Geoscape Balance Discussion V20 Experimental 7

[Chris]

I'll point out here that you're all making assumptions on how the game will play, as you've not been able to test the changes first-hand. Give them a try and see how it works out before dismissing them. If they don't work we'll look at revising them again.

[StK]

@Chris:

Well I modded the values of the Condor down to 1000 top speed and 10000 max range (If I remember the values correctly).

And did some test games. If you didn't change UFO behaviour, (edit) valuable (read:"not happening over an ocean))(/edit) interceptions before the Corsair are pure luck. A big thing is that Condors cant tail anymore so if the UFO decides to fight you over the sea you have to take it, which leaves you with nothing to research.

On normal difficulty on average I managed to intercept 4-5 UFOs in the first month out of ~11 spotted crafts and 2-3 encounters I had to take over the ocean where I don't get anything I can research out of it. (Base Location is near Vienna, Central Europe).

This change has a probabilty to make early game a very frustating experience. So if you are a little unlucky your research gets delayed by a bunch which will get you into deeper trouble in the next months.

And also as a said before you stated this change was necessary because of the possibilty of mid/late-game dominance of the Condor. Well this change to the Condor has a huge impact on the early game, where the player has no other means of intercepting UFOs.

It also makes the RNG have a bigger impact (does the UFO decide to fight you, and if it does where?), which in my opinion isn't a good thing.

edit: So far I did 10 of those games.

Edited December 3, 2013 by StK

[Chris]

OK. We're still going to release V20 E6 / 7 with those changes in place, but as mentioned previously if they make the early game frustrating then we'll find a different way to limit the power of Condors. We need to test the changes more widely than just you and Dranak before we alter them though

[StK]

My post reads more negativ then I intended it to be.. actually I was suprised how well the slow Condors where doing against the early UFOs. Yes the game gets a bit more challenging but as far as I'm concerned thats a good thing.

To clarify: I think in 9 out of those 10 games I would have done ok (I only tested during the first month and didn't do ground missions)

But in 1 game i got totally shafted as the UFOs didnt want to fight me, especially over land and (apart from a crash site local forces "sponsored" earlier) I would've had my first ground mission on the 29th which was a regular scout that nearly cost me both Condors.

Which in turn would've delayed my research by a ton and cost me a huge chunk of my interception capabilities for some time.

So the probabilty for the RNG gods to screw you over completely is a bit higher but not much. If thats acceptable is for the devs to decide (I actually don't think its that bad). I just wanted to point that out in my post.

I would still prefer the route to nerf the Condor via capping out on weapon techs but as this includes fiddling with new Weapon Hardpoints and might cause new bugs...

[Aaron]

Adding a cap to the technology level of weapons is not a function we have available - it would require programmer time, which is very thin on the ground right now. Also given that for the entirety of development the assumption has been that weapons will never be capped, then implementing it at this late stage is indeed very likely to lead both bugs and unforeseen consequences.

@Dranak, I am open to suggestions for other ways to make Corsairs interesting, but it's not like we have a great deal of unused features we can give them. If we increase Condor speed again so they can catch up to UFOs, then it makes any speed advantage the Corsairs have an uninteresting upgrade.

As for the number of missiles it takes to destroy a UFO, sure the Scout takes 5 Avalanche Torpedoes, but as soon as you upgrade to Alenium weapons (available once you meet Scouts) that drops to 3 - I think when you first meet a UFO it should always be very hard to shoot down, as the pressure to upgrade aircraft weapons drives interesting decisions the player must make about resource allocation.

[kabill]

Dranak's idea on the first page of this thread (have larger UFOs move increasingly more quickly, rather than increasingly more slowly) seems a fair solution: it makes Condors useful early game against smaller/less quick UFOs but become obsolete in the face of larger and faster UFOs (which they can't catch). This doesn't stop you from intercepting larger UFOs entirely - Foxtrots are quicker and will keep up for longer. But it will, over time, make it harder and harder to intercept larger UFOs - escorted ones, anyway - since you won't be able to escort your Forxtrots with Condors and keep pace.

[StK]

...

As for the number of missiles it takes to destroy a UFO, sure the Scout takes 5 Avalanche Torpedoes, but as soon as you upgrade to Alenium weapons (available once you meet Scouts) that drops to 3 - I think when you first meet a UFO it should always be very hard to shoot down, as the pressure to upgrade aircraft weapons drives interesting decisions the player must make about resource allocation.

And to quote you from your first post

-- Damage of Xenonaut weapons adjusted: 2 heavy missiles now always do slightly more damage than the equivalent 2 light missiles + gun

So in the beginning i need 3 fully armed planes unload everything they have into a single scout to kill it? Uhmm... these things tend to have escorts bevor you can upgrade your weapons, they come in waves and you upped the maintenance on fighter planes.

Or god forbid and I screw up once and loose a fighter

(which is not that big of a stretch since in v6 they tend to be low on fuel when the fight starts and are slower then the UFO they are fighting.. (yes I know about afterburner and rolling .. believe me it got a _lot_ harder to keep this plane alive)

I'm sorry this seems unreasonable. Especially considering you described Aircombat as a minigame.. it starts to be the most challenging aspect of the game.

(edit) would this work: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/8251-Edit-in-new-types-of-Weapon-Hardpoints-for-planes

Edited December 4, 2013 by StK

[Dranak]

@ Kabill - They have/are implementing that in 20.6, which triggered much of this discussion about aircraft speeds. For discussion purposes here's my best recollection of the speed changes (excluding alien fighters/bombers).

Condor: 1000

Foxtrot/Corsair: 2000

Marauder: 3000

UFOs Landing Ship and smaller: 1500

Cruiser and bigger: 2500

I believe battleships and Furies are even faster, but I forget the values for them. UFO HP and human weapon damages were also changed, but I don't remember all of those offhand so I'm trying to keep my theorycrafting to a minimum.

I agree that new UFO classes should bring new challenges and that once you unlock the tech from a UFO class it should become easier to down, that's something you guys have done well. But I think the skip up from Light Scouts to Scouts is a bit crazy in 20.6. 1500 HP on a Scout means that you need either three aircraft to down your first one (good luck if you use Condors), and having three Foxtrots by the time they appear is possible only if you commit 100% of your resources for the first month into aircraft (which will also gimp your income in the second month, because you'll have at least 500K in aircraft maintenance expenses alone). By comparison (unless I'm misremembering) the 400 HP on a Light Scout means that if you're willing to accept some damage, a single Condor can kill it it exchange for around 60-80 points of damage. I much prefer the previous balance where Corvettes as the first dedicated alien warship required that level of response but Scouts/Light Scouts were more easily managed without requiring huge early investments.

This is getting a bit speculative, but Corsairs look like they'll have a very narrow window of usefulness. You unlock them at Corvettes (after researching Electronics and the plane themselves), then have a long build time and might get 1-2 out for Landing Ships and they're already outran by Cruisers that come the month after. My expectation (which needs testing to actually confirm, I know) is that Corsairs will still end up thinly used because they would be relevant for a very small window of time. My gut feeling is that carving roles for 5 distinct aircraft is just one too many planes.

Is what I mentioned earlier about totally unlocking the weapon slots on the Marauder possible? I'm kind of thinking now that it would require creating a new kind of weapon slot, which would likely require code to support it and thus making it unlikely to happen. Beyond that, I'm really not sure how else we could create uniqueness between Condor/Corsair/Marauder other than going with my initial Corsair can equip torpedoes, Marauder can equip two sets of missiles/torpedoes, but I'm not sure if that would be reasonable from a balance perspective.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Dranak

[kabill]

@ Kabill - They have/are implementing that in 20.6, which triggered much of this discussion about aircraft speeds. For discussion purposes here's my best recollection of the speed changes (excluding alien fighters/bombers)

Ah, yes, sorry. I didn't spot that (I figured the Condor speed nerf was in the context of the old UFO speed progression). I also missed your first post on the previous page which is actually what Aaron was replying to. Skim-reading threads is not a good plan, apparently.

(Nonetheless, the more gradiated UFO speeds you suggested still seem like an effective way to deal with the problem of Condor speed Aaron indicated in his last post above. Having Condors able to intercept early UFOs but not later ones seems to me - on paper at least - to be a good way of encouraging upgrading to Corsairs while not making Condors (highly?) ineffective at the beginning of the game. It might not be 'interesting' in the sense of being able to do new things, but in fairness the vast majority of tech-increases in the game work on basically the same principle [i.e. being the same thing but better]. So it's not like this kind of simple upgrade is unprecidented.)

[Aaron]

@Dranak, With the updated damage numbers in v6 3 Condors with basic weapons will do 1800 damage. You start with 2 Condors, they cost $100000 each and you have a spare hangar. You should probably just wait for the new build.

Doing more graduated increases in UFO speeds is possible, I mainly kept the UFOs limited to two tiers of speed so there was an obvious point where you needed to upgrade you aircraft.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Aaron

[Dranak]

I should have been more clear in that post Aaron, three Condors do have 1600 deliverable damage (the 3rd's cannon can't reasonably be counted) which makes them able to kill a Scout. My "good luck" comment was more in the context of catching them, which could only reliably be done with Foxtrots.

[Aaron]

New build (7) is up - so you can all try it for yourselves!

Thread title updated.

[ventuswings]

If you intend to keep the current UI, I recommend you change the parameters so that 0 points give excellent rating and go down from there. It will better communicate to the players.

I've also noticed Foxtrot does 40% damage to Scout, meaning player has to invest full squad of Foxtrot just to take it down reliably. I am uncertain of the overall balance yet but I wonder if it might not be better to adjust Scout's health so that single Foxtrot can do at least 50% damage... Otherwise players are really forced to rush aircraft weaponry - Laser weaponry or Alenium explosives - early just to keep up. Overall I have to question if the player who are not aware of already established tactics can survive, especially those unfamiliar with concept of multiple sorties. Is anyone having luck with keeping their national ratings positive?

Edited December 4, 2013 by ventuswings

[Dranak]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature I'm just unaware of.

Damaged Condor tops out at 1125 with AB active. If that's a feature, I guess it also explains the weird behavior where sometimes my cannon disappears mid-battle?

[StellarRat]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature I'm just unaware of.

Damaged Condor tops out at 1125 with AB active. If that's a feature, I guess it also explains the weird behavior where sometimes my cannon disappears mid-battle?

Are you trying to say your cannon was destroyed in combat? If so, I think that been around for a long time as well as engine damage slowing your jets down.

[Amiag]

this build made the game very frustrating for me (veteran difficulty)

even doing every mission i have access to the balance stays in the negative. With the new maintenance costs and the other changes maintaining a second base in the early game is impossible for me where with the last build i could easily have 3 or 4

Taking down ufos is now much harder then before, which leads to increase ufo activity. In my last playthrough Ive had 2 terror missions, an xcom base invasion and an alien base in the first 2-3 months.

I need 2 condors and a foxtrot on full hp to down a lone scout

Edited December 5, 2013 by Amiag

[Aaron]

@Dranak, that is actually a feature where certain parts of aircraft can be disabled - however we intend to disable it, as it really serves no purpose and is hardly explained.

[Dranak]

@Dranak, that is actually a feature where certain parts of aircraft can be disabled - however we intend to disable it, as it really serves no purpose and is hardly explained.

Ah, got it.

[winterwolves]

Do the countries take any notice of victories over water? With condors having trouble catching UFOs now, I am often tempted to take them down whenever I can get them, over water or not.

[StK]

@winterwolves:

Uhm.. I actually always take em out when Condors manage to engage because in my experience condors will never catch up again if you try to tail.

Aircombat is actually still my biggest concern in this new build.. When you are good at the game the changes are a nuisance but I think you will be able to catch up (If you don't get terribly unlucky).

But if you are either unlucky or not very good with aircombat you are simply toast.

Nothing that happens in any groundcombat can screw you over so completely as if you screw up once in an aircombat mission and loose a condor early. I'm not even sure if you can recover from that.

[Chris]

UFOs downed over water should be assigned to the closest landmass. Not sure if that system actually works, though!

[superbob]

Gotta say, things got tougher pretty fast

I wonder however if it isn't a little overkill right now. I just lost a battle against a bomber escorted by fighters, had 2 Foxtrots and one Condor. Even though I successfully unloaded all four alienium torpedoes on the main ship, it didn't go down.

Also, the Condor is now unable to deal with both fighters, even using a gatling laser. I mean, I've tried, and have pulled off many crazy stunts in the previous playthrough, but this just seems too difficult to accomplish.

Also, since two torpedoes do more damage than one Condor can do, doing this with only one Foxtrot is outright impossible. So... Is it by design that I have to let aliens go ahead with aerial terror missions and terror attacks with corvettes (couldn't take down an escorted Corvette either) at the start?

I kinda like it this way, after all it's not gameover for me yet, and with all the landing ships I've been taking down, I'm starting to get in a somewhat better position. Losing for a bit at first just to recover later on will certainly add variety to the game.

[Dranak]

You'll actually need 3 Foxtrots with Alenium missiles (2 with plasma) to kill a Bomber/Landing Ship/Corvette. Which means you pretty much need 5 aircraft (2 Condors, 3 Foxes) to kill any of those with an escort. If you're a new player and go lasers before explosives, I think you'd be pretty much screwed once Corvettes come around (Takes 5 Foxtrots with Avalanches to down one).

Have you been able to kill a Light Scout with a Condor with default weapons? I've had quite a few attempts end with my plane out of ammo and 99% damage on the UFO, but I've been unable to down one.

I'm mid-November (and probably won't get to play for a while now), and while I'm extremely strapped for cash it's going okay so far... but I wonder how players less well versed in the tech tree and air combat will do.

[StellarRat]

My only two comments about the Geoscape Balance in v7 are: 1. Success in Air Combat is much harder now. 2. It's much harder to add new bases. I'm sure I'll have more to say after a few more days of play time.

[superbob]

I usually take down scouts with Foxtrots now. If it's one of the big ones then it's easy, if it's a light scout then I set it up so a torpedo is fired at near 90deg angle to the alien craft. Usually it cannot dodge it then and ends being up blown outta the sky.

I'll try to get to Corsairs ASAP and see if that changes much.