Come on guys, fix the Colossus armor and make it actually usable

[shtrguy]

It comes in late game, and it sucks. Instant bleeding from love taps from plasma weapons means you have to have a dedicated med kit helper. This is the pinnacle of human body armor? BS, come on guys, act like you actually play test before you put things out. The colossus armor needs to be able to use modules at least. Give it a built in grenade launcher. By the time this gets in the game, I am bored AF anyways. Let me have some fun and live out some Starship Troopers fantasies. Powered armor, mini-nukes, and coed showers for the win!

[rman88]

Ya, not going to lie. i don't really see the point of this. Not only dose it limit your reflexes by a lot. It also only allows you to use machine guns. And it apparently lets you use grenade launcher rounds.

To me this is a perfect front line armor. Put it on your shields or assault troops. as i typically run a mixture of long range and short range characters. Using various armor best suited for them. That said for an heavy It is just... why?

I keep my machine gunners way way in the back. As first of all with a Rail gun. Your pretty much 1 to 3 shooting enemies. Hell i seen some rail gun shots deal 200 damage. So i would never want to run my machine gunners into a room. As first of all it takes like 57 ap points to shoot a full burst. so i would rather keep them further back so i can shoot 10 shots instead of 3 shoots.

3 shots being on par with a shotgun. a weapon way more suited for this then anything else. as hell, why should i bother with the Colossus armor when the next one is 20 times better. As not only dose it give like 40 armor. It also gives you more Action points.

Least let me use shot guns and shield with this thing.

[Shepard]

Yeah, the Colossus was also pretty disapointing for me. At the VERY LEAST it has to be compatible with some of the modules, and then a little bump in its armor value, even for the non-upgraded version.

[rman88]

Well issue is, what is the point of it? As really you have 2 types of armors. Heavy/ light. Light is used for your long range characters. Heavy is used for your short range characters. The exo suit is more suited for your long range characters. As they need more action points to shoot.

The Colossusis suited purely for the short range characters. as things like reflex and action points. Rally don't matter compare to survivabuility. Issue is only a heavy can use it. And who in gods names is Using heavies to enter the rooms first?

Just have to add this. A MG is around 51 ap to fully shoot. meaning you at most only have like 10 to 20 ap to move.. compare to say a Shield and handgun. Which only needs like 17 ap to shoot.

[biomike]

A few things they could do to make it better
1 - let it have a healing module, like come on thats a very basic one
2 - have it so it has a reduced cost to fire the MG, all that fancy tech put in it and still takes that much to fire?
3 - let it have a grenade launcher be it built in or something that you "hold" in the off hand, this will help with its role of being the heavy hitter

[rman88]

ya still feel its not worth it. as not going to lie i never used the grenade launcher. Emp grenades are my bread and butter. How i make a ton of cash. and in all honesty i still don't really need it.

Once you get to that point. Most of your guys should be in tier 2 armor. And stalker armor with the heavy mod. Is good enough to keep your guys alive for one or more hits. least assuming you don't get 1 shotted by the dumb gernaders. God i hate fighting wraiths.

Regardless i still see no reason to use this. As in the end i wont be using this to keep my forces alive. As my heavies are not going to be the guys fighting up front.

Side note, one could argue that the exo suit is overall better. As sure you can reduce the ap needed to shoot. Or just take the exo suit that gives you like 15 fee ap. so now you got more ap to shoot and do other things..

[Magicdancer]

It´s concept from X1 called "Predator armor"
It used to be BIS armor for any heavy weapon (the highest armor + reduced AP spent for using burst fire to 51% or smth, also removed recoil, and movement penalties ... )
Well it was OP in X1 and first choice ...

On the other hand it looks weak in X2 and needs some tuning.
I like the concept of different armor for specific situation you can use late game and I know it will get some upgrade later (haven´t seen it yet) but I have no reason to use it over guardian (stalker eventually) in this phase of the game (don´t have Exosuit yet).

Guardian has a bit worse armor vs plasma weapons than Colossus which is really handicapped (no modules, less view range, limited weaponry) ....
Lacking of healing modules really hurst ...

I think Colossus should keep its concept of "breakthrough armor"

I am ok it has some downsides (less vierange, limited weaponry, NO moduls,... ) but on the other hand it should have enough advantages you can profit from.

I would give it +20 hp buff (up to 120hp), morale bonus, in-built healing system (that just heals bleading wounds to not make it OP), buffed armor from 30 > 40 and better control for heavy weapons (from 51% TU > 41% TU for triple burst; from 75% TU >65% TU for full burst).

Upgraded version could have just buffed armor to 60 or smth.
What do you think?

Btw we need more heavy type weapons (other than LMG, heavy launcher, .. )

[rman88]

The issue isn't the limited weapons. the issue is the weapons make no sense. As i said before, their are only two type of armor in this game Light, vs heavy. Colossus is equivalent to end game heavy armor.

That said limiting i to MG is contradictory to what you would be using it for. As MG in the end of the day is a Long range weapon. due to the nature of movement. As sure 7% chance to hit isn't that great. But 7% chance to hit with 10 shot. Each shot can suppress the target. And each shot deals between 50 to 100 damage.

You need a bit of luck behind it. But in the end why would you bother running them closer?

[Magicdancer]

You can still have more variants of light/heavy armors.
LMG really shines from close to mid ranges (if you want to deal some real damage).
Yeah you can take shotgun instead but more choices always better.

So why not having some fun and you can still take Exosuit or Stalker armor if you prefer being more versatile...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWq2QvvPw68

[rman88]

Stalker is way to week to be used all game. late game enemies you will almost always get hit. and if you get hit by a fusion weapon that is gg. Only your lankiest people will survive a hit.

As in the end what is the point of even bothering with armor. If you still die in a single hit?

[Gamerzilla]

Originally posted by rman88:

Stalker is way to week to be used all game. late game enemies you will almost always get hit. and if you get hit by a fusion weapon that is gg. Only your lankiest people will survive a hit.

As in the end what is the point of even bothering with armor. If you still die in a single hit?

Gotta disagree on this. I only play commander, and mainly use stalker armor and rifles after a certain point. You all ignore the fact that the accuracy drop that stalker armor causes STOPS THE ENEMY FROM FIRING quite often, because the AI will not choose to shoot below certain accuracy levels. This means you can remain at medium to long range, and enemies will behave as if they are trying to shoot through smoke. If you get to close, high rank enemies will toss grenades, but I have never had a soldier die from one grenade.

Yes, occasionally there will be a OHKO, but those can still happen even with godamn exosuits. Those really need a buff... On a normal large mission, my soldiers might actually get hit twice. Those hits are usually from enemies with pistols because they rush up to you to shoot. Other enemies will walk out of cover to try and get a shot, realize the hit chance is low, and wander back to cover (or just run out of TU and be standing exposed). The exception is when your soldier is unprotected by any sort of cover. If that happens, you fail as a Xenonauts player.

[rman88]

Ya, considering i never actual had that luck. when you are fighting say petroain guards. And doing a terror missions against the new and improve wraiths. characters who have at least 100 to 200 accuracy. As their almost guarantee to hit.

The only way to keep your forces is alive is threw either being very lucky. or having a wall behind them. As cover don't really do anything when your fighting things with Insane accuracy.

Better to just tank the hits and burst each one down one by one. This is why i rely heavily and shields and assaults. as they can take the hit and keep moving. They are also good distractions for the lighter armor opponents.

As in the end the stalker serves its purpose. Its a mid tier light armor to be matched up with vanguard. But in the end its trash vs anything with fusion weapons. And most of the time those guys are elites of Pretorians. who already negate the bonus to evasion due to their high accuracy.

Combine this with the fact that if you miss one. Or they get to close, they die instantly to things like plasma grenades. one of the reasons why i hate fighting wraiths. Not because their hard to kill. No no armor just a high health pool on par with everything else you fight late game. But because they have more tools to fight with. And the ai is decent at using them. So spacing becomes even important.

And when you are fighting things that can one shot your entire party while using something like a light armor. Or just one shot you guy in general. It is like, why should i bother using light armor?

As in the end evasion isn't going to stop a grenade.

Side note, also find it funny you say you only use rifles. And yet 80% of the game is breaching rooms. and if your guy misses. A stalker armor isn't going to save him. when you get shot point blank. Hell i would never send a rifle man into a cockpit of an alien craft or have him be first one to enter a room. as even with electroshock grenades. Their is no guarantee you can even hit everyone in the room on the first throw. and like i said before, when it dose 70 to 80 damage a hit. Most of your peeps are going to die instantly.

O also, not asking them to change that. This is xcom after all. You need to keep that tension going. and late game when your tanking take shells. It can feel a bit dull and boring. So good that their keeping this a constant feeling. That you cant just stream roll missions.

But in the end like in xcom. evasion and cover can only do so much. as in the end it is better to be able to take two hits then to only take one. stalker armor is good enough until you reach late game. Then it falls flat as its about as good as the base armor.

[Moagrim]

Originally posted by Gamerzilla:

Yes, occasionally there will be a OHKO, but those can still happen even with godamn exosuits.

Imho, the problem is not really the end-game armor armor value being too low.

Instead, I would argue that, it is the game mechanics of classical X-COM damage reduction being straight reduction of your armor value against weapon damage that happens to have a massive damage range of 50% to 200% damage.

With a game mechanic like this it is quite impossible to find a reasonable balancing point as in if you balance the armor value according to the 200% damage, then you will take zero or nearly zero damage on anything else but on those 200% damage hits.

It would have been much easier to balance the game if the damage range would have been, for example, 75% to 150% damage, but it is what it is...

At least one thing that they, luckily, did not bring over from the X-COM: UFO defense to this game is that the aliens do not start carrying the equivalent of heavy plasma cannon on the 3rd tactical mission when you still have only newbie soldiers.

For reference heavy plasma cannon did 115 base damage and 230 damage with the 200% damage roll against max.soldier hp of 100 and max.armor of 110, in other words you could get one shotted no matter what.
Fun times, fun times indeed... when it was more or less a rule rather than the exception that in the tactical missions the exit ramp of your dropship was camped with aliens with heavy plasma cannons that could take reaction shots even beyond your sight range.

Yes, I am still quite salty about the classical X-COM: UFO defense game mechanics even after several decades have passed when I first played it through.
I did play it through again more recently and I was not any more amused than I was when I first played the game through.

[Magicdancer]

Originally posted by Moagrim:

Imho, the problem is not really the end-game armor value being too low.

Instead, I would argue that, it is the game mechanics of classical X-COM damage reduction being straight reduction of your armor value against weapon damage that happens to have a massive damage range of 50% to 200% damage.

With a game mechanic like this it is quite impossible to find a reasonable balancing point as in if you balance the armor value according to the 200% damage, then you will take zero or nearly zero damage on anything else but on those 200% damage hits.

It´s not really a problem cos armor degrades while taking damage (armor destruction) so you will take more and more damage.

[Deskath]

We could get a line of upgrades to armor that decreases dmg, like magnetic shielding- after observation of the Mentarch. And it could give us upgradable bonus to decrease armor degradation.

Or just Devs pls add option to turn off armor degradation in difficulty settings :D