Ground Balance Gun Technologies

[dakta]

Automatic upgrades make me really sad, once you finish research half of your stuff gets automatically replaced by new things. Choosing the older ones is not possible because they are obviously inferior(missiles). Please consider making guns and explosives feel different, technologies should not completely overlap each other.

A clear example of the OG was laser weaponry not needing ammo. There were some missions I would have to take my laser weaponry because I just didn't have enough plasma ammo. A laser pistol was also great because you didnt need to carry ammo for it.

Weapons:

Technology upgrades should have a clear damage increase but it should also affect weapons in different ways to add to the tactical layer of the game. Some suggestions:

• 
  Laser rifles doing 2x damage vs unarmored but .5 vs armored.
  
• Plasma shotguns eat cover for breakfast and dinner, but the spread is 2x wider so you have to be closer to be accurate.
  
• Mag Sniper has a chance of ignoring cover but not destroying it.
  

This will also help to de-homogenize the guns, as they are now, they all fight for the same role.

Ammo:

Please make different ammo a thing, it added so much flavor. Right now its really boring.

For ammo capacity there are 2 options; normal gun capacity and alien technology capacity:

15 round heavy(all tech) vs 50 round heavy(no tech). Same weight, same inv space, might as well be same icon.

This has so much potential to be more interesting but as its stands its just plain boring.

Make ammo weight differently depending on technology. So new soldiers cant be wielding the latest and greatest and you actually have to take penalties. Better weapon? cool but you get less ammo in chamber and less ammo to carry.

This is perfect with the latest ideas of deadlier aliens, I wont be using my best ammo for the easy to kill aliens.

Add ammo types, for the love of god where are the ammo types. Incendiary ammo to flush them out of cover or make them sit taking damage, explosive ammo to blow up cover, armor penetrating, anti personnel. Micromanaging

my magazines was so much fun in every XCOM game.

I understand that some new effects might be out of the question, but you have such a wide array of enemies. Telling me who is really armored and who isn't and letting me pick my targets with my AP rounds or electric rounds for robots would be really compelling.

TL/DR: Gun technologies only upgrade damage, this feels like a wasted opportunity considering the amount of tech upgrades we get.

[Max_Caine]

Different ammo types would only work for the first level of weapons tech and possibly the last level of weapons tech (which you only unlock right at the end). I'm not quite sure that investing coding time in implementing different ammo types if they're no good for 50% of the weapon types is a good idea.

[Solver]

While I do not think more ammo types are necessary (apart from incendiary rockets!), it would be nice to have some weapon differentiation. Currently ballistics are worse than lasers, those are worse than plasma, which are worse than Mag. It's a straight progression. Okay, ballistics have larger clips, but they are worse in every other way.

There are possibilities. One is of course to make one tier better vs. armor but do lower damage for example. Theoretically, one could also mess with weapon performance vs. specific enemy types. I am not sure if the team wants to go into this so late in development, but it would be interesting to see some way in which lasers are not completely inferior to plasmas.

[Gauddlike]

There have been many suggestion along these lines before but Chris does not want it to work that way so it doesn't.

He wanted a straight progression system where each tier is a clear upgrade of the previous one and that's what he did.

I would have preferred a different system as well but looks like that is something for the modders to work out.

[TrashMan]

Different ammo types would only work for the first level of weapons tech and possibly the last level of weapons tech (which you only unlock right at the end). I'm not quite sure that investing coding time in implementing different ammo types if they're no good for 50% of the weapon types is a good idea.

If that is what gives ballistic their niche, I don't see why not.

So what if 50% of weapons wouldn't benefit from different ammo types? Different weapons work differently. That is what gives them flavor.

Just because the original had weapons as a clear, liner improvement doesn't mean that's the only way to go.

I'd rather see reserach giving you more options rather then give you 10000% better options.

[TrashMan]

There have been many suggestion along these lines before but Chris does not want it to work that way so it doesn't.

He wanted a straight progression system where each tier is a clear upgrade of the previous one and that's what he did.

I would have preferred a different system as well but looks like that is something for the modders to work out.

Working on it.... give me a few days.

[dakta]

Why cant the other weapons have different ammo.

Was there any reasoning behind what chris said? After playing the campaing a few times I dont really get excited about the upgrades, they add nothing to my strategy except more damage.

[legit1337]

Don't kid yourselves. The original game had linear upgrades too. The fact that you sometimes had to fall back on laser technology because you ran out of plasma ammo was an intentional design choice to make the game harder... NOT a balance decision. Plasma was better in every situation then laser, period. Same for laser vs ballistics.

[Gauddlike]

Why cant the other weapons have different ammo.

Was there any reasoning behind what chris said? After playing the campaing a few times I dont really get excited about the upgrades, they add nothing to my strategy except more damage.

Different types of battery in a laser would maybe increase your ammo capacity but shouldn't really have an effect on what the laser weapon does when you fire it.

A different power source for plasma generating weapons would likely do the same.

So you could have different ammunition items for them but their effects would probably be minimal unless you abstract it away.

When you suggest multiple ammo types people tend to assume you want AP and incendiary laser beams which wouldn't be likely from the same weapon just by changing the battery

If I remember rightly Chris wanted each tier to be a clear upgrade that was worth spending the time, cash, and effort to research and build without the player being confused as to why the new weapon was no better than the old.

For explosives I don't really know but my feeling is that the changes were done because the financial aspect of the game is already a nightmare to balance so fewer items to have to worry about makes the job easier.

Plus if there is never a reason to use the older item then it might as well be automatic.

That can be turned off in the xml if I remember rightly.

There should be a flag to tell an item to replace a previous one, if it isn't flagged then it should sit alongside it, I haven't tested that recently though.

[TrashMan]

Say, the way armor migation currently works is that X migation ignores X armor and damaging the armor in the process. But damaging by how much?

If I have 100 armor and am shot 2 times by a 50 migation weapon, does that recude my armor to 0?

[Chris]

My view was that there should be weapon variation, but it should be provided inside the tiers (ie. shotguns vs rifles etc) rather than between the tiers. I think that gives better gameplay than having differentiation between the tiers....although it may make upgrades less exciting.

That said, if you're making the tiers different rather than improvements, you're also invalidating the research entirely. If lasers are different from ballistics instead of better, then you could just get really good with ballistic tactics and use them right the way through the game. You need to push the player to upgrade or the structure of the game doesn't really work.

It's not super-hard to add new ammo to the game, but the problem actually comes with displaying it in the soldier equip screen in the armoury, as there's only space for one clip beside each weapon.

Trashman - armour degrades by 20% of the damage it prevents, whereas mitigation just reduces the target's armour value by the mitigation of the weapon. So it causes more damage but less armour degradation than unmitigated shots.

[Solver]

That said, if you're making the tiers different rather than improvements, you're also invalidating the research entirely. If lasers are different from ballistics instead of better, then you could just get really good with ballistic tactics and use them right the way through the game. You need to push the player to upgrade or the structure of the game doesn't really work.

Don't you think the OG handled this gracefully? I always viewed its idea as being that higher tiers should be better in every regard, except very specific situations where a previous tier is better, like lasers vs. Sectopods. Consider for instance if lasers did extra damage vs. Androns (more than plasma). Then you'd still want plasma on non-Andron missions, while on Andron missions you'd likely want a mix. Some soldiers with the more effective lasers, and some with plasma to deal with Wraiths and whatever else.

[TrashMan]

My view was that there should be weapon variation, but it should be provided inside the tiers (ie. shotguns vs rifles etc) rather than between the tiers. I think that gives better gameplay than having differentiation between the tiers....although it may make upgrades less exciting.

That said, if you're making the tiers different rather than improvements, you're also invalidating the research entirely. If lasers are different from ballistics instead of better, then you could just get really good with ballistic tactics and use them right the way through the game. You need to push the player to upgrade or the structure of the game doesn't really work.

I have to disagree there.

While higher tiers are/should be OVERALL better - and thus more desirable- it shouldn't make other weapon TYPES completely obsolete. Because you're not talking a weapon tier as in weapon advancement - you have made weapon tiers a weapon type. Which is kinda flawed IMHO.

It's not like ballistic (or any weapon type) cannot be further improved trough research. And if research is the goal, then why force the research down a straight progression?

If I research HEAP bullets for ballistics or advanced ballistic, I'm still advancing my technology, am I not?

If I research improved batteries for laser, I'm still advancing.

It's not like the world would stop research in an entire weapon category completely just because another weapon category exists. M16 ->MAG. Where are the steps in between?

And by playing around with damage, armor migation, other values and resistances, once can create enemies and situation that would make the game harder for those that do not deversify.

It's not super-hard to add new ammo to the game, but the problem actually comes with displaying it in the soldier equip screen in the armoury, as there's only space for one clip beside each weapon.

Could it be done like the quick grenade selection?

Click on it to select type?

Trashman - armour degrades by 20% of the damage it prevents, whereas mitigation just reduces the target's armour value by the mitigation of the weapon. So it causes more damage but less armour degradation than unmitigated shots.

Ah. 20% is good. But I have to ask - is that number externalized so it can be modded?

[Gauddlike]

There is an armour degradation setting of 25 in config.xml.

I always figured that was the setting for it.

[Chris]

TrashMan - True, I suppose. That is a viable alternative research model. We didn't go down that route though, and it's a bit late to change everything now

The degradation number you're after is in config.xml, as Gauddlike mentions above.

[vaultdweller]

My view was that there should be weapon variation, but it should be provided inside the tiers (ie. shotguns vs rifles etc) rather than between the tiers. I think that gives better gameplay than having differentiation between the tiers....although it may make upgrades less exciting.

I agree, but still maintain that the weapon research can be made more exciting by occasionally adding additional options through research. You have a little bit of this with new grenade types and the stun baton, and the OG had this with the (game-breaking and over-powered) blaster launcher. You also have a bit of it on the armour research side - more so than the OG, actually.

I believe you mentioned that you plan to re-purpose the particle cannon into a new late-game weapon, and I hope that sees the light of day to keep weapon research feeling fresh.

[legit1337]

Blaster launcher wasn't overpowered it was just a really powerful lategame heavy weapon. Well ok the waypoints things was sorta bullsh*t.

Psionics was overpowered... I remember seeing a guy on youtube doing the last mission on cydonia without moving his men even 1 square.

I personally don't mind weapon tiers that are direct upgrades so long as there is differentiation between weapon types inside the tier and that there are no useless weapons (ala heavy laaser in the first xcom).

[dakta]

My view was that there should be weapon variation, but it should be provided inside the tiers (ie. shotguns vs rifles etc) rather than between the tiers. I think that gives better gameplay than having differentiation between the tiers....although it may make upgrades less exciting.

That said, if you're making the tiers different rather than improvements, you're also invalidating the research entirely. If lasers are different from ballistics instead of better, then you could just get really good with ballistic tactics and use them right the way through the game. You need to push the player to upgrade or the structure of the game doesn't really work.

It's not super-hard to add new ammo to the game, but the problem actually comes with displaying it in the soldier equip screen in the armory, as there's only space for one clip beside each weapon.

The game right now has enough enemy variety and technology tiers to add to the strategy only by tweaking values. I agree that guns should be differentiated by their class shotgun vs sniper etc. But adding Tech Tier flavor is not mutually exclusive.

I consider that although new tiers should add more damage, the old guns should not turn instantly into obsolete garbage. There can be a niche use for each technology, moreover I should have the possibility of define a strategy where at combination of gun type and technology complement each other.

I am sure that people around here could give much better suggestions than I can come up with. Off the top of my mind I see certain jobs that are not damage that are a need in the game and one tool should not solve them all.

DAMAGE

AMMO AND GUN CARRY WEIGHT

ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION

SPECIAL EFFECTS LIKE SUPPRESSION/BLINDING/STUNNING

ARMOR DEGRADING

ARMOR PIERCING

COVER PIERCING

ELECTRONIC DAMAGE

AMMO CAPACITY

TU COST

For explosives

EXPLOSIVE UNIT DAMAGE

EXPLOSIVE RADIUS

EXPLOSIVE COVER DAMAGE

Right now all is mostly the same except damage (or it feels the same). Weight, TU cost, Accuracy, bullet cap etc etc. Not everything needs to be a nightmare for balancing, but just details have a big impact.

I can safely say that any extra options you give the players for strategizing, will be received with open arms, the core principle of better technology = better damage could remain intact and the players that just want a linear progression will still have it.

PS. I am guessing the mechanic of unloading/reloading ammo that isn't fully spent is out of the question.

PPS. Great work so far, I am very glad to be a supporter.

Edited January 6, 2014 by dakta