OpenXcom Forum

Modding => Work In Progress => Topic started by: LeBashar on July 28, 2014, 12:37:27 pm

Title: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on July 28, 2014, 12:37:27 pm
I am working on a mod that modify aliens HP, armor and vulnerabiliies. My purpose is to make huges differences between races to make useful a large assortment of weapon type, even in the late game. Also, I want change the original style of the begining were the difficulty is to hit aliens, and not to injure them, by something where who have good soldier (they hit their target) but inneffective weapons (human fisrts weapons are designed to shot human and not aliens, which can be "prepared" to resist theses weapons because they know them).

I want also make some progression throught the game where :
- xcom study aliens and found better way to protect against theirs weapons (personnal armor could give huge plasma defense but nothing else, new plasma-resistant armor for tanks etc.) and better weapons to kill them (some special AP ammo, or new types of weapons).
Then
- aliens study xcom and found they become more resistant to plasma and use more deadly weapon so, they imagine new weapons (even somes there are not plasma-based) and maybe new "armor" (which could be done only by modify some armor type of aliens which appear later, or by redifine some new aliens or just by mix some of them in crew).
- xcom study new aliens improvement and adapt, and so on
In the late game, there could be have a full range of weapon type, and a full range of aliens type which can be vulnerable to some and not to another. The player should use a large assortment of weapon to deal with the threat.

Is there already a mod like that ?
And what do you think of this idea ?

PS : is a vulnerability to smoke make aliens or soldiers fall stun by smoke quickly when tey just walk throught or it does only affect the initial hit ?
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on July 28, 2014, 01:26:32 pm
IMO, this is a good idea as there is effectively an opportunity to deal with different damage types (also different damage resistance) in order to make game more tactical/strategic.
I had in mind to have a look at this, so I will keep an eye on your thread
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: Solarius Scorch on July 28, 2014, 01:36:24 pm
I am particularly interested in aliens that are vulnerable to AP, but not so much to plasma and lasers. The reason is, there simply isn't such a race, and that would make things a bit more complex (but not overly).

However, I'd rather see a new alien race than a modified one. I just don't really like changing vanilla stuff for no good reason.
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on July 28, 2014, 02:01:54 pm
Another idea could be to multiply alien races :
- nomal aliens
- elite aliens

Also for each alien race, define two (or more) categories, make other categories appear later in the game, so that some times battles are as usual, and other times battle are a little harder than expected
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: Solarius Scorch on July 28, 2014, 02:10:29 pm
Another idea could be to multiply alien races :
- nomal aliens
- elite aliens

Also for each alien race, define two (or more) categories, make other categories appear later in the game, so that some times battles are as usual, and other times battle are a little harder than expected

And change their palettes. :)
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: Hadan on July 28, 2014, 03:21:35 pm
Another idea could be to multiply alien races :
- nomal aliens
- elite aliens
Wasnt there a wip-mod from luke called recolored aliens or something which did this?
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on July 28, 2014, 08:37:41 pm
Quote
However, I'd rather see a new alien race than a modified one. I just don't really like changing vanilla stuff for no good reason.

My purpose is to modify the original balance that I always found poor, so I will change the foundation before construct new floors ;)

Quote
Also for each alien race, define two (or more) categories, make other categories appear later in the game, so that some times battles are as usual, and other times battle are a little harder than expected

I also think to this, but I dislike the idea player can't immediately see there is something different. So I must change color of aliens if I change their armors, and because it is so difficult to do I prefer not try for now and work only with the differents races, and their distribution in UFOs with mixed crew. But maybe I will change some damage type of terrorists, and give aliens possibility to use thing other than plasma, and mix terrorists type.

Here the modification I planed to make :
(https://i58.tinypic.com/2duz4bc.png)

sectoides lose HE resistance, but gain AP and PL résist, STUN, MELEE and SMOKE vulnerability. They also have double HP.
Purpose = with so low HP and armor, resistance and vulnerability as no interest at all because the weakest weapons are already near overkill. So, more resistant to rifle and pistol, but not to explosives weapons. Their poor armor make them suffer injuries by any weapon, despite new resitances. More HP is only for make them able to withstand at least one shot and not already be OS. Vulnérable to stun and melee is for match their weak appearance. vulnerability to smoke is because they breath.

cyberdics gain melee resitance (like all mechanical thing in my mind) but PL vulnerabilty.
Purpose = original one is not bad, but plasma weaken make it counterpart with the fact it is resistant to anything else and I assume it was designed for strike against human and not againt other alien equiped with PL weapon.

floaters gains many resistances : AP,HE, stun and smoke.
Purpose = This for match the fact they are partially mechanical and bionic. I assume they are designed for terrorise humans, and so, their new resistances make them able to do that. Becoming protected against human primarily weapons, but they are not really powerfull anyway because of weak armor and lack of HP. They can be shot by any heavy weapon, but also by autofire or multiple fire of weakest ones. Difficulties to stun or asphixiate them is because their bionic improvements, and give a capture of them more challenging (we should not easily catch a terror weapon). With advanced weapons like LS or PL, they become weak aliens only usable for scouting, interesting allies for strongest ones like snakmen or muton, by the fact they can fly.

reapers gain better frontal armor and strong resistance to HE and melee.
Purpose = they are too weak even against weapons they are not supposed to be, so the frontal armor help them (because they often face their adversaries) and match the fact they are design for offense. Resistance to melee for let no chance to anyone they succeed to catch, and HE resistance to match the fact they are supposed to be realy resistant (and for reduce the 4 square malus HE for them). Already weak "under" armor make it weak against HE or especially IC which are thrown to explode at his feet (obviously it need some throwable IC weapon).

snakemen loose some armor at side and rear but gain more at under. They gain resistance against all weaponanry supposed to produce heat : HE, LS PL.
Purpose = with moderate armor and HP, they are strong against weak weapons of all type, but easily catch by heaviest. Heavy AP humanmade weapon should be nice, especially in is back. So the idea is to force player to try to ambush them. Because they are not vulnérable to HE and with a better under armor, grenades aren't be the best option against them. I think their "foot" resistant because continuously rub on the earth.

Chrysalids gain slight resistance against anything and huge vulnerability to HE
Purpose = I always loved the choice made in TFTD about tentaculats, which are best shot by HE but make it difficult because they run to be close to you. So I choice to make chrysalid nearly immune to all kind of damages thanks to their strong natural armor, but, vulnerable to HE. It is also a good allies with snakemen which they are not vulnerable to HE, and need accurate AP weapon. So for strike against them two, you need varied weaponary.

mutons loose resistance to AP but gain better armor, slight vulnerability to STUN and smoke.
Purpose = with their full body armor, they seem to be protected against everything and have only a small weak point in their face (so the lighter front armor). My change make nearly no change against AP weapon, but make mutons better against all others. So it need really heavy anti-tank weapon for hunt them, but of any type. Maybe stun (or mind control) could be a best option because it is in fact their only real weak point.

celatid gain strong resistance against LS and PL, slight better armor, immunity to smoke but vulnerability to AP
Purpose = It is like if this creature can absorb energy so she's nearly immune to energy weapon but can be pierced and cuted easily, so no advanced weapon useful against it (and because this creature went in the long term, it could be annoying if you don't still have some no LS or PL weapon in your backpack). He or IC could work, but moderate HP and armor negate the weakest ones.

silacoid gain better under armor lose HE vulnerability but gain melee vulnerability
Purpose = this armored thing has only a melee attack and is slow so it isn't really dangerous. Make him only weak against melee is for make something like the only way to kill it is to stab it with powerful cutting device. But it is dangerous to approach him. (I plan to add some melee weapon like thermal lance of TFTD)

etheral gain slight resistances against anything except IC and melee.
Purpose = weak in melee because it is obviously their only weak point, and IC because this type of damage is underuse in this game and I think it could be interesting to use against these, because as they often fly, it will not be so easy to burn them. I also like the idea their strong power can't help them against flames. (And I never understand why the original game give them a strong resist because you nearly never use IC and by the time you encounter them, you have logically abandon IC weapons by long time ago).

sectopode have no change except resistance in melee

PAL and hoover remove the IC immunity, gain melee resistance and lose resistance to acid.
Purpose = IC weapon use very hig temperature able to melt heaviest armor, I don't undestand why original game make IC so weeak against anything because in reality IC is really powerful, and to use with extreme care. The acid defense removed because I see no reason to make PAL resistant to a kind of "alien-movie" acid, and because there is for now only one rare creature which use it. I plan to use the acid damage type for new weapons (of all types) which could be really "armor piercing" and could overleap other resistances by have this tag. A powerful anti tank rifle could have a "acid" damage in place of AP, only to simulate it really use ammo which can pierce armor (like HEAT). So I will work on acid armor of all thing when I add something like that. (For now, the idea is to make huge resistance to this for no armored aliens, and weak for heavy armored. So, a acid-AP weapon wil do nearly nothing to a sectoid -totaly run through it- and huge damage against a sectopod)

At last, I hope the 200% vulnerabilty to smoke make some aliens able to fall unconscious if they stand in smoke (and humans so, force them use mask or helmet). But I don't know if it can actually work ?
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: Falko on July 29, 2014, 12:29:38 am
So I must change color of aliens if I change their armors, and because it is so difficult to do I prefer not try for now
its rather easy for most aliens now see here https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2349.msg25292#msg25292 (the part about "moxcolors")
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on July 29, 2014, 01:10:47 pm
Nice, but seem already "difficult" for me. And furthermore, it don't solve the biggest problem : in the game, there should be a way for the player to know what are resistance-vulnerabilities of differents aliens. And if they are not differents ufopedia entries, then we can't have informations. So I prefer use mixed aliens race then mixed armor-coloured aliens.
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on July 29, 2014, 02:03:21 pm
Nice, but seem already "difficult" for me. And furthermore, it don't solve the biggest problem : in the game, there should be a way for the player to know what are resistance-vulnerabilities of differents aliens. And if they are not differents ufopedia entries, then we can't have informations. So I prefer use mixed aliens race then mixed armor-coloured aliens.
This is a point I am thinking about
Glad to know that others have the same feeling
Title: Re: Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 01, 2014, 12:15:16 am
I have done my V1.0 rebalance mod testing

It modify aliens stats, weapons stats, and many cost and little thing all over the game. I have made two file, one for modification which are only on geoscape-air combat, and one for all which have battlescape concerns.

All information included in readme and ufopedia entries (bad english and french)

Future project is adding some interesting new stuff, and maybe make ruleset adaptation for astounding mods I don't want to integrate completely.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on August 01, 2014, 01:14:57 am
I will have a look at it as I am interested by rebalancing and I trust other to do better than I can

Did you test it a while or is it a theoretic attempt ?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 01, 2014, 10:41:10 am
I have only test it is actually work and load the mod ingame, but except for air combat that I have played, aliens and weapons modifications are only calculated. (maybe I should include in the archive the opencalc sheet ? there we can see firepower, TUs, accuracy comparison)

I will change some things in research tree and then make a real play test.

PS : in this version you could think I have nerf too much weapons (laser can't autoshot, plasma are poor accurate) but it is only the first step for make place available for new weaponry : firearms with alloys shell for automatic weapons, some kind of futuristics things for aliens high accuracy weapons, when they notice x-com become a real threat, etc.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on August 02, 2014, 03:35:44 pm
Attached an example of 2 new HWP (WIP) + 2 WIP spriteSheet (I particularly disliked the HoverTank colours so I will change it for all HoverTank...)

As usual, don't pay attention to properties/cost/unit/weight/... values as I am making some test to rebalance all

For Hovertank, I plan to add the need of Grav Modules
Beware that global research for Gauss and Mass Accelerator is not included in attached files, I only keep what was HWP related

For the turrets, I did not yet have a look at it, but using TurretType should assign corresponding sprites from line 5 (8 by 8 )
Depending on how you build the spriteSheet, this could be from 0 to 4 then, then it depends of your spriteSheet, in one of mines 8 to 11 because of HoverTank ground moves between...

EDIT : Effectively, playing with SpriteSheets and TurretType... attached screen shot :)

I attached related SpriteSheets

Code: [Select]
armors:
  - type: MASS_ACCELERATOR_TANK_ARMOR
    spriteSheet: MassAcceleratorHWP_SpriteSheet

Code: [Select]
items:
  - type: STR_MASS_ACCELERATOR_TANK
    turretType: 11

In given example :
- For Mass Accelerator HWP, TurretType is 11, also the 12th one starting from 0
- For Gauss HWP, TurretType is 2, also the 3rd one starting from 0

(Also 0 begin at 5th line, then turreType jumps to corresponding first sprite (64+TurretType*8) )

Beware that SpriteSheet definition is not the same for both ones, as not of same dimensions
Code: [Select]
# Gauss HWP
  - type: GaussHWP_SpriteSheet
    width: 512
    height: 320
    subX: 32
    subY: 40
    files:
      0: Resources/HellMod/HWP/GaussHWP/HWPGauss_SpriteSheet.PNG

# Mass Accelerator Tank
  - type: MassAcceleratorHWP_SpriteSheet
    width: 512
    height: 400
    subX: 32
    subY: 40
    files:
      0: Resources/HellMod/HWP/MassAcceleratorHWP/HWPMassAccelerator_SpriteSheet.PNG
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 02, 2014, 05:23:12 pm
It's really nice and I've manage to make this work (after many game crash  :P )

But I'm afraid I'll never can do graphical adjustement myself without a better understanding of all of this. Can you give me the 4 floorob corpse file for the gauss HWP (blue-alloy) ? I have tried to make some with MIBTANK but it doesn't work.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Solarius Scorch on August 02, 2014, 05:24:44 pm
Nice recolour, Aldorn!

Can we have an orange too, to go with that orange Power Suit?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Falko on August 02, 2014, 05:31:06 pm
like this?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on August 02, 2014, 06:50:07 pm
It's really nice and I've manage to make this work (after many game crash  :P )

But I'm afraid I'll never can do graphical adjustement myself without a better understanding of all of this. Can you give me the 4 floorob corpse file for the gauss HWP (blue-alloy) ? I have tried to make some with MIBTANK but it doesn't work.
At this time, I have only those

Try this with Aseprite (sorry I will not make a full tutorial right now)

- Open one PNG with Aseprite
- Shift + R (or via menu) to open Colour Replacement Dialog
- Select From => Idx 251 (you will that the dark blue color becomes light grey : it is just to show you which pixels will be replaced)
- Select To => Idx 135 (now pixels will become light blue)
- OK => this will make the colour replacement

Also, I repeat :
- open PNG with any tool that shows you which idx is for sprite you want to replace (or do it directly under Aseprite but you will have to click on colours until in replacement dialog box until you find the one that you want to replace...)
- start with the darker one (for example here I think 251)
- decide new colour (here 135 - bad choice see below)
- then make same for 250 to be replaced with 134, 249 with 133, ...

Better to know before how long is your range (ex. 244-251 => 8/ sprites) then you can decide with which range you will replace it (in given example, 244 -> 128 but 128 is not blue anymore, so beware of that) If you do so, you will keep same aspect, just change colour range

Hope it is a bit clear anyway :P

As an example, if my notes are correct :
- for the green one (Mass Accelerator), I replaced range [82..93] with [66..77] and [179..186] with [67..74]
- for the yellow one (Heat-Ray); I replaced [82..93] with [146..157] and [179..186] with [147..154]

EDIT : or use Falko tool if you succeed  ;)
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on August 02, 2014, 06:57:03 pm
like this?
Didn't it replace some colours of the antigrav movement sprites ?
Should perhaps split the file before using your tool ?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on August 02, 2014, 06:59:41 pm
Nice recolour, Aldorn!

Can we have an orange too, to go with that orange Power Suit?
All is WIP, mate, so I am not ready for a request, I prefer first finish my recolouring  :-[
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Falko on August 02, 2014, 07:02:01 pm
Didn't it replace some colours of the antigrav movement sprites ?
Should perhaps split the file before using your tool ?
yeah could be that some green is there
splitting is an option or using another base or using a non-green tank as base or one easily could copy/paste the original hover sprites back
doing the color replacement 16-32 times seems like a lot of work for me
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Falko on August 02, 2014, 07:05:25 pm
EDIT : or use Falko tool if you succeed  ;)
is there a problem i missed or does it need more documentation?
https://falkooxc.pythonanywhere.com/palconvert => select mixcolors
lets take the example green tank -> orange tank
you select your green tank image than in dropdown mixcolor and ufo-battlscape in the right dropdown
if you select mixcolor a further image pops up where you can reorder the color rows
you cklick on the rows and right of it appears the new order of colors
in the tank case i just clicked through from top to bottom but for the two green rows i clicked the orangy ones instead
convert -> done
(the first color-row is not shown currently because it contains color-0=transparency and that could lead to confusion )
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 02, 2014, 07:18:39 pm
It's fine, the problem is I haven't got obtain the complete filesheet with your tool for the tank. I have something like this : (see attachement) and so I haven't success to make the game work with this one.

But with aldorn sheet it work perfeclty, as the game, as your tool. (in my first attemp, I have obtain a totally wrong sheet, I don't know why and I can't show you the file I have delete and I can't reproduce the problem  ??? )

I haven't photoshop nor aseprite, and each time I try to do something with my one software nothing work (except for ufopedia picture).

But it is not really matter for now, I will pursue the construction of the bones of my mod, and see skins thing latter when everything will be complete.

So after some test I have slightly modify autocannon, and finally achieve to replace the melee attack of cilacoid by a short range blazing incendiary burst which is very interestring in game.  :)
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on August 02, 2014, 08:04:29 pm
is there a problem i missed or does it need more documentation?
https://falkooxc.pythonanywhere.com/palconvert => select mixcolors
lets take the example green tank -> orange tank
you select your green tank image than in dropdown mixcolor and ufo-battlscape in the right dropdown
if you select mixcolor a further image pops up where you can reorder the color rows
you cklick on the rows and right of it appears the new order of colors
in the tank case i just clicked through from top to bottom but for the two green rows i clicked the orangy ones instead
convert -> done
(the first color-row is not shown currently because it contains color-0=transparency and that could lead to confusion )
Do not pay attention, for the moment I did not succeed to make it work but I did not spare enough time on it, so I am guilty
I trust your tools, I did not say this did not work
I will have a look at your explanations

As I will remake all HWP, I will for sure use this tool ;)
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on August 03, 2014, 10:41:29 am
is there a problem i missed or does it need more documentation?
https://falkooxc.pythonanywhere.com/palconvert => select mixcolors
lets take the example green tank -> orange tank
you select your green tank image than in dropdown mixcolor and ufo-battlscape in the right dropdown
if you select mixcolor a further image pops up where you can reorder the color rows
you cklick on the rows and right of it appears the new order of colors
in the tank case i just clicked through from top to bottom but for the two green rows i clicked the orangy ones instead
convert -> done
(the first color-row is not shown currently because it contains color-0=transparency and that could lead to confusion )

Once more, a wonderful tool !  ::)

I think you could effectively add short explanation above, this would be very useful  :)

Regarding issue of recoloring part of PNG that we did not want to, we just have to copy and past original part back to it, so it's absolutely not an issue

What about a second version in the future (in addition, not as replacement) ?
- despite it already makes 90% of the job, it should be nice to be able to use the first row (perhaps with an option to replace transparent colour 0 with 1, and not be able to replace this first row, also right first column automatically equal to it)
- possibility to select ranges...  ::) (that should solve the point just above too) : also instead of selecting the global row, be able to select part of row (I guess, not easy to make it user friendly) ; or possibility to add an offset for each row (to make it for example a little darker : +2 ; a little lighter : -3)
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on August 03, 2014, 10:52:02 am
Nice recolour, Aldorn!

Can we have an orange too, to go with that orange Power Suit?
Solars, does the orange one from Falko fit your expectations ?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 03, 2014, 12:29:18 pm
This is attachement for my v1.1 mod, I have add :
- laser tech tree is reverse, we discover craft cannon fisrt, then heavy laser > rifle > pistol. The laser weapon tech need discover of alien alloy and alien UFO source, for slight delay it and give some sort of explanation to the discover of a way to make this kind of weaponry.
- three alloy armor HWP, manufacturable after research of "anti plasma armor" a new quick research allowed by alien alloy, which replace personnal armor. -> I think it is easier to improve tank armor before make a personnal armor.
- the alloy laser HWP need anti plasma armor and of course laser cannon
- the personnal armor could be search after anti plasma armor, and is totally change : near no better "armor" stat, but 60% plasma resistance. this make something which protect much than vanilla's against plasma and pistol and rifle, but less against anything else. without energy empowerment, this armor is weighty and give -6 strenght malus.
- plasma weaponry discovries need aliens origin and elerium-115 research
- the silacoid have a new attack at short range, IC based, moderate radius, and very quick reaction.
- a compatible ruleset for MIB mod

Future plans : add new aliens weapons, in reaction to x-com anti plasma tech, and modify power and flying suit.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Aldorn on August 03, 2014, 11:25:07 pm
As you asked me for wreks floorobs, they are all available here (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2738.msg28685#msg28685)
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 04, 2014, 12:28:36 am
Excellent, merci  :)
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 06, 2014, 11:17:34 am
I have add some TUs  to the reaper and it seem good, but now I ask myslef if they should be able to do some damage at and armored tank or not ? (actually they're not, but I ask this question because they seem love to attack tank before soldiers if there is some).
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 08, 2014, 12:40:33 pm
Version 1.3 of my mod. This upgrade included alien armoury, alien items, solarius new ufos, some news armours, shotguns, incendiary grenade, and many graphicals changes.
I have corrected stats of personnal armor (previous was wrong)

I have also modified the high explosive : it become a real demolition pack able to make a hole in UFOs wall (only one square) and have a radius reduced, but a weight increased.

The next step is add aliens, and new aliens anti personnal armor weapons.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 20, 2014, 02:12:51 pm
I have release the 1.4 version of my mod in the mod site. There is already some work to do in the late game thing, but all other work as intended.

I just don't know yet if I must change the melee damage for HWP, because they are actually immune to reaper, chrysalid and cybermite, but attract them a lot  :-\
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Hadan on August 21, 2014, 10:58:28 am
I just don't know yet if I must change the melee damage for HWP, because they are actually immune to reaper, chrysalid and cybermite, but attract them a lot  :-\
My 2 cents:
Reaper: they attack using their teeth -> no damage
Crysalids: they attack by poison & bite -> no damage
Cybermite: they are small, could crawl inside a tank and damage the circuits and so forth -> damage

 ;D
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 21, 2014, 12:13:21 pm
why not, but because they all have the same damage type, it involve the cybermite have a far much higher damage than the other two.

Reaper could be empowered with bionic devices which gave them ability to cut steal ? chrysalids could have some kind of acid poison like aliens xenomorph, make them able to make hole in tank armor ? I tinhk we can found any reason we want for explain everything, my question is much about the gameplay. HWP make good scouts because they are more resistant than soldiers, but, if I made them vulnerable to melee aliens, we will lost our HWP very quickly  ::)

ps : I have found bugs in my ruleset which previously block some discovers. pacthed ruelset attached
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: moriarty on August 22, 2014, 02:44:31 pm
your post in that other thread made me look again at the "Rebalance Aliens" mod... I like the general idea, but I don't like all parts of it. Do you think you could split it? I'm interested in the "changed resistances of aliens" part, but not the whole changed tech tree and weapons... :)
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 22, 2014, 02:50:06 pm
The current aliens stats after some ingame tests :

(https://i61.tinypic.com/6r6fll.png)

I have add a "tiers" column for see when theses aliens appears. I have choice to make a kind of upgraded floatter as the waspite (and cybermtie is like a fearsome reaper, smaller, faster, more resistant and death-explosive). Anthropod are like a weak muton (but spitter are very dangerous, and I have modify the stats of the naked one do make him like a berserker : more dangerous than normal). And gazer is alternative to muton because nearly as strong but vulnerable to laser, but not to mind control. holodrone shot explosives shell, with great accuracy and reaction.

@moriarty :
I have found too difficult to have many different file so maybe I will make a separate thing when the mod will be finish, but not for now. It should not be difficult to extract only aliens stats.
But I really think only change aliens without modify weaponry should not be very efficient. The balance should follow a global way throught all the game, it's the reason why I have choose to modifiy also weapon after my first try.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 23, 2014, 12:04:08 am
I have think a little about make a stand alone RPS mod. The problem I see is without change alienitemslevel and weaponry, the rock paper scissor system will be limited to the player. We can make aliens vulnerable to AP but resistant to LS and neutral with PL, etc. But the player will already have a 100% armor against all damages types, which make aliens pistol useless, rifle usefull only before powersuit and after that, all aliens should have heavy plasma. I think it's a pity. With this approach, we can only give different damage type to some terrorists, it's very limited diversity (and might don't change anything while terrorists weapons are so powerfull).

This could be make the player able to mix firearms, laser and plasma in is weaponry, is it what you want, moriarty ?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: moriarty on August 23, 2014, 02:04:01 am


This could be make the player able to mix firearms, laser and plasma in is weaponry, is it what you want, moriarty ?

Yes, precisely. While it might be interesting to have the reverse effect also, we have to take the AI into account. I don't think it is in any way capable of dealing with resistances in terms of selecting weapons and/or targets.

So, again, yes, a purely "alien armor"-based RPS system would be nice. The player can then choose if he/she wants to diversify their weaponry by adding other mods.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 23, 2014, 02:23:12 am
I've tried to install v1.4 of your mod, and OXC won't start and gives me an error that it can't open "Resources/Aldorn/HWPLaser_SpriteSheet.PNG".

I've checked and there is no such file in the indicated folder but there is a HWPGauss_SpriteSheet.PNG file there.  I created a duplicate and renamed it to the file it was looking for just to see if it would at least run, and then it indicated another file that was missing, Toxigun.gif. 

Is there some things missing form the install or does another mod need to be installed for this to run?  I didn't see any such mod indicated as required.

Thanks.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Harald_Gray on August 23, 2014, 02:59:00 am
I'm all for making the aliens tougher. Truth is, I've already created a tougher race and I'm also (slowly) working on armoring some other vanilla aliens. So I would like to share some of my thoughts on the subject.

First thing is, the game has to remain playable. Aliens tougher than Xcom soldiers may sound cool but a player has to win how many missions? And how often is a player willing to lose a soldier? I know, human players are smarter than the AI - but the AI can afford far greater losses and is never frustrated. Mutons are already tough. Now imagine mutons in powersuits in every mission you meet them in. So even modded aliens have to remain less armored than Xcom soldiers. So we better limit ourselves to little more than personal armor plus some mild resistances.

Second, vanilla aliens never use worn armor, period. The best explanations for this, fluff-wise, is that they consider psionic powers superior and that all the races but the Ethereals are considered expendable. Which doesn't leave a lot of room for suddenly giving them heavy armor like powersuits. Again, we better limit ourselves to little more than personal armor.

Third, too much micromanagement kills fun. Reality is that the players likely to use tough aliens are also likely to learn their weaknesses. So a rock-paper-scissors system would require them to switch soldier loadouts between missions. HWD says I'm going against Mutons? That's weapons A. This time it is Floaters? Weapons B, everyone. And when the race is unknown? Everybody carry two different main weapons and drop the wrong one on round one. The player wouldn't have to think, s/he would merely have to switch weapons. And there are not many choices that make sense anyway. The same goes for armors, should someone build a mod with several armors tailored against different damage types and alien weapons with different damage types. The player would pick the best for a given mission or, if he didn't have that luxury, simply pray his soldiers don't get hit.

Fourth, even flying suits are not that tough and many seem to ignore the lessons the game teaches us. Even a plasma rifle can take out a soldier in a powersuit, the chance to penetrate frontal armor is about 37%. Heavy plasmas are deadly. The battlefield is full of things that can kill Xcom soldiers with one shot. Taking away the ability to do the same to aliens would frustrate players, e.g. in situations involving reaction fire. And strong resistances can decrease the damage that penetrates armor to levels where even a 40-hp alien takes ten hits to kill and instakills are impossible. This could give brute strength and swarms advantage over smarts.

Lastly, the greater the changes a mod creates, the higher the probability of problems with compatibility with other mods. For example, changing weapon damages might interfere with performance of alien races from other mods.

So what solution can I offer? Well, I'm still working on it. The only thing that works for me now is giving most of the aliens relatively light armors and mild resistances which increase survivability but don't make them invulnerable; leaders can be much tougher because that gives the player a rarer but tough target s/he can focus the heavy hitters on. So I'm creating mid-to-late-game replacement aliens who wear some armor, e.g. my test snakemen wear armor 40/35/35/15 and 80% resistance to HE, plasma and melee, my mutons use armor 50/40/40/25 and 80% laser, 70% plasma, 60% melee resistances. We'll see how it goes.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Solarius Scorch on August 23, 2014, 09:44:02 am
Harald, I just wanted to give you thumbs up for the general analysis of the issue. I agree with you 100%.
I would also like to add that armour seems to be much more expensive for the aliens than cloning new troops (makes sense with the right tech and army structure), so this is why they don't and shouldn't) use advanced body protection. I think we can get away with some exceptions though.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Dioxine on August 23, 2014, 11:21:48 am
Just my 2 cents... Everyone is used to Mutons being resistant to HE and AP, not lasers/plasmas... why changing that, Harald? For the sake of changing? But generally I support your notion - paper/rock/scissors are fun but you should still be able to kill aliens with "wrong" weapons... by either using heavier version or taking 4-5, instead of 1, shot. And of course, unless you make aliens super-plasma-resistant (I wouldn't support this), Heavy Plasma will rule the day forever and ever (laser resistances mean, like it has been said, that laser weapons will be simply ignored in favour of plasmas - at least up to this point, with how convenient they were, they were a viable alternative).
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Harald_Gray on August 23, 2014, 11:53:31 am
Solar: thanks for the thumbs up. However, I have to admit I'm perfectly OK with giving the aliens light and medium armor. The costs are not much of an issue, they are cranking out large scouts by the dozen and at least two terror ships every month during the midgame and later so they can surely afford some armor. I see this mostly as a matter of philosophy and of mental inertia. An alien alloy chestplate here, a simple implant here or an alien alloy chainmail mesh there are simple. They do armor their ships with AA plating. Wearing some is not that different. But they use internal boosts and bioengineering, so things like powersuits should be rare and considered crazy/heretical/primitive by most aliens.

Dioxine: I'm giving them plasma resistance because I can imagine the following chain of thoughts inside an alien engineer's head: "DAmn, some of those puny humans are resistant to psionics, we'll have to use actuall weapons. Damn, we've made mutons resistant to their puny weapons and they're inventing new ones and even turning our weapons against us. Crap, we can't adapt the production lines that quickly, the mutons are designed against AP and it would take months to redesign them and then wait for new bodies to grow. But if we layer some alloys and polymers and ceramics and make some simple chestplates and helmets out of this stuff they'll take some of the heat off. Sure, the guys will still take some pounding, but they're tough, they'll survive and shoot back and finally crush our masters' enemies." Oh, and because it makes other weapons less useless in comparison. A game where everybody and their dog uses heavy plasmas is kind of less fun.
Edit: the laser resistance is there because I suspect that a (relatively) primitive armor that doesn't use things like electricity or force fields to influence the plasma will be also quite resistant to lasers. So it is a realism issue, not an attempt to marginalize laser weapons. I *love* laser rifles.
Edit2: and I sort of forgot to mention that those Mutons keep their 60% AP resistance and that the values I've mentioned are still changing as I'm playing with the ideas.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 23, 2014, 11:11:55 pm
@Wsmithjr:
Sorry for that, I will check when I come back to home.

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Yes, precisely. While it might be interesting to have the reverse effect also, we have to take the AI into account. I don't think it is in any way capable of dealing with resistances in terms of selecting weapons and/or targets.

You are right, and I have not think to much about this but I think my way to handle this could work : I mod aliens item level to give them new weapons, so, they should in majority be equipped with new anti-personal armour weapon when the player should manage to have them for some time. After that the player can discover powersuit which protect him against theses weapons, and aliens changes all weaponry to something else after a while etc. And all the time, cannon are able to kill everyone maybe not in one shot, but not so many more. So, the rock paper scissor is not mean the only way to win is to use the good weapon. It mean that you will win easiest with right weapons, and need to use only heavy cannon if you don't want to think (but heavy cannon should be heavy, costly, limited ammo, and your soldiers slow. This brainless way could be sufficient in alien recovery mission but should not work in long missions like alien base).

So for now I have don't make aliens unable to shot xcom soldier but nearly the opposite. In the vanilla's we have :
- beginning : aliens weapons are overkill
- personal armour : in a short time they protect little, and become obsolete when rifle and heavy plasma become the rule
- power and flyingsuit : in a short time they protect well if you discover them early, but in the end when all aliens have heavy plasma they don't protect so good.

I have make something where armour protect better, but in shorter period of time. So for example, if you manage to produce many personal armour very quickly, maybe you can have one or two very easy terror mission against aliens with plasma weapon nearly negated. But if you are too slow, armour are already useless by the time you discover it (like in vanilla's).

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First thing is, the game has to remain playable. Aliens tougher than Xcom soldiers may sound cool but a player has to win how many missions? And how often is a player willing to lose a soldier? I know, human players are smarter than the AI - but the AI can afford far greater losses and is never frustrated. Mutons are already tough. Now imagine mutons in powersuits in every mission you meet them in. So even modded aliens have to remain less armored than Xcom soldiers. So we better limit ourselves to little more than personal armor plus some mild resistances.

I agree, and I never imagine to make overpowered aliens. My try is to make them have great vulnerability, if they have great resistance. I have made only one exception for mutons, as their weakness is they are psy weak, and don't appear in damage sheet. But they appear in late game, and player should have by this time soldier able to carry heavy weaponry, which kill easily even slight better armored mutons.

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Second, vanilla aliens never use worn armor, period.

I think green muton skin is an armor, no ?

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So I'm creating mid-to-late-game replacement aliens who wear some armor, e.g. my test snakemen wear armor 40/35/35/15 and 80% resistance to HE, plasma and melee, my mutons use armor 50/40/40/25 and 80% laser, 70% plasma, 60% melee resistances. We'll see how it goes.

It seem don't change anything for your snakemen : laser and HV plasma of late game won't have problem to easily kill them.
Your mutons however seem have no weakness and seem only a good target for heavy HE weapons.
 
I have give them the same armor, but no resistance of any kind. This make them already as resistant to AP weapon because they are nearly all negate by a 50 armor, but only little more resistant to laser or plasma rifle/cannon.
 
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Third, too much micromanagement kills fun. Reality is that the players likely to use tough aliens are also likely to learn their weaknesses. So a rock-paper-scissors system would require them to switch soldier loadouts between missions. HWD says I'm going against Mutons? That's weapons A. This time it is Floaters? Weapons B, everyone. And when the race is unknown? Everybody carry two different main weapons and drop the wrong one on round one.
 
Oh no, this is not my idea at all. The player should need various weaponry in any battlefield. And if it has not make the right choice of weapon, and don't bring various with him, maybe it should be force to flee.
At the beginning there is only in terror mission where he must face two really different aliens types, but in the late game, it should face more often various crews.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Harald_Gray on August 24, 2014, 01:47:42 am
I agree, and I never imagine to make overpowered aliens. My try is to make them have great vulnerability, if they have great resistance. I have made only one exception for mutons, as their weakness is they are psy weak, and don't appear in damage sheet. But they appear in late game, and player should have by this time soldier able to carry heavy weaponry, which kill easily even slight better armored mutons.
I never meant to imply your aliens are overpowered. But I've seen mockups of aliens in power armors so I thought it might be a good idea to explain why modders shouldn't give such armors to common aliens. Other people read this thread too.

I think green muton skin is an armor, no ?
That's why I wrote *worn* armor. Your plan is to rebalance the aliens, which is fine, but those rebalanced aliens remain the same during the whole game. The thing I was talking about is that any upgrades given to an alien race during the game should provide only a limited boost.
 
It seem don't change anything for your snakemen : laser and HV plasma of late game won't have problem to easily kill them.
Your mutons however seem have no weakness and seem only a good target for heavy HE weapons.
 
I have give them the same armor, but no resistance of any kind. This make them already as resistant to AP weapon because they are nearly all negate by a 50 armor, but only little more resistant to laser or plasma rifle/cannon.
Depends on your definition of an easy kill. Armor 40 negates one third of laser rifle hits and makes 70% of such hits survivable (for a snakeman soldier). Vanilla Snakemen die in some 45% of hits, meaning the new armor lowers their death rate by one third. Plasma resistance 0.8 gives them about 66% chance of surviving a plasma rifle hit (compared to vanilla 40%) and about 45% chance against heavy plasma (compared to vanilla 28%). Again, decent but not game-breaking improvement.

As for the Mutons, well, they are supposed to be far superior to humans. The armor would make it impossible for them to die from a single heavy plasma hit but still killable. I've killed 15+ vanilla Mutons in a single mission using mostly Alien Alloy ammo and proximity grenades, meaning average power 24 and 70 against armor 20 and 10. Heavy plasma has average power 80 against 70% resistance and the average damage is about 39, killing a Muton in about 3.2 hits.
But like I've said, I'm still playing with this and testing it and I'll probably switch the plasma resistance back to 80% (which was the value I've tried first).
   
Oh no, this is not my idea at all. The player should need various weaponry in any battlefield. And if it has not make the right choice of weapon, and don't bring various with him, maybe it should be force to flee.
At the beginning there is only in terror mission where he must face two really different aliens types, but in the late game, it should face more often various crews.

Early game offers no such problem, all early aliens die to rifles, grenades and HE heavy cannon rounds. Laser pistols (not to mention laser rifles) are weapons of mass destruction even in midgame and easy to come by in vanilla. Yes, the player should be motivated to use combined arms. Give him a reason to give some soldiers heavy weapons, give him a reason to issue proximity grenades and high exlosives to most soldiers, give him a reason to bring some stun weapons and other toys. But don't make him rearm every damn soldier for every damn mission when you can't automate this or s/he'll get angry soon.
Rock/paper/scissors doesn't force him to think. It merely forces him to spend time in the erquipment screen.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: moriarty on August 24, 2014, 08:51:33 am
I guess the best way would be RPS <and> mixed crews, don't you think? Of course, that is again a whole new degree of complexity, but I think with all the new aliens that have been made, it should be possible to make at least three tiers of them (early-, mid- and late-game) with sufficient variety within the tiers.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 24, 2014, 04:37:32 pm
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But don't make him rearm every damn soldier for every damn mission when you can't automate this or s/he'll get angry soon.
Rock/paper/scissors doesn't force him to think. It merely forces him to spend time in the erquipment screen.

Can you explain in what case you think the player will try to change all equipements of his team, and cases where it will only bring a little of anything, and change not the quipement, but the role of soldiers in battle ? for example, you discover after the start of battle that you face some AP immune aliens, so your mainly AP weapon soldiers will do a scouting role in this battle, where in another they might be the snipers and laser riflemen the scouts. I play like this, and never need to do boring re-equipement in each missions. But I give all soldiers at least one each type of grenade, so if their weapon are useless, they'll make support role by covering others with smoke or making hole in buildings etc.

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I guess the best way would be RPS <and> mixed crews, don't you think? Of course, that is again a whole new degree of complexity, but I think with all the new aliens that have been made, it should be possible to make at least three tiers of them (early-, mid- and late-game) with sufficient variety within the tiers.

I agree and that what I trying to do.

Tiers 1:
-sectoides, floatters + tiers "2" terrorists with cyberdiscs and reaper improved. (I think in all cases terrorists should be far more dangerous than main race).
-> I have doubled the HP of sectoides, and make floatter slight resistant to AP and HE. so they are two not so weak than vanilla's.

Tiers 2:
-snakeman, new waspites, new anthropod + tiers "3" terrorists with chrysalid, cybermites and spitters.

Tiers 3:
-mutons, ethereal and new gazer + tiers "4" terrorists with silacoids and celatids improved, sectopods and holodrone improved. (but maybe silcaoides and celatids already too weak in regards of sectopods and holodrone improved. holodrone are not durable, but are very deadly and immune to any not heavy weapon).

And I think with tiers two we can began mixed crew, with some previous tiers "specialists" in addition. For example, snakemen can have some floatters scouts, or sectoides leaders able to make psy attack, maybe some cyberdiscs etc.
In tiers 3, ethereals should nearly always be leader of a mixed crews with lower ranks aliens, and not weird leader packed like in vanilla's.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Harald_Gray on August 24, 2014, 05:50:32 pm
Can you explain in what case you think the player will try to change all equipements of his team, and cases where it will only bring a little of anything, and change not the quipement, but the role of soldiers in battle ? for example, you discover after the start of battle that you face some AP immune aliens, so your mainly AP weapon soldiers will do a scouting role in this battle, where in another they might be the snipers and laser riflemen the scouts. I play like this, and never need to do boring re-equipement in each missions. But I give all soldiers at least one each type of grenade, so if their weapon are useless, they'll make support role by covering others with smoke or making hole in buildings etc.
I don't see a need for such re-equiping now. Vanilla game doesn't use strong resistances and the differences between main weapon types are so huge that resistances playes little part in deciding what to use. Laser weapons are a no-brainer when you research them and the difference between a laser rifle (Power 60) and heavy plasma (power 115) is greater than even a 60% resistance to plasma might create.
However, should you create a situation where a player has to go back to an older tech because some alien race is highly resistant to the newer stuff, this might force some to swap loadout between missions. You are risking this with your version of snakemen. 40% HE and laser resistance makes two main early/midgame damage types inefficient, 40% plasma resistance makes plasma rifles quite weak and even heavy plasmas less powerful than AP heavy cannons. A player would be better off using autocannons, heavy cannons and alien alloy ammo against snakemen and you're pushing him/her into loadout change. Especially because by the time he meets snakemen, heavy plasmas are not likely to be his main weapons. And AP-heavy loadout is crazy against snakemen in big ships because you've made chrysalids AP resistant, meaning equiping soldier with weapons efficient against snakemen makes them inefficient against arguably the most dangerous unit in the game.
So *what* should a player use that would work in other missions too?

I agree and that what I trying to do.

Tiers 1:
-sectoides, floatters + tiers "2" terrorists with cyberdiscs and reaper improved. (I think in all cases terrorists should be far more dangerous than main race).
-> I have doubled the HP of sectoides, and make floatter slight resistant to AP and HE. so they are two not so weak than vanilla's.

Tiers 2:
-snakeman, new waspites, new anthropod + tiers "3" terrorists with chrysalid, cybermites and spitters.

Tiers 3:
-mutons, ethereal and new gazer + tiers "4" terrorists with silacoids and celatids improved, sectopods and holodrone improved. (but maybe silcaoides and celatids already too weak in regards of sectopods and holodrone improved. holodrone are not durable, but are very deadly and immune to any not heavy weapon).

And I think with tiers two we can began mixed crew, with some previous tiers "specialists" in addition. For example, snakemen can have some floatters scouts, or sectoides leaders able to make psy attack, maybe some cyberdiscs etc.
In tiers 3, ethereals should nearly always be leader of a mixed crews with lower ranks aliens, and not weird leader packed like in vanilla's.

Yes, that sounds good. Especially the combination of Ethereals and other races. Ethereals *should* be using some meatshields.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Dioxine on August 24, 2014, 07:16:31 pm
Rock-paper-scissors doesn't mean replacing thinking with micromanaging. It is only so if all damage types have weapons for every role. But if the weapons vary (say, one damage type is accessible mainly as grenades, second as slow inaccurate long range, third as fast accurate short range) resistances force changing tactics, not micromanagement. Additionally, thinking is done in the strategic part of the game, as you have to choose what to research to better combat current ant future threats.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 24, 2014, 08:14:01 pm
I agree. For the research, the choice is mainly between choose to improve armor but stay with same weapons, which maybe make some battle longer and hard. Or to search new weapons, which could make aliens weak targets but let your soldier also. If the game is well made, you can't do all researchs in same time and should choose the kind of difficulty you want to face.

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So *what* should a player use that would work in other missions too?

I don't understand what you argue. Do you mean you take in your skyranger only one type of weapon ? 16 soldiers with 16 laser rifle and nothing else ? Force the player to bring a little of everything because nothing would work in all cases is precisely the purpose.

In my test I have often :
- one HWP (usually rocket or laser, depend of the number of aliens I assume encounter)
- two sniper with sniper rifle, and short range thing in backpack (uzi, shotgun, pistol etc.)
- one with autocannon and various ammo
- one with heavy cannon and various ammo
- all others with differents kind of rifle or heavy LS/PL (soldier strenght decide which one, rocket launcher in back pack of strongest. many rockets on skyranger floor.)
everyone with various grenades (except sometime sniper who anyway never use them, if they have poor strenght).
And I have never need to change weapons, except if someone be too injured or killed. But in function of the mission, maybe it's snipers who kills majority of aliens, maybe it's riflemen. Sometimes it's the autocannon. And in very hard case it's HWP : no xp, but better than dying.
And with all of that, I have never found a mission too hard. Starting conditions make some unease, but it's the game. The only things I change before starting a mission is little things : flare in hands in night, ammo in place of grenades for low strenght soldier, rod stun if I need to capture something...
But I don't need to change the whole equipement each time.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Harald_Gray on August 24, 2014, 10:21:52 pm
My point is that modded aliens shouldn't push players towards switching equipment loadout between missions based solely on alien race. I'm not saying you're guilty of this. Just that too strong and varied resistance could lead to this.

As for my own loadout, they are heavily dependent on my techlevel and the mods I use, so let me assume vanilla.

Early game, most soldiers use rifles, say two a heavy cannon with HE and one a rocket launcher. I always use a HWP if I have one and I'm partial to rocket tanks. Every soldier carries (strength permitting) a grenade, a proximity grenade and a spare magazine. I also throw in some smoke grenades, flares, stun rods and high explosives. Medkits once they're available.

Midgame, most soldiers use laser rifles. Heavy cannons tend to disappear, rocket launchers with no reloads and a laser rifle in the backpack are more frequent. I'm also phasing out grenades in favor of high explosives. Add in one small launcher for the infrequent captions. Hovertanks once they're available.

Late game, heavy plasmas and high explosives dominate the game plus I keep on spamming proximity grenades. Two or three guys carry psi-amps unless I'm playing without those. Sure, sometimes I keep the laser rifles for all missions but Cydonia. But heavy plasmas are simply oh so powerful and plentiful that *not* using them is a consciously sub-optimal decission.


The question about what to use was aimed at your snakemen. The snakemen are resistant to all major damage types but AP and your chrysalids are resistant to AP. So you're pushing the player into using more AP but also making the more dangerous unit resistant to it. Yes, different guys can carry different weapons. But snakemen terrors are quite catastrophe-prone as it is, there's no need to add more points of failure.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 25, 2014, 12:41:10 am
Well, this is an interesting discussion, but it doesn't seem to matter much to me as I didn't get past my first terror mission.  Deployed right in the middle of a hornet's nest.  I was surrounded by about 6 Floaters and 5 Reapers.  Gotta say I'm not real fond of the issue with Smoke as it stands.  Maybe I'm just not very good at this game, but without being able to cover yourself with smoke to exit the Skyranger, I just got torn to shreds.  So I threw the smoke anyway, and then of course some of my guys passed out while the Reapers ate half my squad.  I don't doubt somebody else could have done better with that situation, but I don't think I'm up to it.  There's no fun in just running away hoping for a better situation next battle.  This was on Veteran Ironman so no opportunity to see if I can do better.

Maybe I'll give it another shot on a lower difficulty and not ironman because I think I like the theory of not using smoke as cheap armor.  But, the practice doesn't seem to agree with me.

Thanks.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 25, 2014, 02:36:07 am
The current aliens stats after some ingame tests :

(https://i61.tinypic.com/6r6fll.png)

So, I'm a little confused.  I decided try your mod again as is *except* without the punishing smoke damage.  So, I'm looking at your chart above and it's not matching what I am seeing in your ruleset.

First off, the original aliens stats in your chart seem completely different from what I'm seeing in Xcom1Ruleset.rul.  Are these "original" stats from somewhere else?  While confusing, those "original" stats probably don't matter much.  Now, for your modified stats, they seem to match your 1.5 ruleset *except* for the Smoke modifier.  Your chart indicates 200% but your ruleset has a "- 5.0" which I believe means 500% damage.  Am I reading this wrong?  Perhaps this is why I'm not happy with the smoke effects.  I'd be willing to give 200% chance a shot, but 500% isn't fun.  Was the 500% an experiment and you settled on 200% and forgot to update the ruleset, or am I just really confused?

Code: [Select]
  - type: SECTOID_ARMOR0
    damageModifier:
      - 1.0
      - 0.6
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 1.5
      - 0.6
      - 1.2
      - 1.6
      - 1.0
      - 5.0

'Course, the stats I'm most interest in are for my soldiers, but don't want to be unfair to the aliens, either.  Thanks for any help.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 25, 2014, 03:12:00 am
I also noticed that UFOPEDIA initially doesn't list an HC-AP ammo for the Heavy Canon, yet it can be purchased at game start.  This is with no other item mods enabled.

Also, to use the Men in Black mod with yours, do you enable their MiB ruleset, men_in_black.rul, or just your ruleset, men_in_black_LBR.rul?

Thanks.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 25, 2014, 12:15:33 pm
You need only men_in_black_LBR.rul
For HC-AP ammo it's an error, you should'nt be able to purchase it at start, because I have modifiy it to become an alloy ammunition. I have found the problem in my rulseset. It will be corrected in v1.6
The heavy cannon at start is only a grenade launcher able to shot explosive-HE ou explosive-IC shell. Heavy AP shot is provided by the sniper rifle. With alloy ammunition you gain an AP shot for HC, powerfull than sniper's rifle one but less accurate. And I plan to add new ammo for the sniper rifle (no AP, and not alloy. something designed to be a real "AP", usable against armored things).
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 25, 2014, 12:45:49 pm
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The question about what to use was aimed at your snakemen. The snakemen are resistant to all major damage types but AP and your chrysalids are resistant to AP. So you're pushing the player into using more AP but also making the more dangerous unit resistant to it. Yes, different guys can carry different weapons. But snakemen terrors are quite catastrophe-prone as it is, there's no need to add more points of failure.

I can agree with you if snakemen was tiers 3, appear with muton, and have 130 HP. But there appear in mid game where AP weapon are already common, and HE shell (heavy cannon, rocket launcher or throwable explosive) are also. I have not found in testing this make a real problem, except maybe the fisrt terror mission with chrysalid, when you don't know ou need maybe more explosive than you've bring.
And I've played with my other weapon changes, where the explosive pack can't be use as grenade (too heavy). But small rocket are HEAT and easiest than larges one for chrysalid hunting.

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Maybe I'll give it another shot on a lower difficulty and not ironman because I think I like the theory of not using smoke as cheap armor.  But, the practice doesn't seem to agree with me.

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Am I reading this wrong?  Perhaps this is why I'm not happy with the smoke effects.  I'd be willing to give 200% chance a shot, but 500% isn't fun.  Was the 500% an experiment and you settled on 200% and forgot to update the ruleset, or am I just really confused?

Sorry for that, I plan to add a gaz-mask but for now there is not and it can be a real problem. With 200% penalty, the smoke was not a problem and gas-mask not needed. with 500%, you can't stay in smoke more than one turn and need to launch smoke on alien or in front of your squad but not at your feets as we previously do with nearly no stun effect by smoke. I have let 500% for testing it myself and see if it is playable (and I think it is, but smoke usage is different than in vanilla's).

You can change the 5.0 to 2.0 for soldiers and personnal-jump armors and see if this feel you better.

For reapers. They are now "terror" weapon so it should be normal you lose some soldier the first time you encounter them. But they are easy catch with icendiary grenade (often OS them) and other IC ammo. Because small HP Pool, floatter also can be killed with IC. Try it and tell me what you think. Also they love to attack HWP and they do nothing to them (for now, I still ask myself what to do about that).

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First off, the original aliens stats in your chart seem completely different from what I'm seeing in Xcom1Ruleset.rul.  Are these "original" stats from somewhere else?

They come from wiki, I noticed there is some difference, but never investigate why.

ps : I add rulseset with HC-AP corrected, and smoke damage at 200% only for x-com soldier. download the 1.5b in mod site, and replace ruleset by this one.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 25, 2014, 03:19:34 pm
Sorry for that, I plan to add a gaz-mask but for now there is not and it can be a real problem. With 200% penalty, the smoke was not a problem and gas-mask not needed. with 500%, you can't stay in smoke more than one turn and need to launch smoke on alien or in front of your squad but not at your feets as we previously do with nearly no stun effect by smoke. I have let 500% for testing it myself and see if it is playable (and I think it is, but smoke usage is different than in vanilla's).

You can change the 5.0 to 2.0 for soldiers and personnal-jump armors and see if this feel you better.

For reapers. They are now "terror" weapon so it should be normal you lose some soldier the first time you encounter them. But they are easy catch with icendiary grenade (often OS them) and other IC ammo. Because small HP Pool, floatter also can be killed with IC. Try it and tell me what you think. Also they love to attack HWP and they do nothing to them (for now, I still ask myself what to do about that).

They come from wiki, I noticed there is some difference, but never investigate why.

ps : I add rulseset with HC-AP corrected, and smoke damage at 200% only for x-com soldier. download the 1.5b in mod site, and replace ruleset by this one.

Thanks.  The wiki stats difference is weird but not an issue.  It just confused me and made me wonder if I was reading the ruleset correctly.  I created my own "patch" ruleset to change the smoke damage to 200% and I was much happier with that.  500% is an interesting idea and I see how it would change tactics, but I think for me, without gas masks it's just too much.  I think the problem with the gas masks is that you'd probably have to create them as an "armor" which then cannot be removed during the battle.  I assume there would be some accuracy/stats penalty for wearing them and so your troops would be saddled with those penalties the entire battle whether you needed them or not.  If it was something you could remove, then it would be an acceptable trade-off for me.

Started new game, still veteran but not ironman and had a much better time.  Even survived my first Floater terror mission.  Terrain was very congested so the Reapers didn't have a lot of chances to get to my guys so really can't compare it to the last terror mission I had.  It's actually nice that the Reapers are a threat ... remember old vanilla games where they just kind of wandered back and forth acting as target practice.

As for the HWP invulnerability to Reapers.  I understand the thought behind it, but think it might be a bit cheap.  Maybe consider that the Reapers are the same size as the HWPs, so perhaps the Reaper is strong enough to flip it over or bash the weapons off of it and thereby effectively render it KO.  The Ethiopians defeated Italian tankettes prior to WWII by flipping them over so it's got precedent.

Only other thought early on is that I haven't found Shotguns to be of much use.  Two shots at fairly close range (3-5 tiles) don't come close to taking out a Sectoid.  Up close, I think I'd rather have a Machine Pistol.  Haven't had a chance to try Shotguns against anything else yet to make a final judgement but not sure I want to trust my soldier's lives with them at this point.

Appreciate the mod even if I'm not in 100% agreement with it. :)  Thanks for the update.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 25, 2014, 05:55:42 pm
For gazmask the problem is about armor. They would be "armor" ingame, so :
- we can't equip or remove during the mission
- we need many copy for each armor without helmet : gazmask grav module, gazmask unarmour, gazmask personal armor, gazmask jump armor...
so that the reason why for now I have let it in stand by.

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As for the HWP invulnerability to Reapers.  I understand the thought behind it, but think it might be a bit cheap.  Maybe consider that the Reapers are the same size as the HWPs, so perhaps the Reaper is strong enough to flip it over or bash the weapons off of it and thereby effectively render it KO.  The Ethiopians defeated Italian tankettes prior to WWII by flipping them over so it's got precedent.

Interesting, I don't think to that.

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Only other thought early on is that I haven't found Shotguns to be of much use.  Two shots at fairly close range (3-5 tiles) don't come close to taking out a Sectoid.  Up close, I think I'd rather have a Machine Pistol.  Haven't had a chance to try Shotguns against anything else yet to make a final judgement but not sure I want to trust my soldier's lives with them at this point.

Shotgun, machine pistol and pistol have only secondary use. If soldier have enought strenght, you can give one of these in backpack. And if this soldier was surprised at very close range in house or UFO, maybe it could be better to use theses than his main weapon. That's the theory. Ingame, with no range decreasing of damage, it is very hard to simulate theses weapon and give them utility. :-/
Aliens threshold armor also don't help...

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Appreciate the mod even if I'm not in 100% agreement with it. :)  Thanks for the update.

Don't hesitate to tell me what you don't like and why. (whatever if it could be gameplay reasons or else).

Have you try autocannon ? if yes, do you use it ? it's the most modified weapon compared to vanilla.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Solarius Scorch on August 25, 2014, 06:26:21 pm
Ingame, with no range decreasing of damage, it is very hard to simulate theses weapon

But it's not true. O_o What about the dropoff flag? And the other one (forgot the exact name), which defines the number of tiles after which accuracy dropoff is applied?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Harald_Gray on August 25, 2014, 06:59:40 pm
But it's not true. O_o What about the dropoff flag? And the other one (forgot the exact name), which defines the number of tiles after which accuracy dropoff is applied?
dropoff only influences accuracy, not damage. So you can't create a weapon that has high close-range damage that decreases as the distance to target increases. Something like birdshot, which can be deadly at close ranges but quickly loses power.

Or at least I don't know how to create such a weapon now.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Solarius Scorch on August 25, 2014, 08:04:42 pm
I was pretty sure it said accuracy... I shouldn't post right after work.

Now excuse me, I need to stick my head in the oven.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 26, 2014, 04:28:16 am
Some more minor issues:

Even with the 1.5b ruleset, I can still purchase HC-AP ammo at game start.  I did a little checking and figured out how to fix it for you.  In your ruleset, you removed the costBuy line for the STR_HC_AP_AMMO.  However, since it's still defined in Xcom1Ruleset.rul, it carries through.  But, if you put "costBuy: 0" in your ruleset, then it resets that value and it won't show up for sale.  I just tested it and it actually works. :)

Also, I'm in February and can research a Plasma Sniper Rifle that was recovered on the last mission.  The only research projects I've completed at this point is Alien Alloys and Medikit.  I took a shot at figuring this one out too, and was able to get it removed from the research list at my current point in the game.  However, I'm unable to test it further to make sure it is research-able when it *should* be and doesn't have any unwanted side effects.

Your ruleset is as follows:

Code: [Select]
research:
  - name: STR_PLASMA_SNIPER_RIFLE
    cost: 0
    points: 0
    needItem: true     
  - name: STR_PLASMA_SNIPER_RIFLE_PROD
    cost: 700
    points: 25   
    dependencies:
      - STR_ALIEN_ORIGINS
      - STR_ELERIUM_115
      - STR_PLASMA_SNIPER_RIFLE
    listOrder: 3950

I "reversed" the logic of the way you have it set up and treated it similarly to the Plasma Canon as follows:

Code: [Select]
research:
  - name: STR_PLASMA_SNIPER_RIFLE
    cost: 700
    points: 25   
    needItem: true
    dependencies:
      - STR_ALIEN_ORIGINS
      - STR_ELERIUM_115
      - STR_PLASMA_SNIPER_RIFLE_PROD
    listOrder: 3950
  - name: STR_PLASMA_SNIPER_RIFLE_PROD
    cost: 0
    dependencies:
      - STR_ALIEN_ORIGINS
      - STR_ELERIUM_115
    unlocks:
      - STR_PLASMA_SNIPER_RIFLE

Hmm ... looking at that I'm not sure why you would even need the _PROD definition.  Well, I'm certainly no expert so I won't presume to think this solves the problem as you intend it to be solved, but perhaps it's helpful to you in figuring that out.  It has at least removed it as research-able from my game in the meantime.  I suppose I'll see if it shows up when it is supposed to.  ???

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Have you try autocannon ? if yes, do you use it ? it's the most modified weapon compared to vanilla.

I haven't been able to use it much yet.  I carry it every mission but it's hard to get deployed in a useful spot due to high TU cost and friendly-fire concerns.  Also, a few times the soldier carrying it has been taken out before it could fire.  I'm anxious to make it useful, though.  My go-to weapon seems to be the heavy cannon loaded with HE.  The guy carrying that has more kills than anybody.  I've relied on HE/grenades for most of the kills to this point.  I've soured on the sniper rifle a bit because it's no longer 1-shot kill.  Have to be much more careful how it's used for that reason.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 26, 2014, 01:23:38 pm
hum, don't change anything to research of aliens weapons. I'll explain the logic :
Some item give you a fake research which only unlock research patch. It is invisible to you (or it should be). For example, sniper plasma and toxigun a pre-requisite for research of powersuit. But you don't need research theses two weapons, you need only to found them in battle, and bring back to your base.

The idea is your scientists receive mission to design a better armor against theses new weapons, even if we don't know yet exactly how they work : soldier report they kills them in personal armour and it is sufficient to research better armor.

So when you bring back some weapon they unlock some research. But for using them and produce them, you need research them as normal. (maybe in future I will make two step for each weapon : first you learn, quiclky, how to use them, but unable to produce. Then, you'll learn how to produce. It's more realistic, but maybe this could be make some unwanted gameplay effects by releasing aliens weapon too quickly in xcom hands. I don't known yet.)

But there is two problems with your game :
- found a sniper rifle in febuary is too early
- you shouldn't see the research

I will investigate.

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I haven't been able to use it much yet.  I carry it every mission but it's hard to get deployed in a useful spot due to high TU cost and friendly-fire concerns.  Also, a few times the soldier carrying it has been taken out before it could fire.  I'm anxious to make it useful, though.

Try to use it like a real LMG. The guy who carry it should be cover by his friend when he run to position. He don't need to reserve TUs because he can't fire after moving so, he must run as fast as he can to reach the good position. The best position is not behind his friend, but at their side. Smoke grenade often usefull to help him to run in a good position. Often, I sent another guy with him, which carry sniper rifle or rocket launcher. They two can save the battle (or just do nothing in waiting lol )

You can also make him shot the first, before his friends run in his line of fire. For example, in farms maps, explode farms with autocannon before run to them. You can also hide him behind wood wall, and force fire throught it will clear the way and make bad surprise for aliens.

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I've soured on the sniper rifle a bit because it's no longer 1-shot kill.  Have to be much more careful how it's used for that reason.

In many cases the shot has so badly injured the alien that in his turn it will run away even it is not dead.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 26, 2014, 02:15:06 pm
I've made search but it seem impossible to make invisible the unlocking research if it has the "needitem" flag.  :-\
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 26, 2014, 03:15:00 pm
hum, don't change anything to research of aliens weapons. I'll explain the logic :
Some item give you a fake research which only unlock research patch. It is invisible to you (or it should be). For example, sniper plasma and toxigun a pre-requisite for research of powersuit. But you don't need research theses two weapons, you need only to found them in battle, and bring back to your base.

Yeah, figured something else was going on I hadn't figured out yet.  Probably should have mentioned it and then left it alone. :-\

I can't say exactly when I found the Plasma Sniper Rifle but I think it was from an Excavator.  It was before my 2nd terror mission and the only UFOs I've recovered are Small Scouts, Large Scouts and an Excavator.  Now, in March, I have 2 of them in my inventory and I didn't run across another Excavator, so I'm not sure if that came from the terror site or not.  Sorry, I don't have more saves to better track it down.

Only other mods I'm using are Luke's Extra UFOs and Hobbes Terrain.

Thanks.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 26, 2014, 04:10:03 pm
I just make another one month before sniper plasma appear it should be enought.

And change my mind about research path. Because it not be possible to do what I have think, I change pre-requisite for powered armor to a new tech "improved armor" quick to make, and unlockable by same thing than plasma cannon (any research of plasma rifle, heavy, blaster or sniper). This new armor tech also indicate what others tech are needed for research new armor, so the player should not be lost.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 28, 2014, 05:56:01 am
Sorry to be bearer of bad news, but just downloaded 1.6 from mod site and it's missing Sniper_AA_clip.gif from Resources.

Started up when I put a dummy file in it's place.

On to next experience.  Got to April and ran into my first Sectoid terror.  It wasn't exactly pleasant.  I'm sensing a theme in that once again, my Skyranger started out surrounded by 5 Cyberdiscs.  I guess I should have just ran away, but I was stubborn and thought I'd see what I could do.  Answer: not much.

I actually did take down 2 of them before running away with my 1 panicked soldier inside the Skyranger.  Looking up the ruleset, I see they are vulnerable to Plasma and Acid.  Yeah, that's no help.  Thing is, I thought I was prepared.  I had several heavy HE weapons and also alloy AP rounds for the Heavy Cannon.  I had high hopes the auto-cannon would be able to greatly contribute to their demise.  Never got a chance to fire it.  I even had a pile of High Explosives, most of which exploded on the corpses of soldiers who couldn't throw them far enough to even reach the Cyberdisc, let alone get out of the blast zone in time if they could have reached the terror unit.  Ran into 1 Sectoid the entire battle, so occupied I was with the Cyberdiscs.  I did get 2 soldiers mind controlled once everybody started panicking, though.  I learned that the AI will do melee attacks with unarmed units.  That was exciting.

Anyway, I don't see how Cyberdiscs can be successfully dealt with if you can't isolate them one at a time.  So, it looks like next time I run into them, I need to run away unless I'm packing serious plasma weapons.

Saw something weird with 1.6.  The Sniper Rifle now only has Snap Shot mode.  Seemed the same as before, just labelled differently.  I see you're putting them in your own ruleset so I don't know if this is intentional or not.  Earlier I had my first experience with Snakemen which was much more positive.  Actually defeated a Large Scout with no losses and only 1 wounded soldier.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 28, 2014, 12:27:03 pm
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Sorry to be bearer of bad news, but just downloaded 1.6 from mod site and it's missing Sniper_AA_clip.gif from Resources.

I continously forgot some files, sorry :'(

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On to next experience.  Got to April and ran into my first Sectoid terror.  It wasn't exactly pleasant.  I'm sensing a theme in that once again, my Skyranger started out surrounded by 5 Cyberdiscs.  I guess I should have just ran away, but I was stubborn and thought I'd see what I could do.  Answer: not much.

It's sad but in fact cyberdiscs are the aliens I have modified the less. I have add them some vulnerabilities where they haven't not. Began the game with 5 near the skyranger door is really bad luck.
The best weapon for hunt them in my mod is rocket launcher + small HEAT rockets. But is cyberdics are packed in front of the door, you can do nothing.

Demolition explosives are not suited against cyberdiscs (except maybe if you use some guy to attract their reaction fire before trying to send him the explosive).

Plasma and Acid can't helping so much because the time you get them, you probably don't face cyberdiscs anymore (for now).

I my game I have run into a sectoide terror also, with only 6 huy because all other wounded. one HWP alloy rocket, and one HWP cannon normal one (to fit the hole of wounded guy). There was 6 cyberdiscs but I have the chance they aren't near skyranger doors. Result : win without soldier lost but cannon hWP destroyed, rocket one finish with 15 HP, and all my mens badly wounded (and nearly all the map destroyed, no civilians saved ^^" two killed by my rockets... score nearly 0 )

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I learned that the AI will do melee attacks with unarmed units.  That was exciting.

I never saw that, and it shouldn't be the result of my mod. What have you see exactly ?

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Saw something weird with 1.6.  The Sniper Rifle now only has Snap Shot mode.


It's normal. The game don't allow reaction fire with other mode than "snap" so I have gave sniper rifle only a snap shot with same TUs thant previous aimed one. It can be little weird but this way the sniper rifle really act like it should.
The autocannon still don't have snap mode, it should not allowed to fire in reaction (too dangerous friendly fire).
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 28, 2014, 03:23:36 pm
It's sad but in fact cyberdiscs are the aliens I have modified the less. I have add them some vulnerabilities where they haven't not.

Actually, when I was looking at the stats, I did notice they were pretty much the same as vanilla.  I should have been clear that I wasn't really commenting about your mod specifically, just the situation in general.  The difference is that even if they show up in vanilla at the end of January, I've got at least a few laser pistols to deal with them.  There's no weapons like that at this point.  That's not a complaint or praise of your mod, just an observation.  I think the thing that frustrates me most, and again, this has nothing to do with your mod, is that you can't tell how effective a weapon is.  "OK, I hit that cyberdisc with 3 Heavy Cannon shots and it's still standing ... is it almost dead or is it completely shrugging them off?"  I did have a few Heat rounds and I'm sure the 2 I was able to take down were because of those.  Actually finished one off with the Sniper Rifle but had previously hit it with a rocket and several heavy cannon rounds.  So yeah, the intent was not to disparrage your mod but to vent some frustration at the situation.  The game seems to like to put me in situations like that.  The lesson is that once I realized the situation I was in, I should have left right then.

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Demolition explosives are not suited against cyberdiscs (except maybe if you use some guy to attract their reaction fire before trying to send him the explosive).

I recall seeing videos of vanilla where these Heavy Explosives were used early as Cyberdisc killers, but now I realize that your changes make them unusable for that purpose.

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Plasma and Acid can't helping so much because the time you get them, you probably don't face cyberdiscs anymore (for now).

Exactly.  I guess one solution is to carry several rocket launchers on the Skyranger and regroup/reequip as necessary.

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I my game I have run into a sectoide terror also, with only 6 huy because all other wounded. one HWP alloy rocket, and one HWP cannon normal one (to fit the hole of wounded guy). There was 6 cyberdiscs but I have the chance they aren't near skyranger doors. Result : win without soldier lost but cannon hWP destroyed, rocket one finish with 15 HP, and all my mens badly wounded (and nearly all the map destroyed, no civilians saved ^^" two killed by my rockets... score nearly 0 )

I didn't have any HWP.  I usually take 1 but I replaced it with 4 recruits thinking that might be better in this case.  Have to rethink that.  ???

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I never saw that, and it shouldn't be the result of my mod. What have you see exactly ?

Sorry, again that was not meant to be a comment on your mod just on the OXC AI.  But, once things completely fell apart, my entire remaining squad panicked and dropped their weapons.  I had tried to loan them onto the Skyranger.  Then, next round, 2 of them were mind controlled.  One of them without a weapon ran over and whacked another one.  I've never seen that before so I think it's a new OXC AI thing, which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it.  :P
 
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It's normal. The game don't allow reaction fire with other mode than "snap" so I have gave sniper rifle only a snap shot with same TUs thant previous aimed one. It can be little weird but this way the sniper rifle really act like it should.
The autocannon still don't have snap mode, it should not allowed to fire in reaction (too dangerous friendly fire).

Ah!  Figured it was intentional just didn't know why.  Never knew that about.  I like that even if it looks funny.

Anyway, sorry if you thought I was criticizing.  Just that misery loves company and all. :)

I'll keep plugging away at it.  I'm always interested to see other's take on the "ideal"  version of the game.  I'll let you know if something really bugs me.  :P
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 28, 2014, 05:02:42 pm
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Then, next round, 2 of them were mind controlled.  One of them without a weapon ran over and whacked another one.  I've never seen that before so I think it's a new OXC AI thing, which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. 

This seem already weird for me. maybe it's a bug, you should submit it ?

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Anyway, sorry if you thought I was criticizing.  Just that misery loves company and all. :)

No problem, I am happy to receive commentary. :)

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I recall seeing videos of vanilla where these Heavy Explosives were used early as Cyberdisc killers, but now I realize that your changes make them unusable for that purpose.

I never been a fan of this, even in vanilla's because if the cyberdiscs is fliyng... you're dead. Kill them with HEAT rocket seem more logical, but it is dangerous because of the high reaction/accuracy cyberdisc fire.
So I think use HWP in terror mission is a must, at least while you don't have :
- good soldier armor
- good advanced heavy weapon (laser or plasma)
HWP can sustain more fire and do good diversion. And in my mod, because I have slightly raise their weapon power, they can match aliens terrors weapons (but you have only one and them have plenty :p ). In early time, aliens use many shotgun-like plasma and pistols, deadly, but the alloy HWP is nearly invincible and could be save your team. After aliens begun to use disolvers and snipers/heavy plasma well... luck is your best friend :p
But in UFOs recovery mission, HWP can be less usefull than 4 soldiers, even rookies.

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"OK, I hit that cyberdisc with 3 Heavy Cannon shots and it's still standing ... is it almost dead or is it completely shrugging them off?"

I have trying to do something about that by reduce the cost of mind probe (research cost) and make it prerequisite for nearly all aliens things. I have also reduce the TU usage for using the probe. But for me the ideal should be our soldiers being able to see if the target seem to be injured or remain intact. But there is no such thing in XCom.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: XCOMFan419 on August 28, 2014, 11:06:44 pm
I always take a HWP on missions with me. Especially with my own mod, TDS installed. The game provides much more options a Paramilitary force would, including Close-Support grenade launcher tanks and long range support Artillery tanks. With the included mods (minigun and gauss) I have changed them slightly so that they are not underpowered anymore, though the minigun tank still needs tweaking. Not only that, but I have added new tanks, such as Tank/Plasma Cannon and Hovertank/Scatter laser. I am planning, that once I get up a test ruleset, I am adding in my own Alloy Tanks (preferably blue) to the game, which will be a stopgap between Hovertanks and regular tanks.

This gives people much more options when staring at the equipment screen. Do they want to play it safe and have a few scouts and have an artillery battery sit at the edge of the map? Do they want to go in guns blazing with the Tank/Cannon? Do they want to rush technology and Elerium so they can produce the heavier tanks, and then ultimately the Hovertanks?

So why am I saying this? HWP have value outside of terror missions. If that HWP can take a snapshot at the sectoid with a plasma pistol when all your rookies have no more time units after trying to shoot the sectoid with no luck, would you do it or would you skip the turn and hope that the rookie survives?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 29, 2014, 03:53:20 am
So why am I saying this? HWP have value outside of terror missions. If that HWP can take a snapshot at the sectoid with a plasma pistol when all your rookies have no more time units after trying to shoot the sectoid with no luck, would you do it or would you skip the turn and hope that the rookie survives?

Funny thing is, I always take a HWP on normal missions.  Guess with a terror mission I was thinking I needed the extra soldiers instead, less concentration of force or something.  But to me, that's the point of the HWPs.  I see videos of people using them as primary weapons and I ask myself why when they can let their soldiers get experience or at least attempt to do so.  However, I try to keep the HWP as a last ditch offense.  However, in the case with a Sectoid with a Plasma Pistol, I'd probably just park the HWP in front of the soldiers to distract the Sectoid.  'Course that has backfired on me on occassion when the Sectoid pulls out an Alien Grenade and gets both the HWP and a soldier or two.   :-[
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 29, 2014, 11:32:20 am
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I always take a HWP on missions with me.

Well in fact I also take one HWP each time, but when I have powersuit and psilabo, usually I don't use them so much.

I think the usefullness of HWP depend on what difficulty mod you play, and if it's ironman or not.

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Guess with a terror mission I was thinking I needed the extra soldiers instead, less concentration of force or something.

I prefer having something armored to take reactions shot of aliens eventulally surrounding the skyrangers doors ;)
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Harald_Gray on August 29, 2014, 11:45:08 am
As I've said elsewhere, people have different playstyles. I use HWPs mainly as scouts and bait, to find targets, to soak up reaction fire and alien-turn shots. Secondary role is backup heavy firepower/last chance shots. Yes, rocket tank costs half a million while a rookie forty grand but veteran soldiers have greater value and come late game, even combat ready rookies cost a lot (because of selection during hiring, selection during psionic training, new armor...). Furthermore, tanks heal instantly, so even if damaged, they're back in action as soon the Skyranger lands.

And I'd never attempt an early game terror without a HWP. And the reason is I fear psionics plus I've learned that terror missions can be so crowded you start with several aliens in front of the Skyranger. More guys is good but a HWP brings an entirely different set of abilities/stats.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 29, 2014, 05:03:08 pm
Quote
Furthermore, tanks heal instantly, so even if damaged, they're back in action as soon the Skyranger lands.

This is really a good point !


Theses discussion about HWP make me think to what really lack for the player : some lure to attract alien reaction fire, especially when you try to run out off the skyranger and are surrounded.

Some ideas :
- scout drone (must be either cheaper or resistant but not weak and costly)
- robot designed to seem be a soldier, unarmed, but heavily armored : just make it walk in alien line of sight and make it be the good pigeon. Buildable with same technologies than powered armors, could be a flying machine able to float in air like floatter, because it's easiest to do than legs, and less fragile.
- holographic device, could be inspired by the holodrone terrorist

I search a good idea for the begining of game, lthe scout drone is interesting for scouting, but not for lure and attract fire. Ideas ?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: XCOMFan419 on August 29, 2014, 05:17:36 pm
Theses discussion about HWP make me think to what really lack for the player : some lure to attract alien reaction fire, especially when you try to run out off the skyranger and are surrounded.
That does get annoying after a while.

- scout drone (must be either cheaper or resistant but not weak and costly)

Two mods already exist for that. Arpia's scout drone and Aldorn's Tank/Snoop.

- robot designed to seem be a soldier, unarmed, but heavily armored : just make it walk in alien line of sight and make it be the good pigeon. Buildable with same technologies than powered armors, could be a flying machine able to float in air like floatter, because it's easiest to do than legs, and less fragile.

Already a mod for this...basically. Svahn's Powersuit Drones. One Assault drone and One Scout drone, of course there is a Hammer Heavy Artillery Drone, but I don't believe it works properly. Any ways, the Scout Drone comes equipped with 150 TU and a laser rifle, while the Assault Drone comes with a 100 TU and a plasma rifle.

- holographic device, could be inspired by the holodrone terrorist
Unsure. But it could be a good idea.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 29, 2014, 08:41:45 pm
Just noticed an issue with your ruleset and don't know if it's intentional or not.

I tried to replay that disastrous terror mission I talked about above.  I did better but still got wiped out.  I didn't notice earlier, but when I abandoned the mission, I got 22 points for recovered alien artifacts.  My sole surviving soldier didn't bring any alien artifacts with him.  To test, I restarted the battle and
immediately took off, and noticed I received 38 points for recovered alien artifacts. 

Is this some general OXC thing, or due to your ruleset?  Doing some checking, I notice your ruleset has "recoverypoints" lines for the various weapons, such as Machine Pistol, Sniper Rifle, etc.  So, it seems the game is counting these weapons as recovered and assigning points.  Also makes me wonder if you bring alien weapons with you to a battle and then leave with them, if you also get the points for those.  It would appear to be so as I would think it would be consistent, so it seems like a general OXC issue.  That aside, do you really want "recoverypoints" assigned to XCom weapons?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Falko on August 29, 2014, 09:21:37 pm
you cant put unresearched alien weapons on a craft
after research you dont get points anymore
why there are recoverypoints assigned to earth tech no idea.. it should not be
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Dioxine on August 29, 2014, 09:45:02 pm
There is a third option Falko missed:
If you define a thing as useable without tech prerequisite AND add recovery points (example: alien corpse), it will grant recovery points on every mission this piece of equipment is present. This is what happens here. I had the same problem cropping up in Piratez thankfully it never made it to the public release...
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 29, 2014, 09:46:54 pm
you cant put unresearched alien weapons on a craft
after research you dont get points anymore

Thanks.  Wasn't at a point where I could check that myself so I'm glad I posted here first instead of making a bug report, or something.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 29, 2014, 10:25:13 pm
Quote
Is this some general OXC thing, or due to your ruleset?  Doing some checking, I notice your ruleset has "recoverypoints" lines for the various weapons, such as Machine Pistol, Sniper Rifle, etc.  So, it seems the game is counting these weapons as recovered and assigning points.

This come from the MiB mod where some earth tech have recovery point if you fight against MiB.
I've thank the recovery points only apply if theses weapons are really gain in the battle and not if you bring with you ?

If it's not a bug, I will remove the recovery points for MiB weapons.

I have also found a bad issue, the game crash if you try to use the craft plasma cannon. I don't have found the problem for now, this should be come from the plasma beam.

@XCOMFan419 : I know theses various mods, but I ask a more general question. The scout drone has unbalanced stats. Powersuit assault drones don't feet to my idea because if they can shot, they can totally replace soldiers or HWP and I don't want that.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 29, 2014, 10:35:18 pm
This come from the MiB mod where some earth tech have recovery point if you fight against MiB.
I've thank the recovery points only apply if theses weapons are really gain in the battle and not if you bring with you ?

Apparently, that's only the case if you've researched it.  Now that you mention it, I recall this being discussed in the MiB topic.

As a corollary, looking through your ruleset, you are also missing the recovery points for a number of the plasma weapons including Heavy Plasma and Plasma Rifle, but they exist for others such as Plasma Blaster and Toxigun.  FWIW
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 29, 2014, 11:46:18 pm
Recovery points for aliens weapons are already included in the game so it is only visible for the new weapons which have not vanilla's versions.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Dioxine on August 30, 2014, 04:09:56 am
It doesn't matter to the game if you've brought something with you or found it on the battlefield. All items go through post-battle recovery (and recovery point payments) routine. Likewise, if you bring a non-recoverable item with you from the base, it's going to disappear after the battle (thrown out the window, if you will). Long story short, never give any recovery points to an item that's not "alien artifact" (requires research). I don't think you get any recovery score for non-recoverables, but I can be wrong about that.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 31, 2014, 08:12:20 am
Just wondering about the HWP Laser Cannons.  What's the rationale behind requiring them to have ammunition when no other laser weapons, even the craft laser, don't require ammunition.  Whether it's true or not, I always figured the HWP cannons were just the fighter cannons mounted on a thank.  Maybe it's a balance thing but the inconsistency seems odd.  Is it possible to limit the shots of the laser cannon without requiring ammo?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 31, 2014, 12:04:50 pm
Quote
Long story short, never give any recovery points to an item that's not "alien artifact" (requires research).

So we can let the recocevry points for laser weaponry (if MiB use it) and they will not give any points when the player has researched them ?
I have remove recovery points for sniper rifle and uzi.

Quote
Just wondering about the HWP Laser Cannons.  What's the rationale behind requiring them to have ammunition when no other laser weapons, even the craft laser, don't require ammunition.  Whether it's true or not, I always figured the HWP cannons were just the fighter cannons mounted on a thank.  Maybe it's a balance thing but the inconsistency seems odd.  Is it possible to limit the shots of the laser cannon without requiring ammo?

The idea is lasers cannon in craft are powered by the craft himself, but HWP have some kind of battery because they use the same gun, but have no the same power engine. So I wanted to make HWP more limited than the craft cannon and tht why I have add ammunition. But thinking to it I seem you have a point, it don't seem really rationale. Maybe I just have to reduce the number of shot (maybe 15 or 20) and deleted the ammunition.

I have think to my idea of a new lure drone, and think to something could be interesting :
- use the calcinite design of TFTD
- is a robot heavily armored (in comparision to soldier, but not to HWP)
- have only a melee stun weapon (it can use his internal power to deliver high electric choc )
question : how work the zombification by chrysalids ? it should not be possible to make a zombie with a robot.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 31, 2014, 03:57:44 pm
I have think to my idea of a new lure drone, and think to something could be interesting :
- use the calcinite design of TFTD
- is a robot heavily armored (in comparision to soldier, but not to HWP)
- have only a melee stun weapon (it can use his internal power to deliver high electric choc )
question : how work the zombification by chrysalids ? it should not be possible to make a zombie with a robot.

Sounds interesting.  There's a "zombieUnit" parameter so it looks like as long as you don't define that, it'll be similar to the Stunrod.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Dioxine on August 31, 2014, 05:44:02 pm
Sadly, any 1x1 unit will be zombified by a Chryssalid when killed. I have no idea how to disable that, probably it's impossible.

ZombieUnit is a parameter of a weapon which states "what unit spawns when a 1x1 unit gets killed by this weapon".
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: wsmithjr on August 31, 2014, 06:23:17 pm
Sadly, any 1x1 unit will be zombified by a Chryssalid when killed. I have no idea how to disable that, probably it's impossible.

ZombieUnit is a parameter of a weapon which states "what unit spawns when a 1x1 unit gets killed by this weapon".

So, then, does it have to be a Chryssalid weapon?  Can you just define it like a Reaper or a built-in Stunrod?  The Bio-Drone in TFTD had a nice electric attack if you can use that.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 31, 2014, 07:04:50 pm
There is no problem for give him a stun weapon. It's another problem I asked if it can be turn in zombie by a chryssalid and sadly it seem be. But the scout drone and 1x1 robots likes enforcers have the same problem.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: smexyvami on August 31, 2014, 08:54:09 pm
is there a flag you can turn off ?
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 31, 2014, 09:00:34 pm
No, zombies are defined by two things :

1- a weapon where you can tel this weapon turn is target in zombie (and something hardcoded which disable this for 4x4 units)

2-a flag on each unit where you can choose in which unit they will transform if they die.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Harald_Gray on August 31, 2014, 10:02:59 pm
The only sort-of-workaround regarding zombification I can think of is giving the robot high melee resistance. Sure, it will not solve the problem - but it will mitigate it, as chryssalids and zombies are the only vanilla units that use melee attacks.

Say the robot has armor 60. Giving it melee resistance 0.3 gives it about 90% probability of surving a chryssalid hit unharmed and the average damage of succesfull hits will be around 4. So it will take *many* chryssalid hits to zombify it.

However, this would make them, shall we say, highly resistant to melee. More resistant than tanks, in fact. You can play with the numbers (change the armor and resistance values) to find the balance you'll like but there are limits to what you can achieve this way.

Maybe one could say that a robot destroyed by chryssalids was so full of chryssalid eggs and plastics there was enough food in there for a new chryssalid to grow  ;D
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on August 31, 2014, 11:59:31 pm
Well, why not but how can explain the humanoïd zombie step before new chrysalids ? ^^"

There is also reaper who fight by melee, and for now, my reaper do 90+strenght damage, precisely to outpass the melee resistance of HWP (who are immune to chrysalids and cybermite - melee attack also). Make the reaper unable to destroy a robot-lure seem nonsense :/

But I have think to alternate way : make not a humanoïde drone, but some little flying saucer thing. Player surely use it in flying over the ground and so, chrysalids can't reach it.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 01, 2014, 01:56:30 pm
I added in v1.7 two scouts drone :
- the caterpillar tracked one,
- a small flying saucer we can produce with discover of alien alloys, anti-grave module and cyberdiscs autopsie (the nex research "flying drones" become also a pre-requisite for hovertanks)

This need already some tests to adjust the balance and see if the problem with zombies need something.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 02, 2014, 01:12:08 pm
The last new weapons for aliens : a "fusion rifle" with the new damage type which is really armor piercing (old acid) and able to one shot a HWP but usually don't kill a soldier in less than two shot.

The eleriums shell are xcom version of this damages types and can made ammo for sniper rifle, autocannon and shotgun (don't know yet if the shotgun's are useful)

I have also finally choose to totally change the armor of mutons : decrease armor to 8-10, and up theur damages resistances to 60-40%. I have found tiers 3 aliens too many armored and make pistols and many rifles nearly useless. With this modifications, mutons are long to kill, but can be injured even by pistols, while gazer and ethereal are nearly immune to small arms, but can be easily one shot by anti-tank stuffs. (mutons can't : because they haven't really armor now, anti-armor weapons treat them as unarmoured target, and because they have plenty HP, they can survive many shot of for example sniper anti-tank shot, or fusion rifle shot).
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: pkrcel on September 04, 2014, 12:31:00 pm
No, zombies are defined by two things :

1- a weapon where you can tel this weapon turn is target in zombie (and something hardcoded which disable this for 4x4 units)

2-a flag on each unit where you can choose in which unit they will transform if they die.

Then why not use option 2 to "transform" the dead robot in  a new creature.....chrissalyd eggs? ? no strenght and no TUs whats'oever, unrecoverable, etc..etc...basically a "living item" that dies (whizzels, drys up, whatever..) at the end of the mission.  All and any robot could be "zombiefied" in this. I guess.





 ;D
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 04, 2014, 07:08:20 pm
No, this can't work. It's the chrysalid weapon which make a zombie, of any unit. And it's the second flag which do a new chrysalid of a zombie.

We can use this flag to produce any new creature when we kill someting (except zombies), but this can't remove the zombification made by chrysalids.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Falko on September 04, 2014, 07:36:46 pm
We can use this flag to produce any new creature when we kill someting (except zombies),
why not zombies?
you can generate the same creature again like my idea in Chrysalids from Hell see https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2367.msg25504#msg25504
more fun would be a mod where you also have 3-4 types of zombies, beginning with slow but strong to a fast but weaker version
so you as soon as you "damage" a zombie he gots faster and runs to you to kill you :)
of course also the health/armor values need to be rebalanced for a 4in1-zombie
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 04, 2014, 09:05:46 pm
why not zombies ? because they have already the flag for become chrysalids.

Changing zombies could be interesting but for me it isn't in my flavor of xcom. And eitherway, my problem was to avoid 1x1 HWP units become zombies, and not changing anything to the vanilla's chrysalids <-> zombies mechanics.  ;)

But I think I will try to make more terrorists user of the spawn flag, like for exemple the holodrone : the first one fire laser or plasma, and if you kill it, it'll respwan but now shot explosive shells even more deadly. surprise !  :P
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Falko on September 04, 2014, 09:24:32 pm
But I think I will try to make more terrorists user of the spawn flag, like for exemple the holodrone : the first one fire laser or plasma, and if you kill it, it'll respwan but now shot explosive shells even more deadly. surprise !  :P
nice idea it would bring some variety
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 09, 2014, 12:53:28 pm
I have add alien modifications of crews with some mixed aliens in the v1.8

Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 14, 2014, 01:15:46 pm
The v1.8b include a separate ruleset for only aliens stats modifications, with the three new races of Robin.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Fred558 on September 20, 2014, 10:55:58 pm
While using this mod my game crashed when my base is attacked.

I thought it was conflicting with one of the other mods, but even if I only select this mod it crashes.

What I did find out if I disable all other mods and only activate "scoutdrone" mod, it also crashes.
I believe it is also included in this mod. Maybe someone could look into it, because I am not skilled enough to locate the exact problem.

Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: ivandogovich on September 20, 2014, 11:14:47 pm
What I did find out if I disable all other mods and only activate "scoutdrone" mod, it also crashes.
I believe it is also included in this mod. Maybe someone could look into it, because I am not skilled enough to locate the exact problem.

There is a problem with the scout drone and its ammo crashing on base defenses.  I modded the scout drone in my pack (UpClose) to not use ammo.  Instead it has unlimited ammo like the laser tank.  This has been suggested as a solution for this issue though there maybe be others.  I'd check the scout drone thread as it discusses this further.

Cheers, Ivan :D
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Solarius Scorch on September 21, 2014, 02:31:44 am
The drone ammo is missing the battlesprite. Try this:

Code: [Select]
  - type: STR_SCOUT_DRONE
    size: 6
    costBuy: 200000
    costSell: 140000
    transferTime: 72
    weight: 10
    bigSprite: 90
    bulletSprite: 3
    fireSound: 72
    compatibleAmmo:
      - STR_SCOUT_SMOKE
    accuracySnap: 100
    tuSnap: 20
    battleType: 1
    fixedWeapon: true
    arcingShot: true
    invWidth: 2
    invHeight: 3
    listOrder: 1090
  - type: STR_SCOUT_SMOKE
    size: 0.1
    costBuy: 100
    costSell: 50
    transferTime: 48
    weight: 0
    bigSprite: -1
    floorSprite: 12
    power: 55
    clipSize: 6
    damageType: 9
    battleType: 2
    maxRange: 3
    listOrder: 1091
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 21, 2014, 12:23:53 pm
Quote
What I did find out if I disable all other mods and only activate "scoutdrone" mod, it also crashes.
I believe it is also included in this mod. Maybe someone could look into it, because I am not skilled enough to locate the exact problem.

Sorry for the inconvenience. This ruleset should resolve the problem with solarius advice. Please tell me if it's work, I have no attack base savegame to test it (and the attack base mission in training seem work but the scout drone don't appear, so I don't know if the problem is really solved)
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Solarius Scorch on September 21, 2014, 02:08:52 pm
Have you adjusted the indexes, like bigSprite, fireSound etc.? I forgot to mention this, but you probably know it if you're modding rulesets.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 21, 2014, 04:48:29 pm
Of course, I have look at your code and see the only thing missing in mine is the "floorsprite", so I add only this.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Fred558 on September 21, 2014, 11:37:35 pm
Sorry for the inconvenience. This ruleset should resolve the problem with solarius advice. Please tell me if it's work, I have no attack base savegame to test it (and the attack base mission in training seem work but the scout drone don't appear, so I don't know if the problem is really solved)

Well, no problem at all.
Happy I can locate a bug and help solve it. I really enjoy your modpack.
I only dislike the autogun picture. I kind of like the look of the original one. :-)

Anyway, I am playing on Ironman mode now, so the savegame before base attack is gone now. But I guess it won't be long till I am attacked again. I'll keep you posted.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 22, 2014, 11:54:28 am
Quote
Happy I can locate a bug and help solve it. I really enjoy your modpack.

Thank you very much :)

Quote
I only dislike the autogun picture. I kind of like the look of the original one. :-)

Interesting. Personally I always not really like the vanilla's heavy cannon and auto cannon, found them too weird, make my mind unable to think what they really are.  ::)
If you want go back to the original it's easy, in the ruleset, delete the two line with "7: Resources/Lebashar_Rebalanced/floorob_Minigun_Light.gif"

I wonder if you use the autocannon, what do you think of it ? I'm not already totally satified with it because I have found it too powerfull when firing IC shot (with 6x round, the IC initial damage which is not reduce by armor can do so much damage that it can kill a sectopod in only one burst, make the IC ammo the deadiest for the autocannon, able to rip nearly everything which is in line of fire).
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Fred558 on September 23, 2014, 09:22:24 am
Interesting. Personally I always not really like the vanilla's heavy cannon and auto cannon, found them too weird, make my mind unable to think what they really are.  ::)
If you want go back to the original it's easy, in the ruleset, delete the two line with "7: Resources/Lebashar_Rebalanced/floorob_Minigun_Light.gif"

Well, I kind of liked the bulky look.
It indeed does not look like anything from real life, but I guess not everything has to.
Actually the same for the heavy canon, but I also like the look of your picture.   :)

I wonder if you use the autocannon, what do you think of it ? I'm not already totally satified with it because I have found it too powerfull when firing IC shot (with 6x round, the IC initial damage which is not reduce by armor can do so much damage that it can kill a sectopod in only one burst, make the IC ammo the deadiest for the autocannon, able to rip nearly everything which is in line of fire).

It does feel to powerfull now. And a lot of times it kills the target and continues to fire for a long time.
Is it possible to create a different burst fire modes?
Can you make it so you have a short burst and long burst?
Short one maybe 3 shots and long 6 or something. The short one being more accurate and long less of course.
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: Dioxine on September 23, 2014, 07:11:34 pm
I've gotten around the problem with Autocannon by making it even more powerful than Heavy Cannon (which solves the problem with AP/I, as all ammo is deadly), but increasing the weight of the weapon and ammo by a factor of 2 (really needs Powered Armor that boosts strength, or maxed-out soldiers to be used). Oh yeah and the vanilla AC is mostly useless when you enable Extended accuracy...
Title: Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens
Post by: LeBashar on September 23, 2014, 10:45:21 pm
Quote
It does feel to powerfull now. And a lot of times it kills the target and continues to fire for a long time.
Is it possible to create a different burst fire modes?
Can you make it so you have a short burst and long burst?
Short one maybe 3 shots and long 6 or something. The short one being more accurate and long less of course.

It seem impossible to do as long as the number of round is define on the weapon and not on the clip. (maybe this thing could be modified in future with extend mod or something). And as far as I know, it is not possible to make two different autoshot in the same weapon. I have tried to make an illusion of small autoshot by making AP mode shot 3 pellets, and the autoshot mode shot 3x 3 pellets. But the result was not fun nor realist, and I have drop it.
For trying to make "more" shot in AP mode, I have make 2 pellets in this mode, and let HE and IC normal. But with 6 round, there is already far too more round in theses modes... and in the same time the AP shot don't make enought damage in my taste.
I can reduce the number of round. When I choose 6, the accuracy was poor. I have raise it after that and now I think it's too much. And in the same time, I found the damages dones by autocannon on walls and building too small. Not easy to make something satisfying me. :/

Quote
I've gotten around the problem with Autocannon by making it even more powerful than Heavy Cannon (which solves the problem with AP/I, as all ammo is deadly), but increasing the weight of the weapon and ammo by a factor of 2 (really needs Powered Armor that boosts strength, or maxed-out soldiers to be used). Oh yeah and the vanilla AC is mostly useless when you enable Extended accuracy...

I have already silghtly increase the weight, which I think sufficiant because I have also down the max strenght. My auto cannon is only able to be used because of light ammo clip of very low capacity.
And for accuracy, I have made the choice to give him a good accuracy at medium to long range, because it is the purpose of this weapon. The limitation I choose is to make only able to fire in autoshot, and one shot consume nearly all TUs of a turn. And I like this, for me there is only the power balance and number of round which need little more work.

And I must rework all the damage of the elerium ammo (my new anti-armor shell) because I want this able to totally destruct walls even in concrete.