Because all I am seeing here is theorycrafting upon theorycrafting how this would supposedly "improve" the game without even checking if any of this would actually work out.
How exactly does one 'check out' a feature that the game does not have? Never mind one that requires you to build a moderately complex retaliation system more or less from the ground up. If one was inclined to build their own alien defence simulator, there'd be no need for an OXCE suggestion in the first place.
Not to mention the goal post shift from 'armour does not work so your proposal will not, either' to 'maybe it will but have you
tested the proposed feature?'. Do
suggestions have to come with pull requests and extensive player feedback now?
Now you even have to argue that this would - somehow - make the automated base defences "better" without actually changing anything about how base defences work.
...
Even if it were, it would be part of the existing defence mechanics and change nothing in regards to your proposal being pointless.
So 'use armour and evasion' will change
absolutely nothing, it's already possible and your criticisms along these lines are completely without substance? A UFO with 9999 armour and 1 HP that's totally
invulnerable to everything but the 10k defence facility will change
nothing about retaliations? Are you even reading what you're arguing here?
My man, the solution to the supposedly boring base defence mechanic is not to cram more base defences into a single facility - which is all this accomplishes.
No, it isn't. Go back and actually try understanding the examples
I - not TBeholder,
me - have brought up, don't just state "This does nothing!" over and over again with
zero backup like a broken record.
What difference in outcome can base defences firing 50 times instead of 4 or 8 times provide, when the result is binary?
Easier base defence mission post-firing. Thinner bands of probability for said alien crew reductions. Less facility slots (and/or money/time/base Tetris) spent on protecting against small base assault UFOs. More reliability of outcome vs better but more chancy outcomes. These have all been brought up multiple times now, and you just refuse to listen or engage and go back to "But it's binary! Binaryyyyy, I say!"
I mean, this is the
exact same kind of argument as "What difference does it make if the hit chance is 1% or 99% when the result is binary? The 'hitRatio' field needs to be deprecated because it's useless and irrelevant. Make everything 50% and there will be no meaninful difference in gameplay!"
None, actually. If anything it is counterproductive.
So, no arguments and only a statement here, as usual.
Your "examples" were:
No, they were not. They were TBeholder's. If you want to dispute
him, don't quote
me.
"shoot down missiles"
...
Again, what does your idea actually accomplish that isn't already possible? Can you provide us with a concrete use-case?
...
And what does any of this actually accomplish that existing mechanics can not?
But at least I can answer that one while creating another example to answer the other questions. Suppose we have a 50-HP missile, a 200-HP Medium Scout (loaded with Chryssalids or whatever to make it somewhat threatening, and
much less threatening with only 1-2 Chryssalids) and a 3000-HP Battleship. Unless you remove hit chance altogether and make defence undeterministic and boring, a single facility will only shoot down the missile some of the time (80% max for vanilla Fusion Balls). A 50(d5+1) 50% hit chance defence (nominal damage 4, actual damage 2-6, since AFAIR facilities also do 50-150% damage; correct me if I'm wrong about defences needing to do full damage to kill the UFO) will virtually always do about 80-180 damage, killing the missile and seriously weakening the Scout with a rare chance for a kill, but will need at least ~15 friends to have any sort of realistic chance at the Battleship. How do you replicate
all of this with a
single vanilla facility?
It'd also be pretty weaksauce so presumably rather cheap and fast to erect.
You can not "reliably" soften up a terror ship by applying more random damage.
Your proposal doesn't accomplish either, because dealing *random* damage is the opposite of reliable.
Yes, you can, because the randomness is
different. Are you even congisant of the difference between the Irvin-Hall distribution and the uniform distribution?
As I pointed out, you are likely to either destroy it or lose the base (why do you need to "soften" up the crew in the first place? How do you deal with larger UFOs?).
Only with vanilla defences. I don't know how it's still not getting through to you, but this change will indeed not do a lot for vanilla defences and
will need a considerable amount of rework.
The 'softening up' is useful because you may not have enough troops and equipment to defend against 20 aliens, but you might be okay against 8. I imagine if one was using 'brutal AI', that difference could be night and day, even. Or maybe you don't have the patience for doing an involved mission the 193rd time in a row, but could still be bothered with a cakewalk.
Larger UFOs can be delayed to later stages of the game. Until then, the 'cheap but reliable' defences can be built quicker and will work more reliably against harassing assaults. When the big ones come knocking, it's time to upgrade. Or set up crack defence squads, or whatever.
The other two cases don't show why the mechanic is needed either, since both rely on dealing max damage to the target.
No, defending against evasive but low-HP missiles relies on doing 'max hits' on target. Battleships I'll grant you, but that was never
my argument in the first place.
Something that can "reliably" destroy a battleship will reliably destroy anything else you're throwing at the player.
Not a 100-evasion missile, and certainly not with the same investment of resources.
Nothing about the mechanic enables you to give the player "a choice" that wasn't possible before. I mean maybe I am missing something here, but none of your proposed use cases show why the mechanic is needed.
Again, I have yet see either of you come up with an actual concrete exmaple as to why any of this would be needed or what it would actually accomplish gameplay wise that isn't possible right now.
No, it's not 'needed'. It'd be
useful, maybe. With a modder dedicated to using it.
I also notice you've conveniently skipped providing any examples I've asked for, or even arguing about my proposed mock-up scenarios, only TBeholder's, while claiming they're not actual examples for... reasons.
Either what?
That thinking there are strategic choices in the ability to build weaker but more reliably damage-dealing defences and having weak assault UFOs vs the big guns and Battleships is 'fallacious'.
That having damaged a UFO with 'lessAliensDuringBaseDefense' on leading to a different defence mission is also 'fallacious thinking'.
That it's possible to build 'shotgun' defence facilities using
current mechanics.
That it's possible to build missile-killing defences that leave battleships 100% intact using
current mechanics.
I've yet to see any of that, either.
Because the result of of the base defence screen is binary.
And I have already told you the base defence
screen in and of itself is meaningless. The end result (of base defence) is
not binary in anything but the most vanilla examples.
Nothing about the proposed mechanic changes that, nor does it actually make it "good".
No, but it does not need to. The knock-on effects in both Geoscape base building and base defence missions (if 'lessAliensDuringBaseDefense' is active) have that potential.
The issue with base defences is not that they don't go *pewpew* enough. The issue is that there is no player engagement or interactivity.
It may or may not be
the issue.
I don't think it's necessary to add
direct interactivity to make base defences interesting - which would need so much UI work that the whole thing'd be outside the scope of OXCE anyway - and making UFO stats usable in base defence + multi-shot defences + a modder interested enough in overhauling bas defence
could make in interesting. I doubt all these ingredients will come together in reality, though.
Trying to invoke vanilla and battlescape mechanics makes no sense and I already pointed that out.
Still having trouble with analogies, I see?
The point of these was that the proposal vs vanilla is similar to other OXC(E) changes in other parts of the game that are not considered problematic, more the contrary. I mean, the outcome of any single shot is also binary, you either kill the alien or you do not.