Leaderboard

From what I gather, there's been a lot of talk about how armour should be handled in the game. Whether it should be ablative (HP), whether it should work like a spring (% damage reduction), or whether it should work like armour. A scifi setting can justify ablative armour, or DUNE like armour that increases defence according to the level of the threat. But when you're talking about human armour, you're talking about level III kevlar vests using level IV ceramic inserts. It makes sense for human armour to be well within our understanding and seem plausible. Otherwise, what makes the alien scifi armour special, if you start with inertial dampeners or pseudo-magical armour? % Based Armour The issue with % based armours is they feel downright magical, and that any improvement in armour has massive effect, and yet is pretty darn pointless and useless at lower levels. If you have 100 HP and a 5% reduction to damage (we'll ignore types for now), there is very little it can do for you. Any hit above 105 damage will incapacitate you. If damage averages high relative to your health, those 5 points don't make a difference. And if damage averaged even as low as 1 HP of damage, it just means it will take 105 hits to kill you, instead of 100 hits. Meanwhile, if you make it 80%, boy does it look weird. A pistol that inflicts a maximum of 60 damage now only does 12, shaving off 38 points, but still taking off more than a tenth of your health. A .50 cal rifle of 500 max damage is reduced to 100, shaving off 400 points. So, with any damage variance, you can quite easily survive a shot from an anti material rifle, yet can be killed by 9 pistol shots. Balancing % based armour is also really annoying, and it's the same work as balancing straight-damage armour. Ablative Armour Chris covered one of the points against this in the past, HP-based armour. Skilled players make good use of cover, so rarely get shot. Ablative armour is also basically a free hit, which allows you to perform suicidal tactics. If you know you can take three hits before dying, then you might as well act like a maniac until you get hit at least once. You can then rotate other troops in with full armour, until everyone has had a turn playing Rambo. This might be interesting for an action game, but for a tactics game it's just a droll sort of meta game strategy which makes you feel totally secure while fighting 'horrifying' aliens. It also has the issue of turning everyone into MMORPG style bullet sponges, as the game progresses. If you have an armour upgrade, of course it will give you more HP. Whereas before gunfire might've been dangerous and intimidating, it becomes laughable. The suicidal tactics I mentioned become the obvious strategy, as there's no reason to fear Reaction Fire as you rush through the open. To get things back on track, you add in guns with massively more damage, fixing the armour and undoing what it did. Soon, you all wear increasingly bigger pauldrons and use sillier looking axes, until you look like this. The weapons at the start of the game become toys, and you enter an epic league beyond human interest. Balancing ablative armour isn't really hard, it is just pointless. It's great for padding out recent games by turning them into mind-numbingly boring RPGs, that sell XP boosters so you can get them over with faster. Real Armour Real armour has some of the qualities of the above. Like the Ablative, you can try to tank some hits, and play things more riskily. And it is risky, Since like % armour it is possible to be killed by enough pistol shots, so long as one of them goes through your visor. You can't ignore tactics, you still want to use cover and avoid fire, in case your armour fails you. Yet you still get that feeling of power, from wearing armour that lets you shrug off attacks that would surely kill your unarmoured allies. Still, you never shake the feeling of dread, of when an enemy sends a plasma bolt your way. There's not a lot to say about genuine armour... because there isn't anything wrong with it. Straight-damage armour serves its purpose, and it does it well; even if it does it without the fanfare and flashy numbers of modern games. Balancing this isn't as easy as Ablative armour, where you can just pick whatever numbers you feel like, but it is straight forward. Armour is built to withstand certain levels of gunfire, and weapons are designed to pierce that armour, each piece of equipment has its class and its uses in the tactical meta. Additional details: Below are some additional ideas and details for the handling of armour.

I think LoS should be more of a bubble than a cone. A really stretched oval facing wherever your guy is looking, with 90, 120, and 180 degrees being where you have your long, medium, and short cones of vision respectively. Strikes me as the most realistic take.

We get Armor in the Game, which can be upgraded. That was a missing Feature in the First Game. I think there will be a rework for the Modular-Things we get in. But like in all Games of that Gerne we will have a %-Chance of Armor-Safety, etc. We have to test the Modular-Systems and the Armor themself after the implementations get in in Beta / Early Access. Only in these Tests we can say that or that is good / bad. With the existing Model we can´t do an statement, because it´s still a WIP-Filler from the first game.

I didn't notice any posting guidelines specific to X2's section, so I guess I can just write this up here? Premise At first, I presume we once again start off with one base and a small budget. I suggest that, after you have proven yourself, one of the nations/conglomerates pays you to set up a new base in their territory. Mission The nation pays you up front, enough to set up a small outpost. You would get a mission to protect their region of the globe from alien activity for a period of time. You get a score for the mission based off what percentage of alien schemes you thwart, with a bonus for the number of schemes. You then would then get an increase in funding from that group according to your mission score. If you score badly, they may reduce funding as they feel you took the money and didn't spend it towards protecting them. Afterword I think a mission like this is logical, interesting, and useful for gameplay. As the alien threat increases and starts hurting nations, and as you show yourself capable of resisting the threat, other nations are going to want some of that. This helps and encourages the player to start up their second base/outpost. You could balance the game around similar events, if you wanted to. Have expansions happen at the correct point in the interest curve, to give the player more to think about once they're used to running one base. Line it up with alien escalation, so that the player is in a position to help more of the world before they get hit hard, and etc..

We will get much more in the Game since in the Predecessor. You won´t get borring in having Missions, that I can say for sure. Your Idea is good, and I hope too the Devs will bring in it in. But maybe its in the implemention plan for the Game in Beta-Versions / Early Access.

Feels like a very nice idea and good potential addition to the game

Depends on how much you have already played. I would like to say that XCE is totally like vanilla, just better, but that is simply not true. A lot of mechanics get changed, and XCE removes a lot of broken mechanics which are 100% in favour of the player. Teleporter blocking is one of the most broken things, XCE makes it into telefragging. Opening doors is a very "convenient" way for ... simple minded players to get a peak inside. In vanilla you cant get punished for that, no reaction fire, but in XCE you do. AI becomes more intelligent, Reapers one shot vehicles, Reapers get a better AI, aircraft UFOs get a "thinking" chance, the list is endless ... . XCE is an absolutely good game for it being a community edition. Maybe even the best community edition ever made. But despite this you have to deal with reality. And the reality with Community Editions is that they change a lot of stuff, but never see a full development cycle. Basically they never make the round of getting tested whether or not all that added/reinstated/like-the-original-intended-content/removed mechanics/content on their fun factor. Mods which are based on Community Editions usually make the missing part of a full development cycle again, as people usually actually play mods, and therefore the full incentive comes with a lot of people testing the game on their fun factor again. Balancing out all the new mechanics and content with additional content. And so making a full circle again. CEs and Mods are both 50% of a full development circle. Long story short. 1. Play vanilla, if you like what you see then 2. Get XCE and mods for XCE. Experience all that unbalanced gaming content. If you still want more then 3. Play a proper gameplay experience with X-Division. If at any point you dont like what you see just stop and switch to a different game. There is no use in forcing yourself above what you like.

Hey @Mask, I really like the idea behind this Mod! Just make it as similar to reality as possible and, if it is not working, then it is because there is some spec that is not realistic! I'd love to give it a try but the link is down. Also, has it been updated to the latest versions? thanks,