[v1.09] Magnum-nauts

[kabill]

I'm not sure, but I think armour mitigation is a bit funky anyhow - that's why I've gone back to using vanilla values for it. Weapons that had it seemed to be doing more damage than they should against unarmoured aliens (most aliens have no armour anyway), and this stopped when I took away the mitigation.

Just did a very quick test of this shooting some of my own soldiers with a vanilla precision rifle. I only did five shots, but all of them did damage within the expected amount and I had one shot which did minimum damage.

Still might be worth doing a more thorough test (try turning off damage variance?) if you particularly care about using mitigation, but seems to be working ok on the basis of this quick test anyway.

[Manbearzombie]

So I finally got around to trying the new version of your mod and I love it. Aside from the awesomeness of having more specialized weapons I also really like the other tweaks in ground combat. There were some things I didn't expect at all and for that alone I will recommend this mod. I also wasn't expecting flamethrowers to be so awesome.

Seriously good work on this.

[kahvipannu]

I'm in the other camp when it comes to the inventory. When I play vanilla, I look at the backpack and think "holy shit, batman, that's bigger than the batcave". If anything, I think these ones are still too big! Here's why...

This is because I've been playing with them for quite a while. I think the biggest change is visually, and getting used to how it looks. Only very rarely is the backpack full on any of my soldiers (only the medic class really, because the medkit fills the bag), as weight is an issue before it gets full. I'd suggest giving it a few days or so of using it, because once the visual hurdle is overcome one doesn't even notice the smaller sizes.

The troops can still carry way more kit than they actually need. A couple of examples:

Assault - shotgun, 3 x ammo, 2 x C4, 7 x grenades

Support Gunner - LMG, 3 x ammo, 7 x grenades

Rifleman - rifle, 2 x ammo, 1 x machine pistol & 1 x ammo, 1 x truncheon, 4 x grenades

That's a lot of kit. No-one ever goes short - except for heavy weapons guys, like the flamers and AT rifles, because they are so heavy, and then it comes down to tactical decisions and how or why to use those guys.

With all this in mind, I'd say just keep using them - once the visual difference wears off, they're a lot of fun. They do have their quirks, like Lerzan points out about having to drop the primary weapon to pull out the sidearm - this might come down to individual playstyles. For example, with the range of weapons available, only my rifle troops have a sidearm in their bags, and they only switch to them for breaching. At this point, I'm happy to leave the primary on the floor, as it's less weight to carry and therefore more TU's to get into effective pistol range.

If anyone does want to change them back, the instructions/info are in the UI thread linked at the end of the first post. All the weapons would need re-sizing too, so it's quite a lot of work unfortunately.

That all makes sense, and I do agree vanilla is a tad big, you just end up filling your guys and gals with nades and such. I do however personally like to have sidearm belt, etc, so thanks the link you provided, I will check it out.

This propably should be asked there, but might as well do it while I post here. You can make inventory space separate for different armors, right?

Edited July 6, 2014 by kahvipannu

[Mikhail Ragulin]

That is too bad, it could have been a new strategic layer to play with, will these smaller caliber guns be able to make its way through the armor through sheer volume, or do I go for the stronger gun that should punch straight through, but only have one shot per turn.

That is a good point I haven't thought of before, and I do use the carbines much differently then I use the assault rifles The new modifier seems interesting, but I would think if you are a dead eye shot you would get one accurate shot off then the recoil would play hell on follow up shots.

Is the fact that they can fire once per turn their balance against high damage? I was wondering because 3 of those rifles have magazines, albeit rather small ones due to the caliber they fire. It seems that going from 4 shot rifles to a one shot would be a sharp change in how they are used strategically.

I might have them as two shots (like the BR's/vanilla snipers) per turn, and have the ruger as one shot + reload per turn. Or, drop the ruger (I'd prefer to keep it the other way around, but I haven't found any other non-magazine rifles of a similar size with even above-average power).

Just did a very quick test of this shooting some of my own soldiers with a vanilla precision rifle. I only did five shots, but all of them did damage within the expected amount and I had one shot which did minimum damage.

Still might be worth doing a more thorough test (try turning off damage variance?) if you particularly care about using mitigation, but seems to be working ok on the basis of this quick test anyway.

I noticed it happening on one weapon in particular - an AR that did 50 damage per shot. It was landing a lot of shots with damage in the 80's, so much so that I checked the weapon stats and damage variance but it was all fine. It had mitigation of 15 (or maybe 10...or maybe 20). Once I got rid of the mitigation, the damage normalised. I didn't look any further into it. I've had fun with damage values before - back in Magnum Force, the Spas was using stun rounds, and I set the damage to 1. However, this would often result in a pellet doing 10000 damage (ouch!). This is also why the flammenwerfers are set to 2 damage, instead of 1.

So I finally got around to trying the new version of your mod and I love it. Aside from the awesomeness of having more specialized weapons I also really like the other tweaks in ground combat. There were some things I didn't expect at all and for that alone I will recommend this mod. I also wasn't expecting flamethrowers to be so awesome.

Seriously good work on this.

Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

That all makes sense, and I do agree vanilla is a tad big, you just end up filling your guys and gals with nades and such. I do however personally like to have sidearm belt, etc, so thanks the link you provided, I will check it out.

This propably should be asked there, but might as well do it while I post here. You can make inventory space separate for different armors, right?

I actually considered having the pistol in the belt (it would be easier if we could have L-shaped items), but went for this style instead. A good way to do it would to cut the left side of the inventories out, instead of the right side like I've done. This would give a rectangular belt of 3x2. I'll try and make some time to have a look at it.

[kabill]

I noticed it happening on one weapon in particular - an AR that did 50 damage per shot. It was landing a lot of shots with damage in the 80's, so much so that I checked the weapon stats and damage variance but it was all fine. It had mitigation of 15 (or maybe 10...or maybe 20). Once I got rid of the mitigation, the damage normalised. I didn't look any further into it. I've had fun with damage values before - back in Magnum Force, the Spas was using stun rounds, and I set the damage to 1. However, this would often result in a pellet doing 10000 damage (ouch!). This is also why the flammenwerfers are set to 2 damage, instead of 1.

Hm, that's strange. Will keep an eye out for that.

Also, the high damage thing is because the game can't cope with doing 0 damage (before armour). The same thing happens sometimes if you set the damage range on weapons to 100%.

[Mikhail Ragulin]

Here's what the new class of weapons look like:

Those be lever-action rifles, punk.

They mimic, quite effectively, slug shotguns. Lever-action rifles were chosen -specifically, ones with tubular magazines - due to their projectiles. They fire blunt-nosed-big-ass-slug-type bullets, which are lethal at close ranges, but lack range (because of their bluntness). And, despite the model numbers, they were all produced well into the 20th century (some still today).

Stats-wise, they are taking on the performance (damage, mitigation, TU's) of the BR's, with a few exceptions. They have a 50% reaction modifier and close range bonus (like all the breaching weapons), but the damage drops off at distance (they have the same range as carbines). They also are strength limited (due to the kick of firing one), meaning they will use the lower of either strength or accuracy. Only veteran troops will be able to use them effectively, and they fill the specialist role of close-range-accurate-powerful-armour-mitigators, as currently none of the breaching weapons have mitigation.

[Lerzan]

Those look awesome, especially since the Marlin model 1895c is something I have on my wishlist (albeit in .357)! Are you planning on adding another tree for the other weapon types? I could think of a few ideas for them.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Lerzan
trying to get the font size correct

[Mikhail Ragulin]

Those look awesome, especially since the Marlin model 1895c is something I have on my wishlist (albeit in .357)! Are you planning on adding another tree for the other weapon types? I could think of a few ideas for them.

I should imagine the classic 1895, in .45-70, would lead to a bit of shoulder ache. I'm not planning to add any more weapon types, but if we can find an unexploited niche, it's certainly something I'd look at.

[Slayerjerman]

Mikhail - What are you using to edit your XMLs? Whatever it is has broken the worksheets and they can't be opened with Excel. Just FYI.

[Sentelin]

He is using notepad ++ probably.You need to change "ss:ExpandedRowCount" so if it is for example 87 and there are two new entries you need to set it to 89 but if you don't know how much just put random higher value and it will open in excel

[Slayerjerman]

He is using notepad ++ probably.You need to change "ss:ExpandedRowCount" so if it is for example 87 and there are two new entries you need to set it to 89 but if you don't know how much just put random higher value and it will open in excel

Thanks mate! I'm thinking of making a compatibility patch

[Mikhail Ragulin]

Yeah, I'm not using excel, I use notepad. I shudder to think how many lines I've added in some of the files.

[Hathur]

I would love to know which file / line affects or changes the chances of an alien landing on the ground. I'd like to increase the % chance of that in my current game before installing this mod in a new playthrough.

[Mikhail Ragulin]

It's in AM_(mission) (i.e. AM_Scout.xml) in assets. "Landing chance" is the culprit. Not all missions have it (but that can be changed), and it's a per hourly chance. In M'nauts, it's at 40 (I think vanilla is 10 off the top of my head). Going above 40 is a bit overkill in my experience with it. There's a link at the bottom of the first post in this thread to another thread about stuff like that.

[Hathur]

Thank you very much, Mikhail

[Lerzan]

I should imagine the classic 1895, in .45-70, would lead to a bit of shoulder ache. I'm not planning to add any more weapon types, but if we can find an unexploited niche, it's certainly something I'd look at.

I thought that there could be dedicated Sniper Rifles in between the Battle Rifles and the Anti Tank Rifles, they would have more ammunition than the ATs, but would cost more to fire than the BRs. They would be for accurate shots at enemies at beyond visual range.

On a side note, how am I supposed to deal with the enemy grenade usage? I've lost many a solider to a Sibillian running up, throwing a grenade at a single person and instantly killing them, even if it means they get gunned down the next turn.

[Crave]

So i have a question: Since you changed the airstrike rewards for this mod i was wondering - where can i find the option do do so? I went through all of the xml files in the asset folder but seem unable to find any parameter related to it. Is it part of a script or somewhere hardcoded?

[kabill]

So i have a question: Since you changed the airstrike rewards for this mod i was wondering - where can i find the option do do so? I went through all of the xml files in the asset folder but seem unable to find any parameter related to it. Is it part of a script or somewhere hardcoded?

They're in aircraft.xml near the end of the file (if you're viewing it in Excel).

[Crave]

They're in aircraft.xml near the end of the file (if you're viewing it in Excel).

I love you random internet stranger

[kabill]

I love you too! (The internet can never have enough love).

[Ogaburan]

Get a room!

I'll get a camcorder...

Love must be shared!

[Mikhail Ragulin]

I thought that there could be dedicated Sniper Rifles in between the Battle Rifles and the Anti Tank Rifles, they would have more ammunition than the ATs, but would cost more to fire than the BRs. They would be for accurate shots at enemies at beyond visual range.

On a side note, how am I supposed to deal with the enemy grenade usage? I've lost many a solider to a Sibillian running up, throwing a grenade at a single person and instantly killing them, even if it means they get gunned down the next turn.

There's scope for that. At the moment, there are three semi-auto and one bolt-action BR - these could be split to semi-auto BR's and bolt-action snipers.

Them nades are nasty, but there are only two situations when the aliens will throw them (which is the same as vanilla) - one, at shield bearers, and two, at soldiers in adjacent squares. The latter is easy to avoid - don't put soldiers next to each other, spread them out with one a one tile gap. The former requires a bit of backwards thinking - when using shield troops, keep them off the front lines until it's breaching time. They'll be mainly useless in the rear ranks though, with their pistols - but I like this, as shields are a situational item - and only send them to the front when blitzing the bird.

[mvm900]

I /very/ much noticed the shield hate from the aliens... It took a while for me to notice, but thanks for confirming my thoughts/

[Mikhail Ragulin]

I /very/ much noticed the shield hate from the aliens... It took a while for me to notice, but thanks for confirming my thoughts/

Yeah, they just don't like shield guys. I think it's good - it relegates the shield to just a breaching role, instead of all-round-battlefield-saviour.

[mvm900]

I am constantly running out of ammo on the first shotty. Feels like a personal problem mostly, so how would you change the ammo cap from the 5 to the 8 it sometimes has?