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Burst Fire Update


Chris

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For machine-gun like weapons at least I would like to see an additional burst fire mode. 45AP is a bit much if that is the weapons only fire mode, it's a bit too much "all or nothing", and limits tactical decisions. And like Guaddlike says, once you get to 44AP it is useless if you want to shoot. I think another fire option like a 3 round burst at about 28 AP with reduced suppression would work.

I would like to see more options for burst firing but the machine gun really stands out with it's limited firemodes.

Well, you could just go into the M-60 section in weapons_gc.xml and change the burst to 3 and the action points to 22. You'll probably want to lower the suppression by half too. Try it and see if you like it.
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And why should that stop us putting ideas forward?

Chris might see something he likes and give it a try.

There is a good chance he will glance at the ideas posted and discard them because they aren't what he wants to do.

There is a small chance he will rethink what he plans because of something he sees on this forum.

Another forum member might run with a basic idea you post and come up with something fantastic that neither of you would have otherwise contemplated.

I agree with Gauddlike on this completely. The only tricky thing about doing multiple burst modes would be doing suppression for each burst. Chris seems okay with doing the suppression by bullet thing now anyways so that makes it a non-problem. Allowing multiple burst modes for weapons will solve the choice problem and the current amount of restriction in how the game is played. We already have a mechanic that limits movement for heavy weapons (the movement penalty) so why have the high AP requirements?

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Khall, there was a reason why the AP cost of the machinegun was increased. RotGtIE's analysis of the weapons circa v10-v11 indicates why it went up.

EDIT: Quartermaster, the isHeavy property affects the accuracy of the weapon, as I recall. The machinegun fires enough bullets that it didn't need to be accurate when the cost of firing a burst was cheaper.

Edited by Max_Caine
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If that is the case, then I'm back to my original idea, the aiming takes a lot of time, but after the first round the succeeding rounds take very little AP (like 1 per round) and suffer a substantial accuracy penalty. Example: You see an alien in the window, you pull up your trusty M-16 and aim to fire a snap shot, you fire, 15 APs used for first round then you hold the trigger down for one full second, 10 more rounds go down range, you lose 10 more APs, the first round has a decent chance to hit (same as a regular snap shot), the second and succeeding rounds pretty much scatter all over the place maybe a formula like (initial accuracy / (.5 * number of rounds ^2)). So if the first round of the snap shot burst has a 20% chance to hit, the second has 10%, the third has 6%, the fourth has 2%, and so on... This pretty much models the difficulties of keeping a weapon on target because of muzzle climb and recoil.

There would be some uses for long bursts, in the scenario above, if the house was loaded with aliens you'd have a chance to kill more than one, plus apply a lot of suppression. On the other hand, you've expended over 1/3 of magazine, probably don't have enough points to reaction fire, and you may killed multiple civilians in and around the house.

Also, I have to point out that long bursts at close range will be extremely deadly from any weapon. (Unless, Goldhawk has capped damage somehow.) As I read the damage formula in the Wiki it appears that the damage goes up ABOVE the weapon damage as you get closer than the effective range.

Damage Dealt = Weapon Damage * (1.0 + Damage Coefficient * 0.01) * (Weapon Range / Range To Target) * Diffculty Level Multiplier;

You'll notice that an AR for example at 1 tile range (I believe AR has an 18 effective range) does 18X normal damage, so potentially, a 10 round burst could do 4500 points at point blank range.

Edited by StellarRat
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Damage Dealt = Weapon Damage * (1.0 + Damage Coefficient * 0.01) * (Weapon Range / Range To Target) * Diffculty Level Multiplier;

You'll notice that an AR for example at 1 tile range (I believe AR has an 18 effective range) does 18X normal damage, so potentially, a 10 round burst could do 4500 points at point blank range.

The Weapon Range/ Range to Target is capped at 1, for that reason.

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Khall, there was a reason why the AP cost of the machinegun was increased. RotGtIE's analysis of the weapons circa v10-v11 indicates why it went up.

EDIT: Quartermaster, the isHeavy property affects the accuracy of the weapon, as I recall. The machinegun fires enough bullets that it didn't need to be accurate when the cost of firing a burst was cheaper.

Right, but it would only firing three rounds at a lower AP (multiple burst modes). If that is not sufficient than jacking up the movement penalty for heavy weapons would be an option.

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The damage only goes down with the range formula once it goes over the weapons set range.

Closer shots don't benefit from a damage bonus, we covered that a while back when the formula first went up.

My only real problem is the sheer number of rounds you could fire using your method.

It may be realistic but it just doesn't feel like it would work in the game.

That kind of damage potential would make it incredibly difficult to balance.

I also think the accuracy is way too low in that example to give the player a feel of accomplishment when firing.

How would you control how many rounds you fire in those bursts?

Are you thinking of a pre set amount like the current method or some player controlled method?

If the current model was to be kept the main change I would like to see (other than balancing) would be for the individual shots to have an accuracy penalty for longer bursts rather than the whole burst having poor accuracy.

Chris seems okay with doing the suppression by bullet thing now anyways so that makes it a non-problem.

I was going with the suppression being set by fire mode rather than just as a single stat on the weapon because of what he mentioned earlier.

Chris has already had the weapons changed so that damage, mitigation etc are set on the ammo rather than the weapon so I am hopeful he would be open to that change as well ;)

I would still like to see the change he discussed earlier in this thread to make bullet spread look tidier but I am not hopeful on that one.

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(In response to Quartermaster's post)

This is so totes going to derail the general line of discussion, but the question then would be how cheap? Say you have the original cost as it was: 25AP for 3 shots instead of 5. So that's 50 AP for two bursts of 3. That's quite do-able for any the starting team. All 12 squaddies start at corporal level with an AP of 55-60, and will in general get 1-2 APs per mission, simply for spending AP hunting down and shooting bad guys.

The thing about an MG is it has a longer range than a precision rifle, does as much damage (40HP with 25pts mitigation), and can crack off more shots in a turn. The only saving grace is a precision rifle can be more accurate per shot fired, but the more AP a unit has, and the better a shot a unit gets the less valuable that accuracy is over the statistical likeliness that one of more burst shots will hit. At close range, the MG would be better than the shotgun (even better than StellarRat's shotgun - it has a much better armour mitigation) because it would be as as cheap to shoot more shots for as much or better damage, and that's not taking into account suppression which is badass now, and if suppression were altered so it was impact-centric, it would be far more suppressive than any non-burst weapon.

If MGs had signifcantly cheaper burst shots, I wouldn't take any other weapon than say, rocket launchers, because I wouldn't need any other weapon. The MG could fill in the roles of the precision rifle, the shotgun and the assault rifle. Without being able to mod it so it had gyrojet ammo, I'd need a rocket launcher for explosions.

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The damage only goes down with the range formula once it goes over the weapons set range.

Closer shots don't benefit from a damage bonus, we covered that a while back when the formula first went up.

My only real problem is the sheer number of rounds you could fire using your method.

It may be realistic but it just doesn't feel like it would work in the game.

That kind of damage potential would make it incredibly difficult to balance.

I also think the accuracy is way too low in that example to give the player a feel of accomplishment when firing.

How would you control how many rounds you fire in those bursts?

Are you thinking of a pre set amount like the current method or some player controlled method?

If the current model was to be kept the main change I would like to see (other than balancing) would be for the individual shots to have an accuracy penalty for longer bursts rather than the whole burst having poor accuracy.

With my formula the first round would have standard accuracy which is BETTER than the current system that lowers accuracy for all shots in a burst, the succeeding rounds would get less and less accurate. You would have to control the number of rounds in a burst by some type of additional interface control (a slider/mouse wheel comes to mind.) Obviously, I'm talking about an addition to the interface. If that's not possible the current system works OK for me.

If you guys are really unhappy with the M-60, I'd say just split the burst size as I suggested above, but add more APs to each smaller burst to keep it from being overly dominant (make each one at least 30 APs.). If you give it short, low AP bursts it will be way too good for close combat (as Max pointed out above.) Personally, I think M-60 has enough "problems" now to be well balanced and even "realistic." To me it seems to do what it should do in real life. You drag it to your site (weighs 22 lb. w/o ammo), you set it up, then you use it to cover open areas with suppressive fire and kill things that are dumb to cross it's line of fire. It's not a weapon you run around shooting with in-spite of what you see in the movies. It's accuracy has actually been "dumbed" down a bit compared to reality. One has to remember that it is bi-pod mounted and fires a high velocity round in real life. The burst groups are much smaller than we see in Xenonauts. It's quite deadly out to about 600 or 700 meters, farther if ammo is not a consideration. It's not really a weapon that you should to use inside buildings easily and with the current 45 APs to fire I think that precludes using it as a hit run weapon (as it should be.)

Look here for a better idea:

Edited by StellarRat
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With my formula the first round would have standard accuracy which is BETTER than the current system that lowers accuracy for all shots in a burst, the succeeding rounds would get less and less accurate.

Yeah believe it or not I was actually agreeing with you there :P

I should have added that to my own suggestion but by the time I realised I had left it out the post was already long enough to discourage reading...

(In response to Quartermaster's post)

lots of stuff

This post pretty much sums up what I was going to say as well.

If you guys are really unhappy with the M-60, I'd say just split the burst size as I suggested above, but add more APs to each smaller burst to keep it from being overly dominant (make each one at least 30 APs.). If you give it short, low AP bursts it will be way too good for close combat (as Max pointed out above.)

That is pretty much what my last suggestion was except mine had more options.

The lower bursts do have less AP cost but not significantly.

Enough to leave you with a firing option, not enough to make the MG the only weapon you need (with balancing probably).

I also suggested that the initial shot should have an increase to its AP cost as well as accuracy penalty after moving (added as part of the heavy flag) to discourage moving and firing.

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(In response to Quartermaster's post)

This is so totes going to derail the general line of discussion, but the question then would be how cheap? Say you have the original cost as it was: 25AP for 3 shots instead of 5. So that's 50 AP for two bursts of 3. That's quite do-able for any the starting team. All 12 squaddies start at corporal level with an AP of 55-60, and will in general get 1-2 APs per mission, simply for spending AP hunting down and shooting bad guys.

The thing about an MG is it has a longer range than a precision rifle, does as much damage (40HP with 25pts mitigation), and can crack off more shots in a turn. The only saving grace is a precision rifle can be more accurate per shot fired, but the more AP a unit has, and the better a shot a unit gets the less valuable that accuracy is over the statistical likeliness that one of more burst shots will hit. At close range, the MG would be better than the shotgun (even better than StellarRat's shotgun - it has a much better armour mitigation) because it would be as as cheap to shoot more shots for as much or better damage, and that's not taking into account suppression which is badass now, and if suppression were altered so it was impact-centric, it would be far more suppressive than any non-burst weapon.

If MGs had signifcantly cheaper burst shots, I wouldn't take any other weapon than say, rocket launchers, because I wouldn't need any other weapon. The MG could fill in the roles of the precision rifle, the shotgun and the assault rifle. Without being able to mod it so it had gyrojet ammo, I'd need a rocket launcher for explosions.

My more extreme version of how to set up the MG is the following:

- Increase the move penalty to 30% or 35% for heavy weapons (depending on testing)

- Drop the kneel bonus to 10%.

- Decrease the damage to 30.

- Decrease the mitigation to 10.

- The long burst fires 10 rounds, has 10 less accuracy than currently, same AP.

- The long burst fires 5 rounds at about 30 AP

- The suppression per bullet would be 4 per bullet (if there was not a system that decreased the value by proximity)

- Increase recoil by 5 more points.

The suppression value would be smaller for the shorter burst and since suppression has the target's armor (I think) subtracted from it its suppressive abilities on the short burst would be dramatically reduced. I have tested an MG with some of these changes and it works pretty decently although with all of these it would be interesting to see.

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My more extreme version of how to set up the MG is the following:

- Increase the move penalty to 30% or 35% for heavy weapons (depending on testing)

- Drop the kneel bonus to 10%.

- Decrease the damage to 30.

- Decrease the mitigation to 10.

- The long burst fires 10 rounds, has 10 less accuracy than currently, same AP.

- The long burst fires 5 rounds at about 30 AP

- The suppression per bullet would be 4 per bullet (if there was not a system that decreased the value by proximity)

- Increase recoil by 5 more points.

The suppression value would be smaller for the shorter burst and since suppression has the target's armor (I think) subtracted from it its suppressive abilities on the short burst would be dramatically reduced. I have tested an MG with some of these changes and it works pretty decently although with all of these it would be interesting to see.

From a balance perspective I like these ideas. From a "realism" perspective I don't think I would lower the damage or the accuracy. However, requiring more time to setup and move it around is not a bad idea. I'll have to give some of your "adjustments" a try. I know one thing, if someone fires this weapon from a standing position accuracy goes completely to hell.
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If different modes were to be added at all I prefer them to allow you more control over burst length as per my earlier suggestion.

If you can have two different modes there is no reason you can't have three or four after all ;)

How would you see the MG style weapons as balanced above comparing with the carbine at higher tiers?

Other than range and carbines not having a heavy flag of course.

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If different modes were to be added at all I prefer them to allow you more control over burst length as per my earlier suggestion.

If you can have two different modes there is no reason you can't have three or four after all ;)

How would you see the MG style weapons as balanced above comparing with the carbine at higher tiers?

Other than range and carbines not having a heavy flag of course.

I'll have to look at that. Up until this build I never got lucky enough advance to level 2 weapons before my game crashed, that's why I've been restricting my comments to level 1 weapons all along. A carbine is just a short rifle after all. So, I would hope it takes less APs to use, but is slightly less powerful than an AR and slightly less accurate.
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Other than the isHeavy and range attributes the changes would be:

The fire modes I would set for the carbine would be:

- The reaction score would be much higher

- The clip size would be set up for about 3 long bursts in the middle tiers and 2 long bursts at the high tier

- Damage relative to the machine gun per bullet would not be that much lower and I would keep mitigation about the same.

2 x single shot that are a little less AP than the shotgun right now.

2 burst fire options:

- 1 Short burst of three rounds

- 1 Long burst of five rounds (compared to the MG's short burst about 75% as much AP, but less suppression)

So in short how I imagine the carbine being used as something that has a lot of mobility so that you can pop around a corner, fire an accurate burst or two at close range, and then duck back around the corner or into some cover. This would be compared to the MG which will be set in a position and will hold the enemy in position OR be hip fired while moving around to destroy terrain around the target making it easier for riflemen and snipers to hit the target.

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  • 4 months later...

Ya you guys got it right, with a SAW (which I think this weapon is supposed to be even though its a pic of a 240Bravo) you fire from the hip when moving, (and pray and spray) or hit the ground (Kneel in this game) to suppress and "walk rounds in on target"

if it is a m249 saw, damage should always be the same its just a question of does it hit you, make the damage the same as the ballistic riffle since they fire the same round, its just one is mag fed the other belt fed

Saw should have more the just 'burst"

snap shot should also be in there and be like a 7 round burst at 25 ap maybe?

burst should be like half the drum or 25 rounds at 45 ap

some one may have answered this already, but how do we in game set up "burst length" if we are going to go that rout? : )

dont tread on me...

quarter ...you...are...epic xD

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You can alter the burst length in weapons_gc.xml.

The game is hard coded though so that the single shot mode will only fire a single shot and the burst mode can only have a single aim level with a preset number of rounds fired.

I would like to see Chris relax these restrictions though.

My personal preference would be to allow both modes to have multiple set points as single shot does currently.

For both modes the accuracy, AP cost, suppression value, and number of rounds fired would be set individually for each set point.

That shouldn't be a massive job ( I would hope) for the team as the code is already in place for everything, it just needs to be used for both modes and to look in a slightly different place for the information.

Incidentally I would also rename them primary fire and secondary fire modes.

That would allow primary fire, say from a precision rifle, to fire single rounds with increased accuracy and AP as currently.

It would also allow you to have multiple burst levels on the MG with lower accuracy, more AP cost, and more rounds per burst (for example) which is not currently possible.

The highest count bursts could also have their accuracy slightly increased to represent walking fire onto the target if you feel like it.

A carbine could have its primary mode set to fire three rounds but keep accuracy and AP cost increasing while its secondary would have much higher rate of fire but decreasing accuracy with increasing AP.

Balancing the weapons into different roles would appear to be far easier with this extra level of control.

Examples (numbers made up apart from precision which is current):

Precision Rifle... (single powerful shot, long range, high accuracy)

Prim1 AP=21 acc=75 shotcount=1 suppressionValue=32" suppressionRadius=2

Prim2 AP=25 acc=95 shotcount=1 suppressionValue=32" suppressionRadius=2

Prim3 AP=28 acc=120 shotcount=1 suppressionValue=32" suppressionRadius=2

Prim4 AP=31 acc=150 shotcount=1 suppressionValue=32" suppressionRadius=2

Sec/ (not used)

Machine Gun... (high rate of fire, lower accuracy, good range, high suppression, damage equal to assault rifle)

Prim/ (not used)

Sec1 AP=40 acc=75 shotcount=5 suppressionValue=40 suppressionRadius=4

Sec2 AP=55 acc=65 shotcount=10 suppressionValue=60 suppressionRadius=4

Sec3 AP=70 acc=55 shotcount=15 suppressionValue=75 suppressionRadius=5

Sec4 AP=90 acc=65 shotcount=20 suppressionValue=90 suppressionRadius=5

Carbine... (high rate of fire, lower damage per round, short to medium range, harder to keep long bursts on target)

Prim1 AP=20 acc=65 shotcount=3 suppressionValue=20 suppressionRadius=2

Prim2 AP=25 acc=75 shotcount=3 suppressionValue=20 suppressionRadius=2

Prim3 AP=30 acc=85 shotcount=3 suppressionValue=20 suppressionRadius=2

Prim4 AP=35 acc=95 shotcount=3 suppressionValue=20 suppressionRadius=2

Sec1 AP=20 acc=60 shotcount=6 suppressionValue=20 suppressionRadius=2

Sec2 AP=25 acc=55 shotcount=9 suppressionValue=25 suppressionRadius=2

Sec3 AP=30 acc=50 shotcount=12 suppressionValue=30 suppressionRadius=2

Sec4 AP=35 acc=45 shotcount=15 suppressionValue=35 suppressionRadius=3

Assault Rifle... (can spend AP to increase accuracy of all shots, good all rounder, medium to long range)

Prim1 AP=25 acc=75 shotcount=1 suppressionValue=32 suppressionRadius=2

Prim2 AP=30 acc=85 shotcount=1 suppressionValue=32 suppressionRadius=2

Prim3 AP=35 acc=95 shotcount=1 suppressionValue=32 suppressionRadius=2

Prim4 AP=40 acc=105 shotcount=1 suppressionValue=32 suppressionRadius=2

Sec1 AP=30 acc=70 shotcount=3 suppressionValue=32 suppressionRadius=3

Sec2 AP=35 acc=75 shotcount=3 suppressionValue=32 suppressionRadius=3

Sec3 AP=40 acc=80 shotcount=3 suppressionValue=32 suppressionRadius=3

Sec4 AP=45 acc=85 shotcount=3 suppressionValue=32 suppressionRadius=3

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Ya you guys got it right, with a SAW (which I think this weapon is supposed to be even though its a pic of a 240Bravo) you fire from the hip when moving, (and pray and spray) or hit the ground (Kneel in this game) to suppress and "walk rounds in on target"

if it is a m249 saw, damage should always be the same its just a question of does it hit you, make the damage the same as the ballistic riffle since they fire the same round, its just one is mag fed the other belt fed

Saw should have more the just 'burst"

snap shot should also be in there and be like a 7 round burst at 25 ap maybe?

burst should be like half the drum or 25 rounds at 45 ap

some one may have answered this already, but how do we in game set up "burst length" if we are going to go that rout? : )

dont tread on me...

quarter ...you...are...epic xD

I believe that the problem is less about how accurate or how many bullets are fired, but that the MG does way too much damage. How about we lower the damage of the MG and raise the damage of the AR a bit for the sake of game balance and not realism?

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