Armored Vehicles

Hi guys, new to the forums. I bought the game recently and I've gotta say I'm loving it. It's far better than the Firaxis game in my opinion. The new XCom games just simply don't feel quite... right to me, I guess. Xenonauts I definitely think recaptured the magic of the old games.

I did have a few questions about the early game armored vehicles - specifically the gap between the Hunter/Ferret and Scimitar. The game takes place in the late 1970s which means that IFVs (Infantry Fighting Vehicles) are in the near-production prototype stages or starting to roll off the assembly lines and into the hands of the armies of the world. Things like the Soviet's BMP-2 and the US's M2 Bradley. Admittedly, these are probably too heavy for the CH-48 Charlie. However, the US did have the M551 Sheridan pre-Vietnam and West Germany has the Wiesel AWC which I believe was prototyped in the mid 1970s but not produced due to funding - don't quote me on that though. Both of these, I believe, are light enough for the CH-48 - the Wiesel particularly since it weighs less than an armored Humvee. I also assume, since we managed to secure the blueprints for the MiG-31 Foxhound, that acquiring the blueprints for one of these light weight IFV/Light Tank/AWC wouldn't be too difficult. So I guess the question I'm getting at would be is there any plans for such a vehicle or perhaps any actual need? I suppose either way the real issue would be the artwork which I sadly can't help with - Engineering is my area of expertise, not artistic ability.

Second question I had is a bit related - the gap between .30 caliber machine guns and the pulse laser. This one is far simpler a question - Any chance we'll see a 20 to 40mm chaingun turret for any of the vehicles?

These are just a few thoughts I had while playing the game. These probably aren't even needed to be honest beyond a few moments I wish my Ferret had a bit more firepower or could have shrugged off that last hit so it could retreat to safety while my troops cleaned up the mess... instead of being a smoldering heap of little use beyond a new source of cover.

At any rate, thanks for the wonderful game guys and keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing the game completed.

Edit: By the way, I'm aware the M551 can't fit in the cargo hold. I forgot to mention that but I'm fairly certain they could be airlifted by CH-47s... though I'm guessing the game doesn't support that. I mentioned it simply due to it being an airbourne recon tank. Kinda left that out, my bad.

I think the Ferret is more of an Armored Car, to be honest...

And the Sheridan and Wiesel AWC were most likely deemed too vulnerable in terms of protection for it to be economically viable to bring one instead of a speedier Ferret or more squad members. The Sheridan was armored with Aluminum except for the turret (which was pretty small compared to the rest of the light tank) while the Wiesel was only armored enough to deflect small arms. Both give as much protection as an armored car against hot plasma.

The only thing they can bring is better firepower to the battlefield: a glass cannon, if you will. As such, it was not enough to justify the increased size and downgrade in maneuverability. Especially since the Ferret can be upgraded to field both dumb-fire rockets and a Laser cannon.

But...there's always mods?

There is also the FV107 Scimitar of the British which is about the same weight, similar dimensions, and only about 8mph slower compared to a Ferret. Same problem as the Sheridan though - Aluminium armor. I suppose you could modify the vehicles in the same way the aircraft in the game - using materials with increased resistance to plasma weaponry.

Not really worth the guys wasting time to put something like that in the game I would think though... So mods it is!

Edit: Whoops, out of curiosity, I went and checked the weight difference and it's about 4 tons... though the loaded weight of a CH-47 is 26,000-ish pounds and a max lift off of 50,000lbs so... I'm guessing it'd be fine.

I priced up what it would cost to introduce a new weapon for the vehicles, just art, nothing else. OY it's expensive. It's because you have to produce UI weapon art, xenopedia weapon art, garage art for each of the three vehicles and then (this is where it gets REALLY expensive) have the sprites either re-made or altered for the new weapon.

Yeah, that's what I was figuring would be the issue. Just a few things that had crossed my mind while playing. None of them are actually needed and definitely not worth the money involved. Though if someone where to find themselves in possession of excess funds that they didn't need - is there a specific way to go about providing them... short of buying everyone you know a copy of Xenonauts?

Well, back to checking out Experimental 6 then.

We did originally have a Warrior IFV and a T-80 planned for the game (you can see them as props now) but unfortunately, they weren't square enough to use (the game only supports square units). Also, in retrospect it'd have moved the focus away from the infantry combat a little too much for my liking.

That reminds me...the T-80 looks kinda...downsized...

The Warrior IFV looks okay though.

it'd have moved the focus away from the infantry combat a little too much for my liking.

That is the major point to me.

How useful would your squad of 6 people be against anything that could stand up to a tank?

And if it couldn't stand up to a tank then why use anything else?

Your troops would be just used to go inside where the big guns couldn't get to, and only those bits their guns couldn't destroy.

So basically your soldiers are there to walk to the UFO and clear it while the tanks take care of the rest.

Doesn't feel very x-com to me.

That is the major point to me.

How useful would your squad of 6 people be against anything that could stand up to a tank?

And if it couldn't stand up to a tank then why use anything else?

Your troops would be just used to go inside where the big guns couldn't get to, and only those bits their guns couldn't destroy.

So basically your soldiers are there to walk to the UFO and clear it while the tanks take care of the rest.

Doesn't feel very x-com to me.

I don't think I need to point it out, but X-Com did have tanks.

http://www.xcomufo.com/x1ufopaedia/hwps.html

Were they always useful? Nope. Were they a liability at times? Yep. Did they make infantry useless? Nope.

They're little more than a huge target - admittedly decently armored - with a heavy weapon on it that can't be reloaded and can't enter buildings... well sorta... make a big enough hole in something and you can park your Charlie in it most likely.

My personal opinion? You don't need vehicles at all, but to say they aren't X-Com when the original had two with multiple weapon setups is a bit of a stretch.

I was actually thinking more about the weapon on most IFVs rather than the IFV itself. The IFV was mostly just an after thought of "Hmmm, 30 year old armored car compared to 5-ish year old airborne armoured reconnaissance vehicle." but Chris more or less answered that question - but to be honest, the Ferret is one of my all time favorite armored vehicles so I don't have a problem with it at all. Anyways, back to the weapon part, I was thinking about the leap between .30 caliber twin machine guns that leave nice corpses and recoverable technology but lacking a certain punch at times to the Rockets, that I admittedly haven't used yet, assumingly does like rockets tend to do... explode along with everything in it's general area then to a Pulse Laser that while being a "projectile"... uhhh yeah, don't need to explain how it doesn't leave much either. Hence, my wondering about a 20-30mm chaingun type weapon that'd fall in somewhere between the three - Which is something that I could mod in myself at any rate sooooo no real need to waste development time and resources on it.

They were heavy weapon platforms rather than full battle tanks which was what was mentioned in the previous posts and what my reply was directed towards as you can see from the post I quoted.

The x-com HWPs were fairly well armoured but could still be taken down with a couple of lucky shots, they were usually not able to take large numbers of hits which is what you would expect from a t80 for example.

Their weapons were generally not much more powerful than an infantry weapon except in the case of the fusion launcher, although even that was a duplicate of the blaster bomb.

A battle tank weapon system should be significantly more powerful than most weapons your squad could carry.

The armoured vehicles used in Xenonauts are indeed very much in the theme of the OG HWPs.

They can be useful but are unlikely to be able to carry a fight on their own.

I quite like them although more ammunition would be good for some of the weapons.

There is always space for another weapon type or two though.

I intend to try modding secondary weapons back in for some of the vehicles again at some point, just to see if it is still possible.

Ah, my apologies, slight misunderstanding on my part. I completely agree about a T-80 or any form of MBT being overkill for any form of X-Com game. Though, I get the feeling I'm a bit responsible for the tank misunderstandings to begin with by using the M551 as an example earlier - it was one of the first airborne armored vehicles to pop into my mind at the time of making the original post so I was using it as an example of an airborne armored assault/reconnaissance vehicle - not that I thought Xenonauts needed a full-scale tank for the game. Such a vehicle would ruin the game entirely, to be honest. An early game tankette like the FV101 or FV107 is more or less what I was aiming at.

The secondary weapons would be a great thing to add back. I was looking through various things and thought I noticed something to that effect. Smoke launchers, for instance, would be more than welcome.

The quote I used was only a small section of the discussion so probably wasn't really clear which part I was trying to reply to.

It was probably a little off topic as well which won't have helped.

Have you had a look at the higher tech Xenonauts armoured vehicles btw?

They may not have much in common with real world vehicles but they do look pretty nice.

Just the Scimitar which I really like. I'm trying my best to refrain from looking up images for vehicles and equipment in the game that I haven't unlocked yet. It may sound a bit strange but I don't want to ruin the surprise, I guess?

Nothing wrong with that, especially this close to release.

Are there any balance changes you would like to see on the current vehicles you have tried?

For example movement speed, survivability, ammunition etc?

My opinion so far

The Hunter (I keep wanting to call it Ferret) feels about right, though I'd kinda expect some of the terrain it just cruises over without any trouble would effect it's mobility due to it being a wheeled vehicle, but I'm guessing the game engine might not support these kinda effects on TU cost of movement and it's a pretty trivial thing to begin with. I'll admit, though I have a habit of giving it a slight HP buff in my game files - not a huge one or anything though (I think it was around 25-50hp, I haven't used vehicles yet in this save game.) while leaving the armor values untouched. I prefer using it with the .30 caliber turret, though I feel that it's accuracy is a bit off but I also think that any increase in accuracy would definitely start effecting gameplay in a bad way. I'm fairly certain that the Ferret carried around 450 rounds for it's .30 caliber if I'm remembering right, so I don't see a problem giving the Hunter that amount. I don't actually recall how much it has though since I haven't used it in a while and I can't seem to get the tooltip to pop up in game at the moment. That's another thing I was thinking about - decreasing the delay for tooltips to pop-up but that's a whole different conversation. As a side-note, have you ever noticed as it's going around the corner it's weight actually seems to shift? No idea if the artist put something like that in the sprite animations or if it's just my brain seeing what it wants to but it's a nice touch that you probably wouldn't notice right off the bat.

The Scimitar I'll have to get back to you on since I haven't gotten one produced yet in this play through. Embarrassingly, it's been sitting in the queue for manufacturing by my Engineering teams while I seemingly forgot to actually assign them to the task last time they completed something and been on a coffee/smoke break for what I'm assuming is about a week. Another side-note, is there anyway to make the engineers automatically start on the next task in the queue for people who have a tendency to forget? I just produced my first Shrike so I've got plenty of room for a vehicle now so as soon as the Scimitar finishes I'll let you know.

Edit: On a side note (Yeah, I seem to have a lot of these), I had an interesting thought. Vehicle crews in times of war tend to get attached to their vehicles for various reasons. As they gain combat experience in the vehicle, they also start to find the design faults in it and have a knack for making field "modifications". You especially see it a lot in World War II among Sherman crews. These modifications often times served no real purpose beyond increasing the morale of the crew or keeping the enemy guessing. To be honest, I've got no real idea where this thought is going beyond using it as justification to increase vehicle stats as they survive battles ala vehicle modifications. I don't really think vehicles need stat increases, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to at least mention it.

Edit: Gauddlike, I'm not even sure where to start with the Scimitar. I sent it on a mission with my now 10 man squad on my shiny new Shrike - which is awesome, by the way. Now, the way to properly test any new vehicle - armored or otherwise - is to break it, right? So, I proceeded to have my infantry secure the immediate area around the dropship - no enemies to be found. So, I proceeded to roll out my Scimitar in the endeavor to break it. Much to the horror of the alien menace, My first Scimitar, I dubbed Broadsword 01, did not break... No, instead it effectively(affectedly?) rolled over the alien threat until running out of ammo at which point I retreated it back to the dropship and used it as mobile cover for my infantry to advance to the downed alien craft. I dare say this particular vehicle is more than adequate. The only real thing I could say is that the animation for it could be worked on a bit. I'm referring to when you move it backwards a space or two and it just slides back and turns slightly into the direction of the rear. I don't know if it's possible with the game engine to have vehicles do it or not but perhaps instead of having them turn completely, just having them go in reverse when they're moving backwards just a few spaces? Just a cosmetic thing so I wouldn't worry about it.

Edit: The Sebillians have discovered a new anti-armor tactic! Standing on top of destroyed objects like trees and stuff to make themselves even more invisible to IR sensors! They're going so far as to even taunt tank operators by not bothering to so much as crouch!

Edit: I just had another idea. In World War II and the Korean War, there were canister type tank rounds - basically a giant shotgun - due to Japanese mass suicide charges during World War II and Communist style Mass-Infantry during the Korean War. They required no modification of the tank itself or anything like that - just a new type of anti-personnel round. Where am I going with this? Giant Laser Carbine...

IMO, all the non-MG turrets need more ammo. The amounts are too low to make them useful for an entire ground combat and that makes less desirable than two soldiers armed with heavy weapons, specially experienced soldiers. I'd say a 50% bump in ammo would be fine. If you consider the expense and that they are not recoverable the balance is still off IMO. As far as survivability and speed I think I'm fine with how they are now.

I kinda agree with vehicle ammo needing an increase in general. I'm going to go out on a limb, on the assumption that the various energy cells for weapons are universal - vehicles included and that the heavy vehicle mounted version of these weapons would suck one or two of these cells dry on a single shot. These cells should be sufficiently small enough and vehicles should have a decent amount munition stowage space that I don't see an issue with a 25%-75% (towards the middle would be best.) increase to ammo capacity for non-MG weapons on vehicles.

Was the V21 stable bug where destroyed Scimitar is recoverable get fixed?

I haven't actually managed to get the damned thing destroyed yet so I can't really say. I'm guessing one of the other guys should be able to answer that one or it might be in the release notes for some of the new versions.

As I understand it, the advanced weapons (laser/plasma cannons, not sure about the MAG, I haven't gotten it before) are supposed to be powered directly from the power source for the vehicle, which would imply that so long as the vehicle's power source was operational, and the weapon remained undamaged, the weapon should be able to fire (seeing as neither have any physical ammunition requirements like bullets or missiles) which implies that the weapon should have a theoretically infinite ammunition capacity. From a game balance perspective though, I totally understand why they do have an ammunition count, if they didn't there would be little incentive to not send as many as you could and just systematically level the battlefield.

Reactors require fuel, however. Alenium does get depleted as it's used so it's not a perpetual energy source. So, there's at least a half way decent explanation for you.

I have a question about the T-80, was there originally intended to be another starting dropship? Because I know for a fact that there is no way the Chinook is carrying a T-80.

I think they would have made it so that you could only deploy it with one of the upgraded dropships...

I don't believe it ever got to the point that a decision needed to be made about how exactly the t80 was deployed.

I vaguely remember a lore discussion about the tank being severely lightened to be carried under the Chinook but that may have been forum members talking about it without dev involvement.

It would need to be cut in half for that to work though.

The t80 was ditched very early on so it was likely never really thought out.

Especiallly since they'd never be able to get it to scale properly. Even the prop T-80s are utterly puny.