" x="0" y="0"/>

</framelist>

</sequence>

And rename the file as buckshot_e.xml

4. Create or replace the contents of bullet_spectre.xml with this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<spectre id="rocket" version="1">

<state id="default" name="buckshot" pivotX="30" pivotY="20" sortPoint="0.49">

<anim src="projectiles/buckshot/buckshot_e" anim="main"/>

</state>

</spectre>

and rename to buckshot_spectre.xml

5. Finally, modify the shotgun entry in your C:\Program Files (x86)\Desura\Common\xenonauts\assets\weapons_gc.xml

to this:

<Weapon name="weapon.shotgun" bulletType="normal" emptySound="Empty Click 1">

<props range="6" hands="2" recoil="0" weight="5" isHeavy="0" clipSize="8" reloadAPCost="45" reloadSound="Weapon Shotgun Reload" reactionModifier="1.4"/>

<SingleShot sound="Weapon Shotgun Single" delay="0.6" suppressionValue="30" suppressionRadius="2">

<Set1 ap="19" accuracy="83" />

<Set2 ap="22" accuracy="90" />

</SingleShot>

<BurstFire/>

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

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

<Ammos>

<Ammo name="ammo.ballistic.shotgun" type="kinetic" damage="60" mitigation="4">

<Projectile spectre="projectiles/buckshot/buckshot" speed="1200"/>

<Impact spectre="particles/bulletplume/bulletplume"/>

</Ammo>

</Ammos>

</Weapon>

Let me know if you like it.

buckshot_e.png.85c11987cba8ffaf9afa6b624

Edited by StellarRat
Hughly increased reload time. Shells have to be put into magazine one at a time.
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Have not tried it out, can't play in Tactical mode on Mac v13.02

Just a small issue - large damage increase against unarmoured targets is definitely appropriate in my limited experience with real shotguns (I'm a longrifleman and a pistol shooter and former assault rifle user, all in the line of my work at various times) ...at short to medium ranges ONLY. Stopping power is hugely increased compared to a pistol bullet or rifle bullet that doesn't tumble or "pancake" inside the body - doing damn near nothing to stop someone keyed up on PCP or adrenaline (very common in shooting situations).

Once you get out to a certain range, depending on the choke (iirc, it's the spread as determined by the barrel config), it becomes dramatically less damaging and correspondingly easier to hit, due to few pellets spread over large area.

One option would be to have one or two different types of shotguns - one close-range with just a pistol grip with a choke set up to cause maximum damage and be easy to hit with up close (which is what I personally would want when doing room-to-room active shooter tactics), or a more traditional shotgun set up for shooting at up to 50 yards or so, with a choice of buckshot or slug round. With some alien research you might be able to get one set up to select round without having to reload.

There's also automatic shotguns these days, but they're mainly novelties and not in wide use among any militaries or law enforcement teams that I know of, not that I know everything. Too much trouble, unreliable, too bulky, and once you have one or two shotgun blasts on the average close-up military or drug raid target, you rarely need more, there's simply no need for automatic fire. Mainly a gun-nut thing messed with by people who just love guns for guns' sake. To me these things are just tools to get a job done.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun#Pattern_and_choke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_shell

Someone else can no doubt come up with the common shotguns in use in Vietnam in the late 1970s, and the exact models that would be widely available to the Xenonauts. If not, google and history pages.

EDIT: Dammit, couldn't resist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_the_Vietnam_War#Shotguns

http://www.nicolausassociates.com/images/Poster-Stevens-Model-77E-22X34-Reduced.jpg

Stevens Model 77E, pump-action shotgun used by Army and Marine forces in Southeast Asia. Almost 70,000 Model 77Es were procured by the military for use in SE Asia during the 1960s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_37

Ithaca 37 pump-action shotgun replaced every other shotgun in the field and armed the United States Marine Corps throughout the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remington_870

Edited by Oathbreaker
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Have not tried it out, can't play in Tactical mode on Mac v13.02

Just a small issue - large damage increase against unarmoured targets is definitely appropriate in my limited experience with real shotguns (I'm a longrifleman and a pistol shooter and former assault rifle user, all in the line of my work at various times) ...at short to medium ranges ONLY. Stopping power is hugely increased compared to a pistol bullet or rifle bullet that doesn't tumble or "pancake" inside the body - doing damn near nothing to stop someone keyed up on PCP or adrenaline (very common in shooting situations).

Once you get out to a certain range, depending on the choke (iirc, it's the spread as determined by the barrel config), it becomes dramatically less damaging and correspondingly easier to hit, due to few pellets spread over large area.

I tried to take that into account, unfortunately, the formula to determine your change to hit is not something that can be modded. Had that been in the case I would have changed it specially for buckshot. My ideal formula would have the damage drop rapidly after 50 yards while still maintaining fair chance to hit. However, as it stands, the weapon starts to lose hitting power past 10 squares AND the full damage should have been higher than the 60 I assigned to it. I figured this was a good compromise, since a full load of buckshot probably has more like 90 - 180 hitting power at close range. I figured if the pistol was a 9mm and does 20, then each pellet should do 20, 9x20 = 180, however, I don't know what kind of pistol it is. Could be a 40mm or even 44 mag. so, I'm guessing and I'm assuming that the target rarely gets hit with a full load since the shotgun is insanely accurate that probably means their taking the spread into account and assuming partial hits. This the damage calculation (or so I've been told.):

Damage Dealt = Weapon Damage * Random (0.9 - 1.1) * (Weapon Range / Range to Target)

HP Damage Taken = Damage Dealt - (Target Armour - Weapon Armour Mitigation, min = 0)

You'll see that at 20 squares it only does half the damage, etc... while an assault rifle is just starting to suffer a little loss of power (effective range 18.) I'm open to changing some of the parameters of course, if someone can see a better way to do this. As it stands, I think I've done a fairly good job of differentiating the shotgun from a rifle. That was my goal in the first place. I could see no point in carrying a shotgun with slugs when a rifle was available, but I could see a lot of good reasons to have a shotgun with buckshot vs. a rifle.

Edited by StellarRat
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I've been giving your mod an intensive workout, and it's early days (in-game) yet, but the one thing I would say is that's it's too cheap to shoot. It's really easy for me to bang off a lot of shots with any of the starting team members, so it doesn't really matter that much if I'm within the "proper" range for the shotgun, I can just kneel down and go KERBAM KERPOW until the law of averages gives me a hit. Clearing UFOs is now also really easy. If I survive reaction fire or have a dude with the combat shield go first, in runs my shotgun fella and he has easily enough ap to clear a scout hull by himself.

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I've been giving your mod an intensive workout, and it's early days (in-game) yet, but the one thing I would say is that's it's too cheap to shoot. It's really easy for me to bang off a lot of shots with any of the starting team members, so it doesn't really matter that much if I'm within the "proper" range for the shotgun, I can just kneel down and go KERBAM KERPOW until the law of averages gives me a hit. Clearing UFOs is now also really easy. If I survive reaction fire or have a dude with the combat shield go first, in runs my shotgun fella and he has easily enough ap to clear a scout hull by himself.
Yeah, I even increased the action points from the original! It was as quick as pistol to start with! I would suggest moving the action points up to the same as an assault rifle (17, 20) and seeing how that works. (I had considered that, but went with compromise numbers.) Please, let me know if that is more balanced. A shotgun has a pretty big kick and while easier to aim than a rifle there is more recovery time between shots. BTW, when I was looking at the damage numbers, I was a bit stunned to see the assault only does 25 points of damage, while the pistol does 20??? There is definitely a balance issue there. I'd say the assault rifle ought to do more like 30 or 40 or pistol should do less. In my defense, all I can say is that a shotgun probably is one of the best room clearing weapons. The only thing that might be better is submachinegun (like an MP5), and of course, flamethrower or grenade.

What do you think of the animation for the shot?

Edited by StellarRat
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I do like the animation. I will defo be keeping that when the full game is released - I like it much more than the bullet animation. Regarding damage of weapons. Quartermaster and Gauddlike are your men for that - I personally would say of all the modders they have the best understanding of the weapons catalogue. What I would suggest is look at the full spread of weapons in relation to each other (esp. high-tech tier 3 alien weapons in relation to tier 1 human weapons), the armour ratings of xenonauts (armours_gc.xml) and aliens in general (aiprops.xml). You will see that armour values tend to be quite low, and the grunt and solider classes don't usually have armour ratings above 20-25.

I personally did a bit of research on that subject quite a while back but bear in mind that thread is full of my opinions on ballistic weapons, and those opinions are far less realistic and far more "gamey", so while I try to be objective, it will be littered with what I consider "balanced".

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Remember when you look at the pistol that it has lower armour penetration and lower range.

Standing up close with a pistol will do almost as much damage as a single assault rifle shot against an unarmoured target.

That damage goes down a touch more if they have armour.

Once you get past the max range of the pistol (10) its damage begins to drop off while the assault rifle still does its full damage out to almost double that range (18).

Then throw in the option of burst fire from the assault and its increased suppression rating.

The actual damage number of a single bullet is an important part of the damage a weapon is capable of but far from the only thing you need to look at for balancing.

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Remember when you look at the pistol that it has lower armour penetration and lower range.

Standing up close with a pistol will do almost as much damage as a single assault rifle shot against an unarmoured target.

That damage goes down a touch more if they have armour.

Once you get past the max range of the pistol (10) its damage begins to drop off while the assault rifle still does its full damage out to almost double that range (18).

Then throw in the option of burst fire from the assault and its increased suppression rating.

The actual damage number of a single bullet is an important part of the damage a weapon is capable of but far from the only thing you need to look at for balancing.

OK, but if you consider the footpounds of energy and high velocity effects of a rifle compared to a pistol there really is no contest at any range. Most rifles have x2 the velocity of an average pistol. At those velocities the rifle bullet does a lot of hydrostatic damage to the internals of a fleshy creature. Of course, a rifle can penetrate more armor AND it also has a bigger chance of going deep enough to hit a vital organ in a really big critter. On a big creature a pistol might not go in deep to hurt it even if it is non-armored. Even a .44 mag would be a pretty wimpy rifle round. I'd always pick a rifle if I could only carry one weapon. The shotgun would be my second choice and pistol would be last next to a sword. My guess is if you looked at the fatality rate of rifle shots vs. pistol it's probably twice as deadly. A lot of people survive being shot with pistols, rifles not so much. I'd probably give a pistol about a 10 if I was in charge. :) Edited by StellarRat
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...What I would suggest is look at the full spread of weapons in relation to each other (esp. high-tech tier 3 alien weapons in relation to tier 1 human weapons), the armour ratings of xenonauts (armours_gc.xml) and aliens in general (aiprops.xml). You will see that armour values tend to be quite low, and the grunt and solider classes don't usually have armour ratings above 20-25...
Yes, I made the buckshot even less pentrating than the pistol since the pellets are just lead balls without any jackets or AP qualities. I was thinking/hoping that some of the aliens will be heavily armored (like lobstermen) and therefore the buckshot will be pretty worthless except for suspression.
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Yes, I made the buckshot even less pentrating than the pistol since the pellets are just lead balls without any jackets or AP qualities. I was thinking/hoping that some of the aliens will be heavily armored (like lobstermen) and therefore the buckshot will be pretty worthless except for suspression.

Shouldn't buckshot be worthless as suppression against heavily armoured targets?

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Shouldn't buckshot be worthless as suppression against heavily armoured targets?
Well, I suppose that all depends on whether or not the target knows its invulnerable and whether or not being hit by rounds should cause suppression just from pain and minor wounds. Either way I have no control over that. It's not something you can mod directly. I'm assuming that somehow the chance to suppress calculation takes armor into account. I haven't seen my shotgun suppress anything yet, while the M-16 and M-60 have suppressed those big lizard things (Sybeians?). Obviously, if you know a weapon definitely can't hurt you than you won't worry about it, however, I'd still duck if someone was shooting at me even if I knew the only place it could hurt me was by putting my eyes out. :D
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Here's the model for suppression that Xenonauts uses. As far as I can tell, there's been no change to it since it was first put up for critique.
Thanks. It appears that the shotgun doesn't have much of a chance to suppress because of target armor. That's good. I do like the suppression the M-60 gives. MAWAHAHAHA! Saved my bacon in a terror mission last night.

Talking about suppression in general, the aliens seem awful brave to me. I've fired 12 shots at them and zip...only the M-60 seems to suppress with any regularity. Maybe the values are too low for most weapons? Can the Xenonauts be suppressed?

BTW, Max, I agree with your assessment that the shotgun was too quick. I've changed the required action points to match the assault rifle (17, 20). When I post my final revision those are the values I'm going with. I did a lot of testing with it yesterday and I think it's working pretty much like I had hoped. It's great for close range work specially clearing houses and ships, but it pretty much sucked in open combat. I lost a lot of guys in a terror mission with a big open map because I couldn't put them down at range. The M-60 and rocket launcher dominated in that mission. As it should be...

Edited by StellarRat
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OK, but if you consider the footpounds of energy and high velocity effects of a rifle compared to a pistol there really is no contest at any range. Most rifles have x2 the velocity of an average pistol. At those velocities the rifle bullet does a lot of hydrostatic damage to the internals of a fleshy creature. Of course, a rifle can penetrate more armor AND it also has a bigger chance of going deep enough to hit a vital organ in a really big critter. On a big creature a pistol might not go in deep to hurt it even if it is non-armored. Even a .44 mag would be a pretty wimpy rifle round. I'd always pick a rifle if I could only carry one weapon. The shotgun would be my second choice and pistol would be last next to a sword. My guess is if you looked at the fatality rate of rifle shots vs. pistol it's probably twice as deadly. A lot of people survive being shot with pistols, rifles not so much. I'd probably give a pistol about a 10 if I was in charge. :)

And would a pistol be useful with those values?

I don't think it would be much use for anything given its short range and poor armour penetration.

Within the 10 tile range it would do 5 damage on a hit to the lowest ranked Ceasan.

That would drop off sharply as soon as the enemy was outside of the 10 tiles.

The pistol would be physically unable to hurt any other rank of Ceasan.

All Sebillian ranks would be completely immune to pistol rounds.

Why bother even picking up a weapon that can only hurt one enemy in the entire game?

Assuming that damage scales up to the other tiers the laser pistol would have around 15 damage and 10 mitigation.

That would allow it to hurt the lowest rank Sebillian (10 points per hit) but nothing higher.

Ceasans would be a little easier to kill with lasers.

The lowest would take 15 damage, second and third rank rank would take 5 damage, anything higher would take none.

Assuming average damage hits across the board.

Some would be a little higher, some a little lower.

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And would a pistol be useful with those values?
No it wouldn't be. I think my argument is more towards making the rifles more powerful. By the way, where can I look up the toughness and attributes of the different types of aliens? It would help me argue more intelligently about the balance issues, LOL. :D
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I wouldn't adjust them up too far personally.

Once they start to come close to the laser weapons that you have to pay to build and use then you start to reduce their appeal.

Increasing their damage to compensate makes the aliens much weaker.

Then you have to boost the aliens to keep the game challenging and you fin the pistol is now useless against the newly buffed aliens :P

Small tweaks to both damage and armour mitigation might be nice though.

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I wouldn't adjust them up too far personally.

Once they start to come close to the laser weapons that you have to pay to build and use then you start to reduce their appeal.

Increasing their damage to compensate makes the aliens much weaker.

Then you have to boost the aliens to keep the game challenging and you fin the pistol is now useless against the newly buffed aliens :P

Small tweaks to both damage and armour mitigation might be nice though.

I'll take a look at the alien toughness...then I'll be back.
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My guess is if you looked at the fatality rate of rifle shots vs. pistol it's probably twice as deadly. A lot of people survive being shot with pistols, rifles not so much.

Doesn't that have to do with here the bullets hit and how many of them hit? vs a gun you are more likely to get hit once since they aren't automatic, but with an assault rifle or some other automatic weapon you are likely to get hit lots of times.

I don't think pistol shots to the torso or the head are that easy to survive outside of Hollywood unless its from a derringer or something. (I'm assuming no armour since you seem to be going by the same assumption, as your tampering with base damage rather then armour mitigation)

I have no idea if you bleed out faster from a rifle shot in the leg then from a pistol shot though. That might be some difference.

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Doesn't that have to do with here the bullets hit and how many of them hit? vs a gun you are more likely to get hit once since they aren't automatic, but with an assault rifle or some other automatic weapon you are likely to get hit lots of times.
I was talking about one rifle hit vs. one pistol hit in any random spot. Rifles are just a lot more deadly in general. We have gang members over here that have survived being shot with medium caliber pistols many times (separate instances) in a many different locations. A rifle shot to just about any part of the body except maybe fingers and toes is very dangerous and usually fatal if in the chest or head.
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What ranges are those pistol hits from?

I'm sorry but can't help but to remain skeptical :( until I see some more detailed data. (and some actual data other then your word on the subject, as I don't really know ho reliable you are :P)

Fine, fine...

The first shots are weak pistol rounds, last couple shots are from fairly powerful rifle round (.30-06) which was used in WW I (this would be roughly the same as our "sniper rifle".)

Some common pistol rounds the 9mm and .45 cal are widely used in military pistols

Finally, the 7.62 x 51mm NATO round used by the M-60 (a medium machinegun.)

Just for entertainment value the .50 cal heavy machine gun round. This weapon could easily be mounted on the Hunter.

If you'll imagine those blocks as body parts of any description you'll see what I'm talking about. The rifle and machinegun rounds blow big holes inside, while the pistol rounds just kind of pass through without a lot of expansion.

Edited by StellarRat
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I was talking about one rifle hit vs. one pistol hit in any random spot. Rifles are just a lot more deadly in general.

This has been discussed literally for years over on Jagged Alliance 2 forums like the Bear's Pit.

Pistols with realistic stats in comparison to SMG / rifles are just about useless in a standup military engagement.

If you want to have something around that size you either use a light SMG like a Scorpion... or make concealability a factor.

Games typically include pistols for coolness reasons or simply to have something from which to upgrade to rifles.

In order to make them work at all, they then get ridiculously inflated characteristics like range or firepower.

I'm not saying that pistols must be deleted from Xenonauts but it would be more logical to replace them with some kind of one-handed SMG. That is something a guy with a riot shield would actually use to enter an UFO. A semi-auto pistol? I think not. =P

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