[BETA] Rebalance aliens

[smexyvami]

is there a flag you can turn off ?

[LeBashar]

No, zombies are defined by two things :

1- a weapon where you can tel this weapon turn is target in zombie (and something hardcoded which disable this for 4x4 units)

2-a flag on each unit where you can choose in which unit they will transform if they die.

[Harald_Gray]

The only sort-of-workaround regarding zombification I can think of is giving the robot high melee resistance. Sure, it will not solve the problem - but it will mitigate it, as chryssalids and zombies are the only vanilla units that use melee attacks.

Say the robot has armor 60. Giving it melee resistance 0.3 gives it about 90% probability of surving a chryssalid hit unharmed and the average damage of succesfull hits will be around 4. So it will take *many* chryssalid hits to zombify it.

However, this would make them, shall we say, highly resistant to melee. More resistant than tanks, in fact. You can play with the numbers (change the armor and resistance values) to find the balance you'll like but there are limits to what you can achieve this way.

Maybe one could say that a robot destroyed by chryssalids was so full of chryssalid eggs and plastics there was enough food in there for a new chryssalid to grow 

[LeBashar]

Well, why not but how can explain the humanoïd zombie step before new chrysalids ? ^^"

There is also reaper who fight by melee, and for now, my reaper do 90+strenght damage, precisely to outpass the melee resistance of HWP (who are immune to chrysalids and cybermite - melee attack also). Make the reaper unable to destroy a robot-lure seem nonsense :/

But I have think to alternate way : make not a humanoïde drone, but some little flying saucer thing. Player surely use it in flying over the ground and so, chrysalids can't reach it.

[LeBashar]

I added in v1.7 two scouts drone :
- the caterpillar tracked one,
- a small flying saucer we can produce with discover of alien alloys, anti-grave module and cyberdiscs autopsie (the nex research "flying drones" become also a pre-requisite for hovertanks)

This need already some tests to adjust the balance and see if the problem with zombies need something.

[LeBashar]

The last new weapons for aliens : a "fusion rifle" with the new damage type which is really armor piercing (old acid) and able to one shot a HWP but usually don't kill a soldier in less than two shot.

The eleriums shell are xcom version of this damages types and can made ammo for sniper rifle, autocannon and shotgun (don't know yet if the shotgun's are useful)

I have also finally choose to totally change the armor of mutons : decrease armor to 8-10, and up theur damages resistances to 60-40%. I have found tiers 3 aliens too many armored and make pistols and many rifles nearly useless. With this modifications, mutons are long to kill, but can be injured even by pistols, while gazer and ethereal are nearly immune to small arms, but can be easily one shot by anti-tank stuffs. (mutons can't : because they haven't really armor now, anti-armor weapons treat them as unarmoured target, and because they have plenty HP, they can survive many shot of for example sniper anti-tank shot, or fusion rifle shot).

[pkrcel]

No, zombies are defined by two things :

1- a weapon where you can tel this weapon turn is target in zombie (and something hardcoded which disable this for 4x4 units)

2-a flag on each unit where you can choose in which unit they will transform if they die.

Then why not use option 2 to "transform" the dead robot in  a new creature.....chrissalyd eggs? ? no strenght and no TUs whats'oever, unrecoverable, etc..etc...basically a "living item" that dies (whizzels, drys up, whatever..) at the end of the mission.  All and any robot could be "zombiefied" in this. I guess.





 

[LeBashar]

No, this can't work. It's the chrysalid weapon which make a zombie, of any unit. And it's the second flag which do a new chrysalid of a zombie.

We can use this flag to produce any new creature when we kill someting (except zombies), but this can't remove the zombification made by chrysalids.

[Falko]

We can use this flag to produce any new creature when we kill someting (except zombies),

why not zombies?
you can generate the same creature again like my idea in Chrysalids from Hell see https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2367.msg25504#msg25504
more fun would be a mod where you also have 3-4 types of zombies, beginning with slow but strong to a fast but weaker version
so you as soon as you "damage" a zombie he gots faster and runs to you to kill you
of course also the health/armor values need to be rebalanced for a 4in1-zombie

[LeBashar]

why not zombies ? because they have already the flag for become chrysalids.

Changing zombies could be interesting but for me it isn't in my flavor of xcom. And eitherway, my problem was to avoid 1x1 HWP units become zombies, and not changing anything to the vanilla's chrysalids <-> zombies mechanics. 

But I think I will try to make more terrorists user of the spawn flag, like for exemple the holodrone : the first one fire laser or plasma, and if you kill it, it'll respwan but now shot explosive shells even more deadly. surprise ! 

[Falko]

But I think I will try to make more terrorists user of the spawn flag, like for exemple the holodrone : the first one fire laser or plasma, and if you kill it, it'll respwan but now shot explosive shells even more deadly. surprise ! 

nice idea it would bring some variety

[LeBashar]

I have add alien modifications of crews with some mixed aliens in the v1.8

[LeBashar]

The v1.8b include a separate ruleset for only aliens stats modifications, with the three new races of Robin.

[Fred558]

While using this mod my game crashed when my base is attacked.

I thought it was conflicting with one of the other mods, but even if I only select this mod it crashes.

What I did find out if I disable all other mods and only activate "scoutdrone" mod, it also crashes.
I believe it is also included in this mod. Maybe someone could look into it, because I am not skilled enough to locate the exact problem.

[ivandogovich]

What I did find out if I disable all other mods and only activate "scoutdrone" mod, it also crashes.
I believe it is also included in this mod. Maybe someone could look into it, because I am not skilled enough to locate the exact problem.

There is a problem with the scout drone and its ammo crashing on base defenses.  I modded the scout drone in my pack (UpClose) to not use ammo.  Instead it has unlimited ammo like the laser tank.  This has been suggested as a solution for this issue though there maybe be others.  I'd check the scout drone thread as it discusses this further.

Cheers, Ivan