[WIP] [OXCE] [TFTD] TFTD Rebalance.

[Lord_Kane]

There was text here.
Its gone now.

See my last post for more info.

[Lord_Kane]

Endless

[Lord_Kane]

Grey.

[Lord_Kane]

Azure

[Lord_Kane]

Agony

[Docent]

I have not played this mod. But judging by the description, it improves the performance of many of our equipment. Everything in this mod, with the exception of increasing the duration of some research, makes the game easier. While the main problem of these games is the steadily decreasing game difficulty level as the player advances the scientific progress. This mod is for those who find it difficult to play the standard version? Or am I missing something?

[Lord_Kane]

I have not played this mod. But judging by the description, it improves the performance of many of our equipment. Everything in this mod, with the exception of increasing the duration of some research, makes the game easier. While the main problem of these games is the steadily decreasing game difficulty level as the player advances the scientific progress. This mod is for those who find it difficult to play the standard version? Or am I missing something?

It's meant to smooth over some of the odd difficulty jumps that TFTD has, not necessarily make the game easier, just make some gear more useful and give you more options to deal with the challenges the game throws at you. eg. as many consider Gauss useless especially when you compare how useful lasers are in UFO and maintain at least some use until the end game.

But its hard to develop the mod as I am getting precious little feedback other then my own testing, but making the game easier is not my goal.
You also ironically reminded me I have to clean up the change log.

Nov 21 2019:

Update 3.5F is out!
-Fixed a progression research timing oversight of mine (oops!)
-Added a fix for a long standing TFTD sound bug in OXC/OXCE

[The Reaver of Darkness]

One of the big difficulties of the game is the low fire rate of sonic weapons. People would try to get around it with gauss, but that doesn't work very well on the majority of what you have to fight. On the upside, it means the aliens also have a low rate of fire, but it makes you feel like you can't do enough in one turn. You could bring 18 soldiers on a leviathan to get enough actions per turn, but most players just blow the aliens away with DPLs and mind control instead.

So the problem is that sonic/gauss are both too weak but DPL and mind control are too strong.

Another issue is that it's difficult to use the melee weapons on lobstermen because it's so difficult to approach them. To the credit of the original dev team, lobstermen have terrible range and stupid AI, so they aren't very dangerous at range. The issue is that instead of take a chance at getting close, it makes more sense to just shoot them repeatedly until they die. Perhaps Lobstermen don't need to resist gauss less, but sonic more.

Here's a tentative list of suggested changes:
 

• Swap gauss and sonic resistances on Tentaculat and Xarquid
• Increase Tasoth vulnerability to gauss from 70% to 100%
• Decrease Lobsterman vulnerability to sonic from 50% to 35%
• Increase sonic rate of fire slightly (in particular, reduce Sonic Cannon snap shot TU cost a bit below 50%)
• Leave Heavy Gauss power at 75, instead give it an auto shot

At this point, sonic and gauss are both useful weapon types. Sonic is mostly better but gauss has the coveted auto shots. Strong targets like Xarquids, Hallucinoids, and Tasoths are better killed with sonic. Weaklings like Aquatoids, Gill Men, or Calcinites are best killed with gauss. Lobstermen are best killed with heavy explosives, stun, or melee.
 

• Cut lobsterman TUs in half. They should be slowest, not Gill Men.
• Reduce lobsterman firing accuracy by 15. They should be less accurate than more capable aliens (like Gill Men). Or maybe just do an overall accuracy fix because the attributes I'm seeing are a little weird.
• Reduce maximum MC strength and/or skill of aquanauts. I suggest 30-60 MC strength range, but 100 MC skill max:

Maximum MC power of aliens is superhuman aquatoid commander (60/60) with a MC power and MC defense both equal, 3600. An aquanaut with 60/60 has the same power/defense.
Non-terrorist aliens have MC strength no higher than 50 (60 on superhuman), lending them 3000 base MC defense, so it'll take a MC skill of 50 or greater to reliably control them.
Terrorist aliens have up to 100 MC strength, thus a MC defense as high as 6000. An aquanaut at 60/100 has a MC power of 6000, so they can just barely succeed in controlling the most difficult aliens.
The low MC strength and high MC skill range ensures soldiers are always a bit vulnerable to the aliens' MC attacks, while it takes a lot of training to truly master molecular control. A minimum MC strength of 30 also overcomes the weirdly high prevalence of spongebrains that shouldn't exist in squads.

As for nerfing DPLs, I'd say just remove the manufacturing recipe for their ammo. You only get as much as you find. And then make it so you ever fight anything other than lobstermen and tasoths. Increase rates of other alien types appearing.

[Lord_Kane]

Okay Reaver I will breakdown my reaction to your proposal (you can also throw more at me on discord later on)

1. Swap gauss and sonic resistances on Tentaculat and Xarquid
So make Xarquid's more vulnerable to gauss and make Tenaculat more vulnerable to sonics?

2. Increase Tasoth vulnerability to gauss from 70% to 100%
Ok, will do

3. Decrease Lobsterman vulnerability to sonic from 50% to 35%
Ok, will do
   
4. Increase sonic rate of fire slightly (in particular, reduce Sonic Cannon snap shot TU cost a bit below 50%)
So do I also reduce the TU cost on the rifle and pistol as well? because yeah the SC is the slowest firing, but so are the other sonic guns.

5. Leave Heavy Gauss power at 75, instead give it an auto shot
Been messing around with that idea, I am thinking something between a auto-shot that drains half the clip, is a bit less accurate something like that or a 5 round burst.

6. Cut lobsterman TUs in half. They should be slowest, not Gill Men.
Will do.

I will also take a look at alien accuracy, but that will take some time.

The MC strength yea, I will down it to 30-60 maybe 65 to encourage persuit of the more advanced solider techs I might put in but thats a maybe.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Okay Reaver I will breakdown my reaction to your proposal (you can also throw more at me on discord later on)

1. Swap gauss and sonic resistances on Tentaculat and Xarquid
So make Xarquid's more vulnerable to gauss and make Tenaculat more vulnerable to sonics?



4. Increase sonic rate of fire slightly (in particular, reduce Sonic Cannon snap shot TU cost a bit below 50%)
So do I also reduce the TU cost on the rifle and pistol as well? because yeah the SC is the slowest firing, but so are the other sonic guns.

5. Leave Heavy Gauss power at 75, instead give it an auto shot
Been messing around with that idea, I am thinking something between a auto-shot that drains half the clip, is a bit less accurate something like that or a 5 round burst.

1.) No, there's a LOT of aliens that resist gauss more than they resist sonic, but there's none that resist sonic more than gauss. So the game is effectively lying: when it says a gauss rifle has 60 power and a sonic blasta rifle has 95 power it is insinuating that the sonic weapon is about 50% stronger but against most aliens in general it is 100-150% stronger.
If you go into the resistances of the Xarquid and switch its sonic resist with its gauss resist, then go into the Tentaculat and swap its sonic resist with its gauss resist, then there will finally be enemies that resist sonic more than they resist gauss. I chose those two after examining all of the resistances. Previously it was like this:
Aquatoid: anything kills it
Calcinite: anything above jet harpoon kills it
Gill Man: anything kills it
Deep One: anything kills it
Bio-drone: gauss is enough, but sonic is better
Hallucinoid: gauss is enough, but sonic is way better
Xarquid: almost immune to gauss, sonic works just fine
Tentaculat: gauss is enough, but sonic is better
Triscene: explosives are its only weakness
Tasoth: almost immune to gauss, sonic works just fine
Lobsterman: virtually immune to everything except sonic, freeze, and drill
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With my proposed changes, a few are different:
Xarquid: sonic is better than gauss, but it's tough either way
Tentaculat: gauss or sonic, either works fine (explosive works better)
Tasoth: gauss can work, but sonic is considerably better
Lobsterman: even sonic hardly works; have to use freeze, drill, or huge explosives
====================
So the net result is that the optimal set of weapons is a combination of gauss and sonic. A player who chooses only sonic will be fine but may miss out a bit. A player who chooses only gauss will need to rely significantly on auxiliary weapons (grenades, launchers, melee). Lobstermen are slow, tough, and stupid.

Also you should change the HE resist of the Hallucinoid from 0.7 to 0.6, the HE resist of the Xarquid from 0.6 to 0.3, and the HE resist of the Triscene from 0.9 to 0.5. Previously only the bio-drone was actually resistant to HE, and the Xarquid was weirdly vulnerable to it. Now players won't be able to just use Gas Cannon HE to cheese the game. Enemies that will strongly resist small explosives: Bio-drone, Hallucinoid, Tasoth, Lobsterman. Now Xarquids and Triscenes will still be vulnerable to HE, but it's no longer a cheap insta-kill.

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4.) Try these values:
weapon
TU cost | accuracy

Sonic Pistol
ammo weight: 2
snap: 25 | 65
aimed: 45 | 90

Sonic-Blasta Rifle
snap: 34 | 74
aimed: 64 | 118

Sonic Cannon
weight: 14
snap: 45 | 70
aimed: 80 | 110

I significantly increased rate of fire for snap shots but decreased it a bit for aimed (rifle and cannon). I also increased aimed shot accuracy, but reduced sonic cannon accuracy overall. Sonic Pistol is now almost as good as Sonic-Blasta Rifle and ideal as a one-hand weapon. It's also useful to get a lot of snap shots. Sonic-Blasta Rifle is a great general weapon against anything other than Triscenes or Lobstermen. Sonic Cannon has considerably higher damage, enabling it to kill tough things faster, such as Xarquids, Hallucinoids, Tasoths, and even dealing okay damage to Lobstermen. But it comes at a cost: the Sonic Cannon is heavy and unwieldy. It shoots slow, has low ammo, and has mediocre accuracy.

I also changed some weight values that didn't make sense.

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5.) At 75 power, the heavy gauss barely overpowers the gauss rifle. I say just make it essentially a bigger, less wieldy gauss rifle:
(bold are what I changed)

Gauss Pistol
weight: 5
auto: 30 | 40
snap: 20 | 50
aimed: 40 | 70

Gauss Rifle
auto: 40 | 50
snap: 28 | 65
aimed: 60 | 100

Heavy Gauss
auto: 48 | 45
snap: 36 | 55
aimed: 68 | 90

I increased Gauss Pistol accuracy and decreased its TU costs. Its lower power is its largest drawback but it makes up for it with sheer rate of fire. Excellent PDW for killing aquatoids and gillmen.
The Gauss Rifle is barely changed (tiny decrease to snap shot TU cost). It is slower than the Gauss Pistol but more accurate and more powerful. It is also faster than the Sonic-Blasta Rifle but less accurate and considerably less powerful. The Heavy Gauss can barely fire two auto-shots per turn and is deadly in the hands of a soldier with high firing accuracy who can handle its weight. This is a huge buff over the vanilla version of the weapon.

I decreased the weight of the Gauss Pistol because it was almost the same weight as the Gauss Rifle.