Geoscape Balance Discussion V19 Stable Candidate 1

[GizmoGomez]

Exactly; can we have separate repair and refuel times for each aircraft? Or is it a global value? (I think it's the latter.)

[kabill]

@GizmoGomez: In some ways, I think you can understand the things you mention as being features of the different aircraft. I don't mind being able to get more use out of Foxtrots, because they're more expensive and they're absolutely useless in some circumstances (i.e. against fighters/escorted UFOs) while Condors are always useful, even if they're less effective against some targets compared with Foxtrots.

This said, I'd have no objection to it changing either. I'm not sure how much difference it would make, though - refueling times might, but since Foxtrots rarely get damaged (unless they get outright destroyed!) having different repair times probably wouldn't change things all that much. I think the main issue with Condors is that you have to wait for them to finish repairing before they will refuel, which means taking even a small amount of damage can put them out of action for most of a wave.

[StellarRat]

@GizmoGomez: In some ways, I think you can understand the things you mention as being features of the different aircraft. I don't mind being able to get more use out of Foxtrots, because they're more expensive and they're absolutely useless in some circumstances (i.e. against fighters/escorted UFOs) while Condors are always useful, even if they're less effective against some targets compared with Foxtrots.

But Condors are useless against anything bigger than a Scout for the most part. They don't have enough gun ammo/effectiveness to shoot down large ships nor can they carry big enough missiles to do much more than annoy them.

[kabill]

But Condors are useless against anything bigger than a Scout for the most part. They don't have enough gun ammo/effectiveness to shoot down large ships nor can they carry big enough missiles to do much more than annoy them.

They're not very effective, but they're not useless. 3 Condors sent on two runs vs. a Corvette will take it down. Same with a Landing Ship and even a Cruiser if armed with Plasma Missiles. Obviously this isn't efficient, but it's still possible. On the other hand, unless you're going to suicide them, Foxtrots can't take fighter squads or escorted UFOs at all. Hence being able to get more use out of Foxtrots for me is an advantage compared with the strategic flexibility of fighter planes.

[Aaron]

Just to let you guys know, a new build is out. It doesn't do anything major gameplay wise so just keep discussing it here. Changes of note regarding air combat:

- Increased range and field of fire on Xenonaut interceptor cannons to make them more generally viable weapons

- Removed armour ratings from some of the larger UFOs (they were not behaving as expected, and weren't needed anyway)

- Adjusted the air combat auto-resolve scores for Xenonauts heavy missiles so they are now worth 0 against UFOs capable of evading

- UFO fighter missiles now have a significant auto-resolve score value (previously 0) when resolving against non-evasive Xenonaut craft i.e. Foxtrots

This is a first pass at making the cannons on the fighters a more valuable weapon, and a reason to pick them over Foxtrots. We will have a fix shortly to stop the UFOs from trying to evade cannon fire (it screws them up as much as it does the attacker). Let me know what you think.

[kabill]

We will have a fix shortly to stop the UFOs from trying to evade cannon fire (it screws them up as much as it does the attacker).

You're right, it does screw them. I'll be sad I can no longer cannon-charge UFOs to force them to roll so as to conserve missiles. This was my winning strategy to take out Heavy Fighters (I'm not sure what I'll do to kill them now, since even plasma missiles don't one-shot them!).

Autoresolve change is cool - I'm surprised this was so easy to implement.

[Dranak]

With the armor change, a Condor with Alenium missiles (150 damage each) and default cannon (500 potential damage) has more potential damage output than an Alenium armed Foxtrot (310 per torpedo) by a total of 800 to 620. I'm not sure how that plays out in game, and obviously the Condors are somewhat harder to deliver their full payload, but it is interesting to me that planes that can only damage things with relatively large amounts of HP deal less total damage. Condors do have the disadvantage of not being able to safely joust with larger UFOs and kill them with a single alpha strike, so this may work out to be balanced overall.

Doing a little more math, with the default cannon and plasma missiles, a Condor edges out a Foxtrot by 50 damage. At fusion torpedoes, the Foxtrot finally has a 120 damage edge over a Condor with the default cannon. This means that a Condor with a laser cannon will have more potential damage output than a Foxtrot can ever have. Obviously we won't be using Condors that late in the game most likely, but I'll be going pure Condor in my next game and see how it goes.

[kabill]

With the armor change, a Condor with Alenium missiles (150 damage each) and default cannon (500 potential damage) has more potential damage output than an Alenium armed Foxtrot (310 per torpedo) by a total of 800 to 620. I'm not sure how that plays out in game, and obviously the Condors are somewhat harder to deliver their full payload, but it is interesting to me that planes that can only damage things with relatively large amounts of HP deal less total damage. Condors do have the disadvantage of not being able to safely joust with larger UFOs and kill them with a single alpha strike, so this may work out to be balanced overall.

Doing a little more math, with the default cannon and plasma missiles, a Condor edges out a Foxtrot by 50 damage. At fusion torpedoes, the Foxtrot finally has a 120 damage edge over a Condor with the default cannon. This means that a Condor with a laser cannon will have more potential damage output than a Foxtrot can ever have. Obviously we won't be using Condors that late in the game most likely, but I'll be going pure Condor in my next game and see how it goes.

Having armour values would solve this, since they make a massive difference to cannon fire but practically no difference to missiles and most of the Condor's bonus in this regard is coming from the cannon. This said, if there were issues with it not working properly, I guess this isn't easily re-introduced?

I guess it's worth considering that Foxtrots have the advantage of speed and range over the Condor and are also less likely to be damaged (assuming, of course, no escorts!). But I do agree that having a lower damage output than a Condor overall seems odd.

(Just a thought, but if adding functioning armour in isn't possible, an increase to the Foxtrot's payload? Either in terms of Torpedo damage or number of weapons?).

[GizmoGomez]

I'd support adding in the two missing hardpoints of the Foxtrot. Since they can't kill escort-class UFOs anymore it wouldn't be overpowered.

Plus, we wouldn't be whining about how lame it is that the Foxtrot can only carry two torps anymore.

[Dranak]

Changing torpedo damage would be the easiest way to tweak the relative damage values of the two. I should note that the actual damage numbers don't appear changed, but the removal of armor from UFOs made cannons appear a lot more useful, for example it doubled the amount of theoretical cannon damage a Condor could do to a Corvette (assuming armor degradation wasn't in play). It's something that will definitely need serious gameplay to test properly (and I have a 12 hour day sitting at a race track at work on Sat, so... yeah.)

[GizmoGomez]

Instead of boosting the torp damage I'd rather simply add two more hardpoints back onto the foxtrot. The main issue with four-torp foxtrots was they were overpowered, but now that torpedoes are firmly in the land of the capital ships only and not able to take out fighters they wouldn't be overpowered anymore, right?

[StellarRat]

Instead of boosting the torp damage I'd rather simply add two more hardpoints back onto the foxtrot. The main issue with four-torp foxtrots was they were overpowered, but now that torpedoes are firmly in the land of the capital ships only and not able to take out fighters they wouldn't be overpowered anymore, right?

Why can't the Foxtrot have two heavy launchers and two light launchers or a cannon for that matter? It would still be disadvantage in a dogfight because of the lack of evasive roll, but at least not totally defenseless. I can't think of any fighter or interceptor constructed in the last 50 years that couldn't at least put up some fight against another fighter. It is true that early model Phantoms (F-4) didn't have a gun, but even then they did carry Sidewinders and a gun was quickly added after the brass realized they were at a severe disadvantage in a DF with the Mig-17s the North Vietnamese were flying. Edited August 29, 2013 by StellarRat

[GizmoGomez]

I say give them four heavy hardpoints. Then the player can decide if they want to give it a couple of sidewinders. My standard armament would probably be two torps and two sidewinders, honestly.

The question is how adding two missies (which could be used to force rolls) would mess with the balance of other craft.

Having two additional torpedoes wouldn't mean anything as far as evasive rolls go; it'd still be nigh impossible to hit anything.

What if you loaded up on purely sidewinders, though? A foxtrot with four sidewinders could deal some damage to evasive craft, couldn't it? That could mess with the division between missile truck and dogfighter again.

Edited August 29, 2013 by GizmoGomez

[StellarRat]

I say give them four heavy hardpoints. Then the player can decide if they want to give it a couple of sidewinders. My standard armament would probably be two torps and two sidewinders, honestly.

Well, they had 4 torps originally, but GH cut that to two because they were OP against alien heavies. I think 2+2 is good compromise. It gives them a small chance to survive in a dogfight. It is also historically accurate with the hardpoints on a Mig-25.

[Nickboom]

I think missiles need more damage to balance out the new insanely hard to hit ailen ships stuff.

[StellarRat]

I think missiles need more damage to balance out the new insanely hard to hit ailen ships stuff.

The gun works fine against any ship small enough to dodge missiles.

[GizmoGomez]

Okay, 2 light 2 heavy. I can support that.

That way you have a choice between a gun and a pair of torps, armament wise. It also eliminates the significant damage difference between a fully loaded Condor and a fully loaded Foxtrot.

[Ishantil]

I want guns in all three slots.

[kabill]

What if you loaded up on purely sidewinders, though? A foxtrot with four sidewinders could deal some damage to evasive craft, couldn't it? That could mess with the division between missile truck and dogfighter again.

They still can't dodge, and against fighters+ the ranges between the Xenonaut and alien missiles are comparable enough that you'll still take hits. So a Condor/Corsair would still win out compared with a Foxtrot.

I think I like 2 light/2 heavy or 2 heavy + cannon as compromise solutions. Either would be difficult to deploy fully due to having to close with the target without being able to dodge, but that might be a good thing (by making Foxtrot fights more than: fly into range; fly away again). On the other hand, since there's little you can do in that situation other than simply kite the target, maybe it would just make the fights tedious. Hmm, maybe I like the idea less with that in mind.

Extra Torpedoes I think would be overpowered, unless you reduce their damage a little too. Tweaking damage gives you more control, and therefore might be more desirable. (Also, while 4 hardpoints might be realistic, it isn't any different than 2 if the overall damage is the same. At least for Foxtrots, since they will inevitably launch all their weapons in one barrage).

(As an aside, if the damage a Foxtrot can do is going to go up, the HP of larger UFOs probably wants to go up to with a view to maintaining the present balance of number of planes required/UFO).

[Dranak]

I say give them four heavy hardpoints. Then the player can decide if they want to give it a couple of sidewinders. My standard armament would probably be two torps and two sidewinders, honestly.

The question is how adding two missies (which could be used to force rolls) would mess with the balance of other craft.

Having two additional torpedoes wouldn't mean anything as far as evasive rolls go; it'd still be nigh impossible to hit anything.

What if you loaded up on purely sidewinders, though? A foxtrot with four sidewinders could deal some damage to evasive craft, couldn't it? That could mess with the division between missile truck and dogfighter again.

Alien fighter missiles have more range than sidewinders. So if you loaded a Foxtrot with them, it would just die.

A Foxtrot with four Alenium Torps would solo a Corvette. With plasma torps a single Foxtrot could solo a landing ship, and two could kill a carrier. Two would also have enough damage output to kill a battleship but I'm not sure how feasible that would be, three could definitely do it. So unless you increased ship HP or decreased torpedo damage to compensate, Torpedoes would probably be more powerful than intended.

Going to a 2 plus 2 configuration wouldn't change much, although it would change a few edge cases such as allowing three Foxtrots with Alenium weapons to kill a Cruiser. In very few cases does the additional damage change the number of Foxtrots needed to down a capital ship (since one would always be acting as bait). That may change with mixed squadrons, but I didn't get that involved in my looking at the XML files.

Edit: Now looking at Condor damage output. I'm assuming a squadron of three, with one on pure kiting duty and the other two able to fully engage. This show that three Condors with standard cannons and alenium missiles can kill a landing ship. Three Condors with laser weapons and Alenium missiles can also kill a Cruiser. With plasma missiles, one would need to upgrade one of them to a plasma cannon for them to down a carrier.

So basically with reasonable weapon tech levels and some investments in cannons, Condor style craft are shaping up to be all around superior to Foxtrots. They can engage any target, and equal numbers of them are needed to kill capital ships as the more specialized Foxtrots.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Dranak

[henri5]

Consider this: if the air battles were balanced, the Xenonauts would be quickly hobbled and be unable to win (imagine losing 1-3 planes on each air mission). So balancing the air war would mean considerably rebalancing the ground war. Remember that the REASON for the air war in the OG was to create targets for the ground war, and IMHO it should remain that way!

[Dranak]

Consider this: if the air battles were balanced, the Xenonauts would be quickly hobbled and be unable to win (imagine losing 1-3 planes on each air mission). So balancing the air war would mean considerably rebalancing the ground war. Remember that the REASON for the air war in the OG was to create targets for the ground war, and IMHO it should remain that way!

There's a difference between balance and realism. I agree that main purpose of air combat is to create ground combat (and a bit of a pacing mechanism), but if we're going to force two distinct classes of aircraft then each should be useful.

[StellarRat]

The air game helps break up the ground, base, ground, base cycle. If it's there GH ought to make it interesting and enjoyable. You can always use <autoresolve> if you don't like it.

[Dranak]

Bonus: Three Condors equipped with plasma weapons (missiles plus cannons) could down a Battleship. This amuses me greatly.

[GizmoGomez]

Bonus: Three Condors equipped with plasma weapons (missiles plus cannons) could down a Battleship. This amuses me greatly.

I'd go for that.

I'd be opposed to giving a foxtrot a cannon; that's just too difficult to implement, and you'd never get to use it unless you were insane (or just didn't care about repair times). Giving a foxtrot two light hardpoints would work, though. It'd give you an incentive to get up close and personal with aircraft, and it'd be a good way to defend yourself against fighters that get too close. Since the range would still be low compared to the torpedoes you wouldn't be able to fire them along with the torps unless you got close, in which case you're risking the aircraft and should be correspondingly rewarded for your risk.