Warp weapons,Dimension X weapons and minor damage balance questions.

[Alazar]

I feel those weapons are severely underpowered. Why? Just look X-Com Apocalypse. Description says that warp weapons ignore armor, I cant feel that. 44 warp damage feels a lot weaker than 50 laser damage or plasma damage for example.

Acid damage is absolutely useless due to limited range of shot and accuracy of weapons utilising it, excluding dimension X acid spitting grenade, that thing is somehow ignoring all those armor values.

When you close Dimension X arc, you are cut off from warp tech weapons till nearly endgame, also you dont get the most usefull grenade anymore, Bumeroid (though originaly its a sentient landmine, but I suppose coding it in is a too hard for OXCE).

Sonic pulser (120 expl damage) > Plasma grenade (90 expl damage (Why not 90 plasma damage?))

Sectoids surviving 150 kintetic damage from Heavy Gauss with a 20 unit purple shield?

P.S.: I know the damage formula is weird in X-Com 1\2, but sometimes its just absurd.

[Solarius Scorch]

I am trying to look at things from various perspectives, but there's no way in hell I would ever consider warp weapons weak. They are absolutely broken.

I feel those weapons are severely underpowered. Why? Just look X-Com Apocalypse. Description says that warp weapons ignore armor, I cant feel that. 44 warp damage feels a lot weaker than 50 laser damage or plasma damage for example.

If it feels a lot weaker to you, then I suggest you check again, because this is downright delirious. Well, maybe if you're firing at zombies or other units with little to no armour; but it's not making any case.

Also, these weapons can fall into your hands pretty early, so comparing them to plasma, or even lasers, is unfair by definition.

Acid damage is absolutely useless due to limited range of shot and accuracy of weapons utilising it, excluding dimension X acid spitting grenade, that thing is somehow ignoring all those armor values.

I fail to see how short range is a problem.

When you close Dimension X arc, you are cut off from warp tech weapons till nearly endgame, also you dont get the most usefull grenade anymore, Bumeroid (though originaly its a sentient landmine, but I suppose coding it in is a too hard for OXCE).

Now it's possible to make a Boomeroid, but it wasn't when I introduced it (and I mostly ripped it from Robin anyway). I am rather satisfied with how it works, but might change it in the future if a fancy strikes me.

Agreed that these weapons dry up, this is by design - they can help you carry some mid-game missions before you get the good stuff. They're also useful in special situations.
BTW: in late game, you can find another brand of warp weapons.

Sonic pulser (120 expl damage) > Plasma grenade (90 expl damage (Why not 90 plasma damage?))

This is a good point. I'll fix it.

Sectoids surviving 150 kintetic damage from Heavy Gauss with a 20 unit purple shield?

How do you know the shield only had 20 points? I can't think of any way to check it. It's definitely less than the minimum value for an undamaged Sectoid shield, which is 50.

P.S.: I know the damage formula is weird in X-Com 1\2, but sometimes its just absurd.

Again, sorry but I just don't understand your position. I consider disruptor weapons absolutely OP, which is why they are so rare. But the plethora of weapons in the mod exists so that anyone could like or dislike certain types, so I think it's OK.

[Alazar]

I am trying to look at things from various perspectives, but there's no way in hell I would ever consider warp weapons weak. They are absolutely broken.

Uhhh.. No... They are weak, all 3. Here are defense values for some enemies against Warp damage (lower value = more resistant):
Cyberdisk 50%, Cyberweb sphere 50%, Corruption(Dim.X purple bubble thingy) 40%, Silacoid 80%, Celatid 50%,  Etherial 60%. Quite common enemies.

Compare em to Sonic weapons which you get around same time (After you beat the crap out of Church of Dagon). I also checked armor values for quite a lot of enemies and only ones that are resistant to Sonics(expl damage), are TFTD ones, they have biggest resists. Only one who is weak to warp weapons are Lobsterman, cause 200% Warp damage.
Btw Sonic weapons stay effective the whole game.

Also, these weapons can fall into your hands pretty early, so comparing them to plasma, or even lasers, is unfair by definition.

Wrong, you get induction plasma canon (MP-40 looking gun,55 plasma dam) and Hydra laser(38 las.dam) at about same time from Osiron.

I fail to see how short range is a problem.

Its just my ranting, but accuracy is.

Now it's possible to make a Boomeroid, but it wasn't when I introduced it (and I mostly ripped it from Robin anyway). I am rather satisfied with how it works, but might change it in the future if a fancy strikes me.

This is awesome.

Agreed that these weapons dry up, this is by design - they can help you carry some mid-game missions before you get the good stuff. They're also useful in special situations.
BTW: in late game, you can find another brand of warp weapons.

I have it, still weak.

How do you know the shield only had 20 points? I can't think of any way to check it. It's definitely less than the minimum value for an undamaged Sectoid shield, which is 50.

Well I took hybrid shield values, so yeah, my mistake, but sometimes this happens with hybrids too, they even keep shield after getting shot.

Again, sorry but I just don't understand your position. I consider disruptor weapons absolutely OP, which is why they are so rare. But the plethora of weapons in the mod exists so that anyone could like or dislike certain types, so I think it's OK.

Sonic weapons > Warp weapons
Sonic shotgun for example 55x6 expl damage. Pretty much oneshots most of enemies, even heavily armored.
Heavy Sonic cannon (sonic minigun) 90 expl damage per pellet, 7 rounds burst.
Sonic cannon 120 expl damage, rifle 95, pistol 80.
We are shooting grenade damage here, against which most enemies have no listed damage resist and these numbers just trump 33,44 and 46 warp damage. This whole "ignores armor" is just irrelevant when it does actually not (look armor values above). Warp weapons are absolete already when you get them.

[Solarius Scorch]

Uhhh.. No... They are weak, all 3. Here are defense values for some enemies against Warp damage (lower value = more resistant):
Cyberdisk 50%, Cyberweb sphere 50%, Corruption(Dim.X purple bubble thingy) 40%, Silacoid 80%, Celatid 50%,  Etherial 60%. Quite common enemies.

Compare em to Sonic weapons which you get around same time (After you beat the crap out of Church of Dagon). I also checked armor values for quite a lot of enemies and only ones that are resistant to Sonics(expl damage), are TFTD ones, they have biggest resists. Only one who is weak to warp weapons are Lobsterman, cause 200% Warp damage.
Btw Sonic weapons stay effective the whole game.

Sonic weapons don't ignore 90% of armour. Sorry to be blunt, but I can't really see how you can conveniently skip this "little detail" and hope for your argument to be taken seriously.

Yes, you'll easily find many units which are better addressed with other weapons, sure. Disruptors are specifically meant to be anti-armour. Still, they make the most effective armour piercing tools at their level of accessibility, being both armour-piercing and relatively easy to use.

By the way, Warp resistance is rogughly inversely proportional to how heavy/dense the target is: lighter, unarmoured targets get better resistances.

Wrong, you get induction plasma canon (MP-40 looking gun,55 plasma dam) and Hydra laser(38 las.dam) at about same time from Osiron.

You can also win a million in a lottery, this is not an argument to be used in home economy.

No, seriously, these are ultra-rare compared to disruptors. If you get them anyway, congrats, you found a better solution. It it's a rare occurrence. (Ifsomeone disagrees, feel free to tell.)

I have it, still weak.

Then don't use them, doh. It's not liek everone must use everything.

I still think they're almost completely broken.

Well I took hybrid shield values, so yeah, my mistake, but sometimes this happens with hybrids too, they even keep shield after getting shot.

Sure, it happens with all weapons with 0-200% damage roll.

Sonic weapons > Warp weapons
Sonic shotgun for example 55x6 expl damage. Pretty much oneshots most of enemies, even heavily armored.
Heavy Sonic cannon (sonic minigun) 90 expl damage per pellet, 7 rounds burst.
Sonic cannon 120 expl damage, rifle 95, pistol 80.

I would agree here, but the shotgun has a different combat role, for example you can't snipe with it.

We are shooting grenade damage here, against which most enemies have no listed damage resist and these numbers just trump 33,44 and 46 warp damage. This whole "ignores armor" is just irrelevant when it does actually not (look armor values above). Warp weapons are absolete already when you get them.

But moving them earlier would wreck the balance. I've been through similar cases before, so I can see a pattern...

Depending on how valid this critique is, warp weapons fall under specialized equipment to a lesser or greater degree. I personally don't think that they're extremely specialized, but it's just my personal opinion - frankly I haven't played XCF all that much, because when I have time, I'd rather mod.

[Alazar]

Sonic weapons don't ignore 90% of armour. Sorry to be blunt, but I can't really see how you can conveniently skip this "little detail" and hope for your argument to be taken seriously.

Warp weapons also dont(I know you will say they do) as far as I felt when I used em and sonics disposed targets in less shots than disruptors, even heavily armored like cyberdisks, obliterators, sectopods and centurions. Unless they have some specific hiddens values that are not listed in game, cause I dont know coding and which values to look for.

By the way, Warp resistance is rogughly inversely proportional to how heavy/dense the target is: lighter, unarmoured targets get better resistances.

I know, but so far the only enemy that is weak vs warp weapons is yours truly X-Com agents.

You can also win a million in a lottery, this is not an argument to be used in home economy.

No, seriously, these are ultra-rare compared to disruptors. If you get them anyway, congrats, you found a better solution. It it's a rare occurrence. (Ifsomeone disagrees, feel free to tell.)

Well guess I am just that lucky   From 13 crates in one mission I pulled out 3 plasmas and 2 hydros and 2-1 from all next raids.

Then don't use them, doh. It's not liek everone must use everything.

Thats the problem, I want to use em, but they are overshadowed just by everything else in lategame arsenal, that I just slap heavy plasma and plasma devastators, heavy sonics and sonic pulsers and start blasting.

I would agree here, but the shotgun has a different combat role, for example you can't snipe with it.

Actually you can, you can craft focused shot modules, even if they are 1 shot per clip, they are the definition of aimed shot, also Sonic shotgun snap has insane range and accuracy, UAC rifle smoke nearby jealously.

Depending on how valid this critique is, warp weapons fall under specialized equipment to a lesser or greater degree. I personally don't think that they're extremely specialized, but it's just my personal opinion - frankly I haven't played XCF all that much, because when I have time, I'd rather mod.

I love X-Com and this mod specifically, so I play it a lot, this is why I rose this question up. You got numbers, I got live gameplay and its definately feels a lot different from your numbers and what you say judging from them.

[Solarius Scorch]

Warp weapons also dont(I know you will say they do)

...excuse me?

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_DISRUPTOR_RIFLE
    (...)
    damageAlter:
      (...)
      ArmorEffectiveness: 0.1

Your turn, pal.

as far as I felt when I used em and sonics disposed targets in less shots than disruptors, even heavily armored like cyberdisks, obliterators, sectopods and centurions. Unless they have some specific hiddens values that are not listed in game, cause I dont know coding and which values to look for.

I don't think there's anything hidden here, it's just armour values, armour piercing values and resistances.

I know, but so far the only enemy that is weak vs warp weapons is yours truly X-Com agents.

And most robots... And Silacoids... And heavy MiBs... Etc.

But I admit, they were designed to be dangerous to X-Com. Like for example Muckstar shots.

Well guess I am just that lucky   From 13 crates in one mission I pulled out 3 plasmas and 2 hydros and 2-1 from all next raids.

You could be. I never found one myself.

Thats the problem, I want to use em, but they are overshadowed just by everything else in lategame arsenal, that I just slap heavy plasma and plasma devastators, heavy sonics and sonic pulsers and start blasting.

Well, could be a general balance problem, but I can only reiterate that it's not supposed to be better than plasma, or even as good. If you can't find a place for them in your current roster, well, don't use them.

Actually you can, you can craft focused shot modules, even if they are 1 shot per clip, they are the definition of aimed shot, also Sonic shotgun snap has insane range and accuracy, UAC rifle smoke nearby jealously.

Indeed you can to a degree; hell, even the early double-barreled shotgun has pretty long range. But a sonic shotgun is not guaranteed, it depends on your decisions; also it's fairly later compared to Dimension X disruptors.

I love X-Com and this mod specifically, so I play it a lot, this is why I rose this question up. You got numbers, I got live gameplay and its definately feels a lot different from your numbers and what you say judging from them.

I admit to not have as much practice with late game weapons as I should. I promise to at least try play more

[Alazar]

...excuse me?

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_DISRUPTOR_RIFLE
    (...)
    damageAlter:
      (...)
      ArmorEffectiveness: 0.1

Your turn, pal.

Lets do math. I dont know the real damage formula so I will make up a simple and logical "xyz" where x- weapon damage, y-%multiplier from 0 to 200 (X-Com rng), z-armor, which will look like "x*y-z" for most, except warp which looks like "x*y-z*0,1"
I am taking flat damage with no resists. Taking most powerful single shot guns, so lategame Warp Rifle with 46 and Sonic Cannon with 120. Armor value will be 100 (I agree that with armor value 120+ SC starts struggling, but there is just not that many enemies with such values).
If you have real damage formula I would love to see it.

100%
SC: 120*1-100=20
WR: 46*1-100*0,1=36
Cool, no questions here, warp is better. Lets go 150.

150%
SC: 120*1,5-100=80
WR: 46*1,5-100*0,1=59
Top tier warp weapon is already loosing to midgame sonic, lets see 200.

200%
SC: 120*2-100 =140
WR: 46*2-100*0,1= 82
Lets see... 58 damage difference in SC favor.  So yeah, dont feel that damage on warps. When we take specific damage resists in considirations yeah, warp can shine, but in most common combat scenarios and common enemies like Sectoids(Hi, purple anti warp shield), Hybrids(Hi, purple anti warp shield), Snakememes even god damn cursed Watchers, sonics have more chances to overdamage warps, even with TFDF damage system 50-150.
So warp weapon is like "low luck = more damage" weapon where the less your random % luck them harder you hit.

Indeed you can to a degree; hell, even the early double-barreled shotgun has pretty long range. But a sonic shotgun is not guaranteed, it depends on your decisions; also it's fairly later compared to Dimension X disruptors.

Aheh, no, you get em earlyer, you get the military sonic tech from researching hacked military computers, which in turn you get from "Cyberweb attacks military base" missions, which is earlyer than Dim.X, so you go to Dim.X with sonic miniguns and shotguns.
It is possible to skip some research stages in early game if you are lucky with early random UFOs and get the "Sonic adjustments" to be able to craft sonic shotgun and minigun. Also you get quite a lot of Zrbite from Osiron, so ammo is not that big of a problem.

[ohartenstein23]

Let's do a bit better damage modeling than just picking 3 random rolls of 0-200% to analyze. I ran 10,000 simple simulations for each weapon and averaged them to get the expected damage for each case. That is, I made 10,000 dice rolls of 0 to 46*2 for the power roll of the warp rifle and 10,000 of 0 to 120*2 for the sonic cannon, then subtracted off 10 armor for the rifle and 100 armor for the cannon. In the end I found the averages:

• Warp Rifle: 36.475 dmg
• Sonic Cannon: 40.946 dmg

So raw damage the sonic cannon wins out by a little bit, but it will be less reliable (101/241 shots will do 0 damage vs 11/92 for the rifle) and doesn't shoot as fast. If you double the armor to 200, the warp rifle does even better:

• Warp Rifle: 28.155 dmg
• Sonic Cannon: 3.304 dmg

It's pretty obvious the warp rifle gets better the higher the armor the target has, as you'd expect with something that ignores that much armor. I can't comment much on the availability of the weapons themselves since I didn't use either in my playthrough, but I wouldn't call warp weapons lesser by any means.

Note: it is possible to calculate expected damage for pretty much all the RNG types exactly, I just found it faster to run the dice rolls than try to remember where I wrote down the exact formula.

[Alazar]

Let's do a bit better damage modeling than just picking 3 random rolls of 0-200% to analyze. I ran 10,000 simple simulations for each weapon and averaged them to get the expected damage for each case. That is, I made 10,000 dice rolls of 0 to 46*2 for the power roll of the warp rifle and 10,000 of 0 to 120*2 for the sonic cannon, then subtracted off 10 armor for the rifle and 100 armor for the cannon. In the end I found the averages:

• Warp Rifle: 36.475 dmg
• Sonic Cannon: 40.946 dmg

So raw damage the sonic cannon wins out by a little bit, but it will be less reliable (101/241 shots will do 0 damage vs 11/92 for the rifle) and doesn't shoot as fast. If you double the armor to 200, the warp rifle does even better:

• Warp Rifle: 28.155 dmg
• Sonic Cannon: 3.304 dmg

Thanks for more detailed calculations.
Now a bit of armor info on targets. The highest armor value I found is for Dragonfire turret front which is 175, but it also has 50% warp damage resist vs 75 concussive.
Second best I think is Obliterator with 100 armor and again it has 50% warp resists vs 80% concussion.

I just cant see how warp weapons can be broken here, when most armored targets have 50% warp damage resists, which cuts end damage to 50%. Taking your average calculated damage for 100 armor and applying resist stat we get:
Warp rifle: 18,2
Sonic Cannon: 32,8
Yep, warp rifle totally broken, as in unusable.

Besides, how often do you run into Obliterators and Dragonfire turrets?
Solarian mentioned MiB heavies, they have no resist from warp and concussion damage, so again, sonics do better job at disposing them.
Sure, SC is slower for snap shots, but aimed shots? You joke?
There is no way I can call it unreliable. Why? Concussion damage is not affected by 0% rng roll (check screenshots below), it deals damage always. So in your calculations number of 0 damage shots for Sonic cannon is 0, unless completely blocked by armor.

[ohartenstein23]

First of all, you need to compare apples to apples. Heavy disruptor vs. Sonic cannon vs. Warp cannon, firing at an obliterator:

• HD: 13.22 dmg, rolls 0 ~22%
• SC: 15.93 dmg, rolls 0 ~47%
• WC: 7.18 dmg, rolls 0 ~52%

The sonic cannon isn't an obvious winner here damage wise, and remember the heavy disruptor can get up to 8 shots per turn if you're not all aimed all the time. Warp cannon isn't the right choice against an obliterator.

Now for a target that isn't so skewed in the sonic cannon's favor, the MiB heavy (100 armor, 100% damage from both warp and concussive):

• HD: 34.18 dmg, rolls 0 ~11%
• SC: 34.44 dmg, rolls 0 ~27%
• WC: 35.37 dmg, rolls 0 ~26%

All three perform pretty similarly here, with the disruptor being the most consistent to do damage, and the warp cannon doing best on average.

As long as you're not doing something silly like expecting a rifle to do as well as a cannon against a bigger enemy, I would say warp, disruptor, and sonic weapons are pretty comparable in performance when paired with a proper target. Sonic is clearly better when the armor is low and HP is high, but disruptor/warp makes up for the difference when fighting power armor. Sonic can snipe better, but the disruptor will perform better on the move.

At this point, I'd say your dislike of warp/disruptor is based on when they happened in your personal campaign and your style, not how they numerically perform.

[Alazar]

First of all, you need to compare apples to apples. Heavy disruptor vs. Sonic cannon vs. Warp cannon, firing at an obliterator:

• HD: 13.22 dmg, rolls 0 ~22%
• SC: 15.93 dmg, rolls 0 ~47%
• WC: 7.18 dmg, rolls 0 ~52%

The sonic cannon isn't an obvious winner here damage wise, and remember the heavy disruptor can get up to 8 shots per turn if you're not all aimed all the time. Warp cannon isn't the right choice against an obliterator.

Now for a target that isn't so skewed in the sonic cannon's favor, the MiB heavy (100 armor, 100% damage from both warp and concussive):

• HD: 34.18 dmg, rolls 0 ~11%
• SC: 34.44 dmg, rolls 0 ~27%
• WC: 35.37 dmg, rolls 0 ~26%

All three perform pretty similarly here, with the disruptor being the most consistent to do damage, and the warp cannon doing best on average.

As long as you're not doing something silly like expecting a rifle to do as well as a cannon against a bigger enemy, I would say warp, disruptor, and sonic weapons are pretty comparable in performance when paired with a proper target. Sonic is clearly better when the armor is low and HP is high, but disruptor/warp makes up for the difference when fighting power armor. Sonic can snipe better, but the disruptor will perform better on the move.

At this point, I'd say your dislike of warp/disruptor is based on when they happened in your personal campaign and your style, not how they numerically perform.

A. You just completely disregarded the fact that sonics always deal damage and dont have a chance of dealing 0 damage per shot.
B. Sonic cannon min.damage is Warp Rifles(Edit: the 46 damage one, not the 33) max. damage. So when luck RNG rolls 0%, WR does 0 damage, SC does some damage.
C. I used disruptors\warp peashooters extensively when I got them first and the more I used em, the more disappointed I was each mission. They are bad not because I dont like them, but because theres just too many better options.
D. Numbers does not equal gameplay, I told that to Solarius already. Its like writing tech stats of a real weapon on paper without actually testing it in live combat situations. 8 shot per turn means absolutely nothing if none of them connect or accuracy is below 30%. So snap shots, aimed shots only.
E. All this calculation show how narrow and insignifficant the use of warp weapons is, being usable only against heavily armored targets (Edit: which are not that many exist) which also happen to have biggest warp damage resists.

[ohartenstein23]

I did not ignore the fact that sonic cannon has a 50-150% roll in those calculations, the "rolls 0" percentages are the fraction of shots that will have less power than the targets effective armor. Statistically, the 50-150 roll is better when the target's armor is low and 0-200 is better when the target's armor is high; the Sonic Cannon in TFTD is a poor choice vs triscenes but the Heavy Plasma in UFO is still usable against sectopods.

I'm not arguing that the warp/disruptor is.a better generalist weapon, if you arm most of your agents with sonic cannons of course you're going to have a good time when most of the enemies simply don't have the armor to deal with it. Warp/disruptor weapons still will damage anything and have a niche against hardened 1×1 targets. I wouldn't hand them out to my full squad unless I knew the kind of target I'd face in a mission called for it, but I would probably keep a few around just in case. That's the beauty of many options; you were disappointed by warp/disruptor and found sonic to fit your style better, but we've heard people loving disruptors around here, such as Starving Poet in his Let's Play.

As for use vs high armor robotic 2×2 units, I don't think either sonic or warp is the right choice, there are different specialist weapons and strategies for them.

[Alazar]

I did not ignore the fact that sonic cannon has a 50-150% roll in those calculations, the "rolls 0" percentages are the fraction of shots that will have less power than the targets effective armor. Statistically, the 50-150 roll is better when the target's armor is low and 0-200 is better when the target's armor is high; the Sonic Cannon in TFTD is a poor choice vs triscenes but the Heavy Plasma in UFO is still usable against sectopods.

I'm not arguing that the warp/disruptor is.a better generalist weapon, if you arm most of your agents with sonic cannons of course you're going to have a good time when most of the enemies simply don't have the armor to deal with it. Warp/disruptor weapons still will damage anything and have a niche against hardened 1×1 targets. I wouldn't hand them out to my full squad unless I knew the kind of target I'd face in a mission called for it, but I would probably keep a few around just in case. That's the beauty of many options; you were disappointed by warp/disruptor and found sonic to fit your style better, but we've heard people loving disruptors around here, such as Starving Poet in his Let's Play.

As for use vs high armor robotic 2×2 units, I don't think either sonic or warp is the right choice, there are different specialist weapons and strategies for them.

Eh, probaly you are right, still does not change my opinion that warp weapons are peashooters here, especially when they are future tech endgame guns from X-Com Apocalypse. But can agree that these are early prototypes which are made by Dim.X hivemind so they are weak. (Apoc. guns have infinite power supply)

[betatester]

Just one question what is needed to have these weapons ? because I never fell on them (I'm on level 2 because it's my first play-through )
What is the trigger of Dimension X arc ?
What missions are part of this arc ?
What researches make it progress ?

[X-Man]

Just one question what is needed to have these weapons ? because I never fell on them (I'm on level 2 because it's my first play-through )
What is the trigger of Dimension X arc ?
What missions are part of this arc ?
What researches make it progress ?

Just begin to move along Cyberweb arc, and you will be answered for all your questions.