Endgame zombies which spawn a new zombie upon dying? Need to use a weapon with overkill to completely destroy them. Otherwise they keep coming!
Edit: Back to the guns causing extra stun damage:
I started to work on it, then I realized, it doesn't make more sense for normal guns to cause stun damage than for, say, lasers. I also noticed plasma weapons already have a huge ToStun value, presumably for the concussion/burn effect? Which means explosives should get some too, and so on.. Then it seemed a bit big of a thing to get started on! Here's what I was thinking:
1 - I don't want to change the power/resist/armor relationship. So I will use "ToHealth" and "ToStun" to split the current power between health and stun. This means that if something would have gotten down in the current system, it will with the additional stun, but it might still be alive (to bleed out unless stabilized).
2 - Most weapons wouldn't get much stun, I am thinking of 13% (so 87% to health, and the ratio of stun to health is pretty much 15%). This reduces the odds of one shot kills a bit, but the usual 2-3 hit kills shouldn't get changed much as the subsequent hits are likely to deplete the remaining health regardless of stun damage. Against some enemies which take many hits, like zombies, this will make stuns more likely, but zombies falling and getting back up isn't really a bad thing
(also, this makes carrying combat blades to finish off zombies with the execute function more worthwhile, or just walking up to them and giving them a face full of lead).
3 - Explosive weapons would get 20% stun (80% health, 25% ratio) to tie them in with plasma weapons
4- Conversely, some stun weapons (like Tazers and electric clubs) would get a small portion of lethal damage. Repeatedly tazing someone has been shown to cause issue. It won't affect gameplay much, since you only have to bring health below stun damage to stun something, so reducing health is as effective as increasing stun damage. It will, however, make it harder to keep something stunned longer or to restun something that has been rendered unconscious by lethal weapons.
Edit 2: Man I'm "spamming the thread!
I just got to Promotion II and "Woot!" is quite appropriate
I was starting to wonder, since I am in Summer 1998, if I was going too slow or something. But it seems like I am about on time, so well done on the pacing!
Another comment dump:
1 - I'm gaging my progress with the vanilla UFO starting date: Where am I at compared to how close I am to January 1999. I'm now building workshops so that's good, but I don't have blueprints for labs. I'm guessing that it will follow after doing some stuff for the chief researcher. Still missing a bunch of other vanilla stuff too (chiefly: grenades, the heavy weapons I can understand). Which brings us to:
2 - Weapons access is too restricted. I just got promoted, so I now have access to LMGs and Sniper Rifles, but I still don't have a proper rifle beyond the HKMP5. I looted some M16 and some other gun that uses them, but I can't buy them (and I self-restrict to things I can buy or make, since this is a proper organization, not Piratez!) and I can't research them. I would reiterate the suggestion of using the promotions to "unlock" stuff that should have gotten unlocked before. Ex.: Promotion I soon gives you access to the Dragonfly, so it could unlock the van in order to give the player some time for "van play" before the Dragonfly. Similarly, promotions could unlock basic weapons. I can now buy dynamite, incendiary grenades, etc. but not regular grenades?
3 - Great job building up the encounters. The suspect apprehensions work well with the car, the activity manageable with the van and easy with the dragonfly and the outpost are challenging with the dragonfly, so it really feels like things are scaling up. And the dragonfly lets me bring doggies!
4 - Holy cow those Black Lotus Assassins. How much do you hate our agents?! I had one kill 3 agents and a dog before I could do anything. On my turn, one throwing knife kill out of nowhere, then dog gets it too. On its turn, nothing. On my 2nd turn, move a soldier up, reaction killed. Move another soldier up, reaction killed but I now see it. Remaining soldiers kill the damn dude. Then I notice the interrupted movement caused by "reaction fire blocked by maxrange" and think: If that's another assassin, I can't take it. 4 remaining agents grab the witch and her fancy bracelet and abort. I understand that the camo is better than the loftemp hack, but at least that allowed you to spot things at a greater distance if you were lucky to get the right angle. This, before motion detectors, is insane. I would suggest giving them ninja stars instead of throwing knives. It would be more in character (they're ninjas!) and also give agents a chance to survive one hit.
5 - Nitro Express Rifle: I can't get a decent rifle, but that thing is a monster! Better than the sniper rifle except in ammo count and weight, it feels.. wrong. It was a no-brainer to give it to pretty much everyone, except ~2 agents with the highest reaction who got HKMP5s and shotguns for close up work. I don't really understand why it scales so well with firing (if it's designed to kill elephants, wouldn't it always hit hard if you can hit? Or maybe I guess you have to hit "properly" or something?).
6 - I think it would be nice to distinguish between ammo/weapons that are supposed to pierce armor and those which are supposed to damage flesh. Just tweaking the "applied armor" would make it doable, and allow to distinguish between say, the nitro express and other hunting weapons which are for hunting animals (ie large power, don't do well against armor) and the military weapons (especially the sniper rifle) which is for taking out humans (and the few beasties with "armor"). The enemies already create two kind of fights since beasties don't shoot but humans do, further differentiating by making certain weapons better against one or the other would diversify the gameplay even more instead of "Nitro for everyone".
7 - I have a sprite sheet, bigob and floorob for a dog with an armored vest (akin to the ones used in military/police operations). Would you be interested? I feel like once you get armored vests with helmets, the dogs could get something too!
8 - I've already said it, but again: Great work! I've played way too much of this.
