A mission vs ghosts that can only do CHARM damage. (it is similar to daze and inflicts stun.)
Indeed, now AI doesn't use it, preferring to hide or run around, whereas in vanilla it just spammed charm spells until whole crew is unconscious.
I, in person, think that AI still doesn't realize that driving
whole enemy squad unconscious is victory condition, too.
If it can inflict wounds - that's good,
If it cannot, then every possible way is good.
Ghosts can do much better, as their attacks ignore armor.
Firstly it checks this via the scoring-algorithm that also determines who to attack. There it calculates the assumed damage based on their weapon-damage, the targets armor and the targets resistances.
That's convenient, but does it:
- count (0-100)x2 damage roll? Which means, that weapons rarely make 200% damage
- to be not that cheaty, at least try to inflict damage before deciding to flee or hide?
- know that fire does at least 1 damage?
- know that his weapon (mostly, multibarrel weapons and energy weapons) reduces target's armor, and then damage can be inflicted?
- interesting, can BAI decide to pass the most convenient weapon to the next unit (e.g. drop it on ground and move a tile, then next unit picks up the weapon and shoots one more time, as player can do this multiple times)
Well, actually the part of the balance is mostly up to the modders who design enemies in each tier of game, BAI's part is to make it better in decision making.
If some unit cannot inflict damage, it still should act with it's powers.
BTW, ghost mission is not the only when possible CHARM attacks are mostly ignored by BAI. There's a mission where naked guys are running around your single soldier on cruise liner. Seems like they don't know how to use melee CHARM attack properly. This is their only attack, because lore-wise they are non-combatants (no brawl).
Ranged CHARM attacks from other units were simultaniously used (although not that efficiently as it could be).
What is it all about, I think:
If modder adds some special weapon (like special claws, howl, or melee/ranged charm, or mind control), he presumes that it alone will make difficulties to the player, thus keeping intrigue even in mid/late missions where all-brutally armored.
