V21 Experimental Build 6 Released!

I'm considering the MG balance at the moment regarding the ammo level; I'm a big fan of the 10 round bursts but perhaps they should be able to fire three bursts - although as others following the balance thread can attest, the arguments need to be made in terms of game balance rather than simply realism. I'm probably also going to nerf MG's slightly by putting recoil back on them so only high strength soldiers can fire them as accurately as everyone can at the moment. They kill a bit too well at the moment.

I would be totally happy if the MG could fire three bursts without reloading at the cost of reduced accuracy.

Two bursts do seem to few. Did someone else also noticed that the ammo is counted 1:1 in the MG but on other weapons each unit is one shot independent from bullet count (e.g.: in case of shotgun)?

I really love machineguns, still with all this nerf is bit overpowered compared with other in the same type.

I suggest a universal system for weapons for "Recoil", each round fired penalize the next shot in the same turn, for example, the machinegun spit 3 rounds of standart automatic burst for low AP consuption (Automatic always shot 3 shots no manner the weapon), but the next shot of automatic shot is penalized with %Accuracy.

Yes, still you can deplete half of the ammo of a machinegun but at high cost.

In conjuntion with "Less accur with heavy and snipers if move", recoils can be more realistic with common sense.

I find lack of Automatic and semiautomatic pistols and other kind of weapons in game.

Still machineguns rulez the game, specially when the AI don't understand how to use it... lot of alien units with MG don't do nothing in game cuz the use all AP for moving.

I am unclear on the intended niche of MGs.

They are now essentially stationary weapons (soldier can't really move and shoot), waste every 3rd turn reloading and all that for a marginal improvement in killing ability? Burst fire from rifles does suppression anyway. Maybe I just suck with MGs, but they seem underwhelming.

if your unhappy, you can make the mg have more ammunition

Seems some of us think of MG as overpowered, while other would like to see them boosted. Maybe then they are just about right?

Laser MG (called scatter laser, if I recall correctly) costs 120K, making it more expensive than a basic fighter. For this reason alone I would not like to see them as equal to a 40K laser rifle. On the other hand, even with basic MG and a decent setup, I can usually kill an alien with one burst. Same is (almost) impossible with an assault rifle. No more boosting needed as far as I am concern. If more ammo is added I can just play my way and reload after two bursts . Whole point is that this weapon requires a setup, making the game more interesting.

On an unrelated topic: does "Stable" version mean that there should be no save-breaking changes?

On an unrelated topic: does "Stable" version mean that there should be no save-breaking changes?

for a while, until they decide to update the stable version

The stable version just means it will not be updated every few days as the experimental branch may be.

It should also have less game breaking bugs although there may still be some, it is still a beta version after all.

Gives a chance for people to play further through the game and find those bugs that would otherwise be missed.

Saved games will still be broken when the next stable version comes out.

The current stable version will then become the legacy version so if you want to continue playing you can stick with that rather than move to the new stable version with all of the most recent additions and changes.

I had some experience balancing game systems, especially Pen and paper RPGs.

This is my review:

Problem with the current gameplay: Win relays on your main team survive, forcing the player to SAVE and LOAD often. They don’t want to loose a soldier cuz they know that they cant win the game at that way. If the player is force use to play a mission and assume looses in combat without loosing the game give more taste.

Armors I had review all alien stats in the core game files and I found something interesting a lot of aliens don’t have any kind of armor. Here is my point, you have lot of diversity in types or armors in game, that was amazing!!!. You have ballistic, energy, plasma and MAG weapons, even you have "Armor mitigation".... soo what’s the deal!!! You have all the tools to make a balanced game full of strategy.

Machineguns: LMG can be a SMG and shot bullets similar in caliber and penetration, Yes MGs in general shot and load tons of ammo, but his penetrating performance and accuracy is a PAIN. This kind of weapons are automatic, that mean that I can pull the trigger whatever I want and stop whenever I want. The main role of this kind of weapons is suppress enemies and shot multiple enemies in a near area. I know that the game designers made LOT of effort balancing statistics and make game realistic, even more wonderful, you make a full environment that can be modded and give arise TONs of diversity. CONGRAT AGAIN!!!

In my personal opinion, if I had the chance I will put the environment like this:

Save Rewards: The player in game have only have saves as a reward, at this way the player not only have strategy at some point and know that only limited amount of saves left. For example: If you protect a city from a terror attack a window with the gratitude of the nation save and give you a save as support. This is only an example, but don’t get demotivate cuz the mechanic of the game change next.

Gameplay: This is a game that deals a race surviving a foreign hostile race that want to conquer earth. You will lose… a lot … ships, soldiers, bases, founding and entire advance. The game that I see in mind give you lot of chances.

- You cant air-strike all crash sites, you need airstrike crew and if you have 1 or 2 teams they can’t air-strike all.

- You can survive with only few nations well protected, like your fortress, you lose a lot of terrain but not the war.

- The nations offer some kind of different help that can be necessary money, can be a troop, weapons, a custom unique technology advance, that bring more interesting thing in game. Why? If you defend USA (Improve for ballistic weapons?), Japan (One new type of Mechas?) or Brazil (Extra Troop recruitment?) can make the game different. You know that they can unlock a unique path of research that can only be opened if you have close relationship with that nations.

- Different objectives, Make different missions objectives, that reduce time on ground combat or air combat. What you think about this? A country request you to escort a Government aircraft to new location? A president will give a speech and is know that covered alien forces want sabotage to cause terror?. Sometimes ou will lose, retreat and wait for better moment of chance, make really difficult missions with great rewards but at great risk.

- You need all weapons, ballistic, mod-ballistic, toxic and futuristic, to counter different kind of enemies. Lizard aliens have high kinetic and toxic armors? Lets use some plasma or lasers. Caesan have special shields that gives high energy armor value? Lets use some bullets this time. Haessans have high kinetic, and energy armor values? Lets use some gas and toxic weapons. The enemy have mixed force?! You’ll need mixed weapons.

- For weapons I’ll put standard type of fire Normal, Semiautomatic, Automatic and Aimed. Some Semiauto pistols can fire 2 bullets per shot but you can have high caliber pistol only with normal shot and aimed.

- For Machineguns the things come easy to me, this weapon can fire lot of bullets and automatic mode (Only can fire automatic), if you move you´ll lose accuracy cuz the difficulty to set a heavy weapon in field and recoil value that reduce accuracy after each automatic burst. At this way, you know that you can fire up to 15 bullets in one stationary turn (5 automatic rounds), but the accuracy of the last burst was a mess, that can be useful if enemies are close (Accidental fire a other enemy, or ally?).

- Reduce enviroment durability. A granade hardly destroy a cover... I'll love a game that plasma will destroy anything in path, showing the potential and give more taste to your heavy soldiers and aliens.

You have the world support at hand, lot of troops, diversity of weapons and lot of aircraft.... but you'll survive the powerfull allien rush? Maybe but if your lucky at the end you'll have only two countries and two bases, the Thermopiles.

Have fun, congrats to the great designers and sorry about this long post bad writed.

Most of that would involve rewriting current systems.

The game is just entering the final polishing stages so any large changes to mechanics that are currently working are highly unlikely.

The main thing I think needs to be avoided from that list is the weakening of environmental props.

If plasma wipes out all cover in its path then why bother using cover at all?

All enemy weapons are plasma based so your troops would never be able to hide behind anything.

That would remove a lot of tactics from the game for me.

The UFO: AfterX series is an object lesson in what happens when you try and make it so players must mix 'n' match weapons. In both Afterlight and Aftershock (especially Aftershock) different aliens had different resistances to different weapons. The AfterX community worked out pretty quickly instead of fiddling about with different weapon types trying to optimise damage to pick the most general-purpose of the weapon types on offer (which happened to be ballistic). Afterlight learnt from Aftershock, focussing more on weapon characteristics and weapon character. The one weapon which was specifically tuned to one racial type (EMP) was useless otherwise and was rarely used.

The tools are there so you can mod it how you feel it should be, but we decided the weapons would be a straight upgrade over earlier weapons rather than the older weapons still having a niche. Both ways work, but we thought the earlier way gave more progression. It's a bit late to change that now though

Most of that would involve rewriting current systems.

The game is just entering the final polishing stages so any large changes to mechanics that are currently working are highly unlikely.

The main thing I think needs to be avoided from that list is the weakening of environmental props.

If plasma wipes out all cover in its path then why bother using cover at all?

All enemy weapons are plasma based so your troops would never be able to hide behind anything.

That would remove a lot of tactics from the game for me.

Plasma and covers is a way to say, not literally.

Yes lot of changes needs time, Im very happy with the game actually, both Normal and experimental for V21 are awesome games.

Yes Chris, I'm testings adjusting damage, rate, suppresion, explosive area and aliens armors. When I finish some of the test I'll upload the resulting files as kind of "mod", for you to testing. What if you build a Mod tool for players?

Im very happy with the game and I'm only waiting for the formal release!