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Ground Combat Balance Discussion V19 Stable


Aaron

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The targeting priority for the alien AI being able to switch to Xenonauts before terminating their current target would also increase their lifespan.

Every Terror Mission is a complete eradication mission with the occasional red bleeding scenery. If a civilian survives, it's by pure happenstance. Almost all of them are always dead after by the end of turn 3. The only ones that I ever manage to save are those who happen to be near the initial push from the LZ. After that, it's usually a street by street slog to flank and destroy the Aliens.

I like the idea of a "showdown" between the two AIs, and it being a race against time to see if you can get there in time. That sounds awesome.

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Back on Terror missions. Here's a different viewpoint to what people have been talking about so far.

2) Civilians get gunned down automatically in terror missions. There is no terror mission I do that has any civvies or npc soliders alive before mission end. Civvies need somewhere to go where they won't get gunned down straight away, or I will never benefit from saving civvies.

The default unarmed civilian behavior should be to take cover in the nearest building not cower out in the middle of the street. Also, they ought to attempt get as far as possible from any alien.
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The default unarmed civilian behavior should be to take cover in the nearest building not cower out in the middle of the street. Also, they ought to attempt get as far as possible from any alien.

This is complicated by the police/soldiers/etc. doing the exact same thing and having the exact same stats as all the other NPC civilians; they apparently run off the same stats and behavior settings.

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When I come to redo the terror maps (and add more new ones) I am going to try arranging the spawn points such that civilians spawn on the same side of the map as the Xenonauts, and aliens spawn on the far side of the map. This should both make protecting civilians slightly more practical, and reduce the frequency of the situation where the Xenonauts are just trapped in their drop ship. It might also introduce an interesting pace to the missions, as the "aggressive" aliens will attack the Xenonauts and civilians by moving across the map, whereas the passive aliens will need to be rooted out once the brunt of that initial assault is over.

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When I come to redo the terror maps (and add more new ones) I am going to try arranging the spawn points such that civilians spawn on the same side of the map as the Xenonauts, and aliens spawn on the far side of the map. This should both make protecting civilians slightly more practical, and reduce the frequency of the situation where the Xenonauts are just trapped in their drop ship. It might also introduce an interesting pace to the missions, as the "aggressive" aliens will attack the Xenonauts and civilians by moving across the map, whereas the passive aliens will need to be rooted out once the brunt of that initial assault is over.
Gosh, I would have never thought of that! :D Thanks for listening.
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@Aaron:

How difficult would it be for unarmed friendly AI to have different stats than armed friendly AI?

By separating the trained, armed NPC stats and behaviors from those of the untrained and unarmed, we can have soldiers that actually are brave, semi-skilled, etc, while still leaving the civilians as cowardly pansies who can't run ten meters without tripping over their shoelaces.

I'd really appreciate the trained soldiers and policemen not being the same as the untrained panicky civilians.

I'd suggest making at least two groups, though three would be ideal (and four would be stellar):

  1. Armed, Trained: Soldiers, Policemen
    They'd be the top of the friendly NPCs. Maybe they'd be comparable to a totally green Xenonaut recruit.
  2. Armed, Untrained: Civilians with guns (farmer w/ a shotgun, etc)
    Decent stats (for an NPC); less bravery than the soldiers, but more than the unarmed civilians
    If needs be, combine both Armed into one; but they'd be better being separated and distinct.
  3. Unarmed: Anyone unarmed
    Pansies that cower behind their hay bales and park benches.
  4. OPTIONAL Armed, ULTRA-Trained: One specific sprite (like, blonde farmer with the blue shirt and the shotgun, maybe)
    This ULTRA-NPC would have really really nice stats.
    Basically, he'd be the easter egg; that one random NPC that runs around and does awesome things (like bursting out of a house and executing an alien point-blank as it walked by the door).
    Inspired by this thread.

It'd make the AI a lot better by giving you more options.

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When soldiers move, they seem to move horizontally/vertically as much as possible, then diagonal to get into the right row/column. Like this.

wl7xtQh.png

Maybe we could swap this around, so they move diagonally first? Usually, if I'm moving in a diagonal at all, it's to get a soldier behind some cover as he approaches the fog of war. As you can see in the pic, the shieldbearer won't be behind the hay until the last possible moment. If he gets spotted and triggers reaction fire, he's less likely to have the cover in the way.

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When soldiers move' date=' they seem to move horizontally/vertically as much as possible, then diagonal to get into the right row/column. Like this.

[img']http://i.imgur.com/wl7xtQh.png[/img]

Maybe we could swap this around, so they move diagonally first? Usually, if I'm moving in a diagonal at all, it's to get a soldier behind some cover as he approaches the fog of war. As you can see in the pic, the shieldbearer won't be behind the hay until the last possible moment. If he gets spotted and triggers reaction fire, he's less likely to have the cover in the way.

Agreed!

Oh, I just realized why the computer doesn't do this.

It's because it'd require another TU to accomplish.

See, you'd have to turn from SE to E before you actually did any diagonal moving, which would bring the total TU cost up by 1.

To fix this, simply try turning to the direction you want to move first. This should make it so you move diagonally first, then straight, as it would be the most economical use of TUs.

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Not to detract from the current discussion, but does anyone else find the laser sniper rifle lackluster? It seems to only have marginally better stats in damage, penetration, and range, but a lot less ammo. Boosting its ammo count to 8 or increasing its range advantage might make it more in line with the assault rifle -> laser rifle upgrade path.

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Not to detract from the current discussion, but does anyone else find the laser sniper rifle lackluster? It seems to only have marginally better stats in damage, penetration, and range, but a lot less ammo. Boosting its ammo count to 8 or increasing its range advantage might make it more in line with the assault rifle -> laser rifle upgrade path.
Agree. OR raise the damage a bit more.
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I haven't read the whole discussion so apologies if this has already been raised, but isn't the grenades' throw range a bit too short now? I've just started a new game with Stable v19 and pistols have a better range (which in RL is fine, but in Xenonauts means you're already close enough to engage in melee if you'd like). Grenades at that range are a bit useless since most of the time the gunfight has larger distances and closing in that much means you'd just be able to shot the alien in the face.

I do agree the previous range was too long, but with the current one I can't see myself using grenades at all.

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Agreed!

Oh, I just realized why the computer doesn't do this.

It's because it'd require another TU to accomplish.

See, you'd have to turn from SE to E before you actually did any diagonal moving, which would bring the total TU cost up by 1.

To fix this, simply try turning to the direction you want to move first. This should make it so you move diagonally first, then straight, as it would be the most economical use of TUs.

Do you mean this is what the game does for you? It doesn't seem to make any difference to me which way I'm turning, my soldiers will always move horizontal/vertical, and then diagonal. I recreated the above picture ingame again, but this time with the soldier facing east. The default path would see me end up with 13 TUs left; as you say, the turning costs TUs. But now my custom path saves me a TU, so I end up with 14 TUs on the final square:

1TUWr3Q.png

VfhJpUM.png

Unless I'm being dense again, apologies if so. Does this go from "quality of life" issue to "something that should probably be checked out by someone more competent than me"?

And to go back to the civs/friendly AI stats mentioned up above: do both civs/militia use the section in aiprops.xml? If they do, then both of them are working with a sight range of 14. If you want them to be more survivable, going the opposite route and bumping that up to 20 or so would probably help, as would tweaking the militia AI so that they get into cover more often. The player can't interrogate AIs to share their LOS so it doesn't really matter. Right now they're aggressive while tending to leave themselves exposed. Then again, they might be doing that because they can't see any enemies, so they think they're safe.

If the fear is of super militia then you can lower their accuracy, although I don't think it'd be necessary (they have 50 TUs and 50 ACC).

Edited by Ol' Stinky
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Another issue, in addition to the grenades' one: I noticed aliens can use burst fire when they trigger reaction fire, is that intended? I was under the impression reaction fire is always a single snap shot. Similarly, I noticed my soldiers can reaction fire multiple times each turn. I had an alien run in front of my guys and it triggered 3 reaction fire actions from a single soldier equipped with a pistol. Shouldn't it be limited to once/turn?

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Reaction fire triggered in 10 squares' range will use burst fire, weapon and TUs permitting. Otherwise, like you said, it's snap fire. I can't remember whether they fixed LMGs reaction firing with a single shot, but the intent is that they always burst fire on reaction, as they don't have a snap shot, iirc. If you don't like it, you can change it in config.xml (look for the "BurstReactionFireRange" tag).

I don't know what the official stance is, but I imagine that as long as units have the TUs, they don't mind them being able to fire multiple times per turn. It'd only be if units fired multiple times per reaction fire trigger that something would be screwy.

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Do you mean this is what the game does for you? It doesn't seem to make any difference to me which way I'm turning' date=' my soldiers will always move horizontal/vertical, and then diagonal. I recreated the above picture ingame again, but this time with the soldier facing east. The default path would see me end up with 13 TUs left; as you say, the turning costs TUs. But now my custom path [i']saves[/i] me a TU, so I end up with 14 TUs on the final square:

1TUWr3Q.png

VfhJpUM.png

Unless I'm being dense again, apologies if so. Does this go from "quality of life" issue to "something that should probably be checked out by someone more competent than me"?

And to go back to the civs/friendly AI stats mentioned up above: do both civs/militia use the section in aiprops.xml? If they do, then both of them are working with a sight range of 14. If you want them to be more survivable, going the opposite route and bumping that up to 20 or so would probably help, as would tweaking the militia AI so that they get into cover more often. The player can't interrogate AIs to share their LOS so it doesn't really matter. Right now they're aggressive while tending to leave themselves exposed. Then again, they might be doing that because they can't see any enemies, so they think they're safe.

If the fear is of super militia then you can lower their accuracy, although I don't think it'd be necessary (they have 50 TUs and 50 ACC).

Fascinating.

No, I haven't checked it myself, I was only theorizing, hypothesizing. Obviously my hypothesis is wrong.

Well, I suppose they choose horizontal and vertical movement first every time because it's cheaper, even if it costs you more TUs in the long run. I would guess it chooses the least TU option to move you towards your destination on a square by square basis.

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And now for something completely different.

It's been mentioned in several theads on the Beta forum of introducing an "elite" heavy plasma gun, as the currenty heavy plasma gun for the period of time it is introduced is a plasma lawnmower. What would people think of having "elite" versions of every alien weapon? By mid-game the aliens blow their metaphorical load when it comes to weapons. Once corvettes and landing ships appear, we get introduced in fairly short order to all the weapon types the aliens have for research reasons. But by doing that, there's nothing left to surprise us. While aliens progress and change to challenge the player, the weapons they use don't, and the weapons and equipment they use are, I would argue, as important to presenting a challenge to the player as making the aliens themselves tougher.

I'm not saying that come mid-to-late game, all of a sudden everything we know is thrown out the window. But wouldn't it be better from a point of challenge, novelty and surprise to equip the alien equivalent of special forces - the Elites, the Warriors and the Commanders - with arms that reflect their status and present a new challenge to the player?

They don't have to be massively different. You can do quite small things that have a profound impact on how the game plays. For instance, if I made an elite plasma rifle, kept the same stats but made it incendiary damage rather than energy damage, the plasma rifle is no better at damaging squaddies than it was previously but it is now much better at destroying cover which changes up the way the player approaches an Elite armed with an Elite plasma rifle (as anyone who has faced a Warrior armed with a heavy plasma would know!)

Edited by Max_Caine
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