Ground Combat Balance Discussion V20 Experimental 4

[StellarRat]

@aaron

I'm loving whatever you did to accuracy in the new experimental version.

I'm not sure if anyone has said this already, but close range combat still seems a bit wonky, even with the new accuracy tweaks. Specifically, tactics for room clearing.

Stacking on the door seems to be a bad idea due to current mechanics...

Isn't this wrong though? Almost all modern military/police tactics for room clearing involve stacking on doors prior to a breach. Shouldn't we be finding ways to make the game "authentic" (not using the word "realistic" here).

The police don't expect the bad guys to have plasma weapons, armor, and explosives plus they wear body armor that can reasonability be expected to stop what they will normally encounter. Also, the police probably wouldn't enter a fortified house full of heavily armed and trained bad guys if they knew they were aware and waiting to engage them. The police rely on surprise, numbers, and training. If the Army comes up on a heavily defended building they aren't going to try to use "room clearing" tactics on it. They'll bring up heavy weapons and flatten it. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think you can compare what the Xenonauts are doing to real life situations one for one including stacking up at the door. Edited November 8, 2013 by StellarRat

[legit1337]

Also, the police probably wouldn't enter a fortified house full of heavily armed and trained bad guys if they knew they were aware and waiting to engage them.

I'm sorry, but this is flat-out wrong, that is like the entire purpose of a SWAT team.

If the Army comes up on a heavily defended building they aren't going to try to use "room clearing" tactics on it. They'll bring up heavy weapons and flatten it.

Real life militaries regularly do use "room clearing" tactics when breaching enemy strongholds/safehouses because they don't want to blow up any intelligence that may be there. Acquiring alien technology is a priority objective for the xenonauts if I'm not mistaken...

While plasma weapons certainly are more powerful, ballistic weapons get very deadly up close as well, because accuracy is no longer an issue. I highly doubt a caesian can function with a hole the size of a dinner plate blown through his chest... My point being that at those ranges, pretty much everything would be a one hit kill and the "killyness" of the weapons would be moot. In fact, plasma weapons might even be at a disadvantage in enclosed spaces due to heat backwash and particle dispersion.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think you can compare what the Xenonauts are doing to real life situations one for one including stacking up at the door.

I respectfully disagree. Guns are guns, whether they shoot plasma or bullets. (See P.S at bottom for an explanation)

All I'm saying is that I'd like more options in breaching ufos then just "blow open the doors and unload rockets and bullets into the room from a safe distance". Breaching a UFO and clearing it room by room the old fashioned way should be doable for a cautious (or ballsy depending on how you look at it) commander.

P.S:-------------

Our tactics that we use against the aliens would not be very different then what we use in the modern day against each other, and the changes that we would make will be mainly in response to the tactics the aliens are using as opposed to because of the weaponry being wielded. Yes, generally new weapons means a drastic change of battlefield tactics, until you consider that warfare has changed very little from 130 years ago when the machine gun was invented (with the exception of the invention of the tank which made traditional trench lines useless... and even at that, WW1 trench tactics are still used to this day in a variety of combat situations).

Edited November 9, 2013 by legit1337

[StellarRat]

I'm sorry, but this is flat-out wrong, that is like the entire purpose of a SWAT team.

Not true. Look at the history of the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas for an example. There are limits to what a SWAT team can or should attempt. At some point it becomes a military problem. Your point about gathering intel is true up to a certain point. However, a commander in a normal assault is not going to risk his troops taking a fortified building with light weapons unless he's under orders not to use heavy weapons and I have to point out, generally an Army can bring A LOT of troops and use massive suppressive fire if they need to.

In Xenonauts it's completely their mission to gather intel so they take risks and suffer a lot more casualties than a military and certainly the police would normally be willing to take. Plus they do have heavy weapons available (tanks). Anyway, I don't want this to get to far afield so I think that's all I have to say.

Edited November 9, 2013 by StellarRat

[legit1337]

Not true. Look at the history of the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas for an example. There are limits to what a SWAT team can or should attempt.

This is an inaccurate argument. There were hostages and civilians involved in the waco seige that aren't present on an alien vessel. What held the SWAT team back during waco was concern for the women and children in the compound, otherwise they would have stormed the place right away and there wouldn't have been a standoff.

But you are right, we are getting a bit offtopic.

My original argument still stands: All I'm saying is that I'd like more options in breaching ufos then just "blow open the doors and unload rockets and bullets into the room from a safe distance".

Also, I've already said that grenades are horrible, and wish to know if there is any plans on buffing them in the future?

Edited November 9, 2013 by legit1337

[lemm]

Another option for breaching a ship would be to throw smoke in, run into the smoke and throw suppression grenades, and then charge in and whack everything inside with a stun baton. Stun gas is good at flushing aliens out from their hiding spots, too.

EDIT: I think you need to up the accuracy of alien weapons. They can't hit a damn thing, even at Veteran level.

Edited November 11, 2013 by lemm

[StellarRat]

Love the new maps.

Balance is looking really good right now. Although, the aliens seem to spend a lot of time moving and not much shooting. I was surrounded in my dropship on a terror mission by at least 10 Sebillans. If they would have just stood and fired I think my team would have been dead, but the mostly just kept moving back and forth around my ship using up a lot of TUs as I gradually whittled them down. Also, noticed they still don't take advantage of buildings as cover very much. 95% of them are usually in the open or behind non-building cover. IMO, it's a lot tougher to root them out of buildings and ships than any other place.

Stun gas still worthless against Sellibans. I used three stun rockets and two grenades on one in a landing ship and it did nothing. The guy was surrounded by a huge dense cloud and just walked away multiple times.

Edited November 11, 2013 by StellarRat

[ventuswings]

Does anyone think TU cost for switching items on the inventory is too low? In original game moving two or three item was enough to bleed entire TU dry, but in Xenonauts moving items - including the type of weapon you hold - hardly seem to cost anything at all.

[Guest]

Well, Ventuswings, I for one think it is fine. Penalizing inventory shuffling too much is just silly. What do you gain from it other than prevent the player for making choices?

You are still not able to do much more than 1 grenade throw or take 1-2 shots with your weapon.

Edited November 12, 2013 by pistolhamster

[vaultdweller]

I would approve of increasing the cost of accessing your backpack only if the game brought back the original game's wide array of inventory locations with granular TU costs.

[StellarRat]

Most of the problem comes from the fact that there ought to be a lot more "belt" space. I think of the backpack more like general "storage" and not really a backpack. Soldiers generally don't carry any important combat equipment in their backpacks. It would be stupid to have to dig around in a pack in the middle of a firefight. The backpack is for storing food, camping equipment, etc... In fact, they usually take the pack off if they expect to be in combat.

[ventuswings]

Increased inventory movement cost shouldn't remove too much variety in the game. It can however help eliminate some silly strategies. Perhaps I am exaggerating with two or three shuffling enough to remove all TU, but so is being able to move around your entire inventory yet being able to take bunch of shots thereafter in the same turn.

Compare how much time it takes to reload. Reloading takes outrageous TU but I don't see people complaining because it's choice to be made on the battlefield. And deciding to change soldier's main weapon is greater decision than that! There should be more commitment for making that choice besides around ~15 TU. OG also allowed you to switch your weapon out and take a shot in the same turn but only enough for snap shot or such.

I'd agree with the belt option but I am not sure how viable it is with this much development taken place.

Edited November 12, 2013 by ventuswings

[StellarRat]

@ventuswings - Yes, reloading costs way too much TU compared to messing around with your inventory. Honestly, I never really thought about the comparative costs. Snapping a new magazine into place is extremely quick on a rifle or pistol (less than 3 seconds.) Reloading the shotgun would take a very long time (15 seconds or more depending on skill) while the LMG would be somewhere inbetween.

[legit1337]

Agreed. If each weapon had a different TU cost for reloading it would both be more "authentic", and give a way to balance weapons beyond damage/range. Shotguns should take an entire turn to reload, LMGs should take up 50% TUs, etc...

Still think grenades need a buff... I've stopped playing with them altogether and I'm taking less casualties as a result because using them was such a hassle for little reward. Even in "oh crap" moments their use was limited at best.

Imo they need a slight range buff (a 2-3 more tiles), a damage buff, and a blast radius buff (1 tile only). More powerful grenades should have a larger blast radius. Increase grenade weight to compensate. (I've held one in real life, they are fairly heavy for something so small.)

Edited November 13, 2013 by legit1337

[Aaron]

As the newly released experimental build 4 was mainly bug fixes, please just continue discussions here. I'll update the title.

We have given grenades an additional 2 tiles of range - I did play with buffing their blast radius, but the jump from 2 -3 tiles in radius is pretty huge. See how you get on with the extra range for the moment.

[legit1337]

@aaron

Playing the newest experimental version. I'm liking the UI updates and the extra 2 tiles grenade range.

Definitely bugs though. I had a sebilian shooting through the walls of his own light scout, he hit a soldier on the other side who panicked, and then proceeded to flee INTO the ship, ending his turn right next to the sebilian who shot him. Ragequitted after that happened. It was on the desert map with the fenced off base and the school building in the middle of it.

Might I suggest fleeing pathfinding should pick a path away from enemies, not towards them. Also, ship walls should be solid .

Edited November 15, 2013 by legit1337

[dmastri]

Yeah I'm seeing aliens shoot effortlessly through the walls of their ships. It makes assaulting ships very annoying. Losing assaults left and right over here

[Aaron]

We are looking into that one - hopefully should be an easy hotfix. Anybody seeing aliens shoot through anything except UFOs?

[dmastri]

I also witnessed an alien shooting through the closed door of a house. I don't recall if the laser fire went through the door or broke it. I did not have LOS on the alien prior to him firing.

The shooting through ships thing is a dealbreaker, but drop a line when you get that hotfixed and I'll gladly hop back on the beta testing. I hadn't played beta since back in June and have to say I'm very impressed with the progress. Great job all around.

[StellarRat]

We are looking into that one - hopefully should be an easy hotfix. Anybody seeing aliens shoot through anything except UFOs?

It would be very good if you fixed the shooting through UFO floors and ceiling that the same time. That way I can progress in the game. Right now, it's really not worth it to play past the corvettes, for me anyway.

[vaultdweller]

We are looking into that one - hopefully should be an easy hotfix. Anybody seeing aliens shoot through anything except UFOs?

I'm pretty sure one of the posts in the bug reports forum had a screenshot that involved the aliens shooting through one of the walls that sections the dropship off from the surrounding area in some maps.

[Aaron]

FYI guys we have now hotfixed the shooting through UFO walls bug.

It would be very good if you fixed the shooting through UFO floors and ceiling that the same time. That way I can progress in the game. Right now, it's really not worth it to play past the corvettes, for me anyway.

That is on the list to fix, but the cause is completely different from the shooting through walls bug. We'll try to get to it asap, as it is one of the more major ones left.

[StellarRat]

FYI guys we have now hotfixed the shooting through UFO walls bug.

That is on the list to fix, but the cause is completely different from the shooting through walls bug. We'll try to get to it asap, as it is one of the more major ones left.

Great. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for 11/27. That's our Thanksgiving Day and I have four days off to play!

[tycho]

You can work around this by using smoke to block their view while moving guys into position to storm the next level.

[StellarRat]

You can work around this by using smoke to block their view while moving guys into position to storm the next level.

I thought about that. But I wasn't sure if smoke would block top shots. What getting whacked from above while your working on the first level?

[Haba]

On veteran difficulty, an elite team of survivors of 30+ missions... Inside an alien base, covering both ends of a short hallway. A sebillan steps into sight - nine expert marksmen with full AP and plasma weapons at ready open fire at him...

...in the beginning of the next turn, the sebillan is still alive. Only one of the 9 hit him. Once. From 10 tiles away. Everyone 'cept the heavy and the sniper fired at least twice.