General > Discussion
Weapons and damage in 2.5 (HEAD)
H-Hour:
I'm still considering bumping up flechette shells damage, so that may address some of your concerns. More specific responses:
--- Quote from: Jon_dArc on May 15, 2012, 05:49:59 pm ---Mm. I'm not sure how often this is going to happen, though, without some serious magnification in the situational effectiveness differences between the ammo options—reloading is expensive, which puts the reloading soldier a bit less than half a turn behind the rest of the team in advancing. Additionally, the current partial magazine is sacrificed. Even in the cases where it seems like switching would be most strongly favoured (switching a grenadier to flechettes when entering a harvester), I find myself more likely to just pull a melee weapon.
--- End quote ---
To each his own, I guess. I would always prefer to take a turn to consolidate my soldiers defensively and prepare them for a breach. Melee weapons for you, flechette shells for me. (Side note: eventually we will have alien AI that does not just rush the player as fast as they can.)
--- Quote from: Jon_dArc on May 15, 2012, 05:49:59 pm ---Really, I think to ever be glad about missing your intended target (and thus potentially hitting a secondary target), you need a situation like the 2.4 machine gun's huge number of shots and high damage—especially in the absence of any sort of wound penalty, anything that risks leaving the original target alive is very difficult to justify, even if more total damage is dealt out.
--- End quote ---
I don't know, I run into lots of situations where I'm dealing with almost-dead aliens, either because previous shots didn't kill them or otherwise. Again, this may just be a play style preference, depending on how important it is for you to ensure a kill with one soldier.
--- Quote from: Jon_dArc on May 15, 2012, 05:49:59 pm ---Mm. The knife is actually not bad against Taman, especially when you consider that reloading to Flechette is 4 stabs worth of time (and actually firing is another 3 stabs). The reaction fire issue similarly runs up against the machine pistol, which does the same damage at substantially better accuracy and range and gets two more shots for the same TU (full-auto vs. snap shot). Damage type becomes worse as the game proceeds, but flechette grenades never get better either and I'd argue it quickly becomes preferable to have another soldier covering the grenadier than go through contortions to give him/her ranged reaction fire capability.
--- End quote ---
Even something as small as a machine pistol takes up more space than a reload of flechette shells. This will probably become more relevant when we have a proper weight system in place, where carrying too much weight can slow down a soldier.
You're right that there are other options that can also fill the role of the flechette shells: melee weapons, smaller secondary firearms. Each one has its benefits. Melee weapons have high damage per TU, but no range. Secondaries have high damage, but take more inventory space. Flechette grenade has reduced damage per TU, but it takes up 1 inventory slot. As long as flechette grenades have their own niche -- even if it is not the "best" in most situations -- I'm happy to keep them.
Jon_dArc:
--- Quote from: H-Hour on May 15, 2012, 06:19:52 pm ---To each his own, I guess. I would always prefer to take a turn to consolidate my soldiers defensively and prepare them for a breach. Melee weapons for you, flechette shells for me. (Side note: eventually we will have alien AI that does not just rush the player as fast as they can.)
--- End quote ---
A non-rushing AI might help—one of the big reservations I have with consolidating is that due to alien AI it's usually either a waste (aliens stuck on upper floor) or involves giving the initiative to the aliens (aliens on lower floor, rushing out). Also, even in the Corrupter the quarters tend to be tight enough to make it difficult for more than the first few soldiers in to matter (admittedly in the Corrupter the chokepoint happens inside the UFO proper, on the second level, but aliens still typically cluster on the far side of it), encouraging just having the grenadier do kneeling laps outside to train Quickness rather than going through contortions to get him active inside. But yeah, AI could be a big limiting factor here.
--- Quote ---Even something as small as a machine pistol takes up more space than a reload of flechette shells. This will probably become more relevant when we have a proper weight system in place, where carrying too much weight can slow down a soldier.
--- End quote ---
Sure, but with the death of the three-round burst I feel like a lot of inventory pressure has already come off of grenadiers, and they didn't feel particularly tight to begin with. I certainly don't think I've ever reloaded a GL more than once on a mission in 2.5; have you?
--- Quote ---You're right that there are other options that can also fill the role of the flechette shells: melee weapons, smaller secondary firearms. Each one has its benefits. Melee weapons have high damage per TU, but no range. Secondaries have high damage, but take more inventory space. Flechette grenade has reduced damage per TU, but it takes up 1 inventory slot. As long as flechette grenades have their own niche -- even if it is not the "best" in most situations -- I'm happy to keep them.
--- End quote ---
Sure, I dig. My argument is just that (as it stands, without possible damage adjustment/etc.) I don't actually think that niche exists :)
~J
Jon_dArc:
So in my laser weapon analysis above I focused on the Laser Pistol, both because it's the laser weapon I used most in 2.4 (laser pistol in one hand, melee weapon/grenade or later particle beam pistol in the other) and because its weakening was particularly dramatic (no more long-range accuracy, and guaranteed-1 damage in a surprising number of situations). I'm given the impression, though, that the general community favoured the Laser Rifle more, and the Heavy Laser probably also deserves an examination.
Since full-sized weapons are much less frequently moved to/from the inventory in my experience, I'm going to skip comparing the weapons based on their inventory sizes/arrangements.
A Laser Rifle gets you Crouch 0.85, Range 200, 14 effective ammo (28 at 2 ammo per shot), 14 TU reload cost, and 2x1 ammo. They deal 42±10 laser_medium at 8 TU/shot for Spread 0.8 or 12 TU/3 shots at Spread 0.9.
An Assault Rifle gets you Crouch 0.85, Range 100, 30 ammo, 12 TU reload cost, and 2x1 ammo. They deal 42±5 normal_medium at 8 TU/shot for Spread 1.2, 12 TU/3 shots for Spread 1.4, 16 TU/8 shots for Spread 1.6, or 16 TU/shot for Spread 1 using Sniper skill instead of Assault (though if advancement still works like 2.4, that means better Accuracy training potential).
A Plasma Rifle gets you Crouch 0.85, Range 70, 20 ammo, 12 TU reload cost, and 2x1 ammo. They deal 80±10 plasma_medium ammo at 8 TU/shot for Spread 1.2, 12 TU/3 shots for Spread 1.5, 16 TU/6 shots for Spread 1.8, and 16 TU/shot for Spread 1 using Sniper skill.
Now, per-round damage, range-constrained values in parentheses as above:
Taman:
Assault Rifle: 52/32/(1-7)±5
Laser Rifle: 27/22/17±10
Plasma Rifle: 75/55/35±10
Ortnok:
Assault Rifle: 22/12/(1)±5
Laser Rifle: 12/(1-17)/(1-12)±10
Plasma Rifle: 80/60/40±10
Shevaar:
Assault Rifle: 22/12/(1)±5
Laser Rifle: 42/37/32±10
Plasma Rifle: 100/80/60±10
Bloodspider:
Assault Rifle: 42±5
Laser Rifle: 22±10
Plasma Rifle: 100±10
I've run out of time at the moment to really analyze these results, so I'll post this and come back.
~J
Jon_dArc:
Ok, well, been busier than expected but at least I can give a partial analysis now.
To some extent I'm about to do what I just assured TrashMan I wasn't doing, namely mostly ignoring the effect of accuracy. I'll revisit this analysis to make sure it holds up when that's taken into account later.
The big thing that strikes me, looking at these damage numbers, is that it's hard to justify taking a Laser Rifle over an Assault Rifle, especially any time in the period after laser weapons become available—at least on a raw damage basis, the laser rifle simply isn't competitive until Medium Alien Armor or Shevaar enter the scene, by which time the laser rifle has probably been thoroughly forgotten in storage (if the player hasn't simply sold whatever stockpiles had been acquired). Again with the shots for a kill analysis:
Taman:
Assault Rifle: 2-3/3-5/15-130
Laser Rifle: 3-8/4-11/4-18
Plasma Rifle: 2/2-3/3-6
Ortnok:
Assault Rifle: 6-12/9-22/150-190
Laser Rifle: 7-95/9†-190/13-190
Plasma Rifle: 2-3/3-4/3-7
†: Note that although the best-case is the same as the AR, because of range constraint damage dealt will be 1 20% of the time, pushing the probabilities substantially away from the best cases.
Shevaar:
Assault Rifle: 5-10/8-23/120-160
Laser Rifle: 3-5/3-6/3-8
Plasma Rifle: 2/2-3/2-4
Bloodspider:
Assault Rifle: 4-5
Laser Rifle: 5-13
Plasma Rifle: 2
I'll need to account for accuracy to be sure, but between the substantially larger effective magazine, the greater shot efficiency (8 rounds for 16 TU), and the often significantly smaller number of rounds that need to land on target, I feel like the AR is simply outclassing the laser rifle until they both become obsolete—and that's to say nothing of the plasma rifle.
~J
Battlescared:
--- Quote from: Jon_dArc on May 18, 2012, 04:25:11 pm ---The big thing that strikes me, looking at these damage numbers, is that it's hard to justify taking a Laser Rifle over an Assault Rifle...
--- End quote ---
So take the Assault Rifle, or the electromagnetic rifle, or any of the other rifles. I dump the laser rifle in favor of the heavy laser, plasma rifle, or the em rifle. Either three choices are better for one reason or another. I've also carried an assault rifle long into the campaign to help with balancing weapon ammo usage. Assault rifles always have ammo for sale, laser rifles take a bit before the world supply chain takes over, and if I load up on lasers, I'll burn through ammo too quickly.
The one thing I would say though, and this may not be too popular, is that you should have to research the lasers in order (just earth based tech, stuff we find we should be researchable whenever). Start with the pistol and work your way to the heavy, dumping the lesser weapons along the way. Then at least you learn the weapons and take the ones that work for you. For the last few releases I've found the heavy laser to be the more effective and useful in my squads. It puts enough damage on them at range to soften them up a bit from it's accuracy, and at close range it hits pretty hard.
Now, if there is a gimp to accuracy in 2.5, then yes, that may make it far less useful. That might negate the main reason I carry them. I'd have to play with them to see how they work in practice.
In general, I hate these kinds of analysis because you have to take the weapons in context of game play. Many things make a weapon a better choice over another other than just numbers and damage, such as map types and when you expect to engage the enemy. But good analysis anyway. A little theory can go along way.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version