Ground Combat Balance Discussion v18.51 Hotfix 3

[svidangel]

Eh, as I said elsewhere, I really liked the Jungle missions from the OG. And it's the large spread between pieces of cover that most hurts when you are trying to use the Jackal armor early on.

Course my first base is always in North Africa, so I always get a shit ton of the desert maps with a couple cacti and a rock or two if I say pretty please.

[Xenomorph]

You don't think there is enough cover on the maps? That surprises me. I think some of them have too much! To me the current maps seem nearly perfect in that regard.

Farmland maps have little to no cover at all. Wooden fences and bushes count towards accuracy, but not cover, at mid stage game with aliens spraying heavy plasma, being behind one of those or behind nothing is the same, and there is a lot of open terrain to cover.

[Gauddlike]

@stellar The stopping chance and hitpoints of an object are set individually in their spectre.

The system works either way.

Only reason I didn't go for the multiplier is that it is just a reference for adding the totals up manually.

Plus there isn't much difference between some of the objects which makes 1.8x for some and 2x for others less intuitive than just adding 20 or 25 points in your head then typing the total in.

[Lightzy]

Ok, after playing some more and watching letsplays (awesome closetyeti!) it's real evident that combat is almost always your entire team vs one or two aliens. It almost never happens that you have your team on one side of a field and a group of 4-5 aliens on the other.. as in real tactical combat.

The most obvious fix for this is to up alien count for all ships, add room for 2 more soldiers on the charlie, and adjust artefact and funding pay accordingly.

Then even if the AI isn't exactly a genius of group tactics, you'll still get more tactical combat.

[Cpt. Spaceface]

@lightzy - I've somehow ended up doing a handful of terror missions at night (playing on veteran - although not sure if theres actually any differences in difficulty atm) and it feels pretty damn tactical. Just figuring out how to kill one alien that has the ability to wipe out your entire squad (and frequently does) and approach it is pretty tough as is. Adding more aliens would inevitably lead to them being made less tough, just zerging your squad, which is far less terrifying than worrying about running into an alien an inopportune moment which will almost definately kill a soldier (far more in keeping with XCOM94 too I think)

[Snarks]

I believe the eventual AI goal is to have the aliens work together as a team. The latest AI patch simply gave them rudimentary behaviors, but it still lacks the teamwork element. I do wonder how that'll affect balance and tactics when you have to contend with more aliens at a given time, from possibly different directions as well.

[Lightzy]

Well you probably understand that judging the game by a couple of night terror missions is probably not representative of the game as a whole, but rather of a specific experience that is preferably completely avoided, or happens once or twice in the game because you have no choice. Terror missions are really the exception to the rule and night-time ones even more so.

The great majority of the combat game is your whole team vs. one alien

[StellarRat]

Farmland maps have little to no cover at all. Wooden fences and bushes count towards accuracy, but not cover, at mid stage game with aliens spraying heavy plasma, being behind one of those or behind nothing is the same, and there is a lot of open terrain to cover.

You don't take advantage of the hedgerows and such? There's plenty of cover on those maps. There's basically a protected corridor to the alien on most of them.

[StellarRat]

I believe the eventual AI goal is to have the aliens work together as a team. The latest AI patch simply gave them rudimentary behaviors, but it still lacks the teamwork element. I do wonder how that'll affect balance and tactics when you have to contend with more aliens at a given time, from possibly different directions as well.

Yes, I think it's a bit early to up the alien count since we have no idea how good their tactics will be until Gjiis-Jan says he's done. I'm certainly hoping that they will at least have a rudimentary grasp of mass and maneuver by then. I've never had to shoot it out with more than a couple at once. I think the main reason(s) are: #1 They are spread across the map by design. #2 They don't seem to reinforce each other once the Xenonauts are spotted by one of them. You'd think they'd all draw to together in good cover and engage the Xenonauts in a firefight. Hopefully with a few them trying to work around the flank(s). #3 They don't defend their ships at all really.

I know #3 will be addressed. I'm hoping for number #2 at some point.

Edited June 10, 2013 by StellarRat

[svidangel]

I actually think upping the alien count would be a great idea... but do it by difficulty level (discussed elsewhere). Then as the AI changes we can see comments from the people playing on each difficulty on how the AI behaves with different numbers of troops during all phases of the game, and how that impacts playstyles.

[Andeerz]

@stellar The stopping chance and hitpoints of an object are set individually in their spectre.

Oooo... is there a way to easily mod these stopping chances and hitpoints? I hope one day these features are moddable to be dependent on projectile type and that cover can alter trajectory and damage of a projectile following impact or penetration (again, dependent on projectile type). It would be a really awesome project for the modding community, methinks!

[Aaron]

Each an every prop having individual cover and health values was a mistake, but that's the system we have now - it's going to be very time consuming to update all the tiles in the game (though I should be able to use some tools to make it a bit easier) so I only want to do it once; that's why I want to hear as much feedback on cover as possible.

I think I am also coming around to the idea we need more cover pieces on certain maps types; both from a gameplay point of view and artistically. I am also interested in adding more incidental props as decoration, which don't have any gameplay effect - they do this lots in JA2 and it makes their terrain look far less sterile than ours does I think. Bigger fish to fry right now though!

Increasing the number of aliens per UFO is something I will probably be doing shortly. They need to be increased to take into account aliens killed during crashes, which is almost every mission.

[Andeerz]

Here's my feedback for now about what could be done to improve things within the current framework:

I find it silly that during alien base missions I can fire one burst of a machine gun at a door and completely destroy it. Anything structural made of alien alloys, specifically alien doors, need to pretty much be indestructible by anything other than plasma (and even then, a LOT of plasma) and high explosives (not grenades! and even C4 should have a hard time getting through). So, drastically up the health on these things and make alien alloy the absolute strongest material in the game.

Any cover made of steel that is beyond a centimeter thick should also be particularly difficult to destroy by anything other than plasma and C4, though drastically less so than alien alloys.

Anything made of concrete or stone should be less strong than steel, though anything made of these materials that is about, say, half a foot thick should be about as strong as something made of steel about a tenth of that thickness. I really find it odd that, like the alien doors mentioned earlier, a burst of fire from a machine gun can completely pulverize a thick chunk of concrete (like one of those concrete tube sections or whatever in the industrial maps). Such things should take quite a beating before giving out. A frag grenade or several bursts from a light machine gun shouldn't destroy large concrete objects or stones. A direct hit from a rocket ought to. Maybe sheet metal structures ought to be in this category, too.

Sandbags, red brick, and weaker stone-like structural things (like the walls seen in middle-eastern maps) should be less strong than concrete (maybe half as strong).

Most wooden props and cover should be fairly easy to destroy and offer minimal if any protection. Their main purpose should be to obscure view. However, they still deserve more health than they have now. For example; a wooden door should be pretty weak, but should take at least more than two bursts of a light machine gun before being swiss-cheesed enough to fall apart. A wooden crate should maybe not be able to take a direct frag grenade blast, but anything less than a direct hit from a frag shouldn't destroy it. Thin things like signs should also fall into this category.

These are just my thoughts off the cuff, and as such are not well researched or have anything backing them other than what feels "right" to me.

In any case, I'd highly recommend looking up military training documents about relative protection of different kinds of cover if you have not already. It might give some good ideas about what the starting point should be.

On an ending note: It's unfortunate that the system is the way it is. Damage to cover really should be dependent on projectile type among other things, and it would be pretty cool to have penetration at least for thinner types of cover, again being dependent on projectile type. Having this kind of feature would increase the options available for balancing, as well as offer some cool, plausible pros and cons to the different weapons technologies that could enrich the tactical experience of the game. For example, perhaps ballistics would not be able to as easily destroy cover as plasma but would have superior penetration than the others. Lasers would not be able to easily penetrate even thin stuff (provided it's opaque) but could ignite flammable objects. Plasma would have ok penetration but have superior destructive capabilities against cover. Just some food for thought...

[svidangel]

On an ending note: It's unfortunate that the system is the way it is. Damage to cover really should be dependent on projectile type among other things, and it would be pretty cool to have penetration at least for thinner types of cover, again being dependent on projectile type. Having this kind of feature would increase the options available for balancing, as well as offer some cool, plausible pros and cons to the different weapons technologies that could enrich the tactical experience of the game. For example, perhaps ballistics would not be able to as easily destroy cover as plasma but would have superior penetration than the others. Lasers would not be able to easily penetrate even thin stuff (provided it's opaque) but could ignite flammable objects. Plasma would have ok penetration but have superior destructive capabilities against cover. Just some food for thought...

This.

Yeah, more programming, and maybe another variable, but it would make some sense to have a weapon tier cutoff per tech level.

Ballistics and lasers can't just destroy a rock formation. Ballistics can't generally knock down a WALL (with a 3 shot burst)... though they might punch through weak wood and leave it intact (yeah, too complicated). Anyway, just an idea that some weapons simply wouldn't destroy a certain piece of terrain no matter how many times you shoot it. I can't imagine the river of machine gun ammo it would take to wear down a granite rock. Meanwhile, I can imagine plasma magically vaporizing part of the rock, an maaaybe just maybe the MAG stuff can actually blast it to pieces. Or maybe mag should do more damage, but go back to ballistic style cover destruction. Dunno, but anything like this would make the environment feel more like an environment. Not a collection of pixilated % values.

[StellarRat]

Each an every prop having individual cover and health values was a mistake, but that's the system we have now - it's going to be very time consuming to update all the tiles in the game (though I should be able to use some tools to make it a bit easier) so I only want to do it once; that's why I want to hear as much feedback on cover as possible.

You should be able to write a little program to update all the tiles to whatever values you choose using their unique ID's (type name) and a table of health and cover values. That will also make it much easier to change them if it turns some of your values are off. Edited June 12, 2013 by StellarRat

[StellarRat]

Lasers would not be able to easily penetrate even thin stuff (provided it's opaque) but could ignite flammable objects.

That really depends on the type and power of the laser. A "real" high powered laser hit would looks like an explosion on the surface of the target and for all intents and purposes could be treated like a small C4 blast wherever it hits even creatures standing next the target creature/object could be hurt. This would pretty much hold true for all directed energy weapons in the game and the hypervelocity weapons too, but I know it's just a game.

[Gauddlike]

Oooo... is there a way to easily mod these stopping chances and hitpoints? I hope one day these features are moddable to be dependent on projectile type and that cover can alter trajectory and damage of a projectile following impact or penetration (again, dependent on projectile type). It would be a really awesome project for the modding community, methinks!

If you could persuade the devs to give terrain objects resistance values in the same way as armour you could at least simulate some materials being more vulnerable to plasma than kinetic energy and so on.

[svidangel]

You don't think there is enough cover on the maps? That surprises me. I think some of them have too much! To me the current maps seem nearly perfect in that regard.

Just started a second playthrough to try to remember what I did to start as a terrible sort of startup guide, and have been far happier with the maps this time. Made it all the way to the end of February getting 70% desert and 20% farm maps it seems. Finally got a cityish/industrial map for the first time towards the end, and this time I got my first snow map and a few others I hadn't seen, which have been a lot better than that drab military base with the occasional rock or cactus about 15 squares from anything.

[Aaron]

You should be able to write a little program to update all the tiles to whatever values you choose using their unique ID's (type name) and a table of health and cover values. That will also make it much easier to change them if it turns some of your values are off.

That's not practical, there's too much variation within a single type ID - there's a pretty big difference between a park railing and a granite wall in terms of stopping potential, yet both share the same ID.

[StellarRat]

That's not practical, there's too much variation within a single type ID - there's a pretty big difference between a park railing and a granite wall in terms of stopping potential, yet both share the same ID.

OH...Well, I guess that might have been a mistake, LOL. So, how does the software ID each type of tile then? It must do it somehow or you wouldn't be able to tell if something is half height or full height, green or yellow, etc... Edited June 13, 2013 by StellarRat

[Crix]

I'd like to say that I find the basic jeep vehicle to have.. sort of a hilariously low movement range for a wheeled vehicle, additionally since in Xenonauts the tanks, aren't robots, I'd like for them to have drivers that could level up (maybe a shorter upgrade path WO - > CWO 5) like normal ground troops.

[StellarRat]

I'd like to say that I find the basic jeep vehicle to have.. sort of a hilariously low movement range for a wheeled vehicle, additionally since in Xenonauts the tanks, aren't robots, I'd like for them to have drivers that could level up (maybe a shorter upgrade path WO - > CWO 5) like normal ground troops.

The new experimental release give the vehicles a little AP and a lot more hit points according to the release notes. I haven't had time to play it yet though.

[Sathra]

I'd like to say that I find the basic jeep vehicle to have.. sort of a hilariously low movement range for a wheeled vehicle, additionally since in Xenonauts the tanks, aren't robots, I'd like for them to have drivers that could level up (maybe a shorter upgrade path WO - > CWO 5) like normal ground troops.

Actually, only the first vehicle has a driver.

[Aaron]

Right you lot, new balance thread for the new Steam experimental build - no moaning about the grenade artillery nerf

[svidangel]

What about the general explosive nerf?