FTD Mod

[dpelectric]

On a related issue, since the intended purpose of this mod is to revitalize the late game, I was talking with Stellar on another thread about battleship GC, or the complete lack thereof. He and I both had playthroughs where we bagged a praetor in a large base, completely obviating the need to assault even a single battleship.

It seems to me that GH had singularity cores and praetors as incentives for battleship assaults. Well, you can get a praetor from a base, or at most by a single battleship operation. And it further appears that the devs underestimated most player's ability to achieve air superiority strictly through Marauders, completely negating the need for singularity cores.

As it stands now, you need to do either one or zero battleship raids. After that, it's shoot them down and airstrike until you can launch the final mission. And this mod will aggravate that even further, by having operational X-120s that will remove even the borderline challenge of facing battleships with Marauders.

I think that's a shame given all the development work that went into battleships. Just like the Furies, Destroyers and Dreadnaughts we are seeking to resurrect, battleships are pre-existing assets that are just sitting there begging for someone to make full use of them. They should be the ultimate GC trial, not something a player can one-off then ignore. I believe a concurrent and complimentary effort should be made to bring battleships back into the game too.

I tossed a few ideas out to Stellar in the other thread. Don't know how many or if any of these are feasible:

1. Have only a chance that a praetor is onboard any given battleship

2. A single praetor won't know all the details necessary to assault the mothership; you'll need to capture at least two

3. You need maybe 3 battleship datacores or other component for some purpose, such as enabling the Valkyrie to reach the mothership, or building a bomb (ala Skitso's breaching charge) to be hand-delivered by your squad

What would be a logical and do-able incentive for players to have to attack more than one (or zero) battleships...?

[Max_Caine]

If you wanted a chance, you could try setting the chance on battleships/base to 0-1 in the appropriate files in /ufocontents/

[dpelectric]

LtcWalker: I believe everybody involved in this mod so far plays on veteran or insane, and this mod would be targeted mainly at that audience and balanced accordingly. It's our intention not to introduce the new UFOs until the player has the resources to combat them, which is what the Fury will be specifically designed to do. And the new UFOs will either generate terror sites (which your dropships should always be able to get to) or assault your bases, not fly around bombing things, inflicting massive funding damage, and then speeding away.

[Max_Caine]

The most obvious incentive for players to attack more than one battleship is the lure of Epic loot. It's why people grind dungeons and participate in 20 man raids - the chance to get an awesome drop. Now, you do get an awesome drop - the particle cannon. But you only need one of those. What you'd want is more things that each take a singularity core to manufacture - epic armour, epic grenades, epic weapons - epic, epic, epic. there should be a variety of choices, but only one core to make them with.

And if you wanted to be evil? Allow each piece of epic gear to be upgradeable. Like the marks of sanctification in Frozen Throne which could be upgraded to Heroic marks of sanctification - dangle a good enough lure and they'll bite.

[dpelectric]

Max: That might work. Although on second thought, that might create situations where some players still get a praetor immediately, and others get horrible RNG and have to assault battleships multiple times. Plus, when word got out that there was only a chance for a praetor, many players would simply abort a mission if they weren't getting hit by dread right away. Maybe that wasn't such a great suggestion on my part. It needs to be something more consistently reliable.

Gotta go to work now. On a Saturday. Lovely.

Edit: Just saw your followup post. No time to respond. When I get home.

[LtcWalker]

About the thing with making battleship GC more desirable: I already asked Max in his armor mod thread if he could think of combining his next armor mod with this one. That could serve this purpose.

Come to think of it, will the two UFOs you want to add have any reason to be cleared or will you just go the "explodes on destruction" way.

I could imagine having to down a destroyer with marauders first to get the fury(kind of as an extra challenge)

[dpelectric]

LtcWalker: Well, yes, that would certainly serve the purpose of making Battleship GC far more desirable. But of course that's utterly up to Max, and I'm sure he started making his armor mod with goals of his own in mind. I'm plenty grateful for his participation already.

Right now the two new UFOs are based on existing files that GH had developed but never finished or instituted. They do not contain assets for ground missions (no UFO interior layouts or submaps, etc) and I personally don't have the knowledge to create these. So for now they will not (like bombers and strike cruisers) create crash sites; they'll either be destroyed or generate terror missions and base defenses.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing; yes, crash sites would be cool, but there are Cruiser and Carrier varieties around already, and what I (and others) would like to see addressed is the lack of anything BUT crash sites in the late game. I would rather jack up a Destroyer's chance of achieving its objective than weaken it to enable yet more crash sites.

Yes, I did think of making a Destroyer datacore the prereq for Furies, for the same reasons you're thinking. If others agree, we'll go that route

[LtcWalker]

This might sound absurd but would it be possible for a UFO crashing in "industrial" to generate a terror site on a smaller scale? That would be a nice motivation to divide it into atoms.

[ViewThePhenom]

This definitely needs to become a thing. Difficult to destroy (AC) UFO that doesn't land but spawns terror missions and attacks bases would be great.

[Max_Caine]

Hai guys, when I re-installed Xeno for the umpteenth time, I kinda wiped out most of the FTD stuff I was playing about with. I kept the aircraft stuff separate, but the hacks I did to speed up things for testing have vanished. I've just spent three hours talking to artists and doing research so I don't have a lot of time left tonight before I have to go to bed. Provided I don't have to spend to much time managing projects tomorrow, I'll get back on track with UFOs for FTD.

[dpelectric]

Well, I spent all my free time the last few days playing with the game files. Basically, for testing, I tried to link everything to a light scout. Created destroyer and dreadnaught datacores and put them in light scouts. Made the X-120 prereq a destroyer datacore, and made its research and manufacturing costs next to nothing. Wrote one-sentence xenopedia entries to see if they'd appear properly. Set new UFO ticker values to 25 and chance to appear to 200. Etc. To make a long story short, some of my changes worked, some didn't. I'm missing things, and simply don't have the needed modding experience.

In general, it seems like everybody has too many irons in the fire right now. There are so many different mods that people are already focused on. If there is a larger expression of community interest and involvement in the future, then maybe this new-and-dedicated-UFOs concept can be resurrected, or if somebody else/some group of others wants to pick it up, then fantastic. But, given the state of things right now, I personally am going to drop back and not try to keep pushing it

[kabill]

"Applies phoenix down*

So, I really liked this idea, but at the time was too busy with RL stuff to help. Is there any interest in making this take off again?

[skaianDestiny]

I'd definitely be interested in this mod. I don't have that much experience with Xenonauts modding except for making mods compatible with each other and with the new modular modding system, but I'm willing to provide some help.

[skaianDestiny]

So I've been working a bit on this, however since I don't have that much experience with Xenonauts modding or balance I need feedback. Here's what I have for the Dreadnought:

airplane.alien.dreadnoughtHitpoints: 15000Top Speed: 4500Acceleration: 200Turn Rate: 35Rotation Acc: 3Length: 4000Width: 4000Weapons:    2x AV.DREADNOUGHTBURSTMISSILES    1x AV.DREADNOUGHTCANNONSelection Size: 450Can Evade: NoSpawn Crash Site: NoCan Land: NoAutoresolve Strength: 16000

Here are the stats for the weapons:

DREADNOUGHT BURST MISSILESDamage: 75Range: 9000Rate of Fire: 0.3Ammo Capacity: 20Firing Arc: 180Firing Mode: ManualLock Time: 0.5Projectile Speed: 24000Projectile Turn Rate: 60Target Count: 3

DREADNOUGHT CANNONDamage: 1600Range: 14000Rate of Fire: 2Ammo Capacity: 1000Firing Arc: 20Firing Mode: AutoLock Time: 0Projectile Speed: 16000Projectile Turn Rate: 10Target Count: 1

My goal for this is for the Dreadnought to basically be Max_Caine's Battleship on steroids. Three Marauders with Fusion Torpedoes and MAGSTORMs won't be enough to kill one when it's at full health, and will pay the price for doing so. The missiles are capable of killing 1 Marauder with one salvo and the cannon, if it connects, will flat out 1 shot Marauders, making head-on assaults suicide. The weapons also out range the torpedoes, so you'll take damage if you even engage. Combined with its speed, this should make the Dreadnought extremely unpalatable to engage, and you're left with sending out 4 Marauders with a high chance of casualties, sending out a Fury, or letting the Dreadnought go do terror missions or base assaults. As the Dreadnought should come in the very late stages of the game, this shouldn't be too punishing considering the player should be on the verge of getting the final mission, and subtly forcing them to complete it instead of sitting on their asses.

The main problem is I haven't yet tested it, and I'll need to do some modifications to the game to do so. Right now I want some feedback if this is too much, so here's the aircrafts.xml and aircraftweapons.xml.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82304502/Xenonauts/aircrafts.xml

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82304502/Xenonauts/aircraftweapons.xml

Edited July 14, 2014 by skaianDestiny

[dpelectric]

SD: For my two cents, I think I like the general parameters you have laid out above.

If you're going to give Marauders (3850kmh) a chance to engage dreadnoughts then the 4500 speed sounds about right; hard but still possible for X-59s to catch.

However, because of the way UFOs screw around forever when supposedly heading towards their target, a Fury (at 5500kmh) would be all but guaranteed to intercept dreadnoughts every time. So, giving the dreadnought 15000 HP as you have is important, because a 10000 dmg singularity torp wouldn't single-handedly wipe it out, defeating the whole purpose of introducing the UFO in the first place.

This could set up a scenario where a dreadnought appears, and a Fury engages and knocks it down to 5000 HP. At that point it has less HP than a battleship (7000) but is 1200kmh faster and armed with deadlier weapons, making it still a dicey proposition for Marauders. Such a sequence of events would give the Fury a distinct purpose (good luck without a singularity strike first), make battling a damaged dreadnought markedly different than engaging a battleship, and still allow a strong chance for the UFO to achieve its purpose.

However, what about AA batteries? If they can inflict several thousand pts of damage too, would you raise the dreadnought's HP to the point where the player would need a Fury strike-Marauder battle-AA impacts to stop it? Lol that could be cool as hell (what a desperate fight) but would that be too much? Would it be better to raise a dreadnoughts speed to, say, 5000, making it extremely difficult for X-59s to catch (and reducing/eliminating all the AC balancing) and a player would rely on a singularity hit backed up by point defenses...?

[skaianDestiny]

I was thinking of buffing the Singularity Torpedo damage so it will 1HKO the Drednought regardless, although the scenario you outlined is definitely interesting.

I actually didn't know the speed of the Marauder and Fury was 3850 kph and 5500 kph. In my copy of aircrafts.xml they're 3500 and 5000 respectively. I'll buff it up to 5000 if that's the case.

[dpelectric]

You're right. Speeds are 3500 and 5000 in aircraftsxml. I was looking at the xenopedia entries, and they were prob not updated by GH from earlier builds

I'm not sure about one-shot kills for a Fury. Again, because of the way UFOs mess around forever before heading for their target, a Fury would be practically guaranteed to catch and destroy dreadnoughts, and that would be the end of their intended purpose. Unless you make an X-120 so expensive players would be tempted to try their hand with Marauders and AA batteries only, or greatly reduce a singularity torp's standoff range so the Fury couldn't just fire-and-forget, or some other kind of balance

[skaianDestiny]

Okay, so we'll leave the Singularity Torp's damage alone, and have the Fury be required to soften up a Dreadnought so the Marauders have a chance to kill it. I'll make the Dreadnought's speed 4750, which seems like a good number. If there isn't anything else you want to add, I'll go ahead and try working on the Destroyer.

Oh, and what should the rewards for shooting down a Dreadnought be?

Edited July 13, 2014 by skaianDestiny

[dpelectric]

I like the 4750, as that could make it quite hard for Marauders to intercept, giving AA batteries increased validity.

Never considered rewards, guess I was thinking just stopping the thing from completing its mission was reward enough. You could throw in some alloys and alenium if you wanted to (like for shooting down strike cruisers, etc).

When I get home after work tonight I'll DL the files you posted above and try some testing. I'll drop the HP to 5000 to simulate AC after a Fury strike

[skaianDestiny]

Okay, so here's the preliminary stats for the Destroyer:

airplane.alien.destroyerHitpoints: 3500Top Speed: 3750Acceleration: 200Turn Rate: 90Rotation Acc: 60Length: 2600Width: 2600Weapons: See belowSelection Size: 350Can Evade: YesSpawn Crash Site: NoCan Land: NoAutoresolve Strength: TBD, currently 4300

And here's where I need help.

There were several ways that I could go with its weaponry. I planned the Destroyer to be a hybrid between fighters (air superiority) and bombers (aerial terror missions). It is insanely agile for something of its size, and should pack powerful weapons for ground bombardment. On the flip side, it's relatively fragile for its size. A glass cannon/fragile speedster.

To that end, here were the weapons I have laid out. I thought about using all of them, but I decided that was too much of a departure from the vanilla UFOs, so I'll stick with two.

DESTROYER CANNONDamage: 1600Range: 10000Rate of Fire: 10Ammo Capacity: 1000Firing Arc: 5Firing Mode: AutoLock Time: 0Projectile Speed: 16000Projectile Turn Rate: 10Target Count: 1

As you can see, the cannon is a powerful spinal-mounted weapon. It's as powerful as the Dreadnought's cannon, however it has an extremely narrow field of fire and its reload is slow. It's not meant to be an air combat weapon, nevertheless if it hits it will kill whatever you have.

DESTROYER BEAMDamage: 25Range: 4000Rate of Fire: 0.05Ammo Capacity: 1000Firing Arc: 100Firing Mode: AutoLock Time: 0Projectile Speed: 24000Projectile Turn Rate: 1Target Count: 3

The Beam is basically the fighter beams beefed up, with a wider cone of fire. Not much else to be said really.

DESTROYER BURST MISSILESDamage: 100Range: 5000Rate of Fire: 0.1Ammo Capacity: 8Firing Arc: 180Firing Mode: ManualLock Time: 1Projectile Speed: 24000Projectile Turn Rate: 20Target Count: 3

The burst missiles are a midway between the cannon and the beam. It releases a powerful burst of 8 missiles at a target, dealing 800 damage if they connect. If they miss however, the Destroyer will be down 1 weapon. If these are implemented, like the Dreadnought there will be two of them mounted.

Currently I'm leading toward the missiles and cannon combo. What should the autoresolve value be, and do these stats seem reasonable?

---

I also came upon an epiphany a couple days ago. Earlier in the thread you were discussing why the player should keep on doing Battleship raids. Well the answer comes from the Singularity Torpedo. If you remember you had to manufacture those torpedoes with a singularity core manually. Naturally considering the players complained that it made the worthless Fury even more useless, so Chris changed it to be free, the Singularity Core going into the Fury. But now that the Fury has a purpose (Dreadnought-softener/Instant-win button vs Destroyers), we can return the Singularity Torpedo to being manufactured (with something reasonable like 3 torpedoes per core). Now you have a reason to go after Battleship crashes. This also takes care of Kevin's complaint that the player will have infinite alenium to create infinite Furies. After all what use are those Furies if you don't have the torpedoes to back them up?

[TheD3rp]

Okay, so we'll leave the Singularity Torp's damage alone, and have the Fury be required to soften up a Dreadnought so the Marauders have a chance to kill it. I'll make the Dreadnought's speed 4750, which seems like a good number. If there isn't anything else you want to add, I'll go ahead and try working on the Destroyer.

Oh, and what should the rewards for shooting down a Dreadnought be?

Wouldn't that sort of not work? As the singularity torpedo in the game's lore annihilates anything

, and there is nothing that can stop it.

[kabill]

@skaianDestin: Looking at what you've done with the Destroyer there, I'm not certain that it's going to be anywhere near durable enough to require a Fury to down. I might be wrong, but I think it is out-ranged by torpedo weapons allowing Foxtrots and Marauders to down it with little risk. Furthermore, I'm fairly certain that with the number of HP they have a pair of such planes could down it. I'm working from memory, so I might be wrong, but personally I don't think it's strong enough to play the role that was originally discussed (unless that role has now changed? Maybe I missed this.)

Also, with regards to the point about making singularity torpedos: firstly, needing 3/torpedo would require three battleships per torpedo, which is a lot. Secondly, was the idea not to have the Fury come up earlier that it presently does so as to make it more useful? If so, requiring singularity cores doesn't work as you can't get them 'til end game.

And also, it would be good to test whether the Fury auto-kills regardless of HP and whether it allows you to recover stuff. If I have chance (and no one does it before me), I'll test this tonight.

[dpelectric]

Wouldn't that sort of not work? As the singularity torpedo in the game's lore annihilates anything

, and there is nothing that can stop it.

I don't believe that singularity torps are inherently insta-kill. It's because of their 10,000 dmg, which is enough to overkill any of the current UFOs (battleship 8000 HP x 20% = 9600). If I can get a break from real life lol I'll try to verify this

[dpelectric]

Kabill is right, as usual, on both points.

Destroyer HP would need to be increased, as a single Marauder (given full weapon depletion) can inflict 3000-4000 dmg depending on loadout. And plasma torps have a range of 8000, fusion 8500, so the destroyer's 5000 burst missile range prob needs to be increased. Otherwise you could have two Marauders launch their ~1000 dmg torps from standoff range and casually head home.

If the X-120 is going to be made available just prior to destroyers, and need a singularity core to manufacture, then my original thought was to add these cores to strike cruisers (they appear at about the right time, and are relatively rare). If you want to make the Fury producible independent of a core, and have the core give you 3 torps instead, that could work, and be a limiting factor on the X-120's lethality. Since, again, strike cruisers are currently fairly rare, this could motivate players to go after battleships (so they could combat dreadnoughts) but you'd prob have to introduce battleships at an earlier ticker value.

A key concern is balancing the singularity torps power against all three UFOs (destroyers, dreadnoughts and battleships). The main thrust of everything is to increase the challenge level and mission variety of the lategame once air supremacy is achieved. I personally really like the idea of a Fury being needed to soften up, but not insta-kill, a dreadnought. That allows that UFO to be a real threat. I'm more worried about one-shotting destroyers and battleships, thus defeating their purpose. So, yes, if you get singularity cores from strike cruisers, and keep the strike cruisers comparatively rare (maybe even decrease their chance of appearing), each one giving you just 3 torps (rather than infinite), that could be the way to go in conjunction with earlier battleships. Make singularity cores hard to get and highly desirable, to the point that you'd want to save them for dreadnoughts and normally combat destroyers and battleships with Marauders.

Does that make any sense...?

[kabill]

Personally, I don't think that one-shotting Destroyers and Battleships (or Dreadnaughts) is much of a problem as to do this you've had to research and invest resources in building Furies - and probably two or three if you want sufficient coverage to ensure you can take down those UFOs wherever they spawn. The last time I remember playing to the point at which Furies would be being used, resources (at least Alenium) are fairly tight and they'll be competing with Marauders for priority. So at least in the short run, I'd argue there's going to be sufficient opportunity costs involved in building Furies that it's not going to be an easy (or costless) choice to make.

As such, personally I'd be inclined to avoid limiting the Fury's capabilities with particular items for the time being. Build the mod without and test it: if it turns out that they need reigning in you can always add in further restrictions later. (You could do it the other way first, but it's less effort this way!)

In any case, if it's useful to know, Strike Cruisers have a ~25% chance* of spawning each wave in vanilla from ticker 550 onwards.

*Actually, it's higher than this because I've not factored in blocked missions due to cooldowns/once-a-wave flags and late-game UFO numbers, so something in the region of 35% might be more reasonable.