Mod: Improved Stun Baton

[Eddie]

I was a bit disappointed with the performance of the stun baton so I made this small mod which makes it competitive. It changes the damage of the stun baton from "30" to "20 + MELEE*0.2 + BRAVERY*0.4". Think of it as an improved handle or a knuckleduster for weak but brave melee skilled gals.

The files go in the mods folder of pirates which is OpenXcom_XPiratez\users\mods


Crunching the numbers:
For low skilled gals, the new stun baton behaves pretty much like the old one. Ok vs non-armoured targets but useless vs armoured.
For medium skilled gals, the new stun baton is on par or better than the cattle prod. Weak target armour favors the stun baton, stronger armour favors the cattle prod.
For elite gals, the stun baton is as good as a knuckleduster and may slightly surpass it in average damage (with high bravery, which is hard to get). But the stun baton has a 50-150% damage range, which makes it less useful vs really heavy armour.

Edit: toned damage down to 20 + MELEE*0.15 + BRAVERY*0.2

[Dioxine]

Well you've made it a carbon copy of the handle now... With improved accuracy. For Melee 80, Bravery 50 it does 56 stun damage, completely removing the need for the cattle prod (75) and knuckles against all but heaviest targets, since you can attack thrice as fast. Also electric weapons make constant damage on purpose. With maxed out stats, it easily surpasses Stun Rod in damage, and Knuckles in accuracy.

[Arthanor]

I saw the stun baton on Meridian's LP, and much like him (and Eddie) thought it wasn't very interesting, although it has potential by being a fast, small stunrod and the idea of electric stun weapons with fixed damage makes sense as it is the shock that does the stunning rather than brute strength. Maybe it could scale to some extent with melee accuracy? We've talked about weapons that don't scale and how they are inherently unfavoured before, unless they are overpowered to begin with (the rod being close to that, being balanced because of the stun bug and the high TU cost).

Looking at the stats:

Code: [Select]

Weapon       Accuracy          TU Cost  Damage
Handle:      0.7*(0.34M + 65)  9        10 + 0.2S + 0.4B
Fistycuffs:  0.65M             8         0 + 0.6S + 0.2M
Cattle Prod: 1.1M              20       70
Stun Baton:  0.8*(0.5M + 50)   8        30
(For simplicity, I'll consider 2 hits of all the 8-9 TU cost weapon for every 1 hit of the cattle prod)

So the champion in scaling is obviously the fistycuffs, and it will always have a place on the melee monsters. It also has bonus damage to health which may help stun by reducing HP, but also kill weak targets (I have started to bring handles for my melee monsters to stun weak targets like GOs and academicians). At a reasonable 30S and 70M you get 32 damage to equal the baton (but less accuracy; the Stun Baton always leads for accuracy). At a similar 80M and 32S, you get 35 damage and match the cattle prod in stun per TUs, although that assumes 0 armor for the target and your accuracy is once more much lower. Boost the stats and the fistycuffs start taking the lead against lower armor values. With a maximum damage of 76, it is possible for a monster (gal at the stat caps) to get better damage out of the fistycuffs. Fistycuffs take 111 melee to beat the handle in accuracy, but their damage scales very differently so it strongly depends on the gal. At 25S, both do 15 damage + their other stat bonus, so it becomes a choice of do you have melee accuracy twice as high as your bravery? And you better have good melee for the fistycuffs otherwise the handle will hit more and be better any ways.

For the handle, with 40 Bravery (the average for a swabbie 10 min, 70 max = 40 avg), you get 10+16 = 26 damage, so you need 20S for the extra 4 damage and the handle is already as good as the Stun Baton. The 1 TU difference doesn't matter much, especially since it is easy to improve on the S to get a few points of extra damage. The handle has better accuracy up to M=34. Plus the gals enjoy handlin' other people! It is definitely the best starting weapon for brave gals. At the cap, with 100B and 80S, you can get 66 damage out of the handle and being twice as fast as a cattle prod (plus easy to carry on the belt or QD slot) it is then better in almost all cases. At a more realistic 70B and 40S, you get 10+8+28=46 damage, which is better stun/hit than a cattle prod on enemies with less than less than 22 armor (at 22, they are equal 2x(46-22)=48 for the handle; 1x48 for the cattle prod). Accuracy suffers above M=49 for the handle though, and it will miss more often than the cattle prod.

In view of this, the Stun Baton is not as bad as the numbers look. It beats the handle for cowardly gals (at 10 bravery, even with 80 S you only do the same 30 damage the baton would do). It is also more accurate from M=34 onwards, so it definitely has an edge for gals with good melee but low bravery. Under M=53, the baton also hits more often than the stun rod, so for gals that are terrible at melee and cowardly (otherwise the handle is better), it is the best stun weapon. However, the handle is at most 25% less accurate than the baton (and generally less so), so as long as you can do 38 damage with it, it is better than the Baton at Acc*Dmg/hit. For the Baton vs Fistycuffs: past 70 melee accuracy, as long as you can do 45 damage with fistycuffs (so 50S), the Fistycuffs are better at Acc*Dmg/hit. These are not difficult numbers to get.

I would suggest scaling electric weapons weakly with melee accuracy. Especially for the stun rod since it gets no scaling past 80 melee accuracy (already 100% to hit, discounting melee dodge). Scaling (representing zapping of vulnerable areas: head or armor weakpoints?) by 0.1 would be enough to give them a bit more edge. This would make the stun baton better than other weapons for cowardly and weak gals (the handle is really good if you have high bravery, the fistycuffs get great at high strength and that's an easy stat to cap) and further establishes the stun rod as the meanest early-tech melee stunner since it is otherwise rather easy to surpass in stun/hits (this would also help the Baton to approach the Cattle Prod in Acc*Dmg/hit).

[Eddie]

--- disclaimer ---
The following argument is based on my math beeing correct!

I just noticed I had an error in my spreadsheet that I used to calculate weapon damage. I had the fistycuffs at 100 accuracy and was balancing against that. So yes, like that it is overpowered. New suggested damage: 20 + MELEE*0.15 + BRAVERY*0.2
Arthanor, your damage formulas are not correct. You forget the "ToHealth" part of the damage the fistycuffs and the handle do. Also, accuracy for the handle is 0,7*(MELEE*0,34+65) and for the cattle prod 110*MELEE. Also, the moral special of the handle adds moral to the target, not the gal. I took these values from the gamefiles, not the bootypedia.

To compare weapons, I used a formula that I would call "effectiveness", which is "damage * accurracy / Tu-cost"

The correct formula for fistycuff damage is
damage = (Str*0,6 + Mel*0,2 - Armour) + (Str*0,6 + Mel*0,2 - Armour)*0,35 <- that is the "ToHealth" damage

The correct formula for handle damage is
damage = (10 + Str*0,2 + Brv*0,4 - Armour) + (10 + Str*0,2 + Brv*0,4 - Armour)*0,15

Example calculation:
A gal with melee 80, bravery 50 and strength 30 attacks an Academician, who has 6 armour on superhuman. Damage for the handle is 34,5 without rounding, so probably a bit less. Damage for the stun baton is 24. Now including accuracy and attack speed, effectiveness (dam*acc/tu) for the handle is 2,47 or a little smaller because of rounding. That same value for the stun baton is 2,16 so the handle is rougly 14% better in that situation. Attack anything with better armour and the handle gets even better.
To add the fistycuffs to that calculation: 37,8 damage with effectiveness 2,45
Cattle prod: damage 64 with effectiveness 3,16
(Not sure the cattle prod damage is correct, says power 70 in the .rul file but don't know what the bug mentioned does with that)


tl;dr: The best thing about the stun baton as it is right now is that you can sell it for 2000 and get a handle and two smoke granades for that. You need to have a strength worse than 30 and a bravery worse than 40 combined with a high melee to make the stun baton better than the handle.

Edit: added correct values in reply to Arthanors post
Edit2: attached the spreadsheet I used for calculations. Yes, you DO need a spreadsheet for that.

[Arthanor]

You are indeed right on the formulas. I edited the above to account for that.

I am not sure where the armor gets factored in the additional damage. It's either as you have it, or (raw damage*percent)-armor, so I chose to ignore it. The 15% of the handle is not much and the 35% of the fistycuff is good on tough enemies but a pain otherwise. Not always a bonus...

With the new accuracies, the handle is worse off at higher melee accuracy and only beats the stun baton for melee scores under 34. The baton now also beats the (slightly nerfed) stun rod until a melee accuracy of 53, and still beats the fistycuffs for all accuracies. This makes the stun baton the most accurate fast melee weapon except for really bad melee gals (M<34). Fistycuffs are also a bad weapon to stun soft targets like academicians and GOs as I have killed way too many of them with the 35% health damage. For soft targets, you need accurate delivery with no extra damage. Slight difference in damage don't matter much, only those differences that are big enough to push your "needed hits to stun" a whole integer down. Hitting an enemy to 1hp and hitting again is as demanding as hitting twice for "only" half each time. And the stun baton is more likely to hit. The stun baton, rod and handle also do 50%-150% damage, which changes nothing for averages but helps compared to the fistycuff when wanting dependable outcomes.

This analysis in fact is going to make me try swapping batons instead of handles as a secondary stun weapon (best fast hit % + tighter damage distribution = more reliable, no chance to kill, and to be used on targets that are soft enough that you don't need high damage), as a supplement to fistycuffs on melee gals and to go with guns that don't have a stun mode (stun rods are bad as a secondary since they have to go in the backpack).

The handle is better for gals who have high bravery, but that's too hard a stat to train (I am not going to let an unarmed enemy run around at the end of battles to panic train gals intentionally). The stun rod has nice damage, but it is too cumbersome to use generally and only worth it on a few armored high value targets, especially now that its accuracy was decreased so its awesome reliability is diminished.

TL;DR: The stun baton works well for gals with low bravery as a "dependable weapon to stun weak targets". This is enough for it to have a use alongside the "I think I'm a hero" handle gals. For high damage, it's either the melee monster fistycuffers or the rare super high bravery handle gals and everyone else with stun rods.

[Gyuudon]

I always wondered why a handle would increase morale for a target. Do they enjoy a handle up their bum by a big buxom mutant woman?

[ivandogovich]

I always wondered why a handle would increase morale for a target. Do they enjoy a handle up their bum by a big buxom mutant woman?

I think it was more along the lines of ... "the beatings will continue until morale improves..."
But actually, if you consider that many armed forces used corporal punishment to beat their troops into line, or snap them out of a daze etc, it makes sense.  Personally, I can't ever see hitting my own troops to try to encourage them that way.  
This does lead me to that funny time on a pogrom trying to take out one of the last panicking enemies after a long bug hunt in the Petroleum city.  I finally find him upstairs, and whack him a couple times with a handle, before expending all my TUs.  The next turn, he's suddenly gained all this new found courage (thanks to the handle) and then blasts my pirate gal to smithereens.  Talk about ingratitude.

[Dioxine]

Yeah the handle was meant as an impromptu means of restoring Morale, especially for those who are attacked with voodoo. But it sucks at this role, to be honest - it's hard to get through gal's armor, plus it deals some HP damage which is not fun.

The Stun Baton is too early an advance to be a straight improvement. Imagine a situation where there's an easy target to stun; possibly already within an inch of its death, making it impossible to use Handle or Knuckles. Using Cattle Prod involves:
1: getting it out of backpack: 10 TUs
2: dropping your weapon: 2 TUs
3: attack (assume it is immediately effective, which is not always the case): 20 TUs
4: pick up weapon, hide stun rod: 34 TUs
Total: 66 TUs

Using Stun Baton:
1: getting it from Belt: 4 TUs
2: attack twice: 16 TUs
3: replace it: 6 TUs
Total: 26 TUs (24 if you have the Baton on the QD Slot)

So this is a major advantage if you need your gal to do anything else than guarding the captive this turn. And it gets messy each time you miss, as for the Prod you lose 20 TUs. Granted, it is not very useful against heavily armored captives...

@bout stat bonus: Some bonus to damage to both electric weapons seems to make sense, but it has a tendency to penalize soldiers who don't have the right stat. Maybe drop Baton's damage by 5 and add damage bonus Reactions*0.1?...

@bout uselessness: if the Stun Baton is too weak for an upgrade (which is true), we might add some additional electric stun weapon later on.

[Eddie]

Dioxine, I get what your intended role for the stun baton is. The problem I see is that this role can be more or less filled with the handle. The handle has low enough health damage that it won't be a problem in most situations while on the plus side enough damage to be still useful vs tougher enemies. The situation you describe, a weak target low on health, is not that common as facing a tougher enemy that a stun baton can't scratch while a handle could still do damage.

I also get that you are not happy of the stun baton behaving like an improved handle. I agree, it is too early in the research tree for that. That role is better left for a later tech.

My thoughts on balancing the stun baton was revolving around making it a skill based alternative to the cattle prod. On low skilled gals the cattle prod is way better. Elite gals can use both to get the same effect (vs targets with armor ~20), so they choose the stun baton because of better utility (smaller size, faster attack). Melee skill is an obvious choice as a scaling skill and I thought bravery is a nice touch because not many weapons use it.

The dilemma of the stun baton might also be solved by making changes to the handle. The stun baton is only bad because the handle is better.
The handle could fill its intended role as a morale restoring device with the following stats: Ignore 90% armor, only stun damage, and really low stun damage with a high morale multiplier, say ToMorale = 10. Stun damage beeing something like BRAVERY*0.1, and damage flat and not rolled.
This way it does what it should (restore morale), but it is not a weapon anymore. The 90% armor ignore is to prevent cheesy misuse vs high armored targets which 100% armor ignore would allow.

With this stats, a gal with bravery 60 hits a gal in warrior outfit (30 armour). That would always do 3 stun damage and restore 30 morale.
If a gal with bravery 100 hits a provost (72 rear armor on superhuman), she would do 2 stun damage which is useless. So no way to abuse this.


Edit: Made a mod for the Handle whith the stats I stated, works like a charm. Stun Baton included, damage is now 25 + MELEE*0,1 + BRAVERY*0,1

[Dioxine]

The changes to the handle you describe make sense, game-wise, but would be grossly misleading for the player (how comes a wooden club does little damage?? How comes it ignores armor?). Again, I'd rather have an advanced tech gizmo which is doing just that (psi-related), so your creative input is actually very helpful

How about following changes to the baton: TU cost 8->7, damage 20 + 0.2*Reactions? This would make the thing's damage cap higher (at 40-ish), while only being crappy if you wear heavy armor (min. unmodified Reactions score is 40). However gals in heavy armor have it pretty hard already...

[ivandogovich]

The morale handle that Eddie describes could be represented by the "officer's riding crop" or maybe a "bambo cane"  ... more obviously the morale device rather than the belaying pin/truncheon for bashing heads.   (Great discussion so far.)

[Arthanor]

The changes to the handle you describe make sense, game-wise, but would be grossly misleading for the player (how comes a wooden club does little damage?? How comes it ignores armor?). Again, I'd rather have an advanced tech gizmo which is doing just that (psi-related), so your creative input is actually very helpful

Some morale boosting equipment could be neat, although it's always very niche since you regain a lot by killing even just a few enemies. Ivan's officer cane idea is interesting too and for that, the morale doesn't really come from the damage, but from the humiliation from the officer hitting and shouting at you, so ignoring armor isn't so bad.

How about following changes to the baton: TU cost 8->7, damage 20 + 0.2*Reactions? This would make the thing's damage cap higher (at 40-ish), while only being crappy if you wear heavy armor (min. unmodified Reactions score is 40). However gals in heavy armor have it pretty hard already...

That sounds interesting. Especially with melee training reactions too, making it easier to get better damage in the medium term. As for it being bad for heavy armor, heavy armor gals are damage soakers and heavy hitters, the stun baton is not really for them either way, except maybe as a tertiary weapon for stunning soft targets (after the big gun, and the big melee weapon), but that is usually done by fast light armor support-short range gals.

[Eddie]

I really like the idea of the stun baton scaling with reactions and training reactions. Your suggested damage seems sensible. But I'd rather have it a bit slower with a bit more damage to not be compleately useless vs armored enemies (meaning Osiron Security back armor = 36). With 40 damage you have a ~50% chance to down an Academician in one hit and can do a little bit damage to an Osiron Security if you hit his back.

About the handle: I feel the game needs something other than the flag in early game to restore morale. The handle would fill this role nicely. The armor ignoring part is just a necessity to make it work gameplay wise, but now that I think about it, there is a better way. One could use the flag mechanics to make it add moral on hit, no confusing new players with ignore armor and stuff. The weapon role of the handle can then be filled by the stun baton.

[Dioxine]

The thing is, I don't want to get rid of the handle (even if it's underpowered), not in the early game at least. Maybe you'd like the Baton slower but this isn't going to be, wanna go slow and strong, use Cattle Prod. Wishing for the Baton to be able to tackle armored enemies is misunderstanding its role. With 32 or so damage, it is still able to down a security guy who has low health, but if the damage was around 50, you could use it to attack security guys at full health.

Naturally if you think there is place for a middle-ground stun weapon (moderate speed & damage), yeah, why not - the Plasma Mace appears really late in the game. But as a separate weapon... maybe as a bonus for finding out about all basic Trader  units  since there is no bonus for that so far (you get Zapper for the Academy, Vibro Blade for Raiders, etc.)

As for early game morale boosters, you forget about Smokes and Crack, these are the way to go if you don't see how to use the Flag effectively/don't need it (the flag uses some weird boogaloo mechanics, I won't go into that here). Handle is more for fun.

[Eddie]

My suggestion for the stun baton damage would be 25 + MELEE*0.1 + REACTION*0.1, while keeping the 8 tu attack. Damage can go above 40, but needs a skilled gal and reaction is hard to train. I don't know what the stat caps are so I don't know the maximum achievable damage. But a skilled gal probably does more damage with fistycuffs anyway.

About crack and smokes: I haven't used them so far, but looking at the game mechanics I was thinking they only add moral lost from injury like a medikit would. Am I wrong here? Do they add moral to not injured gals?