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Author Topic: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997  (Read 180406 times)

Offline pkrcel

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #300 on: October 22, 2014, 09:30:05 pm »
@cjones: I think that mixing Equal Terms with other arsenal mods can only wreck havoc in the game balance, unfortunately. King worked hard to shape the weapon choice and adding AAE might not cope well. Of course its only a possibility.

@HH my experience is radically different from yours, the sniper rifle does its job wonderfully, it costs the right amount of TUs for a *sniper* and its not superseded by the DMR, which I quite like in its own way, keeping in mind that I have most ARs out in the field and a couple to three between DMR and Sniper.
I can't see the sniper rifle to be granting more mobility, it just goes along very well, even more so when you have Powered armors and your TUs & Stamina allow for more than decent movement between shots.

I also beg to differ GREATLY regarding the rocket launcher. While it's true that most of my troops sport an ISSRL in the backpack, the launcher has an incredibly long shelf life and it's more effective.

The one shots are very handy, but they do not one-up the launcher.

@Arthanator. You're view about snipers is interesting, but its more along the lines of the anti-materiel rifle you see in Xeno Ops.
anyway you should be giving the sniper rifle to your marksmen and not rookies, because the high TU costs has to make those shots DAMN SURE to be hits otherwise you're paying too much of an opportunity costs.



Offline pkrcel

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #301 on: October 22, 2014, 11:18:37 pm »
NOTIFICATION:

 Just researched Plasma Ammo: Pistol to Magnum but:

 - in the manufacture list, this conversion is under the "weapon" topic while I was expecting it to be under "ammunition"
 - The required items are 1 plasma rifle mag while I was expecting it to be a pistol mag

EDIT: sorry hit save instead of preview.

Looking at the ruleset, ALL ammo remanufacturing falls under the weapon category.


« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 11:21:38 pm by pkrcel »

Offline HelmetHair

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #302 on: October 23, 2014, 01:15:15 am »
@HH my experience is radically different from yours, the sniper rifle does its job wonderfully, it costs the right amount of TUs for a *sniper* and its not superseded by the DMR, which I quite like in its own way, keeping in mind that I have most ARs out in the field and a couple to three between DMR and Sniper.
I can't see the sniper rifle to be granting more mobility, it just goes along very well, even more so when you have Powered armors and your TUs & Stamina allow for more than decent movement between shots.

I also beg to differ GREATLY regarding the rocket launcher. While it's true that most of my troops sport an ISSRL in the backpack, the launcher has an incredibly long shelf life and it's more effective.

The one shots are very handy, but they do not one-up the launcher.

Different tactical doctrines I'm certain, but allow me to explain my logic.

The snap shot accuracy is lower with a RL vs a SSRL .40% vs. 55% at the same TU% cost with the RL having a 125% Aimed shot accuracy while the SSRL is 110% and both having the same HE damage if using small rockets. Now if we look at their weight comparison a SSRL is more effective to deploy because a rocket launcher with a small rocket weighs 14 while an ssrl is 7. Plus starting at 52 TUs a soldier can shoot two ssrls while still using 2 points for facing movments from pulling from the backpack. Not so with the RL where a reload is a minimum of 15 and more likely with a small rocket 19 or 25. Plus even the weakest soldier can hump one This is not even counting the ISSRL which has the same stats as a large rocket and weighs one point less so a soldier can carry 2 for the price of one rocket launcher and an improved small rocket with two pounds left over for other equipment; Meaning less reliance one a few dudes, because those special rocketeers will die horribly leaving you pwn'd which is completely avoidable by spreading more and better equipment across the squad.

A sniper rifle does not grant mobility and neither does armor, but it's excessive weight, piss poor snap accuracy and excessive TU % Cost make it merely mediocre because I can spam the shit out of guy with 10 AR bullets for the same TU cost or shoot twice with a MR vs 1 once with a sniper rifle where everything has to be special snowflake perfect because the TU cost is so high....even it's high damage is outweighed by this fact that it is virtually bunk in an urban environment. Whats more is that its TU cost could be trimmed to still only allow one aimed shot and make the rifle more effective because a soldier could actually move into position or out from cover instead of waiting for the "perfect" shot. Especially since reaction fire is basically out of the question because even with maxed out firing accuracy you are looking at 63% chance to hit on snap.

make sense?

-HH

Offline cjones

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #303 on: October 23, 2014, 02:04:31 am »
Did anyone else notice heavy plasma (converted) seems to have no weight in base sell screen?

Offline pkrcel

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #304 on: October 23, 2014, 04:16:21 am »

make sense?

-HH

Of course it does...ah,should have pointed out that I was espressing opinions based on my gameplay, I was not really dismissing your points per se, but aiming at overlapping your views with what I see in equal terms as Kingmob's desired outcome for the weapons roles.

Sure, we have different tactical doctrines, as long as I do NOT have one since as I stated I'm not that big player and I have no battlefield experiece nor theoretical traning in squad tactics.  :P

Running the numbers may give some interesting comparisons, but I have around a hundred battles under my belt in Equal Terms and find myself in situations VERY CLOSE to what Kingmob has expressed was his intended outcome: I routinely use (almost) the whole range of weapons with a (what I feel is) a balanced use of each.

For example the sniper rifle in my opinion CLEARLY had to suck at reaction fire, otherwise you'd dominate easily also the urban landscape placing tropeers accordingly.

It's a bit more complicated, by I just saw it's 3 AM here and tomorrow I'll drive for 600km......Ill be back   ;D


Offline KingMob4313

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #305 on: October 23, 2014, 05:06:22 am »
I eagerly give you my feedback Kingmob, along with an attached filesave once I get back to my place (you can infer MANY things from there I suppose).

The only thing I can't speak of is the Hyperwave decode/encoder thing: I discoreved HWD right before you entered the encoder part....I was saving three alien bases for it  :P

I still need to get a save right before an alien base raid.  But I mostly spend my time in the text editor than the damn game.

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Manufacturing times in my opinion feel right, VERY much so.

The only "problem" I had was with producing Tier 1+ armors, which takes what seems to be an egregiously LONG time compared to the tier 0-0.5 stuff (ESPECIALLY against alloyed conventional armors, which are done overnight by a 50 eng team), and THAT basically is the main reason I felt so compelled to introduce armor repair....seemed to me to make sense and balances out nicely.

Right now the only problem is that once you're stocked with armors, you RARELY ever lose them since it most always come back damaged at worst from a mission, you only destroy them when destroying friendly corpses with HE damage or leave behind fallen comrades when aborting.

In that very case I do my best to recover as much equipment as possible when running away so that might be a gameplay enhancement in a way  ;D

I just wish there would be a way to RANDOMLY determine if the recovered damaged armor is beyond repair, but the game engine offers no way to do that currently.

I agree as well, but I never would have thought of reclaiming armor.  I'll have it floating out there as an included optional ruleset for sure.

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From a manufacturing point of view I had no troubles keeping my Alloy ammo stocked nor my Light rockets or Satchels. Satchels are great, I find myself using them even thou I have a decent stock of alien grenades, I THINK that they might weight s bit more to balance out, but honestly with the added Power Armor strenght I struggle to give my soldier ENUFF stuff to carry w/o being overdone.

I am definitely raising the weight on the satchels.  They will be moved up to around a weight of 7, I think.  Also, gonna reign in most of the explosives 1 whole square since it counts the squares in a weird way. (more on this later)

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Barring the shotgun, whose issues might have to be carried over the botched shotgun mechanics (I say that because NO ammo on the shotguns could match the firepower of a LASER PISTOL which can fire a LOT even w/o autofire given the extremely fast snap), I think that rockets are the suffering bits in the amrory:

I really wish the shotgun was more than just a hack, but until I can devote some time to fully working on the code behind the shotgun shot generation, it really can't be fixed.  Conceptually, it's easy as can be: weapons have a minute of arc spread and on firing, it determines the first line of fire and then all pellets will be + or - 1/2 of that minute of arc spread. But the way the game draws the shots and determines hits makes it much harder to detangle and implement that above method.

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- Enhanced Light rockets dwarf all the other alternatives, cheap, manufactured quickly, light and small, you might want to reintroduce the "3 squares" light rocket to balance in.

 - The Armor piercing Rocket finds next to no usage in my playthrough, I only used it when I was wary of the area effect engulfing MY own soldiers (during base defense). then again when Enhanced Light rockets entered the scene their nice blast power given the not overwhelmingly large blast radius make it a perfect weapon for Sectopods and Cyberdisks (the latter might be killed off W/O exploding as a bonus, the former MIGHT be softened up since the're the x4 damage to 4-tiles HWP).

 - The large rocket I find it more useful  for demolition than any other use, to save my guys from concussion damage, so I usually carry ONE or TWO of them, but I consistenly stayed with one in the later stages.

Hmm, seems the small rocket is just a problem, but I need a differentiation between the small rocket and the HE 40mm grenades.  I could take the small rocket down to 1 square (which is center + 1 square for a diameter of 3 squares) and the enhanced down to 2, or just have them both at two.  Not sure how I'm going to handle it.

The APFSDS rocket should be an HWP killer, but if I bring up the damage far too much, it then can be used to chop through exterior UFO walls.  What I need to investigate is whether I can set the walls to take less damage from AP.  Then I can take the AP damage on that rocket up to 200 and really start having some fun.

I also need to fix the HE damage resistance for all the 4 square HWP types, from tanks to sectopods.  Only the reaper should be fearing wide dispersal HE shells. 1.0 will be now 0.35 for HWP and then adjusted from there.



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- the incendiary rocket is superseded by the MGL incendiary grenade ammos, I have used ONE in all my playthrough so far and don't plan to ever use one again.

The incendiary never worked right in the original game and therefore doesn't work right in this game.  I guess it's kinda a placeholder for later work.

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Well, summing it up...about manufacturing I think that given the greatly improved arsenal available, it only makes sense that manufacturing becomes more important and more unwieldy, it balances the enhanced weapon choice and availability, raising costs and maintenance.

I'm very glad to hear that you think this is all working well.

Offline KingMob4313

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #306 on: October 23, 2014, 05:11:05 am »
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For a more comprehensive picture, again look at my save: it's a no psi superhuman ironman, I lost THREE commanders and TWO Skyrangers teams (you can look at the dates in memorial to hint some history). But my score has always been in the very high grounds and I never struggled economically.

To be fair I also think I am NOT a particularly good player.

It's a bit biased from the easy HWD availability and no PSI perhaps, but there's no unbalancing matter in the player's side I guess, and there's a fair challenge to be had going on, but nothing TOO scary.

Going to check out your save shortly here.

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I disabled PSI because at this point I would be MCing most anything in the battlefiled, that is the thing in the game that needs SERIOUS workout and don't think mods can ever strighten up the thing.

Basically I would have had my squad wiped a couple more times and *maybe* a base lost to Sectoids (the Japan one) if I had psi in the game but I guess I would be roughly in the same (winning) position by now since I could be PSI impervious.

I never use PSI either.  It's far too exploitable and makes the game laughably easy.  1) mind control alien. 2) make alien turn around to see all their buddies 3) fire a few shots with enough TU left over to throw the weapon in their hand.  4) Repeat.

Some of the options for MC requiring LOS helps a bit, but all that does is keep you from beating whole maps while never leaving the skyranger.  Now you have to at least get out of the Skyranger before you mind control everyone.

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Going furhter, your mod is so tactically sound that now the players has means to crush the AI to the point that it's no longer smart enuff to compete, the Laser LMG can easily be dubbed "Sectopod DDT" and the Laser sniper rifle is BRUTAL against those (from the side mostly) since it can one-up them at times....it's not AUTOMATIC, but a human player can leverage things "easily" and fight fairly a team of ethereals.

That's the idea, to give more tactical options, which, unfortunately can make the game easier, but can also make the game more fun.

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If I may, to "equal" those terms we definitely need a final tier alien race, tougher than ethereals and maybe with PSI wielding leaders and commanders.
Coupled with NO Psi active use by humans except from some form of PSI Resistance training that can come from this late game alien.

Oh and also Melee stun for all the regular weapons, oh I won't use it all that much but I really miss it; BTW I think that keeping this in a separate ruleset could still be worth.

Also up to now the blaster launcher only worked in my favor, since REGULARLY the leader of the UFO fires one shot in panic and kills himself along maybe the navigator, causing major panic havoc in the regular alien troops, giving away their position berseking or dropping weapons (I do not play with alien pickup weapons thou, I've seen some strange behaviour in my trials).

Well that was quite a random train of toughts! hope the're some usefulness there...and simply Keep up the good work.

Thanks for all the thoughts, it's really going to help me to tune this mod properly for version 2.0!


Offline KingMob4313

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #307 on: October 23, 2014, 05:13:24 am »
If I could peak inside here a minute....an observation relating to the aliens getting crushed by xcom with this mod.  I installed the alien armory mod alongside this and aside from maybe balance issues on the xcom side, it gives the aliens a fighting chance again.   No game crashing incompatibility so far as I can tell.

I was looking at the Alien Armory to incorporate into my DLC mod called 'Retaliation' (with the mod maker's permission).  The weapons in the mod would be the 0.5 tier for the alien forces, and there would be a new 1.0 tier for the aliens using particle beams.

This was going to also include a new enemy type based on enemies seen in another Xcom game.

But this portion of the mod is still just in early planning.

Offline KingMob4313

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #308 on: October 23, 2014, 05:56:27 am »
I have been playing a whole hell of a lot here recently to be able to offer some meaningful feed back and have been mulling over some of the things I experienced.

The new HWPs kick ass.

They are power pieces upon the battlescape and allow serious firepower to be brought to bear in a meaningful way. They are perfect for clearing and controlling the outside of UFOs and offer the ability for flexible tactics and demolition work in a single package and have good survival rates. I will push forward with a GMG HWP and use it to ice windows and roofs of buildings while pushing forward and run soldiers right up its tracked ass and duck to use it as a piece of mobile cover and smoke them all with a scout drone. Scout Drone will then make the initial penetration of the UFO before my soldiers basically ROFLPWN any aliens inside.

The ability to turn the turret independent of the tracks is a blessing and a curse. It saves a LOT of TUs and can give you an advantage in surprise, which is good for a unit that has low reactions, but it also exposes the side armor which is weaker than the front Glacis... fair trade in my eyes anyway, but a GREAT deal in ET2 because tanks are so much better at surviving. 

The tanks are going to be nerfed a bit, as far as their toughness and I expect before 2.0 they will be bumped back up to somewhere in between, so expect them to be weaker than now, but not too much.

And the way you re using the tanks is exactly how you are supposed to use an armored vehicle tactically, it becomes the bullet sponge and used to clear structures and fight other armor.

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The ability to designate equipment that compliments the ability scores of a soldier is VERY powerful and makes me smile. I can easily assign equipment that gives maximum tactical flexibility to an individual, so more soldiers are as useful as they can possibly be to the squad as a whole.

The starting armors suck, but give a way better chance for soldiers to survive a friendly fire accident and I dig that.

That's exactly the idea behind this mod, providing tactical options, especially in a turn based squad game like this is just huge. What really disappoints me is that this sort of modding can only be done in games that have this level of depth, like openxcom and jagged alliance.  You could never wedge something like a DMR or a Submachine gun into the 2012 Xcom, because there's not enough breadth of tactical options in the game.

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The rocket launcher is redundant in my own personal opinion... With SSRL and ISSRL everyone becomes a rocketeer and the increased aimed accuracy for the rocket launcher doesn't make up for the fact that EVERYONE can have one in their backpack. The power of it is meh, but I'm using it to pop cyberdisks... who effectively take 4x damage from HE so even if I have to shoot it twice, I am way more likely to have two guys with a rocket to do it.

I am going to have to address this, unfortunately, with a nerf to the SSRL and ISSRL's aimed accuracy and by doing some adjustment to armored HWP, like I did with the X-com tanks.  Most likely, 1.0 for damage resistance is going to become 0.35.  I'll have to play with it a bit.

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SAW is pretty good... it is about right for what it is happy with it.

It's a bullet hose. Without a suppression stat, it loses some of it's tactical punch, but I think it works just fine without it.  It's one of my favorite midmap dominators.  Two guys with SAWs across the street as two guys with SMGs or Shotties cross.  If something ugly pops up, get the scouts out of the alley of fire and then just open up with two massive auto fire strings from both gunners.

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Auto pistol is pretty cool, but needs an increase of accuracy extending two more squares.

I assume you mean autofire dropoff range. I'll play with it a bit.  The gun isn't supposed to be as accurate as say a Glock C, but it's because of using the powerful 5.7mm rounds.  It's for that close work inside UFOs.

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Magnum is perfect.

Shot gun is better than previous versions, still a little wonky.

The magnum is just so much fun to use, even if it looks and sounds much cooler than it actually is...

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Marksman's rifle falls in a middle ground that I hate. The assault rifle is a better choice in almost all situations because the difference in accuracy is negligible and costs way less TUs because of percentages. The difference in damage and being able to take WAY more shots with an assault rifle vastly outweighs the bump in aimed and snap accuracy of the markman's rifle. In comparison with the sniper rifle it makes me shake my head because the TU percentage of the Sniper rifle is too high for the damage. Yes, accuracy is high and it offers great accuracy but  is so overshadowed the mobility offered by either the MR or AR that why would I take the Sniper? like ever? It sucks for reaction fire, and gives basically zero mobility for being able to take a shot that could save the life of a soldier.

I find that my DMR guys get most of the kills in the map, and while my snipers don't do much on standard maps, they dominate on terror sites and turn base defenses into murderfests.

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I actually propose a fix that is this.

1. Up the snapshot accuracy of MR by 5% (to 75) and reduce aimed shot accuracy of MR by 10%(to 110) and Reduce aimed shot TU% of MR by 5(to 50)
2. Reduce aimed shot accuracy of AR by 10 (to 100) and reduce TU% of aimed shot to by 5 (to 45%)
3. Increase snap shot accuracy of SR by 5 (to 55) and reduce TU% by 5 (to 35) and decrease aimed shot TU% by 15 (to 55%) and increase damage by 5 in all ammo categories

This should make the differences a little bit more pronounced so you can get two aimed shots with the MR without moving or 3 slightly more accurate shots. Gives the assault rifle guy a little bit more options on engaging a target and makes a sniper rifle a little bit better for reaction fire and allows a little bit more of shooting and scooting so a sniper can actually snipe instead of standing there like a dumb shit because he can only take on average 1-2 steps and a facing movement. or one step and crouch which often breaks line of sight. Meaning most of the time my snipers get replaced with Assault rifles or DMR because they can actually take a few steps.

Going to push these numbers into my spreadsheet for this and see how they look and then take it for a spin.  Those adjustments wouldn't do too much to change the essential feel of those weapons and if they massively improve the utility, it may be worth it.


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Other thoughts....

I hate PSI with a purple piss passion because it is OP and has some serious flaws and quirks that would be cool if addressed properly... let me give a few examples.
In vanilla we have psi and the actual user does not need to see the target... As long as the target is seen by an alien then they are fair game. This is silly. If a PSI user doesn't have to see the  target then that would mean that a Psi user can "feel" the target and thus should know immediately on landing where the aliens are at and conversely the aliens would know where the humans are at. Can we say broken??  ???  What about the fact that aliens can basically hack unmodified humans. WHAT? that is like Using WIFI to hotwire a 57 Chevy and have it go all Christine. I could actually see an HWP being controlled more than an unmodified human because of the technological nature of an HWP. Anyways...

On board with you for the PSI. I haven't used PSI since 2002.  I kinda wanted to see about making a code-change mod where instead of getting MC via a psi-amp, soldiers can get a 'hacking module' that lets them set weapons off (panic fire), empty the weapons (set weapons to zero shots) or even explode grenades and explosives on the target (this would require a great roll and high skill and strength). Kinda like an omnitool does in Mass Effect.  It would tie well into my narrative I created about having to hack alien technology to get it to work.


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The aliens need scaling races/ modified races that increase in difficulty and number to reflect their change in doctrine. We see this on the horizon of the community already with mods adding cybernetic enhanced sectoids. I personally would love to see at least seven new races/ variants using both recolored sprites and new art work.

1. Mechtoids- Love these guys!!!
2. Cyberlids- I have a thread on these guys and looks like Arthanor is picking up the ball  ;D https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2986.0
3. MVII- Muton, variant two. the ones that get rolled out when a species is not being conquered fast enough by alien standards (Tougher, stronger, more TUs) think Spartan Mutons.
4. Snake Mutants- Suggested by Arthanor and he's doing it as far as I know.
5. Waspite- obviously an improved floater
6. Gazer-sons of bitches....
7. Mechtereals- Uparmored etherals...with Blue Cloaks instead of orange. Nightmare time for xcom soldiers.
8. Grim Reapers- Reapers with sectopod like traits of gun and armor... blacked out except for their bright  shiny alloy jaws
9. Dread pods- Sectopod with higher armor and a full auto plasma gun and higher reactions
10. An entire range of cyberdisks equipped with different weapons

Was starting to head down this route in my head, since I was going to roll out a changed Sectopod for this 2.0 release and in my planned 'DLC' called 'Retaliation', there was going to be another set and a half of weapons based on the response from the aliens.  I wanted to do more than a few new units, but creating new units is extremely time consuming so I was just going to settle with one from previous games.

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Alien weapons.
1.Infection weapons that are used to turn more people into Chrysalids
2. Alien small launcher bombs that go boom
3. Maybe fourth or fifth class of Alien weapons that are equate to DRT (dead right there) for all but the most heavily armored troops.
4. ??
1 is horrifying and awesome.  Maybe a grenade or a satchel, but I need to see what the AI can handle.
2) Already was looking at this for the 0.5 tier, but thanks for the further support, definitely needs to be in there.
3) Particle beams, oh yeah.
4)  Profit?

Thanks, seriously, for all the awesome feedback.  This is going to help immensely.

Offline KingMob4313

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #309 on: October 23, 2014, 05:57:18 am »
Of course I was able to get back to my place only now. Attached the belated savegame  ;D

Comments Later.

Awesome!  I will check this out later.

Right now I'm not even working on the mod, I'm just writing replies to everyone.

Ha.

Offline HelmetHair

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #310 on: October 23, 2014, 06:04:55 am »
Of course it does...ah,should have pointed out that I was espressing opinions based on my gameplay, I was not really dismissing your points per se, but aiming at overlapping your views with what I see in equal terms as Kingmob's desired outcome for the weapons roles.

Sure, we have different tactical doctrines, as long as I do NOT have one since as I stated I'm not that big player and I have no battlefield experiece nor theoretical traning in squad tactics.  :P

Running the numbers may give some interesting comparisons, but I have around a hundred battles under my belt in Equal Terms and find myself in situations VERY CLOSE to what Kingmob has expressed was his intended outcome: I routinely use (almost) the whole range of weapons with a (what I feel is) a balanced use of each.

For example the sniper rifle in my opinion CLEARLY had to suck at reaction fire, otherwise you'd dominate easily also the urban landscape placing tropeers accordingly.

It's a bit more complicated, by I just saw it's 3 AM here and tomorrow I'll drive for 600km......Ill be back   ;D

It is indeed complicated and I do not insist on their being one "perfect" mix of weapons that EVERYONE should use in all situations and that any particular tactic is necessarily better than another. However, it now appears that all my favorite toys are going to get the Axe.... Le sigh. :)

Offline KingMob4313

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #311 on: October 23, 2014, 06:06:13 am »
I also reduced the accuracy of the sniper weapons (you can see up to 150% accuracy in certain mods) in favor of damage. Giving someone a sniper rifle doesn't make them good at shooting. If I got one, I probably wouldn't hit anything. What it does is take a marksman and turn him into a death dealer. The marksman brings the aiming ability, the rifle brings the range and damage. Otherwise, sniper rifles are awesome for rookies and that's just wrong. With high damage and high accuracy, snipers become great for the "shot that really counts", killing that one alien that everyone else missed and is poised to unleash hell on the squad next turn.

This has been a massive issue with my high accuracy weapons, that they tend to do great in anyone's hands... and I've been trying to think of ways of solving it.  But you mentioning it here will really set me to work tomorrow.  Back to Excel. I'm thinking of having the Sniper Rifle at 200% accuracy, but drops by a huge amount at range, like around 7-12?   The big thing about the sniper rifle is that honestly, at the ranges shown visually in the game, no one would need more than an ACOG (low magnification of around 1.5 to 2) type sight for high accuracy work... 

I will need to crunch some numbers at ranges and different firing statistics to see how I can overcome this.  This weapon should benefit the best of shooters.



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Regarding aliens, I do indeed intent on developing improved chryssalids and snakemen. Once I am satisfied that the XAE is "complete". In general, every mod that introduces new better weapons needs to be balanced by delayed access and new stuff for the aliens too, but that's a lot more difficult to do (whole sprites for new aliens, compared to only 8 handobs for a new weapon). I have a lot of hope for my next mod compilation, "Horror from Above", which will include new weapons and races in the same modular fashion as the XAE.

Your work is great, another massive megamod that pretty much is a different take on the same problem.  Heh.  I'll need to do a pure run on your mod sometime soon.

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Cheers! And KingMob, keep up the good work :) HelmetHair, feel free to drop by the XAE ;)

Thanks for all the help and the kind words.

Offline KingMob4313

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #312 on: October 23, 2014, 06:07:19 am »
It is indeed complicated and I do not insist on their being one "perfect" mix of weapons that EVERYONE should use in all situations and that any particular tactic is necessarily better than another. However, it now appears that all my favorite toys are going to get the Axe.... Le sigh. :)

Wait, what? What's getting the Axe?

There's going to be just small adjustments, I assure you.

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #313 on: October 23, 2014, 06:08:28 am »
NOTIFICATION:

 Just researched Plasma Ammo: Pistol to Magnum but:

 - in the manufacture list, this conversion is under the "weapon" topic while I was expecting it to be under "ammunition"
 - The required items are 1 plasma rifle mag while I was expecting it to be a pistol mag

EDIT: sorry hit save instead of preview.

Looking at the ruleset, ALL ammo remanufacturing falls under the weapon category.

Damn, going to need to fix this. Doing so much replying tonight, tomorrow will be for bug logging.

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Re: [WIP][Beta][MegaMod]Equal Terms 2.0 - Beta 1.997
« Reply #314 on: October 23, 2014, 06:08:42 am »
Did anyone else notice heavy plasma (converted) seems to have no weight in base sell screen?

Another bug! Dammit!