stem11
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Posts posted by stem11
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Trying to warp the general-purpose way soliders are made and level up into a class-based system...
Using different armors with different stats is not what I am thinking of, since you always can put it on any soldier.
I suggest to make str attribute and soldiers experience more important for heavy soldiers if it is possible. In my game I have many experienced soldiers and if I want some of them to use heavy weapon I completely ignore their strength because it has no meaning to be strong to use heavy weapon (paradox?) – just put on power armor. Therefore I am trying to find a way to make some differences between strong and weak soldiers – enhance flexibility of strong soldiers (e.g. to use both heavy weapon and heavy shield) or make some small penalty for inexperienced weak soldiers while using power armor with heavy weapon. But maybe you are right and this situation can't be fixed only with balance changes.
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so for heavy melee we need sledgehammers and then the game becomes warhammerI don't want to use non military equipment like chainsaws or futuristic hammers.
This could be powerfull vibro/electro/impulse/wave shockers or a chemical sprayer - heavy two-handed weapons with 1 tile range, high damage and ammo. Maybe it can be done like a flamethrower with the same animation but with 1 tile range and green/blue flame. It is an analogue of a ranged heavy weapon to use with power armor (the only melee-like weapon to use with power armor as it doesn't support shields) but without suppression, with high accuracy, very short range and higher damage. It can be a separate branch with autoupdate.So we cant hire special str guys from the beginning, the str bonus of the power armour make able to use a not so experienced soldier this big weapons..Strong soldiers: shield with heavy melee weapon with good armor (power armor if possible), power armor with heavy range weapon and much ammo without penalty, power armor with heavy two-handed melee/very short-ranged weapon with much ammo without penalty.
Weak soldiers: shield with pistol/leight melee weapon and moderate simple armor, heavy one-handed melee weapon with good armor without shield, power armor with heavy ranged weapon with 1 ammo and with small penalty, power armor with heavy two-handed melee/very short range weapon with 1 ammo and small penalty.
Under the spoiler I put some rough ideas about how I see it.
This values are very approximate.
1) Now there is strength inverval 40-60. This can be cnanged to: str 35-70. It will increase the chance to hire a stronger soldier from the beginning. globalMaxProgress for strength can be increased to 110 (if power armor strengthBoost will be decreased). Strength per level can be increased to get stronger soldiers faster.
2) StrengthBoost of power armor should be decreased, for example, for predator it can be 78 (it is about 30 kg weight) instead of 100. This allows for a new recruit to use predator armor (16 kg), some heavy weapon (12 kg) and 1 ammo (4 kg) with a small penalty. So it is always possible to get heavy rookie and if soldier has high str att he will get enough str after some battles and move without penalty and with more ammo. Moreover when power armor appear some soldiers will be already strong enough.
3) Heavy one-handed melee weapon branch (10 kg) (maybe all melee weapon make heavy but with more charges?) and heavy shields (14 kg) can be implemented. Any soldier with str around 65 (weight about 27 kg) will be able to use either weapon or shield with moderate armor (14 kg shield + 10 kg armor + 3 kg pistol or 10 kg melee weapon + 10 kg armor + something else). To use both without penalty soldier should have about 85 str (14 kg shield + 10 kg armor + 10 kg weapon). To balance it to the game speed first melee weapon like chemical injector can be leight, then new heavier and more powerfull weapons can appear.
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Again about soldiers creativity.
I suggest some balance changes to implement strength as the most important attribute for a heavy class. In the current game to make a heavy just take a soldier with any str attribute and give him power armor – he will instantly get 100 str or more – it's like a cheat. I mean to allow the use of best armor with heavy melee/range weapon and best melee weapon with shields only for soldiers with high strength.
Details are under the spoiler.
I suggest the following changes:
1) Increasing str diversity in initial soldiers str stats (say from 30 to 80). Decreasing str progress in battles from 3 to 2 or even 1 (str is the easiest attribute to improve in battle and if not decrease this att all soldiers will soon have high str). Increasing global value to 110-120. This will give the possibility to hire high str soldiers and prevent low str soldiers to highly improve their str.
2) Removing strength bonuses from power armor (predator etc.) and maybe even increasing its weight.
3) Increasing weight of shields (optional), melee and heavy weapon. So that even in the beginning only soldiers with str above 70 could use them without penalty. As the time in game passes new versions should be heavier too.
4) Increasing suppression value for all heavy weapons (it's optional – I just like suppression
). Since higher initial str attribute usually will come with lower other stats accuracy should be increased as a heavy weapon bonus or a power armor bonus (maybe the latter is better).5) Implementing the heavy melee weapon (with high damage/accuracy/weight) to take with power armor. Maybe even add the possibility to take shields with power armor.
A player will have a new heavy class based on strength which will be the only class to be able to use both the best heavy armor and heavy range/melee weapon. The heavy soldiers should be hired from the beginning with high str ability since otherwise it will be difficult to reach high str in game. Accuracy will not be too important here (compared to other classes), since melee weapon will have high accuracy and heavy range weapon/armor will have accuracy bonus (also heavy cannons like plasma shotgun can be used – they don't rely much on accuracy since they have square damage). On the other hand soldiers with normal strength won't be able to wear both power armor and heavy weapon.
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Now I see – it will be interesting to try.
so i plan to avoid to lose as many old weapon as i can at the "replace" partIs it possible to autosold all old weapons before replacing?
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And what about game length? The game tends to be very long, but there will be only 2 weapon updates for each branch (if MK1 is default). If you get MK3 too early in the game – this weapon will be too weak in the end, in other case you will need to play the most part of the game with original weapon or its first update MK2.
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Nice to see, that you made it.
There will be many different types of weapons – to balance all this is not easy task.
Will all tiers be useful throughout the whole game (not like 0.98 where the next tier was always better than the previous)?
As I see you decided not to use infinite number of weapons and all previously manufactured weapons will be lost?
Also if I need MK2 shotgun should I research MK1 pistol first?
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Mod got already special armours like you said.
I mean to make it depend on soldiers stat. For example, if soldier has 40 accuracy after wearing armor he will get + 20%, so his accuracy will be 48, but not 60.
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Then I think the best solution is to wait.
Drages, I have thought about soldiers specialization. In game most soldiers are universal – sniper, assault, rocketeer, etc. I think it would be more interesting to make soldiers more diverse and use more thoughtfully strong and weak sides of their abilities. I mean that a soldier shouldn't be universal - if he is a good sniper than bad heavy and melee. I don't think it is possible to implement special skills and abilities for soldiers depending on their exp without a whole lot of work, but maybe there are easier solutions?
Maybe it is possible to create some pseudo-classes via stats. For example, make sniper (high acc), heavy (high str), scout (high TU) and assault (high reflexes). I have some ideas but it demands creating soldiers with highly different initial stats. Is it possible to regulate initial stats so that if one value is very high so other must be very low? Or to generate soldiers using different stat rules (some soldiers with high acc and low str, other with high str and low acc)? Or, at least, that the sum of generated stats will be equal (like 35 acc+75 str = 75 acc + 35 str)?
Also some types of armor/weapon increase stats of soldiers (like +20 to accuracy, or power armor which gave high strength), so that their own abilities are not taken into account. Is it possible to make armor/weapon stats as percent of soldier's ability (like +20% to accuracy)?
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There is another way i can use and can still have normal weapon manufacture style..
I think it is a good idea but not for upgrades (this means only 1 upgrade instead of 3 and many weapons in manufacture menu and in store). It is better to use to give player choice of alternative weapons, like what he prefers – to increase accuracy of a weapon or to increase its damage.
In general, I think it can be left as you suggest – with autoupdate and infinite number of weapons (with high demanding manufacture), until something will be changed in code. You could additionally implement some ultimate unique weapon near the end of the game (in addition to your infinite ordinary weapons) which needs to be manufactured and will be limited.
As a some temporary solution you can keep 2 types of weapons – the new one will be limited and the previous one will be infinite. For example, you have now infinite number of some weapon. You finished research of MK1. Then you get new manufacture option – manufacture MK1. If you complete this manufacture you will get 1-5 units of MK1 weapon of each type (rifle+pistol+...). This will not replace your current infinite weapon, so you will have 2 types – infinite ordinary weapon and limited MK1. Then, after a while new research of MK2 weapon will appear – this will give you infinite number of MK1 weapons (here MK1 can replace ordinary weapon in stock and MK2 can replace MK1 weapon) and new manufacture option to produce MK2 weapon in small amount. Here will be a choice – you can use more powerfull weapon with higher price or less powerfull but free.
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If i use autoupdate with 1 manufacture, you will make only one manufacture per update..
Will this option after completion disappear from manufacture menu or you will be able to downgrade your weapon by completing some old manufacture?
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Drages, I have some questions.
Is there 2 weapon branches each consists of 4 weapons and each weapon has 3 undates?
Do you want to autoupdate all weapons like: gauss MK1 > MK2 > MK3 > updated gauss > updated gauss MK1 > …?
Will outdated options like update MK1 to MK2, MK2 to MK3... be in manufacture menu despite of "update weapon to another version with one manufacture" ?
Is it possible to move outdated options from one category in manufacture menu to another?
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Sebs wont die with ballistics and caesans will laugh to your lasers..
We will see who will laugh in the end
.So what do u think about how to handle weapon manufacturing?Could you change stats of existing weapons, so that, e.g. all gauss rifles without replacement will get additional bonuses after research? If it is possible than you could omit MK1/2/3 and manufacture it as simple gauss rifle.
You could also make beg/mid weapons as infinite and the ultimate version as unique.
The other idea is to manufacture ammo to somehow balance infinite number of weapons. Instead of 100s types of weapons you could have 10s ammo types. You could also add the possibility to manufacture new ammo types from previous (if you can't remove them from manufacturing menu). I don't like this idea much but I think it is better than have nothing to manufacture at all or have the manufacture menu cluttered with 100s useless weapons.
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I see there is an interesting discussion about weapon system. There are many attractive suggestions. IMHO it will be difficult to balance many different weapon types with quite diverse properties.
I think, it would be easier to unify all weapons and broaden the idea of alien resistances. For example, laser rifle for Androns can inflict the same damage as plasma rifle for Ceasans and ballistic weapon (as universal weapon) half that damage but equal to both of them). This will help to better adjust game balance. Moreover there will be no one universal/superior weapon to take on a mission – each time a player should choose proper weapon according to enemy species.
Differences can be left in weapon types, for example:
sniper rifle – long distance, high damage, low ammo, high TU, high accuracy;
shotgun – very short distance, med. mitigation/damage/suppression, low TU;
rifle – med. distance, med. damage, med. accuracy, low TU;
cannon – med. distanse, med. square damage, low. accuracy, low ammo, high TU;
heavy weapon - med. accuracy, med. distance, high damage, high suppression (imho suppression is very useful to prevent reaction fire, maybe even increase its chance), med TU, etc.
Several lines of weapons could be, for example, kinetic (as suggested ballistic-gauss-MAG), beam (laser-lance laser-precision laser), plasma (plasma-alenium-wave) or something like that. Each line (except universal kinetic) will be very effective against some alien species but useless against others. Each type of weapon could be autoupgraded after corresponding research to improved version like nextgen laser rifle which will give some bonuses to ammo/weight/accuracy. There also could be some weapons which will only autoupdate without having separate lines like flame-thrower or chemical weapon.
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Stem panic and funding is hardcoded, as is the airstrike mechanic.
I only suggested my ideas. I agree with you that some of them may be difficult or even impossible to implement. I'll leave it for modders to decide whether they can/want to do it or not.
However, if we are to rival the money we get from hitting a crashsite, then we should buff the air-strike payout.It is also possible to give some alien alloys/alenium if you do manual bombing (as for alien interceptors) or decrease slightly panic. And also it would be nice to bomb landed ufos.
However, radar ranges are small enough as they are. With a three-base game you always have to cut out bits of areas (for me it's always the south that gets the bad end of the deal. Half of Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, and southern Chile/Argentina).For current balance radar ranges are OK, maybe even a little high. Your base radars (from 3 bases) will cover the most part of the ground. Also you can allow up to 4 contries to leave project, in this case even 2 bases with radars will be more than enough. I had another situation – until late game my interceptors frequently didn't have enough speed/flight range to go after ufo which was far from my base but visible to radars.
I am trying to make more use of Awacs aircraft – I like it, but in the present state it has no sense (maybe only in the very beginning of the game). Some people simply sell it. In my game I have discovered all alien bases outside my borders by using ordinary interceptors. They do have small radar range, but they flight a lot on different routes. Maybe make alien bases visible only to Awacs radars, but I think it is even more difficult to implement. Such aircrafts could also be converted to a something like satellites (as for implementation it may be an airplane with very slow speed, very high tank capacity and small detection rate from alien interceptors, otherwise it can be eliminated before you manage to do anything).
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Here are some ideas about adding new aircraft classes to the game.
1) In the present Awacs makes little sense but this can be amended.
- You could remove all radars (or highly decrease their range) from ordinary aircrafts. You can even try to decrease base's radars range. Then it will be possible to use only Awacs and the like to detect alien bases and other alien ships outside your base's radars. But I don't know whether ordinary aircrafts will lose sight of pursued alien ufo with small radar range.
- Moreover it is possible to make panic constantly increase over continents, which are mostly not covered by your radars. And as a way to decrease panic to send there from time to time Awacs-like aircrafts on patrol missions (even if they don't find any ufo there – people will be more calm). It is also possible to improve speed, radar range and fuel tank of Awacs-like aircraft via new research projects.
2) The game have airstrikes – it is very convenient. I think it could be improved by additionaly adding the possibility to make airstrike manually with more useful materials recovered. It may be done via new class of bombers which will flight to crash site and eliminate Ufo. They also could bomb landed ufos to turn them into crashed ones. They could attack automatically without fights but they will be very vulnerable to alien ufos in the air.
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i thought it for melee but the game AI doesnt handle alien vehicles so good..
You are right, I remember that heavy drones are rather clumsy and are often stuck in small locations. If new units will be 2x2 they indeed will have very limited mobility.
You could try to make them smaller (like with giant xenomorph) but I think it is more difficult with dragons unless you have more vertical version.
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This, assuming how many hours per day?
All evenings (2-4 hours) and whole weekends.
So what do u think?
Looks interesting. You could even add two varieties of this creature - with and without weapon.
Maybe change guns to rocket launchers - aliens have no analogue of rocket tank (alien with rockets on terror mission - that would be nice
). By the way, the crew looks familiar . Drages, are you still looking for a buggy sebillian weapon save?
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Can u write what do feel about mid and end game ground combats? Do u die easy? Does enemy die easy? Just explain me the balanced and unbalanced things..
- In the beginning when you use only ordinary/laser weapon it is difficult (very difficult if you try to seize an alien base). You should really try to play carefully, tanks were very helpful. Save/load was a necessary option, otherwise you can end the battle without half of the group.
- The mid part wasn't hard – you get new weapon/armor/grenades/rockets, but I can't say it was easy. And it continued so until I get into technological singularity. Then it become easier and easier. The easiest part was in the end – you can kill virtually any enemy from one shot at any distance (in final combat I killed about 130 reapers and other aliens until I got out of ammo and then left the location). In the end 1 sniper = 2 dead aliens in one turn. So in first turn you can eliminate all aliens in sight (and your flying units can have good sight). In this part your soldiers will die if you are careless or unlucky.
Some other points:
- Carriers/Battleships have few and sometimes none aliens except on the highest floor and right behind the door on the ground floor.
- I liked AI of some aliens, especially reapers and xenomorphs – they are really trying to hide and attack from behind. Wraith are good – they teleport sometimes right behind you, so you should be carefull. Some other aliens (Sebillians, Ceasans) are more lazy and don't like to move – you can find them on the same spot or very near during several turns, they don't try to actively attack you or go near you for better shot. Harridans are often soaring in the sky and can be eliminated quite easily (via rocket or sniper).
- Psi abilities of aliens can make your life harder. Sometimes they work strange - even a soldier with high bravery (over 80) can panic and flee, so several psions can drive half of your squad mad. In addition to this I would prefer to remove berserking and replace it with simple panic.
- As it happens I started my game with about half of the group having sniper rifles and ended it the same. I don't want to say that sniper rifles are too strong (but they are strong), but ordinary rifles and shotguns are noticeably weaker, but maybe it is only my playstyle.
how much time it took you to beat the game?
It very depends on your playstyle and how drages will adjust difficulty in the next version
. I think in general it will take about 2 weeks. If you really like tactical battles and will play most ground combats, go through every terror mission, seize all alien bases – it can easily take a month. -
Here you can find the full research tree of 0.98.2 HF2[/url]
I see, fascinating isn't it
. It is difficult to recommend something other than somehow simplifying it. There are too many dependencies and I assume it is difficult to control balance and add or change something in the present state. -
if you got any idea about giving clue to players (as research description-name) i can accept all help..
It is difficult to suggest something without having full research tree and seeing all dependencies. As a temporary solution you can just add to research description some phrases in brackets.
For example:
- If this is a dead-end research you can only add '(This research project will help us develop new/improve our aircraft/ armor/ weapon etc.)' or even don't add anything if it is clear from a description.
- If this can lead to some other projects you may add '(This research project is necessary for improvement of our airforce/groundforce etc.)'.
- If this is project which leads to all sorts of improvements than add '(This project is crucial for further understanding alien technologies)'.
- If this is a key project for the game plot than add '(This project is crucial for stopping alien invasion)'.
- You can also combine some of them: 'This project is crucial for stopping alien invasion and will help us better understand alien technologies.'
Also some my other suggestions for the future:
- There is such thing in game as alien fugitive. This may be turned into a separate storyline. For example, if you encounter some new UFO this alien fugitive will tell you that you may find a new fugitive specialist on board of such ship (this may be a single non-combatant without a weapon) who is to be rescued (via stunning) and will help you discover something new after interrogation. This also may help to stop research pace until new fugitive specialists are rescued.
- Chemical injector could be turned into a separate line of lethal one-shot one-handed melee weapon. Every type of this weapon could act only on one type of alien (sebellian/harridan/xenomorph/adron etc.) and have accuracy lower than 50% (it is difficult to hit a target in unarmored place) and take about half or more of TU, but if hit than kill (except leaders and other highranking aliens – for them 2 shots). To create this weapon against certain type of enemy it can demand interrogation of living alien of this type to make experiments on him.
- The idea with different damage types is great. Maybe enhance it so that you can kill alien only with corresponding weapon and other damage types will give them virtually no harm despite number of shots with the exception of rockets/grenades/stun. And include some universal weapon (e.g. kinetic or energy) which will make some less than usual damage to all types of aliens. This will make research and use of new weapons more useful, but on the other hand will make game more difficult.
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Hello again, drages.
I have completed the game on veteran (xenonauts 1.5 + 0.32 HF2 with mod 0.98.2 without hotfixes).
To begin with I want to thank you and all people working on x-division. You have already made a big job and in the end this mod will be great. I would like to play the final version.
Here I describe some issues which I encountered. Some minor issues (like mistakes in Ufo-pedia) I can send you via private message if you would like. All my remarks are IMHO and are based only on my walkthrough (other people may not encounter them at all).
My suggestions are under the spoiler. If anybody doesn't want to know about some advanced techs/weapons or storyline don't open it.
General
1) First and foremost I think the tech tree should be revised.
- Some research should be more succesive – one should be devised only after another. For example, in the game I encountered: construction of F-24 demands elerium, but elerium technology is not researched yet; I got Shrike dropship long after I got Valkyrie; I also researched Maradeur after I got Fury
. It is possible to research particle sniper rifle before researching alenium sniper rifle. But the first one demands the second to manufacture so that means that logically it must have been known.- Sometimes it is difficult to predict what should be researched to improve weapon/armor. Faster weapon bullet technology game me alien alloy enrichment. Maybe add some clues to what other technologies research projects may lead.
2) I didn't manage to find sebillian weapon sergeant and sebillian weapon officer. Finally I found sebillian weapon commander (as I remember on board of a cruiser). But maybe I just was unlucky.
3) Sometimes it is not clear what you should do to continue progress espessially with interrogations. Maybe put somewhere a list of aliens you haven't interrogated yet. Also in game I have 'objective: complete operation endgame research' and there in no information that firstly I should eliminate drednought.
Crashes
- Game crashes when hyperion or centurion hovertanks are selected in workshop management interface.
Bugs
- Storm mobile artillery and rain mobile artillery fire on themselves.
Balance:
- In the late part of the game new science projects go too quickly. There is no need to manufacture new weapons/armors/aircrafts because in several days/weeks there will be new ones. All you need just built several new laboratories and hire enough scientists and in the late part of the game it is no problem. Perhaps somehow restrict the pace of technology development in the late part of the game or may it appear after some events.
- I had too much money (more than 30 mil) in the end without cheating with no idea how to spend it. On the other hand I could have build another 2-3 bases.
This is what I now remember. If you have some questions on some other specific issues I would be glad to answer.
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As i see the #### are automatic researches, isnt it? So no problem about them.. but this save game worked well and i go to a GC and finished it without problem..
Yes, it seams so.
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very strange.. can u send me just a normal geosphere save.. not a ground combat one..
OK, here is a geosphere save. But there are no #### in research screen here, it appears only if you enter research screen following message right after ground mission.
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I tried your save game but it crashed the game before even loaded the game. So do u use 0.98.2 or 0.98.1 hf 1 now? if its 0.98.1 i can't check it..
I can load this file in 0.98.2 (0.98->0.98-1->0.98-2).
X-Division 0.99 Ideas Discussion
in Modding Discussion
Posted
OK. Unfortunately I know little about what can/can't be done in the game so I write my ideas in the hope that you will find something useful to make mod better. I think after you've finished mod I will try to play with some changed parameters myself and if I find something interesting I'll let you know.