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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Overhaul Of Weaponry (also Ufo Ai)


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How about a system whereby all weapons are given the same arbitrary range. Although it does not sound realistic, it works out to be more realistic than the current system.

If we make all the weapons the same range, then to distinguish better weapons we must tweak damage and reload rate. To me this sounds a better way of doing things - even the up-til-now useless cannon now has merits.

For example:

Cannon - Damage 5, rate of fire 8r/s
Stingray - Damage 40 rate of fire .5r/s
Avalanche - Damage 80 rate of fire .2r/s
Laser Cannon - Damage 20 rate of fire 2r/s
Plasma Cannon - Damage 40 rate of fire 3r/s
Fusion Ball - Damage 100 rate of fire .1r/s

Also, capacity can be tweaked.

(All old names I know, but you get the idea!)

Furthermore, I think alien AI must be altered to adapt to this system. I think that the following system should be implemented (if possible) to UFOs:

Small Scout - flee if damage > 25% (B) 20% (E) 15% (V) 10% (G) 5% (SH)
Medium Scout - flee if damage > 50% (B) 45% (E) 40% (V) 35% (G) 30% (SH)

get the idea? This would mean that all the UFOs would attack you at least for a little while. In addition , you would usually get damaged in every battle - more realistic, and you would have to have reduced repair times - maybe adding a further type of employee - repair tech? Or assign engineers to 'repair duty' - do you make that avenger/new stock of plasma cannons or repair your existing fleet? :D

I also think that another system for determining crash landings should be constructed - eg if a medium scout is attacked on (SH) level then it requires 80% damage to crash, but 85% damage to lose its power source :D That would make it interesting. Provisions would have to be made for each level and for each power source in larger UFOs - eg 80% damage for crash, 85% for one PS to go, 90% for two etc.

I feel that the above modifications would vastly improve gameplay and replayability (is that a word??)
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Not really, not for me - only usually 3 outcomes:

1) you shoot down ufo, no damage
2) it escapes
3) you run out of ammo

only exception is b-ship against anything except Avengers.

I just think that interceptions are just TOO EASY!

They should be made fair for both sides, and MORE INTERESTING!!!

please, someone else voice their opinion!
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I'd like that, as long as it doesn't take two months to repair the damage. Build an avenger in 1 week, and a few plasma holes take forever... :rolleyes:
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  • 2 weeks later...
[quote name='Robo Dojo 58' date='May 15 2004, 11:53 PM']I'd like that, as long as it doesn't take two months to repair the damage. Build an avenger in 1 week, and a few plasma holes take forever... :rolleyes:[/quote]
reparing craft could be a a job for the manufacturing team.

/offtopic

well, if all the craftweapons are equally strong, why research plasma and laser cannons at all?
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No, they are not equally STRONG just equally ranged. They can ALL fire roughly the same distance, to simulate strafing runs. Then, as the weapons get better (and more powerful in the previous games) they now fire faster (to simulate greater range) and are more powerful ( to give incentive) Get it now?
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Well... I don't think it is a good idea with the ranges as described. For example cannon is very short range actually, just few kilometers maximum as an AMRAAM missile targets and hits effectively enemies far behind visual range, about 50km:s away. (Although UFO:s are probably somehow ECM effective.) And MR stands for Medium Range. You can fire cannon-type weapons further than they are effective, but chances to hit are dramatically reduced and after specific distance they have completely no chance of hitting/damaging target.
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I think you lot are missing the point rather.

Instead of being perfectly aligned with the truth (and lets face it, this is a sci-fi game!) lets sacrifice some realism for gameplay? We do not even need to mention range in any CTD or tactical display!
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I still don't understand why you'd want to equalize all the craft weapon ranges.

I think that strafing runs would be better simulated by zipping the UFO in and out of range.

Dippy, it seems that you don't really like the craft cannon. I sort of agree. If the cannon is so weak that it's unplayable, maybe it should be changed into a weapon which is useful? It could still be relatively short ranged, but the damage could be increased dramatically, so people would want to use it.

Like, maybe a hi-ammo dumbfire rocket system. Lots of damage, short range.
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Dippy, equalizing the ranges is not the way to do it. The weapons would start to feel the same and lose vareity. A better way to make the weapons more balanced is to change the ufo ai so that they close in on XCorps craft when under fire. The only advantage given by the long range weapons is that in the original, you could sit back and pound the aliens with no reprecussions.

If we made the aliens intentionally close in to within their weapons range, then the problem of the unbalanced ranges of the various weapons largely dissappears.
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How about making weapon accuracy (and in some weapons damage) change over distance? In outer edge of range, you would get relatively weak punch with base acuracy, but in close range damage and accuracy would increase significantly. This is due to UFO has less time to evade and/or ECM your weapons and plasma and cannonfire are more powerful when not cooled/slowed in flight. I think this would give some deeper meaning and more use to standard/aggressive attacks. (I hardly ever used other than cautious attack.)
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As I can see that I am not going to win this fight, let me change my stance. How about user defined settings of 'cautious', 'standard' and 'aggressive' so that you can define how you want your interceptors to behave? Now that is a good idea if ever I heard one, pity that it will probably need tons of programming, but there we go.
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  • 1 month later...
[quote name='Cpl. Facehugger' date='May 15 2004, 10:47 PM']We just need to edit the UFO AI to make em close in with you instead of the other way around and blamo!
[right][post="78082"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

Yeah, that would put some challenge... :master:
As it stands, once you get the Plasma connon, all you have to do is sit back and wait... Except when yuo come upon a Battleship, of course... :boohoo:
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[quote name='Robo Dojo 58' date='May 29 2004, 10:04 PM']I still don't understand why you'd want to equalize all the craft weapon ranges.

I think that strafing runs would be better simulated by zipping the UFO in and out of range.

Dippy, it seems that you don't really like the craft cannon. I sort of agree. If the cannon is so weak that it's unplayable, maybe it should be changed into a weapon which is useful? It could still be relatively short ranged, but the damage could be increased dramatically, so people would want to use it.

Like, maybe a hi-ammo dumbfire rocket system. Lots of damage, short range.
[right][post="79685"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

Or increase the chance to hit...
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[quote name='Tuoppi' date='May 30 2004, 12:51 PM']How about making weapon accuracy (and in some weapons damage) change over distance? In outer edge of range, you would get relatively weak punch with base acuracy, but in close range damage and accuracy would increase significantly. This is due to UFO has less time to evade and/or ECM your weapons and plasma and cannonfire are more powerful when not cooled/slowed in flight. I think this would give some deeper meaning and more use to standard/aggressive attacks. (I hardly ever used other than cautious attack.)
[right][post="79706"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]
It has merits, plus it's a lot simpler implement than varying the default attack strategies, it would Actually make them have very different results...
Besides, in real life, the aspect angle have a lot more importance than range in effective accuracy, particularly for heat-seeking missiles and cannons.

I would personally make the laser cannon with a double range but a quarter damage... Very accurate though, more so than the plasma (beam VS bolt) :naughty:
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[quote]Besides, in real life, the aspect angle have a lot more importance than range in effective accuracy, particularly for heat-seeking missiles and cannons.[/quote]

Must disagree here... The vector difference between fighter/missile and target is really significant only in very close range (when head-on missile attacks have failed and dogfight begins). Guns are useless in range longer than just few hundred meters, as the target evades easily the fire because you have to lead so much in those speeds. You only have rounds for some seconds of fire... will you try a lucky shot? Heatseekers are useful really only when fired head-on or from cone behind target, and they have a certain minimum range and relatively short maximum one (window of opportunity). Basically when enemy has a launched missile locked on you, you will die very soon unless flare/chaff/ecm saves you. Your craft can take 10G:s turn max, the missile takes 50G easily.

Hope that clears up some fighter tactics... Vector difference (aspect angle) is THE factor when in dogfight trying to get a lock for shortrange missiles or window for gunfire. Basically in this point the craft with smaller turn radius wins. Elsewhere range is most significant, and whoever sees first, wins.



I also got the impression that at least the larger UFO:s have agility and turn radius of an oil tanker due to their large mass and fast speed. Our interceptors can fairly easily outmaneuver and target the UFO in close range and advanced missiles are VERY agile nowadays so they do not have too hard time to follow and hit target if they can maintain a radar/heat lock. Only problems in downing them is 1) they have turnable defence guns with long range and accuracy. 2) ECM

[quote]I would personally make the laser cannon with a double range but a quarter damage... Very accurate though, more so than the plasma (beam VS bolt)  :naughty:
[right][post="84295"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

For me too it seemed a bit odd that a lightspeed "projectile" had lower accuracy and shorter range than plasma bolt. :huh?:
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Let us also not forget that relative target vector dictates the maximum effective range of your missile... and forcing a missile to turn bleeds it's speed by presenting a larger surface area to the airflow. This further decreases its range. In effect, range is determined by the vector and behaviour of the target.

Do we want to present all of this information in the game? Probably not.. but I think that a cannon with a short range is intuitive even to those who don't know much about combat aviation. To have a cannon outrange a missile would be sort of counter intuitive, I think. Edited by fux0r666
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I did not mean that the cannon should have a greater range - I merely wanted to eradicate range altogether to make the fighting more interesting. for instance, each gun can fire X times/second with Y damage. This means that even the small scouts could conceivably damage an avenger, but this would be rare as additionally there would need to be accuracy factored in. To make this balance, repair times would need to be shortened to realistic times - possibly using engineers for this task, and this could be done by assigning engineers to the task of 'Interceptor 1' and this would display an estimated time as well.

Several birds with one stone :D
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hey, i think we(me) are getting way too deep... Its not an aircombat-simulator subgame. Just had the thought that there should be disadvantages to prevent people always using the cautious attack. The increased damage/accuracy from closer range makes it nicely and realistically, as long as plasmacannon uses ammo. Risk your interceptors damaged or destroyed, but deliver more damage and use less ammo.
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I think that presenting different ranges would open the player up to different combat styles. In the current system, indescriminate avalanche missile use early in the game retards your progress because you don't down them so much as blast them into pieces. It allows you to play with your attack style preference. Currently, the only real weapon of no use is the cannon.. but, as in real life, no pilot in his right mind would need or even want to get into a gunfight.

Having a system of no range stat boils down to simple number crunching. You figure out how many damage points per second you can deal out at average and compare them among the different weapons. The one with the highest average wins. There wouldn't really be any need for different engagement styles, just who can get to the enemy's maximum damage capacity first wins. You turn a boxing match between Muhammed Ali and George Foreman into saturday night in front of the seven eleven. The guy who can take the punch and can deal damage wins- period.
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  • 2 weeks later...
[quote]Cannon - Damage 5, rate of fire 8r/s
Stingray - Damage 40 rate of fire .5r/s
Avalanche - Damage 80 rate of fire .2r/s
Laser Cannon - Damage 20 rate of fire 2r/s
Plasma Cannon - Damage 40 rate of fire 3r/s
Fusion Ball - Damage 100 rate of fire .1r/s[/quote]

Hmm, if I understand this correctly you want the cannon to do a damage of 5 per round. And you would have it fire 8 rounds per second. What would that be in damage per second....

Cannon - 40 damage/s
Stingray - 20 damage/s
Avalanche - 16 damage/s
Laser Cannon - 40 damage/s
Plasma Cannon - 120 damage/s
Fusion Ball - 10 damage/s

Am I the only one seeing the the problem with theese numbers?
Anyway, I like the idea of different ranges for different weapons.
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It was a quick 'for instance', but you are right. In any case, accuracy would have to be factored in too. The cannon would have to be pretty inaccurate, but still have a purpose. Edited by dipstick
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IMO, we should definitely keep the ranges, it is THE most important factor in air combat, as in hitting and not being hit...
It gives the only bit of interraction, realism and strategy in the interceptions...

All I said was that the ranges/damages/accuracy could be better balanced...
:D
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  • 3 months later...
I think range should be varied, as well as accuracy and how you engage. No more of this 'tag-the-UFO' stuff. Here are the weapons and their relative strengths/weaknesses.

[u]Cannons[/u]

[b]Cannon[/b] - Accurate only at Short Range, Bullets cannot be fooled, they still penetrate AA for non-heavies
[b]AA Cannon[/b] - Accurate only at Short Range, Bullets cannot be fooled, fire faster and stronger than Cannon

[b]Laser Cannon[/b] - Longer range, very accurate, dissipates in atmosphere, slow recycle rate.
[b]AA Laser Cannon[/b] - Same range, very accurate, same dissipation, faster recycle rate
[b]AE Laser Cannon[/b] - Same range, very accurate, less dissipation, even faster recyle rate

[b]Alien Plasma Cannon[/b] - Accurate at slighler longer range than Cannon, Bolts cannot be fooled, excellent penetration, fire rate slightly slower than Cannon
[b]Terran Plasma Cannon[/b] - About the same accuracy, slightly slower fire rate and damage

[u]Heat Guided Missle[/u]

[b]Heat Guided Missle[/b] - Small range window, pretty accurate if they maintain lock, big boom.
[b]AA Heat Guided Missle[/b] - Bigger range window, faster, maintains lock better, bigger boom
[b]Alien Heat Guided Missle[/b] - Same range window as AA Heat Guided, maintains lock long time, huge boom and much faster

[u]Radar Guided Missle[/u]

[b]Radar Guided MIssle[/b] - Very long range, accurate if it maintains lock, big boom.
[b]AA Radar Guided Missle[/b] - Very long range, much better lock and speed
[b]AE Radar Guided Missle[/b] - Even longer range, same lock as AA, very fast, huge boom
[b]Alien Radar Guided Missle[/b] - Same range as AE, same speed as AE, much better lock and power than AE
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What say we just do away with cannons altogether.

The first thing I always did in every game I ever played was remove the cannons and load on more stingrays.

Lets face it, would an international secret force determined to shoot down ufo's actually think that a cannon would be useful against them?

Then again, i suppose this might be a better idea, cannons are standard equipment on all of your aircraft, even landers (how cool would it be to spray a terror site with a minigun from the cockpit of your lander?) and missiles are just loaded on on top of that. I suppose later you could upgrade the cannon to laser and plasma.

The main problem is that no matter how much tweaking you do, there is no way you can make the cannon an effective weapon against the ufo's. Even at the start of the game, the ufo's weaponary is far superior to the cannon, especially since they can kick your donkey to kingdom come and back before you can get in range to spray the sucker, and im sorry, increasing the range just doesnt cut it. A laser or plasma weapon can shoot as far as the eye can see, and even the minigun on the a-10 warthog can't come close to matching that. (though I imagine it's significantly more effective than the our beloathed cannon)
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