changes in 2.6 related to combat

[anonymissimus]

I happened to see a combat hovernet reaction fire for the first time ever, in current master. I wonder whether this is an intentional change, as there's no related commit message ? Hovernets and combat hovernets used to never do that because of some bug perhaps. This is an important change, making the game harder. (Combat) hovernets need to be treated similar to organic aliens then (basically, put a smoke grenade immediately). Considering that they cannot be flashbanged to alternatively disable reaction fire I wonder whether this change is "fair".
It would be nice if the radar window could be closed by clicking onto the icon that opens it as well so I don't need to move the mouse. Or if hovernets would look different based on into which direction they are looking. At least the radar window got some real use now.

Also I read that IR goggles are blocked by smoke now. This is a very important change, making the game harder in that phase where it's already hardest (about June-July, when nanocomp armor and lasers aren't yet available, but sheevars kick your ass).

The bleeding effect appears at the end of turns now I read, does this apply to aliens as well ? This should make the game somewhat easier, as that additional bleeding when your turn begins is often responsible for some soldier dying. Now there's a chance to rescue him/her. However, an alien that's bleeding heavily will no longer die before he can act but instead first act and then die, so there's no hope for an almost dead alien to be finished by bleeding anyway before he kills you. Provided it affects all teams.

[ShipIt]

I remember there was a commit by DarkRain(?) enabling reaction fire for the secondary weapon, some time ago. Maybe this changed things?

If the Hovernet is overpowered by now (they already moved and shoot/hit in godmode before), we can adjust the stats. I always thought about giving them a less efficient weapon would be good. Thoughts?

The Hovernet not having a 'face' is by design iirc, because it is meant to have sensors that should work in all directions.

In general you are right, We implemented a lot of stuff making the game harder. It would need an extended test to check things out and adjust accordingly. Unfortunately I don´t have the time for this right now. Oc suggestions are welcome.

Edit: There was a commit "Allowed reaction fire for characters with 'natural weapons'. " in March, which should explain the Hovernet now using reaction fire.

[anonymissimus]

I already had rated the combat hovernet as most dangerous even without reaction fire (http://ufoai.org/forum/index.php/topic,8832.0.html).

In general you are right, We implemented a lot of stuff making the game harder. It would need an extended test to check things out and adjust accordingly. Unfortunately I don´t have the time for this right now. Oc suggestions are welcome.

I'm playing master on very hard since long, with large breaks, you know. The difficulty scaling just adds to that reaction fire already had become utterly pointless in the 2.5 rebalancing - if your soldier doesn't shoot because of a bug, or misses, or the alien somehow manages to circumvent it, your soldier is sure dead, that's it. I use valuable units in RF positions only against spiders which are guaranteed to spend the needed time units if they attack, and make sure no objects are in between that might trigger RF buggyness. And in 2.6 a single shot from anything is basically never sufficient to kill anything, unless that alien was already wounded, but that cannot be assumed. So you need maybe 3 soldiers with a 12 TU RF laser rifle shot each; if all 9 beams hit, that might kill for sure, say, an armored Taman.
Well, it's not too difficult for me yet, no. But I really need lots of time in tactical missions (such as 5 hours or more for an attack onto an alien base), and people considering smoke overuse cheating will hate this difficulty scaling. Almost always I'm making sure that nothing can hit my valuable soldiers, by smoke or cover. Cannon fodder dies, but then it doesn't matter how many times the fodder would have been hit. The first shot hits, he's dead, the remaining shots are wasted, which is a very good thing. But they would otherwise have killed even the most-advanced, most well-armed soldier (that's the point of using cannon fodder).

Edit: There was a commit "Allowed reaction fire for characters with 'natural weapons'. " in March, which should explain the Hovernet now using reaction fire.

I can only find "* Allow onlyweapon equiped actors to use reaction fire." (6a7adabb993b2d4df06d1b7f7396951801e72863).

[ShipIt]

How often do Hovernets appear? I tried to cut them down some time ago by reworking the alien teams, which should make sure Hovernets only appear in certain mission types.

[anonymissimus]

No idea. Kinda frequent I suppose. Just had an relatively easy average battle on the "port" map. A crashed gunboat, 1 Taman, 4 Combat Hovernet, 3 Ortnok. 3 dead from 12 soldiers total (all cannon fodder), 1 civilian out of 6. Maybe 2 hours of continuous play.

EDIT
An easy battle on "Snow" without civilians. A crashed harvester, 3 Sheevar, 2 basic spiders, 3 Ortnok. 1 dead cannon fodder out of 10 soldiers. 1 hour.
Previously a bomber on base attack, 14 aliens, several combat hovernets. But easy thanks to only 2 entrances.

EDIT
A catastrophic slaughter on middle eastern suburb, oriental mosque version. A bloody map most of the time. Ground based. 6/6 civies dead. 1 valuable soldier dead out of 6, that's maybe the third time this campaign (January), and all cannon fodder out of 10 soldiers in total. 8 sheevar and 12 basic spiders. The game seems to think that pistols would be easier but blargh. I think the fact that they didn't seem to carry plasma blades saved another valuable soldier though.

[DarkRain]

Yes, onlyweapon is the way we attach "natural" weapons (currently hovernets' plasma guns and bloodspiders' monomolecular blades) to characters, they being skipped by the RF code was clearly and oversight, there was no intention to make things harder, the fact that they actually can use RF now is because their weapons had 'reaction' set to true when they were created a while (or in the case of the bloodspider a loooooong time) ago — otherwise it would default to false — so it seems that it was always intended this way...

As for smoke blocking IR googles, the fluff says so, and it was made so — of course "IR vision" is not working as it is supposed to, and I guess it would be even less efficient if it were, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

As for bleeding: yes applies to aliens as well AFAIR, mechanics always apply equally to all teams in this game (and if not that's most likely a bug)

I must say that the game as planned is supposed to be hard as you are supposed to be fighting a losing battle, (of course story aside, game-balance-wise things shouldn't be just impossible, so we'll have to evaluate if planned features are too hard (or just plain unreasonable like the plasma blaster requiring two men and a heavy load cart to even bring out of storage) once implemented, and adjust accordingly) add to that the fact that it would seem like all the features that should make things easier are missing (things like unmanned vehicles for example) and well...

[anonymissimus]

A difficult battle on Archaeological dig. Ground based. 1/2 civies survived, thanks to stunning and putting smoke. 2 cannon fodder dead out of 12 soldiers. Maybe 5 hours with breaks. 9 sheevar, 10 basic spiders.
Prolonged by the usual "spider hunt", a new play taking place at the end of many missions with spiders once that only spiders are left. They clearly try to hide from my lines of sight and/or shooting, but it's pointless, they won't get a kill anyway and are all dead, but it annoyingly prolongs the mission. Using reaction fire doesn't help much, they're usually out of sight before it triggers. This is the same code that makes hovernets retreat effectively I suppose, but for spiders it would be better to just realize they're dead and pose as a target as they did in 2.5.

[anonymissimus]

I'd like to point out another important change, this time it's making battle a great deal easier, in particular during the period where the campaign is hardest, when lasers aren't yet available but aliens have plasma rifles. The fire fields from inc grenades/launcher now cause bleeding too. Aliens quite often move through to only realize they no longer have the TUs to perform the attack they wanted to, probably because of wounded legs.

[anonymissimus]

Base defense as easy as it has never been!
In 2.6 aliens now have a strong tendency to move towards the power plant. On turn 1-3, block the entrance to the power plant with 1-3 fire grenades. Position snipers in buildings next to the power plant entrance (as usually, small hangar or living quarters work). Aliens will gather nicely in front of the snipers. If they move in they are at least deadly wounded.
Feels like an exploit to me even.

[Pharaufein]

I assume they try to reach the power plant because it is an objective for them?
Do they also try to reach other buildings?

[anonymissimus]

Aside from the power plant, no. Though they seem to be less scattered over the map; especially the workshop entrances may be alien-less. The ones present at the main entrance then strongly tend to move towards the power plant. The power plant usually is very near to the entrance as you have to build it to make the base operable, which eases the aliens' drift. I need to check what's the precise condition for them to win. They tend to move into the power plant as a group, have some assault troopers on the bottom level ready (with grenades), especially if the blocking fire field is insufficient.

[anonymissimus]

If a living quarters is placed at that side of the power plant where its entrance is, a soldier (preferably a sniper) can be moved into the aliens' target zone on turn 1 or 2, disabling them from opening the entrance to the power plant. They are still accumulating nicely in front of the sniper(s), ready to be squashed out of total safety though.