Ground Combat Balance - V22 Experimental 9

[Chris]

CHANGELOG:

- We have changed the shooting formula again: it is now taken from any part of the shooting tile to the centre of the target tile, rather than vice versa. This should make cover more effective.

- "Command" tiles are now active on UFO missions, so aliens will hold specific places in the UFO. This has not been rolled out to all UFOs, but some aliens should now hold the rear room of the Scout.

- There should be less being shot from beyond visual range. We've fixed an AI error and stopped dead aliens providing minor LOS to their team

- Aliens less likely to target civilians and friendly forces relative to Xenonauts

- All UFOs of Landing Ship size and above have had their crews reduced and their AI scripts mixed up a bit

- Caesans no longer bring more than two psionic units to a battle (Battleships previously contained up to six)

- Cruiser and Battleship Terror Sites have reduced numbers of aliens, and less aggressive aliens

- Reduced protection of all Xenonaut armour by 10

- Alien Heavy Plasma damage reduced by 10, mitigation increased by 20 (making the Wolf less amazing)

- Rifle ranges reduced from 30 to 20 for each tier

- Reduced suppression radiuses on alien weapons

- Light Drones now have 80HP instead of 50HP

- Fixed some map issues with misaligned buildings and tiles that are not appearing

- Local forces now get laser weapons earlier, roughly when you get plasmas

[domein]

Please reduce combat cars\tanks suicidal HE shells misses. They are prone to blasting a ground right in front of them, while any sensible turret placement provides a dead zone in front of the vehicle, to avoid self-harmful misfire.

[domein]

Additional live captures are wasted now, there could have been some cash bonus for them.

[Chris]

True, though I'm not sure how much it would add to the game. Early game stun gas almost makes it easier to stun the aliens than kill them.

[ventuswings]

edit: not really balance

[Solver]

Playing the first build a while - I still do not exactly understand what role Jackal armour is supposed to play, having acquired it. Wolf is now a bit weaker, which is perhaps warranted. It doesn't guarantee safety, but it sure makes your guys more likely to survive a direct hit. Jackal still seems like an insignificant increase in survivability. It's helpful vs. pistol-toting noncoms but they of course disappear before long.

[Chris]

It brings the average damage from a Plasma Rifle shot down to exactly 55, the average HP of your starting soldiers. So they've got a ~50% chance of surviving a Plasma Rifle shot that would otherwise almost certainly kill them.

It also only costs $20k and doesn't weigh much.

[Skitso]

I agree jackal feels a bit redundant atm. And most importantly it doesn't feel good to wear one as the improvement is so small compared to default blue suit.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Skitso

[kabill]

Playing the first build a while - I still do not exactly understand what role Jackal armour is supposed to play, having acquired it. Wolf is now a bit weaker, which is perhaps warranted. It doesn't guarantee safety, but it sure makes your guys more likely to survive a direct hit. Jackal still seems like an insignificant increase in survivability. It's helpful vs. pistol-toting noncoms but they of course disappear before long.

Hmm, something I'd not thought about before but it's worth bearing in mind that the effectiveness of armour isn't equal across all soldiers, since soldiers with higher HP get a proportionally bigger bonus from the armour they wear.

E.g. a soldier with 35 HP and 20 Armour is killed by a 60 damage attack about 60% of the time (compared with about 90% unarmoured). Whereas a soldier with 65 HP and 20 Armour is killed only 5% of the time by the same attack (compared with about 40% of the time unarmoured). The low HP soldier has had their chance of dying reduced down by 1/3, while the chance of the high HP soldier dying has been reduced by 7/8.

Accordingly, Jackal armour is perhaps best reserved for high HP soldiers since it offers a significant reduction in their chance of being one-shotted compared with low HP soldiers where the effect is somewhat negligible.

EDIT 1: Looks like plasma rifles do more damage than I thought they did, though.

EDIT 2: Doing some maths in my head - and assuming I have the numbers right - Jackal armour reduces the chance of a soldier dying by between roughly 25% and 70%, depending on the HP of the soldier. For a soldier with 55HP, their chance of dying goes from about 75% to 50%, so a reduction of 1/3.

Edited May 21, 2014 by kabill

[Chris]

I agree jackal feels a bit redundant atm. And most importantly it doesn't feel good to wear one as the improvement is so small compared to default blue suit.

The improvement isn't small at all. These are the average death rates for a 55HP soldier for the first two alien weapons with / without Jackal:

Plasma Pistol: without = 42% death chance, with = 2% death chance

Plasma Rifle: without = 79% death chance, with = 48% death chance

Bear in mind dying by less HP also dramatically increases the chance of the soldier surviving the battle. Each extra HP above -20 gives the soldier a 2.5% higher survival chance.

Given the relatively minor cost and research time, those are pretty good numbers.

[Skitso]

I just recently had a jackal wearing unit with shield killed with one lucky burst. It just felt too punishing, but dunno then... Maybe give ballistic shields a little buff?

Edited May 21, 2014 by Skitso

[llunak]

If it was (un)lucky burst, there's hardly something to do with it, you can't fight rotten luck (unless you make the game so safe that it'd be boring). 3 shots, two wipe out the shield, third one gets lucky enough to kill the soldier - the only way to avoid this would be to make one-shoting Jackal soldier impossible.

[Solver]

The improvement isn't small at all. These are the average death rates for a 55HP soldier for the first two alien weapons with / without Jackal:

Plasma Pistol: without = 42% death chance, with = 2% death chance

Plasma Rifle: without = 79% death chance, with = 48% death chance

Bear in mind dying by less HP also dramatically increases the chance of the soldier surviving the battle. Each extra HP above -20 gives the soldier a 2.5% higher survival chance.

Given the relatively minor cost and research time, those are pretty good numbers.

Okay, numbers wise, I agree this sounds good. Doesn't feel like it in-game so far but that's from only a few battles recently. I do like that it's had lower weight for the last few builds - it makes it reasonable to use Jackal for fresh or mediocre soldiers without killing them with weight.

If it comes to a situation where Jackal and Wolf are both useful at the same time, I will really like it.

[kabill]

I've not updated yet so I can't check: does the armour nerf apply only to soldier armour and not vehicles? If so, it's worth noting that the change is a relative buff to vehicles too.

[Max_Caine]

I'd like to talk emotional impact for a moment. I've played this latest version since it came out (sorry TD), and I honestly question why I spent $160,000 on Jackal armour for my starting team. The numbers suggest that Jackal should be at least in the " better than nothin' " category, but I haven't yet had a trooper in Jackal armour survive a shot. Not one. The morgue now has 10 soliders who wore Jackal armour.

Logically, I know that I'm having a bad streak and the numbers will swing back the other way given enough time. Emotionally, I'm really pissed off that I spent that much money and time on stuff that seems to be as effective as wearing nowt. I mean, I keep getting 67+ incoming damage, so I know that's not going to keep happening forever. But it's happening right now after I've made Jackal, and cold numbers aren't going to convince anyone who's lost 4 Jackal soliders out of 8 to the first shot that hits them that Jackal was anything but a terrible decision to spend time and money on.

I don't know what to suggest to mitigate the emotional impact of having a solider one-shotted after putting them in a brand new suit of armour. I really don't. All I know is I'm going to tech towards Wolf at a rate of knots, sell the Jackal and curse the day I spent cash on it.

[KevinHann]

On a more positive note now you know how the army feels with all those fancy projects they throw millions on to find out they are completely useless in real battle conditions

It could have been worse though, could you imagine what would have happened if you didn't even have Jackal?

[legit1337]

I always though jackal armor was equivalent to modern day soft anti-ballistic vests. It will probably stop a pistol round, but a rifle round will tear right through it at close range.

It is there to give a chance of saving your life against plasma pistol shots, or long range plasma rifle hits. You will be alive but incapacitated if you get hit in those circumstances. Expecting to take even ONE plasma rifle round to the chest at close range and keep on fighting is a totally unrealistic expectation.

Edited May 22, 2014 by legit1337

[Skitso]

@Max: yeah, I was also talking about the feeling side of wearing a brand new jackal. Number-wise it sounds about right, but emotion-wise... really frustrating.

[silencer]

What Max said, that is why I didn't even bother with previous Jackal Armour. With set research path I'm getting Wolf Armour in second month and by the end of third my primary squad is armed whole in Wolf Armour. You can throw numbers but game experience shows that Jackal is mostly worthless.

You can say that personal armour in OG also was useless, but I've seen more beacon saving moments than Jackal provides.

[Chris]

I'm more inclined to believe the numbers than anecdotal experience tbh. Humans have very selective memory.

[Solver]

As an engineer, agreed. Although sometimes subjective experiences bring out the fact that something isn't quite working with the numbers as intended.

I think the new bleeding doesn't help. There's a fairly big chance of a soldier who survived a hit bleeding out immediately.

[Solver]

As an engineer, agreed. Although sometimes subjective experiences bring out the fact that something isn't quite working with the numbers as intended.

I think the new bleeding doesn't help. There's a fairly big chance of a soldier who survived a hit bleeding out immediately.

[KevinHann]

What is the new bleeding like, Solver?

[Solver]

Well, relatively new, it's been in for a bit. 5HP instead of 2HP per wound. Meaning that 2 wounds = 10HP, the problem being that it's applied at the beginning of your turn.

[Chris]

Actually, the major problem is the buff to Heavy Plasmas. That entirely negates the Jackal (and would have done so even at their pre-nerf levels) as they now have 30 mitigation and enough damage to one-shot most troops. The added mitigation is a good change overall but it makes them extremely strong early-game weapons.

Unfortunately, about 1/3 of the aliens on a Sebillian Corvette have Heavy Plasmas. I'm going to reduce that down to just a couple of aliens, as it makes Sebbies a bit difficult to handle pre-Wolf.