UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: kurja on December 25, 2012, 01:17:29 pm
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It's awesome that now there is a working encumbrance system! However, now it works by reducing the number of TUs, which brings a couple problems. One is that it doesn't seem realistic how certain actions become entirely prohibited, for an example firing a machinegun in full auto mode. Other one is how encumbrance is checked at the change of turn in battlescape; if at the change of turn a soldier is encumbered he thus can not use the medkit in his hand, but if he drops the medkit and in the next turn picks it up, he is not encumbered and now can use the medkit although carrying exactly the same amount of weight .
I don't think it would be a priority to make encumbrance-checking continuous, but I do think that the system needs to be changed so that being encumbered does not reduce the number of TUs but instead increases the TU cost of any action (or only movement? like being wounded on the legs does). Carrying a heavy load does in reality infer with one's ability to perform any action, but I don't think encumbrance should *prevent* any action, like firing certain weapons.
Thoughts?
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The encumbrance system is pretty unbalanced as it is. Personally, I think it's too abrupt - instead of having three states "light", "normal" and "encumbered", there should be more of a sliding scale. Either have it be more finely grained, with more states such as "lightly encumbered", "heavily encumbered", etc.; or just have it calculate your available TUs from the fraction of "current load" divided by "carrying capacity".
I think the latter solution in particular would be great. It would force the player to really weigh the TU cost of each item they want to bring along in a combat mission - should you bring that one extra reload, or have +1 TU instead?
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Quote:
Where ENCUMBRANCE_MODIFIER is 1 for 'bonus' stage, 0.7 for 'normal' stage and 0.4 for 'penalty' stage.
So, well there are three encumbrance stages there are really only two relevant classes. Bonus and normal.
Bonus <--- Normal ---> Penalty
Accepting normal stage as starting point the encumbrance system actually increases the number of TUs.
The weights of weapons and armours were all recently balanced with the normal stage in mind. That is, your average soldier can equip the heaviest armours and weapons, when and as you get access to them (presuming stat growth as game progresses). So game-wise, there is no reason to enter the third stage. Sure, there's allowance for three classes and hopefully beyond 2.5 dev, there will be 3 classes but ATM the first two are the only functional ones.
I think the latter solution in particular would be great.
Does this particular include any particulars? ;D
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Anyone know how this relates to trying to heal units? I was amused to find that equiping armor and any weapon on units makes them unable to use a medkit off the start. I was thinking maybe a pistol or plasma blade, but nope, everything is heavy enough (in my testing) to cause them to be unable to heal anyone. I loaded up an old mid-late game save and...yup my buffed troops are about 50/50 on being able to use healing kits (most are sporting lvl 2 armor). I don't like my troops dying on me and I'm willing to heal them up etc but I'm not even getting that chance. So I'm looking for help on how to equip troops light enough to enable to heal each other. On a side note was the dmg output by alien weaponry buffed a lot? I took 1 hit from a hovernet to a unit in lvl 1 armor and took 95dmg. I haven't played much in the last 3 months but I don't recall ALL the alien weaponry being so deadly to my troops or that all the aliens reaction fire hits me before I take my turn but they walk up to my squad set to reaction fire and start doing melee dmg while my troops with TU's saved sit there >.>
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When the encumbrance system came out, the starting strength of units got buffed. All soldiers created prior to that date are going to have horrifically subpar strength values. New hires' strength stats at the start of the game range from 30~39 or thereabouts. That's enough to wear armor, a heavy weapon, a medikit and maybe a reload or two, if you're on the high end of the scale, and stay inside the 50% needed to get your normal complement of TUs. If you're willing to settle for a non-heavy weapon, you get to load up on grenades and all that other good stuff. If you go without armor and don't take a heavy weapon, you can manage to stay inside 20% of your weight allowance and get bonus TUs. It's worth seriously considering whether it's worth sacrificing protection for mobility or vice versa.
You might want to start a new playthrough, hire new soldiers in your existing one, or hack your soldier's strength stats to reflect what they should be like - the way to do the latter is in one of these threads.
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Ahha, I knew there was something I must have been missing, I'll just restart :)
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And yeah, aliens hit harder than they did in 2.4. Expect to lose more units / have a harder time playing a zero casualties game. Your armored soldiers might survive two plasma pistol shots, but will take ~2/3rds HP damage from plasma rifle shots, and within a few months of game time most aliens will be packing a plasma blaster that is capable of one-shotting your units with 8 TU reaction shots. Seriously, consider leaving that bulky armor at home. When I got the estate map (which is a small, tower-like house with multiple stories infested with aliens, with balconies and windows providing vantage points), the first time I had an armored team and it took like eight tries to get through it without losing someone. In my more recent playthrough, I sent in a team of unarmored soldiers taking advantage of bonus TUs and made it through in one try.
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Since this thread has been so helpful (sorry for turning it into a q/a), is there a way to get accurate %'s on shots fired. I've watched my sniper rifles at 50-60% blazing away and hitting at 1/10 shots. This simply a guestimation of odds to hit or old code?
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Just a guestimation.
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Is it intended to be just a guesstimation, or is there a reason it can't accurately reflect the actual hit chance?
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I'm not familiar with the code, but I would guess that getting the "true" hit chance (or very close to it) would be computationally intensive (ie - slow).
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Not computationally intensive, but very complex to code. And there are so many parts of engine requiring maintenance ...
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Hehe instead of new code can I just send my snipers back to shooting school? ;)
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I'll necro this a bit to continue discussion about the system.
I've reached a point in my campaign where I got access to power armor, and balancing loads has become a nightmare. I did a lot of savescumming to get decent soldiers and kept them alive throughout the campaign, so my team is probably the best you can have at this stage, and even the best soldiers are struggling with decent load with power armor. Throughout my team I have soldiers with 40-49 strength, gained over course of almost 50 missions, and even my best assault soldier can carry at most his assault rifle, single reload, couple of grenades, plasma blade and medikit. I know the armor is supposed to be a choice only for some soldiers, but it's virtually unusable except for elite troops with assault rifle. Any heavier weapon is impossible to carry. Heavy weapon soldiers can't even carry a good loadout with nanocomposite armor at this stage. Fielding a second squad seems impossible for me as the new soldiers won't be able to carry a loadout that would give them a chance in combat against enemies with particle weapons and heavy needlers.
So what's your opinion, should the system be refined, or is this okay?
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Throughout my team I have soldiers with 40-49 strength, gained over course of almost 50 missions
Do you mean that you've reached power armour and you've only fought 50 missions total? Or that your top soldiers have fought on about 50 missions (out of a larger total) at this stage?
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Around 50 missions total. Because my soldiers were often injured, I purposely shot down many UFOs over water to give them time to recuperate. I was running with 12 troops from the start, 4 were backup that was assigned to team when a soldier from main team was too heavily injured to participate in mission that I couldn't avoid.
Still, those 50 missions are quite a load for single soldier. Most of the main team already reached stage where mind stat is limiting their promotion, not kills, and everyone got between 40-50 mind now.
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Do you mean that you've reached power armour and you've only fought 50 missions total?
It took me abt 50 missions to get power armour in the campaign at the hardest level, without dedicated research bases or such particular effort. Hm or maybe it was second hardest level? Not so sure. Can I see my difficulty level choice somewhere?
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Interesting. I swap out wounded and try to knock down every UFO I can over land. I've done 65 missions and I'm still about two months from even seeing heavily armoured aliens (probably three months from fielding power armour). By the time I get there, I could be nearing twice as many missions as you.
My most active soldier has seen 47 missions at this stage, so nearly 3/4. I've got 7 soldiers at 20-40 missions, another 4 or so around 10-25 missions, and another 7 at 0-10. I've lost probably 15-20 soldiers in the campaign, but maybe only 5 who had real experience. I only save-scummed once, to rescue my favourite sniper.
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currently I have >70 missions and my by far most experienced soldier has less than 50 - most guys have 15 or less. Casualties are heavy in this war :'(
Interestingly my most senior soldier has the rank of sergeant. You'd think an army would need a couple officers. Does rank yet mean anything, game mechanics-wise?
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Does rank yet mean anything, game mechanics-wise?
Rank once effected their monthly upkeep cost, but I think that was removed. I don't think there is any plan to have rank effect game mechanics.
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Interesting. I swap out wounded and try to knock down every UFO I can over land. I've done 65 missions and I'm still about two months from even seeing heavily armoured aliens (probably three months from fielding power armour). By the time I get there, I could be nearing twice as many missions as you.
My most active soldier has seen 47 missions at this stage, so nearly 3/4. I've got 7 soldiers at 20-40 missions, another 4 or so around 10-25 missions, and another 7 at 0-10. I've lost probably 15-20 soldiers in the campaign, but maybe only 5 who had real experience. I only save-scummed once, to rescue my favourite sniper.
Hm. Maybe you had higher radar coverage resulting in more UFOs detected and more missions? I started out with main base at Asia Minor, soon added radar covering south Africa, but then nothing for quite a long time as I built dedicated workshop base, and only around september 2084 I added another radar/interceptor base to cover most of Asia and Australia.
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I think the weights could range from 33-43 starting stats, this just allows enough generally for soldiers to carry a weapon and ammo, but if you want speed bonuses you need an ammo guy and your heavy weapons can't manage much more than a monoblade without armour.
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Hey, I think the encumbrance system is actually *supposed to* make you choose between speed and heavy equipment...
I only started this thread to point out and discuss how the current mechanic creates some silly situations/exploit possibilities.
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speaking of which, having slept on this a bit it probably wouldn't make sense to completely remake the system to work like I first suggested. Issues that have been brought up could use some improvement however.
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About the mission count - I always build just three bases, first one in east Europe, second one in middle America and a third one in south-east Asia/Oceania. All nations are happy (exuberant? I never found out what that actually means) with this coverage.
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Hm. Maybe you had higher radar coverage resulting in more UFOs detected and more missions? I started out with main base at Asia Minor, soon added radar covering south Africa, but then nothing for quite a long time as I built dedicated workshop base, and only around september 2084 I added another radar/interceptor base to cover most of Asia and Australia.
Wow, so you've just got one interception base until September? Did you have any trouble keeping nations happy? What about the Americas? I felt nation happiness was ridiculously easy (a by-product of the reduction in UFO frequency). Just goes to show how different play styles can be. My first money went into a second interception base and then I got radar coverage up everywhere I could before September.
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On my newest playthrough, I've started in South America, built that base up over the first couple of months (2 workshops, 4 laboratories), then built a second base in North America. My primary goal for this playthrough is to determine ideal base locations for radar coverage by working my way around the world, which is why I started with the most out of the way place.
However, there has been a real dearth of UFOs in South America, with the result that I'm almost at the point where I can unlock power armor (I have alien body armor available to research), and my main base has only had approx. 15 missions so far.
Personally, I found it slightly easier to keep the funding nations happy in 2.4, with the constant missions. But it is still balanced; even with UFOs practically avoiding my area of the world, the few missions I've had let me keep the happiness values from plummeting.
(By the way, how significant is the happiness boost you get for selling an UFO to a nation? Is it worth taking less money for it?)
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Wow, so you've just got one interception base until September? Did you have any trouble keeping nations happy? What about the Americas? I felt nation happiness was ridiculously easy (a by-product of the reduction in UFO frequency). Just goes to show how different play styles can be. My first money went into a second interception base and then I got radar coverage up everywhere I could before September.
Well, worst I had was few neutral for a while, but it rose up again quickly after I built second base. I guess it's due to placement, my first base covered significant parts of three nations and very little ocean so it wasn't that bad.
I consider getting a dedicated workshop ASAP to be a necessity, to disassemble some fighters quickly and equip your interceptors with particle beam weaponry, so you can take those fighter UFOs safely with just one interceptor and you have a chance of taking out harvester coming to visit your base.
I might try another approach sometime, with hybrid workshop/interception bases.
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My main base is in the middle east, I have 6 other bases in europe, africa, Mid afro-Europe, siberia, Russia and Madagascar, this covers all bar the americas with radar, and I have 20 SAM sites dotted in between, no Interceptors and I get about 3 missions a day, money is about 3,000,000 with nowt to spend it on and all but americas is exuburant, there's probably 6 alien bases out there. Dodge ball with Attack craft!!
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With regards to the new system, I too think the penalties are tad too harsh when you just creep over the limits, either that or some secondary items like Medkits (especially Medkits) need their TU cost reduced a bit, maybe by 25%.
On the UI front, I will say that having to manually divide the "max" weight by half when I'm kitting a soldier out to figure out what they can carry is tedious beyond reason, and if I'm being lazy, just results in extra clicking when I add something too heavy and then remove it with the next click.
I feel the UI would be better served by showing the max carry weight *before* any TU penalties are incurred, and then simply turning red and showing the penalty when you go over the limit (ie, showing 19.5/18kg and the ilk).
The bonus AP for staying under a certain weight is a nice bonus, adds some interesting tactics to the battle field.
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I think the UI could use some work but with the most recent tweaks this system has come a long way. Speed is valuable again and Strength is now very useful. I complained a bit early on but I want to say I feel like most of the nessecary changes have been made.
For Medkits I'd rather see some kind of Perks/Feats system that provide such a bonus for medics. They also are pretty nice right now after some ups and downs. If you remember a combat round is only a few seconds the speed of healing is remarkably fast. Actually I'd like to see a fuller kit that requires two hands, weighs more, takes a bit more TU and heals a bit more as an option.
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The big problem seems to be that the encumbrance system completely disables some actions, it should make those actions much slower (so performed much rarely) rather than not allow them.
(The time units are just representing how much time passes until an action can be performed, and in reality everything happens simultaneously. Encumbrance, especially if still within the limit of what you can carry, should only make you slower or less efficient, and not prohibiting to ever fire your weapon)
I gathered a number of solutions for this problem I've seen in other turn based squad combat games:
1. Allow time units to go into the negative (and start the next turn with that much less TUs) if and only if the action is the first action in the current turn.
2. If you finished your turn with some TUs left (after subtracting reaction fire, of course), allow a tiny amount of it to carry over to the next turn. So you can perform your "expensive" action every other turn.
3. Having more random variety in stats. Why should an average soldier become stronger than any new recruit you hire after a few missions? With more varied stats, you could hire a weightlifter to carry your heavy equipment around, of course, his other stats might be terrible.
4. Firing is divided into mini-actions, so it does not always take the same amount of TUs. Movement always consumes the same amount of TUs, just as aiming, etc., so units with higher TUs are faster. However, squeezing the trigger should take the same time. (time does not equal time units, as faster soldiers can consume more time units in the same time it takes a turn) So squeezing the trigger is not a fixed cost, but a percentage of the total TUs the unit has. If I remember correctly, the original X-COM used this system, and Jagged Alleince also used a somewhat complicated variation of it. It might be far from the current concept, I only included it for the sake of completeness.
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Variables are why many games use a total points system instead of individual ranges. So instead of strength being 30-40 you get a single total spread across all the attributes. So you might have a hugely strong warrior, but he's completely hopeless at anything else.
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That wouldn't really work for this game, though, since the stat points are not equivalent to one another. They rise at different speeds, and the way encumbrance is designed requires starting strength values to be much higher than the averages for other stats. I guess you could go with a weighted total points system, or make it so a soldier with 0 strength can carry a base weight of 20kg or something to dial down the strength starting value, but it's probably easier to stick to the system that is in place.