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Finished game on 2.5 Hard mode. Thoughts and experiences.

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H-Hour:

--- Quote from: debalde on October 24, 2013, 01:09:51 pm ---Are the armour and weapon tables (http://ufoai.org/wiki/Weapon_tables) still up to the date (for version 2.5)?

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No, not even a little bit. Our wiki is packed with outdated info. I wouldn't recommend it for any non-development information.


--- Quote from: Telok on October 24, 2013, 08:12:53 pm ---Interesting. I see two minor issues here, both possibly related to the in-game feedback thing. First the unarmored aliens take more damage from plasma, and second I can't tell if an alien is wearing light or heavy armor. For a time I did arm some of my garrisons with laser rifles but the lasers underperformed the plasma in close quarters and the armored ortnoks and combat bloodspiders were highly resistant. Still the lasers did rock the shevarr pretty hard but I don't know if they can even wear armor.

I think that the issue for me is that lasers are another siituational weapon. They are better at longer ranges (but I have snipers fot that) and less damage for equal or greater TUs at point blank range. In my play style lasers compete against sniper rifles rather than against plasma rifles, and they lose in that comparison.

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Actually, by the time you get lasers, all aliens except the Shevaar will be wearing light armour (Bloodspiders and Hovernets both have protection values equivalent to light armour). So for all aliens but the Shevaar (who can not wear armour), the laser rifle outperforms the plasma rifle -- with the caveat that it does not have a full-auto option.

I admit the distinction between light and heavy armour could be clearer (although I think it's not that hard to notice). But by the time you see Ortnoks, Tamans will be in heavy armour (and Combat Bloodspiders and Combat Hovernets have heavy-equivalent values). The aliens have reinforced their armour against lasers by this point, so it's really in your interest to move quickly to Encased Plasma or Particle Beams. This is late-game, though, so you'll be on the back foot until you can deploy one of these -- regardless of whether you use Laser Rifles or Plasma Rifles at this point.


--- Quote from: Telok on October 24, 2013, 08:12:53 pm ---Is there a thought of adding a health bar to aliens on the battlescape? Stick a +/- 10% inaccuracy on the bar and it is useful without being spoilery. I would advise against giving it a number display (except perhaps a % of total health number). This would help players in game to better judee the armor/weapon interactions.

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I have always liked that there is a little ambiguity in the game in how it doesn't tell you everything about your enemy. But I have been thinking that a rough gauge is important for getting in-game feedback about the impact of weapons. A lot of important thresholds happen with weapon/armour/health stats that go unnoticed. Showing one of three icons -- full health (90-100%), wounded (15-90%), near death (15%) -- would really help discern the impact of a hit, and help make decisions about when it's useful to deploy a low-power weapon (like a pistol or incendiary grenade). Having this information seems plausible without being too number-y. If you saw an enemy combatant on the field, you could probably tell if it was seriously wounded, or if it was limping along near death. Even if you knew nothing else of its physiology. But this is definitely not a 2.5 feature. Maybe 2.6, maybe later.

Telok:

--- Quote from: H-Hour on October 24, 2013, 11:53:34 pm ---Actually, by the time you get lasers, all aliens except the Shevaar will be wearing light armour .... So for all aliens but the Shevaar (who can not wear armour), the laser rifle outperforms the plasma rifle -- with the caveat that it does not have a full-auto option....
...But by the time you see Ortnoks, Tamans will be in heavy armour (and Combat Bloodspiders and Combat Hovernets have heavy-equivalent values). The aliens have reinforced their armour against lasers by this point, so it's really in your interest to move quickly to Encased Plasma or Particle Beams.
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The laser rifle outperforms on a per hit basis and has better accuracy, it is a very good choice for newer soldiers who have lower skills. It's good to know that Shevaar can't wear armor because that's a good niche for lasers, I wasn't absolutely sure that we just didn't have the models for armored Shevaar in the game yet. I think that in my game (Hard mode) the lag between light and medium armor was too short for me to appreciate laser weapons and they just obsoleted too fast.


--- Quote from: H-Hour on October 24, 2013, 11:53:34 pm ---I have always liked that there is a little ambiguity in the game in how it doesn't tell you everything about your enemy. But I have been thinking that a rough gauge is important for getting in-game feedback about the impact of weapons.... Having this information seems plausible without being too number-y. If you saw an enemy combatant on the field, you could probably tell if it was seriously wounded, or if it was limping along near death. Even if you knew nothing else of its physiology....
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Truth. Perhaps a 0 to 100% health bar with no numbers? Throw in a small five to ten percent inaccuracy to the calculation to help emulate the "fog of war". You'd be able to see that sniper rifles did about 2/3 to 3/5 of a health bar (armored ortnoks) while laser pistols didn't even move it. That sort of feedback would be nice.

Telok:
You know how you have a good idea while taking your morning shower but then can't remember it later? I remembered!

Currently the laser weapons are made with Earth-normal materials. We could use the alien composite materials to open up an advanced laser weapons tech tree in late game. If you pseudo-science it, in the description, to something near the particle beam level of energy you could make them a PB-lite weapon line. Less damage, more accuracy, and using the particle beam armor resistances.

This would add a third base defense anti-aircraft weapon, another useful aircraft weapon that isn't dependant on salvaging alien aircraft, and a useful close combat weapon to compete with the PB pistol. Plus the rifle and heavy versions of course.

MonkeyHead:
That overlaps with the EP rounds a lot IMHO.

Telok:

--- Quote from: MonkeyHead on October 26, 2013, 11:03:34 pm ---That overlaps with the EP rounds a lot IMHO.

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Not really. EP ammo doesn't cover aircraft, AA, or close weapons and has no effect on weapon accuracy.

Furthermore I'm not sure EP ammo is fully or accurately implemented. The ammunition is essentially a plasma generating widget inside of a shell made from alien materials and the rifle rounds are either a .223 or 7.62mm size (I really can't recall the exact size off the top of my head). While it should be reasonably simple to make similar rounds for 10mm pistol caliber weapons like the pistol and SMG, and there really ought to be EP shotgun rounds and perhaps even EP grenade launcher flechette rounds.

My other issue is that EP rounds just ignore armor, they really are magic bullets here. The armors have a separate EP ammo line in them that's set at 5 which means that EP ammo penetrates heavy alien armor as though it was a leather apron but does no more damage to an unarmored taman than regular lead bullets do. I don't know if this is the final implementation of EP ammo or if it's just a stop-gap for 2.5.

One question I do have: What's with all the love for machine guns? Whenever I've tried to use them they turn out to be horribly inaccurate at long ranges, a TU wasting overkill at short ranges, and they attract reaction fire like sniper rifles. Plus you can't use them defensively because the 14 TUs for a fire mode with 1.5(about?) spread means that they'll soak an attack first and then probably miss with half the bullets. That's really my experience with them from back before 2.3 up through to today. I tried a skirmish fight on the dam map with them and they underperformed the other weapons at long and short ranges.

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