OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => XPiratez => Topic started by: Meridian on February 18, 2016, 09:50:55 pm
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I had a small chat on YouTube with Solarius about Autogun today.
Here's a test I just made: https://youtu.be/T4tmyGPYngw
My reply to Solarius:
OK, I made a small test. Shots fired 54, hits 17 (15 front + 2 back)... which is 31%... so not even every third shot hits... I wouldn't call that extremely accurate. Also, the enemy has fallen after 17 hits!! And not even from weapon damage, but collapsed from fatal wounds... if I didn't have Defender armor, I would be long dead.
How would you rate the raw performance of that gun?
EDIT: here's the discussion, to give you more context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqUhPcPYO44
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Well, it was an Osiron guy wearing personal armour, and almost all bullets hit him from the front, so what did you expect? :) I admit it took longer than necessary though, I'd count on a couple bullets in the back to finish the job.
And it's still pretty accurate for auto fire :)
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An effective hit ratio of 30% is very good, considering you can shoot 9 bullets per round. (In base defense, snipers/gunners should be sitting in smoke so as to be invisible, then they can spend 100% of their TUs shooting. Attackers will not rush blindly 20 tiles in their direction, and even if they did, they will stumble on your proxies/mines.)
I don't know if you want to avoid in-depth spoilers, so I'll only say that the bullets have low damage.
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It was already shown that the bullets do 28 base damage.
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OK, I give up.
Seems like there is no one here, who thinks like I think.
I'll do this last round of answers and then stop this discussion forever.
Well, it was an Osiron guy wearing personal armour, and almost all bullets hit him from the front, so what did you expect? :) I admit it took longer than necessary though, I'd count on a couple bullets in the back to finish the job.
And it's still pretty accurate for auto fire :)
Osiron guy is a very very common enemy appearing from day 1... what else was I supposed to test? Sex dolls?
An effective hit ratio of 30% is very good, considering you can shoot 9 bullets per round. (In base defense, snipers/gunners should be sitting in smoke so as to be invisible, then they can spend 100% of their TUs shooting. Attackers will not rush blindly 20 tiles in their direction, and even if they did, they will stumble on your proxies/mines.)
I don't know if you want to avoid in-depth spoilers, so I'll only say that the bullets have low damage.
Yes, but these techniques just totally kill it for me.
How well would you shoot from a thick smoke cloud? You wouldn't even see the tip of your gun...
I just want a fair fight with some tactical options to tip the scales into my (player's) favour.
It's really no fun that:
1. I do no damage to my enemy
2. (Once I have better armor) enemy does no damage to me
I still have nightmares from one particular Draco's LP episode, where he goes head on against enemy with a Cattle Prod, taking two full salvos (2x 30+ bullets) from Minigun point blank without a scratch and just prods the enemy to unconsciousness. That's a pinnacle of uncoolness.
Good old xcom works exactly the opposite way:
1. I do tons of damage to enemy
2. Enemy does tons of damage to me
It's a model I prefer much more... since it stays true to strategy gaming (and to actual war); as opposed to RPG gaming.
Xcom vs PirateZ really feels like Heroes of M&M 3 vs Might and Magic VI.
Both great games, but very very different.
Don't take me wrong, I enjoy playing PirateZ, but sometimes I get frustrated beyond reason.
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I still have nightmares from one particular Draco's LP episode, where he goes head on against enemy with a Cattle Prod, taking two full salvos (2x 30+ bullets) from Minigun point blank without a scratch and just prods the enemy to unconsciousness. That's a pinnacle of uncoolness.
Fixed long ago. Now it wouldn't be possible to survive that, maybe in best armor.
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Well it's one of the selling points of Piratez that your girlz can sometimes rob ships which are greatly underpowered.
"Ablative armor" could reduce the issues of extreme invulnerability. I was thinking that each hit reducing armor by 2 would do the trick, but then I remember the ultra-fast attacks of the catgirls, and this suddenly seems too much already. :-X
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There's a lot of weapons in X-PirateZ that I find just plain redundant or extremely inferior compared to the selection I have available at that time. That being said, the 2nd tier of the Autogun, Gyro whatever is a decent weapon for my newbies to practice their aim with. The damage is small but the range is decent.
Also don't think those security guards are the best to test it out on. I mainly used it on people like the Academicians or the general trader mobs. Sans security of course.
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Much of it is just the xcom engine and the prevalence of armour in Xpiratez on enemies. The difference in 28 and 35 damage is pretty extreme when firing against a basic 20-25 armour on virtually everything. Fair enough, a 0-200% damage modifier does change things, but you can only really rely on averages. Its also why explosives seem so powerful (they hit bottom armour if they explode within 3 squares, often giving an extra 5-10 damage more than ballistic weapons would with that damage rating), especially with their 50-150% damage modifier. At least there's always some damage done.
Flamers (and everything with a blast radius) work similarly, so can be useful even with lowish damage. Eight shots a turn help too.
Bows, mêlée weapons and other strength/melee accuracy/throwing style weapons are a special case, just because they get better as your gals do. More damage, the better you get, is good. But as a bit of a ball-park figure, 30-35 damage minimum still counts, even on really quick head maths. Lots more is better though. With items with stat based damage+stun you can sort of go wild though.
I tend to look at 30-35 as the minimum cutoff damage for any weapon worth taking. The very minimum. Otherwise there's just too many targets that they're useless against. Plus they work really well against low armoured troops as a bonus.
This does consign a lot of weapons to black market scrap, but oh well. The extra money is usually handy anyway.
Cattle prods are fantastic for stuns, just due to how early you get them and having a base 70 stun damage. Remember the 0-200% modifier though, the fact that you can miss, and the fact that the enemy can dodge (I believe catgirls have a pretty high dodge chance, so regardless of mêlée accuracy, you'll miss a lot). Always go for rear attacks on anything where possible (hit and run, opening up that square for the next gal), and assume that it'll take 3-4 gals with prods to take down most things reliably. Yes, one can do it. But sometimes Xcom loves making you whiff shots, regardless of weapon damage stats. 2% damage is just as likely as 198%, and 30% dodge is amazingly good (bad) at making things miss in mêlée. That's on top of TU/stamina concerns. They're good weapons, but never take just one. There's better stun style weapons, but prods are cheap and powerful and accurate. They just need a lot of TUs and stamina to use. So bring a few, and never underestimate running in bikinis. Or tactical smoke grenade use.
Ablative armour would be a great solution though. Then every weapon would be useful with enough shots eventually.
tldr; Simply don't use anything with less than 30-35 damage (except flamers. Use lots of flamers. They're great. Lots of prods are good too. 4 is a minimum of each). Then things get done. You wouldn't take 1 laser rifle in vanilla and expect it to be a game-changer. The same applies to Xpiratez.
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I think there are several approaches to every problem. In my current test run, early game, I'm using Scoped Rifles (33 dmg), Tommyguns (32) and RCF Carbines (26). They're sufficient to tackle most of the enemies I encounter, although I'm considering replacing RCFs with Autoguns. If they prove to be lacking, I have a supply of Bombs, Molotovs and grenades. Also dedicated melee units that can kill anyone. This setup works against any starting units except Power Armor. Granted, to start getting into firefights with armored enemies head-on, you need to tech up considerably (45 damage weapons or better).
About stun weapons, naturally the Cattle Prod gets the job done, but is hardly OP (as Meridian witnessed several times already :) ). Handles and Stun Batons have their uses, too - especially since you're usually able to attack thrice as many times as with the Prod (unless you run around with Cattle Prods in hand, then it's about 2.5 times). The only target Meridian fought so far that really needed to be treated with a Cattle Prod was the Provost; the back of a Personal Armor is around 30, several hits with these lower-powered weapons will drop the offender down - plus it's not all-or-nothing as with the Prod, which leaves little space for running away if the mission fails. Also there are the Knuckles which eventually eclipse even the Prod in raw damage, but you need to be a melee monster for that. The gun butts are also quite strong as stunning weapons, although sub-par to all above; their main advantage is that you don't have to juggle your inventory before attacking, and you can always autofire the target if you miss your melee attack.
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I had a similar discussion with Dioxine at some point, talking about how certain weapons and especially rifles were useless. The point where I finally got it is when he mentioned that rifles were 20th century weapons, going up against 26th century personal armor. I find it a bit ridiculous that a bow can get more damage than a rifle still but both are rather weak because they are primitive weapons and not fit for their century.
If you think about it, lasers were developed by xcom in the 21st century, so even they are old in piratez. Eventually you will face (and get) 26th century weapons, lasers first and then very deadly gauss and plasmas. Then it looks more like the war you describe. And also meet mercs and star gods who will mess up your feeling of invulnerability.
Another thing is that Dioxine dialed down the early game A LOT (look back at Ivan's LP and you will see no spartan, no bandits, just nasty stuff). It changed the experience significantly since you face a lot less nasty weapons and armors now, which also means you get less of them (again, contrary to Ivan's scavenging gauss and having a blast).
Piratez gets into its own after a year in game, maybe more now that the early game got extended. Also, the variety in enemies now strongly encourages having an A team with the best of everything you have to face the real nasty stuff and at least one training/looting team to do the easy recovery missions, using less advanced stuff (so losing them by accident to a rpg or terror unit doesn't cost you a greal gal and a great armor that's difficult to replace). Keeps the good gals in shape for when you need them and also allows new gals to train as otherwise they would not get to do much, being completely outshined by the vets.
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The only target Meridian fought so far that really needed to be treated with a Cattle Prod was the Provost; the back of a Personal Armor is around 30, several hits with these lower-powered weapons will drop the offender down...
It says here: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Academy_Provost_%28Piratez%29
that the rear armor is 60, not 30. I tend to believe it as he survived two hits from Recoilless Rifle.
Without Flasks o'Acid I would literally still be fighting him today... thank god there's at least one thing made for me in this game. And it came just in time (thanks Mr. Ghoul for telling me about acids).
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It says here: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Academy_Provost_%28Piratez%29
that the rear armor is 60, not 30. I tend to believe it as he survived two hits from Recoilless Rifle.
I think Dioxine didn't mean the Provost, since he mentioned a Personal Armour. Which indeed should have about 30 armour value from the back. I guess he meant Marsec security.
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Pls read before answering. Personal Armor has 30 back armor AS OPPOSED to Provost who was the only one who cannot be handled by lesser weapons.
Also you know, throwing flasks at someone's front armor is doing squat to reduce their back armor, so the flasks did little to help you :)
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Pls read before answering. Personal Armor has 30 back armor AS OPPOSED to Provost who was the only one who cannot be handled by lesser weapons.
I have now carefully read the post again, twice, and I still understand it the same way as before... maybe don't try to put so much stuff into one sentence, it gets confusing. Although in this case, I didn't even feel confused, I clearly understood it differently than you meant it.
(And sorry for this irrelevant reply, it just got to me a little bit... I ALWAYS read everything very carefully, it's a big part of my job and even of me as a person.)
Also you know, throwing flasks at someone's front armor is doing squat to reduce their back armor, so the flasks did little to help you :)
You probably misunderstood what I wanted to say, because I misunderstood you in the first place.
I didn't shoot at rear armor... I shot Provost (with Recoilless Rifle and Assault Rifle; and maybe even Sniper Rifle) in the front armor, which was (hopefully) damaged by Flasks a lot already. So they did help...
EDIT: All I wanted to say is that Provost has rear armor 60, not 30 ... which I understood from your post... after reading it again for the third time now, just to be sure.
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I guess I took it for obvious that I was referring to a Personal Armor (Human Carapace Armor it is called here, and yeah, it is worn by Marsec and Osiron security) not Provost's armor, since it is the former which has 30 armor. Maybe this is not as obvious as I thought. :)
Sorry for being unclear, I have a tendency to digress a lot. Perhaps I was a bit confused by your approach. If it was me in your place, I'd throw a couple of flasks at their back, then proceed with stun weapons, after hopefully reducing their armor to around 40-ish. Stunning with a RR is insanely risky, especially considering the prize - probably worth losing half of the squad over, even if the boons of such a capture won't be immediately available. But everyone has their own ways of doing things, and that was what I designed this mod for.
As for the Autogun, I think Arthanor summed it up the best. All your firearms suck against hi-tech enemies. You need hi-tech weapons - or specialized weapons - to deal with them. Low-tech weapons, like the ones you have now, will either be lacking in power, or really cumbersome to use (Recoilless Rifle, Panzerfaust), or possessing other tactical shortcomings (melee, flamethrowers).
Autogun is exactly the opposite - with 28/32 power, it guarantees far better hit and kill ratio against low-tech enemies (even Spartans, except for their Terror units you've seen in Hideout Defense) than all aforementioned weapons, due to up to 12 shots per turn, as opposed to 1 shot per turn (at best). Why autogun and not something else of the same class? That's up to everyone's preferences. Yeah lasgun is better, while being dangerous to armored enemies too, but do you have any? :)
Also most of the lo-tech guns are getting boosts gradually, with upgraded versions and specialty ammo.
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Just chiming in here. I really appreciate the overall discussion as I treasure what I learn from other experienced players in these sorts of give and take. :)
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My only gripe against autogun is that it seems to be an exception to the rule (of all UFO / TFTD weapons) that "heavy" weapons of each technology are intended to more easily overcome armored opponents.
When you don't know the stats of what you're facing, you generally ask yourself:
- does it look light ? (pistol-sized, or larger than the guy's torso?)
- what does it sound like ? (loud = bad, high-tech/alien = bad)
If a weapon betrays this first impression, it's a bit of a trap : It pushes the player to seek spoilers rather than closely watch the battlefield for clues.
Same with armors : very alien characters are clearly an unknown factor. But humans with bare head and arms seem to be clothed or wearing skinsuit, not armor - if they are actually better defended than fatter guys with helmets, it's a trap. (I don't know if there's the case - I only say the issue could happen too).
IMO, dodge is an issue, because the game doesn't show that the character wasn't actually hit : If a character seems really unharmed it will make you think he is resistant to the damage type, or very highly armored. If you do change your strategy accordingly (to something less efficient), the game successfuly lied to you :'(
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The autogun being weaker than the assault rifle was always odd to me. When I wanted to save on ammo I simply went for rifles.
It's like a shotgun, when it's too weak, then a rifle will outperform it without its shortcomings.
Otherwise, on the issue of enemies being too solid, powder bombs already act as an 'I win' button against osiron/marsec. Otherwise, end month report display absurdly high scores so you can afford being more objective driven than killing everything every time. The failure I had showed that it is better in the long run to treat first contacts with factions by grabbing one corpse or captive, aborting, and researching the foe.
Getting stats of enemies is the most important thing to do, this changed me from getting stomped by the mercs to my gals spanking them.
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Piratez is generally really good at giving you impressions on the weapons and armors you are facing. You can go quite far by feel, until you get to advanced funky enemies (ex.: star gods) where you might want to do a "stun and grab" op first (or even the first few times).
I also think it is fine for the game to surprise you once in a while, otherwise you don't need to do the research (ex.: UFO defence where the only real need would be mutons with AP, but you probably won't have ap stuff anymore by the time you face them).
On the topic of dodge: OXCE has a attack and a hit sound for melee weapons, so you do know if you miss with melee. You won't hear the hit sound. I find that, along with the "light, combatty looking = dodgy" assumption (to go with with the "heavy, combatty looking = tanky") plenty of feedback.
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I like the look of the autogun and I would like to use it in other mods. I would definitely add laser and plasma ammo to it.
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Just on a quick looksie at the rules files, I've underestimated the difference between bottom armour and front.
Whilst it varies, and on weakly armoured opponents it's often the same, against more heavily armoured opponents it tends to be closer to 10-45 difference, with a ball-park difference of 20 or so.
This makes explosives, especially arcing ones, all the better. And puts even more direct fire weapons into the black market scrap bin. Unless they've got pretty good damage on them.
You mostly won't be meeting these heavily armoured enemies every mission, but when you do, you'll need some stopping power. Or good explosives. But damage, high damage, all the same.
I'll have to do another run through on Davy Jones or Jack Sparrow to see how frequently you actually need the big guns and swords. I'm looking at boarding guns to be "useful", if somewhat slow, as minimums in some cases. Just as a "it doesn't matter what you research, you did have a chance" litmus test on the newest versions. I'm kind of sure fatal wounds for enemies is a saviour in some cases. Never mind capturing them.
So far, the ruleset and the playthroughs haven't matched up, but I haven't played for long enough to get that much scary stuff yet. I'll tell you when I do (I've been destroyed by flying armoured troops/tanks within the first 3-4 months a version or two ago though, which is why I modified my playstyle to either effective hunting or heavy damage. Apparently the early game is longer now, which gives time for those surprises).
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The obvious power of explosives is nerfed by 2 factors (on top of loot-destroying associated with them in the OG):
1. Most of them are inaccurate. In part, that's why Throwing Accuracy is so low. This limits the well-known grenade spam a bit, (but also saves you from enemy grenades some of the time).
2. Overkill. Even moderately armored enemies can be vaporized by explosives, leaving no corpse (and, in some extreme cases, no loot).
Swords and all fast melee weapons are going to train Reactions (as well as Melee) in the next version, so their usefulness will increase. And the temptation to do old-style boring Reactions training will decrease.
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Swords and all fast melee weapons are going to train Reactions (as well as Melee) in the next version, so their usefulness will increase. And the temptation to do old-style boring Reactions training will decrease.
dang that's a nice idea to increase reactions (a very sadly underemployed stat :()
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Love the idea of swords increasing reactions! That's such a hard and risky stat to train but so necessary on a good melee gal! Also.. sort of related, would it be possible to get a martial arts training facility from research on Fuso+Fuso Swords/Knives+Catgirls/etc? The current way of getting it (and amazon outfit) is rather unintuitive.
Back to explosives, I've noticed overkill recently, which I guess means you've got to be careful and not just spam the biggest bang you've got. If you can kill something with two medium explosives, it's better than overkilling it with one big one. (And the inaccuracy is indeed a life saver. I've had gals merely heavily wounded from satchel charges and dynamites when they surely should have died).
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Yeah, I've been seeing a ton more overkill too! ;) The exploding cannonballs on runt strikers started it, but when the enemy sent in waves of Gauss Toting tanky dudes covering an Enemy Base Setup mission, I kinda had to appropriate their Dakka to effectively deal with them. Lets just say Sniper Gauss and Heavy Gauss kinda have an Overkill Tendency. ;)
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Also.. sort of related, would it be possible to get a martial arts training facility from research on Fuso+Fuso Swords/Knives+Catgirls/etc? The current way of getting it (and amazon outfit) is rather unintuitive.
It has been changed, you can get it earlier now (requires Medicine plus some basic stuff like Gym outfit).
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Oh.. well.. shows that I don't dig in the ruleset for spoilers too often ;) Time to research that gym outfit!