Geoscape Balance Discussion V19 Stable

[EchoFourDelta]

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".

We have the same thing going on with soldier stats, where the lower they are, they're yellow, then green for REALLY low stats (if you edit them), and high stats are a dark red that sort of blends in with the black background. In addition to making it more difficult to read it's... kinda counterintuitive.

[Max_Caine]

Well, if the UI preview is anything to go by, that's going to change.

[nailertn]

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".

The same way active is associated with bright and inactive with dull. It is a design choice based on what you want to emphasize: rolling active or cooldown active. Only in this case the two happen concurrently so it is a bit ambiguous.

[Ol' Stinky]

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.

Edit: Oh, I'm being dumb. The button remains highlighted, like Max says, and that's the source of my confusion. Durrr.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Ol' Stinky

[Ishantil]

So I was thinking that 30 Alenium is too high of a cost for a Corsair.

[Elydo]

It is difficult to source at the moment, but not impossible. Though with the sheer number of ufos I get hit with I'm revising my estimate for the number of necessary interceptors upwards, and eventually a good portion of those need to be the advanced models. I'd simply offer a bit more alenium per crash.

Though if other products, such as weapons, also need alenium to build then it becomes a bottleneck that would need to be very carefully calibrated. Currently I'm not sure if they do though, I haven't seen my count decrease after production but the research suggests they should.

[Ishantil]

I think they need to either reduce the cost of the new aircraft or increase the yield from all sources. I think that clearing two landing ships to get a corsair is a tad much.

I've already adjusted the cost of the Corsairs to 15 in my current game to see how it goes. It feels a lot better, since I had 70 Alenium total (from all sources, never having had to spend it before).

[Josip Broz Tito]

I like the idea of 15 or even 20 alenium corsairs. Whenever I had the option to make them initially I was always just starting to accumulate a stockpile.

[Ishantil]

The more recent trend is to not have to do every mission. In order to keep with that general idea, the Alenium costs need to go down.

[Dranak]

Corsairs are kind of weird in general, every other aircraft has a clear role (even if that role has questionable actual value). Corsairs are like "I do exactly the same thing as a Condor, but cost more than three times as much!" The main thing you gain for that cost is HP (which does give you enough HP to win a cannon duel with an Interceptor, but you'd be more efficient to save your money and just upgrade to Marauders for late game use).

If we look at the other two upgraded craft, Marauders have even more HP and can carry the largest damage payload in the game (two Fusion torps plus a Magstorm outdamages even a Fury). Marauders can engage/kill anything and are all around awesome. Furies can joust with battleships, which is at least something unique about them.

I'm not sure what should be done to Corsairs, but it feels like they need something. Right now, they're just a more expensive Condor that doesn't really fill a role as there's nothing they can do (while they're relevant) that a Condor can't.

[Elydo]

Hmm. I get what you mean, Corsairs aren't overly distinct from Condors as it is, though I figured the next craft up from Corsairs wouldn't be too distinct from them. I haven't gone beyond Corsairs yet. If there starts to be more differentiation, and as such the Corsair is an oddity, then the trick will be to give it something unique without breaking either it or the other aircraft.

The only thing that springs to mind might be to give it more fuel. I mean substantially more, making it perfect for long-range patrolling, intercepting of the hordes of light aircraft it can deal with easily in succession, skirmishing as other aircraft refuel etc.

Edit: Would it be an idea (or possible) to add a short timer to ufos that would ake them unable to escape to space for a short time after an engagement? What I'm thinking is what I mentioned above, skirmishing. Using these interceptors to harass and hold up larger ufos while to missile boats RTB and rearm/refuel. The xenonauts craft would continuously attack, damage if possible but primarily avoid being shot down whilst forcing the alien craft to engage. We'd need some method of preventing abuse by the player, starting a battle then immediately retreating for example. Engaging then trying to get away should be more difficult, requiring a risk of the skirmishers actually being shot down.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Elydo

[Dranak]

The next aircraft (Marauder) is pretty much the ultimate badass plane. It can carry torpedoes, and a cannon, and can roll. It's also faster, has more HP, and has better range than Corsairs. Marauders tie for the most HP, and can carry the most damage output of any aircraft in the game (two fusion torpedoes plus an upgraded cannon gives them more damage output than a Fury).

The final aircraft (Fury) has buffed "superheavy" torpedoes that only it can carry that have more range than a battleship, which is their unique weapon system (which seems totally unnecessary, but is at least unique).

And of course Condors and Foxtrots (questionable value, but present) have clear, unique roles in the early to mid game.

Corsairs come just early enough that they probably shouldn't be the best at anything, after all your lategame stuff should be better than the midgame equivalent. I thought about the idea of making it a dedicated gunfighter (dual cannon) would give it a unique feature, but with the current weapon balance it would make them silly powerful (which could still be made to work, but you'd have to rebalance weapons otherwise they'd by far be the best plane in the game). I don't have the XML in front of me to be able to figure out how unbalanced they would be with extra missiles.

As for your skirmishing idea... the problem is that if you have appropriate weapons tech, there'd be no need for it since generally speaking if you can catch a UFO, you can kill it.

Edit: It actually just dawned on me that with the exception of alien fighters, all the UFOs get slower as the game progresses, which adds greatly to keeping older planes still relevant. The two things the Corsair has over the Condor is speed (which isn't really relevant/needed) and HP (which really just allows you to make mistakes).

Second edit: Are Heavy Fighter/Interceptor missiles intended to be undodgable? With the 1 second roll CD versus 0.5 second firing CD it's just barely possible to dodge both missiles from them if you're pause spamming.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Dranak

[Ol' Stinky]

Possible dumbass question coming up! Does anyone build more than one radar per base? They cost 20k, take 20 days to build, and one doesn't do a bad job. I don't mind one way or the other, but I guess it seems a bit odd that a fifth or so of the base stats panel is devoted to letting me know what my detection rate - both short and long range - as though it's ever going to change from 10% and 1%.

[Dranak]

Possible dumbass question coming up! Does anyone build more than one radar per base? They cost 20k' date=' take 20 days to build, and one doesn't do a bad job. I don't mind one way or the other, but I guess it seems a bit odd that a fifth or so of the base stats panel is devoted to letting me know what my detection rate - both short and long range - as though it's ever going to change from 10% and 1%.[/quote']

I do not. Nor can I ever remember seeing events pop up from a UFO in my theoretical range that had not been detected.

[Elydo]

If it's probable to kill any given ufo, even escorted, at a given tech level if you have the right weapon/craft for that tech level/time period I'd think those ufos were a bit too weak. My take has always been that for a given ufo the next tech level should be able to match it. Then a new threat appears. So you're always developing the technology to deal with what you're currently fighting. So Corsairs should make the ufos (scouts, corvettes) Condors/Foxtrots had difficulty with managable without too much trouble, need tactics against, say, landing craft and bombers and have real issues with whatever comes next. Cruisers I think. You should need to pay to win against them (or whatever to appropriate ufo is). And so on. And battleships (or whatever the top tier is) should only ever be manageable. They should never be easy.

And so, when facing the ufos that are beyond your current tech level, the tactic of multiple sorties against the larger craft becomes viable, but only if you can tie it up and keep it from escaping until you can make multiple sorties against it. I'd argue it also makes using missile boats less boring, currently I take one, have it fire everything then make it run away. Then I actually start playing the air combat simulation. Having to strategically manage them would make up for the complete lack of tactical versatility.

Hopefully what I mean is coming across, I'd go into a point-by-point progression but I'm using someone else's computer and it's less than comfortable. Not a fan of laptops.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Elydo

[Ishantil]

The Corsair is supposed to be a "gateway" platform, the logical extension of being able to do the same things as the Condor, but way better materials and new engines.

The problem is that the Marauder so far eclipses is, that the Corsair is often skipped or thought not to be worth it. This should be remedied in two ways:

1. The costs of the Corsair need to come down. This means that they can be deployed quickly, become effective, and give the player some breathing room when the larger UFOs start appearing. They are supposed to be the heavy escorts for your torpedo plane (MiG-32 Foxtrot). They have similar flight stats of speed and range to the Foxtrot, so deploying Corsairs increases the overall effectiveness of your flights.

2. The length of time between the Corsair and the Marauder probably needs to be increased in some fashion to make the Corsair more attractive and relevant for longer.

A new plane should be a big deal. The player should want to invest in them because they are better and worth it. As it stands now, as several people have pointed it, it's better to skip them and build Marauders. This should not be the case.

I also suggest that a the Xenopedia article be changed so that they use a lot of the existing parts or structure of a Condor to build a Corsair (much like the Foxtrot). This would help explain why it's so "easy" to build one.

Notably, what do you guys think the Corsair most resembles? I was thinking a cross between an F-18 Hornet and an F-14 Tomcat

[Elydo]

I still think the ufos are a bit too underwhelming. The weapons are fine but, even given two Avalanches can't even take down a scout, the ufos feel far too flimsy. Giving me the paradoxical position of arguing that both our heavy missiles AND their targets need a buff...

I think my feeling is that you should need at least one missile boat to stand a chance of taking down the heavier ufos, tier relative. Our interceptors simply shouldn't have the damage potential to down one (meaning anything an interceptor can take down a missile boat should obliterate, if its payload connects). But at the same time, missile boats should be prey for their escorts, which currently works fine. They can't dodge, they have no cannon, fine. Send them out unescorted themselves and they die. Typically. Though I think aliens fighters could be slightly faster to get them in range of our craft before a missile boat can launch. Or start them between the escortee and our fighters.

[kabill]

I seem to remember thinking (and writing?) this before - upping both the HP of (non-fighter) UFOs and Torpedoes would be a good way of resolving the issue at the moment of Condors having greater damage-output than Foxtrots. Would doubling both be terrible (this would make Foxtrots just as effective as they are now but essentially halve the effectiveness of Condors/Corsairs against them).

[Elydo]

I think it might be a bit more involved than that. My approach would be to take the hp of the early ufos; scouts and corvettes, and adjust their health to be appropriately placed against Condors. Then adjust the damage of Avalanches appropriately, then the health of the next ufos like landing craft. Then adjust the damage of alenium torps etc.

It might be that, rather than a flat increase across the board different tiers, need different adjustments. Certainly I would think one Foxtrot against a scout should be overkill, but at least one against a corvette should be a necessity in order to down it in a single sortie, and that dynamic should continue I would think.

A question to be asked is whether a single sortie should always be the goal, with ideal weapons and tactics, or if accepting one sortie will not be enough has to be a factor. For an escorted ufo two escorts on our side should be required, leaving only one slot for a missile boat. Assuming no losses. One escort for two boats might be another option but you'd likely have to accept at least one loss, hopefully after its launched. The damage potential of missiles needs to be adjusted appropriate to these factors.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Elydo

[Dranak]

In general, going up to the tier of weapons unlocked by a UFO reduces the number of planes (or at least Foxtrots) needed to kill it by one, which is a somewhat significant gain (and in some cases takes them from needing two sorties to one).

Making the Corsair be "relevant" longer wouldn't change the fact that in practice (if you're good at air combat) it is a very marginal upgrade over the Condor (especially compared to the Marauder). If you're bad at air combat, the additional HP is probably quite welcome/needed. But accepting that premise, you already get it from Corvettes, so moving it any earlier wouldn't be reasonable since you'd be getting it in month 1 if it came any sooner. As for pushing Marauders later, I may be taking a longer route to them than needed, but I normally unlock them before Interceptors but after Heavy Figthers, which feels about right.

I am curious if it's intended or not that the Condor with its 1 second roll cooldown to be able to dodge both missiles from Heavy Fighters/Interceptors with their 0.5 second firing delay or not. If not, that would create a role for Corsairs by brute force of "You must have them to play", which the devs have shown to be willing to do with the torpedo nefts. If it is, then that timing window probably needs to be made a bit wider because currently it's darn hard to hit unless you know exactly how to hit it.

Elydo, I suppose that depends on exactly what their design goal is. Currently Condors do slightly outdamge Foxtrots assuming you continue to upgrade weapons, but I'm still not completely convinced that's a bad thing because Condors are harder to use and there's greater risk in using them. If they rebalanced the air combat so that you basically had to use torpedoes to kill non-escorts, that would be a pretty heavy handed way of forcing you to play "right" in what is sat up to be a rather sandboxy game. And as much as I have criticized elements of air combat, I do think that a situation where there are multiple viable options (which we're pretty close to) is the best scenario for balance.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Dranak

[Elydo]

I'm not saying there should be a 'right' way of playing, obviously. Adaptability is strength. But I do think there can be easier and harder ways of playing. By all means have 'light' fighters (the Condor line) able to down all targets, but not in one sortie. Otherwise what is the point in the missile boats? They lack tactical versatility, they're the same strategically. If you load them up with sidewinders they can take down one (one!) alien fighter, if you stagger the launch right, and are then useless. If you give it Avalanches, it still can't take out a scout.

Thinking about this issue, I keep bringing back to mind the climatic battle of Independance Day. All the human fighters trying to take down this enormous spacecraft with various types of anti-fighter missiles, and somehow not realising beforehand how ineffective they'd be. And they are, they don't even slow it down. That's the situation you want a few torp-equipped heavy fighters to really take a few chunks out of something the lights would otherwise have to nibble to death, and such nibbling should certainly take more than one sortie. If the Foxtrot line are supposed to be the primary striking force, single-minded and fundamentally niche in role, then they need to be so overwhelmingly good at that role that trying to substitute them with anything else comes with a corresponding loss in efficiency, higher costs and more effort. Or fundamentally different tactics.

Currently, the Condor line are very good at what they're supposed to be good at, and that's why I don't think nerfing them would be the answer. But they're also good enough at everything else that the minor benefit in taking a Foxtrot is all too easily eclipsed by the tactical versatility the Condors provide. For a multi-role fighter to not be an appropriate choice over a specialised craft, the niche needs to be more distinct.

As an analogy to the ground combat, the assault rifle is supposed to be a middle ground between the shotgun and the precision rifle, and it fits there quite nicely. Now, take away the shotgun and give the assault rifle burst fire with the same effectiveness at short range. You still need the precision rifle for long range combat so you still take them. Now give the assault rifle only two points less damage and two squares less effective range than the preision rifle, but it still has burst fire for mid-to-short range punch. It's still not as good as the precision rifle at range, but it's good enough for the majority of situations and it's tactical versatility is so overwhelming otherwise that you're more likely to load out almost all your soldiers with them and construct adaptable tactics around them rather than try to specialise with weapons that require specific tactics with more limited weapons that work only slightly better when they do and utterly screw you otherwise.

Keep the assault rifle that good but give the precision rifle overwhelming damage however, and people will take them in order to deal with something they need to die right then! For targets that assault rifles would just take too long to down. They're niche, but a niche it's important to fill, though you can still use assault rifles to get the job done albeit at the higher risk you'll entail.

The Condor line is multi-role, assault rifles. The Foxtrot line, or the torp capacity anyway, should equate to precision rifles then.

Or at least that's my paradigm. I'd argue that some sort of balance alteration needs to happen though, but it's not clear exactly what alteration needs to be done. I don't think a simple buff or nerf of a single factor would suffice, I think it's more complicated than that due to interlocking issues.

[Dranak]

I agree with the general premise that Foxtrots should be slightly better at killing capital ships than Condors, and a slight tweak in that regard would be okay with me but I'd hate to see it overdone to the point where Condors aren't viable for anything other than killing escorts. Currently in order to kill anything in one sortie (past the early game) you need to make continued investments in cannon upgrades, play very well, and still be willing to take some damage. That's not an insignificant tradeoff/costs for their performance.

[Elydo]

I was more thinking that Condors (and their subsequents) should be vital for killing escorts and weakening larger ufos, but unable to kill a heavier ufo by themselves in a single sortie even with the best weapons for the tech level.

Ultimately, I find Foxtrots somewhat boring and limited. Like I said before, any time I take one into combat I get it in range, launch then retreat, then I start actively managing the Condors to finish the engagement. And I need to manage the Condors to finish the engagement because a Foxtrot launch will not alter the battlescape. It won't even take out a scout, meaning the Condors need to take out any escorts and then finish off the main target as well. Even if they're are sometimes actually necessary, the Foxtrots always feel superfluous. I think that needs to be addressed.

[YIX-Control]

Hello all, as you see, this is my first post in this forum.

I played the stable beta version until 2 mounts into the game.

I think this problem could be addressed by giving the none escort ships a HP-boost (though I would guess something like 20-40 percent would be better than doubling it) or a resistance against projectile weapons (plain ore based on a percentage).

With the purpose of giving the Foxtrot more of an edge against capital ships while leaving it a sort of vulnerable against escords one could give it multiple missiles in each sloot whith a relock time greater than the time for escords to regenerate their evade-ability (4-7 secs for example). This way, one would not need to crank the damage of torpedos up but simply would give the Foxtrot the potential to be useful (and in need of protection) after firing its first salve of torpedos/missiles.

Also I want to say, that this forum is great and I really enjoy to follow the process of this game by reading through it.

Thank you all for that, YIX

Edited September 11, 2013 by YIX-Control

[GizmoGomez]

There was an armor value and mitigation at one point, wasn't there?

That went away for whatever issues it was having.

If we brought that back, we could give the torpedoes great armor mitigation, and increase the armor of the UFOs.

Otherwise, increasing the damage of the torpedoes significantly and increasing the HP of the non-evasive UFOs to match it. The condors and dogfighters would still have the same effectiveness against escorts and dodging UFOs, and the foxtrots would have a much better defined niche to fill.