Soldier Carrying Capacity & Strength

[Bromley86]

You don't want to be reloading because you wasted 30 rounds on a tree.

Sure, but that's very different to being in a firefight with advanced aliens and only shooting 6 rounds .

[Aiel_Wolf]

Sure, but that's very different to being in a firefight with advanced aliens and only shooting 6 rounds .

Yea this is true. Those 6 rounds should be more like 18 rounds from 6 - 3 round bursts. But the TU cost for burst fire is too high for most weapons, maybe lower the damage of an individual bullet while making the normal and aimed shots burst fire. Would get more ammo usage, and maybe a reason to reload during missions.

[Gauddlike]

That suggestion wasn't very clear.

If you meant combining higher single shot aim points with increased numbers of rounds fired then that is not possible.

Burst fire cannot have more than a single aim level and single shots cannot fire more than a single round.

The game is coded that way and Chris has said he feels it is too much work to alter that.

I suggested changing the system a while ago which was being looked at but nothing seems to have come of it yet.

There have been similar discussions before on balancing the rounds fired in a battle.

Reducing the damage done per round was suggested, it was argued that making the enemies take multiple rounds before falling was unrealistic and game breaking for some.

Reduced accuracy was suggested but some felt it was frustrating and therefore game breaking to have to fire large amounts of rounds just to land a hit or two, especially late game.

Reduced clip sizes were suggested but it was thought by some to be unrealistic and game breaking for clip sizes to not reflect real world weapons.

Balancing

Burst sizes have been tried with higher numbers of rounds but they became very deadly so there was little reason to use single shots, that was before the change to shot deviation though so may be different now.

That meant you had to fire relatively fewer rounds as a single burst was usually fatal.

I think what was overlooked was that all of the options should be adjusted rather than focusing on a single one as the magical balancing factor.

Best bet is to tweak the xml files and give it a try yourself until you find a decent sweet spot and post up your findings and the settings you used for others to try.

[Andeerz]

I really like Aiel_Wolf's and erutan's suggestions the best. I feel it makes sense to have carrying capacity something that is more tied to physical space than strength (though I think it should still be modified by strength a little). And having strength modify throwing range and effects of recoil (though I think that has more to do with technique than strength IRL) makes some sense.

Also, I am really surprised this game does not have fatigue implemented... it would be killer to have strength play a role in a feature like that as well, like previous posters have suggested.

Oh, and Gauddlike raises some excellent points about balancing. More than one option should be adjusted, as no single factor is going to balance things. I just hope that as many parameters governing things as possible are able to be easily modded in the config files to facilitate this kind of thing.

Edited June 3, 2013 by Andeerz

[TrashMan]

JA2 had full-auto, and different burst sizes. You could practicly empty the whoel clip in a single turn with some weapons.

How many bullets CAN a soldeir fire per round. Consider that. I think it's 4 for the assault rfile.

IMHO, a rookie should be able to fire at least 2 bursts off in a turn.

Increase alien toughness, they are aliens and it's a game.

[Sathra]

I'm trying out 35 TU for rifle bursts. Its working pretty well.

EDIT: I lie, I set them to 30TU. My bad.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Sathra

[svidangel]

wtb 20 TUs for flare throws! =/

[Azek]

To be honest, I would rather have the current strength scheme, but up the rate of fire of shots flying around.

[Sathra]

Well, there's 2 ways of doing it, but both have downsides.

One is to increase the number of shots in bursts. Downside it that you will lose people alot due to the number of plasma shots flying at you (heavy plasma rifles are a good example), and accuracy has to be low or you'll just rip through any alien you see. This is due to burst fire acting odd and is oddly accurate.

The other is to make shots cheaper to fire. Most of the same problems as larger bursts, but you'd get lots of reaction fire in return and alien turns will take forever​.

[TrashMan]

Reduce TU costs for human weapons only.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

[Mox]

OK. I know this might not be a supported idea, especially since it does involve more work on the development end, but perhaps a between-mission training mechanic would be sensible. Sure, sometimes people get better just through experience, but often they need to both train, and apply themselves in the field to improve significantly.

Potentially gaining strength by two points per a mission is probably too fast. On the other hand, a 30 kg hard cap is somewhat unrealistic for soldiers. (reasoning: a number of my (quite nerdy) friends, who don't work out or exercise other than our regular walks about town, can lift and carry more than 30kg in the form of objects carried. )

[Sathra]

Reduce TU costs for human weapons only.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

Just leaves the problem of the player shredding aliens in volleys of gunfire they can't respond in kind too, making combat easier in many cases unless accuracy is really poor (which just looks stupid). I've altered carbines to fire 4 shots per burst and they are murderous in close combat. Even lasers with their poor AP.

[GizmoGomez]

OK. I know this might not be a supported idea, especially since it does involve more work on the development end, but perhaps a between-mission training mechanic would be sensible. Sure, sometimes people get better just through experience, but often they need to both train, and apply themselves in the field to improve significantly.

Potentially gaining strength by two points per a mission is probably too fast. On the other hand, a 30 kg hard cap is somewhat unrealistic for soldiers. (reasoning: a number of my (quite nerdy) friends, who don't work out or exercise other than our regular walks about town, can lift and carry more than 30kg in the form of objects carried. )

Well, if you think about it, they're training all the time, really. I mean, if you were a spec ops soldier, you wouldn't just sit around the canteen all day back at the base, would you? You'd be training to stay in shape, in the peak physical condition.

Also, getting better outside of the ground combat isn't something I (or Chris, it's his opinion that matters) want in the game, because it allows you to get something for nothing. I mean, the focus of the game is the ground combat, and if you're getting better things outside of it, then the game is kinda skewed.

[Mox]

Well, if you think about it, they're training all the time, really. I mean, if you were a spec ops soldier, you wouldn't just sit around the canteen all day back at the base, would you? You'd be training to stay in shape, in the peak physical condition.

That's a fair enough point.

Also, getting better outside of the ground combat isn't something I (or Chris, it's his opinion that matters) want in the game, because it allows you to get something for nothing. I mean, the focus of the game is the ground combat, and if you're getting better things outside of it, then the game is kinda skewed.

I didn't make it clear, so I'll clarify my post. I mean that you'd need to choose a focus to get anything beyond a reduced improvement AND also go on missions to apply the training. No actual improvement without field application. As in reduce general gains and encourage some micromanagement. Gains without missions is something we agree isn't fun; the micromanagement may or may not be fun for people, so it might not be a supported idea overall.

Another clarification: It'd involve more work in adding another mechanic to something the team has already put a lot of work into.

Further clarification: I'm proposing that we reduce random stat gain across the board, not remove it.

[Mox]

Potentially gaining strength by two points per a mission is probably too fast. On the other hand, a 30 kg hard cap is somewhat unrealistic for soldiers. (reasoning: a number of my (quite nerdy) friends, who don't work out or exercise other than our regular walks about town, can lift and carry more than 30kg in the form of objects carried. )

I was thinking about this the wrong way. Certainly anyone would be slowed down by carrying more stuff; being too literal with the word carrying capacity. Capping comfortable carrying weight somewhere in the 25-40 kg seems fair.

[Sathra]

Apoc had training. It was really slow and it was much faster to gain through mission, but it really added up over time so an Agent training for half the game without going on missions would be quite good (not to mention the super light final armour, weapon and personal shield).

[Max_Caine]

In Apoc, I had one team doing missions, and everyone else trained at their assigned garrisons. When it came time to invade the alien dimension, the trained soliders were far more capable than the soliders who had been going out and risking their lives every mission. That felt seriously wrong.

[Sathra]

Really? Huh, must not have noticed. Then again, I get people injured all the time so everyone gets to fight.

[Max_Caine]

Oh yeah, I started off like that, but when the tipping point came and my manufacturing depts. started to outperform senate funding by a factor of godzilla to pygmy shrew, I invested in a lot of vehicles, a lot of operatives and the X-Com Massive would regularly be seen out in their pimped up aerocars, horns hooting on their way to a mission.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Max_Caine

[Sathra]

I am looking forward to that day, since struggling to keep Marsec and Transtellar happy in my current game, and can't expand as a result. Ungrateful bastards.

Think I'll just moider the bejeezus out of some Siris for psiclone. And Osiron, because they hate me for some reason.

[Gauddlike]

I felt a bit ripped off by Marsec so declared war.

They don't like me much but at least they have plenty of buildings for me to visit.

[Sathra]

Early on playing Apoc I used to stun-raid marsec alot for armour.

Then the aliens had devastators and shields in week 1. Much more careful with raids now.

Also, Marsec is happier now, I pissed off and made up with Transtellar twice, and paid for this by raiding the Cult 8 times (they have 5 temples for some reason). Also accidentally blew up a Transporter somehow so got 5 days off from alien zotting.

Devastators are soo much fun to use against the Cult.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Sathra

[WalrusJones]

There's already a system in place for preventing mass hiring / firing. The fired soldiers go back into the soldier pool.

Even with limited scope for increasing Strength, you still run into the same problems as you do at the moment - you have to balance item weights for a greater range of strength, so instead of from 50-60 Strength (possible spawn stats), you now have to do it from 50-65 or 50-70. If we're assuming that a grenade or a clip weighs a kilo, that's the equivalent of up to 5 extra grenades or clips. It's less of a problem than at the moment, but it's still there.

Also, because you don't get diminishing returns on stat growth, picking soldiers based on Strength rather than Accuracy or another stat still has the same gameplay effect irrespective of whether Strength can be improved.

Quite fairly, As long as it is still possible to have strength growth be enable-able in the games code, in a mod.

I don't care which way you do it.

Many of the engaging elements that I am strongly for strengthening: Growing attached to a good soldier, the feeling of wanting to stay out of a hairy fight because of ones fear of bad results, and consumable resources precious enough that it stings using them generally conflict with the direction this game has gone in.

I feel the same for any other streamlining of the game currently in the works.

As long as I can re-enable the disabled feature.

[DNK]

My suggestions:

1. Make shot TUs much less, with equally less accuracy. Basically, more shots/turn but the same hits/turn probability. This way even short-TU soldiers can be somewhat effective. This also increases the need for ammo/reloads (and you can adjust reload TU usage to be a bit higher).
   
2. Make all increases to weight carried reduce TUs, with strength simply reducing the impact each kg has on this reduction.
   
3. Reduce weight progression gains (along with other stat gains imo) to something more reasonable than +100% total after 20-30 missions, so that it just gives experienced soldiers less TU reduction from weight and better handling of recoil.
   

IF I can mod this, I'll do it for sure. Currently, however, you can only fully do #1 through mods. I hope we get better modding tools down the line if more things aren't going to be open directly via the .xml files.

[Gauddlike]

I like that method for strength usage better than a flat carrying capacity bonus.

It kind of means there are two ways to gain AP and two ways to gain accuracy (taking into account recoil) but that seems easier to balance than the current method.