TU Cost don't make sense

[PyroMancer]

How come TU cost varies from soldier to soldier?

I have a solder with over twice the TU as this new recruit yet all of his actions also cost about twice as much TU to do. Even something like throwing a grenade cost a lot more TU.

What’s the point of getting more TU if it doesn’t increase the number of actions you can do on a turn? At most I notice it does seem to allow you to move across the map faster.

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by Chameleon_Silk:

X-COM fans been trying to ruin X-COM for centuries now....

That takes the assumption that the first XCOM was perfect. Wanting changes and improvements to curtain aspects is hardly ruining it. Also there were 3 original games and not everyone agrees on which was the best, aka their favorite.

The biggest divide seems to be on XCOM : Apocalypse. It let you pick turn base or real time, and quite a few people liked the real time gameplay as it felt more realistic. You couldn’t do things like on your turn everyone steps into a doorway shoots down the hallway and then steps back to the side.

Even though it included Turn based option I recall some people saying it just wasn’t the same. Honestly it’s been so long I don’t recall the exact difference was that people complained about between turn based combat in the two games. Some said it was clearly balanced for Real Time but I don’t recall there being much difference between combat other than new enemies, new gear, new weapons, and a stat or two renamed.

Originally posted by Chameleon_Silk:

if it were up to the fans the game would be the furthest thing from X-COM and far worse then Firaxis reincarnation.

That seems highly unlikely. XCOM was a great game for its time and if all someone is interested in is a direct translation of the old game there is DosBox so they can run the original. Or they could try out Open XCOM which I hear is fairly faithful recreation of the original game.

But a lot of fans want to see a more updated modern sequel to the game. The Fraxis POS was a decent turn based tactical game with high end AAA graphics using the XCOM IP for a skin to sell a game that would not have gotten nearly as far if launched as a new IP. They gutted so much of the core game it was just sad, I mean heck they originally weren’t even going to do that as original plans were solely the for even worst POS FPS game under the XCOM name.

The thing is a lot of fans have a lot of ideas on how to improve the game. And I think there is always the potential for improvement. Xenonauts tries to be faithful to the core of what made XCOM great while at the same time adding to it. The geoscape and air combat I think is a great addition to the XCOM style game.

But it did also take some steps backwards, like not being able to destroy ufos in ground combat. Though I hear there is a mod for that, haven’t checked it out yet. Also maps seem a bit flat compared to the old ones. I recall some maps with multi-story apartments and having to go floor by floor to check it out. It only seems to be the hover aliens add some vertical combat to the game by getting up on roof tops and tall rocks.

[Chameleon_Silk]

there is also a very thin line on what is considered an improvement and an utter disaster, some of the ideas that people have in their heads should never see the light of day.

I've read posts from previous attempts at creating an X-COM remake through many fourms and people suggest the stupidest stuff and I'm glad none of the really weird suggestions made it into Xenonauts.

Xenonauts did some things right and others not so well, but overall it holds its own against the originals and is its own entity because of that, and thats saying a lot.

I will not contest that the originals were far from perfect... I agree, but some of the suggestions would make the next versions worse, non percentage firing TU soliders... nty... I picture rambo soldier with a pistol firing 14 times in a turn.. no.. just no.

[PyroMancer]

Originally posted by Chameleon_Silk:

I will not contest that the originals were far from perfect... I agree, but some of the suggestions would make the next versions worse, non percentage firing TU soliders... nty... I picture rambo soldier with a pistol firing 14 times in a turn.. no.. just no.

Being able to fire off 14 shots in a round would be a clear balance issue with how much it cost to fire the weapon being way to low. The problem with a direct translation though is that TU varies too wildly. It can go from being lows 30s all the way up to 100, and if someone carries a lot it can drop down into the teens or lower.

I see non percentage TUs more in line with the Fallout games, which used a flat amount cost for actions. In case you are not familiar with it the system gave their version of TU, called Action Points(AP), based on the character’s Agility stat. It was 5 + AGI/2 which new characters having agility stat between 1 and 10. So new characters had 5-10 AP and increasing AP was rather difficult as it was done through only a few perks which you got to pick every few levels.

In Fallout most guns cost 4-6 AP to fire with some having variable cost based on single/burst or normal/aimed modes. So most characters starting out can only fire 1-2 times and with few proper perks they could fire 2-3 times at higher levels. Though that could mean trading off something in another category you could have spent that perk on.

With Fallout though the difference in starting AP was double at most, much like in xenonauts where it seems 35-65 is average starting TU. But also the value didn’t change much either and if it did it meant you were not increasing something in another area. Where as in xenonauts TU is always increases as a natural consequence of running missions and the other stats increase based on what you did in that mission. But even so I think it could still potentially be done.

I didn’t see the way it was done when it was a “flat” TU cost but it sounds like it didn’t have the different fire modes of Snap/Normal/Aimed. This I think could be part of the problem as the higher modes should use up more TU and reduce the “rapid fire” problem. So if say a rifle snap shot cost 25 TU, normal cost 40 TU, and aimed cost 55 TU then even at cap of 100 TU they would only be able to take 2 decent shoots. But also have the accuracy bonuses should be setup in such a way that 4 snap shots are not as good as 2 shot combo of normal and aimed unless you are at near point blank range, but getting point blank is very risky.

I think this can be solved with Snap/Normal/Aimed shot system costing different flat TU amounts and Aimed being at the higher spectrum because rookies in the heat of combat just don’t have the nerve to take a proper aimed shoot. In order to maintain proper balance the accuracy curve would have diminishing returns on all but the aimed shot, with it being the harshest on the snap shot.

For example you have three guys with the following accuracy scores 25/50/100. A snap shot on the same target and distance away for each of them would have chances to hit that look something like the following 30%/45%/52%. Where as a normal shot would have a spread more like the following 40%/70%/90%. Then lastly the aim shot would be more directly related to a 1 for 1 on accuracy so it may look something like 50%/100%/200%. Of course can’t have higher than 100% chance to hit but just showing the figure cause against a further ranged target it may look something more on par with their actually accuracy scores of 25%/50%/100%.

This way if someone just fires off the fast snap shoots they may get more shots but they accuracy will suffer so much that odds are they would of done more damage on average by taking the fewer high cost TU shoots.

Doing some research I came across some discussions on what was wrong with the old TU system and yea it did have some issues but I think they could have been fix it with other mechanics like the different shots types for different TU cost mentioned above. And not having fixed TU cost creates new issues such as what several pointed out in that thread where over weighting your characters has little effect now.

Before I realized TU was % base I use to try and keep my guys just under max weight. But now I lob on a ton of extra grenades for all my guys to carry around because as long as they have 30 or TU their speed is just find getting around. And carrying about half a dozen stun gas grenades and electric grenades is great.

Most aliens drop from 1 gas grenade at the start of their turn, others take two and not until fairly late game does it take more. Plus the effects last several turns so fighting in close quarters lob one into the room and wait out in the hall. Let two turns go by and do it again. The gas hangs in the air and as the alien runs around he often goes through it a few times.

None of my guys have less than 6 grenades of some type on their person. My higher leveled guys have every spare inventory slot full of them because there is no reason not to. They still often have 50+ TU and since all weapon fire is % base the only thing effected is there speed across the battle field which is still pretty good and only gets better as mission goes on since they end up lobbing a ton of grenades, especially smoke ones.

Anyhow back to the problems of the old system. There was talk that damage potential of a guy with all 100s vs a guy will all 50s was 400% because he gets twice as many shots and hits twice as often. But that isn’t always true, the accuracy is capped at 100%. So if the person with 50 acc has a 75% chance to hit then the person with 100 acc may have 100% chance of hitting them. Then the 100 guy only hits 133% as often and getting of twice as many shots so he’s only doing 266% as much damage. But veterans should do more than new guys, otherwise there is no real sense of progression.

Also there were some comparisons to late game weapons to early game weapons. This part of the comparisons in the old system I don’t understand. High tech weapons had higher TU cost apparently? That doesn’t make any sense and would undermine balance since rookies should be able to equip and use new stuff same as veterans. So the TU cost for assault rifle would be the same as TU cost for Laser, Plasma, and MAG rifles. There is no other reason so compare rookie vs veteran otherwise since they could be interchangeable.

I do think late game weapons could have other modifiers built in to help offset the rookie veteran curve though. Say a built in accuracy modifier through tech like laser sight, computer aim assist made using the alien circuitry, or etc. Just something to explain that higher tech weapons have a better chance to hit in the hands of untrained soldiers.

On the math side the user’s modified accuracy score would be Weapons flat bonus + Acc Stat * Modifier. So for example if each tech added 10 and modifier started at 100% but dropped by 10% each tech level then a guy with 50 acc would have an adjust accuracy of 30+50*0.7= 65 with a MAG weapon while a guy with 100 acc would have an adjusted accuracy of 30+100*0.7=100. This would help rookies out late game when they already lack the stats to compete with veterans as is.

The other comment I heard against the old system is that elite aliens fire off 6 rounds per turn, which seems more like an issue with them not being balanced on their side. Aliens have their own stats and guns. So they don’t need to maintain the 100 max across the board on all stats like human soldiers do. Also their weapons can have their own TU cost, possibly higher than normal human weapons which would make sense since they are more difficult for humans to handle it would cost them more time, aka TU, to use them. Also they don’t need to gain TU the same way human players do and can simply have their own progression curve. All that happens behind the scenes from the players so this bares no real merit as their stats can get set to whatever to make them balanced.

So reading through some of the older post I can see why people think flat TU would be unbalanced. As it seems under the old system it did have a lot of balance issues. But like I mentioned above I think there could have been other mechanics changes to bring it in line. And seeing some of the post it seems others were in agreement.

[NNNMAN ⁧⁧🔊*🎮🏆⏫]

TU Cost Should not be 100 For Veterans, while new People have it at 25 and only hit 30% worse

[Chameleon_Silk]

I mean everything is relative to balance

in terror from the deep for instance the sonic cannon had the best accuracy but required no movement for 2 snap shots, if you had to do anything you couldn't snap 2 shots in a single turn no matter what your solider had for time units.

if for instance that same weapon could be aimed twice in a turn or allow for 3 or more snap shots it would be the clear runaway winner for every situation - even with the restrictions on movement it was the best weapon in the game. you could make the case for sonic blasta rifles on some high time unit soldiers with higher marksmanship.

as long as care is put into the decision on damage and accuracy and amount of hits to kill something a non-percentage based system could work fine but its also easier to become OP and thus is harder to balance on a knifes edge and that's why I prefer a percentage based system.... its not that it doesn't have flaws though just simply the lesser of 2 evils.

for instance the effectiveness of a pistol is lowered not just because of the damage output or firing cost - although that's one factor but its because you can get interrupted after landing a shot, having the target live and take reaction shot that then kills you without being able to utilize his full potential.

I feel like a good mechanic would be to flinch targets, if they are hit during the shot they do not return fire on that specific shot, suddenly pistols are a lot more effective without adjusting their damage output or their TU costs.

while this would seem to miss the point it illustrates exactly why spamming shots and then having to balance the damage low to compensate would destroy a whole classification of weaponry, if you can fire more that means lower damage and/or accuracy.. all this while the pistol is already having some of the worst accuracy (usually) in strategy games.

[pipo.p]

Originally posted by Chameleon_Silk:

I mean everything is relative to balance

Thank you for sharing.your ideas here, but you are answering a troll or a feeblemind, who is reopening all the old threads it can find. It should better open a new one, instead of polluting the forum, and it knows it.