Mitigating flaws in XCOM/Openxcom

[Geronimo]

There are obviously huge differences in what players want. Most of the players who come here like the classic game (or like it but want it to be more difficult). I'm not one of those. I liked the original when it came out, but I'm not sure I'd like it today.

Grenades (especially alien grenades) are too powerful in the original. It's easy to put an alien in a difficult to assault position that commands a strategic passage and lob grenades at any soldiers who approach. In general, grenades do too much damage over too wide an area.

Some aliens (Chryssalids come to mind) are just too powerful, period. Ethereals before you know about mind control. There are ways around this, but they all seem to involve exploiting other design flaws (e.g., aliens not picking up weapons).

Soldier reaction fire is completely stupid. They might as well be robots. A soldier with a rocket launcher will respond by launching a rocket into a group of its fellows if an alien shows up. It completely breaks any immersion in the game, it's so stupid. There should be a way to set reaction fire only if it won't likely result in friendly fire.

Are there mods that seek to rectify any of this?

[Juku121]

I agree about grenades, but not your reasoning for them. Any 'grenade overwatch' alien is going to run out of grenades pretty quick, and in any case vanilla AI doesn't like to throw grenades at single soldiers, so just not clumping up avoids a most of it.

Vanilla AI is also not going to cooperate too well with staying put in some tower or somesuch, unless physically prevented from leaving.



Aliens are meant to be powerful. Us Earthlings are the underdogs in this fight, after all.


Reaction-fire rockets can be avoided in various ways. But sometimes you want the reaction rocket, so turning this off completely is a no-go. Not aware of any mod that does this specifically.

Rotating the soldier and depleting TU before hitting 'end turn' are the most easily accessible solution. Giving the soldier a sidearm and marking this as the preferred reaction weapon works, too. Disabling snap shot, or converting it into, say, auto-shot via a ruleset change.


Also, immersion-wise, if I'm an Earth Defence Force redshirt with a big missile launcher and suddenly see a Chryssalid pop up in a cluster of my comrades, you can bet on me taking the shot instead of following some asinine 'no friendly fire' rule.



In any case, making your own mod is the easiest solution to the above problems. You can tweak things to be exactly as you like, no-one can tell you to take these changes you like and also those you don't want as a package. OXC(E) is very easy to mod, and if you have trouble, you can always ask for help here.

[jnarical]

Grenades (especially alien grenades) are too powerful in the original. It's easy to put an alien in a difficult to assault position that commands a strategic passage and lob grenades at any soldiers who approach. In general, grenades do too much damage over too wide an area.

I've added alternate tossing mechanics option which nerfs grenades a little bit, by making them less precise, and they depend of throwing accuracy more. It affects long-range throws / low-TH accuracy throws.

Soldier reaction fire is completely stupid. They might as well be robots. A soldier with a rocket launcher will respond by launching a rocket into a group of its fellows if an alien shows up. It completely breaks any immersion in the game, it's so stupid. There should be a way to set reaction fire only if it won't likely result in friendly fire.

Are there mods that seek to rectify any of this?

I'll definitely look in that direction. I already have "suicide protection" and "friendly fire protection", but only for direct hits and nearest allies. I think it's possibe to improve that algorithm for HE shots.

And I also want to implement a reaction fire accuracy threshold where units won't shoot at barely visible or distant targets until they get close enough for a shot to be worth it.

Look for "Realistic Accuracy" mod which ships with Brutal AI version of OXC.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=11928.msg163224#msg163224

[Meridian]

And I also want to implement a reaction fire accuracy threshold where units won't shoot at barely visible or distant targets until they get close enough for a shot to be worth it.

For AI, there is such a threshold `minReactionAccuracy`: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Ruleset_Reference_Nightly_(OpenXcom)#AI

For player units (in my opinion) the player can do a much better job manually by:
1. setting the preferred reaction weapon: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=10627.msg161692#msg161692
2. disabling a weapon for reaction: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=11340.0
3. disabling reactions for a turn (just zero the TUs)
4. and of course using the brain when positioning for reaction fire

[jnarical]

For AI, there is such a threshold

Glad to know it exists. Didn't know that, honestly.

For player units (in my opinion) the player can do a much better job manually

I was talking about my mod specifically. Due to overall lowered chances to hit, cases where xcom operative shoots in vain are just too common in RA, so players need an additional tool for reaction fire. I'm talking about new function, like "isGoodChanceToHit", which takes into consideration cover and other non-standard accuracy modifiers.

As for Vanilla, it's good as it is.