Geoscape Balance Discussion V19 Stable

[Josip Broz Tito]

I've been using a vehicle along w/ 6 people, saves me $$ on armor and weapons in the long run for the other 2 people. Or so it seems.

[StellarRat]

Err, I keep running out of money. Whilst hardly swimming in gear. All this does is reinforce my paranoia that the finance fairies irrationally hate me, even in games...

The times I've run out of money were due to over-expansion. You have to be very careful about building new facilities and hiring people too quickly.

[Hairyscreech]

^^ yes, this is something I found out in early beta, expansion must come gradually, as nice as it is to get full coverage early it comes with a high penalty.

[kabill]

I think the $$ is just about perfect right now. It's great at the start, but once hordes of medium size UFO's start showing up it's just barely enough to get by. That's how it should be IMO.

Yeah, I think I like the new funding changes. I like that there's a lot of money at the beginning (well, after you get your first end-of-month payment anyway) as it opens up the possibility of different options early on, while as soon as you've built a new base and some facilities a lot of that money is going on maintenance. It's a nice curve, in my opinion.

[Max_Caine]

I think the time has come to return the Foxtrot to being a missile boat. The reason I say this is that reading (perhaps unwisely) into the comments made by Aaron, and especially Chris, I believe that air combat is supposed to be "doable" in a single round of combat. i.e. you shouldn't have to make multiple sorties to take out a single UFO unless a) you fucked up or b) that UFO is especially nasty. If you want Foxtrots to take out a medium, or even a scout, you need two of them. That's a a simple fact - one just doesn't cut the mustard. But if you do that, then you have to do two sorties. One to strip away escorts, then one to take out the escorted UFO. Or you can take all Condors, because while they can get damaged, with their combination of cannon, missiles and dodging they can do the job in a round of combat that Foxtrots can't. To improve the competitve edge of the Foxtrot, adding back the missile slots which are still there in the code would create a situation where taking a mixture of Foxtrots and Condors actually works. The missile payload of the Foxtrot would be adequate for the escorted UFO, whereas the Condors are now simply brilliant at taking out escorts.

[Elydo]

I think doubling the missile capacity of the Foxtrot might be a good idea. At the moment they just are (literally) a one shot pony. Get in range, fire, immediately run away, and two avalanches can't even down a scout whilst the Condors autocannon chews them up. Speeding up the time taken to refuel might also be a good idea, so that multiple sorties involving the same aircraft are more viable.

Another option would be to allow for the fitting of external gunpods on the Foxtrot. Hit the burners, get on their six and shred the bastards. It'd take skill but it'd be really nasty.

[lemm]

Foxtrots are pretty good as it is. They're cheap by late-game standards, and a pair of them armed with just alenium torpedoes can take down a carrier in two sorties on Veteran mode.

Maybe restricting Foxtrots to alenium and conventional explosives might be something to think about, just so that there's more incentive to produce the later game torpedo boats. Unless the ultra-massive alien craft that I haven't yet encountered can launch missiles something, you really don't need superior speed or turning radius for your torpedo-launching airplanes.

Do aircraft have maintenance costs, btw?

[TrashMan]

So...get this.

For 2 months I'm getting nothing but scouts. I reearched all I can and I got nothing. no alien plasma weapon, no alsers, no Alenium. I did shot down and raid every UFO, and I was doing good. Only 4 casualites, not a single aircraft lost.

THEN, SUDDENLY! UFO's everyhwere!

Tons of them. Fighter wings. A corvete + fighter escort. And those radar scouts. WTF?

All I got is condors and a foxtrot. Absolutely NO way whatsoever to down the C+2F with that... Well, maybe if I was usign waves of fighters, but hangars and fighters are expensive. Who can afford all that, especially since I had to build a second base in AMURICA because they were getting all pissy. Fortunately I edited the aircraft missile weapons to twice the ammo (and increased re-fire delay, 5-8 seconds)

So I tried giving it a shot.

My best fighters, Skull One and Two (veteran Condors with 10+ kills) and a foxtr.ot

4 tries, total losses.

On 5th try I found a wining combo.

Foxtrot slows down immediately, let's the condors pass and they fan to left and right. Fighters attack them, the corvette bee-lines for the foxtrot, who already starts fireing.

As the fighters close in, the condors make a sharp turn and focus on the corvette, dodging fighter missiles. Thing is, because of how they fanned out, the fighters are directly in their way as they attack the corvette. So cannon fire and missiles down the fighters. Foxtrot unleashes the second barrage, and begins afterburning away. The Corvette is flanked from both sides by the Condors.

4 avalanches and a few sidewinders and bullets later, the corvette finally falls.

A victory that would be impossible with normal ammo capacity.

A game that would be unwinnable (without fighters spam and massive losses of $$$), thus promting a ragequit if, under normal circumstances.

[kabill]

A victory that would be impossible with normal ammo capacity.

It's possible if you have Alenium weapons without the double ammunition. By the time you face Corvettes, you should have had the opportuity to research Alenium explosives unless you've been unlucky with your UFOs.

[TrashMan]

Extra ammo is always handy

[Hairyscreech]

Trashman, out of curiosity can you post your alien ticker value and how many months in you are? I have a suspicion that we might be finding things tough because its hard to keep up with the invasion at the moment.

activating debug mode to see it is mentioned in the last page of the ground combat thread.

[Aaron]

Here's the information I posted in the GC balance thread, as it is actually more applicable here - the progression plan for the game:

(click for full size image)

Keep in mind when looking at this that it is the roughest guide - I specifically do not want there to be a "right" way to play the game in terms of the number of bases, when certain research is accomplished etc... but all things being equal, the above shows what should match with what. Some of it may also be a bit out of date. Some of it we also have not achieved yet (the number of base attack incidents being far too high currently, for example). Alien counts are the minimum number for a UFO, there can be up to 50% more, or less than the stated number if it was shot down and they died in the crash.

Edited September 6, 2013 by Aaron

[dd.d]

What other people already said: Currently, the Foxtrot is a bit weak, needing two to ground one Scout in one go etc.

By the time you face Corvettes, you should have had the opportuity to research Alenium explosives unless you've been unlucky with your UFOs.

I guess that's what happened in my current V19/3 game. No Alenium or Plasma Rifles showed up for almost two months, so there I was, fighting against three Fighters and Scouts/Corvettes with Fighter escorts. And assaulting an alien base full of Androns with ballistics is no fun, either. In the end, I killed most enemies with C4.

Based on said game, I think that Fighter squadrons show up a little too early which leads to even bigger problems once escalation points start to accumulate. But this could be bad luck with UFO recoveries, as said above, and the fact that I'm pretty bad at the mini-game.

[Dranak]

3 Condors with Alenium missiles can consistently kill an escorted Corvette in a single engagement, if you're willing to sacrifice a little HP. Killing the Fighters with cannon fire will allow you to put two sets of missiles/remaining cannon rounds into the Corvette, which is enough to kill it. You can do the same thing with starter missiles, but you'll need to finish with your kiting Condor jousting the Corvette to close to missile range to deliver the final hit.

Edit: Are those techs we're expected to unlock, or have built?

Edited September 6, 2013 by Dranak

[kabill]

I guess that's what happened in my current V19/3 game. No Alenium or Plasma Rifles showed up for almost two months, so there I was, fighting against three Fighters and Scouts/Corvettes with Fighter escorts. And assaulting an alien base full of Androns with ballistics is no fun, either. In the end, I killed most enemies with C4.

I've had something similar happen on a precious build, too. It seems like sometimes it's possible to get really unlucky and miss any scouts early on, which massively screws your research. I wonder whether there shouldn't be some kind of safety net, like with the early Light Scout crash sites, given how important the tech off of a Scout is.

[Josip Broz Tito]

I don't see anything wrong with foxtrots. You can already do most of the game with them on the cheap. I feel that multiple sorties if fighters are involved is fine. Avalanches suck, but once you get alenium, then plasma torpedos: you're set until battleships. 2 foxtrots w/ plasma torpedos>landingships. 3 foxtrots w/ alenium>corvette.

You are supposed to be sending multiple primitive planes vs a capital ship, otherwise the game breaks down even further in logic.

The only issue I see is making it so scouts are a bit more prevalent since they are absolutely key to surviving. Same with corvettes, I'd like to see a few more.

Regardless of how it's designed, explosives research or anything that affects the geoscape will always be close to required for when the turning points show up.

[Elydo]

You guys just aren't going to give me the option of shredding enemies, are you?

>: (

[TrashMan]

I don't see anything wrong with foxtrots. You can already do most of the game with them on the cheap. I feel that multiple sorties if fighters are involved is fine. Avalanches suck, but once you get alenium, then plasma torpedos: you're set until battleships. 2 foxtrots w/ plasma torpedos>landingships. 3 foxtrots w/ alenium>corvette.

You are supposed to be sending multiple primitive planes vs a capital ship, otherwise the game breaks down even further in logic.

The only issue I see is making it so scouts are a bit more prevalent since they are absolutely key to surviving. Same with corvettes, I'd like to see a few more.

Regardless of how it's designed, explosives research or anything that affects the geoscape will always be close to required for when the turning points show up.

I don't honestly care.

2 missiles is way too littlefor any fighter plane to carry, no matter how much you want to justify it with bigger fuel tanks (totally unnecessary when you can re-fuel in air at every air base in the world).And if oyu dont' get alenium missiles (I didn't).

What then?

I'm playing on normal, and game finances simply don't allow you to spend a million $ on hangars and airplanes. You can't cram them all in your man base even if you could.

Which means a second base. Which again takes time and $$$ to build.

All of it can be balanced. Damage, rate of fire, number of missiles carried. Alenium missiles might be twice as big and heavy as normal ones, but just 2 sidewinders on a fighter is redicolous

[Hairyscreech]

An air to air refueling rig wasn't developed for the mig-31 platform until quite late in it's production, It wouldn't have been possible to a2a refueling on the migs during the time period of the game.

[GizmoGomez]

I don't honestly care.

2 missiles is way too littlefor any fighter plane to carry, no matter how much you want to justify it with bigger fuel tanks (totally unnecessary when you can re-fuel in air at every air base in the world).And if oyu dont' get alenium missiles (I didn't).

What then?

I'm playing on normal, and game finances simply don't allow you to spend a million $ on hangars and airplanes. You can't cram them all in your man base even if you could.

Which means a second base. Which again takes time and $$$ to build.

All of it can be balanced. Damage, rate of fire, number of missiles carried. Alenium missiles might be twice as big and heavy as normal ones, but just 2 sidewinders on a fighter is redicolous

A couple notes:

In air refueling wasn't available everywhere at that time (as far as I'm aware, at least, I could be wrong).

Also, the MiG-31 only carried four missiles, so we're actually not that far off. I agree, though, I'd like the missile truck to, you know, actually carry a bunch of missiles.

[TrashMan]

Xenonauts did modify the Mig, didn't they?

On a side note, why does refueling take so damn long?

[DNK]

RE #missiles on planes:

This benefits gameplay how? The UI alone for that would be a mess, you'd have like a scrolling menu for missile launches. F-16 would have 6 "sidewinders" based on typical A-A loadouts. Again, this just overcomplicates things.

There are elements in the game that aren't totally realistic. It's a game, based highly on an older game, which itself wasn't terribly realistic. Ultimately, you can mod in 10 hardpoints and 1000-mile mission ranges to the fighters if you don't like it, but I wouldn't expect devs to sacrifice gameplay for very minor realism points and then balance everything again for that.

For balance, do note that you're not supposed to be able to shoot everything down, so the fact that you're always low on planes is on purpose.

[StellarRat]

I really don't have a problem with the current jet loadouts. I mean, we have no idea about the engineering compromises that have to be made to intercept a UFO. Also, isn't it possible the missiles have been modified to down UFOs? Maybe they are heavier/larger to allow them to do this. If you just want more missiles, you could simply halve the damage for each and double the numbers.

[Dranak]

I really don't have a problem with the current jet loadouts. I mean, we have no idea about the engineering compromises that have to be made to intercept a UFO. Also, isn't it possible the missiles have been modified to down UFOs? Maybe they are heavier/larger to allow them to do this. If you just want more missiles, you could simply halve the damage for each and double the numbers.

That would actually be a buff for Condors, as it would allow them to use a higher percentage of their theoretical damage output on rolling craft (assuming you use missiles to engage them). Either way, while adding more missiles to craft may be more realistic, it would only have minor affects on gameplay (assuming damage per missile was correspondingly reduced), and in that case why bother?

And if oyu dont' get alenium missiles (I didn't).

What then?

Three Condors with default weapons beat a Corvette easily. Three Condors with default weapons beat an escorted Corvette in a single engagement if you know exactly how to do it. Any reasonable combination of aircraft for that stage of the game can beat a Corvette with starting weapons in two sorties, it's perfectly doable without Alenium tech, just a bit harder.

[Ishantil]

I have the most trouble with escorted craft. Because the fighters are difficult for me to deal with because they outperform my Condors in every aspect.

The payloads are low and the refueling times take so long to make it so you can't deal with all of the UFOs. It's supposed to be overwhelming. I am not arguing in favor of it, but rather noting that's the intent.