STR vs. carrying capacity

[TrashMan]

But don't unarmored soldiers have a bit too much flexibility now? It's fine for them to be all-round good, with a weapon, extra ammo and a choice of grenades. But as it is, they can carry pretty much everything. Full belt of grenades, a weapon, a medkit, another weapon in the backpack and a C4 charge. You can give your snipers a shotgun in the backpack to let them switch to close combat when needed. I would say that is too much.

That doesn't sound like too much.

Have you even seen the amount of stuff a soldier can carry?

Have you ever seen a SpecOps soldier fully decked out?

You know that in the miltiary squads, you do have that guy with a rifle and a rocket launcher, right?

[Solver]

I do not think realism in those aspects should be a concern.

Even with the current numbers, soldiers can pretty much carry less weight than the average healthy but untrained man. I know any real soldier can carry a gun, spare ammo, a backpack full of stuff, all while wearing body armour. But that doesn't make for good gameplay necessarily. Just like real soldiers with basic training - let alone elite soldiers - would never miss half the shots at a gorilla-sized target from 50m distance. But realistic accuracy would kill gameplay.

[jeon]

I'm not sure how these guys with low strength are passing the physical requirement testing and training to join/stay in a special forces organization that is fighting aliens in the first place. Or how a person in peak physical strength can go from a score of 70 to a score of 100 by riding off on a helicopter and shooting some aliens for a few hours every week or so. They must do a lot of strength training while they are bored riding for hours on end to the crash sites.

As for the strength system itself... it is fine, there shouldn't be that much of a difference in being able to carry stuff. Maybe make the overloading TU penalty less severe and put some penalties on the different kinds of armor or something. I don't see how carrying more stuff is going to make it take that much longer to run between pieces of cover and lean over it and shoot aliens.

Of course with the balance going in the direction of aliens that are more lethal and easier to kill, the amount of equipment we need to bring will drop anyways.

[StellarRat]

I do not think realism in those aspects should be a concern.

Even with the current numbers, soldiers can pretty much carry less weight than the average healthy but untrained man. I know any real soldier can carry a gun, spare ammo, a backpack full of stuff, all while wearing body armour. But that doesn't make for good gameplay necessarily. Just like real soldiers with basic training - let alone elite soldiers - would never miss half the shots at a gorilla-sized target from 50m distance. But realistic accuracy would kill gameplay.

Soldiers can march all over the place with their backpacks on. But, normally, they don't wear them while they're fighting useless they are ambushed. I can see no reason for the Xenonauts to carry anything but weapons, ammo and a medkit since they don't need to "camp" anywhere.

[Solver]

A Xeno soldier's backpack isn't really like a large backpack for marches, though. Those huge backpacks can fit everything. Clothes, medical supplies, meal rations, hydration, a load of stuff. Xeno backpacks are more like a combination of assault packs and load bearing vests. Soldiers on an actual mission carry much less stuff than on a march or in a non-combat situation, but they still have much more equipment on them than just what fits in their hands.

[Jossis]

You know you can build your soldiers str up little by little .. all you have to do is go over the cap to where you're taking about a 2-3 tu penalty. At the beginning the aliens suck just as bad as your soldiers and 2 -3 tu penalty doesnt matter. Usually a clip or a grenade works when you have several of them laying around in your backpack you swap it out for a can of the heavy weapon eventually before you get power armor your soldiers str should be at 100.

[Derikari]

You don't have to go over. 80% or more of their carry capacity is enough to train strength.