Jackal armor: Probably the most useless thing ever. period.

[Razorsharp]

Am i the only one experiencing this? Researching, making, and equipping your soldiers with jackal armor might probably be a death trap. Firstly - the limited vision is a huge minus, as most of the other aliens, even sebillians, can spot me and shoot before i can (i'm not even talking about ceasans). The extra weight is also a turn off, since i like to equip every soldier with a medipack, just in case (considering that the jackal armor has only marginal protection capabilities). It's expensive and time consuming to make. In conclusion - my entire squadron, equipped with jackal armor has an overall worse combat performance than equipped with basic armor. The only workaround i see is that you either remove vision penalty, weight penalty, or you increase the defensive properties of the armor.

TL;DR Jackal is utterly shitty, even basic armor is better

[Name]

OR! You can play smarter

Equip 1-2 personnel with jackal Armour. It works well for breaching ufos. entering buildings etc.

one medkit for everyone? I mean it sounds like a good idea. but for me I cna equip rifle men with it and since I have an abundance of riflemen this works for me?

[Razorsharp]

Oh, did i mention that protection from Jackal is utterly marginal? Like a burst from a plasma pistol could kill a guy in jackal, wich kinda eliminates the whole "breaking and entering" thing. Jackal armor would be great for long range combat, were most burst fires miss, since it does protect your soldiers from a single shot of plasma. But visibility derp. What i'm saying is it's cons far outweigh it's pros and it needs balancing, but guess i'll have to live with it.

[Name]

Or maybe stop equipping full squads in it. But wat do I know. I am a self admitted madman after all.

[Mytheos]

Your thoughts are correct, it isnt worth using.

But honestly you dont even need it in the first place.

[SuperBazza]

Your tactics musn't be really razorsharp, equipping everyone with the same stuff.

There are benefits. Then there are penalties. It is by the balance of those that you create strategy. You see, the jackal armor is really shitty, but it does save your soldiers from the first direct shot most of the time. The advantage in its use is relative to what that soldier does, and it should be like this - it is the very first armor in the game.

The workaround for this, of course, is to avoid using this armor on your slow-moving units or your expendable frontrunners, because they are easier to hit. The armor works better protecting people drawing the fire from protected positions, so use then only when your soldiers have enough TUs to fall back when necessary (like 60-something).

[StellarRat]

It's crap IMO too. Totally useless. As far as entry teams an assault shield is much better, free and takes no research.

Edited July 22, 2013 by StellarRat

[RawCode]

there is no benefits, armor is waste of money, sight range penalty is joke

[thothkins]

I'm currently skipping it, without suffering too much. But I had been using it on the 2 breach soldiers.

[Aaron]

I think I agree here - I am going to bump Jackal from 20 to 30 protection in the next version and disable the sight penalty. Others armours and later alien weapons are also going to be adjusted to compensate.

[Name]

Are you disabling the sight penalty completely?

[xcomnaut]

I think there are too many Cons on new stuff. More weight, less sight, smaller ammo clip size, ect. Some items exist just to be skipped I say give more time to science dudes (+25% research time) so they can remove all Cons

[MaDDTreeD]

Good to hear. I've always skipped jackal.

[Aaron]

Are you disabling the sight penalty completely?

Yeah, I'll disable it for all "heavy" armours - see how that goes.

[StellarRat]

i think i agree here - i am going to bump jackal from 20 to 30 protection in the next version and disable the sight penalty. Others armours and later alien weapons are also going to be adjusted to compensate.

Yea!

[Mytheos]

I think I agree here - I am going to bump Jackal from 20 to 30 protection in the next version and disable the sight penalty. Others armours and later alien weapons are also going to be adjusted to compensate.

/cheer!

[GizmoGomez]

This means that the only thing stopping players from using all heavy armors is the weight penalty and lack of jump jets, right?

[Dranak]

This means that the only thing stopping players from using all heavy armors is the weight penalty and lack of jump jets, right?

And the higher cost/time.

[Name]

Will there be a way to kep the vision penelties. (if we want to punish ourselves...)

[GizmoGomez]

Yes, that too.

For anyone who wanted them, here's a list of all armors and their attributes in the game (SPOILERS):

So, there are two classes of armor I'm seeing: Scout and Heavy.

Also, three tiers of armor.

Basic and Jackal, Buzzard and Wolf, Sentinel and Predator.

Heavy armor always has more protection than the Scout armor of the same tier, Scout armor always weighs less, and offers more mobility.

Basic has low weight and no protection, Buzzard has higher weight (but still considered low) and more protection plus jump jets, and Sentinel has extremely low (I interpret the article to mean zero) weight, great protection, jump jets and vision enhancement (range and cone is what the xenopedia article says).

Jackal has non-negligable weight and decent protection, Wolf has more weight and good protection, and Predator has incredible protection, the ability to walk through walls, and is restricted to using heavy weapons (sniper, machine gun, rocket launcher) and nothing else due to the large gauntlets. While the restriction is, well, restrictive, it is greatly offset by the removal of the heavy weapon penalty; meaning you can walk around using a MAGSTORM like an assault rifle, if that is your desire.

(All of these assumptions are based on my reading of the xenonpedia articles, and assuming the game is balanced the way the articles suggested).

My take on all this: Late game, I'll probably outfit everyone minus my machine gunners, snipers, and rocket launchers with Sentinel. The assault rifle Sentinels will seek out enemies, and the predator equipped snipers and rocket launchers will move in and hit them hard. For breaching UFOs and things, I'll use crouched sentinels with pistols and assault shields (upgraded combat shields) in the front, and predators with machine guns and/or sniper rifles behind them.

It's here so people can see what the projected removal of sight penalties (note, I didn't mention any sight penalties in my descriptions) would do to the armors. Are the scout armors good enough to hold their own next to the heavy armors? I think so; if a weight cap of 30kg or so (Chris suggested it a while ago) is implemented, then weight would be very important, as you couldn't add more than a certain amount.

The last armors don't take weight into account nearly as much

as they are powered and support themselves

, but the special restriction on the last heavy armor gives an obvious incentive to use the last scout armor. Besides, the exclusive bonus for that last scout armor is very nice; I would expect to be using it more than the heavy armor, in fact.

[svidangel]

Uh oh, armor be useful? What will I spend my money on....

Probably still more planes.

[Belmakor]

Remove sight penalty on Jackal, up the protection very slightly. Keep Wolf armour as it is though as its only a marginal upgrade and looks like it should have a sight penalty.

[RawCode]

Yeah, I'll disable it for all "heavy" armours - see how that goes.

we will celebrate 22/07/2013 as local holyday from this moment!

[Aaron]

I imagine I will need to jiggle the weights of the various armours around a bit to keep light armours competitive, but I will wait and see how this initial change goes for the moment.

[RawCode]

only viable method to balance weapons and armor and everything else is to actually limit carry capacity of xenonauts, at each stage, player shoud be forced to decide, top armor or top weapon or TU penalty.

invented jackal - at current stage expected str of xenonauts is 50, armor cost shoud be atleast 35, soo armored xenonaut will be limited to shotgun or pistol.

next armor - same situation, but expected str allow to carry outdated jackal with heavy t1 weapon or with normal t2 weapon or current tier armor with current tier shotgun or pistol.

if implemented properly, each armor type will be viable and usable, and situation when everyone use only top armor or dont use armor at all will be eliminated.