Geoscape Balance Discussion V19 Stable

[EchoFourDelta]

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.

We've been doing in-air refueling since at least the "Century" fighters; the KC-130 has been around since the early 60s.

Fun Fact: to fly the range the F-16 does in game (with a normal F-16 capable of traveling 550 kilometers or so on a full tank of 7000 pounds of fuel, and weighing a little under 19000 pounds on its own) the modified one we use in-game would require 191000 pounds of fuel, or roughly half the weight of a flight-ready Boeing 737.

[lemm]

Well I guess that explains why it takes so long to refuel.

[TrashMan]

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.

It benefits gameplay. Your aircraft now have staying power.

Instead of going back to base to re-arm, after shooting down one UFO you have enough missiles left to intercept the next one.

No, you don't need UI changes becase I'm playing with 6 sidewinders on a Condor ATM (2 hardpoints, 3 missiles on each). You just increase the ammo for sidewinder, the game does the rest.

You have an ammo counter next to the missile icon. You also have a re-fire delay so you can't spam them. I've set it to the lock time of the missile, effectively making the next missile require a lock too.

Works great.

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.

I would like you to explain it to me HOW exactly is this fabled "gameplal" sacrificed.

It's a self-perpetuating myth that gameplay/balance and realism/beleviability are somehow incompatable opposites. They are not.

[TrashMan]

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.

I don't belive you. At all.

Two sorties?

That would mean you craft have ot get in close, delive the payload and escape. Again a Corvette and two fighters?

In which case it's not a wing flying two sorites, it's two separate wing, and you're gonna loose one.

[TrashMan]

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.

It takes too long. Re-pairing I can understand taking long.

But even then, amazing feats of repairing have been pulled in a war, when entire ships have been patched up overnight.

But re-fueling taking days? Hell no. It stinks of "fake difficulty".

[kabill]

I don't belive you. At all.

Two sorties?

That would mean you craft have ot get in close, delive the payload and escape. Again a Corvette and two fighters?

In which case it's not a wing flying two sorites, it's two separate wing, and you're gonna loose one.

Corvette has 1200 HP; 2 Fighters 100 HP each.

Condors are equipped with a cannon (10 damage/hit; 50 rounds) and 2 sidewinders (100 damage/hit).

Two Condors break off left and right to draw fighters away from the Corvette. Fighters attack with missiles; Condors dodge. Once the Fighters' missiles are drawn, loose a single missile from each Condor to draw a dodge from the fighter. As the Fighters' rolls come to an end, loose a second missile, which hits and destroys the fighters. In the mean time, the last Condor has been evading the Corvette.

You've now got two Condors with no missiles and 500 damage worth of cannon each, and one with full missiles and a cannon (700 damage total). The two missile-less Condors attack the Corvette from the rear, emptying their guns for 1000 damage. The remaining Condor looses its missiles after evading the Corvette's own missiles for another 200. Corvette is downed; one Condor still has a full cannon left (indeed, three basic Condors are only 100 damage shy of defeating a Landing Ship and escorts!).

So, it's quite possible on paper to do it and the tactics I have described are ones I have successfully used in the game (and I assume this is a fairly accurate description of what Dranak was suggesting).

[Josip Broz Tito]

If Dranak says something can be won with a certain combo of planes= believe him.

It's also very possible to kill off the 2 fighters in the first sortie with condors/corsairs then come back with foxtrots for the corvette if you want an easier option.

And as far as realism goes- it's not realistic for 1970's aircraft to be fighting UFO's well at all. Having to make choices about how many aircraft to keep on hand and whether or not you want to shoot down every UFO are integral parts of xenonauts now.

The game's designed to force you to make choices constantly. You can't have it all, which seems to be a running theme for some posts.

[Elydo]

I find it's much easier to have condors charge the fighters actually, if you can draw them off from their escortee. Head straight in head-to-head, the fighters always fire a missile first, have each condor dodge, by this point you should have closed to fighter gun range, they'll get one, maybe two shots off before the condors get into autocannon range and the fighters evaporate. You now have two free condors, each damaged but not seriously and each still with majority cannon ammo (usually they use more than necessary for the fighters due to rof continuing to loose rounds whilst enough are in the air to down the target) and retaining both sidewinders. Maneuver to the rear of the, say a corvette as that's all that can be taken down in one sortie, loose both missiles per bird and empty the guns, then have the third kiting fighter turn around and use its sidewinders for the kill.

[EchoFourDelta]

I've found myself wishing I could replace the missiles with gunpods like the weapon in the nose.

[Hairyscreech]

^^ that can be modded easily.

[EchoFourDelta]

Dogfight the HELL out of those aliens.

[Elydo]

You missed me mentioning (bitching) about that earlier I take it? ; )

[Dranak]

I find it's much easier to have condors charge the fighters actually, if you can draw them off from their escortee. Head straight in head-to-head, the fighters always fire a missile first, have each condor dodge, by this point you should have closed to fighter gun range, they'll get one, maybe two shots off before the condors get into autocannon range and the fighters evaporate. You now have two free condors, each damaged but not seriously and each still with majority cannon ammo (usually they use more than necessary for the fighters due to rof continuing to loose rounds whilst enough are in the air to down the target) and retaining both sidewinders. Maneuver to the rear of the, say a corvette as that's all that can be taken down in one sortie, loose both missiles per bird and empty the guns, then have the third kiting fighter turn around and use its sidewinders for the kill.

Yeah, to kill a escorted Corvette with starter missiles in a single engagement you have to kill the escorts with cannons, otherwise the few wasted rounds will stop you from being able to kill the Corvette (you'll be a few HP of damage short). With upgraded weapons, you can kill pretty much every UFO in the game with this tactic (until you get to Interceptors, which Condors lose to in cannon battles). I think that's actually a potential source of significant balance problems is that the main gain from upgrading aircraft is just additional HP. Speed is largely irrelevant, and payloads never really increase.

[GizmoGomez]

I'd appreciate a gun-pod mod.

[nailertn]

Are light scouts supposed to sometimes disable my cannons or straight out one shot condors now? I don't seem to recall this happening last time I played. Is that a bug or a part of the new recovery system?

[Ol' Stinky]

Well, I've never seen cannons be disabled. Are you sure you didn't accidently set the cannons to hold fire? That's toggled on/off by clicking on the cannon. The icon is green/red depending on whether it has permission to fire.

[nailertn]

100% sure I didn't accidentally toggle the cannon off. It doesn't go red, it just disappears from the weapon slot the same way a rocket would after it is launched and no amount of mouse / hotkey clicking brings it back. Happens in around 10% of air skirmishes, and the one shot thingy in like every 4th engagement. At first I just assumed it's some new critical hit mechanic but it is getting silly at this point.

Edited September 8, 2013 by nailertn

[Elydo]

Actually, I think I remember that happening to me once. I got a bit confused, then... I think I reloaded to before the interception and when it happened again assumed it was some critical hit mechanic. But the entire engagement was a complete furball and I was far more concerned with trying to avoid obliteration that the details slip my mind. I'll see if I still have the save, but I don't believe I do. I keep five and rotate through overwriting them, but this was a while ago.

Edit: Yeah, the cannon disappears entirely, that's what triggered my memory.

[nailertn]

Actually, I think I remember that happening to me once. I got a bit confused, then... I think I reloaded to before the interception and when it happened again assumed it was some critical hit mechanic. But the entire engagement was a complete furball and I was far more concerned with trying to avoid obliteration that the details slip my mind. I'll see if I still have the save, but I don't believe I do. I keep five and rotate through overwriting them, but this was a while ago.

Edit: Yeah, the cannon disappears entirely, that's what triggered my memory.

Thanks, I'm submitting a bug report then.

[Max_Caine]

How would folks feel about an optional auto-zoom in the air combat? I get annoyed having to zoom in each and every time my fighters close with a ufo. I'd like to be able to set it up so the minigame can automatically maintains the "best" level of zoom for my fighters.

[smoitessier]

i'm not crazy about an auto zoom, many times i'm zooming out to place a waypoint near the edges

[nailertn]

How would folks feel about an optional auto-zoom in the air combat? I get annoyed having to zoom in each and every time my fighters close with a ufo. I'd like to be able to set it up so the minigame can automatically maintains the "best" level of zoom for my fighters.

Sounds nice, or at least increased scroll sensitivity. I also wouldn't mind the same speed controls we have in the geoscape; with different values ofc.

[Ol' Stinky]

I'd love an auto zoom, +/- speed controls, and maybe a few set camera distance buttons such as pressing 'c' to zoom in very close, 'o' for max distance, or whatever. Also a keyboard shortcut to toggle off auto-fire for the missiles, as now more than ever I like to have complete control over when they fire. While I'm at it, some indication of when rolling is on/comes off cooldown would be nice, such as the roll button turning red until I'm able to roll again. Right now, I mash it when up agianst something that doesn't require precise rolling.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Ol' Stinky

[nailertn]

I'd love an auto zoom' date=' +/- speed controls, and maybe a few set camera distance buttons such as pressing 'c' to zoom in very close, 'o' for max distance, or whatever. Also a keyboard shortcut to toggle off auto-fire for the missiles, as now more than ever I like to have complete control over when they fire. While I'm at it, some indication of when rolling is on/comes off cooldown would be nice, such as the roll button turning red until I'm able to roll again. Right now, I mash it when up agianst something that doesn't require precise rolling.[/quote']

The roll button turns a brighter green while it is on cooldown. You can control weapons on selected aircrafts with number keys, for example 1 is cannon, 2 and 3 missiles for a condor. Though for some reason it doesn't work when multiple fighters are selected.

[Max_Caine]

It's probably a UI thing, but the roll button would probably work better as light green for available and dull green when cooling down. The "pop" of a lighter colour is, I believe, psychologically connnected to "available" as opposed to "unavailable".