Messages

1

Tactics / Re: Big City tactics

« on: May 04, 2011, 11:15:03 am »

Not fond of laser pistols.  If you run into anybody with decent armor -- medium armor, say -- they'll do *very* little damage, which is a very very bad thing if you're at a range where short-range pistols make sense considering that the likely response will be either many plasma pistol shots, a plasma blade, or if you're very unlucky a plasma grenade.  Plasma and particle beam pistols are more interesting sidearms; a belt of plasma grenades and/or blades is also nasty if you're thinking of storming the front door.  Flamethrowers are also quite decent at that range.

Along similar lines, for long-range, aimed fire a heavy laser will beat a laser rifle in terms of expected damage per unit time, if against medium armor and maybe light armor.  The rifle's quicker at reaction fire, which makes it perhaps more interesting for your assault element.

On this map... if you've got decent snipers, using patience + the cheapness and good supply of sniper ammo + using ship for cover when healing should get you the first few kills.  Bear in mind that the aliens will never recover hp once wounded, unless the code's changed that since last I looked (quite some time ago...), and that a wounded shooter is a more imprecise shooter.

2

Discussion / Re: Difficulty level changes what exactly?

« on: May 02, 2011, 11:52:02 pm »

If memory serves, difficulty level aside from normal does apply a percentage modifier to damage prior to any other modifiers (armor, throughwall penalties).  Never looked into aerial combat mechanics.

3

Feature Requests / Re: fuck realism, dont kill ma soldier ;)

« on: January 30, 2011, 09:51:04 pm »

You end up worrying  a lot less about corners when you adapt your tactics to include *shooting through walls*.

4

Feature Requests / Re: New type of Assault Rifle/micro missile launcher

« on: January 20, 2011, 09:41:34 am »

Wouldn't make sense to have them require research.   Warheads using shaped-charges have been in use since during WW2, they're ubiquitous with the RPG-7, and fairly nifty tandem HEAT warheads (one blast to trigger common explosive reactive armor such as Kontakt-5 ERA, a follow-up to keep going aren't all that rare these days, either). 

HEAT, T-HEAT (not terribly applicable, however -- there is no evidence of the /aliens/ using ERA, so a standard HEAT charge would be more logical), thermobaric, and the current ordinary HE warheads would be quite reasonably available at the beginning.  Plasma (think a 'Plasma and the Rocket Launcher' tech ala the GL) and antimatter (!), OTOH, would require more research.

5

Feature Requests / Re: New type of Assault Rifle/micro missile launcher

« on: January 19, 2011, 07:58:36 am »

The sniper rifle will already reliably kill anything but a medium-armored Ortnok in two hits (if not fired through walls), with two killing some Ortnoks and the rest taking three; the coil gun does so much damage that two hits will currently kill anything in the game even if medium-armored and it will often one-shot an unarmored Ortnok.

Also, tungsten won't be sufficient unless you have velocity, and that means a long barrel and lots of acceleration.

So how would this differ from the existing sniper rifle / coil gun combo?

6

Discussion / Re: How do I shoot?

« on: January 18, 2011, 10:02:50 pm »

Click the crosshairs button.  The cursor should change to a targeting cursor and then you can fire.  You'll need enough TU's and ammo for the selected fire mode, and for non-pistol weapons the off-hand generally must be free.

7

User modifications / Re: UFO:AI Android port

« on: January 18, 2011, 09:37:20 am »

So, we DO have destructible surfaces? 

*shrug*  Haven't checked how they're implemented, but you can already shoot through windows, breaking them in the process.

8

Feature Requests / Re: more strategy in 2.4

« on: January 17, 2011, 11:24:16 am »

Regarding civvies, it would not be unreasonable for some of them to also have boarded themselves up in the most secure facility they could find (which fits neatly into a timed rescue situation, i.e. barricade is over and mission failed if aliens occupy certain spots for X amount of time).  Or for some civvies to happen to be much more important or useful than others, with implications for national happiness or employment (e.g. gaining a volunteer who'll have a significantly reduced cost if hired).

One could also see the odd scenario where the objective is to use nonlethal force (as much as possible, anyway) only in order to escort somebody through or to disperse rioting mobs (fairly realistic in the face of alien invasion, I'd say...) but that would distract from the alien-human confrontation and place PHALANX more in a police role.  Probably not advised.

Other fairly traditional missions are to defend or destroy a particular facility, with 'destruction' again perhaps achieved by having relatively undisturbed occupation of a victory zone for a certain amount of time -- e.g. defending a manufacturing facility whose loss might reduce the availability of stuff in the market, defending a dam or reactor or other strategically sensitive facility where sabotage or destruction might be catastrophic, that sort of thing.  Some missions might offer a nasty choice -- for an extreme example, if aliens are assaulting a nuclear weapons launch site, at what point do you give up on defending it intact and attempt to destructively seal the entrance or otherwise permanently block access in order to prevent it from somehow being used against you?

Two random ideas that might increase tension:

- One, if the IR goggles couldn't distinguish human from alien (thus making building clearing much more perilous)... and

- Two, if there data banks in alien craft that would potentially yield substantial research... but rewarded aggressivness and speed, because an alien in the cockpit could initiate deletion and would start doing so once alien casualties mounted to the point where a reasonable alien would conclude DOOM

9

Feature Requests / Re: more strategy in 2.4

« on: January 12, 2011, 08:42:46 am »

The reaction fire and overall battlefield mechanics work pretty well.  There are some fairly glaring omissions (more finely tuned aiming would be very appropriate for the map with pipe-like tunnels -- construction site?  It breaks immersion when there's an obvious opportunity to shove a grenade through a slot and the game simply won't let you; material is generally not destructible; et al) but what's there works pretty well.

Thing is, it's too mechanical.  One may do multiple extremely similar missions per game day, each basically a mechanical by-the-numbers clearing operation, mostly with little difference.  The civvies act the same, the aliens act the same, there's little functional difference beyond pure structure of maps (for instance, the temperature difference between a wintry industrial map and a jungle map apparently counts for nothing; there's no tracks in snow on snowy maps, no fauna fleeing in sudden alarm at movement on more natural maps.   And -many- missions end in a bog-standard harvester sweep pretty much the same way every time.  The most 'different' maps might be the stadium and the office complex, due to LOS.)

And it's for little reward.  Character stat gains don't matter nearly as much when you know that random luck might mean that you'll get a recruit whose better starting stats will easily let him catch up and then out-pace your grizzled team leader.  For long stretches, all that captured equipment means is that you get to pay the bills, because having more doesn't speed the hideously long research times, and even if you've sold hundreds of plasma rifles and massive ammo stocks to go with 'em as well as vast numbers of alien ships you'll *never* see a single individual who isn't an employee *ever* take inspiration and offer any resistance to the aliens.  Ever.  Major governments go "thank you please, now simply get back to work while we sit on our hands."  This continues even if you shoot down every single UFO for a whole game-year, deliver arsenals worth, demonstrate that sound tactics let the humans prevail over aliens in every engagement even on the offense with numerical inferiority (given that one can currently face 8-on-9 scenarios), that your 'sponsors' don't do anything suggesting that they're actually worth saving given that they put absolutely no effort into helping themselves.

Do they ever build a radar facility and provide you intel?  No.
Do they ever take a single alien craft you've provided, arm it with the weapons you've salvaged, and take on an alien?  No.
Is there ever any evidence at all that an alien terror mission has encountered resistance, even when it's at a military facility?  No.
Do they ever provide any heavy support in missions?  No.
Do they ever do any research on the things you've sold, and share findings?  No.
Do they ever make any attempt to drive away an incursion?  No.
Do they ever even bother offering analysis and sitrep regarding what you're facing in a mission?  No.
Do they ever ask what you might need, and help to build it, even for a price?  No.

So why fight for 'em?

10

Tactics / Re: My battle strategy

« on: January 10, 2011, 07:47:29 am »

Among the soldier types (each new recruit is either a generalist, a specialist in one of the weapon skills, or an elite i.e. super-generalist); the assault and heavy weapons specialists are probably the most generally useful.

Assault includes the assault rifle and laser rifle; the latter isn't that far in research and is accurate, although not particularly damaging.   LR/bolter rifle is bulky, but /may/ be useful because of the high damage and throughwall (and a particularly accurate trooper may use the bolter as primary; the main limitation is the imprecision).

Heavy allows a long-range (heavy laser) / short-range (flamethrower) combo -- swap for when it's time for more close-quarters work, like inside a Harvester). 

Snipers are useful for overwatch, and two of the weapons which can shoot through walls are primarily sniping weapons (the sniper rifle and coil gun)  but you don't need THAT many snipers usually (the 'Hoover Dam' map, OTOH...).  The range, precision and ability to shoot through walls make them useful for killing enemies through light cover at range.

Explosives is tricky.  The grenade launcher lets you take certain shots that are otherwise difficult to impossible, but it's *quite* short range, and there's only one real long-range explosives-skill weapon -- the rocket launcher, which is bulky in both launcher and ammo.

Not a fan of close-combat specialists.   There /are/ nasty pistols like the particle beam pistol, but you won't get them early.  The stun rod... is  chancy enough that I don't like to use it without being sure that there's only one enemy in the area and there's others who'll be able to get clear shots if it fails.  Otherwise, it's "plasma bursts in the face" time.

11

Tactics / Re: My battle strategy

« on: January 09, 2011, 02:36:37 am »

If you're taking wounds so often that you need two dedicated medics, you're doing it wrong.

Patience combined with a good understanding of the rules -- some of which are not particularly obvious (*) -- and your advantages should make most battles completely one-sided.


(*) Examples which come to mind:

- Certain weapons can fire through a finite number of thin walls (and floors, and ceilings); the only penalty is reduced damage.  This is not documented anywhere in game, as far as I've noticed.  None of the alien weapons can do this.  In certain situations (CQB w/ these weapons and the nifty goggles; snipers targeting aliens in the outer rooms of buildings), this is a ridiculously huge advantage.

Your shooters don't have to see ANY PART of the alien to kill them.

- Laser weapons have NO penalty when firing through smoke or the like.  The game lies.
- There is NO dual-wield w/ pistols.  The game lies.
- A flamethrower shot is really a huge burst of many weak shots.  This makes it likely you'll hit even if both your Accuracy and Heavy skills are utter crap.
- How damage is calculated is heavily obfuscated by the game for multi-shot bursts; it tells you the expected damage *if all shots hit one completely unarmored target*.   Damage reduction is *per shot*.
- The in-game %hit estimates are very, very approximate.
- There is a ~1% chance for any given recruit to have ridiculously good stats (i.e. better than every other recruit, in every single stat).  This is completely hidden.  There is no faster way to find them except checking every single recruit because there isn't even a sort-by-given-skill option. 
- XP required for stat gain is based on the difference between the original stat and the next one.  This means that the 1% supers are far superior to similarly skilled troops that you've been carefully keeping for months and months, because the supers will be gaining stats much faster for a while.  This is hidden.
- Salary and maintenance is based solely on what's there at the time of computation, and not pro-rated.  Don't hire on Jan. 30; hire on Feb. 2.  If you don't mind cheating, fire EVERYBODY before the it calculates payroll and hire back afterwards.

12

Discussion / Re: Antimatter storage

« on: January 02, 2011, 11:51:49 pm »

Both places.

13

Bugs in older version (2.3.1) / Re: Invincible Aliens

« on: December 27, 2010, 12:31:00 am »

I had it happen with no stunned folks at all, trigger being either RF or point-blank shot. At least, aliens definitely were invincible to point-blank shots.

With what weapon?  The aliens essentially *do* become effectively immune to some of the weapons (like the submachine gun or the grenade launcher's flechette shells) if wearing medium armor.   

Even the machine gun, w/ a normal_medium dmgweight and a damage range of 36-54 per shot,  will only do 9-27 past medium armor, meaning that a 5-round burst (avg 90) isn't enough to guarantee a kill.  A laser rifle does 36-48 per hit if wave fire, 37-47 if pulse... but it's laser_medium dmgweight, so that turns into 10-22 (or 11-21) avg 16  per hit past medium armor.  An Ortnok has 150-190 hp normally, avg 170, so you're looking at 11 hits (4 pulse fires) w/ a laser rifle to kill a medium-armored one on average and potentially as many as 18 (maximally unlucky damage rolls for wave fire vs. max-health med-armored Ortnok).

14

Discussion / Re: IR goggles

« on: December 26, 2010, 12:55:56 am »

Every turn, indeed, for 12 TUs a pop.  Don't forget that you can use them to look through ceilings and floors, too, by switching elevations while targeting them.

And yes, combined with the 'throughwall > 0' weapons (sniper rifle, bolter rifle, coil gun; and in MP only, the chain gun-type weapons, too), they're extremely powerful because you can kill enemies through walls, ceilings and floors.

15

Bugs in older version (2.3.1) / Re: Bug -- airburst not working [as specified]

« on: December 26, 2010, 12:52:45 am »

Should probably be renamed "contact-fused".