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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Some anti-frustration mod ideas


slickrcbd

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I'm thinking of making a couple mods to the game for some anti-frustration

factors with the disappointment in two items, but I'm unsure if it would make

things too overpowered or not.

 

With the data handed to me on Ufopedia on a silver platter, it would be easy

to make these changes.

 

One, the heavy laser. I'm aware of xcomutil's option, but I like UFOloader

better.

 

Instead, I was thinking of giving it autofire capability, but giving it the

TU of the auto-cannon and the accuracy of the laser pistol. Those are the worst

of the other weapons for TUs and accuracy, respectively.

 

Could that make the heavy laser a viable weapon?

 

 

Next, the flying suit. Nice as it is, for all but the elite soldiers power

armor is more economical. However, what if instead of a mere 10 point bonus

over the power armor, I make it equal to the sectopod (minus the damage

reduction)? Would that be too overpowred?

 

 

 

Moving on to the tanks. I dislike the fact that the "heavy

weapon platforms" have weapons that aren't as good as the infantry

weapons. I'd think a vehiacle mounted weapon could be better. I'm thinking of

increasing the damage to just about all of them to be at least equal to the

soldiers.

 

The tank/cannon can get a slight increase in damage to 66, although even

without moding it its still better than the heavy canon. I'm undecided on that,

but I just want to make it noticeably better than the man-portable weapon. I'm

also thinking of giving it an autofire mode with the same stats as the heavy

laser mod described above. This tank it the one I might leave alone however.

 

 

The rocket tank can get its rockets boosted from half way between the small

and large rockets to equal to the high explosive pack. Maybe a little better at

115? The HE-pack would still be functionally better since it hits under armor

instead of front/side/rear armor, but again, I like the idea of vehicle weapons

being heavier than man-portable weapons.

 

 

The laser tank I might give the same auto-fire mod as the cannon tank, again

horrible accuracy and high TU cost. It's already the top of the laser food

chain and probably doesn't need much modification if any.

 

 

The hovertank/plasma I'd boost to be 120 damage so it is 5 more than the

heavy plasma, instead of five less. Maybe I should make it 125, so it has a

greater chance of being able to breach a UFO wall. I'm undecided here. I'd

definitely give it auto-fire equal to the worst of the infantry plasma weapons

stats (36% TU, 50% accuracy).

 

Now, the last tank mods: the hovertank/launcher.

Generally considered too expensive to use, the first thing I'd do is boost

the power to at least rival the blaster bomb. Since I can produce blaster bombs, I see no reason why they'd put inferior warheads on a "heavy weapons" platform. Given just how powerful those blaster bombs are, I'm unsure if I should boost it higher or not. Although part of me wants to go rule

37 and max it out at 255 and oneshot the sectopods and punch holes in the hull

of a battleship.

 

It will still be expensive to use however, so given the expense I'm thinking

I might as well give it power to be worth it. I'm also thinking of also giving

it armor equal to a sectopod in the front, although it won't have the same

weaknesses and strenghts.

 

 

 

Finally, after the tank mods, I'm thinking of the fusion ball launcher craft gun.

 

First, I'm thinking of doubling the ammo capacity, if not making it six like the stingray missile. I'm unsure whether to go with four or six.

 

Afterwards, I'm trying to decide if I should let it outrange a battleship or

not, so the choice is to use cheap plasma beams that make you take damage, or

the expensive fusion balls that let you take down any ufo with impunity.

Although I haven't decided on changing that or not.

 

 

 

So, what do the other players think? Will these changes be too overpowered? I'm especially keen on the tank mods since the tanks seem underpowered for something called "Heavy Weapons Platforms". WIth a name like that, they should have more firepower than the infantry weapons.

 

I've found enough info to make them, I'm just asking for opinions before I do so and start playtesting.

I don't have the skill to make a patch file however, only instructions for using a hex editor to do it yourself.

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One of the unused items in the obdata.dat file has stats for what is basically a gatling laser. You might want to give that a try and copy of over the damage, firing rate and firing accuracy. It looks quite terrible just going by the numbers, but it's an amazingly fun weapon in practice. It knocks the laser pistol down from its perch as the game's machine gun.

 

No real opinion on most of the changes, but for the tanks, any change to the chassis, either tracked or hover, filters through to all tanks of that model.

 

- NKF

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I'm pretty sure I'm only patching the weapons except for the hover tank, which is unique to each tank.

Changing the armor on both hover tanks isn't so bad, but it wasn't important.

I just hated how the so-called "heavy weapons platforms" had lighter armament than the infantry troops they were supporting so I'm planning to ramp up the HWPs to live up to their name.

 

Even if I don't do any of the other mods, I'm ramping up the tanks firepower.

Edited by slickrcbd
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I made the changes. I had a superhuman save of a base with an incoming sectoid battleship on a retaliation mission that happened to have a cannon, laser, missile, and plasma tank (no tank/launcher).

 

The result of the playtesting was this:

 

I had a cyberdisc fly into the kill corridor and take a single shot that nailed a kneeling near-rookie in power armor and my return shot missed.

On the next turn, the rocket tank that I thought I'd boosted to 115 damage took an aimed shot and made what appeared to be a direct hit, but the cyberdisc survived. An 110 HE pack seems to always kill those things if I get it directly underneath. I know, front armor vs underarmor, but I swear I've blown those things up with the 100HE large rockets in one shot before even on superhuman. Either the random number generator or I didn't get the change right.

 

I was looking at the tactical.exe chart and saw that cyberdiscs have a damage of 130, so I rethought my changes and made the hovertank/plasma have the same damage. I also gave it firing stats equal to the cyberdisc when the cyberdisc was superior, but gave it an auto mode equal to the worst of the plasma stats. Now they don't just look like cyberdiscs, they are slightly superior.

 

I think I'm going to remove the tank/canon's auto firing mode. Too much ammo wasted for too little accuracy. Unlike a trooper, I can't reload and getting more ammo takes time even in geoscape. I might lower the snap cost however and a modest boost to accuracy. I'm going to have to check it again against the cyberdisc, and give it the same firing potential where the disc is superior in TU and accuracy (but nowhere near the damage or armor, just firing mode changes).

 

The laser tank and plasma tank have ammo to burn, so the wild auto firing mode stays. Just don't use it from behind a line of kneeling troopers in a narrow corridor. I think the results there were good.

 

Some wild shots from the plasma tank managed to damage the top door of the hanger, so I think it was indeed boosted.

 

 

 

As the game stands unmoded, these "tanks" are more along the line of WWI or early WWII vintage: slow, some modest armor, and weak antipersonnel weapons. Hardly artillery. I'm thinking the Panser II or the Matilda tank. Not what somebody in 1999 (or the 1991 Gulf War) would consider a tank, but maybe an IFV.

Heck, even those tanks had stronger than infantry guns mounted on them. .50cal machine guns were only used in entrenched positions or where they could set up a tripod, not by mobile troops, who used the light machine guns like the .303 or 7.62mm or submachine guns like the Thompson.

Just my thoughts on why I'm upgrading the tanks. While not useless, they hardly deserve the name "Heavy Weapons Platforms".

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Well, the HWP's are more for support than being full on MBT's. ;) Perhaps for the cannon tank, just up the damage to 80 and see how it goes. Alternately increase its ammo count and adjust snapshot cost to 25% so that it can fire 4 rounds a turn. These are just subtle changes, but might be all that's needed.

 

It's funny, but the default Sonic Displacer in TFTD is a monster of a heavy weapons platform when compared to its EU counterpart the Plasma Hovertank. I have on occasion just about wiped out a sizeable crew of superhuman Lobstermen with just one of these. Yet, the stats between the Sonic Displacer and Plasma Hovertank are identical. Perhaps the fact that TFTD uses the 50%-150% damage roll instead of 0~200% makes quite a difference.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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I always considered them to be light tanks as opposed to MBTs considering that they are being transported ready to fight on the skyranger like that.

Still, even light tanks in WWII typically had at least a 37mm gun and a .50 caliber HMG.

Better than the 7.62mm or .303Cal LMG SAWs.

 

I'm pretty early in TFTD, but I was just noticing that the Coelacanth/G. Cannon in TFTD seems far more effective and useful than the Tank/Cannon in Enemy Unknown, even thought the stats are the same.

 

Maybe its because I'm only fighting aquatoids and gillmen, and can't use the torpedo tank on land when I really need some heavier firepower during terror missions. Then again, the deep ones aren't as big a threat, and the calcinites seem like one-square reapers and about as dangerous. Now the Xarquids from the dreadnought I shot down with dup head torpedoes, They were worse than cyberdiscs.

 

It's too bad you couldn't use lasers and rocket launchers from the first game for the surface attacks along with the option for the heavy and auto canons from the first game complete with their explosive and incendiary ammo.

Also personal armor instead of dive suits when on land. At the very least they should be wearing the same coveralls from the first game.

True, that would mess with the formula and give the player an advantage, but still, it would make more sense. Why use inferior stuff for land attacks just because your primarily underwater fighters? Use the best tools for the job.

 

But we're digressing as this isn't a TFTD/EU discussion.

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  • 1 month later...

Nobody has commented on moding the flying suites to have the same armor levels as a sectopod.

I tried it, and am quite pleased with the results. My troops in them have better survival rates, but they are NOT invincible. The lack of damage resistance to plasma means that while they are almost immune to plasma pistols, they can be hurt by plasma rifles and most rookies can be oneshot killed by heavy plasma. Getting hit from behind or underneath means even plasma pistols are a threat. Alien grenades at ground zero are survivable, but hurt badly. Again, a rookie with low health might kick the bucket from a grenade at ground zero.

Maybe it's overpowered, but the flying suites are expensive, so you can't afford to outfit every rookie with them. Given how hard it is to acquire Elerium, unless you farm a base, it's a fair trade-off.

It makes the troops comparable to mutons in survivability.

Mutons have more health, you have more armor.

Factor in that being wounded means a lengthy stay in the hospital when they are useless but still drawing a salary.

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Even with the higher health, Mutons would fare a lot worse since their odds of negating damage completely is far less than personal armour. They'd suffer a lot more in an auto-shot scenario while sectopod-like armour may just as well ignore most of the damage. It would've helped if Mutons had extra damage resistances, like the Lobsterman.

If you wanted a near-Sectopod suit with some flaws, try the Mag. Ion armour from TFTD with its 142 front, 100 back, 80 sides, 65 under. Front and back nearly on par with Sectopods, but you have to take care not to get flanked or get hit by a blaster bomb.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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