Catwalk

Forgot a really big coding request: Fixing fire damage and XP. You currently can't get any XP from using fire weapons, and you can do damage to any alien standing in fire simply by shooting a fire weapon anywhere. If both of these could be fixed, it'd be awesome. Also on my wishlist is revising the XP system, which is probably out of reach. It'd be really nice if an alien with x HP gives y XP and that doing z points of damage to it by whatever means gives the soldier x*y/z XP towards the relevant skill. That way you can't hit it 10x with a Dart Gun before finishing it off for tons of XP, or tossing 5-6 low damage grenades around it.

If this is easy to code I'd love to have it. I'm pondering your grenade changes, I might go with those instead of the rules I'm using. If it's possible to change how many civilians will appear (say, a fixed 10 per terror mission) we'll be able to keep a check on this. I'll definitely want some of those, would be very interesting. Would it be possible to keep the number of missions fairly low as the game progresses but have them increase in difficulty (sub size and mission objective) instead? I don't want to require the player to do a whole bunch of missions because his score will plummet otherwise, so if we make scoring factors more severe I think we'll need to limit # of missions mid game on. Yeah, I meant they were unrelated to whether or not you shoot down the subs. I really want a way to prevent infiltration. Speaking of which, should sonar listening radius be increased? It feels kind of unfair when stuff is happening on the other side of the globe, and I hate relying on graphs to try to luck into enemy subs. While this may seem to cut off a player's choices, I think it actually allows for more diversity. With this restriction in place, it's possible to make weapons feel and function much more distinctively from each other. As an example, Snap for Dart Gun can be set as low as 15%, making it an excellent scout weapon. You can spend a large amount of TU walking and still fire, or you can use it for a bunch of reaction shots (which will still be unrestricted, of course). And I plan on making the Hydro Jet Cannon semi-automatic in the sense that it'll have a 5% TU cost for Snap shots at low accuracy (with 16 shots per clip), with no restriction on shots per round. If not for this rule, there's not that much difference between a TU improvement and an accuracy improvement, both simply give you more net damage. With this restriction in place (and aimed shots being nerfed big time), you'll really have to adjust your playing style according to what weapons your nearby soldiers are equipped with. I hope you'll come around on this one, it's a lot of fun to play with. It also makes sense to carry two pistols now

I'm on vacation and forgot all about this subforum In the following, HR means House Rule and M means some kind of modification to game files. Elaboration on what I'd like to do: Combat HR - Only one shot per round per weapon (except for reaction fire, of course). This gives more possibilities to distinguish between weapons, 20% TU vs 40% TU no longer means you get twice as many shots. This applies to drills and stun rods as well. HR - Only Aimed will be allowed on aliens you can't see. This changes tactics and weapon selection in a major way, and allows for further distinction of weapons. You'll need a good mix of long-range, skirmish, explosive and melee weapons to suit the situations you encounter. If you equip your troops mainly with good long range weapons (rifles) then you risk being unable to progress fast enough. HR - Time limitation on sub missions. After x turns (determined by sub size and whether or not the sub was shot down or landed on its own), the enemy sub "takes off". You may keep fighting, but you may not enter or leave the sub. If you clear the sub, you may "land" it and leave it to fight any aliens which are still outside. HR - Messing with grenades. Only odd timers may be used, and grenades must be dropped when the timer expires. This makes grenades difficult to use and rather imprecise, but still potentially useful when you don't have a clear shot. Furthermore, primed grenades may not be relayed. Heavy explosives modded to do a lot more damage, but they may not be thrown. M - Auto-fire for Gauss only. This gives them a unique role mid-game, as they'll be the best weapon in many situations against all but Lobstermen. M - Lower ammo for all weapons, especially the strongest ones. Gauss (8-6-4), (5-4-3). While you can probably still procure enough ammo for your soldiers, they'll be spending a lot more time reloading. I also plan on making reloading a little slower, by requiring the soldier to physically move the clip into his other hand first. If he's carrying something in that hand, he'll be even slower. M - Better damage for starting weapons. They're simply not packing enough punch (with the exception of Gas Cannon and maybe Torpedo Launcher) to be remotely useful against anything but Aquatoids. M - Drill tweaks. Small drills will cost 10% TU, medium will cost 25% and heavy will cost 50%. Damage will follow a 1:2:3 ratio, making small drills more time efficient but heavy drills more potent since they can only be used once a round. You may even want to equip soldiers with two drills for flexibility and power in close quarters. M - Accuracy changes. Snap made far more accurate for most weapons, and Aimed made far less accurate. Pistols will have better Snap accuracy than Rifles, making them useful at skirmish range and for reaction fire. Aimed shots will remain useful as a means of firing at the enemy safely, but it will be grossly time and ammo inefficient. I'm fine with this if it's possible, I won't be able to do it myself. I'm planning on letting the dart gun shoot phosphor rounds so it can double as a flare gun. Shock Launcher will be nerfed in accuracy and TU. Yes, alien reactions will be lowered by around 50% across the board. If this is too low, I'll raise it back up a bit. I want reactions tactics to be highly useful since it's also highly risky. I have a bunch of ideas for this, especially for personnel management. Sales value of alien artifacts will definitely be lowered, it's far too easy to base your economy around loot as is. If the casualty rate on missions is upped a bit and the value of loot is lowered, that will be far more difficult to do. I think the house rule about aimed shots will work adequately, but I see your point. Hey kyrub I promise to get more active again before too long, having a hiatus at the moment. I'm very interested (as always) in coding assistance. AI improvements in particular would be great. Would it be possible to change the civilian scores so the first costs you 10, the next costs you 20 and so on? That way you're encouraged to save the last few still alive, even if you lose a bunch to begin with. In general, it's way too easy to keep your score very high. It would also be nice to fix the bug where infiltration happens at random, regardless of alien missions.

I agree that the damage should be lowered a bit, so you stand a fighting chance against it rather than it being insta-death. By aggressive scouting, I mean giving more incentives to finding the aliens rapidly rather than playing it safe. If the battlescape is dark, you'll need to scout even more aggressively and light the place up well. I agree that it should always be worth the risk to investigate subs. If that isn't the case, victory points and cash values can be messed about with. I agree that scout'n'snipe is probably the biggest exploit, and I think my proposed rules deal with it quite well. Sniping is still an option, but often not a good one. As for reaction traps, I think it's way too risky unless you're using soldiers with 50+ reactions for it. And those are the soldiers you probably don't want to lose, unless they're rookies who happen to have high reactions. I'd much rather charge the sub competently so the aliens don't get the chance to shoot at me. I recall once I set up a reaction trap outside a room with 4 soldiers. A single aquatoid went outside, dropped a sonic pulser and got shot. And I lost 4 men. I was sad.

I actually think the potential for being mutilated with grenades and DPL add a lot to the game, even without reloading. An average casualty rate of 3-6 per mission encourages diversity in squad composition, forcing you to think carefully about which men to risk for what mission. You'll always want a handful of crack troopers and then a bunch of riff raff, that way your initial casualties won't be too expensive. And with the rules in my mod, losing too much cannon fodder gets expensive after a while so you won't get too lax about that either. Facing explosive weapons have interesting implications for your tactics. They encourage you to do aggressive scouting and to spread out your men more. This is balanced by the rule requiring (weakened) aimed shots to be used if you want to fire at aliens you can't see, making it difficult to focus enough firepower in a certain area without clustering your men a bit. Makes good formation really important. I agree that specifically setting up scenarios for training reactions is profitable. That's what I want to avoid, though. I think the player should be encouraged to make use of reactions in a natural setting simply to win the battle. Right now there's very little incentive to relying in any way on reactions, you lose out on it most of the time. It only really works with high reaction soldiers, and those are likely to be the ones you don't want to risk anyway.

Well, there's a lot of balancing and menial labour to be done still And I could really use the help, so let me know if you change your mind. In Master of Orion, I like trying out a different variant each game. TFTD somehow feels different to me, I prefer just fine tuning the game balance and then play with that. One of the things I don't like about TFTD is that the only real way to get Reactions is to set up training situations. It is highly unprofitable to gain Reactions through actual use of reactions in a real situation. I'm mainly interested in closing a whole bunch of exploits and removing certain disheartening elements of the game (such as the near impossibility of defending against DPL, Tentaculats being a bit too mean and reaction fire being just overall unfair and generally useless to the human player). Actually winning TFTD is such a big chore (and should be a bit harder with this mod), that I think this mod will keep me entertained for a long time to come if I manage to finish it.

I agree reducing reactions helps the player, but keep in mind that scout'n'snipe tactics are extremely limited in usefulness with the mod. You need to either have immense firepower at your disposal (also takes a few more hits on average to down an alien) with great accuracy (most weapons are crap for aimed shots, and those which are good tend to have other limitations such as high TU usage or really low ammo), or take your chance on snap shots within vision range. So while it's easier to do reaction shots, you also need to do them a lot more often. And even at halved reactions, you're taking a risk that you wouldn't otherwise need to do if you fire from the safety of long distance. The suggestion you're making is already part of it, in that you may only use snap shots on aliens you can see. And snap shots are vastly better than aimed shots. I do think aimed shots should remain an option that's useful at times. With less ammo and time restrictions, it may well end up costing you a lot more to waste a bunch of safe shots on aliens, but that's a tradeoff for the player to make and sometimes it can pay off. My time is pretty limited, and I'm scattered across a bunch of different games (Master of Magic, Master of Orion, Civilization II, Starcraft, Desktop Dungeons as well as TFTD), so I'll probably be slow and disorganized as always. If you're interested in helping me complete this mod, I'd be most grateful for assistance.

I'm updating this mod. It will still follow the principles mentioned and it roughly follows the outline, but many details will be tweaked.

Here are two threads with a rebalancing project I was working on a while ago: http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/Weapons-mod-t7505.html http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/Challenge-t7498.html I'm still thinking about completing it. If you agree with the general intentions of the project (changed a bit since then, but still mostly accurate), would you be interested in partnering up?

Other than using the alternate research with XcomUtil (which seems to be a little bugged on occasion, but nothing serious), I suggest using house rules to limit your research. Sit down with pen and paper, and make a small list of which alien corpses or prisoners you need for certain techs. Maybe multiples for certain techs.

I started this a while ago, and it's time to finish it! I hope to achieve the following: 1) More diversity in weapon selection 2) Easier early game 3) Harder mid and end game 4) Nerfing the following tactics: Cannon fodder rookies, scout'n'snipe, grenade uberness 5) Easier for the player to use reactions 6) More variety in economic decisions I'll be doing this mainly through a whole bunch of number tweaks, and to a lesser extent with house rules where a technical solution is not feasible.

I burned out a bit trying to make interesting videos of a TFTD campaign, it jinxed my game quite a bit that I had to keep up the pace at all times or edit out a lot of boring decision making time. In the end, I just didn't have much fun with it. If I were to do another run, I might go forum style instead with screenshots and written commentary. Entertaining video commentary and fast paced gameplay is quite an art, one that most aren't blessed with

You're welcome I'll get back to killing aliens eventually, but those videos actually removed the fun for me. It was so much work making them, and quite difficult to play fast enough for it to be worth watching. In the meantime I've been amusing myself with Master of Magic, a much less stressful game which is also in need of some tender love and modding Come check us out on the forums at dragonsword.com

Master of Magic has also been disassembled, leading to very extensive bug fixes and AI improvements. Come check it out on the forums at dragonsword.com, that's where I've been spending my time after I grew a bit bored with aliens for a while

I prefer TFTD over EU for a number of reasons: 1) More challenging alien base design (and really cool artifact sites) 2) The weapon stats appeal to me more (didn't like unlimited laser ammo and Plasma weapons being overpowered) 3) Cooler alien graphics (matter of taste, of course) 4) Being able to open doors without entering them 5) All-round higher difficulty Hi Civilian

Ah, a kindred spirit I love mixing up stuff. Check out my thread here for related ideas. Definitely, those are the big game breakers. 2. No throwing underwater (key one) I don't like this one, as it's completely removing a concept from the game rather then rebalancing it. I recommend looking into my rule of only using odd timers. Makes grenades way weaker. Can also disallow priming ahead of time, if a timer runs up you must drop the grenade on the ground. 4. DPL w one waypoint only Agree with this one, I went as far as disabling waypoints entirely and just making it a super torpedo launcher (for the aliens too, I hate being nuked at random out of nowhere). 5. No M.C. attacks, M.C. Labs ok, Panic attacks aren't imbalanced, might want to allow those. If you feel they're still too strong, only allow them on aliens in sight. 6. No Sonic Reasearch until all Gauss related thing are discovered. I always do this anyway, I like Gauss 7. No grenade/medkit relay. Agreed 8. I am thinking about not using multiple nades thrown at one target, to add some realism With the above grenade rule, this one wouldn't be needed. 9. Maybe some reasearch slowing, f.e. allowing only 50 scientists per base. How about doubling the cost and upkeep of scientists instead? Your way, you just go up to 50 right away and then don't think about it anymore. You can double without any modding, just use a self imposed rule that you may only use half your scientists.

Sorry, those are simply self imposed rules. I refrain from using timer 0 on grenades. That makes them pretty tricky to use and a bit more random, but still useful as aimed shots are nerfed heavily. As for research requirements, I actually forgot about those Those are also self imposed rules. This is an old post, I've revised my mod several times since then and I still change stuff from time to time.

As the topic says, this is yet another brainstorming thread The main argument against TB in the other thread was that it's more time consuming. This is a good argument, since it is. However, I do believe that this downfall can be alleviated through good design and a thorough analysis of the contributing factors. This analysis will be based on the old X-Com games. 1) Planning a. Planning to take out known threats efficiently b. Deciding on scouting objectives c. Planning effective scouting d. Planning lighting 2) Execution a. Issuing movement orders b. Issuing combat orders (including lighting) c. Issuing equipment orders 3) Outcome a. Movement b. Fighting 4) Enemy turn a. Fighting b. Detection c. Movement Is this an exhaustive and useful breakdown of all the things that take time during combat?

RANGE There were some comments in the main brainstorming thread about range, I'd like to continue that discussion in this thread to keep it from drowning among the other topics discussed: --- I agree with Jman's sentiments and disagree somewhat with The Veteran's sentiments. I don't think you should be able to easily compensate for low weapon range through high accuracy. If that's the case, weapon choice becomes a lesser factor as you'll just start choosing low range weapons once your accuracy is good. Here's an initial attempt at a model which captures that effect. Accuracy = Skill ^ (1 / (1 + Distance / Range) / 100)) All constants as well as the formula itself subject to change, just want to demonstrate its outcome. A few examples: Distance 50, Range 1 Skill 20, 40, 80 Accuracy 7.4, 11.7, 18.6 Distance 50, Range 2 Skill 20, 40, 80 Accuracy 11, 19.13, 33.3 Distance 20, Range 1 Skill 20, 40, 80 Accuracy 12.1, 21.6, 38.5 Distance 20, Range 2 Skill 20, 40, 80 Accuracy 15.2, 28.6, 53.7 The formula operates on basis of Distance/Range, so Range 2 at a distance of 50 gives identical results to Range 1 at a distance of 25. This has the practical implication that doubling the Range factor effectively doubles the range of a weapon: It gives you the same accuracy at twice the distance. This makes for an intuitively easy system, even though the mechanics are a little murky. It is fairly easy to explain to players that you benefit less from skill when firing a weapon at a longer range than it's suitable for.

I think where we're miscommunicating is about the realism issue. I don't really consider realism arguments valid when discussing gameplay issues. Reality is great inspiration for gameplay design, but it should never take precedence over gameplay considerations. If an unrealistic game model allows for better gameplay, it should be chosen. Thorondor has some excellent points about how the game can benefit from realism in the main brainstorming thread, concerning how to set a properly spooky atmosphere. In matters of core game functions, I don't feel realism arguments have much relevance. As for your objection to my XP system, I think you misunderstand my system. Soldiers who kill aliens are rewarded, soldiers who cower in the skyranger get negligible gains. Do you understand my points about XP generation and the abuse that follows?

Very well spoken on the issue of game TB vs RT models, I agree with your concerns. Good points about the developer aspects. But I think his mind is set in this matter I think the psycology concept discussed elsewhere would be a good bid for that angle, if done well. You have some excellent points about alien behaviour, and that actually ties in well with the psycology concept in some aspects. WRONG!! Tentaculats have scared the crap out of me on plenty occasions But yeah, you're right for the most part. Your comments are mainly about graphics and atmosphere (which I don't consider unimportant in the least), I guess my interests are mainly about strictly gameplay related issues. I do agree that a spooky atmosphere would be a great asset, and the gameplay can also assist in creating that. The player should be feeling paranoid when playing. And I disagree with you slightly that the old X-Com games don't manage to achieve that, due to the difficulty level and the bond you feel with your strong soldiers you'll frequently feel very paranoid when on a tough mission during an Ironman campaign. Check out my thread on psi and morale, I think you might like some of the ideas there.

Excellent feedback, thanks. I'll try breaking down your post to highlight where your ideas differ: 1) Having morale balance at 50 rather than 100 If this is the same as current morale except letting it rise above 100, I agree. However, I disagree with allowing morale to stay high after combat for reasons mentioned below. 2) Doing away with the Aggression stat How will you determine if a soldier is inclined to react aggressively or fearfully to morale loss without an Aggression stat? And I feel a chance for adding flavour to soldiers will be lost without this way to diversify their behaviour. 3) Allowing psycological effects to carry over once battle ends I agree with to the extent that it means allowing negative psycological effects to carry over. If you allow positive effects to carry over, it becomes a pseudo-XP system where the player will seek to maximize troop morale before finishing missions. The player should not be encouraged to do stuff like that. I think allowing for semi-permanent psycological damage which cannot be remedied during combat is workable. Essentially, a soldier can also be inflicted psycological "wounds", the symptoms of which can be alleviated during combat but without being able to remove the wounds themselves. Let's call it trauma. They will only go away over time (or possibly through some active efforts at the geoscape level). On a side note, I like the idea of promotion being a player decision. The player should be able to promote any soldier he likes, whenever he likes (probably restricted by XP). Promotion should come at a price, and having several high ranking soldiers in combat at the same time should be ineffective. Maybe even have a complete squad system where loyalty becomes an individual quality, forming bonds between rookies and squad leaders. Just thinking out loud, I know this is definitely bordering on feature creep. 4) Involuntary movement during the turn rather than at the start of the turn Interesting idea (note that I'm only looking at the TB implications). Question is whether or not it'd frustrate the player too much to have actions interrupted all the time, leading to a lot more clicks. If not for that, I can see the idea working. Each time a soldier moves the game should be interrupted, and some mechanism should be in place to make sure the player doesn't accidentally click on without noticing the soldier has moved on its own. An implication of this is that if you don't move, you don't lose TU either. That actually works out okay, since this aspect will apply to soldier reactions as well. And having units move involuntarily through the turn would be better for paranoia than movement at the start of the turn. More frustrating for the player and harder to balance, but I think it could work out well. 5) Possibility of TU increase or failure to comply when ordered to shoot I like this one, and it could be tied in with the reaction system mentioned. Another possible reaction when ordering a soldier to shoot would be to simply run away. It might get a little complicated explaining the mechanics to players, as this will combine reactions with all the psycological factors to determine the outcome. For example, a soldier can be fast to react but hesitant to shoot because of morale. Or he can be slow to react, but not hesitate. It's kind of the same thing happening, at least the outcome is the same in this case. If we add the possibility of running away then it makes sense to have this combination with the reaction system, as a low morale soldier could react lightning fast when escaping. On a side note, I think it should be possible for paranoia/psycosis/whatever to raise a soldier's reaction level. If you're paranoid, you're also highly alert. 6) Soldiers reacting to noises I think this one sounds bothersome, and not interesting enough to implement from a gameplay perspective. Not least because you can't really follow these reactions visually, since the screen won't be centered on the soldier. Scrolling around to follow these reactions would be even worse. I think this will just be nuisance because of that. However, I do see a possible use for this in the reaction phase. Whenever a soldier hears something without being able to see it, it makes sense that he'd react to that and have the screen center on him. Depending on his psycological stats and orders, he may then react by investigating, taking cover or simply stand his ground. 7) Psycosis vs mental state vs aggression I misread your suggestion at first, yours is pretty similar to mine at second glance. We differ in that I use psycosis to determine ability to tell friend from foe, and you use it to determine whether a soldier will react to low morale with a panic or berserk reaction. Yours might actually make more sense than mine, I'll ponder it some more. 8) Allowing for limited enemy control rather than solely AI control (suggestion) I'm not too keen on allowing specific orders to be issued, even if they aren't a sure thing. I prefer the idea of messing with a unit's psycological stats and let those stats determine his actions. That also requires less effort from the player and goes a long way towards making sure psi doesn't go right back to being unbalanced. 9) Interrupt attack I'm not sure about exactly how this would work and how it ties in with the other concepts. Does this work if you're high morale, completely bypassing that? I'm leaning more towards tying psycological aspects and psi closely together, rather than allowing psi to bypass the psycological aspects entirely. 10) Pseudo-medical psi functions (or stimulant drugs) I like this one, and I see many interesting possibilities. Being subjected to psi excessively (by friend or foe) would possibly cause trauma (the concept mentioned previously). This way you can fix an immediate emergency when the shit hits fan, at the cost of possible long-term repercussions. 11) Additional mind probe functions I like more ways to get intel. I think getting direct visual intel would be overpowered, as that allows you to safely create a chain. How about allowing you to establish a one-turn visual link with the affected alien which shows you its vision during the enemy phase? Gives you valuable intel but no lasting alien positions to target. I'm not sure about spying on the AI of an alien, for practical reasons. How would it be displayed? How clear cut would an alien's current orders be? I doubt orders would generally extend past the turn they've been given, there should be a new assessment at the start of each round. 12) Psi channeling Not so keen on this one. Don't see it doing any harm, but I don't think it adds much and the system is already getting very complex.

Sounds like that's more of an issue of insufficient potty training for your aquanauts

Map size is indeed a very good example of a compatibility conflict between the game modes. One possible solution is to simply not employ maps which won't function well with TB. Alternatively, have the map size differ depending on game mode or even have separate maps. I think the main pitfall is trying to make the two game modes too similar, as they don't have similar needs. It's pretty much two games in one, and should be treated as such. I also agree that time usage is the main downfall of TB, even though it's the mode I prefer. I'll try analyzing the contributing factors and see if I can come up with ways to speed up TB gameplay.

Precisely, it's all about uncertainty and paranoia. With those two, I think psi will be quite well balanced even if the effects are lesser.