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Author Topic: Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle  (Read 3609800 times)

Offline legionof1

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4095 on: February 25, 2017, 08:39:28 pm »
I actually think the present incarnation of the weather is quite well done given the constraints of the engine. Keep up the good work Dioxine.

Offline The Burning Yak

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4096 on: February 25, 2017, 09:13:16 pm »
Quote
This kinda makes me overreact to criticism since I am unhappy with it myself, especially if I have repeat explanations all over again. Working my ass off and hearing about 'disappointment' is infuriating. Perhaps I need to take time off working on this mod, to have a fresh look, to regenerate.

That's entirely fair. If you need a break, you certainly deserve one. (Though, selfishly I'd rather you keep on working.) I've only started playing recently, but I agree with the RPS review when it said
Quote
X-Piratez, a UFO mod in active development by Dioxine, is the best total conversion for any game I’ve ever played.

It has shocking depth and breadth.  I've considered attempting to write an in-depth strategy guide, and even creating a simple spreadsheet to determine accuracy and damage at different skill levels for the crazy amount of weaponry sounds a little exhausting. I can only imagine how much creativity and work has gone into this mod.

The weather system makes me re-think my traditional armor choices.

I haven't found the weather arbitrary, as I can easily predict what type of weather the mission will have by looking at the environment in the geoscape. The visual difference between forest and jungle is more difficult to parse, but I believe I can do so reliably.

Though the weather system is unfinished, I suspect you added it to the mod to get some level of feedback and play testing. What are your concerns regarding the weather system, and what would you like us to test/estimate the balance of?

Currently my approach has been to never take 300% into cold, to avoid damage, and if I take a poor environmental armor make sure I've got a lot of stun and energy cures on my girl.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4097 on: February 25, 2017, 10:43:50 pm »
I haven't found the weather arbitrary, as I can easily predict what type of weather the mission will have by looking at the environment in the geoscape. The visual difference between forest and jungle is more difficult to parse, but I believe I can do so reliably.

This made me think: how about making the jungle terrain more distinctive by simply changing the geoscape texture to something less similar to forest/farm? That would help.

Offline nrafield

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4098 on: February 25, 2017, 11:09:41 pm »
I'm too lazy to switch armors up every time for weather. Still, I wish there was a better early game armor that protected against plasma and laser while not freezing gals in place in cold weahter.

Recently realized that Runt outfit has under 100% values for both heat and cold, so you can take it as an universal outfit in both these areas. Now this REALLY improved it's usefulness.

Offline BetaSpectre

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4099 on: February 25, 2017, 11:15:16 pm »
I wish weather affected the enemies too. They seem immune, IRL if I shot down a plane and the person goes unconcious from dehydration while easy, it makes sense.

UFO's aren't always easy to shoot down either, the real fight should be in the skies IMO. If the engine allowed I'd simply use my ship to take down enemies from the skies then pick over the remains like in Xenonauts.

Offline The Burning Yak

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4100 on: February 26, 2017, 06:11:18 am »
I think weather affecting enemies would cause a lot of encounters to be trivial. Wear appropriate clothing, hit next turn again and again until weather effects cripple the enemy, have a walk in the park.

Offline Scorrpio

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4101 on: February 26, 2017, 07:55:55 am »
Just assume that enemies do dress for the occasion...

Offline Foxhound634

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4102 on: February 26, 2017, 12:26:52 pm »
Having read a fair bit of posts, i wanted to chime in on the weather system as well. Now i haven't actually experienced it ingame, but i have some suggestions nontheless. The issue people seem to be having with it, isn't so much the weather system itself, but rather 3 things:

  • Balance: A thing i've heard is that some people have gals be incapacitated almost immediately after starting a mission. This suggests that the weather effects are applied as flat values, rather than a percentage of the individual gal's stats. Perhaps this could be a possible change to make, so unprotected gals would lose maybe 5-10% (of the current stat, not their max) a given stat each turn? With a stun value for instance, this would mean that the gals wouldn't suddenly drop unconscious but rather be much more vulnerable to it, and that this would always take some time to manifest, rather than happening instantly.
  • Hassle: Another complaint of the weather system is that it brings too much hassle with it during the equip screen. If possible, existing equipment besides armor could be modified to help ward off the weather. For instance, if fire could have a modifier that counteracts cold weather, then flamethrowers, molotovs and other incendiary devices would be convenient to go for. This would mean that some extreme-weather-equipment could also be used in regular missions, thereby removing some of hassle of switching everything out.
  • Clarity: Finally, the last complaint i've heard is that people have no indication of whether the mission they go on is going to have extreme weather or not. As i understand, it's only some desert maps that are hot, and only some snow maps that are cold? I'm guessing that is the case (otherwise you could always tell by where on the geomap the mission is located), so for that i have a couple of ideas. When selecting a mission marker on the geomap, maybe the description could include *EXTREME WEATHER*. If that's not possible, perhaps the mission marker could be shown in a different color (blue for cold, red for hot)?
« Last Edit: February 26, 2017, 12:30:17 pm by Foxhound634 »

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4103 on: February 26, 2017, 06:46:19 pm »
Balance: A thing i've heard is that some people have gals be incapacitated almost immediately after starting a mission. This suggests that the weather effects are applied as flat values, rather than a percentage of the individual gal's stats. Perhaps this could be a possible change to make, so unprotected gals would lose maybe 5-10% (of the current stat, not their max) a given stat each turn? With a stun value for instance, this would mean that the gals wouldn't suddenly drop unconscious but rather be much more vulnerable to it, and that this would always take some time to manifest, rather than happening instantly.[/li][/list]

Misinformation.
It is impossible to have a gal incapacitated instantly. Currently, with Stun/Hot weather, at the highest value that happens in game, 250% susceptibility, you take 9*2.5 = 22 Stun damage per turn, of which 1-2 are instantly regenerated. At lowest health, and damage onset being at turn 2, even the weakest gal takes 4 turns to be incapacitated, which is a lot of time to take counteraction. The commonly used Warrior armor takes only about half as much damage, while it has buffed stun regeneration, allowing to operate in hot weather for around 9 turns before going down; and this is with no counteraction, and for weakest gals who are usually even unable to wear these heavy armors...
Also there is NO STAT LOSS from the enviro damage, since energy nor stun doesn't modify stats.
The rationale behind flat damage is that veterans should be far more resistant to such adverse conditions than swabbies.

Hassle: Another complaint of the weather system is that it brings too much hassle with it during the equip screen. If possible, existing equipment besides armor could be modified to help ward off the weather. For instance, if fire could have a modifier that counteracts cold weather, then flamethrowers, molotovs and other incendiary devices would be convenient to go for. This would mean that some extreme-weather-equipment could also be used in regular missions, thereby removing some of hassle of switching everything out.[/li][/list]

There is no possibility of making fire counteract this, but Items of Resistance are planned... if it's too much hassle for the player to counteract the weather effects actively (for which a multitude of items exist), there will also be passive items you only need to have in your inventory.

Clarity: Finally, the last complaint i've heard is that people have no indication of whether the mission they go on is going to have extreme weather or not. As i understand, it's only some desert maps that are hot, and only some snow maps that are cold?

Another misinformation (which is the exact thing that pisses me off). In 90% cases it is clearly visible what sort of weather you should expect by the texture. You should get lucky and hit a terrain that doesn't affect you, or very unlucky and roll a snow city instead of normal terrain, but such occurences are quite rare and in most cases, beneficial. The only 50/50 terrain are cold northern forests. The weather missions are quite rare in general, in the current playthrough they accounted for maybe 15% missions I played; but that's maybe because I tried to shoot down all enemy craft over farmland, if possible.

Offline The Burning Yak

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4104 on: February 27, 2017, 08:07:06 am »
The complaints of "hassle" at the equip screen leave me rather stunned. Isn't that one of the major points of this mod? There's a reason why every faction has different resistances, why there are so many different weapons. Gear choice is far more then grab your biggest gun for everyone. Environment adds another variable for added complexity. Do I wear better protective armor but worse in the hostile environment?


Offline Carfax

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4105 on: February 27, 2017, 08:09:17 am »
I don´t get all the fuzz about the weather. As someone said before if you look at the geoscope you can guess when there are wether effects in the mission and even when you are suprised by it you just need two items to negate the effects. Moonshine and the Canteens both are there right form the start.
I personally find it an additional challenge and a nice variation. It generated some nice hit/grab and run scenarios during tactical missions for me. Generally speaking if a mission includes ice or desert tiles i tend to not sprint out of my ship for all movement points in the first turn so i can get back in the ship 2nd turn to either get some additional coutermeasures or leg it all together.
Dioxide i totally understand you getting sick of the critizism you get for the weather effects as you invest a lot of time in your "child" especially as you are not getting paid for it. Just remember half of it is plain whining, because critizism would also point to a solution and not only state "weather bad, me incredible intelligent human beeing get debuff. AI not. Unfair" Hmm kind of looks lika a Donald Trump tweet isn´t it ;D
Anyway keep up the good work and maybe take a break for one or two weeks without even checking the forum to recharge your batteries.
To finish i will just say i´m gratfull for you work and i really enjoy this incredible fleshed out mod. Thank you for it.
Regards
Carfax

Offline legionof1

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4106 on: February 27, 2017, 11:03:39 am »
The complaints of "hassle" at the equip screen leave me rather stunned. Isn't that one of the major points of this mod? There's a reason why every faction has different resistances, why there are so many different weapons. Gear choice is far more then grab your biggest gun for everyone. Environment adds another variable for added complexity. Do I wear better protective armor but worse in the hostile environment?

There is a certain point where sufficiently numerous and varied minor advantages just become overwhelming if they all get you to the end goal. There is a fine line between varied and interesting play and a huge mishmash of pointless variety. The problem is the line is subjective.

I find the breadth of options excellent but at the same time realize that i have spent far more time in the equipment screen then any other activity. Having to almost fully reequip every gal every time you switch between space, sea, normal, hot, cold and mansions takes time. You can specialize teams/craft after awhile but its still a fair amount of time spent.

To draw an parallel imagine the League of Legends item shop without a contextual search bar and no shortcuts or organization. A few hundred matches later would you be happy?

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4107 on: February 27, 2017, 11:50:36 am »
That's why medium-to-late game researches are often aimed at reducing the hassle and overcoming early limitations; eg. weather is no longer an issue for advanced armor (especially of powered variety); advanced armors usually have resistances to most types of damage; advanced medikits carry tons of stimulants etc. My vision is that the player first researches a lot of minor advantages, but more advanced tech gravitates towards a few standarized good-for-all kits again (hopefully more than a single kit, tho :) ). If this has been achieved, is open for discussion, but again many of these solutions haven't been implemented yed.

Offline bluberd

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4108 on: February 27, 2017, 01:54:59 pm »
There is a certain point where sufficiently numerous and varied minor advantages just become overwhelming if they all get you to the end goal. There is a fine line between varied and interesting play and a huge mishmash of pointless variety. The problem is the line is subjective.
I fully agree with Legionof1. At some point it just became too much. Even the research tree dev (https://techtreeviewer.byethost9.com) gave up at version 99A1.
Right now I noticed that 99F1 is just micromanagement nightmare, where at first Piratez started as a strategy game for a small scale operations.
I like elaborate games, but this level of micromanagement is just nuisance. I do somewhat comparable stuff at work and we have a whole team of NCOs to do the nitty-gritty details, by which you loose the perspective on a big picture.
So Dioxine, thank you for a great job and a lot of dedication, but I guess this Mod was pretty mature at some previous point, it needed no more additional stuff. I fully understand that you want to add more features, more interesting content and challenges, just to make this thing better. But at some point you need to stop adding new stuff, measure users experience, remove bugs and release stable version. Any possibility that the dragons end up in version 2.0, where I do not have to facepalm seeing a dragon in a previously reasonably realistic game?

I fiddle with Piratez_Planet.rul to forcefully remove weather effects of heat and cold, maybe also mansion timer. I hate those features while loving the rest of the game.

Regards,

Offline Meridian

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99F.1 - 13 Feb - Slave Wars
« Reply #4109 on: February 27, 2017, 02:17:36 pm »
Even the research tree dev (https://techtreeviewer.byethost9.com) gave up at version 99A1.

My guess would be that the dev abandoned the web-based viewer in favor of the built-in one.
(the size and complexity of the tree has no impact on the viewer once it is implemented; and that applies to both viewers)