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Weapon Role Thoughts


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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.
My problem might be the strength of the guy carrying the MG. I didn't realize that mattered for accuracy. I figured as long as he could carry it without too much TU penalty it didn't matter. I'm going to be looking for an increase in effectiveness as he gets stronger.
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What are peoples thoughts on sniper rifles then? As I proposed earlier, I feel both the TU cost and damage is too low and thus feels kinda samey with AR (without burst)
They don't seem as powerful as they used to be (less one shots). On the other hand, they are still really accurate. I haven't fought Androns yet, so I don't know if I'm really qualified to post much on them yet. I do have a guy with a precision laser and he's doing OK.
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I feel it's just wrong that snipers can run and gun freely with high accuracy now that the HW penalty is gone. Higher TU cost for normal and aimed and a slight damage buff should do the trick.

Edited by Skitso
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I feel it's just wrong that snipers can run and gun freely with high accuracy now that the HW penalty is gone. Highest aim levels should cost more. (90-100%TU)
I never used them that way (running and shooting.) I always stop and crouch my snipers. However, if it's just a battle rifle with a scope for sniping than it's makes sense for the heavy weapons penalty to be gone. I think the snipers in Xenonauts aren't the same as the full Army specialist type snipers that shoot enemies from a 1000 yards. Those guys would definitely need all kinds of movement penalties and they operate as two man teams. The ones we have are more like snapshooters with a good bolt action rifle like a hunter would use. They really aren't that heavy or involved to use based on my experience.
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I feel it's just wrong that snipers can run and gun freely with high accuracy now that the HW penalty is gone. Higher TU cost for normal and aimed and a slight damage buff should do the trick.

I'd agree with this. I generally like the idea of Aimed shots being largely move-or-fire; as such, the Balance Patch costs feel a bit low.

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I'm pretty sure frank_walls is not.

Actually I think you're right. I'm on the latest patch now, but I wasn't when I was using the MG a few days ago. My guys have had laser weapons and now plasmas since early this past weekend. I'll throw in an MG guy tonight and see how he does.

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I'd agree with this. I generally like the idea of Aimed shots being largely move-or-fire; as such, the Balance Patch costs feel a bit low.
As a general principle I agree. All aimed shots should be high TU (like 80 or 90), but should give a very large increase in accuracy over other types. I'm not just talking about sniper rifles, I'm talking about every weapon that has an aimed mode.
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As per the sniper rifle debate.

It depends on the interpretation of the sniper rifle. Is it just a scoped battle rifle? Then it is perfect as is. More accurate then an AR, and slightly more damage but trading CQC ability (no real volume of fire).

But if it is a true sniper rifle (like the ones real snipers use) then it needs more armor pen, more damage, and needs to have crap accuracy when shooting the turn you move the soldier carrying it.

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If you go down that route of high aimed TU costs across the board, you can't have burst fire on TU parity with aimed shots or you're not able to actually move (i.e. assault) with the assault rifle on burst.

I want burst / aimed to be of comparable usefulness, making the AR a properly versatile weapon, so any increase in TU values would only apply to the precision rifle...and would be used to increase the rifle's damage rather than its accuracy, I think. But I'm concerned it would leave them somewhat overpowered.

EDIT - the sniper rifle is just a scoped battle rifle, but it's not meant to feel identical to the AR. At the same time, it's not meant to be a full-blown sniper rifle because communicating the move / shoot penalties and so forth is not very straightforward in our game. It's not like in XCOM 2012 where you can just disable firing entirely if the soldier has moved.

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They also have to reload after every shot, need a soldier with high strength to carry the weapon and aim it accurately, a high TU cost, and only 4-6 shots total for the entire mission. Then there's also the times when the rockeeter totally wiffs the shot and blows himself up.

Those are a lot of drawbacks. If a rocket launcher isn't capable of killing non-elite aliens in one hit it's garbage.

I think the TU cost for reloading a rocket launcher should go down, because my soldiers can get caught in bad spots if they're stuck using almost all of their TU to reload. I'd like to be able to move around some after reloading a rocket launcher.

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I think the TU cost for reloading a rocket launcher should go down, because my soldiers can get caught in bad spots if they're stuck using almost all of their TU to reload. I'd like to be able to move around some after reloading a rocket launcher.

I don't mind the rocket launcher taking a full turn to reload. The process of removing the rocket from your pack and loading it seems like it would take some time.

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If you go down that route of high aimed TU costs across the board, you can't have burst fire on TU parity with aimed shots or you're not able to actually move (i.e. assault) with the assault rifle on burst.

I want burst / aimed to be of comparable usefulness, making the AR a properly versatile weapon, so any increase in TU values would only apply to the precision rifle...and would be used to increase the rifle's damage rather than its accuracy, I think. But I'm concerned it would leave them somewhat overpowered.

EDIT - the sniper rifle is just a scoped battle rifle, but it's not meant to feel identical to the AR. At the same time, it's not meant to be a full-blown sniper rifle because communicating the move / shoot penalties and so forth is not very straightforward in our game. It's not like in XCOM 2012 where you can just disable firing entirely if the soldier has moved.

You're right, but I'm thinking fully aimed fire would be interesting if it took 100% TU and provided a much higher accuracy boost than it does now. Thus, you would only use it in a situation where you were trying to make some very long range shots or trying to shoot around some very tough cover. The "snap", "normal" or "burst" would be used far more often for all weapons that supported those modes. It would provide an interesting option in certain situations and give some of the weapons more flexibility. Anyway, it's fine with me if you leave it as is. I just like having distinct options in games. When everything seems fairly similar it tends to be a bit more boring because you don't have to think as much. If you think about it, what's really the difference between single shot snap, normal and aimed? They really aren't anything but % accuracy changes, when you would use one vs. the other isn't readily apparent because the spread isn't large enough to reflect the imagined action, IMO.

To me:

Snapshot = very quick, point and shoot, sights probably not even used...useless at all but the closest ranges or when something runs between two pieces of close cover. Mostly used in tight quarters, like in rooms, etc.. Akin to a Wild West quick draw and fire. Shooting from the hip kind of stuff. I'd probably lower the accuracy from where it is now and the TUs cost. This shot should rely almost completely on the short range bonus to hit anything.

Normal = Soldier looks through sight for less than one second and squeezes off one round, good out to medium range. Medium TU cost, medium accuracy

Aimed = Soldier looks through sight or scope, tries to determine range/elevation and lead, props weapon on something if possible, tries to make smooth trigger pull with controlled breathing. This takes at least two or three seconds and has a decent chance of hitting something even at long range or can't miss at medium to close range unless target has cover. Very high TU cost, very high accuracy. Maybe 100% TU and 90% accuracy.

Burst = Normal, but with more bullets going down range. High TU due to discharge time, medium-low accuracy per round because of recoil from succeeding rounds.

Edited by StellarRat
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With the % based shooting, I am slightly confused whenever it comes to reloading.

It doesn't seem consistent (I use very different amounts of TU) and some of my units are capable of shooting, but not reloading. This leads to strange situations where I'd rather give three loaded machine guns to a unit rather than a gun and two packs of ammo (because why bother reloading if A: it costs me all my TU in a turn, compared to a tiny bit if I drop the gun in hand and get a new one from my backpack, and B: I can shoot with that machine gun whether I have 20 or 39 TU, but with 39 TU I cannot reload).

I've particularly noticed the problem with the machine gun, which requires a minimum of 40 TU to reload.

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Sniper rifles are good for highly experienced troops for one main reason:

They can be stand-off weapons, meaning their bearers are generally not in the line of fire.

Put it this way: you can send up cheap PVT/CPLs with shields to find the enemy, then position the snipers far behind them, out of range of the target's weapon. The shield guys can pop out of cover, spot the enemy, then pop back in, and then the snipers take them out. Snipers are never in danger, shield guy is mostly out of danger. I've lost 0 snipers in like 20+ battles using these sorts of tactics.

ARs will always require you to put the soldier in the line of fire and in a hot zone. Therefore, those soldiers are far more susceptible to dying. It's great for your middle-of-the-road vets, but for your top-tier guys you really don't want to lose, standoff is the key.

ARs are OP for UFO clearing right now, I think. Snipers aren't really OP anymore, but with the right tactics they're essential for the longevity of your best men.

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Lidhuin - interesting point. So it turns out the reload cost of weapons is not done as % of TU and is actually a flat value, whereas I thought it was a % value. I'll need to rework the numbers accordingly, although I'm not that fussed about it being a flat value as it does give high-end soldiers a bit of a benefit that they may be able to shoot and reload in the same turn.

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No-one's really talked about shotguns, unless I've missed some posts. Am I the only one who's bothered by the amount of negatives it has? It's short ranged and inaccurate (relying on close damage bonus). It's got the 2x reaction mod going for it, but for scouting you might as well use a pistol + shield, and a pistol + shield's probably better for when an alien comes around the corner, too.

I guess I don't see the issue in having the shotgun be really, really good in its range (8 tiles). If people go with a squad of full shotgunners, it'll be down to imbalances elsewhere, like the previous LoS blocking smoke grenades. Damage seems to drop off really quickly above 8 tiles - shotgun pellets do something like 50% damage at 12 tiles, right? - as well as accuracy. A shotgun that's really beefy won't cause the same balance problems that the sniper does, since when the sniper breaks it's tended to dominate at both short and long distances. Even if the shotgun becomes overpowered, the mechanisms are in place to stop it being a beast at mid-to-long range.

Grenades - Grenades and explosives in general should do a lot of damage with a lot of armor mitigation in target squares. Grenades should do 50% damage with no mitigation (shrapnel) in the adjacent square, and 25% damage with no mitigation two squares away. They should not damage props too much as that would be a little overpowered for a grenade to destroy cover.

I'd rather not go back to this. It was pretty telling that in the v21 b4 request thread that I claimed that splash damage was set to 25%, and it was only on something like page ten that jeon (IIRC) stated that, um, no, it was at 50%. He was right and I was wrong. Between the +/- 50% damage range and the way cover soaks up explosive damage for a unit, splash damage seemed lower than it really was. The %AP change has dominated discussion, but the removal of splash damage was a good move and allows explosions to be balanced as area of effect weapons.

Edited by Ol' Stinky
Grammar.
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Lidhuin - interesting point. So it turns out the reload cost of weapons is not done as % of TU and is actually a flat value, whereas I thought it was a % value. I'll need to rework the numbers accordingly, although I'm not that fussed about it being a flat value as it does give high-end soldiers a bit of a benefit that they may be able to shoot and reload in the same turn.

I'd keep reloading and inventory management as fixed TU costs. It should help to give TU more weight as a stat for more than movement, and to convey how quickly a veteran soldier can reload a weapon. After all, one of the standard cliches that films use to show someone is a bad-ass vet (or otherwise knows how to handle a gun) is to show them rapidly swap magazines, complete with exaggerated foley effects for every clicky sound the gun makes.

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I think in the experimental balance patch I put together a shotgun does about triple the damage of a AR for the same TU cost (albeit with slightly less accuracy) so it's a bit of a beast at close range now...well, theoretically at least.

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I think in the experimental balance patch I put together a shotgun does about triple the damage of a AR for the same TU cost (albeit with slightly less accuracy) so it's a bit of a beast at close range now...well, theoretically at least.
It should be a beast. One 00 buckshot pellet has the same energy as a 9mm pistol round at close range and there are NINE of them in a shotgun shell. It's like emptying a whole pistol clip into your target.
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I think in the experimental balance patch I put together a shotgun does about triple the damage of a AR for the same TU cost (albeit with slightly less accuracy) so it's a bit of a beast at close range now...well, theoretically at least.

It's the accuracy that turns me off, with x0.3 for a snap shot and x0.55 for a normal. (Unless I've mucked up the install and am looking at the wrong file. It wouldn't be the first time I've done that.) I feel that having to get to 8 tiles is a pretty big requirement on its own, and accuracy could afford to be a bit higher to reflect that. Closing the distance and getting to do around the same damage as an assault rifle shot feels naff.

Stat-wise, a shotgunner needs good TUs, good accuracy and good reflexes, which is more demanding than what an LMGer needs (strength, acc), or an AR guy needs (TUs, acc). I don't know how much of a concern that is, but I figure it's something worth mentioning, too.

Edited by Ol' Stinky
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It's the accuracy that turns me off' date=' with x0.3 for a snap shot and x0.55 for a normal. (Unless I've mucked up the install and am looking at the wrong file. It wouldn't be the first time I've done that.) I feel that having to get to 8 tiles is a pretty big requirement on its own, and accuracy could afford to be a bit higher to reflect that. Closing the distance and getting to do around the same damage as an assault rifle shot feels naff.

Stat-wise, a shotgunner needs good TUs, good accuracy and good reflexes, which is more demanding than what an LMGer needs (strength, acc), or an AR guy needs (TUs, acc). I don't know how much of a concern that is, but I figure it's something worth mentioning, too.[/quote']I think the range restrictions are fine. It's really a close range weapon. 50 yards is about the furthest you can reliably use one.

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