Messages

61

Discussion / Re: Accuracy, Sniping and tactics.

« on: November 15, 2012, 01:11:09 am »

Main thing is that both 20mm and 12.7mm are large enough to carry a payload. I would love to see what would Raufoss Mk.211 round do with armored Ortnok, but I am sure it won't be pleasant...or surviable. Also, those things kick hard...even with advanced technology you won't be able to crouch, aim fire and hit with a .50 caliber rifle in those like 10 secs that are one round, even if you could handle a .50 without bracing it on bipod.

.338 is probably the best bet, it's an effective antipersonnel ammo, and certainly got enough power, at least on close ranges, to punch through a wall and hit target behind it, but it lacks effective payload. Almost exactly what's in game.

62

Discussion / Re: Accuracy, Sniping and tactics.

« on: November 14, 2012, 07:38:27 pm »

Maybe another way to satisfy people is to improve the hit rate when player at good position and filling best conditions of sniping (crouching..etc) but to lower in general the sniping damage rate, at least for strong aliens, spiders (who have not really a visible head..etc.). One other thing could be to introduce an action named "find and aim alien's head" that would cost a lot of TUs. Or we could also ask for a reload at each turn (one turn on two). It is realistic according to the fact that it is the rule in UrbanTerror FPS with a sniper riffle named SR-8, lethal but slow, and that require reloading often.

FPS isn't a good source for realism.

What we have in game is semi-automatic urban sniper rifle, not a classical "pop him over a kilometer" sniper. You have to consider what is going on in game. What we have there is more a marksman role, providing a mobile, accurate fire over longer distances than assault rifles. For that, current SR works fine, although its description is a bit odd, as 20mm is FAR too huge caliber. It should be .338 Lapua, or perhaps even uprated version of 7.62x51 NATO (don't forget that by game "lore", they are using a new high-velocity powder).

In any case...what we have is good I think. It's not 100% reliable at long range, and that is okay as it would make a game too dull.

And BTW...in reality, snipers don't aim for the head. A torso shot from modern sniper rifle is as lethal as headshot and provides larger target.

63

Discussion / Re: Plasma Blaster

« on: November 14, 2012, 02:12:42 pm »

Ball mode is odd. It is fast and powerful, but with limited range and inaccurate. In my experience when used by aliens, it's more dangerous to them than anyone else as they get splashed way too often, I even had situations where aliens blasted themselves to bits with it. Other fire modes are just crap.

Overall, I prefer spending those TU to grab a nade from belt and throw it and use better primary weapon.

64

Discussion / Re: Help us out: how many scientists do you have?

« on: November 09, 2012, 03:57:28 pm »

40 scientists seem ideal for standard. There's only few dull spots with no research, and it's about maximum you can stuff into main base without compromising on anything if you move all your production into secondary base.

65

Feature Requests / Separate quicksave and autosave

« on: November 08, 2012, 10:49:16 am »

Pretty much self explanatory. Right now quicksave and autosave are the same slot, so when entering tactical combat your quicksave is overwritten. Could they be separated?

66

Tactics / Re: 2.5 dev combat

« on: November 08, 2012, 10:29:30 am »

I find assault rifle with full auto to be best with bloodspiders, actually I find myself preferring assault rifle over plasma rifle because with assault rifle enemy is still killable with full auto mode from typical range where I spot enemy, while with plasma rifle soldiers are not hitting the target in any other mode than snap shot it seems, surely if enemy is around 3-4 squares away, then plasma rifle is better, but 10 squares or more is range where I mostly need to shoot at.

Of course I must note that I play at very easy and find that level to match my skills (that are none) perfectly, enough challenge to keep troops alive but not frustrating murdering challenge like most games I find. I play to enjoy not to work

Also I have found out that sometimes those lizzard guys retreat and run around a building in attempt to flank me or surprise from behind, also they seem to attempt to get better shot by going to building from backdoor and then approach without being detected to closer to my troops. Maybe I just imagine things, but if it is so, then I find AI being much better than I have seen anywhere else.

Sometimes they get however bit foolish, having 8 guns pointed at one AI he still runs to open in attempt to get those civilians, or maybe he just was getting mad rage as I had bombarded him with grenades of all sorts from cover.

I guess moving and trying to maintain being covered despite enemy movements and still have several guns pointed with reflection fire on would be way to go, my attempts at that have been somewhat successful, 3 guys shooting 3 round burst with assault rifles as reflection fire has had good effect to lessen deaths among my troops.

I recently acquired lasers and things got quite bit easier with those, because of range and sheer power, now only two guys need to shoot lizard and it goes down.

However I think that with more difficult setting it will become quickly frustrating at least for me, surely it is superior enemy that one has to fight and at normal level I would think that it should be quite a struggle to fight off that enemy, playing very hard level probably should be nearly impossible with only perfect tactics leading victory. I'm too scared to even try of such.

Oh yes, plasma grenades seem to work quite nicely, but one needs to have them stop right next to enemy's feet to them to be working well.

I keep medikits at holster, along with grenades that I have also at belt, spare clip at belt, haven't really used Secondary weapons as rifles work so well even from close range. I try to get them come close instead of me going close also, that way they I get less reaction fire damage.

Flamethrower is nice inside of buildings, but outside I really can't find much use for it because of limited range, but it has great amount of power and it is really good against bloodspiders if used in reaction fire mode, candle light to blood spider and then it is easy to kill with lesser firepower.

Inside houses, I use group of three usually, keeping those corners covered and remembering that I can usually get glimpse what is around corner and come back without enemy firing at me, then throw grenades by bouncing them off from wall to make them go around the corner, evens things a bit when reaction fire ensues as I wait behind a corner for enemy to run into gunfire.

Probably I make lot of errors, so I like to play my first campaign at very easy and I must say that I enjoy a lot of it.

Plasma rifle is a lot dependent on soldier's skill. Picking the right squad is important, I always choose to recruit only troops with 30+ mind, 20+ speed, accuracy and one weapon skill. Filtering them every month is annoying, but it's important. In my game, december 2084, plasma rifle is main killing weapon. I have two in squad, and in the last mission they accounted for all 6 aliens from crashed fighter, 5 of them in first turn. I found full auto capable of reliably hitting alien without any cover at least once over half of small map.

I found secondary weapons to be quite useful on some troops. While guys with assault rifles won't use them much, maybe never, snipers, flamers, GL and RL troops will need them. Essentially everything with either slow action or limited range needs complementary secondary weapon.

67

Discussion / Re: Help us out: how many scientists do you have?

« on: November 07, 2012, 02:38:52 am »

@Lynol: Sniper Rifles work for a long time. Two to three shots will still flatten even an Armored Taman. I haven't run into a Sniper Rifle replacement yet though.

Even one is enough if you are willing to wait a few turns till he dies from bleeding.

68

Tactics / Re: 2.5 dev combat

« on: November 07, 2012, 02:37:56 am »

I did it eventually

Biggest threat in this map were two aliens armed with needlers. Eventually after several retries they spawned both at front door of the mansion, allowing my sniper to engage them over long range. He suffered a few glancing blows from needlers, but managed to hit both, eventually bleeding them to death. Needlers appear to be awesome assault weapons, but their effectivity drops quickly over distance, becoming something like death of thousand cuts.

Anyway...I don't have coilgun yet, and I am wondering if I should even research it. Problem is I do not know the TU cost of its aimed shot, if it is 28 like bolter, I'll skip them for now and focus on getting a new interceptors and dropships FINALLY into the air. About that, the material cost of the new aircraft is insanely disproportionate to gain of other materials. I have 5 AM storage buildings full, sold at least 20 alien propulsion units and some other stuff, and I still haven't collected enough alien materials for a single Stingray. Deploying Dragons/Starchasers is out of question since they're not that cheaper to make up for the difference in performance, I need something that can blow corrupters and harvesters out of the sky easily.

69

Bugs in stable version (2.5) / Re: Round of strange events.

« on: November 06, 2012, 01:14:01 pm »

ufoconsole.log is saved at C:\Users\(your user account)\AppData (hidden folder)\Roaming\UFOAI\2.5-dev\base\

70

Tactics / Re: 2.5 dev combat

« on: November 06, 2012, 01:05:05 pm »

Interesting, never tried P. Blaster yet. It used to be useless, and aliens with plasma rifles were always a bigger threat to me.

71

Discussion / Re: Help us out: how many scientists do you have?

« on: November 06, 2012, 11:04:09 am »

Standard difficulty:

November 2084, 40 scientists, I made a rush for that amount. It seems ideal to keep up with new items to research, I occasionally have nothing to research before getting something new that opens new possibilities.

Money...well. I have problems keeping Asian Republic and Revolutionary countries happy as my main base in in Asia Minor, so they're outta coverage. I just built a base in Texas, adv. radar and interceptors are up and running, working on defenses and dropship capability. Funding isn't enough to afford everything right away even with selling useless alien items. Affording second workshop base, another interceptor/dropship base and offbase radars with SAMs to protect them seem to be distant future, if I'll ever be able to break even with that.

72

Tactics / Re: 2.5 dev combat

« on: November 06, 2012, 10:54:56 am »

I don't have the blades yet...that's the problem. They've been researched just a while ago, but I don't have enough for deployment yet.

My current team setup: 2x plasma rifles (these are awesome in 2.5), 1x laser rifle, 1x heavy laser, 1x flamer, 1x GL with plasma grenades, 1x sniper rifle, 1x bolter. Secondary weapons are laser/plasma pistols depending on primary (lasers and sniper/bolter get plasma, rest laser), monomolecular knife in backpack, one plasma and some utility grenades for everyone. I am still experimenting with lasers and bolter, looks like bolter will have to go, the damage and accuracy increase over sniper is too low to make up for the 28 TU shots.

Oh, is there any feedback thread for weapon rebalances in 2.5?

73

Tactics / Re: 2.5 dev combat

« on: November 05, 2012, 11:59:28 pm »

Nope. In this mission I have first opportunity to capture a needler. But that's also a biggest problem, as needler reaction fire is capable of tearing full health soldier with nanocomposite armor apart.

It got a bit better after restarting a few times and going more slowly with scanning ahead with IR goggles, but I ragequit after it went well, was hunting for last alien, and he turned out to be shevaar with needler, ambushing and killing one of my best soldiers...and after retry I got crash to geoscape :/

74

Tactics / Re: 2.5 dev combat

« on: November 05, 2012, 10:11:15 pm »

I'll poke this a bit.

First, about rocket launchers. Is it possible for rocket to deal two separate hits? I mean, is it possible to make a HEAT rocket that would deal only low area damage (something like frag grenade) but would actually deal huge damage to target that was directly hit?

And I've ran into a tactical problem that I need help with. It's that #%$^$$!ed map Mansion...lots of narrow corridors with doors. So often, it happens to me that I position my troops near doors, and alien opens them...there is no space to flank him to avoid reaction fire, and some aliens already have needlers that are deadly even against nanocomposite armors. How do you deal with that?

75

Discussion / Re: Alien Capture

« on: November 04, 2012, 08:49:08 pm »

Regarding this, is it possible to actually shoot an alien with normal gun and stun him this way? Not sure if it was a bug or not, but during one mission two unarmored tamans started close to me, with their backs turned toward me. I took one soldier and gave nearest one double charge with stun rod that stunned him, then the other one got full auto from machine gun, and it stunned him too.