Conductiv

I love these updates, good to see the MARS made it in..even though it currently has some odd behaviors and keep tabs on the balance, while your competitor phoenix point has a larger team their game had some..significant..balance problems and honestly still does (in the players favor and that might be the best area the balance can swing to, but still..on release it was an art as to not blunder into an power combo that trivialized the game). it seems to plague the (high profile) turn based tactical genre the most to end up between a "million turn drag" and the "one-turn-enemy-is-all-dead and from this point on it's a cakewalk".

I have to disagree on the variation of units, there are only 5 base pandoran units and while they might switch an arm or leg for something that mounts a different weapon or modifies its speed stat there isn't all that much variation. the enemy does not adapt to you..it only stacks armor, damage and HP based on your total mission count. there would be different counters for the units if the capstone skills of every tree weren't so insanely broken. I fully agree with the complaints though, its phoenixpedia is far from complete and has incorrect information in it, balance is completely shot, many of the upgrades you get are actually weaker then the base weapons you have as they add a status that the game simply moves too fast for, a fair chunk of the research options you get lie to you about what you get, a huge amount of the events are just get X resources with a sad story and the diplomacy..other then the milestone missions are nonsensical. this on top of a boatload of bugs. the free aim system adds some tactical capability..but the whole cover system is almost moot..as only 2/5 units of the whole pandoran roster are actually affected by cover and 1 of those needs a specific variant to be affected atoll. cover is effective when fighting humans..but human enemies are insanely weak overall abilities are varied enough, they actually promote a fair share of stats but are again...poorly balanced...you have a lot of stuff to play with..but 70% of it is pointless as its completely outclassed by other options. again balance..the status weaponry has no identity atoll, no sane person is going to wait 5 turns to strip armor if the general goal is to instantly kill almost everything in sight, no person is going to wait multiple turns to cause panic etc etc...vehicles like the mutog..take 3 soldier slots but deal significantly less damage then even 1 soldier, the opportunity cost is ridiculous. huge potential in the game, and I do not regret buying it...but the balance, at the moment of this post is terrible (only a few unbalanced enemies, but you basically trip over OP combinations that completely break the game in the players favor..first playthrough I managed an invisible soldier that could dash around shotgunning half the map to death by refunding the AP after the shot and dealing double damage on every shot... big enemies posed no danger atoll as I had 1 dude simply empty a mag in it...doesn't really matter what mag..heavy weapon, sniper... pistol it basically killed anything with a click of the button and refunded the WP I used to start the ability)..so bad that it saps the will to play it anymore, I have to deliberately gimp myself as to not break the balance.

the tactical layer is the meat of the game for me, I want options to play with that don't feel completely obsolete once I go up a tech tier and I want solid balance between weapon types, skills and tiers to avoid being forced to go for 1-trick pony tactics. keep it tactical rather then a damage race... next up stability, minimize bugs and crashes...might seem obvious but nothing kills my enjoyment of a game faster then having to go online to find a way past a section that always locks up, crashes or otherwise fails to proceed. music and sound is really the gravy...good sound can help out with the immersion during the tactical battles. a solid xenopedia to explain game concepts..if I apply a status I want to be able to read what it actually does rather then having to guess. this was somewhat solid in X1, as it had mistakes and wrong info in it..but at least it was there..so I'd love a better redo of that strategical layer is really a sideshow for me, I hardly care for the air combat atoll and I don't play this to end up with something similar to a civ game where I can bullshit my way to victory. for me at least its the "farm resources to get all the tactical goodies I want to use" and i have no problems managing income, personnel, resource and production timers...but I'm not doing it to charge entree fees and set up sales margins like a tycoon game.

might I suggest linking to them again if you ask people to respond to them, its faster and easier then digging through the thread to find someones suggestions.

while I am pretty sure a frag would blow out a wooden wall if it happened to land right next to it, because if the charge wouldn't the shrapnel would turn a set of boards into swiss cheese. rugger is correct in his statement that they are not intended for demolition. demolition equipment we would be looking at incendiaries from the lowly molotov to thermite charges, or high explosives (launched like rockets with HE or tandem warheads (also HE, just a series of charges as to drill the main explosive in the structure to be blown up, or past spacers) or set like the C4) or the shaped charge (launched...or set, less likely to spread the structure all over, better for punching holes or making entry pionts)

the way Charon put it, I would be indifferent to the system as its basically a slot machine for possible combat buffs or gimping a soldier if they almost get killed. its not likely to buff soldiers to extreme levels and it is likely to individualize soldiers if they get shot. The way coffee potato put it makes it look like a achievement hunt for stat boosts, this obviously has balance impact and I would generally oppose an implementation of that kind.

more TU's doesn't mean the soldier gets more time, it means the soldier gets more done in the same time. (every TU piont is more effective time expenditure) for example: a "turn" would be 3 seconds of time where this realtime. (this is a made up number to illustrate the point) -you have a 45 TU rookie, every 15 TU points would be a second. -you have a 90 TU veteran, now every 30 TU is a second. flat costs grow along this line meaning that soldiers get notably faster. 90TU soldier can move faster because it can fit more 3-TU costs in its TU bar. flat costs still apply to movement as far as I have seen percentile costs remain exactly the same time wise 34% of that TU bar would mean the action takes a second, regardless if you have 45 or 90TU's. effectively your weapons rate of fire doesn't increase...it does not make a soldier slower. the stat to improve the soldiers lethality is accuracy, allowing the soldier to use the higher rate of fire burst modes more reliably, or land more shots with the semi-automatic options.

I mostly agree with TrashMan here, I'll elaborate below. die-roll-death, you get shot ...roll a D20...came up 1...ahh bad luck your dude in the best armor in the game just got its head blown off by the dude with a spudgun. you attack..he rolls a 1..he gets his head blown off. now his 6 buddies run around the corner..take shots...roll for defense player characters...or player controlled soldiers are far more likely to get attacked a lot more over their career and they are not easily replaced, the enemy alien..for all intends and purposes is a disposable pawn capable of depleting his entire arsenal in a single game and suicide himself just to get hits in on player controlled units. this enemy alien will simply be refreshed if he survives or perishes, so 1-shotting him with a juicy crit to the face feels good but is ultimately barely consequential...him getting that hit on you with 1-shot potential regardless of what armor you are wearing feels a lot worse. so yes I would very much go for a system that allows for a reliable way of counteracting enemy fire. note that, even if you know the soldiers can take 1 hit reliably...as soon as the armor is cracked the stress is on every time this soldier ends up in a potentially dangerous situation. compare this to getting pushed into a hard fight with half your health (or healing items if the game has them) already depleted. yes good players don't get hit often, part of being a good player means not getting your men shot at in the first place and the armor is a safeguard...this will not change if a single shot can be stopped...it will stop once you can reliably stop full on bursts or plant your dude in heavy armor in the middle of the open face-checking for machinegun-rounds.

very few devs have regular updates and actually talk realistically about what they are working on, so I really do appreciate every update given. I am wondering if the test version the beta testers are playing now is actually feature complete...I havn't heard a word about the MARS weapons platform from the testers in any feedback thread.

fair enough, but I look at it this way how big is the difference between 2 well drilled soldiers, 1 of them just had 5 more deployments...the recruit pool isn't drawing first time shooters from a nearby range, but is hiring trained often veteran soldiers. from a realistic perspective the difference between a complete newb and an expert is huge, but the difference between experts, even years of experience apart is relatively small. and from a gameplay perspective: with the stat spread going from 40-70 as a starting stat, and eventually going all the way up past 100 pionts. the difference in what a soldier can do with 70 acc is significantly less then what a veteran soldier with 150 acc can do (using the TU stat increases listed in other threads, and supplanting them in the accuracy stat) the veteran being able to sacrifice the accuracy bonus from semi automatic fire and fully focus on burst fire with almost no drop in accuracy. doubling his hit rate in semi, or almost tripling its effectiveness in burst (assuming 3 round burst) now I would call a effectiveness increase nearing 200% far from neglectable. even if you would get an optimal recruit in the desired stat (acc, 70) versus a capped veteran (assuming cap 100 rather then the 150 stats that are apparently achievable) you would still have a 40+% increase in overall firepower, again I would not call this advantage insignificant extra shots also work multiplicatively with this effectiveness increase, being able to squeeze double the shots at significantly higher accuracy will make the soldier twice as effective as it was just factoring in accuracy boosts. with flat costs and the ability for troopers to get a increase in the amount of shots they can fire on top of boosting their overall accuracy...what would happen if a midgame mission would go sideways and you lose 6 out of 8 of your best troops, and you now have to train greenhorns...if these rookies are only 15-50% as effective as your original squad, your next mission will basically have you go in at 63% of your previous power in the best case scenario (8/(6X0.5+2)), I'm going to assume that it would be relatively hard for a player to recover from something like that. (apart from the god power that the "load game" button provides) in effect this can go 2 ways, (ignoring adaptive difficulty) either the game is balanced around you having god-like troops past a certain point and when you do take a loss you are well behind the curve. or the game is set up in a way where losses are expected and your super-soldiers simply cake walk their way through. so in conclusion: it would both generate too big a performance gap from a realistic perspective, and it would cause a situation where losing troops should be rare from a gameplay perspective.

I actually prefer the % based system, mainly because it reduces the gap between novice and veteran soldiers in a significant way. at least giving me the illusion that the soldiers had basic training before they where assigned to this command. more firepower is always desired so asking about a leveling system that would allow you to squeeze more shots off in a turn of a veteran trooper isn't exactly unexpected. but do keep in mind that firepower is already increasing as the soldier gets more experience and because of that it will be harder and harder to replace the trooper if he gets wounded or killed. and being forced to keep a powerful squad alive all game OR having a team of supersoldiers by midgame means that it will move to the age old "A-team-saved-the-world" trope. in general firepower consists out of rate of fire, range, accuracy and power...with both boosting the accuracy through the "aim or accuracy" stat that the soldiers level in as they complete missions and getting more shots through the "% discount or extra TU" stat, you will drastically increase the gap between troops at different skill levels, relative to only having one of these factors being significantly affected by leveling.

I can solve that in war size is usually a bad thing, it makes things expensive (to build, operate and maintain), hard to hide and easy to hit. especially land based vehicles as bridges, railways etc can only handle so much weight before they are either damaged or outright broken. and the terrain doesn't allow for a monotonous way of movement (like ships, submarines and aircraft benefit of...but aircraft have to deal with the tyranny of gravity) tanks, self propelled guns and other armored vehicles are usually made as small as possible while still big enough to carry their ordinance or the personnel they are supposed to protect. big or many guns are still beneficial but its a balance, same with the level of armor protection versus the mobility, or amount of weapons relative to the size and weight of the vehicle. now bipedal robots with immensy good balance (so it doesn't get knocked over when it does catch a hit) might have some benefits when it comes to handling some terrain biomes, but generally...vehicles can pack the same level of heat in a more compact package.

the first threaded shield vehicle would be terrible for war...it makes for a bigger target you can't hide and it would be defeated by any terrain with obstacles that don't have a lot of space between it (doors, a couple of trees) it doesn't have the power or mass to overpower these obstacles...nor does it have protection against anything but small arms fire (and light ones at that) the shieldarm soldier would have significant vision problems, and issues taking cover...on top of that that extra arm is begging to hook onto something and getting the trooper stuck. OK for urban settings when facing billy with his dads shotgun...as the options do provide good protection if the trooper only has to worry about being assailed from 1 direction by low power firearms across flat terrain. granted...it seems the lizards from space like their variant of shotguns...

I oppose removing semi-automatic fire from rifles, the assault rifle concept was conceived as a medium between high power long range rifles who would either be too slow in close quarters, too big or to cumbersome to use in any automatic capacity, and submachineguns/machinepistols who could dominate close range but who's rounds often didn't have the power or accuracy to take on long range enemies. the design focused on 3 main things, enough ballistic accuracy to place single shots at long range, controllable automatic capacity at short range and an ammunition type that could be carried in capacity and would be useful at both range types. this moved AR's to having at least a single shot and an automatic mode. the single shot is intended to mimic marksmen rifles, hence it should be accurate...significantly more accurate then a burst. it is supposed to be the shot you use when the target is far off, you have a good firing position and you have time to aim. burst is actually a medium to prevent you from ending up with an empty mag in close range, even relatively slow firing AR's tend to have rates of fire around 600RPM (most fire significantly faster), meaning it will take 5 or less seconds to empty a magazine (on average 30 rounds) if spraying, and having to reload with enemies within spitting range is less then optimal. problem in this game with rifles so far seems to be that people love spraying guns and the "balance suggestions" I keep hearing seem to keep ramping up the burst accuracy...just making the rifles semi-automatic modes pointless. Pistols are mainly conceived out of convenience, a light self defense weapon with relatively short range. they never took a spot as the main weapon of war, but always a utility backup position like the dagger. pistols are light weight and can be manipulated in 1 hand. unlike machinepistols, they also tend to have a decent staying power in a fight as they tend not to be sprayed (read you don't have to reload instantly). they make good weapons for enforcement positions because it is often in close range and the idea is that you don't get into a shootout to begin with. as soon as they do expect actual resistance with firearms, enforcement usually opts for machinepistols, shotguns or AR subtypes. in the game...other then having a hand free and low impact on ones carry capacity, they should not give major advantages. (note that MP's are usually best operated in 2 hands, because like full auto AR's they run out of ammo fast and to my knowledge no MP has been desighned in such a way you can reload the thing with only 1 hand (hollywood magic aside)) this game has controlled ammo consumption in the automatic modes provided, and turn based greatly mitigates to oh shit effect that a weapon "click" effect gives when you realize your mag is now empty.

are psionics still working as a cross map "weather" like phenomenon? where your troops are struck at random with morale saves at a interval of per X turns until they finally kill the cause hiding somewhere deep into the base or spaceship? wouldn't this invariably lead to rather binairy counterplay? either you have good bravery and you can ignore it, or you have bad bravery and you have to basically hog every support item AND crawl your way through the map saving TU for its bonus. that is if the RNG element isn't so large that any sort of preparation would be meaningless to begin with.