Soldier Carrying Capacity & Strength

[Moxar]

There is a cap on strength growth, with a max of 2 points per mission. The problem is that you do so many mission that even 2 points per mission ends up with massive strength after a dozen or so missions.

Not realy, the problem is that str and UT are growing too fast compared to other stats. Should every stat grow this quick, it could be thought as a feature and the game could get balanced regarding of this. But the way it feels now is odd. However, even now, it works!

[Sathra]

Ah, now I get it. I can see why too. Maybe double the requirements for the stat gain, or give them diminishing returns?

[Moxar]

I believe that diminishing returns on every stat is the best way to solve this issue. Thus, should Chris set DR, accuracy and reflex improve need to be reworked a little, as I suggested in this thread.

[crusherven]

You could probably do both--slow strength and TU growth and have it grow logarithmically.

[Squeegy]

That seems optimal, yes.

[Aiel_Wolf]

I decided to look at some real soldiers pack weights. It seems they are expected to carry anything from 20-50kgs and sometimes more. This is including body armour, weapons, ammo, tent and other stuff. We can rule out tents, food and water, spare clothes and other bits from our Xenonauts as they are not in the field for weeks on end. The Xenonauts backpack would be on the lighter end of 20-30kgs. It would probably be higher for heavy weapons users.

Being that all soldiers are expected to carry the same minimum weights. I see no reason that my Xenonaut rookie would not be able to carry a weapon, two clips, side arm, a couple of nades, medi kit and other pieces. This being the case I would be happy to see the strength stat removed and have a reduction in pack size and possibly some equipment resized.

In this reduced pack I would say it could have:

A belt slot of 2x2. It would be possible to have two clips and two nades for snipers, rifle men or assault. It also allows for two LMG clips or a pistol for a rocket trooper.

The back pack slot of 3x2. This gives the choice of a medi kit, alternative weapons like the stun baton or a pistol and clips. (I personally think the stun baton should be a smaller 2x1) Two spare rockets, again maybe resized rockets to allow for three spares.

Possible Unlock-able slots. Could use these to represent more experienced or stronger soldiers. Maybe even different armours could unlock extra slots. These extra slots could be like the original X-Com's shoulder or leg slots.

As you are working with limited space it makes taking everything much harder. But still allows for the armour and weapon that all soldiers should be capable of carrying. This could also be worked to keep the strength stat and still having to make choices about gear later in the game as the soldiers become super strong.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Aiel_Wolf
Spelling/Gramma

[StellarRat]

I decided to look at some real soldiers pack weights. It seems they are expected to carry anything from 20-50kgs and sometimes more. This is including body armour, weapons, ammo, tent and other stuff. We can rule out tents, food and water, spare clothes and other bits from our Xenonauts as they are not in the field for weeks on end. The Xenonauts backpack would be on the lighter end of 20-30kgs. It would probably be higher for heavy weapons users.

Being that all soldiers are expected to carry the same minimum weights. I see no reason that my Xenonaut rookie would not be able to carry a weapon, two clips, side arm, a couple of nades, med kit and other pieces. This being the case I would be happy to see the strength stat removed and have a reduction in pack size and possibly some equipment resized.

In this reduced pack I would say it could have:

A belt slot of 2x2. It would have possible two clips or two nades for snipers, rifle men or assault. It also allows for two LMG clips or a pistol for a rocket trooper.

The back pack slot of 3x2. This gives the choice of a medi kit, alternative weapons like the stun baton or a pistol and clips. (I personally think the stun baton should be a smaller 2x1) Two spare rockets, again maybe resized rockets to allow for three spares.

Possible Unlock-able slots. Could use these to represent more experienced or stronger soldiers. Maybe even different armours. These extra slots could be like the original X-Com's shoulder or leg slots.

As you are working with limited space it makes taking everything much harder. But still allows for the armour and weapon that all soldiers should be capable of carrying. This could also be worked to keep the strength stat and still having to make choices about gear later in the game as the soldiers become super strong.

This seems fairly reasonable. I should point out that soldiers that KNOW they are going to go into combat generally take off their backpacks. Generally they are only worn on long patrols or when marching to a new location. Since the Xenonauts KNOW they are going to be fighting realistically they'd probably only carry water, first aid, extra ammo and potentially secondary weapons (as you pointed out).

[erutan]

Having carrying capacity tied to armor could be interesting. You could have some of the lighter armors have more backpack space (e.g. carrying rockets or backup weapons), while the heavier ones have less spaces (ammo and nades, then choice of medkit/pistol/baton or more nades). Nix the sight range difference between armors, if you want to limit peripheral vision that's fine. You could also have multiple "pockets" - so a heavy armor might have a few 2x2 spots, whereas a lighter armor would have a proper "backpack" size space for rockets etc. Keeping the ammo for LMG/rockets larger decreases the utility of using an assault type armor, but obviously the sizes would need to be tweaked from what they are now in cases.

It'd see the roles as a "scout/sniper" (normal/low space, mobile, light), "heavy weapons"(lots of space, light), and "assault" (less space, heavy) armor types - relative to their tier in game. So we have:

t1

Clothes: HW

t1.5

Jackal: Assault

t2

Wolf: Assault

Buzzard: Scout

t4

Predator: Assault +HW

Sentinel: Scout

I did a little research saying that US soldiers currently deployed carry ~50lbs of an assault pack + ~40lbs of armor/gear (40kg). If you drop the assault pack that's ~18kg of in combat weight... which as a backpacker I can say is very manageable to move around in (especially since the game doesn't have slopes heh).

Edited May 9, 2013 by erutan

[Aiel_Wolf]

This could also be worked to keep the strength stat and still having to make choices about gear later in the game as the soldiers become super strong.

I have been thinking some more on this and I feel that keeping the strength stat would work well for picking out soldiers for heavy weapons duty. All soldiers could come with a minimum strength too make sure they can carry any load with in the minimum space provided. The extra strength gains would be used not for extra gear but their guns. Their guns as in the accuracy of LMG's and Rockets.

I am not sure if it is currently in the game at the moment but the strength could also be used for melee and nade throwing distances. This makes me think of the old British Army in the days of the red coats. The big muscled soldiers would be picked for grenadier duty. They were expected to carry heavy loads in battle as well as be used as shock troops in melee.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Aiel_Wolf
Gramma's!

[erutan]

If strength is kept, tying it to throwing sounds like a good idea... it'd give another meaning to the stat.

I've been really warming up to just keeping things to spaces per armor type and dropping weight. It'd probably make the game easier to balance and there's a direct trade off between survivability, mobility, and utility. I'll drop my earlier "fitness" idea as well.

Realistically speaking a trained soldier would be able to carry a pretty heavy load, and it's not like overloading a rocket soldier is a big deal... once you fire off a rocket or two you're back to 100% AP. Keeping it as "well this is the amount of space you have to carry gear into battle" feels more straightforward, and it resolves having to balance making higher tier weapons heavier to keep up with soldier strength gains but not gimping the amount of extra gear you can carry.

To build off of Aiel's post on slots (discarding any unlocks due to rank or tier upgrades).

resize: pistol to 2x2, stun baton to 3x1, medkit would be 3x2, rifle/shotgun/precision 4x2, lmg/rocket 5x2 (or just 4x2?). rockets are 3x1, lmg 1x2, nades and all other ammo 1x1.

Basic/Predator:

A belt slot of 2x2. It would have possible two clips or two nades for snipers, rifle men or assault. It also allows for two LMG clips or a pistol for a rocket trooper.

The back pack slot of 4x4. This gives the choice of a medi kit + nades, or an alternative primary weapon + nades or stun baton, or four spare rockets. Note you'd have to drop a lmg/rocket if one of them were to switch to a secondary weapon (good/bad?).

You could also make it 3x4 to lose the ability to carry another primary small arm, and expand the belt to 3x2 to fit rockets in there. This is by far the most versatile armor, but you'll be stuck in basic clothes until you get predator late game (at which point it's a fuck yea upgrade over wolf)... a definite tradeoff! Since Predator is "powered" armor you don't have to lose capacity in order to cover the weight/bulk of the armor.

Jackal/Wolf:

A belt slot of 2x2. It would have possible two clips or two nades for snipers, rifle men or assault. It also allows for two LMG clips or a pistol for a rocket trooper.

The back pack slot of 3x2. This gives the choice of a medi kit or some combo of pistol/nades/ammo/stun baton.

Buzzard/Sentinel:

A belt slot of 2x2. It would have possible two clips or two nades for snipers, rifle men or assault. It also allows for two LMG clips or a pistol for a rocket trooper.

The back pack slot of 3x3. This gives the choice of a medi kit or pistol + nades/ammo/stun baton.

Edited May 9, 2013 by erutan

[Aiel_Wolf]

I think that any extra or unlocked equipment slots should be limited to either the armour, as in lighter armour gives more "weight space" for extra equipment or powered armour overcomes the Xenonauts basic strength. Or their rank/strength over a threshold gives more slots, as in a more experienced soldier knows what he needs in a mission and removes junk weight or a stronger one can hold more stuff. The latter starts to revert to the original problem, just in a different way. Having both would definitely return you to the original problem and quite quickly too.

The more I think about this, the more the armour option makes sense. If you want to take it deeper you could add in research bonus' to armour slot limits. "Capture Alien X alive to research their lighter equipment load outs, This system allows your Xenonaut to carry more stuff due to the modified weak anti gravity emitters found implanted on the alien's back." Or maybe I digress too much.

[erutan]

I agree that slots with promotion feels a little awkward. Researching to expand armor slots might help tide things over a bit between wolf/buzzard and the final tier, and might also provide a little choice for going to sentinel from buzzard+.

Along with anti-grav you could have some kind of "enhanced alloy production" allowing for the same protection with less weight or something. If this system does make it in the game, I think it'd make sense to change backpack/item dimensions first and see how that feels before worrying about unlocks too much.

update: Oh yeah, and how about just making flares infinite from the quick throw slot for night missions (not in inventory).

Edited May 10, 2013 by erutan
flarez

[tirlimpimpim]

OK, I must confess I stopped reading the thread after page 3 because it seams majority is supporting this idea, while I don't. Actually I am opposing it militantly! While it is realistic to minimize the increase in stats, its totally no fun! I mean what is the point then in making an effort to have your squad survive the battle, when you can keep one or two high ranking solders and than have a bunch of cannon meat? As far as I have played Xenonauts (~75 missions with single squad on V18) the progress of these solders was the main motivation behind the routinely grinding. Please don't take this away, or at least make it an Iron Man mode feature - Please!

[tirlimpimpim]

OK new idea - say sats are not improved during missions, than have a researchable technology for implants to boost stats! For example nanobots to improve oxygen consumption to increases TU, Sub-Dermal Armour, etc. etc. - a player would spend money and time, but his best performing soldiers could actually still improve. How about that?

[erutan]

No one is saying all stats will go away, only strength is in question.

[Max_Caine]

Yah, the strength stat is under the spotlight because all it is, is a limit on how much stuff a squaddie can carry, ergo there could be conceivably other ways to represent that. Had you continued to read, you woud see that there are posters (more than a few) that disagreed that strength should vanish, and looked for hybrids combining Chris' proposed system with the strength stat.

[tirlimpimpim]

Yes I did read later on, but I just don't want to loose the feeling of progress. Its great to have an experienced soldier, who can lift a precision rifle, AND a RPG with 3-5 rounds (plus a grenades) - how else do you expect to kill reapers emerging every 5 turns on a final mission?

[erutan]

@tir, have them wear basic armor then re: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4754-Soldier-Carrying-Capacity-Strength?p=61711&viewfull=1#post61711.

There are many aspects of "progression" in the game, carrying more stuff doesn't have to be one of them.

[Solver]

Well, this was an interesting read.

I think the problem is exaggerated. The core of the problem is just that strength (ergo carrying capacity) increases too much now, but in conjunction with certain other tweaks, I see no reason why large-scale changes would be needed. It seems sufficient to just slow down the rate of Strength increase and put a lower cap on it. To elaborate, if "average" strength is 50, making soldiers that start with <50 be able to reach just about 50, and make stronger soldiers only able to gain a couple of points. It's merely a matter of having diminishing returns + a cap.

Soldier progression is a must. One of these aspects is seeing your heavy weapons guy suddenly be able to carry an extra rocket - it just has to be limited so that you don't reach the point where everyone can dual wield rocket launchers and carry a keg of beer in the backpack. I probably need to get some quick calculations out...

What I would be completely opposed to is going with some slots system as opposed to weight. The weight system is one of the things that makes XCOM so beautiful to me. It lets you have complicated strange loadouts if you wish, and it lets you even give your soldier too much to carry at the cost of screwing up his TUs. Choices like that are classic XCOM. I might even argue that part of the current problem is related to how carrying ammo isn't really a concern.

On the upside, it looks like the game also has modding capabilities, which is simply beyond good.

[Okim]

My two cents.

You can always go a different way - instead of upping the mass of the clips - increase their size.

Pistol and shotgun - 1x1

Rifle, precision - 2x1

Machinegun boxes - 2x2

rockets 4x1 instead of current 1x3 (yes, vertical rockets)

Laser cells - 1x3 (long tubes taking both slots in the belt pocket and leaving some space to grenades)

Plasma cells - 2x2 boxes (that`s uber weapons, so why not?)

In real life a 5.56 30 round clip is 1/2 size of a pistol, so it will be realistic to have these sizes in the game.

I would also reduce the size of the backpack. I personally was always confused by the whole idea of the backpack for fast deployment special forces.

[Fatbooboo]

After getting my first taste of the game yesterday I noticed that I could carry a lot of spare clips but never needed them,

I almost feel this can partially be blamed on soldiers being to accurate, never wasting shots or firing extra rounds into the enemies, killing enemies outright instead of suppressing, I remember in jagged alliance I would burn through ammo, firing many bursts at long ranges but I don't seem to have that problem so far in this game,

But if you can increase ammo usage you increase clips being used and needing to be brought, instead of just nerfing the max capacity of the mags themselves.

Just my 2 cents, great game BTW really enjoying.

[Solver]

It's not that the soldiers are too accurate in my experience, they miss a fair bit early on. But the mag sizes are fairly big, and by the time it's possible to run out of ammo either the aliens are dead or my soldiers are. I need an occasional reload, but with one extra mag per soldier I never run the danger of being left without ammo.

I don't really see how you can increase ammo usage significantly in the context of XCOM. There's not enough men ad not enough endurance to have a storm of suppression fire. But also giving magazines a capacity of just 10 bullets is a very significant departure from what makes sense.

[Bromley86]

That's the point though. You're not burning ammo as quickly as you should, which is why the mag sizes feel too large. The reason why you're not burning through ammo is because you're killing the aliens. That's because you're hitting them too frequently, and that's a function of range and accuracy.

I've never fired an assault weapon and have zero combat experience, but I'd wager that real life soldiers don't ration the ammo out like it's coming out of their paychecks.

Current TU costs for the M16: Single 17, 20, 23; burst 35.

Would it IRL take twice as long to fire a burst than to snap off a single shot? Likewise, would a fully aimed shot take only 2/3 of the time of a roughly aimed burst? Assuming the answer is no and that the burst cost should really be ~20, that means M16 users will be burning through their ammo faster, perhaps enough that we can have realistic clip sizes (in terms of numbers of bullets, although Okim's volume point is also a good one). Of course, in game terms that probably also requires a reduction in accuracy.

EDIT: BTW, in case it's not clear, "burst" is a selective fire feature that chucks out 3 bullets (in this case) for every trigger pull, as opposed to good fire discipline with a fully auto weapon.

Edited May 17, 2013 by Bromley86

[Sathra]

Last build I just added more aliens in my mod. I ran out of ammo all the time in terror missions (using lasers against t3 aliens took up to 6 shots EACH) and it was great fun. I was dropping and picking up ammo between troopers in a battlefield filled with smoke and fire.

And the aliens kept coming too, to the point I didn't leave the drop zone for nearly 10 turns.

[Aiel_Wolf]

I've never fired an assault weapon and have zero combat experience, but I'd wager that real life soldiers don't ration the ammo out like it's coming out of their paychecks.

The couple of squaddie friends always told me they were trained to count their rounds as they fired, and try to conserve ammo. You don't want to be reloading because you wasted 30 rounds on a tree. I think it is different depending on the weapon. A LMG would be used for covering fire, and thus they try to keep heavy fire on an area to keep enemy heads down, while the others move to better positions. The covering fire would burn through a lot of rounds, but that's why they come with such large ammo boxes.