Ground Combat Balance Discussion V20 Experimental 7

[StellarRat]

Disable reactions on precision weapons. Just get rid of it entirely. In the late game it is impossible to move anywhere without Harridans taking pot-shots with their absurdly accurate weapons any time they get in visual range. It is, like many of the balance things in this version, completely ridiculous; I say that in the angriest way possible.

I don't have a problem with snipers sniping. I certainly want my snipers to take reaction shots. However, there is argument that can be made on both sides of this issue. Generally, snipers only take reaction shots in a very narrow arc because the field of vision for a scoped weapon is very small. Maybe they are covering an intersection or one street. It would be nearly impossible to reaction fire at something more than a few degrees out of your narrow LOS. It may be that the game mechanics don't support the proper implementation of reaction fire for snipers. Edited December 11, 2013 by StellarRat

[legit1337]

@aaron

Why is resupplying nessecary for ammo implementation? If they run out of ammo they run out. Or did you mean reloading?

Also, even "barely sapient" species like sebillians can feel fear (just look at monkeys and gorillas IRL). Moral affecting aliens would go a long way towards putting a "real" face on the invasion. It would make the enemies feel like actual enemy combatants fighting to conquer my planet instead of faceless mooks who just fight until death, and it would make androns stand out as enemies a little bit more because they aren't affected by fear (they are robots after all) when all of the other aliens are.

Even though they are superior to us in pretty much every way, they should still know when they are being beaten. I'm pretty sure the British at the Battle of Isandlwana were panicing too.

Edited December 11, 2013 by legit1337

[ventuswings]

Unfortunately it conflicts with the Alien Communication Xenopedia or whatever that states that alien grunt is mindless automaton whence-upon ordered to commit suicide will follow through without second thought. It can be changed though, I guess.

[squigoth]

Just give the aliens 4 or 5 ammo magazines/batteries and increase the shots per magazines/batteries. That should give them enough shots for a normal battle and if you can sucker them into firing so much they run out then more power to you.

A down the road idea would be give the aliens a resupply drone of some kind that can hover around the battlefield resupplying the aliens by spending a few turns next to them. Needless to say destroying it should result in a possible spectacular explosion. I'm thinking it would have so pretty stout armor or shielding as well.

A medic drone of some kind would be bad assed as well.

Edited December 11, 2013 by squigoth

[StellarRat]

if you can sucker them into firing so much they run out then more power to you.

You forgot, "and live"...LOL!

[legit1337]

Resupplying would be unnecessary.

Really though, you could just give them enough magazines where it wouldn't matter unless it is an extremely long drawn out battle. In which case you should be rewarded for staying alive long enough for the aliens to deplete their ammo.

It would also be useful for capturing a live alien, deplete his ammo by drawing long distance fire, then close in for the capture with a stun baton.

It makes so much sense to spawn them with magazines, it adds depth to strategy and a sense of authenticity to the game. It also makes it necessary for aliens to reload, which is a positive thing imo instead of them having unlimited ammo bullet hoses.

[winterwolves]

Seems a bit unfair that we have to worry about ammo, but they don't?

Likewise that all the aliens have uber stats. Especially with the strength/grenade range thing.

[Aaron]

Come on guys, we are not going to let you hide behind a rock until the aliens are out of ammo. Getting the AI to use some sort of resupply system would probably be as big of a project as getting grenades working was - is that really where you want development time spent?

[ventuswings]

Will the player be able to turn off unlimited ammo using XML like other adjustable values? If so, it's probably not that big of a problem.

Well, I don't mind if you decide to prioritize work on other things, like having AI utilize multiple floors instead of being stuck at ground level. I haven't heard news about this for a while - is this problem still being looked over?

[StellarRat]

Come on guys, we are not going to let you hide behind a rock until the aliens are out of ammo. Getting the AI to use some sort of resupply system would probably be as big of a project as getting grenades working was - is that really where you want development time spent?

You could just give them one big internal magazine, when they're out they're out. I don't see that as a problem. Hiding behind a rock until the aliens run dry is a bit stupid anyway. Given sufficient ammo there is no doubt in my mind you would be dead before aliens ran out. Besides, your cover will eventually be destroyed and then you're going to be toast. In fact, the alien weapons could just be rechargeable and have no magazine at all. They simply run out eventually. 100 shots should be sufficient. Edited December 12, 2013 by StellarRat

[legit1337]

You could just give them one big internal magazine, when they're out they're out. I don't see that as a problem. Hiding behind a rock until the aliens run dry is a bit stupid anyway. Given sufficient ammo there is no doubt in my mind you would be dead before aliens ran out. Besides, your cover will eventually be destroyed and then you're going to be toast. In fact, the alien weapons could just be rechargeable and have no magazine at all. They simply run out eventually. 100 shots should be sufficient.

This. x1000... With respect, I don't think its going to be as exploitable as you seem to think it will be aaron.

Although I would prefer to see smaller magazines so the aliens would have to reload like human combatants. I see no problems with aliens running out of ammo after a LONG battle. I mean obviously they shouldn't run out right away but there should at least be a possibility if the fight continues for awhile.

Aliens having infinite ammo seems kind of cheap and gamey imo. The player and the AI should be playing with the same rulebook.

Again, I fail to see why resupplying is necessary. If they run out of ammo, they are out for good and should flee or something.

Edited December 12, 2013 by legit1337

[StellarRat]

This. x1000... With respect, I don't think its going to be as exploitable as you seem to think it will be aaron.

Although I would prefer to see smaller magazines so the aliens would have to reload like human combatants. I see no problems with aliens running out of ammo after a LONG battle. I mean obviously they shouldn't run out right away but there should at least be a possibility if the fight continues for awhile.

Aliens having infinite ammo seems kind of cheap and gamey imo. The player and the AI should be playing with the same rulebook.

Again, I fail to see why resupplying is necessary. If they run out of ammo, they are out for good and should flee or something.

Yeah, I think it should be possible, but really, even in the OG it was rare for aliens to run out of ammo. With 100 rounds in a weapon it's unlikely they'll run dry except in extremely long battles, but that seems fair as the Xenonauts will likely run out before they do. I just think it's cheap and gamey for Aliens to have unlimited amounts of anything. This idea would totally get rid of the need for alien reload mechanics to be programmed into the game. You'd simply have to have a shot counter to decrement. Very simple programming. Edited December 12, 2013 by StellarRat

[winterwolves]

Infinite ammo gives them the option of full auto firing all the time, going for the lucky kill. And early on a single hit with almost any weapon is a kill.

It just seems a bit unfair to me is all. Maybe the AI should not take shots under a certain % chance to hit, and that would balance it a bit.

[squigoth]

I'd like to see the aliens have to spend some AP points reloading after so many rounds fired as well but if its too much a pain for the developers for now so be it...

Would it be too hard to program in that after every 15th or so shot from their bullet hose they have to spend 20 or so AP standing around doing nothing (reloading)? Then just have it when they die they drop X amount of clips for the weapon they had and a game weapon that needs to be reloaded so the player can use it if he researches/learns that ability.

As for me I actually load up a ton of ammo clips for all the weapons in all my guys belts and back packs slots during set up. When a ground assault starts I have them dump most of it on the floor of the transport to get back AP points and have some extra ammo for them if they need it (in the transport).

Kind of like the pile of stuff on the floor in the old XCOM game. I've yet to have to run back to get more ammo but at least it's there and it's kind of more realistic.

Maybe you guys can put an ammo/weapons rack in the transport helicopter for extra stuff for the team... in real life it would have more than enough room for it.

That would be cool.

Edited December 12, 2013 by squigoth

[Assoonasitis]

These ideas are needlessly complex. I'm curious as to what the problem is with having the aliens use the same inventory as the Xenonauts, and a check being done whenever the alien wants to fire and if (weaponAmmo == 0 && inventory.battery > 1 && AP > [whatever threshold]) just do a reload same as the Xenonauts would. Perhaps I'm missing something, though, because I have no idea what the codebase looks like.

[StellarRat]

These ideas are needlessly complex. I'm curious as to what the problem is with having the aliens use the same inventory as the Xenonauts, and a check being done whenever the alien wants to fire and if (weaponAmmo == 0 && inventory.battery > 1 && AP > [whatever threshold]) just do a reload same as the Xenonauts would. Perhaps I'm missing something, though, because I have no idea what the codebase looks like.

It probably has more to do with what-ifs than just ammo consumption. I can think of lots of programming issues that would at least have to be considered if not addressed. For example: If an alien runs out of ammo what does it do? Retreat? Can they scrouge magazines? Can they grab a weapon off a dead comrade or even a Xenonaut? If ammo is limited how does that affect the type of shots the aliens fire (auto, snap, aimed)? There's a lot to think about and all of them have coding consequences. Even my simple solution requires some code changes. At the least you'd have to decrement the ammo counter and determine if they are out then do something with the alien behavior if they're dry.

[legit1337]

Yes. It would depend greatly on how the AI is coded. I highly doubt Aaron wishes to go into detail, so we will have to take at face value what he says is or isn't possible... but the pseudocode is simple.

*********************************

IF(Gunammo==0 && Batterycount>=1)

Call Reload

IF(Gunammo==0 && Batterycount==0)

Call Retreat

ELSE

Call *insert name of AI battle algorithm*

******************

Or similar switch statement. Not that the devs don't know this of course.

Coding for picking up fallen comrades weapons would be more complex, but I think is ultimately unnecessary. The aliens couldn't pick up stuff in the OG either and that was fine imo.

Only second year computer science major so I may very well be off the mark by a huge margin lol.

Edited December 13, 2013 by legit1337

[StellarRat]

Yes. It would depend greatly on how the AI is coded. I highly doubt Aaron wishes to go into detail, so we will have to take at face value what he says is or isn't possible... but the pseudocode is simple.

*********************************

IF(Gunammo==0 && Batterycount>=1)

Call Reload

IF(Gunammo==0 && Batterycount==0)

Call Retreat

ELSE

Call *insert name of AI battle algorithm*

******************

Or similar switch statement. Not that the devs don't know this of course.

Coding for picking up fallen comrades weapons would be more complex, but I think is ultimately unnecessary. The aliens couldn't pick up stuff in the OG either and that was fine imo.

Only second year computer science major so I may very well be off the mark by a huge margin lol.

You have a lot to learn...LOL, but I'm not going to pull the "listen I've been doing this for a long time" thing on you. I can guarantee you that it's not quite that simple though.

[Assoonasitis]

But all of those ifs are fairly simple branches of an if else statement. if (ammoCount > 0 && 3 > ammoCount) {singleFire;} if (ammoCount == 0 && inventory.battery > 1 && AP < threshold) {[algorithm to beat a hasty retreat];} if (ammoCount == 0 && inventory.battery == 0) {[same hasty retreat algorithm];} Solve the problem of looting by having it not even be an option.

[legit1337]

@StellarRat

Oh believe me I know it gets more complicated. I've taken structured, assembly language, and object oriented programming in university and I'm going to take data structures in the semester after this one. I'm still a noob, but I'm somewhat educated on what's involved in a massive project like this.

@Assoonasitis

I think StellarRat is saying that while yes, the logic behind it is simple, there's so much more going on that you have to account for that it would be WAY more complex to actually implement.

Talking about logic for a program that we have absolutely no understanding of is fairly pointless. Although I do agree with you that it's the path the devs should take, because frankly it's what the game needs imo.

[Aaron]

I find it hard to believe this is as important as people say, given aliens have had infinite ammo for the entirety of development and I recall very few complaints about it before now. I honestly can't even recall if OG had infinite ammo for aliens, I'm curious how many of you can tell me without consulting UFOpaedia.

because frankly it's what the game needs imo.

Really? You wouldn't prefer we get Reapers to behave more dangerously? You wouldn't prefer we get Harridans to use jetpacks? Aliens to behave in a more interesting way in Terror Sites?

Anyway, the way we have implemented infinite ammo for aliens means you can just mod weapons_gc to remove it, so play around with that in the next build if you like - don't expect the AI to deal with it gracefully though.

[llunak]

It probably has more to do with what-ifs than just ammo consumption. I can think of lots of programming issues that would at least have to be considered if not addressed. For example: If an alien runs out of ammo what does it do?

Question of the day: How many people have noticed that 20.7 works exactly this way? Yes, in case you haven't noticed, aliens already do normally run out of ammo and can't even reload the single extra plasma battery they have. And they do act kinda stupid when out of ammo, but has anybody complained about that except for me?

So I think you overestimate both the difficulty and the impact. If aliens learn how to reload (and I don't see why that should be technically difficult) and get enough extra clips to have say at least 30-50 shots, I think that's good enough for most people. And those who would notice would just as well notice that aliens cheat with ammo.

[llunak]

I honestly can't even recall if OG had infinite ammo for aliens, I'm curious how many of you can tell me without consulting UFOpaedia.

I can , but that's probably because I play it occassionally even nowadays. I don't remember ever seeing one alien to run out though.

Really? You wouldn't prefer we get Reapers to behave more dangerously? You wouldn't prefer we get Harridans to use jetpacks? Aliens to behave in a more interesting way in Terror Sites?

Well, no. It's just that, without knowing the internals of the game, it seems noticeably less work than any of these (and to me about as difficult as implementing optional unlimited ammo). But if you think it's not even worth that effort, fair enough.

[winterwolves]

There used to be a hidden movement bug associated with this, wasn't there? I think they would try to reload with no spare ammo and get stuck giving the same command over and over again. And playing the sound.

[Mooton]

I honestly can't even recall if OG had infinite ammo for aliens, I'm curious how many of you can tell me without consulting UFOpaedia.

Sure they didn't run out of ammo much with their 56 shots of heavy plasmas. But the blaster bomb wielders did run out, and that was important.