Messages

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Sniper/Scoped rifle inverse accuracy

« on: June 02, 2024, 10:51:07 pm »

Sure, but a) that's what players like and b) unless you take away accuracy scaling via stats and thus remove sniper specialisation from soldiers, you're still going to end up with either good snaps, or useless snaps.

Your example is more of the latter. Snipers already tend to carry backup weapons that are better for close-range combat than their main gun. Thus this kind of snap shot doesn't really do much, although I'll grant you that it does look sorta realistic. There are sniper guns that lack a snap shot altogether, which is not too different from this.

I'm also not sure where you're pulling these numbers from. Range 20 snap shot should be 0.7*90 = 63 - 5*3 = 48. And no matter the calculation method, how can you have 66 at range 10 and 64 at range 15, when the dropoff is 3 and neither threshold (snapRange or AimMinDistance) is crossed?

Your sniper gun is also one with double snaps, which is one way these things can grow out of hand. And start enroaching on assault/semi-auto rifle territory.

Also, since your mod is likely not going to have vision ranges in excess of 40 or so - unless you want non-tiny maps to slow to a crawl. So the higher-range hit chances are going to be different, unless you either don't use the no-LoS penalty, or remove it from sniper weapons due to 'scoped'.

Also, what about auto-shots? Yes, there are automatic sniper rifles around, both IRL and in mods.


All in all, sure, the idea doesn't look too bad. But its 'realism' is somewhat debatable, and the end result can be approximated relatively well with current tools. But, again, it's not me you need to convince here.

And excessive feature-dipping by sniper rifles is one of my pet peeves, so it's not as if I like these super-snipers. But they did begin with good intentions.

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Craft size and Hangar capacity

« on: June 02, 2024, 09:51:16 pm »

I hardly think being unable to park cars in sub pens is 'excessive realism'. If you're so unconcerned about 'realism', just make your hangars 1x1 and with 'crafts: 10 000 000', boom, your original space problem is solved.

Goes for Pendra's universal paved-over sub-pens/crane harbours, too.


As to the rest, I'm trying to be not too confrontational these days, and I don't think the arguments here are conducive to that. So I'll just skip further conversation. Meridian will likely do as he said, anyway.


For the record, OXC has fixed the containment bug, and nowadays containment space is quite limited. 10 aliens total, not even different types, is the vanilla limit. Ethereal already told you about hangar capacity.

At least two people have already implemented hangar changes, one with sizes and one with types. The latter is available in BOXCE. Neither is nowhere near as simple as you two try to portray it, and Meridian has more potential problems to solve than either of the two, due to OXCE being the modding standard these days.

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Craft size and Hangar capacity

« on: June 02, 2024, 07:09:09 pm »

Except, I can still park a single car into that massive hangar.

A hangar is not just a space to fit vehicles, it's the in-game representation of the logistics network required to maintain that craft and its interception/transport missions. It very much makes sense that you cannot park your global car rental agreement in the sub pen.

General stores vs Containment are the example how Type AND Size work together.

Except they don't. No matter if the alien is a tiny brainsucker or a giant sloth creature, they all take the exact same amount of containment 'space'. This is an example of type and size working in parallel, not together.

Everything in game have Type AND Size. Even manufacture. Except crafts. They have neithet Type nor Size. They are single crafts. Adding type is one part of the concept adding size is the other.

But nothing actually uses type and size together. Scientists are a number, there are no special scientist types. Or engineer types. Or item storage types. Or alien containments with sizes that can house multiple types of captives.  Etc.

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Craft size and Hangar capacity

« on: June 02, 2024, 01:45:45 pm »

Size can have two "types". Above water with a +sign and below water with a - sign.

And when the modder wants spacecraft and tunnelling craft that are different from either (real example, these already exist), what then? Complex numbers and then quaternions?

Then you will be back to square one because only 1 craft can be in s hangar regardless of craft size.

No, why? Hangar size is going to be independent of hangar/craft types, as I understand it.

[stores]

Why is it an issue to have the same logic applied to crafts?

Because we want to differentiate between crafts, but do not care about what exactly is getting stored. If we didn't, this whole feature would be close to pointless, since we already have stores-like hangars. AFAIK, people who want hangars based on whether the crafts are fighter jets, submarines, cars or space shuttles considerably outnumber those who want to build 7 garages and then store their fighter jets inside.

What you're proposing is having both stores-like and type-based hangars at the same time.

You have a transport 7s, interceptor 5s, 2xAPC 3s, 2xVan 2s, 3xCar 1s. And you have 2xHangars 8c, 3xParking lots 4c.

As I understand it, even the types version is kind of a pain in the ass to implement, both due to performance and all sorts of corner cases. Look at WarStalkeR's attempt at craft sizes.

When we have type-based hangars and Meridian has a better idea of how things shake out, then we can have a proper discussion of whether to try craft sizes, too.

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

« on: June 02, 2024, 01:15:17 am »

How so? Kyberos aren't exactly low-level augments.

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Craft size and Hangar capacity

« on: June 01, 2024, 02:55:09 pm »

What exactly is this inconvenience? You'd still be able to put multiple craft in one hangar, so in theory one hangar could fit an armada of 100 fighter jets, while no hovercars are allowed - if you so desired.

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Sniper/Scoped rifle inverse accuracy

« on: June 01, 2024, 02:50:35 pm »

I mean weapon/ammo data commonly used to make sniper weapons distinct. Like

Code: [Select]

accuracyMultiplier:
  firing: [0.0, 0.01]            # quadratic in FA

noLOSAccuracyPenalty: 75         # if, say, 50 is the default

damageBonus:
  firing: 0.2                    # base damage + 20% FA

damageAlter:0
      RandomType: 7              # 50-200%
      ArmorEffectiveness: 0.8    # Armour only applies 80% of nominal value
This is all in addition to regular projectile mechanics.

Not all snap shots are fired at point-blank range, and a scope obscuring your vision can be somewhat detrimental then, depending on how the whole thing is put together.

My main opposition to this is due to sniper rifles already firing mostly snap shots because of better action economy for all but the rarest of situations, due to all the bonuses scaling with FA^2, which can easily get you to over 200% accuracy over a 'normal' soldier.

If you can avoid that in your mod, sure, doesn't sound so bad. But you'd probably want a hip/snap/aimed distinction now, too. And thus we enter the rabbit hole.

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Open Feedback / Re: openxcom was too difficult to play. is there a way to use the original rules?

« on: June 01, 2024, 02:36:35 pm »

Indeed. But the question is, how does the game data shake out. I just tried dropping dye grenades on downed Aquatoids, and it didn't seem to do much anything, they kept recovering 1 stun per turn. I tried that with XCF Sectoids, and those did get somewhat random stun damage from lying in smoke.

So OG armour vs stun values might just not work out. Or my testing was too small-scope (a few turns, no more).

Many easier enemies in XCF also have a major stun vulnerability, so stun kicks in much harder there, regardless of whether the targt is still up or not.

Hence my hesitation.

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Open Feedback / Re: openxcom was too difficult to play. is there a way to use the original rules?

« on: June 01, 2024, 01:56:27 pm »

in DOS original, they maybe rise 0.1 % or less, unless you stand on them
in openxcom, they may rise 70%, i didnt have many tentaculats in the missions yet, but i think they rise up too, so was this part  modded?

Not that I know of. It may be that you remember wrong, I definitely recall camping downed Sectoids and Chryssalids thirty years ago. Or perhaps you're using different weapons now.

Standing on the body has never made any difference, short of blocking that spot and making them stand up on another tile.

You should be able to shoot them on the ground if there are no nearby walls, or just blast the area with a stun bomb or similar. Some mods allow you to keep fallen foes down via smoke grenades, not sure this extends to the original.

i am not sure of this one in the control menu, if "alien bleeding" was said to YES, then would this stop the rising behaviors?

Maybe a few of them, but not in general. They'd need to bleed to death faster than they recover from stun for that to work, and for that to happen, you'd need to either wound them so badly they might as well be dead anyway, or use a wound-centric weapon (which aren't in vanilla). Or stun them so hard the issues is moot anyway.

are the number of alien colonies limited by any chance in the geoscape in openxcom? i used to have around 30 colonies all over the globe in the original DOS version before MC labs, now in OpenXCOM, all i have  is maybe 6 visible alien colonies...

I'd suggest it's a matter of random mission generation. There's a lot of randomness in what you can get, so one playthrough does not necessarily resemble another. You might lose all your major sponsors to infiltration, but see just a few bases. Or there may be a million bases, but very little abduction or infiltration. Vanilla does tend to converge towards having a spread of all mission types, but nothing is ever guaranteed with RNG.

And you may, of course, be missing the other 24+ colonies that are there, chilling under your radar.

the xcom unit's movement in the control menu was set to max, but still, time wasting for moving 10 units per turn are repetitively slow and bad in my head

They always moved about as fast as they do now, just the game itself was accelerated if your CPU could handle it.

The best tip I have is to make the trajectory appear off-screen, even if the destination isn't. Then movement is near-instantanaous. You can also Shift-click to make your soldiers cease stopping when they see an alien, if you already know where the alien is and don't care about that individual soldier's vision of them.

there seems to be NO hotkeys for move upward and downward when they wear the mag ion armors, i use these commands the most

I know no hotkey for this, either, but using the scroll wheel to change height and regular movement isn't too bad.

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Real Hit Chance displayed When UFOExtender Accuracy is ON

« on: June 01, 2024, 01:18:52 am »

Probability is not math...

Thousands of people around the world working in math departments/accounting/quantitative analysis disagree.


In any case, 'Realistic Accuracy' is slightly more like nuCom, but nowhere close. The shots still fly along paths similar to the original, hit nearby enemies and destroy cover. There are some kinks that aren't working very well, but at the very least it shows you a reasonably good actual accuracy estimate.

As long as your static tables discount cover, they will still be of limited utility. Especially if you play BOXCE, where enemies have been taught to take cover.


But, anyway, I'm not the person you need to convince.

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Sniper/Scoped rifle inverse accuracy

« on: June 01, 2024, 01:09:30 am »

From my experience, that's a good thing. Your average mod's 'sniper' rifle has way too accurate snap shots, if it uses some or all of the special tricks that make the gun 'snipery' (quadratic stat scaling, lesser LoS penalty, damage bonuses, etc). YMMV.

I would also like some more distinction between shooting modes, up to and including full damageAlter based on mode. Doubt it'll happen, though.

Perhaps something can be done via y-scripts, or if not, Yankes could be petitioned to look into adding relevant hooks.

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Sniper/Scoped rifle inverse accuracy

« on: May 31, 2024, 06:22:02 pm »

More or less already exists as 'minRange'.

Snap shots at any but point blank range do suffer somewhat from excessive scopage. Not all snap shots are point or hip shooting.

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OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] Real Hit Chance displayed When UFOExtender Accuracy is ON

« on: May 31, 2024, 06:18:38 pm »

Or you can use jnarical's 'Realistic Accuracy' in BOXCE.

I'm not sure displaying a different fake accuracy value is of particular utility for most players.

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OXCE Bugs / Re: Inconsistent loot received after mission if last enemy bleeds out

« on: May 30, 2024, 03:45:11 pm »

Yeah, something seems off here. I tried, and if you let the third Anthropod bleed out, you never get their corpse or the big gun. But you do get both if you shoot the alien in the face. Sometimes the Acid Bolt disappears, as explained by Delian.

Not sure if it matters that the save was made via BOXCE. The end result is identical with both BOXCE 8.5.4 and plain OXCE 7.12.8.

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

« on: May 25, 2024, 07:17:55 pm »

I think Solarius once said the reasoning was that the rosaries draw their power from the actual priests, and thus persist in their combat-useful form only for a short time.

Edit: I was wrong, he said that about crosses. Rosaries are just there to look pretty and provide priest-related research.