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Author Topic: Chemical Warfare and deployables.  (Read 5022 times)

Offline Alazar

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Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« on: March 24, 2020, 12:17:03 pm »
I played around some more and finally got an idea what could be added.

First thing, chemical weapons in their current state are not exactly what I thought them to be, excluding the Dim.X ones, they are very good. Now what I had in mind are gas grenades and toxin sprayers. Gas grenades are pretty self explanatory, prime, throw, get a gas cloud with DoT effect + other effects for your own tastes, hallucinagen (moral damage) tear gas (stun damage) and so on, you get the idea.
Toxin sprayer idea is similar to flamethrowers highly inaccurate, short range,sprays over area leaving DoT fires and covering small areas, only instead of fires they leave gas clouds and deal small ammounts base damage like flamers do.

Second idea came whem I played 40k mod.  Deployable weapons, aka crouch to shoot properly, this could be applied to some super heavy weapons in game, like HMG, I am sure you can hardly fire 50 cal from hands without a exosuit. Or you could make new weapons for said purpose.

Gyrojet weapons aka "Bolters, Brothers!" lastly. I know it might sound like I am pulling this from 40k, but lets be real, gyrojet weapons did exist, but failed due to a number of reasons. But since we can apply alien tech, like alloys and E115, who said we cant make those viable and deadly?
« Last Edit: March 24, 2020, 12:18:58 pm by Alazar »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2020, 05:08:54 pm »
The DoT idea is of course interesting, if only it was possible.

The deployable weapons from 40k are formidable, but I'm not sure they fit XCF.

Gyrojet weapons - there is the recoilless rifle, anything else you have in mind? (Also, it's not really that advanced.)

Offline Alazar

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2020, 03:26:28 am »
The DoT idea is of course interesting, if only it was possible.
I dont know why you say "if only it was possible" when its already in game. Check fire extinguisher, the smoke that it leaves deals DoT stun damage. I noticed that when I was extinguishing my agents from fires, the longer I left them in that smoke, the more stun damage they accumulated. I am sure you can find that chunk of code and play with its values to get needed results.
The deployable weapons from 40k are formidable, but I'm not sure they fit XCF.
Well you could rework some super heavy weapons, like HMG, BO minigun, Gauss cannon, make some turret variations of weapons that deploy a shield when crouched (not sure the said shield is possible).

Gyrojet weapons - there is the recoilless rifle, anything else you have in mind? (Also, it's not really that advanced.)
No, gyrojet is gyrojet, recoilles rifle is recoilless rifle, absolutely different.
Gyrojet slug does not have casing, it acts like a micro missle, meaning its launched not by powder combustion in casing, but by burning solid fuel inside itself and accelerating all the way to target untill it hits or runs out of fuel. (still maintains a lot of kinetic power after fuel is spent)
You can look up on youtube for gyrojet pistol shooting live video.

Offline WaldoTheRanger

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2020, 05:28:19 am »
The deployable weapons from 40k are formidable, but I'm not sure they fit XCF.

this is actually what I thought the heavy tu cost of miniguns was trying to simulate (at least in Fmp, I assume they're the same in xcf). there's no way a regular human can shoot one without a tripod of some sort, so you would have to pick up a tripod and redeploy it everytime you moved if you wanted to have any hope of aiming the thing.
so the deploy-able weapon thing makes total sense to me for miniguns and hmgs.

No, gyrojet is gyrojet, recoilles rifle is recoilless rifle, absolutely different.
Gyrojet slug does not have casing, it acts like a micro missle, meaning its launched not by powder combustion in casing, but by burning solid fuel inside itself and accelerating all the way to target untill it hits or runs out of fuel. (still maintains a lot of kinetic power after fuel is spent)
You can look up on youtube for gyrojet pistol shooting live video.


I think the point solarius is trying to make is, what additional gameplay element would such a weapon add over a recoilless rifle? both are basically just more accurate versions of human weapons. any other differences would be hard to simulate on the battlescape, regardless of how major they are in real life.   I guess maybe the weight difference could work, but that doesn't seem worthy of a whole other tech tree to me at least.

Offline Alazar

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2020, 06:13:20 am »
I think the point solarius is trying to make is, what additional gameplay element would such a weapon add over a recoilless rifle? both are basically just more accurate versions of human weapons. any other differences would be hard to simulate on the battlescape, regardless of how major they are in real life.   I guess maybe the weight difference could work, but that doesn't seem worthy of a whole other tech tree to me at least.

Well, it can be a endgame human tech with different ammo types, like frag slugs (3x3 blast area with moderate explosion damage 30-60) kinetic (solid AP slug), acid tip (self explanatory), incendiary and what ever you can come up with, like a super versatile endgame gun, but still weaker than plasma for obvious reasons. Can be shot full auto.
Still its just an idea, because I kinda dont like how endgame heavily relies on alien weapons, as if its pinacle of tech, which is not, a good example is Ufo ET, they got Ion tech, AKEW tech and EEEW tech (some weird mix of laser and plasma), Particle tech, all that just trumps plasma.

Offline TheCurse

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2020, 06:28:10 am »
thought i read somewhere that DoT stuff is possible with smoke. Fire also gotta work somehow...

The deployable concept totally makes sense for HMG and miniguns. Not just gameplay wise, but balance.
Currently they´re somewhere between close to unusable and totally OP and the margin to each is very very small... Having them deployable would be a great mechanism to fix that.

As for gyrojet... Not really sure what to make of it. The only thing that stands out about that weapon type is that it actually has increased dmg on longer ranges, since it works like a mini missile, which gives for some weird mechanics.
E.g. imagine a sniper rifle that hits with 50 dmg on 50 tiles, but just with 10 on range 10... XD
Not sure if thats possible though. Other question of course, who´d want that...

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2020, 05:19:24 pm »
I dont know why you say "if only it was possible" when its already in game. Check fire extinguisher, the smoke that it leaves deals DoT stun damage. I noticed that when I was extinguishing my agents from fires, the longer I left them in that smoke, the more stun damage they accumulated. I am sure you can find that chunk of code and play with its values to get needed results.

Yes, smoke exists and is persistent... But smoke is smoke, it only has one type (regardless of source) and many of its features are hardcoded.
Smoke creating weapons (like the fire extinguisher, or gas munitions in Piratez) have special properties, yes, but they only matter at the moment of explosion. Leftover smoke is just regular smoke.

Well you could rework some super heavy weapons, like HMG, BO minigun, Gauss cannon, make some turret variations of weapons that deploy a shield when crouched (not sure the said shield is possible).

What I meant to say is that:
1) X-Com is more special forcer than regular army, so use of such weapons is disputable;
2) Their implementation in 40k is ingenious, but still suffer from engine limitations;
3) I suck at scripting.

No, gyrojet is gyrojet, recoilles rifle is recoilless rifle, absolutely different.
Gyrojet slug does not have casing, it acts like a micro missle, meaning its launched not by powder combustion in casing, but by burning solid fuel inside itself and accelerating all the way to target untill it hits or runs out of fuel. (still maintains a lot of kinetic power after fuel is spent)
You can look up on youtube for gyrojet pistol shooting live video.

I'm not really into weapons. What exactly would it bring to the mod? Could you describe some in-game features they would have?

this is actually what I thought the heavy tu cost of miniguns was trying to simulate (at least in Fmp, I assume they're the same in xcf). there's no way a regular human can shoot one without a tripod of some sort, so you would have to pick up a tripod and redeploy it everytime you moved if you wanted to have any hope of aiming the thing.
so the deploy-able weapon thing makes total sense to me for miniguns and hmgs.

Miniguns and similar weapons have been radically redesigned so many times that it's hard to say... XD
Frankly, in this form they're more sci-fi than real weapons, so I'm not super concerned with how they work, as long as they follow some basic logic. Would you described would be more applicable to the HMG, though.

Well, it can be a endgame human tech with different ammo types, like frag slugs (3x3 blast area with moderate explosion damage 30-60) kinetic (solid AP slug), acid tip (self explanatory), incendiary and what ever you can come up with, like a super versatile endgame gun, but still weaker than plasma for obvious reasons. Can be shot full auto.
Still its just an idea, because I kinda dont like how endgame heavily relies on alien weapons, as if its pinacle of tech, which is not, a good example is Ufo ET, they got Ion tech, AKEW tech and EEEW tech (some weird mix of laser and plasma), Particle tech, all that just trumps plasma.

Sure we could, but these needs are already mostly covered by M.A.G.M.A. guns.

And while certain recombination is possible, Cydonian designs are literally millions of years old. It's hard to come up with something better in a few years.

E.g. imagine a sniper rifle that hits with 50 dmg on 50 tiles, but just with 10 on range 10... XD
Not sure if thats possible though. Other question of course, who´d want that...

Yes, it's possible... XD

Offline Alazar

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2020, 02:25:30 pm »
Yes, smoke exists and is persistent... But smoke is smoke, it only has one type (regardless of source) and many of its features are hardcoded.
Smoke creating weapons (like the fire extinguisher, or gas munitions in Piratez) have special properties, yes, but they only matter at the moment of explosion. Leftover smoke is just regular smoke.

Well that sucks...

What I meant to say is that:
1) X-Com is more special forcer than regular army, so use of such weapons is disputable;
Excuse me? When the invasion starts they literally become the front line, regular army of whole Earth, they have Air Forces, Ground forces, Heavy armor, Drones, Fleet (abridged version) and Orbital defense. If this is not a definition of regular army then I dont know what is. There is no dispute in use of such weapons when the invasion starts, especially in defense missions.

3) I suck at scripting.
This sucks though.

I'm not really into weapons. What exactly would it bring to the mod? Could you describe some in-game features they would have?
Well you could refine all the MAGMA trash in something more usable, plus slap the "the further the target, the harder it gets krumped" trait.

Miniguns and similar weapons have been radically redesigned so many times that it's hard to say... XD
Frankly, in this form they're more sci-fi than real weapons, so I'm not super concerned with how they work, as long as they follow some basic logic. Would you described would be more applicable to the HMG, though.

Is that your way of saying: "I dont wanna do it!"?  :)

Sure we could, but these needs are already mostly covered by M.A.G.M.A. guns.

Large weight, takes a lot of space in inventory, tiny clip size, inaccurate. Totally covered. Also pulse guns are too late in game to compete with anything. The only gun from MAGMA I really love is Thrasher with alloy ammo, that thing just rips everything.

And while certain recombination is possible, Cydonian designs are literally millions of years old. It's hard to come up with something better in a few years.

Guess aliens suck at tech as much as earthlings do.  ;D

Anything else you have in mind?
How about more sensor grenades, maybe slap a IFF on top of that? Cause the only "mines" we have are basic grenades.
Also why not make a Incinerator grenade? Like we have an alien flamethrower, we can make a very strong incendiary grenade base on tech we get from this flamethrower\Incinerator.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2020, 02:32:49 pm by Alazar »

Offline TheCurse

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2020, 04:36:40 pm »
1) X-Com is more special forcer than regular army, so use of such weapons is disputable;
Exoskeletons, miniguns, HMGs, rocket launchers, mortars, tanks... basically everything short of nuclear missiles or carpet bombing (which would be a cool way to resolve missions...)
I agree though, latest with Promotion III, its an all out battle vs the aliens. It may not be "official", but there´s no holding back either way.

Imagine someone between plasma tanks, auto mortars, multi barrel rocket launchers, scatter laser wielding exoskeleton armored soldiers, trying to deploy an HMG, and everyone is like "hey! this is special forces. we don't do that here... no heavy weapons dude!"  ;D

Offline Alazar

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2020, 05:07:21 pm »
Imagine someone between plasma tanks,auto mortars, multi barrel rocket launchers, scatter laser wielding exoskeleton armored soldiers, trying to deploy an HMG, and everyone is like "hey! this is special forces. we don't do that here... no heavy weapons dude!"  ;D
At this point of time its gonna be Heavy Machine Gauss, rather than Gun.
Also what stops you from strapping a 40mm autogun on Juggernaut exo? Abandon reason, know only war!

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2020, 05:37:47 pm »
Excuse me? When the invasion starts they literally become the front line, regular army of whole Earth, they have Air Forces, Ground forces, Heavy armor, Drones, Fleet (abridged version) and Orbital defense. If this is not a definition of regular army then I dont know what is. There is no dispute in use of such weapons when the invasion starts, especially in defense missions.

First of all, you are grossly overestimating X-Com's firepower. 5 planes don't make air forces. 100 men don't make a ground army.
Officially, X-Com is something like glorified FBI, with access to military equipment. This does not make them an army; if nothing else, they're about 1000 times too small. And the Council would never, ever agree to give them more military rights, even the factions which support X-Com.
In practice, X-Com is a special forces unit at best, with some auxiliary stuff like fighter planes.

Still, this is not really on topic. Your question was about adding some heavy guns to the game. And to this I would say, yes, possible, if they're not too broken. :)

Well you could refine all the MAGMA trash in something more usable, plus slap the "the further the target, the harder it gets krumped" trait.

I don't really know what to say to an argument that M.A.G.M.A. weapons are trash when in my opinion they're uniformly best out of almost all firearms in the mod (with some exceptions like the Arasaka 3000).
But having said that, I have just overhauled M.A.G.M.A. pulse weapons this week. Further changes are possible, I am considering some reshuffling of their guns availability (pulse weapons earlier, something like the Auto-Cannon later, etc.).
 
Is that your way of saying: "I dont wanna do it!"?  :)

Maybe a litte, yes :) But primarily, I don't think they're done badly as they are. The mod has seen several incarnations of these weapons already and since I settled on this one, then I consider it best.
It's very hard to do miniguns justice while not making them too broken.
 
Large weight, takes a lot of space in inventory, tiny clip size, inaccurate. Totally covered. Also pulse guns are too late in game to compete with anything. The only gun from MAGMA I really love is Thrasher with alloy ammo, that thing just rips everything.

Agreed, see my comment above on the pulse weapons. Also I added new clips for them, which should make them more attractive.

Guess aliens suck at tech as much as earthlings do.  ;D

Sort of; if anything, they lack good soldiers, due to how their society works (maximum stunting of personal development and accruing experience). Therefore their idea is to think of their troops as biological robots with as good raw physical stats as possible and armed with weapons optimized for idiots. (There are exceptions and other variables of course, I'm generalizing here.) So a standard issue alien weapon is supposed to be easy to operate and allow obliteration of enemy with sheer brute force.

How about more sensor grenades, maybe slap a IFF on top of that? Cause the only "mines" we have are basic grenades.

I can add E-115 proximity grenades, no problem. It's just that very few people use this kind of stuff, so I kinda never remember.

Also why not make a Incinerator grenade? Like we have an alien flamethrower, we can make a very strong incendiary grenade base on tech we get from this flamethrower\Incinerator.

We could. I'll add it to the to-do list, too. :)

Also what stops you from strapping a 40mm autogun on Juggernaut exo? Abandon reason, know only war!

My day job... :D

I can think of something.

Offline Thermite

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2020, 06:31:01 am »
First of all, you are grossly overestimating X-Com's firepower. 5 planes don't make air forces. 100 men don't make a ground army.
Officially, X-Com is something like glorified FBI, with access to military equipment. This does not make them an army; if nothing else, they're about 1000 times too small. And the Council would never, ever agree to give them more military rights, even the factions which support X-Com.
In practice, X-Com is a special forces unit at best, with some auxiliary stuff like fighter planes.

Still, this is not really on topic. Your question was about adding some heavy guns to the game. And to this I would say, yes, possible, if they're not too broken. :)

I don't really know what to say to an argument that M.A.G.M.A. weapons are trash when in my opinion they're uniformly best out of almost all firearms in the mod (with some exceptions like the Arasaka 3000).
But having said that, I have just overhauled M.A.G.M.A. pulse weapons this week. Further changes are possible, I am considering some reshuffling of their guns availability (pulse weapons earlier, something like the Auto-Cannon later, etc.).
 
Maybe a litte, yes :) But primarily, I don't think they're done badly as they are. The mod has seen several incarnations of these weapons already and since I settled on this one, then I consider it best.
It's very hard to do miniguns justice while not making them too broken.
 
Agreed, see my comment above on the pulse weapons. Also I added new clips for them, which should make them more attractive.

Sort of; if anything, they lack good soldiers, due to how their society works (maximum stunting of personal development and accruing experience). Therefore their idea is to think of their troops as biological robots with as good raw physical stats as possible and armed with weapons optimized for idiots. (There are exceptions and other variables of course, I'm generalizing here.) So a standard issue alien weapon is supposed to be easy to operate and allow obliteration of enemy with sheer brute force.

I can add E-115 proximity grenades, no problem. It's just that very few people use this kind of stuff, so I kinda never remember.

We could. I'll add it to the to-do list, too. :)

My day job... :D

I can think of something.

Just throwing something out there, but it would be nice if there were new gun designs based on previous ones that are lighter and less time units intensive, but require alien alloys to make, like a alien alloy light minigun or alien alloy MAGMA weapons.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #12 on: March 28, 2020, 11:34:24 am »
New designs are always possible, if time consuming. I'm not opposed to them.

Offline TheCurse

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #13 on: March 28, 2020, 04:03:55 pm »
Well one possibility would be to have heavy weapons (HMG, minigun etc) on heavy suits only... Probably not built in though.
Of course the super heavy suits (juggernaut/cyber) could have a load of built in stuff.
Or Mortar/Artillery suit... has to deploy itself before firing, is immobile then ^^

Offline Thermite

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Re: Chemical Warfare and deployables.
« Reply #14 on: March 28, 2020, 11:40:37 pm »
New designs are always possible, if time consuming. I'm not opposed to them.
:3
Was just throwing some ideas around, if you like them just go with them.