Some ideas for balancing

[tobbe]

After I started a new campaign (hard difficulty,just arrived in May, first year) i came up with some thoughts about balancing:

1) For me, the aliens develop new weaponry just TOO fast. I know, Phalanx is meant to be inferior and outgunned...but i will capture my first tachyon beams rifle before i even started to research any plasma tech (went for railgun, alien armor and nanacomp armor -> survival of my soldiers is more important then weaponry...) It is just boring to know that you will be able to research any alien weapon within a few months...why should i even bother to research lasers? I just pick the most advanced stuff! AFAIK, the tech development could be much more dynamic and interesting. I few ideas:

Remove some starting equipment, especially combat armor. You will use it anyways, you could decrease weapon damage for an equal effect. This way you could start to research an additional "terran tech" and improve you soldiers by this. Furthermore, i would delay the new "armor tech" a while.

Slow down the improving weaponry of the aliens a lot. Without the combat armor, they will still be a threat, even with plasma pistols. Remove the alien armor from the beginning of the game (found one on the first encounter). This way, the terran equipment will stay efficient for some time and then introduce armored aliens (you might even improve the armor, to make new developments urgent)

Put some tech before the railgun. It is just boring to be able to research one weapon that can be used for all the game as first tech. I think the railgun would be a nice addition for the midgame.

Improve the laser (kind of replacement for the rail gun) and make it a little less powerful (perhaps even with some benefits e.g. high range, high precision, high armor penetration) than plasma technology. This way researching laser will start to become useful.

Remove the Saracen from the start, have him being researched and improve the stats (especially speed). Right now, if a UFO is detected, there is almost no chance to get it (had about 10 UFO sightings, lauched fighters and lost contact...boring). If the saracen becomes much faster, at least you will have some means to actually shot some UFOs down...

Remove polymer armor for fighters. Add some new terran fighter weaponry (capital lasers, laser guided rockets, improved fighter armor) and make them efficient enough to shot down small UFOs and to survive more encounters. Make air fights a clear decision: Either you win and survive or you lose. This way you will have to decide if you want to "pimp" your fighters or your ground troops.

Add some special ammo (e.g. armor piercing). This way, the normal weaponry (like assault rifles) stays interesting a much longer time...

I imagine the development of the conflict like this: The aliens invaded and have a starting advantage in techs (plasma psitols and rifles, only two simple species). Phalanx starts to counter their invasion and brings up some new terran answers (development of better terran tech (lasers, combat armor, saracen, bolter etc.) Right when the terrans think they are getting closer, the aliens take one further step (new alien armor, plasma blaster and granades, new species) and phalanx has to come up with new solutions (copy the armor, armor piercing bullets, copy the alien tech) and this dance can be repeated again and again.

[shevegen]

Well one way could be to increase the time for railgun to finish.

But actually I think plasma tech isn't that useful anyway...

I however completely disagree on this:

"Remove some starting equipment, especially combat armor."
No, thank you. Just because for balance reason? How silly is it
to move against very dangerous aliens without armour? Come on ...
noone would do that. If you want to balance the research project,
then find other ways.

"Remove the alien armor from the beginning of the game"
Guess you suggest this only because alien armour will become
useful. (Or in general, all alien tech.)
A suggestion is to simply make researching alien stuff
harder/more expensive/more time consuming.


"Put some tech before the railgun. "
Agreed. Though, you didnt specify what exactly to put before.



"Improve the laser (kind of replacement for the rail gun) and make it a little less powerful "
I think this is a bad suggestion. The way lies to make rail gun harder to get, rather
than making laser a replacement for the rail gun.



"Right now, if a UFO is detected, there is almost no chance to get it (had about 10 UFO sightings, lauched fighters and lost contact...boring)."
Depends on the bases and interceptors. If one has enough bases with several interceptors from different directions, it is
normally very easy to intercept an UFO.

On the hard levels though, I do indeed have cash problems


"Add some special ammo (e.g. armor piercing)."
Totally agreed on that, for several reasons.



What I think could happen would be that the alien tech gets a slight boost, the research cost is increased too,
and maybe the initial requirements for "decoding" alien tech could be made a bit harder as well.

[tobbe]

"Remove some starting equipment, especially combat armor."

No, thank you. Just because for balance reason? How silly is it
to move against very dangerous aliens without armour? Come on ...
noone would do that. If you want to balance the research project,
then find other ways.

I see your point. You could argue that there is no armor that could be useful against aliens. Or that normal kevlar is automaticly donned.

The reason why i want to remove it is to give the player an additional possibility to improve the soldiers without the need for an additional model for another type of armor. And if the firepower of the aliens is scaled down the same way (just reducing their damage or only giving them plasma pistols e.g.) the beginning would not change...

"Remove the alien armor from the beginning of the game"
Guess you suggest this only because alien armour will become
useful. (Or in general, all alien tech.)
A suggestion is to simply make researching alien stuff
harder/more expensive/more time consuming.

Not really the reason. Having the aliens START with armor, there is lesser development. Right now it only takes a few months (just ran one test game on hard and the aliens had medium and tachyon weapons armor in may...) for the aliens to be armed to their maximum. You have tons to research and your own development takes some "jumps"...from railgun to nanoarmor to tachyon guns e.g. you just pick always the best stuff...no need to research plasma tech...no need to research lasers and so on...

"Put some tech before the railgun. "
Agreed. Though, you didnt specify what exactly to put before.

cause i have no real good idea...i simply want to postpone the development of the railgun till midgame.

"Improve the laser (kind of replacement for the rail gun) and make it a little less powerful "
I think this is a bad suggestion. The way lies to make rail gun harder to get, rather
than making laser a replacement for the rail gun.

Ok, lets try it the other way round: make lasers really useful! Right now they are useless!

And i dont think the increasing the research costs of railguns is a good idea. I would expect all of my first researchable techs to be reasonably fast...and it might be a bad surprise if the first tech you start (railgun) takes months...an alternative might be, that there ist a kind of expected research time stated somewhere. This way you could have the choice to choose your research way with much more strategical conderations...

"Right now, if a UFO is detected, there is almost no chance to get it (had about 10 UFO sightings, lauched fighters and lost contact...boring)."
Depends on the bases and interceptors. If one has enough bases with several interceptors from different directions, it is
normally very easy to intercept an UFO.

On the hard levels though, I do indeed have cash problems

Ok, that would work...and if i built some more bases, cash would really become less abundant...a nice way to burn the 6 millions i acumulated...

What I think could happen would be that the alien tech gets a slight boost, the research cost is increased too,
and maybe the initial requirements for "decoding" alien tech could be made a bit harder as well.

This would simply slow down the players development, but the development of the aliens would still be finished after a few months... Right now you see a new alien, a new weapon, a new armor every second tactical mission an you go "Wow, what is that!" in the beginning...but after the first half year, there is no new challenge