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19.6 Overall Weapon/Equipment Thoughts


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Hi, new to the forums. Played the original X-Com, Terror from the Deep, and Apocalypse heavily, usually on the hardest difficulty settings.

I'm a bit of a masochist as far as X-Com goes and prefer brutally hard gameplay. The following mass of text are my thoughts on the current state of arms, armor, and equipment in the game. Some opinions are echoes of what others have said, and some are unique: I felt I should share.

Weapons:

Pistols: I feel they're great where they are now in terms of damage, cost to fire, reload, and effectiveness. Offers great volume of fire at the penalty of damage. I don't mind the reduction in magazine size from ballistics upwards.

Shotguns/Carbines: I really felt the difference between this update and the last. The accuracy buff across the board was one of the best changes made in the beta IMO- the shotgun/carbines have benefited the most. The range isn't all that great until plasma, but you will kill whatever you're shooting. Great power offset by the need to be close. I don't feel that these weapons need a change...except the projectile speed on the plasma carbine. It's too slow and doesn't make it feel powerful.

Assault Rifles: I'm not sure others will agree with me, but I feel these weapons are where they should be. Any reduction in TU's to fire them will make the game to easy. With laser rifles I was already at 95% chance to hit with full-aimed shots. High accuracy + ability to one hit kill enemies w/ melee full-auto= already powerful. As the game is right now, you can outfit a whole squad w/ assault rifles and do fine. For a midrange weapon, this is where it should be.

Machine Guns: The accuracy buff put these over rocket launchers as my preferred heavy weapon. The 10%+ chance to hit along with the volume of fire changed this gun from a suppression device, to the focus of my squad. In real life, a machine gun is used to supress- but if it can kill a target= they do so.

I've had great luck with hanging my machine guns back and railing aliens, while my riflemen move up to get shots in. Many times the machine gunners kill the aliens. The guns sound and feel powerful, have a decent chance of hitting, suppress well, and deal the right amount of dmg at all tiers. They sound chuggy and powerful- great job.

Sniper Rifles: I understand the necessity of nerfing these weapons a bit. They work well, but I feel that they aren't as useful to me now compared to just using an assault rifle. I was at 95% chance to hit with laser rifles on most of my soldiers. Taking two shots with high probability of hitting, plus the ability to use burst fire to one-hit-kill at melee> snipers.

I started using snipers again when I researched the Shrike. I felt like I could afford another non-front line soldier. I think the reason I didn't use them pre-Shrike was that my sniper soldier would lag far behind the others in stats gained per mission because of the lack of shots-per-mission.

Rocket Launcher: I don't use these anymore. I cannot afford to destroy alien equipment IMO.

-Stun Rockets: I would use stun rockets, but I've never had it create a gas cloud. It deals light stun on impact and creates 2-3 tiles of light gas. I expect it to at least fill the blast radius w/ light stun gas. I do feel there's room to add an electroshock rocket as a side-grade to the stun gas rocket.

-HE Rockets: Whatever you shoot with one of these dies. It does its job well. You really have to weigh the cost of losing mission money against the threat posed by your target. I really only use these to help take the Alien Leader rooms of bases. It's powerful, but you pay for it in opportunity cost.

-What I want: Electroshock rockets + Incendiary Rockets. If you are able to work out the bugs for the Armor-piercing rounds= I would love to try those. Not sure if they're needed though.

Stun Baton: Dangerous to use, but rewards your efforts. This has the right amount of stun dmg in my opinion. The TU cost seems balanced.

-What I want: A lethal melee weapon like the thermal lance and vibroblade in Terror from the Deep. There are few things more satisfying than stun baton 'kills'. A lethal version would be a great alternative if you absolutely need to kill an andron without collateral dmg. Could use same animation/model as stun baton. Conceptually, a high-tech stilletto. Slams it into a target, uses a plasma charge to superheat a metal tip and propel it forward (just like lore for plasma torpedo) before creating a small explosion in target.

Shield/Assault Shield: Perfect IMO. Does what it says and saves lives.

HE grenades: I use these to kill entrenched aliens that pose a huge threat, or drones/reapers. I would like to see 1 tile more of range. The overdamage property makes these inviable as a main weapon now.

Stun grenades: Knock out low rank aliens with ease + area denial. I feel these are where they should be.

Electroshock Grenades: Decent side-grade for the stun baton. I feel these are good for higher rank, fleshy aliens, but could use a 10% improvement in stun dmg. Also, these are poor against androns. I don't know if they're meant to have higher dmg against them- I assumed so based on their Xenopedia entry.

Flashbangs: People need to use these more. I barely receive reaction fire from movement because of these. The radius is right where it needs to be and they suppress well (higher rank is more resistant, but usually 2 will do it= makes sense). You don't need them in the beginning of the game, but when attacking bases/larger UFO's these save lives. I feel these are where they should be.

Smoke grenades: They work, and can be used the whole game. People need to use these more, as well. It would be nice if you shed more light on how they affect accuracy for the tooltip. Does what it needs to do. I've gotten used to how it doesn't block line-of-sight. Only issue, in the future aliens need to be allowed to grenade and burst fire into smoke at players. At 2 plus smoke grenades, aliens usually don't fire at my troops. Not good.

Medkits: I Don't have an opinion on these as far as effectiveness, they're necessary. I would like to see a late game upgrade to reduce their inventory size by half, as well as a 20% bonus to efficiency. Could make it require a looted alien base to recover their regeneration/maturation technology.

Thoughts on Laser Weapons: I feel that either a $5k price reduction per weapon, or earlier access to the research would help usher out ballistics. I was tempted to skip lasers altogether. In this beta I didn't in order to afford another base.

Armors:

The removal of the sight restriction was spot on perfect. The weight and monetary/opportunity cost to create armor is balance enough.

Jackal: I was never able to afford making it. By the time I could, Wolf was an option. I'm sorry to say I've never made jackal armor.

Wolf: I can eat direct plasma cannon shots to the face and still live (sometimes 2). Xenopedia for the cannon needs to be updated, btw. The game changes pace once you've acquired this armor. I'd venture to say it might need a 5% reduction in armor to keep the game tense. I'd wager I could beat normal without making any other armor.

Predator: I've made one suit so far. Yeah, definitely worth it. My main machine gunner is a walking war-crime in this. Definitely represents that old X-Com feeling of reaching the top of the tech tree and finally going into battle knowing the aliens should be afraid. The lack of nades and non-hvy weps balances this out. Rookie soldiers are useless when wearing this= good. Need to test this more, but it seems spot on. Aliens need an answer to this armor IMO.

Haven't tested the other top armor yet. If it's stronger than wolf= normal is cake once it's acquired.

Vehicles: These suffer from the same problem that alien heavy drones have: Huge target, low armor and health. This has been an issue in all X-Coms. I can get more longevity and firepower out of two soldiers instead of a vehicle. I feel they should excel at pushing through open terrain so your soldiers don't end up taking shots. More health, more armor, perhaps less firepower to compensate. Other threads have more knowledgeable thoughts on this.

Let me know what you guys think.

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Pretty good writeup, I'd say.

I don't agree with the effectiveness of grenades. I don't think you can throw them far enough for them to suit their intended purposes.

I think that the laser weapons are too expensive and take too long to build.

The vehicle thing is exactly how I feel. I need to be able to justify taking two guys out and putting in a vehicle. I run Max's Grease Pit mod, which makes the vehicles feel a lot more like one should.

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+1 from me.

Although I like to use a couple snipers to supplement my riflemen, and LMGs are about on par with rocket launchers in my games.

Grenades with 1 or 2 extra range would be nice, but I think I would prefer even more if rookies had less of a range malus with them.

Manufactured weapons of any type are way too expensive, not just lasers. I never had enough money/time to make laser weaponry for my troops, and ended up with a single laser sniper by the time I finished researching plasma weapons.

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Thanks the the writeup, it's nice to know that you're mostly happy with the balance and that there feels like a progression in the game.

Our next update is going to put some cats amongst the pigeons balance-wise, but hopefully for much the better. Should be out later today if all goes well with bugfixes.

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