Modular Weapon Idea

[drages]

Hey.. I read that Chris got some issues about the idea with moduler weapon designs.. I just want to share my ideas about this.

People like to create something from parts always.. so i don't think any people would have a problem to design 5-10 weapon for their team at all.. there are many people who gives hours to just changing the look of their soldiers items..

The best modular weapon designs at xcom games are at After***** ones.. I always loved to find better modules for my weapons. So modules and weapon tiers should be different things as their research trees.. For example optics should be something with it's own class.. we need to get better optics in time for different kind of weapons like for snipers, rifles, pistols.. and any optic should be usefull for every weapon tiers.. 

Other modules could have 2 classes, for kinetics and for energy weapons. So kinetic weapon modules can help for better weapon handling and laser weapon modules can give more power to it.. 

So the player could choose to go for totally new weapons or try to go for modules to make their weapons better.. or he/she can do it with the order as he wants.. 

I would like to see that modules can give different effects and abilities to weapons too.. Like autofire with more bullets, adding special damages, adding more AP, adding grenade launchers..

 

[Sheepy]

Quote

Kickstarter Stretch Goals: Modular Weapons & Armour:

We would like to add an extra layer of customization to the weapons and armour in the game by making them "modular". For example, a suit of Jackal armour would have a base set of resistances plus a "plating" to add plating to:

• No Plating - TU bonus
• Ballistic Plating - starting equipment for extra kinetic resistance
• Ceramic Plating - early-game research that provides energy resistance
• Alloy Plating - mid-game research, providing strong energy and kinetic resistance

Both the suit of armour and the platings are items built in the workshop. You can customise your suit of armour based on the mission or the role of your unit, and also create more interesting tech tree choices. For example, when you research Alien Alloys do you build shiny new Wolf Armour or make do by some Alloy Plating for existing armour?

For the weapons the system would be similar. Alien Alloys might let you build shiny new MAG Weapons but also allow you to build barrel accelerators that boost the damage of your old weapons. More detailed customization like different scopes for each type of weapon (with advantages / disadvantages) is possible, but those would need to be designed so players don't feel obliged to customise every weapon if they don't want to.

Although I like this idea, I think it is much riskier than the other (stretch goals) because it is so tightly interwoven with the tech tree. There's always a chance that we'll find a better way to handle some of the issues solved by modular equipment (e.g. "upgrading" older equipment tiers can be done with other ways) and that the idea will end up being changed / dropped as a result.

(Quote simplified.)

Since module is the #1 stretch goal, I doubt Goldhawk can abandon modules now despite the fine print.  It is not fun to see kickstarters drown this forum in complains and review-bomb the finished game on Steam.  X2 need to have modules even if it means abolishing Development Project.

I like modular equipment (not necessary limited to firearms and armour - reuse the system!), and it's not an uncommon request, as proven by the goal votes.  But I think the feature is currently in an awkward position in the grand scheme.  I like to call them addons, to distinguish them from "mods" which can mean game mods.  But I'll stick with "module" for this discussion, and try to lay the ground work by brainstorming their directions.

 

Equipment Upgrade

Upgrades of old equipments is currently planned to be done by scientists as Development Project in form of base weapon upgrade.  Which is cool.  Having a new rifle is much cooler than slapping a new scope onto an old rifle.  Balancing will be pretty difficult if both the base weapons and the mods are upgradable, potentially affecting almost every part of the game.

Given the goal of 25 ground missions and the trouble of micromanaging modules (if not in research then in production and assemble), these upgrades should either be cheap and quick to produce as a temp boost, or a big investments that can actually replace an upper tier.  For example a fully upgraded rifle with top modules may be on par with Laser mk3 if not Plasma, allowing players to skip lasers altogether, trading soldier skill reuse for lack of interceptor lasers at the strategic level.

 

Equipment Specialisation

This is I think a very good design goal of modules.  Example would be scope that turns a rifle into marksman rifle (+Aim -TU), or full auto receiver that make it burst only.  The tradeoff means the power level stays the same, and the mods can thus be made very cheap or free because they don't significantly affect game balance.  Yet they make players happy, because they allow players to fine tune their experience.  To this end, mods can be tiered too.  A simple scope increase aim and firing cost moderately, while a computerised scope increase them greatly.  The high end scope simply expand possibilities and does not render the cheap scope useless.

This can be taken further, like proposed.  Melee plating to fight Reapers.  Static Charger for Androns.  Psychiatric medication to cleanse psionic debuffs.  A cool concept, but I think the vanilla should leave it to mods because the target-specific extreme specialisation is usually hard to balance, esp. since we can't limit modules like class abilities.

 

Equipment Generalisation

An interesting twist is we can make higher tier weapons specialised, and use mods to make them more versatile.  UFO: Afterlight tried to do this with lasers weapons.  In there, laser rifles are specialised against high dodge enemies, and by default only have single shot modes.  But players can add a cooler module to add a burst mode to make them more flexible.  This design can make new weapon tiers much more interesting, make lasers accurate and slow and give plasma short range, freeing them from braindead upgrade without limiting their roles forever.

Afterlight took it to the extreme, such as all higher weapon tiers are niche for specific enemy types and ballistic remains the most versatile option all the way into endgame.  It's one of the ways it forces players to use different weapon loadout by mission.  So forceful that the weapons easily determine a mission's success or failure.  (While its armor loadout is a matter of life or death, without involving enemies.  You must change team loadout by mission in UFO Afterlight.)

 

Special Ammo

Chris has said he'd discuss ammo during beta.  Traditionally you bring various ammo and switch on the field.  X-COM, TFTD, Apoc, and UFO all use this system.  Kind of works, but can't say it is too successful.  XCOM2 proved that you can do them as a plain upgrade that cannot be changed on field, which in our case I imagine would be done as a weapon module.  But I don't think that works well when you can transfer ammo (you can do that in X2, right?)

 

Beyond Weapon and Armor

Let's try to think what else can have module.  Medkit is an obvious choice, where it can have different drugs for buff or cleanse effect.  Grenades can have fuses.  Mind Shield may be a module of an Energy Shield.  Motion scanner can have different sensors.  So many possibilities before we even start thinking about ammo!

Edited July 4, 2018 by Sheepy

[drages]

Module system would work at enemies too. It would be fun to see what the aliens got as modules.. for both armor and weapons. 

As Sheepy said, module system is what people looking for clearly.. at this early stage of deployment, i think Chriss should reconsider this part of the game and replan for the progression. 

[Max_Caine]

Having read Sheepy's excellent post, I agree that probably the easiest and most effective way to implement modularisation is through equipment specialization. One of Chris's goals has been to encourage players to make tradeoffs and specialisation would be the way to go. 

[Chris]

I don't have a final solution for how modular weapons will work yet, but I'm much more comfortable with them as a concept having thought about them for now. They provide quite a simple way to manage the item upgrades and development research.

One thing we're looking at at the moment for energy weapons specifically is just allowing the player to build a Laser or a Plasma weapon when they research that tier. That one weapon will have a bunch of module slots that change the way the weapon works, so you can use them to build the weapon into a rifle / shotgun / sniper / whatever (indeed these all exist as pre-set templates). However the player is free to mix and match the components so they can tweak the characteristics of the weapon and create various hybrids, and then save them as a new weapon preset.

Not only does that give the player something fun to mess around with if they want, it solves the problem in X1 where the player would build the specific number of weapons they want and then only use those - e.g. if you build six Laser Rifles and two Precision Lasers, you weren't going to be using any Laser Carbines (and building them was a waste of money if you only needed them occasionally). This way you just build 8 Lasers and set them up any way you want for each mission.

That said, keeping this easily manageable means that all this components need to be available in unlimited quantity - if you're switching between weapon templates, it makes it much more complex if you have to track the number of Scatter Lens components (or whatever) you have available. I'm sure it's something that the X:CE team will be able to unlock for modders without much trouble, but I don't think the vanilla game is going to do the Afterxxx model where you're finding all sorts of components on the battlefields and crafting them into weapons (unless you're finding a slot upgrade item that is unlocked in unlimited quantity).

[drages]

So for energy weapons, you go for Fallout 4 model i see. You get the main weapon and modules make it whatever you want. It's good.. You can use it at all weapons with Fallout 4 way. Would be fun for players to have their totally special weapons..

I am against unlimited things but at a game which you got max 12-20 soldiers, there is not much point to have limited things too because you craft maybe 10x maximum.. so you can make the manufacture more expensive and make it limitless.. but then if you need only one from something, it would be way expensive to have it unlimited..

For that reason i like to have item creating researches or 1 time manufactures.. so if you need something unique, you just go for research or that special manufacture. STILL you can make a rare drop from aliens to limit that unique item but it was very hard to make unique things at X-1 because you could only use UFO items or items at enemy inventory.. so it means many ufos and enemies would carry same thing without limit.. For this reason, X-2 should be open for "unique" things.. probably special missions and special enemies which you can assign especially, would handle it.  

[Solver]

I also prefer the specialization model - weapon models that are better suited towards particular enemies or situations, as opposed to just being better in general. My reasoning here is that specialization would increase the value of pre-mission intelligence. In X1, knowing the races present at a crash site didn't really affect too much, beyond packing some shock grenades for Androns. I'd like the potential payoff of good intelligence to be higher.

[Conductiv]

2 hours ago, Solver said:

I also prefer the specialization model - weapon models that are better suited towards particular enemies or situations, as opposed to just being better in general. My reasoning here is that specialization would increase the value of pre-mission intelligence. In X1, knowing the races present at a crash site didn't really affect too much, beyond packing some shock grenades for Androns. I'd like the potential payoff of good intelligence to be higher.

if they get this done right, that would be sweeet,

it does require equipment that is better in specialized situations. X1 had a lot of generic equipment, and the only difference between tool 1 and tool 2 of the same tech line was often damage versus clunkyness. (and in many cases damage won, so lots of xenonauts 1 endgame seemed to turn into LMG madness..as the engame high strength+high TUs combo countered the LMG's high TU cost to fire and penalty when used at low str)

[Solver]

X1 even had support for something along those lines. Weapons could be given different damage types (energy/kinetic/chemical/incendiary), with various enemies having different resistances to these. But the system remained mostly unused, with armor not used much, and the damage types unused except for stun.

[Ninothree]

7 hours ago, drages said:

you go for Fallout 4 model i see

That is exactly what I thought seeing the posts above. Fallout 4 has both customising and crafting. Your SMG is only ever a few weapon modules away from becoming a sniper. Although to make those modules you may have to deconstruct a few choice items of loot. 

But just because Fallout 4 has demonstrated a system that is cool, it doesn't mean it will transplant well into X2. Crafting from scavenged materials is core to Fallout - scavenging is part of xcom but not core. I think, as Solver is saying, that the customisation has to be imagined in a way that fits into various ground combat scenarios. Otherwise, you'll just end up sticking with the scope because accuracy is the best stat to boost. 

[CommanderFoxPrime]

The Afterblank (that's what the series as a whole is known as in quite a few circles) series is probably the best way to go in terms of modular weapons. You have a base weapon (say, an Assault Rifle) that has a series of stats like loudness, damage, base accuracy, etc.; now what the modules do is modify those stats, but you have to be careful as they come in advantages and disadvantages. For example having silencers on your weapons decrease how loud they are but at the cost of damage, while accelerators increase the noise while increasing damage.

 

If that makes sense...