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TUs are too limiting!


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1 hour ago, Chris said:

Unfortunately you've got to display things in flat numbers because all movement and rotation-related costs have flat TU costs even if the weapon fire costs are % based.

Come to think of it, while it still used scaling, there was one game I've seen implement an in-concept similar approach in a satisfying way. That was technically 2 games, actually, Silent Storm and Sentinels. 

While they used somewhat set points for firing, TUs didn't go up much, and every turn actually allowed for a full interrupt with remaining points. Essentially if the reflex roll hit, you just got to do whatever, which led to awesome stuff like ambushing with grenades, triggering mines, and coordinated team snipes when multiple reflexes kicked in. They all had to be told to fire at once, the interrupted enemy could interrupt their turn right back, it was really cool. As a side note, this also had quick toss on grenades, but their range and damage scaled by size, with range being the main limiting factor. In addition, there was the option to spend TUs on aiming time instead of firing, as well as a familiarity bonus for weapons they've used a while. 

Would something like that be doable?

P.S. They did a lot right with this system, but crap that stealth mechanic got busted by Sentinels. 

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15 hours ago, Chris said:

Yeah, the biggest change between X1 and X2 mechanically is that the TU costs for firing weapons are now flat values rather than % costs. I've switched between them several times in X2 already and I may do so again in future (to the point I'm temped to ask the coders just to leave fields for both in the code so I can mix and match or combine as appropriate).

One of the things that was confusing in X1 was that the same weapon could have radically different fire costs depending on which soldiers is carrying it, which makes the maths kinda hard to do. One of the things I was experimenting with for a bit is to standardise fire costs across all weapons for the same fire mode, but vary the accuracy - so an aimed shot is always 40TU, a snap shot is always 20TU, etc. But different weapons have access to different fire modes.

This would just make it far easier to control large numbers of soldiers. If your soldier has a rifle you know you need 30TU to fire a shot, no matter who they are. Having to check the cost of the fire modes for every soldier is something I'd like to streamline out if at all possible ... although this fixed TU system might not be the best way to do that.

The idea was originally to give all soldiers 100 TU to make it even easier to understand and vary move costs based on strength / equipment load, but I'm unsure if that'll be superior or not.

Giving every soldier the same TU total and making movement costs the same means that everyone who doesn't have a TU penalty moves at the same speed, which makes all of them the same on that axis. Changing movement costs based on soldier would shift the confusion from "How much does this weapon cost?" to "how much does this movement cost?", but movement is much less urgent than shooting.

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So Silent Storm pulled this counting method off perfectly. The main reason why was their skill trees, which allowed for discounts for certain specialties. Things like scouts turning for free, grenadiers throwing faster,  and weapon specializations. 

That being said, maybe a good use for medals there? Like a 1 TU discount based on different feats?

Not quite a perk system, but those medals get to mean more

Edited by Coffee Potato
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Is there a mod for SS that removes the total skill cap per level? When I realized that all my sneaking around was what was preventing me from gaining anything except stealth, I gave up, so I can't discuss the endgame.

Midgame with loaded stealth is probably not the intended type of game, what with the sneaking up on people in panzerfausts and stabbing them to death.

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24 minutes ago, Decius said:

Is there a mod for SS that removes the total skill cap per level? When I realized that all my sneaking around was what was preventing me from gaining anything except stealth, I gave up, so I can't discuss the endgame.

Midgame with loaded stealth is probably not the intended type of game, what with the sneaking up on people in panzerfausts and stabbing them to death.

Oh, everything in that game broke if you trained it enough. I did a Pistol only run, and with pistol cost reduction/buffs/cheap pistols/familiarity, despite showing 2% hit odds, half my squad was basically Robocop. 

Stealth got over corrected in Sentinels,  where their skill was so high you had to detonate entire floors to deal with the invisible Hammer infeststion.

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On 7/8/2019 at 12:07 PM, Chris said:

Unfortunately you've got to display things in flat numbers because all movement and rotation-related costs have flat TU costs even if the weapon fire costs are % based.

Could you not do both?

MG Kelly, 58 TU total

Fire MG: 45% (26TU) [or 27TU, if you adhere to a strict 'round-up' policy and bump that 0.1 to another full TU]

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