[WEAPON] Gauss Weapons 1.9

[Dioxine]

This could explain why my shotguns do not work as expected... 7 pellets, fired at 120% chance, no hits? WTF? But I didn't want to go to the devs unless this was confirmed by someone else... As long as you have a reasonably clear shot, 100%+ SHOULD, according to Warboy, hit around 99% of the time... and it certainly was so with the previous builds I've used (up to late July). I need to make a few missions with the latest build to make sure.

[BlackLibrary]

If you do ever make an advanced gauss line, do you think you could make them a bit LESS accurate than the base versions? I've noticed that once your soldiers start taking shots with more than 100% accuracy, they start missing surprisingly often.

Actually, I suppose I should confirm. Has anyone else noticed that happening?

Interestingly...wasn't that a bug in Vanilla XCOM as well?  Might be a calc is off.  When a soldier banks toward 100 firing, its time to cryosleep them till Cydonia.  Thats always been the case.

[Dioxine]

100? I think you meant 255? At least that was the problem in my version

But when I try to unearth these old memories, it seems that even these 200+ Firing Accuracy monsters were missing their shots quite regularly, which would support your theory about Vanilla...

[kuisti]

Hello all! 

I made my own Gauss weapon sounds!

Just replace the files at:

openxcom\data\Resources\GaussWeaponry\Sounds

Have fun!

- attachment below -

[SIMON BAILIE]

Just updated the gauss weapon sounds to your new versions and I think they are much better than the original sounds, a more sci-fi feel to them now.

[Solarius Scorch]

Just updated the gauss weapon sounds to your new versions and I think they are much better than the original sounds, a more sci-fi feel to them now.

Thanks. I'm still considering them.

I'm thinking of making two distinct tiers of gauss weapons, basic ones like they are now (using TFTD sprites) and advanced gauss weapons which are somewhat comparable to other endgame guns (using GrandSirThebus' sprites). I'll have to share available sounds between them.

[GrandSirThebus]

I think endgame Gauss would be great! They're probably my favorite weapon type, and I still use them stubbornly into late game even when they become less effective

Perhaps to make them more interesting than just having bigger damage numbers you could add more utility to them such as more ammunition types? Or possibly universal clips?

[kikimoristan]

gauss in TFTD is called beam but that's weird. gaus is a railgun which means is a really fast bullet. closest damagetype to this would be AP  not gauss beam.

gauss is probably laser technology with AP damage. which is probably sad cause most aliens are resistant to gauss in Ufo Defense.

So I suggest making gauss intermediary between laser and AP. Lasers have two advantages 1. no clip 2. unique damage type most aliens are not that resistant to it. And even changing the research tree like gauss first then laser second .

:-)

also note that plasma is in fact laser weapon that heats up gas and shoots it out. So plasma is really superheated gas not beam.  Is more like a blob if anything.

[Solarius Scorch]

Tollworkout, that's actually very close to how my Gauss weapons work: they're stronger than lasers but AP which sort of cancels out the advantage in many cases, and don't have the automatic fire option (because they'd melt from the heat).

A potential high-end Gauss would be similar, but with auto-fire (alien cooling systems ho!) and a bit stronger (but still AP).

[Arthanor]

Just a quick mention for those who are into endgame gauss weapons. In the XCom Armoury Expanded, I have added Depleted Elerium Ammunition, which allows gauss weapons to do higher damage although the rifles themselves don't change.

I also thought to use (Refined) Elerium Ammunition to deal HE damage (maybe blast radius 1-2 depending on weapon as well?) but I have not implemented that one yet.

[Solarius Scorch]

Just a quick mention for those who are into endgame gauss weapons. In the XCom Armoury Expanded, I have added Depleted Elerium Ammunition, which allows gauss weapons to do higher damage although the rifles themselves don't change.

Yep, makes sense. The combination of advanced cooling systems and power generation would do that.

I also thought to use (Refined) Elerium Ammunition to deal HE damage (maybe blast radius 1-2 depending on weapon as well?) but I have not implemented that one yet.

I think such a weapon would be too powerful, we're talking explosive ammo with strength 100 or more...

[Arthanor]

That's why I have not implemented the Refined Elerium Ammunition yet That ammo is meant to be XCom's response to a new weapon I want to introduce for Aliens to help make Flying Suits less impervious to damage: Anti-matter plasma. It will also be HE ammo for regular alien guns (but unuseable by XCom). Reaching that point in the itemLevels represents the aliens giving up on infiltrating/converting Earth and deciding the terrorize it into submission/annihilate the population. That tech is also unstable by design, preventing the humans from reverse engineering it.

There is also no need to go crazy with the numbers. Explosions target underarmor on direct hits, unlike AP, so even lower damage could be more damaging to aliens. It has the bonus of not going through AP resistance against mutons (although some other aliens also have HE resistance). A narrow miss still does damage if you can catch the alien in the blast. And you can also limit the blast radius (1 for pisols and rifles, 2 for heavy gauss I was thinking).

As for gauss autoshots, I find the lack of it to be a great distinguishing feature in the XAE where Gauss is more accurate, slower and has no autoshots, making it great for longer range engagements and support/sniper operatives, but lasers tend to be better at short range due to rate of fire so great for breachers and scouts.

Maybe a 2 shots autoshots for the 2nd tier gauss rifles could work to make it more attractive to the line soldiers. Currently I keep the same rifle and add new ammo, an advantage of Gauss compared to the ammoless lasers for which you need to make new rifles to get better.

[Solarius Scorch]

New version is online.

Get it at: https://www.openxcom.com/mod/gauss-mod

And it brings much goodness:
- Adds a second tier of Gauss weaponry: the railguns. They use GrandSirThebus' sprites and Kuisti's sounds.
- Normal Gauss weapons use TFTD sprites again.
- Fixed a bug with ammo sell costs.
- New bullet sprite for Gauss weapons.

[SIMON BAILIE]

Nice update as I was using v1.6b, looking forward to getting the railguns in my current game. The firing rates for the gauss and rail cannons, I assume that the values have been doubled already due to the recent change.

[Solarius Scorch]

Nice update as I was using v1.6b, looking forward to getting the railguns in my current game. The firing rates for the gauss and rail cannons, I assume that the values have been doubled already due to the recent change.

I think so, yes, though frankly I can't remember now. Balance is always hard anyway, so please report what you think.