Max_Caine
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Posts posted by Max_Caine
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Opinions on Ballistic weapons in V7
In general, I like the ballistic weapons i V7. The assault rifle in particular seems the standout weapon. I can use it long, I can use it close up. It's very versatile. However, there are a few points I'd like to make.
LMG: I think the LMG needs a few more pros and cons. In the hands of a skilled operator, the LMG is a dangerous weapon. In my captain-rank or better, the LMG usually lands enough hits to kill whatever was targetted. However, in the hands of a rookie (e,g, starting soldier), the LMG can feel somethig of a liability. I understand that LMG was always intended to be more a suppression weapon than a killing weapon. Well, I don't believe it suppresses enough. I've been fiddling with the supression scores and a value between 30-40 (there doesn't seem to be a sweet spot) seems to make the LMG suffciently suppressive, even in the hands of a newb. Back to killyness. I've seriously considered kitting out a lot more of my best people with LMGs because they can get hits on target and the have the TUs to manhandle it into position. If I remember correctly, in X1 weapons with the heavy tag would have a malus to-hit if you moved and shot, unless you were in preadator armour. I think that might be something worthwhile resurrecting for X2, because LMgs are super effective in the right hands.
Pistol: The pistol needs somethig of a rework. I only ever really used the pistol when I got shields, and all the time I had the pistol I was praying for the converted mag pistol to finish manufacturing to I could ditch this piece of crap and get something with decent stopping power. On a shieldman, it doesn't fire enugh shots to justify using it. You fire 1-2 shots, then that;s it, you sit and take it in the next turn and hope the shield doesn't buckle uner the weight of plasma death. I reduced the TU cost of snaps to 13%, just so the shield guy can crack off shots with the pistol in the hopes of wounding/killing a target.
Opinions of laser weapons in V7
The only laser weapon I've really used is the laser rifle. It felt distinctly underwhelming. Because there's such a small power cell and because it regenerates so slowly I never used autofire because if I missd I would have an almost-empty power cell for the next turn. I almost always used aimed shots whenever I could. Anything else felt a waste. I reworked it a lot and ended up Xcom 1994'ing it. I set the regenerate to 3, that meant you would have 3 shots to play with each turn. I took out the normal shot because there didn't seem any point to it. You either would zap cheaply, or you'd spend the time to take an aimed shot. Finally, I played around with the TU and accuracy values of the weapon. Snap is 24% and 45, Aimed is 40% and 130, and burst is 60% and 80. that seemed to make it feel a lot better, but I'm a little unsure about the costs for aimed and burst. I've included a copy below if anyone wants to take a closer look.
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Does this help?
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Deleted my last post. As a Steam user I can assure you it should be there.
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Putting all habitation in one base makes no sense whatsoever (traveling to a different base to work would be grossly inefficient)
Commuting doesn't exist then. Especially when the organisation they work for has teleportation.
QuoteThe only case where specialized bases could have an advantage is workshops/production. And even then only for big items.
Foxconn doesn't exist then.
QuoteScientists can easily work in a distributed fashion, cooperating via remote communications.
Research institutes/centers don't exist then.
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Armies don't issue weapons that have less than optimal performance to their troops, as it would be a dereliction of duty, to those in their care.
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the SA80, a useless bloody weapon if there ever was one.
Amies do mess up procurement, and goverments do buy things for national defence that are totally unfit for purpose. My country in particular has a long and sordid history of buying crap that doesn't work, such as horrible engines in their Main Battle Tanks. Ok? Ok.
Now, moving on. Here, try this:
I've modded the laser rifle. It still has a three-shot power cell, but that cell now refreshes completely at the start of every turn. You get infinite ammo without having to spend TU on reloading at the cost of having a much smaller ammo count per turn. You'll find that not having to carry around extra power cells and being able to fire roughly the same number of shots that you would with the ballistic rifle every turn makes the laser rifle more interesting to use.
Now, let's discuss the different rifle types. As far as range and TU cost are concerned, currently all rifle types (ballistic, laser, plasma and gauss) have the same stats. Currently, the biggest difference betwen them is the amount of raw damage they do and the ammo they have. Ballistic does 30 and has 20 shots, laser does 45 and has 3, gauss does 55 and has 20, plasma tops out at 70 and has 12. Plasma currently looses 2 shots a turn, meaning that with no other intervention, the cell will drain in 6 turns. countered against that, each time the shot connects, it will do 133% more damage than the ballistic rfle, or 27.7% more damage than it's closest competitor, the gauss rifle. As things stand currently, I'd use the plasma rifle as it's the top dog in the damage game but with caveats - I'd unload if I could the weapon at the start of the game, and only load it just before I'm certain I got into a fight. I'd only give it to top line operators, because each shot on this thing is precious. what I'd do with it is probably decrease the degeneration rate (possibly to 1 a turn), or boost the size of the cell, or probably both, so that ammo ticks away without it ticking away too quickly.
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A (possibly) unintended result of having a global pool of staff as opposed to a local pool is that I've developed a 3rd type of specialised base after the Factory and the Research Institute - the Habitation Dome. By sticking all the living quarters in one base, I can create some startling efficiencies within my main base. I think it would be worthwhile looking at the consequence of what happens if a whole lotta living quarters were suddenly destroyed by a base raid. I also think it's worthwhile looking at specialised bases more deeply. At the moment, a specialised base consists of the same thing done over and over - the factory for workshops, the research institute for labs, the hab dome for quarters. the efficiencies gained are the concentration of staff and facilities in one place, instead of spread out everywhere. I was wondering whether it might be worthwhile examining the pros and cons of specialised bases and possibly deepening and broadening both pros and cons (perhaps specialised bases generate lots of noise that ufos pick up on? Perhaps factories generate pollution, and research institutes need more resources?)
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Bear in mind the only weapon type at the moment which wil loose ammo is the plasma type - no other weapon type does that.
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Is it? There's exactly one person who has given their experience of the dropship/equip screens - me. Chris should of course treat my subjective experience of those screens with the pinch of salt it deserves, but he isn't a mind reader. If he doesn't ask, how does he know that the UI is all it could be?
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I can answer that one - that's a feature, not a bug. One of the stats a weapon can have is to loose ammo as well as regenerate it. Now you know it's a feature, please could you continue to comment on it in the appropriate forum.
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So, a refinement of the current loadout system, then?
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I keep meaning to respond to this, but I haven't found the time. You guessed correctly that in X1 I mass-equipped soldiers in the equip screen, then assigned them. What annoys me specifically in X2 about the current system is needing to flick back and forth - on the dropship screen I can see who is there, what primary weapon they have and what armour their wearing (because the portrait includes the armour), but secondaries, belt, backpack - anything else I need to customise in the equip screen and in the equip screen I don't know which soldiers are on the dropship, so I must flick back to the dropship to see who's next. If I knew on the equip screen who was in the dropship, then my workflow would likely be the following:
1) Start on dropship screen. Roughly assemble a crew with potential placements.
2) Move to equip screen. Refine/alter equipment with whatever I have at the moment for all members of squad on dropship.
3) Move back to dropship, alter placements as necessary. Possibly flick back and forth between dropship/equip screen on an individual basis as is necessary.
4) Thunderbirds are go!
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So.... anyone else who's had experience of the Skyhawk got anything to say about it? Emily_F? chiroho? Ruggerman? I can't be the only one with a voice?!
Or can I?
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Double post I know, but...more opinions based on experience of Skyhawk
The walls are both a boon and a bane
I've used the Skyhawk as a bunker several times now. It's been pretty necessary in raids during the inital melee before I can expand outwards. At the same time, there's no room to manoevure inside the Skyhawk. I've said it several times now but it bears repeating - the way I choose the positioning of troops during setup seems to have an effect on the inital first few turns, because I can't make up easily for bad placement inside the Skyhawk.
10 soldiers seems enough.. then a little too much.. then enough again
When starting the game, soldiers are horribly vulnerable. The first few games against Psyons had me loosing 3-4 soldiers per game. All a Psyon had to do is get a lucky hit in and that was it for the soldier, so 10 soldiers seemed enough to make up for losses. I got combat armour and started facing Sebillians, whose weapons are less effective against soldiers in combat armour than Psyons ad 10 soliders seemed to be a bit excessive. Then I faced Androns while I still had ballistic weapons and holy crap 10 soldiers weren't enough for 1 Andron, let alone the 12 in the raid. Bear in mind I've only got as far as probes and scouts - I've yet to face an observer or destroyer so I can't comment yet on wether 10 is enough/not enough for the larger class of ships.
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Fiarly simple to reproduce.
1) Before a mission, equip two secondary items - I equipped a medpack and a smg. Place the medpack in the secondary slot and the smg in the backpack
2) During a mission, swap the medpack for the smg (in my case) around so the smg is in the secondary slot. You will find you cannot use the smg, but if you swap back, you can use the medpack.
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This happen twice in the first mission I tried with the new update. Each time, the HEVY launcher guy contorted herself and fired a shot at her feet. The second time, she killed herself. Frustratingly, I don't think I have a save as I'm also trying out the Iron Man mode to see how that works - unless it saves anyway?
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I do have more opinions, but I'd prefer to hold them back until the disappearing soldiers bug is completely worked out as that is a massive crimp on playing the game beyond the first few missions.
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I'm interested to hear what people think of the starting ballistic weapons. I've been doing a little tweaking, especially with the pistol, but overall I'm fairly happy with ballistic weapons at the moment. What do other people think of the v7 ballistic weapons?
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Emily, the file below is a modded version of the LMG which has the accuracy pushed up to sniper levels. Would you try a mission (it won't work properly if you use this in a mission) with this modded file? that way you can see if it's a problem with the game or if it's a case of tweaking the accuracy of the LMG to something more respectable. To use it, you have to copy it into the Xenonauts directory which if you're using steam is steam/steamapps/common/Xenonauts2/assets/assets/xenonauts/template/groundcombat/item/weapon/ . Before you copy the file, I would suggest making a backup of the original file so you can switch back easily.
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There's a set of videos that Coffee Potato kindly did here, which focussed on laser weapons. These videos, for me, had the unintended side-effect of showing endgame of flat costs. You'll notice in those videos that while he shows off the laser tweaks, everyone else is armed with LMGs and they are absolutely shredding anything that comes into overwatch range. This is because they can get multiple salvos off in a single turn, as everything has a flat cost. Is that fun for a mission? Possibly. For a whole game? Probably not.
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This save should have two grenades set up. One is near a Xenonaut next to a rocky outcropping. The other is near 2 Psyons. The one near the Xenonaut detonates, the other does not:
P.S. Ruggerman, please keep comments about weapon features to the appropriate forum.
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See attached ironman save - just started a game, the start screen does not load on the continue button or when selected from save menu
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Well, it's been a week since I last had a chance to play, and it's still happening in 7.2. The most effective way I've to repoduce the error is:
1) Start game, go straight to equip screen
2) Select an infantryman and switch role to assault.
3) Select belt items from the right-hand equip tab, add a few grenades to the backpack then start randomly moving items back and forth, ensuring that you place an item on another item. (so move a grenade to a grenade). Sooner or later it will happen.
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I actually spend quite a bit of time in the equipment screen. Firstly, there's usually some nifty bit of gear that's either researched or produced in between fights that I want to use, secondly I have quite a few soliders either going out or coming back from a strategic assignment and thirdly I don't like taking injured soliders into a fight. I take full advantage of the fact that soliders are classless: a solider that had an infantryman loadout last time might have that stripped out for an assault loadout because the last guy who had a shotgun is now healing his third-degree burns in the infirmary. Loadouts, for me are not static - they tend to evolve to match my tastes and whatever is the new hotness.
The proposed design of the Skyhawk means there are far fewer ways to exit the dropship. It's now important what order to you put soliders in on the dropship, because whatever order they go in is what order they come out. I now spend a lot of time on the aircraft screen tweaking the setup. As fights start almost immediately around a dropship, if the wrong person comes out first that could be fatal in the ensuing firefight. As a consequence, I don't find the screen popping up before launchig an annoyance, because I do forget sometimes what order I have put troops in, so I find it helpful to have one last reminder. Perhaps make it an option on the options screen to pop-up, so people have some flexibility in this?
My current "workflow" starts on the dropship screen. I choose a solider, flick to the equipment screen to tweak loadouts, then because I can't figure out on the equipment screen who is also on the dropship, I then have to flick back to the dropship screen, before going back to the equipment screen. This is, to my mind, is an inefficent use of my time. I'd like to really and truly to know on the equipment screen if a soldier is assigned to a dropship, and which one if they are. I'd like to know on the equipment screen if there are any multiples of the loadout I have equipped for the current soldier on the dropship they are on. Then when I've done fiddling about with the equipment screen, I'd like to move to the dropship screen and tweak the setup there so I have the soldiers placed as I like them. Knowing the ladout of each soldier would be very helpful.
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"I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely his lips, follow me." - Giuseppe Garibaldi
"I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country." - Nathan Hale
"Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." - Heraclitus
"Live for something rather than die for nothing." - George S. Patton Jr.
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List of missing features
in Xenonauts-2 General Discussion
Posted
There are things which may be missing, but X2 does things differently to X1 so what might be missing is in fact acheived in a different way. As en example: you cannot hire engineers or researchers. To acquire either, you must "recruit" them through operations on the strategy map. Click on one of the grey diamonds on the strategy map, preferably as close to your starting base as possible. You can then assign up to three soldiers to that. When the timer runs out, you can then select one of several rewards.
However, you begin the game with several researchers, and several engineers, as well as 2 research projects. You shuld be able to start researching immediately.