Proto laser tech

[MrFrustrated]

By researching 3 techs, you get laser rifles which can destroy every enemy in the game. Yes, mutons, etherals and sectopods will require multiple shots, especially sectopods who will only take damage frontally 18% of the time, but you still get a potential end game weapon with only a little research. This makes regular weapons and plasma pistols less viable.

So how about proto laser weapons that have to be researched and are only like 60%-75%  (less damage, more TU, less accuracy, heavier weight, more expensive) as good before you can research the good laser weapons.

Technology tends to get smaller the more it developes, so the first laser tec should be either Laser Defense, laser cannons, or heavy laser. After 1 or all 3 have been devoloped, then proto laser rifles.

If I was designing the tec chain, I might have a proto laser pistol, I might not. Either way would made sense from a tech developement piont of view.  One shows how even the laser pistols weren't immediately figured out. The other path shows the first fully successful laser weapon was the pistol. It really depends on how many hoops you want the player to go through before they get good tec.

Laser Tec--(proto Las Def)--(proto Laser Cannon)--proto Heavy Laser--proto laser rifle--(proto laser pistol)--laser pistol--Laser rifle--Heavy Laser--LaSER cannon--Laser Defense

Parenthesis are possible tec a modder could exclude and still show a logical progression.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yeah, it is a problem, which I addressed in the Final Mod Pack - whether it's done properly or not is a matter of opinion.

Anyway, by "proto-lasers" do you mean normal lasers, just weaker, or something else entirely?

[MrFrustrated]

Essentially weaker.

Basically the weapons we have in a normal game would be 2nd generation weapons.

Flintlock pistols to Civil War revolers.

[Solarius Scorch]

Essentially weaker.

Basically the weapons we have in a normal game would be 2nd generation weapons.

Flintlock pistols to Civil War revolers.

Yeah, makes sense.

Another idea - perhaps a complimentary one - would be the "big-to-small" path, which is rather popular around here (I'm using it too), where you get big lasers (craft cannon, laser tank) first, and hand weapons later.

[LeBashar]

It is more a global balance problem, no ? in vanilla's, the game has a old school progression which began with useless obsolete weapons, and goes toward "grosbill" has we say in french : supersoldier, superarmor, superweapon (laser rifle with no ammo , good accuracy, light weight and autoshot, or heavy plasma with nearly no penalty). This is that the problem.
In addition, vanilla's aliens don't really use armor and damage modifiers then laser rifle and heavy plasma are good against everthing. (and IC weapon are nearly useless except for the light)

For better balance, we need already a compensation to a great power. For exemple : heavy plasma could be powerfull and accurate, but not also light and clip with many ammo. You can make power+accuracy, but weight+limited ammo. Laser rifle, can't be light, unlimited clip, accurate and powerfull. It's too much we need make some penalty.

I work personnaly on a balancing mod where I have made some choices :
- laser still unlimited ammo, but are really heavy. bests soldier can't carry many other thing with a heavy laser. weakest can't even carry one. Laser rifle are 2x weightest than firearms. And I have remove all autoshot mode for laser weapon (always think ridiculous, if who want more power with a laser, just make it continuous).
- plasma still powerfull+autoshot, but loose accuracy. many. (it make room for new aliens accurate weapon, like sniper plasma etc.)
- modifications in armor and damage modifiers of all aliens, to make some resistant to laser, but not to plasma, or AP. And some the opposite. In general, aliens master have opposite resistance to their terrorist, so, player need various weaponry to win. Some of them are resistant to laser AND plasma, so even in the end of the game, you'll need some AP or HE weapons.

Add new tech or weapon without rebalance the game don't solve the problem that many item are useless because obsolete too quickly. It is just like a delaying research no ? why don't just make the current laser research longer ?

[Arthanor]

There is the "laser tech tweak" that flips the progression around. There is also multiple mods that delay research. It kinda looks like we're all going the same way rebalancing our own independent ways...

[moriarty]

I think there's an underlying problem: How to compensate for xcom's armor technology.

Think about it: In a vanilla or vanilla-like setup, every weapon the aliens field can be researched, reverse-engineered and used by XCom soldiers. (Except for "living weapons" of alien terrorists, but some mods even allow that.) The only real difference is that XCom has lousy armor in the beginning and vastly superior armor in the end, while the aliens stay the same.

The Heavy Plasma and the Laser Rifle are overpowered. I guess we all agree on that. The Heavy Plasma is a total killer, while the Laser Rifle's unlimited ammo and fast firing rate makes it a class of its own.

Many attempts have been made to delay availability of the heavy plasma, but that only delays the inevitable problem. Same with the Laser Rifle.

The other path is to try and reduce the Heavy Plasma's overpoweredness, but that robs the aliens of their only really good weapon. If you take away the unlimited ammo of the Laser weapons, you only make the player ignore that technology altogether, going for Plasma Tech earlier instead.

I tried to make a ruleset once that disallows direct use of captured weapons and only allows the player to use them to manufacture a human version of the same weapon, which isn't as good, but that's a complicated approach. It also does nothing about the Laser weapons.

XCOM2012 used another approach: manufacturing the really good alien weapons is expensive, and capturing them is harder because you need to stun the alien and there's no ranged-stun weapon available.



I'm really not sure about the "right" way to do this, because it's a balancing problem, and those are always hard. Any mod that only changes one of these technology branches will probably fail for precisely that reason... I'm still not sure how and why the original game works so well. Did they playtest for months? If I remember Gollop's talks correctly, they didn't have much time for anything in the end. I guess they just had the right feeling for creating a balance that works. On the other hand, you might argue that it's not really well balanced, because the game is so hard

that's xcom, baby!

[LeBashar]

XCOM2012 used another approach: manufacturing the really good alien weapons is expensive, and capturing them is harder because you need to stun the alien and there's no ranged-stun weapon available.

This seem just gamey for me, no ? "we don't know how to balance this so... you will not be able to do this with ease." :-/

I'm still not sure how and why the original game works so well. Did they playtest for months? If I remember Gollop's talks correctly, they didn't have much time for anything in the end.

I think the game work precisely because of one of the bad balance : all aliens weapons are overkill against human (and against alien also, except the sectopod but you don't face him so often). So, no need to balance, because the only thing relevant is each new step of armor.
But... this make nearly 80% of items of the game useless which is a pity.

The other path is to try and reduce the Heavy Plasma's overpoweredness, but that robs the aliens of their only really good weapon. If you take away the unlimited ammo of the Laser weapons, you only make the player ignore that technology altogether, going for Plasma Tech earlier instead.

That's why I choose personnaly to change aliens before modify weapons. If you have aliens unkillable with plasma, and only vulnerable to laser, you have interest to use laser. And so one for each damage type.
I think it is why so many modern game use a kind of shifumi. And bonus-penalty system to avoid overpowered things.
In ufo, differents damage type are nearly useless because nearly all armor have 100% for each. Change that change everything.

[moriarty]

I agree, a rock-paper-scissors(-lizard-spock-unicorn-whatever-...) system is probably the reasonable way of doing this, because then it makes sense to actually use a diverse range of weapons for your deployment. and probably makes it worthwhile to bring sidearms into the battle: if your primary weapon is useless against a certain alien, try your (different-tech-)pistol, it might work. also, it makes alien autopsies and interrogations much more useful, because they would tell you strengths and weaknesses of the aliens.

do you think we should start a mod thread for this? to collect existing lore as well as suggestions about different alien race's weaknesses, and then try and make a unified "RPS" mod (for rock-paper-scissors)? By only changing alien armor setups, it would remain open for any weapon-modifying mod.

[LeBashar]

Maybe we can just pursue this discussion in my own mod tread ? https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2695.0

Because I have as starting points :
- rebalancing aliens with shifumi system
- rebalancing weapons with bonus-penalty system
- try to make kind of progression tech with illusion of response-feedback (xcom create thing to counter what alien use, and aliens change their weapons and aliens races after a while in response to xcom improvments, and so on. Ideally, in the end of the game we could face any kind of aliens and weapon types and have need of all weaponry to have a chance to win).
I have write in this topics my first ideas and for now my ingame tests seem promising

[Falko]

Many attempts have been made to delay availability of the heavy plasma, but that only delays the inevitable problem. Same with the Laser Rifle.

The other path is to try and reduce the Heavy Plasma's overpoweredness, but that robs the aliens of their only really good weapon.

or you make the plasma with strength applied, give it a low (even negative for pistol) value and increase the strength of all weapon using aliens by the same amount
that way sectoids have a slightly weaker plasma, mutons have a moe powerful plasma and humans can use them but its worse than laser until you train your soldierstrength up -capped you can reach muton-plasma strength
this mod has more a story telling than a balance problem

[MrFrustrated]

This seem just gamey for me, no ? "we don't know how to balance this so... you will not be able to do this with ease." :-/

I think the game work precisely because of one of the bad balance : all aliens weapons are overkill against human (and against alien also, except the sectopod but you don't face him so often). So, no need to balance, because the only thing relevant is each new step of armor.
But... this make nearly 80% of items of the game useless which is a pity.

That's why I choose personnaly to change aliens before modify weapons. If you have aliens unkillable with plasma, and only vulnerable to laser, you have interest to use laser. And so one for each damage type.
I think it is why so many modern game use a kind of shifumi. And bonus-penalty system to avoid overpowered things.
In ufo, differents damage type are nearly useless because nearly all armor have 100% for each. Change that change everything.

Rather than nerfing plasma, lasers, or taking a rock-paper-scissors approach, maybe we should simply buff the aliens.

2 ideas

1. Give the aliens a new terror unit (s) or commandos. I never played Xcom 2012, but I understand that the sectiods have soldiers in battle armor. That's one possibility. Another is to add a new rank (don't know if that's so easy coding wise) or at some piont in the game, have normal soldiers be replaced with commandos, who have stats almost as strong as leaders.

2. Have the aliens develop slightly better plasma weapons. And make them especially hard to revere engineer, maybe requiring at least 2 engineers to be captured or several new technologies researched.

I would have the aliens develop turbo plasma weapons (God, I loved fallout).  It would slightly improve Heavy plasma. Greatly improve plasma rifles and plasma pistols (improve=damage increase, decrease TU, and accuracy). Since armor wouldn't improve, this would make the armor advantage less valuable. It would also make plasma pistols and plasma rifles more viable. If I was doing this, I would make plasma pistols almost as good or equal to laser rifles, maybe better in some areas. This would open up some interesting tactics. Now you can have a soldier run around with a medkit, grenade, stunrod, psi amp, motion detector, etc without a serious loss of tactical abilities. The pistol could become the preferred weapon for clearing ships for weak aliens (sectiod, floaters, snakemen, etc). It would be nice to make plasma rifles be comparable to heavy plasma. Obviously, the plasma rifle wouldn't be as damaging, but it could be faster.

I would have the new weapons start appearing with a new alien mission, weapon testing. It would basically be terror mission without terror units. The terror units would be replaced with a mixture of alien leaders (They are observers). The aliens are testing thier new weapons on civilians.

[LeBashar]

Your first idea is basically what the game already do by replacing sectoides and floatter by snakemen and mutons. But you are limited by the armor threshold : if your new aliens have too weak armor they are not better than current. If your armor is to high, they'll become invulnerable. You have 148 HP max, and the heavy plasma do 115 damage, up to 200%, so it's not easy. The more the power of the weapon, the more 0-200% damage rule even increase the loss of balance.

Your second idea has the same problem explain by moriarty. It's only delay the problem but don't solve it. We have two overpowered weapons, if you don't nerf them, you still have all other underpowered. If you create new ones as overpowered, it accencuate the gap between good weapons and useless ones.

The problem with pistol and cannon is also the result of armor threshold. Low damage are negate. Cannon damage are nearly twice the pistol's. So if your armor isn't immune to pistol, then obsiously the cannon make already a one shot kill. If you want not, you need reduce the gap between pistol, rifle and cannon. (or use different damage type which is the rock-paper-scissors approach.)
You can also reduce the armor but increase the damage resistance. This reduce the effect of the threshold, and make the protection as effective against small arms than big. But it don't work if the power of weapon is too high in proportion of HP's pool ...

The terror units would be replaced with a mixture of alien leaders (They are observers). The aliens are testing thier new weapons on civilians.

Why testing weapon against unarmoured civilians which are already OS by any plasma pistol ? they should "test" their weapons against xcom armoured soldier, no ?

@falko : interesting, but weird side-effects.

[MrFrustrated]

Why testing weapon against unarmoured civilians which are already OS by any plasma pistol ? they should "test" their weapons against xcom armoured soldier, no ?

@falko : interesting, but weird side-effects.

Simple, what's the fast way for the invaders to find some Xcom soldiers?

Kill some civilians.

Worse case scenario, Xcom doesn't show up and the aliens have a fully successful terror mission with some new weapons.

[Duke_Falcon]

There is another issue with lasers apart from the bit silly vanilla research order... Colour and range\damage.
The longest range lasers are purple\lila or red in colour and deal the smallest damage. Maybe it could be the pistols.
Medium range lasers are green what have greater damage. These should be the rifles.
Shortest but most devastating lasers are blue. But implementing range in case of UFO maps is meaningless. Give the heavy lasers a 300-450 metres of effective range what is almost a whole map in lenght. So range is not really matters but colours and damage do.
There is no yellow laser beam. Yellow is light and light could hurt only your precious eyes if hit them directly. Otherwise proto-lasers are a good idea. First lasers must be big and energy-consuming with relatively small damage (so not defence or cannon may come first as they shall be good for normal lasers). E.g.: proto heavy laser or proto assault laser or whatever and go down to the road to laser pistols. Whereas you got this: "We already figured out how to miniaturize the energy source used by alien components what enabling us more compact and devastating laser weapons"