UFO:Alien Invasion
Technical support => Bugs in stable version (2.5) => Topic started by: NocLQ3V7 on November 08, 2012, 09:23:10 am
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I did compile new version from source few hours ago and noticed that there are now weights reported on inventory screen, also my soldiers have only around 16TU's while before they had nearly 30.
If I understand correctly weight penalties have been implemented, at least can't remember seeing weights before this in my short trip to UFO:AI world.
One of my soldier has 16.7kg/25kg load and it shows up as red which probably means weight penalties being in effect.
Soldier has following equipments:
Laser rifle
2x DF-L cartridges
Frag. grenade
Flashbang
Medikit
Soldier has also Nano armor.
With bit of testing I found out that it is not possible to wear nano armor without weight penalty which in practice means that can't use medikit at all because only 16TU's is maximum.
Probably balancing of feature is still under way as feature is very new one?
Thought to let you know about what I found out, but might be planned?
What I think is that maybe there is bug making weight penalty so early before reaching that 25kg, but as I'm so new I can only guess and be probably wrong in many aspect, don't hit the face :)
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Yes, it looks like DarkRain added the weight penalty last night. Balancing still in the works.
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The new weight system effects savegames in a unfavorable way. The strength of soldiers is just too low. For new games the starting strenght value is increased to 30 - 39.
A soldier can carry up to half his strength value in kg without getting a penalty.
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Shouldn't a weight penalty just increase movement TU cost rather than reducing overall TUs available? I suppose that might not provide enough room for fine tuning, unless the base TUs were increased or fractional TUs were used. I'm just thinking for example about someone with a heavy MG. They are slow to get into position, but once there they can fire normally. The time to shoot shouldn't change but the time to move should and the total time available to a unit should be fairly consistent.
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Shouldn't a weight penalty just increase movement TU cost rather than reducing overall TUs available? I suppose that might not provide enough room for fine tuning, unless the base TUs were increased or fractional TUs were used. I'm just thinking for example about someone with a heavy MG. They are slow to get into position, but once there they can fire normally. The time to shoot shouldn't change but the time to move should and the total time available to a unit should be fairly consistent.
But if one swings that MG 90 degrees or even 60 degrees to right, guy with pistol still can do it faster, also if walking with the MG and one need to shoot all of sudden, it will take longer to make first shot with MG than with pistol.
Also everything you carry increases your inertia, making movements indeed slower.
I think reducing available TUs can work just fine as it really reduces events you can do for given time, which is what slower movements will do, must test with new game, good to know that it renders savegames bit useless.
If one has gun trained to target already, there lower TU usage to shoot might be of course something to look into, or maybe there already is such, but I haven't just found that?
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In addition to NocLQ3V7's comments, I would add that adjusting TU cost to move would undermine consistency in the most persistent action in the battlescape. By mid-game, most players will develop an intuitive sense of how far they can get with x TUs, and this smooths out the gameplay considerably. Were we to introduce variable TU costs, a player would constantly have to check the TU cost for every soldier and do the math for every move they make. Since modifying the overall TUs available is effective at producing nearly identical tactical problems, it's worth preserving the clarity of this aspect of the game.
And yes, the question of whether a soldier who has already trained his gun on one area should get a TU bonus for subsequent shots in that area is a separate feature which we don't support at this time.
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The new weight system effects savegames in a unfavorable way. The strength of soldiers is just too low. For new games the starting strenght value is increased to 30 - 39.
Forgive me but that seems like rather bad planning.
Humans were already starting at 15-25 or so, so you don't have a wider range and in either case there's plenty of room to make noticeably higher or low strengths.
So why not just calibrate the weight system to the existing human baseline? Why make it nearly twice as high? Are some races really that much weaker than humans and in need of a range of strength or values.
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So why not just calibrate the weight system to the existing human baseline?
We choose to do so because with the base formula (1 strength equals 1 kg) it is way more easy for the player. Right now the problem is to get a proper UI implementation to give the player the information he needs.
Of course we could have done different. There is always another way.
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It just seems a bit odd on a couple levels.
For one it's basically broken the old save games. I can finish out my game with an older copy but it's a bit of a shock.
The other matter is one of scale. I would expect the ratings in stats to have some relative meaning. That is to say 1 is about the feablest imaginable and 100 is about the most powerful imaginable within the context of the game.
The new values mean the strongest creature is going to be 2.5 times average human strength, not exactly what I'd expect. It also means Strength is now Human's 'best' stat numerically.
The Amount you can carry based on Strength actually seems like it could be completely convoluted to calculate and not affect people's experience much. The game handles that. The player knows more is better and how much each soldier can carry; the exact kg from str calculation is rarely a matter.
In other words, it seems to be that the Strength value's relationship to Accuracy is something the player is going to be caring far more about than that to Kg. Before a player would look at stats and think "Humans are weak", now they will think "Humans are strong".
Of course to play devil's advocate the real reason you'd want such high Strength numbers is that it gives you finer control of Strength differences. Gains can be more subtle and such.
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I would say that came out of sudden and pretty hard - my soldiers are not heavy loaded ( sniper rifle - 2 grenades , 2 clips and medpack with nano armour ) and time units went from 30+ to under 20 (so no aimed shot at all, even if there is no movement involved). Paired with random crashes and freezes it is pretty frustrating.
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I would say that came out of sudden and pretty hard - my soldiers are not heavy loaded ( sniper rifle - 2 grenades , 2 clips and medpack with nano armour ) and time units went from 30+ to under 20 (so no aimed shot at all, even if there is no movement involved). Paired with random crashes and freezes it is pretty frustrating.
Sniper can't really have medikit, try to remove weight so that load stays green and you have all TU's again. Which brings to my finding, if I add combat knife to loaded soldier I get half of TU's vs without adding combat knife, so current system is kind of on/off, maybe plan is to develop system to be so that it gradually takes TU's away more you add weight? That way penalty would appear more natural, but I have no idea how complex such is or what it would break.
Overall I like the change, brings up importance of tactical planning as one can't have whole armory with him, so one has to change items per mission.
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ok, now all my soldiers are completely useless - no one can wear nanocomposite armour without penalty, and
dumb armour does not help in late game stages.
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We'll try to get a proper write-up of the weight system soon so you can understand it, but here are the thresholds you'll hit.
0-20% of max-weight carried will get you the full TUs (which are now 40+)
20-50% of max-weight carried will get you "normal" TUs
50+% of max-weight carried and you will have very low TUs.
We recognize that this is a particularly painful transition for those playing the dev version, but we have no simple fix for you. Sorry about that.
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Whereas max-weight is the strenght value in kg.
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Okay so that 44 TU Ortnok I have in Multiplayer isn't my imagination or a bug. That's some consolation and a boost for dedicated medics.
The carry weights seem a tad low even with new characters. The maximum weight is a good measure for the most a character can carry but the halfway mark is basically ridiculously overburdened.
40lbs/18kg is a hefty load and certainly encumbering but I'd think you could still fight if you had to. Right now getting the penalty almost puts a character out of action. Maybe if it were more like:
0-20% of max-weight: Bonus TUs
20-50% of max-weight: Normal TUs
50-80% of max-weight: Small penalty, ~30%-60% as bad as the current one
80-100% of max-weight: Current penalty
100%+ of max-weight: Immobilized
Also the console indicates the savefile is compressed XML... I don't suppose there's any way to uncompress it and well... "cheat"? I could just add 15 to each soldier's base str and go on my way :)
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Also the console indicates the savefile is compressed XML... I don't suppose there's any way to uncompress it and well... "cheat"? I could just add 15 to each soldier's base str and go on my way :)
You can disable compression in config, make save, edit it, enable compression and load save in game to play and save in compressed form. ;)
I did so once to repair broken save.
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Great. That seems to have worked.
Penalty still seems harsh but this is more workable. I've also made a nearly un-armoured Taman MP team to take advantage of this new bonus TU.
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Perhaps the solution for balancing is to determine what an acceptable TU value is for an average weighted soldier and work backwards.
Given a soldier with their weapon and one extra clip, 1kg in additional equipment (grenades, IR goggles, etc) and armor, the average for a soldier with combat armor is about 15kg, 20kg for Nano armor, and 23 for Power armor. 20kg is a good round number for a baseline. The average soldier should fall in the middle of the 0 penalty range of 20%-50% weight capacity, which would put the strength range between 40 and 100, with 40 putting them at the 50% penalty, and 100 putting them at the 20% threshold. Keep in mind that the min/max weight range for a reasonably equipped soldier is 9.7 (plasma pistol and Combat armor) to about 30 (RPG or Bolter) A minimum strength for a plasma pistol drone would be about 20 (at 50% strength threshold). For the top end (Bolter with Power Armor), minimum 60 strength to stay under the 50% threshold. A Plasma Pistol drone would need at least a strength of 50 to ever be under the 20% threshold and get the TU bonus. Recruits are currently spawned with a strength of 30-40. At 40 strength, RPGs and Bolters are over the limit even with Combat armor, and about half of the weapons will incur a penalty with Nano armor. This is not counting extra weight for sidearms, medkits, stun weapons, etc.
Given this, recruits should probably spawn at more like 40-55 strength and be able to gain at least 20 more with experience.
You could also move the threshold to more like 65% to alleviate the need for high strength values.
Of course, I don't know what that does to TU calculations.
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You can disable compression in config, make save, edit it, enable compression and load save in game to play and save in compressed form. ;)
I did so once to repair broken save.
Thanks. I added 30 to the initial strength of all soldiers and changed the template.ufo to put initial strength at 40-55. Seems fine now and my soldiers can carry a reasonable load and still be under 50%.
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Thanks. I added 30 to the initial strength of all soldiers, changed the template.ufo to put initial strength at 40-55 and afterward I renamed the game to "Eight Rambos save the world". Seems fine now and my soldiers can carry a reasonable load (a Combat Armour, a Heavy MG, an ammo box fo the MG, a medikit, a sidearm, ammo for the sidearm, a bunch of grenades, IR-googles, a portable BlueRay-player, extra batteries for the BlueRay-player and the latest 'Playboy') and still be under 50%.
FYP
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What's the current combat load of a modern American soldier these days? Aim for that being about 50 to 60% of the max and see how UFOAI equipment compares. That should be reasonably believable.
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FYP
Nice.
As I pointed out above, at 40 strength a soldier can carry the average weapon and a clip with Nano armor. That means that there are some that they cannot carry without a penalty. Some loadouts require you to have at least 50 strength to use without penalty, and the lightest possible loadout require at least 50 strength to be under the 20% threshold. If that is how the system works, then you tell me what the strength values should be.
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The worst example is the Rocket Launcher, it's now nearly impossible for a fresh recruit to use the thing in armor at all and even an experienced heavy can get away with the Launcher, Armor and maybe one extra rocket.
Now I was looking at military carry load documentation: http://thedonovan.com/archives/modernwarriorload/ModernWarriorsCombatLoadReport.pdf
"Unless some form of CLOHE [Combat Load Handling Equipment] is available, crossloading machine gun ammunition, mortar rounds, antitank weapons, and radio operator's equipment causes assault loads to be more than the limit of 48 pounds. This weight restricts an individual's ability to move in dynamic operations. Extremely heavy Fighting Loads must be rearranged so that the excess weight can be redistributed to supporting weapons or can be shed by assaulting troops before contact with the enemy."
Circumstances could require Soldiers to carry loads heavier than 72 pounds such as approach marches through terrain impassable to vehicles or where ground/air transportation resources are not available. Therefore, larger rucksacks must be carried. These Emergency
Approach March Loads can be carried easily by well-conditioned Soldiers. When the mission demands that Soldiers be employed as porters, loads of up to 120 pounds can be carried for several days over distances of 20 km a day. Although loads of up to 150 pounds are feasible, the
Soldier could become fatigued or even injured. If possible, contact with the enemy should be avoided since march speeds will be slow.
120 lbs would require a Strength of 54 to even carry. 72 lbs needs 32 strength so nearly any Phalanx recruit could do that. So our troops are a little weak but this is a major problem for real militaries it seems. Most troops can carry almost 48 lbs without penalty in game.
So I'm still with my idea of graduating the penalty and maybe even the ability to go over "max" with a harsher penalty.
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You need to keep in mind that nearly all soldier load references you'll find out there are talking about soldiers who live, eat, shit and die in the field over days, weeks and months. In other words, the loads are designed for marching and surviving. Rapid response troops (like SWAT, for instance) would never take nearly so much equipment into the field for the kind of single, limited, contained engagements Phalanx troops are deployed to.
Near the bottom of this page (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_01-15_ch11.htm), you'll see a "Fighting Load" listed at around 16.7kg. An average Phalanx rookie can carry 17.5kg before he is encumbered and loses TUs. By the time they have gained 10 strength points, they will be able to carry 22.5kg before becoming encumbered.
When we say "encumbered", we're not saying completely ineffective (except in cases where weaponry should only be used with high TU firemodes -- snipers and the RPG). The sense of time can be deceptive in a turn-based system, but turns last only seconds. That means we're talking about weight that can slow a soldier's sprint and snap-to-target speeds by no more than a second or two.
As we've said before, the numbers are still being worked out (I just spent a couple hours with some spreadsheets) so please be patient. You will be very restricted in the loads you're able to carry, and you will have painful choices to make regarding armour, secondaries and miscellaneous equipment. But there are definitely some items I've identified that need reducing in order to hit certain load-out benchmarks. We'll get there before too long.
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Glad to hear tweaking is underway.
Don't get me wrong I like the system and felt like Strength was nearly irrelevant previous to this.
It's also added some much needed balance to certain weapons. A Needler is not necessarily a clear choice over the other assault weapons. The VHS Assault rifle is lighter and more accurate than a standard Phalanx assault rifle but less powerful. A grenade launcher in armor typically can't move fast or pull off aimed shots but is still effective. This sort of thing is cool but it does feel in need of some work in other areas.
I also suppose it's true our troops aren't marching infantry but special forces and that does make a difference. As long as training a heavy soldier or two up to 55 or so isn't unfeasible I can handle that.
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I agree that strike troops delivered by dropship don't have to carry nearly what field deployed troops have to to live. I think the real game changer here is armor. It's all well and good to say that fighting weight is 16.7 kg, but when Power Armor weighs 15 kg, you're talking about your ideal weight being almost completely taken up by armor alone. Real soldiers and SWAT troops don't run around in 7-15 kg of full body armor. Bomb techs might, but not SWAT troopers. Probably because they aren't dealing with aliens with plasma rifles. The analogy starts to break down there.
Regardless of what real soldiers can and can't do, the question that needs to be answered is, what should a rookie be able to carry into battle without penalty, and how experienced does one have to be before more can be carried? Is it ever going to be possible to wear Power Armor and carry an MG and be able to fire full auto (25 TU)?
I'm all for a more graduated scale of bonuses/penalties, like <20% weight = +20% TU, <30% weight = +10% TUs, >50% weight = -20%TUs, > 70% weight = -40% TUs. Losing 1/3 of your TUs at the magic 50% number now is a little binary.
If the idea is that not everyone should necessarily have a medkit, I'm also all for a heavier version of the medkit that does a much better job of fixing wounds and healing, and perhaps making the existing medkit have 2-3 uses instead of 5 and remove the drugs.
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Now I was looking at military carry load documentation: http://thedonovan.com/archives/modernwarriorload/ModernWarriorsCombatLoadReport.pdf
Note that this doc lists a fighting weight of about 30kg, marching weights around 40kg, and emergency loads exceeding 50kg. Assuming a fighting soldier is well equipped without being too encumbered, that would assume a strength of 60 under the current system. Drop the rations, extra clothes, maps, canteens, etc. and put that into body armor and you're there.
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@Anarch Cassius: I believe strength will max out at 75. I expect a reasonable veteran to have 45-50 strength values and strong late-game vets to be upwards of 60 strength, but because we've recently adjusted the number of UFOs in a typical campaign this may not be reached just yet.
@DexCisco: Body armour is around 7-9kg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interceptor_body_armor). Power Armour is, of course, a special case -- an entirely enclosed suit -- and it will require strong soldiers to wear effectively. Note that I've earmarked Nanoarmour to be reduced to around 9kg, so it's available to rookies who will need some protection in the late-game.
And again, the document you referenced is talking about loads for dismounted operations in Afghanistan -- lengthy patrols. Even the Fighting Load you mention is not their bare Combat Load (read page 7).
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I've just started discarding recruits with Str<35 straight to garrison duty.
Amazingly the EM rifle got worse with this, I didn't think that was possible. It weighs 12kg, plus 1.2 or some such for each clip. At 0.6 kilo per shot and it's only real fire mode being 24 TU... I think this weapon's niche is "shooting through walls at point blank range."
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Another way of dealing with the weight penalty is to make it a linear function rather than a flat rate. e.g. -2% TUs for every % over 50% weight capacity. So at 60% weight (10% over), you would lose 20% of your TUs, at 80% (30% over) you lose 60% of your TUs, at 100% capacity you have no TUs left. It eases into the expected result of 100% weight immobilizing you and allows for some finer tuning. The same could be done for a bonus below a certain weight. Maybe something logarithmic would be more "realistic", but linear is easy to explain and figure out in your head.
Of course, being able to see the actual TU value on the equip soldiers screen as a progress bar like it does in combat would be ideal, with the bonus shown as extra TUs on the end of the bar or the penalty as a red overlay cancelling out TUs. Visual is good.
I'm sure you guys will make it work.
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I've just pushed changes to most equipment weights. The overall trend is lighter, but in all but a few cases the revision was small. Still, if you play with a version after this commit (https://github.com/ufoai/ufoai/commit/313c3e292018b2d6c64005dbb7b6e56a30b32e50), you should feel a little more room to hit that normal TU threshold.
Note: I only revised equipment weights. If you suffer from low-strength soldiers from a save game before the weight system was revised, you'll still find it difficult to field a proper loadout.
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This is pretty workable. The Sniper Rifle now weighs a lot relatively speaking. I know some of the super-long range ones are pretty heavy but the weight seems a little extreme given how this model is described. I wasn't expecting the Needlers to come down in weight so much either but I don't think it's a huge problem. They still eat through heavy expensive ammo.
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Is the posted weight for a weapon that of a loaded weapon or empty? Does loading it increase the weight? I'm assuming that it is loaded weight and you don't actually drop weight until you reload.
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Ammo has separate weight and that weight persists when it is in the weapon. So, weight of a loaded assault rifle would be gun + ammo.
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Question: Is a reinstall of the game needed for the new weight system to work?
Because by upgrading via the nightly builds I got armor with a weight of 100 kg and weapons with a weight of 0 kg, which is probably not WAD (and causes my soldiers go naked into combat).
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You are using the binaries only nightly, aren't you? The equipment weights are in the scripts if you don't have the latest scripts the weights will be wrong (Previously only armours had weight, and I don't know where the values came form), the latest full installer should fix *that* problem.
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You are using the binaries only nightly, aren't you? The equipment weights are in the scripts if you don't have the latest scripts the weights will be wrong (Previously only armours had weight, and I don't know where the values came form), the latest full installer should fix *that* problem.
Solved. Thanks a bunch.
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Okay, I'm starting to notice something weird here.
Before it seemed like my Speed stat mattered, different soldiers had different amounts of TU. Now that the new weight system is in, everyone has exactly the same TU. 30 if unencumbered.
What the heck is going?
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Yeah, I've got the same thing. Everyone has the same TU's regardless of Speed stat.
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Okay, I'm starting to notice something weird here.
Before it seemed like my Speed stat mattered, different soldiers had different amounts of TU. Now that the new weight system is in, everyone has exactly the same TU. 30 if unencumbered.
What the heck is going?
Yeah, I've got the same thing. Everyone has the same TU's regardless of Speed stat.
Sorry, but this is like calling your mechanic and screaming "Help, my car doesn´t work!!!".
Without any information regarding the version you play (including the build day if it is the dev version), whether you talk about a fresh game or an existing one, campaign or skirmish, hints about how to reproduce the propblem and more, nobody can do anything about this. See sticky about bug reports. (http://ufoai.org/forum/index.php/topic,5593.0.html)
I made a test with the up-to-date 2.5-dev, creating a new team for skirmish and couldn´t find a problem. Soldiers with speed<20 have 42 TUs, otherwise (speed>19) 43.
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Sorry for the vagueness I wasn't entirely sure how much the system changed or if this was expected.
I look at the code for the change and see what the difference is. Since TU is added to a number that's being divided and min TUs went up the effect of Speed appears much smaller when encumbered at all.