Geoscape Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 2

[Knightpt]

Just as I thought. The constant whining about the air combat getting "too difficult" and "overcomplicated" leads to lessening the depth of it and removal of nice features. Well done, people. Keep it up.

Because i can see beyong the veil in front of my eyes and i can perfectly understand that in a small team like the xenonauts team where development time is scarse the more and more time they dedicate resources to giving more "depth" to a mini-game the less time they will have to dedicate to the meat-and-bone of what most people expect from xenonauts wich is ground combat perfectness and geoscape base/troop strategic management.

You might argue that xenonauts / xcom is much more than "just that", and i fully agree with that, but if xenonauts can't get this two things right they won't realy convice dire-hard x-com fans, and it won't realy be with a little bit more depth in air-combat that they'll win their gut.

RIght more in-depht air combat its a wonderfull feature to have in xenonauts, especialy because its genuine and a new personnal touch to the game, and its a definate added value to their product, but i just wanted to say that please first nail it down to perfection what made x-com briliant (i know you can do it), and then if you still have resources then go for new stuff with a lot of depth like aircombat.

There is still so so so so much more stuff you can add to geoscape/base/troops/gound combat to make it even better and more "hard-core" if you want to call it that (like for example joint-missions between countries with their special troops and Xenonauts, or random events in the world or ground missions where you could ask for mig air strikes, just imense stuff you can add).

Air combat imho is a nice mini-game to have. Adding it too much options to the point that it stops being a mini-game and starts being a genuine full feature that HAS to have depth will force the team to make it realy awesome or people will QQ its bad. Making it just a mini-game and dedicating full resources to the other meaty stuff like ground combat that everyone excepts to be brilliant seems a much better bet imho.

But please for the love of god don't bash me and say i'm doing bad things to aaron or chris or the xenonaut team because i'm not trying to demotivate them, i'm just realy trying to help in a small way. The path is there for them to walk and i'm a nobody to even sugest they should go other way, i'm just expressing what i feel would be better in the long(er) run.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Knightpt

[RuskiVolkov]

I do pause, and I do try micromanaging my planes. But after my foxtrots fire their missile loads they're in the corvette's range, no matter what. From that point it's up to chance whether or not they get away. After a foxtrot would die, the corvette would turn to engage the condors (who came in close to use their cannons).

But now I know aliens always target the center craft. I'm gonna try using that to my advantage, but that seems more of an exploit than an actual tactic to use against them.

[svidangel]

you can actually slow the planes down before achieving lock, as well as speeding them up after they achieve lock.

[thothkins]

If I have a foxtrot and 2 condors I'll usually have a condor with afterburner on to act as a decoy in situations where the enemy might target the foxtrot.

[smoitessier]

I'm not a big fan of the new arc overlays in v19.2 It makes me zoom in so close to see when i can fire my sidewinders that it makes the alien ships (so far light scouts) look ugly.

And now that I think about it, I don't know why we know during the first ever encounter how far their weapon range would be, I guess once we attain their datacores the scientists could include it in the reports and it would then be visible in future air combats. I guess what I want to keep is a sense of tension not knowing when you are in range of their weapons, at least at the start.

edit: same for their names, how do we know it's a light scout and not a fighter for instance, or a strike cruiser vs a cruiser etc...

Also why don't carriers have fighters that fly out of it?

[GizmoGomez]

All valid points, I agree with all of those smoitessier.

[Jupsto]

I was hoping this build would fix the air combat balance but seems to have only made it worse. ONLY fighters and new "bombers" seen in the entire month 2. not a single ground mission was had, nothing to research. 20 soldiers sitting on there hands. not at all liking where this is going...

edit: altho thats only month 2, in nov now, seeming more possible.

Edited June 30, 2013 by Jupsto

[wcanyon]

Is there a way to tweak the spawn rates of various types of UFOs? Month 3 my finances dry up because I can't build corsairs and my condors are getting blown up. No "small" ships to attack. I'd rather have an A and B squad and do more missions than have to absolutely kill every landing ship that shows up to make money.

[Dranak]

Is there a way to tweak the spawn rates of various types of UFOs? Month 3 my finances dry up because I can't build corsairs and my condors are getting blown up. No "small" ships to attack. I'd rather have an A and B squad and do more missions than have to absolutely kill every landing ship that shows up to make money.

Eventually the plan is for there to be more of a mix of UFO types, but the mixing is currently disabled to work out the right ratio/duration for each phase of the invasion. And Aaron has said the next build will shift the balance towards fewer fighters and more assaultable UFOs.

[Max_Caine]

I covered this previously, but if you want more tiddlers, edit AM_Scout.xml. Change it from this:

   <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0">   <Cell ss:StyleID="s65"><Data ss:Type="String">m:airplane.alien.lightscout</Data></Cell>   <Cell ss:StyleID="s66"><Data ss:Type="Number">0</Data></Cell>  </Row>  <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0">   <Cell ss:StyleID="s65"><Data ss:Type="String">m:airplane.alien.fighter</Data></Cell>   <Cell ss:StyleID="s66"><Data ss:Type="Number">500</Data></Cell>  </Row>  <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0">   <Cell ss:StyleID="s65"><Data ss:Type="String">m:airplane.alien.heavyfighter</Data></Cell>   <Cell ss:StyleID="s64"><Data ss:Type="Number">800</Data></Cell>  </Row>  <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0">   <Cell ss:StyleID="s65"><Data ss:Type="String">m:airplane.alien.interceptor</Data></Cell>   <Cell ss:StyleID="s64"><Data ss:Type="Number">1350</Data></Cell>  </Row>

To something like this

   <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0">   <Cell ss:StyleID="s65"><Data ss:Type="String">m:airplane.alien.lightscout</Data></Cell>   <Cell ss:StyleID="s66"><Data ss:Type="Number">0</Data></Cell>  </Row>  <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0">   <Cell ss:StyleID="s65"><Data ss:Type="String">m:airplane.alien.scout</Data></Cell>   <Cell ss:StyleID="s66"><Data ss:Type="Number">400</Data></Cell>  </Row>  <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0">   <Cell ss:StyleID="s65"><Data ss:Type="String">m:airplane.alien.corvette</Data></Cell>   <Cell ss:StyleID="s64"><Data ss:Type="Number">1200</Data></Cell>  </Row>  <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0">   <Cell ss:StyleID="s65"><Data ss:Type="String">m:airplane.alien.landingship</Data></Cell>   <Cell ss:StyleID="s64"><Data ss:Type="Number">1800</Data></Cell>  </Row>

And perform similar changes to AM_Research.xml, as these two mission types are likely to appear in each wave.

[wcanyon]

I covered this previously, but if you want more tiddlers, edit AM_Scout.xml. Change it from this:

....

And perform similar changes to AM_Research.xml, as these two mission types are likely to appear in each wave.

Thanks much. Man I wish they'd use proper xml instead of this Excel-export-to-XML crap. All that <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0"> makes my eyes bleed. Or, heck, why not use sqlite instead of text files? It'd protect a bit from corruption...

[smoitessier]

Having it in excel format actually helps because it's now in an easy human readable language, just need an excel compatible program to read it

[Max_Caine]

That specific question has been asked previously. The developer's asnwer has been it's easier when handling large lists to run it through a spreadsheet program. And y'know what? Having spent ages through various versions fiddling here and modding there, I kinda gots to agree.

[Xenomorph]

Things change dramatically later on, when battleships start popping there are A LOT of assaultable UFO in each wave. I mean 3, 4, 5 crash sites at the same time, more then it can be handled without 2 transports and enough well trained soldiers, which i didn't have. Without funds for a second manufacturing base, i chose to build Marauders and Fury instead of extra soldier gear, but could probably do with 6 MIG in each base (3).

Until we get some more $$$$$ balance out, it is reasonable to completely skip any kind of vehicles, Jackal armor (straight to Wolf/Buzzard), laser weapons (straight to plasma), Corsairs, which are quite useless for now, and any kind of plane cannons.

Migs, if well employed, will do the trick until Marauders become available (and can last till end game), and the Fury will make cleaning out small UFO scum from the sky a breeze, but they destroy everything.

It is VERY important to immediately research new explosives as they become available, upgraded torpedoes are a MUST, with Fusion any 3 Mig can wipe a battleship off the sky in one pass.

By going straight to what really matters in this balancing economy, even the lack of assaultable UFO in early game is not such a big deal, just a rough patch.

[svidangel]

Not sure if I've just been unlucky, but I'm nearing the end of September, have run out of things to research, and have yet to see the larger small scout with alenium/plasma rifles... Is this standard?

Just hit the end of the month, no alenium, and not enough money to build the second base till the funds came in from the month-end. Rough, specially with the decreased price on selling alien alloys.

Yowch, took till almost Oct 10th before I got any alenium at all. Was fun figuring out how to beat trip fighters with conventional warheads though.

Edited July 1, 2013 by svidangel

[svidangel]

Any comments on the 20 day build time for Radar installations? Seems unnecessarily long given the cost and economics, especially currently.

[Nickboom]

Any comments on the 20 day build time for Radar installations? Seems unnecessarily long given the cost and economics, especially currently.

Nah thats how it was in the old xcom took a long while to get up though they did have a much weaker radar that could be built in a shorter time.

[wcanyon]

That specific question has been asked previously. The developer's asnwer has been it's easier when handling large lists to run it through a spreadsheet program. And y'know what? Having spent ages through various versions fiddling here and modding there, I kinda gots to agree.

I've spent enough time editing json and xml files to know that, compared to excel, this statement is silly.

This:

   <Row ss:AutoFitHeight="0">   <Cell ss:StyleID="s65"><Data ss:Type="String">m:airplane.alien.heavyfighter</Data></Cell>   <Cell ss:StyleID="s64"><Data ss:Type="Number">300</Data></Cell>  </Row>

Vs this?

<ship> <key>m:airplane.alien.heavyfighter</key><ocurrenceRate>300</ocurrenceRate></ship>

The latter is far more readable. I suspect they picked excel so they could bring people on without them having to know SQL or XML -- anyone can tweak the file.

[Gauddlike]

The latter is more readable if you are looking at the code.

What Max mentioned in your quote however is that it is set up to run through a spreadsheet program.

In that case what you get is a nice spreadsheet that many people are familiar with that has nicely labelled fields that you can just alter a value in.

It doesn't always work with the current version of the files but hopefully a single method will work for all of them once they are finalised.

[Max_Caine]

Thanks Gauddlike.

wcanyon, if you're going to mock me, try reading what I have written, eh?

EDIT: In fact, here's one of the developers on excel-to-xml files.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Max_Caine

[wcanyon]

Thanks Gauddlike.

wcanyon, if you're going to mock me, try reading what I have written, eh?

EDIT: In fact, here's one of the developers on excel-to-xml files.

I'm not mocking you, I'm disagreeing with you. And that dev said "Have you considered the fact that editing data in Excel tables is much easier than having to know the xml structure of each file and editing it manually?"

Uhh, the point of xml is that it carries the structure with it. Once you've got the structure nailed down it's _easier_ to edit in a text editor. There's many good reasons that no one passes data around in excel files. Source: I'm a developer who's been working with xml and json for 10 years.

If a dev came into a job interview and said "yeah, we [at current job] keep all our data in Excel because that makes it easier for other devs to edit" I wouldn't hire him.

A developer who's incapable of learning how to edit XML should be fired.

Edited July 2, 2013 by wcanyon

[Max_Caine]

Fair enough, I'll take it on trust that what you say is true, as I'm not a developer and I don't have your breadth of experience. I personally don't find it easier to manage the large lists in Xenonauts outside of a spreadsheet. For me, opening up something like the Xenopedia, researches or items.xml in a copy of Excel gives me all the information in a readable, easy-to-edit format that scrolling up and down in Notepad++, even if the excel formatting were stripped out.

[wcanyon]

Now if they said "we keep it in excel because that makes it easier for anyone to mod stuff" that would make sense. But most of the files that I've seen are in standard xml.

[svidangel]

Hmm, so I take it the invasion ticker controlling what craft appear at certain times has been completely removed in favor of a month by month progression.

This is going to have a dramatically formulaic effect on gameplay. Get X for month 1. Get Y for month 2. Get Z for month 3. Etc. Kinda hurts replay ability from a geoscape perspective when you can set your watch to the invasion regardless of how you do as a player. Kinda hurts it hard.

I also noticed a bit more this playthrough that you have to kill the large alien ships to get the tech you want to have to kill the large alien ships. Similar to alenium missiles in month two. You want them for the start of month 2, but you are unable to get them until month 2. Zzz

Edit: I realize this was basically stated in the first post. Finally playing HF2 and experiencing it has been... a letdown.

Edited July 2, 2013 by svidangel

[Aaron]

I thought I had made it clear that's exactly how it was going to be until we at least got the basics of progression working - in the same way that it's very difficult to work on an engine while it's running, it's also very difficult to tune a complex system like the Geoscape while every single inter-dependant variable in it is in a state of flux.

The use of Excel for data files is indeed a flat out a terrible practice - I have no idea why it was done to start with (particularly as only half our files use it!) but given it basically works now it would be too difficult to change it. You guys don't see this, but it's also a massive pain when it comes to SVN - it's basically impossible diff Excel files in a readable way, as it has all sorts of timestamp garbage in a file that get's updated even if the actual data of a file is unchanged. Anyway, this isn't really the thread for Excel talk.