Ground Combat Balance Discussion Build V21 Experimental 4!

[StellarRat]

Yeah, the later parts of the game are less well balanced simply because less people reach them and therefore there's less comment on them. We will be doing full playthroughs for our final balancing though so we'll get there eventually - especially as I'm currently testing the final mission.

Is there a way you can give us saves that are made around the time plasma weapons are researched? So, we can start the game 1/2 way through with the latest build? It would be much less time consuming then.

[StellarRat]

At no point is the aimed shot best, and most of the time the aimed shot has exactly the same expected damage as the burst shot.

Conclusion: For damage output 2x snap is best, and burst and aimed are the same.

Conclusion: For finishing blows on nearly dead enemies 2x snap is the best and burst the worst.

IMO, the aimed shot should always be best at long range.

Normal should be best at medium range.

Snapshot should be better at close range.

Finally, burst should be best a point blank range.

This is my personal experience with shooting rifles and pistols. I don't own a fully automatic weapon, however, the technique is the same as any other shot. The only difference is that the first round will be as accurate as any other type of fire, but the succeeding rounds in the burst will be less accurate due to the recoil and muzzle climb. This is what my Army buddies told me was their experience. My experience from trying to rapidly fire a semi-auto weapon is similar. This would be easy to model in code. You could simply add a progressive penalty to each round after the first one in a burst. So, first round same accuracy as a snapshot, second round reduce accuracy by say 20%, third round reduce by 40%, etc...

For fixed mount weapons like LMG's and vehicle mounted MG's it's different. They will be very accurate with all the rounds in burst because they are held down mechanically. That's why it's ALWAYS much more accurate to fire an LMG from the ground instead of from a standing position. For those you might make the first round as accurate as aimed or normal rifle fire, but reduce the succeeding rounds by a flat 20% or something. To be honest even the SAW is more accurate on the first round than a normal (non-sniper) rifle because of the bipod. It has a better effective range than the M-16 in real life even though they both fire the exact same ammo. However, if we had true modeling of LMG's in the game they would probably be OP.

Edited February 19, 2014 by StellarRat

[frank_walls]

Yeah, the later parts of the game are less well balanced simply because less people reach them and therefore there's less comment on them. We will be doing full playthroughs for our final balancing though so we'll get there eventually - especially as I'm currently testing the final mission.

Well that explains it then. I think the difficulty ramped up around the time I built my 2nd base. At that point I was doing well. I had a good stock of veteran soldiers, 2.5 million in the bank, and good country relations. After I built the 2nd base my first base (in the Middle East) would get 7 to 10 UFO's at once. Way more than I had the resources to kill. Combine that with the difficulty of the ground missions and I've lost 1/2 the world to the aliens, lose $500,000 a month, and barely have enough to stay abreast of the impending alien apocalypse. I love it!

[vaultdweller]

Also, just got the Valkyrie drop ship. A waste of money!

...

Well, my scimitar got destroyed in shot, then 3 out of 7 of my troops got killed before my turn started.

The later game is definitely not very well balanced (as Chris notes), but some of your problems must be stemming from the size of your deployments. Why are you sending such a small team to a battleship? The new dropships have almost no purpose aside from the extra squad capacity. You bought them to get extra space, so if you don't use the extra space then yes, they are a waste of money. You should be using the full capacity of the Valkyrie when you get it, and of the Shrike before it.

The Valkyrie has a troop capacity of... 16, I think? Sending it out 9/16 full is severely under strength. Throw some rookies on there as cannon fodder if you don't have enough good men to fill it. Some of those rookies will serve valiantly as meat shields, and some will survive to become good troops themselves.

If you aren't deploying full squads for the dropships you have available, you're going to be severely outnumbered and have a hard time because of it.

[StellarRat]

...some of your problems must be stemming from the size of your deployments...

I agree with this. It's mathematically proveable that numbers matter all other things being equal. I'd pack that ship with every man/vehicle it could hold.

[Dranak]

Yeah, I don't mean to diminish the rest of your feedback, but you should at least have a Shrike loooong before Battleships show up, and be using it to carry 12 men (or 10 and a tank).

[ventuswings]

Yeah, I've seen some late game missions and they don't seem notably difficult, besides some obvious abuses that need to be fixed out as Wraith teleport.

[frank_walls]

Perhaps it's the numbers, but it seems like it shouldn't make a huge difference. If I have a team of highly trained and well armored soldiers they should be able to handle a comparable number of enemies. I'm not fighting 20 guys at once - we're talking a group of 2 or 3 aliens killing off 7 guys in 2 turns. If the only way to defeat enemies is by just having a lot of guys then where's the strategy in that? A proper balance to the game would be that a large group of inexperienced soldiers would be equivalent to a smaller well trained group.

A lot of the problems are stemming from my guys constantly get shot when they're behind cover. I almost never hit an alien behind cover, but it's not the same for them. Also, the line of sight issue is a problem since they can get me before I can get them, and they always seem to have ungodly amounts of TU's. I've seen Sebillians stand up, walk 4 spaces, squeeze of 4 very accurate snap shots then crouch. Even my Commanders can't do that. Anyway, I'm going to start over now. I haven't beat a ground mission in days and I'm running out of money!

[Max_Caine]

The strategy behind having 12-16 troopers is that there's a bare minimum number of troopers required to carry out squad-level tactics such as flanking, posting flank guards, moving under a base of fire, establishing a medic post etc. etc. especially when facing opponents who have the technological advantage. Having more troopers does not mean throwing people in wave tactics at the aliens. It means having more options when dealing with aliens.

[DrNoid]

IMO, the aimed shot should always be best at long range.

Normal should be best at medium range.

Snapshot should be better at close range.

Finally, burst should be best a point blank range.

I agree. Unfortunately, from playing a bit with the numbers in the sheet, that can not be achieved with the current to-hit equations. Do try it out yourself, everybody should be able to edit the spreadsheet.

The best way to get that effect would be to change the RangePenalty equation. The important part:

(WeaponRange * 2 - Range) / WeaponRange (limited to 1)

Which is the same as:

2 - Range/WeaponRange (limited to 1)

This means weapons have a flat hitChance until WeaponRange, and then drop off linearly until 2*WeaponRange. And since WeaponRange is per-weapon and not per-weapon-per-shottype, the accuracy of a shot-type will always be above or below the accuracy of another shot-type, regardless of the range.

I guess the easiest would be to make the WeaponRange depend on shot-type. That would be a pretty ugly solution, but would allow for bursts with a higher short-range accuracy, and aimed shots with a higher long-range accuracy.

A slightly nicer way would be introducing a "RangeLimit" parameter, defining after how many ranges the RangePenalty reaches 0, and change the equation to:

RangeLimit - Range/WeaponRange (limited to 1)

A weapon/shot-type with a low RangeLimit but a high Range would have a short plateau, but a long, gentle slope.

A weapon/shot-type with a high RangeLimit and a low Range would have a long plateau, but a short, steep slope.

Of course I don't know how feasible any of these suggestions are...

[TrashMan]

For me 12 is the maximum number of troops I find comfortable.

Do I?d go with 8->10->12

16 is getting cumbersome and slows the game down, partially because the enemy must field even MORE aliens to compensate, turning later missions into a "waiting for alien turn to end"

[Chris]

Yes, the Sebbies in particular have far too many TU at high ranks too. It's something I fixed pretty fast in the dev version when I was fighting their elites in the final mission.

We had some internal debate over maximum squad sizes, but in the end I think we settled on 16 because it comes towards the end of the game and it gives more of a sense of progression. Plus the original game had some ludicrous cap like 22 or something; so reducing that to 12 might have been a little too unfaithful.

[StellarRat]

I agree. Unfortunately, from playing a bit with the numbers in the sheet, that can not be achieved with the current to-hit equations.

That doesn't surprise me. Maybe range itself should be affected by the shot type. Remember that we don't really care if aimed shots at close range are super accurate because they should have a high TU cost and accuracy is capped. So, two 80% snapshots at close range are still way better than one 95% aimed.

[Chris]

Btw I'l play with that spreadsheet at some point, too, as I'm sure it'll be a useful tool. I've just not got around to it yet.

[Max_Caine]

Regarding Elite/Warrior Sebbies, I find they have too many TU in relation to the gear they're carrying. Aaron talked last year about doing an "elite heavy plasma" and possibly rather than cut the TUs too far it may be better to make an "elite" version of Heavy Plasma with a jacked up TU cost (and possibly some other improvement such as boosted range) so the only benefit Warriors/Elites/Leaders get from their TU is an improved ability to move. (I mean, if you set the snap TU cost to 35, then a Warrior/Elite/Leader Sebbie could only fire 2 snaps tops).

[legit1337]

IMO, the aimed shot should always be best at long range.

Normal should be best at medium range.

Snapshot should be better at close range.

Finally, burst should be best a point blank range.

This is my personal experience with shooting rifles and pistols. I don't own a fully automatic weapon, however, the technique is the same as any other shot. The only difference is that the first round will be as accurate as any other type of fire, but the succeeding rounds in the burst will be less accurate due to the recoil and muzzle climb. This is what my Army buddies told me was their experience. My experience from trying to rapidly fire a semi-auto weapon is similar. This would be easy to model in code. You could simply add a progressive penalty to each round after the first one in a burst. So, first round same accuracy as a snapshot, second round reduce accuracy by say 20%, third round reduce by 40%, etc...

For fixed mount weapons like LMG's and vehicle mounted MG's it's different. They will be very accurate with all the rounds in burst because they are held down mechanically. That's why it's ALWAYS much more accurate to fire an LMG from the ground instead of from a standing position. For those you might make the first round as accurate as aimed or normal rifle fire, but reduce the succeeding rounds by a flat 20% or something. To be honest even the SAW is more accurate on the first round than a normal (non-sniper) rifle because of the bipod. It has a better effective range than the M-16 in real life even though they both fire the exact same ammo. However, if we had true modeling of LMG's in the game they would probably be OP.

I disagree. When I was in the army, I was a qualified on the m16a4 weapon system. Part of that training was shooting in burst fire mode at man sized targets at roughly 100 meters. As you said, the first shot is as accurate as any single shot round and the other two are usually off slightly due to recoil. I was able to achieve foot wide groupings at this distance.

Burst fire was recommended by my instructors at any target within 100m due to stopping power of three rounds as opposed to one. Also, more lead downrange is always good, even if it is inaccurate. Volume of fire is WAY more important in midrange firefights then accuracy. That is why you see any real life firefight degenerate into unloading magazines at wherever the enemy forces are.

I think burst mode should be the best firing mode at point blank, close, and mid-range... aimed the best at long-range... and normal and snap shots reserved as firing options for someone who wants to maneuver and shoot. Snap shot will obviously always be better then normal/aimed shot at close range because accuracy is capped and snap shot gives you 2 shots for the price of 1 aimed shot.

If we do it your way the accuracy of burst-fire would have to be atrocious in order to make the other shots better and that simply isn't the case. I would also want to pick the shot that gives me the best TU/hit efficiency, which is normal shot at midrange? What if I have 40 TUs and what if I want to shoot a burst or aimed? By your system it would be more viable to take a normal shot then an aimed/burst?

My suggestion offers a single best firing mode at any lange except long: Burst. At long distances aimed would surpass burst. The other two shots are for maneuvering while shooting. Easy, simple logic to reach the most efficient shot. No eyeballing of ranges and trying to pick the best one. The most expensive shot TU wise should be the most efficient (TU/hit wise) simply because it makes a choice out of maneuvering or standing still and shooting.

Unlike in the OG where auto-fire was king... burst fire won't turn into the only shot used in the game because it is only available on assault rifles, which SHOULD be the best at mid-range combat anyway.

Sorry if I rambled a bit. I wanted to get my point across but didn't have much time to write this so the post is a little rough.

Edited February 21, 2014 by legit1337

[StellarRat]

I disagree. When I was in the army, I was a qualified on the m16a4 weapon system. Part of that training was shooting in burst fire mode at man sized targets at roughly 100 meters. As you said, the first shot is as accurate as any single shot round and the other two are usually off slightly due to recoil. I was able to achieve foot wide groupings at this distance.

I think burst mode should be the best firing mode at point blank, close, and mid-range... aimed the best at long-range... and normal and snap shots reserved as firing options for someone who wants to maneuver and shoot. Snap shot will obviously always be better then normal/aimed shot at close range because accuracy is capped and snap shot gives you 2 shots for the price of 1 aimed shot.

If we do it your way the accuracy of burst-fire would have to be atrocious in order to make the other shots better and that simply isn't the case.

Two points, to me 100 meters is close range with a rifle. Second, I agree the burst should be preferable out to 250 meters or so in real life and there really isn't much reason it couldn't be use further out as an aimed shot for that matter. I simply chopped down it's effectiveness in my suggestions to keep it from being OP compared to the other shots. You're absolutely right that it doesn't make much sense to use anything less than bursts if the ammo is available. If it was done your way there would have to be quite a bit of weapons rebalancing done, IMO. My guess is that the TU cost of snapshots would have to be reduced to make them useful compared to the other shots, etc... Edited February 21, 2014 by StellarRat

[frank_walls]

Okay. So I tried 10 guys and a Hyperion tank on an alien base assault. Still did not go well. The aliens just seem to have a ridiculous amount of TU's, and my guys just don't have enough to make it from room to room effectively. I had six guys lined up in front of door, waited until the start of my turn and opened the door, and saw 3 aliens. All 6 of my guys were able to get shots off and only kill one alien. Everything else missed. It's about the only thing I can do because they don't have enough TU to open the door and run into the room and shoot. Anyway, after everyone missed I could only move 2 guys out of the way (by just a couple of squares). Alien one runs up, throws a grenade that blows up (not at the end of the turn like mine do) then shoots one of my guys dead. Alien 2 runs up and throws a grenade that explodes and kills 2 more guys, then snap shots another guy to death. Both aliens also had enough TU left to run behind the wall.

Have you guys made it as far on this latest release? Just wondering if anyone else is having similar experiences.

[DrNoid]

I disagree. When I was in the army, I was a qualified on the m16a4 weapon system. Part of that training was shooting in burst fire mode at man sized targets at roughly 100 meters. As you said, the first shot is as accurate as any single shot round and the other two are usually off slightly due to recoil. I was able to achieve foot wide groupings at this distance.

But I'm guessing you where aiming those bursts... In real life you don't have just 1 option for burst fire, you can have everything from "spray 'n pray" to carefully aimed bursts. I've never fired a gun, so I have no clue about how much "real life TUs" a burst takes. Is the in-game burst more akin to a snapshot-burst or a aimed-shot-burst? How many of those close-grouped bursts could you make, compared to equally accurate single shots?

But then again, this is a game, we want interesting options, not necessarily realistic options.

My guess is that the TU cost of snapshots would have to be reduced to make them useful compared to the other shots, etc...

No need to guess, we have the numbers in the spreadsheet. Unless there is a calculation error in there (always possible), snapshots are already king at any range. Two snapshots costs a bit more TU's (15 more than 1 aimed shot, 10 more than a burst), but they beat the others in terms of damage and chance-to-hit. The only reason not to use 'em is if you're really short on TUs.

The question is not what the best shot is, the question is what the best shot should be, and whether we want there to be a different best shot at different ranges.

Edited February 21, 2014 by DrNoid

[StellarRat]

But I'm guessing you where aiming those bursts... In real life you don't have just 1 option for burst fire, you can have everything from "spray 'n pray" to carefully aimed bursts. I've never fired a gun, so I have no clue about how much "real life TUs" a burst takes. Is the in-game burst more akin to a snapshot-burst or a aimed-shot-burst? How many of those close-grouped bursts could you make, compared to equally accurate single shots?

No need to guess, we have the numbers in the spreadsheet. Unless there is a calculation error in there (always possible), snapshots are already king at any range. Two snapshots costs a bit more TU's (15 more than 1 aimed shot, 10 more than a burst), but they beat the others in terms of damage and chance-to-hit. The only reason not to use 'em is if you're really short on TUs.

The question is not what the best shot is, the question is what the best shot should be, and whether we want there to be a different best shot at different ranges.

So to your first point, it depends on how the type of assault rifle. The later model M-16's aren't capable of firing more than 3 rounds per burst. So there is no spray and pray option with those. The US Army found that full unlimited auto fire was very wasteful of ammo specially since only the first few rounds had a decent chance of hitting the target so the rifle was mechanically limited to three round bursts. The AK-47 doesn't have this feature. They only weapons that would be truly effective in spray and pray type fire are the full auto LMG type weapon in the game. LMG and Scatter Laser, etc...

In my opinion to really do the burst fire thing correctly, you should select single or burst fire THEN select what type of shot you are going to attempt. So, you'd could pick burst/snap, burst/normal, burst/aimed OR single/snap, single/normal, single/aimed with an assault rifle. The more modern ones often have a small scope attached in addition to the iron sights if you want to engage in sniping type fire. It is a very flexible weapon. The Swiss Army knife of rifles.

Your second point about snapshots: Yeah, they are too good right now, IMO. They should be much less accurate and take even less TU. Those would strictly be on the run, low TU, type shots that are basically point and shoot, no real aiming involved. Great when you throw open the door to a UFO and an alien is standing right in front of you, etc... not good at all if there is any range involved.

As far as the TU to fire auto vs. single...it's not much different for either. Those three rounds are out of the barrel in about 1/2 a second or less. So the burst cost of 40 TUs doesn't really make much sense unless it's an aimed burst shot that is being represented. 99.9% of the time for shooting a personal weapon is spent aiming, IMO.

You correct, GH needs to decide what each type of shot is supposed to represent then match the TU costs and accuracy to them.

Edited February 21, 2014 by StellarRat

[StellarRat]

Okay. So I tried 10 guys and a Hyperion tank on an alien base assault. Still did not go well. The aliens just seem to have a ridiculous amount of TU's, and my guys just don't have enough to make it from room to room effectively.

Are you using lots of explosives? When I do base assaults I blow every door with C4. My guys are always behind cover back a good distance watching the door with full TU available when the C4 goes off. Any aliens behind the door get blown up and the ones further back should be beyond grenade range for at least one turn i.e. they need to move up first. If any aliens come charging out they are cut down by my team as soon as they get to the door threshold. Also, I have no issues using rockets launchers in bases. I always have two guys with launchers and plenty of ammo even if some of my other guys have to carry spare rockets for launchers.

[frank_walls]

Are you using lots of explosives? When I do base assaults I blow every door with C4.

I haven't tried the C4, and I didn't know it damaged guys behind the door! I usually have my guys behind cover, and have a pvt open the door. Then a rocket guy launches rocket/s into the room and the plasma snipers, plasma rifles, plasma casters pick anyone else off. It works sometimes, but I invariably run into the problem of not being able to get my guys into the room with enough TU's left for reaction fire, at which point the Sebbies run in from other rooms and blast my guys behind cover. That's what the tank was for, running in and blowing anyone up within range. The tank is usually taken out quickly though.

Some of the problems I'm having may definitely be the strategy I'm using, so hopefully I don't seem like a total noob here! I did play both X-com's (UFO, and Terror from the Deep)to the end so I'm just using similar strategies from that experience. I do have to say Xenonauts is far superior though. As much as I get pissed when the aliens slaughter my guys, I always think, "Well, that's what I would do if I was them." So the difficulty is kind of a love hate relationship at the moment, lol.

[StellarRat]

I haven't tried the C4, and I didn't know it damaged guys behind the door! I usually have my guys behind cover, and have a pvt open the door.

You must lose a lot of Pvts. What I do is have a Private get close enough to throw the charge against door with a 2 turn timer set. Then, he runs back, puts his weapon back in hand, and positions with the others to cover the doorway from a distance. Since you have a tank you can use that to cover too. So you've got something like 6 - 10 guys covering the door. If an alien steps out before the charge goes off you should be able to mow him down with that many guys covering. If steps out on the turn the charge goes off he's toast, if he's behind door waiting he's still toast. Once the door blows you can use your rockets and tank fire to really mess up their day inside. Also, there's nothing that says you can use two charges on the door. Nothing around it will survive that. Once you breached the door and killed everyone you can see, one of two things will probably happen. Either the aliens will try to advance out the door on you (Androns and Sebs will do this) or they'll take up positions inside and wait for your guys. The advancing ones are easier because they'll walk right into your entire squads' LOF and get cut down. The others are harder. You can just use your tank and rockets to totally destroy the room piece by piece if it's small. If not, you'll have to advance into it using smoke. When I'm doing that I make sure at least two of my guys have a grenade in each hand then I move up and stick to the walls. Once I'm right at the corners I'll only advance at the start of a turn with full TU and hope I can grenade anyone I see before they get a shot off. You'll find that the first two rooms in any base are by far the toughest fight because they'll be bottlenecks to the rest of the base AND fighting will draw in any aliens from adjacent rooms. By the time you have those two rooms cleared you'll probably have killed at least 75% of the aliens in the entire base. Then you're golden until you get to the control room. That has to taken the same way. I use gobs of grenades and stun gas in there. You'll probably lose some people, but you should be able to take even a large bases with only 2 - 3 casualties. Edited February 21, 2014 by StellarRat

[MrPyro]

Along with explosives, the heavy weapons on the Hyperion should be able to destroy doors; I've used that as a tactic.

[legit1337]

So to your first point, it depends on how the type of assault rifle. The later model M-16's aren't capable of firing more than 3 rounds per burst. So there is no spray and pray option with those. The US Army found that full unlimited auto fire was very wasteful of ammo specially since only the first few rounds had a decent chance of hitting the target so the rifle was mechanically limited to three round bursts. The AK-47 doesn't have this feature. They only weapons that would be truly effective in spray and pray type fire are the full auto LMG type weapon in the game. LMG and Scatter Laser, etc...

In my opinion to really do the burst fire thing correctly, you should select single or burst fire THEN select what type of shot you are going to attempt. So, you'd could pick burst/snap, burst/normal, burst/aimed OR single/snap, single/normal, single/aimed with an assault rifle. The more modern ones often have a small scope attached in addition to the iron sights if you want to engage in sniping type fire. It is a very flexible weapon. The Swiss Army knife of rifles.

Your second point about snapshots: Yeah, they are too good right now, IMO. They should be much less accurate and take even less TU. Those would strictly be on the run, low TU, type shots that are basically point and shoot, no real aiming involved. Great when you throw open the door to a UFO and an alien is standing right in front of you, etc... not good at all if there is any range involved.

As far as the TU to fire auto vs. single...it's not much different for either. Those three rounds are out of the barrel in about 1/2 a second or less. So the burst cost of 40 TUs doesn't really make much sense unless it's an aimed burst shot that is being represented. 99.9% of the time for shooting a personal weapon is spent aiming, IMO.

You correct, GH needs to decide what each type of shot is supposed to represent then match the TU costs and accuracy to them.

I always thought that a 40 TU burst shot implied an aimed burst.

Balancing TU/hit effectiveness to favor different shots at different ranges is unnecessary IMO. The most costly TU shot should be the most TU/hit efficient. Except in the case of close range where accuracy is capped and volume of fire becomes more important.(snap/burst) Or at long distance where accuracy is more important than volume of fire. (aimed)

I honestly think TU prices are good where they are now. Base accuracy for the shots should be tweaked.