This is HardMod.
(Sorry for bad English)
Base idea is more difficultly gameplay, adding some mods (without fanatism), and good balance.
SpoilerOverview:
1.Global strategy
- Less income from defeated aliens.
- Less income from production.
- Less score from alien artifacts
- More penalty to killed xcom agents/civilians.
2. Air combat
- AA missiles is unaccuracy, but it is better that nothing
- AA gun has most large damage potential, but you must have very hard interceptor to use it.
- Beams is good, but Plasma use elerium as ammo and you must produce ammo for laser cannon.
- Smaller UFOs moves faster, that big UFO.
- Small UFO evades fights. Shootdown small/medium scout is it big problem now.
- You must use few interceptors to shootdown UFOs larger than scout. No more overkill with one cool craft.
- Refueling with jet fuel. No more free patrols.
3. Weapons.
- More cost of all weapons, except tanks.
- Rifle, AutoCannon and Heavy Cannon removed.
- Included: Light Minigun (from Minigun mod), SMG, Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Inc.Grenade, SSRL (from EqualTerms),
M79 (M79 GL mod), Field Medic Pack (from Advanced Medikit mod), Bandage and Stimulator (from X-Piratez)
- Use "UFO Extended Accuracy" option! All weapons has effective range.
3.1. Light weapons.
- Light Minigun use at medium range (20-25). Shots 10 bullets twice per turn. At least one from 20 bullets hits.
- SMG - close-medium range. Small damage, but fast fire. Autofire - 5 rounds.
- Assault Rifle. Medium-long range weapon. Good accuracy, but not so much damage power.
- Sniper Rifle. Long range weapon. Has large penalty when firing closest than 20 tiles (5% per tile). Very good accuracy and power. (125%, 80 AP)
- M79. Long range. Arcing shot. Poor accuracy, damage and fire speed. Light support weapon.
3.2. Heavy weapons.
- Single Shot Rocket Launcher (SSRL). 3 tile radius explosion. 100 HE power. Kills cyberdisk with 2-3 hits.
- Small rocket like SSRL now. Has 120 HE power.
- Large rocket has 100 HE power and big explosion radius (?7-8 tiles)
3.3. Lasers
- Heavy laser has clip for 5 shots and elerium-powered clip for 10 shots (2 elerium).
- Laser rifle and pistol has elerium powered clips for 20 and 25 shots (2 elerium per clip).
- Lasers useful at all ranges.
- Lasers has good damage power.
- All lasers, except heavy, use elerium as power source, because humans can't do compact energy sources.
- Heavy laser it is really good anti-tank weapon
3.4. Plasma
- Little better that humans gunpowder weapon by accuracy.
- Standart damage power.
3.5. Tanks
- Tank/cannon use explosive rounds (30x, radius 2, power 80), with brust fire by 3 rounds.
- Tank/RocketLauncer also has brust fire by 2 rockets. Has 12 rockets.
- You can modify this tanks to artilery mod. They get arcing shots, but lost ability to auto fire, and some accuracy and fire speed.
- You can construct any tank from chassis (base/alloy) and tank weapon (cannon/RL/minigun/laser/plasma/blaster)
- Hovertanks can use only rocket/blaster launcher and laser/plasma, because flying units don't like high recoil from cannon/minigun
- You can construct sectopod with rocket launcher/laser/plasma.
4. Armor
- Humans Combat Armor. Heavy. Weak soldiers can't use it.
- You can upgrade Combat Armor. Alien Alloys make armor bit lighter.
- Personal armor has -3 penalty to max carry weight, but +10 bonus to bravery.
- All suits has less armor. They add penalty to combat abilities, but give bonus to physical abilities.
5. Aliens
- More health.
- More armor.
- More accuracy.
- More grenades.
- More aliens.
- More tanks.
- More hardcore!!!
6. Research
- Lasers from large to small (Laser cannon->Laser Pistol). Laser rifle and laser pistol require elerium, because humans can't make compact energy source
- You can make Raven interceptor from alien alloys.
- If you want make hovertank, you may research cyberdisk autopsy. Also you need Heavy Plasma with clip.
7. Production
- Corpses of xcom agents must be buried. You can produce coffins for it...or explode corpses on battlefield
- You can recover any armor from corpses.
- You can repair tanks, but not tank weapons.
- You can't use high alien technology and produce alien weapon. But you can do something with it.
- You can make plasma tank weapon from heavy plasma and ammo for it from heavy plasma clips. With blaster launcher - similarly.
- You can make hovertank chassis only from broken cyberdisks. You can't repair it, because he already make from shit and sticks.
- Plasma beam from 5 heavy plasmas.
- Fusion ball launcher from blaster launcher and bomb for it from blaster bombs and elerium
- Elerium from plasma clips, alien grenades, stun bombs and blaster bombs.
Included content from mods:
EqualTerms, Minigun, Air combat rebalanced, LaserClips, and, may be, other. Thanks you, guys, for your work.
Good comparability mods:
Luke Extra UFOs, Terrain Pack.
Complected work:
- Include alloy tanks (and possibility to replace armor) (DONE)
- Rebuild tech tree for alien containment (DONE)
- Separate tank chassis and tank weapon for production (DONE)
- Add bombs for small launcher and scatter plasma (medium support weapons) (DONE)
- Rename plasma caster -> scatter plasma (DONE)
Future plans:
- Disassemble tanks to chassis and tank weapon
- Rewrite categories in manufacture
- Perl based build and test system (for easy balancing)
- Rebalance
- Fix ufopedia
- Dart rifle
- Stun grenades
- Repair tank weapons
- Equip tanks like soldiers (experiment)
- Add smoke bombs for tanks
- Add few dropships/interceptors from mods
- Test all it
