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Weapon AP Costs


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I was wondering if anyone here knows why the per-shot AP cost has been significantly raised in Xenonauts as compared to X-COM. Was there a specific rationale behind it, or have the weapon stats just not been heavily balanced yet?

Just curious, as currently Xenonauts firefights feel less fun than X-COM firefights (though still enjoyable) because there's a whole lot less lead and energy bolts flying around due to the greater AP costs of shots in general, particularly auto fire.

Edited by TheTuninator
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It hasnt been finely tuned yet afaik. Quartermaster has made a weapon mod that lowers TU-cost and Chris has commented in that thread (its in the mod section).

Chris has a general idea how hard he wants the aliens be to kill, but there are many ways to go about that. lower TU cost = less damage per shot, reveresed higher TU cost = more damage per shot.

Edited by Gorlom
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It all comes down to how long the turns are. If you try and make them 2-3 seconds (for aimed shot) then soldiers are running stupidly fast. If you make them 10-15 seconds (for long movement), then soldiers sure take their time to aim.

It's simply not very good to translate to time, and I have to agree that it's difficult getting a second shot off if you've moved the least.

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Even more so than the second shots, my main concern is the cost of auto-fire. A lot of the fun in X-COM firefights comes from your soldiers spraying wildly inaccurate shots all over the map, and the aliens responding in kind; however, the cost of burst fire for the assault rifle in Xenonauts is near double that of the cost in X-COM. This means that, as you observe, it's very difficult to fire more than twice if you've moved, but it also ensures that it's very difficult to move and auto fire at all.

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I think the costs are a bit steep as well. Especially the auto-fire as you say TT.

I envision a turn at maximum six seconds. I base this on the travel distance of the soldiers, and assume that as this is a tactical situation they are not running flat out. And I know I can get off two three+ round bursts in six seconds. Even if I take a few steps in between firing. And I'm not exactly an elite soldier with combat experience.

As Gorlom said, this can be fixed by lowering the AP cost and lowering damage of each induvidual shot. You can do this yourself in notepad actually. Check out the wiki. I don't think the mod has been published yet.

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I think the actual reason they are so high is because they were originally meant to be % values, but they were implemented as raw values instead. Given a soldier has 50-60 APs rather than 100 that makes the values quite high. They've gradually drifted downwards with time but arguably they've not yet fallen into line.

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I think the actual reason they are so high is because they were originally meant to be % values, but they were implemented as raw values instead. Given a soldier has 50-60 APs rather than 100 that makes the values quite high. They've gradually drifted downwards with time but arguably they've not yet fallen into line.

Good to hear! I've been doing some tinkering with the game files to try out different AP values; hopefully, I can contribute to game balancing in that regard come beta.

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Percentages do work as a balancing mechanic though.

You know that any soldier will only be able to fire a maximum number of shots in a turn, for example, so the weapon damage can be balanced easier.

The higher AP on certain soldiers will translate to being able to move more and do more other actions but still fire a set number of shots.

That is in contrast to having a set value for a shot which could allow a massive number of shots per turn from some soldiers and few from others.

That would be harder to balance the damage the weapon does in my eyes.

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Percentages do work as a balancing mechanic though.

You know that any soldier will only be able to fire a maximum number of shots in a turn, for example, so the weapon damage can be balanced easier.

The higher AP on certain soldiers will translate to being able to move more and do more other actions but still fire a set number of shots.

That is in contrast to having a set value for a shot which could allow a massive number of shots per turn from some soldiers and few from others.

That would be harder to balance the damage the weapon does in my eyes.

While that is true. I rally hated that in UFO:ET. I want my shots to require a raw number and damaged be balanced around that rather then %.

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I guess first you have to balance how much extra AP you are willing to give soldiers to begin with. But still I got annoyed with ET becasue i could only fire the same number of shots (as i recall it felt like really few as well) and that the cost of said shots keept increasing the more AP i got.

Baisicly the first playthrough i was spending all my points on AP to get more shots but the only thing i got was being able to run further and my accuracy was shot to hell since i really wanted those extra shots.

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You would only miss out on shots if you weren't moving.

The weapon will only fire so many rounds in the amount of time a turn takes while the extra AP would represent your troops being able to run faster in the same amount of time.

It does allow training to play a part though if you want it to.

Train your AP up to move faster, train your weapon skills to fire more shots per turn etc.

I understand what you mean about the percentage system though, if it isn't done well it can be rubbish.

It is all about getting the numbers right, same as any other method.

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The weapon will only fire so many rounds in the amount of time a turn takes while the extra AP would represent your troops being able to run faster in the same amount of time.

As far as I understood, this was the reasoning behind a per cent cost for shots in EU: no matter how fast you can move, you can only fire a rifle so many times in three to six seconds. Having a fixed cost would mess up the idea that the weapons have limitations, I think.

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A gun can only be fired so often mechanically, but is the time taken to acctually aim that wepon before fireing taken into account then? Woudln't one be able to shed some of his aiming time off with experience?

Edit: or are we assuming the soldiers are stepping right out of Counterstrike and are using aimbot?

Edited by Gorlom
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A gun can only be fired so often mechanically, but is the time taken to acctually aim that wepon before fireing taken into account then? Woudln't one be able to shed some of his aiming time off with experience?

Edit: or are we assuming the soldiers are stepping right out of Counterstrike and are using aimbot?

Only an "Aimed Shot" is actually aimed. A snap shot is just that--the soldier sees the alien, and fires his gun in the general direction. Burst fire is just spray-and-pray. If any sort of shot has a fixed AP cost, it should be aimed shots consuming all of your AP, with the more AP you have the better the shot being.

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I'm so not satisfied with that explanation.

Then no explanation will satisfy you.

Let's assume that a turn takes 6 seconds (D&D standard I use for combat) to move all of your soldiers and have them all shoot. There is no time for aiming. You see a bug-eye coming at you from out of the darkness and you point your gun and pull the trigger. How much aiming was involved in that? Almost none. And you have no way of improving your ability to point a gun in the general direction, because you're already a trained soldier. Saying "I'm not so satisfied" doesn't change the fact that most shots in these games aren't aimed except in the broadest sense of the term: pointing in the general direction of.

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Would target identification have any impact on how quickly you squeeze of a shot? I mean you have to identify that its an actual alien and not a civvie. Although i guess that would suggest that every shot after the initial one should be cheaper.

Yeah you might ahve noticed that I knew I wasnt going to win an argument about this, that's why I just posted that I wasn't satisfied with that explanation.

How does one snapshot an alien outside of your visual range? We have that ingame already that you can shoot at aliens spotted by other soldiers. Oh god look at what you've reduced me to? I'm argueing that since there are some other gamemechanics breaking the immersion/realism I get to have the other mechanic I want to remain in the game... I want to kick myself. But I will still not be satisfied with that explanation!

PS. Yes I'm being childish! don't remove my toy! DS.

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