18.51 Unlimited alien ammo unbalances ground combat.

[StellarRat]

I think this is throwing the game balance off. I've had DOZENS of rounds of auto plasma fire/cannon fire directed at my troops from FOW by a single alien. If you don't have ammo limits for the aliens you've got to lower their accuracy/weapon damge OR make the aliens easier to find. Will this be put back in?

For some perspective, imagine a soldier with unlimited rockets because an alien with unlimited plasma cannon ammo is nearly the same thing. If I had a rocketman with unlimited ammo I could effectively flatten the entire map and call it good.

Edited May 28, 2013 by StellarRat

[raziel1981]

I agree with StellarRat on this

[Squibie]

so much love! Didnt even notice. thx for bringing that up

[erutan]

I think fixing squadsight / accuracy / AI targeting from extreme range is better than giving aliens ammo limits. Having aliens that can't do anything would be boring, and most of the time them firing off dozens of shots isn't an issue.

[StellarRat]

I think fixing squadsight / accuracy / AI targeting from extreme range is better than giving aliens ammo limits. Having aliens that can't do anything would be boring, and most of the time them firing off dozens of shots isn't an issue.

That would work for me. Actually, firing dozens of shots is a big deal, IMO. Because even the slightest chance to hit and misses unintentionally hitting your troops is greatly magnified if you can fire off enough rounds.

[erutan]

True, but I'd prefer if accuracy dropped off faster and AI wouldn't take shots below x chance to hit.

Though having unarmed cesarians could be amusing I suppose.

[GizmoGomez]

The aliens having unlimited ammo fixed a bug of some sort, if I remember correctly.

I agree with Erutan, though, I'm fine with them having unlimited ammo provided his suggestions are implemented.

Seriously, though, why hasn't the accuracy been addressed yet?

StellarRat, have you heard anything about your formula?

I've not gotten a reply from the PM I sent in.

[Cwell]

I'll agree.

I had a Ceasan Guard shoot 2 Rifle Bursts on his turn on me today, then Reaction Fire when i move afterwards. They already have loads of TUs (this would be about 90 TUs for a soldier with an assault rifle), make them spend for ammo management please

It was not even past half of the 1st month too. I was a bit surprised (a single Jackal armor made, the rest in the queue)

Balance patch soon please, i'd like to see how it goes then.

[StellarRat]

The aliens having unlimited ammo fixed a bug of some sort, if I remember correctly.

I agree with Erutan, though, I'm fine with them having unlimited ammo provided his suggestions are implemented.

Seriously, though, why hasn't the accuracy been addressed yet?

StellarRat, have you heard anything about your formula?

I've not gotten a reply from the PM I sent in.

I'm not sure it's a bug in Chris's mind. If you look at the bug reports it has been reported, but Chris doesn't indicate that he plans to fix it.

Here is Chris's response: "Very observant. You're correct, the aliens don't actually use ammo. It was causing some strange behaviours and occasionally crashes, so we've given them unlimited ammo."

As to my formula, no I haven't heard a thing from anyone that has any power to change it. I did get a very slight hint in a post about fixing grenades: "We're not going to add in a new throwing system prior to the Steam release. Lord knows how many bugs fiddling with the accuracy calculation could unleash." Note: He refers to accuracy system, but I don't know if he's thinking the whole system or just grenade accuracy as in LOF and obviously, we can't assume it has anything at all to do with my formula.

[GizmoGomez]

You may have misunderstood, I was saying that giving aliens unlimited ammo Fixed a bug, not that it Was a bug. I was going off of what Chris said in your quote.

As for the accuracy thing, I'm fairly sure he was simply referring to the grenade formula, and it interacting with props, or something along those lines. The formula for guns would be much more straightforward, I would expect, since the particle will behave however the formula tells it. It would make balancing different, but that's the entire point of changing it, right?

We'll just have to wait for a definite response. Perhaps he's simply thinking about it, and waiting to give a response until he has a more definite opinion.

I'm sure he's not ignoring us out of spite (that would be pretty out of character, I'd reckon), he probably has a reason.

[Sathra]

I don't know if this should be fixed. I've never had an alien survive long enough to actually use a single power cell (well, maybe a Plasma Cannon power cell a couple times).

Most of their weapons have good ammo capacity, and they carry 2 cells. Even if they used their ammo instead of it being infinite it wouldn't have much effect on the game.

[Waladil]

Mostly the difference between them having infinite ammo and them having finite ammo would be having to stop and reload. If they had finite ammo and a couple more cells, it would mostly mean them having to stop shooting (or just shoot less) perhaps one turn out of four -- not really a big deal.

[Sathra]

But from my experience they never get to the point where they even need to reload. And the aliens that abuse burst mode could still fire two bursts and reload in the same turn most of the time, since they don't move. They might not be able to reaction fire, but that'd be the only result.

I dunno, I'm having trouble understanding this, since with the exception of plasma cannons, I've never had an alien use up more than half a cell's worth of gunfire.

Edit: Well, maybe with the wall shooting, but that's not supposed to be happening anyways.

[Sathra]

Hmm, looking through the files, I'm left wondering how aliens fire two bursts in the first place. It costs 71 AP to burst fire a plasma rifle twice, yet I'm sure I've seen Caesan blues (Guard or Soldier, not sure) do exactly that.

All very odd.

[flashman]

Every alien for me can fire 2 bursts in 1 round. How mant TU do they get?

[Sathra]

50-60 for the most common Caesans and Sebillians. I think they might use different weapon stats though.

To be specific, most Caesans besides non-com and Warriors have 60 (Warriors have 65), while Sebbies it goes up with rank from 40-60.

Elites are left out of this, since they're meant to be nasty.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Sathra

[Cwell]

Hmm, looking through the files, I'm left wondering how aliens fire two bursts in the first place. It costs 71 AP to burst fire a plasma rifle twice, yet I'm sure I've seen Caesan blues (Guard or Soldier, not sure) do exactly that.

All very odd.

Me too, because after it did it, i was like : a soldier with a rifle takes ~35 TUs for 1, he did twice, moved, and reaction fire, thus a minimum of Snap Shot (around 15), that is a total of ~95 TUs if he moved for about 10 TUs (2 tiles & turns) .........

I went in the files to check : Caesan Guard have 60 TUs, AlienPlasmaRifle has Burst cost of 36 TUs and Snap Shot of 18 TUs.

Something is fishy there (he was the last alien on the map)

[Gauddlike]

The 'fix' that springs to mind for me is that alien weapons could have limited ammunition (once they learn to use it more wisely) but maybe they could all carry a back up alien plasma pistol that has practically unlimited ammunition.

As long as they know when their main weapon is empty they can drop it and switch to their back up.

If they also knew when their current weapon was impractical, like using rockets in an enclosed space or point blank range, the pistol would be a useful addition to keep the AI from suicide.

Keeps them in the game and dangerous, especially if the AI uses their limitations of their own gear to decide what to do.

Cannon runs out of shots so they switch to pistols and head for the nearest safe building/UFO to lay in wait where they can't be too badly outranged for example.

[Sathra]

That could work. Some aliens already carry backup pistols already.

[StellarRat]

I don't know, but the last terror mission I went on the volume of incoming plasma fire both rifle and cannon was so high that I couldn't even get one turn out of ship and I'd already lost 2 or 3 soldiers. I'm quite sure some of them were hit by misses just through sheer volume of fire. Also, they were definitely firing from a distance that exceeded my viewing ability in Wolf armor substantially. It was a daytime battle. I tried the same mission three times and still lost. The only thing that helped somewhat was to totally smoke the area around the Chinook before I got out. Shouldn't plasma cannons have limited ammo? They are super deadly. Even near misses can hurt you.

Edited May 29, 2013 by StellarRat

[Gauddlike]

That could be a problem to do with the accuracy calculation.

Even if you only allow shots with (rough example) a 25% chance to hit then an Andron Support with Plasma Cannon would still fire on any target within around 75 tiles.

Graph from a previous thread, purple is damage, red is the current accuracy formula from the wiki (added by Chris).

Oh the x axis is hit percent (or flat damage number) the y axis along the bottom is range in tiles.http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2074&d=1366496348''>http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2074&d=1366496348' rel="external nofollow">

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2074&d=1366496348

That is assuming it had squad sight on the target, no interfering obstacles, and no bugs affecting either of those two things.

Reducing the ammunition significantly without addressing the problem of wild shots would just mean the first turn or three were deadly then you would be picking off enemies with no weapons for the rest of the battle.

A meaningful drop off on the accuracy formula may help prevent those wild shots.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Gauddlike

[StellarRat]

That could be a problem to do with the accuracy calculation.

Even if you only allow shots with (rough example) a 25% chance to hit then an Andron Support with Plasma Cannon would still fire on any target within around 75 tiles.

Graph from a previous thread, purple is damage, red is the current accuracy formula from the wiki (added by Chris).

Oh the x axis is hit percent (or flat damage number) the y axis along the bottom is range in tiles.http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2074&d=1366496348''>http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2074&d=1366496348' rel="external nofollow">

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2074&d=1366496348

That is assuming it had squad sight on the target, no interfering obstacles, and no bugs affecting either of those two things.

Yeah, that was probably part of the problem, but I think there is something wrong with the sight ranges right now too. The aliens seem to see further than they should. I don't have any definite proof of that though. Obviously, the accuracy formula is hosed up too. It's nearly impossible to find adequate cover if shots can hit you from across the map. If you couple that with unlimited alien ammo where they essentially have nothing to lose by taking low probably shots from anywhere things get real hairy. On the other hand I do like a challenging game. This might be too challenging though. Not because the AI is too smart, but because the game mechanics aren't right.

[Lightzy]

yes alien sight is broken currently, they can see over 25 tiles (tested) and possibly more

[StellarRat]

yes alien sight is broken currently, they can see over 25 tiles (tested) and possibly more

Without squad sight? Wow, I knew I was feeling a disturbance in the Force! Thanks for the info. Now I don't feel like such a bad squad leader. Also, I've had a couple instances where they were firing at troops INSIDE a building where the apparently could see through the walls. They targetted the exact wall in front of my soldier. There was no way that any alien could have actually seen the guy. That was a bit annoying.

[svidangel]

Ah, probably similar to the bug I just posted. It doesn't seem to just be range, but angle as well. Had one turn 90 degrees in the first round to shoot my first guy coming out of the ship.