DNK

I think this is how it was in XCOM, but if not, whatever it's what I want (in more detail): When a soldier is generated, two numbers are generated for each stat, the "starting stat" and the "max stat" (additionally, you could have a rate of progression randomized for each). You would want that, mostly, the starting stat and max stat would be related, so that a high starting stat gives a high likelihood for a high max stat, but not always so. The starting stats would, as currently, all be within certain fairly tight bounds (tighter than XCOM's, and higher on the whole). The max stats would be more variable, though. So, someone might have a max strength of 67, while another might max out at 82. Same for others. That with a reduced (by half at least) progression rate for stats would make the game more challenging and negate the fact that open maps allow "supermen" to just mop up aliens in the open without difficulty or risk. There are other ideas in the forums I like, like reducing progression per mission but making it easier (so you don't have to do lots of little bs).

There'd be a centerline hardpoint. True, in real-world jets that's usually reserved for non-weapon components, but whatever.

RE: Random Maps And, yeah, I'm talking about "random modules/submaps", not fully procedural maps. I may have been imprecise in my earlier wording. I think the devs are overvaluing how "totally realistic urban spaces" are important (sure, they are), and severely undervaluing how "replayability" and "the excitement of not knowing what the map is like" are important. I find next to NO replayability from non-random maps and they severely break immersion (far moreso than "unrealistic cityscapes"), and this is a big reason I straight skipped the Firaxis remake. For single-player games, map randomization is a huge selling point, and easily makes or breaks a decision for me. I'm glad we have community maps that are partially random (which is sufficient for me to consider replayable), but I'm also sick of having to wade through countless repeats of "official" maps, which just bore and tire me of the game. The devs need a LOT, lot more non-random maps to overcome the issues of "map fatigue" for players, and it would take a lot less time to plan out some semi-random maps that avoided whatever they think is "unrealistic" for the cities/farms than to make like 40 variants of each map type. RE: Snipers / Ground Combat Broken for it to be amazingly better than anything else at killing in geneal, yes. These aren't "snipers" so much as "designated marksmen" rifles (going by the picture). They should be better than normal rifles, but not so much as to totally unbalance the game in their favor. I would suggest:Make two separate sniper rifles : one with the same damage/recoil as a rifle but with increased range (at a far higher TU cost), another with much higher damage and increased range/TU but also a ton more recoil/weight (so that they are fairly inaccurate for soldiers to use unless they are high strength). The latter needs someone who has both high strength and accuracy to wield, which (look below), should NOT be that easy to come by. The former seems better, and will be on open maps, but at the same time is really weak in shorter range situations where it can't fire as much and can't burst fire, so if you get a "random" map with a lot of CQC, your sniper squad just became weak as hell. This forces balancing on squad loadouts and severely reduces the OP nature of snipers currently. Also, the former is basically a 'scoped' version of a rifle, so it should cost the same, while the latter (for any tech tier) would require a whole reworking of the weapon to produce high-powered, high-accuracy shots, so the weapons should be much, much more expensive to boot (and with far reduced ammo counts, moreso than currently). Also, limit soldier progression a bit. A big reason snipers are so OP is that you can end up with soldiers that are really OP, with both the strength to handle any weapon and the accuracy to hit a penny at 2km. Stats need stronger caps, with soldiers have a wide randomness to their max caps, so you end up having to specialize them, instead of being able to plop a CMD or CLN into anything you want with everything you want, being able to hit anything you want at any range, and being able to run a mile and shoot 5 aimed shots in one turn because they have infinity TUs. Also, in general, make weapons less accurate so that tactics (flanking, advancing under covering fire/smoke) become more important than having 5 snipers in a line 20 tiles away playing "firing squad" with the enemy (which is unchallenging and boring and unrealistic and unbalanced). Even with a "sniper", you shouldn't be able to get 80-100% hit rates at 20 tiles. These are all things that devs can change to rebalance the game and really create a much better ground combat game, which seems to be their focus anyway. Oh, and of course making an actual battle AI for aliens that has them using cover instead of running in circles in open fields when under fire would go a long, long way.

Now, is there anyway to reduce both the top level AND the rate of increase?

It'd be nice if each tier had 3 options: -light (scout): 50% protection, 33% vision reduction, 50% weight -normal: 100% -heavy: 125% protection, 140% vision reduction, 140% weight Tuned to balance properly, but something like that. I know the sentinel-predator has this sort of, but more of that stuff.

A compromise would be to make Foxtrots only a bit more expensive than Condors, but both are unrecoverable, while alenium-based ships are recoverable (as are UFOs - magic alloys) but still wildly expensive. Really, Foxtrots are a starting tech (yeah, a 2-week into the science tree tech, whatever), so there's no reason to make them way more expensive than another starting tech, the Condor, or to make either really that expensive. In the early game, it's not unbalancing to reduce their costs a good bit, since the player's income stream is currently so low and they haven't built up base infrastructure (or multiple bases) anyway. By the mid-game difficulty spike, they're less useful and the player's overall assets and incomes are much higher, so making them "cheap to replace" when they're basically tech-obsolete is almost the same as "free recovery". Like, 65K for a Condor, 100K for a foxtrot. That said, the Foxtrots needs to be a bit more useful, like at least 3 torpedoes instead of 2.

...realistic. Check US FBI/police reports on officer accuracy in live fire situations at close (<25m) ranges. It's like 15-25% hits. Military stats are harder to come by, but at farther distances 1-10% hit rates are roughly the case, based on my own research for other games. I think highly-trained snipers are the only ones with high hit rates - something like 80% or so, but they seem to operate on different tactical concerns. Namely, their use of fire is not primarily suppression but immediate kills, while it's generally reversed for other troops, where establishing and maintaining the superiority of fire is tantamount to success.Perhaps this makes for dull gameplay (I highly disagree, it's just more drawn out and action-packed), but it also would increase the need for proper tactics and ammunition concerns. Personally, I will mod my games to take this into account, and I've always found it to be far more interesting and exciting, forcing me to take up additional tactics (flanking, etc). Obviously, snipers in this game should be treated more like "designated marksmen", having higher hit rates but not the ridiculous ones of actual snipers.

So can reality. This needs to be fixed by the devs. See (1). Sounds more like "diversity of tactics" and "devs can't fix broken OP weapons" than "random map problems".Almost all the reasons I've heard boil down to: (1) my poor tanks can't go everywhere (deal with it, it's called a "curveball" and makes things more challenging), (2) the devs haven't fixed some broken/unbalanced things, (3) I want to have the same tactical experience and limitations on every map (boring as hell).

Yeah, there's no reason to separate them. It's a lot easier for modders to only have 1 file to deal with, there's no reason for 2, and with contradictory values it gets really confusing.

Easy xml fix in one of the main config files. Just increase AP progress needed for each rank, like double-triple it.

Not sure this is the best place to ask, but anyway: Why are the weapon config files in two different places (weapons.xml and weapons_gc.xml)? And why do these two different places have contradicting values? Wouldn't it make more sense to just put them in one spreadsheet (the non-gc one is much easier for modding)?

Yeah, you should preferably be treating the air combat game as turn-based, using regular pauses to check things and give orders.

For the accuracy, we should first discuss priorities/goals. In my opinion: Long range weapons (assumed to have enhanced optics) should be inaccurate at short ranges, above average accurate at medium ranges, and have a strong benefit at long ranges compared to other weapons. Rifles and MGs (assumed to have basic optics only) should be moderately accurate at short ranges, average at medium range, and fairly inaccurate at long range. Carbines and shotguns (assumed to have lower precision of the weapon and ammo but easier to wield) should be highly accurate at short ranges, below average at medium range, and totally inaccurate at long range. Soldier accuracy should be highly limiting and not able to be mostly compensated by weapon accuracy. Soldiers with terrible accuracy and a sniper rifle should still have very poor accuracy. I think something like this would help balance sniper rifles as mostly useless in CQC situations: "avgacc" refers to the average accuracy of all weapons in this weapon's category (laser, plasma, etc). Not exactly that - a multiplier needs to be added to the total to put it in line with the rest of the accuracy formula.

Maintenance for hangars too. Actually, I prefer reducing living quarters space to increase base management difficulty, but whatever, that's not the point

Another way to tweak the rifles so they are more useful than precision rifles is to alter the accuracy formula so that it penalizes soldiers for having their own accuracy lower than the weapons (by some degree). Or just adjust TUs so that rifles can shoot more semi-accurate shots that are optimal at medium ranges, while leaving high-TU high-range accuracy shots for the snipers. Really, for the same TUs the two rifles should be roughly the same in accuracy at medium range, the sniper rifle far worse at short range, and the sniper far better at long range.

Additionally, there's "beaming". This further reduces your rate of closure with "jousting". you approach close to the maximum angle at which you can maintain a target lock (this requires further management and pausing to ensure the craft remain within the radar beam). It makes jousting even safer and more effective, and if you do make a mistake, turning to run is a lot easier since you're already partially turned away, reducing the time it takes to put the UFO on your tail. Also, before the engagement, when possible make sure that you are in a tailing engagement, rather than head-on. This can be done by not immediately engaging a target when you come in contact, but trailing for a minute and then engaging. This forces the alien craft to have to turn around to face you, which gives your fighters that much more time to get a lock and fire their torpedoes. It also makes non-fighter UFOs basically sitting ducks that won't even be able to turn towards you before being shot down. Also, remember that with large craft, you can't shoot missiles (in tailing engagements) ASAP. You must wait a few seconds since the larger craft will start farther away and their turn radii are much larger, making the time on target for the missiles too long (they disappear before impact). Needless to say, you want to be at 100% speed (or even with AB) in these scenarios, though fuel management is important since you might need to come back for a second round if your explosives aren't up to the task. Finally, remember that you can always reengage and the damage from the first engagement is stored. So, RTB, rearm, and go back out if your fuel allows it, or just send in a second wave with additional fighters along with the first to mop up. When I face an escorted carrier, for instance, I usually send a first wave with whatever and a second with my "reserve" craft which are more vulnerable but won't have to deal with the escorts, which the first will destroy.

Basically, add this requirement to base staff. The more maintenance crew, the faster the turn-around for repairs, refueling, and rearming. More doctors = faster recovery. Obviously, this would need a cap since 1000 doctors can't make your skin regrow faster, but it adds more to base management, which currently is a bit lacking.

What I'd like to see for weapons: More weight tradeoffs. Currently, you get 'free weight' up to about half your soldier's strength rating. That's a bit silly. Strength should simply reduce the loss of TUs for each kg rather than giving you free weight. This would make weapon weights far more important for roles because you're always losing TUs for added weight. A distinction (and weapon type addition) between carbines and a low accuracy/high power weapon (like a shotgun). So, a carbine is a quite low weight, low TU weapon with lowered accuracy and slightly lower power than a rifle, yet a shotgun is a normal TU, slightly higher weight, and much higher power/lower range version of a rifle. The "shotguns" have high accuracy but low range, so they are useless outside of like 10-12 tiles. "Plasma shotgun" just sounds so awesome anyway. Making the MGs similar in power to rifles. They're for suppression, ultimately, but I use them more for breaching because of how powerful they are and how they dominate in CQC. Adding higher power MGs that have only 3-shot bursts and are super heavy with lowered ammo per "canister". Reducing the peak stats across the board. 100TUs and strength are just ridiculous. Most topped out in the low 80s effectively for XCOM. That was reasonable. So, for weapon classes, I'd like: MG, LMG, 'shotgun', carbine, rifle, (battle rifle?), sniper. If you redo the weight and significantly lower the stat caps, this would make soldier customization and loadout decisions a lot more important and interesting I think.

I don't really get the "issues" with randomized submaps. I wasn't aware that having too few/many open areas was an issue. That's part of map diversity. Not all random slices of urban/industrial areas have the same feel or density of stuff. Anyway, I've fixed my issues with the submap editor, so hopefully I can start working on some myself. That said, this system is REALLY tedious as set up currently.

Adjustable sales costs based on a formula as below would be a good way to keep the profit from exploding into infinity. BP = base price (original selling price) BC = base cost (cost to build, plus cost of all alloys/etc required, plus labor/space costs) US = number of units sold over past 30 days ST = sales ticker (a modified form of the invasion ticker, so sales can increase proportionally with other costs/needs) [current sales cost] = BC + (BP-BC) * (ST/(US+ST-1)) Then, just finding a correct multiplier for the invasion ticker and balancing the profits is all that's needed. For example, taking an item with a base profit of about 9% (precision laser in V18) and an ST of about 15, profits drop off fairly quickly after the first 20 units to about half, and then slowly bottom out under 1% after that. This may be too high actually, so reducing the ST to 5 or lower for the start may be necessary, or alternatively just reducing profit margins and keeping a higher ST may work best if you want a smoother drop off.

Corvettes: get into rear trailing with 3x foxtrots (or whatever you have) (don't engage immediately, tell the squadron to tail target for a 'game minute' so on the geoscape they're both going the same direction, THEN engage). Launch all torpedoes. Return to base. Reload (takes about '5min'). Go back and do it again. Enjoy the ground battle.

The interceptor issue is, imo, one symptom of the larger issue of campaign difficulty. The thread that the post links to has it in full.

One of the big issues, like I said, was the economy was way too tough compared to XCOM. If missions paid out a similar amount, you wouldn't have to worry nearly so much. They've made the campaign far harder (and as battle AI comes into the game properly, it's going to get much worse) both in terms of economy and in terms of certain difficulty factors (losing territories, alien bases, night missions, and ofc air combat). Neutering the air combat is one way about it, but there are others:Increasing the income stream (mission rewards and regional funding). Improving night visibility and flares (also helps a lot for alien bases). Adding dusk/dawn lighting. Decreasing transport plane costs (makes the midgame a lot easier since you can't really afford them currently, also makes alien bases possible to attack). Reducing the ease of losing territories and/or making them recoverable. Rebalancing the air combat and adding my suggested features.

Difficulty levels allow you to pander to both groups. Basically, make "easy" a "learn as you play" mode with gamey/forgiving features on as default. "Normal" is more of a casual gamer mode, with things like auto-resolve and a fairly easy invasion progression. "Hard" is where the veteran gamers who love a challenge go - things like "invincible interceptors", "auto resolve" and "emergency disengage" are off by default, plus the campaign progresses faster and is less forgiving. Then there's "Nightmare" mode, which is nigh impossible and only for the most hardcore gamers.As much as I really dislike "magic interceptors", I'm fine with it being an option in easy mode. My main concern is that it worms its way into the framework of all difficulty modes as a necessary camapign balancing function that's hard for the player to eschew without being put at a severe disadvantage. But auto-resolve is something I'm totally for on all but the highest difficulty setting. Mostly, these sorts of options need to be toggleable on the campaign start screen. Games are one of those places you can have your cake and eat it too.

Cross posting the hell out of this since this is all over the forums. I've said all I have to say here: Allow fuel/speed/AB management in the geoscape to allow Xeno craft to outrun or catch up to alien craft. Allow Xeno craft to 'ditch stores' for increased fuel efficiency and speed. Rebalance aircraft abilities, including a much reduced roll distance for all craft (but especially aliens'). Examples (missile ranges/speeds/aircraftspeeds/maximum angle for target lock(increase to real-world standards of ~45deg). Greatly increase mission rewards. Allow for resource-limited profitable production. Increase nation funding. Reduce ease of losing nations to aliens. Allow off-base landings (similar to "patrol", but you are invisible to enemies and get refueled - simulates friendly airfields you can land at throughout the world). http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/6286-Balancing-Campaign-Difficulty-without-Magic-Interceptors