Ground combat and Squad size

[mangalores]

Yeah, that disucssion.

My main thought after playing around a bit with Xenonauts is what squad sizes are aimed for in game balance. In the OG the great stuff was that you could stuff your skyranger under the roof with soldiers when you got the impression your equipment sucks and you have to take a quantity over quality approach.

Usually there was a efficiency curve for your missions since beyond ~12 men you were nearly ensured to have far higher casualty rates due to stray bullets and grenades since your men always bunched up somewhere so it wasn't a desired tactic beyond bringing more firepower to the fight since you lack the pewpew gun that concentrate that firepower and the armor to survive in smaller numbers.

However the Charlie only has space for 8 men although the craft clearly has 18 tiles space inside which would mean 12 men if we assume troops are sitting alongside the sides of the vehicle. Since you can load a tank with 6 soldiers on it, it clearly isn't a weight issue but seemingly intentional?

Additionally my impression from the starting weapons on normal is that particularly the basic armor and Jackal armor is essentially useless in combat. If your soldier gets hit he will be dead and to top it off his visual range gets restricted meaning more instances where aliens will be able to shoot the soldier beyond his visual range.

If that's intended the limited recruitment capability, crew space in the base and squad size in the Charlie seem a bit strange. If the preferred strategy in the early game is to throw bodies at the problem one should be able to throw bodies at the problem. I saw that the game sprites go up to 16, not sure if that's for later transports.

However bigger squad sizes and more space to recruit soldiers is more necessary at the start than in the end when fully powerarmored soldiers don't need to be in big teams to bring along tons of firepower.

More importantly there should be flexibility for choice to have standard teams of 6-8 for small UFOs and possibly 12-24 for terror missions/big UFOs. In the terror missions I essentially got 3-4 men dead sitting behind cover in jackal armor but getting shot out of nowhere or hit from stray bullets.

Since I don't see any ways in terms of tactical choice I'd chalk such things up to accidental deaths, however feel that if I have to cope for some attrition rates I'd rather have more people to bring along. Losing high exp soldiers is usually bad enough and starting over with a squad of rookies kind of makes it necessary to bring two of them for every veteran to stand a chance.

I'd say in XCom:EU the main problem is that from midgame on you cannot afford to lose soldiers since your rookies are essentially worthless.

This was even worse in the Altar games where you had no recruitment capabilities beyond special events. You can't afford to lose soldiers, which in turn supports save spamming. I have no problem losing men, but the essence of strategy gaming is the capability to establish a strategy to deal with the enemy and this includes on how to organize your manpower so you can afford losses.

If the structure of the game makes it necessary to win every battle then you subvert the intention of dealing with losses and use strategy. E.g. in Total War games losing a battle or having half your army ravaged in a bloody clash so it is unusable for years on that front isn't an issue since you can plan your strategy to cope with those losses.

Most UFO clones have the problem of making all tactical missions, mission critical to continue the game and so I'm most worried about this game aspect. Somehow I can really say up to now only the OG managed to give you good options to soldier on after your interceptors are shot down, your squad slaughtered and the skyranger blown up. And that's what made it a great strategy title with cool squad based combat!

[Name]

You have to many soldiers in jackal armor from what I think I am reading. Throwing bodies at the problem is not a good solution. You need to be tactically awesome. If jackal armor restricts sight then maybe have a few soldiers in basic armor to spot for them. (you should btw) There are plenty of tactical choices but our definitions may differ so please clarify. Maybe you need to train more rookies up early game. Keep track of how many people your losing because you seem to be having trouble in areas I hae 0 problems with.

It is not necessary to win all the missions.

After rereading te bottom few paragraph I dont see the problem and how it relates to xenonauts. Please spell it out for me? thanks fo reading.

[StellarRat]

I think the Jackal and Wolf armors are far too vision restrictive in general. They already substantially cut into your weight allowance. The vision penalty should be reduced for both to 1 less than no armor.

[svidangel]

I really don't think there should be much of a vision DISTANCE penalty at all. Rather see a FoV angle decrease. Seems to make more sense given the graphic used as well.

[Lightzy]

Obviously the game would be a lot more fun if you allowed 2-4 more soldiers in the charlie and increased enemy counts appropriately

The game already feels too empty for me, both for map spartan design and because of this, which is not at all like the original.

Then you'd actually have some considerations for ammo, for more survivable tactics, more intense combat which often features more than one or two enemies at one time against your whole squad sniping at it.. etc

Edit: and vision penalty for armor makes no sense and is detrimental to the game rather than adding anything meaningful. I'd remove it alltogether. In fact, I'd do THE OPPOSITE.

Good armor should come with enhanced visors, night time vision etc which INCREASES sight range. This is so that rookies stand a better chance in combat if given better armor, so that they can level

[svidangel]

I'd be fine with some vision restriction as a tradeoff for early armor... but right now the vision decrease is most punishing due to map design.

One of the most fun maps I recall from the original XCOM was doing night missions in the jungle. Tons of cover, lots of crossing paths and short range combat, with a few open areas too. Plus with the somewhat randomly generated map blocks, it kept things interesting.

Not going to beat it into the ground since there is a lot of talk about how open and empty the maps are, but that is what really makes the vision a problem, not so much the vision decrease itself.

[Phoenix]

TBH I'd rather have some advanced armor that actually INCREASES sight, but at the cost of protection to the same tech regular combat armor (for example we have Wolf armor, why not make Buzzard with greater sight range? or if you do not want to give the jump ability and increased sight, give some advanced scout armor option - you get fancy visors yet, they serve no purpose (no enhanced sight at night, no enhanced sight during day time, and I am quite sure they do not enhance to-hit chance)

[Gauddlike]

Originally the scout armours had the same sight range as basic armour but a wider view angle.

That is no longer the case.

According to Chris the view angle is no longer used and is probably hard coded at 90 degrees as adjusting the individual armour settings no longer appears to affect the in game performance.

[StellarRat]

I think the squad size is quite sufficient. Don't forget they can be much larger as your transport technology improves later in the game.

[thothkins]

How do folks find the squad size or terror sites early on?

[svidangel]

At the moment I just smack the landing ship next to the terror site. Seems to be worth more >.> Free reactors! Credit for completing the terror mission! Not as many civilians!

[Dranak]

How do folks find the squad size or terror sites early on?

They seem okay so far. That may change when the AI gets upgraded.

[smoitessier]

they are much easier now that you don't get blasted from across the map anymore

[mangalores]

I think the squad size is quite sufficient. Don't forget they can be much larger as your transport technology improves later in the game.

That's imo however a problem of reverse development. You need more numbers early on when your equipment sucks than lateron when your Guys and gals are good statwise and have plasma weapons and power armor. In any strategy where your units suck you need numbers more and it's always a bit ridiculous to tie it to tech when we are not talking about airlifting anything the size of a company or battallion.

Even with Wolf armour there are still enough ocurrences of instant death for soldiers getting blasted from anything heavier than a plasma pistol.

Ideally I would like to churn through bodies early on till I can lower the squad sizes due to tech than to be retricted to one squad size and then be offered big squads when my tech probably makes them less important.

[thothkins]

it would make an interesting change:-

"Sir! we've cracked the alenuim pulse core technology! We can build advanced ships...but it'll cost you some space."

[Dranak]

That's imo however a problem of reverse development. You need more numbers early on when your equipment sucks than lateron when your Guys and gals are good statwise and have plasma weapons and power armor. In any strategy where your units suck you need numbers more and it's always a bit ridiculous to tie it to tech when we are not talking about airlifting anything the size of a company or battallion.

Even with Wolf armour there are still enough ocurrences of instant death for soldiers getting blasted from anything heavier than a plasma pistol.

Ideally I would like to churn through bodies early on till I can lower the squad sizes due to tech than to be retricted to one squad size and then be offered big squads when my tech probably makes them less important.

It would feel completely wrong to have your advanced alien tech result in a decrease in transport capacity. You'd pretty much never use anything other than the starting dropship then.

[Gauddlike]

It would make sense if the heavier armour types took more space but otherwise feels counter intuitive.

As well remember that your squad may increase in size but you are not fighting the same small crews.

Sure you might be much more powerful but you are also fighting the elite enemies and attacking craft with double the crew space.

[svidangel]

Heh, gotta say I finally built a shrike in february, and while the maps/enemies/numbers haven't changed much, the way I approached the maps has changed dramatically. Those extra soldiers (and more once I finish the valk!) make it feel like the old xcom swarm again. No matter how many aliens are on those ships, you still only encounter a few at a time, and YOU control how many of your troops are on a given front.

Now I can split into two squads of 6, and if I run into an alien I can shoot at it with 6 guys. I could only ever do that before by keeping my whole squad together.

Basically, we would need massive increases in the difficulties/numbers of the enemies to offset even 4 extra troops. Largest ship I've hit is a Carrier, but the combats aren't even close anymore. And that's without blaster launchers!

[thothkins]

There's always:-

- It's a Lightning - an interceptor and a transport. Fast too.

- It's something form Apocalypse - sacrificing soldier capacity, and since there's no apocalypse modules, what about extra Vehicle berths? 2 vehicles too unbalancing?

- It's just a very, very fast transport. On a map with multiple missions, this can actually be very useful, especially as you can go between missions without returning to base.

Just off the top of my head.

[svidangel]

TBQH, having the Shrike moved earlier in the tech tree and just be faster (maybe longer ranged) would be a huge improvement. [without any troop capacity increase]

Heck, if we could research and build a small fast transport (6 troops or 4 and a jeep, or just 4 troops!), that would be fantastic. Maybe around the time you get Foxtrots. This would be especially useful if we start seeing small UFO missions being seeded into the late game.

[Gauddlike]

The Chinook could even be the second transport after a smaller helicopter.

Start with a small strike force, run into resistance, research the hunter scout car and a craft to carry it, plus some extra troops.

[thothkins]

I think I posted something similar over in another thread just yesterday. Probably not for this game., but MIBs in Black Helicopters in funding nations, with a few heavier combat variations form Xenonaut military bases, depending on requirements.

[Wintermist]

Yeah I said it in some other thread that I don't mind the smaller squad, but atleast have a transport that clearly shows you why you can't fit that many more. It's just grounds for confusion and annoyance to see a big transport, yet only able to only fill it to the half.

[svidangel]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I am REALLY liking the idea of a faster smaller craft to start, with the chinook being either researched with the foxtrot and the construct-able, or just being another, more expensive, option to buy. If you want to go in hot and fast with a few troops, maybe you can make it to the landing site while the craft is still down. More aliens to fight, but more intact UFOs. Worried about bigger UFOs? Shoot em down, send in a whole chinook.

[Lightzy]

I like the idea as well, but most importantly, I think that combat should have more xenonauts and more aliens in it by default in order to create tactical situations