Ground Combat Balance Discussion v18.51 Hotfix 3

[Waladil]

Stellar, the Scim has worked in the past, as has the Hyperion (specifically they worked in 18.3ish). I've not tested them in 18.5, though.

Solver, it seems to me that a suppressed alien simply doesn't lose any TUs. They don't seem to have a suspiciously high number of TUs unsuppressed, they just don't lose any suppressed.

Oh, and the Hunter is totes useless. Two rookies with LMGs have more firepower, more TUs, and are cheaper to replace. And if you don't have to replace them, they eventually become two experts with LMGs, whereas a Hunter eventually becomes a museum piece. This all goes double once you get higher-level weapons and Buzzard armor. (I skipped both Jackal and Wolf armor, since I am not willing to lose a massive 4 sight range for more armor.)

[Solver]

Solver, it seems to me that a suppressed alien simply doesn't lose any TUs. They don't seem to have a suspiciously high number of TUs unsuppressed, they just don't lose any suppressed.

Not sure about that, they seem to lose TUs just okay after hotfix 3. I see suppressed aliens shoot just one single shot, or barely move. Looks like low TU. Except that they sometimes fire a burst, but that may be because a plasma burst needs not too many TUs to fire.

[StellarRat]

Not sure about that, they seem to lose TUs just okay after hotfix 3. I see suppressed aliens shoot just one single shot, or barely move. Looks like low TU. Except that they sometimes fire a burst, but that may be because a plasma burst needs not too many TUs to fire.

I think suppression is working. They can sometimes get off a shot, but then they can't move. Mostly they can't autofire at all.

[StellarRat]

Stellar, the Scim has worked in the past, as has the Hyperion (specifically they worked in 18.3ish). I've not tested them in 18.5, though.

Solver, it seems to me that a suppressed alien simply doesn't lose any TUs. They don't seem to have a suspiciously high number of TUs unsuppressed, they just don't lose any suppressed.

Oh, and the Hunter is totes useless. Two rookies with LMGs have more firepower, more TUs, and are cheaper to replace. And if you don't have to replace them, they eventually become two experts with LMGs, whereas a Hunter eventually becomes a museum piece. This all goes double once you get higher-level weapons and Buzzard armor. (I skipped both Jackal and Wolf armor, since I am not willing to lose a massive 4 sight range for more armor.)

Thanks for the info. BTW, I think Wolf is OK if you have some specialized scouts without armor. It tends to keep your guys alive. Personally, I think the reduced sight range is too steep for the lower armor levels specially Jackal. It looks like it's just a vest and helmet in the pictures, I can can't see why that would reduce your sight at all.

[Waladil]

Not sure about that, they seem to lose TUs just okay after hotfix 3. I see suppressed aliens shoot just one single shot, or barely move. Looks like low TU. Except that they sometimes fire a burst, but that may be because a plasma burst needs not too many TUs to fire.

Please don't make claims like this unless you're sure. Especially because it's so easy to go to the xml files and check.

Non-combatants (both Seb and Caesan) have 50 APs. Plasma bursts from both rifles and pistols cost 40 AP. Single shots cost 20 AP.

Suppression is supposed to remove 1/2 of their TUs. So if you've ever seen a non-combatant fire a burst after being suppressed, or fire two shots, then they aren't losing all their TUs. I've seen them do this many many times.

Scimitars and Hyperions appear to be working, but I've just done the research on them so far (haven't built any yet).

Also, you guys wanna hear a joke?

Plasma cannons. They're so worthless now.

I'm literally more afraid of regular plasma rifles than plasma cannons. (Note: According to the xml, plasma cannons do the same amount of damage as plasma rifles, but are less accurate. So my lack of fear is justified.)

[StellarRat]

Please don't make claims like this unless you're sure. Especially because it's so easy to go to the xml files and check.

Non-combatants (both Seb and Caesan) have 50 APs. Plasma bursts from both rifles and pistols cost 40 AP. Single shots cost 20 AP.

Suppression is supposed to remove 1/2 of their TUs. So if you've ever seen a non-combatant fire a burst after being suppressed, or fire two shots, then they aren't losing all their TUs. I've seen them do this many many times.

Scimitars and Hyperions appear to be working, but I've just done the research on them so far (haven't built any yet).

Also, you guys wanna hear a joke?

Plasma cannons. They're so worthless now.

I'm literally more afraid of regular plasma rifles than plasma cannons. (Note: According to the xml, plasma cannons do the same amount of damage as plasma rifles, but are less accurate. So my lack of fear is justified.)

I can't think of occasion since HF3 that a suppressed alien autofired on me.

[Sathra]

I've had it happen a few times. Their chance of burst fire seems to be related to how close you are.

One good thing with the current balance is that cover is insanely good. I had a trooper and an alien (Caesan Guard, who autofired every turn after being suppressed) exchange fire for 5 turns over a railcar. Neither managed to hit eachother (railcar stopping shots for the Xeno, failure to hit the target for the alien). Suppressed the bejeezus out of eachother too.

Eventually fired 2 rockets at it to clear fire lanes then gunned it down with rifle and MG fire.

All the 'heavy' armours (Jackal, Wolf and Predator) reduce sight range to 14. They're not meant for scouts, and since almost all of the alien weapons have no armour penetration even Buzzard is very good.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Sathra

[StellarRat]

I can't think of occasion since HF3 that a suppressed alien autofired on me.

I take that back now. It's happened one time in 10 missions.

[StellarRat]

I've had it happen a few times. Their chance of burst fire seems to be related to how close you are.

One good thing with the current balance is that cover is insanely good. I had a trooper and an alien (Caesan Guard, who autofired every turn after being suppressed) exchange fire for 5 turns over a railcar. Neither managed to hit eachother (railcar stopping shots for the Xeno, failure to hit the target for the alien). Suppressed the bejeezus out of eachother too.

Eventually fired 2 rockets at it to clear fire lanes then gunned it down with rifle and MG fire.

All the 'heavy' armours (Jackal, Wolf and Predator) reduce sight range to 14. They're not meant for scouts, and since almost all of the alien weapons have no armour penetration even Buzzard is very good.

Try playing in Veteran mode. Wolf is one shotted about half the time and Jackal is useless. And your guys can't hit S&%!. It's WAY tougher.

[Snarks]

Here's my preliminary results from about 10 hours of play on Veteran. These are all ballistic weapons analysis.

Assault Rifles

They work well enough, but I feel they should cost less TU to fire. As of now, the mobility advantage of not having the "heavy" trait doesn't really come into play since I can't really shoot once I move into cover. If I could move into cover and fire, then it would make assault rifles worth getting over LMGs. In general, a LMG burst is typically superior to an AR burst.

Shotguns

Mostly useless. They're really good at close quarters, but very rarely do I engage in close quarters combat. If aliens hid inside buildings and their spacecraft more, then I could justify having them. In the few times that I have fought aliens in buildings, I found that the AI tends to just run away and out of the effective range of my shotgunners.

LMGs

These things are amazing at the moment. For some reason, my LMG troops gain stat points way too fast. I currently have a Colonel machinegunner who has the highest TU (90ish), highest accuracy (80ish), and highest strength (80-90ish?) of the entire Xenonauts force along with high (although possibly not the highest) resilience. She can move from behind a wall and fire 2 lethal and accurate bursts at the aliens before moving back. It seems odd that LMG troops improve their accuracy faster than Snipers. It seems the 5 round bursts results in a lot of "shooting" action resulting in more experience than using other weapons. The "heavy" trait isn't much of a negative considering the act of moving into cover usually depletes all my TUs anyways. The only exception is when my veteran LMG troops with ridiculously high TU suffer the penalty after moving, but the fact that they have such high TU is an issue on itself. Their combination of high mobility (as a result of high stats gain), their suppression capabilities, and high accurate and damage potential seem too powerful with no real drawbacks other than low strength troops cannot use them.

I think LMGs should be less accurate (along with reducing the stats increase rate). They should be suppression tools primarily. They're also very unfriendly to new recruits because of their weight, resulting in a high base strength stat.

Sniper Rifles

They seem about right. Snipers are very useful as supports for when I creep up my Riflemen.

Pistol

I've rarely use them, but they're handy if you want to be able to throw two flares instead of one. Other than that, I don't really actually use it as a sidearm.

Edited June 3, 2013 by Snarks

[StellarRat]

LMGs

These things are amazing at the moment. For some reason, my LMG troops gain stat points way too fast. I currently have a Colonel machinegunner who has the highest TU (90ish), highest accuracy (80ish), and highest strength (80-90ish?) of the entire Xenonauts force along with high (although possibly not the highest) resilience. She can move from behind a wall and fire 2 lethal and accurate bursts at the aliens before moving back. It seems odd that LMG troops improve their accuracy faster than Snipers. It seems the 5 round bursts results in a lot of "shooting" action resulting in more experience than using other weapons. The "heavy" trait isn't much of a negative considering the act of moving into cover usually depletes all my TUs anyways. The only exception is when my veteran LMG troops with ridiculously high TU suffer the penalty after moving, but the fact that they have such high TU is an issue on itself. Their combination of high mobility (as a result of high stats gain), their suppression capabilities, and high accurate and damage potential seem too powerful with no real drawbacks other than low strength troops cannot use them.

I think LMGs should be less accurate (along with reducing the stats increase rate). They should be suppression tools primarily. They're also very unfriendly to new recruits because of their weight, resulting in a high base strength stat.

I'd hate to see LMGs get nerfed any further. They should be really accurate because they are on a bipod and have better than average sights. In real life, they have about 1.5 to 2.0 times the effective range of a rifleman. As far as them getting too many kills, well, I think the reason my LMG guys get so many kills is that they fire at targets that are identified, but not killed by my riflemen up front. So they are basically always getting the first shot on targets and they kill quite a few on the first crack. Your rifle guys don't kill as many because they spend their points moving, not shooting. IMO, the main problem with LMGs is that they don't suffer the correct setup penalties. The heavy penalty is OK, but really, they should take an entire turn (or more even) to setup before they can fire at anything. Once setup to cover an area they rightly ought to be very deadly. LMGs are used for suppression, but the reason they are so suppressive is because they are very deadly and scary as hell to any sane soldier. Edited June 3, 2013 by StellarRat

[Andeerz]

I agree with Stellar Rat. There needs to be some sort of set up component to LMGs. I mean, I still think you should be able to shoot while standing or not setting up, but that should be inaccurate. Actually, I think all weapons should be able to benefit in accuracy from being braced against cover, but LMGs should need it more than other weapons. Anyway, I think that could offer a good and believable way to balance LMGs. LMGs should be powerful and accurate (when stationary), but their weakness should come from less mobility and the need for spotters. Assault rifles should be less powerful than LMGs as they are now, but more versatile as you can do snap/single shots more accurately, and be reasonably accurate on the move. Shotguns, I feel, will be useful once AI gets worked out with little change needed to stats.

Everything else is ok. Maybe the accuracies are a bit on the low side (except for grenades... they are too accurate), but I really find firefights more enjoyable now with the rebalance of TUSs. The only huge problem is still the AI. There are still times with this hotfix where the aliens try to mine their way to hitting someone. Also, they seem to not attack me a lot of the time when it would make sense to do so, instead opting to save their TUs for reaction fire. Plus they seem to hide in the open a lot of the time.

Oh, and also, I am totally cool with the burst fire for assault rifles and LMGs taking the same amount of TUs. It makes all sorts of sense. The only TU change I really think is necessary is an increase in TUs for grenade use. It should take at least 40TUs to prime and throw a grenade, and I think that would have been a better choice for balancing grenades than shortening their range. That's how I have my game modded right now, and I find that it makes grenades more interesting and less cheap-feeling while maintaining a decent representation of their real-life purpose.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Andeerz

[Commissar Pancakes]

I agree with Stellar Rat. There needs to be some sort of set up component to LMGs. I mean, I still think you should be able to shoot while standing or not setting up, but that should be inaccurate. Anyway, I think that could offer a good and believable way to balance LMGs.

Well, the LMG suffers a pretty heavy accuracy nerf if the solder has already moved. Outside of simply adding a new animation/stance for signifying a "braced" stance, wouldn't this also be deemed a "deployed" set-up?

[StellarRat]

Well, the LMG suffers a pretty heavy accuracy nerf if the solder has already moved. Outside of simply adding a new animation/stance for signifying a "braced" stance, wouldn't this also be deemed a "deployed" set-up?

Maybe the solution is to charge a bunch of extra TUs to change posture when carrying a heavy weapon. Like 40 TUs to go to crouching.

[Andeerz]

Maybe the solution is to charge a bunch of extra TUs to change posture when carrying a heavy weapon. Like 40 TUs to go to crouching.

Hmmm... maybe... but there needs to be a choice between just crouching for cover without having the weapon "deployed" (or have good accuracy or whatever) and crouching like you mention. Otherwise, there will be situations where your machine gunner runs to a position but can't crouch unless they have 40TUs.

Actually, you know, I think it would be cool to have it such that machine guns are not at all accurate when standing but way more accurate when crouched, getting a bigger bonus to accuracy than other weapons... especially if next to cover. And perhaps all weapons could have increased accuracy if fired from cover or at a wall corner (some more than others). I dunno.

[Aaron]

Thanks for the feedback guys, please keep it coming.

About LMGs: I am loathe to raise the AP cost for these any more as they are already close to the limit for rookies. I am also unsure about implementing special rules that aren't well revealed to the player, like special crouching bonuses etc... I think there might actually be a bug at the moment making inaccurate weapons more effective than they should be; looking at some combat output yesterday it looks like the situation where a gun "misses" the target (by accuracy percentage) but then random scatter lets it hit anyway - until Sergey has figured that out I probably won't do anything too drastic.

Regarding skill progression: If characters are getting multiple "shooting" bonuses for every shot in a burst that is clearly wrong, so I will take a look into that. Character progression right now is generally faster than it will probably end up being, but that's probably a blessing while we test things as it makes trying the full range of capabilities easier.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Aaron

[Gauddlike]

I still think it might be worthwhile looking into taking the deviated miss shots chance of hitting the target into account when showing the hit percentage.

You could tighten up the miss deviation cone and reduce base accuracy and still have reasonable numbers.

I posted it for consideration here.

[Sathra]

Also might look at making the 'moved' penalty for heavy weapons more severe.

[Waladil]

I was thinking about how to balance LMGs, and this is what I came up with:

1.) Lower LMG damage to AR damage. This is somewhat unrealistic for the basic ballistic guns, but we don't have to worry about realism for later guns.

2.) Further nerf LMG accuracy in general. Hitting with an LMG should be tough.

3.) RAISE LMG suppression amount and suppression radius pretty dramatically.

Overall this turns an LMG into a crowd-controlling suppression weapon, but not a killer. ARs and snipers should (IMO) be your best killing weapons.

EDIT: Also, to make the AR better in comparison to the LMG, the AR's burst fire should be considerably more accurate. After all, there is an old joke that an M16 has so little recoil that you can prop it against your crotch and fire full-auto without experiencing "male discomfort."

Edited June 4, 2013 by Waladil

[Sathra]

Funnily enough I just realised I did this exact same thing in my mod (except the suppression part, I forgot to).

[Dranak]

I do like the idea of making LMGs less accurate, but with a bonus to supression. Burst fire makes sense as a supression/area effect mode of fire. If we could also make burst fire for the AR give a bonus to supression, that would make it more worth using as currently the accuracy is so bad you're generally better off taking single shots. It could make for a nice tactical choice to have to choose between suppression (burst) and raw damage (semi auto).

The hunter was previously too good, but now it feels over-nerfed. Maybe bump the TUs up to 70 to give it at least more mobility than a rookie?

Also, are Sebian Non-combatants supposed to be able to use burst fire when supressed? Because I had that happen to me twice this morning.

[StellarRat]

I'm dead set against making the LMG any less accurate. It's already less accurate than it should be. But, I had another thought about the mechanics. Is there any possibility of extending and increasing the movement penalty to two turns? In other words, the moving penalty would affect the accuracy for the turn you moved and crouched and one turn after that? And the weapon would be terribly inaccurate until that happens. That would make them a weapon you bring up and have to setup a bit to use. Same with all weapons with the "heavy flag". This would be a weapon you used to take care of emplaced aliens (in buildings), to keep a street clear, or to defend an area. Just like they are used in real life. We could then bring the LMG back up to the proper damage and accuracy it should have. Coupled with that it is ESSENTIAL that the burst fire gets fixed for reaction fire. I don't understand why this is still not repaired. It was report four or more releases ago by myself and others. If it's supposed to work like it does now at least let us know that is the case.

Another alternative (though I like this one less) would be to slow down anyone that has a heavy weapon in their possession by charging them extra TUs to move (not fire, just move). That would nerf the heavy weapons guys as room clearing and running between covers. So, they would tend to stay in the back (where they should be) and only move and setup there LMGs when the next "hop" was about to get under way. Again this is realistic and should cut on abuse of using the LMG like a big assault rifle.

And I just have to say, trying to balance light arms against heavier weapons just because everyone thinks heavy weapons get too many kills is just silly. Of course they are going to get more kills. They're more powerful weapons. The lighter weapons are used by troops that scout and clear buildings, etc... If you have a known fixed enemy position you'll ALWAYS bring up heavier weapons to kill them. I'm fairly sure that extending the setup time will put things in proper balance. The whole idea of continuously nerfing the heavy weapons to make rifles "better" is just wrong.

Edited June 4, 2013 by StellarRat

[Meepichi]

LMG's should be very inaccurate when firing from a standing position but I think when crouched(better if they had an option to deploy the bipod for further aim improvement, which should take a turn) they should be at least as accurate as burst fire on a rifle if not more so.

Currently my my LMG guys are my best troops by far and get most the kills, so yeah the other weapons should be given some advantages that would make them more useful. Higher accuracy on the move, and much better mobility for the rifle man and assault guys are a couple of the obvious choices.

[GizmoGomez]

Well, it's an LMG, not a medium machine gun. Having it need a two turn a setup time is ridiculous in my opinion. I've watched enough footage of troops in various conflicts running around with LMGs and firing them the same way one fires an assault rifle, mobility wise. Now, I'm not saying remove the heavy penalty or anything, I'm just saying that making that penalty demand more makes no sense, and would really hamper the way that LMGs are designed to be used. If we wanted a MMG in the game then perhaps that could take two turns to lose the penalty, but there's no way an LMG would need that long to pull up and fire.

Here's some footage of an actual firefight against the Taliban, recorded on the helmet-cam of a machine gunner. You see, he's not taking time to set it up or anything, he's just spraying it everywhere to keep the Taliban's heads down while the more accurate weapons look for targets.

That's not to say the LMG should be inherently inaccurate, though.

[StellarRat]

Well, it's an LMG, not a medium machine gun. Having it need a two turn a setup time is ridiculous in my opinion. I've watched enough footage of troops in various conflicts running around with LMGs and firing them the same way one fires an assault rifle, mobility wise. Now, I'm not saying remove the heavy penalty or anything, I'm just saying that making that penalty demand more makes no sense, and would really hamper the way that LMGs are designed to be used. If we wanted a MMG in the game then perhaps that could take two turns to lose the penalty, but there's no way an LMG would need that long to pull up and fire.

Here's some footage of an actual firefight against the Taliban, recorded on the helmet-cam of a machine gunner. You see, he's not taking time to set it up or anything, he's just spraying it everywhere to keep the Taliban's heads down while the more accurate weapons look for targets.

That's not to say the LMG should be inherently inaccurate, though.

Cool video! That's a SAW from what I can tell. Those didn't enter service until the early eighties, so in our game we'd probably be using the M60 which is light/medium machine gun of sorts (one can argue this I think there might have been a Euro version of a SAW much earlier), and fires much more powerful ammo. He is in spray and pray mode just to make the enemies duck. Which I think is a perfect example of the "heavy penalty" in action i.e. no setup, standing fire, no aim, no accuracy. Notice he does not have the bipod down, he is not bothering to aim NOR is he in proper posture for accurate firing. If that that weapon were properly setup, I'm sure you can see how deadly it would be. You'll notice it even has a scope. You'll also notice he's firing much more than five rounds at a time. My two turn solution was simply a compromise to quell the herd that thinks LMGs are too good compared to rifles. Personally, I don't think any further accuracy nerfing is the way to go NOR is it realistic. Generally, a setup LMG is going to hit more often than a rifle because of the bipod. I wouldn't have a problem making the heavy penalty itself steeper though (way less accuracy if you moved and/or are not crouched.) I mean we can all see from the video that you would be hard pressed to hit anything at distance without setting the weapon up properly. It's not even designed to aimed while standing.

The advantage of a rifle is you can move quickly with it in hand and you can swing any direction to fire very rapidly.

My final thought is that when temporary squad sight is removed from the game, LMG's will become less useful. You won't be able to spot someone then hide and have the LMG shoot them from the back. Your soldier up front will have to remain in contact. That means the fighting will shift more towards the front as you'll have to have people with rifles doing more covering fire to keep your scouts alive. Once you've got the aliens fixed in a house or something that's when the LMG and rocket launcher will become much more useful.

Edited June 4, 2013 by StellarRat