Impressions of 2.5 11/1/12

[Triaxx2]

So, I downloaded, installed and played some of the latest build of 2.5. I can say that I am both impressed and depressed with an about it, in the two hours or so I've played.

Combat: I was worried about the 'combat rebalance' which usually means it's be skewed well and truly out of proportion, but you guys did well.  I love the fact that it's now possible to hit a target with sniper rifles from beyond arms reach. I tell them to shoot, the alien gets hit more often than not, instead of the bullet wandering off to try and murder some random part of the scenery. Reaction fire is also much more reliable, which is fantastic. The downside is that it works more often for the aliens. Haven't gotten past the basic weapons, but at the moment it's no issue. I find that rather comforting. Even the Machinegun is still useful though no-where near as dominant a weapon. The fact that it will now hit a target once in a while is also nice.

The downsides I've noticed are two fold. First, the Rocket Launcher is now too expensive to be more than a one shot wonder. It's been pushed way too high in TU cost for it's accuracy, plus the lack of mobility to fire it means that I fire one shot at the start of a mission then drop it and pull a pistol. Should be about 18TU to fire, instead of 24.

The other problem is the new 'damage' system. I don't mind bleeding damage, it makes sense, but the medi-kit heals way too little and costs way too much to be of any use. I had a soldier hit once by the aliens ending up at 58 health, and ended up dead, because even though there wasn't much distance between her and the nearest squad member, upon moving to be healed, she got shot again, dropped to 14 health, and didn't quite reach the healer, who couldn't reach her and have TU enough to use the kit. I killed the alien with a burst of assault rifle fire, but lost the soldier. That's flat out insane. 'Heal' should be renamed Staunch, heal no HP but stop the bleeding and cost only 5-8TU.

Research: Am I supposed to research more than just continuous wave laser to get to man-portable laser weapons? Or am I experiencing an issue with the research system? I like the rebalance of how fast it goes. It means I can get lasers sometime before the end of April, rather than sometime in May. Even with only ten scientists it no longer feels like such a chore to get any research done.

On the other hand it looks like it might be more efficient to kill a mission worth of aliens then go to the plasma weapon research instead.

Base: I like the redesign for the initial base. A more compact one, with more room to expand those 1x2 pieces, without having to destroy the alien containment to have room.

UI: Not a bad UI, though I prefer the Alternate, which needs one minor change. The Morale/TU's remaining meter in the lower left hand corner is hard to see in front of the portraits. If it could be moved up, that would be very useful.

[H-Hour]

The downside is that it [reaction fire] works more often for the aliens.

At the beginning of the game you're only facing plasma pistols, which are low TU weapons. When the aliens pack weapons with higher TU costs, you'll see less reaction fire.

The downsides I've noticed are two fold. First, the Rocket Launcher is now too expensive to be more than a one shot wonder. It's been pushed way too high in TU cost for it's accuracy, plus the lack of mobility to fire it means that I fire one shot at the start of a mission then drop it and pull a pistol. Should be about 18TU to fire, instead of 24.

At the beginning of the game, when you don't need the extra firepower quite as badly, the rocket launcher is probably not as useful as a grenade launcher. But later on, especially when you get the Hybrid missile and alien counts increase enough that you're seeing them in groups, it should be more useful. I may bump the damage of the basic round a bit, though.

Research: Am I supposed to research more than just continuous wave laser to get to man-portable laser weapons? Or am I experiencing an issue with the research system? I like the rebalance of how fast it goes. It means I can get lasers sometime before the end of April, rather than sometime in May. Even with only ten scientists it no longer feels like such a chore to get any research done.

The role of man-portable lasers has been changed. You'll get to research them later, now, and they'll be quite a bit more powerful when you get them (though less accurate than 2.4). The general progression will be human->plasma->lasers rather than human->lasers->plasma.

[Triaxx2]

That's good. I'm finding that pop and grenade is a useful tactic. It shouldn't be quite so useful. Up shot is that pistols seem to be the order of the day. Since the standard snap shot is 4TU, it means I can fire first and not get a reaction shot.

I'll try switching out the Rocket Launcher for a second Grenade Launcher, but I'm still thinking that 24 is a bit high. I don't know if it's going to be possible to shoot it without being reaction fired to death though.

Interesting. If that's so, why is CWL a new game technology? Or is it because there's no alternate step up the Aircraft ladder? And is there now some prerequisite for Electromagnetic Lasers?

[Anarch Cassius]

Rocket Launcher rock. I didn't like how they were nearly sniper rifles in 2.4. Sure you get a shot off every two rounds, but it's an amazing weapon. The accuracy is better then a grenade and can ignore certain kinds of cover better. The Grenade Launcher is good in some cover types and has better range than in 2.4 but Rocket Launcher is good at it's cost I think.

I never saw Lasers in 2.4. The new order seems to make sense as trying to make anything when I have all these alien weapons lying around seems silly if that thing isn't better.

Overall 2.5 has a nice balance of weapon roles and usefulness it seems.

Healing is better than 2.4 but possibly too far the other way now. You heal 3 per turn meaning you can need two medics working just to counter blood loss and sometimes that's not even enough. If you get to them right off the bat you can give them back a couple hit points and prevent bleeding damage.

All in all it's a little much given that any serious damage seems to cause bleeding. It's not really unrealistic but with that kind of danger I want a dedicated medic on each team of 8. Some kind of stat or skill or perk to make the healing faster or better would go a long way and be well worth the space on the team. A bigger medical back, maybe 2x3 could take longer to use but actually do some noticable healing. Having most of the team be able to do emergency stuff is good but that seems like a back-up option, you'd rather have a dedicated combat medic around with so many troops taking serious but not necessarily fatal wounds.

Basically between 2.4 and 2.5 the game went from having a pretty lenient healing and wounding system to very harsh wounding and very limited healing. Some ways to mitigate this would be nice.

[Triaxx2]

Don't get me wrong, I love the Rocket Launcher, but with only 6 move, it means if I have to try and reposition, I've got very very limited space to do it in.

I went to Lasers, because I tried the Bolter and found it lacking until I got nose hair close. It had a very bad accuracy. Lasers were weaker, but so accurate that they completely made up for it.

I haven't gotten far enough to see more than the basic weapons yet, but the rebalance seems to have worked out well, better than usual.

That's what I'm saying. It takes the same 20TU to heal less than a quarter of the amount. I think that a point could be taken from... UFO: Extraterrestrial here. They had 'Stimpaks' and Medikits. The former could heal small amounts of damage but not 'critical damage'. While Medikits healed more but were much bulkier. It make for a more tactical healing choice though, because the stimpaks healed less.

I agree, the healing needs a very close look.

[H-Hour]

Medikits aren't for healing now that we have a wounds system. They do provide a very small amount of healing, but their principal purpose is to stop bleeding and thus keep a soldier alive long enough to get them to a hospital.

[Triaxx2]

That's fine, but what I'm saying is that they are completely useless for the purpose of stopping wounds. Right now, you get wounded, you have to turn and abandon all hope of doing anything but run as close to the nearest medikit equipped soldier, and pray you get within 5 tiles. Because at best they're going to have 31 TU and they have to have some to get it out, which means you're probably not being handlded as well as possible, because that's at least two turns, during which the aliens are continuing to shoot at you... It's just no use with such a high TU cost to heal. Which should definitely be renamed to 'Staunch' if all it does is stop the bleeding.

[ShipIt]

... Which should definitely be renamed to ...

I second that. 'Heal' is just misleading after the changes made.

... Because at best they're going to have 31 TU ...

DarkRain is working on implementing the Weight system. Once this is in place, soldiers can get a TU bonus if they are below a light-weight threshold. This should give a boost to your dedicated medic.

And, No, we can´t say when it will be implemented. 

[H-Hour]

Also, you might consider an alternative strategy to a dedicated medic. If you fight spread out enough that you can't reach a wounded soldier, consider operating with small fireteams (3-4 soldiers in a  group) each with 1 or 2 soldiers carrying a medikit.

And running a wounded soldier to a medic is probably not a great strategy, since it will expose them to reaction fire. The wounded HP loss is often not enough to kill them right away. If a soldier can survive a turn or two with the wound, focus on clearing the threat and keeping the soldier safe before patching up the wounds.

I'm open to suggestions for new names. I don't like "staunch" because it only has a vague colloquial relationship with the activity ("staunch the blood flow") but otherwise the word has a very different meaning. I can't think of any word that means de-wound. "Triage" is a possibility, but it still feels like it could just be confusing.

[Frogs Friend]

'First Aid', 'Apply dressing', 'Bandage' or 'Patch up' spring to mind.

[Sarin]

'First Aid', 'Apply dressing', 'Bandage' or 'Patch up' spring to mind.

Apply Dressing sound...culinary. Knuckle sandwich, maybe?

[Frogs Friend]

Hmmm, you're right, Apply Dressing would be better for a Zombie game.

     ' a little seasoning with your brains sir?'

[Triaxx2]

I don't have dedicated medics. Everyone except the Machinegunner has a medikit.

They fan out in pairs, typically one Assault Rifle and one specialist. (Sniper, Flamethrower) They move so that they're no more than 3 spaces apart, unless it's absolutely necessary. What ends up happening is that one of them has to go around an obstacle, like the containers in the harbor and gets shot by an alien, then when turning to run for their partner, they end up shot in the back and if they don't make it close enough, they die to bleeding damage. If they're stupid enough to shoot the alien, they get blasted, can't reach their partner, the partner can't get to them and apply the medikit, and they bleed to death the next turn.

I'm stuck on this stupid harbor mission, no matter what I do, I lose two or three soldiers. I guess I'll just have to start treating them as completely disposable. Which is good because I can put the money I'd have spent on medikits to use buying ammo, or producing it.

[Anarch Cassius]

Yeah, dedicated Medics are a wish of mine, not something I can do at the moment.

Everybody has a medkit except one or two becuase of the situations Triaxx describes.

I'd like some ways to make one dedicated medic an option that takes some weight of the rest of the team. I often use two medics per wounded because the bleeding can take 2 or more heals to completely stop.

[Sarin]

I've been trying out 2.5 today, and one thing is really annoying. It seems like AI regains its TUs at the same time as your soldiers, at the end of AI turn. This is really annoying because of this situation that's been happening to me lately. Alien walks around the corner, shoots and wounds my soldier, gets shot in turn by reaction fire, and ends his turn in this position. So I have a soldier facing alien who spent all his TUs last turn at point blank, and there is nothing I can do to prevent the alien killing my soldier with reaction fire.

Also, it seems really unstable. I keep getting CTDs when alien or my soldier is about to die in my LoS from bleeding, and I seem to experience frequently crash to geoscape during missions.