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General Air Combat Balance / Improvements


Chris

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The air combat in V24 is probably the area of the game that needs the most balancing. Unlike the ground combat, there's probably also some conceptual issues to discuss here, so we may as well start this discussion now so I can include the first batch of changes in V25.

We'll be giving the air combat more attention (and a UI refresh) in Early Access, but we still want something that poses some kind of interesting challenge in the meantime. Here's a few key parameters for the discussion:

  • There's a few new mechanics in the air combat to be aware of. These could potentially be disabled for Early Access if they're not needed.
    • You can deploy your aircraft anywhere around the edge of the combat area when a battle begins (although I'm not actually sure this mechanic adds anything to the player experience, at least in its present form).
    • Aircraft and UFOs now have Armour and their weapons have values for Armour Destruction that reduces the Armour by a given amount after each hit.
    • The retreat system for interceptors is different now. Retreating can be done anywhere on the map and takes ~3 seconds, during which period the interceptor has weapons and evasive roll disabled (it represents an emergency dive to lower altitudes). Previously planes would often be doomed long before they actually died because once a powerful enemy weapon started shooting at them it took longer to turn around and escape than it did for the weapon to destroy them.
    • There's a mechanic where UFOs gain ~10-20% bonus Armour and Health for each additional interceptor in the battle beyond the first. We'll put an option in to disable thism but the idea is it could be viable to run bases with lots of primitive interceptors or fewer more advanced ones.
  • Xenonauts 1 had quite a lot of different aircraft that were differentiated mostly by their equipment slots. Although we could revert to that system, I ideally want to have fewer types of interceptor with more versatile equipment loadouts. If a player realises they need more of a particular type of weapon (e.g. torpedoes), I would rather they could reconfigure existing planes than have to build a whole new airforce.
    • This means we need to try and move properties / limitations onto the weapons. For example, perhaps an interceptor equipped with heavy torpedoes cannot perform an evasive roll but the same aircraft could perform an evasive roll if only equipped with light missiles.
  • I've experimented with four types of weapons in the game, but I think there might only be room for three without them overlapping too much in terms of purpose. They are:
    • Cannons (unlocked by infantry kinetic weapon tech)
    • Missiles (unlocked along with infantry explosives tech)
    • Torpedoes (unlocked along with infantry explosives tech)
    • Lances (unlocked by infantry energy weapon tech)

So, this thread is open for discussion. How would people try and improve the air combat? Ideally without adding new mechanics.

The other question is about how X-Division and other mods handled air combat improvements in the first Xenonauts, as I'm happy to incorporate good ideas from them. I've not played those mods because I struggle to play Xenonauts for fun after working on it for so long, so people might have to explain what the changes are if you think they are worth discussing!

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I have not played the game yet, but I have seen some weird stuff secondhand. 

The "decommission" option feels very strange to me. You apparently get nothing from decommissioning your aircraft and selling it. This feels like it actively punishes building a strong airforce of Angels early on as you get nothing for them once you replace them with Phantoms and beyond. There should be some small benefit for decommissioning aircraft in the short term imo, perhaps just selling an aircraft for half its creation cost is enough. 

https://youtu.be/Buv-F-XPKYA?t=10167

In this first video, a phantom was easily able to take out an abductor ufo with only autocannons with minimal damage. This feels very wrong for 1 interceptor with day 1 weapons to easily take out an abductor months later. 

https://youtu.be/9yeLM9E8Cu4?t=11897

In this second video, three phantoms equipped with laser cannons were able to beat a battleship with two escorts with relative ease. This is essentially the endgame air battle, the toughest one possible within the game, and it is able to be beaten with technology that can be acquired in the first few months. It feels very weird to not have to have to use higher tier weapons or the highest tier interceptor to take out a battle ship and two escorts. After the Phantoms escaped after taking out the battleship, the escorts seemed to have disappeared from the geoscape. I found that a bit odd. 

Summary and Other small thoughts 

-I think there needs to be a higher tier of ufo escorts to reinforce things like harvesters and battleships. The normal ones are just too weak to handle mid-lategame Xenonauts tech. Also, they need to stay on the geoscape even after the ufo they were escorting was destroyed. 

-It is very strange that 1 interceptor with autocannons can take out an abductor with ease, perhaps the secondary weapon of the abductor and other ufos needs to be buffed slightly in terms of armor destruction. 

-Decommissioning aircraft needs to have some slight monetary benefit outside of giving the player nothing in return. Receiving money equal to half the interceptors' construction cost might be enough. 

-Torpedoes are just too powerful compared to every other weapon because they outrange the majority of ufo, reducing damage taken to minimal levels. Perhaps the range needs to be cut down to mitigate this. 

-I think that having energy lances is good for the game because there would be way too many tiers for autocannons if every infantry weapon tier was included in them. I don't want to have to deal with ballistic, accelerated, laser, gauss, plasma, fusion, and probably mag cannons all at once. Having ballistic, accelerated, gauss, and mag for autocannons while having laser, plasma, and fusion for energy lances will be a much better balance. 

-Torpedoes are just too powerful compared to every other weapon because they outrange the majority of ufo, reducing damage taken to minimal levels. Perhaps the range needs to be cut down to mitigate this. 

-This may be the most controversial discussion point I have, but if one of the weapon tiers needs to go to prevent redundancy and overlap, then I think that Torpedoes would probably be the one to go out of the four. If it is too difficult to balance them while also keeping them distinct from missiles and energy lances, then it would be better to remove them and make autocannons, missiles, and energy lances more distinct from one another imo, and having two aircraft weapons being upgraded with the same research seems really redundant.  

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I can see this thread getting derailed rather quickly - to be clear, I'm not looking for suggestions here on how to radically rework the air combat; there's not much time before Early Access to make big changes so what I'm looking for is concrete suggestions on how to better balance what we already have.

@Komandos sorry, I should have been clearer in my initial post what I was looking for, but the things you've posted so far are ideas for reworking mechanics rather so I'm going to hide them to ensure the discussion doesn't go off topic.

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I am glad and excited that air combat is getting looked at as I think it isn't far off from being really interesting.

  • I love the fact you can deploy your fighters all along the combat zone, both using the preselected options on the left but also just clicking your ships before the combat starts. I mostly use it to 'encourage' the UFO to focus on a particular fighter so the more damaged ones are safer during the engagement. I've even had UFOs try to run away when I deployed all my fighters out of their path and unknowingly given them a straight shot to freedom. The only downside to this mechanic is that it isn't explained at all, I only found it by accidentally clicking on one of the premade redeployment options.
  • The new retreat system is great, maybe even too strong. Not only can your torpedo bombers immediately retreat after firing their payload to save fuel but it is pretty easy to save a ship from being shot down. I would consider making it a longer time, maybe 5 seconds?
  • I honestly never noticed a difference in armor and health in UFOs as I always use overwhelming force to shoot down UFOs. I am not sure it is affecting gameplay all that much but there have been times where a UFO has escaped with barely any health after I ran out of ammunition so it will occasionally do something in edge cases.
  • The opportunity cost to aircraft weaponry is too high to make customizing ships for different UFOs feasible imo. Not only are they incredibly expensive and time consuming to build but switching weapons means you need to refit your ship which also takes a lot of time. I'd love a way to recycle or reuse older aircraft tech so it isn't so bittersweet when you upgrade but outside of hand-me-downs to your secondary base I am not sure how to do that.
  • I would lean into making the different weapon and secondary slots (which for now is just armor) feel more unique. I said previously that cannons could cause you to fly faster but I think you can do more here. What if some weapons allowed you shoot down UFOs while doing less damage to the ship or even have a chance that crew would be knocked unconscious instead of killed during the crash? I can see a scenario where you have 3 types of weapons Cannons-missiles/torpedoes-electromagnetic and you would use the first two to weaken a UFO and the third time to shoot it down and preserve as much of the ship and crew as you can. That gives a player a great excuse to mix and match their aircraft weaponry and potentially gain an advantage for their air combat skills.
  • The different fighters feel like a simple linear progression and outside of hand-me-downs there is no reason to use or build an older model. I would love if that wasn't the case somehow.
  • Currently there is very little benefit to having a second based and none for building a third. I think the air combat could be a bigger part of a player's game plan if you were trying fighting the aliens for domination of the sky and not just covering your little patch of earth long enough to finish the needed research and trigger the final mission.
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As an Crowfounder-Betatester I have been in Battle with Abductors, Bombers, Cruisers and Harvesters as first medium / big UFOs with Escorts (Alien-Fighters, advanced Alien Fighters). I´m on Day 280+ in that Test and good to very good in such Games (belongs on the Game itself).

My Weaponary testet are on that Time:

1. Sidwinders / Avalanche (Standard-Rockets & Torpedos)

2. Alenium Sidwinders / Alenium Avalanches (first important Upgrade from Rockets & Torpedos)

3. Autocannon / Accelerated Cannon / Laser Cannon (Standard-Gun / first important upgraded Gun / first Energy-Gun)

4. X-25 Angel (Standard-Interceptor) / X-55 Phantom or what its called (first light upgraded Interceptor)

5. the first 2 Armor-Plates get used (the Standard one on X-55 and the Advanced one on X-25)

I did the Fights with Automatic and Manually on Veteran-Difficulty on the new Game-Version 24.7B. The Outcome is the same. You can beat the Escorts, but not the Main-Target with an normal Squardon [2 Fighters] in the first run with everything you have. With an full Squadron [3 Fighters] it could be possible, but is very difficult too. If the bigger named UFOs are Single, they are not hard to beat, if the Rockets / Torpedos all hit and enough Gun-Ammo / Gun-Energy is there.

But the Escorts make the big Difference. That Escorts you have to beat with Cannons [Main-Weaponary] and evtl. upgraded Sidewinders [if you have an 3rd Fighter] first, then the Main-Target from Abductors, Bombers, Cruisers, Harvesters etc. get attacked with Torpedos to bring the Armor and big Health Points as good as possible down. The remaining HPs get destroyed with the Guns.

The last Days I tried it with different Tactics and get a lot of Damage on my Fighters to bring the Escorts and the Main-Target down. If it were possible with the Weapons, Fighters and Armor-Plates you have to do that [see Point 1 to 5]. If you get unlucky an second Attack on the Main-Target have to be flown to bring it down, after the Escorts get destroyed first and the Main-Target get only Damaged, what is mostly the case.

 

From what I can read in the Discussion so far:

1a) Torpedos have Disadvanteges: No Evasive-Maneuvers (Fighter), no use against fast UFOs (about the missing guidance System), not much Ammo (2 Torpedos about the balance weight)

1b) Torpedos have Advantages: they are very good against big UFOs (more Damage as Rockets) and are not overpowerd; you need the Guns for the final Blow against that UFO!

2a) Rockets have Disadvanteges: not very good against big UFOs (about the lesser Damage)

2b) Rockets have Advanteges: Evasive-Manouvers (Fighter), very good against fast Escort-Fighters and smaller UFOs (about the guidance system), much Ammo (4 Rockets about the balance weight) and are not overpowerd; you need the Guns for the final Blow against the Escort-Fighters and lighter UFOs!

3) The Fighters should like the Support-Vehicles / Soldiers with the Modular-Upgrade-System we have build up for them. With the Rework of the Fighter-Buildup / Pilot-Management the following Upgrades should be done, without destroying everything the Main-Beta-Testers and Devs build up so far:

- flexible Armor-Upgrades and Weapon-Upgrades like we have now: That´s the best System you can have (and bring Xenonauts 2 to the same Level as the direct Competitors have); everything else would destroy the Advantage Xenonauts 2 have to it´s Predecessur (Xenonauts 1) as well as the Work which the Main-Beta-Testers invested the last 2 or 3 Years! The famous "Don´t touch an Running System-Anouncement" is the same as for Operating-Systems!

Modular-Upgrade-System for Fighters:

- Armor-Upgrades on flexible Parts [belongs on the Fighter-Tier we have]: the X-25 Angel get some Upgrades on the Refitable Parts (f. e. Wings, Cockpit, Fuel-Tank) with the Alien-Alloys to make it lighter, faster and a little bit more stable (maybe 120 HPs from 100 HPs)

- Flexibility-Upgrades [belongs on the Fighter-Tier we have]: the X-25 Angel get some Upgrades on internal Main-Parts from 4th / 5th Generation Fighters (f. e. Engines, Fuel-Tanks, Manouverability-Upgrades), which makes it 40% faster and more agile (longer Duty-Time until much better fighters get availible)

- Internal-Upgrades [belongs on the Figher-Tier we have]: The Fighters can get 1 or 2 more Slots for internal Upgrades (f. e. Electronics, Energy-Shields, Drop-Tanks or Similar); belongs on the Fighter Generation we have: the X-25 Angel f. e. can´t use Engery-Shields or Alenium-Engines, therefore it can be upgraded with better Electronics and Long-Range-Drop-Tanks!

- Pilot-Skills: The Pilot is learning with every Airfight and get better with Time; evtl. she / he can be an Mentor for new Fighter Pilots later!

- Pilot-Usage: The Pilot can change the Fighter (like an Soldier / Support Vehicle the Transport) to an new Fighter or an refited Fighter!

- Aircraft-Fighter-Screen: Implementing the cool Features which get announced (Weather, Clouds etc.)

Short said: The System we have now is very good and need only an Rework / Upgrade from the announced Parts which make it more flexible.

Edited by Alienkiller
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My experience in V24, and V23 before that, is that air combat is all about if you can fit enough torpedoes. The two-torpedo loadout is superior to any other. The reasons why that is the case seem fairly simple to me, not so sure about the solutions.

The outcome of air combat is ultimately measured by two things - how much damage you did to he UFO and how much damage you took. Torpedoes provide optimal results on both counts. They do the most damage and their superior range allows them to be fired without entering UFO weapons range, so flying with torpedoes only provides the best outcome, almost every time.

There is one small exception, which is wings with escorts. It's hard to hit escorts with torpedoes, although possible, but even with escorted wings the optimal tactic seems to be to ignore the escorts, hit the main UFO and retreat. It might be better to equip one plane with double cannons for anti-escort duty but I am not sure, so even this exception to torpedo superiority is partial at most.

The basic problem then is IMO a simple one. The design intention is for various weapons to have different advantages but in reality nothing has an advantage over torpedoes in actual air combat, so the intention isn't fulfilled. I'm not quite sure how to address that but here are some ideas that should only require tweaks and not new mechanics:

  • Differentiate UFOs more. Every UFO is the same in combat, at least against torpedoes. They have different firing areas and some other properties but it doesn't matter because torpedoes outrange everything so against your torpedo plane, all UFOs are the same. Maybe some UFO could have a "particle beam" type of weapon - very long range but in a narrow arc so you cannot outrange it with torpedoes and need evasive rolls. Another UFO could have "point defense" where it shoots down the first projectile aimed at it, so you benefit from using missiles instead of large torpedoes. Many ideas are possible but the point is to change some UFOs so that the "approach at max speed, fire torpedoes, hit retreat" tactic is no longer optimal for every case.
  • Change how weapons affect the planes. Torpedoes currently prohibit evasive rolls but who needs rolls when you outrange everything anyway? A more relevant change would be to speed. Maybe torpedo planes are too slow to catch some UFOs. Especially if the speed is also affected on the geoscape. Or maybe a cannon-only loadout increases agility so your planes can make tighter turns. Or the cannon-only loadout improves the plane's stealth signature so it will not be fired upon before the plane itself fires and reveals itself. 
  • Let UFOs roll and make missiles guided? Or in general allow "main" UFOs to have some behavior that isn't flying in a straight line?

Special mention for a potential new feature that doesn't have to be too complex - weather affecting air combat. No need to have a major mechanic here, I imagine weather as a random roll of modifiers when entering air combat. Say you have "low visibility", which reduces maximum weapon range and makes torpedoes weaker. Or you have "thunderstorm", affecting airplane speed, or "magnetic storm" that makes missiles possibly veer of course, etc. If it's just modifying some airplane/weapon properties for the duration of the combat, it's probably not a major implementation job, and could add an element of variety.

There are a couple related issues that need addressing for various loadouts to be viable:

  • Costs. The numbers are certainly off now, with laser cannons at 250k that's half a million for double laser cannons... too expensive, too much workshop time. If the goal is for the player to switch loadouts, they have to be affordable enough, otherwise the best strategy will in any way to focus on one loadout that works well.
  • Rearm times. X2 airplanes rearm slowly (and refuel and repair as well). I think it's to prevent the 'wear them down' approach to air combat, not sure if that in itself is the right approach, but in any case a side effect is that it's too late to switch loadouts when UFOs show up. Ideally, I could use radar data to figure out what I'm likely looking at, switch loadouts and fly off, then possibly changing loadouts again for another target. With the slow rearm, this doesn't really work, which again means my only choice is to pre-select a general layout that is likely to work well for whatever shows up.


As for X1 mods, I don't really have anything to recommend in the area of air combat. X-Division did lots of work there but the approach was to make air combat far more difficult so X-Div UFOs have powerful weapons, large firing areas, etc. It requires a lot more pausing and lots and lots of evasive rolls. While it's a well-implemented system, it's in my opinion a completely different direction from what X2 should have. My favourite modded addition there was a radar plane that has a good fuel reserve, a large onboard radar, but near-useless weaponry.

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Solver, I did the same in 1 Million Times Testing. Dosen´t matter, the Outcome is the same: Interceptors 0, Aliens: 3! (Automatic and Manually)

You can´t reach the enemy UFO as Main-Target after the Escorts come up. In that Case I organised my Planes in 3 Parts: 1 Multirole-Fighter (1x Gun and 1x Rockets) and 2 Multirole-Fighters (2x Gun and 2x Torpedos). With that the Changes rised to shoot down the Escorts and damage the Main-Target heavy. In an second Attack-Run you could shoot the Main-Target down.

That I call an Air-Battle. Not like in X1 where you only have Standard-Fighters or Torpedo-Fighters.

I personaly like the Xenonauts 2 Airbattle, because you don´t know what happens. But 1 Thing is clear: You can´t shoot down your Main-Target when Escorts are nearby!

I explain it: Mostly I had 2 Fighters ready and send them to attack an Bomber, Observer and similar with Escorts. The Escorts reached my Planes (dosen´t matter if they were X-25 or X-55) before I could reach the Main-Target. If I get lucky the 4 Torpedos hit the Target before the Escorts shoot the Planes down.

On the other Hand I could do the Dogfight with the Escorts first and attack then the Main-Target in an second Attack-Run after Refilling and Rearming.

That what I mean after the 1 Million Airfights with Escorts. That´s the Decission: Either attack the Main-Target and loose your Fighters or first the Escorts and after you Damaged the Target you shoot it down with an second Run after Rearming and Refilling.

 

If there is comming the cool Stuff with Clouds etc. then the Airfight will get an important Upgrade. It´s up to now with the upgraded Airfight-System interessting and fun. The best Feature from it: It works without Problems (CTDs, Hangups etc.) with the Multirole-Aircrafts

Edited by Alienkiller
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14 hours ago, Solver said:

Special mention for a potential new feature that doesn't have to be too complex - weather affecting air combat. No need to have a major mechanic here, I imagine weather as a random roll of modifiers when entering air combat. Say you have "low visibility", which reduces maximum weapon range and makes torpedoes weaker. Or you have "thunderstorm", affecting airplane speed, or "magnetic storm" that makes missiles possibly veer of course, etc. If it's just modifying some airplane/weapon properties for the duration of the combat, it's probably not a major implementation job, and could add an element of variety.

I definitely agree here. Weather effects should be something that is experimented with in the future builds. It does a lot of combating the problem of every air battle feeling the same and it could also be a ways of balancing some of the weapons and making them more unique. 

I have some other thoughts about other mechanics to add as well.

-It might be worth removing rearming times entirely on the geoscape. If the intention is to make each air combat more unique and vary the weapons, planes, and tactics used in each encounter, having a rearming time that prevents the player from doing that seems counterintuitive. If rearming times were removed entirely, then the player could switch weapons on the fly and make air combat more dynamic and interesting. 

-I find the initial air combat project rather strange. The player has not yet actually fought an air battle at this point, so lore wise it doesn't make that much sense for the head scientist to come up with missiles and torpedoes specifically designed to take out ufos if you haven't fought a ufo in the first place, and it feels wrong to give the player more options for air combat at the very beginning of the game as they have not experienced air combat yet and do know the ins and outs of it. This obviously is not an issue with veteran players, but this will probably be a minor annoyance for first time players that may join in open beta, early access, or even release. I think this project should be pushed back until the player has actually shot down a ufo once and acquired its datacore imo.  

-I think there needs to be another slot on an airplane for misc upgrades to be placed on it other than just weapons and armor. This slot could add things like bigger aircraft radar, faster thrusters, slightly faster fire rate, esc. It would add a lot more utility, make each plane more unique, and make general air combat more interesting. 

-Evasive rolls probably need to have another look at too imo. If the intention is to make air combat more strategic, then the current implementation has the same issue as Xen 1 where it rewards better reaction times and/or pause mashing to optimally evade a ufo's shots. This is probably another reason why torpedoes are generally prefered. Since torpedoes lock out evasive rolls in their entirety and outrange everything, then there is no need to worry about evasive rolls and do air combat battles with less effort. I can't think of any great solutions right now, but there needs to be some tweaks to this mechanic. Perhaps having a timer on a ufo's head to show when they are about to fire can ease the problem a tiny bit? 

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Thanks for the comments everyone. Having done an initial read over what's been posted so far, here's my first set of balance changes and thoughts:

  • V25 already includes significantly reduced refuel / rearm times. UFOs now regenerate health on the Geoscape so while it is possible to take down a UFO by attacking it with torpedoes and then returning to base and re-arming and then repeating, it shouldn't be viable with just one plane. This frees up your interceptors to fight multiple combats in one wave.
  • I'll increase the duration on retreating to 4 or 5 seconds, as I agree that it does feel a bit too effective at the moment.
  • You no longer have to build Armour for aircraft; this is going to become part of a one-off global engineering project that upgrades the armour on all aircraft and vehicles.
  • All aircraft weapons now cost $200k to build. This is a reduction for cannons, and an increase for torpedoes and missiles. Note also that there's a global decrease in engineering times in V25 too, which means they'll be faster to build as well.
  • Torpedoes reduced in range from 8 down to 7, missiles reduced in range from 6 down to 5.5. Cannons still have range 3.

The next point of discussion is how to make the UFO battles more varied and the equipment loadouts for your interceptors more potentially interesting, which are two closely related discussions. The first question is what are the different weapons actually good at; right now they're set up as follows.

  • Cannons: these are short range weapons with reliable sustained damage and armour shred. They can't be evaded and have the highest overall damage of any weapon, but it takes a while to unload all the shots and you have to expose yourself to lots of attacks from the UFO to get into range and fire off all the ammo.
    • This makes them good against UFOs that can evade (Fighters), and indeed any UFO if you can position the interceptor to avoid taking too many hits from UFO weapons.
  • Missiles: these are medium range weapons that do high burst damage, but have somewhat weak armour shred. They move fast enough that UFOs generally can't evade them.
    • This makes them good to quickly pick off escort UFOs at long range before they get into cannon range. They're also good finishers against normal UFOs if something can break the armour first, as they deal their damage much more quickly than cannons do.
  • Torpedoes: these are long range weapons that do medium damage, but have good armour penetration and armour destruction. They travel slowly and are easily evaded by UFOs that can roll, and they are so heavy that aircraft carrying them lose the ability to roll.
    • These are designed to soften up big UFOs at the start of a battle, as they still deal full damage against heavily armoured UFOs and also shred the armour so other weapons can more efficiently destroy them.

There's a few problems with this in practice. The first is that Torpedoes are just too strong overall; it seems like they deal enough damage to be viable weapons despite being intended primarily as anti-armour weapons. Missiles also overlap a bit too much with Cannons, as Cannons are strong vs escorts but then so are Missiles. I think in most cases Cannons are superior to Missiles, particularly when you have multiple aircraft in a squadron and so can maneuver at least one plane behind the UFO and blast away without taking damage.

I'm going to have a think about the different UFO archetypes today, and maybe see what happens if we try to collapse missiles and torpedoes together into a generic "missile" weapon and then add lances in as the the third weapon category.

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55 minutes ago, Chris said:

You no longer have to build Armour for aircraft; this is going to become part of a one-off global engineering project that upgrades the armour on all aircraft and vehicles.

Shame. I liked that you actually had to build more stuff/making the economic part more interesting.

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1 hour ago, Chris said:

The next point of discussion is how to make the UFO battles more varied and the equipment loadouts for your interceptors more potentially interesting, which are two closely related discussions.

First of all, the problem is not diversity. The problem is the lack of intrigue in the battles. In the absence of uncertainty. It's like gambling. Gambling can be simple in its essence, but very exciting. Diversity really creates intrigue by the novelty of the situation. Variety really does not allow the player to get tired of monotony.

 But if the battle does not contain intrigue (randomness, uncertainty, uncertainty, surprise) and if the player can predict the whole process in advance, then such a battle will not attract attention.

Some games add a huge variety of random artifacts and bonuses that the player "knocks out" of enemies. In other games, a lot depends on the initial "alignment of the card in the game deck".

I would recommend a huge number of random artifacts and weapons for UFOs, as well as more randomness and uncertainty factors in the battles themselves. Well, the variety of the battles themselves, depending on the composition of the UFO group and depending on the meteorological conditions of the battle.

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In the production of weapons and aircraft - not all the characteristics of one type of weapon and one type of aircraft should be the same. They should differ slightly in one direction or another (within some random limits). This will turn the production of aviation components into a small lottery game.

The characteristics of weapons, armor and engines in UFOs also deviate within small random limits (parameter +- random deviation). This will make UFOs almost unlike each other, even without using a huge pool (set) of their designs.

Edited by Komandos
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As for the player's planes, they should have two strategies. Strategy 1: An inconspicuous heavy aircraft that is armed with heavy long-range weapons (missiles). Strategy 2: A very maneuverable, light and fast aircraft armed with melee weapons.

Different planes of the player must be effective in different ways against different types of UFOs.

Just like the aliens have a huge UFO and two small UFO escorts, the player must also have a "main heavy plane" and two small escorts.

Small planes versus small UFOs do too little damage to each other. (Little ammunition hits the target). Big planes versus big UFOs cause too much damage to each other. (All ammunition hits the target). A small plane versus a large plane inflict average damage to each other (the middle part of the ammunition hits the target or the middle part of the ammunition penetrates the armor).

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Chris, I will test the V.24.7B-Version with new begunn Gameplay again, esp. in the existing Airfight-Parts.

My Construction from the Fighters are: 1 Cannon for every Fighter and either 1 Torpedo / Missle as well as Armor-Plates.

Atm. I could test out the X-25 Angels / X-55 Phantoms with Autocanons, Accelerated Cannons and Laser Cannons, the Standard-Armor-Plate / Alloy-Armor-Plate as well as Standard-Missles / Torpedos incl. the Alenium-Versions of them.

I personaly like the Airfight about it´s 100% playability with no CTDs or other Issues. Some more Content / Features would be nice in V25+-Versions.

 

What the other Reworks / Modernisations belongs sound it cool (I see you and the Team have integrated that Modular-Upgrade-System-Idea for Fighters) with the important Points, which is missing in the atm and previous Beta-Test-Versions.

- Armor-Upgrades on flexible Parts [belongs on the Fighter-Tier we have]: the X-25 Angel get some Upgrades on the Refitable Parts (f. e. Wings, Cockpit, Fuel-Tank) with the Standard-Armors / Alien-Alloys etc. to make it lighter, faster and a little bit more stable (maybe 120 HPs from 100 HPs)

- Flexibility-Upgrades [belongs on the Fighter-Tier we have]: the X-25 Angel get some Upgrades on internal Main-Parts from 4th / 5th Generation Fighters (f. e. Engines, Fuel-Tanks, Manouverability-Upgrades), which makes it 40% faster and more agile (longer Duty-Time until much better fighters get availible)

- Internal-Upgrades [belongs on the Figher-Tier we have]: The Fighters can get 1 or 2 more Slots for internal Upgrades (f. e. Electronics, Energy-Shields, Drop-Tanks or Similar); belongs on the Fighter Generation we have: the X-25 Angel f. e. can´t use Engery-Shields or Alenium-Engines, therefore it can be upgraded with better Electronics and Long-Range-Drop-Tanks!

- Pilot-Skills: The Pilot is learning with every Airfight and get better with Time; evtl. she / he can be an Mentor for new Fighter Pilots later!

- Pilot-Usage: The Pilot can change the Fighter (like an Soldier / Support Vehicle the Transport) to an new Fighter or an refited Fighter!

 

What the Weapons for Fighters belongs:

The Cannons are Clear in the Explenation. They are Guns with either normal Ammunition and short Range (Dogfight-Weapons) to fight other Planes and enemy UFOs.

The Missles are Clera in the Explenation. They are light manouverable Rockets with an explosive Warhead and medium Range (normal Attackrange) to fight other Planes and enemy UFOs.

The Torpedos are Clear in the Explenation. They are heavy unmanouverable Rockets with the biggest explosvie Warhead and long Range (like the Maveriks / the big Bomb an Army- / Navy Fighter can handle [GBU or what it called]) to fight big Ships and big enemy UFOs.

But the Lance is not so Clear. Do you mean with that Energy-Cannons (like the Laser Cannon) or something like that?

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@Komandos Air combat weapons now support damage randomisation in the same way tactical combat weapons do, and I'm willing to consider adding some randomness into the battles to make them more unpredictable and uncertain.

But you're wrong to claim lack of variety / diversity isn't a problem imo. Otherwise we only need one type of UFO, and one interceptor, and one weapon. Even a game like Counterstrike which has 10 players who act differently every single time you play a round still has multiple weapons and multiple maps, because variety improves the experience even if you already have plenty of intruige and unpredictability.

Also, please try to keep your thoughts in a single post, even if it becomes a very long post. It becomes quite hard to read threads when there's 3+ consecutive posts by a single person.

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@ChrisHow to achieve diversity in the cheapest way I have already outlined in the message:

 

https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/27672-general-air-combat-balance-improvements/&do=findComment&comment=191496

 

I just want to add to this: that all these characteristics (or part of the characteristics) can be associated with the skills and talents of the pilot.

 

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53 minutes ago, Komandos said:

As for the player's planes, they should have two strategies. Strategy 1: An inconspicuous heavy aircraft that is armed with heavy long-range weapons (missiles). Strategy 2: A very maneuverable, light and fast aircraft armed with melee weapons.

Different planes of the player must be effective in different ways against different types of UFOs.

Just like the aliens have a huge UFO and two small UFO escorts, the player must also have a "main heavy plane" and two small escorts.

Small planes versus small UFOs do too little damage to each other. (Little ammunition hits the target). Big planes versus big UFOs cause too much damage to each other. (All ammunition hits the target). A small plane versus a large plane inflict average damage to each other (the middle part of the ammunition hits the target or the middle part of the ammunition penetrates the armor).

That´s exactly the Reason, why Xenonauts 1 is not attraticve for the most normal Gamers anymore (expect for the Modders and the little Charge of Gamers which still play the XCE-Version).

About that unflexibility in making Multirole-Aircrafts / Vehicles the most Gamers canceld to play Xenonauts 1 (incl. me) and instead playing XCOM 2 without the Airbattle, the with it´s Airforce-Flexibility Fan-Projects [like UFO: AI] and direct Rivals like the UFO ET-Series, old X-Com-Series and similar, where you have the flexibility to make Multi-Role-Aircrafts / Vehicles.

Why do you think Xenonauts 2 is on that perfect Level as it is now. Only by the Reason that the Devs and we Main-Beta-Founders / Testers looked what the direct Rivals are doing in Upgrading / Modernising / Refiting their Games of that Gerne to the newest playability (esp. with Modular-Parts for Groundfeatures, Basefeatures, Geoscapefeatures, Airforcefeatures) to make the Game more flexible.

Hoi 4, Stellaris and other Strategy-Games are going the same way. If they wouldn´t do that, they were dead End-Games (like sorry to say that Xenonauts 1 and the Standard- / Gold-UFO ET-Version) which have about 70% useless Features, which you R & D, but don´t use about the knowleadge that´s only Waste of Time to build. 

The flexibility of the Game in all Parts is important, not static Things like that Fighter is only for that and that Vehicle is only for that. This are outdated thinkings from the Midage or the General-Thinkings of 1st WW.  

 

Edited by Alienkiller
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1 hour ago, Alienkiller said:

The flexibility of the Game in all Parts is important, not static Things like that Fighter is only for that and that Vehicle is only for that. This are outdated thinkings from the Midage or the General-Thinkings of 1st WW.  

If you have a universal plane (for all occasions), with a universal weapon (for all occasions), then how are you going to achieve diversity?

In order for battles to be diverse (as Chris wants them to be), they (battles) must have many forms. And the shape depends on the components. The greater the diversity of the component parts, the greater the diversity in the final forms constructed from these parts. If you have one universal letter, how many words and sentences can you make up from one universal letter? If you have one universal note - how many different melodies can you come up with from one universal note? If you have one universal plane, how many unique combat situations can you extract from it if the enemy also has a universal UFO?

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I have explained it already. Belongs on the Tier the Aircraft, Vehicle, Armor etc. have. The same goes with Bases, Outposts and similar.

If you read the the X-25-Example in my last Post corretly then you would know what that flexibility gives the Game. Exactly such Features make all other Games great, the unflexible Games uninteresting.

Why do you think the Developers here, from UFO ET-Series and others like Firaxis etc. implement modularable Fighters, Vehicles, Armors, Bases etc. with special Limitations as Maximum Flexibility? Not for fun, but to stand out from the 08/15 unflexible crowd.

Edited by Alienkiller
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6 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

I have explained it already. Belongs on the Tier the Aircraft, Vehicle, Armor etc. have. The same goes with Bases, Outposts and similar.

It turns out that all the diversity depends on the number of levels of technological development? If a player has three levels of aircraft development, then he will pass three types of air battles in the game?

 

6 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

Why do you think the Developers here, from UFO ET-Series and other Firaxis etc. implement modularable Fighters, Vehicles, Armors, Bases etc. with special Limitations as Maximum Flexibility.

If you want real flexibility, then I can advise you to abandon the idea of airplanes altogether. There is a constructor (similar to the Lego constructor) The designer has a set of parts: wings, fuselages, engines, fuel tanks, cockpit, weapon mounts. You assemble from this constructor (as if from a Lego constructor) such an airplane as you want. However, many parts have to be invented in a scientific laboratory and manufactured in a factory.

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3 hours ago, Chris said:

and I'm willing to consider adding some randomness into the battles to make them more unpredictable and uncertain.

I do not know if this is possible or not, but as an accident I would suggest adding the following: When hitting an aircraft with some probability:

the weapon may be damaged, causing one of the weapon slots to lose the ability to fire;

the engine may be damaged, causing the aircraft (UFO) to lose speed;

the wing may be damaged, causing the aircraft to lose maneuverability;

the pilot may die, causing the aircraft device will collapse to the ground.

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For an other Game like Flight Simulator or so the Advice is good, but not in that Gerne we have here.

We have to orient on the Predecessors which give us the Main-Template (X-COM: Apocalypse, X-COM: Interceptor, UFO 1 ET [Fighters / UFOs], UFO 2 ET [Vehicles / Equipment, etc.], UFO: AI, Star Wolves-Row) and not making the unflexible Failures from again (Xenonauts 1 [Fighters, Equipment etc.], new XCOM EU [Fighters], X-Com: EU / TftD [Vehicles, Armour], UFO 1 ET [Vehicles, Equipment]) again.

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On 11/24/2022 at 5:31 PM, Solver said:

As for X1 mods, I don't really have anything to recommend in the area of air combat. X-Division did lots of work there but the approach was to make air combat far more difficult so X-Div UFOs have powerful weapons, large firing areas, etc. It requires a lot more pausing and lots and lots of evasive rolls. While it's a well-implemented system, it's in my opinion a completely different direction from what X2 should have. My favourite modded addition there was a radar plane that has a good fuel reserve, a large onboard radar, but near-useless weaponry.

I would actually like the air game to become closer to x-div, It had lots of really good ideas, and we could learn from it (with some restraint of course)
For example, it solved the torpedo question by:

  • making their total damage ridiculous
  • gave them super high lock-on time ((IIRC like 10 seconds?),
  • lowered rate of fire while also needing to fire like 8 times total to get the full damage.
  • made foxtrots lot more sluggish, with UFO's being a lot more agile.

That effectively turned them into "bombers", weak in a straight up dogfight and needing escorts (via planes with either mausers or anti-projectile shields) due to a very long time required to stay on target and low manouverability, but invaluable against Heavier UFO's. It made it much more interesting than what we have at least.

On 11/23/2022 at 8:52 PM, Kamehamehayes said:

-I think there needs to be a higher tier of ufo escorts to reinforce things like harvesters and battleships. The normal ones are just too weak to handle mid-lategame Xenonauts tech. Also, they need to stay on the geoscape even after the ufo they were escorting was destroyed. 

 

I think there needs to be more fighters in general, currently aliens don't even try for air superiority. Torpedoes being better than cannons for slow UFO's makes sense but if that's all you fight then they're just better overall.

I'm not sure how I feel about armor becoming a global upgrade, i kinda liked that you had to consider the defensive aspect of planes as well, and you do get a lot less interceptors now so it's not like it's that much micro-management.

As for randomness and variety, how about giving each UFO some random modifiers? Like them randomly getting a back-facing cannon, or a anti-projectile shield, or deployment of anti-air mines, EMP's that make aircraft unable to roll etc. Of course, it's not a short term proposal and something more for the early-access overhaul, but i think it'll be interesting.

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Like said, most of us invested for Xenonauts 2 more then 3 Years to ignore the Failures and unessecarry Features from Xenonauts 1.

Xenonauts 1 was a good Project for an 2D Game, but Xenonauts 2 is the Key with it´s complete new Features since new XCOM, Phoenix Point and in Refit UFO ET-Series show us what is possible.

The Devs and we Founders / Betatesters integrated a lot of Features from the very good Xenonaut 1-Mod-Ideas. If there are more compatible Ideas to the 2020+- important Features (the other Games I announced show what is a must have today and not going back in the Past [like unflexible Fighters, Vehicles, Armours]) Xenonauts 2 have the Chance to be a great Game.

If unnessecary unflexible Parts from Xenonauts 1 / UFO 1 ET Standard-/ Gold-Version and similar come back, the interessest for Xenonauts 2 will drop rapidely. 

I know enough Games, where such an drop come rapidely and it sunk in the dimple or a rush Playthrough about to much unnessecary unflexible Features [Vehicles, Aircrafts, Equipment etc.].

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