Dropship Mission Storage

[cman1983]

1 minute ago, Raffik said:

I do not and I routinely run out of H.E.V.Y. rounds only. If I loose the shield or run out of ammo, then so be it and I need to adjust my tactics to reflect that fact. I rather elaborate on how to flank that mf-er who just destroyed my shield than to run for a new one. But that is my play style preference only. Overstocking works fine as well I assume

Am not a fan of the overtaking as I think by going with the tanks there must be a weight difference  and never have tryd this again my playsytle must differ but a do think there should be a weight allowance to make players have to strategyse there squad equipment also if they could put a weapons locker in craft then it should just be equipment like ammo grenades stun batons or knifes n maybe stunnguns n shields not over compensating on weapons maybe even have 1 or 2 extra seats for a couple of reserve troups in plane who only can be used if squad is defeated as player option of continue fight or retreat the injured soldiers 

[doubleskulls]

14 hours ago, Raffik said:

I do not and I routinely run out of H.E.V.Y. rounds only. If I loose the shield or run out of ammo, then so be it and I need to adjust my tactics to reflect that fact. I rather elaborate on how to flank that mf-er who just destroyed my shield than to run for a new one. But that is my play style preference only. Overstocking works fine as well I assume

I don't use the grenadier.... but I can see how running out of rounds with them would be painful. As things stand I think you'd be better off just taking a pistol and grenades and get a better equipped soldier. 

[doubleskulls]

14 hours ago, cman1983 said:

Am not a fan of the overtaking as I think by going with the tanks there must be a weight difference  and never have tryd this again my playsytle must differ but a do think there should be a weight allowance to make players have to strategyse there squad equipment also if they could put a weapons locker in craft then it should just be equipment like ammo grenades stun batons or knifes n maybe stunnguns n shields not over compensating on weapons maybe even have 1 or 2 extra seats for a couple of reserve troups in plane who only can be used if squad is defeated as player option of continue fight or retreat the injured soldiers 

As things stand there is no TU cost for dropping items (or other penalty). Unless you deliberately put something into to stop that, then there is nothing to stop people overloading troops. Any limitations on the storage locker would then be pointless as if anyone found it limiting they'd just use the existing work around. 

[DaviddesJ]

It makes sense to me that the dropships could carry extra ammo. The weight would be negligible and we're already assuming ammo is free. The solution to people just playing even more conservatively and staying near the dropship and reloading often is more time pressure in missions.

[Komandos]

34 minutes ago, DaviddesJ said:

. The weight would be negligible and we're already assuming ammo is free.

The game also assumes that the player will somehow win (fulfill) all tasks. In fact, the dispute is about what difficulties the player should face. Should the player face a shortage of ammunition on the battlefield? I think I should, but it should be in defensive missions and assignments, not attacking missions and assignments.

It is logical that no one wants to send a squad on a mission, not being sure that the squad will have enough ammunition.

I suggest adding tasks to the game, endurance missions, where the player will have to face a shortage of ammunition. In UFO2, such tasks consisted of two parts (On the surface and underground (in the holds))

[DaviddesJ]

41 minutes ago, Komandos said:

The game also assumes that the player will somehow win (fulfill) all tasks.

I don't think that's true. You can fail a mission and still be successful in the campaign.

 

It seems to me that you should always have plenty of bullets. Whether you have time to retrieve them and to reload, etc., is a different question.

[Komandos]

1 hour ago, DaviddesJ said:

It seems to me that you should always have plenty of bullets.

It seems to me that not all missions should be similar to each other. And the difficulties that the player faces - on different tasks (missions) should be different.

I am a supporter of this point of view - the wider and more diverse the gaming experience that a player gets in the game, the better.

What I don't like the most is that there is not a single mission in the game (including the final mission) where the scale of the battle would be at the UFO level:1-2-3. (There are no two-series missions and there is not even one battle at the platoon level.)

Edited August 11, 2023 by Komandos

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

What if dropships had a weight limit for all the equipment they can carry? I.e. everything carried by your soldiers. It might be too tricky to balance, but perhaps it could prevent over-loading soldiers just for them to drop kit on the dropship floor during turn 1.

[Komandos]

Will the player overload his soldiers and dump all the equipment on the floor in the first round, if this equipment can be loaded into the aircraft inventory?

[Skitso]

Overloading is easy to avoid by adding a weight limit to the landingship, where every weapon, magazine, grenade etc adds to it. If the carrier weight limit exceeds, it won't lift off.

[Raffik]

9 hours ago, doubleskulls said:

I don't use the grenadier.... but I can see how running out of rounds with them would be painful. As things stand I think you'd be better off just taking a pistol and grenades and get a better equipped soldier. 

You're right.  Currently, there is no big difference between a grenade thrower (soldier) and grenade launcher (weapon)

In ideal situation, the HEVY would have additional type of ammo (flechette), so it could be turned into a shotgun in case of need 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Raffik
addition

[Raffik]

On 7/19/2023 at 12:13 PM, Chris said:

I think if you did that people would just continue to use the "load soldiers up and drop their equipment" trick instead tbh.

Could the MARS be used as additional carrier of extra equipment perhaps? It has a greyed out "backpack" as well, what about using it for extra storage space for clips, grenades etc? It is a limited space (5x5 i believe, but could be made smaller, say 3x3) and as a mechanized unit, the TU loss because of the excess weight could be smaller (say half) than by regular soldier, but still a thing to consider. Or, there could be additional primary available (lets call it MULE), which would "unlock" the backpack area and only allow the secondary weapon to be used, sacrificing the primary weapon for storage space usage, but without loss of mobility.

[doubleskulls]

As things stand today everyone can choose take more equipment to every battle than they need, they just have to spend a couple of minutes at the start of each tactical battle unloading it. My view of the storage locker was that it was intended so that this behaviour wasn't needed and a more natural method was available to provide spares. I can't say I've seen any suggestions that are any better than that relatively simple change.

Thinking a bit more about it now, I'm actually coming to a view that I may keep on overloading anyway as most battles I'm going to have to tweak soldier backpacks, and the only real difference is that I do it in tactical rather then picking the soldiers for the dropship. On some missions I may want different grenade mix (e.g. more frag when fighting wraiths, less smoke if its reapers) and I'll generally know this on the first turn. Sooo... my ask of the devs would be to make it so that if I drop something on the ground it just automatically places it for me, rather than me having to specifically find a slot it can fit into. i.e. no 'computer says no' when I drop a grenade on top of something else. 

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

Another option is to simply not allow soldiers to be loaded with more weight than they can carry. That could work well on its own or in conjunction with a dropship storage module upgrade.

[cman1983]

1 hour ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

Another option is to simply not allow soldiers to be loaded with more weight than they can carry. That could work well on its own or in conjunction with a dropship storage module upgrade.

Yeh but what happens if u run out ano for example 

[cman1983]

2 hours ago, doubleskulls said:

As things stand today everyone can choose take more equipment to every battle than they need, they just have to spend a couple of minutes at the start of each tactical battle unloading it. My view of the storage locker was that it was intended so that this behaviour wasn't needed and a more natural method was available to provide spares. I can't say I've seen any suggestions that are any better than that relatively simple change.

Thinking a bit more about it now, I'm actually coming to a view that I may keep on overloading anyway as most battles I'm going to have to tweak soldier backpacks, and the only real difference is that I do it in tactical rather then picking the soldiers for the dropship. On some missions I may want different grenade mix (e.g. more frag when fighting wraiths, less smoke if its reapers) and I'll generally know this on the first turn. Sooo... my ask of the devs would be to make it so that if I drop something on the ground it just automatically places it for me, rather than me having to specifically find a slot it can fit into. i.e. no 'computer says no' when I drop a grenade on top of something else. 

Iv never needed any extra amo etc but I was only thinking about the space in the intercepter there is in 1st interceptor 9 soldiers or 8 n 1 mars but there is space for probably another 5 or 6 plus the in between soldiers and the control room so my thinking is the space is a hold for prisoners and put in a locker for xtra amo and maybe a couple of reserve soldiers 

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

1 hour ago, cman1983 said:

Yeh but what happens if u run out ano for example 

It's very easy for a soldier to carry ample ammo with the current weights of items. In 24 hours of playing I don't think I ever had to even reload a ballistic or gauss weapon. Lasers are the exception, with their smaller capacities. To be honest, overloading soldiers and dropping spare supplies on the dropship floor never occurred to me because ammo was always so plentiful. So I don't think it's much of a problem?

However, this running out of ammo scenario situation does tie into a suggestion I made somewhere else on the forum: make it so your soldiers can pick up and use dropped alien weapons, but with significant accuracy penalties, and perhaps other deterrents too, such as a risk of the alien weapon exploding every time you use it. So, if you actually do run out of ammo and are desperate, you've still got an option, albeit a risky one.

[cman1983]

But wouldn't that make more sense as I suspect they are aligned to their print 

[cman1983]

7 hours ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

What if dropships had a weight limit for all the equipment they can carry? I.e. everything carried by your soldiers. It might be too tricky to balance, but perhaps it could prevent over-loading soldiers just for them to drop kit on the dropship floor during turn 1.

That's what I said aswell weight got to be a factor if can only cary 9 soldiers or 8 n a mars at start

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

17 minutes ago, cman1983 said:

That's what I said aswell weight got to be a factor if can only cary 9 soldiers or 8 n a mars at start

Well the limit to the number of soldiers / MARS units is for gameplay balance rather than because of the actual weight that the helicopter can carry, right? But I guess if weight is used to explain away how many people it can transport, then it wouldn't be hard to expand that to equipment. Maybe it would over-complicate things, I don't really know.

[cman1983]

FYI iv just finished a game on 180 days and only 53 percent end game 

[Jorlem]

2 hours ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

It's very easy for a soldier to carry ample ammo with the current weights of items. In 24 hours of playing I don't think I ever had to even reload a ballistic or gauss weapon. Lasers are the exception, with their smaller capacities. To be honest, overloading soldiers and dropping spare supplies on the dropship floor never occurred to me because ammo was always so plentiful. So I don't think it's much of a problem?

 

Ammo, I agree with, but being able to have spare shields for when it comes time to breach the UFO? That would be really nice.

[Komandos]

57 minutes ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

Well the limit to the number of soldiers / MARS units is for gameplay balance rather 

Absolutely all the restrictions that exist in any games are explained by the need for balance. But players do not buy the game in order to feel (experience) the game balance (or what is meant by balance).

When the game goes on sale, many players will use cheats and mods (which will upset the balance of the game, but players still like it). Everyone likes to be rich. Everyone likes to accumulate wealth. Inventory on aircraft helps to realize this desire.

[DaviddesJ]

20 hours ago, Komandos said:

It seems to me that not all missions should be similar to each other. And the difficulties that the player faces - on different tasks (missions) should be different.

Absolutely. That doesn't mean that "you have plenty of ammunition at your base but you couldn't bring any more of it on the dropship" should be one of those challenges. It just doesn't make much sense.

[DaviddesJ]

8 hours ago, Komandos said:

When the game goes on sale, many players will use cheats and mods (which will upset the balance of the game, but players still like it). Everyone likes to be rich. Everyone likes to accumulate wealth. Inventory on aircraft helps to realize this desire.

 

No, I don't. I like the challenge of scarcity.