[BETA] Rebalance aliens

[moriarty]

I guess the best way would be RPS <and> mixed crews, don't you think? Of course, that is again a whole new degree of complexity, but I think with all the new aliens that have been made, it should be possible to make at least three tiers of them (early-, mid- and late-game) with sufficient variety within the tiers.

[LeBashar]

But don't make him rearm every damn soldier for every damn mission when you can't automate this or s/he'll get angry soon.
Rock/paper/scissors doesn't force him to think. It merely forces him to spend time in the erquipment screen.

Can you explain in what case you think the player will try to change all equipements of his team, and cases where it will only bring a little of anything, and change not the quipement, but the role of soldiers in battle ? for example, you discover after the start of battle that you face some AP immune aliens, so your mainly AP weapon soldiers will do a scouting role in this battle, where in another they might be the snipers and laser riflemen the scouts. I play like this, and never need to do boring re-equipement in each missions. But I give all soldiers at least one each type of grenade, so if their weapon are useless, they'll make support role by covering others with smoke or making hole in buildings etc.

I guess the best way would be RPS <and> mixed crews, don't you think? Of course, that is again a whole new degree of complexity, but I think with all the new aliens that have been made, it should be possible to make at least three tiers of them (early-, mid- and late-game) with sufficient variety within the tiers.

I agree and that what I trying to do.

Tiers 1:
-sectoides, floatters + tiers "2" terrorists with cyberdiscs and reaper improved. (I think in all cases terrorists should be far more dangerous than main race).
-> I have doubled the HP of sectoides, and make floatter slight resistant to AP and HE. so they are two not so weak than vanilla's.

Tiers 2:
-snakeman, new waspites, new anthropod + tiers "3" terrorists with chrysalid, cybermites and spitters.

Tiers 3:
-mutons, ethereal and new gazer + tiers "4" terrorists with silacoids and celatids improved, sectopods and holodrone improved. (but maybe silcaoides and celatids already too weak in regards of sectopods and holodrone improved. holodrone are not durable, but are very deadly and immune to any not heavy weapon).

And I think with tiers two we can began mixed crew, with some previous tiers "specialists" in addition. For example, snakemen can have some floatters scouts, or sectoides leaders able to make psy attack, maybe some cyberdiscs etc.
In tiers 3, ethereals should nearly always be leader of a mixed crews with lower ranks aliens, and not weird leader packed like in vanilla's.

[Harald_Gray]

Can you explain in what case you think the player will try to change all equipements of his team, and cases where it will only bring a little of anything, and change not the quipement, but the role of soldiers in battle ? for example, you discover after the start of battle that you face some AP immune aliens, so your mainly AP weapon soldiers will do a scouting role in this battle, where in another they might be the snipers and laser riflemen the scouts. I play like this, and never need to do boring re-equipement in each missions. But I give all soldiers at least one each type of grenade, so if their weapon are useless, they'll make support role by covering others with smoke or making hole in buildings etc.

I don't see a need for such re-equiping now. Vanilla game doesn't use strong resistances and the differences between main weapon types are so huge that resistances playes little part in deciding what to use. Laser weapons are a no-brainer when you research them and the difference between a laser rifle (Power 60) and heavy plasma (power 115) is greater than even a 60% resistance to plasma might create.
However, should you create a situation where a player has to go back to an older tech because some alien race is highly resistant to the newer stuff, this might force some to swap loadout between missions. You are risking this with your version of snakemen. 40% HE and laser resistance makes two main early/midgame damage types inefficient, 40% plasma resistance makes plasma rifles quite weak and even heavy plasmas less powerful than AP heavy cannons. A player would be better off using autocannons, heavy cannons and alien alloy ammo against snakemen and you're pushing him/her into loadout change. Especially because by the time he meets snakemen, heavy plasmas are not likely to be his main weapons. And AP-heavy loadout is crazy against snakemen in big ships because you've made chrysalids AP resistant, meaning equiping soldier with weapons efficient against snakemen makes them inefficient against arguably the most dangerous unit in the game.
So *what* should a player use that would work in other missions too?

I agree and that what I trying to do.

Tiers 1:
-sectoides, floatters + tiers "2" terrorists with cyberdiscs and reaper improved. (I think in all cases terrorists should be far more dangerous than main race).
-> I have doubled the HP of sectoides, and make floatter slight resistant to AP and HE. so they are two not so weak than vanilla's.

Tiers 2:
-snakeman, new waspites, new anthropod + tiers "3" terrorists with chrysalid, cybermites and spitters.

Tiers 3:
-mutons, ethereal and new gazer + tiers "4" terrorists with silacoids and celatids improved, sectopods and holodrone improved. (but maybe silcaoides and celatids already too weak in regards of sectopods and holodrone improved. holodrone are not durable, but are very deadly and immune to any not heavy weapon).

And I think with tiers two we can began mixed crew, with some previous tiers "specialists" in addition. For example, snakemen can have some floatters scouts, or sectoides leaders able to make psy attack, maybe some cyberdiscs etc.
In tiers 3, ethereals should nearly always be leader of a mixed crews with lower ranks aliens, and not weird leader packed like in vanilla's.

Yes, that sounds good. Especially the combination of Ethereals and other races. Ethereals *should* be using some meatshields.

[Dioxine]

Rock-paper-scissors doesn't mean replacing thinking with micromanaging. It is only so if all damage types have weapons for every role. But if the weapons vary (say, one damage type is accessible mainly as grenades, second as slow inaccurate long range, third as fast accurate short range) resistances force changing tactics, not micromanagement. Additionally, thinking is done in the strategic part of the game, as you have to choose what to research to better combat current ant future threats.

[LeBashar]

I agree. For the research, the choice is mainly between choose to improve armor but stay with same weapons, which maybe make some battle longer and hard. Or to search new weapons, which could make aliens weak targets but let your soldier also. If the game is well made, you can't do all researchs in same time and should choose the kind of difficulty you want to face.

So *what* should a player use that would work in other missions too?

I don't understand what you argue. Do you mean you take in your skyranger only one type of weapon ? 16 soldiers with 16 laser rifle and nothing else ? Force the player to bring a little of everything because nothing would work in all cases is precisely the purpose.

In my test I have often :
- one HWP (usually rocket or laser, depend of the number of aliens I assume encounter)
- two sniper with sniper rifle, and short range thing in backpack (uzi, shotgun, pistol etc.)
- one with autocannon and various ammo
- one with heavy cannon and various ammo
- all others with differents kind of rifle or heavy LS/PL (soldier strenght decide which one, rocket launcher in back pack of strongest. many rockets on skyranger floor.)
everyone with various grenades (except sometime sniper who anyway never use them, if they have poor strenght).
And I have never need to change weapons, except if someone be too injured or killed. But in function of the mission, maybe it's snipers who kills majority of aliens, maybe it's riflemen. Sometimes it's the autocannon. And in very hard case it's HWP : no xp, but better than dying.
And with all of that, I have never found a mission too hard. Starting conditions make some unease, but it's the game. The only things I change before starting a mission is little things : flare in hands in night, ammo in place of grenades for low strenght soldier, rod stun if I need to capture something...
But I don't need to change the whole equipement each time.

[Harald_Gray]

My point is that modded aliens shouldn't push players towards switching equipment loadout between missions based solely on alien race. I'm not saying you're guilty of this. Just that too strong and varied resistance could lead to this.

As for my own loadout, they are heavily dependent on my techlevel and the mods I use, so let me assume vanilla.

Early game, most soldiers use rifles, say two a heavy cannon with HE and one a rocket launcher. I always use a HWP if I have one and I'm partial to rocket tanks. Every soldier carries (strength permitting) a grenade, a proximity grenade and a spare magazine. I also throw in some smoke grenades, flares, stun rods and high explosives. Medkits once they're available.

Midgame, most soldiers use laser rifles. Heavy cannons tend to disappear, rocket launchers with no reloads and a laser rifle in the backpack are more frequent. I'm also phasing out grenades in favor of high explosives. Add in one small launcher for the infrequent captions. Hovertanks once they're available.

Late game, heavy plasmas and high explosives dominate the game plus I keep on spamming proximity grenades. Two or three guys carry psi-amps unless I'm playing without those. Sure, sometimes I keep the laser rifles for all missions but Cydonia. But heavy plasmas are simply oh so powerful and plentiful that *not* using them is a consciously sub-optimal decission.


The question about what to use was aimed at your snakemen. The snakemen are resistant to all major damage types but AP and your chrysalids are resistant to AP. So you're pushing the player into using more AP but also making the more dangerous unit resistant to it. Yes, different guys can carry different weapons. But snakemen terrors are quite catastrophe-prone as it is, there's no need to add more points of failure.

[wsmithjr]

Well, this is an interesting discussion, but it doesn't seem to matter much to me as I didn't get past my first terror mission.  Deployed right in the middle of a hornet's nest.  I was surrounded by about 6 Floaters and 5 Reapers.  Gotta say I'm not real fond of the issue with Smoke as it stands.  Maybe I'm just not very good at this game, but without being able to cover yourself with smoke to exit the Skyranger, I just got torn to shreds.  So I threw the smoke anyway, and then of course some of my guys passed out while the Reapers ate half my squad.  I don't doubt somebody else could have done better with that situation, but I don't think I'm up to it.  There's no fun in just running away hoping for a better situation next battle.  This was on Veteran Ironman so no opportunity to see if I can do better.

Maybe I'll give it another shot on a lower difficulty and not ironman because I think I like the theory of not using smoke as cheap armor.  But, the practice doesn't seem to agree with me.

Thanks.

[wsmithjr]

The current aliens stats after some ingame tests :

So, I'm a little confused.  I decided try your mod again as is *except* without the punishing smoke damage.  So, I'm looking at your chart above and it's not matching what I am seeing in your ruleset.

First off, the original aliens stats in your chart seem completely different from what I'm seeing in Xcom1Ruleset.rul.  Are these "original" stats from somewhere else?  While confusing, those "original" stats probably don't matter much.  Now, for your modified stats, they seem to match your 1.5 ruleset *except* for the Smoke modifier.  Your chart indicates 200% but your ruleset has a "- 5.0" which I believe means 500% damage.  Am I reading this wrong?  Perhaps this is why I'm not happy with the smoke effects.  I'd be willing to give 200% chance a shot, but 500% isn't fun.  Was the 500% an experiment and you settled on 200% and forgot to update the ruleset, or am I just really confused?

Code: [Select]

  - type: SECTOID_ARMOR0
    damageModifier:
      - 1.0
      - 0.6
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 1.5
      - 0.6
      - 1.2
      - 1.6
      - 1.0
      - 5.0

'Course, the stats I'm most interest in are for my soldiers, but don't want to be unfair to the aliens, either.  Thanks for any help.

[wsmithjr]

I also noticed that UFOPEDIA initially doesn't list an HC-AP ammo for the Heavy Canon, yet it can be purchased at game start.  This is with no other item mods enabled.

Also, to use the Men in Black mod with yours, do you enable their MiB ruleset, men_in_black.rul, or just your ruleset, men_in_black_LBR.rul?

Thanks.

[LeBashar]

You need only men_in_black_LBR.rul
For HC-AP ammo it's an error, you should'nt be able to purchase it at start, because I have modifiy it to become an alloy ammunition. I have found the problem in my rulseset. It will be corrected in v1.6
The heavy cannon at start is only a grenade launcher able to shot explosive-HE ou explosive-IC shell. Heavy AP shot is provided by the sniper rifle. With alloy ammunition you gain an AP shot for HC, powerfull than sniper's rifle one but less accurate. And I plan to add new ammo for the sniper rifle (no AP, and not alloy. something designed to be a real "AP", usable against armored things).

[LeBashar]

The question about what to use was aimed at your snakemen. The snakemen are resistant to all major damage types but AP and your chrysalids are resistant to AP. So you're pushing the player into using more AP but also making the more dangerous unit resistant to it. Yes, different guys can carry different weapons. But snakemen terrors are quite catastrophe-prone as it is, there's no need to add more points of failure.

I can agree with you if snakemen was tiers 3, appear with muton, and have 130 HP. But there appear in mid game where AP weapon are already common, and HE shell (heavy cannon, rocket launcher or throwable explosive) are also. I have not found in testing this make a real problem, except maybe the fisrt terror mission with chrysalid, when you don't know ou need maybe more explosive than you've bring.
And I've played with my other weapon changes, where the explosive pack can't be use as grenade (too heavy). But small rocket are HEAT and easiest than larges one for chrysalid hunting.

Maybe I'll give it another shot on a lower difficulty and not ironman because I think I like the theory of not using smoke as cheap armor.  But, the practice doesn't seem to agree with me.

Am I reading this wrong?  Perhaps this is why I'm not happy with the smoke effects.  I'd be willing to give 200% chance a shot, but 500% isn't fun.  Was the 500% an experiment and you settled on 200% and forgot to update the ruleset, or am I just really confused?

Sorry for that, I plan to add a gaz-mask but for now there is not and it can be a real problem. With 200% penalty, the smoke was not a problem and gas-mask not needed. with 500%, you can't stay in smoke more than one turn and need to launch smoke on alien or in front of your squad but not at your feets as we previously do with nearly no stun effect by smoke. I have let 500% for testing it myself and see if it is playable (and I think it is, but smoke usage is different than in vanilla's).

You can change the 5.0 to 2.0 for soldiers and personnal-jump armors and see if this feel you better.

For reapers. They are now "terror" weapon so it should be normal you lose some soldier the first time you encounter them. But they are easy catch with icendiary grenade (often OS them) and other IC ammo. Because small HP Pool, floatter also can be killed with IC. Try it and tell me what you think. Also they love to attack HWP and they do nothing to them (for now, I still ask myself what to do about that).

First off, the original aliens stats in your chart seem completely different from what I'm seeing in Xcom1Ruleset.rul.  Are these "original" stats from somewhere else?

They come from wiki, I noticed there is some difference, but never investigate why.

ps : I add rulseset with HC-AP corrected, and smoke damage at 200% only for x-com soldier. download the 1.5b in mod site, and replace ruleset by this one.

[wsmithjr]

Sorry for that, I plan to add a gaz-mask but for now there is not and it can be a real problem. With 200% penalty, the smoke was not a problem and gas-mask not needed. with 500%, you can't stay in smoke more than one turn and need to launch smoke on alien or in front of your squad but not at your feets as we previously do with nearly no stun effect by smoke. I have let 500% for testing it myself and see if it is playable (and I think it is, but smoke usage is different than in vanilla's).

You can change the 5.0 to 2.0 for soldiers and personnal-jump armors and see if this feel you better.

For reapers. They are now "terror" weapon so it should be normal you lose some soldier the first time you encounter them. But they are easy catch with icendiary grenade (often OS them) and other IC ammo. Because small HP Pool, floatter also can be killed with IC. Try it and tell me what you think. Also they love to attack HWP and they do nothing to them (for now, I still ask myself what to do about that).

They come from wiki, I noticed there is some difference, but never investigate why.

ps : I add rulseset with HC-AP corrected, and smoke damage at 200% only for x-com soldier. download the 1.5b in mod site, and replace ruleset by this one.

Thanks.  The wiki stats difference is weird but not an issue.  It just confused me and made me wonder if I was reading the ruleset correctly.  I created my own "patch" ruleset to change the smoke damage to 200% and I was much happier with that.  500% is an interesting idea and I see how it would change tactics, but I think for me, without gas masks it's just too much.  I think the problem with the gas masks is that you'd probably have to create them as an "armor" which then cannot be removed during the battle.  I assume there would be some accuracy/stats penalty for wearing them and so your troops would be saddled with those penalties the entire battle whether you needed them or not.  If it was something you could remove, then it would be an acceptable trade-off for me.

Started new game, still veteran but not ironman and had a much better time.  Even survived my first Floater terror mission.  Terrain was very congested so the Reapers didn't have a lot of chances to get to my guys so really can't compare it to the last terror mission I had.  It's actually nice that the Reapers are a threat ... remember old vanilla games where they just kind of wandered back and forth acting as target practice.

As for the HWP invulnerability to Reapers.  I understand the thought behind it, but think it might be a bit cheap.  Maybe consider that the Reapers are the same size as the HWPs, so perhaps the Reaper is strong enough to flip it over or bash the weapons off of it and thereby effectively render it KO.  The Ethiopians defeated Italian tankettes prior to WWII by flipping them over so it's got precedent.

Only other thought early on is that I haven't found Shotguns to be of much use.  Two shots at fairly close range (3-5 tiles) don't come close to taking out a Sectoid.  Up close, I think I'd rather have a Machine Pistol.  Haven't had a chance to try Shotguns against anything else yet to make a final judgement but not sure I want to trust my soldier's lives with them at this point.

Appreciate the mod even if I'm not in 100% agreement with it.   Thanks for the update.

[LeBashar]

For gazmask the problem is about armor. They would be "armor" ingame, so :
- we can't equip or remove during the mission
- we need many copy for each armor without helmet : gazmask grav module, gazmask unarmour, gazmask personal armor, gazmask jump armor...
so that the reason why for now I have let it in stand by.

As for the HWP invulnerability to Reapers.  I understand the thought behind it, but think it might be a bit cheap.  Maybe consider that the Reapers are the same size as the HWPs, so perhaps the Reaper is strong enough to flip it over or bash the weapons off of it and thereby effectively render it KO.  The Ethiopians defeated Italian tankettes prior to WWII by flipping them over so it's got precedent.

Interesting, I don't think to that.

Only other thought early on is that I haven't found Shotguns to be of much use.  Two shots at fairly close range (3-5 tiles) don't come close to taking out a Sectoid.  Up close, I think I'd rather have a Machine Pistol.  Haven't had a chance to try Shotguns against anything else yet to make a final judgement but not sure I want to trust my soldier's lives with them at this point.

Shotgun, machine pistol and pistol have only secondary use. If soldier have enought strenght, you can give one of these in backpack. And if this soldier was surprised at very close range in house or UFO, maybe it could be better to use theses than his main weapon. That's the theory. Ingame, with no range decreasing of damage, it is very hard to simulate theses weapon and give them utility. :-/
Aliens threshold armor also don't help...

Appreciate the mod even if I'm not in 100% agreement with it.   Thanks for the update.

Don't hesitate to tell me what you don't like and why. (whatever if it could be gameplay reasons or else).

Have you try autocannon ? if yes, do you use it ? it's the most modified weapon compared to vanilla.

[Solarius Scorch]

Ingame, with no range decreasing of damage, it is very hard to simulate theses weapon

But it's not true. O_o What about the dropoff flag? And the other one (forgot the exact name), which defines the number of tiles after which accuracy dropoff is applied?

[Harald_Gray]

But it's not true. O_o What about the dropoff flag? And the other one (forgot the exact name), which defines the number of tiles after which accuracy dropoff is applied?

dropoff only influences accuracy, not damage. So you can't create a weapon that has high close-range damage that decreases as the distance to target increases. Something like birdshot, which can be deadly at close ranges but quickly loses power.

Or at least I don't know how to create such a weapon now.