Ground Combat Balance Discussion V19 Stable

[Josip Broz Tito]

I don't know what to tell you, I'm always glad to see a light drone because they're cake for me.

[StellarRat]

I don't know what to tell you, I'm always glad to see a light drone because they're cake for me.

Maybe I'm just getting tired of them shooting me as soon as I open the Chinook landing ramp. :-)

[Josip Broz Tito]

Lucky...never have anything dangerous when I land...

I honestly miss the frantic 'gotta get out of the landing sub asap so I don't get pulse-launchered/grenaded' feel from tftd.

Maybe a re-skinned light drone as a medium drone is a good answer to this situation. It'd leave light drones (who hopefully get an AI buff, maybe a TU buff) as they are and allow for something that wolf armor won't sneeze at.

[wcanyon]

Played through three missions on normal. Haven't touched the game in a few months. Overall: too damn hard. Third mission: scout with 5-7 lizard dudes with plasma rifles. One time I lost 2 guys to one burst from a plasma rifle. TWO. ONE BURST. That sucked. Lost 4 more guys in that mission and turned the game off -- I was still a ways away from jackal armor so I was in for a world of hurt.

Happy to see that grenades are working now.

[Ol' Stinky]

Smoke grenades can now block LoS. Hide your people in the middle of a smoke cloud and you'll have an easier time of it. Also, don't believe the accuracy indicator when it comes to smoke, you do not really have a 0% chance to hit most of the time.

[kabill]

Maybe I'm just getting tired of them shooting me as soon as I open the Chinook landing ramp. :-)

I don't think I've ever had something like that, which may well be the reason for our different opinion on the issue. Indeed, I've very rarely encountered them at close range (when I imagine they are most dangerous due to their burst-attack) and at a distance they're easily taken care of since they're not very durable.

If they were going to be buffed, I'd like to see some HP/Armour (they don't seem to have any armour, which seems odd given they're entirely made of metal). At least that way they might survive more than a couple of shots. Alternatively (and I don't know whether this would be possible) coordinating them better with other aliens would be good (I've not seen them pair up with other aliens very well to take advantage of the suppression that they kick out).

[Max_Caine]

Alien weapons are going to require a "human modifier" flag. It has been my practice for a while now to strip each alien corpse as alien weapons have comparable usability stats (AP cost, accuracy etc.) to human weapons, and alien weapons are generally much better where it counts, such as damage. I would suggest a severe modifier, to make it clear that these weapons are a "I've got nothing else" option.

[Aaron]

Yeah, that is on the cards - probably an accuracy penalty (we also considered a random chance to explode when fired by humans... but seemed a bit harsh).

[Max_Caine]

My suggestion would be to set an adjustable accuracy cap. That way, not even soliders with RealUltimatePower can benefit from alien weapons like aliens can. And you can fiddle around with the cap in a cleaner manner than fiddling with an accuracy modifier.

[Josip Broz Tito]

Accuracy penalty seems plenty fair, if there was a human DNA identifier to make them explode: I'd expect to see warning of it in the research.

[StellarRat]

I'm really thinking the Xenonauts need a knife for situations where there is nothing left to use. It should be light and only take up one slot. Couldn't be too hard to program. Use the stud rod logic, but have it do physical damage. To hit and damage would be based on accuracy and strength. At that point, I might not even care if we could use alien weapons at all.

Edited September 4, 2013 by StellarRat

[Ol' Stinky]

Maybe not even have it take up an inventory slot, but be the attack if no weapons are equipped.

[Elydo]

I saw a key for weapon melee attack in the keymapping and assumed you could buttstroke enemies if all else failed. I'm guessing that isn't what they mean?

Edit: If wasn't planned, adding it would require new sprites so that's a no. Though some sprites, like the medkit and stun rod still use the grenade throw animation so there might still be a melee option that hasn't been added yet.

Edited September 4, 2013 by Elydo

[Hairyscreech]

Got to say, having made it to January 10th the terror missions have gone totally insane. I am getting about 2 a month minimum and each one has 18 Androns, 2 light drones, 2 heavy drones and 3 Harridans.

With a Charlie that can only take 1 scout car and 6 guys im not only out gunned but also out numbered 4:1. without exploiting bugs/features of the current ai there is not way of winning these. I have managed two and am now tackling the 3rd but they are just a tar pit, expending 4 laser batteries per guy and then using up the alien weapons as well. I think the quickest one took 2 hours.

I get that they are supposed to be scary but at the moment they just get boring.

I don't really know what the answer to it is though, reducing the number of aliens makes them more like any other mission, perhaps upping the number of clowns in the choppa or perhaps restricting the number of androns as you simply can't carry enough ammunition for 25 of them.

Edited September 4, 2013 by Hairyscreech

[GizmoGomez]

Yes, there is a melee attack. Press the M key and you see little damage numbers pop up.

We can reuse an animation for a melee attack, I'm sure. I'd really appreciate this.

As far as a last-ditch knife goes, I'd appreciate this. Heck, we could even get upgraded knifes as we advance in tech; regular knifes, alloy knifes, plasma knife, whatever.

Maybe we could make the M key a "knife" button, so instead of a pistol whip, a rifle butt bash, etc, it'd be knifing the alien. I kinda like my pistol whips, though. I've literally massacred entire light scout crews with pistol whips (in past builds, the AI's too good now. ).

[thothkins]

I have managed two and am now tackling the 3rd but they are just a tar pit, expending 4 laser batteries per guy and then using up the alien weapons as well. I think the quickest one took 2 hours.

I get that they are supposed to be scary but at the moment they just get boring.

Capping them to 1 a month or two if a nation slides into the TERRIBLE relations zone.

Having more varied terror mission maps will help

Having different sized terror maps as you have with alien bases, depending on where you are in the game.

[StellarRat]

You should never have a mission where there simply isn't enough ammo to complete it. That's just not right or fair to the player.

[Hairyscreech]

Having a scan through the files it would seem that I am getting 25 aliens from a cruiser attack, of a max of 31 min of 19. So the load out is correct for an andron cruiser, however I wonder if this is a bit too high for cruisers which start showing 4 months in?

Agreed that variation in the terror maps will help, with just the current map its a little bit like I could write a script for the terror missions always ending in a building siege in the top corner of the map.

Cover seems to be a bit of an issue with the terror map as well, trouble seems to come from the aliens always being in cover and your stuck sheltering in the charlie for the first 10 turns, again that will probably be solved by more maps.

[Josip Broz Tito]

Having shrikes earlier in the tech tree would help a TON in this regard.

[StellarRat]

If I were to classify the current game difficulty I'd say it's one notch above what most people would expect for a "Normal" settings. Most of us have a lot of experience by now. I wouldn't expect most people to be able to play at "Easy" one time and then be sucessful playing a "Normal" the next time around. It's really no big deal though. Toning the game down for less experienced players is simple.

[Elydo]

I encountered an Andron stuck in a hay bale once. Two guys beat him to death with stun rods.

I don't bother taking scout cars on terror missions now, they run out of ammo too fast. Two extra soldiers are a better use of space. Haven't tried any other vehicles yet.

[StellarRat]

I encountered an Andron stuck in a hay bale once. Two guys beat him to death with stun rods.

I don't bother taking scout cars on terror missions now, they run out of ammo too fast. Two extra soldiers are a better use of space. Haven't tried any other vehicles yet.

So you also think the scout car needs more MG ammo?

[Elydo]

Probably three times as much, at least. 50 rounds in five-round bursts is ten shots, fair enough. Two shots a second runs you dry in five turns. Compared to the later weapon options, which from what I gather are both AoE and designed to kill, lesser ammo makes sense. For the MG however, it's purpose is to suppress. Through weight of fire. Any kills are a bonus, not the intent.

As I said elsewhere, the first terror mission I did went reasonably well until the MG car ran dry, until then it had been suppressing the main block of aliens very effectively. Their being behind cover meant it scored no kills at all but that wasn't the purpose to which it was being applied. Once it ran dry however, my soldiers got overwhelmed very very quickly. Having to deal with a couple of aliens on my flank denied me a solid front and it all fell apart. This would not have happened if the car had kept the main force pinned until my flank could be secured and a solid line established.

As an example.

[Hairyscreech]

Does the scout car actually need 2 hard points? When used in reality they normally have the main weapon and a browning mounted on a pintle.

Thus for a basic car you would have 2x brownings, 100 rounds total.

Rocket equipped would be 4x rockets and 50 ballistic.

Don't know if that is feasible in the engine but it would be nice and fluffy and probably adjust the way we use the scout car.

Also I kind of feel the troop numbers need to go back up to where they were pre 6 man squads. In x com you were always fielding 8 men minimum even against a scout with 6 aliens, so perhaps that's the minimum number now alien numbers are up.

Might have an edit and see how it feels.

[StellarRat]

Does the scout car actually need 2 hard points?

I don't really think it does. It is supposed to the "starter" vehicle, so two points might be a bit much. I guess it depends on how TU it takes to fire each one. I would hope that it couldn't fire more than twice per round no matter how many weapons you hung on it. IMO, the only buff the Hunter needs is more MG ammo. It's pretty damned effective with the pulse laser mounted I see no need for change there. Edited September 4, 2013 by StellarRat