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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Individual Weapons Loadout Screen


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One of the More annoying aspects of the Original X-Com was the weapons load screen prior to each battle.

 

Ok, Here's my suggestion for improvement.

 

While troops are still at the base, The player can open a Soldier Screen, which is similar to the Loadout screen we are used to seeing prior to battle. They can equip the soldier, and those weapons would be attached to the soldier, not to the ship.

 

In Addition, there would be a separate equip screen, so that people could load gear onto the ship itself. (Sitting on the floor of the ship that is.)

 

This would remover the annoyance of having to constantly re-equip each soldier before battle.

 

Prior to beginning turn 1, the same traditional screen could appear that allows you to swap weapons between soldiers and the ship, etc. for fine tuning.

 

After battle, each soldier would have to be rearmed, instead of the ship itself being rearmed. Perhaps a flag could be set for each soldier if there is not enough gear at the base to rearm him the way he originally was pre-takeoff.

 

This would probably entail the end of the 80 item limit, but I can't say I'm sad to see that go.

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This would probably entail the end of the 80 item limit, but I can't say I'm sad to see that go

 

Hey -

 

I agree this would be a nice feature, but I disagree with the end of the 8- weapon limit. It was one of the only features that really gives the aliens a fighting chance. You lose that element of strategy if you get rid of it.

 

I also like the idea of attaching weapons to soldiers at base, but I think this should only be allowed when they are assigned to a craft. If you switch a craft, you have to change em. This would allow us to keep the 80 limit.

 

Gold

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I like the idea of equipping the items at the base idea...but GreatGold is right in that you should not be able to equip a soldier in the base unless he/she is assigned to a craft...unassigning the soldier will cause all weapons to drop back into inventory...that would make it easier to keep track of weapons and make more sense in general
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about the 80-item limit, why is it there? So you do not have too much polys?

 

It should be atleast 120 for avenger missions.

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80 items is not enough IMHO if you want an Avenger filled with soldiers, you're nearly obliged to bring tanks along as they only count as one item. Try to equip about 24 soldiers with 80 items: 1gun with 2 clips each = 72 items. Hmmm, nearly full, and I haven't even got grenades or medikits yet (I usually didn't bother with flares or motion scanners as they took up too much room).

 

How about giving a WEIGHT limit instead of an ITEM limit, so you could take lots of light thingies, or a few big ones. Or give each soldier a limit of items, instead of a global limit for the craft.

Edited by j'ordos
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You know I never really had any problems w/ item limits...I would always equip about 2 teams of 4 soldiers (each team would be at a different base) to go to each mission and no one else...their stats would raise very nicely after just a few missions and that way you wouldn't have to worry about many weapons...I used the reaction fire strategy a lot so that my soldiers wouldn't die all the time...I never even knew there was an item limit on missions
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Maybe to solve this problem it would just use a formula to determine how many items per ship you could use. Just make it so it's the maximum crew limit times five (or another number if it makes more sence)...this way the Skyranger would have a slightly less than 80 limit (I think there's only max 12 people) but the avenger would have a lot more. This I think would make up for needing to bring a couple tanks per mission to make it more item efficient.

 

Ohh yeah, and I also like the idea that soldiers are equipped...when I played UFO defence way back in the day it was on a one-speed external CD Drive, and it took about two minutes to load the loading screen, and then an additional two minutes to equip, then two more minutes to load the battlescape! But technology came a long way from a one-speed external parallel port CD-ROM

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I definitely like the idea of a weight limit. Another possibility would be limiting equipment to exactly what your soldiers can carry. If you think about it, they're bringing their equipment on them when they load up for a mission, they're not just packing it into the ship. Maybe we could have 10 additional items or the equivalent weight that you could also have on the floor. Either way, yes! pre-equipped soldiers! Thank god! Switching that crap around in x-com 1 makes me want to play X-com 3 instead, where you can pre-equip.
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Weight limits sound interesting, and seeing as how every item will probably have a weight value associated to it for encumberance of the operative it might be another way to look at the 80 item limit. However it will most likely be a +v1.0 if we decided to include it as it would need extensive playtesting. With the 80 item limit its already been tested and we know it works, if a little difficult to learn to get around for some people.

 

The 80 item limit will most likely be kept in (I can hear the groans now :)) because it keeps the player on their toes and with the limit it means the player can't fully load every trooper full of ammo and grenades.

 

However saying that we will most likely impliment a soldier equip screen in baseview where you can not only tweak your loadouts but also alter seating positions based on your operative's stats. The pre battlescape equipscreen will still be included as some people will want to make final checks and tweaks before entering BS It'll be a similar screen to the one in baseview. The concept art for it is in the workshops. We'll look at tweaking the values in the other craft but that won't be till we get to the playtesting phase which as I'm sure you'll all agree is a while off yet.

 

I remember back when I first started playing xcom (way back when it first came out) and moaning about the 80 item limit, but after a while my tactics changed and I learned that it was my tactics at fault.

 

Jordos, man you need to learn how to chill out on them clips ;) Even storming an alien base I have never used more than the clip in the gun at the start and one spare and that's if I'm on my chin strap :D

 

Even with a fully stocked Avenger (no tanks) I don't hit the 80 item limit. For those people still struggling with

the limits only take one type of grenade for each person(I usually take one proxy g), one rifle with loaded clip(whatever type) and no extra clips. Even for an avenger that's 52 items, which leaves 28 item spaces. Next up would be one medpack per 4 troops which is roughly 6 packs. I'll take the same amount of either high explosive or alien grenades so we're down to 10 items left.

 

If I'm taking a blaster launcher and or small launcher then I take off 2 rifles and take 4 silver footballs and 4 stunbombs. That leaves 2 spaces which I'd use maybe for psi amps. But again I'd take two rifles off so I still usually have 2 spaces left over.

 

The only real time I've ever bothered about the 80 item limit is at the very start of the game when using autocannons. Carrying AP and HE at the same time eats away at the limit.

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Yeah exactly like that. It can be based off the strength of the operative. I don't know what values could be used and it depends on what weight measurement we use but if its based on kg it could be something like say 15x2str for normal movement 15x3str for moving at half rate (for those training missions). Whateverwe chose it'd need playtesting :)
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Jordos, man you need to learn how to chill out on them clips ;) Even storming an alien base I have never used more than the clip in the gun at the start and one spare and that's if I'm on my chin strap :D

That's what I said: 1 gun with a clip in it, and one extra = 2 clips per gun (and 3*24 = 72, if my math isn't too rusty)

 

I was actually talking about TFTD, those sonic cannons only hold 10 rounds, and I've emptied plenty of those...

(granted, there are many of those lying around, only never when you need one... :crying: )

Oh and if the weight value of items is implemented, be sure to mention that weight in XNET.

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spoken like a true GM

Yup. I've been Gm'ing for 13yrs now (wow I didn't realise it was so long)

 

Jordos. Your maths is spot on :) Though I didn't realise you were talking about Tftd. It looked from you OP you were talking about UFO. I'm gonna have to disagree with you again though aven over TFTD. Even though you'd empty a rifle real quick in it there's always the dead aliens gun to pick up, which is why everyone goes on about researching as fast as you can in the first months. It's much tougher using human weaponry only in TFTD but as they say I love a challenge;)

 

However you still need to chill out on those clips :D

Here's a screenshot of a typical alien base raiding team. I've not run out of clips for a long long time, even when each rifle doesn't have a second. Like you say though, you can always battlefield salvage.

 

The 80 item limit from a gameplay balance point of view is just pure genius.

post-3-1056418550_thumb.jpg

Edited by Deimos
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Well, an Item limit of some sort is probably needed, But I'd strongly prefer a weighted limit, where smaller/lighter items cost less against your allowed number of items.

 

Basically, make it so that taking an extra clip isn't the same as taking a HWP. You'd think that more than one clip could fit into that space. :D

 

But the main point I had for my original post was the individual arming of soldiers. The idea that they can only be individually armed after being assigned to a ship seems good, except when considering Base defense missions.

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How about in-mission weapon swapping? Sometimes you need to transfer weapons or ammo between chars while in the middle of a battle. Or maybe your soldier zaps an alien and then stands over him to claim that heavy plasma he was looking for(and aren't we all?) :happybanana:
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weight limit:- yes

volume limit? there should be.

weight limit does mean you cannot necessarily equip every trooper with everything. moreover if every soldier/hwp/craft has a weight limit then we can vary the weight limit depending on fuel carried, storage-weapons carried and inthe case of humans, as the soldier gets gitter, increase the weight limit. The load weight for a human can be directly related to stamina.

 

equip in base. In fact have each soldier remember his standard set up he personally checks his kit back in into stores andthen re-equips from stores himself. Then when there is not enough in stores the quatermaster can alert the gamer.

 

a touch of self minimanagement and realism.

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If I remember correctly, there's an effective weight limit in place in x-com 1. If you load someone down too much, their TUs drop to the point of not being able to do much (anyone else here discovered that the guy you gave your only blaster bomb to can't fire it?).

 

--The Captain

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For V1+, howabout assigning just a prefered loadout to each soldier, where you create assignments to each wear position with any of the weapons/equipment you have access to. You wouldn't necessarily have to rearrange the game balance, your troop would just automatically grab the weapon you preselected if it's available in the inventory. That way, you still don't have to redo the inventory from scratch every mission, but you aren't fundamentally changing the way equipment is stored. The equip menu could give you a dialog with a shopping list of items you didn't have to fill out your prefered list.

 

Alternately, as part of preconfigured duty positions you have a pull down someplace giving your soldier a job on the squad (rifleman, pointman/scout, heavy gunner, grenadier, etc) and they grab the best weapon available of the type they're going for - eg, the rifleman goes for the plasma rifle, laser rifle, rifle in order, plus maybe a smoke and a frag, while the heavy gunner grabs an autocannon. That way, you could actually assign each soldier's weapons/gear with one quick pull down and balance out your team based on their job titles. You could subcategorize for ammo preferences with the heavy weapons (Hvy Gunner (Incendiary), Hvy Gunner (AP)).

 

An aside: On the 80 item limit - you should have a way of selecting which items you can equip when your base gets overrun (perhaps from a menu similar to the one you use to sell items), or just be given 80 random items. It's pretty stupid to just grab the first 80 items on the list. What are the odds of you being able to grab 25 rifles and the 75 magazines you forgot to sell off and NOT be equally able to get the 15 Heavy Plasmas sitting across the shelves in the same General Stores? If you're scrambling for gear, you might not be able to get everything you want, but really....

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Guest drewid

The assigned loadout _could_ be v1 rather than v1+.

Anyone who's played the game for any length of time knows that the arming interface is a weak point, if we can clean it up the my vote is that we should.

 

I like the idea of having assigned specialists, I think most people play like that anyhow (heavy weapons dude, sniper, psi bait guy).

 

The problem with people just grabbing stuff is the danger that you don't notice when you are in danger of running out. Of course we give the player a "restock limit" where they can set a number of items under which a warning pops up.

 

"Hey boss, we've got less that 10 HE clips left, do you want me to re-order some?"

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Hmmm... i've always hated it that before stepping down, the guy with the 20 strength decides to carry the autocannon and can only take a step or two and still not be able to fire. so i really agree with the soldiers having their own weapons assigned at base.

 

As for the 80 item limit, well, it's a bit redundant. after all, a soldier only has so much space on him, plus his strength factor means you can't load him up excessively. i just wished there was some ready way to see whether a guy can actually carry his weapon load rather than find out in the middle of a battle that Louis Scott only has 20 TU's because he's too damn weak.

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That was THE most annoying point in the whole arming screen IMHO.

I had ONE guy with about strength 20, and ONE cannon, and guess who felt like taking that cannon EVERY TIME! So every mission I had to change it again, saying "doggonit, you're too weak to carry that cannon, GET OVER IT!"

 

sorry, just had to get it out of me :wacko:

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Here's a thought. :idea:

Remember how in the Soldier screen for each guy there was an "Armor" Button? Why not a "Weapon" button showing all available X-Net weapons for him/her and make them highlighted in green if they're recommended(reasonable str for the char to be using them, maybe accy would be a factor too), and red if you have a 20 STR char trying to haul around a blaster launcher. That would be relatively easy to program and would be pretty helpful. :happybanana:

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that sounds reasonable. items go red if arming or loading it up means your TU's are going to suffer.

 

i'm also thinking the penalties for holding a two hand weapon in one hand should be much higher. quite frankly, i never used pistols before. even when i learned your accuracy goes down when using rifles with one hand, i still didn't use them. maybe we can make it that it's just plain impossible to hold heavy weapons with one hand, and implement a heavy penalty on accuracy for holding rifles with one. does that sound practical?

 

 

:huh?:

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The first thing I research is the Plasma Cannon which takes me through the whole game w/ no need for plasma rifles/pistols as well as Laser weapons...I really hope they make the laser weapons so that I want to use them for an advantage...maybe a little more powerful
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Hey -

 

Personally, I am becoming a large fan of the Laser Rifle. Its so accurate, and cheap to make and maintain, that its a real good deal.

 

Perhaps, if the damage was kept the same but accuracy eincreased even more, then it would be a good compromise.

 

Gold

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[edit] i seem to have read more into kenshiros idea than he said... i thought he was just suggesting a priority list, hehe, should read the whole post before i repy :)

 

ive got to say Kenshiro's idea is best. at first i thought individual loadout would solve everything but i for one tend to have very different set-ups for each mission later in the game depending on what the mission is. with kens method you just change what equipment you put on the ship and the rest takes care of itself

 

lets see...

weapon/ammo pref: 3 or 4 slots

grenade: # type

medipack priority: yes/no

psionic thingy priority: yes/no

clip priority: yes/no (if theres spare ammo after everyones got the same amount then give it to this person)

 

if 2 agents have have the same primary weapon but one has a secondary selected and avalible then prority goes to the person without a secondary weapon choice.

that should work :D

 

....

 

the base attack load out has to be sorted, i dont think anyone would be happy releasing the game with the same problem as xcom. a screen which is the same as the "equip ship" screen but with different text should sort it, thats no problem. i guess

Edited by hippyjon
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I'm going to disagree on that one. I would think that a soldier should be issued his own weapon that's his. it's kinda like a musician. a guitarist can use any guitar, but his guitar is his guitar. he knows it inside out and does best when using it. Same with soldiers. Maybe a guy will prefer having his sighting slightly 12 oclock. Know what I mean?
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Hey -

 

Personally, I am becoming a large fan of the Laser Rifle.  Its so accurate, and cheap to make and maintain, that its a real good deal.

 

Perhaps, if the damage was kept the same but accuracy eincreased even more, then it would be a good compromise.

 

Gold

The Laser Rifle was the one weapon I used besides the Heavy Plasma. I once had a guy whose TU's went overflow, so he had like 1 TU left, but a shot with the Laser Rifle cost 0 (ZERO) TU's :D ! Come on muton, show your ugly face :devillaugh: If it didn't die with the first 3 shots he'd die eventually even if it took 300 shots :D

(btw, what do you mean, maintain?)

 

Also heavy plasma can be made a bit less good, like sonic cannon in TFTD: smaller clip, no auto fire

(or smaller clip WITH autofire ^_^ )

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It's ok with item restriction on lets say an skyranger and avenger, it just doesn fit! But it's makes absolutely no sense during a base defend mission! This is also where the restriction was most obvious when playing the original. Your heavy plasmas just wouldnt show because you had alot of extra ammo, flares etc.

 

How much you can get on the transport should probably be limited but it shouldn't be limited that only so or so many can be brought to a mission, may it be an assault, a defend or whatever.

 

My .02

Edited by LordT
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(btw, what do you mean, maintain?)

 

I shoulda been more clear. I never have enough clips for the bloody things, so I'll usually have like 20 Heavy Plasmas and 2 clips... I don't need to bother about that with the lasers..

 

Gold

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In the GOLD release of XCOM, I've found myself to have problems with Sectopods whose resistance to plasma weapons seemed to have been increased to near immunity. So i've had to equip some of my huys with laser weapons when dealing with ethereals.
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  • 11 months later...

Problem with base load out needs to be fixed. I remember before when I just re equiped my base and had 3 auto cannons and 50 HE rounds for it. Base got attacked and it took them first, there was so many cannon rounds on the list I couldn't even equip my guys (Old Atari ST version) so the first 2 guys carried an auto cannon and about 20 clips while the other carried 10. Rest of the slots went to a couple of rifles I never sold. I finnished the last of the research and got rid of the scientists (100 of them) and got about 70 rookies in their place. (Didn't realise the 80 equipment limit at the time, thought I was being clever with base deffence)

 

So I end up with a base with 100 troops and 6 guns to fight the invation. My captains and colonals ran for places to hide while Q's or rookies lined up waiting for the guy in front with the gun to get shot. Cost about 30 lives but I won in the end. What was my X-com grand commander, hero of all men, all round good guy doing in all of this? He started right next to the hanger filled with aliens. He spent the whole mission hiding in a broom cubord with a clip of HE ammo in his hand preying to god that nothing alien saw him run in.

 

All those details SHOULD be right. Was over 10 years ago so...

Edited by Sdragon
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Weight limit seems most reasonable and efficient to me. IMO it should be applied to HWP:s and troopers also.

 

Equipment weight is quite low when compared to weight of squad itself, but should be included in same calculation. Soldiers in transport have their battlegear ready on them during flight, so that takes no extra space.

 

You can load, say 3000 kg:s of stuff to a skyranger. Which means 1) 3 HWP:s (900kg) and few unarmored soldiers (80kg), or 2) full space of combat armor soldiers (100kg), or 3) 10 power armor troopers (300kg). Heck, you could load a ship with 1 soldier and 500 HP:s (5kg) if you like. (Or any combination, you got the point.)

 

When craft is manned and equipped, max/current weight would be displayed with big red "Overload-Unable to take off!" if MTOW is exeeded.

 

BTW, i just made up those weights myself, i have no clue what you have planned.

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  • 5 weeks later...
And make it possible to fire two pistols without penalty or something like that. That would rock, being able to fire 2 pistols at once :rock: , instead of one at a time  :whatwhat:

Actually, I've read in another thread that pistols are considered equipment, not weapons, so the two-handed items penalty does'nt apply to them :D

It makes it easy to carry one in each hand (only gives you more amno... pointless with lasers) but it DOES allow you to use plasma/laser pistol with a medkit/grenade/motionSensor/Stunrod/rocketOrBlasterLauncher/mindProbe/Psiamp...

Kinda cool actually...

I know I'm going to leave a pistol equiped for all my guys that don't use a riffle/heavyPlasma/autocannon... :happybanana:

 

The 80 item limit makes sense in a SKYRANGER only, the Avenger should have more, and a Base DEFINITELY more... I still have nightmares about that base raid where I had like 75 Heavy plasma guns and no clips... :stupid:

IMO, a weight-based system would balance thing out, and be A LOT more logical/practical/fun and as easy to implement.

 

As I said earlier, PLEASE make the soldiers have their own equipment... :rock:

It's the only way to go without redoing the STUPID default weapon placement between missions...

I ADORE ^_^ UFO: Aftermath's way of dealing with this, as they have the easiest going equipment loading screen, with equipment calssed into categories (with the number of such items available) instead of seeing the whole of it sprawled out... A nice touch they added is to check the equipment load of the soldiers BEFORE the craft takes off for his mission... :master:

Edited by Paladin
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  • 2 months later...
It'd be quite cool, if we went for a weight limit, if we not only counted the weight for each soldier, but also made it a (somewhat) variable stat. So taking certain troopers on missions would eat into your weight limit a bit more, they might perhaps have better stats.
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Try the demo... It's actually nice, albeith the alien's color palette is horrible, we can't design our bases and we can't get inside buildings...

Oh, and weapons have... ranges (quite stupid for most of them, really), but it shoots decently... except noly one guy have NO chances of killing something moderately dangerous, so you end up moving your squad all as one, which the game does a good job in managing the (paused) real time...

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