TrashMan
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Posts posted by TrashMan
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Drones are useful, but the problem comes from jamming/hacking.
The only way around that is to have AI (actually an Expert System, there is no true AI) so the drone/android accepts no commands from outside until the mission is complete.
This comes with it's own problems, as now you have a drone/android that even you cannot stop until specific condition is achieved. The best condition should simply be time (no commands accepted for however long a mission would take). Also, the AI will be limited and unflexible.
So yeah, they are already used, so why not.
The question is in what roles would you use them. Personally, scouting/recon sounds the best. Even drone fighters for long-range combat (missile lobbing, not dogfighting)
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Which is exactly why you want to get to it quickly.
It still relies mostly on people to destroy sensitive stuff, of which there is usually only a few really interesting bits, and it takes time.
Now, consider that for an alien ship, literally every single bit could be useful means that destroying al of it takes quite a bit more time and effort.
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And JA2 is the greatest team strategy game to have ever been made.
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Cyborgization is totally unnecessary and a waste of fund. Everything a cyborg could do wan be done with cheaper equipment that ISN'T premanently glued to a person (and would thus always be with him, which is problematic).
When your soldiers goes home on leave or to drink in a pub, he leaves his exoskeleton and guns at the base armory. Your drunken cyborg would have it on his person all the time. BAD IDEA.
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13 hours ago, Bobit said:
I don't like this. A smaller cone of fire can be a significant downside in this game if you want to suppress. That's why the original has all hits guaranteed to hit and the other shots in a variable cone based on distance (which can still hit the target). Also I don't really know how the engine is now "more 3D" than the last game.
So?
Suppresive fire can also be done with aim but doesn't have to be, and given that the cone would depend on actually AIMING, then you can have both. A wide cone when not aiming and just spraying, and a narrow when you do.
The way Jagged Alliance 2 did was the best - the more AP's you spend, the more tighter the shot. As your mouse hovered over the enemy you got an aiming circle shooting AP cost. With a right click you could increase (cycle trough) the cost and the circle became smaller, indicating fireing.
You basically had hipfire/no aim, fast aim, aim, careful aim. With mods it's gotten even deeper (and better).
As far as I'm concerned you don't even need a % to hit displayed at all. Something simple as "good line of fire/visibility" / "bad line of fire/visibility" indicator would be more then enough, but I feel even that is unnecessary.
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The total number of aircraft you will be able to hold at one of your bases is not only not final, but also depend on how many hangars you build.
Although, if you ask me, airfield/hanger should be a separate geoscape building. Your base should only hold hangers for the transport, and fighters would be stantioned in fighter bases that you build.
Those would be simple pre-fabs. an airfiled with hangers, supplies, pilot barracks and simple radar. You can upgrade the airfield to hold more planes and pilots, and upgrade the radar.
This is simple, frees up slots on your base for important things, and neatly separates fighters and pilot managment away from your base. Also, it makes sense for an airbase to be a separate site.
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3 hours ago, Bobit said:
1) Self-destruct doesn't exist irl because explosives are worth less than the enemy capturing it. This is clearly not the case here.
2) Direct escorts aren't the proper way to deal with a large number of fighters. You can't get a large enough fleet. Better to kill all the fighters in the wave then send out the ranger. It's definitely possible to balance it in an interesting way but it would require a rework.
1) nope. You have state-of-the art hardware that doesn't have self-destruct. B2 bomber? F35? Newest aircraft carrier? All may have newest tech that you wouldn't want your enemy to get. None of them have self-destructs. True, the tech difference is not that big, but the point stands.
2. Who sez you can't get a large enough fleet?
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1 hour ago, Ninothree said:
From what I understand, this leads to its own problems. Well, that is not surprising. I mean that the problems it leads to are, I think, quite odd ones that make playing the game a bit counter intuitive in terms of lining up shots.
I think that you have to game compromises for the gameplay, partly in terms of fun (yes shotguns should turn enemies into red mist when fired at close range) but also in terms of feasibility (what do the mechanics of simulation allow).
Nah. Phoenix Point has the cammera move to the gun POV so you can see how good the LOS is before taking a shot. Works easily. The whole "hit percentage this is not even really needed. All you need is LOS and the soldiers accuracy and you can guesstimate.
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You had one job. One job.
Why does (almost) no one bother to do proper projetile simulations anymore? In a 3D game it's trivial. Especially turn-based ones. Accuracy is basically the size of the fire cone. Fire projectile and see if it hit anything.
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If my memory serves me right, Jagged Alliance 2 had infinite (well, across map) sight range, but obstacles could block it. Also, things like darkness and cammo could make someone harder to see. You could ambush unsuspecting patrols from behind the bushes (if you're next to it you can see trough, but enemies cannot really)
Worked Wonderfully there.
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On 4/27/2019 at 4:27 PM, Bobit said:
Problem with advanced geoscape air tactics is that then you have to micromanage that. They already have instant skyranger because getting downed by fighters was not very interesting, you basically just retreat the skyranger until the airspace is secure. I say leave the tactics to the tactical level.
But what if you can't? The Skyranger might not be fast enough. You might have been late in noticing the aliens.
Why would more tactics and involvement in geospace be bad?
As for micromanaging, it can be handled as easily as assigning permanent escort or groups/wings. Basicaly, in the base set up two fighters to escort your transport, and as long as those fighters are able they will launch with the transport automatically and escort it. Hell, it can work for any craft.
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On 4/26/2019 at 6:00 PM, Bobit said:
Realistically the crafts would self-destruct instantly upon crashlanding.
How many planes you know that have a self-destruct button? OR tanks? Or ships? It's common in movies, but it really isn't there.
Even in WW2, they way to avoid capture was scuttling - usually by opening all comparments and letting the ship flood (that still make it recoverable with gear, and it's useless for alien spaceships) or blowing up the ammo maganizes (for that the vehicle must use high-explosive weapons to begin with. And it also leaves enough pieces to study). Self-destrust enver was a standard, and properly making sure nothing of value remains is time-consuming.
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I just want to add something. You probably already considered this, but in terms of flexibiltiy (in general) and modding, how is damage of a weapon tied with ammo?
IMHO, the best way is to have damage of a weapon defined both in the weapon itself AND in the ammo, with the ammo values (if defined) overriding the weapon values.
Which means that it makes it easy to balance and create different weapon types, while still having different ammo types.
So you can have different power cells for lasers with different capacities (but same damage.. or not), different ammos with different properties and values.
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"Modeling properly" in this context means to make it work as intended. You don't really need super-accurate simulations for that, just approximations.
And unless I'm mistaken, in Xenonauts 2 every projectile is fired in a cone and the hits and collisions are calculated (as it should be), which means shotgun should work properly with minimal effort
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Doesn't matter if it's human or not. All technologly must fallow the basic laws. But let's not go further, this is de-railing the thread.
To make any such mission more interesting, you can have variations, depending on type of craft that was downed, time that has passed and some other factors.
The more time passes, the less rewards you get.
There is a chance an alien craft will arrive at the crash site (you should be able to see it on geospace and intercept if necessary). If it lands it would speed up crashsite deterioration. Depending on size and type of the craft, when a Xenonauts force is arriving it may drop additional hostiles and leave, or try to intercept (escorts matter), or try to bomb the site (greatly reduces loot from site, but also reduces hostile count)
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22 hours ago, Max_Caine said:
The word "pellet" in this case is something of a misnomer. What it refers to is what would otherwise be called a bullet in other weapon systems. The shotgun fires 4 of these at once. Experiments with more than 4 turn the shotgun into something more like a blunderbuss or streetsweeper.
Just model a shotgun properly. It will find its niche. The whole point of a shotgun is to fill the air with lots of stuff at once.
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I HATE that phrase. Sufficiently advanced technolgoy is NOT indistinguishable from magic, whoever said that is a moron.
OK, it might be to a caveman who has no understanding of the most basic of physics, but once you do grasp the fundamentals then pass that treshold it does not apply anymore.
But the point is that teleportation is so abuseable and can be so insanely OP with a bit of creative application, that it's best for writers to avoid it, unless they plan to spend a HUGE amount of time over it.
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Why not give the shotgun more pellets per shot? Unless I'm mistaken, they use way more than 4.
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On 4/23/2019 at 6:48 PM, Wiz33 said:
That's why I said we need to improve abilities rather than raw stats. Being able to learn new abilities would be more realistic (known as cross training) so there is still soldier growth. For example, Stealth movement will reduce the chance and distance of being spotted, heavy weapon training will reduce the TU needed to operate hvy weapons, scout will get a spotting bonus, electronic skill can offer bonus to remotely operated vehicles (say more TU for a robotic unit). Instead of raw stat improvement, you can use proficiency improvement so experienced soldier get a TU bonus since they can do tasks faster (which is also more realistic). All that combined will make your soldier unique and valuable to keep alive.
More shots to kill is not really a problem if suppression is taken into effect. The amount of fire being taken (number of rounds instead of actual damage received) will affect the chance of a unit to stop their intended action and try to seek cover nearby (maybe with an exception to robotic units). they should also incur an accuracy penalty as it's going to be hard to line up a shot while being shot at.
I like this.
And I agree that reaction/supression fire is more than just killing an enemy. If a hit lowers enemy TU or supresses them/stops their action, then it's doing it's job.
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As I said, a can of worms. Once practical applications of said technology become evident, any sci-fi race using them seems like morons. There is no need for it when simple explanations work just fine.
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23 hours ago, Chris said:
And then you'd have a setup where assault rifles are by far the best weapon in almost every situation, which is exactly why the vast majority of modern soldiers use assault rifles and other weapons are relatively uncommon. I'd rather have the game balanced around what makes a fun game rather than realism for the sake of realism.
Assault rifles are generalist weapons, which is why they are the most numnerous.
Shotguns and SMG's are better for room clearing/corridor fighting - this why they are used by SWAT/Commandos on such missions.
LGM's are for supression/crowd control.
The point I'm making is the reason other weapons are less common is practicality - an assault rifles will preform well against most enemies at most ranges. This does not make them worse. They each have their role. And trying to force everything to be equal is silly.
If I'm fighting in the wood or open terrain, assult rifles and snipers would make the bulk of my armament.
Indoors? Shotguns and SMG's.
Why would an equal distribution of weapons even be desirable?
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I despise teleportation in 99% of sci-fi. Silly technology with tons and tons of loopholes. A can of worms best never opened.
A far simpler explanation is that the aliens are rigging the thing to explode. Sabotaging/scuttling/destroying equipment and things that would be of use. No need for magical teleporters. Get there before they destroy everything worth salvaging.
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On 2/17/2019 at 10:24 PM, gimli said:
Hi all. I would really love to see 3 random characteristics of 'sensible / disoriented / gutty' in NPC's.
Sensible : Always go and hide in the small rooms (like in the movies where janitors keep their stuff and see passing aliens from the door gaps) . Whenever they see Xcom agents they go near chopper and wait there
Disoriented : Turned frenzy from ongoing shots and view of aliens running like crazy , running like headless chickens
Gutty : Went on alien hunt with shotguns or small arms
The military personel might be gutty kind until they are overwhelmed .
Instead of separate AI's, better for the AI to have STATES.
States would be (for example) PANIC, RETREAT, ESCAPE, HIDE, REGROUP, SEEK, ATTACK. Depending on type of NPC they would be going from state to state each turn, which would inform their objectives and behavior.
Soldiers would have a high change of using smarter states (regroup, retreat) while a civilian would generally not. Also, AI being able to pick up weapons and use them (not likely)
RETREAT - fall back to the edge of the map or a fortified position, catiously
REGROUP - seek to link up with friendlies.
ESCAPE - run away
SEEK - cautious advance
ASSIST - heal/defend or provide suppressive fire (friendlies have to be visible for this state)
HIDE - seek a room or a place that blocks vision.
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18 hours ago, Blade said:
Oh yeah, the F-22 Raptor, which was so much ahead its time that while it is better than the F-35, it is just not worth the double price so the US has stopped producing it.
There are so many interesting weapons on Earth, why everyone is using an AK-47...
Because it's cheap?
You have plenty of modern guns to choose from. MY personal favorite:
And speaking of aircraft, stealth is GREATLY overrated. Most of the modern craft are trash that cannot be flown without computer assist and require three times as much maintanance.
The best craft the US ever produces are the F-14, the A-10 and the F-15.
The A-10 is a flying thank with the BRRRRT gun, nuff siad.
The F-15 is a versatile craft with an amazing weight/thrust ratio.
And the F-14 is hands down the best airframe ever designed. For such a big craft it had amazing speed and manouverabiltiy and flexibility. It could carry a huge payload and the B variant upgrade made it a premire ground attack craft of the navy, in addition to being an unparraelled interceptor. Those AIM54 Phoenix missiles have insane range and speed (big boys though). I have not met a navy pilot or carrier officer who didn't lament it's forced retirement (corruption and corporate sabotage saw it grounded before it's time) So Chris, if you have an advanced aircraft, make it F-14 inspired.
The bow at the end kills me.
Could cover feel more substantive?
in Xenonauts-2 General Discussion
Posted
Don't automate it. Leave in player hands. Like I said, right mouse click or mouse wheel adjustng cone/AP would work best.