Author Topic: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer  (Read 7054 times)

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« on: July 30, 2016, 09:59:33 pm »
This mod alters the AP and HE damage profiles a bit along with adjusting some of the armor values slightly. The goal is both to remain more true to what the UFOPedia entries say regarding alien weaknesses, as well as to ensure that both AP and HE are useful in some situations and not useful in some. This is not a rock, paper, scissors mod, so your favorite weapons will still be generally effective at exterminating the alien menace--even if your favorite damage type is HE.





Definition of Armor Piercing:
Armor piercing rounds are heavy metal slugs with a pointed tip and a long powder cartridge, typically fired from a long-barreled rifle. They have high muzzle velocity and fly fairly straight and non-erratic. They excel at punching through rigid materials like tough armor, glass, rocks, bones, skulls, and concrete. They aren't so good at shredding soft tissues and may lack the stopping power of lower muzzle velocity blunt-tip rounds.

X-Com has scoured the globe for high-powered military AP rifles of varying sizes to ensure that their troops stand a chance of penetrating alien armor. Old WW2 rounds with modernized long powder cartridges are a favorite, and difficult to find in production because modern rifling allows much smaller ammunition to punch through even the sturdiest Earthbound armor.



Changes made by the mod:
* Cyberdiscs are a bit more resistant to HE, as is stated in the UFOPedia. You can still take them out pretty easily with a rocket launcher, but the autocannon probably will struggle with them. On the flip side, they are slightly weak to AP damage. Their armor is too strong for rifles to be very effective against them, but heavy cannons using AP ammo or cannon tanks can be reasonably effective. With vanilla settings, powerful explosives are still the easiest way to take these out, but with more powerful AP weapons from mods, you might find AP to be particularly effective against them.

* Chryssalids and Ethereals, which are heavily armored units, are now quite weak to AP. Rifles will do a tiny bit of damage to them but heavy cannons easily take them out.

* Snakemen have strong armor, but I'm assuming it is fleshy like the Mutons. I gave Snakemen a slight weakness to AP, and it helps rifles kill them but you're still better off with laser rifles. I also adjusted snakemen armor values a bit to smooth them out. They were a bit erratic between ranks.

* I gave Reapers a strong resistance to HE. Due to their low under armor and large size, HE is still highly effective against them. In fact they still take more damage from explosives than smaller units do.

* Sectopods have half the under armor but take only half the explosive damage. The result is that mid-size explosives are still just as ineffective against them, but now blaster bombs deal less damage to them. It'll make them a lot more scary when you find it usually takes 2-3 blaster bombs to finish one off. (Or you can use lasers)

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2016, 11:10:40 pm »
A very interesting mod. It inspired me to do some changes as well. Great job.

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #2 on: August 01, 2016, 12:16:07 am »
Thanks! :)

I am eager to see what you're making!

Offline The_Atomik_Punk!

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #3 on: August 02, 2016, 07:11:04 am »
I really like the rebalance you're trying to achieve with this mod; anything that gives me reason to actually use some AP rounds in situations that they're described in the UFOpedia as being effective in, is a win in my book. Thanks for the release!

Offline drages

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2017, 08:23:10 pm »
This is very nice idea. Sadly UFO don't have a "normal ballistic" damage type. I think armour penetrating should be totally new damage type, or just every damage type should have an AP stat for penetrating.

Offline Meridian

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2017, 09:02:46 pm »
This is very nice idea. Sadly UFO don't have a "normal ballistic" damage type. I think armour penetrating should be totally new damage type, or just every damage type should have an AP stat for penetrating.

There are 10 brand new unused damage types in OXCE+ for you to use.
There is no armor penetration attribute on damage type level (yet), but there are many attributes (incl. armor penetration) on weapon/ammo level in OXCE/OXCE+.

Offline drages

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #6 on: June 19, 2017, 09:09:01 pm »
There are 10 brand new unused damage types in OXCE+ for you to use.
There is no armor penetration attribute on damage type level (yet), but there are many attributes (incl. armor penetration) on weapon/ammo level in OXCE/OXCE+.

Is there a clean list which shows every xce/xce+ things on every aspect.. like a openxcom wiki? which shows every code and explains them?

Offline Meridian

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #7 on: June 19, 2017, 09:27:18 pm »
Is there a clean list which shows every xce/xce+ things on every aspect.. like a openxcom wiki? which shows every code and explains them?

That would be a very very long list.
I plan to do a proper documentation, but not as one long list.

Btw. openxcom wiki doesn't show all attributes either :P I'd say it shows maybe 80%...

For now:
a/ for OXCE everything is in the text file inside the distribution (Extended.txt)
b/ for OXCE+ everything is in this thread (first 3 posts): https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.0.html  ... it's a changelog with links to other threads for individual topics with details and examples... or if there is no link then just skip forward to a later post based on change date and the new ruleset will be explained there in the release notes directly

Btw. if anyone feels like wikifying it... go for it.
All help is appreciated.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2017, 09:31:29 pm by Meridian »

Offline ohartenstein23

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #8 on: June 19, 2017, 09:28:02 pm »
The closest things or the changelogs on their respective threads, and Yankes' Extended.txt file.

Offline drages

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2017, 09:36:54 pm »
The closest things or the changelogs on their respective threads, and Yankes' Extended.txt file.

It's so much things to swallow at first look.

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #10 on: June 20, 2017, 06:43:09 am »
This is very nice idea. Sadly UFO don't have a "normal ballistic" damage type. I think armour penetrating should be totally new damage type, or just every damage type should have an AP stat for penetrating.
I think it works fine for X-Com to use only AP rounds. While there might be cause to say that blunt-tip rounds are better against sectoids, floaters, and snakemen, it's not that hard to kill them with pointy bullets. The only case where it might make enough difference to matter is against mutons, but hopefully you're shooting them with something stronger than bullets.

If you're making a mod that goes further away from the original feel of the game or adds a lot of early game content, you can use OXCE as Meridian suggested, or you can also re-purpose existing damage types by calling them whatever you want to and changing the existing armors to match--just be aware that some damage types have special functionalities, like incendiary especially. You might be able to make guns that do melee damage type, I haven't tried it so I don't know what would happen.

Offline drages

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Re: AP Weakness - so HE isn't the only answer
« Reply #11 on: June 20, 2017, 11:08:57 am »
I don't plan to leave vanilla feeling or add many things to early game but the opposite.

I don't want to have a complex mechanic with tons of variation too. I am still planning..