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StellarRat

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    Buckshot beta ready

    in Modding Discussion

    Posted

    ...What I would suggest is look at the full spread of weapons in relation to each other (esp. high-tech tier 3 alien weapons in relation to tier 1 human weapons), the armour ratings of xenonauts (armours_gc.xml) and aliens in general (aiprops.xml). You will see that armour values tend to be quite low, and the grunt and solider classes don't usually have armour ratings above 20-25...
    Yes, I made the buckshot even less pentrating than the pistol since the pellets are just lead balls without any jackets or AP qualities. I was thinking/hoping that some of the aliens will be heavily armored (like lobstermen) and therefore the buckshot will be pretty worthless except for suspression.

    Buckshot beta ready

    in Modding Discussion

    Posted · Edited by StellarRat

    Remember when you look at the pistol that it has lower armour penetration and lower range.

    Standing up close with a pistol will do almost as much damage as a single assault rifle shot against an unarmoured target.

    That damage goes down a touch more if they have armour.

    Once you get past the max range of the pistol (10) its damage begins to drop off while the assault rifle still does its full damage out to almost double that range (18).

    Then throw in the option of burst fire from the assault and its increased suppression rating.

    The actual damage number of a single bullet is an important part of the damage a weapon is capable of but far from the only thing you need to look at for balancing.

    OK, but if you consider the footpounds of energy and high velocity effects of a rifle compared to a pistol there really is no contest at any range. Most rifles have x2 the velocity of an average pistol. At those velocities the rifle bullet does a lot of hydrostatic damage to the internals of a fleshy creature. Of course, a rifle can penetrate more armor AND it also has a bigger chance of going deep enough to hit a vital organ in a really big critter. On a big creature a pistol might not go in deep to hurt it even if it is non-armored. Even a .44 mag would be a pretty wimpy rifle round. I'd always pick a rifle if I could only carry one weapon. The shotgun would be my second choice and pistol would be last next to a sword. My guess is if you looked at the fatality rate of rifle shots vs. pistol it's probably twice as deadly. A lot of people survive being shot with pistols, rifles not so much. I'd probably give a pistol about a 10 if I was in charge. :)

    Buckshot beta ready

    in Modding Discussion

    Posted · Edited by StellarRat

    I've been giving your mod an intensive workout, and it's early days (in-game) yet, but the one thing I would say is that's it's too cheap to shoot. It's really easy for me to bang off a lot of shots with any of the starting team members, so it doesn't really matter that much if I'm within the "proper" range for the shotgun, I can just kneel down and go KERBAM KERPOW until the law of averages gives me a hit. Clearing UFOs is now also really easy. If I survive reaction fire or have a dude with the combat shield go first, in runs my shotgun fella and he has easily enough ap to clear a scout hull by himself.
    Yeah, I even increased the action points from the original! It was as quick as pistol to start with! I would suggest moving the action points up to the same as an assault rifle (17, 20) and seeing how that works. (I had considered that, but went with compromise numbers.) Please, let me know if that is more balanced. A shotgun has a pretty big kick and while easier to aim than a rifle there is more recovery time between shots. BTW, when I was looking at the damage numbers, I was a bit stunned to see the assault only does 25 points of damage, while the pistol does 20??? There is definitely a balance issue there. I'd say the assault rifle ought to do more like 30 or 40 or pistol should do less. In my defense, all I can say is that a shotgun probably is one of the best room clearing weapons. The only thing that might be better is submachinegun (like an MP5), and of course, flamethrower or grenade.

    What do you think of the animation for the shot?

    Buckshot beta ready

    in Modding Discussion

    Posted · Edited by StellarRat

    Have not tried it out, can't play in Tactical mode on Mac v13.02

    Just a small issue - large damage increase against unarmoured targets is definitely appropriate in my limited experience with real shotguns (I'm a longrifleman and a pistol shooter and former assault rifle user, all in the line of my work at various times) ...at short to medium ranges ONLY. Stopping power is hugely increased compared to a pistol bullet or rifle bullet that doesn't tumble or "pancake" inside the body - doing damn near nothing to stop someone keyed up on PCP or adrenaline (very common in shooting situations).

    Once you get out to a certain range, depending on the choke (iirc, it's the spread as determined by the barrel config), it becomes dramatically less damaging and correspondingly easier to hit, due to few pellets spread over large area.

    I tried to take that into account, unfortunately, the formula to determine your change to hit is not something that can be modded. Had that been in the case I would have changed it specially for buckshot. My ideal formula would have the damage drop rapidly after 50 yards while still maintaining fair chance to hit. However, as it stands, the weapon starts to lose hitting power past 10 squares AND the full damage should have been higher than the 60 I assigned to it. I figured this was a good compromise, since a full load of buckshot probably has more like 90 - 180 hitting power at close range. I figured if the pistol was a 9mm and does 20, then each pellet should do 20, 9x20 = 180, however, I don't know what kind of pistol it is. Could be a 40mm or even 44 mag. so, I'm guessing and I'm assuming that the target rarely gets hit with a full load since the shotgun is insanely accurate that probably means their taking the spread into account and assuming partial hits. This the damage calculation (or so I've been told.):

    Damage Dealt = Weapon Damage * Random (0.9 - 1.1) * (Weapon Range / Range to Target)

    HP Damage Taken = Damage Dealt - (Target Armour - Weapon Armour Mitigation, min = 0)

    You'll see that at 20 squares it only does half the damage, etc... while an assault rifle is just starting to suffer a little loss of power (effective range 18.) I'm open to changing some of the parameters of course, if someone can see a better way to do this. As it stands, I think I've done a fairly good job of differentiating the shotgun from a rifle. That was my goal in the first place. I could see no point in carrying a shotgun with slugs when a rifle was available, but I could see a lot of good reasons to have a shotgun with buckshot vs. a rifle.

    Buckshot beta ready

    in Modding Discussion

    Posted · Edited by StellarRat
    Hughly increased reload time. Shells have to be put into magazine one at a time.

    OK, here is the buckshot beta. What I did was to make the shotgun less armor penetrating, increase the range to match a pistol, large damage increase, reduce the clip size, and make it slower than a pistol. This should bring it roughly in-line from a comparative perspective with the rifle and pistol based on my research.

    1. I would simply copy the bullet folder over with the new name "buckshot".

    So, copy C:\Program Files (x86)\Desura\Common\xenonauts\assets\projectiles\bullet to C:\Program Files (x86)\Desura\Common\xenonauts\assets\projectiles\buckshot

    2. In the buckshot folder replace bullet_e.png with the attached picture and rename it buckshot_e.png

    buckshot_e.png

    3. Create or replace the contents of bullet_e.xml with this:

    <?xml version="1.0"?>

    <!DOCTYPE sequence SYSTEM "sidewalkdtd">

    <sequence name="C:\Documents and Settings\Chris\Desktop\blast-red\gunshot\bullet_e.xml" source="./bullet*.png">

    <img regx="36" regy="0" name="buckshot_e" savedname="buckshot_e.png" w="0.000000" h="0.000000"/>

    <framelist>

    <frame regx="35" regy="-1" name="buckshot.png" w="55" h="13" x="0" y="0"/>

    </framelist>

    </sequence>

    And rename the file as buckshot_e.xml

    4. Create or replace the contents of bullet_spectre.xml with this:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

    <spectre id="rocket" version="1">

    <state id="default" name="buckshot" pivotX="30" pivotY="20" sortPoint="0.49">

    <anim src="projectiles/buckshot/buckshot_e" anim="main"/>

    </state>

    </spectre>

    and rename to buckshot_spectre.xml

    5. Finally, modify the shotgun entry in your C:\Program Files (x86)\Desura\Common\xenonauts\assets\weapons_gc.xml

    to this:

    <Weapon name="weapon.shotgun" bulletType="normal" emptySound="Empty Click 1">

    <props range="6" hands="2" recoil="0" weight="5" isHeavy="0" clipSize="8" reloadAPCost="45" reloadSound="Weapon Shotgun Reload" reactionModifier="1.4"/>

    <SingleShot sound="Weapon Shotgun Single" delay="0.6" suppressionValue="30" suppressionRadius="2">

    <Set1 ap="19" accuracy="83" />

    <Set2 ap="22" accuracy="90" />

    </SingleShot>

    <BurstFire/>

    <GUIImage name="gui/weapons/Shotgun.png"/>

    <GroundImage name="grounditemimages/shotgun.png"/>

    <Ammos>

    <Ammo name="ammo.ballistic.shotgun" type="kinetic" damage="60" mitigation="4">

    <Projectile spectre="projectiles/buckshot/buckshot" speed="1200"/>

    <Impact spectre="particles/bulletplume/bulletplume"/>

    </Ammo>

    </Ammos>

    </Weapon>

    Let me know if you like it.

    buckshot_e.png.85c11987cba8ffaf9afa6b624

    Buckshot mod for shotgun

    in Modding Discussion

    Posted · Edited by StellarRat

    This is my first crack at it. I've changed the suppression, damage, range, and mitigation numbers. I'd like to use a different projectile too, but I'm not sure how all that works. Anyway I've done the best I can with what they give us to work with. In reality, it's difficult to imitate a shotgun with buckshot without being able to mod the to-hit formula too. Below is the bit of XML to replace. The shotgun now has the effective range of a pistol and does a lot of damage, however, it has poor penetration. I also lowered the magazine capacity to 8 from 12.

    <Weapon name="weapon.shotgun" bulletType="normal" emptySound="Empty Click 1">

    <props range="10" hands="2" recoil="0" weight="5" isHeavy="0" clipSize="8" reloadAPCost="15" reloadSound="Weapon Shotgun Reload" reactionModifier="1.4"/>

    <SingleShot sound="Weapon Shotgun Single" delay="0.6" suppressionValue="27" suppressionRadius="2">

    <Set1 ap="9" accuracy="83" />

    <Set2 ap="11" accuracy="90" />

    </SingleShot>

    <BurstFire/>

    <GUIImage name="gui/weapons/Shotgun.png"/>

    <GroundImage name="grounditemimages/shotgun.png"/>

    <Ammos>

    <Ammo name="ammo.ballistic.shotgun" type="kinetic" damage="60" mitigation="4">

    <Projectile spectre="projectiles/bullet/bullet" speed="1200"/>

    <Impact spectre="particles/bulletplume/bulletplume"/>

    </Ammo>

    </Ammos>

    </Weapon>

    Where can I find the formula for range vs. accuracy (aka to the to hit chart)

    in Modding Discussion

    Posted · Edited by StellarRat

    Is there a modable xml file that allow me to change the % chance to hit at different ranges? I'm not talking about the weapons XML. I need to mod the actual formula that determines how range affects accuracy. I'm trying to mod the shotgun for buckshot. I guess the other question is can it be weapon specific? Also, is there moddable formula for range vs. damage?

    Feedback on "Goldhawk Interactive & Piracy"

    in Xenonauts General Discussion

    Posted

    Of course proving this type of scenario isn't really possible to prove or even find out how often it happens and there is no way to know if people that are jerks and just want free stuff (there will always be those, people that just want something for nothing and can't think beyond their own selfish desires but I really doubt they would have forked out money for it anyway in the first place) so we're back to hypothetical situations where we can't prove anything...
    You have to admit that if the pirating was impossible the developers would make more money, no? All those selfish jerks would have to cough up some cash or not play any games. If they didn't also steal their computers I would have to think they planned to use them and would be forced to buy software, right?

    Air maneuver

    in Xenonauts General Discussion

    Posted

    No, I'm still not following you.. Can you perform what this command would do manually or would it bend the rules of certain mechanics?

    Do you at any time pause the aircombat to issue orders? The first impression I get is that you want a "handholding" mechanic because you aren't used to pausing the battle. I apologize for the dirty word but to my limited understanding of the problem it seems like you want to have the game play for you when you already have all the tools to do just that yourself??

    I don't want to spend all day making course changes and throttle changes, pausing, and correcting and pausing. The pilots would do this naturally. A pilot is always going to employ his weapons with the least risk to himself unless ordered otherwise i.e. make the best possible intercept then clear out. I guess I'm asking for some automation of intercepts to speed things up. Do you get it now?

    Feedback on "Goldhawk Interactive & Piracy"

    in Xenonauts General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by StellarRat

    Admittedly there are some very stupid laws out there and there are others that a difficult to obey consistently, but if you support or actually pirate games you're only hurting your own hobby. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the developer (specially the small shops.) How would you feel if you spent three years working on a project night and day after putting up your own saving then when you went to sell it you found out only 1/2 the people that are playing it paid for it? That could be the difference between making a profit and losing money. Programming games is a very time intensive job. I've done it. I remember a lot of 12 and 16 hour days.

    Air maneuver

    in Xenonauts General Discussion

    Posted

    From the front or from the back? I'm having a hard time imagining that they could keep the distance if the enemy is heading towards the plane.
    That's the trick isn't it? The computer is much better at doing some things than human pushing buttons specially if you have multiple planes to control and aliens to watch. The button/command I had in mind would be smart enough to guide the plane around the target at max. weapon range by flying an arc and controlling the throttle for you. Even during a head on engagement it's possible to turn hard and try to swing around on one side or the other. If you were to try this only using throttle the alien would just run over you eventually or you'd have to do a 180 and just run like crazy (denying yourself any change to fire.) Does that make any sense?
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