Ground Combat Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 4

[GizmoGomez]

Yeah, that's a good point.

So, it's all situational.

Personally, just the fact that they can regenerate damage at all means that, compared to their non-sebilian comrades, they can be out there fighting for longer and die less often, and thus they are more brave.

[CellNav]

How would you upgrade smoke' date=' though? It already seems really effective: there have been times when I've mucked up, but I've been able to salvage the situation by throwing down four or so smokes. If you spam smoke, it pretty much stops anything happening at range. I'm not trying to shut you down, I'm interested in what you have in mind. Bigger radius, or more reliable smoke, or easier to throw (i.e. greater range)?[/quote']

Here's an interesting link about smoke ... https://dev-heaven.net/issues/5543

There are two you-tube video links in the thread, one showing HC type smoke, the other WP type smoke.

We can upgrade smoke using WP (white phosphorus) but it'll burn bad. Very dangerous for our clumsy xeno soldiers that have trouble throwing over a low cover box!

[Ol' Stinky]

Yeah, that's a good point.

So, it's all situational.

Personally, just the fact that they can regenerate damage at all means that, compared to their non-sebilian comrades, they can be out there fighting for longer and die less often, and thus they are more brave.

Maybe I'd be more enthusiastic about them only having regeneration if I could see its effect. It doesn't really seem to do a whole lot for them right now.

Here's an interesting link about smoke ... https://dev-heaven.net/issues/5543

There are two you-tube video links in the thread, one showing HC type smoke, the other WP type smoke.

We can upgrade smoke using WP (white phosphorus) but it'll burn bad. Very dangerous for our clumsy xeno soldiers that have trouble throwing over a low cover box!

It'd be cool having a different visual effect for the smokes as they upgrade, but having the smoke do damage seems like a downgrade to me: a shieldbearer with an LMG buddy behind him can move through the smoke suppressing at the moment. I also get painful flashbacks of the bad old days when moving into any smoke tile caused a soldier to yell "GNYAAAARGH" at the top of their lungs and stop what they were doing.

Having said that, I'd be happy with a different grenade for WP, to use as area denial once the AI knows not to walk into fire and such. "Incendiary grenade" or whatnot. Why was the incendiary rocket removed anyway, too hard to balance? Or did people not use it enough?

[RawCode]

regeneration shoud be replaced with really high HP and AI feature to go melee if wounded.

just imagine allien unit that after getting few shots drop weapon and rush to nearest xenonaut in order to melee him, with 100% chance to hit and high damage attack

[Aaron]

I plan (based on someone's suggestion in the forums, actually) to have the Sebillian regeneration be visible shortly, using the same healing numbers that health packs currently show.

Also some sort of damaging gas based grenade is planned, but not for the Xenonauts!

[kabill]

I plan (based on someone's suggestion in the forums, actually) to have the Sebillian regeneration be visible shortly, using the same healing numbers that health packs currently show.

Out of wonder, would it be possible for this to be visible only once you have done the Sibellian autopsy (or, better, the Sibellian interrogation)?

In the autopsy report on the Sibellian, there's the speculation of regeneration and this is only confirmed when you do the interrogation. However, if the player has already seen the healing numbers it'll be a dead giveaway and makes all the fluff text redundant. Plus, it's a nice little bonus for doing the research.

On the other hand, I can imagine this being quite a lot of work for a relatively minor feature. But I thought I'd mention it anyway.

[GizmoGomez]

Out of wonder, would it be possible for this to be visible only once you have done the Sibellian autopsy (or, better, the Sibellian interrogation)?

In the autopsy report on the Sibellian, there's the speculation of regeneration and this is only confirmed when you do the interrogation. However, if the player has already seen the healing numbers it'll be a dead giveaway and makes all the fluff text redundant. Plus, it's a nice little bonus for doing the research.

On the other hand, I can imagine this being quite a lot of work for a relatively minor feature. But I thought I'd mention it anyway.

If it's not too much hassle, that'd be awesome. I can't think of how it'd be simple, though.

[Dranak]

This may be unnecessary/replaced by the eventual AI upgrades, but right now breaching UFOs feels pretty trivial (slightly less so after the stun gas nerf) because you can walk up to the door with absolute impunity as long as it is closed. That means it's completely safe to use tactics such as standing a couple soldiers next to the door, ending turn, and then having them fire/grenade away, move out of LOS, and then repeat until all aliens are neutralized.

So here's a suggestion: have UFO doors open during alien turns. I admit it would be a bit gamey, but it would add some elements of risk to UFO assaults that are largely missing now.

[Aaron]

I might look into implementing reaction fire on door opening to help alleviate that. Also as mentioned I would like to make the doors not auto-close, but I need to make some art changes before I do that.

[CellNav]

I might look into implementing reaction fire on door opening to help alleviate that. Also as mentioned I would like to make the doors not auto-close, but I need to make some art changes before I do that.

Would it be too late in the design to trigger reaction fire based on how many TU's are spent in an aliens view?

I can picture a soldier fumbling around in his backpack in full view of an alien and said alien can take a snapshot (if more than one enemy in view) or the alien can watch the smelly human and raise his weapon to take an aimed shot (assuming the soldier keeps fumbling about).

I dunno ... it might involve a lot of book keeping but it would surely bump the player's pucker factor up a notch!

Edited July 16, 2013 by CellNav

[kabill]

I might look into implementing reaction fire on door opening to help alleviate that.

That would be awesome.

On this actually - I was assuming things were as they should be, but I've never suffered reaction fire against me when I fire into a UFO. My standard approach is to open the doors then use burst fire to suppress aliens inside, but this almost always only suppresses the target and usually there's another as well (which should then be able to shoot). Could this be a bug? (Although, now I think about it, I'm wondering whether there's actually a line of fire from where the aliens are usually positioned to where my shooter would be. Maybe this is the issue? May have to test some time).

[StellarRat]

I might look into implementing reaction fire on door opening to help alleviate that. Also as mentioned I would like to make the doors not auto-close, but I need to make some art changes before I do that.

It should definitely count toward the amount of time a target is spotted for reaction firing purposes. However, I don't think it should be automatic. In other words, just because you opened the door doesn't mean every alien gets a free reaction shot. There should be a chance that a soldier with quick reactions could still fire first.

[Dranak]

I'm assuming he means adding opening a door as a trigger to check for reaction fire. Automatic reaction fire on door opening would be pretty bad, especially in the current state of doors needing to be opened each turn.

[StellarRat]

I'm assuming he means adding opening a door as a trigger to check for reaction fire. Automatic reaction fire on door opening would be pretty bad, especially in the current state of doors needing to be opened each turn.

Agreed, I was assuming he was going to leave the doors open after the initial entry. Personally, I still like the option of blasting the doors, but apparently Goldhawk does not. Blasting the doors does make it possible you'll hurt, kill or suppress some of the aliens by the door. That would be cool IMO.

[Name]

I have aliens react when I fire at them. Especially those hiding in the ufos. You should have seen the look on my face when I learned the ufo doors stay open through the alien turn.

[StellarRat]

I have aliens react when I fire at them. Especially those hiding in the ufos. You should have seen the look on my face when I learned the ufo doors stay open through the alien turn.

Yes, they will fire at you AFTER you open the doors and start moving, but the problem is that that always comes AFTER you've taken another action like moving or firing (from what I have seen anyway.) They should be able to fire as soon as the door opens, at least in some cases i.e. get the drop on you. This will would definitely encourage players to select high reaction Xenonauts for their entry teams. I do believe that in TFTD just opening the door was enough to trigger reaction fire from the aliens. Edited July 16, 2013 by StellarRat

[Black Cat]

True it was and it was one of the more frustrating parts. Open door, get shot in the face. Nothing to be done about it but accept the man who opens the door was dead. Granted it was still better than the OG where the only way to open a door was walk through it. I Don't think I would mind as much "IF" we can still open the doors from the side of them like we can now.

Otherwise they need to make a way to breech a UFO with explosives then. I like my troops and while I accept death happens occasionally. But being put in a position of having to send the sacrificial goat recruit to take the blast to the face will get old incredibly fast.

[GizmoGomez]

Unfortunately, the way UFOs are designed we can only enter through the entrance. They look cool, sure, but I'd rather be able to blow a hole in the roof and drop down to gun down the surprised Caesan sitting at the desk I landed on.

[StellarRat]

True it was and it was one of the more frustrating parts. Open door, get shot in the face. Nothing to be done about it but accept the man who opens the door was dead.

That's why you would want to put your highest reaction soldiers in the entry team. I'm assuming THEY could still get the drop on the aliens. It only takes one flash bang or LMG to pretty much mess up the alien reaction fire or at least reduce it a lot. You just have to plan/think a bit. Also, a lot of lower level aliens have lousy reactions anyway. That would give you a chance to develop some entry specialists.

[Max_Caine]

StellarRat, didn't you a while ago ask if the mutal surprise rule from EU1994 be introduced into Xenonauts? Wouldn't that help somewhat?

[StellarRat]

StellarRat, didn't you a while ago ask if the mutal surprise rule from EU1994 be introduced into Xenonauts? Wouldn't that help somewhat?

No that wasn't me. I just want there to be a dice roll based on reaction time to see who gets to shoot first, no "ties". I'm not to worried about the aliens blasting me when I come through because I'll be winning most of the rolls hopefully AND assault shields make entry a lot safer than it was in TFTD and the OG.

[DNK]

So here's a suggestion: have UFO doors open during alien turns. I admit it would be a bit gamey, but it would add some elements of risk to UFO assaults that are largely missing now.

Why would they do that? Really, can't we find better mechanics to make things more difficult than just adding unrealistic, gamey nonsense to a supposedly serious strategy game?

I might look into implementing reaction fire on door opening to help alleviate that. Also as mentioned I would like to make the doors not auto-close, but I need to make some art changes before I do that.

Both of these are great ideas. Adding an AI turn-choice path that's set purely for 'defense/reactions' (like ambush/cover an area), AND making reactions a bit more reliable would help a lot, not just in UFO breaching, but in breaching any building or rounding any corner. I would like stronger reactions, a la this:

[chance reaction fire] = [% TUs remaining] x [gun reaction modifier] x [soldier reactions / 65] x [(weapon range/2) / (range + 1)] x [30% if turned 1 angle, 15% if turned 2 angles from target]

Automatically causing burst fire if enough TUs, but if not then just a series of lowest-TU snap shots until TUs are empty.

[Aaron]

As I said in another thread I'm pretty certain I am going to put breachable UFO doors back in, but that requires some art changes first and is further down the priority list.

EDIT: Also, if somebody has the 3D modelling skills needed to make new tiles for Xenonauts it would probably be pretty easy for them to make a mod to replace our UFOs with entirely modular tile based ones - they wouldn't look as cool and organic, but you would be able to do a lot more with them, like blasting holes in them, multiple entry points etc... if anybody is interested in doing that I would be happy to provide help via PMs if you get stuck on part of the process.

Edited July 17, 2013 by Aaron

[Mordobb]

Well,

Blasting holes in the UFO is cool, but wouldn t it defeat the alien material properties, in which we cannot even scratch in lab ?

This come downs to the UFO door also didn t it ? Unless the entrance door is of weaker alloy than the hull, which would feel strange since its the front hull (alien design)

Lets keep game setting cohesion please.

Or maybe the UFO nose rise up and the internal door is weaker (thats a possibility) and could be breached.

Right now door remaining open once opened (until an alien take action to close it -optional) would suit the game better.

Or the ufo could have the door breached on the crash.

With the advent o returning shield, door remaining open once opened, and upon opening have a speed contest for reaction fire is, IMHO, the simplest and more tactically appealing, lore friendly solution.

[GizmoGomez]

Blowing holes in the UFO would require either a) energy weapons (plasma), or b) specially made high explosives.

This is what a C4 replacement would be useful for.