Allow burst fire and single shot to work the same way - for balancing and modding

I have been experimenting a fair bit with balancing the weapons into the roles I see them fitting in.

I keep running into the same problem though.

The current way of setting the stats and abilities of the weapons is quite restricted.

There is a single shot mode with adjustable accuracy per step and only one burst mode.

This leaves a lot of the weapons feeling very similar to me.

I propose an alteration to how the two fire modes are handled by the game.

Specifically both fire modes would be identical.

This would allow much wider variation between weapons and finer adjustments when balancing them.

*edit for clarification*

If both modes allow for all of the options that are currently locked into either single shot or burst modes then more combinations of abilities are possible.

For example some weapons may have primary fire modes with multiple rounds fired, others with multiple levels of burst fire which is currently not possible.

Additionally I would also like to see the individual steps of each mode define the characteristics of the shot rather than the mode itself.

This would allow yet more variation.

Examples follow to try and clarify my points.

Currently the stats for weapons are defined here:

I would change them to this configuration:

These changes would mean each individual step could define its own number of rounds fired, as well as the suppression generated and the amount of ammo used, rather than only the AP cost and accuracy.

Ammo count and damage multiplier would be useful as weapons like the lasers could have a secondary fire that was more like an overcharged shot than a burst (uses three lots of charge for a 1.5x damage shot etc).

Each mode would pretty much require its own link to an animation spectre if it had a different number of rounds fired.

Specifying the GC crosshair image used here would also allow for different shot types to have a different secondary fire icon, for example the current burst fire icon or an overcharged shot icon overlay on the aiming reticle.

Clip size moved to the ammo type if possible would allow for different ammo to have different capacities, extended mags, improved batteries etc.

A few examples of current and possible versions of weapons follow (most numbers for example only).

Single shot and burst fire modes are referred to as primary and secondary fire as I copied these from another of my posts.

Machine gun:

Assault rifle:

Carbine:

I like the idea of sniper rifles with two fire modes, one that gives you increased accuracy the longer you aim (as current) and one that gives increased damage instead of accuracy (i.e. aiming for the critical areas).

I would like to see machine guns where you can decide how many rounds you will fire at the enemy by selecting the shot type with right click.

Laser weapons that kick out a more powerful single shot instead of a burst.

How difficult would this be to implement? It looks like a good idea, but is it practical at this point is the question.

I don't believe that it would be fantastically difficult.

The code is already there for practically all of this.

Moving the location of attributes has been done before, Chris had the damage stats moved from the weapon to the ammunition to aid modders for example, so that part is possible.

It could be too time consuming to do of course but never know unless it gets suggested.

The problem wouldn't really be getting the code into the right places to allow both modes to work in the desired way.

It may be more difficult getting rid of the bugs and making sure it works properly but that is the same problem with any new feature or modification to existing ones.

Personally I feel it would be worth it in order to make the weapons more individual and interesting.

Others, including the devs, may not agree but that is why it is a suggestion, not an order

Just for the sake of better moddability, this would be good to have. And, like the OP said, immensely useful for more accurately differentiating between otherwise similar weapons.

Yeah, after reading over it, and considering that switching stuff around like this has already been done, then I see no reason why it can't be done (especially if Chris was specifically aiding the modders with the ammo damage thing). Of course, as always, it's up to the devs to make the call, but I think it would be worthwhile.

(If it even matters,) I vote yea.

Glad a few people seem to agree anyway.

It goes some way towards making the weapons feel more unique to me.

Hopefully Chris will read this thread and consider it when he is concentrating more on balance.

I like this thread. I'm bumping it up to the top of the unread list, because it's come up in the "Machine Gun" thread.

Besides, it should have more people seeing it anyway, as it would make multiple ammo types possible, among other nice things for modders.

Assuming this is as simple to implement as suggested, it seems like a reasonable idea. I don't personally use mods a lot but they really do extend the life of games.

Point me at this thread come beta.

Will do.

Hey Chris, it's Beta!

(probably)

Looking at this now. Moving the clip size to ammo isn't a significant issue I'm sure, and we can probably move the definitions for single-shot stuff to the individual shot levels. However:

1) I can't be bothered to move all the settings in weapons_gc.xml to each individual single-shot level myself. Someone in the community will have to do that and give me a nicely laid out file to those specifications before I have those changes made.

2) We don't have different cursor images for the burst fire accuracy levels, and even if we did the code doesn't support it at the moment. I'm not particularly keen to spend development time adding different burst fire accuracy levels at this point. So for now that'll stay as just one level of accuracy.

Looking at this now. Moving the clip size to ammo isn't a significant issue I'm sure, and we can probably move the definitions for single-shot stuff to the individual shot levels. However:

1) I can't be bothered to move all the settings in weapons_gc.xml to each individual single-shot level myself. Someone in the community will have to do that and give me a nicely laid out file to those specifications before I have those changes made.

2) We don't have different cursor images for the burst fire accuracy levels, and even if we did the code doesn't support it at the moment. I'm not particularly keen to spend development time adding different burst fire accuracy levels at this point. So for now that'll stay as just one level of accuracy.

The second point doesn't matter too much. Is it easy enough to add shot type icons below the weapon on the battlescape GUI and have them link in to specific shot characteristics?

Also, what about putting a damage multiplier value into the shot characteristics so the over-charged pulse can be added in?

Those two things would be enough to achieve what Gaudlike was looking for.

For example some weapons may have primary fire modes with multiple rounds fired, others with multiple levels of burst fire which is currently not possible.

Chris, two questions.

First - would that be possible to implement multishot, as defined in burst mode ( "burstdelay" and "shotCount" parameters ) for singlefire sets - second part of Gauddlike proposal?

And second - can be flare light effect and its radius be moved to ammo properties (to where "fireChance" and "smokeChance" is now)? Right now it is implemented in weapon animation type for some reason.

That second part sounds pretty cool. Flare launchers!

Belmakor - no, it's not easy to add new icons to the UI. There's not really much room and it's not a trivial thing to do in general. The damage multiplier would be an entirely new feature as well.

Lt_Parsons - I don't know about multi-shot tbh. Possibly. It doesn't really make logical sense though, as the shots are divided into single and burst shot already.

Incidentally, the flare light effect is implemented in config.xml though.

I don't know about multi-shot tbh. Possibly. It doesn't really make logical sense though, as the shots are divided into single and burst shot already.

Even if we do not have accuracy levels for burst fire, number of shots for regular fire will provide possibility to make short burst for LMG and carbines/SMG, that can also be variable (2 shots - 3 - 4). That way actual Burst fire will just work like long full auto without needing any changes.

I ask mostly because these parameters already exist.

Incidentally, the flare light effect is implemented in config.xml though.

Yes, i saw it there. My point here is, i tried to mod in flare gun, as Sathra instantly deducted, and only way to do it, that i found, is to use weapon "bulletType="flare" parameter, which changes animation type, so soldiers literally throw bullets. It's looking funny, but not actually useful.

Looking at this now. Moving the clip size to ammo isn't a significant issue I'm sure, and we can probably move the definitions for single-shot stuff to the individual shot levels. However:

1) I can't be bothered to move all the settings in weapons_gc.xml to each individual single-shot level myself. Someone in the community will have to do that and give me a nicely laid out file to those specifications before I have those changes made.

2) We don't have different cursor images for the burst fire accuracy levels, and even if we did the code doesn't support it at the moment. I'm not particularly keen to spend development time adding different burst fire accuracy levels at this point. So for now that'll stay as just one level of accuracy.

1, I don't mind having a look at doing that once my current run of 5 12.5 hour shifts in 6 days is finished, not got much free time atm so will have to give it a try and see how time consuming it is before I can guarantee anything though.

Do you have a preference for a format or should I just tag things together in a way that makes sense to me?

2, If you could add multiple shots to the current single fire mode could you duplicate that as a quicker method than reworking the current burst model?

The code would already be present for a shot type with multiple aim levels that also has multiple bullets fired.

I'd recommend you comment the heck out of the code, Gauddlike, whichever way you do it, just so Chris (or whoever) can understand it really well. (I forgot to comment on a lot of my high school-era programs, and I have little idea as to what they actually do now. I've been slowly going through and checking them one by one, but commenting would have made it much easier.)

I'm really keen on Gaudlike's idea of having supercharged shots as a single shot option. You could always replace the burst icon with another "supercharged" icon in the same location for the scatter laser (shotgun).

In any case we need the clip size to move to the ammo type.

and we need ammo cost to move to shot type and be seperate from ammo count.

Laser cells are already universal right?

There is a problem I can't get my head around in the time i'm willing to spend writing this though.

How does the code determine how much ammo you have in relation to shots? I mean could you fire a double charge shot even if you only had 1 cell of power left? Or would it be like the MG in that it would only fire out a single damage shot.

Personally I would lock out the shot if you didn't have enough ammunition to fire it, same as if you tried to fire a normal shot with zero ammunition.

I'm really keen on Gaudlike's idea of having supercharged shots as a single shot option. You could always replace the burst icon with another "supercharged" icon in the same location for the scatter laser (shotgun).

You mean the laser carbine? The scatter laser is the machinegun.

I think there is some confusion over what I meant when I said the icon image.

To clarify I was talking about the actual aiming reticle/crosshair.

Currently the standard shot has a plain crosshair while the burst fire is a crosshair with several shells added on.

This may be confusing if there were different types of secondary shot available.

My suggestion was that the path to the crosshair image could be specified by the weapon so that it could be changed if required.

For example switching to a weapon with burst fire would show the current burst crosshair but switching to a weapon with an overcharged shot as secondary would show a crosshair with a beam image overlay that got bigger as you went up the steps.

I have changed the OP to call them GC crosshairs which I think is a little more clear.

I think there is some confusion over what I meant when I said the icon image.

To clarify I was talking about the actual aiming reticle/crosshair.

Currently the standard shot has a plain crosshair while the burst fire is a crosshair with several shells added on.

This may be confusing if there were different types of secondary shot available.

My suggestion was that the path to the crosshair image could be specified by the weapon so that it could be changed if required.

For example switching to a weapon with burst fire would show the current burst crosshair but switching to a weapon with an overcharged shot as secondary would show a crosshair with a beam image overlay that got bigger as you went up the steps.

I have changed the OP to call them GC crosshairs which I think is a little more clear.

Yeh I understood that to be your meaning but seems Chris said it wasn't possible. So I figured only other way of distinguishing that from a regular high accuracy shot would be to make it the same as switching mode to burst. Obviously that means standard rifles could only burst fire or over-charge. Not both.

The aim level image for burst fire is easy to make, just copy the single shot crosshair level images and add the burst bullets to them.

Bit of photoshop time but not much.

The code must find the path of the proper file to use from somewhere so the difficult part would be finding that bit of code and getting it to look at the proper part of weapons_gc to find that path instead.

I was kind of hoping that the fire modes would be able to mirror each other so that the same code could be used for both.

No problem changing the existing burst fire to try and add aim levels as you would already have a fully functional set of code that does that job.

Just needs the multiple shots to be possible at different aim levels and the modified version of the current single shot mode would do the trick.

Switching fire modes then would just be a case of choosing which set of aim levels the game would cycle though rather than changing to a whole different way of firing.

A damage modifier and an ammo cost modifier would make the overcharged shot mode possible, still hopeful that Chris will like the sound of that one enough to add it.

Some laser and plasma weapons would benefit from it I think.

The difficulty level applies a modifier to the damage formula already so the functionality is there.

It only does it for aliens though.

Maybe the damage formula could be tweaked so it looks at weapons_gc for a shot type damage modifier as well?

The only new bit of code might be persuading the game to deduct more than one count of ammunition on firing for overcharged shots.