Suggestions on how to improve the mod

[Meridian]

Are we playing the same game?

Melee scales to OP levels.
Throwing scales very well too, I am regularly one-shotting Mechtoids with 60 armor using Longbow! Not to mention shooting over obstacles from safety.
Firing scales only for Officer's pistol, Sniper rifle and that's it.

Extra stats (I will make them confiigurable after OXCE 3.0):

Code: [Select]

extraStrings:
  - type: en-US
    strings:
      STR_FIRING_SHORT: "Firing>{ALT}{0}"
      STR_THROWING_SHORT: "Throw>{ALT}{0}"
      STR_MELEE_SHORT: "Melee>{ALT}{0}"
      STR_PSI_SHORT: "VooDoo>{ALT}{0},{1}"

Extra item weight in options.cfg:

Code: [Select]

  showItemNameAndWeightInInventory: true


[Solarius Scorch]

You're both right guys. In my opinion, both tactics are perfectly viable.
As always, thanks for your effort Meridian.

[yrizoud]

Melee scales, sort of, but you need to get in position to use it so 33% of it (melee exclusive specialists) in your squad is overkill.

The number looks high, but it's because his melee girls are the heavy-armor scouts.
- With spotter/sniper technique, the scouts get a lot of effective playtime (hence the apparent 33%). When all goes well, a lot of shooters/archers stay unused.
- melee/scouts are taking risks, so in the total staff, he requires many scout/melee girls to replace the wounded.

[Mattdo]

Is it possible to make the morale system a bit more nuanced?

I've played battles where we roll over the opposition, stunning them all and taking no damage whatsoever. While we're looking for the last enemy, who is panicked and hiding in a corner, we run out of morale and start going berserk and killing each other. If I'm understanding what's going on here, morale declines over time and can only be raised by killing foes. Maybe the decline over time could be halted if you outnumber the enemy more than two to one? Or am I supposed to have everyone stop for cigarette breaks? (Most items that boost morale don't work if you're not injured, which seems weird to me.)

[Dioxine]

Some items don't have ufopaedia articles on them. Ever.

Care to list them? There might be ommisions.

Regarding bows, I'm happy Meridian loves them (but if the angle bug will be ever fixed, there will be serious nerfing ) I don't generally use them myself, maybe a single per squad, since I find them boring. I tend towards 1/3 rd melee + pistol, 1/3 rd heavy weapons (mortars, machine guns) as they allow to destroy terrain, and 1/3 rd trainees with scoped rifles, shotguns or whatever.

[Rince Wind]

I am moving away from using a lot of pistol+melee gals because of the new sight range and the fact that smoke grenades are a lot less useful now.
Any chance to make smoke great again?

[a0kribu]

Care to list them? There might be ommisions.

Regarding bows, I'm happy Meridian loves them (but if the angle bug will be ever fixed, there will be serious nerfing ) I don't generally use them myself, maybe a single per squad, since I find them boring. I tend towards 1/3 rd melee + pistol, 1/3 rd heavy weapons (mortars, machine guns) as they allow to destroy terrain, and 1/3 rd trainees with scoped rifles, shotguns or whatever.

When I see an item that needs one and doesn't have I'll be sure to pipe up. I don't recall what I specifically had in mind but it was something that didn't need it.

Yeah I agree that bows would be nice if they weren't so bloody unreliable with the angles. Paying 45x2 TUs on multiple people just to find out the chance to hit was a practical joke the whole time is not acceptable for me personally.
Now that I checked some math on them they do seem to scale pretty nicely on the paper though.

[Solarius Scorch]

I am moving away from using a lot of pistol+melee gals because of the new sight range and the fact that smoke grenades are a lot less useful now.
Any chance to make smoke great again?

I think smoke was too good.
Right now it still serves its (in my opinion) main purpose of giving you cover when disembarking. It's still as good at this as it was. But it's also very useful in the field.

[Meridian]

I think smoke was too good.
Right now it still serves its (in my opinion) main purpose of giving you cover when disembarking. It's still as good at this as it was. But it's also very useful in the field.

For us who are using smoke only when absolutely necessary... what exactly has changed?

[Rince Wind]

I agree that smoke was too good, but now it hardly matters, even when embarking, because often enemies start too close for it to be useful.

I think it has to do with the enhanced viewing range. Now enemies (and friends, of course) can see much further through smoke. So now enemies within ~15-20 tiles (I haven't counted) can see right through it, even if you dropped the 'nade right at your feet.

[Dioxine]

I like how it works now. Stupid AI = OP smoke. So it still works very good. I feel like I don't need to think anymore once smoke grenades are in (before them, using buildings for cover to encircle the enemy provides some interesting challenge). Also to get full smoke cover, don't throw smoke grenades at your feet - throw them between you and the enemy (or on top of the enemy if you want to choke them )

[Arthanor]

I am moving away from using a lot of pistol+melee gals because of the new sight range and the fact that smoke grenades are a lot less useful now.
Any chance to make smoke great again?

I have found weapons with good snapshots + melee in backpack to work really well. 10 TUs to get the weapon is not that bad and pistols never had enough stopping power in Piratez to-be really worth it.

Regarding smoke, I just realised I still play with 25 tiles vision. Will have to see how it changes things at the new default. But there are ways to increase smoke cover, especially multistage smoke weapons.

[Meridian]

I agree that smoke was too good, but now it hardly matters, even when embarking, because often enemies start too close for it to be useful.

I think it has to do with the enhanced viewing range. Now enemies (and friends, of course) can see much further through smoke. So now enemies within ~15-20 tiles (I haven't counted) can see right through it, even if you dropped the 'nade right at your feet.

It should not depend on view range at all.
They can't see you (and you can't see them) if there are 4 "full" smoke tiles between you and them. More, if they are not "full".

If the blast radius of smoke grenade was decreased, that could cause your issues.

[Rince Wind]

I'll have to test the smoke some more.

And I switched to ARs/BRs mostly, and melee in the backpack as Arthanor. Though I disagree with the pistols, as I meet a lot of unarmored enemies.

[legionof1]

I could see smoke appearing less effective with 30+ view range if the enemy are not directly across the core of the cloud. With low view distance diagonal vision runs out faster. So across the non full tiles at the edge previously you where just out of view range with imagined cover from smoke.