Firearms vs. heavy armor

[zee_ra]

Interesting. But changing only damage is not quite what I was after. Accuracy, armor penetration, basically all the weapon/ammo variables if possible. Are there hooks for things other than (final?) damage?

If the scripting in OXCE was implemented in a well-known and well-documented language with a documented API, I think this question would be relatively easy to answer.  What is needed is access to the state of the shot (which is just a result of item configuration), upon which any adjustments to the final damage value could have been made.  Alas, that is not quite the case, and I am very challenged to attempt answering this question.

@Meridian, what state could be accessed in the script for the purposes of shot power adjustment?

Honestly, not sure I like it all that much. Hmm, maybe split it into 'sniper rifles' that only do aimed shots, 'rifles' that do precise snaps, and 'assault rifles' that are less accurate but have autofire and quicker snaps for short-range engagements.

Eh, I kinda miss JA2 v.1.13's 'raise gun' mechanic.

I actually did something like that in my submod for XCF.  I'm currently trying to solve the problem with having a unified set of batteries for these weapons.  I would appreciate some assistance from experienced modders on that.

[zee_ra]

Interesting. But changing only damage is not quite what I was after. Accuracy, armor penetration, basically all the weapon/ammo variables if possible. Are there hooks for things other than (final?) damage?
Honestly, not sure I like it all that much. Hmm, maybe split it into 'sniper rifles' that only do aimed shots, 'rifles' that do precise snaps, and 'assault rifles' that are less accurate but have autofire and quicker snaps for short-range engagements.

Eh, I kinda miss JA2 v.1.13's 'raise gun' mechanic.

I asked (cf. https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,9293.msg159346.html#msg159346) a question about encoding the damage values for battery-based weapons.  My guess would be that it may perhaps be possible to encode the damage parameters in the weapon definitions, and to have the battery only provide ammunitions count.  If that is so, then a good part of our problem is solved: even if ammunition types are different slightly, if we assume a weapon specialization, then only the weapon's power would need to be adjusted.

However, I'm not sure how to implement an assault rifle that also has a built-in grenade launcher (like e.g. XM29 OICW).  If it were possible to set up various damage parameters for different shots, then the problem may be solved more or less, but I'm not sure if that could in fact be accomplished.

[Juku121]

If the scripting in OXCE was implemented in a well-known and well-documented language with a documented API, I think this question would be relatively easy to answer.

While somewhat true, a mainstream language would make things a bit easier on the end user part, the real problem is in creating the engine-side implementation of all this. And choice of scripting language hardly matters there.

I actually did something like that in my submod for XCF.  I'm currently trying to solve the problem with having a unified set of batteries for these weapons.  I would appreciate some assistance from experienced modders on that.

I'm not sure you can do much beyond Meridian's example. That is, getting access to anything beyond the incoming damage value. Not an expert on y-scripts, so don't take this as gospel.

[Abyss]

First and easiest thing to be done is changing two options 50-150 vs 0-200 into sliders MIN 0-100, MAX 100-200, where player can chose the range of damage which fits his playstyle and satisfies his demands.
Personally, I would prefer 0-180 model or even 0-175 model right now.
Even if it drops damage done below average overall, it still somehow solves the issues over weapons imbalance.

If the question asked, there a whole bunch of weapons that are supposed to play some role in the game, but yet player will almost never take them. Brightest example is Light Cannon, which is compared to sniper rifle by damage output, yet lacks overall accuracy, bonuses, weights more, has low ammo and has slower projectile animation.
A lot of the weapons could have been rebalanced from respect of their comparative usefulness.

How pistols are better at snap than rifles?
Why shotguns snap 3x times better than rifles? Or even aimed: pump shotgun @20 tiles gives something like 80% hitchance while assault rifle (black ops!) gives 65-70 on same agent.

Yet, on the other hand: mod is playable and some weapons are worse than others, by means.

These are thoughts regarding the balance: someone has to sit down and correct all these dmg & accuracies for 500 (?) weapons.   

One thing regarding heavy weapons: if there were combined damage attack types, like piercing + secondary concussive, then things like light cannon can get a second life.

[Juku121]

First and easiest thing to be done is changing two options 50-150 vs 0-200 into sliders MIN 0-100, MAX 100-200, where player can chose the range of damage which fits his playstyle and satisfies his demands.

Well, you can have [X,200-X] right now, with some ruleset work.

Solarius is going to die on the 0-200 hill, though.

Brightest example is Light Cannon, which is compared to sniper rifle by damage output, yet lacks overall accuracy, bonuses, weights more, has low ammo and has slower projectile animation.

It has versatility via various ammo types. So more of a jack-of-all-trades kinda gun, a (crappy) shotgun, HE projector and AT weapon all at once. PPQ liked them.

That's pretty much all it has, though.

A lot of the weapons could have been rebalanced from respect of their comparative usefulness.

Solarius tends to be of the opinion that if something has even a very small niche, it's okay. You don't like it, don't use it. So I doubt a general rebalance pass is incoming.

These are thoughts regarding the balance: someone has to sit down and correct all these dmg & accuracies for 500 (?) weapons.   

I don't think anyone is going to do that soon, if ever. I've thought about something like it, and even did it to a degree back in 0.4, but remaking the mod in such a manner is a mountain of work and I've backed off ever since.

Just ask 8mono about the workload.

How pistols are better at snap than rifles?

Are they? They are faster, but tend to have bigger dropoff and less snap range. Not so much as to be notably worse, but somewhat worse at longer ranges nonetheless.

Why shotguns snap 3x times better than rifles? Or even aimed: pump shotgun @20 tiles gives something like 80% hitchance while assault rifle (black ops!) gives 65-70 on same agent.

I think that's because the pellet mechanics mean you are not going to hit with all of them at any appreciable range. But slugs indeed invalidate that.

Shotgun accuracy is overall kinda high... on the other hand, RL shotguns aren't really as inaccurate as FPS games would make you believe, either. People hunt small flying critters with them for a reason.

BO Assault rifle also kinda sucks.

One thing regarding heavy weapons: if there were combined damage attack types, like piercing + secondary concussive, then things like light cannon can get a second life.

Er, what would the 'secondary' damage type do?

[psavola]

Solarius is going to die on the 0-200 hill, though.
...
Solarius tends to be of the opinion that if something has even a very small niche, it's okay. You don't like it, don't use it. So I doubt a general rebalance pass is incoming.

Agreed. Rebalancing, repurposing on a grander scale, or any kind of broader reworking or curating of existing content - as far I can see - has not occurred in multiple years. Just look at the readme, there was some 'minor rebalancing of knives' in 1.7 era, and rebalacing of shotguns and snipers in 0.9 era.This also become very clear in my multiple suggestions, for example when asking if there is meant to be some kind of logic behind all the different weapon damage rolls. (Clearly SS has at least some rough idea, but doesn't want to think it through, go through all the weapons to check whether the idea is applied throughout the game, or define it so that the players would report discrepancies that would not match the intended goal.) So, adding more content (even clearly play-wise useless content, such as 'scoped hunting rifle') seems to have a much higher priority than reconsidering what already exists. So if it ain't a very clear and specific bug-fix to a single or a few selected items, don't hold your breath on anything changing, all of these threads are  essentially just a waste of breath. But I suppose for some it's interesting to discuss these things (personal logics, visions or preferences) even if it's apparent that nothing is going to change anyway.

[Abyss]

BO Assault rifle also kinda sucks.
Er, what would the 'secondary' damage type do?

But it shouldn't, be compared to some tier1 shotgun, right?
As for secondary - some +1-3 tile explosion, that I thought of. But I feel pretty well this times, because I have guess what? Auto-sniper rifles. And stick to them until turbolasers. Same as TS, I guess. And everyone?) 

[Juku121]

Yah, the suckage of some BO weapons compared to historical guns makes me sad, too.



As to the secondary damage, that looks basically like a second shot hitting the same target? I suppose you could simulate this to a degree by using another, combined damage type, but that's going to be limited.

Edit: I suppose you could use y-scripts to add another damage instance, but I don't know if scripts can set off explosives, i.e. make another AoE effect. And that would be very opaque to the player.