46
Discussion / Re: Jargon (n00b) q's?
« on: September 15, 2010, 02:59:32 am »
FIBUA = Fighting in Built-Up Areas, one of the phrases sometimes used to describe urban warfare.
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47
Feature Requests / Re: Melee Weapon: Laser Blade
« on: September 13, 2010, 11:16:34 pm »
Seems strictly inferior to flamethrowers, concussion grenades, and shaped charges.
The "sabot adapter for plasma blade" idea I mentioned in another thread would be much more useful and much simpler to use and manufacture, methinks.
The "sabot adapter for plasma blade" idea I mentioned in another thread would be much more useful and much simpler to use and manufacture, methinks.
48
Feature Requests / Re: DiDiT's somewhat crazy weapon suggestion thread
« on: September 10, 2010, 05:15:16 am »
If we've had wire-guided missiles for 40+ years now (and we have... current-day versions have ranges well in excess of 3km, incidentally), I don't think a wire-guided toy car with a bomb would be very difficult.
49
Discussion / Re: Reammunition of Vehicles
« on: September 05, 2010, 11:34:03 am »
Take the alien ships, disassemble them (best if you have antimatter storage set up -- and be aware that it takes twenty days to complete...), and use the particle-beam weapons.
Disassembly takes hideously long in 2.3. I gather that this has been reduced during further development, but there hasn't been an updated release and I don't recall reading what numbers were deemed appropriate.
Disassembly takes hideously long in 2.3. I gather that this has been reduced during further development, but there hasn't been an updated release and I don't recall reading what numbers were deemed appropriate.
50
Tactics / Re: Killed soldiers
« on: September 02, 2010, 02:04:48 am »
All the plasma weapons are pretty inaccurate and poorly suited towards long-ranged combat.
51
Coding / Re: [SUGGESTION] New accuracy system
« on: September 01, 2010, 08:37:35 am »
Depends upon the weapon. A G11-type rifle should be quite controllable in short bursts -- when you're firing 3 round bursts with a ~2200 rds/min cycle time, it's hard for the recoil to be a problem before the third round has already exited the barrel.
52
Discussion / Re: do explosions travel thorugh walls
« on: September 01, 2010, 02:24:12 am »
If it shouldn't be happening and not on a per-weapon-specific basis, then why is there a 'throughWall' parameter in the weapon UFO data and why did the 'resolve single shot' code check it and make provisions for reduced-damage wall-penetrating shots? (Or at least there was, the last time I looked -- which was a while ago).
IIRC, only the sniper rifle, bolter rifle, coil gun, and minigun have it.
IIRC, only the sniper rifle, bolter rifle, coil gun, and minigun have it.
53
Discussion / Re: Feedback 2.3
« on: August 12, 2010, 03:12:19 am »Quote
5) Production doesn't seem to go any faster or slower regardless of the # of workers.
The hours-left in a production status is actually man-hours left. Try doing the same task (such as disassembling a harvester) in a base w/ 20 workers and a base with 30 workers, and running for a while -- the latter's hour number should go down faster. Last I checked, the code was in-place for strictly linear scaling w/ workers (w/ workshops, of course) with a minor exception that every task takes at least one hour.
54
Discussion / Re: 50 Hours of Game Design Notes
« on: August 11, 2010, 09:26:18 pm »
1) Mission pacing:
Agreed that mission frequency is extremely high compared to rest of strategic game progress.
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3) If you want to keep the grand scale and onslaught feel of "alien invasion" with upwards of 1.5 missions a day (which is what I was hitting at the end) I do suggest you allow at least partial experience on troops for automission successes. It only makes sense: if the commander is risking an asset (soldiers) then it would be good to have some improvement in those assets with success.
Either that, or the game should probably explicitly warn that there will be no experience gained or recovered equipment. This might be important for a new player to know, since early on when auto-resolve might actually result in a victory, by doing so he'll be depriving himself of improved skills and loot that he may need for research et al.
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5) Create some way for the player to choose which forces in a bases will be employed first to respond to a base attack. For example, my firebird troops normally carry laser weapons as their primaries, great for ranged fights, but less than ideal for base defence. But when I started keeping close combat and heavy troops in the base for a dedicated base defence, my firebird troops would be employed mostly anyway when the base was attacked. I wish I could have designated those 8 cc and heavy troops "garrison defence" so that my firebirds could have stayed well rested and ready.
Could be partly resolved w/ equipment templates, because base defense does bring up the equipment selection screen. e.g. define a labeled set of gear with a helpful title like "close-assault" or whatever. That said, selecting troops would still be useful for skills... although skill matters a lot less with weapons like the flamethrower, since it *only* affects accuracy (not reloading speed, not speed of target acquisition, not speed of firing, not damage done per hit...) and at flamethrower ranges you're likely to hit even if quite unskilled.
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6) Not sure of the role of the plasma blade. Seems to just be a way to create player casualties. I never encountered an enemy armored vehicle or drone, so I wound up just using them for my CC guys as an "oh shit" weapon. But that "throw" function? I've handled shape charges IRL as a military engineer and trust me, you aren't going to "throw" a bell shaped cone and have it stick to anything, much less even land cone-face on target.
Well, it's been tried (ribbon-stabilized anti-tank grenades, IIRC) but as a desperation tactic when not having better gear. PHALANX does.
My inclination would be that how the plasma blade would be used by the human side would be by using a modified shotgun shell as a sabot or the like. Production would take a small bit of time but one plasma blade each. Greater range and accuracy than throwing. Use in a mini-shotgun for an extremely nasty, compact close-assault weapon; sure, reloads would be scarce, but you would be using this to e.g. back up a FT, GL or both.
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7) A way to show rank on the character screen during battle. This will allow the commander to choose from amongst the troops who to risk (or who to give the skill-improving gimme-shot).
FWIW, rank has minimal impact AFAICT. The weapon skills + accuracy matter much more.
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9) Consider some "intermediate techs". As it stands your tech tree is kind of bare, and the only way to improve your weapons is to jump to a whole new tech. A way to give the player to have something to research, as well as to keep different weapons types relevant as the game progresses, would be to have intermediate techs.
My impression is that devs believe that there are already plenty and possibly too many human weapons available already.
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10) Consider battlescape saves. I realize this risks having some players turn the game into a save-reload fest. But while you're in beta-testing, allowing battlescape saves would give you some distinct advantages. It would allow players to reproduce bugs more efficiently, rather than forcing them to play and attempt to crash another mission to reproduce the bug. It would keep them from getting as frustrated by the bugs, so they didn't quit before they supplied you with good data and go back to the world and give you bad press.
Frequently requested, always rejected (see 'save-reload fest' plus another area of compatibility/maintenance headaches).
55
Tactics / Re: Snipers vs Medium-armored aliens
« on: August 09, 2010, 01:10:49 am »
*shrug* There are quite a few damage types (e.g. lasers alone have light/medium/heavy types), and each {armor type, damage type} pair has a specific damage reduction value (in absolute terms, not relative... and per shot). Hence one could model something like a low-calibre high-velocity tungsten or DU-core round with excellent armor penetration but low damage; you'd give it a low damage value, paired with a damage type against which armor provided little protection.
What isn't implemented but is presumably planned are per-species damage modifiers. Right now the effect -could- be built into the armor system by producing species-specific armors where the damage reduction from the armor would actually encompass both, but this would proliferate item types and wouldn't fit the lore.
Re: ammo, I tend to burn through much more, since I tend to have my designated marksmen engage from extreme long range, where their hit probabilities can be quite low but those of the aliens are even worse, and the likelihood of a soldier being hit twice in the same round (and thus far much more likely to be killed outright) are close to zero. It's quite inefficient in time and ammunition, but seems to work fairly well. I'm tempted to use the coilgun in my assault elements (i.e. at close range, it becomes imperative to kill reliably and extremely quickly, because even the plasma pistol is dangerous at close range, and there's always the risk of something worse like a plasma grenade. Might replace a laser rifle.)
What isn't implemented but is presumably planned are per-species damage modifiers. Right now the effect -could- be built into the armor system by producing species-specific armors where the damage reduction from the armor would actually encompass both, but this would proliferate item types and wouldn't fit the lore.
Re: ammo, I tend to burn through much more, since I tend to have my designated marksmen engage from extreme long range, where their hit probabilities can be quite low but those of the aliens are even worse, and the likelihood of a soldier being hit twice in the same round (and thus far much more likely to be killed outright) are close to zero. It's quite inefficient in time and ammunition, but seems to work fairly well. I'm tempted to use the coilgun in my assault elements (i.e. at close range, it becomes imperative to kill reliably and extremely quickly, because even the plasma pistol is dangerous at close range, and there's always the risk of something worse like a plasma grenade. Might replace a laser rifle.)
56
Discussion / Re: Antimatter storage
« on: August 08, 2010, 11:34:24 pm »
You'll need one at each base where you disassemble UFOs if you don't want to lose the antimatter, AFAICT.
57
Tactics / Re: Snipers vs Medium-armored aliens
« on: August 06, 2010, 05:37:11 am »
Got the coilguns lately. I'm not actually convinced that it's necessarily a great idea to use them instead of the sniper rifle.
Pros -
- Much higher damage; two hits should pretty much guarantee a kill on normal difficulty levels IIRC, one hit will frequently be a kill.
- Higher 'throughwall' setting so should penetrate further -- but this reduces damage significantly, and this might actually be a con, because by the time you build your first coilgun the aliens are likely to be wearing armor that heavily mitigates post-throughwall damage, and the civillians OTOH are still fragile.
Tie -
- Exact same accuracy -- same spread value uncrouched, same spread value crouched. The range might be larger (can't recall), but realistically, the sniper rifle is not likely to ever give you an out-of-range error anyway, so any extra range is pretty much a wash on any remotely normal map.
- Same TU cost of 18 for an aimed shot, despite the theoretically present holographic scope.
Con -
- Magazines have small capacity and huge size. The /maximum/ number of shots a single soldier can bring into battle is 10: two rounds in the gun, two two-round reloads in the backpack (taking up most of it!), one two-round reload in the holster (takes up all of it), and one two-round reload in the left hand (which must be dropped before firing). This leaves no room for anything as large as a medkit or plasma pistol. So you make your way to your shooting position, drop the reload from the left hand, and maintain really extreme fire discipline, unless you're willing to designate another soldier as ammo mule.
- This also means that you'll need to spend more TUs reloading per shot actually fired.
- Magazines can't be bought, at least early (haven't run very much past my first manufacturing run).
In contrast, somebody using the sniper rifle can easily carry 25+ rounds, a sidearm (and possibly a reload), and a medikit. Because you can carry more rounds and because they're extremely cheap to replace after the battle, somebody with the SR-1 can take chancier shots. A DF cartridge packs two three-round heavy laser bursts in a much smaller package -- a burst isn't nearly as lethal as the coilgun vs. medium armor, but you can carry quite a few more DF cartridges than coilgun magazines.
So in a wide-open map they're pretty dangerous, but if there's long-range sniper duels where both sides have significant cover and hit odds are looking more like 25% than 85%, the SR-1 or heavy laser might be more reasonable (at least against aliens; there's something to be said for one-shot kills if you're doing multiplayer against humans, because while dropping an alien sniper-wannabe with a Needler to below 50% health means that he'll be shooting wider, a human opponent will presumably pull back for medikit use if possible when wounded. A coilgun hit is much less likely to leave anything left to heal).
The snap shot is also still extremely lethal at close ranges, where an SR-1 might not kill fast enough, but now we're talking more assault role rather than a designated marksman on overwatch.
Pros -
- Much higher damage; two hits should pretty much guarantee a kill on normal difficulty levels IIRC, one hit will frequently be a kill.
- Higher 'throughwall' setting so should penetrate further -- but this reduces damage significantly, and this might actually be a con, because by the time you build your first coilgun the aliens are likely to be wearing armor that heavily mitigates post-throughwall damage, and the civillians OTOH are still fragile.
Tie -
- Exact same accuracy -- same spread value uncrouched, same spread value crouched. The range might be larger (can't recall), but realistically, the sniper rifle is not likely to ever give you an out-of-range error anyway, so any extra range is pretty much a wash on any remotely normal map.
- Same TU cost of 18 for an aimed shot, despite the theoretically present holographic scope.
Con -
- Magazines have small capacity and huge size. The /maximum/ number of shots a single soldier can bring into battle is 10: two rounds in the gun, two two-round reloads in the backpack (taking up most of it!), one two-round reload in the holster (takes up all of it), and one two-round reload in the left hand (which must be dropped before firing). This leaves no room for anything as large as a medkit or plasma pistol. So you make your way to your shooting position, drop the reload from the left hand, and maintain really extreme fire discipline, unless you're willing to designate another soldier as ammo mule.
- This also means that you'll need to spend more TUs reloading per shot actually fired.
- Magazines can't be bought, at least early (haven't run very much past my first manufacturing run).
In contrast, somebody using the sniper rifle can easily carry 25+ rounds, a sidearm (and possibly a reload), and a medikit. Because you can carry more rounds and because they're extremely cheap to replace after the battle, somebody with the SR-1 can take chancier shots. A DF cartridge packs two three-round heavy laser bursts in a much smaller package -- a burst isn't nearly as lethal as the coilgun vs. medium armor, but you can carry quite a few more DF cartridges than coilgun magazines.
So in a wide-open map they're pretty dangerous, but if there's long-range sniper duels where both sides have significant cover and hit odds are looking more like 25% than 85%, the SR-1 or heavy laser might be more reasonable (at least against aliens; there's something to be said for one-shot kills if you're doing multiplayer against humans, because while dropping an alien sniper-wannabe with a Needler to below 50% health means that he'll be shooting wider, a human opponent will presumably pull back for medikit use if possible when wounded. A coilgun hit is much less likely to leave anything left to heal).
The snap shot is also still extremely lethal at close ranges, where an SR-1 might not kill fast enough, but now we're talking more assault role rather than a designated marksman on overwatch.
58
Feature Requests / Details worth un-hiding from the user?
« on: August 05, 2010, 08:36:56 pm »
1- Original stats for characters (or more directly, the delta).
e.g. 'Speed 45' -> 'Speed 48 (28+17)' or the like.
This matters a fair bit as long as XP costs are related to the delta rather than the absolute value, but doesn't seem accessible unless the user records them.
2- Spread values when crouched.
This can be read from the .ufo files, but I wouldn't be surprised if many players never read them. Without reading them, it's not necessarily obvious that e.g. crouching with a sniper rifle or laser rifle reduces spread 50%, that crouching with a plasma rifle reduces spread by only 30%, and crouching has no effect on accuracy w/ the grenade launcher. This magnifies differences in accuracy and might affect weapon choices.
3- Availability of elites.
Given that there's a 1% chance of a recruitment candidate being qualitatively rather head-and-shoulders above all the rest, it might not be entirely unreasonable to generate an e-mail mentioning these by name when they appear.
4- Impact of armor and randomness on damage.
Right now, the damage values presented (per the firing mode descriptions et al -- there's nothing target/armor-specific) are on a total-for-all-shots-assuming-all-shots-hit, no-armor-reduction basis. This can be misleading for e.g. fast-firing light-damage-per-shot weapons vs. medium armor, so some in-game information might be useful.
e.g. -- UFOPedia containing a generated table for # shot, per-shot damage of (researched weapon vs. researched armor) pairs; or perhaps a min-mean-max damage triplet displayed when the targeting cursor is over a target (and both the target and the target's armor are fully identified). For simplicity, the latter would assume all shots hit. That triplet doesn't require any tracing, so should be quite quick to compute (I'd be more worried about intelligible display *shrug*).
e.g. 'Speed 45' -> 'Speed 48 (28+17)' or the like.
This matters a fair bit as long as XP costs are related to the delta rather than the absolute value, but doesn't seem accessible unless the user records them.
2- Spread values when crouched.
This can be read from the .ufo files, but I wouldn't be surprised if many players never read them. Without reading them, it's not necessarily obvious that e.g. crouching with a sniper rifle or laser rifle reduces spread 50%, that crouching with a plasma rifle reduces spread by only 30%, and crouching has no effect on accuracy w/ the grenade launcher. This magnifies differences in accuracy and might affect weapon choices.
3- Availability of elites.
Given that there's a 1% chance of a recruitment candidate being qualitatively rather head-and-shoulders above all the rest, it might not be entirely unreasonable to generate an e-mail mentioning these by name when they appear.
4- Impact of armor and randomness on damage.
Right now, the damage values presented (per the firing mode descriptions et al -- there's nothing target/armor-specific) are on a total-for-all-shots-assuming-all-shots-hit, no-armor-reduction basis. This can be misleading for e.g. fast-firing light-damage-per-shot weapons vs. medium armor, so some in-game information might be useful.
e.g. -- UFOPedia containing a generated table for # shot, per-shot damage of (researched weapon vs. researched armor) pairs; or perhaps a min-mean-max damage triplet displayed when the targeting cursor is over a target (and both the target and the target's armor are fully identified). For simplicity, the latter would assume all shots hit. That triplet doesn't require any tracing, so should be quite quick to compute (I'd be more worried about intelligible display *shrug*).
59
Tactics / Re: Storming harvester
« on: August 05, 2010, 07:55:26 pm »
Winning through better tactics is much more interesting than winning through blatant cheating.
Incidentally, there looks to be some sadness in the aliens' grenade-throwing logic. It's happened a few times so far during a Harvester assault that I hear the distinct clinking sound of a grenade clinking around... but never being visible, let alone injurious, to any of my troops. If this is fixed, bunching up will be far more dangerous, since plasma grenades are rather highly damaging.
On the bright side, plasma grenades (hand-thrown or mini-version for GL) are very handy for your own troops, as long as you can find places to send them without an own-goal or gratuitous massacre of civvies (who IIRC have ~5-10 hp, and thus die to a strong breeze... and tend not to wander into the UFOs). And when the aliens do the shoot-and-duck-back-behind-the-doorway thing near the entrances, they usually don't go back as far as the first interior doorway.
Incidentally, there looks to be some sadness in the aliens' grenade-throwing logic. It's happened a few times so far during a Harvester assault that I hear the distinct clinking sound of a grenade clinking around... but never being visible, let alone injurious, to any of my troops. If this is fixed, bunching up will be far more dangerous, since plasma grenades are rather highly damaging.
On the bright side, plasma grenades (hand-thrown or mini-version for GL) are very handy for your own troops, as long as you can find places to send them without an own-goal or gratuitous massacre of civvies (who IIRC have ~5-10 hp, and thus die to a strong breeze... and tend not to wander into the UFOs). And when the aliens do the shoot-and-duck-back-behind-the-doorway thing near the entrances, they usually don't go back as far as the first interior doorway.
60
Discussion / Re: How many bases can you purchase?
« on: August 05, 2010, 07:26:41 pm »
Everything? I suspect that you mean 'everything available until you encounter more stuff'... and I'd be surprised if you've finished the Stingray research already unless you've cheated to make it far faster.
Off-hand, you need the Needler to unlock the Coilgun, and you may not have met Shevaars and Bloodspiders yet, either.
Off-hand, you need the Needler to unlock the Coilgun, and you may not have met Shevaars and Bloodspiders yet, either.