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I have been experimenting a fair bit with balancing the weapons into the roles I see them fitting in. I keep running into the same problem though. The current way of setting the stats and abilities of the weapons is quite restricted. There is a single shot mode with adjustable accuracy per step and only one burst mode. This leaves a lot of the weapons feeling very similar to me. I propose an alteration to how the two fire modes are handled by the game. Specifically both fire modes would be identical. This would allow much wider variation between weapons and finer adjustments when balancing them. *edit for clarification* If both modes allow for all of the options that are currently locked into either single shot or burst modes then more combinations of abilities are possible. For example some weapons may have primary fire modes with multiple rounds fired, others with multiple levels of burst fire which is currently not possible. Additionally I would also like to see the individual steps of each mode define the characteristics of the shot rather than the mode itself. This would allow yet more variation. Examples follow to try and clarify my points. Currently the stats for weapons are defined here: I would change them to this configuration: These changes would mean each individual step could define its own number of rounds fired, as well as the suppression generated and the amount of ammo used, rather than only the AP cost and accuracy. Ammo count and damage multiplier would be useful as weapons like the lasers could have a secondary fire that was more like an overcharged shot than a burst (uses three lots of charge for a 1.5x damage shot etc). Each mode would pretty much require its own link to an animation spectre if it had a different number of rounds fired. Specifying the GC crosshair image used here would also allow for different shot types to have a different secondary fire icon, for example the current burst fire icon or an overcharged shot icon overlay on the aiming reticle. Clip size moved to the ammo type if possible would allow for different ammo to have different capacities, extended mags, improved batteries etc. A few examples of current and possible versions of weapons follow (most numbers for example only). Single shot and burst fire modes are referred to as primary and secondary fire as I copied these from another of my posts. Machine gun: Assault rifle: Carbine: I like the idea of sniper rifles with two fire modes, one that gives you increased accuracy the longer you aim (as current) and one that gives increased damage instead of accuracy (i.e. aiming for the critical areas). I would like to see machine guns where you can decide how many rounds you will fire at the enemy by selecting the shot type with right click. Laser weapons that kick out a more powerful single shot instead of a burst.

Hi guys have another simple question. I never seen burst reaction fire even if TU reserved and switched to burst. Do you know the workout for this?

So, one of the last things to consider before beta (or in the early stages of beta perhaps) is a revamp to how burst fire works. This is seperate from, but linked to, the addition of suppression mechanics to the game. The problem is that there's not sufficient differentiation between single shots and burst fire. This makes the tactical game a bit more dull (less tools at your disposal) but also makes my life as a game designer harder. We've got machineguns in the game, but they're basically just sniper rifles that fire several bullets at once at the moment. In game terms, burst fire should (and does) consume more ammo and suppress more than single fire mode per AP spent. It should also cause less damage to single targets per AP spent at range, but it should have the possibility of causing minor damage to multiple enemies instead of hitting just one. It should also damage the surrounding terrain - after all, lots of shots are being fired! Finally, at close range it should be potentially devastating, as all those otherwise wayward shots are much more likely to hit the target, which might end in something like five to ten seperate shots hitting the target. Basically, I want burst fire to feel like the soldier is blazing away with their weapon and have it actually appear to have a tangible effect on the battlefield. At the moment, burst fire just doesn't feel "strong" enough. I'm open to suggestions on how it could be handled, as I've not got anything definite planned yet. I'm currently musing some form of circular template system where a certain number of hits are randomly assigned to any tile or object within that circle, and suppression is applied to all targets in the circle. The circle would be tighter the closer the target is to the shooting unit, simulating the effect of range on accuracy. Some weapons would be entitled to more hits and bigger circles, to represent weight of fire - ie. the machinegun or the Ferret 50cal. In graphical terms, the game would just play the bullet impact animation for each hit on a tile. The disadvantage of this is that it's a bit predictable, and it doesn't take soldier accuracy into account - but then, burst fire isn't meant to be accurate anyway. As long as it's balanced so that it does on average less damage than single fire then it could work...

I was just curious. I've never seen any of my soldiers fire a burst during reaction firing. It's always singles.

When you fire a "burst" is the suppression value in weapons_gc.xml for the whole burst or is it applied per round fired? I'm thinking its for the whole burst i.e. one chance to suppress.

Why not just make burst fire a standard fire mode selectable beyond 'aimed' fire with the assault rifle? I find it gets annoying to toggle between the two modes of operation with the little click button (especially because it seems a bit bugged for me and sometimes doesn't click over). I don't see a good reason to separate out the fire modes, and unless someone has a good reason why the two modes should exist, I think I'd like to see the 'burst' fire mode incorporated into the standard right-click cycle options for shooting at a target (so when you right-click a target, it goes: snap, normal, aimed, burst, snap.)

For a machine gun the reserve list says that it costs 35 APs to fire, while it only actually costs 25 for a dude and 20 for a hunter. I realise they cannot actually reserve them at the moment, but I often glance at that list to see how much it costs to do stuff.