[Weapons] XCOM Weapon Roles v0.3 (Now Merged With TerranPlasmaWeapons!)

[SIMON BAILIE]

As a taste you could have a look at this older mod, but still works, by Shadow.

[moriarty]

LOL @ Frank - that's a nice fluff text, to be sure

I've attached the ruleset file I made... it was work in progress even then, and it might not even work today, because some things have changed in the ruleset parameters, but perhaps you can recycle some of the ideas.

EDIT: ah, nice one, SIMON, that's exactly what I was thinking of. the TerranPlasmaWeapons mod contains the alternative graphics for the alien and human versions of the plasma weapons.

[Lohengramm]

I am overwhelmed by the level of support you are both showing me 

Thank you so much

[Orz]

Woah. All I can say is: I've been basically doing the same thing with my own reworks of UFO/EU & TFTD. I mean, it's not exactly the same down to the T, but the the gist behind it (role specialization) is essentially the same. In a few cases, in fact, we have independently arrived at the same specific changes for some weapons (be that weight, accuracy, clipsize or what-have-you). Uncanny!

All in all, I consider this a definite step forward in the overall improvement of (Open)X-Com as a whole.

PS: Oh, and yes, the aliens must definitely keep snap/reaction fire, otherwise you're castrating the poor guys.

[Lohengramm]

Woah. All I can say is: I've been basically doing the same thing with my own reworks of UFO/EU & TFTD. I mean, it's not exactly the same down to the T, but the the gist behind it (role specialization) is essentially the same. In a few cases, in fact, we have independently arrived at the same specific changes for some weapons (be that weight, accuracy, clipsize or what-have-you). Uncanny!

All in all, I consider this a definite step forward in the overall improvement of (Open)X-Com as a whole.

PS: Oh, and yes, the aliens must definitely keep snap/reaction fire, otherwise you're castrating the poor guys.

Haha cool I can't wait to see how this goes. I'm kind of taking it a teeny bit beyond just role specialization with the normalization of Acc and TU across archetypes as well, because I wanted Acc / TU improvements to come from training your troops. The primary benefit of upgrading technology is flexibility (more firing modes) and raw damage output under this new model, and it makes for a very direct transition for your specialists from one tech tier to the next by not fundamentally altering how they perform Snap, Aimed, and Auto shots. It is less jarring transitioning between tech tiers compared to original XCOM, and there is value in learning how to use the Terran set well, because the last 2 tiers are extremely functionally similar.

[yrizoud]

Grats Lohengramm, this is some very sensible and well-rounded rebalancing.
Two notes :
- Be careful with weights inferior to 3, because weight is used as a divisor for throwing distance. In the vanilla game, 3 is the weight of the lightest items, including flares and grenades. Items with weight 2 can be thrown 50% farther, items with weight 1 can be thrown a whooping 300%.
- About the question of heavy plasma having no snap : You could redefine deployments to give pistol/rifle/heavy + basic clips in the first months, then pistol/rifle/heavy + advanced clips, then pistol/rifle/heavy + high-power clips in the endgame. This way, aliens maintain the variety of weapons from beginning to end, yet their firepower improves gradually. As a bonus, the player who researches alien technology immediately does not get the endgame firepower.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yeah, it's an interesting and ambitious project. I'll keep an eye on it.

[Lohengramm]

Grats Lohengramm, this is some very sensible and well-rounded rebalancing.
Two notes :
- Be careful with weights inferior to 3, because weight is used as a divisor for throwing distance. In the vanilla game, 3 is the weight of the lightest items, including flares and grenades. Items with weight 2 can be thrown 50% farther, items with weight 1 can be thrown a whooping 300%.
- About the question of heavy plasma having no snap : You could redefine deployments to give pistol/rifle/heavy + basic clips in the first months, then pistol/rifle/heavy + advanced clips, then pistol/rifle/heavy + high-power clips in the endgame. This way, aliens maintain the variety of weapons from beginning to end, yet their firepower improves gradually. As a bonus, the player who researches alien technology immediately does not get the endgame firepower.

Oooh great points Thank you!

I just did another pass (reduction!) on Auto damage to compensate for the massively increased accuracy of Auto weapons and left some notes about why it was absolutely necessary.

[yrizoud]

A detail : Avoid using exactly 35% TU costs, as it allows some soldiers to shoot three times in the same round, if they have specific TU numbers (like 54). If you want everybody to shoot at most two times, use 36% or more.
I posted details about this phenomenon here : https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3662.msg45678.html#msg45678

[Lohengramm]

A detail : Avoid using exactly 35% TU costs, as it allows some soldiers to shoot three times in the same round, if they have specific TU numbers (like 54). If you want everybody to shoot at most two times, use 36% or more.
I posted details about this phenomenon here : https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3662.msg45678.html#msg45678

Ahhh OK good catch I will go do that right now. I'm in the middle of adding the XCOM specific variants and disabling access to the Xenos variants.

[Lohengramm]

Ok so dang, I might have succeeded finally at merging TerranPlasmaWeapons with XCOM Weapon Roles

Go give it a spin, I am right now as well~~~

[hellrazor]

Well i guess with this setup, your Mod can actually be pleasent for the player, without nerfing the aliens, as i mentioned on the IRC before.

Hm.. better weaponroles, hm... hm..., nope not thinking of modding right need to focus on exams.

[Lohengramm]

Snap shots removed from Rockets
TU and Acc on Aimed shots reduced by 15% each.

I should have done this in the first pass, but no, I had to experience the guy all the way in the back of my Skyranger (literally last 2 rows) taking a Reaction shot at a terror unit to remember yet another lesson I had already learned 20 years ago...

[Arthanor]

What about clicking on that little button that spends all the unit's TUs so they don't reaction fire, instead of changing the weapon? ;P

(I'd say that's a boost: faster aimed shots on rockets is quite handy, even if at the cost of a little less accuracy, while snap shots is really only for reaction, and often (most of the time?) is detrimental for the team).

[Lohengramm]

What about clicking on that little button that spends all the unit's TUs so they don't reaction fire, instead of changing the weapon? ;P

(I'd say that's a boost: faster aimed shots on rockets is quite handy, even if at the cost of a little less accuracy, while snap shots is really only for reaction, and often (most of the time?) is detrimental for the team).

That little button is nice, but this is just being consistent with the rest of my changes since none of the other Heavy style weapons are allowed Snap shots anyway. That and, WHO THE FUCK FIRES A ROCKET WITHOUT AIMING FIRST? Only XCOM...