additional armour types

[moriarty]

pmprog's post got me thinking...

At first glance, I always assumed that the soldiers in xcom used the best available armour, but it simply was grossly ineffective against the alien's weapons. but then, the sprites wear simple coveralls, and you can kill an xcom soldier with a few pistol shots. so I guess they really don't wear armour in the beginning. which is kind of weird. supposedly, they are a multi-national elite organisation, so they should have at least some armour available.


from the way the xcom soldier sprites are subdivided, it would be quite easy to add something like flak vests (arms require additional modding of a lot of sprites), so I'll try to make something like that as soon as I find the time.

Is there something else you would like to see? again, keep in mind that while it is quite easy to make torso modifications (13 sprites in total for a new armor type that is based on an unarmoured soldier - 8 torso sprites plus 3 for the death animation, 1 for the dead soldier battlescape floor object and 1 for the dead soldier inventory item), arms are a completely different matter, and don't get me started on the legs with their walking animations...

perhaps some combination is possible: a new torso, perhaps a helmet, and a palette shift for the arms and legs?

tell me your ideas, maybe we can come up with something.

[luke83]

Wrong section for my response , but i just want armour to effect your weight and movement to make it more of a tactical choice ( Do i want to be heavily armoured or light and fast)
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,304.0.html

I always assumed the had armour on under the overalls, that way any alien blood splatter would not get on there undergarments

[Amunak]

I think that the game truly lacks some kind of armor that doesn't have to be researched first. Even when you are in the phase where you can manufacture the personal armor it's better to wait for at least power suits. It would be really nice if there were some "improved bulletproof vests" that would be required to manufacture, but they would be cheap and they'd provide additional armor on the front and back sides of a soldier.

If there was a TU/energy penalty for wearing an armor, it would make sense to make another armor class - some kind of very light shielding device that could have its armor stats even a bit lower than the other armors. Maybe it wouldn't have a flying variation. Then there would be a dilema - have all units in flying suits, or some with a bit lower shielding but without the limitation of moving? It would add a nice variety in the game.

I'm just afraid that adding this penalty would cause major balance changes, so that it would be necessary to rebalance TU/energy amounts on soldiers.

[moriarty]

I would also like to see different "pocket layouts" depending on the armour type. what I mean is that for example the flying suit has these big thruster-thingys on the back (although I assume it's really some kind of anti-grav-unit), so where exactly would you have a backpack?

I think the heavier armor types could be balanced by taking away some equipment space. 

the xcom soldiers can pack too much stuff anyway. bringing 7 plasma rifles, two plasma pistols and still having enough space for five large explosive packages? come on. the only weapon that actually requires you to use the backpack is the rocket launcher... and that's not powerful enough to make me bring it instead of an auto cannon with lots of HE ammo. Maybe if the rockets where only 1x2 spaces big, I would reconsider. then I could bring 5 rockets (plus one in the launcher).

[Daiky]

+1 vote for armor adding weight
+1 vote for an additional armor type (kevlar?) between coveralls and personal armor
+1 vote for differences in pocket layouts

See, I sometimes like mod suggestions

I think except for the weight, everything should be possible already

[Amunak]

the xcom soldiers can pack too much stuff anyway. bringing 7 plasma rifles, two plasma pistols and still having enough space for five large explosive packages? come on. the only weapon that actually requires you to use the backpack is the rocket launcher... and that's not powerful enough to make me bring it instead of an auto cannon with lots of HE ammo. Maybe if the rockets where only 1x2 spaces big, I would reconsider. then I could bring 5 rockets (plus one in the launcher).

Well every soldier's suite just has tons of pockets. But if you take too much, your energy will go down very fast. And that's not worth it.

[Leflair]

I sketched a little on some  armour ideas:

These first three do not require any research and are available from the start to purchase or manufacture.

The idea is that their respective armor values should be balanced by both Weight and (to a lesser extent) cost.  (Doesn't mean the values presented here are final or anything)

Human Armor   Protection
Light Ballistic Vest Type II   
Front   15
Right   8
Left   8
Rear   8
Under   0
Weight:   5
   
Medium Ballistic Vest Type III   
Front   20
Right   12
Left   12
Rear   15
Under   0
Weight:   10
   
Heavy Ballistic Vest Type IV   
Front   35
Right   15
Left   15
Rear   20
Under   0
Weight:   20

Only the beefier soldiers can use the heaviest one effectively, to prevent just throwing on "the best" option right from the get-go. Yeah, they'll probably not save anyone from anything heavier than a plasma pistol and friendly fire but at least you got some options.

Next up is the personal armor.
I decided to split up the one armor into several, but I haven't decided upon if splitting the research should also be a requirement, possibly for the heaviest variant.

Note the reduced weight despite higher armor values due to the use of Alien Alloys (and also the cost of constructing the suits being balanced by Alloy requirements):

Light Personal Armour   
Front   30
Right   20
Left   20
Rear   15
Under   10
Weight:   7
Alien Alloys Required   10
   
Medium Personal Armour   
Front   50
Right   40
Left   40
Rear   30
Under   15
Weight:   12
Alien Alloys Required   25
   
Heavy Personal Armour   
Front   60
Right   45
Left   45
Rear   35
Under   25
Weight:   18
Alien Alloys Required   50
   
Finally the powered suits. these I thought could use a little rebalancing to make it less of a clear choice of which to pick. The Allow cost is also cranked up to keep the Personal armor variants competitive for your less elite troops.

The Power Suit got generally heavier armor (Except for the bottom), but costs more Alloys.
The flying suit got a higher Elerium cost and especially weak rear armor.

I was also thinking that maybe the "Power" Armor could actually grant the wearer some added strength, allowing them to run around with more gear and maybe make some "really big" weapons that only power armor wearing people can use effectively (allowing them to wield HWP-type guns or something).


Power Suit   
Front   110
Right   80
Left   80
Rear   80
Under   60
Strength bonus:   20 (over the item weight)
Alien Alloys Required   100
Elerium 115 required   5
   
Flying Suit   
Front   100
Right   75
Left   75
Rear   60
Under   70
Strength bonus:   15 (over the item weight)
Alien Alloys Required   80
Elerium 115 required   15

As for sprite work,
The heaviest ballistic vest could have some Russian style torso armor / Bombsuit + helmet and maybe a palette swap for the legs and arms.
The Light Personal Armor could use the torso and head section only of the personal armor sprites and combine it with the jumpsuit legs and arms.
The Heavy variant could get a proper helmet and maybe slightly thicker torso protection.

[moriarty]

I like your ideas. do you have some pictures or links for the sprite graphic inspirations you suggested?

[Leflair]

For the heavier ballistic stuff:
https://i00.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/584159262/Full_protection_army_bulletproof_vest_with_MOLLE.jpg

https://image.tradett.com/images/products/FA2010623150816513urzheng31/full-protection-bullet-proof-vest.jpg

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PG3ew_iFi3A/TTN5mPVbb9I/AAAAAAAAWnQ/5KI0IZJ5IRQ/s1600/photo1.jpg

Russian style:
https://www.stratos07.cz/img/vb01.gif

Soviet Replica,  6B5-18 vest:
Front:
https://imgur.com/sE8Yi

Back:
https://imgur.com/mkEmB

The main difference in modern ballistic vests lies mostly with the plating (or lack of, but kevlar alone aint gonna do much against rifle bullets!), those plates are usually inserted (in the Russian case) into pockets "inside" the kevlar vest. I believe western designs may come with the plates "included" from production but there are modular constructions too.
Then there's stuff like optional/removable groin protection and throat guards.
In short, changing up the legs and arms isn't all that necessary because nobody bothers to armor those parts due to mobility and weight issues (although the options exist).

Bomb suits are an example of trying to armor everything:
https://www.allenvanguard.com/Portals/0/ProductImages/PPE/EOD-IEDD/EOD%209/1.EOD_EOD9_main.jpg


In summary:
Something like a Type II (or Type I) may stop pistol rounds and is what cops usually wear and is more comfortable than vests with stiff ballistic plating.
Type III is rated for rifle rounds.
Type IV is rated for Armor Piercing Rifles.

And with "rated" it means they can take at least 1 shot, at certain velocities, bullet mass and distance.

As for the sprites in specific, with X-Com being its own thing there's really no reason why they can't get their stuff in whatever color they might want. With there being relatively little visual difference between the different Ballistics Vests (At least Sprite Sized) there might not be all that much work involved.

[MKSheppard]

I like the way you think, but I would like to suggest something:

Merge the Light/Medium Armor types into a generic "Standard Armor"; because with the way the game engine is currently set up, there's really no quantifiable difference between them; people will always pick medium armor, because there isn't code in the game engine to reward them for picking the light armor currently.

Plus, it also complicates the armor list. You want to give the player choices, but not TOO many choices -- it then becomes pointless, look at the billion and one guns of Jagged Alliance 2 1.13; all with near identical stats, and everyone just goes straight to SCAR :-P

Beef up the Assault Armor a bit more to make it worthwhile assigning it to the first man out of the Skyranger, and the first guy into that UFO; because being able to survive an alien shooting at you outweighs the fact that you move slow....and you'd be able to implement the armor differences in a tactically useful way.

[Leflair]

Yeah, the light armor is probably rather pointless regardless of that but it would feel a little better than sending in guys without any armor - perhaps simply change the basic jumpsuit sprite to include some sort of "basic vest" which would explain the tiny armor that the basic soldier get.
When I first designed them I also had in mind adding some weapons, along the lines of aliens getting some sort of laser / pulse laser weapon for early encounters. Still strong guns, but the ballistic armor would have a point then (until the aliens upgraded weapons).

Another idea in that vein is to play around with armor vurnabilities / strengths (I think UFO: Aftermath did this a little). Not much point as long as the aliens are only packing plasma (and explosives), but with more weapon and damage type we could have armor that is engineered towards giving high protection against a specific damage type, versus an armor "line" that gives decent protection against most weapon types.

If you don't know what you're up against you pick the decent one, but if you know what you'll be facing (if it would be possible to have various aliens favour different weapons) you could equip the niché stuff.

Granted, that could be needless complexity - but it could probably be fun the other way around. Picking the right gun for the job and not merely make it a "Heavy Plasma for everyone" kinda deal. That's not this thread though 

How's this:
Medium Ballistic Vest Type III   
Front   25 (+5)
Right   15 (+3)
Left   15 (+3)
Rear   15
Under   0
Weight:   10
   
Heavy Ballistic Vest Type IV   
Front   55 (+20)
Right   25 (+10)
Left   25 (+10)
Rear   15
Under   0
Weight:   20 (Possibly 25, or even 30 - to keep it from seeing mass-deployment - A rifle and some mags should basically be it for anyone wearing this)
   
Light Personal Armour   
Front   35 (+10)
Right   20
Left   20
Rear   15
Under   10
Weight:   7
Alien Alloys Required   10

Medium Personal Armour   
Front   50
Right   40
Left   40
Rear   30
Under   15
Weight:   12
Alien Alloys Required   25

This way the Heavy Ballistic Vest is *mostly* inferior to the Standard Personal Armour (short of the front armor), yet you might still want to pack it for a few "door busters" (and of course, it would be a lot cheaper) until the Heavy Personal Armour becomes available.

The Light Personal Armour is ideal for the riff-raff, as it is better than the Type III ballistic vest yet a lot lighter than the Heavy Ballistic vest.

[robin]

+1 vote for armor adding weight

I think for the weight you should just copy how Apocalypse works, they already "improved" the weight system in that game: basically every assigned item reduces a soldier Time Units by a certain amount relative the total weight carried by the unit (so a heavy armor sensibly reduces them, because it increases a lot the total weight). Strength still have a role of course*

Simple, intuitive, and makes a lot of sense (gameplay-wise, because every item you want to take with you reduces the ever-precious TUs, so lots of interesting decisions when you equip a soldier); pretty much perfect.


* (from gamefaq):

12.4.5    Encumbrance
It's possible for a unit to carry weight up to four times its strength. However, as a unit becomes more encumbered, it will lose time units and speed at an ever-increasing rate.

I didn't find and in-depth description sorry.
I did some tests with a unit. Strength = 54
Total weight 00 --> TUs = 81
Total weight 82 --> TUs = 61/81 (fully equipped)
Total weight 94 --> TUs = 55/81 (added a loaded Auto-cannon, for a weight of +12)
Total weight 57 --> TUs = 71/81 (stripped down everything but the heavy armor)
Total weight 69 --> TUs = 67/81 (heavy armor + loaded auto-cannon)

Of course it doesn't need to be perfectly identical, but "ideally" this kind of behavior for the weight, is I think the best.

Thanks for the attention.

[moriarty]

I think the main problem with armor adding weight is that you cannot strip the armor off while in battle.

in apocalypse, you could easily change armor in battle, it worked just like any other item, only with special slots.

imagine putting heavy armor on your soldiers only to realise that the front row guys in the skyranger cannot move anymore, so your troops are trapped inside the skyranger.

or somebody receives damage and strength is decreased (I'm not sure if that's the case, but I can think of situations where such a mechanic would make sense, so it might happen in a mod...), and suddenly the soldier is unable to move because of his armor.

you need something to prevent these situations, to avoid frustration.

maybe we should actually make armor an item... taking it off or putting it on would simply take 100% TU, to have some semblance of realism, but at least you can do it.

[robin]

I think the main problem with armor adding weight is that you cannot strip the armor off while in battle.

in apocalypse, you could easily change armor in battle, it worked just like any other item, only with special slots.

imagine putting heavy armor on your soldiers only to realise that the front row guys in the skyranger cannot move anymore, so your troops are trapped inside the skyranger.

or somebody receives damage and strength is decreased (I'm not sure if that's the case, but I can think of situations where such a mechanic would make sense, so it might happen in a mod...), and suddenly the soldier is unable to move because of his armor.

you need something to prevent these situations, to avoid frustration.

maybe we should actually make armor an item... taking it off or putting it on would simply take 100% TU, to have some semblance of realism, but at least you can do it.

Well if you over-weight the soldier so much to the point of immobilization, you should get a message in the equipment screen; armor alone can't immobilize even the weakest soldier (unless you set the armor weight 5 times heavier than the actual Apocalypse heaviest armor).
Also a soldier get strength damaged by an attack (no attack in any X-Com influence strength as far as I know) and thus immobilized by the weight because he was heavily equipped, I just find it a natural consequence you have to deal with, just like a soldier zombified by a chryssalid/brainsucked by a branisucker. A modded strength attack must be balanced, making it non-cumulative, so even a damaged a soldier can drop everything but the armor to be able to move again).

Those are extremely borderline (and avoidable) issues that shouldn't rule out this good weight system. This is my opinion obviously.