Ground Combat Balance Discussion V19 Stable

[TrashMan]

That, or since they're not adapting tech like the Xenonauts, they don't have the capability to keep up with the new ones.

Anything a "Conder" could take down, an F-15 would tear new strips all over. The nations of the world apparently just have trouble detecting them, or modifying their fighters to carry ten times the fighter's base weight in fuel to chase them intercontinentally.

You guys are overthinking this. The F-16 is nothing more than a modified F-16. The natiosn don't need to have a F-17 when they can throw an entire squadron of F-16 at aliens.

So yes, nations are perfectly capable of shooting down the alien UFO's - it's jsut theat their attrition rate is higher than yours.

Also, natons get laser rifles and other goodies from you, you think they get instruction on how to retrofit the F-16?

[dd.d]

I guess it's been said before, but terror missions are maybe a little unbalanced right now. Don't get me wrong, it's a good feeling to lose five troopers and get all the little posthumous medals once in a while. But not every 15 days when you've not even rebuilt your lost equipment. I think the main problem here is getting shot to pieces in Turn 1 because everyone and their Sebilian lizard queen can see you in your Charlie.

[StellarRat]

That's why I think simply moving/spawning the aliens back to the North and East would solve 90% of the early loss problem on terror missions. At least you could get your guys off the chopper with getting them shot to pieces.

[Josip Broz Tito]

Burst fire is fine where it is as far as TU's. If you're trying to hit aliens from further than 4 tiles= aimed fire is what you should be using with rifles.

Burst fire's not meant to be a reliable hit except from 1-4 tiles away. What it is meant to do is allow your riflemen to act as jury-rigged machinegunners in order to suppress an alien.

The other side of the coin is that it allows a rifleman to act as a jury-rigged shotgunner and deal decent up-close dmg.

Making it cheaper breaks riflemen away from their intended 'jack of all trades' role. They don't excel at any aspect of combat in xenonauts, but they're usable in most situations.

As far as a change like burst fire TU reduction for machinegunners= it'd make them OP. Aggressive usage of machinegunners will make them your highest statted squad member as it stands now.

When they break that 80 TU mark, you'll know why they shouldn't get reduced burst TU's. 80 TU+ machinegunner with a scatter laser or plasmacaster will easily get the 5+ aliens killed in combat medal each mission. The guns are inherently accurate enough and throw enough projectiles at an alien to ensure 1-2 hits+ each time for high dmg.

Lowered burst TU's would lower that threshhold of firing twice per turn down to within 1-2 missions experience of the start. The game's already mind-numbingly easy after the third mission or so (when you get jackal) until the first terror mission shows up. Adding in OP machineguns would make it even easier and skew squad composition.

[StellarRat]

When they break that 80 TU mark, you'll know why they shouldn't get reduced burst TU's. 80 TU+ machinegunner with a scatter laser or plasmacaster will easily get the 5+ aliens killed in combat medal each mission. The guns are inherently accurate enough and throw enough projectiles at an alien to ensure 1-2 hits+ each time for high dmg.

I can only dream.... :-) As in real life, an MG is deadly weapon in infantry combat.

[Josip Broz Tito]

People don't give the devs enough credit for the more subtle balancing they've done between the weapons: the MG and rifle burst cost is just one example of this.

[StellarRat]

The last few builds have definitely fixed a lot of balance stuff. I'm still not convinced the vehicles are right since the aliens don't shoot at them too often, if they're getting popped on a regular basis I might be inclined to want more buffing. Like I've been saying all along the balance is very tied to how good the AI turns out.

[TrashMan]

Burst fire is fine where it is as far as TU's. If you're trying to hit aliens from further than 4 tiles= aimed fire is what you should be using with rifles.

Burst fire's not meant to be a reliable hit except from 1-4 tiles away. What it is meant to do is allow your riflemen to act as jury-rigged machinegunners in order to suppress an alien.

The other side of the coin is that it allows a rifleman to act as a jury-rigged shotgunner and deal decent up-close dmg.

Making it cheaper breaks riflemen away from their intended 'jack of all trades' role. They don't excel at any aspect of combat in xenonauts, but they're usable in most situations.

As far as a change like burst fire TU reduction for machinegunners= it'd make them OP. Aggressive usage of machinegunners will make them your highest statted squad member as it stands now.

When they break that 80 TU mark, you'll know why they shouldn't get reduced burst TU's. 80 TU+ machinegunner with a scatter laser or plasmacaster will easily get the 5+ aliens killed in combat medal each mission. The guns are inherently accurate enough and throw enough projectiles at an alien to ensure 1-2 hits+ each time for high dmg.

Lowered burst TU's would lower that threshhold of firing twice per turn down to within 1-2 missions experience of the start. The game's already mind-numbingly easy after the third mission or so (when you get jackal) until the first terror mission shows up. Adding in OP machineguns would make it even easier and skew squad composition.

I'm playing with changed stats and it feels great.

Theres always ways to balance thing. Reduce machinegun damage if necessary. It's already innacurate as hell (especially if you moved).

Unlike other soldiers, machinegunners in general:

a) cannot wear armor in the begining or they will loose precious, precious TU's

b) cannto fire if they moved, and if they have enought TU's to do that, they are even more innacurate

c) in general won't get to shoot nearly as much as others for lack of TU and need to manouver

Altough frankly, I feel the whole weapon balance is a bit off anyway. In my oppinion:

Ballistics - very cheap TU's, decent armor migation (especially with upgrades, like alien alloy bullets), but not a lot of damage. A weapon that kills by weight of numbers.

Lasers - accurate as hell, good damage and range, low armor penetration (as it's nigh impossible to keep a laser beam focused on the same spot on a moving target). Ideally damage fallof with distance.

A weapon for long-range bombardment.

Pulse lasers(?) - better armor penetration, but lower damage.

Plasma - short range, innacurate, extreemly powerfull.

MAG - heavy, very high armor penetration and damage, long-range.

[Ol' Stinky]

Well, Tito's talking about the long-range gun families, and not the difference between tiers. And I completely agree with him, because the balance between the ARs, snipers and LMGs is really damn good. I'd be wary of changing those three right now. The only weapon I've modded are the shotguns, to give them six pellets while lowering the damage per pellet to keep total damage the same. What can I say, I like the whole blunderbuss effect.

I think you were more on the mark with the difference between rookies and vets. I hate being stuck with Pvt. 52 TU Guy on a new game. There's always one. Maybe changing the range from 52-60 TUs for a rookie to 58-66 would help.

[TrashMan]

I would chage it...if I knew how

[lemm]

I'm wondering if a wraith should only be able to teleport to some place it can see, or has seen by itself on its turn. I've been testing some large alien bases and half a dozen of them teleport right behind me the first time I see an alien.

[Ol' Stinky]

I would chage it...if I knew how

Do you mean the shotty or the TUs? For the shotty, browse to your Xenonauts\assets\ dir, and look for a file called "weapons_gc.xml". Open it in a text editor and you'll see a section like this:

<Weapon name="weapon.shotgun" bulletType="normal" emptySound="Empty Click 1">	<props range="10" hands="2" recoil="0" weight="3" isHeavy="0" clipSize="8" reloadAPCost="30" reloadSound="Weapon Shotgun Reload" reactionModifier="2" hpLimit="80"/>	<SingleShot sound="Weapon Shotgun Single" delay="0.6" suppressionValue="15" suppressionRadius="3">		<Set1 ap="20" accuracy="40" />		<Set2 ap="30" accuracy="90" />	</SingleShot>	<BurstFire/>	<GUIImage name="gui/weapons/Shotgun.png"/>	<GroundImage name="grounditemimages/shotgun.png"/>	<Ammos>		<Ammo name="ammo.ballistic.shotgun" type="kinetic" [b]damage="10"[/b] mitigation="0" [b]pelletCount="6"[/b]>			<Projectile spectre="projectiles/bullet/bullet" speed="1200"/>			<Impact spectre="particles/bulletplume/bulletplume"/>		</Ammo>	</Ammos></Weapon>

The bits in bold are what I tweaked. Save the changes and play the game. The default values are 20 damage and 3 pellets, but frankly, it looks way cooler this way. And in the end, isn't that what really counts?

Once you're happy with the shotgun, find the other tiers of shotgun and change them to fit, too.

For the default TUs bit, yeah, I can't see any way to change that. It's a real bummer. Hopefully I simply missed the file starting soldier stats are defined, but I think it's hardcoded. ):

[kabill]

For the default TUs bit' date=' yeah, I can't see any way to change that. It's a real bummer. Hopefully I simply missed the file starting soldier stats are defined, but I think it's hardcoded. ):[/quote']

I'm fairly sure you can set starting stat ranges for solders in gameconfig.xml. It's around where the stat-increase rules are, I think (not so far from the top). (All of this might be wrong; I'm working from memory!).

[Ishantil]

My starting shotguns are 5x15. Before, used 9x15 (actually realistic, based on the pistol damage), but it was a little too good.

[Dranak]

That's why I think simply moving/spawning the aliens back to the North and East would solve 90% of the early loss problem on terror missions. At least you could get your guys off the chopper with getting them shot to pieces.

I don't think that would change that your transport is still the best place to be though (unless you moved them several turns away). The high alien numbers packed into a small space and small amounts of nearby cover mean that you'd want to fight at your ship as much as possible, since it both breaks LoS and is indestructible. My last terror mission had a line of 7 sebs on the fence just east of my Charlie. I could move out of the ship if I wanted to, but I would have just been killed by sheer weight of fire even if I was in cover. The only way to survive that was to keep out of LoS until I had whittled down their numbers enough.

It actually makes me think that for normal difficulty there are either too many aliens, or the maps are too small.

[StellarRat]

I don't think that would change that your transport is still the best place to be though (unless you moved them several turns away). The high alien numbers packed into a small space and small amounts of nearby cover mean that you'd want to fight at your ship as much as possible, since it both breaks LoS and is indestructible. My last terror mission had a line of 7 sebs on the fence just east of my Charlie. I could move out of the ship if I wanted to, but I would have just been killed by sheer weight of fire even if I was in cover. The only way to survive that was to keep out of LoS until I had whittled down their numbers enough.

It actually makes me think that for normal difficulty there are either too many aliens, or the maps are too small.

I'm pretty sure I could handle them with less losses if they were a bit further away at the start. Right now, they can nearly always fire directly into the back ramp of the Chinook on the first turn since they're always spawned around the furniture store to the West.

[Ol' Stinky]

I'm fairly sure you can set starting stat ranges for solders in gameconfig.xml. It's around where the stat-increase rules are, I think (not so far from the top). (All of this might be wrong; I'm working from memory!).

It's stuff like hiring cost, age range, and...

[stinky pauses before dramatically slamming his fist down on the big red button that has a sign next to it. The sign states "Warning! Controversial Topic Activation!" Sirens blare, personnel run around hither and thither, security gates begin slamming into place.]

...the likelihood of women soldiers.

[TrashMan]

Do you mean the shotty or the TUs?

No' date=' I mean soldier stats

I'm fairly sure you can set starting stat ranges for solders in gameconfig.xml. It's around where the stat-increase rules are, I think (not so far from the top). (All of this might be wrong; I'm working from memory!).

I thought so to, but it's not. You can adjsut progression and ranks, but not starting stats.

[TrashMan]

It's stuff like hiring cost' date=' age range, and...

[i'][stinky pauses before dramatically slamming his fist down on the big red button that has a sign next to it. The sign states "Warning! Controversial Topic Activation!" Sirens blare, personnel run around hither and thither, security gates begin slamming into place.][/i]

...the likelihood of women soldiers.

Mine is set to 20% and I consider it generous.

PC crusaders can go suck my big, hard lollipop.

What? You were expecting something else?

[kabill]

It's stuff like hiring cost' date=' age range, and...

[i'][stinky pauses before dramatically slamming his fist down on the big red button that has a sign next to it. The sign states "Warning! Controversial Topic Activation!" Sirens blare, personnel run around hither and thither, security gates begin slamming into place.][/i]

...the likelihood of women soldiers.

Hey, yeah, you're right. That's sad. I had plans to play around with that at some point.

[Aaron]

Keep it up and I make that percentage chance of female soldiers also a hard coded multiplier to Xenonaut vision range!

[Elydo]

Oh that's evil. I love it.

What's the default rate for female recruits? I haven't noticed any dearth of them certainly. Which is good because they die at the same rate as the men and I don't want to have to coddle them in order to retain a female presence. Would somewhat defeat the point of gender equality...

[Dranak]

I believe it's 40%.

[GizmoGomez]

Which is more than accommodating considering the time period.

Anyway, back to the ground combat...

[Max_Caine]

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

I commented ages ago that in terror missions, civvies should have somewhere to go. If we don't want terror missions to be fights within grenade range, the terror map needs to be fundamentally re-examined. I would say that a "good" terror map would have one or more human NPC strongpoints which are manned by NPC soldiers, and they should be points the aliens attacks and the civvies flee to. By creating "point of interesst" on the map by using map assets only, we gain the following benefits:

1) The map is used. The steadily improving group AI (which I think needs more work, but is pretty good at summoning reinforcements and escalating the engagement, as it should) means that the entire engagement is likely to take place around the dropship. Which is fun, but you don't see or use the map to any degree. By creating points which the aliens attack, you draw alien forces away from the dropship, allowing the player to exit.

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.

3) A weak reason, but strongpoints add a narrative to the terror mission that is otherwise lacking.

4) Strongpoints add a quest point without actually needing be a quest point (and more coding). By doing no more than making a point where there are NPCs shooting at aliens, aliens shooting at NPCs, and civvies screaming and flapping their arms, a focal point for the player emerges from the gameplay without having to beat the player over the head with a quest bar. Hey! Emergent gameplay!

EDIT: Ideally, strongpoints should be considered points of safety by the civvie AI, points of attack by the alien AI (due to the clustering of NPCs) and points of defence by the npc soldier AI. I.E. this is all AI territory folks - the map should not have fake "attractor" points - the AI should be to be good enough to recognise these aspects. Some suggestions for GJ

• Civvies should feel safer near soldiers
  
• NPC Soldiers should feel safer behind prepared defences
  
• Aliens should put clusters of NPCs higher up on the priority list of targets

Edited September 13, 2013 by Max_Caine