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Weapon Role Thoughts


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However, remember that the idea here is to create a fun and interesting weapon rather than a realistic one. In video games, machineguns can often exhaust their ammo relatively quickly because they fire so many shots - indeed, XCOM 2012 has the MEC minigun hold two shots and the conventional one hold the same amount of ammo as the other weapons...or possibly one shot less, I forget.

I would argue that you can have fun and interesting, and realistic. Also, breaking too far away from reality in a game where everything is modeled after realistic items is not fun and interesting.

For the MG it should depend on the style that is pictured. The one in the picture looks like an MG42 or similar type of weapon. In that case it should have a high rate of fire and ammo capacity since it is pictured with a belt feed for ammo. A 50 round magazine that fires 10 rounds per shot with high suppression makes sense. I like the way it fires now, and the ammo capacity. I also don't think it is OP right now. Half of those 10 shots miss unless I'm lucky, and I need to keep my soldier camped somewhere. Also, once I get to Laser weapons I never use it anymore.

With a 20 round capacity I'll probably just switch my MG guy to a Rocketeer. 4 Rockets with a guaranteed kill over 4 bursts from an MG that might miss is much better.

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I like it when they explode right away as long as you can throw them over things properly. Recently I've noticed my guys can't throw them over objects they're crouching behind. You should be able to lob a grenade over an object that's only one block high. That's the whole point! Hiding in close range of an enemy and throwing it over their cover to blast them out.

Imagine though if aliens could react and run away from the grenade before it blew up!

I do wish you could throw them a little farther though. An average soldier can throw a grenade 40 meters with a full throw. If 1 grid square = about 5ft then you should be able to throw a grenade at least 15 to 20 squares. Could there be a different amount of TU's used for the varying distance?

You should be able to quickly (15 TU) lob a grenade through a door, but take longer (30-40)to get a full throw with good distance.

As far as damage goes, the M67 has a kill radius of about 15 feet and a wounding radius of almost 50 feet. Anything not heavily armored should be killed in that 15 foot zone.

Edited by frank_walls
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I do wish you could throw them a little farther though. An average soldier can throw a grenade 40 meters with a full throw. If 1 grid square = about 5ft then you should be able to throw a grenade at least 15 to 20 squares. Could there be a different amount of TU's used for the varying distance?

You should be able to quickly (15 TU) lob a grenade through a door, but take longer (30-40)to get a full throw with good distance.

How about distance to be strength based, hit tile to be accuracy based? Then of course you might get sebillians hitting you from across the map again like they used to do with the plasma cannons they were toting around.

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I like it when they explode right away as long as you can throw them over things properly. Recently I've noticed my guys can't throw them over objects they're crouching behind. You should be able to lob a grenade over an object that's only one block high. That's the whole point! Hiding in close range of an enemy and throwing it over their cover to blast them out.

The trick with throwing grenades over LoS-blockers is to stand a tile or so away. Any other cover should be fine.

I do wish you could throw them a little farther though. An average soldier can throw a grenade 40 meters with a full throw. If 1 grid square = about 5ft then you should be able to throw a grenade at least 15 to 20 squares. Could there be a different amount of TU's used for the varying distance?

The whole game is essentially based on range-compression. A 15-20 tile range would be pretty much as far as your soldiers can see and shoot. Relatively speaking, then, the throwing range of grenades at the moment is fine. In fact, I'd say it's pretty much perfect where it is at the moment.

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I posted this already in the experimental balance build thread, but I think is more suitable here:

I tried the optional balance and quite liked it. Few thoughts however:

-Now that the heavy weapon penalty is removed, the sniper rifle feels kinda boring and OP as you can move at will with it before shooting. It was more satisfying to know that if I havn't moved, the shot will be god like. Now I can run for 3-4 tiles even with a rookie and still get a 95% shot away. I suggest either to put the heavy weapon penalty back (preferable) or up the aimed shot of sniper to 100%TU and normal to ~75%TU

-I think MG should have the recoil penalty. If you are half blind weak sauce rookie (ACC:55/STR:55), you still should be penalize for using a firearm not suitable for you. Also, heavy weapon penalty back please!

-An AR should be a bit more time intensive to aim and shoot than a side arm pistol.

(BTW, it would be funny as hell to be able to dual wield pistols with half the TU cost and quarter of the accuracy so that it wouldn't make any sense but from the adjacent tile. I know it won't happen because rendering is a pain, but still. :D)

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Nah, adding different stages of burst fire isn't really an option. It requires UI changes as well as code changes and I'm not willing to go that far at this stage.

Bear in mind rocket launchers are also going to get a nerf when we allow "miss" bullets to travel through the target tile without being forced to hit the ground at the target's feet. At the moment, a miss that doesn't scatter very far is still going to explode at the feet of the target and do maximum damage...so rocket launchers are inordinately powerful at the moment.

I'll consider putting the recoil back on MGs. Frank_walls, hitting with half of the bullets from a burst of MG fire will happily one-shot basically anything in the game of the equivalent tech level to the MG, so I wouldn't be too disdainful about that. The RL needs reloading after every shot too, rather than every two shots.

The heavy weapon penalty is not coming back because it's too opaque to be a good system. Sniper rifles really aren't particularly OP at the moment, they're just more accurate rifles without any close combat or burst ability. They only do slightly more damage than normal rifles if you're fighting non-robotic enemies, which is why they're fine (and why I've not set them to one-shot enemies like people requested earlier in the thread).

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The heavy weapon penalty is not coming back because it's too opaque to be a good system. Sniper rifles really aren't particularly OP at the moment, they're just more accurate rifles without any close combat or burst ability. They only do slightly more damage than normal rifles if you're fighting non-robotic enemies, which is why they're fine (and why I've not set them to one-shot enemies like people requested earlier in the thread).

Yeah, but the sharp shooting feel has gone from the sniper. It's too easy to shoot accurate shots while moving and when I get a hit, it doesn't have enough oomph. It'd differentiate more from the AR with higher damage but much more TU intensive aiming. Snipers were one of my favorite weapons and I used to camp in good spots with snipers and one shot-reaction fire aliens in the face, but after the change they don't feel that special anymore. (just as you said: they are just more accurate rifles) :/ If the HW penalty is gone for good, please at least consider upping the aimed shot of sniper to 100%TU and boost it's damage so when you make a shot standing still, it makes a difference.

Edited by Skitso
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Half of those 10 shots miss unless I'm lucky, and I need to keep my soldier camped somewhere.
I'm not getting anywhere near fifty percent hits. More like 10% - 20%. One of the main uses for the MG now is just suppression. It's way better at suppression then it used to be, but the killing power has dropped way off (I don't like that.) In fact, I'm killing more aliens with AR burst fire than MG fire (??).

The MG should be more deadly than an AR, right? Most MG's fire AT LEAST rifle caliber bullets.

My main complaint now is that even though I've used two MG's, a flash bang, and AR bursts (basically all the fire from a six man team) the aliens are still returning effective fire on their round. So, the suppression either isn't lasting long enough or it's not deep enough. I'm very worried that against higher level aliens the MG will be completely useless for suppression and killing. The old way it was quite deadly even if it didn't suppress. So far I've only fought level one aliens with the ballistic MG. I haven't look at the stats, but I'm sure hoping the suppression ability ramps up a lot with the higher level MG's otherwise they will be worthless.

Edited by StellarRat
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So at this point I'm getting farther into the game, and think that most stuff is balancing very well. I don't use the MG anymore because I have plasma weapons. It worked ok until I had better weapons, but that was with 50 rounds per clip. Also, when I think back 5 our 10 bullets hitting was the exception, 2-3 was the norm.

Grenades are annoying! I was attacking a carrier bridge and couldn't throw any grenades from the bridge while my guys were behind cover. I had one guy, a commander, crouched behind a 1 block tall table thing with a 2 block tall computer object next to it and he couldn't throw anything over them. There was an alien 4 squares in front of him and he couldn't t do it.

That would be like me hiding behind my couch while my friend hides behind the chair on the other side of my living room, and I can't throw anything from behind the couch. Kind of frustrating. I shouldn't have to stand out in the open to throw grenade!

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So at this point I'm getting farther into the game, and think that most stuff is balancing very well. I don't use the MG anymore because I have plasma weapons. It worked ok until I had better weapons, but that was with 50 rounds per clip. Also, when I think back 5 our 10 bullets hitting was the exception, 2-3 was the norm.

Grenades are annoying! I was attacking a carrier bridge and couldn't throw any grenades from the bridge while my guys were behind cover. I had one guy, a commander, crouched behind a 1 block tall table thing with a 2 block tall computer object next to it and he couldn't throw anything over them. There was an alien 4 squares in front of him and he couldn't t do it.

That would be like me hiding behind my couch while my friend hides behind the chair on the other side of my living room, and I can't throw anything from behind the couch. Kind of frustrating. I shouldn't have to stand out in the open to throw grenade!

Yeah, that's a problem. The game doesn't seem to process half height items correctly for throwing. I could see having to stand back to throw over a full height wall, but a table??
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Anecdotal experience is only so useful. AR burst fires three shots at 35 accuracy for 60% TU, while the MG fires 10 shots at 40 accuracy for 80% TU. They do the same damage per bullet, but the MG has better penetration.

The MG is therefore substantially more likely to kill something than an AR burst, provided you use it on a soldier with a higher or similar strength to their accuracy.

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Anecdotal experience is only so useful. AR burst fires three shots at 35 accuracy for 60% TU, while the MG fires 10 shots at 40 accuracy for 80% TU. They do the same damage per bullet, but the MG has better penetration.

The MG is therefore substantially more likely to kill something than an AR burst, provided you use it on a soldier with a higher or similar strength to their accuracy.

Maybe my guys aren't strong enough yet. I'll keep playing and see how it turns out. What about the suppression not seeming to last? It's been a long time since I looked at the mechanics of that.
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Suppression prevents the target from reaction firing and then reduces their TU by 50% for the following turn. If the aliens have too many TU left over then people need to write down the specific circumstances. There's been murmurings about it not working properly on the forums, but not much in the way of concrete proof so far.

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Suppression prevents the target from reaction firing and then reduces their TU by 50% for the following turn. If the aliens have too many TU left over then people need to write down the specific circumstances. There's been murmurings about it not working properly on the forums, but not much in the way of concrete proof so far.

1. How would you know how many TUs an alien has at the start of their turn? As far as I know there is nothing on the UI that tells you.

2. You may have nerfed the effectiveness of suppression greatly when you changed to the % system for firing. If fire is a % of the current turn start (post-suppression) TU than even if an alien can't move much, he still has the full range of firing options burst, aimed and snap and the same number of fires as well. So, suppression is no longer effective in reducing the volume of enemy fire (except for reaction fire), only the amount an enemy can move. That's a BIG nerf of suppression, IMO. The only way to get the suppression to work like it used to (if this is the case) would be to always calculate firing TU cost based on the pre-suppression TUs for someone. I imagine this also means suppressed Xenonauts are able to use full firepower right now.

3. It was my understanding that suppression was cumulative. More fire meant less TUs. Apparently, I was wrong about that. So, when the suppression marker turns on there really isn't much point in trying to get further suppression on the target, correct?

I'll try to S.W.A.G. it and post again if I come up with more concrete examples.

Edited by StellarRat
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You can look in AIprops to see how many TU an alien has, then divide it by half to get their post-suppression value. If you see them perform an action that costs more than that, you know something is going wrong. The debugger tells you what accuracy a shot is taken at.

In fact, it's even easier than that nowadays, because of % scaling. Aliens with rifles can't burst fire them after being suppressed, and those with plasma cannons shouldn't be able to fire them at all after being suppressed. If they're doing either of those things then something is wrong with suppression.

I'd be very surprised if we'd broken suppression with our % TU change, given you'd be able to fire practically infinite numbers of shots if fire costs were taken as a % of current TU.

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I'd be very surprised if we'd broken suppression with our % TU change, given you'd be able to fire practically infinite numbers of shots if fire costs were taken as a % of current TU.
Well, I'll take a look tonight. I meant pre-suppression TUs vs. starting weight adjusted TUs. Not current TUs as in what's left after you've taken actions (sorry about that, I wasn't clear enough in my original post). You're right that if you always used what was left after the previous action you could fire forever. That's a basic calculus principle.

I believe I have had burst fire shot at me from suppressed aliens, but I need to watch more closely next time I play.

Here's what I meant though:

Example: If you have a 60% TU cost to fire a burst and 100 TUs then it will cost you 60 TUs to fire leaving you 40 TUs a snapshot. Let's say your suppressed the next turn, now you have 50 TUs to start, your burst fire is still 60%, so now to fire will cost 50 x .6 or 30 TUs leaving you 20 TUs for you now much lower cost TU snapshot. There no reduction in the volume of fire.

This should readily solveable by checking by a quick check of the source code. Does firing use pre-suppression weight adjusted TUs or turn start TU? You are probably right, but I could see where this could go wrong. We know for sure that weight reduced TUs are used so it's not always the base TU for a soldier.

Edited by StellarRat
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I'm using MGs more than I used to now that they are I think more powerful. Especially a must have in base assults. It seems strange to read that people find it weak. Perhaps its the optional balance patch. Currently its too powerful I think with the linear fire arc.

Edit: Am I being lucky perhaps over 3 base assaults now 2 vs. androns 1 caesan. 2-3 hits connect usually, it is often a kill even behind cover.

Edited by Caaygun
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No, I've tested it using the developer tools and it appears suppression is working fine.

Weight reduces a soldier's max TUs, though. Suppression reduces their active TUs, it's not the same thing.

OK, good enough for me. I guess they're just snapshotting me because suppression isn't as powerful as I thought. I really thought was cumulative too. Guess not. Thanks.
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What was working better for actually killing aliens, the MG or the AR? As I said above, the MG doesn't seem to kill much anymore.

Well, the MG was better at killing with on the first attack if it hit. I had my highest ranking (and also the strongest) carrying the MG. When camped in a good spot he was pretty deadly with the MG. However, the gun is worthless inside a ship or building. So I have that guy carrying lots of grenades - of course he can't throw them over anything now.

The AR is average at killing. I get a lot of misses with that one, even at close range. I had 7 guys all take shots at an alien camped in the cargo bay of a carrier and they couldn't kill him. 3 high ranking soldiers were camped at the main door, and 4 were at a side door. I couldn't believe everyone of them missed. I had a Captain walk in and stand 2 squares from the alien and fire a normal shot and miss with the plasma rifle! Ugh, I wish I could recruit some Navy Seals.

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MG's are very powerful in the current build, but also quite situational. I may put recoil back on them in order to nerf their early game power a little though...or at least make strong soldiers particularly valuable for using them.

EDIT - actually, this is the problem with people posting their stuff from the new experimental build here instead of in that thread....we're all talking about different versions, probably. I'm talking about the experimental TU patch in all of my comments here, for future reference. I'm pretty sure frank_walls is not.

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