Milestone 2 (Prototype 2) - Balance Discussion

[Chris]

You can read about how to access this build and what changes are in it in this thread here: 

This thread is for people to post up their opinions on the game balance or the new features, or any issues they encounter.

[Grobobobo]

Can we get the alien vatiants of new missions? they're great, but the mission variety noticably drops after cleaners are dead.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Grobobobo

[Raffik]

I´ve made it only about a month into the Prototype 2 and I do enjoy it, here my impressions so far:

Story:

the tutorial and first mission are nicely incorporated into the game. But… in the tutorial, the main base is called „Central Base“ located in Africa. This base gets attacked, which is the event of the tutorial. After the tutorial ends, the player chooses a new base. Then the first tac mission triggers – in a random location, the base is called ATLAS and we need to recover scienftific data and resources. My understanding is, that we need to recapture the central base temporarily to gather the supplies and data. Maybe I am missing some nuance (english is not my first language), but the first mission should be return to the central base in the same location on the geoscape as in the tutorial, shouldn´t it..

New missions:

- Mission 1 – ATLAS base raid – the mission itself is great, but does not feel connected to the tutorial events. Tactically it feels as a slightly easier Cleaner HQ attack – if some actual data could be gathered (the scientific data for main scientist), it would be even better. The more data the player would gather, the more research projects could be available for the player for example.

- All items are gathered automatically after the mission, including cleaner specific weapons(smg), that is new and I like that.

- Mission 2 - Abduction - sectons are now a little stronger it seems (55 health), otherwise the mission is fine. After the mission, there was no autopsy report of the sectons however, that seems to be a bug.

- Mission 3 – Extraction - very nice idea with the survivors from ATLAS base (central base), liked that a lot. The mission triggered in polar map, it was kinda funny to see zhe cleaner agents with  shirts and ties there .. 

- Mission 4 – VIP escort – tougher at the end, where the reinforcements arrive, but very nice and a welcome upgrade to the variety of missions. Similar missions to save downed pilots would be nice. Also, some financial reward would be nice, as the only reward is some % progress in cleaner research, the VIP could have access to some cashflow within the Cleaner organization for example.

Equipment/Modules/Armour:

- Rebreather - liked it better when it was a selectable module for the helmet with covering the face as well.

- Defender armour being a heavy version of tactical vest - I like that!

- Warden armour should have more protection and be lighter than defender, now with the heavy variant it is the same weight and the protection is just 4 points better.

Aircraft:

- Interceptors are now ridiculously expensive – will there be much less UFO´s? Because building a fleet of interceptors now would be too expensive. Angel now costs the same as starting a new base..

- aerial combat research - sorry, why do we need to research AA missiles in 2009? As explained in the game, UFO cannot be seen, detected or targeted easily, perhaps it would be better to make the research an upgrade for Sidewinder missiles (and perhaps call them differently) and provide the upgrades for higher price (250-400k) and in unlimited quantities.

- individual aircraft weapon build - too expensive for single weapon, liked the previous global approach with research/update project and unlimited quantities much better. But if there will be less UFO´s in total, then it could be still worth it. Building a stockpile of missiles with the current price tag would be very difficult, considering all other necessary (and higher cost) items the player needs to spend on.

- multiple hardpoints for each plane - nice idea, needs more testing during the gameplay with the tech upgrades and other interceptor types. Could be interesting going forward. Extra fuel tanks are nice, the armour seems to be a problem to fit and the autocannon seems a bit too heavy, weighing more than 2 missiles combined. 

 

Overal:

Cleaner arc now stronger which is very good – looking forward for more, but also more throughout the game – not fighting the cleaners only in the beginning, but also during mid stage of the game and in UFO crash tactical missions. The cleaner arc could be longer (100+ days to completely annihilate their threat).

Accelerated weapons now to be produced individually – liked much better the automatic upgrade of ballistic weapons to accelerated after the alien mag weapons research

Funding is low (about 800k less per month), building multiple bases and aircraft coverage will be very hard in long term (given the 20 days more during the current gameplay frame)

Ufo probe – Mimic – nice at the start of the game, easy prey for even a single Angel interceptor, but I am missing the point of it currently (only a type of UFO for easy combat I undesrtand).

If it could change its shape and characteristing during combat, that would be nice (meaning seeing it as another plane during tracking and initial stage of combat. Later, during combat, it could change its shape and some characteristics to the original shape of Mimic or another plane – angel/condor/phantom, but with alien weapons etc). This would make it very dangerous.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Raffik

[Grobobobo]

The new aircraft slot system is excellent, but the weight system is too restrictive to allow for any customization (weapon bay cost is fine). Autocannons should be 4 weight, torpedoes should be 3 weight, armor should be 1-2 weight, and fuel should be 0 weight. Also, according to description, torpedoes are supposed to disable air combat rolls and they currently don't.
I like the single-build thing for aircraft upgrades, but manufacturing basic stuff is a bit much. I'm not sure if the aircraft feels too expensive since I don't know how strong you want UFO's to be, the economy balance should come after we know what air game mechanics we'll get.
 

I hope that air game in general will get a lot deeper, there is a lot of opportunities for really cool decisions. But it'll probably require a separate difficulty slider from the tactical one, since not everyone will like air game being complicated.

[Chris]

Thanks. To answer a few questions:

• Yes, in Milestone 3 we'll consider what new mission types we can add to try and keep the mission variety going once the Cleaners have been removed. It's not as easy given the logical setup (the humans are the ones likely to be getting reinforcements over time, not the aliens) but hopefully we can figure something out.
• Yeah, it makes sense to put the ATLAS base mission where the tutorial base is, that's a good point.
• What do other people think about the Warden? There's actually a slight error in the balancing atm, which I've now fixed - the Heavy tactical armour should offer 8 Armour in total (not 9), which is the same as the basic variant of the Warden. The heavy variant of the Warden increases this to 13 Armour. I think that feels about right to me; the Warden is either the same protection with a lot less weight or extra protection with the same weight.
• The reason why Accelerated Weapons are built individually is it's nice to have a steady drip of new items to build after every mission. I tried with both the Accelerated and Warden items being upgrades, but it made the early game boring as you frequently went more than one mission without improving your team. Is the problem the manufacture time? That can be reduced if needed.
• The Mimics are likely to have an expanded role as we continue to balance Milestone 2. Part of the reason for introducing them is that we can use them as escort craft in the early stages of the game, when two Fighter UFOs would be way too dangerous for the player.
• The hugely increased costs of the interceptors is a deliberate decision (although it might need more tweaking). The idea is that the player should have fewer planes at the start of the game, and that basic UFOs are balanced against one or maximum two aircraft. It's only in the midgame where you'd be fielding full squadrons, and even then a couple of Phantoms might be able to do the job of a full squad of Angels (particularly as you only have to pay for two sets of equipment). In Milestone 1 it is too easy for the player to win the air war, and part of that is because planes are too cheap.
• Although starting values are lower, monthly funding does increase significantly as you make progress in the plot. So the idea is to have a bit of a curve - early game building a second base and another interceptor should ideally be doable if players focus on that alone, but focusing on soldier equipment and training rooms / medical centers, or more scientists etc should be alternatives. And then as funding increases after a few months it'll be easier to start getting more air cover up across the world. I don't know if people feel that works, though?
  • Might be interesting to make new bases a little cheaper, and maybe base structures a little cheaper too, but then increase upkeep costs on buildings and aircraft? That would make initial expansion easier, but make covering the whole globe in your forces a bit slower.
• The air combat values can certainly be balanced more. But is the existing system too restrictive? If we used those values you could get almost everything on even the starting interceptors, and then there's nowhere for the Phantom to go beyond numerical upgrades. I feel like there's a decent variety of loadouts for the starting Angel as is. I'm actually tempted to reduce the Angel to having three slots, because it feels like part of the problem is that players naturally want to fill all the slots but the Angel just doesn't have the carrying capacity to do it (but it'd be overpowered if it did).

[skaianDestiny]

Initial playtesting for a couple mission impressions:

• Definitely loving the new variety in missions for the Cleaners! Although I did find a bug with the convoy interception where after placing all my troops and pressing end turn it just immediately completed?? No idea what caused that but it was funny.
• Heavy armor toggle is good! Definitely more variety for armor going forward. It also makes it more obvious each tier of armor is a direct improvement on the previous one.
• Interceptor changes are looking promising! Definitely a lot of room for improvement but I think overall it's got more potential for future development.

13 minutes ago, Chris said:

The air combat values can certainly be balanced more. But is the existing system too restrictive? If we used those values you could get almost everything on even the starting interceptors, and then there's nowhere for the Phantom to go beyond numerical upgrades. I feel like there's a decent variety of loadouts for the starting Angel as is. I'm actually tempted to reduce the Angel to having three slots, because it feels like part of the problem is that players naturally want to fill all the slots but the Angel just doesn't have the carrying capacity to do it (but it'd be overpowered if it did).

I'd say yes to restricting the Angel to 3 slots. It makes the Phantom having 4 slots a more immediately visible upgrade. I'd personally try to balance the weight and damage values for weapons such that an Angel can carry 2 missiles and 1 gun (with the obvious downside of having poor range and survivability) or 2 torpedoes and no other weapon, with both options being viable for different UFO types. You could probably also play around with the lances weighing more than the miniguns?

I haven't gotten far enough into the prototype but I assume there is or will be things such as improved engines as a module for Angels? Which would make them a bit more capable of intercepting the later game faster UFOs at the cost of survivability and weaponry.

[Komandos]

19 hours ago, Raffik said:

Aircraft:

- Interceptors are now ridiculously expensive – will there be much less UFO´s? Because building a fleet of interceptors now would be too expensive. Angel now costs the same as starting a new base..

One of the problems of previous versions of the X2 game was the lack of opportunities for the player to purposefully reduce panic in a certain region. Now that the bases will be cheaper and the planes will be more expensive, the player will be able to redirect his planes to the desired region where the aliens are too active.

If it is necessary to make it so that the player cannot quickly create a huge army of planes (which surpasses all the forces of UFOs), then it is easier to increase the cost of planes than to invent other possibilities (for example, to limit the player's ability to build new bases on which the player can place Aircraft).

 

[Grobobobo]

3 hours ago, Chris said:

What do other people think about the Warden? There's actually a slight error in the balancing atm, which I've now fixed - the Heavy tactical armour should offer 8 Armour in total (not 9), which is the same as the basic variant of the Warden. The heavy variant of the Warden increases this to 13 Armour. I think that feels about right to me; the Warden is either the same protection with a lot less weight or extra protection with the same weight.

I actually think there's another error - The alien mag weapons aren't 120% damage, they're still 135%. Alien mag rifle is 46 damage, so it can deal up to 69 damage. With warden's 13 armor, that means that everyone at 56 hp and below is in one-shot range, and that's with a heavy variant (and the hardness stat working, which I'm not sure it is).  I can deal with it, but it feels a tad too lethal. Then you get guardian armor, which is almost 3 times as much armor (without the upgrade, which I'm assuming is even more), and suddenly the aliens can't scratch you. The jump is a little too big.

3 hours ago, Chris said:

The reason why Accelerated Weapons are built individually is it's nice to have a steady drip of new items to build after every mission. I tried with both the Accelerated and Warden items being upgrades, but it made the early game boring as you frequently went more than one mission without improving your team. Is the problem the manufacture time? That can be reduced if needed.

Yes, both feel better as single-build, please keep them that way. I have an issue with having to manufacture basic torpedes and missiles though, that feels a tad silly (but single-building UPGRADED aircraft equipment is good).

 

3 hours ago, Chris said:

• The hugely increased costs of the interceptors is a deliberate decision (although it might need more tweaking). The idea is that the player should have fewer planes at the start of the game, and that basic UFOs are balanced against one or maximum two aircraft. It's only in the midgame where you'd be fielding full squadrons, and even then a couple of Phantoms might be able to do the job of a full squad of Angels (particularly as you only have to pay for two sets of equipment). In Milestone 1 it is too easy for the player to win the air war, and part of that is because planes are too cheap.

Yeah, planes needed to be more expensive. But I think a better way to make air game more difficult is simply to have aliens counter-attack for air superiority more often. Currently I'm at day 103 and I've yet to see a fighter, which is just silly. It doesn't really feel like an air war, just aliens randomly dropping down ufo's which we shoot down. The player should be forced to try balancing between equipping air superiority weapons to take down fighters and heavy missiles/torpedoes to take down stuff that actually generates missions.

Fighters should be a LOT more common, but generate almost no panic on their own.

 

 

3 hours ago, Chris said:

• • Might be interesting to make new bases a little cheaper, and maybe base structures a little cheaper too, but then increase upkeep costs on buildings and aircraft? That would make initial expansion easier, but make covering the whole globe in your forces a bit slower.

Yes, I feel like this would be a good change to try. 750k for a useless base is too big of an upfront cost, and with planes being expensive we're easily looking at over 3 mil for a functional second base.
Ideally you should try building a second base around day 90?

 

 

3 hours ago, Chris said:

• The air combat values can certainly be balanced more. But is the existing system too restrictive? If we used those values you could get almost everything on even the starting interceptors, and then there's nowhere for the Phantom to go beyond numerical upgrades. I feel like there's a decent variety of loadouts for the starting Angel as is. I'm actually tempted to reduce the Angel to having three slots, because it feels like part of the problem is that players naturally want to fill all the slots but the Angel just doesn't have the carrying capacity to do it (but it'd be overpowered if it did).

The slots aren't, the weight is.
Currently there are like 3 loadouts that aren't dumb - double autocannon (best overall), autocannon + torpedo + fuel, double torpedo + 2x fuel - notice that most of them don't even use all the slots, and fuel is more of a filler than anything - 15% range is pretty useless, the issue with angels isn't range but speed (they have trouble catching up to ufo's)
armor sitting at 3 weight is terrible and does not fit into anything, sacrificing a torpedo for 5/10 armor is a joke.
The X-55 is a noticable upgrade just for the speed and range alone, I feel like 3 slots would have a tad too little freedom in customization. I'd just balance around the planes being able to carry slightly more - should be easy to do, there's a million of ways to make ufo's tougher, and planes are a lot more scarce now. It'd just feel more fun to have choices like:  2x autocannon + armor or speed+range, 1x autocannon + 2 missiles, 1 x autocannon + 1 torpedo + armor + speed+range, 3x missiles + armor or speed/range.

On a related note, an item that significantly boosts the plane's UFO radar detection radius would be cool, so you could chase down ufo's outside the base radar range.

[Raffik]

6 minutes ago, Grobobobo said:

I actually think there's another error - The alien mag weapons aren't 120% damage, they're still 135%. Alien mag rifle is 46 damage, so it can deal up to 69 damage. With warden's 13 armor, that means that everyone at 56 hp and below is in one-shot range, and that's with a heavy variant (and the hardness stat working, which I'm not sure it is).  I can deal with it, but it feels a tad too lethal. Then you get guardian armor, which is almost 3 times as much armor (without the upgrade, which I'm assuming is even more), and suddenly the aliens can't scratch you. The jump is a little too big.

Agree. The warden is a bit too ineffective currently, 13 points of armour against 46 (and potentially even more later with plasma and fusion) damage does not feel effective enough for alien alloys reinforced armour.

4 hours ago, Chris said:

The reason why Accelerated Weapons are built individually is it's nice to have a steady drip of new items to build after every mission. I tried with both the Accelerated and Warden items being upgrades, but it made the early game boring as you frequently went more than one mission without improving your team. Is the problem the manufacture time? That can be reduced if needed.

No it´s not about the manufacture time - the accelerated weapons did not feel to be necessary to research, as lasers were pretty fast available, so acc were skipped - even more so after the cleaner accelerated weapons were made equippable by the players (as the cleaner acc were lighter). Providing acc weapons as upgrades to ballistic was a good way how to push them into the game naturally (with cleaner guns still having slight edge, but were to be collected individually). I liked that more, as to loot the cleaner guns was an interesting objective during tactical combat. 

If the game pace slows down, there would be more time to research accelerated weapons and equip them, before the lasers even come into research tree. Then it would make sense to build acc weapons individually. The game did not feel boring with the upgrade to acc weapons, but I can speak only for myself.

 

By the way, just realized about the Corpses section in engineering - ballistic tests on corpses of killed enemies - seems to be a bit brutal, doesn´t it? Good thing cleaners and aliens are not subject to Geneva Conventions 

[Grobobobo]

50 minutes ago, Raffik said:

By the way, just realized about the Corpses section in engineering - ballistic tests on corpses of killed enemies - seems to be a bit brutal, doesn´t it? Good thing cleaners and aliens are not subject to Geneva Conventions 

I think they're really cool, but it can also make the game too easy, depending on how big the damage bonus is.

[Chris]

Appreciate the replies. Some more responses:

• If you've encountered the Ambush mission bug where the enemy units don't spawn, it'd be great if you could provide a pre-mission save. It happened to me once but I assumed it was Unity being weird because I was editing entities while playing, but if it's a real bug then we need to get that fixed.
• Good points about the armour progression. The Guardian is definitely a bit too good at the moment, especially in its lighter version. I think for now I'm simplify things so the Light version has 50% of the armour of the Heavy version, but only 1/3 of the weight. Let's try the following values:
  • Tactical = 6/12 Armour (Defender had 12 in Milestone 1)
  • Warden = 8/16 Armour (Warden had 20 in Milestone 1)
  • Guardian = 12/24 Armour (Guardian had 30 in Milestone 1, but was much heavier and cost more Alloys)
  • Stalker = 9/18 Armour (had 18 in Milestone 1)
• Yes, we'll probably experiment with putting in some kind of upgrade for Angels so they can move at the speed of the Phantoms, but it'll cost significant Alenium. But I am aware that managing planes that fly at different speeds is a major pain in the ass.
• I've had a look over the aircraft weapons and I've significantly increased the damage on torpedoes, because they were hugely underpowered relative to missiles given how easy they are to dodge and how much they weigh. 
• I'll also buff the basic aircraft armour to give 8 Armour rather than 5.
• @Grobobobo I'm curious why you're not using missiles in your aircraft loadouts? In 2.05 they're much better than torpedoes, aren't they?
• I think I will take the fourth slot off the Angel. The only potential item you'd lose is a missile, if you decided to go for a 4x missile loadout on the Angel. Every other loadout I can think of has the fourth item as a Fuel Pod.
• Having an item that increases radar range could be interesting, yeah. 

[Grobobobo]

9 hours ago, Chris said:

• I've had a look over the aircraft weapons and I've significantly increased the damage on torpedoes, because they were hugely underpowered relative to missiles given how easy they are to dodge and how much they weigh. 

It doesn't matter how slow they are, you're supposed to use them against stuff that is slow and cannot dodge, autocannons are for fighters and probes.
 

9 hours ago, Chris said:

• Good points about the armour progression. The Guardian is definitely a bit too good at the moment, especially in its lighter version. I think for now I'm simplify things so the Light version has 50% of the armour of the Heavy version, but only 1/3 of the weight. Let's try the following values:
  • Tactical = 6/12 Armour (Defender had 12 in Milestone 1)
  • Warden = 8/16 Armour (Warden had 20 in Milestone 1)
  • Guardian = 12/24 Armour (Guardian had 30 in Milestone 1, but was much heavier and cost more Alloys)
  • Stalker = 9/18 Armour (had 18 in Milestone 1)

the heavy armor values sound good, but light armor imo kinda suck. light guardian means that you're still in a one-shot range of lots of things. maybe try 66% armor and half the weight?
 

9 hours ago, Chris said:

• I'll also buff the basic aircraft armour to give 8 Armour rather than 5.

I doubt sacrificing a weapon slot for armor is ever going to be worth it, even with better values.

9 hours ago, Chris said:

• @Grobobobo I'm curious why you're not using missiles in your aircraft loadouts? In 2.05 they're much better than torpedoes, aren't they?

A missile is 25 damage. That's 5 autocannon shots, assuming no armor, equivalent to 1 second of autocannon fire. Even worse if the enemy starts armored, in which case you'll have to strip the armor with autocannons (not only this nullifies the range advantage of missile,  sacrificing a cannon for 2 missiles makes that process even slower)
A torpedo is 10 damage -10 armor. since a cannon shreds 0.5 armor per hit, that's the equivalent of 20 cannon hits (4 seconds of cannon fire), and unlike missiles you can shoot them at the start.

Missiles don't compete with torpedoes, they compete with cannons, and cannons are a lot more versitile since fighters can't dodge them. Of course, in this patch fighters don't appear at all, so I missiles are technically better, but that's not how it should be.

 

9 hours ago, Chris said:

• I think I will take the fourth slot off the Angel. The only potential item you'd lose is a missile, if you decided to go for a 4x missile loadout on the Angel. Every other loadout I can think of has the fourth item as a Fuel Pod.

That's a shame, I think the system has a lot more potential with 4 slots, especially if new items will be added (and I think they should be, the air game does need more choices)

[Raffik]

10 hours ago, Chris said:

Good points about the armour progression. The Guardian is definitely a bit too good at the moment, especially in its lighter version. I think for now I'm simplify things so the Light version has 50% of the armour of the Heavy version, but only 1/3 of the weight. Let's try the following values:

• Tactical = 6/12 Armour (Defender had 12 in Milestone 1)
• Warden = 8/16 Armour (Warden had 20 in Milestone 1)
• Guardian = 12/24 Armour (Guardian had 30 in Milestone 1, but was much heavier and cost more Alloys)
• Stalker = 9/18 Armour (had 18 in Milestone 1)

 

Alrernatively you could try something like 5/10 for tactical/defender,  10/20 for warden, 20/30 for Guardian and keep 9/18 for Stalker and the weights could stay as they are now. I like the idea of the upgraded armours being the same def value as the heavy armour of the previous tier.

The idea from Grobo also sounds reasonable.

For the planes, I would keep the fourth slot, but play with the weights of the armament a bit, allowing more loadout combinations.

[Von_Emmy]

12 hours ago, Chris said:

If you've encountered the Ambush mission bug where the enemy units don't spawn, it'd be great if you could provide a pre-mission save. It happened to me once but I assumed it was Unity being weird because I was editing entities while playing, but if it's a real bug then we need to get that fixed.

here you go:

user_day_54_manual_save_after_before_ambush-15.json

[Grobobobo]

4 hours ago, Raffik said:

For the planes, I would keep the fourth slot, but play with the weights of the armament a bit, allowing more loadout combinations.

I have an idea on how to rebalance the current equipment stats to make them more interesting (keeping angel at 4 slots).

 Sidewinder missiles

• Cost: 2 weight, 1 weapon bay
• Damage: 15 
• Fire Rate: Every 2 seconds
• Lock-on time: 4 seconds
• Ammo: 2 (from 1)
• Armor penetration:5
• Armor shred : 2
• Range: 10 (from 20)
• Fire arc: 90

Autocannon

• Cost: 4 weight, 2 weapon bays
• Damage: 4 
• Fire Rate: Every 0.2 seconds (from 0.25 seconds)
• Lock-on time: none
• Ammo: 99
• Armor penetration:0
• Armor shred : 0.5
• Range: 3
• Fire arc: 20

Torpedoes

• Cost: 6 weight (from 4), 2 weapon bays (from 1)
• Disables combat rolls
• Damage: 25 
• Fire Rate: Every 4-5 seconds (not sure about exact numbers, would have to test it, the point is that it should take a while do deal full damage instead of one-and done like it currently is)
• Lock-on time: 4-8 seconds (!!!)
• Ammo: 4(!!!) from 1
• Armor penetration: 25
• Armor shred : 5
• Range: 20
• Fire arc: 45 (from 90)

Laser Lance

• Cost: 3 weight, 2 weapon bays
• Damage: 15 
• Fire Rate: Every 1 second
• Lock-on time: none
• Ammo: 20(!) from 99
• Armor penetration:0
• Armor shred : 4
• Range: 6
• Fire arc: 6 (from 12)

Plating

• 2 weight
• 5 armor (can be upgraded)

Fuel

• 1 weight
• +10% fuel capacity
• +10% aircraft speed
• +10% aircraft turn Rate

NEW ITEMS

Radar

• 0 weight
• +100% aircraft detection distance

Aircraft shredder

• Can be researched after downing and looting a ufo probe
• Cost: 5 weight, 3 weapon bays
• Damage: 4 
• Fire Rate: Every 0.1 second
• Lock-on time: none
• Ammo: 60
• Armor penetration:0
• Armor shred : 0.5
• Range: 1 (!)
• Fire arc: 90 (!)

Anti-missile turret(?)

• Can be researched after downing and looting an observer
• Can be used to shoot down slow homing enemy missiles (prioritizes them in targeting)
• Cost: 3 weight, 1 weapon bay
• Damage: 15 
• Fire Rate: Every 1.5 seconds
• Lock-on time: none
• Ammo: 15
• Armor penetration:10
• Armor shred : 1
• Range: 3 
• Fire arc: 360

This gives us a wider variety of tools that have a variety of price points, allowing us to mix and match to a pretty high degree (and then X-55 has higher weight and weapon bay limit, allowing for better overall equipment). A torpedo plane will play more like a bomber/sniper, dealing high damage from range against heavy craft, but the slowness and vulnerability demanding protection from other aircraft.

And then I'd balance the ufo's from that, they'd definitely need a health increase across the board, but also for example scout can be faster in combat so if you send a solo torpedo against him he'll be able to shoot it before the craft deploys full damage, so you'd want to send an escort plane to distract it. Fighers should also be more common, slightly faster and have a faster turn rate to make them harder to dogfight.

We can also give ufo's a lot of nasty tools, like a shield that absorbs X% damage in a 180 angle from the front, a 1 range 360 degree angle super heavy damage turret for some large ufo's, a "shotgun" type weapon for some interceptors, etc etc etc. The tool variety for both sides should make the air game a lot more engaging than it is currently is.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Grobobobo

[Grobobobo]

There's also potential for a 5 weight 2 weapon, but I'm not sure what it could be.  

[Raffik]

1 hour ago, Grobobobo said:

I have an idea on how to rebalance the current equipment stats to make them more interesting (keeping angel at 4 slots).

 Sidewinder missiles

• Cost: 2 weight, 1 weapon bay
• Damage: 15 
• Fire Rate: Every 2 seconds
• Lock-on time: 4 seconds
• Ammo: 2 (from 1)
• Armor penetration:5
• Armor shred : 2
• Range: 10 (from 20)
• Fire arc: 90

Autocannon

• Cost: 4 weight, 2 weapon bays
• Damage: 4 
• Fire Rate: Every 0.2 seconds (from 0.25 seconds)
• Lock-on time: none
• Ammo: 99
• Armor penetration:0
• Armor shred : 0.5
• Range: 3
• Fire arc: 20

Torpedoes

• Cost: 6 weight (from 4), 2 weapon bays (from 1)
• Disables combat rolls
• Damage: 25 
• Fire Rate: Every 4 seconds
• Lock-on time: 8 seconds (!!!)
• Ammo: 4(!!!) from 1
• Armor penetration: 25
• Armor shred : 5
• Range: 20
• Fire arc: 45 (from 90)

Laser Lance

• Cost: 3 weight, 2 weapon bays
• Damage: 15 
• Fire Rate: Every 1 second
• Lock-on time: none
• Ammo: 20(!) from 99
• Armor penetration:0
• Armor shred : 4
• Range: 6
• Fire arc: 6 (from 12)

Plating

• 2 weight
• 5 armor (can be upgraded)

Fuel

• 1 weight
• +10% fuel capacity
• +10% aircraft speed
• +10% aircraft turn Rate

NEW ITEMS

Radar

• 0 weight
• +100% aircraft detection distance

Aircraft shredder

• Can be researched after downing and looting a ufo probe
• Cost: 5 weight, 3 weapon bays
• Damage: 4 
• Fire Rate: Every 0.1 second
• Lock-on time: none
• Ammo: 60
• Armor penetration:0
• Armor shred : 0.5
• Range: 1 (!)
• Fire arc: 45 (!)

Anti-missile turret(?)

• Can be researched after downing and looting an observer
• Can be used to shoot down slow homing enemy missiles (prioritizes them in targeting)
• Cost: 3 weight, 1 weapon bay
• Damage: 15 
• Fire Rate: Every 1.5 seconds
• Lock-on time: none
• Ammo: 15
• Armor penetration:10
• Armor shred : 1
• Range: 3 
• Fire arc: 360

This gives us a wider variety of tools that have a variety of price points, allowing us to mix and match to a pretty high degree (and then X-55 has higher weight and weapon bay limit, allowing for better overall equipment). A torpedo plane will play more like a bomber/sniper, dealing high damage from range against heavy craft, but the slowness and vulnerability demanding protection from other aircraft.

And then I'd balance the ufo's from that, they'd definitely need a health increase across the board, but also for example scout can be faster in combat so if you send a solo torpedo against him he'll be able to shoot it before the craft deploys full damage, so you'd want to send an escort plane to distract it. Fighers should also be more common, slightly faster and have a faster turn rate to make them harder to dogfight.

We can also give ufo's a lot of nasty tools, like a shield that absorbs X% damage in a 180 angle from the front, a 1 range 360 degree angle super heavy damage turret for some large ufo's, a "shotgun" type weapon for some interceptors, etc etc etc. The tool variety for both sides should make the air game a lot more engaging than it is currently is.

I like some of the ideas, however everything you put on a plane extra would reduce its speed, not increase it, especially dead weight like plating or extra fuel. That should reduce the max speed by about 10-15%.

The extra radar detection would be nice, it would make scouting for ufo around geoscape anomalies more effective.

There could be a targetting unit enabling torpedoes to roll for example.

An ECM unit could be cool as well, its effect being reducing the dodge capability or hit chance of the UFO by some %.

[Grobobobo]

21 minutes ago, Raffik said:

I like some of the ideas, however everything you put on a plane extra would reduce its speed, not increase it, especially dead weight like plating or extra fuel. That should reduce the max speed by about 10-15%.

Fuel should not reduce the speed, as that'd make the equipment pointless, angels already have trouble catching up to ufo's. The extra fuel could mean that they can use afterburner longer outside of combat for example. I don't think armor should reduce the speed either, since usually there's already opportunity cost with it competing vs fuel, and in general aircraft should not be slowed down as long as the equipment is within its weight limit. Maybe the base fuel/speed of angel be reduced though,to counter the significantly higher amount of options.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Grobobobo

[Von_Emmy]

20 hours ago, Chris said:

Good points about the armour progression. The Guardian is definitely a bit too good at the moment, especially in its lighter version. I think for now I'm simplify things so the Light version has 50% of the armour of the Heavy version, but only 1/3 of the weight. Let's try the following values:

• Tactical = 6/12 Armour (Defender had 12 in Milestone 1)
• Warden = 8/16 Armour (Warden had 20 in Milestone 1)
• Guardian = 12/24 Armour (Guardian had 30 in Milestone 1, but was much heavier and cost more Alloys)
• Stalker = 9/18 Armour (had 18 in Milestone 1)

 

What do you guys think about the following values in regards to Armour?

Tactical:
ARMORVALUE 6/12(+6),    WEIGHT 6/18(+12)
note: BASE variant weighs 1.0x its ARMORVALUE, HEAVY weighs 1.5 its ARMORVALUE

Warden:
ARMORVALUE 12/20(+8),    WEIGHT 8/20(+12)
note: BASE variant weighs 0.67x its ARMORVALUE, HEAVY weighs 1.0 its ARMORVALUE

Guardian:
ARMORVALUE 20/30(+10),    WEIGHT 10/22(+12)
note: BASE variant weighs 0.5x its ARMORVALUE, HEAVY weighs 0.73 its ARMORVALUE

Stalker:
ARMORVALUE 6/18(+12),    WEIGHT 6/18(+12)
note: BASE variant weighs 1.0x its ARMORVALUE, HEAVY weighs 1.0 its ARMORVALUE,
additionally the base variant provides "2.0 DEFENCE per Tile" and the heavy variant provides the "Rebreather".

Exosuit:
ARMORVALUE 12/24(+12),    WEIGHT 6/18(+12)
note: BASE variant weighs 0.5x its ARMORVALUE, HEAVY weighs 0.75 its ARMORVALUE,
additionally the base variant provides "20 TUs" and the heavy variant provides the "Rebreather".

There is still room for yet another tier of Armor, which could provide similar ARMORVALUE as "Guardian", but probably should not exceed that or at least not by much.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Von_Emmy

[Grobobobo]

1 hour ago, Von_Emmy said:

What do you guys think about the following values in regards to Armour?

 

We already know from milestone 1 that 20 armor warden was too good, and this patch 30+ armor guardian is too good. I don't think we need another tier of armor either, there are already engineering projects that passively boost guardian armor's armor rating, making it last longer. Chris's heavy armor values were right, just that light armor was too light.

[Chris]

I'll give this a proper read later, as I might close this thread and open a new one due to the upcoming patch containing a heavy rework of the balancing. Couple of quick comments though:

1) I really don't think there's space for any more armour in the tech tree, as you're already given one by almost every type of new UFO. Personally, I thought being able to remove the Defender Armour as an item (without actually removing it as an option) was one of the best things about adding this Heavy Armour checkbox!

2) @Grobobobo Missiles really should be competing against torpedoes, as they also have long range but are able to hit any target (unlike the torpedo). But I guess if a pair of missiles doesn't have enough firepower to take down an enemy escort UFO from long range then it's not actually worthwhile bringing them over another cannon, as you'll always have to close into short range to finish it off anyway.

[Grobobobo]

2 hours ago, Chris said:

But I guess if a pair of missiles doesn't have enough firepower to take down an enemy escort UFO from long range then it's not actually worthwhile bringing them over another cannon, as you'll always have to close into short range to finish it off anyway.

Yes, Currently missiles can't take down much of anything on their own from a distance. But the thing is, I don't think instakilling the ufo from the distance just like that is very good for the game, In X1 you  could one-shot scouts with foxtrots and that was extremely boring. I think the missiles and torpedoes should be more powerful, but also in general require more effort/skill to use. Torpedoes for example could require you to lock on to a ufo for a long and constant time, while missiles could serve as a finishing burst to a ufo that's already softened up from its armor (but still eh against ufo's that can dodge them). Or just a weak-ish filler weapon that you throw in because you don't have any space for anything better.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Grobobobo

[skaianDestiny]

On 10/2/2023 at 6:41 PM, Chris said:

If you've encountered the Ambush mission bug where the enemy units don't spawn, it'd be great if you could provide a pre-mission save. It happened to me once but I assumed it was Unity being weird because I was editing entities while playing, but if it's a real bug then we need to get that fixed.

Here's the save file with that.

auto_strategy_before_combat-14.json

[Chris]

13 hours ago, Grobobobo said:

Yes, Currently missiles can't take down much of anything on their own from a distance. But the thing is, I don't think instakilling the ufo from the distance just like that is very good for the game, In X1 you  could one-shot scouts with foxtrots and that was extremely boring. I think the missiles and torpedoes should be more powerful, but also in general require more effort/skill to use. Torpedoes for example could require you to lock on to a ufo for a long and constant time, while missiles could serve as a finishing burst to a ufo that's already softened up from its armor (but still eh against ufo's that can dodge them). Or just a weak-ish filler weapon that you throw in because you don't have any space for anything better.

I was talking about escort craft specifically in my previous message, as being able to pick them off from a distance without taking damage would be very useful but only in certain situations.

[Grobobobo]

I'm pretty sure missiles don't deal enough damage even for escort craft, and all escort craft can dodge missiles. But yes, this is potentially a pretty cool identity for missiles.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Grobobobo