Geoscape Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 2

[thothkins]

Well Xenonauts could make sure that Condors were obsolete against larger craft. It sort of goes that way already, but the economy is so stingy it's really, really hard to build those advanced craft.

[Gauddlike]

Wouldn't be as bad though if you knocked all the prices down by a tier.

Still prefer to see the final balance of the air combat before worrying about how much things cost though.

[Goldenlock]

Hi All

First post, but I have enjoyed the game for a while.

On a basic note, I really enjoy the changes to the planes, which makes air-combat more of a challenge. However, I do find that in some cases the difficulty is not always making the games more enjoyable.

A few examples:

- The target UFO always goes for the top plane. This makes combat with 2 on 1 somewhat boring, as you can always fly away with one plane and place the other behind the UFO. Combat is in this case simply static.

- UFO's seem to come in bursts, which makes sense that the military is not drip-feeding their planes to you. However, since the hitting power of missiles and their number is few combined with the condors underwhelmingly short range, it is often difficult to do multiple sorties. I still can't get my head around a 12h refueling time for a plane in dire circumstances where you might forego a full inspection of the plane. Perhaps introducing a 5-10% damage penalty to a plane if it was launched within 12h, but have fuel and ammo within 1? It would also allow the use of condors for reconnaissance, which I find is too costly due to fuel limitations.

Another item I found was a changed pace of the escalation. The number of encountered UFO's still vary wildly I think. Secondly, the escalations are too discrete, i.e. first month is only light scouts, where from 1st of second month, I get 3x fighters and the heavier variant of the scout. I would like to see a smoother escalation, which would also allow a player to prepare for heavier fights.

I like that combat troops are getting slightly upped. Only thing about ground combat is that I find close-range shooting missing more often than the % is giving me ground to believe. The result is that I find it easier to use Stun Weapons on aliens inside the UFO, as shooting them takes too long and is too high a risk due to friendly fire.

This is all feedback for now. Overall the effort done to balance is moving in the right direction with lots of challenge!

Cheers

[ChaseBears]

They would escape some times and the only reason they were a minimal threat was because your weapons outranged theirs. If you had fired the missiles without dowing the UFO, though, you were in for some damage. Besides, everyone agreed at the time that the air fights were very simple and wished for a real time air combat. I cannot believe that there is so much whining about the air fights being more difficult already. Just because the previous tactics(brute force) do not work anymore, I would expect you people to try some new tactics before starting complaining about it. Some of us have and like the new system, although there is no arguing that it needs some balancing.

Your interceptors in X-Com might take some damage when they used their cannon against small targets, but it was essentially meaningless. You can actually lose Condors against Alien equivalent of Cessnas right now. But you're still expected to use Condors against much tougher threats... There's other ways to add challenge to the early air game.

It's about more than gameplay, though. There's supposed to be a sense of escalation. The game starts with a small number of easily handled threats but soon enough it will throw big nasties at you. Your Condors should be overwhelmed by the new threats, not barely adequate against the current ones.

And if you want to talk about tactics... If you stagger your missiles you can blow up infinite light scouts with Condors. It isn't challenging so much as it is micro that the fighter pilots won't do on their own.

[Xenomorph]

...the Foxtrot's standoff range pretty much obsoletes both the Condor and Corsair. I was disappointed to see that the Corsair is still just a faster/more HP version of the Condor...

While there is a lot of truth in this, the Condor does become obsolete very quick, but not the Corsair. The difference in speed and range may not be that much , but it matters, and the difference in HP may give them a chance to survive a fight in case something goes wrong.

If you have a couple (don't really need more), you can employ them in some imaginative ways:

-They're good to deal with Solo fighters/heavy fighters. Bring the 2, when you get into combat split them up, and use the one that has been ignored to kill the fighter, by targeting it from the side close, so the UFO roll will not avoid the missile. You can kill 2 using missiles and 2 more using cannons, in one sortie, as long as they have enough fuel.

-If you have a lot of air superiority UFO squads in you AO (2 fighters+1 bomber), like i do, use the Corsair to lure them closer to your base, so you won't spend as much fuel when you use the Mig to kill them.

-Use them to draw UFO away from your transport flight path to a mission or terror site.

Basically, Corsairs are mops and worms, and clearer skies=profit. They do fill a role

We just have to wait for some more balancing to make them more attractive replacing the Condors. They sure are quite expensive for the current economic balance and take a long time to repair, so just use them wisely and there will be no downtime but to refuel.

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Though it is a little tight, i've been managing with 2 Corsairs and 3 Mig over my main AO, by using the tactics above, and judging by the numbers of UFO air superiority missions, i may not doing so bad.

This gave me room to build the VTOL transport (can't remember the name), have all pro and rookie soldiers equipped in Buzzard and plasma guns, with some Wolf armor to spare for base missions, and get a 3rd base up and running more-or-less.

Edited June 24, 2013 by Xenomorph

[Nickboom]

While I do like how the new foxtrot is balanced and the UFO's are now harder to beat I still think the foxtrot should have at least one hardpoint in the front of the aircraft. Also why do fighters NEVER give anything that all it seems kind of silly and dumb.

[Xenomorph]

While I do like how the new foxtrot is balanced and the UFO's are now harder to beat I still think the foxtrot should have at least one hardpoint in the front of the aircraft. Also why do fighters NEVER give anything that all it seems kind of silly and dumb.

If you got anything from EVERY UFO you shoot down, at some point it would become overwhelming. Keeping it simple is the right choice, and it makes balancing finances a lot easier.

Small UFO are just stones in our shoes. Remove them and carry on.

[thothkins]

On a basic note, I really enjoy the changes to the planes, which makes air-combat more of a challenge. However, I do find that in some cases the difficulty is not always making the games more enjoyable.

-

Another item I found was a changed pace of the escalation. The number of encountered UFO's still vary wildly I think. Secondly, the escalations are too discrete, i.e. first month is only light scouts, where from 1st of second month, I get 3x fighters and the heavier variant of the scout. I would like to see a smoother escalation, which would also allow a player to prepare for heavier fights.

I like that combat troops are getting slightly upped. Only thing about ground combat is that I find close-range shooting missing more often than the % is giving me ground to believe. The result is that I find it easier to use Stun Weapons on aliens inside the UFO, as shooting them takes too long and is too high a risk due to friendly fire.

This is all feedback for now. Overall the effort done to balance is moving in the right direction with lots of challenge!

Cheers

Hey Goldenlock,

Lots I agree with you on there.

The target UFO always goes for the top plane. This makes combat with 2 on 1 somewhat boring, as you can always fly away with one plane and place the other behind the UFO. Combat is in this case simply static.

I think it's fair that the alien intel would know which puny Earthling plane is likely to cause most damage and attack it first. But as you rightly point out, they don't learn from the Xenonauts tactics. It would be nice to see them adapt their tactics. However, this may be beyond the scope of the interception part of the game.

UFO's seem to come in bursts ...

In earlier build multiple sorties were a bit more likely. I'm finding that I'm taking more damage in this build. With the tight economy and repair times, it's tough getting them back up there or having enough extra aircraft. But then, it's not terrible that I can't intercept everything It adds to the challenge.

Fuel limitations came up again in this thread discussing extra fuel pods, although the game could just adjust it in balancing.

Health & Safety won't allow emergency launches even in the face of armageddon. It's a twice a year course lasting a week on "How to Face Imminent catastrophe using COSHH" just to start you off on the paperwork.

I would like to see a smoother escalation, which would also allow a player to prepare for heavier fights.

My first playthorugh of this build supports that, but it may be too early to say without palying further for me. Scouts popped up for about a 2-3 weeks, before the fighters came in. Training rookies is now pretty tough going when everything's a landing ship/ terror mission.

The result is that I find it easier to use Stun Weapons on aliens inside the UFO, as shooting them takes too long and is too high a risk due to friendly fire.

More on current stuns, not current buns as I nearly typed, being discussed here

as yeah, they are a bit too good at present.

[Nickboom]

If you got anything from EVERY UFO you shoot down, at some point it would become overwhelming. Keeping it simple is the right choice, and it makes balancing finances a lot easier.

Small UFO are just stones in our shoes. Remove them and carry on.

Yea but I resently fought a bomber after losing a ship I thought I would at least get a crash ship.... nope just nothing not even like relations increase D: I say single fighters should either give a crash site or at the very least a little money and relations for your trouble.

[OhNoItsNot]

Well, the earth is the earth, we can't really balance that. ;P

Could use the Gall-Peters projection instead of mercator.

[thothkins]

I like to think that the funding nations nab the goodies of these craft. The alloys and Alenium go into the manufacture of the weapons you see the local forces turn up with later, as well as their ability to take down the small UFOs.

[GizmoGomez]

Could use the Gall-Peters projection instead of mercator.

Ha, true that.

[svidangel]

Yea but I resently fought a bomber after losing a ship I thought I would at least get a crash ship.... nope just nothing not even like relations increase D: I say single fighters should either give a crash site or at the very least a little money and relations for your trouble.

If the bomber had gone on to it's destination it would have... well... bombed something. Not good for nation relations.

edit: also not good for alien invasion ticker.

[Nickboom]

If the bomber had gone on to it's destination it would have... well... bombed something. Not good for nation relations.

edit: also not good for alien invasion ticker.

I played a little more toyed with the idea of assaulting a alien base and promptly got my ass kicked so my only way of doing missions was either terror or crash sites WHICH DONT F-ING happen after fighters appear before upgrading to the experimental version I at least had some corrvets to loot but now its just all fighters bombers and now fricken heavy fighters. I only got about 6 crash sites before I couldnt get anymore and im frankly now stuck not due my failures but because the game isnt giving anything to do.

[Xenomorph]

I played a little more toyed with the idea of assaulting a alien base and promptly got my ass kicked...

If you get enough practice on it, you'll see it can be easier to lead an assault on an alien base with 2-4 soldiers, leaving others as backup. But they'll need to be well trained first, don't go on bases with 50 AP rookies. It's suicide.

About the Geoscape, we'll have to be patient while it's being balanced. I'm quite sure a good chunk of us here at the forums raged at how hard it can be right now. Also don't forget, this is not a game you get in and finish in a couple days; there will be a learning curve. Remember when you were learning how to ride a bicycle? Exactly. Takes some practice

[Nickboom]

I learn but theres a difference between my learning and the game just screwing me over. Re the base assault I learned that my soldiers werent well prepared (enough) for the attack. But with the geospape once fighters start popping up the only way to get missions is terror. (or geting to a ship a landed doing a mission which instantly gets looted bug?)

[Xenomorph]

But with the geospape once fighters start popping up the only way to get missions is terror...

I think i understand what you mean. I also went through a phase on the invasion when i didn't get enough bones to chew on, and someone suggested that maybe i was shooting down too many UFO.

If you're not getting anything that will crash into a mission, try letting a couple fighters time out and fly away. And be patient

[Dranak]

I played a little more toyed with the idea of assaulting a alien base and promptly got my ass kicked so my only way of doing missions was either terror or crash sites WHICH DONT F-ING happen after fighters appear before upgrading to the experimental version I at least had some corrvets to loot but now its just all fighters bombers and now fricken heavy fighters. I only got about 6 crash sites before I couldnt get anymore and im frankly now stuck not due my failures but because the game isnt giving anything to do.

It may be worse because of there currently not being any overlap between categories of UFOs, but I agree it does get a bit frustrating getting a terror mission and 8 fighters/bombers every 3 days or so with no assaultable UFOs after a bit. As for base assaults, they definitely require a bit of a different approach than normal ground missions.

[Aaron]

So, at the moment it sounds like non-assaultable UFOs are too prevalent - will get that fixed if so.

Each nation currently starts of giving the same level of funding. This is only temporary, and I can tweak both the amount of player relations "points" each nation starts with and how much money each of those points are worth for end of month funding; I have done this too a small extent already to give physically larger nations more relations point but made each worth cumulatively less - this is because the physically larger nations take more alien attacks than smaller ones, but I want all nations funding levels to decrease at a roughly equivalent pace.

How are people finding the air combat? In terms of the toughness of UFOs, I don't think any of them, even light scouts, should be able to be taken down by a single interceptor with no player involvement. There will probably still be some instances where this can happen with the later non-manoeuvrable UFOs and heavy missiles armed aircraft, but I hope to eliminate that once I reintroduce the missile defence systems on some of the bigger UFOs. I am also considering implementing a "re-locking delay" to limit missile rate of fire from each aircraft - this would be set at a level to prevent single Foxtrots killing light scouts and fighters with staggered missiles launches during the UFOs roll cooldown.

It is difficult to make any particularly involved changes to the air combat due to code issues, but I am also thinking of getting some changes made to the way UFOs pick targets - I feel like they are too easy to spoof around right now because they get utterly fixated on one target. Perhaps we should make them switch targets if their current target flies way from them for too long and/or target a new craft if it inflicts damage on them. No promises, Chris goes all pale when I ask for Air Combat code changes!

Also one thing to note, hangar spamming friends, maintenance for most things is currently outright disabled - I wanted to do that to simplify the task of getting the costs of items throughout the game under control. Once that is done though, maintenance costs will be re-introduced, so hangar/fighter spam will become far more costly!

[Xenomorph]

Air combat is quite interesting, and we really require more then one aircraft to kill any single UFO - one decoy, other kills. NO complaints here, makes perfect sense

At least on the cruiser/Heavy fighter phase. It got a little complicated with Interceptors, but i got plasma weapons right after. Should balance it, hopefully.

But the fact that we have our hands tied on developing a capable air force makes it way too hard - still not enough dough, long refuel times, insane repair times (specially for Corsairs) means that occasionally that UFO so much needed for the finance boost might just escape, because we need to clear the skies from other scum as well. Hope you have enough time to look at these.

Missile defense on larger UFO, will make air combat unnecessarily hard. As for now, we need 4 sorties of 3 Mig for large UFO with escorts, 3 for single UFO. It's always really tight, unless the UFO is close enough to the base, it will escape. As for single Interceptors, we need those 3 Mig, either for a heads-on approach or using decoy. The Mig have a rough time locking torpedoes in Interceptors due to their high speed, when using decoy, for the head on approach we need to have 2 to cover the defensive roll and fire immediately, or we will lose a plane.

As for missile lock delay, well, it might be a not so good idea, but maybe it's just me. Their range is pretty small as it is, really no place for errors, and lock delay will just be another annoyance, not another challenge.

If you make UFO switch targets, we will be losing planes left and right. You'd have to make them very cheap, very tough or very quick to repair. Please consider this well maybe on a later stage, when everything else is balanced enough?

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I think one VERY USEFUL change you could make is to have our planes leading the UFO, not the speed/course vector, whatchamacallit . That will help IMMENSELY keeping the sights aligned without the manual guesswork.

[thothkins]

I agree pretty wholeheartedly with Aaron's post, in particular:-

So, at the moment it sounds like non-assaultable UFOs are too prevalent - will get that fixed if so.

I don't think any of them, even light scouts, should be able to be taken down by a single interceptor with no player involvement.

Perhaps we should make them switch targets if their current target flies way from them for too long and/or target a new craft if it inflicts damage on them.

maintenance costs will be re-introduced, so hangar/fighter spam will become far more costly!

but not:

this would be set at a level to prevent single Foxtrots killing light scouts and fighters with staggered missiles launches during the UFOs roll cooldown.

as it's my only tactic

[Knightpt]

I honestly believe you are overcomplicating the air combat mini game and giving it too much dificulty. I like that you want to include new stuff beyond xcom but it feels to me an excessively complex feature like air combat ends up more of an added obstacle than a fun added feature.

My personal feeling so far, probably Just me as everyone seems to praise it though. :-)

Edited June 26, 2013 by Knightpt

[Xenomorph]

And i just found out that 3 Mig with plasma torpedoes vs 3 Interceptors = Interceptors 3 - Mig 0. It's impossible. Can't kill em, can't shoot and run.

And with the corsair repair rate as is, well, i won't even consider it they might just win, but will take a beating while engaging with cannons.

So, i can't fly. Can't put anything on the air that won't end in a perpetual chase until i lose planes or transport, because they'll run out of fuel.

I think this perpetual chase mechanic should be reconsidered. I spent 25 minutes of my time trying to get 3 Mig to base, chased by 3 interceptors.

Not fun, not at all.

I REALLY don't want to touch the game files... but things look really grim

Edited June 26, 2013 by Xenomorph

[Xenomorph]

I honestly believe you are overcomplicating the air combat mini game and giving it too much dificulty. I like that you want to include new stuff beyond xcom but it feels to me an excessively complex feature like air combat ends up more of an added obstacle than a fun added feature.

I like the way it's going, in terms of gameplay and balance, but i agree with you. It can be kept simple, yet challenging and fun

[ThunderGr]

I honestly believe you are overcomplicating the air combat mini game and giving it too much dificulty. I like that you want to include new stuff beyond xcom but it feels to me an excessively complex feature like air combat ends up more of an added obstacle than a fun added feature.

My personal feeling so far, probably Just me as everyone seems to praise it though. :-)

It has been said that there will be an autoresolve option for the air fights for those that find the air-combat "overcomplicating". I like the way it goes and it should not be a boring repetition of the same tactic all over. For the rest of the people, you can always autoresolve it .