Messages

16

The X-Com Files / Re: Recommended rifle

« on: October 05, 2022, 01:36:13 pm »

For an assault rifle at promo II I would recommend the G11 mainly due to how good the auto fire is. Forget about all other rifles that need to use snap fire because they can shit beyond 4 titles, the G11 behaves as his name indicate in being an assault rifle with 65% acc in auto maintained up to 14 titles ( pratically same acc of a AKM snap). Plus it can do two aimed shots from a fix position which is always good for long range engagements. Plus if your soldier is brave it actually hits hard.

For rifles, while the hunting rifle is verry competitive, I prefer switching to the SVD and standard sniper rifles at promo II main reason due to the power bonus from accuracy. Also I agree with juku, shotguns > magnums, plus they can be equipped with baton shells that while incconsistent, can be useful for capturing enemies.

17

The X-Com Files / Re: Another balance thread

« on: October 04, 2022, 11:57:34 am »

Another minor balance concern, should gas explosives be pushed back a bit? I quite love how effective  they are, but for only promo III weapons they are too effective,  in both agent hands but in cultists as well. They do have a great radius, insta kill 75% of the time and those who survive are put to sleep., ignore shields and put to sleep those not killed. While I wouldn't want to change how they worked, maybe they can be tied to alien tech/hybrid so that napalm/grenades aren't immediately obsolete against standard  enemies

18

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: October 03, 2022, 09:23:52 pm »

Small bug I find - if doing an HQ early the message from the cult doesn't seem to appear on time. Did dagon HQ on  november 97 but got the final message (for cult assault) on feb 98

19

The X-Com Files / Re: Another balance thread

« on: October 02, 2022, 11:56:25 pm »

With that attitude, you are headed for "Final Destination", a flat-map with mirror match ups.  Why are you even playing this mod then or any game more complex than staring at yourself in the mirror?

Context: https://supersmashbros.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Destination_(Super_Smash_Bros._Brawl)

You expect Solar to sit there, go through every melee weapon in the game, by hand, and change it all to the same exact formula?  Why not do it yourself and release a "melee rebalance sub-mod" for the game?  All the files are unencrypted plain text.  A monkey trained in human speech could do it.  Why can't you?

You are obviously more than capable, if you mod other games.

Wtf is even this comment. I did initially ask as to why there was a lack of consistency and I'm still waiting an answer (maybe you who seem so illuminated by divine wisdom ) as to why having conssitency is somehow bad. The weapons would still be different between then due to damage, accuracy and TU cost while at the same time not adding unnecessary calculation in regards to weapon damage spread and average desviation.

And yes you are rigth making my personal modifications is the most straigthfoward. That doesn't mean however that can't suggest things to improve a mod. If the author of the mod disagrees so be it, my partial impressions may be wrong.

20

The X-Com Files / Re: Another balance thread

« on: October 02, 2022, 09:17:39 pm »

By throwing weapons like the throwing knifes I suggest going from 0.025*acc ^2 to 0.01*acc^2. So the snap is less accurate and can miss, and needs a +100 acc soldier to be a guarantee hit with aimed.

21

The X-Com Files / Re: Another balance thread

« on: October 02, 2022, 03:45:58 pm »

I hope I addressed your points in my reply to Juku. Is this satisfactory enough?

Admittedly, I don't understand parts your post, because it's too technical for my health bar right now.

I honestly  don't know if you are trolling me or something of that vein when discussing with you. Don't get me wrong, I do think that your mod and the love given to it  is excellent  and it is peak gaming overall, but when I'm giving nonsensical  arguments to  (in my eyes) fair criticism , it is just vexing. Like why can't all melee weapons use the same formula? It would lead to a more consistent  experience  and make balancing much more straightforward. Current criteria seems to be completely arbitrary and I can't see a benefit in having some weapons being less consistent  than others.

I find it debatable - homo sapiens evolved specifically to throw stuff (rather than say, melee - that would be Neanderthals), and not to shoot with guns; on a short distance anyway. Also, throwing and firing are different skills which vary between people. But I've never fired a gun, so I'm not pushing anything here.

This argument doesn't  make sense at all. Do we see modern militaries use throwing knifes as backups or use handguns? And regardless, why bring some natural state argument when history shows the limits of thrown weapons.

Well, do they train throwing?

That's exactly  the problem with the current accuracy formula with thrown weapons- that with no that much training,you get a weapon that hits likes a truck and always hit. A pistol 5 titles away may miss half of his shoots from a 70 acc soldier. Throwing Knifes from 5 titles away will hit close to 100 of the time. Given thrown weapons sniper rifles accuracy  formulas would be a big improvement.  And to be clear , it's  not a matter to make them not effective weapons, is that they are too dominat with very little training.You can currently do some crazy things with Melee weapons for example but you need a trained agent, I don't see why thrown direct hit weapons can't be similar.

Yeah, my point being that as a player I would not do that (immersion is more important than efficiency to me), so I didn't foresee others to do so and later downplayed it.

Maybe this is the crux of the issue that we play differently ? So the LC with BS shells seem fine but if you want to be more efficient it seems like a bad choice.

For me, from the player's perspective, the actual fun comes from tactical combat itself. From the modder's perspective, it's writing.

 
Yeah I kinda of agree with this statement,  I do modding in other games (paradox games) and in a team we may have different preferences,  same for the player's. That being said my concerns related mostly to making tactical combat better.

I think the actual issue might be lack of sufficiently tough enemies to let the LC shine. DB is usually sufficient, and the Trasher is a thing.

 
I faced some Vampire knigths in a police monster raid in the first year  (without Promo III )and sniper rifles proved much more useful  against then than a LC. Well the real MC where incendiary  grenades to sap their morale, but even against tougher enemies there are better alternatives.  Also I didn't compare it to the TRSH due to weigth, but that's  indeed the most awesome shotgun 😎

I still find them rather situational, and it took some serious work to make them viable in the first place. X-Com focuses on close combat, yet I wanted to have sniper rifles in it, which required a lot of tweaking.

I find then very dominant , not only on spawn that are far away but as well in more medium ranges encounters bc there are always some priority enemies that need to be taken, and the high damage with guaranteed hitting is a deadly combo.

Swords are indeed harder to use than knives (barring having longer reach which is very important; I consider knives to be easier to use in a 1-on-1 combat where both sides have the same weapon). Also, a sword is not a martial weapon, it's a ceremonial weapon which was meant for dueling and as a status symbol, not sometrhing to be actually used in battle (at least the" longsword" type; a lot of weapons fall under a "sword" category, including falchions, sabres and other stuff I don't know English names for). But I assume people who talk about weapons know such basics. It's rather off-topic though.

  Do you find knifes useful  with untrained agents? Also that knifes are used by enemies as well. I'm not going to go about how swords ain't ceremonial,  or how even ceremonial weapons are somehow ineffective,  but knifes being easier to use than swords not only make sense from a gameplay sense, but also from a logical standpoint.


BTW thanks for the effort writing the answers,  I know it takes time and effort  but I appreciate  it.

22

The X-Com Files / Re: Another balance thread

« on: October 01, 2022, 10:06:01 pm »

Yeah I think damage dropoff  would be a very nice addition to some weapons - after all the energy carry by a bullet, or even by a super-hot plasma bolt is not going to be the same at 5m than at 100m. Ofc that distances in Xcom are wonky, but it would be good as an additional balance parameter.

23

The X-Com Files / Re: Another balance thread

« on: October 01, 2022, 09:31:39 pm »

Yeah I don't think shotguns are overshadowing Hr as the reason lay above. I would also add that I find slugs inferior to BS rounds against most early enemy due to then lacking armour, and only using slugs more oftenly with the CAWS which is a more advanced weapon.

24

The X-Com Files / Re: Another balance thread

« on: October 01, 2022, 04:53:28 pm »

to be fair, he should.  no one really knows the ins and outs of the mod like he does.  that doesn't mean there doesn't deserve tweaks here and there.  but ive been around game forums for 20 years and people cry foul over balance for all sorts of things.  people rarely *playtest* like they should to truly discover balance issues. 

things like certain guns being less powerful than others in game when compared to real life are like... who cares for me.  half the fun is figuring out what works well.  hell, some card games (like hearthstone) are literally designed with this in mind.  building in discovering what items, cards, weapons.. etc.  are better than others as part of the fun.

my only gripe is more UI based for a proper tech tree search.  empty search trees are typically a big no no for new inexperienced users.  its not a horrible thing... but it definitely creates an unnecessary newbie hurdle.   i mean all that ends up happening is people just go to a wiki or some other forum post to find the information, so all ur really doing is just making it more difficult by proxy.

Sure, the issue with lack of balancing in SP games is that it reduce choice. I don't think that having knifes for instance use the full accuracy formula is good for gameplay as it just made then completly worthless as a melee backup, specially when I can bring for instance an iron pipe , be more effective with soldiers below 100 melee accuracy and allow as a bonus to capture enemies and give an extra cash. Similarly I don't think having consistency is bad bc it actually reinforce choice rather than making some weapons clearly dominant over other. For instance between the 5,56 rifles the M4 and SA 80 both bring different advantages while being very similar. Once you get the  G11 all other rifles are inferior, which just makes the strategic dimension worse. Why would I want to play with all the diffent options when one rifle is better than others?

25

The X-Com Files / Re: Another balance thread

« on: September 30, 2022, 03:40:49 pm »

Because it's not a martial weapon.

That's not a coherent argument. Switchblades and Shivs are under 50-150 while a saber, a martial weapon by definition , is 0-200 . The Bill hook the same , it has in his description it is a kitchen toll yet somehowe it is a martial weapon ! Katana , Wakizashi , Kukri also have the standard roll while a greatsword has the consistent one. There is the case of the Chitin knife which the fluff given makes reference to inconsistent damage, but in the rest of the cases it doesn't make sense.

Because sharp borders between weapon classes only exist in your imagination, and in a game we need to classify border cases somehow.

They literally fill the same weapon role in an squad, I'm not making shit up. The hunting rifle is 33%TU snap 72 acc, 70%TU aimed 125 acc to the bolt action 40% TU snap 70 acc , 70% TU 110 acc. Both are bolt action, both are better suited for longer ranges. It is specially obvious when you add the Mosin, which is a sniper rifle, yet get a generic damage formula.

 Also from a balance perspective, the more consistent damage, accuracy, average damage (33*1,25 due formula = 41,25 , equivalent to a 110 acc bolt action ),firing rate and great snap range means that using the bolt action is actively worse, for a weapon that you will get latter than the hunting rifle which you get with Promo I, the bolt action need to be dropped by Dagon.

What, shoulds all weapons work exactly the same? What's the point in that?

Bc they are exactly the same type of weapon? Specially in the case of the PKM which is a GPMG . I will also add that in general I consider Mg being weak, but at least the M 60 and specially the Mg3 can fill the role of long range auto fire (which is a bit niche anyways). Meanwhile the PKM and the Minimi are sad weapons, specially in the case of the first. Their auto fire is more innaccurate, their snap shot sucks even more than the Ak 47 one, they don't get the same crouching bonus and having then being used by high ranking enemies is more favourly to the player than to the enemy most of the time.

 If we go by real life stats, the PKM fills the same role of the M 60/Mg 3 while being ligther, while the Fn minimi is a LMG. Maybe distinguishing more clearly between GPMG and LMg would the betetr option, bc the black ops LMg are  a bit bad as well (and they also get two shot snaps ).

Maybe make some actual arguments first, since I can only guess what you are getting at. What does Bravery have to do with sniper rifles? What's wrong with the stars, which you can throw at people but need good stats to actually kill with them?

 In regards to thrown weapons is how they scale with accuracy, making then able to be guarantee hit weapons at close ranges. Taking the Throwing knifes for instance, any soldier above 65 throwing accuracy is practically guarantee to hit with then, and they do hit like a truck when they do. For what should be difficult weapons to master, you instead get brutal close quarter weapons that are ligth and specially in the case of the stars, are very easy to carry. Their power bonus also scale super hard, which compounded make then very ridiculous.  The issue I see is mainly with their ease of use, as a 70 throwing accuracy soldier (which if trained is not that hard to get) would be making a very effective use of this weapons. I think that then being specialist weapon (hard to master, but incredible once you do) would be much better.

Regarding the bravery formula is a genuine question, I don't understand the reasoning being. Why would it take to be brave to fire this weapons? Bravery, as an accuracy stat, if anything , seem more adecuate to PSI weapons, representing mental fortitude of the user to prroject the weapon atatck.

Lol. The Light Cannon is the most OP weapon in the first part of the game. Juku has already addressed it, but didn't mention my favourite buckshot ammo which is just pornographic (and I consider it broken).

In the first part of the game a shotgun is much more effective weapon. A bit latter on (and not that much really) the CAWS completly overshadows the LC as a close weapon due to actually hitting his targets, being much more weigth efficiency specially in regards to ammo and why not, having better inventory use. Also that the LC  Bs ammo get a higher spread, which I consider 
a negative. If by experience you consider it is fine then so be it, but in every playthrougth I do I try to use it and immediatly wish that I used something else.

26

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 2.6: Paranormal Activity

« on: September 29, 2022, 11:37:59 pm »

Well apparently my post wasn't register, some quick question/comments

What is the reason damage rolls/damage bonus/sprays are different in some very similar weapons ie lack of consistency? Example melee weapons like the machete, hunting rifle 0-200 vs bolt action, damage bost in Fn fal and Hk G11, Pkm and Minimi  having one shot snaps while Mg 3 and M240 have 2 etc...

I think two firing formulas need to be revised/reworked: Thorwn weapons like knifes and ninja stars being a guarantee hit at close ranges with not that high thrown skills, and the bravery+ acc^2 formula in some snipers (why do you need to be brave to shoot a sniper rifle? )

Ligth cannon, after the introduction of the OICW , seem very useless even with all the ammo types, due to low accuracy and not great weigth efficiency.

27

The X-Com Files / Another balance thread

« on: September 29, 2022, 11:29:36 pm »

So I want to comment on three aspect (for now hehe) relating to weapon balance:

-First of all consitency or rather the lack of it on some instances. Why for example some melee weapons like the machete operate on a 0-200 scale? Why does the hunter rifle gets a 50-200 spread while the bolt action, a weapon fillng the same role (and with a sniper variant) doesn't ? What are the basis of weapon fire rates and why for example the Pkm and the Minimi get 1 shot snap while the M 60 gets a two shot snap? It is really neccesary for the 7,62x51 or the G11 round (best rifle !) to get power bonus ?

- Accuracy modifiers. Maybe is bc I got better in the game and I'm getting more experience agents but there are two accuracy formulas I think need to be review:Thorwn sharp weapons being guarantee hit with not that impressive stats (seriously ninja stars are probably one of the best close range weapons) and the 0,5+x^2 formula which I simply don't get. Why do you need to be brave to fire a sniper rifle outside of enemy range ?

- I will latter go iinto much detail about rambling about weapon balance, but one item I find completly outclassed is the ligth cannon. Why would you want to use it when the OICW is much better as an direct explosive weapon, and other roles will be much more effectivily be cover by other weapons? It's bigger brothers have some niches but even with flexibity ( which isn't that big of a plus due to how heavy & bulky ammo is) it seem like an always wrong choice to try to use it .

28

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 2.6: Paranormal Activity

« on: September 24, 2022, 02:54:12 am »

Congrats on the new release, very good to see the mod alive and well 👍

29

The X-Com Files / Re: Cultist MANOR spawning rate and evolution speed

« on: September 24, 2022, 02:51:17 am »

Honestly  my main issue with manors is how repetitive they are. I think it is a fun mission, but having to repeat it 11 times is a bit ...ugh. And yeah if you are behind the curve they just hit too hard. Imo would make most sense to then being rarer and not spawn jets until late 98 probably 99 specially considering how sometimes you can be locked out promo III for a big time.

30

The X-Com Files / Re: Various thoughts and suggestions

« on: October 09, 2021, 04:50:34 pm »

Refering to 4, i think information could be presented in a more clear way regarding some important stats. For example, I think that ranges could be moved to the main page of the weapons.