Thoughts on 19.4 late-game ground combat balanace

[Rogueywon]

Prior to 19.4, the furthest I'd gone in the game was the carriers-wave. However, with some time off work, I've managed to plough through a 19.4 playthrough up to the start of the final mission, which I gather is as far as you can go at the moment.

As much of the discussion - particularly on the 19.x unstable builds where saves get wiped out quite regularly - has focussed on stuff from earlier in the game, I thought I'd offer a few thoughts on late-game ground-combat balance. I won't talk about Geoscape balance, as I'd been using hacked .xmls to reduce production costs/times to accelerate my pace on this playthrough.

- Even with experienced (Major/Commander) soldiers, weapon accuracy still feels too low in general. I'd hoped that I'd be depending less on grenades as I got more experienced soldiers, but in many situations, using a gun when you could use a grenade is just too risky. Close range accuracy with rifles and carbines really needs examining.

- The way the aliens are deployed at present doesn't really make use of the larger UFO types. I've only ever once encountered an enemy on the middle floor of a Carrier. Meeting an alien on the middle floors of a battleship is likewise rare. Those floors are actually fairly well designed for ambushes, but at present, they just feel like time-sinks that you have to move your soldiers through.

- For the Buzzard and Sentinel battlesuits, it would be nice to have some option to force them to stick to the ground (short of moving them one square at a time) when the situation demands. There are times when I don't want them to pop up to a higher layer and expose themselves to fire, but the UI isn't very accommodating of this at the moment.

- Alien TUs really do get excessive in the end-game, with aliens capable of making 5+ single-shots in a turn. I might just be noticing this more because of the line-of-sight issues in 19.4, which mean that many aliens fire their full quota of shots harmlessly into a wall even if they don't have a shot on any Xenonauts - making the alien turn take forever in the early stages of late-game missions.

[thothkins]

I'm just starting on the later game missions, and I'd have to agree with all of the above.

Personally, not so sure on accuracy as I've been using the grenades as a substitute for the weapons, so my accuracy will have suffered a little anyway. Close range was always an issue though.

I like to think that the aliens firing all of their shots every turn is their way of exploiting the game to increase their stats Then I realise I've had plenty of time to think about such things waiting for their turn to end

[Aaron]

Yeah, I was playing through some the later missions and the final mission last week and the later alien's TU quota is perhaps a little overkill; it makes the alien turn tedious to watch and reduces the impact of good tactical positioning of your soldiers (as the aliens can just go wherever in a single turn). Will have a look at revising it down.

The next experimental build has a big rebalance of the number and composition of alien forces in UFOs and bases (larger numbers + randomisation) and also includes a much greater bias towards defensive aliens (i.e. those that stay in UFOs) as they size of the UFOs increase.

[kabill]

Re: Alien TUs - I wonder whether part of the problem isn't the present AI for the aliens. They seem to have a preference for taking multiple low-TU shots rather than fewer high TU shots (whereas the odds of scoring hits seems to have been designed such that taking more accurate shots is almost always better than taking many less accurate ones). If aliens gave priority to taking high accuracy shots more, it would reduce the number of shots they take, thereby speeding up alien turns (and, implicitly, make the AI 'smarter').

[StellarRat]

My hats off to you for getting so far in 19.4. We have very few comments about late game play because it's so frustrating to get that with the unstable experimental builds. You gotten way further than I have.

[thothkins]

I've had one crash in combat and a few just after returning to the main screen after a mission. Long enough there to save, but CTD when pressing the soldiers screen. That's been about it off the top of my head. So, it's been pretty good, crash wise, so far.

[GizmoGomez]

Is there a place in the UI for a toggle to disable flying for the jumpsuits? I'd appreciate that idea.

Also, if we can do that, could we also get a toggle for avoiding hazardous tiles? (Fire and stun/toxic gas, smoke doesn't count).