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[v18 Air Combat] rebalance


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Yesterday I played several air battles in a new patch. I decided to create a topic to discuss our impressions of the new balance of air battles.

I'll start with useful innovations.
I liked the idea of separating the HP armor and body. I'm glad that sidewinders have become relevant, and that the player can choose which weapons for fighters he needs.

What I didn't like:

- The angle of attack of the early UFOs is too large. This can be too difficult for beginners.
- The scout's attack radius is generally 360 degrees, which makes no sense at all, as it eliminates the need for the player to perform tactical movements. Each UFO should have a vulnerable area that a skilled player could use.

- I do not see the damage inflicted on the UFO armor. Also, in terms of damage rebalance, I would like to see a current real indicator of enemy HP and armor. In the given video of fight against UFO Destroyer, the damage on his armor is not visible and there is an impression that he doesn't receive it at all, and then (when the armor is broken) it falls too quickly.

 

Scout Fight.jpg

Destroer.jpg

Edited by MrAlex
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The new Aricraft battle is very nice, I like it a lot. The Armor and HP are differnt Parts for the Fighters / Transports / UFOs now (it could have come much earlyer in the Time with the Armor-Refit for Vehicles and Soldiers). But we can´t unhappy, it get implemented for Fighters, UFO´s and Transports, that what matters.

The Airfighting too get an big Refit / Rework too. The Sidwinder Missles get more relvance (more Shots, lesser Damage per Shot, difference between Hull and Armor etc.), that have been done to the Torpedos as well as Cannons too. In this Matter the UFOs get the exactly Refit too. But not only the Wishes get in, there have been done more from the Devs. :cool:

That the UFOs are superior to our Technology is nothing special. So they have an about 360° Defense for the smaller UFOs. Dosen´t matter, then you attack from 2 or 3 Sides. The special Abductor in the last Versions you can´t fight like an Scout or Destroyer with Sidewinders. There you need the Long-Range Torpedos about the fast fireing 360° Defense. That means the Scout is a good learning UFO for such an 360° defended Enemy, before the real Mediums and big ones show up.

The Devs mentioned already, that the Human Fighters will get low to medium Damage in all Airbattles as minimum, dosen´t matter you play Manually or Automatically. It is a give and a get. We will get more then whished, therefore the Aliens get Counter-Upgrades too.

Means in short: Arrange with that, you get whishes fullfiled as well as get more Secretes in (Armor seperation, Slots for a Specials, Weapon Slots are for Everything usable etc.). You said A then B as a countermove you have to accept.

 

Where I aggree is that the UFO´s don´t show up the Armor-Damage. You see only the Standard-Damage Level later. I have whatched this in the 2 Airbattles I have done so far. 1 with the Scout (the Scout is no fighter and only small armed, so he has a 360° Turret for Defense) and 1 with the Destroyer which have a Weak-Point in the Rear (about his heavy Front and Side-Weapons).

Edited by Alienkiller
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41 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

So they have an about 360° Defense for the smaller UFOs.

I don't like the idea of a 360 degree angle of attack, especially for early UFOs. They can make their cannons turn in the direction of the fighter (as was the abductor, if I remember correctly). But each UFO must have a weakness that the player can use to minimize damage to their fighters.
I hate air fights where a player can only watch the fight and has no effect on its outcome. Such fights simply do not make sense, because their result is the same as in auto combat.

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Therfore your fighters are against the first UFO´s (Scouts / Destroyers) faster, can do evasives to left or right, have fast fireing Weapons and a better Turn rate.

As well as you can upgrade your fighters with better Armor, better Weapons and later with Specials. The Aliens have similar Counter-UFOs too (Fighters, Abductors, Cruisers etc.). The Difference is that they have to build the UFO from Ground on and we can make an fast Upgrade instead.

What do you want more?

If you say A for our Forces then you have to accept B for the enemy Forces too. Either you do it or play Ponnyhof.

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Thanks for the thoughts. Yes, we are planning to update the UI and the UFO armour will be visualised more clearly at that point. I think in the short term we can just add a little line on the UFO that shows their armour % too so it's clear what's happening.

The reason why that UFOs have wider fire arcs than before is because the air combat is balanced around the idea of the interceptors taking a certain amount of damage when they fight a UFO, and damage taking a long time to heal on the strategy layer. Aircraft with good equipment can therefore shoot down more UFOs than the same aircraft with bad equipment (because they spend less time being repaired so can fight more battles over the course of a month).

I do agree that there should be an element of skill in each UFO encounter, but the problem is that being able to fly behind a UFO and escape its weapons means that the damage dealt by your weapons becomes much less important. Once an interceptor is behind a slow UFO it can hold position while taking no damage and it doesn't matter if it takes that interceptor 5 seconds to kill the UFO or 20 seconds to kill it (because the interceptor ends the battle on the same health in both cases). The quality of your weapons matters a lot more if the UFO is continually hitting you.

Some UFOs therefore have a 360 fire arc and will fly away from your interceptors - so you take less damage if you have fast interceptors that can close to weapon range more quickly, and you take less damage if you have powerful weapons that kill the UFO quickly. The more aggressive UFOs do still have the space behind where your interceptors can shoot them without taking damage.

So I'm happy to discuss what we can do to make the air combat more skillful or listen to suggestions on that topic, but you need to bear those limitations in mind. For example, we could give the Scout a secondary weapon that fires a slow projectile that can be avoided with evasive roll, so a more skillful player can dodge that projectile. Or maybe the Scout could itself be able to evasive roll, so when you have multiple planes there's an element of skill in positioning the planes or stagger firing the missiles so more of them hit than normal, etc?

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The other thing to consider is the question I've been puzzling over - how can we make the air combat less repetitive? A particular interceptor fighting a particular type of UFO always plays out exactly the same way, whereas ground combat missions can be totally different even with the same set of soldiers vs the same set of aliens. I have a few ideas myself but I'm always willing to hear suggestions of what we can do to make things less repetitive.

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2 hours ago, Chris said:

I think in the short term we can just add a little line on the UFO that shows their armour % too so it's clear what's happening

Why in percent? why not the actual number of HP as the player's fighters?  Оr at least the picture which changes depending on damage (as the fighter of the player)

2 hours ago, Chris said:

The reason why that UFOs have wider fire arcs than before is because the air combat is balanced around the idea of the interceptors taking a certain amount of damage when they fight a UFO, and damage taking a long time to heal on the strategy layer.

Your idea is not right. It's like if aliens on ground missions were 100% accurate and guaranteed to kill one or more soldiers per mission. This should not be the case, the outcome of the battle should depend on the skills of the player. If a player skillfully controls his soldiers / fighters, he must be able to complete the battle with minimal damage. Real pleasure from the fight can be obtained only when you feel your skill. You can complicate the battle by increasing the speed or maneuverability of the scouts (this will be logical, because small ships must have good speed and maneuverability) to make it harder for the player to take a position vulnerable to UFOs. But it is not right to deprive a player of the opportunity to use their skills for an effective outcome of the battle.

 

2 hours ago, Chris said:

but the problem is that being able to fly behind a UFO and escape its weapons means that the damage dealt by your weapons becomes much less important. Once an interceptor is behind a slow UFO it can hold position while taking no damage and it doesn't matter if it takes that interceptor 5 seconds to kill the UFO or 20 seconds to kill it (because the interceptor ends the battle on the same health in both cases).

This is the goal of the player's skills. In many games, a player can compensate for a lack of equipment with his skills, and this is normal. The vast majority of players may not use manual combat at all, but simply press the auto battle button. Those who have the skills of air combat should be able to use it effectively.

As long as the player is in a favorable position, he already receives part of the damage. In order to maintain a favorable position, he needs to have good fighting skills (control the speed of the fighter, etc.) You can change all this to manual mode, so that the game does not help the player to maintain a winning position.

I believe that depriving a player of the opportunity to destroy scouts with one shot of a heavy missile is such a significant progress. It is not necessary to complicate fights against early UFOs much.

 

Edited by MrAlex
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1 hour ago, MrAlex said:

Why in percent? why not the actual number of HP as the player's fighters?  Оr at least the picture which changes depending on damage (as the fighter of the player)

Your idea is not right. It's like if aliens on ground missions were 100% accurate and guaranteed to kill one or more soldiers per mission. This should not be the case, the outcome of the battle should depend on the skills of the player. If a player skillfully controls his soldiers / fighters, he must be able to complete the battle with minimal damage. Real pleasure from the fight can be obtained only when you feel your skill. You can complicate the battle by increasing the speed or maneuverability of the scouts (this will be logical, because small ships must have good speed and maneuverability) to make it harder for the player to take a position vulnerable to UFOs. But it is not right to deprive a player of the opportunity to use their skills for an effective outcome of the battle.

This is the goal of the player's skills. In many games, a player can compensate for a lack of equipment with his skills, and this is normal. The vast majority of players may not use manual combat at all, but simply press the auto battle button. Those who have the skills of air combat should be able to use it effectively.

As long as the player is in a favorable position, he already receives part of the damage. In order to maintain a favorable position, he needs to have good fighting skills (control the speed of the fighter, etc.) You can change all this to manual mode, so that the game does not help the player to maintain a winning position.

I believe that depriving a player of the opportunity to destroy scouts with one shot of a heavy missile is such a significant progress. It is not necessary to complicate fights against early UFOs much.

 

You're not really giving any examples of what can be changed to make the game more skillful, though - just saying "make the Scout faster and more maneuverable". Sure, I can do that and reduce the arc of the main weapon, but I think in most cases you'll still get a very similar result if you let it play out automatically than if you manually control it. I think you'll need to explain to me with a few screenshots what you can do that's more skillful in your suggestion - because it sounds like you'll just have the same experience as when you are fighting a Fighter UFO.

You can change the numbers yourself and test it if you want. The files you want are:

  • find "scout.json" (not the one in /3planes/), and replace the existing file with this one: scout.json
  • ufo_scout_beam.json

The values to edit are:

  • AirCombatSpeedComponent: this is the aircombat speed of the UFO. Max is the max value and val is the starting vale.
  • AirCombatTurnSpeed: just set the third (max) number here, this controls the max turn speed of the UFO
  • AirCombatTurnAcceleration: set this number higher if you want the UFO to reach max turn speed faster
  • search for "AcEscapeAiBehaviour" and replace it with "AcEngageAiBehaviour" if you don't want the UFO to flee
  • in "ufo_scout_beam.json", search for "AirCombatWeaponArc" and replace the 180 with whatever you want the new value for the fire arc to be (the game doubles it, so the 180 is actually 360 degrees in-game)

image.png

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2 hours ago, Chris said:

I think in the short term we can just add a little line on the UFO that shows their armour % too so it's clear what's happening

Why in percent? why not the actual number of HP as the player's fighters?  Оr at least the picture which changes depending on damage (as the fighter of the player)

 

My Suggestion / Idea to that: In the Short Term it´s ok, but in the long Term (incl. Final Game) it should be better sightable how much Damage on Armor and HP as well as Shields the UFO and our Fighters have. There are several Problems in the Conversion:

1. The Air Fighting Map get to small about 2 side Screens which will take the half of the best Player-Standard-Monitor.

2. In the Execution 1 the Airfight have to be shiftet on the Geoscape then like in UFO ET and UFO2 ET. That would make a Refit from the Geoscape nessecarry. [I think it will be a medium one, evtl. a big one, because the Geoscape is not focused for that]

3. If we wanna use the cool existing Air Fighting Map, which can be Refited like we see already, then other Solutions have to be found, because the Zoom in for seeing what happening to the UFO (Armor-Damage and HP-Damage atm, later Shield-Damage too) shows the %-Damage-Level of the UFO, but the Managing from the Fighters are impossible.

 

 

2 hours ago, Chris said:

The reason why that UFOs have wider fire arcs than before is because the air combat is balanced around the idea of the interceptors taking a certain amount of damage when they fight a UFO, and damage taking a long time to heal on the strategy layer.

Your idea is not right. It's like if aliens on ground missions were 100% accurate and guaranteed to kill one or more soldiers per mission. This should not be the case, the outcome of the battle should depend on the skills of the player. If a player skillfully controls his soldiers / fighters, he must be able to complete the battle with minimal damage. Real pleasure from the fight can be obtained only when you feel your skill. You can complicate the battle by increasing the speed or maneuverability of the scouts (this will be logical, because small ships must have good speed and maneuverability) to make it harder for the player to take a position vulnerable to UFOs. But it is not right to deprive a player of the opportunity to use their skills for an effective outcome of the battle.

 

My Suggestion / Answer to that:

1. The Airfights which we had already (from Beta 5 to Beta 17.1) were not satisfing for many Beta-Tester-Guys here for many Reasons:

- Torpedos / Rockets are to low in Numbers and shoot Down Standard-UFOs to fast

- UFOs are doing Evasives (Scout, Fighters and other fast UFOs), which the 90 % of the Beta-Testers dosen´t like

- Fighters does Evasives automatically and to early as well as get hit very hard then

- and other small to medium Things I have forgotten

2.  The Airfights get a first big Humanity-Refit to make them more Interessting:

- Armor get in and seperatet from HP and other things which get online Earlyer or Later

- Torpedos / Rockets / Cannons get changed in Numbers, Damage-Level and whatever

- an special Slot for an Generator get in for the Fighters for Shields or whatever we have to find out

- and many other Things which get implemented and will earlyer or later get implemented

3. When the Humanity get big Refits in the Airfight-Screen, Fighters and Equipment the Aliens have the Right to get Refits in Response too. There is no discussion about it. The best mix from it is the Problem:

- The light and fast UFOs will get an Maneuver-Evase or something else get back in the one or other form to outmaneuver your Planes

- The medium to heavy UFOs will have Turrets for Devense and they will realy hurt your Fighters and friendly Fighters (esp. Endgame ones, where an automatic Battle ins´t adviseable anymore)

- Therefore I suggest that the light UFOs (f. e. Scout / Drone, Advanced Scout) get the 360° Defense Turret. They have already a big Disadvantage: the very light Armor / Hull with a light Defense-Turret!

- The advanced Scout have a light better Maneuverability then the Scout / Drone but still have the big Disadvantage of its Predecessor: the very light Armor / Hull as well as a only light Defense-Turret!

- The Destroyer is good solutied, because he has Energy-Rocket-Launcher for maximum medium-Range, upgraded Guns and heaver Armor / Hull. His very good Disadvantage is that he isn´t so good Maneuverable and has like the Star-Destroyers in Star Wars no Defense in the Back.

- Bigger UFOs I haven´t seen yet in the new Beta 18-Version, but I think they get a similar Advantages / Disadvantages like the Scout and Destroyer. If there are some Surprisses like the Harvester or so (the UFO with the Shield and fast firing 360° Defense Turret, which you can only fight with Heavy Torpedos / Missles :cool:), the Air Fight Screen will be much more interessting.

4. As Player in that Part nothing has Changed. The End-Result belongs to the Player. I don´t loose any Soldiers in Ground-Battles with or without Armor, Shields, Vests and other Equipment. The same here. Like the Dev-Team and the Freelancers are saying, you won´t Win / End a Battle without Wounds on minimum 1 Soldier. If you are don´t too stupid then the Fighter will only loose his Armor and get light Damage.

 

 

2 hours ago, Chris said:

but the problem is that being able to fly behind a UFO and escape its weapons means that the damage dealt by your weapons becomes much less important. Once an interceptor is behind a slow UFO it can hold position while taking no damage and it doesn't matter if it takes that interceptor 5 seconds to kill the UFO or 20 seconds to kill it (because the interceptor ends the battle on the same health in both cases).

This is the goal of the player's skills. In many games, a player can compensate for a lack of equipment with his skills, and this is normal. The vast majority of players may not use manual combat at all, but simply press the auto battle button. Those who have the skills of air combat should be able to use it effectively.

As long as the player is in a favorable position, he already receives part of the damage. In order to maintain a favorable position, he needs to have good fighting skills (control the speed of the fighter, etc.) You can change all this to manual mode, so that the game does not help the player to maintain a winning position.

I believe that depriving a player of the opportunity to destroy scouts with one shot of a heavy missile is such a significant progress. It is not necessary to complicate fights against early UFOs much. 

 

Yep that´s the biggest Problem, esp. if you have 3 Fighters and 1 is busy the UFO and the 2 others go to the Backpoint and shoot it down. That´s the Strategy in Xenonauts 1 and in the Betatests from Beta 5 to Beta 17.1. That´s absolutely boring, there I fully Agree with the Devs as well as the Freelancers. Therfore the Aliens in the Air Battles need an Refit too. It´s falls flat that the Player get all Advantages (Cheating) and the AI in Airfights nothing. Then the Player is not better then the AI´s in the 1980s, 1990s and the beginning 2000´s.

Therfore it´s fully correctly, that the AI get the new 360° Defense with the lighter Guns on Scout / Advanced-Scout and Harvester-UFOs and the smaller Disadvantage-Zones for the first Medium ones. That is only a short price for the Advantages the Players are getting in the Game-Versions incl. the Final Game-Versions.

 

 

What we do as a complete Team (Devs, Freelancers and Testers) it must be fit together like the Hands to the Arms or the Feets to the Leggs. If that cool Single-Fighting Part for Airfights like the Groundmaps for Ground-Fights get a fair Ballance then all can life with it.

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4 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

Yep that´s the biggest Problem, esp. if you have 3 Fighters and 1 is busy the UFO and the 2 others go to the Backpoint and shoot it down. That´s the Strategy in Xenonauts 1 and in the Betatests from Beta 5 to Beta 17.1. That´s absolutely boring, there I fully Agree with the Devs as well as the Freelancers.

It's boring what happened to the scout now. When, regardless of the player's actions, he receives approximately the same damage in each battle. No need to think, no tactics. He threw the fighter into the attack and that's it. This is a really boring fight, such a fight stimulates the player to press the auto combat instead of controlling the fight on their own.
The need to use tactical moves (such as distraction by one fighter while attacking others) makes the battle interesting. And this is a normal tactic for battles where one of the parties has a quantitative advantage.

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8 hours ago, Chris said:

The other thing to consider is the question I've been puzzling over - how can we make the air combat less repetitive? A particular interceptor fighting a particular type of UFO always plays out exactly the same way, whereas ground combat missions can be totally different even with the same set of soldiers vs the same set of aliens. I have a few ideas myself but I'm always willing to hear suggestions of what we can do to make things less repetitive.

In ground battles, differences are created by different maps and different races of aliens.
In air battles we do not have maps, but you can reduce the similarity of battles in many ways:
1) different composition of UFO teams (possibility of some UFO ships to unite in small groups). For example, a team of two scouts, or a mix of scouts + destroyer. Or the destroyer / scout is covered by a fighter.
2) Different equipment (Different races of aliens may use different weapon presets for the same types of UFOs. For example, a scout with a large angle of attack and small damage, and a scout with a small angle of attack but large damage).
3) Different behavior in battle, attack or defense (different presets of the same ships may act differently depending on the race that uses it)
4) Change tactics depending on the situation in battle. For example, the UFO turns its weapon forward of the ship and attacks, and when its shields are destroyed, it tries to escape by deploying its weapons to fire back.
5) New weapons (such as magnetic shields that turn on for a while in certain situations and completely absorb damage forcing the player to stop the attack to save ammunition when the shield stops working)

Which of the following is easier to implement is your choice

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17 hours ago, Chris said:

search for "AcEscapeAiBehaviour" and replace it with "AcEngageAiBehaviour" if you don't want the UFO to flee

Searched in this file and in all others.
Did not find the option to Escape / Engage

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MrAlex: Scouts are there for Scouting, not for attacking. The best examples you find on Earth: Airships, recocnissiance Aircrafts as best examples in WW1, WW2 and other Wars we fought on Earth. They have the same Disadvantages like the Alien-Scouts in every Gerne of that Games.

Here in the Game and all other Games the Alien-Scouts have as Maximum:

1. light Armor (easy to destroy with our Standard-Weapons like Rockets and Cannons)

2. light HP (about similar HP´s as our own Fighters)

3. an light Defense-Turret as Defense (like our Back MG-Turret and 1 or 2 MG´s as front Defense in Dive-Bombers, Recocnissance Aircrafts)

4. later evtl. a light shield (only Alien-Ships)

As well as they are Constructed for Space Flight not for Atmospheric Flight (IF YOU WOULD READ THE ARCHIVE).

Short said: The Scout can´t flee on our Planet in fights and will be shoot down, dosen´t matter what he is doing. That´s the Disadvantages the Scout have. Congurously the Scout get an 360° Defense-Turret. No more, no less. What the Problem about that? The Answer is easy: NOTHING!

Instead it will be more interessting to see what the Player is doing. In that cases I personaly use the to sidestep-Buttons and attacking the Scout meanwile. More interessting it will be, after you get the Aircraft-Generator and other improvements (like the better Armor) for the Aircrafts. :cool:

 

 

Edited by Alienkiller
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21 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

Congurously the Scout get an 360° Defense-Turret. No more, no less.  What the Problem about that? The Answer is easy: NOTHING!

This is the problem. Ships should not have 360° protection, especially earlier versions. All UFOs must have a blind area.

I understood how to balance the angle of attack and the mobility of the scout, but I can not adjust the damage. The minimum firing rate of a scout beam is 1 shot per second and I can't reduce it. The goal is to reduce the frequency of shots by increasing the damage (for example, 2 times for both)

Edited by MrAlex
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These files arent designed for direct editing unfortunately - they have parent files and if a property is the same as in the parent file then that property doesn't appear in the child.

When I get a moment tonight or tomorrow I'll upload a file that has those values in it so you can edit them.

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The Damage isn´t adjusted, its the same from beginning Beta-Testing on. The Disadvantages dosen´t changed too, quite the Contray the expanded. Here they are:

1. light Armor (easy to destroy with our Standard-Weapons like Rockets and Cannons)

2. light HP (about similar HP´s as our own Fighters or a little lesser)

3. an light Defense-Turret as Defense (like our Back MG-Turret and 1 or 2 MG´s as front Defense in Dive-Bombers, Recocnissance Aircrafts)

4. slow speed in Earth-Atmosphere (it´s constructet for Space-Flight)

5. It have no Defensive-Engery Shield, it´s only effective against Radar / Scanner-Waves and Space-Junk [similar to the Deflectors in Star Trek] (evtl. it get later an upgraded Version from bigger Cousins)

6. It can´t evase enemy Rockets (you and your Founders can with their Fighters)

7. The Turret shoots slow and have not much Power to make hard Damage on your and your Founders fighters.

That are enough Disadvantages for it. To give him an back Disadvantage more is CHEATING for the Human Player.

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47 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

To give him an back Disadvantage more is CHEATING for the Human Player.

Here is my vision of the scout settings. Attacks from the back are possible, but it is not easy. Try to destroy it by attacking only from the back. It is possible, but difficult. Which makes the fight much more interesting.

 

It's just a scout. It does not have to be completely protected (360° angle of attack). But it is fair to give it maneuverability, because it is a small ship.

 

scout.json

ufo_scout_beam.json

user_Before_Scout_Attack-7.json

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If I have 2 interceptors approaching at different angles against a UFO, the UFO fires at ALL the aircraft. WHAT? How many guns the UFOs have? Infinite? Currently air combat is just pointless. Better autoresolve.

Fight vs scout. No tactics - just charge.

Fight vs Fighters - no tactics - just charge.

Fight vs Destroyer - no tactics - just charge. 

Air combat will always be repetitive. Saying "How can we make air combat less repetitive" is just like trying to make ground combat less repetitive. Ground combat will always be repetitive (you always do the same thing) and so will will air combat.

Here is a fight vs Destroyer.

2 interceptors vs Destroyer - You can see that destroyer has a blind spot in the rear. Intelligent person at first will be like: OK I'll make one plane as bait, and the other will go flank from the rear. This tactic will not work, because the destroyer will target the nearest fighter. So once you start to flank, the flanker will be targeted. Ok so you switch roles and the process continues. The first interceptors are faster only by a small margin. So if you will try to finally make that blind spot approach you will be either too close to make a difference or out of fuel. Meaning the only reasonable approach is just to charge it and take the hits.

2 interceptors vs fighters - previously I had to go slow do some dodges, fire one missile wait for the fighter to dodge fire another. Now I just watched as my fighters destroyed theirs without taking any HP damage.

Edited by silencer
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@ Silencer: If you have something to tell good, effecitve or what is it called about the Airfight then say it, but not such something ineffective like that:

46 minutes ago, silencer said:

If I have 2 interceptors approaching at different angles against a UFO, the UFO fires at ALL the aircraft. WHAT? How many guns the UFOs have? Infinite? Currently air combat is just pointless. Better autoresolve.

Fight vs scout. No tactics - just charge.

Fight vs Fighters - no tactics - just charge.

Fight vs Destroyer - no tactics - just charge. 

Air combat will always be repetitive. Saying "How can we make air combat less repetitive" is just like trying to make ground combat less repetitive. Ground combat will always be repetitive (you always do the same thing) and so will will air combat.

Here is a fight vs Destroyer.

2 interceptors vs Destroyer - You can see that destroyer has a blind spot in the rear. Intelligent person at first will be like: OK I'll make one plane as bait, and the other will go flank from the rear. This tactic will not work, because the destroyer will target the nearest fighter. So once you start to flank, the flanker will be targeted. Ok so you switch roles and the process continues. The first interceptors are faster only by a small margin. So if you will try to finally make that blind spot approach you will be either too close to make a difference or out of fuel. Meaning the only reasonable approach is just to charge it and take the hits.

2 interceptors vs fighters - previously I had to go slow do some dodges, fire one missile wait for the fighter to dodge fire another. Now I just watched as my fighters destroyed theirs without taking any HP damage.

 

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Sorry I am jumping into this topic really late.

I really don't agree with the 360 degree attack radius. With no weakness to exploit there would be no reason to do air combat at all compared to auto resolving, which takes only one click. 

Instead I have a couple of suggestions (some borrowed from earlier in this board).

Different races should handle each ship differently. For example (this is for the scout ufo), the sebillians are less intelligent and more primitive than the rest of the alien force, so they prefer a brute force approach and implement this by having longer range cannons at the front of the ufo but in the process leaving a tactical weakness on the back. The psyons, being the more intelligent aliens, would understand the tactical weaknesses of a brute force approach so they would instead have their cannons take up a wider area around the ufo making such a tactical weakness much harder to exploit, however; their cannons now are weaker and have less range than their sebellian counterparts so a skilled player could bait the ufo into using evasive maneuvers and then use the rest of their missiles before closing in on the kill.

This idea would get slowly more complex the game progresses (androns would try to attack the weakest interceptor in the group, wraiths would rather attack the most threatening interceptor in the group, earlier aliens will slowly learn from their mistakes by increasing the range or spreading the cannons around the ufo, etc). 

This is just my two cents, if you disagree that's fine but the 360 degree aiming needs to go in order to have tactical diversity. 

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4 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

@ Silencer: If you have something to tell good, effecitve or what is it called about the Airfight then say it, but not such something ineffective like that:

 

If you have nothing interesting to say, don't say anything.

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4 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

@ Silencer: If you have something to tell good, effecitve or what is it called about the Airfight then say it, but not such something ineffective like that:

 

 

Just now, silencer said:

If you have nothing interesting to say, don't say anything.

Guys what is with the toxicity. We all want Xenonauts 2 to be the best game we can possibly be. But shutting down people's ideas without a counterargument or anything like that just doesn't do anything to improve the game or the community around it; this behavior just turns people away from discussing the game. This is a place where we try to have a civilized discussion about the game while not shunning people because of their opinions. 

I understand that there are things that are implemented into the game that we don't agree with, heck I don't agree with 360 degree aiming, but that doesn't give anyone the right to shun people and be toxic because they are frustrated. 

Thank you for reading this and hopefully we can turn our attitudes around before the open beta release.  

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