Chris' Amazing Balance Patch V1!

[Max_Caine]

You could make alien ufos, and as consequence, aliens much more dangerous by reducing their open-plan design. Take the scout, for instance. It's not that hard to play the Door Trick with the scout because the cockpit is completely open, and the landing ship is a shooting gallery. If we're going to have that big open bay in the landing ship, it'd be more engaging if there was lots of stuff in it, with possibly some walls mid-way or something to break up the possibilty of just staying at the door and blazing away.

EDIT: What a UFO could be (should be?) is something similar to a human base assault, where there's always more than one way into a room, there's lots of popping into and out (in this case, doors), if the ufos were divided up a little more into interconnected sections. Give it a cramped feel, like in the OG.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Belmakor]

1) In Xenonauts, aliens all spawn facing north-east. This means there is no chance of getting any reaction fire on turn 1 unless you are approaching the aliens from that direction, and generally the dropships spawn along the bottom edges of the map and so this is a rare occurrence (whereas in the OG you're under fire from the moment you disembark). I'm surprised nobody's picked up on this before, actually, Aaron and myself included. We need to add some logic so the aliens spawn facing the dropship.

2) The shots in the OG travel INCREDIBLY slowly, whereas ours travel very quickly. I'm also going to drop the projectile speed in the game to about 35% of what it currently is to see if it helps build suspense. However, after having played a couple of missions with it on, I'm not sure it's one we'll be retaining after the first balance patch.

1. I would be for this as long as those aliens don't reaction fire us with a Plasma Cannon! I would hope the likes of the heavy weapons have very low reaction fire modifiers anyway?

2. They did travel slowly, but maybe this was a result of hardware limitations at the time rather than a design choice (for better or for worse). For example, if you play the old game in DOSBox and use a normal speed processor these days, walking, shooting etc is a hundred miles an hour.

I think the speed is fine as is.

[Skitso]

I'm pretty sure those slow projectiles in the OG were due hardware limitations. In Xenonauts I'd like them to be even faster than what they are now for that extra bang. Could be pretty terrifying to walk around a corner and "bam!" In a fraction of a second, the unit is dead. Especially more technologically advanced weapons later in game could be really fast to differentiate from normal ballistics...

More cramped, tight and claustrophobic maps with limited LOS have been on my want list from the very beginning.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Skitso

[dakta]

Please consider cover as a big element, Not being able to root out aliens of good cover is great forcing people to flank. Please consider reworking the explosive or the ammo types to something specifically built to get rid of cover.

As it is explosives are garbage, they don't get rid of map elements very well and they are very expensive, inventory space/TU/Reload

Using a rocket launcher is a complete joke considering a heavy gun can do exactly the same with much less TU/ammo/inv space/accuracy/range

I think guns should have ammo types, some that are able to penetrate cover but not destroy it, some that are good at getting rid of cover (explosive ammo), but dont do good damage, ammo that flushes enemy from cover by making it unusable (incendiary), ammo that is good at hitting exposed enemies (anti personnel). This will synergize nicely with the inventory space and soldier usage.

Give us meaningful tools

And if you consider this ammo thing, please let me unload partially used ammo. I want to save the environment and not waste.

[Alturys]

My version of the game already has those fixes in it, so it's hardly a problem for me. It's more than likely you'll have the fixed V20 on the Stable branch and my patch on the Experimental branch.

Great

I'm impatient to test the new experimental build. I think the changes are good as you are trying to have a more dynamic gameplay. I'm a little bit worried by the cover change, i think the 50% reduction is a little bit too much...

[Solver]

I am not sure what you mean by not being under fire during thhe first turn, Chris. I occasionally see an alien right at mission start, fire at it from the dropship, and get reaction fire back.

Some maps that are more cramped, and aliens in buildings, would be a huge improvement. UFO assaults have long been something I find underwhelming, there is little room to room fighting, and up until Carriers the alien ships feel too simple to attack.

As for therycrafting, I am not a fan of further accuracy increases. V20 aleready feels like weapons are very accurate to the point where most rookies become sharpshooters after a few missions.

[jeon]

In the OG the speed of bullets is processor dependent and there is a setting for the speed that the shots travel in the battle options menu for adjustment.

Since there are armor types for each damage type I made all explosive type weapons incendiary, increased their damage, and increased the armor vs. incendiary for everything (except vehicles and drones since lore-wise they are supposed to be vulnerable to some of the incendiary type weapons). I also increased the explosion radii. This has the effect of making explosives better at destroying cover without making them super powerful. I actually decreased the radii and throwing range of the C4 and Plasma charges and increased their damage further because I see them more as shaped charges for blowing up a smaller section of something and not as weapons of mass destruction to be lobbed into rooms to blow up entire armies.

Although the easiest way for balancing the damage to cover for explosives would be if the IncendiaryDamageBonusMul would get fixed to only apply to damage vs. terrain.

There is one thing in regards to armor that I am having a hard time with balancing for some of the changes I have been trying out. Each damage type has corresponding armor which is great. The problem is that only the corresponding armor type to the damage received is reduced when damage is absorbed by the armor. This makes for some very awkward transitions between tiers of weapons that switch between kinetic and energy damage and it makes the softening up of the target with explosives not as effective as it should be. In the base game it isn't really a problem because the aliens have tons of hp and little armor, although it is pretty awkward considering the lore and appearance of the aliens of being armored and not really physically all that superior to humans for the most part. It also makes the mitigation numbers of the higher tier weapons pointless except for reaction fire killing your own troops.

Also, with the alien accuracy being above 100, they definitely lose accuracy when crouching, I tested it out by using some crazy numbers. I set non-combatant alien accuracy to 5000. I set plasma pistol accuracy for the shots to 5 and 10. Range to 30. Damage to 5 and mitigation to 1000 so I could be sure of hits but not die instantly. I started a new game and went to the first light scout I shot down. My men were standing in the open. When the aliens were standing they hit every single shot they fired. When they were crouching they missed almost every single shot they fired. I repeated the test for several turns and my observations indicated that the aliens suffer from the same capping of soldier accuracy at 100 when crouching would increase your accuracy past 100.

[Chris]

Actually, quite a lot of their maps aren't closed and claustrophic. Their forest and desert ones etc are very open.

Interestingly, the OG doesn't have any concept of weapon range. A weapon is accurate at any range, provided you have LOS. It's just the pistols are less accurate than rifles etc.

[Ryodan]

ok after reading this thread and carefully considering some of the suggestions and goals listed here I have a few comments.

Cover, right now cover is good the way it is because it encourages flanking and rewards the player for taking the time to carefully set up a flank attack.

another idea, explosives should cause a wide radius of shrapnel causing bleeding, but need to be able to be thrown farther.

Burst fire should be the only form of fire that suppresses as it causes the player to make a choice, do I burst fire/suppress or take an accurate shot that might do damage. each has a use. With this we need the ability to tell our troops weather or not to burst fire as a reaction shot.

if you really want to make ground combat for suspenseful and interesting you need to add some variety. It does not matter what strategy the aliens use if they use it every time the player knows what to expect. This next suggestion would require more work than I expect you can get done before release but long term I believe it would be amazing. Multiple alien strategies. Write more than one "defensive plan" the aliens would use in a downed ufo mission. This would leave the player unsure what to expect during the mission, unsure where to find the aliens. Those unsure feelings cause the suspense.

Examples of different alien ai could be

1. defend the ufo (combat aliens take cover near ufo and hold position, moving only to stay in cover based on xeno approach and defend the ufo.

2. aggressive ai, aliens including non-coms rush the xeno force in an all out kill or be killed fashion.

3. run/hide. aliens bunker up in a building or lots of cover area in attempt to hide from xeno forces\

4. aliens rig the ufo with explosives and blow it up after so many turns.

these strategies are just quick ideas I havnt put a lot of thought in the possibilities but I do know adding variety to the missions would add enjoyment, suspense, and more xeno casualties. Especially if you provide incentive to move faster from idea #4 above.

Also consider any mission the non-coms stay inside the ship that they actively work towards destroying the ufo components still intact one at a time, providing additional reason to speed up the approach.

I've already gotten tired of the standard ufo mission and its not that I dislike ground combat, its that they all play out the same. crawl cover to cover shoot aliens, approach door open/shoot/close repeat till aliens are dead. win and profit.

[Solver]

The OG's lack of weapon range is probably one of the weakest elements in the battlescape. A high accuracy soldier is equally deadly at all ranges, a low accuracy rookie manages to completely miss targets even at point blank range. I am glad Xeno has range.

On the subject of alien strength, I would somehow like to keep the strong and hard to kill aliens of the current builds, while also making them possible to kill with reaction fire. Perhaps decrease alien health, buff armour, and give reaction shots a bonus against armour? Reaction fire is definitely useful but still feels a bit tame as it almost always does damage without killing.

[Ol' Stinky]

Stinky - how do you mean, chain-suppress? Just using large amounts of firepower on a target, and making it really easy to kill them the next turn? It's meant to be useful but not OP - if it's a big thing, perhaps suppression could be limited to certain weapons like the machinegun, or at least only to burst fire? Now's the best time to consider these sort of things.

It's fairly easy to keep an alien suppressed forever once you get them to zero in the first place. A Caesan warrior regens 20 points of suppression resist per turn, right? Which is how much an assault rifle does with a single shot.

Since all a suppressed alien is going to do is fire off a weak snap shot, it's something that needs to be considered for goal #6, especially if you're going to lower the number of aliens in ground combat. I'm not sure I really have much of a solution other than increasing suppression regeneration from 25%/turn to something a lot more drastic, like 50%-75%, and maybe tweak the Seb suppression variable if those guys can't be kept down.

Another thing I'd like to suggest: lower the assault rifles' range from 20 to 18. People have been saying that snipers don't have much of a niche right now, and that's because assault rifles pretty much are mobile snipers at the moment. With the range nerf, they wouldn't be able to suppress without going into enemy LoS (except against Sebs): long range suppression would be the domain of the LMG and sniper rifle.

Edited January 2, 2014 by Ol' Stinky

[Belmakor]

Another thing I'd like to suggest: lower the assault rifles' range from 20 to 18. People have been saying that snipers don't have much of a niche right now' date=' and that's because assault rifles pretty much are mobile snipers at the moment. With the range nerf, they wouldn't be able to suppress without going into enemy LoS (except against Sebs): long range suppression would be the domain of the LMG and sniper rifle.[/quote']

Except that Rifles are already under-powered (IMHO). I mean a typical Cas will happily take 3-4 shots to take down, and a Seb can sometimes take 8. If you reduce the range, then they become even more worthless. At the moment the rifle is basically a long range pistol that costs more to fire and has a burst option.

[Skitso]

Yeah, I don't think it's good to nerf rifle anymore. I'd rather see the global accuracy decreased so high accuracy weapons would stand out more.

[legit1337]

I third the opinion for the global accuracy nerfs.

Before the accuracy buffs, the base accuracy was too low, soldiers would miss targets very close to them. But since the change it's been the opposite.

I think 1.25 would be a good place to start. Directly in the middle between what they are now, and what they used to be.

[Ol' Stinky]

Except that Rifles are already under-powered (IMHO). I mean a typical Cas will happily take 3-4 shots to take down, and a Seb can sometimes take 8. If you reduce the range, then they become even more worthless. At the moment the rifle is basically a long range pistol that costs more to fire and has a burst option.

If aliens are made more fragile at the same time, that's going to effectively improve the rifle's damage. I guess it depends how the other changes work out, though.

[Gauddlike]

Except that Rifles are already under-powered (IMHO). I mean a typical Cas will happily take 3-4 shots to take down, and a Seb can sometimes take 8. If you reduce the range, then they become even more worthless. At the moment the rifle is basically a long range pistol that costs more to fire and has a burst option.

But don't the proposed changes also include reduction in the toughness of the enemies, reduced cover effectiveness, lower AP costs for movement, and increased accuracy?

That would mean the rifles will suddenly jump up in damage relative to the total health of the enemy and become more accurate as well as potentially firing more rounds per turn and have less chance of being stopped by cover.

A range reduction would only affect the damage and accuracy at extreme range leaving them pretty much unchanged at short and medium range and also reducing their suppression uses.

Sounds like you are trying to balance one of the proposed changes against the current version rather than taking them as a whole.

Really need to wait and see how the weapons behave under the new set of changes though before I could definitely say which were right and which needed a buff/nerf.

[theSovereign]

I am really looking forward to these changes (especially the increased stat variety of soldiers.. interestingly enough, 30-70 is what i would have suggested .

When will it be on Experimental so I can start a new game?

[StellarRat]

Actually, quite a lot of their maps aren't closed and claustrophic. Their forest and desert ones etc are very open.

Interestingly, the OG doesn't have any concept of weapon range. A weapon is accurate at any range, provided you have LOS. It's just the pistols are less accurate than rifles etc.

I think one could argue that there shouldn't be any range in your game too. If you look at the visual ground scale any medicore rifleman would hit nearly 100% of the time. Realistically, only pistols and shotguns should suffer from range on a map this small. However, I'm glad you do in fact have range in the game even if the ground scale and shooting scale don't "match".

As far as slowing down the shot drawing. I'm not in favor of that at all. It looked silly in OG AND it actually slows down game play.

Edited January 2, 2014 by StellarRat

[Dranak]

I like the idea of aliens being less bullet-spongy (just had a Reaper survive two direct hits from plasma grenades...), the rest I'm skeptical of but we'll see what happens in actual gameplay.

I'll second being against slowing down projectiles though. Bullets that fly forever are one of the more annoying features of playing the OG.

[StellarRat]

As far as slowing down the shot drawing. I'm not in favor of that at all. It looked silly in OG AND it actually slows down game play.

I'm going to revise this slightly: I wouldn't be opposed to off map alien fire being slow as it would help to trace where the shots are coming from. As far as other shooting, I'm still opposed, specially Xenonaut firing.

[smoitessier]

perhaps suppression could be limited to certain weapons like the machinegun, or at least only to burst fire? Now's the best time to consider these sort of things.

It's really weird suppressing someone with a sniper rifle in one shot, it as happened many times, but I't nice to be able to suppress an alien once in a while with 2 guys shooting pot shots

edit: and while on the subject, i think the aliens are a bit skittish in regards to suppression, it's ok for non combatants but warriors classes should wage through a couple bursts unhindered imo, now i haven't had any experience with builds after v19 so maybe it's already good now.

Edited January 2, 2014 by smoitessier

[legit1337]

Suppressing someone with a single sniper rifle shot makes perfect sense. It's a very powerful, accurate round and if it whizzes by your head and you have no idea where it came from you would probably huddle in cover too.

IRL single snipers have held back the advance of entire battalions before.

[StellarRat]

Suppressing someone with a single sniper rifle shot makes perfect sense. It's a very powerful, accurate round and if it whizzes by your head and you have no idea where it came from you would probably huddle in cover too.

IRL single snipers have held back the advance of entire battalions before.

Any bullets whizzing past my head are suppressive, LOL. Machineguns can suppress by sound alone if they are close enough. Same with artillery.

[Commissar Pancakes]

Case in point: The OG

How many times have we all crapped our pants when a plasma bolt came flying out of the black and impacted near one of our troopers, forcing us to advance extremely slowly?

At least the bolt showed us where the shot was coming from. Imagine what happens when you DON'T know the direction of the shooter.

[legit1337]

Personally I think the projectile speeds are fine as they are now. Quick enough to not appear cheesy, but slow enough to show the direction that they are coming from.