How does Equipment Weight affect XCOm Soldiers (and Q on Terror Attacks)?

[Mycenius]

Hi All,

Just recently signed up - always been a big X-Com fan and played it extensively in the 90's through to early 2000's, but haven't played for nearly 20 years until I got a copy on GOG in recent months... And then have only just discovered OpenXCom, OXCE, and all the other great XCOM communities there are around! Can't believe I never knew about them... So I have a couple of questions (I'm playing my first game in forever with standard OXC and just the Final Mod Pack as a familiarisation before I dive into OXCE):

• Weight of Equipment (Weapons & Body Armour) - is there a table somewhere with the details, especially the new stuff from OXC and the more popular mods? Just trying to understand the impact of heavy weapons versus medium and light ones and how they scale (I know some of the data is on UFOpaedia, in individual item pages, but was hoping its all in one place somewhere)?
• Also with weight how does that affect the solder attributes exactly, I'm finding sometimes weird effects I can't quite attribute (and as its been so long since I played I can't recall what I had figured out unassisted back in the 90's)? e.g. it says in game (OXC) a soldier wearing Armoured Vest loses 5 time units (& stamina & reactions) but when combined with a weapon they sometimes lose 20 or so TU it seems? Is there a guide or table around how much TU (and reaction) gets lost by weight? I've been trying different combos of gear with different soldiers and noticing even 2 unarmoured soldiers given the same loadout (shotgun, ammo, and some grenades; similar with grenade launcher) seem to get different effects on them for amount of TU lost, etc... is this weight related or just the item characteristics?
• One other thing on TUs, I assume when it says a weapon uses 75% of TUs for an aimed shot, that's 75% of the original TUs before any effects from equipment and similar? Since you can end up unable to do a shot in certain cases (e.g. your equipment reduced your TU by 30%, to 70% original, but weapon needs 75% for aimed fire)?
• And lastly just wondering if OXC and/or the Final Mod Pack introduces changes around Alien terror Attacks (or has enhanced the Ai to make them respond more aggressively)? Don't know if its just me but they seem much tougher than previous? I'm only playing on Experienced first time through while I get 'back in the groove' but my first terror attack in the game (on 1st Feb 1999) is proving extremely tough - I know these are always fairly hard and lot of guides online say the first one is usually a nightmare, but seems like the aliens are extra difficult by literally surrounding the Skyraider on landing so barely getting out of the transport without a massacre (my memory is they'd normally be scattered randomly all over the battlescape). So far 3 tries and 0/3 - two wipe outs and one Dust Off with a lone survivor!!

 
Appreciate any thoughts or guidance (as I have a bit to catch up on) - and love the work everyone involve has done around this game...
 

[Irismono]

As far as weight goes:

Openxcom by itself doesn't change any of the weight rules, they're the same as vanilla. OXC in general doesn't change vanilla rules except when neccesary, and certain things, like removing the 80 item limit for craft, are optional. There's an option in the settings (pretty sure it's in base OXC, but might be OXCE) to put make certain stats visible in the inventory, including weight.

As for encumbrance:

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Encumbrance = Strength / Carried Weight*


If Encumbrance >= 1 then

   Available TUs = Base TUs

Else

   Available TUs = INT(Encumbrance x Base TUs)https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Time_Units#Encumbrance

As far as I know, no OXC/OXCE mod messes with this. Overloading your units gives them a penalty based on how much they're overloaded, and it's multiplicative, meaning it'll be worse for low strength soldiers and more bearable for high strength ones. A 20 Strength rookie, for example, carrying 25 weight worth of equipment will have a 0.8 encumbrance multiplier, while a 70 strength superhuman carrying 75 weight will have a 0.9333 etc. multiplier. This means that the rookie will lose a full 20% of his TUs, while the Superhuman will have a much less punishing loss of roughly 7%

This is separate from direct stat modifiers, which (to my knowledge) can only come from armor and (OXCE exclusive) transformations. Armor will modify the base stat in the above formula. Thus, if you have a unit with 65 base TU, and an armor that removes 5, his new base TU is 60, and that new number will be used in the formula if he carries more than his strength limit.

Some mods also have armors that effectively reduce strength by taking up weight points themselves. Eg. my soldiers are currently using an armor that weighs 6, so even if that unit has an empty inventory, he still has 6 weight taken up. This is usually a way to balance armors. Those 6 weight points prevent my soldiers from carrying say, two extra grenades, or a magazine for their cannon, but the armor is highly protective and that's arguably worth more than the firepower.

Regarding weapons and TUs:
You are correct in assuming that the % refers to the base TUs before encumbrance. Returning to that rookie from earlier, if he's carrying a weapon that requires 85% TUs for an aimed shot and he's overladen such that he only starts with 80% of his TUs, the only way he would be able to shoot is if someone gave him extra TUs (don't think there's anything like that in Vanilla, but some mods have such items), or if he dropped whatever was overloading him and waited til next turn.

Also remember that armor modifiers apply before the battlescape, while encumbrance applies on the battlescape. So regardless of how many TUs an armor takes away, the % will be based off the base TUs which were determined before the battle started. You could have a suit of armor that reduced a soldier's TUs down to 4, and the 75% attack would then cost 3 TUs, regardless of the soldier's stats before armor. Thus, no matter how many TUs a unit has, they will always be able to make the same number of attacks with a given weapon. TU growth is mostly useful for movement.

Not sure on terror AI, but I do know that some mods have more dangerous AI routines.

[Juku121]

What irismono said.

Regarding terror sites, it was not uncommon even back in the day to get a bunch of Cyberdisks staring at your ramp. It's a mostly a matter of random luck, although a nefarious map maker could affect that. I don't think vanilla/FMP(E) does that, though.

The only real difficulty-related thing is that the higher your difficulty, the more enemies are facing your craft on the first turn, ready to rip you a new one with reaction fire.

[Mycenius]

Thanks for the comprehensive response Irismono - much appreciated!

As far as weight goes:

Openxcom by itself doesn't change any of the weight rules, they're the same as vanilla. OXC in general doesn't change vanilla rules except when neccesary, and certain things, like removing the 80 item limit for craft, are optional. There's an option in the settings (pretty sure it's in base OXC, but might be OXCE) to put make certain stats visible in the inventory, including weight.
 
Yeah I assumed something like that - back in the day I never figured it out (and I didn't come across any of the original fan communities in the 90's) so I used to just work by trial and error - which coudl be very inconvenient and have to swap gear between soldiers during the early part of the battle!!

And I've found the setting in the config for what you mentioned now its been pointed out - I had missed that originally as had only looked at the visible stuff in the GUI, etc. So much appreciated!
 

As for encumbrance:

Encumbrance = Strength / Carried Weight*

If Encumbrance >= 1 then

   Available TUs = Base TUs

Else

   Available TUs = INT(Encumbrance x Base TUs)

As far as I know, no OXC/OXCE mod messes with this. Overloading your units gives them a penalty based on how much they're overloaded, and it's multiplicative, meaning it'll be worse for low strength soldiers and more bearable for high strength ones. A 20 Strength rookie, for example, carrying 25 weight worth of equipment will have a 0.8 encumbrance multiplier, while a 70 strength superhuman carrying 75 weight will have a 0.9333 etc. multiplier. This means that the rookie will lose a full 20% of his TUs, while the Superhuman will have a much less punishing loss of roughly 7%
 
Thanks - that makes perfect sense now and explains why I was struggling to find a consistent methodology for how weight of weapons & equipment were affecting TU, etc. That makes everythign so clear now and with the optional data displayed above (on inventory screen) will make life much easier!
 

This is separate from direct stat modifiers, which (to my knowledge) can only come from armor and (OXCE exclusive) transformations. Armor will modify the base stat in the above formula. Thus, if you have a unit with 65 base TU, and an armor that removes 5, his new base TU is 60, and that new number will be used in the formula if he carries more than his strength limit.

Some mods also have armors that effectively reduce strength by taking up weight points themselves. Eg. my soldiers are currently using an armor that weighs 6, so even if that unit has an empty inventory, he still has 6 weight taken up. This is usually a way to balance armors. Those 6 weight points prevent my soldiers from carrying say, two extra grenades, or a magazine for their cannon, but the armor is highly protective and that's arguably worth more than the firepower.

Yes, absolutely - I guess the armour or similar is a double whammy as you get that arbitrary cost in mobility (the -5 to TU, react, stamina) but then you still have the effect of it's weight as well on your encumbrance... especially early game with just the armoured jacket added by OXC or Mod until you research the original body armour and then battle & flying suits... But as you say survivability more important than carrying more ammo or a bigger gun in most cases...

Regarding weapons and TUs:
You are correct in assuming that the % refers to the base TUs before encumbrance. Returning to that rookie from earlier, if he's carrying a weapon that requires 85% TUs for an aimed shot and he's overladen such that he only starts with 80% of his TUs, the only way he would be able to shoot is if someone gave him extra TUs (don't think there's anything like that in Vanilla, but some mods have such items), or if he dropped whatever was overloading him and waited til next turn.

Also remember that armor modifiers apply before the battlescape, while encumbrance applies on the battlescape. So regardless of how many TUs an armor takes away, the % will be based off the base TUs which were determined before the battle started. You could have a suit of armor that reduced a soldier's TUs down to 4, and the 75% attack would then cost 3 TUs, regardless of the soldier's stats before armor. Thus, no matter how many TUs a unit has, they will always be able to make the same number of attacks with a given weapon. TU growth is mostly useful for movement.

Thanks - that's great to understand too. Will make allocating out armour and weapons & equipment a lot more logical...

Not sure on terror AI, but I do know that some mods have more dangerous AI routines.

Juku121: What irismono said.

Regarding terror sites, it was not uncommon even back in the day to get a bunch of Cyberdisks staring at your ramp. It's a mostly a matter of random luck, although a nefarious map maker could affect that. I don't think vanilla/FMP(E) does that, though.

Thanks Irismono & Juku121, yeah I suspected it's just a combination of some especially bad luck on the alien deployment generation along with some newer mod Ai that's designed to make the Aliens a bit smarter and more aggressive when you interrupt their terror session! So all good - it's been a long time so just needing to refresh my memory...
 

...and yeah I do recall sometimes getting really tough ones in the original unmodded game back in the day - as you say Juku121 the multiple Cyberdisks is not uncommon - 4th attempt at this specific assault I had 6 Cyberdisks in LOS and able to fire on the Skyraider's ramp from the start (and at least 1 more moving around beyond them taking our civilians, which appeared after I took out the other 6 out and had run out of rockets). Ending up dusting off with only 2 survivors (from 10) after killing 6 Cyberdisks and 3 Sectoids that were directly surrounding the transport and there were at least 1 and 3 more respectively in LOS still shooting/mind controlling) - 'terrible' result  obviously as lost all the civilians... never got anyone more than about 3 ties away form the Skyraider. Either this is a particularly tough random scenario or I'm extremely rusty...
 

Juku121: The only real difficulty-related thing is that the higher your difficulty, the more enemies are facing your craft on the first turn, ready to rip you a new one with reaction fire.

Yeah - I'm only playing on Experienced (2) this game - as it's my refresher/relearning of the basics and familiarisation with what OXC has added (after this I was planning to switch to OXCE and then start moving up the difficulty settings) - so I'd assume it shouldn't be pumping the numbers up too much?

Anyway - Thank you both.
 

(P.S. been trying to reply for 2 days but forum won't let me - had to strip or the BBcode quotation and stuff out to do so, hence the 'italics' quotes).