Weight penalties

[Nokim]

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.

[Anarch Cassius]

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.

[DexCisco]

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.

[DexCisco]

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%.

[ShipIt]

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

[Telok]

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.

[DexCisco]

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.

[Anarch Cassius]

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.

[H-Hour]

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, 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.

[Anarch Cassius]

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.

[DexCisco]

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.

[DexCisco]

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.

[H-Hour]

@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. 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).

[Telok]

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."

[DexCisco]

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.