Author Topic: Weapon Discussion Thread  (Read 50246 times)

Offline legionof1

  • Moderator
  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 1899
  • Bullets go that way. Money comes this way.
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #45 on: August 16, 2016, 06:43:30 pm »
Armor wise I spend probably about 85% of the game in guerilla outfits for the versatility that comes with the max inventory coupled with sufficient pierce resist to live through most bullets. A small number of specialization outfits for archers and breachers. Voodoo stits in corner ignored in favour of more booms. Most armour choices just don't fit my mobile rifle gal+explosives+small medkit play style when I can effectively manage damage by manipulating vision at a much lower resource investment.

Offline Solarius Scorch

  • Global Moderator
  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 11408
  • WE MUST DISSENT
    • View Profile
    • Nocturmal Productions modding studio website
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #46 on: August 16, 2016, 07:20:10 pm »
Armor wise I spend probably about 85% of the game in guerilla outfits

You're going to like the next release. :)

Offline Surrealistik

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 484
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #47 on: August 16, 2016, 07:22:09 pm »
You're going to like the next release. :)

Why's that? Will Guerilla benefit from the active camo mechanic?

It's always appealed to me, but Scale did at about the time I gained access to it much more so (especially with TFTD damage active at the time).

Offline ohartenstein23

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 1931
  • Flamethrowers fry cyberdisk circuits
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #48 on: August 16, 2016, 07:26:02 pm »
It may also have to do with some of the resources that Dioxine's posted to Ivan's Alt Corpses thread.

Offline Solarius Scorch

  • Global Moderator
  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 11408
  • WE MUST DISSENT
    • View Profile
    • Nocturmal Productions modding studio website
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #49 on: August 16, 2016, 07:26:59 pm »
quote author=Surrealistik link=topic=4825.msg69480#msg69480 date=1471364529]
Why's that? Will Guerilla benefit from the active camo mechanic?
[/quote]

Not telling, because Dioxine would possibly pout :)

It may also have to do with some of the resources that Dioxine's posted to Ivan's Alt Corpses thread.

Well...... :)

Offline Surrealistik

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 484
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #50 on: August 17, 2016, 09:06:08 am »
Lol, the arena fireball launcher, my god, this weapon was _made_ for me. Comically powerful and worth every penny.

Every base is getting a full complement to spam the access lift and hangar with ASAP.

Reminds me of this veteran of the death games who should most definitely be a canon VIP.

« Last Edit: August 17, 2016, 09:17:51 am by Surrealistik »

Offline nrafield

  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 77
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #51 on: August 22, 2016, 11:53:37 am »
So I've tried out sniper rifles after an unfortunate accident in which a Researcher casually managed to kill 3 of my gals from full health in Warrior armor with one. Turns out they are really strong, capable of one-shotting an Osiron Security from front. A decent alternative to spamming explosives to hit enemies from afar.

Offline Star_Treasure

  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 96
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #52 on: August 22, 2016, 12:22:05 pm »
A gal with a sniper rifle saved the entire squad once. Everyone else was bleeding out, and she just stood on top of a hill making one aimed shot every turn until it was safe to end the mission. Given how panicked autofire is the standard for most units in the game, a gal with high accuracy making aimed shots with a good weapon is pretty amazing... Until you try firing at a guy on the other side of a chain link fence :m 100% my ass.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2016, 12:25:14 pm by Star_Treasure »

Offline Dioxine

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 5412
  • punk not dead
    • View Profile
    • Nocturnal Productions
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #53 on: August 22, 2016, 03:40:38 pm »
This problem will hopefully disappear soon, as there is a patch to fix Line of Fire behavior available - if it works, it'll probably be merged. When it does, you will be simply getting 'No LoS' messages when trying to shoot through such obstacles.
Which is why you miss, the game lies to you that hitting is possible, while it isn't.

Online Meridian

  • Global Moderator
  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 8597
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #54 on: August 22, 2016, 04:18:47 pm »
This problem will hopefully disappear soon, as there is a patch to fix Line of Fire behavior available - if it works, it'll probably be merged. When it does, you will be simply getting 'No LoS' messages when trying to shoot through such obstacles.
Which is why you miss, the game lies to you that hitting is possible, while it isn't.

I'd be very careful about this... I'll believe a fix exists only after I see it.
It's not easy to do, I've tried... and got lost within the special cases of special cases of special cases.

Offline Dioxine

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 5412
  • punk not dead
    • View Profile
    • Nocturnal Productions
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #55 on: August 22, 2016, 04:22:37 pm »
Maybe it uses too many special cases then :)

Offline Arthanor

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 2488
  • XCom Armoury Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #56 on: August 22, 2016, 07:03:46 pm »
I don't know how chainlink fences work, but they are a really annoying tile. Sometimes shots go through, sometimes not. I've once unloaded a super shotgun autoshot on a fence from one tile to have all pellets to through when I was trying to destroy it, only to have it stop all pellets when I tried to snapshot a unit through the still standing fence. Gah! I hate those! (and have no idea how they are rendered in LoF space, certainly they can't be representing the links?).

Sort of on that topic, I have started to move away from sniper weapons entirely despite liking them a lot especially with the damage scaling. I now favor HMG type weapons for support fire. They both require so many TUs to fire that the soldier is stationary, the HMG is heavier but generally you don't need extra stuff since you're far away from the fight. Vulkan bolters, Fatty gatling laser, XG chaingun are now favorites, not because they list crazy high damage values (~65?) but because their outcome is predictable. The RNG can make a gauss sniper headshot into nothing, but when you shoot 10-20 times with 40-50% to hit (so 4-10 hits), the outcome is much more reliable and you can even trust that you will take out power armor, instead of praying for a high roll with a sniper.

At some point, the accuracy of the sniper rifle becomes meaningless (200+% to hit?!). If % above 100 could improve your minimum damage (but not maximum), then sniper weapons would be able to compete again, by allowing the sniper to not only hit weakspots for high max damage, but always hit something relevant and allow you to depend on it. I understand why TftD damage distribution isn't good (too reliable, makes high armor values too strong, low armor values too weak), but snipers have a hard time standing up to heavy weapons. I'm not an explosive fan (!! I like my loot and captives too much) so I barely use them, but those also benefit from doing at least 50% damage and against under armor if hitting. I feel that leaves snipers without much of a niche, except the "no collateral damage" niche, which isn't really all that much.

Offline Surrealistik

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 484
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #57 on: August 22, 2016, 07:13:58 pm »
The RNG can make a gauss sniper headshot into nothing, but when you shoot 10-20 times with 40-50% to hit (so 4-10 hits), the outcome is much more reliable and you can even trust that you will take out power armor, instead of praying for a high roll with a sniper.

That's why I don't leave home without Meridian's .exe which features gaussian multipliers. Fuck linear distribution 0-2x; that shit is dumb.

That said, I'm definitely of the opinion that

A: Gaussian damage multipliers should be default or at least optional.

and

B: Auto-only weapons should be able to Auto Reaction fire to compensate for some of their loss of appeal due to Gaussian multipliers making precision weapons significantly more consistent; also to compensate for their ridiculously high TU costs and weight + relatively short range.

Quote
At some point, the accuracy of the sniper rifle becomes meaningless (200+% to hit?!). If % above 100 could improve your minimum damage (but not maximum), then sniper weapons would be able to compete again, by allowing the sniper to not only hit weakspots for high max damage, but always hit something relevant and allow you to depend on it. I understand why TftD damage distribution isn't good (too reliable, makes high armor values too strong, low armor values too weak), but snipers have a hard time standing up to heavy weapons. I'm not an explosive fan (!! I like my loot and captives too much) so I barely use them, but those also benefit from doing at least 50% damage and against under armor if hitting. I feel that leaves snipers without much of a niche, except the "no collateral damage" niche, which isn't really all that much.

I agree with the sentiment that there should be a 'finesse' damage bonus (or armour ignoring) for accuracies in excess of 100%; I believe I actually mentioned it to Dioxine on Gaudium007's stream.

That said, with or without ridiculous multiplier distributions, snipers do have a clear role in terms of smoke and snipe which heavy weapons simply cannot do at nearly the same ranges, but I generally agree with most of what you're saying.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2016, 07:21:06 pm by Surrealistik »

Offline nrafield

  • Captain
  • ***
  • Posts: 77
    • View Profile
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #58 on: August 22, 2016, 08:04:29 pm »
Speaking of 100%+ accuracy, I've had more shots with that accuracy that somehow managed to miss than I can count, a lot of targets were in plain sight, and yet the shoot just veered off somewhere else. What the hell is going on?

Offline Solarius Scorch

  • Global Moderator
  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 11408
  • WE MUST DISSENT
    • View Profile
    • Nocturmal Productions modding studio website
Re: Weapon Discussion Thread
« Reply #59 on: August 22, 2016, 10:03:42 pm »
Speaking of 100%+ accuracy, I've had more shots with that accuracy that somehow managed to miss than I can count, a lot of targets were in plain sight, and yet the shoot just veered off somewhere else. What the hell is going on?

Buggy engine. Problems that date back to 1994.
I believe there is hope for a fix soon, though.