Messages

16

Work In Progress / Re: [TFTD][WIP][OXCE] Zrbite Laser Rifle

« on: January 07, 2024, 08:24:29 pm »

I love how this bastard of laser rifle and sniper gauss looks on handobs.

17

The X-Com Files / Re: Weak UFOs

« on: January 07, 2024, 08:17:34 pm »

Or maybe it's all just fanfiction...

Well written. Why not?
I just think that tougher of hybrids should then be part of mixed crews, then. Like, when invasion begins, couple of sectoids + 15 hybrid assaults can do the mess.

18

The X-Com Files / Re: Synthmuscles availability

« on: January 07, 2024, 08:14:41 pm »

OFC, if you get them early, they can be a great boon for your agents and make things at least temporary easier but you can also get lucky and get early Power Armor from M.A.G.M.A. missions as well, or some other RNG based stuff.

Which MAGMA mission yields power armor, can you remind?

19

The X-Com Files / Re: Weak UFOs

« on: January 07, 2024, 06:56:00 pm »

Er, hybrid missions are never 'done', at least as of 3.2. You could be done with the convoys by ignoring them, I suppose.

They do not end when you release Hybrids from their masters' circuitry? Story getting sad.

20

Brutal AI / Re: Brutal-OXCE 8.0.1

« on: January 07, 2024, 04:08:00 pm »

The AI considers a unit as a valid target to attack on the current turn when the unit was "seen" in the current turn. target->getTurnsSinceSeen(_unit->getFaction()) == 0

I think this would be justifiyable to have as an option. It's a bit of a grey area in terms of whether that can be considered cheating or not. The introduction of holding Alt to see where the AI units were spotted shooting from even without actually seeing the units leveled the playing-field when it comes to precision. But that could also be considered as: "Allowing the player to cheat too so the AI-cheat becomes more justifyable."

I think, the overall decision as concept is good and very intriguing, but the impact on player is too punishing.
I would see it as range-dependent randomization of square (or in-depth rectangle) where famous Bullet-Scanner (a.k.a. BS) can be involved. Then, if target is hit, then the necessary tile is 100% determined.

Also, I would call back Joynarical to do something about grenades so they make landing with range-dependant Gaussian distribution around the target tile.

21

Brutal AI / Re: Brutal-OXCE 8.0.1

« on: January 07, 2024, 03:54:40 pm »

Hi, Xilmi!
Sorry for late reply, I've seen your message.
Ok, I'll change Ironman, because there are plenty of moments that seem unfair and I anyway  have to often reload from backup.
Initially, I switched to Ironman/SH from just SH, because it was kind of enhancing the difficulty in vanilla and I didn't use to reload by in-game months.

This mission has tons of cover so I can very well imagine that the AI can do a good job with being aggressive on it. They also threw lots and lots of grenades. The high health-pools compared to the damage and the availability of medikits also helped me under consideration that the enemy played less aggressively.
Overall the level of challenge felt good considering me probably not playing very well.

This mission is proposed to be done with higher tier armor, which was not available at the moment, because my overall on-globe progress is non-optimal (guess why ). If not urban location, the proxy grenades would have been very useful. I had it never occured in town.
Also, that's second team, not the best one.
So, it's doable even vs BAI, but not in my case (actually, I cannot see any player to get optimal on-globe progress with this amount of casualties BAI usually brings)

You mean you didn't replay the same mission but only a similar one? The one you won was the one in the urban area or not? It's not entirely clear to me.

I played exactly the same mission four times from backup.

A TFTD-player told me that for his play-style it is very helpful if the AI rushes.

Overall, AI rush is very niche. It should be occurring if the conditions are positive:
- overall amount of units * unitpower  >= 2,0 or even 3,0. Unitpower is weight-comparison in terms of armor (weight=50; including resistances vs wielded arms, because even 10 armor with resistance 0.2 equals 50 armor in simple approach), weapons (weight = 30; including best possible damage per turn) and combination of TU's (there BAI should assume something, not cheat. I mean, at beginning it should assume that X-COM TU's are ~70, but when few turns pass, it can reconsider these values).
- dense cover before the point of actual approach
- at least some initial shots made actual damage.
- OR melee is seems to be the most reliable way to deal with X-COM (or no other weapons are in stock)
If such adjustment can happen, then it can be more fluid approach.
Also, although it was initial and helpful collab with classic X-COM scenario users, it should be noted that major pf players are megamod users.

I think my reaction to "too strong" in the future will be: "Then mod it easier/lower the difficulty", whereas I will take to "too easy" very seariously and will want to look into the reasons for that and what to do about it.

I watched a year ago when there was a misunderstanding between you and the modders. If you remember what I mean. While the progress of BAI is great and all conditions for cooperation on megamods are in place, there is no clear movement yet. Perhaps rebalancing mods under BAI requires effort (mods have been created from several to ten years) comparable to months of debugging and gameplay-testing. And, in the end, it may be that only the community can rebalance it optimally.
You cannot see how personally I wish you and modders take each other hand-in-hand and jump up and down together on a road into a bright future.
- at the same time, players are interested in a strengthened AI, capable of diversified approach to confrontation
- players are interested in the dynamics and quality of the game as such.
- At the same time, the game should not be able to be completed only under the condition of savescuming.

I guess with all this I'm saying in the current moment it would be better to bring back the BAI dumbness level settings until the connection arises, because for now the control over the level of player suffering is solely on you
There was cool option of "static intelligence" to adjust weighted-randomization of BAI movement logics, where it rolled from x to 1. Please consider bringing it back in. It should be up to a player. Like, I will set it to 0.6-1.0 most likely, or even 0.4-1.0. 

The formula is pretty much this:
100 / (discoverThreat + walkToDist * myAggressiveness);

What if myaggressiveness is partially brought by units.RUL (if none, then 1),
while discoverThreat is fluid by means of comparative unitpower (weights: armor = 50, weapon = 30, stats = 20)  + unit_excess_over_player? If armor is somewhat better, then more aggressive. But then it can be abused with a craft of 10 no-armor dogs + four power-armor guys. Wait, 3 power-armor guys probably could do nothing against 20 enemies with plasma, right? So... it has all chances to work correctly.

22

The X-Com Files / Re: Weak UFOs

« on: January 06, 2024, 11:47:22 pm »

Well, hybrid convoys are actual through Year 2 threat arc, and should be finished before actual alien invasion (as proposed by optimal timing), but usually I get them done in a middle of year three, when they are more of a nuisance, rather than something actually worth, except giving agents a couple of new stat points in shooting...

You know what, accident idea that hybrid convoy should end up in hybrid missions, at least sometimes. Crossover!   

23

The X-Com Files / Re: Beginner's difficulty setting question

« on: January 06, 2024, 11:24:48 pm »

I don't think it's useful to discuss BAI in this thread. (Even if Abyss is playing with it, and I think usually so that some portion of enemies is controlled by vanilla-AI and some portion by BAI).

Xilmi confirmed that no vanilla AI-controlled enemies were on the mission which I recorded previously. So, whole my assumption was wrong. All were BAI, but some BAI were tuned one-turn-dumb specially, statistically random. This lead to mine relatively easy one-by-one sniping of enemies, as if it was played vs kind of vanilla AI in terms of overall difficulty.
Now, it's all different, and not abusable anymore. Xilmi removed this function once and for all, because "this way BAI does not perform on the intended way". Sad.

I guess, if there were more players in Brutal AI subforum, voting for somewhat reduction of overall sweatness of BAI, Xilmi would have to, at least, consider putting back to options the making enemies little bit more making mistakes.

If you get return fire for reaction shots, that doesn't mean you've been revealed, just your current position. This distinction is academic until your next turn, but very much relevant then. Or is it not so?

It's not sniper-spotter by means of OXCE. BAI doesn't see the unit itself, but knows exact firing position. This is quite enough to both explore you, explode you or rain you head with no-LoS lead.
And now, it even can verify enemies location by accidentally bullet-hitting (when wounding) someone beyond the target. I suggested the "bullet-scanner" (aka BS) mechanism, Xilmi didn't accept the whole part, but partially this is it.   

See?
They watch the smoke cloud and either lurk beyond the corners, waiting for you to come out, or rush you with flamethrowers, dynamite and everything else possible.

24

The X-Com Files / Re: Beginner's difficulty setting question

« on: January 04, 2024, 03:24:52 am »

My comment is for CHADs that can play without losses in the first place. You literally reload the autosave if something goes wrong in your videos.

Yeah, I reload quite a lot when see something is unfair. Like, forgetting that downed/killed agent had 3 pre-primed proxy grenades in inventory. In videos I reloaded for different reasons, adjusting options. BTW Xilmi removed the mistake-probability and now it's quite plain fight vs better AI, so videos are not representative anymore.

The thing is, current agent training model makes it impossible to make it even through 2 years with casualities more than 60-70% overall (which means 20-25% by mission). 

Is that an army of 100, though? Does that include base defense rookies, dogs and all that stuff? I mean 20-40 Helix Knight agents (or in-training) that you actually send on missions.

That's the point beyond message! To get 30+ consistent crew you have to train 3x amount, and also have base-defense human meat & dogs.
In my particular case, 83 agents, 72 lost. Dogs do not count in this tab. No meat yet, all are in training for covering casualities in future. Tight economy makes it impossible to get more agents right now, and that's bad, because there will be much less zombie/creeps missions in the future. Seriously considering to keep syndicate monsters spawn even on year 3.

Are you using same lazy "firing squad" against aliens or something?

I wish that was possible. See, lazyness of brainpower is a result of sameness of processes. Once you got used to optimal strategy in allocation/gathering of "a resource", your brain will tend to be lazy. Change things and your strategy adapts, but tends to find best energy-effective solution in terms of reward/efforts.
So, nothing bad about firing squad - it was vanilla OXCE sort of instrument to deal with 70% of missions.

BAI uses different mechanics, there is no sniper-spotter mechanism as we knew it for 3 last years or so. Instead, when your agent reaction fires on enemy's turn, it becomes revealed, no matter of darkness, camo, smoke etc. And gets suppressed from various parts of the map, including some amounts of grenades.
What I do like, is that BAI mechanic doesn't cheat with highlighting your units for 2-5 turns no matter where they are. 

25

Brutal AI / Re: Brutal-OXCE 8.0.1

« on: January 03, 2024, 08:46:31 pm »

So can you confirm that you have indeed tested with the same starting-save or very similar conditions when you found a reduction of damage to only 30% of "possible damage". Or how did you determine what amount of damage is possible?

Yeah, I can. This previous savefile I attached is the mission that I tried multiple times with various aggro settings. The 7.13.1 where I set recommended 1/2 "baseline" + modder-set squashed my units in 10 turns, just because every enemy attacked simultaneously, minotaurs rushed with macro-flamers and axes (actually, I love how BAI prefers macro-flamers instead of melee option). Also, BAI thrown more grenades. I was lacking ifrepower and had to decide whether I should fire or reserve TU's for incoming enemies. None would help, because it's map with 50 enemies.
 
The one in 8.0.1, where I had chosen only baseline, I had it easily won. Even so it was pushing first 2-3 of turns, the battle changed fast towards reaction fire and killing of small waves of some attacking guys, while others were hiding inside the buildings on the map edges (away from actual combat area). Thus, overall enemy push was noticeable, but quite dealable.
The panic spiral of enemies started soon after, so past turn 12 the game became one-side beating.

I am sure that in some scenarios 0-1 aggressiveness is definitely purposeful. But clearly not in case of battles vs x3 enemies (of same power), where rushing strategy for AI is better. 

This caused units to think they should be spotters when becoming one wasn't a viable option, making them walk into reaction-fire without their allies being capable of providing significant assistance.

Well, that mission was pain in the ass (I dealt it 4 times, lost badly 3 times and easily won on 4th). It usually spawns in mountains/open field, but now spawned in close urban area. That is why sniper-rifle loadout was wrong. I clearly don't wan't to play it again to check.

The thing angered me was when BAI in two turns thrown 5 units through the same door, which had exit tile in reaction-sight of my snipers. That was enough to get that something goes wrong with decision making.

For example with a multiplier of 0.1 and valid values from 1-100 or so there also would be a lot of variety.

Well, the 4 for max aggressiveness is arbitrary number to which everyone got used to. And it was introduced by you.
I think simpler is better. So, if you chose this over min-max range, no trouble. 
 
The question is: should every unit on the map be of same picked aggression, or statistically different by min-max.
Theoretically, if same, then missions overall will feel different, which is good.
If min-max in same battle, then bunch of attackers, bunch of lurkers and so on. Which will result in force split. Which, in its turn, will lead to lose of competitive power. In theory. I don't know what will happen during real gameplay, given all these advances in BAI decision making. 

for experimentally determining suitable values but not nice for the player who didn't know what to set it to

Yep. I am going to make a submod, so players don't have to do anything.
I'll do it right ahead after getting the understanding of actual/final decision weights.   
So that would be great to chat on them and/or look at formulas, if you share the lines where to look at and how to understand them.

But then, approach should be verified, at least not drastically changed every new version.

UPD don't take my whining about "AI is too easy" and "AI is too strong" as bipolar disorder.
I am looking for balance that kicks my ass, but yet is possible to beat:)

26

Brutal AI / Re: Brutal-OXCE 8.0.1

« on: January 03, 2024, 06:49:28 pm »

Could anyone else reproduce the crash and has a save from shortly before?
I've been trying to catch a crash for an hour now and it simply doesn't happen on my side. :\

Hi!
I can confirm the game crashes when you press save&abandon the mission when playing Ironman. The game crashes to windows. But should leave to main menu. The issue may overlay with what donk has described.
The save is attached.

Actually, I also want to complain on BAI, which in 8.0.1 has only one aggressiveness adjustment. And when set to "baseline" it is not competitive at all. Enemies all lurk, doing only 30% of possible damage. And I still cannot switch it to "baseline + modder-set", because ruleset numbers for VAI are not good (actually, very bad) for BAI.

The suggestion was to make BAI consider ruleset aggressiveness as multiplicator, rather than surplus. So, 0.5 aggressiveness will make unit more cautious, while 4.0 will make it rush like devil. Then, I can run around the ruleset numbers and make tuned unit-aggressiveness submod for XCF.
It also can be very purposeful to look at current formula of the aggressiveness-related weights. 

The advanced suggestion is to make BAI consider a range of aggressiveness as multiplicator.
For example, RUL file can contain diapason (like, aggressiveness: 1,0/1,8 - for min and max), from which BAI can randomly pick and assign aggro for each given unit on map. That can make some interesting results. Of course, this unit.RUL mod will be used for BAI solely, excluding VAI gameplay.

This also can be under additional +number in settings, no need to replace options for aggressiveness, that are already there.
 

27

The X-Com Files / Re: Beginner's difficulty setting question

« on: January 02, 2024, 10:02:51 pm »

Lol, no. Twenty is plenty, forty is too much.

Oh, that must be not your case. This is comment for CHADs who don't reload turn every time their sniper misses and gets reaction-bullet into the head.

Look: 180 are recruited, 80 are lost by month 15. And these 100 will turn into fried chicken ASA actual alien invasion will start. Even though it's Brutal OXCE gameplay, I clearly remember having significant causalities vs ironman superhuman vanilla AI. Just because you don't know will this little green guy throw you a dynamite or not.

And then, you always have to have second/third good crew just in case, while rookies still training
 

28

The X-Com Files / Re: Beginner's difficulty setting question

« on: January 01, 2024, 11:12:09 pm »

 

When seeing a lot of critters, just withdraw.

Lol, no! Never withdraw if you have a chance to shoot and hit, not getting harmed in return.
Shoot as many bullets as possible, it's boosting agents stats.
And more, shuffle agents. Not get used to. Raise an army of 100 in two years.
Don't use save/load for immersiveness.
Read ANAL advanced description of weapons and compare, compare.
Shotguns are best for rookies.
Abuse light sources and night vs humans.

29

The X-Com Files / Re: [submod]Submod list for XCF

« on: January 01, 2024, 11:05:46 pm »

I suppose you can make a request to Solarius. Might take a little more than two minutes, but not much.

It was suggested a while ago. Maybe 3-4 years or so)
I think the issue is not solely adding rocks to mongorn maps, but rather having rocks in XCF at all. Imagine power-suit X-COM guys throwing rocks at aliens, instead of using bullets. 

30

Brutal AI / Re: Brutal-OXCE 8.0.0

« on: December 31, 2023, 07:29:52 pm »

I never done so, but this particular year really want to wish this particular thread all-prosper and break the limits! To Xilmi: thank you for everything you've done so far. We really appreciate your input! Have a best 2024!