parallel tech Angel

[Conductiv]

having played a number of runs in the current early access build, I notice that there are a lot of upgrades available for your angel fighter, but that despite these upgrades, the angel becomes horribly outclassed by the next fighter tier. and as you are going to ditch the jet anyway...why get these upgrades atoll?

what I do like about the 2 planes, is that they have a very distinct role, the angel is an alpha striker with dedicated missile slots. it relies heavily on its missiles to cripple the UFO before engaging as its made of paper and held together by duct tape, as the missiles can be dodged and the angels aren't great up close the angel does much better against capital ships then it does against agile fighters. the upgrades you get throughout the run for your missiles, can be used on the tier 2 jet, its generally...not worth it, as cannons are generally much better damage per slot wise.  

the tier 2 jet on the other hand is much sturdier and comes with less slots but both slots can use the high DPS cannons, compared to the angel its a brawler, it trades..and generally ensures that it trades well on close range. as  such its much better against fighters...provided you dodge their missiles.

the problem is actually in the geoscape capabilities of the angel, even though its missiles and bombs keep it somewhat in play. its low range and speed really hurt it chasing down stuff to actually get into the air combat. this eventually almost necessitates just ditching the angel and going full brawler, a real pity as the angel plays different. 

as such, I hope that the air tech, rather then being a straight upgrade path from angel>tier2> ultimate, develops into parallel tech lines between 3 different fighter systems. allowing the angel to remain a viable fighter even in the late game. a requirement for this would be however, that besides missile, torpedo, cannon and armor upgrades..it also gets engine upgrades to boost its geoscape speed and range. note that being your earliest tech..it should never be good at everything..but if it manages to maintain its niche it can still stand out.

I have similar thoughts regarding the weapon paths (energy vs ballistic lines) and the drone support (Mars vs troops) I might eventually make separate topics regarding these. 

[Alienkiller]

Conductiv, thanks for the Assistance in the Fighter-Jet-Part. The existing Testers (Beta-Testers, additional Testers for the Expermental-Versions) have the same Thinking to improve the Angel and newer Fighters in their Base-Frame-Constructions. An very good example is Stellaris with the Hull-, Engines-, Armour-, internal System- etc. Upgrades to make existing Space-Ships more effective to an maximum Point (like the NX-Class, light Interpid-Cruiser-Class, Frontier & Deadalus-Scout-Classes as well as the from beginning on Frigates).

The other interessting Thing is, that they are in the Base-Hull-Design have an maximum Upgrade-Level for Hull-Upgrades (better Materials), Engine-Upgrades (much moderner Impulse- and Warp-Drives), Armour (from an light Standard-Armour to f. e. Polarized Hull and later Energy-Shields), internal Systems (Computers, Tactics, etc.) as well as Crew (Standard-Crew, military Crew, mixed Crews).

An Example from the STNH-Modification directly from the Beginning: You have the United Earth Emmette-Class-Frigates (Standard and Rocket-Version), which get an small Refit in the Base-Frame-Design with Research. That makes the Base-Frame-Design better. The Hull, Engines, Armour, internal Systems etc. can be sperately upgraded to Level 3 or 4 (similar to the Fighter-Jets in Xenonauts 2 with the Weight- and other Limitation).

 

Two good Things in Xenonauts 2 are, that the Devs integrated some cool tested Stuff again from the first Beta-Versions (like additional Fuel-Tanks) and that the Fighter-Jets are more variable then in the direct Rival UFO Extraterestials 1 & 2.

More of that Content / Features incl. the Upgrade to the Base-Frame-Construction like you, the Beta-Testers, Experimental-Version-Testers as well as some of the Communtiy are announcing to hold the Interceptors Up-to-Date is an important must have to overflow the direct Rival as well as indirect Rivals.

What is important too (and that is in Stellaris / Hoi and F1 Manager-Row very good) are 2 cool Content / Features:

1. The Experiance-Raising from the Ship-Crews seperately to the Commanders, which give them more Experiance

2. The Base-Hull-Design-Refit-Change to more modern Base-Hulls [in F1 Managers that´s the HQ-Company].

 

If that flow in the Game incl. double the Playtime to the direct Rivals (UFO ET-Row) then this is a Win-Win for the Crowfounders, Devs, Beta-Testers / Experimental-Version-Testers and the later buying Communty. The more qualtative good working Content / Features like this we bring in, the better it is.

[Komandos]

1. The aliens could copy the Earth technology of Fighter planes.

2. If (as an example) 10% of the defeated UFOs will fall to the ground (create a "crash site"), and the remaining 90% of UFOs will leave the battle and fly into space with damage (evacuation for repair), then this will reduce the number of necessary tactical missions (battles). Even if the player knocks down 500 UFO units, the number of "UFO crash sites" will not exceed 50. Which is good for a very long game.

 

 

[Conductiv]

I made this topic a day before the announcement of milestone 2.0, a milestone that will apparently drastically change how the air combat works, and most importantly adds more options to the planes. so I don't know if the Angel will still be as horribly outclassed like it was on the stable branche (the example of the feul tank as an upgrade could solve one of the major problems that the angel had, its low operational range relative to the tier 2 fighter). I'll play a run there and come back to this topic after.

 

9 hours ago, Komandos said:

1. The aliens could copy the Earth technology of Fighter planes.

2. If (as an example) 10% of the defeated UFOs will fall to the ground (create a "crash site"), and the remaining 90% of UFOs will leave the battle and fly into space with damage (evacuation for repair), then this will reduce the number of necessary tactical missions (battles). Even if the player knocks down 500 UFO units, the number of "UFO crash sites" will not exceed 50. Which is good for a very long game.

 

 

 the topic is more about how to keep lower tech with a relatively unique function that the player gets upgrades for useful rather then reducing the number of crash sites, and crash sites are optimally dealt with by a tactical missions as they provide a lot of resources. but if the player doesn't want to, they could simply claim the bounty...and I assume this is still the case in milestone 2.0.

[ooey]

Perhaps air to air refuelling where you can rendezvous with tankers could be added (provided by friendly nations) to solve the range problem, or just stop off for fuel by landing? Not sure if range should be a problem, but I suppose pilots get fatigued etc. Sure, you could add external fuel tanks at the expense of weaponry.

 

I would assume the aliens would think their technology is superior to earths anyway, so why would they want to copy it? They are on a mission to invade earth anyway!

Edited November 29, 2023 by ooey

[Komandos]

4 hours ago, ooey said:

I would assume the aliens would think their technology is superior to earths anyway, so why would they want to copy it?

If the aliens think that their technology is superior to Earth's (at the very time when the player wins 99% of the battles in the sky), then what prevents the xenonauts from starting to think that their technology has finally surpassed the technology of the aliens if the aliens start winning 99% of the battles in the sky?

[Alienkiller]

Komandos, there are 3 big Problems for the Aliens to solve:

1. The Fighters from Earth have an better turn Rate then the most UFOs. The UFO Fighters are the only ones, which get adjusted to Earth-Fighters and their improvements to give the Airforces and your Special-Organsiation an hard time later on.

2. The Fighters from Earth are buildup to fly in Atmosphere, not in Space. That´s why we can´t left with normal Planes our Planet, and the Aliens have the Problem changed (Space and less Atmosphere-Flight but not normal Atmosphere-Flight)

3. The Fighters from Earth are more flexible in Refits of external Modules and atm. 1 internal Module. There you can integrate better Weapons, Armor-Improvements (from 0 on for normal Airforce-Planes / your Special-Organistation-Fighters) and special Modules (like Fuel-Tanks for the Moment).

 

Therefore the Aliens have a lot of Advantages against our Fighter-Crafts / Planes:

1. The Weapons from the Aliens have EMP-Funktions. That means they destroy the Electronic (see Series Viper, Earth-Atomic-Tests and Sun Flare-Activity)

2. The UFOs have stronger Weapons with no Problems of Ammo-Limitations.

3. The UFOs are much better Secured with Shields, Armor and a lot of Hull-Points to adjust the Earth-Atmosphere-Problematic, but therefore they are slower in Atmosphere-Flight.

4. The UFOs are an direct Modular-Buildup (like in UFO ET and UFO 2 ET), means the Aliens can Upgrade their UFO-Hulls from an Probe to an Battleship very easy.

 

If you go in an Airfight with your Fighters, then your Fighter-Crafts will go out of it not unhurhurt. Minimum 25% of your Fighter is damaged (Hull, some internal Systems etc.) or in most Cases 50% to 80%. Dosen´t matter you play automatic (automatic more then manually) or manually.

Short said: Dosen´t matter what you do, after an Airfight 1 of your Fighters get a little bit Damaged up to destroyed (belongs what UFO you fight). And it dosen´t matter how good you deal Damage, what matters is how much damage you can avoid to your Fighters in such Battles, similar to your Specialists in the Ground-Battles.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Alienkiller

[ooey]

Earth fighters should always be superior in turn rate at least, because they are atmospheric fighters (alien fighters have to fly in space too and so should not be superior to them in this way). Remember that they also have unlimited weaponry while you don't.

I always liked the fact that xenonaut1 fighters always seemed to have the upper hand over alien fighters (if you were careful), but it was always difficult to deal with 3 alien interceptors if they appeared. I never liked or used auto-resolve as things could go badly wrong for you (at least if you fight the fights yourself you have no one to blame but yourself if you lose an interceptor). The worst thing the aliens could do in the air would be to launch an anti-dropship interception mission - you then had to make sure that you had interceptors ready and within range and fast enough to get to them before you lose your whole squad in one go! At least some had a chance of survival I suppose.

If you look at the premise of the game, the aliens have brought an invasion force assuming that earth would be next to defenceless because of the cleaners and lack of technology/disorganisation to withstand them. They never knew about the Xenonauts and their specially adapted equipment, so they would have to best counter with what they have brought with them! I doubt an invasion force would bring R&D elements with them just in case.

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by ooey

[Conductiv]

I havn't actually finished building phantoms in the current stable build, but so far...I'm kind of disappointed about what the new system brought.

twin rack missiles are good rather then the single one, torpedo is also obviously buffed, gas tank ...15% isn't going to help it much, no engine option to increase its speed so far, so its still going to be obsolete fairly quick as the reach increase is too small, and it simply won't be able to keep up

Angels are now extremely expensive, basic angel effectively costs 575000 (plane, ablative, missile rack for 2 basic sidewinders, and a cannon) since the cost of a plane now goes up as the tech level increases (boosting the cannon to accelerated tier boosts the cost by another 75000) it makes it even more questionable to invest into early interceptors. granted you have more "builds" but if there is no meaningful way to keep some of the core statistics up (most notable..geoscape speed and range) you will be forced to tier up to at least a base plane that can.

the new system also basically removes the missile spam unique nature of the angel, because if other planes use the same system with the same number of slots, you could do exactly the same with them.note that I havn't gotten any phantoms yet...may change my opinion if the limits or slot count on the phantom is different. 

[ooey]

I wonder if you spam missiles, should they not be made to lock on and follow each other instead so that they kill each other rather than the UFO  (so that you can't do this)? 

[Conductiv]

8 hours ago, ooey said:

I wonder if you spam missiles, should they not be made to lock on and follow each other instead so that they kill each other rather than the UFO  (so that you can't do this)? 

jokes aside, that was what made the Angel unique in the previous milestone, as it was much more fragile and didn't have the extra cannon slot compared to the phantom, its loadout was almost always 2 missiles and a cannon..and it really relied on those missiles to do most of the work. it could also employ a 3 missile setup...but even with 3 interceptors loaded like this, you would usually end up just shy of being able to kill the UFO.

the current milestone actually allows for up to 6 missiles per Angel because of the double rack, and make it even more of a glass cannon as it lost its ability to get innate armor through tech. But if the phantom can do exactly the same with much better geoscape stats, it removes the angels identity completely.

the styles do remain, you can set up brawlers (relying on the armor and cannons) or missile focused builds.

[ooey]

6 hours ago, Conductiv said:

... or missile focused builds.

It's never a good route to go down the Vietnam F4 missile focused builds. Always bring a cannon!

As with the tactical weapons, I agree that each interceptor should have something unique about them that makes them worth keeping in your inventory - the Angel could always have the edge over anything you build with regards to manouverability for example. I like the bit where Chris told us that the Mig 25 was more immune than more modern aircraft against UFO interference because of its "valve technology" lol. A well thought out comment there and I think he would be closer to the truth than he thinks (this is why the airforces of each nation would seem to have so much trouble shooting down a single UFO, what with their modern systems being interfered with). Makes sense.

Edited December 2, 2023 by ooey

[Alienkiller]

Ooey, yeah that makes the X-25 so unique to the other modern Standard-Earth fighters. And that´s why it´s for modernisations with new Materials perfect. Like in Stellaris, Hoi 4 or Gal Civ with the Designers up to an hardcoded Hull-Limit.

We have already an light designer here for the Airforce-Fighter-Crafts, why not using the Potential for them and evtl. the Transport-Craft.

As example: We have the X-25 Angel (from the Mig-25) as Type 0 fighter (Standard-Fighter). It is Upgradeable to an Type 3 Fighter (lighter armoured Hull for longer Range, better Engines, advanced mobilility etc. to hold it up-to-date.

And much more the Pilots haven´t an Choise to move from 1 Fighter-Craft to an modernised one or complete new one as well as getting XP.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Alienkiller

[Pietje666]

Still it is too bad you only got 3 slots on Angel.. so you have got to decide armour or not. If Angel got a dedicated armour slot then it would still be functional in the mid and later game. Still bummer you can't upgrade the engines. You found better propulsion? Adopt it to our current tech

[Pathfinder]

On 12/2/2023 at 6:11 PM, ooey said:

the Angel could always have the edge over anything you build with regards to manouverability for example.

Angel having better maneuverability? Like said, it is based on MiG-25, but I rather see it more as based on MiG-31 (whatever...). MiG-31 is Fighter-Interceptor, however not by ANY stretch a Dodge-Fighter (it would lose EVERY dodge-fight if happens to encounter with any dodge-fighter of its age, for example MiG-29/Su-27 or F-16/F-15). More to say, MiG-25 is not treated as fighter at all.. it is ONLY Interceptor. He is basically even worse in Dodge-fighting then MiG-31. I can accept for game purposes that somehow abilities to dodge-fight has been expanded for Angel (vs base MiG-25/-31), however, by any stretch we cannot accept the fact that ANY futuristic fighter, fighting alien ship can be worse in dodge-fighting than modernization of MiG-25/MiG-31 :).

[ooey]

Nope, quite right, the Mig 25 was built to intersept the XB70. But it IS the starting aircraft. I think we're thinking more of trying to keep the starting aircraft relevant in some way. If we had an F16 as a starting aircraft as well it would be more relevent as you say (as in Xen1). The Mig 25 is basically a flying brick. 

With regards to your last point though, think about WWII. As aircraft got more powerful and held more weapons, their turn radius got larger... A Spitfire will out turn an F-16. Okay, it may not be able to do anything to it, but it can certainly out turn it :-) 

Edited December 9, 2023 by ooey

[Pathfinder]

The only thing that should keep up old fleet in place should be experience of these pilots. I don't know if it is implemented in any way, but should be, that those counters of downed UFOs, had some meaning, for example in auto-evade incoming shots/missiles, and (virtually) widening up cones of fire for cannons, or improving critical hits on alien ships (by critical hits, I mean, taking damage score from top of the table, rather than 50-150%). There should be however, possibility, to move pilots BETWEEN planes, as to use the most experienced ones, on already those in full readiness, rather than sitting in base and waiting 2 weeks for theirs planes to be repaired.

[ooey]

That's a good point, yes.

I think that upgrades in game as in real life are done to keep aircraft/weapons relevant for longer (keeping them relevent to the entire endgame doesn't make sense, however).

Perhaps include a certain amount of training/orientation time for pilots converting from the Angel to the newer aircraft you have built? Does that just complicate things a bit more? How far do you go down this line? All this really does is handicap the player a bit, forcing them to use the Angel for a bit longer. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by ooey

[Pathfinder]

Just now, ooey said:

I think that upgrades in game as in real life are done

You are very correct.

By saying that Tier 1 should not be in any way better than Tier 2, I am referring to a reason - each tech is expanding - materials, engines, even aerodynamics concepts (for example F-16 could not even fly if not automatic corrections by its computer - so called problem with static instability).

About modernizations, however, most of them in real life are about electronics, so, in game reality, it could be about ECM/ECCM, that would actively help with dodging incoming shots from alien ships, and actively help fight off enemy ECM against ours missiles. Radar upgrade would be useful as well, as to enlarge range of visible airspace during patrol. I can't envision other possibility due to game constrains.

[Pathfinder]

13 minutes ago, ooey said:

Perhaps include a certain amount of training/orientation time for pilots converting from the Angel to the newer aircraft you have built?

Good idea.

[ooey]

Ah, but think of the Spitfire/F16 anology there. There may be some situations where having the ability to turn better may be more in your interests than firepower. Reminds me a bit of the I15 in War Thunder. It has a turn rate of 8 seconds, and weak but decent armament (you have to get in close). Combat against an alien interceptor with these characteristics may mean that you are too difficult for his weapons to hit you whilst you keep taking gnat-like bites out of him with your cannons.

This is a tier 1 aircraft, but it can sometimes beat tier 2 or even 3 aircraft if the player knows what he's doing. Nothing can really be deemed irrelivant or useless. Another example - squadrons of antiquated Swordfish biplanes destroyed most of the italian fleet at Taranto (with few losses)!

It can be done! There is a point, however, where it doesn't make sense to provide upgrades (more aerodynamic airframes etc.). One thing we have in real life is airframe lifetime for example, but that's getting too intricate methinks.

Edited December 9, 2023 by ooey

[Pathfinder]

1 minute ago, ooey said:

Ah, but think of the Spitfire/F16 anology there.

Weapon is as good as soldier who wields it.

We could have discussion about various possibilities for the next 20 hours, and in each post there could be some fine point. Question is, what parts/improvements to the gamey Angel could be, to keep it close to realistic, and still, allow for usefulness within longer scope in game.

[ooey]

The only thing I can think of is manouverability, since it mirrors real life. Better (later) aircraft are defined as those that are faster and carry better weapons and are more rugged physically and electronically. Unfortunately, the Angel, based on the Mig25, is not a good proponent of this trait :-).

[Pathfinder]

5 minutes ago, ooey said:

One thing we have in real life is airframe lifetime

Yes, that is making a definite end to a plane. Materials fatigue is crucial. As I am sure you know, there are ways of extending life of a plane, however, in most cases it is done for non-combat aircraft, as dodge-fighters requires top-notch materials strength. There are cases where fighters are undergoing airframe life extension, however, I believe this is for cases where there are no critical fatigues, as from materials science, I know, materials fatigue cannot be "undone" - basically it ends up as a scrap.

If game contained aircraft fatigue modifier, than such extension project, could be useful, however, it doesn't.

[Pathfinder]

1 minute ago, ooey said:

The only thing I can think of is manouverability

Some people are stating "where is engine upgrade". If happens to exist, then, "maneuverability" we may improve by modifying engine nozzles for variable geometry thrust. It won't allow VTOL ability, but would hugely augment maneuvers.