[OLD] Old OXCE discussion thread

[Yankes]

I mean different counting, you don't store clips but bullets. You use one bullet, you have 1 bullet less in base.

[Arthanor]

How would you load a gun then? Loading crafts with 56 bullets for weapon A, 34 for weapon B, 512 for your 6 weapon Cs would be tedious too.

I think the method I described above converges to the same answer as tracking bullets over time, but at the same time keeps the logistics at the clip level. Applying the % to every clip would too, but then you have more deviation per battle instead of being at most 1 clip away from the answer each battle.

[pilot00]

How would you load a gun then? Loading crafts with 56 bullets for weapon A, 34 for weapon B, 512 for your 6 weapon Cs would be tedious too.

Simple. After the battle do this:

1) Count the bullets of the same clips and create a sum etc the 30 bullets per rifle clip, lets say we have 4 clips in the craft inventory so that would be 120 bullets.
This will be counted weanever a clip enters the stores or craft inventory and stored somewhere in the memory of the game (not a programmer here).
2) After the battle the game would count bullets remaining and assing them to clips according to their storage. Lets say we used 50 bullets. We had a tottal of 120 pre battle, that means 120-50 =70 bullets. 70 Bullets mean 2 and 1/3rd clip.
3)So in other words we have two clips remaining.

"Oh and whats the difference oh mighty smartass Pilot00 from the system we use now?" Simple. We used those 50 bullets from all the clips we had on hand, and got two full clips back. If we used the vanilla system we wouldnt get anything back. Think of it the way they do clip refills in the army, they gather the bullets remaining and repackage them. So you dont have magically missing clips or magically appearing clips (with % values).

"And what will happen to the 1/3rd clip remaining Pilot00?Wont this magically be lost?"

Well we can remove the random factor by making it as such: 1/3rd of the clip remaining = lost clip.
2/3rds remaining = full clip.

After all in most modern rifles the first few rounds (in peace time at least) are just the casing (I Dont know the english word).

"But its not peace smartass". I know we can all pretend those "wasted bullets" are the trajectory rounds each mag has in.

Ok I am done arguing with myself. Confused you enough?

IDK If its possible from a code perspective.

[Yankes]

Right now its vague idea, I didn't check code to see what is possible and simplest to do.

Point is simple, outside battle item is 1 bullets. You load craft using e.g. 100 bullets. When battle begins all bullets are split to clips. If you lack bullets to fill clip, last one will be partial empty.
In battle you shoot 58 bullets. After battle left over bullets (in our case 42) are count up and return to base.

In that system only way to louse bullet is shoot it or drop clip behind.

[Arthanor]

@pilot: As I described earlier, I am pretty sure that OpenXCom already has a system that does pretty much exactly what you describe, except it rounds everything down (so in your example, 2/3 of a clip is also 0 clip). It does it by counting bullets, but you never have to manage bullets.

The issue with your rounding, is if I have, say, a HMG and only ever fire 1/3 of bullets, then that mag lasts forever. You can't do systematic rounding as that creates bias. Either the OpenXCom way (rounding down) which loses you clips, or other ways (yours is ~fair but exploitable; always rounding up would be abusive). That's why I was suggesting bullet counting for clips, with the last # of bullets/clip size determining the odds of getting an extra clip. This way you get back the right number ±1, but it isn't biased.

@Yankes: I still think loading a craft with 512 bullets for your 6 guns is tedious, even if there would be no impact in battlescape. If you don't want half-empty clips, you have to be like: So I have 6 rifles, I want an extra clip per soldiers, each take 35 bullets. How many bullets is that? (12*35 = ..? *Pulls out calculator*) It's math I can do, or anyone past primary school can. But it's not math I would want to do routinely for a game (and I'd rather lose clips than do it ).

Maybe the game could track bullets, but only display full clips both in the base and in geoscape? So when you get in the craft equip/buy/sell screens, the game knows you have 600 bullets, so it tells you that you have 20 clips of 30 bullets. Coming back, you have 560 bullets, it tells you that you have 18 clips (18*30 = 540). Go on another mission and spend 35 bullets, you now have 525 bullets and it displays 17 clips. Buy 3 more clips, and 90 bullets and you have 615 bullets, displayed as 20 clips. That requires a lot of converting on the fly though.. so probably a lot of code change.

[Yankes]

I could be possible. But you will loose information about not full clips. Each solution have some drawback.

[pilot00]

All three of us actually say the same thing with different words and a small dissagreement on the % of the bullets gained or lost, so we are all correct

[Solarius Scorch]

And what about the surrender mechanic? Because it was kind of my main request of the two.

[Arthanor]

That one's a good idea and we all agree on it. Boring!

I'll have to take a dig at the debrieff state to implement something bullet wise. It seems like an easy project to start coding in c++ with since it's such a simple modification.

[Solarius Scorch]

I'll have to take a dig at the debrieff state to implement something bullet wise. It seems like an easy project to start coding in c++ with since it's such a simple modification.

What would you like to be listed?
Because I would like to every gained item be listed (not just alloys, elerium and unresearched artefacts).

[pilot00]

And what about the surrender mechanic? Because it was kind of my main request of the two.

Autowinning/capturing 5+ ( I had streaks of more) aliens because they panicked, seems a bit counter intuitive. Especially on the large and convulted maps that you cant reach them in time and can (theoritically) grab their guns back and regroup.

Now if you can add a computation to compare numbers, such as 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 ratios (x-com vs alien) then maybe. Then again the aliens from a lore stand point wont be the surrendering types...

[Arthanor]

I think the surrendering mechanic was suggested more for Piratez, where the civilian crews (ex.: GOs, hostesses and engineers) might surrender to avoid getting killed. The more fighty types probably have good enough bravery that they'd hold on and not panic, meaning the crew wouldn't surrender any ways.

@Solarius: I wasn't actually going to change the listing. Listing everything might be too much. Maybe something like: Weapons, ammunitions, grenades and equipment categories, where individual weapons are lumped together. Then anything fancier (Alien food and such) listed individually? I don't know how to do that though.

I was just going to look at the clip computations, which are in the debrief state as well.  I have noticed that it affects my gameplay in a way I don't like (I try not to shoot special weapons, which defeats the coolness of having them; or if I shoot it once, then I might as well empty the clip, which also feels stupid) so it would be good to fix it.

I found where the game calculates the returns. It gets the # of shots/clip size, rounded down, and gives that many clips back to you (so if you use multiples of the same weapons, it mostly works: You only lose a number of clips that total the number of shots fired + 1 extra if it's not exact).

It should be within my means to add a line or two that takes however many shots remain after filling clips and divides by clipsize. Roll a number between 0-1, if it is lower than (shots left/clipsize), you get an extra clip. That way you can use your special weapons and will only lose the clip once in a while, in a way that should average out to spending exactly the right amount of shots.

[Solarius Scorch]

I think the surrendering mechanic was suggested more for Piratez, where the civilian crews (ex.: GOs, hostesses and engineers) might surrender to avoid getting killed. The more fighty types probably have good enough bravery that they'd hold on and not panic, meaning the crew wouldn't surrender any ways.

Yeah, it was mostly about Piratez, but seeing as vanilla aliens are way less likely to panic en masse I don't think it would have much of an impact on the game anyway.

@Solarius: I wasn't actually going to change the listing. Listing everything might be too much. Maybe something like: Weapons, ammunitions, grenades and equipment categories, where individual weapons are lumped together. Then anything fancier (Alien food and such) listed individually? I don't know how to do that though.

In vanilla, there's not that much stuff to recover, it's mostly something like:
Plasma Pistol: 1
Plasma Rifle: 5
Heavy Plasma: 2
Alien Grenade: 5
Mind Probe: 1
Maybe a bit more with really big UFOs, but nothing overwhelming.

For Piratez it would be more, but it's also more vital information.

[Arthanor]

The issue is that it would list all of your gear that it recovered too:

Rocket Launcher: 2
Large Rockets: 2
Laser Pistols: 2
Laser Rifles: 8
Heavy Laser: 4
Plasma Pistol: 1
Plasma Pistol clip: 1
Plasma Rifle: 5
Plasma Rifle clip: 12
Heavy Plasma: 2
Heavy Plasma clip: 3
Alien Grenade: 5
MediKits: 8
Grenades: 4
Electro-flares: 18
Smoke grenades: 5
Mind Probe: 1
[...]

which quickly grows into a list that's so long it's useless. If you subtract what you brought, you would get:

Pistol clip: -2
Rifle clip: -4
Large rockets: -3

or something, which is interesting in its own right, to know what you need to replace, but you already get that message when it fails to refill the craft. And you don't really need to keep track of used equipment every mission provided it is there to be replenished. Unless there is an "owner" flag to items, which identifies if it was brought in by aliens or XCom.. But even then, if I bring 10 heavy plasma clips, spend 5 and recover 8 from the aliens, what should it display? Recovered 8 or recovered 3?

It's a good idea, but implementing it in a way that's informative but not cluttered is difficult.

[Solarius Scorch]

Good point. But I don't think we need an "owner" flag, as long as the game remembers what you brought and subtracts one list from the other - a bit like you described, just without displaying the negative values.