Ground Combat Balance - V21 Experimental 6

[Chris]

StellarRat, if the aliens aren't firing at his troops it's because those troops have a higher Initiative score than the aliens do. The unit with the higher Initiative score can do whatever it wants until it no longer has the higher score.

The aliens "passing up a perfectly good reaction shot" may well just be them not reacting fast enough to use it. Max is pretty familiar with how the reactions systems work so I imagine he's using it to his advantage.

[Chris]

Cool. I guess those soviet guns are relics of when the Cold War setting was more important.

No, they're the results of the example mod that we've always planned to package with the game...the Soviet Weapons mod.

[kabill]

Yep. I also want to point out that the minimum chance to fire and the aliens max. sight range should also apply to reaction fire. Right now, I think they not using the same parameters as normal (non-reaction) fire.

No quarrel with the point about sight ranges, but I don't agree about minimum accuracy. If an alien has TUs left for reaction fire and an opportunity comes up to use them, they may as well. If it doesn't, it runs the risk of being wasting the TUs entirely; it's better to take a 1% shot than not shoot at all.

For sure, this could be exploited by deliberately triggering reaction fire with the most difficult-to-hit soldiers. But I don't think that's a worse situation than possibly being able to avoid alien reaction fire entirely if you can keep their hit % down (hello, smoke).

(Not having a minimum accuracy for reaction fire also avoids the AI getting stuck without the ability to fire. At the moment, even if an alien declines to shoot because it has no shots above the minimum accuracy threshold, then it will fire reaction shots. This isn't ideal - I'd rather they just took the low % shots on their turn - but it's better than them not shooting at all.)

[StellarRat]

StellarRat, if the aliens aren't firing at his troops it's because those troops have a higher Initiative score than the aliens do. The unit with the higher Initiative score can do whatever it wants until it no longer has the higher score.

The aliens "passing up a perfectly good reaction shot" may well just be them not reacting fast enough to use it. Max is pretty familiar with how the reactions systems work so I imagine he's using it to his advantage.

OK, I can see that, but at SOME point the AI should shoot his guys out in the open. Initiative should allow you take some actions first, not dance around with impunity in front of the aliens. You should be able to move maybe one tile in their view and take a shot, not run 20 yards throw a grenade and run back to cover before they do anything. I saw a couple instances where it didn't do anything even during it's own turn with enemies visible. Also, hiding behind a smoke screen shouldn't completely stop the AI from firing at you assuming there are no better targets available. I think the amount of initiative "expended" for actual movement needs to much higher based on what you're telling me and it should be zero for shooting and throwing. Basically, if the alien wasn't going to shoot you during it's turn and you haven't moved, why would it decide to shoot you just because you fired? Edited March 10, 2014 by StellarRat

[StellarRat]

No quarrel with the point about sight ranges, but I don't agree about minimum accuracy. If an alien has TUs left for reaction fire and an opportunity comes up to use them, they may as well. If it doesn't, it runs the risk of being wasting the TUs entirely; it's better to take a 1% shot than not shoot at all.

For sure, this could be exploited by deliberately triggering reaction fire with the most difficult-to-hit soldiers. But I don't think that's a worse situation than possibly being able to avoid alien reaction fire entirely if you can keep their hit % down (hello, smoke).

(Not having a minimum accuracy for reaction fire also avoids the AI getting stuck without the ability to fire. At the moment, even if an alien declines to shoot because it has no shots above the minimum accuracy threshold, then it will fire reaction shots. This isn't ideal - I'd rather they just took the low % shots on their turn - but it's better than them not shooting at all.)

OK, you do have valid point on that. However, if that's the case, I would expect every alien that can possibly fire to fire during their turn or your turn. You shouldn't have to trigger reaction fire from the aliens by movement or firing if they have enough unexpended TUs when your turn is ending. Same with the Xenonauts really (although, that would be a nightmare to control.)

[Chris]

Do you know how the reaction calculation works? I've explained it in a few threads, it's the same as in the old game (except for the addition of reaction fire modifiers for weapons). It's worth reading on exactly how it works if you don't know because it's quite an elegant system.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Reaction_Fire

[Ol' Stinky]

I've put up a modified aiprops.xml here that sets the minimum accuracy to take shots to 10%, except for alien assault units. Extract it into your Xenonauts folder and it should unzip into the assets folder. My only concern with this approach is that heavy alien plasmas might shoot from out of range, which won't cause suppression. But if they're able to be suppressed that's still better than nothing, like kabill says.

[legit1337]

legit, I asked you to think it through, I understand that you feel I am lightly dismissing your thoughts, so, here's a 10 minute clip of me using grenades and basic pistols and my crappiest soliders to take on a Caesan corvette. (I apologise for the delay in reply. After I read your post I straight away went and did the mission, but it took over 2 hours to upload the video).

[video=youtube;57slfIAqFBM]

Despite the fact I played very, very badly I still was able to kill all the aliens I faced using nothing but grenades while holding nothing but pistols. The assertion that I'd never get close is bollocks. I'm sorry, but it is! You can see that when I took on that first drone, overwhelming it with a human wave was a terribad idea. Outflanking it was the smart plan. Each and every alien I killed I either got close to or they got close to me. In general something of both but I was able to do it throughout that clip (I went on to play a lot better and wipe the corvette without any more losses, but some wounds).

I considered your thoughts, then went out to see if I could actually do what I thought I could do. My assertion stands. While my pistoleers carry their pistols they have their reflexes multiplied by 2. As you could see my troops got into position and threw their grenades mostly without interruption because of their boosted reflexes. As it was, they threw their grenades without provoking reaction fire. Now, if grenades didn't provoke reaction fire as an inherant property rather than as a combination of items, my soliders would be even better because they could get into position and never get shot at. I'm sorry, but it's not a good idea because of the way the game works and the ways it can be and will be exploited.

Wow. I have to give you props for actually trying it.

I watched the entire video, bravo.

You are overlooking the fact that in those situations you would have won just as easily with guns instead of grenades, just by the way you were maneuvering your men. For most of the grenade throws reaction fire would be irrelevant as the aliens were facing the wrong way or had exhausted their TUs.

I still maintain that making the action of throwing a nade not provoke reaction fire won't be too unbalancing. It will mostly affect breaching.

Also, I have no idea why the xenopedia says that throwing stuff provokes reaction fire in the OG. I play the old x-com regularly and one of my best strategies is throwing grenades into UFOs precisely because it DOESN'T provoke reaction fire. Much safer then having a rookie walk through the door.

Now, if grenades didn't provoke reaction fire as an inherant property rather than as a combination of items, my soliders would be even better because they could get into position and never get shot at.

Wait... what are you saying? All I am advocating is the action of THROWING the grenade not provoke reaction fire. Not to make every soldier HOLDING a grenade not provoke reaction fire, that would indeed be silly.

Edited March 11, 2014 by legit1337

[DNK]

Regarding reactions: you have to remember that because this is turn-based, it doesn't look how it would as real-time. The turns, while to you being sequential, are in the game-world occurring simultaneously. So, when an alien uses up 50% of its TUs, it's the equivalent of it doing "stuff" for the first half of this simultaneous time. So when the fresh, full TU soldier runs out in front of it with 90% TUs, it's like he's doing that before the alien got to its location, sort of. The alien can't react because at that time it was already doing whatever took up the 50% of its TUs.

Now, yeah, it's not perfect like that, since the 90% TU soldier can still shoot at the alien, even if when the alien was at 90% TUs it was in a different place. And, yeah, the turn nature of the game means they overlap both backwards and forwards. So it's all a bit quantum mechanicy in that there's superposition going on.

But that's an abstraction required by a TBS game. And the reaction system is an abstraction based upon that. It makes sense, even if the underlying reality of the simulation doesn't quite, it makes sense within that simulation of reality, where turns are both sequential AND simultaneous.

[quiescat]

so on the lines of legits grenades not provoking reaction fire would it be possible to just give grenades reaction mods like pistols and shot guns have( i dont even know if this is already the case ).

this would do pretty much exactly what he wants kinda, by kinda i mean they will provoke reactions less often but still run the risk of your guy not being fast enough, so he can still get shot if hes slow or unlucky if you will, but it would still make grenades a breaching weapon.

big thing here is i dont know what the aliens react off of say i have a guy with a shield and a pistol does the system count the pistol or not, for example does it think the solder dropped his shield to throw the grenade or does it think he put his gun away thus losing the weapon mod, same question kinda applies to if it counts your shotgun or not.

this does leave you open to running around with a grenade to not get reaction fired on maybe make it only applied on the throw it self if you even can so any one throwing a grenade reduces there risk of reaction but unless it stops the alien your back to your normal weapon mod. ( god programming must suck trying to figure all this crap out)

Edited March 11, 2014 by quiescat
words

[Max_Caine]

Ah, legit. No doubt rifles would be as useful, however the objective of the excercise was not to compare weapons, but to see if I could get close enough to use grenades the answer to which is "hell yeah". I would also contest it was all down to positioning and no TU - if StellarRat's outrage at the times on the video he mentions are insufficent, I can always do another run with the debugger on so it's possible to accurately track how valuable pistols are.

Allow me to clarify my last statement. If grenades didn't provoke reaction fire - that is, the trooper maintained his initative level after throwing the grenade or any soldier - human or alien - whose reaction fire was triggered after initative dropped post-grenade throw was prevented from targetting the thrower, it would be as you say much safer - too safe. I can show that it's entirely possible, even viable to have a bunch of grenadiers in the chopper than guys with rifles.. If there were no comeback from throwing that grenade then a style where you have nothing but throwing grenades is safer post-shot than firing guns!

Edited March 11, 2014 by Max_Caine

[kabill]

OK, you do have valid point on that. However, if that's the case, I would expect every alien that can possibly fire to fire during their turn or your turn. You shouldn't have to trigger reaction fire from the aliens by movement or firing if they have enough unexpended TUs when your turn is ending. Same with the Xenonauts really (although, that would be a nightmare to control.)

Yes, couldn't agree more.

I've put up a modified aiprops.xml here that sets the minimum accuracy to take shots to 10%' date=' except for alien assault units. Extract it into your Xenonauts folder and it should unzip into the assets folder. My only concern with this approach is that heavy alien plasmas might shoot from out of range, which won't cause suppression. But if they're able to be suppressed that's still better than nothing, like kabill says. [/quote']

I've actually already been playing with values reduced to 5%. I can't tell how much of a difference it's making. I think there's less instances of not-firing, especially after suppression or as a result of smoke. Light Drones also do something, although it's plausible there was something changes between 21.5 and 21.6 that made a difference there.

On the other hand, there's still instances of aliens moving/standing still and refusing to take shots, which implies that some instances of alien passivity are related to something other than minimum hit chance.

Also, I have no idea why the xenopedia says that throwing stuff provokes reaction fire in the OG. I play the old x-com regularly and one of my best strategies is throwing grenades into UFOs precisely because it DOESN'T provoke reaction fire. Much safer then having a rookie walk through the door.

You're quite possibly right - I never really used grenades enough in the OG to have a firm memory which is why I deferred to UFOpedia. Even if the information there is correct, strictly speaking grenades are better at ignoring reaction fire anyway since they don't give away your position like a successful hit from a gun does (allowing you to throw grenades from behind without risk of return fire).

[Chris]

I am probably going to nerf the reaction fire bonus on shotguns and pistols to 1.5 rather than 2, btw. I think 2 is a bit overpowered.

I'm also going to see how combat shields affect reaction fire. I don't think a soldier with a combat shield and a pistol should still be getting the pistol reaction fire bonus.

[Max_Caine]

Might I suggest leaving the shotgun at 2, but debuffing the pistol? The pistol is a lot more flexible than the shotgun is, whereas the shotgun is specific-purpose.

[Chris]

I'm not sure I'm convinced. A 2x modifier means you can spend half your TUs before the enemy even have a chance of reaction firing at you; that's very powerful indeed. 1.5x seems much fairer. You can get a shot or a few moves off without fear still.

[Max_Caine]

That's true to begin with but changes fairly rapidly. As soon as you hit corvs Androns appear. Their Reflexes start at 70 at and quickly boost to 80 (do they top out at 80? I forget). Harridans kick in the next one over, and they start at 85! All the while Caesans improve (although Sebbies will forver be in the dust). Doubled reflexes is awesome, but a shottie is quite frankly pointless outside of close range, so you're always going to be kicking down doors with it, and you only need to take a couple of steps and fire one shot for initative to drop significantly. I mean, heck, noncoms with their reflex-boosting pistols can actually match me move-for-move (which is one reason why I'd like to see more of them). Let it the pistol be nerfed, but IMO the shottie is really straight-jacketed by what it can do, which is be a door-kicker.

[Chris]

The nerfs would apply to both human and alien weapons. I'd say your arguments are more against the high reflex stat of certain aliens than the nerf of the 2x reflex modifier, though - if the aliens have that high reflexes then it means that the reflex modifier is largely worthless.

Harridans are meant to have really, really good reflexes. The other races, not extraordinarily so. To be fair, Caesan Leaders and Elites top out at 70, which isn't too high. Maybe it could be reduced down to 65, but it's within the current range of starting soldiers. Wraiths and Sebbies have terrible reflexes, while Androns could be reduced somewhat but also still top out at 70 for Elites.

[StellarRat]

Having given the current reaction system more study, I think I know why I'm not liking it completely (although it is better than the old system). It's too easy to move around in front of an alien/Xenonaut without getting shot.

My suggestion is to add a multiplier to the movement and firing reaction "costs" so they can be easily adjusted and move those factors into some XML so it can be modded. For now, I'd say movement should be very costly and firing less costly. I'd say make movement 2x - 3x as expensive and reduce firing to about 1/2 (x.5). I believe this will make highly unrealistic situations such as a soldier or alien charging 50 yards in the open and throwing a grenade much less likely. Part of the problem is no doubt related to Chris reducing movement costs. The soldiers can move quite a distance without incurring too much reaction cost. Anyway, I believe the changes I suggested would have made Max's pistol and grenade demo much less successful. There is nothing to more dangerous a soldier can do than moving out of cover and advancing toward the enemy. Generally this is suicidal unless it's a quick dart from one cover to another (1 or 2 tiles) that was not the case in Max's demo.

Reduce the minimum to chance that the aliens need to fire somewhat, but not below 10%. IMO, 30% is too high.

It will also be necessary to add throwing to the reaction system probably it should be as expensive as the equivalent amount of moving. It should not get the firing "discount" I suggested above. It should very dangerous to open a door that is covered and throw a grenade into a room. Odds are anyone trying this would get shot BEFORE they had a chance to throw.

Edited March 11, 2014 by StellarRat

[Chris]

You can put the tile movement cost back up to 4 TU per tile if you want, it's in config.xml. I really don't think it's a good idea to start adding cost modifiers to actions so units have a different TU total for reaction fire purposes as they do for TU purposes.

If there's a problem in the current system, which I'm not at all convinced about, it's simply that aliens are wasting too many TU before they get ready for reaction fire. If they have full TU it'd be very difficult to move anywhere near them without getting reaction fired at....unless you're wielding a close combat weapon, but that's one of the key advantages of a close combat weapon.

[Chris]

Actually, in Max's demo all soldiers have pistols. That doubles their Initiative score. You can't use that as a criticism for the game as a whole, as he's deliberately showing how you can exploit the game using grenades and pistols to avoid reaction fire (and as others have pointed it, the results are not necessarily better than just using guns normally).

If everyone had rifles, the mission would have played very differently.

[StellarRat]

You can put the tile movement cost back up to 4 TU per tile if you want, it's in config.xml. I really don't think it's a good idea to start adding cost modifiers to actions so units have a different TU total for reaction fire purposes as they do for TU purposes.

I wouldn't want that as I'm enjoying the ability to move a good distance when it's "safe". I don't really see how adding those three modifiers is going to hurt anything. You can always leave them at 1.0 if you think the current system is fine. Also, as for the weapon type increasing initiative. I'm not exactly sure how holding a pistol or a rifle should "magically" increase your ability to move safely in view of the enemy. Perhaps you should only apply the reaction multiplier for weapon type to shooting TUs? That seems like the proper approach. Edited March 11, 2014 by StellarRat

[Chris]

I'm just going to rule it out now at this point - the game's almost finished, so there's not going to be any major changes to the way reaction fire works (we're not going to duplicate a complex system to create a shadow TU system that is just used for the reflex calculation). It's not worth the coder time and finding bugs / unexpected behaviour in it would be a total nightmare - and I also don't see that it would give us any benefit even if we did so.

At this point, let's just concentrate on making sure the current system functions as it is intended to or fixing issues with the inputs to the system. The reaction system is a very neat solution to reaction fire, and if there's any weird behaviour it's almost certainly due to the inputs rather than the system itself.

[StellarRat]

I'm just going to rule it out now at this point - the game's almost finished, so there's not going to be any major changes to the way reaction fire works (we're not going to duplicate a complex system to create a shadow TU system that is just used for the reflex calculation). It's not worth the coder time and finding bugs / unexpected behaviour in it would be a total nightmare - and I also don't see that it would give us any benefit even if we did so.

At this point, let's just concentrate on making sure the current system functions as it is intended to or fixing issues with the inputs to the system. The reaction system is a very neat solution to reaction fire, and if there's any weird behaviour it's almost certainly due to the inputs rather than the system itself.

In that case, I agree that reducing the reaction fire bonuses for pistols and shotguns is needed, I hope this will also apply to alien weapons of the same type. Also, I noticed in the old system that grenade throwing was included in the reaction triggers. If it's not in the current system it should be.

I do wish you would have given us more time to beta the new reaction system. It came very late in the game and there were other things to worrying about like the AI that didn't allow a lot of studying of the "new" reaction system. If it's too late than I guess that's it. Maybe in a patch.

Edited March 11, 2014 by StellarRat

[Chris]

This is the point of the new system, though - you don't need to "trigger" reaction fire, as it catches everything. Throwing grenades cost TU, so they reduce Initiative and can trigger reaction fire. Anything that costs TU can trigger reaction fire. Even moving stuff in your backpack does it.

[StellarRat]

This is the point of the new system, though - you don't need to "trigger" reaction fire, as it catches everything. Throwing grenades cost TU, so they reduce Initiative and can trigger reaction fire. Anything that costs TU can trigger reaction fire. Even moving stuff in your backpack does it.

Yeah, it could eventually. The document you had me read says throwing should trigger immediate reaction fire. Is your system not exactly the same? I'm a little confused now.