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Author Topic: [TFTD][game progression] TFTD: Evolution 1.14  (Read 91245 times)

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution
« Reply #30 on: October 20, 2022, 10:43:04 pm »
Graphical representation of the above.

Gas is extremely cheap but dangerous to use beyond small USOs.
AJAX is safe but more expensive.
DUP is the safest conventional armament (can sink Dreadnaught although with high casualties) but insanely expensive.
Gauss is better than Gas in all regards but is still not safer than DUP.
Sonic is better than all conventional weapons and moderately expensive.
PWT is the safest of them all and the most expensive of them all.

For single manta the choice is simply Sonic as single craft PWT payload is insufficient to sink large USOs at all.

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution
« Reply #31 on: October 23, 2022, 02:28:29 am »
Also reworked hand weapons and tanks with the below in mind.

  • Sonic hand weapons were not designed for human anatomy. They are cumbersome (slower) and unintuitive (worse aim) resulting in less frequent hits in general. This is especially pronounced when Gauss weapon auto shot capability is taken into account.
  • Sonic weapons are more powerful, though. This starts playing a role against tougher enemies. Sonic Pistol matches Gauss one at Aquatoid. Sonic Rifle matches Gauss one at Gillman. Sonic Cannon matches Gauss one at Lobsterman.
  • Although Gauss hand weapons auto shot ability makes them hit even more frequent its notorious accuracy makes it useful in very close range combat only. At the time Sonic weapons are discovered, aquanauts are usually switch to melee for that purpose.
  • Sonic hand weapons are slightly lighter their Gauss analogues. That adds to their benefits past mid game when combatants tend to carry a lot of miscellaneous stuff.
  • Within each family each more powerful weapon is slower but still more damage rate effective.

Offline psavola

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution
« Reply #32 on: October 23, 2022, 04:13:48 pm »
Sounds a very interesting mod to get make TFTD more iinteresting and versatile. I'll definitely give it a try once I finish my current other campaign.

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution
« Reply #33 on: October 24, 2022, 03:33:08 am »
Sounds a very interesting mod to get make TFTD more iinteresting and versatile. I'll definitely give it a try once I finish my current other campaign.

Thank you for feedback. I would recommend to wait a little. Right now I am testing the changes above to make sure everything is sound. Please be on a lookout for official next release.

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution
« Reply #34 on: October 25, 2022, 05:20:07 pm »
Continuing improvements/modification for next release. This time one more round for hand weapons.

First and foremost. There are multiple ridiculous damage modifiers like "1.1" and "0.9". The biggest problem with them is that they are NOT VISIBLE to user during the game. The only way people can find out their exact values is by disassembling source or looking them up on the wiki (after someone disassembled it). Moreover, slight variation from 1.0 are not perceivable in the game at all due to heavy randomization. That should not be like that. Rules should be transparent to player.
Therefore, I am modifying them in this way.
  • Removing most of the slight variation for all attack types those make no special sense. All "0.8", "0.9", "1.1", "1.2" becomes just "1.0".
  • All creature gauss and sonic damage modifier are set to 1.0. These are basic damage types and all others should be benchmarked against them, not the other way around.
  • Specially immunities and vulnerabilities are represented as 0.0, 0.5, 1.5, 2.0 values to make player life simple. This also should be explicitly reflected in creature/tank/armor description so player gets the clear understanding on that. Examples are: all alien soldiers and some terrorists are double vulnerable to fire, Tentaculat is 50% more vulnerable to HE, Lobsterman carapace halves AP/HE damage but is double vulnerable to drill, tank halves damage from fire/HE/gauss and completely immune to stun and smoke (obviously), etc.

Besides, reducing damage is essentially same as increasing armor value. So there is no much point in fiddling these damage modifier. Better do the same with armor value as it is clearly visible to user.

I subsequently adjusted some creature armors based on above damage modifiers changes. Specifically for top level Lobstermen. Some of them had 0.8 and 0.6 modifiers against both gauss/sonic damage. As I set them all to 1.0 their armor value should be increased to account for that and keep them about same tough.

Now when armors and damage modifiers are all aligned let's get back to hand weapons. I reduced their power. This is not specifically to make game more challenging but to match their power to creature armors more closely so that each weapon has its usage niche.
More powerful weapons are slower resulting in smaller rate of fire. They are also much more heavier to the level that weaklings cannot even carry heavy stuff anymore. However, they are much more damage effective against tougher opponents. That is why weaker weapon versions are still usable at early stages and may not necessarily need to be replaced outright with stronger versions. Pistols are very light and can be used as a sidearm on a belt for combatants carrying unconventional weapons (launchers, etc.). Pistols are also extremely fast: gauss pistol can do 4 automatic (4 * 3 = 12 bullets) and 5 snap shots a turn; sonic can do 3 snaps.
All gauss weapons can shoot automatic making them great choice in closed space combat. Later on this ability will be replaced by melee weapons.

See sample damage rate chart attached. It is drawn for average damage rate using snap and aimed shots only. Obviously, auto shots adds to gauss damage rate tremendously. Keep in mind, though, that it is good for very close combat only and for lower power weapons (pistol, rifle) it is still quite ineffective against tougher opponents beyond weapon power level.

Pistols are pretty much the weapon of choice against Aquatoids, less against Gillmen. Sonic version lasts a little longer against Gillmen.
Rifles are good up to Tasoths with sonic series being better, of course. Although, due to high Tasoths damage capacity, heavy firearms kill them noticeably faster.
Heavy weapons are good against toughest Lobstermen (sonic is better). Although, at this point it is faster to kill them with drills.

« Last Edit: October 25, 2022, 05:49:27 pm by Alpha Centauri Bear »

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #35 on: October 30, 2022, 05:31:15 am »
v1.12 released. Played it a little and found it quite playable and moderately challenging. It requires constant attention to details for the first 12 months at least.

Also few graphs attached for reference.
One is for hand weapons relative progression and damage rate against opponents.

Another one is comparison of melee with close range shot (which is assumed to hit 100%).
Vibroblade is about as effective as Gauss Rifle with heavier melee version going beyond any hand weapon.

Offline psavola

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #36 on: November 01, 2022, 05:10:51 pm »
The latest 1.12 fails to load on OXCE 7.8.1 with error message "[ERROR] During linking rulesets of armors: Error for 'COELACANTH_ARMOR': The first battle corpse item must be of item type 'corpse' (battleType: 11)".

In COELACANTH_ARMOR, there are corpse definions (COELACANTH_CORPSE_1..4) , but those have not been defined (commented out in items.rul), thus trying to pull in from vanilla, I suppose. I guess there might be a few more missing definions in the rulesets.

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #37 on: November 01, 2022, 05:43:35 pm »
Uh-oh. I need to update OXCE and retry. Good catch.

Hmm. I cannot find 7.8.1 anywhere. The latest one is this.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,6586.msg150186.html#msg150186

And this.
https://openxcom.org/oxce/release/
« Last Edit: November 01, 2022, 05:54:43 pm by Alpha Centauri Bear »

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #38 on: November 01, 2022, 06:47:46 pm »
Either way, 7.8.0 gives the same error. So I fixed it and reuploaded the zip. Please verify.

Offline yergnoor

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #39 on: November 01, 2022, 08:05:11 pm »
Hmm. I cannot find 7.8.1 anywhere. The latest one is this.
Some people use test builds, which can be found at the link - https://lxnt.wtf/oxem/#/Extended
It's just for future reference. And occasionally in such builds, mods may indeed work differently than in the main release. Just because the rules for creating mods sometimes change - become stricter.

Offline psavola

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #40 on: November 01, 2022, 08:19:34 pm »
Thanks. Loads properly, will playtest later. NB. There is a warning message, which didn't stop the game but may or may not become an issue later. It would be cool to address this in some update as well to get rid of the message: "Supressed Error for 'STR_LOBSTERMAN_GUARD': This unit can be recovered (in theory), but there is no corresponding item to recover."

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #41 on: November 01, 2022, 08:47:34 pm »
Fixed it as well. Thanks for being thorough! I appreciate this.

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #42 on: November 01, 2022, 08:58:48 pm »
I'd like to share a personal first try feedback on this version as well.
The game became a little bit more challenging. Not because it is tough and one needs to save/reload all the time but because advancement in the game requires well thought actions and not just "build more bases and hire more crafts and people".

One need more interceptors to fight increased number of USOs but increased number of shot down USOs is needed to pay for interceptor rent. So buying excessive number of interceptors may be economical mistake.

Base defenses are easier to build and now you can fully protect them in 10 days but maintenance is excessive. Complete torpedo defenses maintenance costs about as much as two barracudas. Same economical consideration: protect them and spend money or hope they won't be discovered.

Gauss hand weapons are pretty solid up to Lobsterman. However, more powerful version are heavier (who would think?). So there is a trade-off: carry more powerful weapon or more trinkets, etc.

Offline psavola

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #43 on: November 02, 2022, 03:57:15 pm »
With OXCE, the game crashed in the first terror mission when middle-button clicking a deep one. Error message: "OpenXcom has crashed: Image missing in 'BIGOBS.PCK' for item 'DEEP_ONE_WEAPON'". There is also a more detailed crash trace in the log, but I suppose that message is enough to fix it.

By turning off lazy loading (advanced options), there seemed be a few more issues which would also result in a crash in some circumstances:

Error for 'DEEP_ONE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2069 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'PLASMICIDE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2069 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'SQUIDFACE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2068 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_BIODRONE_MELEE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2070 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_HALLUCINOID_STUN_WEAPON': Wrong index 2069 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_LOBSTERMAN_MELEE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2067 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_TRISCENE_MELEE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2066 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'STR_XARQUID_DYE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2069 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'TENTACULAT_WEAPON': Wrong index 2068 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK
Error for 'ZOMBIE_WEAPON': Wrong index 2071 for surface set BIGOBS.PCK

The log also includes some different warnings wrt TRITON, which might be useful.

[02-11-2022_15-40-28]   [INFO]  Bad node in RMP file: ROUTES/TRITON.RMP Node #2 is outside map boundaries at X:10 Y:9 Z:1. Culling Node.
[02-11-2022_15-40-28]   [INFO]  RMP file: ROUTES/TRITON.RMP Node #1 is linked to Node #2, which was culled. Terminating Link.
[02-11-2022_15-40-28]   [INFO]  RMP file: ROUTES/TRITON.RMP Node #1 is linked to Node #2, which was culled. Terminating Link.
[02-11-2022_15-40-28]   [INFO]  RMP file: ROUTES/TRITON.RMP Node #0 is linked to Node #2, which was culled. Terminating Link.

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [TFTD][Weapons and armaments] TFTD Rework: Evolution v1.12
« Reply #44 on: November 02, 2022, 04:38:56 pm »
Thank you for bug report. I think I should reinstall fresh OXCE version and reconfigure all my rule sets to make sure they are absolutely minimal and don't bring any unwanted config.

I assume you were testing on latest published version?