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Author Topic: Re: The X-Com Files - 3.2: The Colors of Sin  (Read 1952331 times)

Offline hellrazor

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #390 on: September 22, 2016, 05:22:29 pm »
Yep. Materialism.
I didn't want to go for this argument straight away, but it's true that without excessive amounts of Elerium it's impossible to have a unit that regenerates on the fly.

Is there any way to spawn a new unit in vanilla OCX from a dead unit like the zombies do spawn Chryssalids?
Ok "spawnUnits:" takes care of this.
Lets make "Regenarators"!!!
« Last Edit: September 22, 2016, 05:25:43 pm by hellrazor »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #391 on: September 22, 2016, 05:25:15 pm »
Is there any way to spawn a new unit in vanilla OCX from a dead unit like the zombies do spawn Chryssalids?

You mean from a dying unit?
Yes, obviously, using the same flag as the Zombie. All you need is to add the spawning animation.
This is used for example in Piratez for Beastmasters, which shed their armour after being hit too much.

Offline hellrazor

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #392 on: September 22, 2016, 05:27:13 pm »
You mean from a dying unit?
Yes, obviously, using the same flag as the Zombie. All you need is to add the spawning animation.
This is used for example in Piratez for Beastmasters, which shed their armour after being hit too much.

Does it need a animation, or does it also work without one? Need to test this later. I want "Regenerators". Immune to stun!

Offline Arthanor

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #393 on: September 22, 2016, 05:46:08 pm »
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 :D 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.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2016, 06:57:14 am by Arthanor »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #394 on: September 23, 2016, 12:08:19 pm »
Does it need a animation, or does it also work without one? Need to test this later. I want "Regenerators". Immune to stun!

I think it used to crash without the animation, but I'm not sure about how it works now. Such animations are easy to do though.

Endgame zombies which spawn a new zombie upon dying? Need to use a weapon with overkill to completely destroy them. Otherwise they keep coming!

Wicked idea. I like it. Not for usual Zombies of course.

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..

Yeah... There's plenty of decisions to be made. In this model, lasers are reasonably "clean", they cut well but don't mess up your insides otherwise, and also they cauterize the wound. Plasma is more explosive and burny, and bullets carry kinetic energy (especially non-AP bullets, but we can't have the distinction yet).
But as I said, it's just a model, one of many possible.

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).

OK, but remember that the additional damage isn't shown in the damage display. This can get confusing!

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).

...I'm really starting to think we need additional display for damageAlter. :P

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.

I thought about it, but dropped for simplicity.
But it looks like simplicity is not an excuse any more. :P

I just got to Promotion II and "Woot!" is quite appropriate :D

Congrats! :)

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).

Labs are fairly easy to get. Grenades are not. :)

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.

Weird, I think you should after Promotion II. I'll check when I can.

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 think I've already explained it's problematic because of how tech tree works in X-Com. But I promise I will try to think of some compromise.

I can now buy dynamite, incendiary grenades, etc. but not regular grenades?

Because it's strictly military stuff and the big boys don't want you to have them yet.
Dynamite is a bit of a grey area, as it's not technically a military weapon.

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!

Well, I really need to finish the "dogs as soldiers" feature soon. :P

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.

Well, the thing is that now they're generally easier than before, when they were just invisible. :P
"Reaction fire blocked by maxrange" isn't necessarily an Assassin. But if there's one, there are probably more...
And they use both knives and stars. Same with Warriors.

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?).

I stole it from Piratez. :P It's essentially the same weapon... But I'll rething it.

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".

Yes, but I want to use damageType when it becomes possible.

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!

Yes, sure :)

8 - I've already said it, but again: Great work! I've played way too much of this.

Sorry about your time... Sadly, I promise no improvement here. :)

Offline Arthanor

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #395 on: September 23, 2016, 05:03:02 pm »
OK, but remember that the additional damage isn't shown in the damage display. This can get confusing!
That's the beauty of using "ToHealth" and "ToStun". The total power doesn't change, so the number displayed is actually accurate. What changes is the partition between how much of it is applied as health or stun damage, which I will report.

Quote
...I'm really starting to think we need additional display for damageAlter. :P
Yeah, that'd be great!

Quote
I thought about it, but dropped for simplicity.
But it looks like simplicity is not an excuse any more. :P
Well, if I make up a "stun gun mod", might as well go all the way!

Quote
Weird, I think you should after Promotion II. I'll check when I can.
Maybe I can research them now but I didn't notice? I'll look this weekend too. I try to  play spoiler free except for interrogations so I didn't look at the tech tree viewer.

Quote
I think I've already explained it's problematic because of how tech tree works in X-Com. But I promise I will try to think of some compromise.
I agree about the van, it doesn't work in the current system. But for guns there should be no problem as there is no story, just a new gun available for buying and in the ufopaedia.

Quote
Because it's strictly military stuff and the big boys don't want you to have them yet.
But.. I can get a sniper rifle! And automatic weapons! Alright, I guess hand-held explosives goes a bit further.. and dynamite is civilian access with some clearance, true. But what about incendiary grenades? They're not military stuff?

Quote
Well, I really need to finish the "dogs as soldiers" feature soon. :P
Soldier dogs, with trainable reactions (as they learn to better react to the messed up stuff they encounter and could never be trained for) would be cool :D And having a doggy memorial.. I've lost a fair few, but they did save the life of agents! (except the one time where I though: Doggy can totally bite that spider to hell, and it's the spider that did it :( )

Quote
Well, the thing is that now they're generally easier than before, when they were just invisible. :P
"Reaction fire blocked by maxrange" isn't necessarily an Assassin. But if there's one, there are probably more...
And they use both knives and stars. Same with Warriors.
With the loftemp hack, you could spot them (well Piratez catgirls is what I have experience with) from 30 tiles away if you were at the right angle, these guys are invisible until what? 4 tiles? And 80% deadly (as in, only once did an assassin attack fail to kill my agent, because he missed with his katana! They hit and killed 100% of targets with throwing knives. I think 100% lethality is ok for aliens with plasma, but invisible ninjas.. I don't know. They're more of a "FU" than entertainment to me. Even Star Gods don't have a 100% kill ratio when shooting.)

Quote
I stole it from Piratez. :P It's essentially the same weapon... But I'll rething it.

Yes, but I want to use damageType when it becomes possible.

How about renaming "armor piercing" to "kinetic" and using damage alter? playing around with armor using damage alter can achieve almost the same thing as changing resistances. Maybe I'll do it in "StunGunz" and we'll see how it goes.

Quote
Sorry about your time... Sadly, I promise no improvement here. :)
No apologies required. I hope it gets worse  ;D
« Last Edit: September 23, 2016, 05:13:28 pm by Solarius Scorch »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #396 on: September 23, 2016, 05:21:27 pm »
That's the beauty of using "ToHealth" and "ToStun". The total power doesn't change, so the number displayed is actually accurate. What changes is the partition between how much of it is applied as health or stun damage, which I will report.

Yeah, I just thought it should be said. So that damage 45 really meant 0-90 damage minus armour.

I agree about the van, it doesn't work in the current system. But for guns there should be no problem as there is no story, just a new gun available for buying and in the ufopaedia.

Ah right, I get it now. Yes, I'll have a look.

But.. I can get a sniper rifle! And automatic weapons! Alright, I guess hand-held explosives goes a bit further.. and dynamite is civilian access with some clearance, true. But what about incendiary grenades? They're not military stuff?

I agree my choices were somewhat liberal... so here's how it is now. :D

Soldier dogs, with trainable reactions (as they learn to better react to the messed up stuff they encounter and could never be trained for) would be cool :D And having a doggy memorial.. I've lost a fair few, but they did save the life of agents! (except the one time where I though: Doggy can totally bite that spider to hell, and it's the spider that did it :( )

R.I.P. :(

With the loftemp hack, you could spot them (well Piratez catgirls is what I have experience with) from 30 tiles away if you were at the right angle, these guys are invisible until what? 4 tiles? And 80% deadly (as in, only once did an assassin attack fail to kill my agent, because he missed with his katana! They hit and killed 100% of targets with throwing knives. I think 100% lethality is ok for aliens with plasma, but invisible ninjas.. I don't know. They're more of a "FU" than entertainment to me. Even Star Gods don't have a 100% kill ratio when shooting.)

I don't think they're that deadly, maybe you got a little unlucky. But I'm open to suggestions.

How about renaming "armor piercing" to "kinetic" and using damage alter? playing around with armor using damage alter can achieve almost the same thing as changing resistances. Maybe I'll do it in "StunGunz" and we'll see how it goes.

Sure, experiments are good. We'll see how it goes.
But I still think more damage types are pretty much needed, so if we're getting them, I'd like to use them here too.

No apologies required. I hope it gets worse  ;D

That's the plan. :P

Offline Arthanor

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #397 on: September 23, 2016, 05:28:16 pm »
I don't think they're that deadly, maybe you got a little unlucky. But I'm open to suggestions.

They've been murder machines to me. My current plan is to only land, kill and few and run away on Black Lotus engagements for now. I think I've got what I needed from the outposts (one assassin, the one who fumbled with his katana, and a bunch of witches) and the points are totally not worth the loss of my best agents (outpost missions being the deadliest, I sent the best 7 agents of a base, with my best dog, for them, so mass casualties are really penalizing).

Maybe I did get unlucky, indeed, I only have two experiences with assassins and they are wildly different (no casualties, 4 casualties) but I'll wait a bit more still before I dare encounter them again.

Offline yrizoud

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #398 on: September 23, 2016, 07:03:02 pm »
I wish research projects could "give" items. :
- Early weapon research brings a prototype and a few clip, before you can research how to build or buy infinite numbers
- Interrogation can bring back some loot, as the prisoner's information led our team to a cache
- "Live alien" study produces the relevant corpse, ready for autopsy
- Research nodes like "military advisor" can bring a specific amount of weapons and ammo, as the recruited guy arrives with some gifts.
All these are short-term benefits, especially when the items are expendables (typically: ammo). If you got 6 grenades and can't buy more, you're more confident than empty-handed, however you hesitate to waste them.

Offline Nord

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #399 on: September 23, 2016, 07:48:26 pm »
Ok, so i played some more and want to tell you a story: When i was kid and played TFTD on my first PC, i called last lobsterman in alien base "a sh*t dinosaur". I dont really remember why. ??? So.
Exalt HQ is a freaking sh*t jurassic park!  ;D
After 2 days (Two days of real time!) i decised to pick up stunned brainer and retreat. It was only option which came in my mind.
After that i researched crainer project, Eliminate Exalt project (sadly, it have no ufopedia entry). And... exalt bases continue to spawn. Is it must be like that?
And one more question: when radars was at last builded, i detect my first UFO. But i have no interceptors... I think it is feature (must catch first landed ufo maybe?) but not sure.
As always, excuse me for bad spelling.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #400 on: September 24, 2016, 12:38:18 pm »
I wish research projects could "give" items.

Yeah, it's an interesting mechanics. I'd use it somehow.

After 2 days (Two days of real time!) i decised to pick up stunned brainer and retreat. It was only option which came in my mind.

Ugh. Tough. But it's only needed once.

After that i researched crainer project, Eliminate Exalt project (sadly, it have no ufopedia entry). And... exalt bases continue to spawn. Is it must be like that?

It shouldn't be happening:
Code: [Select]
  - type: CultHQEXALT
    researchTriggers:
      STR_EXALT_HQ: true
      STR_DESTROY_EXALT: false

Except if it's the same month as the research. I can't prevent this.

And one more question: when radars was at last builded, i detect my first UFO. But i have no interceptors... I think it is feature (must catch first landed ufo maybe?) but not sure.

Not exactly, but yes, at least you can track UFOs now. Planes will come later.

I agree about the van, it doesn't work in the current system. But for guns there should be no problem as there is no story, just a new gun available for buying and in the ufopaedia.

Regarding this issue: which ones should be unlockable by promotion? AK47 or M16? Uzi or Skorpion? etc.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2016, 12:41:04 pm by Solarius Scorch »

Offline Meridian

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #401 on: September 24, 2016, 02:59:46 pm »
I wish research projects could "give" items. :
- Early weapon research brings a prototype and a few clip, before you can research how to build or buy infinite numbers
- Interrogation can bring back some loot, as the prisoner's information led our team to a cache
- "Live alien" study produces the relevant corpse, ready for autopsy
- Research nodes like "military advisor" can bring a specific amount of weapons and ammo, as the recruited guy arrives with some gifts.
All these are short-term benefits, especially when the items are expendables (typically: ammo). If you got 6 grenades and can't buy more, you're more confident than empty-handed, however you hesitate to waste them.

Yeah, interesting and easy to do.

Will do in the next few days... then we can get Menacing Hull and Tiny Drill later than right from the start :)

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #402 on: September 24, 2016, 03:21:25 pm »
Oh, that's good news, Meridian. I'm not sure how exactly it'll be useful yet, but I'm sure it'll find many uses.

@Arthanor: I keep thinking about the "firearms stun" idea and keep returning to the conclusion that it'd be to best to be able to modify damage types. So we could change the 0.25 extra stun damage to something else, like 0.4, but only to AP damage type.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #403 on: September 24, 2016, 06:26:35 pm »
I think "proper military weapons" should be what the promotions unlock. XCOM is a legit organization, not a bunch of insurgents. So M-16, not AK-47s, and.. I dunno which smg would be more applicable but whichever is more likely to be in use by western countries police/military.

As for stun gunz, I think there's some misunderstanding. The only thing that damage types do is have their own resist type. You can't set a certain damage type to get 40% stun, you have to set it for every ammo. So as far as I see it, the work I'll do for StunGunz will always be applicable.

If you switch the damage type of some ammo, that'll change the resist that is used against the ammo but that'll change nothing from what I do to partition health and stun damage (unless you also set damageAlter properties for ammos).

Effectively, armor piercing and hollow point bullets are both "kinetic" damage: you propel as heavy a piece of metal as fast as possible and hope the impact kills your enemy. AP could have lower damage but ignore some of the enemy's armor, HP could have higher damage but takes full (or more!) armor penalty. AP would probably do less stun damage as the wound is cleaner, HP would do more stun as the wound is a painful mess. But both would do more than lasers and less than plasma.

Gauss is a special case of kinetic damage which pushes momentum at the cost of mass. I'm thinking penetration would increase with energy and decrease with mass. If we scale stun inversely with penetration (a bullet that goes through leaves a clean wound vs a musket ball or hollow point leaves a painful mess), then gauss would be also get very little stun damage. By opposition, "mass driver railguns" would get lots of stun.

Altogether, this gives the possibility of:
Early game kinetic AP and HP
Midgame laser and mass drivers
Endgame gauss and plasma

Where each game tier has an AP and a high damage/high stun weapon.

Edit: I've attached the XAE_Attack_Dogs mod I made, which includes an alien alloy vest for dogs. A quick recolor (Falko, where are you!?!? And your tools!!) to a greyscale would make it a decent modern kevlar vest for doggies.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2016, 07:45:00 pm by Arthanor »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.4.2 alpha: Going Postal
« Reply #404 on: September 24, 2016, 08:41:37 pm »
I think "proper military weapons" should be what the promotions unlock. XCOM is a legit organization, not a bunch of insurgents. So M-16, not AK-47s, and.. I dunno which smg would be more applicable but whichever is more likely to be in use by western countries police/military.

So I need to earn a proper rifle? OK! :D

As for stun gunz, I think there's some misunderstanding. The only thing that damage types do is have their own resist type. You can't set a certain damage type to get 40% stun, you have to set it for every ammo. So as far as I see it, the work I'll do for StunGunz will always be applicable.

I'm kinda convinced that you can. For example, Stun doesn't cause (additional) stun. Fire doesn't cause fatal wounds. This sort of thing. (Unless I'm wrong?)

If you switch the damage type of some ammo, that'll change the resist that is used against the ammo but that'll change nothing from what I do to partition health and stun damage (unless you also set damageAlter properties for ammos).

Yeah, I get this.

Effectively, armor piercing and hollow point bullets are both "kinetic" damage: you propel as heavy a piece of metal as fast as possible and hope the impact kills your enemy. AP could have lower damage but ignore some of the enemy's armor, HP could have higher damage but takes full (or more!) armor penalty. AP would probably do less stun damage as the wound is cleaner, HP would do more stun as the wound is a painful mess. But both would do more than lasers and less than plasma.

This sounds really good. Can you please post an example?

Gauss is a special case of kinetic damage which pushes momentum at the cost of mass. I'm thinking penetration would increase with energy and decrease with mass. If we scale stun inversely with penetration (a bullet that goes through leaves a clean wound vs a musket ball or hollow point leaves a painful mess), then gauss would be also get very little stun damage. By opposition, "mass driver railguns" would get lots of stun.

Yep, sounds good.

Edit: I've attached the XAE_Attack_Dogs mod I made, which includes an alien alloy vest for dogs. A quick recolor (Falko, where are you!?!? And your tools!!) to a greyscale would make it a decent modern kevlar vest for doggies.

Thanks! I'll see what I can do.