It makes no sense that alien ships have no outward damage.

[LeBashar]

There other problems :
- items weights are not proportionals. a pistol is 5, a pistol clip 3 and a rifle 8 ? (So either the pistol is totally made of cast iron or the rifle is on plastic ?)
- all clip ans 1x1 sqares item do "3" weight no matter what they are
- the sight range is limited, but not the throw range so we can have ingame soldiers able to throw a grenade farther than with a grenade launcher

and of course all prices in vanilla's are really weird.

[Sturm]

External UFO damage depending on weapons damage would be nice.

There other problems :
- items weights are not proportionals. a pistol is 5, a pistol clip 3 and a rifle 8 ? (So either the pistol is totally made of cast iron or the rifle is on plastic ?)

Pistol in UFO is a heavy large calibre pistol like Desert Eagle, not a typical military pistol.

- all clip ans 1x1 sqares item do "3" weight no matter what they are

I think it's because how the throwing range is calculated - it's possible for a 30 strength character to throw a "1" weight item over 100 metres. A rookie with strength of 30 can throw an "2" weight item 40 metres or even more. So a 3 is probably the minimum wage to introduce meaningful strength differences for grenade throwing and generally prevent throwing items across the map.

- the sight range is limited, but not the throw range so we can have ingame soldiers able to throw a grenade farther than with a grenade launcher

Judging by how a 100m line of sight slows the game down on a modern comp, I suspect that a comp from 1994 simply wouldn't be able to take a line of sight all across a board 50-60m board.

[Dioxine]

I don't think that this argument (simulation vs. tactical abstraction, aritmetical vs. logarythmical) can be definitely proven either way as it depends much on the subjective feelings of a given player... But please do your math before posting. Even a Desert Eagle pistol is only about half as heavy as a very light assault rifle, not over 3/4 as heavy. And the XCom rifle certainly doesn't seem described as a light weapon to me (although there isn't any definitive PROOF against it, granted).

[Sturm]

I don't think that this argument (simulation vs. tactical abstraction, aritmetical vs. logarythmical) can be definitely proven either way as it depends much on the subjective feelings of a given player... But please do your math before posting. Even a Desert Eagle pistol is only about half as heavy as a very light assault rifle, not over 3/4 as heavy. And the XCom rifle certainly doesn't seem described as a light weapon to me (although there isn't any definitive PROOF against it, granted).

5 is a bit more than half of 8. Empty AK-47 weights 7,7 lbs. Desert Eagle Mark XIX weights 4,4lbs. Magazine warps the weight because it's affected by the minimum practical item weight of 3. Magazine doesn't weight 3 because it's that heavy but to make throwing it across the map impossible.

[LeBashar]

How do we say french "CQFD" in english ? QED ? Sturm, you just demonstrate there is not point to search realistic rexplaination while there is mechanical programming reasons which imply bias.

(and i have seen nowhere the vanilla's pistol is a desert eagle, which seem weird to me because there is no point to use this in military theatre. If we want realism, in my opinion, xcom will use a FN P90 and his dedicated pistol FN Five-seveN. Why ? because it take time but we finally understand that a lighter but faster bullet is really more usefull than a heaviest slow one, like the .44 for example, well known but obsolete, and two weapon able to fire the same ammo is really practical).

But in 90's, theses weapons where new and not well known maybe that why vanilla's give weaponry out of date.

In my opinion, in a game we must search coherency more than realism So come back to ths subject, external UFO damage for me seem change all the game. And I don't think it's for the better because if UFOs are in pieces and half the crew already dead or badly wounded, missions will become far too easy, no ?

[moriarty]

So come back to ths subject, external UFO damage for me seem change all the game. And I don't think it's for the better because if UFOs are in pieces and half the crew already dead or badly wounded, missions will become far too easy, no ?

of course it needs to be balanced so the end results are more or less the same as in the vanilla game, but we already have moderate to severe destruction from exploded power sources... btw, I remember from the original that sometimes I arrived and found medium scouts reduced to floor tiles and 1-2 walls, with only one alien still alive, and sometimes only a destroyed interior with all of the hull intact. I've yet to see this kind of variation in UFO destruction in openxcom... did the mechanics for power source explosions change somehow?

I think it would make sense to randomize power source explosion strength AND add UFO hull damage from xcom weapons. the mean net amount of destruction would probably stay the same, but both measures would increase immersion (in my opinion).

[Dioxine]

5 is a bit more than half of 8. Empty AK-47 weights 7,7 lbs. Desert Eagle Mark XIX weights 4,4lbs. Magazine warps the weight because it's affected by the minimum practical item weight of 3. Magazine doesn't weight 3 because it's that heavy but to make throwing it across the map impossible.

You're going in circles here. You're defending the notion of the gun having realistic weights by saying they have unrealistic weights because game. But this is very OT...

Afaik the explosion strength of the Power Source is already randomized...

However what would go against adding external weapons damage (potentially, I'm not saying I'm against the idea): we don't know if the UFOs sustain any external damage at all; if they were simply shot until stopped working, they'd go straight down and smash into a million pieces... Maybe the human weapons merely cause their power systems/forcefields to overload and force emergency landing... that sometimes leads to power source overload and explosion. That'd explain why they're either seemingly undamaged or blown to pieces, with nothing in between.

[moriarty]

Maybe the human weapons merely cause their power systems/forcefields to overload and force emergency landing... that sometimes leads to power source overload and explosion. That'd explain why they're either seemingly undamaged or blown to pieces, with nothing in between.

that's an explanation that actually makes sense, in-game-wise... maybe we should add that as a fluff text somewhere

I'd still prefer my version (oh, I forgot to add: I'd also randomize the elerium amount of intact power sources, to preserve continuity)

[Dioxine]

(oh, I forgot to add: I'd also randomize the elerium amount of intact power sources, to preserve continuity)

Elerium being more tricky to obtain is always a good idea; it helps to preserve its special status (also it could lead to RANDOM LOOT lists, halleluyah!). However a certain part of the community would likely shred to pieces a person who'd actually implement it

[Sturm]

You're going in circles here. You're defending the notion of the gun having realistic weights by saying they have unrealistic weights because game. But this is very OT...

That's guns, not ammunition. Guns (Rifle and Pistol and Plasma weapons and Rockets and Rocket Launcher) seem to sit at the point of weight scale where there's still weight in pounds. Lower end of scale is limited because of the throwing calculation - which makes bizarre grenade and magazine weight and weights on heavier items like corpses are in some different units due how encumbrance works - with corpse weight in pounds, carrying a corpse would leave character with 7 action points or something like that.

However what would go against adding external weapons damage (potentially, I'm not saying I'm against the idea): we don't know if the UFOs sustain any external damage at all; if they were simply shot until stopped working, they'd go straight down and smash into a million pieces... Maybe the human weapons merely cause their power systems/forcefields to overload and force emergency landing... that sometimes leads to power source overload and explosion. That'd explain why they're either seemingly undamaged or blown to pieces, with nothing in between.

If aliens had forcefields, landed alien craft would have intact forcefield generators that could be researched. I agree that UFO systems certainly aren't completely disabled though.
Maybe aliens would emergency land by themselves when their craft is sufficiently ventilated? Larger alien craft probably could take quite a battering before that. Crash landed Battleship could literally have a large part of the outer hull stripped off it. It could look like a water battleship after taking 15 torpedo hits except without sinking.

[Dioxine]

There is some beauty to that vision, I agree... What supports it is the fact that UFO power source (/propulsion), by the descriptions, seems to not care about aerodynamics at all. However... With the outer hull breached, travelling at 5000 knots through the atmosphere would end very badly for the inner workings of the ship, including its crew... IMO it's reasonable to assume that the internal walls lack thermal shielding or superconductivity or whatever (ruling out the forcefields, which are indeed ungrounded in any canon material), or/and simply the ruggedness to survive such pressure and heat conditions. If the external damage is ever implemented, it'd have to be complemented with a "sufficiently damaged UFOs slow down" mechanics.

[moriarty]

there's actually another problem: what if the calculated damage destroys the only grav lift that allows non-flying units access to the upper UFO levels? this could lead to ground missions where you cannot access parts of the map... very frustrating.

[Solarius Scorch]

there's actually another problem: what if the calculated damage destroys the only grav lift that allows non-flying units access to the upper UFO levels? this could lead to ground missions where you cannot access parts of the map... very frustrating.

True, but I think that's the price for having more advanced mechanics.

Also, bring grenades.

[Ran]

I've never thought about that. 
Can't the grav lift be modified to be almost indestructible like XCOM crafts?

But generally I'd vote for external UFO damage and even crash damage/fire/smoke/ in the map itself.
moriarty's suggestion on damage types sounds great, depending on what got destroyed the UFO either lands or crashes with different consequences.

[Sturm]

Damaged UFOs could be handled by separate map files.