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Open Feedback / Re: Incendiaries
« on: October 10, 2015, 12:39:53 am »
I'm finding incendiary weapons are less useful in OpenXcom than the OG due to side-effects of incendiary-related bugfixes, even when played straight without abuse.
For example, the funky fire bug: When hitting a unit with more fire while it's already standing in fire, damage per hit was increased (effectively doubled? Not sure). This also increased the value of incendiary rockets when used in combination with auto-cannons and heavy cannons (first hit a building or area with the incendiary rocket to cover the area, then fire autocannon and cannon at it to add more fuel to the fire). It was an interesting combo which doesn't work well-enough anymore.
The other is when zombies killed by fire wouldn't spawn a chrysalid. That alone was worth bringing a couple autocannons with me way past their normal shelf-life, which was more interesting than not bringing them.
Since these mainly de-value autocannon incendiary rounds (and by extension the autocannon itself to some extent), I personally mod them to a weigh 2 pounds less than explosive rounds (so 3 instead of 5) -- otherwise I'd simply never bring incendiary rounds (I play with the 80 item limit on skyrangers turned on). I also reduce the weight of incendiary rockets and heavy cannon rounds by the same amount, but I tend not to use them much anymore regardless.
I'm considering doubling the armor damage multiplier for all aliens vs fire.
Smoke's stun damage also becomes kinda meaningless without the funky fire bug (for both xcom troops and aliens -- my unarmored troops can stay in smoke the whole battle, every battle), so I think that should be doubled (or maybe tripled or higher, but it would be hard to simulate this by just increasing this by a flat amount) as well -- I just don't know how.
The bugs were worth removing, despite the cost. It's just that I think we lost some of the offensive effectiveness of smoke and fire tactics along the way, and I'd like to get them back because they were fun. I'd like to have the effects of the funky fire bug back, if they can be made to apply logically rather than affecting the whole map, because when played straight without abuse it made incendiary weapons a viable alternative to other weapons in a way that was different than simply increasing the damage (albeit highly situational, which is fine). I liked how fire was the only good way to kill a zombie, too, and I miss having to move my own units out of smoked areas or risk falling unconscious.
For example, the funky fire bug: When hitting a unit with more fire while it's already standing in fire, damage per hit was increased (effectively doubled? Not sure). This also increased the value of incendiary rockets when used in combination with auto-cannons and heavy cannons (first hit a building or area with the incendiary rocket to cover the area, then fire autocannon and cannon at it to add more fuel to the fire). It was an interesting combo which doesn't work well-enough anymore.
The other is when zombies killed by fire wouldn't spawn a chrysalid. That alone was worth bringing a couple autocannons with me way past their normal shelf-life, which was more interesting than not bringing them.
Since these mainly de-value autocannon incendiary rounds (and by extension the autocannon itself to some extent), I personally mod them to a weigh 2 pounds less than explosive rounds (so 3 instead of 5) -- otherwise I'd simply never bring incendiary rounds (I play with the 80 item limit on skyrangers turned on). I also reduce the weight of incendiary rockets and heavy cannon rounds by the same amount, but I tend not to use them much anymore regardless.
I'm considering doubling the armor damage multiplier for all aliens vs fire.
Smoke's stun damage also becomes kinda meaningless without the funky fire bug (for both xcom troops and aliens -- my unarmored troops can stay in smoke the whole battle, every battle), so I think that should be doubled (or maybe tripled or higher, but it would be hard to simulate this by just increasing this by a flat amount) as well -- I just don't know how.
The bugs were worth removing, despite the cost. It's just that I think we lost some of the offensive effectiveness of smoke and fire tactics along the way, and I'd like to get them back because they were fun. I'd like to have the effects of the funky fire bug back, if they can be made to apply logically rather than affecting the whole map, because when played straight without abuse it made incendiary weapons a viable alternative to other weapons in a way that was different than simply increasing the damage (albeit highly situational, which is fine). I liked how fire was the only good way to kill a zombie, too, and I miss having to move my own units out of smoked areas or risk falling unconscious.
But it is what it is, and I'm grateful that these mods exist at all.
