OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => Topic started by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 16, 2020, 10:14:12 pm
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Moved to the GitHub:
https://github.com/tnevolin/openxcomextended-tftd-rework-evolution
Releases:
https://github.com/tnevolin/openxcomextended-tftd-rework-evolution/releases
Hello fellow players.
I adored the TFTD Rework mod. It really adds a lot of sense and challenge into the game. Unfortunately, it stopped working with latest OpenXcom engine. So I took a liberty to fix it and also modify it slightly to my preferences while I can. I am still in the playtesting and some parameters would need to be adjusted. Especially interception combat. However, I think I'll start posting it here for everybody to enjoy.
I've called it "Evolution" to highlight evolutionary development of better and better weapons and to further advance in the game with their help. I.e. better craft armaments allow fight stronger enemy, receive less interceptor damage which equates to less repair time, better responsiveness, ability to knock down more USOs as game progresses and their appearance frequency increases, etc.
README is available by GitHub link above.
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I admit that not everything interests me!
But the "Aliens Sub" part interests me a lot!
Thank you and bravo for your work! :)
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Some play testing of intercept combat revealed the following.
I have measured how fast interceptor approaches UFO/USO and get 0.25 km per game second. That is exactly twice slower that in this article. I have also cross checked my interceptor damage calculation with experimental results and found them close matching my number. So, I conclude the speed in wiki article is incorrect.
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Craft_Combat_Mechanics#Closing_Range
With the above in mind it seems that weapon range is very important parameter for projectile armaments as it defines how long interceptor need to survive before it can start shooting. The combat takes much less time than closing due to quite high projectile armament firepower's. That makes firepower less important then range even when all enemy USOs now shoot from 60 km. So I decided to beef up enemy damage capacity even more and proportionally decrease their power. That would keep them equally dangerous and difficult to shoot but it would tilt air combat resolution toward actual mutual shooting rather than sacrificing interceptors one by one on a way to the enemy.
Sonic hand weapons appear quite late in TFTD Rework mod due to multiple intermediary research dependencies. Therefore, it is an imperative to use Gauss weapons against Lobstermen and Tashots. It is already effective enough against them. Not that much as Sonic weapons but pretty acceptable. Nevertheless, I was thinking to beef it up a little bit more since pre-Sonic period will last quite long. It would be a drag to waste all ammunitions on a simple USO recovery missions over and over again. From the other hand, melee weapons are readily available from the start and are quite effective against Lobstermen. Armor development is progressing quite well too. So further Gauss weapon strengthening may be not necessary. Any community suggestion on that?
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Some play testing of intercept combat revealed the following.
I have measured how fast interceptor approaches UFO/USO and get 0.25 km per game second. That is exactly twice slower that in this article. I have also cross checked my interceptor damage calculation with experimental results and found them close matching my number. So, I conclude the speed in wiki article is incorrect.
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Craft_Combat_Mechanics#Closing_Range
You are both correct.
He calculated with 2gs cannon reload time, you have (probably) calculated with 4gs cannon reload time.
You are also both wrong.
Geoscape time doesn't pass during interceptions and the animation speed is configurable in options, so the concept of dogfight game seconds is completely arbitrary. I could say the cannon reload time is 100gs and would be equally wrong as everyone else :)
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You are right that the Geoscape second is not applicable to dogfight when Geoscape time stops. We are using different second - the ones in weapon fire rate descriptions. That is a different second but it is tied to frame rate and absolutely exactly determines dogfight behavior. Increasing and decreasing configured weapon fire rate correspondingly increases and decreases it's fire rate in dogfight relatively to other events. If you read the article you'll see that author measured everything in some craft weapon fire intervals and then just converted everything to gs using this defined weapon fire rate. And that is completely scientific approach which will produce same exactly results regardless of configured weapon fire rate used in observations and computations!
So it does not matter which weapon to use and what its configured fire rate is as long as experimenter can count number of shots and then multiply them on defined fire rate. One can use 2s cannon rate or 4s or even slower missiles - the result will be the same and correct!
What I am stating is that our results are twice as different. Which is strange as otherwise my calculations are consistent within multiple different measurement methods and interceptor damage calculation model.
What I can think of is that author maybe observed UFO game while I tested it on TFTD and they may indeed be different. So I am going to check UFO too to make sure no one of us is insane.
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I confirm that I have got the same exactly approaching speed in UFO. So I am going to amend this article.
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You are right that the Geoscape second is not applicable to dogfight when Geoscape time stops. We are using different second - the ones in weapon fire rate descriptions. That is a different second but it is tied to frame rate and absolutely exactly determines dogfight behavior. Increasing and decreasing configured weapon fire rate correspondingly increases and decreases it's fire rate in dogfight relatively to other events. If you read the article you'll see that author measured everything in some craft weapon fire intervals and then just converted everything to gs using this defined weapon fire rate. And that is completely scientific approach which will produce same exactly results regardless of configured weapon fire rate used in observations and computations!
So it does not matter which weapon to use and what its configured fire rate is as long as experimenter can count number of shots and then multiply them on defined fire rate. One can use 2s cannon rate or 4s or even slower missiles - the result will be the same and correct!
What I am stating is that our results are twice as different. Which is strange as otherwise my calculations are consistent within multiple different measurement methods and interceptor damage calculation model.
What I can think of is that author maybe observed UFO game while I tested it on TFTD and they may indeed be different. So I am going to check UFO too to make sure no one of us is insane.
a/ it is NOT tied to the frame rate... everything in interception GUI is independent of the frame rate
b/ I know exactly how it works to the last detail (I have read the entire source code for that many times) and I understand your arguments as well, I even started my post with "You are both correct"... really no need to explain this to me
c/ The definition of a unit matters. If your unit of measurement (for the SAME weapon) is 2gs, you will get 0.5 km/s; if your unit of measurement is 4gs, you will get 0.25 km/s.
I confirm that I have got the same exactly approaching speed in UFO. So I am going to amend this article.
Before you update it, maybe post your calculations here, so that we can show you your "mistake".
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Thank you for response. I appreciate you sharing the knowledge and I didn't mean to lecture anybody. Just talk it over to myself to make sure I understand what I am doing.
a/ it is NOT tied to the frame rate... everything in interception GUI is independent of the frame rate
b/ I know exactly how it works to the last detail (I have read the entire source code for that many times) and I understand your arguments as well, I even started my post with "You are both correct"... really no need to explain this to me
c/ The definition of a unit matters. If your unit of measurement (for the SAME weapon) is 2gs, you will get 0.5 km/s; if your unit of measurement is 4gs, you will get 0.25 km/s.
Before you update it, maybe post your calculations here, so that we can show you your "mistake".
[/quote]
I bet you are right. However, all events should be computed somehow in respect to their defined values. What I meant is that if we set one weapon to fire every 5s and another one every 10s than first one will fire exactly twice as fast regardless of video configuration, computer it is running on, etc. Somehow game counts these seconds. I don't know how but this count is supposed to be the same for all objects and events during interception fight. Of course, this is an assumption as I didn't see the code to vouch for it but it is pretty solid game design assumption. It would be exceptionally weird otherwise.
If you know it to the last detail, would you mind sharing how fast interceptor approaches to enemy so we don't need to run these visual tests anymore? 😀
I am sorry, I've already posted it here.
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Craft_Combat_Mechanics#Alternative_closing_speed_observations
However, feel free to criticize it. I always can correct or even delete it based on feedback.
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If you know it to the last detail, would you mind sharing how fast interceptor approaches to enemy so we don't need to run these visual tests anymore? 😀
In OpenXcom (OXC), the approach speed is 2, a constant.
https://github.com/OpenXcom/OpenXcom/blob/master/src/Geoscape/DogfightState.cpp#L798
In OpenXcom Extended (OXCE), the approach speed can be 1, 2, 3 or 4, depending on pilot skills. If there are no pilots, it's just 2.
https://github.com/MeridianOXC/OpenXcom/blob/oxce-plus/src/Geoscape/DogfightState.cpp#L1018
You have probably noticed that I didn't mention kilometers or seconds.
That's because (Open)Xcom doesn't use either of those, it's using arbitrary "xcom distance units per xcom time units".
Xcom distance units can be with a little bit of imagination (based on ingame Ufopedia) converted into kilometers.
The conversion rate to 1:8, e.g. 640 xcom distance units = 80 km.
I have even implemented an option to show distance in the Interception window in kilometers: https://github.com/MeridianOXC/OpenXcom/blob/oxce-plus/src/Geoscape/DogfightState.cpp#L1039
Xcom time units cannot be converted into anything "meaningful":
a/ game/geocape time would be zero
b/ real world time depends on user options (not on frame rate)
But again with a little bit of imagination, we can call one "game tick" as one "game second".
OpenXcom made that assumption and that's why you see cannon reload time in OpenXcom as 4 game seconds.
Original Xcom1994 did not make that assumption and that's why you see cannon reload time in the original as 2 game seconds (even though both reload times are the same (4 ticks), they just define a game second differently... as 2 "game ticks").
So for OpenXcom:
- approach speed is 2 xcom distance units per 1 game tick = 2/8 kilometers per 1 openxcom game second (ogs) = 0.25 km/ogs
For original Xcom1994:
- approach speed is 2 xcom distance units per 1 game tick = 2/8 kilometers per 0.5 xcom1994 game seconds (xgs) = 0.5 km/xgs (= 0.25 km/ogs)
Please note that these two results are the same, there is no paradox or contradiction anywhere.
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First of all, thank you for sharing all of this including code. Very explanatory and informative. I agree about your 0.25 km/ogs interpretation. I meant exactly that. Probably using confusing terms.
I should mention that I use OpenXcom but I thought this was assumed.
Obviously, I didn't mean to calculate how fast this is happening according to real world clocks. Nor that I needed to. The only thing I have started this is to match (proporionally) three parameters: UFO average firing intervals, X-Com craft armament firing intervals, and for how long craft is get clobbered by UFO until it starts shooting back (or other way around). Now they are all tied together and I can use my formulas, thanks to your confirmation.
The value 0.25 km/ogs seems to be right which means that UFO with 60 km range and 10 s firing interval will be able to fire 20 times on average until interceptor approaches at its Cannon range (10 km). That's all I needed to know.
In OpenXcom Extended (OXCE), the approach speed can be 1, 2, 3 or 4, depending on pilot skills. If there are no pilots, it's just 2.
https://github.com/MeridianOXC/OpenXcom/blob/oxce-plus/src/Geoscape/DogfightState.cpp#L1018
I just recently switched to extended version. It seems to have pile of new features but I failed to know them all. Will try to find a manual or description on how to use them.
For the above one specifically, how do I enable it? Is this an option to turn on or mod? How do I hire pilots?
So for OpenXcom:
- approach speed is 2 xcom distance units per 1 game tick = 2/8 kilometers per 1 openxcom game second (ogs) = 0.25 km/ogs
For original Xcom1994:
- approach speed is 2 xcom distance units per 1 game tick = 2/8 kilometers per 0.5 xcom1994 game seconds (xgs) = 0.5 km/xgs (= 0.25 km/ogs)
Please note that these two results are the same, there is no paradox or contradiction anywhere.
Yea. Now I understand that this article was for original XCom and not for OpenXcom. That what threw me off.
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I just recently switched to extended version. It seems to have pile of new features but I failed to know them all. Will try to find a manual or description on how to use them.
For the above one specifically, how do I enable it? Is this an option to turn on or mod? How do I hire pilots?
Changes in game mechanics are almost always enabled by a mod and turned off by default.
You can enable pilots per craft by changing craft ruleset, attribute 'pilots': https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Ruleset_Reference_Nightly_(OpenXcom)#Crafts
Pilots are just designated soldiers, they will also fight in the battlescape.
OXCE changelog is here, but early features such as pilots have evolved a lot, so there is no single documentation place: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.0.html
Yea. Now I understand that this article was for original XCom and not for OpenXcom. That what threw me off.
99% of articles on ufopaedia.org are about the original Xcom.
OpenXcom articles are specifically marked as such, and there are only very few: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/OpenXcom
98% of Xcom articles of course apply to OpenXcom too... but they may be written in a slightly different language or using different numbers, etc. because of reasons... but they should be generally equivalent.
And yes, there are errors on ufopaedia.org, quite a few actually... but it's been written by volunteers, we should be grateful for what we have :)
Btw. Xcom is much more complicated inside than what it seems from the outside... most people find errors which are no errors, and don't recognize real errors when they see them.
Including myself.
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1.7
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Carrying item weight modified. I don't like how heaviest weapon weights same as 4-6 hand grenades. That allows soldiers to carry such supposedly immensely heavy stuff by just not carrying some extra trinkets. Soldiers should become really strong to be able to even lift such stuff. Weapon weight should be an important factor of usability. The primary weapon(s) should mostly define the soldier load and carrying multiple weapons should be costly as opposed to carrying multiple different tools/trinkets.
* All hand weapons (ranged and melee) are heavier proportionally to their power/size/series/level. Pistols are about the same weight. Heavy versions are much heavier, expecially Gauss and Sonic series.
* All clips are are lighter but proportional to their respective weapon weight.
* All explosives keep their weight more or less to keep their thrown distance intact.
* All non weapon tools are significantly lighter.
* Disruptor pulse launcher ammo weight is increased since it is an actual torpedo.
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I have even implemented an option to show distance in the Interception window in kilometers: https://github.com/MeridianOXC/OpenXcom/blob/oxce-plus/src/Geoscape/DogfightState.cpp#L1039
How to turn it on? Could not find it in options or standard mods.
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How to turn it on? Could not find it in options or standard mods.
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Ruleset_Reference_Nightly_(OpenXcom)#Interception
showDogfightDistanceInKm: true
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Found it. Thanks.
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1.8
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Further alien subs and craft armament parameters adjustments.
All alien subs have same reload time now: 24s. This parameter directly affects sub firepower but is not shown in UFOpaedia which makes relative sub firepowers obscure to user. Now when it is same for all alien submarines their UFOpaedia entries with weapon power and damage capacity completely defines their corresponding aggressiveness and toughness. Now when player sees one alien sub having twice more powerful weapon they can expect twice as more damage to their interceptors.
The above change also uniformly changes all USOs firepower with difficulty level. Which lets player correctly estimate damage to interceptor on different difficulty levels.
* Beginner 100%
* Experienced 109%
* Veteran 120%
* Genius 150%
* Superhuman 200%
Smaller alien sub escape timer is increased a little to make them not necessarily flee from prolonged battle all the time. They still can randomly escape, though.
Fleet Supply Cruiser damage capacity is increased slightly to make it slightly more threatening. Is has the lowest firepower in the size class.
The new Battlestar/Predator alien sub weapon power is lowered to place it somewhere between medium and large USOs. It is now the easiest one to fight in large size class followed by Fleet Supply Cruiser then by Battleship.
Battleship stays as most agressive sub beating Dreadnought by firepower. Yet its damage capacity is lowest among other large subs so it can be taken out by DUPs relatively safe.
Conventional craft armaments firepower is reduced to distinguish them from advanced ones. Advanced armaments firepower slightly adjusted too.
* Now Gauss Cannon firepower = two times the Gas Cannon.
* Sonic Oscillator firepower = three times the Gas Cannon.
* D.U.P. Head firepower = 1.35 times the AJAX.
* P.W.T. Cannon firepower = 2.5 times the AJAX.
With the above changes player need so many Gas Cannon equipped Barracudas to defeat corresponding alien subs on Superhuman *on average*. That can randomly fluctuate depending on how lucky or unlucky player is.
Survey Ship 1
Escort 1
Cruiser 1
Heavy Cruiser 2
Hunter 3
Battlestar 4
Fleet Supply Cruiser 4
Battleship 5 - not possible in single four crafts attack
Dreadnought 5 - not possible in single four crafts attack
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Played 1.8 a little and found it quite playable. I have also ironed out all the interception parameters thank you for all support on this forum. Now my damage math computation seems correct. Here is the graph about how much Barracudas needed to sink each USO type and how much loss such attack incurs. Numbers in parentheses after the USO name is how much test Barracudas were thrown in action. Keep in mind that this a dumbest attack possible was considered when all interceptors rush forward shooting and never retreat. So USO just destroy them one by one until still standing finally sink alien sub. So with manual rotation it may be possible to achieve lower casualties.
Also keep in mind that this is for Superhuman difficulty. Lower difficulties are much more forgiving in TFTD than in UFO/EU.
Notable things
Four Barracudas with conventional weapons cannot sink Dreadnought.
Out of all conventional weapons, Battleship can be sunk only with DUPs.
Projectile/beam armaments noticeably grow in efficiency with more advanced versions, as they should.
Same for missiles. PWT being so effective that it doesn't lose a single interceptor against Battleship. It does lose one against Dreadnought but, I bet, with proper rotation that could be avoided too.
AJAX has slightly higher payload but DUP has higher firepower and range resulting in lower casualties. That is why I made it more expensive. AJAX is even worse than Gas Cannon but having longer range it should make rotation easer.
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1.9
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Decreased AJAX reload time thus increasing its firepower a little.
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Ahh, I saw this leave In Progress to Released. Congrats dude! Great mod
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Thank you, man. Big part of credits go to Orz for TFTD Rework huge number of changes. I am just adding some weapon balance on top of it.
I always felt sorry for craft Gauss Cannon. Now it is an advanced armament and has some quite prolonged life due to Sonic research delay. It probably may even outlive Sonic Oscillator due to latter requiring ammo manufacturing with Zrbite. may turn out to be not economical to make a lot of them.
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1.10
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Particle Disturbance Grenade gets a little heavier but much more powerful with bigger blast radius. Essentially it becomes a land mine. I think it will increase its use at least against Aquatoids/Gillmen because of guaranteed kill.
Decreased AJAX and DUP firepower a tille to make them no better than advanced weaponry.
Further adjusted medium and small USOs to make them more equal in the class. All small and tiny USOs now can be taken out by single Gas Cannon Barracuda. Meduim requires two. Predator requires three being sort of an intermediary step between medium and large. FSC requires four. And neither Battleship nor Dreadnought are vulnerable to four conventional armed Barracudas.
Further reduced Zrbite requirement for P.W.T. Cannon ammo to 2. Otherwise, it becomes too economically unfeasible to use them even against larger USOs.
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Here is the armament effectiveness graph as of 1.10. Rearranged conventional weapons to the left to clearly see advanced weapon progression.
Gas Cannon is a worst one as usual with AJAX close following. DUP is the safest conventional armament but it is also most expensive one. This is a trade off between higher armament usage cost and longer repair intervals between attacks.
Gauss Cannon gets progressively better than any conventional weapon especially against larger enemy. Now four Gauss Cannon Barracudas can sink any USO up to Battleship. Sonic Oscillator is even better. PWT is the safest of them all as always.
Full dual armament load cost:
STR_CRAFT_GAS_CANNON: $9,920
STR_AJAX_LAUNCHER: $72,000
STR_DUP_HEAD_LAUNCHER: $216,000
STR_GAUSS_CANNON: $40,000
STR_SONIC_OSCILLATOR: $120,000
STR_PWT_CANNON: $224,000 + ZRBITE: 16 + AQUA_PLASTICS: 24
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Care to integrate this mod? (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5836.0.html)
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Care to integrate this mod? (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5836.0.html)
Is it just extra weapons? Then I bet it will be fully compatible. No need to integrate. Just install and enable them both and enjoy. Maintains modularity too. You (or anyone) can just enable/disable either of them.
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Lobsterman and Tasoth armors are now equal on all sides. Player tends to face opponents to use stronger frontal armor. Whereas AI units just wander around aimlessly turning all their sides to the player to shoot at. No much use in armor variety for them.
If the enemy has variable armor, it can give a small edge to the players who try to focus fire on the ones facing the right way over the players who are unaware of this feature. It adds value to the M.C. Reader especially against any enemies that are difficult to kill.
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I like how you compare things together. You have an eye for balance done right. The X-Com community is better off with you around.
8)
P.S.: Can you share with me your equation for determining the chance for several base defense to shoot down an alien craft? I really struggle with that calculation.
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If the enemy has variable armor, it can give a small edge to the players who try to focus fire on the ones facing the right way over the players who are unaware of this feature. It adds value to the M.C. Reader especially against any enemies that are difficult to kill.
Hmm. You have a point. I'll think about reverting this.
I like how you compare things together. You have an eye for balance done right. The X-Com community is better off with you around.
8)
Much appreciated. 👍
P.S.: Can you share with me your equation for determining the chance for several base defense to shoot down an alien craft? I really struggle with that calculation.
https://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~mbognar/applets/bin.html
n = number of shots (i.e. number of facilities or number of facilities x2 with bombardment shield)
p = hit chance
x = minimal number of hits to sink enemy sub (i.e. you need this or more hits)
red field is you summary chance to achieve it
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(re: Deep Ones, Tasoths, Lobstermen)
Just some ideas here.
In my personal mod I made Deep Ones ToughAF but took away their Snap Shot. Flavor text says they have aqua plastics mesh on their skin so I gave them like Armor 15 and 90 Health. Not having a Snap Shot means you can dogpile gunfire on them as rookies and itll work, but it demands that you bring Extra Ammo in the transport. It also seriously reinforces making Double Sure you have good cover at the end of the turn - since you're not getting Deep Ones to expose themselves with snap shots you have less odds to know where they are (to savescum the foreknowledge) - and you will get surprised. And this serves to both slow down combat and get more civilians killed by aliens because you're pinned down. Immediate inspiration to get Gauss or Pulsers. And satisfying to have Sonic because you see them go down in 1-2 shots.
Did something similar to Calcinites too. Armor 30 and 130 Health and 70 TU. When you face Calcinites its a big wakeup call - did you bring Coelacanths like you're supposed to? Do you have heavy damage weapon capability? ...idea is basically its a blob in a captive suit so you're shooting jello, but eventually the suit gets shredded. To be nice I lowered their melee damage, but its not too much of a consolation.
I kinda see Calcinites as Xcom's version of Jason Vorhees, tough as hell, comes out of nowhere, and beats the hell out of you.
I gave Lobstermen about 50 Armor and shifted their protection to the armor rather than damage resistances. And kept them about as tough as they're supposed to be by the numbers. Guess
Tasoths get more dangerous for Late Game because weapons went to flatRate TUs so that means they actually get 3 shots with Blasta and 2 shots guaranteed with Cannon.
(24/39 TUs for Blasta and 33/43 TUs for Cannon, pistol went to 16/28 TUs)
Then again I also nerfed Tentaculats by removing zombie ability. But they can still screw you up just as fast, having senior officers die is no joke. Its still like 90 damage and ignores 1/2 armor and causes a bunch of fatal wounds.
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Gave it a little more thought yesterday. I think I can simplify the concept even further by just balancing interception cost with USO recovery revenue. Intercepting USO cost consists of ammo spent and occasionally lost interceptors (with weapons). Giving that there are other monetary losses during tactical phase interception cost should be some relatively small part of USO recovery. I am thinking like 20% should be in range to keep intercepting profitable. At the same time this cost should skyrocket through the roof for too tough enemies.
With that in mind I would like to see if anyone has already catalogued revenue from USOs recovery (both intact and downed).
Other considerations should remain more or less the same.
- Longer range armament (missiles) increases survivability of interceptors. Therefore, costs more.
- Armament is more cost effective against comparable USO classes. Basic against light, advanced against heavy.
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Updated models for alien subs parameters and weapon parameters. Below are estimation graphs for two groups of attackers: 4 barracudas and 1 manta. For each group the weapon against enemy USO was evaluated. First graph is for losses and second one is for economical benefit: (spent ammo + lost crafts/armament/ammo) versus average USO recovery cost.
The global ideas here are:
- More advanced weapon is more safe (less losses).
- More advanced weapon in generally become more economical toward more advanced enemies.
- Missiles are somewhat better against more dangerous opponents (Battleship). Whereas, shorter ranged weapon have higher firepower and are better against more armored but less dangerous opponents (FSC).
- PWT cannon is cheaper and better against high end opponents but it takes a lot of zrbite to produce. That is a trade-off.
Some consequences of proposed design:
- Gas Cannon is very cost effective up to Cruiser. So sure should be used against them initially. Becomes very unsafe and ineffective against mid-large opponents.
- AJAX is cost effective against Cruiser and Heavy Cruiser. Later on is too much ineffective. Can down Dreadnaught with about 50% chance.
- DUP is cost effective against heavier enemies. Can down Dreadnaught for sure but with heavy casualties.
- Gauss Cannon effectively replaces Gas Cannon and about equal to DUP in coordinated assault. For single assault against heavier opponents DUP still should be safer.
- PWT is the safest weapon for Barracudas, probably even for single attack. It does consume a lot of Zrbite for production, though.
- Manta economically better off with Gauss Cannon and Sonic Cannon because it can withstand enemy fire long enough to approach. However, PWT is still safer for it (less repair time).
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Here is the update.
Gas Cannon
Exceptionally cheap. Best initial choice to save money.
1 barracuda sinks Survey Ship and Escort.
2 barracudas sink Cruiser. So initial given inventory are enough to sink up to small USOs.
Heavy Cruiser is still a challenge even for 4 barracudas with Gas Cannon - high chance of losses.
AJAX
Significantly more expensive. One cannot just shoot them left and right at the beginning of the game.
The beauty of long range missiles is that they are safer and allow to shoot payload quicker and leave. That's why coordinated attack is not always needed against weaker opponents.
4 barracudas sink Heavy Cruiser and have some chance of losses against Hunter.
D.U.P.
Same as above but more long ranged = safer and even more expensive. Can be used up to mid game efficiency if money is not the issue.
4 barracudas sink Battleship with 1 craft lost. They can sink Dreadnaught loosing 2-3 craft lost. Which is a high price to pay but still doable.
Gauss Cannon
Outright replacement for Gas Cannon. Second cheapest weapon.
4 barracudas sink Hunter with relative impunity. They are capable to sink up to Dreadnaught with 1-2 crafts lost.
Sonic Oscillator
Safer than Gauss Cannon but slightly more expensive. Should be better option toward second half of the game when money is not the issue.
4 barracudas sink Dreadnaught with 50% chance of craft lost.
P.W.T. Cannon
Safest weapon out there. Insanely expensive and requires Zrbite, though.
4 barracudas sink Battleship with relative impunity. Probably can even sink Dreadnaught without losses using wave attacks as they can pretty quick shoot the payload and leave out of range immediately.
Manta usage.
Single manta can use any weapon providing enough payload. For single attack Gauss Cannon and Sonic Oscillator are the best as they allow to sink any USO and Manta is tough enough to approach them.
Generic usage.
very beginning: Gas Cannon against smallest USOs. Two barracudas with Gas Cannon against Cruiser.
later beginning: Switch to AJAX. Good effectiveness up to medium USOs.
middle: D.U.P. (safer) and Gauss Cannon (cheaper against smaller opponents). With pretty large fleet of barracudas should be no problem sinking Predator and Supply Cruiser. Largest one are doable too but with losses.
late mid: Sonic Oscillator and D.U.P. to soften up toughest opponent before coordinated assault.
late: Sonic Oscillator on Manta and P.W.T. on Barracuda to soften up toughest opponents and for Zrbite saving.
Single P.W.T. payload is not enough to sink three largest USOs.
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Graphical representation of the above.
Gas is extremely cheap but dangerous to use beyond small USOs.
AJAX is safe but more expensive.
DUP is the safest conventional armament (can sink Dreadnaught although with high casualties) but insanely expensive.
Gauss is better than Gas in all regards but is still not safer than DUP.
Sonic is better than all conventional weapons and moderately expensive.
PWT is the safest of them all and the most expensive of them all.
For single manta the choice is simply Sonic as single craft PWT payload is insufficient to sink large USOs at all.
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Also reworked hand weapons and tanks with the below in mind.
- Sonic hand weapons were not designed for human anatomy. They are cumbersome (slower) and unintuitive (worse aim) resulting in less frequent hits in general. This is especially pronounced when Gauss weapon auto shot capability is taken into account.
- Sonic weapons are more powerful, though. This starts playing a role against tougher enemies. Sonic Pistol matches Gauss one at Aquatoid. Sonic Rifle matches Gauss one at Gillman. Sonic Cannon matches Gauss one at Lobsterman.
- Although Gauss hand weapons auto shot ability makes them hit even more frequent its notorious accuracy makes it useful in very close range combat only. At the time Sonic weapons are discovered, aquanauts are usually switch to melee for that purpose.
- Sonic hand weapons are slightly lighter their Gauss analogues. That adds to their benefits past mid game when combatants tend to carry a lot of miscellaneous stuff.
- Within each family each more powerful weapon is slower but still more damage rate effective.
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Sounds a very interesting mod to get make TFTD more iinteresting and versatile. I'll definitely give it a try once I finish my current other campaign.
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Sounds a very interesting mod to get make TFTD more iinteresting and versatile. I'll definitely give it a try once I finish my current other campaign.
Thank you for feedback. I would recommend to wait a little. Right now I am testing the changes above to make sure everything is sound. Please be on a lookout for official next release.
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Continuing improvements/modification for next release. This time one more round for hand weapons.
First and foremost. There are multiple ridiculous damage modifiers like "1.1" and "0.9". The biggest problem with them is that they are NOT VISIBLE to user during the game. The only way people can find out their exact values is by disassembling source or looking them up on the wiki (after someone disassembled it). Moreover, slight variation from 1.0 are not perceivable in the game at all due to heavy randomization. That should not be like that. Rules should be transparent to player.
Therefore, I am modifying them in this way.
- Removing most of the slight variation for all attack types those make no special sense. All "0.8", "0.9", "1.1", "1.2" becomes just "1.0".
- All creature gauss and sonic damage modifier are set to 1.0. These are basic damage types and all others should be benchmarked against them, not the other way around.
- Specially immunities and vulnerabilities are represented as 0.0, 0.5, 1.5, 2.0 values to make player life simple. This also should be explicitly reflected in creature/tank/armor description so player gets the clear understanding on that. Examples are: all alien soldiers and some terrorists are double vulnerable to fire, Tentaculat is 50% more vulnerable to HE, Lobsterman carapace halves AP/HE damage but is double vulnerable to drill, tank halves damage from fire/HE/gauss and completely immune to stun and smoke (obviously), etc.
Besides, reducing damage is essentially same as increasing armor value. So there is no much point in fiddling these damage modifier. Better do the same with armor value as it is clearly visible to user.
I subsequently adjusted some creature armors based on above damage modifiers changes. Specifically for top level Lobstermen. Some of them had 0.8 and 0.6 modifiers against both gauss/sonic damage. As I set them all to 1.0 their armor value should be increased to account for that and keep them about same tough.
Now when armors and damage modifiers are all aligned let's get back to hand weapons. I reduced their power. This is not specifically to make game more challenging but to match their power to creature armors more closely so that each weapon has its usage niche.
More powerful weapons are slower resulting in smaller rate of fire. They are also much more heavier to the level that weaklings cannot even carry heavy stuff anymore. However, they are much more damage effective against tougher opponents. That is why weaker weapon versions are still usable at early stages and may not necessarily need to be replaced outright with stronger versions. Pistols are very light and can be used as a sidearm on a belt for combatants carrying unconventional weapons (launchers, etc.). Pistols are also extremely fast: gauss pistol can do 4 automatic (4 * 3 = 12 bullets) and 5 snap shots a turn; sonic can do 3 snaps.
All gauss weapons can shoot automatic making them great choice in closed space combat. Later on this ability will be replaced by melee weapons.
See sample damage rate chart attached. It is drawn for average damage rate using snap and aimed shots only. Obviously, auto shots adds to gauss damage rate tremendously. Keep in mind, though, that it is good for very close combat only and for lower power weapons (pistol, rifle) it is still quite ineffective against tougher opponents beyond weapon power level.
Pistols are pretty much the weapon of choice against Aquatoids, less against Gillmen. Sonic version lasts a little longer against Gillmen.
Rifles are good up to Tasoths with sonic series being better, of course. Although, due to high Tasoths damage capacity, heavy firearms kill them noticeably faster.
Heavy weapons are good against toughest Lobstermen (sonic is better). Although, at this point it is faster to kill them with drills.
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v1.12 released. Played it a little and found it quite playable and moderately challenging. It requires constant attention to details for the first 12 months at least.
Also few graphs attached for reference.
One is for hand weapons relative progression and damage rate against opponents.
Another one is comparison of melee with close range shot (which is assumed to hit 100%).
Vibroblade is about as effective as Gauss Rifle with heavier melee version going beyond any hand weapon.
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The latest 1.12 fails to load on OXCE 7.8.1 with error message "[ERROR] During linking rulesets of armors: Error for 'COELACANTH_ARMOR': The first battle corpse item must be of item type 'corpse' (battleType: 11)".
In COELACANTH_ARMOR, there are corpse definions (COELACANTH_CORPSE_1..4) , but those have not been defined (commented out in items.rul), thus trying to pull in from vanilla, I suppose. I guess there might be a few more missing definions in the rulesets.
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Uh-oh. I need to update OXCE and retry. Good catch.
Hmm. I cannot find 7.8.1 anywhere. The latest one is this.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,6586.msg150186.html#msg150186
And this.
https://openxcom.org/oxce/release/
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Either way, 7.8.0 gives the same error. So I fixed it and reuploaded the zip. Please verify.
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Hmm. I cannot find 7.8.1 anywhere. The latest one is this.
Some people use test builds, which can be found at the link - https://lxnt.wtf/oxem/#/Extended
It's just for future reference. And occasionally in such builds, mods may indeed work differently than in the main release. Just because the rules for creating mods sometimes change - become stricter.
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Thanks. Loads properly, will playtest later. NB. There is a warning message, which didn't stop the game but may or may not become an issue later. It would be cool to address this in some update as well to get rid of the message: "Supressed Error for 'STR_LOBSTERMAN_GUARD': This unit can be recovered (in theory), but there is no corresponding item to recover."
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Fixed it as well. Thanks for being thorough! I appreciate this.
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I'd like to share a personal first try feedback on this version as well.
The game became a little bit more challenging. Not because it is tough and one needs to save/reload all the time but because advancement in the game requires well thought actions and not just "build more bases and hire more crafts and people".
One need more interceptors to fight increased number of USOs but increased number of shot down USOs is needed to pay for interceptor rent. So buying excessive number of interceptors may be economical mistake.
Base defenses are easier to build and now you can fully protect them in 10 days but maintenance is excessive. Complete torpedo defenses maintenance costs about as much as two barracudas. Same economical consideration: protect them and spend money or hope they won't be discovered.
Gauss hand weapons are pretty solid up to Lobsterman. However, more powerful version are heavier (who would think?). So there is a trade-off: carry more powerful weapon or more trinkets, etc.
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With OXCE, the game crashed in the first terror mission when middle-button clicking a deep one. Error message: "OpenXcom has crashed: Image missing in 'BIGOBS.PCK' for item 'DEEP_ONE_WEAPON'". There is also a more detailed crash trace in the log, but I suppose that message is enough to fix it.
By turning off lazy loading (advanced options), there seemed be a few more issues which would also result in a crash in some circumstances:
Error for 'DEEP_ONE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2069 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'PLASMICIDE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2069 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'SQUIDFACE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2068 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_BIODRONE_MELEE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2070 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_HALLUCINOID_STUN_WEAPON': Wrong index 2069 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_LOBSTERMAN_MELEE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2067 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_TRISCENE_MELEE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2066 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_XARQUID_DYE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2069 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'TENTACULAT_WEAPON': Wrong index 2068 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'ZOMBIE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2071 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
The log also includes some different warnings wrt TRITON, which might be useful.
[02-11-2022_15-40-28] [INFO] Bad node in RMP file: ROUTES/TRITON.RMP Node #2 is outside map boundaries at X:10 Y:9 Z:1. Culling Node.
[02-11-2022_15-40-28] [INFO] RMP file: ROUTES/TRITON.RMP Node #1 is linked to Node #2, which was culled. Terminating Link.
[02-11-2022_15-40-28] [INFO] RMP file: ROUTES/TRITON.RMP Node #1 is linked to Node #2, which was culled. Terminating Link.
[02-11-2022_15-40-28] [INFO] RMP file: ROUTES/TRITON.RMP Node #0 is linked to Node #2, which was culled. Terminating Link.
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Thank you for bug report. I think I should reinstall fresh OXCE version and reconfigure all my rule sets to make sure they are absolutely minimal and don't bring any unwanted config.
I assume you were testing on latest published version?
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The issue with BIGOBS.PCK is relevant both for OXC and OXCE and needs to be fixed... otherwise crash.
The issue with Triton routes is actually a problem in OG data files and doesn't need any fixing. OXC/OXCE will cull the incorrect nodes automatically.
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Thanks for pointers. What is the easiest way to fix first one? Should i just remove as much duplicate rules as possible and leave only modifications?
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I assume you were testing on latest published version?
Yes. I did reload and retried (and avoided clicking on deep one, which use OXCE extra features), so I could continue playing. I suppose this problem doesn't come up with OXC as you probably don't see those sprites (not sure about if you do MC though). So this is currently not an urgent problem.
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A somewhat strange playing experience with SH/IM so far.
In January, there were two scripted small UFOs with aquatoids. Since then I've had three terror missions with gillmen and deep ones (-> plastic aqua armor). There haven't been any sights of UFOs since those scripted two. In the council report at the end of March, apparently Free China signed a pact and Australasia was unhappy with my activity (of course I saw none of this as I had only bases in the US and Europe at that point).
Now, in the beginning of April, there appeared a ship terror mission with lobstermen. At this point I have 50 % gauss rifles and 50 % heavy gauss. I'm only researching vibroblade. Soon I'd be able to research manta. Capturing live aliens and getting toward sonic is still far away. I have not yet decided if I should try the mission or abort. Looking at the rulesets, gauss has 1.0 effectiveness against them so one might be able to make a scratch with this mod (vanilla would be hopeless). But regardless I guess the mission would still be brutal with SH/IM.
The lack of alien subs could be due to a very bad RNG, or the game is supposed to be very slow and have only terror missions in the first months. But this seems a bit strange.
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Interesting experience.
This mod does not change random USO generation. By the way, how do you recognize scripted vs. not scripted events???
Whatever you described is pretty much vanilla behavior that I have experienced many times. Once upon a time they all appear in the areas outside your radar range somewhere in other part of the globe. You don't get any money, any technology advancement and then boom: terror missions with Tasoths, Bio-drones, Reapers, Lobstermen, etc. That happened to me from time to time in vanilla games too. Nothing you can do about it. On lower difficulty levels player usually have enough time to evolve and build more bases with monthly income until attacks intensify. On SH it may be unforgiving.
You are right that Gauss weapon hurts everybody including Lobstermen. In fact, Heavy Gauss has quite sufficient firepower comparable to Sonic Cannon and not just to make a scratch. So one can theoretically use Gauss weapon throughout the game without problems. That is on purpose to offset late appearance of Sonic weapons. They are still more powerful but not by the big margin.
Other than that I would say this mod on SH is somewhat more challenging than in vanilla. So the chance that you may want to back up from the fight is quite expected.
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Hmm. I am not sure what to fix there and how. Any clue?
This is part of custom ruleset:
- type: DEEP_ONE_WEAPON
bigSprite: 69
bulletSprite: 8
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69 is not defined in your mod, and it is also not an original TFTD resource. Thus you cannot access index 69 directly.
It's part of the openxcom "xcom2" mod and can be accessed like this:
- type: DEEP_ONE_WEAPON
bigSprite: { mod: xcom2, index: 69 }
bulletSprite: 8
More reading here: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Ruleset_Reference_Nightly_(OpenXcom)#Negative_indices_and_cross-referencing_other_mods
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I can do it like this and see if it fixes it.
From the other hand, I do not really care about visual elements in this mod. Can I comment out whole "weapon" section completely?
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This mod does not change random USO generation. By the way, how do you recognize scripted vs. not scripted events???
Based on the mission, no. But in miissionScripts you can see a scripted ALIEN_PROBE_MISSION at the start of the game. Looking at the definions, such a mission is defined as a survey ship, escort and two cruisers. In my game, my radar detected only the escort and one cruiser.
Whatever you described is pretty much vanilla behavior that I have experienced many times. Once upon a time they all appear in the areas outside your radar range somewhere in other part of the globe. You don't get any money, any technology advancement and then boom: terror missions with Tasoths, Bio-drones, Reapers, Lobstermen, etc. That happened to me from time to time in vanilla games too. Nothing you can do about it. On lower difficulty levels player usually have enough time to evolve and build more bases with monthly income until attacks intensify. On SH it may be unforgiving.
I have never seen a complete lack of alien subs in my dozens of vanilla games. True, there may have often been only few UFOs in January/February (usually you get the 3 scripted ones), but zero in March as well? I don't recall a single play. By the end of March in TFTD you may even have completed all the UFO missions you need to do if you do speedrunning (except a very large lobsterman ufo).
One thing I wonder in particular is the following definion in missionScripts:
- type: invasion # begins month 6 (July)
firstMonth: 6
.. I wonder what is the default value and the behaviour (where can I find it out?). If the default TFTD value for the start of the "invasion" (whatever that implies in vanilla) is earlier, this might affect the amount of UFOs seen in this mod.
EDIT: found that in bin/standard/xcom2/missionScripts.rul the default definition is the same (but not sure if it actually does anything).
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Sorry, don't know.
This mod is based on "TFTD Rework" one which has its own thread and description. Try to look it up there.
I picked it as a base because I like many features in it. However, some other features I didn't care about much tagged along too.
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Fixed the way M proposed and reuploaded. Please verify.
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I see a lot of these entries in the log. What does it mean?
[WARN] No free channels available
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Most likely candidate:
An SDL_mixer error complaining something went 'wrong' during playback (or loading?) of music/sound files.
Might be that there is something wrong with (some) audio files or something is wrong with your PC's audio system.
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I have been playing this for a bit now. In my current, latest game I guess I was lucky as the aliens started a base building mission in my region and now I have two bases nearby, so I can collect trophies from their fleet supply cruisers.
I had one chance to try a very large sub early on. Xarquids that accompany gill men also seem to be very tough and deadly, and as they float, cannot be tackled by grenades. I had to abort the mission. But I keep wondering where else I could get Alien cryogenics and implanter to progress the tech tree (a battleship is equally unlikely for cryogenics). I wonder if I will have to wait for an artifact site mission to get started on MC labs and alien containment. Tasoths are pretty tough. Even 3 shots from gauss rifle from point blank range is not a guaranteed kill. So I suppose you might usually need to stick around with gauss stuff for quite a long while.
I guess one valid strategy with this mod is to try to avoid attacking subs with barracudas altogether (except very small ones). People have played TFTDwithout attacking any ufos in the early-midgame after all. (You may need to be prepared for base defense missions, however. I already had one, but against gill men it was very easy.) In my games, I have usually sacked the second barracuda at the end of January. With luck, you can get Manta in April, which can deal with small, even medium alien subs alone and you avoid the crippling rent costs.
The maintenance costs of base defenses seem to be so high that I think it will be a while until you can even consider building any.
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Tasoths are pretty tough. Even 3 shots from gauss rifle from point blank range is not a guaranteed kill. So I suppose you might usually need to stick around with gauss stuff for quite a long while.
Tasoths have very high health among other races. So yes, even if a weapon effectively penetrates their armor, it may require few shots to kill them. You will experience same with Sonic Cannon against them.
Besides, they wear different armor. More advanced units are slightly tougher.
I found that three Heavy Gauss bullets it is almost always enough to kill them at point blank.
From the other hand, Tasoths and Lobstermen are better handled with melee weapon in close combat. It supposed to be extremely fast and more damaging.
I guess one valid strategy with this mod is to try to avoid attacking subs with barracudas altogether (except very small ones).
Simultaneous attack with many barracudas (up to 4) may be fruitful against mid-large USOs (depending on armament).
Gas Cannon: H.Cruiser
AJAX and Gauss Cannon: Hunter
DUP and Sonic Oscillator: Predator
PWT: F.S.Cruiset and Battleship
Anything above requires certain barracuda sacrifices or multiple waves with missile type armament.
Long range weapons are safer in this regards as they allow to rotate front attacker and disengage before interceptor got destroyed.
The maintenance costs of base defenses seem to be so high that I think it will be a while until you can even consider building any.
That was an experimental feature. Their maintenance is high but their build cost and build time are exceptionally less than in vanilla. Have you ever build 20 torpedo defenses in vanilla?
Let me know if you think their maintenance should be reduced. It is high but it is not that crippling when you can shoot and recover 10 USOs a month or even more later.
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Simultaneous attack with many barracudas (up to 4) may be fruitful against mid-large USOs (depending on armament).
Gas Cannon: H.Cruiser
AJAX and Gauss Cannon: Hunter
DUP and Sonic Oscillator: Predator
PWT: F.S.Cruiset and Battleship
Anything above requires certain barracuda sacrifices or multiple waves with missile type armament.
I think a typical tactic with vanilla is that you try to recover large or very large ufos only if they land - and start shooting down large ones once you get sonic oscillator (and don't try to team up on very large ones even then) instead of deploying a large number of barracudas to be able to team up against them.
My point is that why would you want to spend 2.4M per month for the rent of 4 barracudas (or even more, if you want to have interception capabilities around the globe) in order to shoot down mid-large UFOs?
That would make sense only at that point of the game where there are plenty of guaranteed UFOs in each month, so that you can be sure that you can get enough funding from selling UFO materials to cover your monthly deficit. For the first 6 months or so, it is possible that you can't recover enough. But at that point, you already have Manta, which essentially makes barracudas obsolete (even more so in this mod than in vanilla).
The balance in this mod makes shooting down even small subs suspect unless you have at least two barracudas. Even two barracudas entails a considerable maintenance cost in the early game, perhaps better spent on scientists to rush manta so that you don't need barracudas at all. This is made even easier in this mod, because you get manta so early in the game (you could get it built in May, or even April).
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Is it intentional that an autopsy of any of the four aliens gives you alien containment, after you also have both cryogenics and cloning. If so, obtaining alien containment and getting sonic isn't so far off after all.
- name: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
listOrder: 4910 # listed after MC-Lab
cost: 300
points: 25
# depends on alien cryogenics and cloning and alien autopsy
dependencies:
- STR_ALIEN_CRYOGENICS
- STR_ALIEN_CLONING
- STR_ALIEN_CONT_DEP
- name: STR_ALIEN_CONT_DEP
cost: 0
dependencies:
- STR_AQUATOID_CORPSE
- STR_GILLMAN_CORPSE
- STR_TASOTH_CORPSE
- STR_LOBSTERMAN_CORPSE
unlocks:
- STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
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I think a typical tactic with vanilla is that you try to recover large or very large ufos only if they land - and start shooting down large ones once you get sonic oscillator (and don't try to team up on very large ones even then) instead of deploying a large number of barracudas to be able to team up against them.
My point is that why would you want to spend 2.4M per month for the rent of 4 barracudas (or even more, if you want to have interception capabilities around the globe) in order to shoot down mid-large UFOs?
That would make sense only at that point of the game where there are plenty of guaranteed UFOs in each month, so that you can be sure that you can get enough funding from selling UFO materials to cover your monthly deficit. For the first 6 months or so, it is possible that you can't recover enough. But at that point, you already have Manta, which essentially makes barracudas obsolete (even more so in this mod than in vanilla).
Your analysis is correct. However, it feels a little biased toward the strategy you employ. There could be other viable strategies as well.
Just to be clear, you are analyzing this for SH difficulty, right?
I agree that recovering landed USOs is cheaper and more lucrative. There is no change in that from vanilla. However, there is no guarantee they even land and that this happens within your radar range. So shooting them down is an additional source of revenue. Whether this additional revenue worth maintaining some extra barracudas is up to player to decide. Your approach on not intercepting anything beyond two smallest USOs for six months may work - I never tried it.
Also keep in mind that shooting down more USOs gives and indirect benefit: higher score, which equates in funding increase. It also reduces chance for countries to be infiltrated.
With more expensive interception this mod toughens it up a notch to player. Whether it becomes too tough to use at all - I am not sure. I was able to play normally and build bases and buy new interceptors every 1-2 months and didn't experience too much of financial hardship. I sure can rework numbers a little to make it less challenging if you think it is too difficult. However, remember, this is for SH difficulty which should be, well, difficult. Player is supposed to loose if not careful with strategical decisions.
I thought about balancing increased toughness of interception by giving more point for shooting down USO as a reward. This way it reflects on funding better.
Another option, of course, is to reduce rent for barracuda.
Few words about Manta.
It is definitely tougher than barracuda and can take out largest USOs on its own. Does not require rent either. However, it is still may be not advisable to replace all Barracudas with Mantas.
First, it eats Zrbite. If one sends it for each and every small/large USO it will be eating more of it than one can recover. Remember that you need Zrbite for other manufactured items as well.
Second, its repairing rate is same as for Barracuda. Meaning even if it can sustain heavier damage it will require proportionally longer to repair. Max repair time for badly damaged Manta is 400 hours = 16 days. So one still need to build a lot of them to rotate. At very late game this may be possible but not before that. Barracudas will still be useful.
The balance in this mod makes shooting down even small subs suspect unless you have at least two barracudas. Even two barracudas entails a considerable maintenance cost in the early game, perhaps better spent on scientists to rush manta so that you don't need barracudas at all. This is made even easier in this mod, because you get manta so early in the game (you could get it built in May, or even April).
This is not entirely correct. Have you seen my analysis tables for how many barracudas are needed to shoot down which USO?
One barracuda with Gas Cannon can shoot down Escort.
Armed with AJAX it is up to Cruiser.
And armed with DUP it is up to H.Cruiser.
So it is pretty much sufficient to fight them at early game.
Again, as I said, these are my calculations. If you feel like it is still too tough in the game - let me know and I dial down settings a bit.
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Is it intentional that an autopsy of any of the four aliens gives you alien containment, after you also have both cryogenics and cloning. If so, obtaining alien containment and getting sonic isn't so far off after all.
- name: STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
listOrder: 4910 # listed after MC-Lab
cost: 300
points: 25
# depends on alien cryogenics and cloning and alien autopsy
dependencies:
- STR_ALIEN_CRYOGENICS
- STR_ALIEN_CLONING
- STR_ALIEN_CONT_DEP
- name: STR_ALIEN_CONT_DEP
cost: 0
dependencies:
- STR_AQUATOID_CORPSE
- STR_GILLMAN_CORPSE
- STR_TASOTH_CORPSE
- STR_LOBSTERMAN_CORPSE
unlocks:
- STR_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT
Yes. It is intentional. The whole research tree is actually inherited from base mod: TFTD Rework.
The idea is that alien containment should not be very difficult to research but should not be given for free either.
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Quick changes.
Cut purchased crafts rent in half.
Increased scores for shut down USOs.
Reuploaded as 1.12.
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I played until August (already leviathan, sonic displacer, etc., but no MC lab), so a few comments esp. wrt. the balance:
- I like the balance in economy (sell prices cut in half, or even more compared to vanilla). The game economy works much better this way, i.e. you don't get too much money so easily (either by selling alien stuff, or manufacturing items)
- Decreasing the price of craft rents is likely a good idea (because you need far more of them than in vanilla, and also likely need to purchase more when they are shot down), especially in the first 6 months or so when money is a critical asset (you'll also need to expand your coverage, hire scientists, etc.).
- Some aliens are very tough and I keep wondering if this is really intentional. In particular, in vanilla xarquids had a very low under armor (making them essentially vulnerable to HE), now they have 50. It seems very difficult to kill them and/or you'll face severe losses (because they have very good reactions and deadly sonic weapon). This is exacerbated because:
- M.C. Lab requires alien implants. So you can't do MC screening on your aquanauts without first acquiring that. AFAIK you can only get alien implants from colonies, artifact sites or very large ships. This poses a significant challenge, as you'll have to manage one such mission with MC-vulnerable aquanauts. Colonies are a no go. Artifact sites start at month 6 (50 % chance), and then it might be a doable, but already in month 7 you might get cephalids, and you would be screwed in a major way (I certainly was). In vanilla, gillmen very large ship would be doable, but now xarquids would slaughter your crew. Aquatoid is likely very difficult without MC screening. I suppose you could wish for tasoth or lobstermen. But nonetheless, I wonder if getting MC lab is made excessively difficult and dependent on RNG. I would certainly be interested in hearing how the others dealt with this.
- Sonic weapons seem to be next to useless due to their very low accuracy. I didn't see a point in switching from gauss rifle and heavy gauss. I wonder if they have been nerfed too much. The main reason to research sonic is getting sonic oscillator and sonic displacer (though it is also significantly nerfed now, because the weapon requires more TUs). But I suppose I didn't play enough at that point to figure out if the balance was good.
I was already getting a bit bored with the lack of much progress for months (going after those tasoth and lobster missions is tedious because they take so many hits for further away, and meleeing them is rather risky - with medium+ lobsterman missions usually at least 1-2 people get killed or wounded). I had no MC lab yet, so most aquanauts would get trashed anyway after the screening, so there would be little use in training them to be exceptionally good. I lost the rest of my motivation for now by the cephalid/aquatoid artifact site mission. But I will likelyl try again at some point.
EDIT: now that I think about it, the only sensible way "in paper" to deal with xarquids would seem to be with thermal shok launchers.
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Thank you psavola.
Very good an well thought feedback.
Before I go to details, let me reiterate that this mod balance things here and there. However, a lot of changes come from "TFTD Rework" parent mode. I agree with them in general but I am completely fine tapping into it and modifying all parameters as needed based on feedbacks like yours.
I understand your are playing on SH difficulty? If so then keep in mind that this supposed to be hard enough that players would never desire to try anything even more harder. It should definitely be unforgiving in every single aspect. Probably should require a lot of grinding and micromanagement too. The fact that vanilla SH is a cakewalk should have nothing to do with modifications as they usually try to restore normal difficulty level progression.
I agree that making impassable games is no fun either but we should be careful to not ease up toughest difficulty too much so it loose the meaning.
- I like the balance in economy (sell prices cut in half, or even more compared to vanilla). The game economy works much better this way, i.e. you don't get too much money so easily (either by selling alien stuff, or manufacturing items)
Initial idea from parent mod. All alien stuff selling price is cut in half.
- Decreasing the price of craft rents is likely a good idea (because you need far more of them than in vanilla, and also likely need to purchase more when they are shot down), especially in the first 6 months or so when money is a critical asset (you'll also need to expand your coverage, hire scientists, etc.).
I played with halved interceptor rent and I feel like it is a right spot. Indeed, one need a large fleet of them. It is only natural to halve costs to match halved revenue from selling alien stuff.
I also loose interceptors and bases occasionally. That makes it fun as I need to either protect them or risk rebuilding. Same goes for sacrificing interceptors for yummy big USO.
- Some aliens are very tough and I keep wondering if this is really intentional. In particular, in vanilla xarquids had a very low under armor (making them essentially vulnerable to HE), now they have 50. It seems very difficult to kill them and/or you'll face severe losses (because they have very good reactions and deadly sonic weapon).
I found Xarquid to be extremely tough too. It seems to be an ultimate challenge of early-mid game. Yes, this is intentional but not by me. This is inherited from parent mod. I should say this parent mod makes enemies somewhat tougher. Not to nightmare level but noticeably. I generally agree with this approach as superhuman difficulty should be like that. Giving them no under armor in vanilla makes them falling like flies against rocket/grenades which is, obviously, not match to their place in alien hierarchy.
Personally I found them beatable even with gauss rifles and vibroblades with the right tactics. If you noticed, their under armor is raised to 50 but their face armor is lowered. This is their soft spot. Use smoke and movement sensor to spot them without revealing yourself and shoot them from distance. Other option would be to sneak up on them using cover and poke them with the knife.
I found it takes about 2-3 vibroblade hits, 2-4 heavy gauss hits, 4-6 gauss rifle hits. This is serious grinding I agree but not impassable. I actually enjoy this smoke and maneuvering play. Without it all missions would reduce to "run forward and kill everybody in sight" boring stuff repeated 100 times.
Keep in mind that player always can backup from mission if it feels too difficult for current gear level. That is intended to make sure users are not raiding landed larger USO with basic crew at the beginning of the game.
I would say one needs to develop plastic armor + heavy gauss to face serious menace like Xarquids, Bio-drones, Reapers, etc.
- M.C. Lab requires alien implants. So you can't do MC screening on your aquanauts without first acquiring that. AFAIK you can only get alien implants from colonies, artifact sites or very large ships. This poses a significant challenge, as you'll have to manage one such mission with MC-vulnerable aquanauts. Colonies are a no go. Artifact sites start at month 6 (50 % chance), and then it might be a doable, but already in month 7 you might get cephalids, and you would be screwed in a major way (I certainly was). In vanilla, gillmen very large ship would be doable, but now xarquids would slaughter your crew. Aquatoid is likely very difficult without MC screening. I suppose you could wish for tasoth or lobstermen. But nonetheless, I wonder if getting MC lab is made excessively difficult and dependent on RNG. I would certainly be interested in hearing how the others dealt with this.
That is the question to research tree. Generally, I feel it quite all right. Especially, the fact that alien tech is discovered by researching aliens. However, I agree M.C. Lab could be available for research a little bit earlier. Feel free to propose tech tree change for that.
- Sonic weapons seem to be next to useless due to their very low accuracy. I didn't see a point in switching from gauss rifle and heavy gauss. I wonder if they have been nerfed too much. The main reason to research sonic is getting sonic oscillator and sonic displacer (though it is also significantly nerfed now, because the weapon requires more TUs). But I suppose I didn't play enough at that point to figure out if the balance was good.
I tried to interleave their characteristics so that they all have certain value at least at some game stage. That is why gauss may feel better under some conditions. It could be too much - I am not sure. It is easy to return sonic weapons their vanilla glory but then player would just discard gauss stuff immediately as we did in vanilla.
Generally, sonic series are lighter and more damaging but slower and less accurate.
Gauss auto fire option works exceptionally well against weaker aliens when kill is guaranteed. Useless against tougher enemies not killable in a single round of auto fire. Sonic for range and melee for close becomes better combo against tougher enemies.
Roughly they have these effectiveness niches (let me know if you don't feel this)
- Gauss pistol is light and extremely fast. Very effective against Aquatoids and lower Gillmen. Good for early USO recovery.
- Gauss rifle is heavier and relatively fast. Effective against Gillmen/terrorists and lower Tasoths. Good for early USO recovery and terror sites.
- Heavy gauss is heaviest pig of them all. Effective against Tasoths and lower Lobstermen. Can be used in ship missions and artifact sites.
- Sonic pistol has about same damage ratio as gauss rifle but light as a feather. Very easy to carry vibroblade and all kind of explosives with it.
- Sonic rifle has about same damage ratio as heavy gauss but much lighter.
- Sonic cannon has best penetration and effective against all Lobstermen.
I was already getting a bit bored with the lack of much progress for months (going after those tasoth and lobster missions is tedious because they take so many hits for further away, and meleeing them is rather risky - with medium+ lobsterman missions usually at least 1-2 people get killed or wounded). I had no MC lab yet, so most aquanauts would get trashed anyway after the screening, so there would be little use in training them to be exceptionally good. I lost the rest of my motivation for now by the cephalid/aquatoid artifact site mission. But I will likelyl try again at some point.
Again, I am all for allowing M.C. Lab earlier. However, as I noticed in my games, I do not get seriously delayed in getting this tech. Meaning, I don't have enough scientists to get to it (much) quicker anyway. I.e. even if I would not need larger USO parts for it I would not research it earlier than fourth month or something, anyway. There are other, more important research out there.
EDIT: now that I think about it, the only sensible way "in paper" to deal with xarquids would seem to be with thermal shok launchers.
I doubt so. Stun works the same way as weapon (armor and health). So it could be even worse in effectiveness.
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Summarizing the above, I feel like this version is much more playable than vanilla, for example. Sure, there could be some additional improvements here and there and we can work on this together.
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Also keep in mind that sonic weapon parameters apply to both soldiers and aliens. Making it slower and less precise reduces number of player soldiers instant kills. It makes combat more variative and actually slightly more forgiving for player.
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Check this one for the list of all parent changes.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4265.0.html
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Yes, I have been playing with ironman superhuman. Difficulty is not a problem, if the intention is to make the game significantly harder on the same difficulty compared to vanilla. (Wrt. difficulty and economics, this mod is somewhat comparable to the UFO hardmode expansion so far, but I suppose after the mid game it gets relatively easier).
Wrt. MC Lab, now that I'm looking at it, the research tree appears to be buggy:
- name: STR_MC_LAB
# depends on Alien Containment and either alien learning arrays or implanter
So according to the ruleset comment, it shouldn't require both but rather either of those. Learning arrays is very easy to get, so no problem. So, I suppose that in the following ruleset:
- name: STR_MC_LAB_DEP
cost: 0
dependencies:
- STR_ALIEN_LEARNING_ARRAYS
- STR_ALIEN_IMPLANTER
it's likely missing the following (should this make it either/or, rather than "and"):
unlocks:
- STR_MC_LAB
My idea of using thermal shok launchers against xarquids is that area effects hit 2x2 units four times. So, a thermal shok launcher blast actually hits it four times and should be quite stunning (if the armor don't block the stun effects completely, I doubt it). The idea of using melee and dye grenades against xarquids sounds extremely risky, because they float and they almost exclusively are encountered outside the sub. I also assume you're using non-default explosion height (with vanilla value 0 dye grenades don't really help against them, because dye doesn't protect against a vision from a xarquid floating higher than you).
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Yes, I have been playing with ironman superhuman. Difficulty is not a problem, if the intention is to make the game significantly harder on the same difficulty compared to vanilla. (Wrt. difficulty and economics, this mod is somewhat comparable to the UFO hardmode expansion so far, but I suppose after the mid game it gets relatively easier).
Difficulty levels adjustment is a discussion related to all modifications, not only this mod specifically. Are you saying game is impassable even on easiest difficulty? If it is passable then there should be some difficulty level in between comfortable to you.
This is not the vanilla where playing on SH exclusively was the pride and signature of seasoned player.
Even then the difficulty is not the primary purpose of this modification. It is the increase in variability and feature richness. Making all items and feature work and be needful to win the game. Like in vanilla one can discard gauss weapons entirely and still win the game. In this mod it is the important transition stage, etc.
Therefore, it obviously, require more management and decision making. Which, indirectly, increases the complexity and difficulty.
Wrt. MC Lab, now that I'm looking at it, the research tree appears to be buggy:
- name: STR_MC_LAB
# depends on Alien Containment and either alien learning arrays or implanter
So according to the ruleset comment, it shouldn't require both but rather either of those. Learning arrays is very easy to get, so no problem. So, I suppose that in the following ruleset:
- name: STR_MC_LAB_DEP
cost: 0
dependencies:
- STR_ALIEN_LEARNING_ARRAYS
- STR_ALIEN_IMPLANTER
it's likely missing the following (should this make it either/or, rather than "and"):
unlocks:
- STR_MC_LAB
You are right about missing "either" part. The "unlocks" should be added to the learning arrays and implanter to unlock M.C. Lab dependency as below. In your example it unlocks the M.C. Lab directly bypassing its other requirement: alien containment.
I modified it locally like that (have not tested yet!!!). Feel free to do the same until I release it.
- name: STR_ALIEN_LEARNING_ARRAYS
cost: 150
points: 30
needItem: true
# unlocks M.C. Lab dependency
unlocks:
- STR_MC_LAB_DEP
- name: STR_ALIEN_IMPLANTER
cost: 150
points: 30
needItem: true
# unlocks M.C. Lab dependency
unlocks:
- STR_MC_LAB_DEP
So, a thermal shok launcher blast actually hits it four times.
Are you sure about that? That would be quite a way.
The first question pops up in my head is - why explosives do not work the same way and hit all for tiles of large alien?
The idea of using melee and dye grenades against xarquids sounds extremely risky, because they float and they almost exclusively are encountered outside the sub.
It is risky. I put it there as an option only if you manage to use some cover.
I also assume you're using non-default explosion height (with vanilla value 0 dye grenades don't really help against them, because dye doesn't protect against a vision from a xarquid floating higher than you).
That is correct. I think I use +2 smoke height. Even then one should tread carefully in the smoke.
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Are you sure about that? That would be quite a way.
The first question pops up in my head is - why explosives do not work the same way and hit all for tiles of large alien?
I'm quite sure. If you hit CTRL-H after a hit in OXCE, you'll see if you affect any damage, small damage or large amounts of damage (0, hit, HIT). For the large units this reports four "hits".
This is also a reason why explosives are usually very useful against large units. The exception is when their armor is so heavy that none of the explosions cause any damage (as is essentially now the case with xarquids and for example magna-blast grenades). Indeed, has traditionally been the main way to kill triscenes, and with this mod as well I think I used explosives only.
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Based on your feedback I think to differentiate hand weapons even stronger. Otherwise, it would be pretty difficult to give six of them different meaning. Here are my thoughts.
Gauss pistol
- light
- no aimed shot
- weak (similar to jet harpoon power)
- very fast
- slightly better auto accuracy
SMG with weak penetration ability for shoot on the run. Also could be kept on belt to compensate for other slow weapons to be able to quickly grab and burst shoot at surprise close encounter.
Should be very good against aquatoids and gillmen in close combat. Even though it may require few shots sometimes but it should be able to produce multitude of them.
Gauss rifle
- medium weight
- all shot modes available
- average power
- average speed
- slightly better snap accuracy
Regular assault weapon with average range.
Good against gillmen and tasoths and most lower terrorists, except xarquids.
Heavy gauss
- heavy like a pig
- no auto
- powerful
- slow
- slightly better aimed accuracy
Semi stationary heavy gun installation. Capable to deliver powerful damage across long range. Although, may require a turn to set up in position.
Good against toughest aliens and terrorists. Can scratch triscene in the back (requires multiple shots, though). Especially, because it can take them out from relative safety of long distance when multiple hits are required.
This way player may mix and match different weapons for the purpose of the mission. And even carry pistol as sidearm on belt as mentioned above.
Heavy gauss would probably be an overkill against gillmen and would slow down the advancement. So it may make sense to mix heavy and medium/light weaponry at such missions.
Another aspect is that only strong soldiers can carry heavy equipment and even then they should avoid loading grenades, sensors, and other miscellaneous stuff. Which makes sense, actually, for them to lay down and play sniper role.
Sonic weapon may have about same specialization within series but they should generally keep this differentiation from gauss:
* slightly lighter
* noticeably more powerful
* slightly slower
* slightly less accurate
* no auto
Sonic pistol should be capable to kill tasoth with 4-6 shots. Sonic cannon should kill lobsterman with 2-3 shots.
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I suppose the main question is if you want to try to keep gauss pistol and possibly sonic pistol viable alternatives at the point you already have access to gauss rifle or other weapons. I liked gauss pistol when I had it because it was reasonably accurate and very TU-efficient. But gauss rifle had more power and at that point the enemies were starting to become tougher. So I couldn't really justify keeping pistol around, rather keep rifle as a basic weapon. IIRC pistol could be used one-handed without penalty (in contrast to rifle), but it is easy to drop an item from your off-hand if you have something there. I'd guess the only way to make gauss pistol a viable consideration in the long term would be to make it have sufficient damage, but then it might end up competing too much with the rifle. Tough choices.
There are already quite a few differences between heavy gauss and gauss rifle, so you'll certainly use both. It's OK to make the differences bigger but they are already there. The main consideration is the tradeoffs between gauss and sonic variants.
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I didn't plan for all of the weapon types to be usable throughout the game. It is impossible to make all six of them so variant. The fact that you use gauss pistol at initial phase and then drop it for rifle and then transition to heavy is completely fine.
I agree that gauss vs. sonic is the bigger consideration. There are (possibly) two approaches to this.
1. Make sonic versions unconditionally better so it will be no brainer to switch to them once they are available.
2. Interlace them a little and give them some variation so they replace each other on heaviness basis gradually.
The problem with #1 is that by making sonic pistol better than heavy gauss we effectively make heavy gauss weak enough to not be able to fight tasoths and lobstermen. That may be disastrous if on SH player encounters them before they can research sonic weapons. Heavy gauss should be able to kill basic lobstermen even if with enormous amount of hits. Just to be sure player is not stuck completely before sonic weapons are discovered.
So, I guess, they should be interlaced to some extent. The question is - to which?
Initially I planned pistol to replace pistol, rifle to replace rifle, etc. With this power progression: gp - sp - gr - sr - hg - sc. Apparently, that makes sp so weak that it is not even usable against tougher enemies at the time it is discovered in this mod.
Then I shifted sonic versions to make this progression: gp - gr/sp - hg/sr - sc. So that sp is as powerful as gr but lighter and faster albeit less precise. By your feedback it does not seem sufficient to prefer sp to gr still. Yes, one can do it or do not - the consequences are about same so could as well skip sp altogether.
With the above in mind, should we shift sonic versions even further to make gp - gr - sp - hg - sr - sc? This way at the time sp is discovered it is definitely better replacement for gr. Actually, gr should be in its sunset at this time anyway. What do you think?
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Initially I planned pistol to replace pistol, rifle to replace rifle, etc. With this power progression: gp - sp - gr - sr - hg - sc. Apparently, that makes sp so weak that it is not even usable against tougher enemies at the time it is discovered in this mod.
Then I shifted sonic versions to make this progression: gp - gr/sp - hg/sr - sc. So that sp is as powerful as gr but lighter and faster albeit less precise. By your feedback it does not seem sufficient to prefer sp to gr still. Yes, one can do it or do not - the consequences are about same so could as well skip sp altogether.
With the above in mind, should we shift sonic versions even further to make gp - gr - sp - hg - sr - sc? This way at the time sp is discovered it is definitely better replacement for gr. Actually, gr should be in its sunset at this time anyway. What do you think?
I support the idea of some kind of interlacing to enable some variety and distinguish the game from vanilla, but as you say, it doesn't really make sense to try to keep all 6 guns viable until the end game. Even 4 viable guns would be very good. One factor for viability might be that some challenging alien armors might be more easily penetrated with either sonic or gauss but not both. For example, in TWoTS, squidfaces have a vulnerability for gauss and take less damage from sonic. This mod already has that (gauss = 1.0, sonic = 0.5), making gauss useful against them at least.
In this mod, the two rather important features of a gun are accuracy (on longer range guns) and ability for auto shot either for situations less than 10 squares (when a single hit doesn't give a kill) or very close (when you don't happen to have a good melee weapon). TU cost is a smaller consideration unless you can make two aimed shots in a turn (rare) or with bigger guns, two snap shots from smaller distances. Also note that auto shot or low TU cost on sonic weapons might increase the difficulty slightly, because the aliens would shoot more (and even if they missed, they might end up hitting another x-com soldier). If TU cost for snap shot is low, the aliens will do a huge number of reaction shots, possibly increasing the difficulty slightly. Your idea of providing auto shot only for gauss weapons (and even only some of them, e.g. pistol and rifle, or even only rifle) might be useful. Unfortunately I don't have any more specific suggestions or ideas.
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This is all good talk that resonates with my though! Thank you for maintaining conversation.
Let me reiterate it once more. I don't want to force player to use multiple hand weapons. They can if they want to but this should not be required to pass the game. There is already enough variation between projectile/explosive/incendiary/stun. I would count my mission complete if at any given point player uses two different hand weapons for the sake of flexibility. That is completely fine when some of them become obsolete. That does not even mean each of them is absolutely required to win the game. I guess one can easily skip GP or GR or HG without much impact but skipping two of them in a row may be ineffective.
My imaginary progression looks like this.
GP is good up to gillmen medium USOs and port terror missions.
GR is good up to tasoth medium USOs and port terror missions.
HG is good up to all USO sizes and tough terrorists like Xarquid. Therefore, could be good for ship tasoth missions too.
SP is a lightweight replacement for GR and does not obsolete HG. Maybe be weapon of choice for weak soldiers or as a sidearm to offset HG slowness.
SR obsoletes HG and at this point it should be good for all kind of missions including alien bases. Although SC and PWT launcher are better equipment for that.
SC obsoletes SP and good until the end of the game against toughest creatures, obviously.
RE: alien vulnerability.
I like the idea of some of them vulnerable to certain attack type as it give the edge to whom knows it. At the same time it should not be a requirement and player should be able to grind their way through with conventional attacks. From the other side, there is not need to overdo it. One best way to kill creature should be enough. I also don't like to force player to use gauss weapon throughout the end of the game as eventually this series should sunset. That is why I set Cephallid/Squidface damage modifiers for both gauss and sonic to 1.
More details on vulnerabilities.
Lobstermen vulnerable to drill - good.
All other aliens vulnerable to fire - good. With 80 phosphorous torpedo damage it becomes 160 damage. Which is good way to tackle them.
Tentaculat vulnerable to fire and susceptible to HE - good. I guess everybody knows it from vanilla. Nothing to change.
Xarquid is susceptible to drill. I think this is enough for it. Otherwise, it won't be a serious threat anymore. Feel free to propose anything else.
Same for bio-drone. With lesser armor it is even easier to kill with vibroblade for example.
Hallucinoid is vulnerable to fire. With its medium armor and health it is easy to kill with rocket tank.
So far I don't see any urge to change vulnerabilities.
Triscene is the only alien I would modify. Currently it has no vulnerabilities, insane side armor but none under. That is why the *only* way to kill it is with grenades (or rockets probably). Which contradicts flexibility principle. There should be some other way to kill it.
Change options:
- reduce side armor to make it penetrable for HG and SR at least. I am going with this option in next version.
- add some serious vulnerability for fire or stun or drill or even smoke?
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like the idea of some of them vulnerable to certain attack type as it give the edge to whom knows it. At the same time it should not be a requirement and player should be able to grind their way through with conventional attacks. From the other side, there is not need to overdo it. One best way to kill creature should be enough. I also don't like to force player to use gauss weapon throughout the end of the game as eventually this series should sunset. That is why I set Cephallid/Squidface damage modifiers for both gauss and sonic to 1.
Agreed. If you know the right tools for the job, 1 vs 2 hits or 2 vs 3 hits is a good offset. It might get easily frustrating if you have difficulty of inflicting any damage except with a few options (to some degree, the game already has a few at least borderline cases, such as xarquids and triscenes).
More details on vulnerabilities.
Lobstermen vulnerable to drill - good.
All other aliens vulnerable to fire - good. With 80 phosphorous torpedo damage it becomes 160 damage. Which is good way to tackle them.
Tentaculat vulnerable to fire and susceptible to HE - good. I guess everybody knows it from vanilla. Nothing to change.
Xarquid is susceptible to drill. I think this is enough for it. Otherwise, it won't be a serious threat anymore. Feel free to propose anything else.
Same for bio-drone. With lesser armor it is even easier to kill with vibroblade for example.
Hallucinoid is vulnerable to fire. With its medium armor and health it is easy to kill with rocket tank.
Fire is an interesting vulnerability, because in vanilla I doubt much of anyone used it. So I'm all for more variety.
My biggest gripe is with xarquid and biodrone. Drills vulnerability against flying enemies? Enemies that are primarily deployed on open maps, and rarely encountered inside ships or buildings? Both enemies have a very accurate and deadly long range guns? Seems somewhat unfair to me. Sure, vulnerability is cool, if you can leverage it, but I think you really need to have a viable main alternative to deal with them without drills, unless the specific intent is to force the player to employ "kamikaze tactics" against those enemies.
Further, xarquids accompany the easiest alien race, gillmen (especially on large/very large ships). Is it intentional that their underwater terror units are made the most difficult to deal with? Certainly this is an acceptable way to make gillmen very large ships very difficult if that is the goal for balancing and ensuring that at least that very large ship is no cakewalk.
- reduce side armor to make it penetrable for HG and SR at least. I am going with this option in next version.
- add some serious vulnerability for fire or stun or drill or even smoke?
When the difficulty of an alien is similar to the main game, one could assume the players are aware of how to deal with it. It's the cases which differ from the vanilla in a significant way that shouldn't cause very nasty surprises.
Reducing some armor is obivously fine. Triscene might also already be somewhat susceptible to stun bombs (due to 4x hit), but I didn't check.
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My biggest gripe is with xarquid and biodrone. Drills vulnerability against flying enemies? Enemies that are primarily deployed on open maps, and rarely encountered inside ships or buildings? Both enemies have a very accurate and deadly long range guns? Seems somewhat unfair to me. Sure, vulnerability is cool, if you can leverage it, but I think you really need to have a viable main alternative to deal with them without drills, unless the specific intent is to force the player to employ "kamikaze tactics" against those enemies.
I agree drill against flying creatures is kinda not well thought.
If you want them to be vulnerable to ranged weapon than which? I agree they are tough enough so they require few hits from afar. However, once player learned not to rush toward them but snipe once they are located with targeted squad fire they can be certainly killed. HG and SP are fine against them. Even GR works ok.
If it is fire, then there will be too much fire vulnerable creature. People would abandon conventional weapons altogether and use fire rockets exclusively. HE? Not unique either. Would make them another triscene. Besides, they are flying.
Further, xarquids accompany the easiest alien race, gillmen (especially on large/very large ships). Is it intentional that their underwater terror units are made the most difficult to deal with? Certainly this is an acceptable way to make gillmen very large ships very difficult if that is the goal for balancing and ensuring that at least that very large ship is no cakewalk.
When the difficulty of an alien is similar to the main game, one could assume the players are aware of how to deal with it. It's the cases which differ from the vanilla in a significant way that shouldn't cause very nasty surprises.
I believe it is by design, yes. Otherwise, taking large USO would be a cakewalk. It should not be.
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If you want them to be vulnerable to ranged weapon than which? I agree they are tough enough so they require few hits from afar. However, once player learned not to rush toward them but snipe once they are located with targeted squad fire they can be certainly killed. HG and SP are fine against them. Even GR works ok.
As xarquids are likely to come across in the early game - possibly with no access to sonic yet - and have relatively heavy armor, a 0.5 vulnerability to gauss would make them noticeably easier. But if you don't want to make them that much easier, another alternative would be to have 0.5 for sonic. That would "reward" researching and making use of sonic as early as possibly. The third option would be to just have 1.0 for both gauss and sonic, and if you make sonic weapons better, that would include a sufficient advantage (= more powerful sonic rifle and cannon might blast through their armor with sufficient ease).
For biodrones I have no opinion, but bear in mind that they explode unless you kill them with HE or drill (AFAIR) or stun them. Depending on context, you may prefer explosion (if enemies nearby?), but typically perhaps not. This might be a consideration. Maybe stun or either sonic or gauss would be nice.
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Hand weapon powers in current version I am testing: gauss: 40-60-90, sonic: 70-100-130.
As you can see they are pretty close to vanilla except HG because it was an absolute crap there.
With that in mind HG would require approximately 120 / (90 - 50) = 3 hits to kill a xarquid. With increased aimed accuracy this should be an absolutely acceptable rate. SC should do it even faster. GR and SP may require more grinding, of course, but there should be no problems researching HG quick enough.
I disagree they come in early game. Sure they could by chance but they are not supposed to. Meaning if player encounters them early and don't have good way to kill them - they just simply turn around and wait for researching better gears. Simple as that. Same as nobody attacks bases with GP.
Biodrones are not the issue at all. 20 armor is easily penetrable by GR. They are deadly all right and require caution in maneuvering but not impassable.
Same goes for all other terrorists like calcinite, deep one, hallucinoid, etc. They are all relatively deadly but killable. I don't see much need to make them more vulnerable.
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If you have a set of changes ready and at least testable, please upload a version. I might be tempted to try it.
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Sure thing. Let me brush it up and upload.
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Uploaded and added changelist.
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I am playing longer SH game now and noticed one thing. Not sure if it is even related to the mod.
I have HG and SP. They are powerful enough to kill tasoths and all terrorists followers at this level. Saw cephalids but not lobstermen. Interceptors are armed with GC and they easily shut down all medium USOs and I also recover some larger landed USOs so cash flow seems to be adequate.
This is pace of events that worries me. USOs appear few times a day. I have 6-7 interceptors but I don't have time to even refuel them in time to intercept next one and next one. Same for recover missions. Flying triton back and forth requires about a day and there are more crash sites than I can serve. I have about 40 soldiers in my main base but about 20-30 of them are wounded all the time. I started running out of everything: time, money, supplies. I have 100 technicians building gauss tanks + their ammo, heavy gauss + ammo, gauss cannon ammo and they cannot keep up. I am forced to downgrade to rocket tanks. The supply of sonic pistol ammo ran out and I don't recover more as aliens seem not to carry sonic pistols anymore. I didn't yet researched sonic rifle. I guess I have to pretty soon. I have to skip missions sometimes due to lack of time or lack of tanks or lack of soldiers or their equipment. I guess I have to also build secondary main mission base with another triton and soldiers in some other base to keep up with the pace.
I am building more workshops and laboratories, of course but they are still in construction.
All in all, this is not the management collapse leading to the end of the game but kinda tough experience I didn't see before in vanilla. From the other side, this is SH difficulty. So some minor problems should appear to make it not a cakewalk after mid game. So maybe it should be expected.
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Playing 1.13, now in May (still waiting for the first large/very large ship). I noticed that Alien Containment research dependencies do not reflect the comments in the ruleset. Based on the comments I expected that you should have cryogenics, cloning and an autopsy. Now completing all 4 autopsies unlocks researching alien containment, even though I hadn't been able to research either cryogenics or cloning. It appears that the ruleset is now actually OR instead of AND.
However, maybe this behavior is better even though it's somewhat illogical. That way if you have bad RNG and aren't able to get both cloning and cryogenics, you still get access to containment eventually in April-June timeframe at the latest, when you have faced all four original alien races. But if you want to keep this faithful to the original idea, this needs to be fixed.
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Just researched the thermal shok launcher and I was able to use and manufacture it and its ammo before researching the ammo. Is this right? Using latest openxcom extended and v1.13 of the mod.
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The weapon- ammo research paradigm is something we should simplify. Researching weapon should include ammo as well. There is no sense to use then separately.
As for Allen containment I already found this bug and fixed it can update 1.13.
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In some mods, you cannot even manufacture alien items or components, you'll have to make do with those you scavenge from them. Sometimes this might make you think about how you're using the ammo, and possibly use various kinds of weapons depending on how much you need to conserve ammunition for each. Not sure if this is something that could be considered here. The same applies to alien components. It strikes me as strange that you can manufacture e.g. aqua plastics, ion-beam accelerators, etc. You should have to rely on what you can obtain from the aliens.
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A little more research sophistication ideas.
Allen containment <- any alien autopsy + alien cryogenic
MC reader <- any alien autopsy + alien cloning
MC lab <- MC reader + alien learning array + any live aquatoid
MC disruptor <- MC reader + MC lab + alien implanter + medic/navigator/commander
This way player can research MC lab by raiding some mid size USOs.
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Just researched the thermal shok launcher and I was able to use and manufacture it and its ammo before researching the ammo. Is this right? Using latest openxcom extended and v1.13 of the mod.
This mod auto advance all ammo after weapon research. Check your ufopaedia and you'll see both weapon and ammo there (maybe on the same page).
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A little more research sophistication ideas.
Allen containment <- any alien autopsy + alien cryogenic
MC reader <- any alien autopsy + alien cloning
MC lab <- MC reader + alien learning array + any live aquatoid
MC disruptor <- MC reader + MC lab + alien implanter + medic/navigator/commander
This way player can research MC lab by raiding some mid size USOs.
Alien cryogenics is only available from dreadnought and battleship. Battleships in early-mid game are usually terror ships or difficult to shoot down. Alien cloning can additionally be obtained from fleet supply cruiser. Smaller ships have neither of these. Some of these are avaiable from artifact sites, colonies, etc., which could be rather difficult, at least when they have strong MC aliens.
Doesn't the MC reader requirement alien cloning mean that you need to deal with a large or very large ship before you could research that and therefore you couldn't get MC lab either. I suppose you actually meant that you need to have a MC reader (item), but not necessarily be able to research it yet, plus a learning array. That doesn't help that much if alien containment already requires going through a battleship or very large ship.
In my opinion, the early game would be rather difficult and dependent on RNG with those research requirements. This mod already decreases MC strength max to 60. So even if you screen your soldiers once you get MC lab, they are still somewhat susceptible to MC attacks. Having to deal with a battleship or very large ship without MC screening is a challenge which also depends heavily on RNG (do you get a ship with a race with few or zero MC capable units or not?). The difficulty is bolstered as the underwater terror units are also more difficult, even significantly so, compared to vanilla. Unless you get some tech advancement by June/July, you're likely on the path to losing the game. I'd suggest that a game design where success/failure depends heavily on RNG is not optimal. Obviously it's still your choice how difficult and RNG-dependent you want especially the early-mid game to be.
In my current game in mid-June, due to the bug in alien containment dependencies, I have alien containment, MC lab and MC disruptor without having to go through any very large ship (there was only one earlier, with aquatoids - meaning a no-go, and now a second one). I have captured all aquatoid species except the commander from fleet supply cruisers. Dunno about getting MC disruptor at this point (I plan to use it to train up MC skill a bit), but otherwise the game is still no cakewalk. With "correct" dependencies for MC lab/alien containment, very likely I would have been screwed already (no alien containment, no MC lab).
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Yeah. I may mix these dependencies up because I don't know where each component appears. I assumed they are listen in order of easier to harder to obtain. Do you know which USO carries which components? I will rearrange my proposition then.
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Yeah. I may mix these dependencies up because I don't know where each component appears. I assumed they are listen in order of easier to harder to obtain. Do you know which USO carries which components? I will rearrange my proposition then.
You can see the vanilla values for example by clicking the subs in the bottom of the page https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Alien_Submarines
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That what I was looking for. Thank you.
So here is their appearance in vanilla:
Alien Learning Arrays: Cruiser
Alien Cloning: F.S. Cruiser
Alien Cryogenics: Battleship
Alien Implanter: Dreadnaught
With this in mind I would remove alien component requirement from alien containment and rewrite the proposed tree like that.
Allen containment <- any alien autopsy. Optionally, few autopsies? Aquatoid and Gillman?
MC reader <- any live alien. Optionally, few of them + terrorists?
MC lab <- MC reader + alien learning arrays + medic
MC disruptor <- MC reader + MC lab + alien implanter + navigator/commander
What do you think?
That may be too easy for first three but that should be fine. I do not want to scrutinize the progress to MC lab. MC disruptor, from the other side, should be hard to obtain.
That leaves the question what to do with cloning and cryogenics? Cloning is somewhat easier to obtain from F.S. Cruiser but it is not good to add it as a dependency to M.C. Lab as you may encounter F.S. Cruiser only few months down the road + building the facility + one month of initial training = too late.
Maybe add them as requirement for alien weapon just for fun? Cloning for thermal shock launcher and cryogenics for PWT launcher?
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Allen containment <- any alien autopsy. Optionally, few autopsies? Aquatoid and Gillman?
MC reader <- any live alien. Optionally, few of them + terrorists?
MC lab <- MC reader + alien learning arrays + medic
MC disruptor <- MC reader + MC lab + alien implanter + navigator/commander
What do you think?
That may be too easy for first three but that should be fine. I do not want to scrutinize the progress to MC lab. MC disruptor, from the other side, should be hard to obtain.
That leaves the question what to do with cloning and cryogenics? Cloning is somewhat easier to obtain from F.S. Cruiser but it is not good to add it as a dependency to M.C. Lab as you may encounter F.S. Cruiser only few months down the road + building the facility + one month of initial training = too late.
Maybe add them as requirement for alien weapon just for fun? Cloning for thermal shock launcher and cryogenics for PWT launcher?
I support this idea in general: "delay" the start of the game slightly before getting sonic, but not make the start of the game excessively difficult or RNG-dependent.
I agree that MC disruptor should certainly come later (you can't use it anyway, until you have been a while in the MC lab). Any single autopsy for the alien containment might be a little bit too easy. That would essentially allow starting down the sonic tree as early as in February, March at the latest. This might be fine, because the gauss weapons stay relevant nonetheless due to other balancing choices. I'd suggest at least aquatoid and gillman (maybe also either tasoth or lobsterman as the third, but that might make it too RNG-dependent). For MC reader, I'd suggest some live alien, for example a squad leader, or possibly either a medic, technician or navigator (a MC-capable alien that is). A terrorist would be alternative, but that would be challenging but not excessively so (similar to grabbing a live deep one terrorist in vanilla; however, now this is a bit more trickier, because you don't get access to alien containment at the start, so you'd have to wish for a manageable terror mission later).
I can't think of a logical dependency for cryogenics and cloning. Maybe you don't need one, or you could add one for building manta/leviathan (currently getting them is rather easy). PWT launcher at least could have extra dependencies, because it is an end-game tech in any case. It would be still be OK to have cloning as a requirement for MC lab (you can manage FS cruisers without MC screening), but that would create a RNG dependency on spotting a FS cruiser in the early game. Without cloning dependency, you'd be almost guaranteed a smooth start into the game (which might be a good idea, to not frustrate the players too much).
Edit: I think a general weakness, similar to vanilla, is that you really need very few alien components and once you have gotten them (and possibly researched them), they are essentially useless junk. This concerns especially ones that are slightly more difficult to get, i.e. implanter, examination room, cryogenics, etc. If you couödn't manufacture those components and you needed them to manufacture something, you'd actually have some reason to go for Artifact site missions or very large ships. Now, once you have already obtained everything you could need, you may want to go there and abort the mission. But not sure if this is worth fixing in this mod, because this would require significant rework (similar to TWoTS, for example).
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Good ideas.
Alien containment
As you correctly noticed, it is the path to all other alien technologies. I would not delay it too much to not frustrate player. At the same time to prolong it a little we can use alien + terrorist autopsy combination. Then first terror mission at the end of January should unlock it and player may have alien containment sometimes at the end of February which should be good enough as they also need to capture and interrogate bunch of aliens. It does not need to be more delayed than that.
<- any alien autopsy + any terrorist autopsy
MC reader
I perceive it as rather cool toy adding variety in game but not a game breaker. It helps with targeted capture but even without it one can just stun all aliens in medium-large USOs and sort them out later. Probably makes sense to give it to player earlier when it can be used to discover and exploit subtle advantages in enemy armor/health/TU, etc. With better armor and weapon development it become less relevant.
It may not even be dependent on live aliens so it could be researched in parallel with alien containment. I am thinking to replace live alien dependency to alien learning arrays. Let me know if you believe this item should be delayed more.
<- alien learning arrays
MC lab
I understand you don't have major concern about this one so it may stay the same and alien learning arrays dependency would just shift to MC reader.
<- MC reader + medic
For alien components in general we can use them to manufacture player subs. The rationale for that would be that they are part of alien subs so could be as well used in ours. They are not manufacturable and used in about same proportion in our subs as in alien ones.
Alien cloning may be used for manta/hammerhead (both research and manufacture).
Alien cryogenics may be used for hammerhead/leviathan (both research and manufacture).
Another option is to make manta depend not only on components but on live aliens too: technician and navigator, which makes sense.
Or both of these options which should be fine too.
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I just realized Tasoths don't have psi skill in this mod. That is strange as they were strong psi race in vanilla and even MC Disruptor required tasoth interrogation.
I am going to re-add psi skills to some units. Here is the plan.
Aquatoids
medic, technician, navigator, commander
Excluding lower ranks to avoid psi attack in early game while assaulting small USOs.
Gillmen
navigator, commander
Need to give them something so they at least stir things a little during terror missions.
Also want to increase their health. After discovering gauss rifle they are as easy to kill as aquatoids. They should not be the easiest race.
Tasoths
squad leader and above ranks
Lobstermen
Not sure. Maybe give some to commanders?
Also plan to increase their health just a tiny bit to make sure they are tougher than tasoths.
Cephalids
all ranks
They are very easy to kill. So they should be quite psi annoying. I don't see this happening in this mod.
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Released 1.14 with all the small changes I added.
Mostly research tree to make sense for more distant and less distant discoveries. Should make better sense and be easier to track with research tree.
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Moved to the GitHub:
https://github.com/tnevolin/openxcomextended-tftd-rework-evolution
Releases:
https://github.com/tnevolin/openxcomextended-tftd-rework-evolution/releases
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New version released: 1.15.
Some adjustment to sonic weapons to make it more in line with vanilla but the actual numbers are mine.
Some adjustment to armor.
Experimental shock damage. Need to see how it plays out.
A chart for hand weapon effectiveness against armor (average speed and accuracy taken into account).
Gauss weapons are about same effective against light target but drop in rank against heavy ones.
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I am thinking maybe add description to autopsy highlighting resistances and weaknesses?
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I am integrating my mod with Brutal AI. For that I sure need to rearrange weapon, armor, and stats to make sure aliens and X-Com units are comparable to each other. Otherwise, it would be a nightmare battles every time.
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Otherwise, it would be a nightmare battles every time.
Is that not the whole point of BAI? :P
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Is that not the whole point of BAI? :P
Everything cand be abused, mark my words.
No single AI can ever beat savescum.
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Is that not the whole point of BAI? :P
I don't think so. The point of BAI is to introduce more intelligent opponent for tactical players rather than rush forward shooting standing (albeit tough) mannequin targets.
Everything has its limits. Including player patience. I don't see a point to crank difficulty even higher. Just ability to outsmart the smart AI should be enough satisfaction.
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The point of BAI is to introduce more intelligent opponent for tactical players...
...I don't see a point to crank difficulty even higher. Just ability to outsmart the smart AI should be enough satisfaction.
You've obviously not checked the early BAI test videos. Getting your men murdered by underwater aliens was more or less the goal. :P
Of course, yeah, you can use BAI for a more modest experience. But Xilmi's goal with this and other games has always been an AI that can make you cry because of how hard you're losing to it ;D while not looking like it's cheating at the same time. Pandora players complained quite a bit about how hard Xilmi's AI went after the smallest sign of weakness.
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I like AI to be strong and brutal. It would be fine for it to be unforgiving if this would be the only thing that stands between player and winning the game.
Unfortunately, X-Com already has quite a number of things capable of failing game without player direct mistakes. Like 3 countries sign an alliance, undetectable USOs early on, etc.
All things combined it would be a bad experience to fight all ground combat and then loose just because of some other reason. So it would probably be better to have 1000+ combats not absolute nightmarish.
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Would anyone be interested if I add clear hints on alien resistances and vulnerabilities in autopsies? They are NOT visible anywhere in the game. Probably makes sense to uncover them by examination of (dead) alien armor.
On the same note, I am thinking about possible good vulnerability variety. Unfortunately, there are not many.
- Melee. Very good vulnerability type. Alternative to shooting from afar.
- Gauss/Sonic. Not good. I don't think it is nice to force player to carry both class of weapons just to kill specific alien.
- Fire. Good in practice but in theory the fire damage is too low.
- Explosives. Not bad for some. Like Tentaculat now has it but it should not be too used vulnerability. Explosives are already powerful.