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[Ideas/Planning]Gear Expansion Mod - And Possibly More to Come


Geredis

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This is an announcement of plans for a mod to help expand and replace the current armoury used by the Xenonauts in order to make for a more immersive game. It'll also make some game balance changes that I'll attest to later in this post.

The idea came to me when I relaised, as many seem to have, that NATO equipment was pretty much the default of the Xenonauts, despite their multinational nature and their willingness to bring in not just NATO countries but also numerous other nations, unaligned, Warsaw Pact, and just Communist in general. At first, I considered creating a mirrored set of Ballistic weapons for the Warsaw Pact, and then simply go with that to equip my Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Hungarians, and others from the East. Upon that realisation, I figured that it'd probably make sense that instead of repurposing existing tech, that the Xenonauts would probably use their own series of kit, so I decided to get to work on that. I plan on starting with the gear and weapon mods to start, then adding more changes from there.

Currently, my gear plans include the following, all with new weapon art, at least on the equipment screen. Animations will...be figured out later on, if possible, depending on what is needed:

Sniper Rifle

Battle Rifle

Carbine

PDW (9mm Variant)

Flamethrower

Grenade Launcher

Flare Gun

Mortar

Load Bearing Vest

Currently, for existing weapons (the sniper rifle and battle rifle in particular), there won't be any status changes, mostly just an art swap to bring the weapons in line, with the battle rifle replacing the assault rifle. I'm considering the same for the MG and shotgun as well, but all the other weapons are going to be 'new'.

The carbine will be a light battle rifle, with an increased rate of fire, small caliber (less damage), and greatly decreased weight, allowing them to be a more practical weapon for assault and other CQB forces. Additionally, the light weight makes them a possible secondary weapon for heavy weapons carriers who are dragging around a rocket launcher or the new grenade launcher as their main weapon.

The PDW is basically your standard SMG, a very light, short-ranged weapon for snipers and the assistants for a crew-served weapon (should there be an easy way to implement them). Provided there's also a way to require an actual crew for the Hunter, or add actual crew to the transport chopper, it'd also be their primary weapon...though of course that's a long ways off. Now, while snipers can fire their scoped weapons at close-ish range without any penalty that I've seen, I'm considering doing an XCom2012 style bell curve for the sniper rifle, so that the SMG is a practical weapon for anything within, say, 5 tiles.

The flamethrower will be self-explanatory, an incendiary heavy weapon that carries dangers of its own. It is an excellent area denial weapon, and can easily suppress those enemies that it doesn't outright kill with the wall of flames, trapping them in their positions. However (and I'm still working out how this will occur), should the operator be hit, there is a moderate chance (greater if shot from behind or the flanks) for him to be killed instantly as his fuel tank is detonated, frying the operator in a massive ball of flame. Very dangerous to operate, just as lethal to the user as it is to the enemy, but invaluable at times for urban combat.

The grenade launcher is pretty self explanatory, an M79-type weapon that can fire a variety of grenades. It'd be less accurate, and have far less range than the rocket launcher, but it's much lighter, allowing for a scout team to carry one with them in order to create their own entrances into buildings or engage the enemy with some higher-powered weaponry. It'd come with a full range of grenades, including tear gas (designed to suppress civilians to keep them from running around into the line of fire), smoke, incendiaries, frags, as well as chemical weapons of various types. Advanced grenades are avialable through research, things such as 'sticky' grenades that deploy a sticky substance via air-burst to slow down the enemy, or plasma grenades. Rounds will be the usual size, but incompatible with regular grenades, so they can't be thrown, or regular grenades shot from the launcher.

Like it's big-brother, the flare gun fires projectiles in a wide arc, however, it can only fire illumination rounds and is no larger or heavier than a pistol. Though planned right now, in all likelihood, I'm going to remove this eventually and make it one with the grenade launcher, adding illumination rounds to it.

Due to the addition of the grenade launcher, the rocket launcher will be gaining a significant range boost likely, as well as an expansion in its explosion radius in order to make its niche as a long-range direct-fire weapon a little more noticeable.

The mortar is a weapon that I'd like to add, to fill in the heavy weapons niche that the rocket launcher simply can't, namely that of being able to fire a wider variety of munitions than what the rocket launcher is capable of mounting in its warheads. It'd require a proper crew due to its weight (easily 20-25 kilos for the weapon itself, never mind ammo), and it'd be costly enough in TUs that almost no one will be able to fire it after moving, even the slightest amount. Snap shot will be its only fire mode, to represent the necessary rapidity in firing the weapon, and also the fact that the weapon, even if sighted properly, will still be quite inaccurate due to the vagaries of wind and weather. It's much more of an indirect area-denial weapon than any of the others. Due to their minimum range and accuracy issues, using them as close-support weapons within a 'useful' distance of your own soldiers to push back a force already in contact with your men would be dangerous at best. Aside from the weight, the ammo would be large, perhaps a bit more than the rocket.

To compare the three explosive weapon systems: grenade launchers are the new assault launchers, used for breaching and assaulting fortified positions, rocket launchers are useful for softening up the enemy prior to an assault, and mortars are primarily designed for area suppression and flushing out the enemy.

Oh, and regarding load-bearing vests and similar: if possible I'll likely have it produce a minor but noticeable negative weight to represent the more even distribution of gear across the wearer's body, at the expense of a significant number of backpack slots. Which brings me to a question - is it possible to have a negative encumbrance value, and if so...does it actually reduce the encumbrance?

I've got a few other ideas that'll be elaborated on in time as the mod progresses. Anyone interested in something along these lines?

By the by, the mod will likely be balanced around a sight mod of some sort, to help make the range differences in some of the new weapons a little more noticeable.

==

Pardon the rambling here by the way, I hadn't expected the post to come out nearly as long as it did, but it is what it is. Watch this post for future updates/news.

Edited by Geredis
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Loved the idea of the flamethrower and the mortar both sounds like tons fun. However splitting anything into a 2 men crew might require significant changes to the code so i dont think that would be feasible and if you do manage to get it done it would be great if you will tell others how you got it done so it would pave the way for other 2 men weapons (gatling/.50 cal anti material rifle to name a few)

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However splitting anything into a 2 men crew might require significant changes to the code so i dont think that would be feasible and if you do manage to get it done it would be great if you will tell others how you got it done so it would pave the way for other 2 men weapons (gatling/.50 cal anti material rifle to name a few)

Perhaps he could create a new sprite using the vehicles tileset? As a trade off for bringing in less troopers, you can have access to greater firepower.

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As a vehicle replaces two crew you could add a squad served weapon as a 'vehicle' option.

It would basically be a vehicle that looked like two people though.

They would gain no experience, could not be selected from your pool etc.

Otherwise a fair few of the OP suggestions require at least some coding work unless there is a very clever work around that I don't know about.

Be interesting to see how it all turns out.

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Loved the idea of the flamethrower and the mortar both sounds like tons fun. However splitting anything into a 2 men crew might require significant changes to the code so i dont think that would be feasible and if you do manage to get it done it would be great if you will tell others how you got it done so it would pave the way for other 2 men weapons (gatling/.50 cal anti material rifle to name a few)

And, at least for an initial release, that was my plan - a 2-man set of sprites for the mortar and maybe even mod the (reloadable) rocket launcher into a vehicle-like system as well. As for making it work, I'm half-tempted to tie the sprite to the presence (if the weapon is anywhere in the inventory, or maybe via a new armour set) to simulate the two-man crew. This of course means that any assistant crews would be nameless and unable to gain experience, only the 'main' soldier...but at least it'd look right. Maybe.

Failing that, yes, a vehicle that'd basically be a machine gun, mortar, etc on a wheeled tripod system (like this or this) is the plan.

And as for your idea, Commissar Pancakes, I might go that route if I figure the new uniform ideas are too difficult and I can't dynamically change a unit's transport footprint based on what armour they wear, If I go with vehicles, they will require the full four crew slots - to represent the loader, gunner, crew commander and also of course the bulk of the weapon itself.

Also, Gauddlike, I thought vehciles had a 4 person footprint, and thus replaced 4 soldiers, not just two. Admitteldy, I haven't done too much with the Hunter, preferring to run around with infantry.

EDIT:

Adding these two images, to show a general idea of my image plans - and yes, this is just a quick and dirty mockup to start, I'll fix up the transparency and all of that when I get the chance.

The battle rifle/assault rifle

The precision rifle

I decided that in these cases to go with an 'advanced FN FAL' appearance for the assault rifle, keeping of course the wood furniture, though I may change that out to a plastic/composite stock. The Precision Rifle, I always imagined, was less a unique sniper rifle, and more a modified assault rifle designed for much longer engagement range - and its appearance here does reflect that, basically being the Assault Rifle with an elongated barrel, flash suppressor, and a scope. Considering a cheek-rest and small shooting rest (question for you all: monopod or bipod?) for the marksman rifle too.

Edited by Geredis
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Alright, been making a bit more progress, as I start to delve into the actual text files and getting a feel now for the various animations. Still no ETA on anything just yet, but I have settled at least for now on making crew-served weapons a vehicle by combining two soldier sprites and the weapon in question onto the sheet.

I'm also in the process, due to the wooden textures, of modifying things to use a selection of the Warsaw Pact animations, particularly the AK assault rifle sheets to stand in for the Battle Rifle I've made.

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Your units used to be able to be set individually in armours_gc.xml (coneAngle=" ") however someone tested it recently and it didn't seem to work.

Neither did the global setting in config.xml <LOSAngle>90</LOSAngle>.

Chris thinks it may be hard coded now but wasn't sure.

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4770-v18-3hf2-Ground-Combat-Armor-LOS-angle-setting-do-not-work?highlight=sight+angle

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Same.

Anyways, in the meantime, things have been progressing well, and initial tests are promising.

Once I finish adding those things I want for an initial test release (everything listed in Planned Changes, with the exception of the Grenade Launcher, which I am taking my time with since I'll be adding it entirely new), I'll get it out.

For those wondering, the changes are as follows, taken right from the Changelog I've been keeping:

A - Rebalanced weapon weights into kilograms, based upon their real-life counterparts for Ballistics, and a general belief that Laser and Plasma weapons will weigh more than their ballistic counterparts (but have lighter ammunition), and MAG weapons weigh about the same as Plasma weapons but with Ballistic magazine weights, making them the heaviest in the game.  Alien weapons will be lighter but more difficult to use (at least for Xenonauts)	1) Pistol now weighs 1 (from 2)	2) Shotgun now weighs 4 (from 3)	3) Assault Rifle now weighs 6 (from 4).  Also, GC sprite image now uses the AK47 sprite package to go with the wooden FAL-type image used.  30 round magazine	4) Farmer Shotgun weight to 4 (from 3)	5) Sniper Rifle unchanged	6) Machine Gun weight increased to 10, magazine capacity increased to 100 (from 8kg weight and 50 rounds/mag).  Burst fire also appropriately increased to 10 rounds (remains 10 bursts/magazine); accuracy reduced to 5. Suppression Radius increased to 4, Value to 60.		Makes the MG a tool primarily for suppression - cost to fire reduced to 30, from 40 to make it a slightly more mobility-friendly weapon.  Heavy Penalty still applies, so staying put and using it as a base of fire during an advance is preferable to using it a point weapon.	7) Rocket Launcher weight increased to 9 (from 6), ammo will be adjusted downward slightly accordingly	8) Laser Pistol weight increased to 3 (from 2), clip to 8 (from 6)	9) Laser Carbine weight remains 6, clip to 12 (from 9); bursts now fire 6 rounds, making the weapon an effective close-quarters weapon.	10) Laser Rifle weight increased to 8 (from 6), clip to 16 (from 9), burst down to 2 bolts (from 3)	11) Laser Precision Rifle weight increased to 12 (from 8), clip to 8 (from 4)	12) Scatter Laser weight to 16 (from 8), clip to 25, from 15), accuracy reduced to 15, suppression to 50 (from 40), radius to 4 (from 3).			Increased accuracy and damage is paid for by a reduction in suppressive ability and a significant increase in weight, as well as a noticeable drop in ammunition quantity.	13) As part of the first pass on LOS and armor balancing, vision penalties on Jackal armour are removed, and suit now protects only from the front and back.  Lack of armoured sleeves means that resistance is equivalent 	from the flanks as wearing Basic Armour.  From the rear, the Jackal (and all armour eventually) now has an armour rating of 15/15, from 20,20.	14) Changed Difficulty Modifiers - I noticed that except for Alien Attributes and the damage aliens did, there were no other meaningful changes.  I've modified it so that there is now a difference as well in UFO progression, I hope.  Easy is now set to progress at .75 he usual speed.  Normal remains at the 'usual' rate, while Veteran will now progress at 1.10 the normal rate, and Impossible will ramp things up 1.25 faster (all were originally set at 1.00).  Health, Attributes, and Damage were all unchanged from the original values.2 - Planned Further Changes	1) All MAG weapons had weight increased by approximately 25%, ammo weight increased by 50%	2) Ranges and LOS still need to be changed	3) Partially imeplented grenade launcher (most of the code is there in weapons_gc); still need to finsh adding it.	4) Higher level armours may recieve armour facing as well, though it is unlikely due to their full-coverage nature.  Jump-capable armour however will have slightly lower rear armour, to represent the vulnerability of jump-jet/wing systems that are housed on the operator's back.  Likely a reduction between 10 and 25% depending on model.	5) Depending on how weight balancing comes out, may modify the Strength coefficient to carrying capacity to ensure Xenonauts can carry a respectable combat load.3 - New weapon images, with their buttstock on the left, muzzel on the right - Will have an opaque background with the Xenonauts/Aliens logo (depending on origin) in the background and an image also showing the type of projectile shot, with images for Ballistic, Laser, Plasma, and MAG munitions in a corner.
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Just had a look through and it all seems interesting.

My only query is on the rocket launcher.

You are making the launcher heavier but the rockets lighter.

That seems to be backwards from the way I would do it so was curious as to why you picked that option?

For me:

Heavy launcher with lighter rockets puts the emphasis on being able to carry the launcher while rockets can just be tagged on and anyone can carry a couple without affecting their own load much.

A lighter launcher with heavier rockets means ammunition would be more of a concern.

You would be less able to load up your other soldiers with spare rockets so conserving your ammunition is more of an issue.

Rocket damage and radius can also be increased if their use will be less common.

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Excellent. I'll see what can be done.

As for your comments, Gauddlike - I'd agree, except for the fact that I find that rockets are bulky enough as is, in their size, that limits their use, especially if you 'properly' kit out your troops with sufficient ammunition, a couple grenades, a backpack/medical kit, things like that. By increasing the weight of the launcher, and decreasing munition weight, what I'm actually hoping to do is to help give you a more 'realistic' group-wide distribution of kit, wherein instead of having a rocket launcher dude with all teh ammo he needs, you have a guy with the launcher and maybe one rocket; then every other guy in the squad carries a rocket as well. By reducing weight of the rockets, as I'm seeing it, you give an incentive to spreading rockets out to everyone. Increasing their weight, on the other hand, while reducing the launcher's weight might make it more feasible actually to give everyone a launcher, carry no extra rockets, and use the tubes like a LAW or other disposable rocket system.

Which might be an interesting idea, to use a disposable system (simulated by a 200+ TU cost to reloading the weapon) but that'd make the existing launcher redundant and also marginalise the other weapons I'm looking to add in. Perhaps later, once I've gotten everything else put in.

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Increasing their weight, on the other hand, while reducing the launcher's weight might make it more feasible actually to give everyone a launcher, carry no extra rockets, and use the tubes like a LAW or other disposable rocket system.

I was just curious what the reasons behind the decision were, not suggesting you change anything.

I haven't messed with the launchers much as I tended not to use them in earlier versions.

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My two cents on the subject of ballistic arsenal upgrades is that I'd make it a technology you can research near the start, but a pretty big one that would take a lot of people to do and would only be available after two or three missions, maybe after both the early species of alien.

So for the starting weapons what I'd have is:

Assault rifle (5.56mm)

Shotgun (buckshot)

SMG (9mm)

Service Pistol (9mm)

Sniper rifle (7.62mm)

Machinegun (7.62mm)

And these would be the weapons for the first few missions. And they'd be bad. Why would they be awful? Well with the exceptions of the Sniper Rifle and Machinegun, they are all very low powered weapons, small calibre, not a lot of power vs armour. The suits the aliens wear would stop everything up to 7.62mm very easily, and this should be reflected. The early weapons would benefit from being light and having very high rates of fire, but in effect you're looking at weapons whose main role is to suppress the enemy enough to let you get a grenade onto his head.

Then you get the 'Advanced Ballistics' tech, or maybe give it an acronym 'First Contact Doctrine Adjustment' or something. What this would be is the Xenonaut project folks using existing human tech to make the best available weapons available to the troops. So what would we change?

Battle Rifle (7.62mm) Given the era this would probably be a G3 or similar. Heavier than the original by a long way and slower to fire, but much harder hitting.

Carbine (7.62mm) A para version of the G3 works for this, the model would have a collapsing stock to reduce weight. Trade off accuracy for speed of firing and weight. Equal in power to the main rifle.

PDW (5.7mm) Something like the FN P90. PDWs differ from SMGs in that they have a better round for piercing armour, making them better for Xenonaut needs. They are a very modern weapon type though, ~1990, so I'd invent a PDW. Or use the AKS-74U.

Service Pistol (5.7mm) Again a new calibre, something designed to penetrate armour. This would be a very lightweight backup weapon.

Heavy Pistol (.50 calibre) Something like a Desert Eagle or LAR Grizzly. A massive pistol for knocking down prodigiously tough targets. Arguably too heavy to be a backup, but perhaps a good weapon for flamethrower/launcher troops.

Anti-Materiel Rifle (.50 calibre) Something like a light fifty. Put a hole in just about everything from anywhere.

Minigun (5.56mm) You know you want this. It'll make you a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus.

Automatic shotgun (12 gauge slug) Big, noisy, up close messer-upper of all things not of this Earth.

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I'm not sure that there would be enough of a difference between the PDW and Carbine. Unless the PDW is one-handed, in which case there isn't much point for the pistol. Weight isn't much of a concern early on due to lack of armour and you get laser weapons around the same time as major armour (about halfway through Scout phase).

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My two cents on the subject of ballistic arsenal upgrades is that I'd make it a technology you can research near the start, but a pretty big one that would take a lot of people to do and would only be available after two or three missions, maybe after both the early species of alien.

So for the starting weapons what I'd have is:

Assault rifle (5.56mm)

Shotgun (buckshot)

SMG (9mm)

Service Pistol (9mm)

Sniper rifle (7.62mm)

Machinegun (7.62mm)

And these would be the weapons for the first few missions. And they'd be bad. Why would they be awful? Well with the exceptions of the Sniper Rifle and Machinegun, they are all very low powered weapons, small calibre, not a lot of power vs armour. The suits the aliens wear would stop everything up to 7.62mm very easily, and this should be reflected. The early weapons would benefit from being light and having very high rates of fire, but in effect you're looking at weapons whose main role is to suppress the enemy enough to let you get a grenade onto his head.

Then you get the 'Advanced Ballistics' tech, or maybe give it an acronym 'First Contact Doctrine Adjustment' or something. What this would be is the Xenonaut project folks using existing human tech to make the best available weapons available to the troops. So what would we change?

Battle Rifle (7.62mm) Given the era this would probably be a G3 or similar. Heavier than the original by a long way and slower to fire, but much harder hitting.

Carbine (7.62mm) A para version of the G3 works for this, the model would have a collapsing stock to reduce weight. Trade off accuracy for speed of firing and weight. Equal in power to the main rifle.

PDW (5.7mm) Something like the FN P90. PDWs differ from SMGs in that they have a better round for piercing armour, making them better for Xenonaut needs. They are a very modern weapon type though, ~1990, so I'd invent a PDW. Or use the AKS-74U.

Service Pistol (5.7mm) Again a new calibre, something designed to penetrate armour. This would be a very lightweight backup weapon.

Heavy Pistol (.50 calibre) Something like a Desert Eagle or LAR Grizzly. A massive pistol for knocking down prodigiously tough targets. Arguably too heavy to be a backup, but perhaps a good weapon for flamethrower/launcher troops.

Anti-Materiel Rifle (.50 calibre) Something like a light fifty. Put a hole in just about everything from anywhere.

Minigun (5.56mm) You know you want this. It'll make you a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus.

Automatic shotgun (12 gauge slug) Big, noisy, up close messer-upper of all things not of this Earth.

This is actually similar to some of my plans.

My ballistic tech tree:

Tier 1:

Vanilla Xenonaughts weapons + Submachinegun.

- Alteration: Western rifles damage reduced, but their rifles been given slight armor piercing: This results in them remaining useful for much longer, but being weaker in the initial phases of the game.

- Submachinegun: A weapon that is quick to fire TU wise, and generally is more accurate on all shots not aimed, but inflicts very little damage, making it so it will fall out of usefulness rapidly as anything other then a sidearm, and tool of suppressing fire.

- Soviet weapons. (Obtained through Haggle with Soviet Bureaucracy research.)

-- Assault rifle: Higher capacity, heavy, innaccurate, damaging, with a heavier burst fire (Even faster then its other parameters would suggest, but even LESS accurate then its other parameters would suggest... Slightly dangerous to use as someone not a scout.) Uses in game resources, but modified.

-- Carbine: Regains some accuracy over its parent weapon, but looses its good damage without gaining armor piercing. Has distinctive orange magazines. Note: Its TU costs are still FAR worse then the western submachineguns, which are more like the pistols.

-- Shotgun: Looks like the soviet carbine, and rifle, but with a vastly different forward segment of the gun. Weaker then the western shotgun, but has high capacity, and can spray much better.

-- Battle rifle: A underpowered battle rifle briefly produced after the end of worldwar two, dumped onto the xenonaughts in large quantities. Despite this, it is considerably more powerful then the assault rifles from both sides of the iron curtain, it can still serve an appreciable purpose as a mobile marksman rifle. Modeled after the SKS, its large size makes it unwieldy to snapshot, Aimed shots will be your friend, with this weapon.

-- Sniper: The sniper whose sprite is in the games resources, but is not yet implemented yet. Has less capacity then the western sniper, fires slower, and it looses more performance against armor, but inflicts brutal damage to enemies with minimal protection.

- Civilian weapons: (Obtained through contact civilian arms manufacturer research, very quick, but used to give you a xenopedia message warning you that the weapons are impractical.)

-- Xenopedia entry is a stern warning that these weapons are likely impractical.

-- Hunting Shotgun: Current farmers shotgun, more powerful then the xenonaughts weapon, faster snapshots, more accurate (But slower,) aimed shots, but only holds two shots.

-- Hunting Rifle: A cumbersome weapon that strongly favors aimed shots in its TU cost, may be useful as a high damage weapon prior to getting the soviet battle rifle... But most likely worth skipping.

-- Hunting handgun: A handgun that is inaccurate for all normal handgun aiming periods, requiring aimed shots to consistently strike targets within range. Inflicts high damage for a pistol, meaning it may see use amongst your shield using soldiers.

Tier 3.

-Enhanced conventional weapons (Available upon obtaining both other ballistic weapons researches.)

-- Titanium weapons construction.

--- Provides lighter, more accurate variants of western weapons.

--- Will be among the first weapons to support manufactured ammo, when the UI evolves to support it.

-- Internalized recoil compensation.

--- Provides heavier soviet weapons with improved burst fire, when applicable.

-- Heavy weapon adaptation.

--- Provides new weapons that are 100% impractical for any ordinary human to use. An impossibly tough veteran? MAYBE. Normal players would be best advised not to use it, but they may be good for finishing off challenge runs in the most extravagant way possible.

- All weapons in tier 2 are manufactured.

Tier 3

- Alloys enhanced weapons.

-- Improves weapons even further. Allowing ballistic weaponry to serve as a sidearm late into the game.

- Alloy ammo.

-- Last refinement on ballistic weapons prior to MAG weapons. Alas, they cannot compete with energy weapons.... (A heavy weapon may prove to be useful with alloy ammo still, but you are unlikely to have a soldier good enough to use them.)

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I'm not sure that there would be enough of a difference between the PDW and Carbine. Unless the PDW is one-handed, in which case there isn't much point for the pistol. Weight isn't much of a concern early on due to lack of armour and you get laser weapons around the same time as major armour (about halfway through Scout phase).

Yeah it's more about having options for flavour more than anything else.

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From what I've been reading from the research projects I think that, for a more realistic approach to the weaponry in the game, the chief consideration is the alien armour. I'd like to see projectile weapons have higher rates of fire, chew through a lot more ammo, and be very quick to use (because we're presuming that every Xenonaut soldier has years of experience with them) but this would be offset by them being basically ineffective.

In my opinion the tactics for the early stages of the game in ground combat ought to be centred around the use of grenades and heavy weapons, with rifles and shotguns used for suppression.

That said, I mod my game to allow for much larger teams, so that works, you can use massive weight of fire and it's not a problem. But with just eight bods in the Chinook it'd be a real struggle to operate like that.

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From what I've been reading from the research projects I think that, for a more realistic approach to the weaponry in the game, the chief consideration is the alien armour. I'd like to see projectile weapons have higher rates of fire, chew through a lot more ammo, and be very quick to use (because we're presuming that every Xenonaut soldier has years of experience with them) but this would be offset by them being basically ineffective.

In my opinion the tactics for the early stages of the game in ground combat ought to be centred around the use of grenades and heavy weapons, with rifles and shotguns used for suppression.

That said, I mod my game to allow for much larger teams, so that works, you can use massive weight of fire and it's not a problem. But with just eight bods in the Chinook it'd be a real struggle to operate like that.

With the test version of my mod, prior to getting catastrophic crashes in the barricks screen, the MP did exactly this, while some of the rifles did have some (Not enough to ever be as useful as a laser,) armor penetrating ability.

There is also going to be a soviet carbine (meaning you need to haggle with the soviets to acquire it,) that I am almost finished on the art for (Note, Currently just the UI art, the soldier models will be a very long and painful project afterwords.) that it a bridge between the short range rifle (Soviet rifle,) and the MP.

The only issue I see currently with adding more rifles is that it makes shotguns very difficult to justify using: In vanilla xenonauts, shotguns inflict VERY little damage, while setting the shotguns to have higher supression values and radius has partially solved this issue, I still find that they are simply hard to justify the existence of in the current xenonaughts....

I will likely investigate how viable turning them over to a buckshot system may be, based on

While I still aim to have human ballistic weaponry something you replace, my mod will aim to force you to stick with them a bit longer then normal, depending on their tactical variety they provide to get through engagements, instead of raw firepower.

- By delaying the onset of laser weaponry, and making it possible to improve your ballistic weaponry greatly over time (With the goal being that eventually UI will come to support multiple ammo types, or I will be able to find a workaround, since... I have confirmed there is a way to manually load alternative ammo types in the inventory screen...)

Edited by WalrusJones
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With the test version of my mod, prior to getting catastrophic crashes in the barricks screen, the MP did exactly this, while some of the rifles did have some (Not enough to ever be as useful as a laser,) armor penetrating ability.

There is also going to be a soviet carbine (meaning you need to haggle with the soviets to acquire it,) that I am almost finished on the art for (Note, Currently just the UI art, the soldier models will be a very long and painful project afterwords.) that it a bridge between the short range rifle (Soviet rifle,) and the MP.

The only issue I see currently with adding more rifles is that it makes shotguns very difficult to justify using: In vanilla xenonauts, shotguns inflict VERY little damage, while setting the shotguns to have higher supression values and radius has partially solved this issue, I still find that they are simply hard to justify the existence of in the current xenonaughts....

I will likely investigate how viable turning them over to a buckshot system may be, based on

While I still aim to have human ballistic weaponry something you replace, my mod will aim to force you to stick with them a bit longer then normal, depending on their tactical variety they provide to get through engagements, instead of raw firepower.

- By delaying the onset of laser weaponry, and making it possible to improve your ballistic weaponry greatly over time (With the goal being that eventually UI will come to support multiple ammo types, or I will be able to find a workaround, since... I have confirmed there is a way to manually load alternative ammo types in the inventory screen...)

Personally I wouldn't bother doing the whole negotiate with Soviets thing to get AK47s when the gang could go to Europe, get some FN FAL or H&K G3 rifles instead. Same power, better weapons. The trade off is cost, but that's not really an issue for ballistic weapons (nor should it be). You wouldn't really have to negotiate to get AKs either, those things are ridiculously common. That's just my opinion of course, but I would just have the technology that you research being something more along the lines of a doctrine adaptation, changing the weapons that the quartermaster procures for the troops based on combat experience.

When it comes to shotguns, to be honest I don't really see a reason to keep them in other than the fact they are already there. There's no breaching role for them, in the sense of blasting open doors, and when the enemy is so often referred to as being armoured or tough there's little incentive to take a shotgun. Shotguns are not powerful in that way. If you're shooting at moving birds or burglars when you're half asleep a shotgun is great, and I'd leave them in for farmers and cops, but that's it. I cannot see any reason at all for giving a Xenonaut a buckshot shotgun, the inability to penetrate armour or cause deep wounds to tough targets would make it utterly worthless.

The only redemption I can see for the shotgun lies in ammo types. Maybe research an upgrade that gives the shotgun a tungsten armour piercing dart shell or something (nothing would have to change in terms of graphics, you could just give it a stats buff). You could also include stun rounds or incendiaries.

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