Out of weapons

[Commander Cobbweb]

Have any of ya'll ever played a mission and completly ran out of weapons and ammo on both sides. I never have, but wondered what would happen when no weapons were around...maybe a big multi-species cocktail party could happen or maybe humans and aliens could sit down and talk like adults? hmm. what do you think? :dontgetit:

[The Demi-Godly One]

I don't think it can happen, I think the aliens have infinite ammo.

[NKF]

Luckily, no, they have finite ammo. It's just that heavy plasmas, the most common gun, have roughly 35 rounds per gun, and each alien carries at least one extra clip, so that's 70 rounds per alien. Multiply that by ... oh, say eight aliens, give or take a few aliens with a different gun, and they have more than enough ammunition to wipe out your small platoon of soldiers several times over.

 

When both sides run out of ammunition, you're pretty much stuck, and since no side can harm the other (given the aliens don't have reapers, chrysalids or celatids), all you'll be able to do is wander about or stand still like idiots. The only course of action now is to grab everything not nailed down and put it on the Skyranger, then dust off. If it's a base mission, well, tough luck. Or just reload from a previous save.

 

Its situations like this where lasers and stun rods excel. (Oh, and psi-amps, but they're not too useful when either side doesn't have any offensive equipment)

 

They really should have put a 'bash' hand-to-hand attack that takes advantage of the soldier's strength rating and is maybe enhanced further when wearing power suits along with the weight & mass of whatever they're currently weilding. That would have been plenty of fun. Bashing mutons with a broken plasma rifle....

 

Actually, if I recall correctly, some of the screenshots in the manual do show a bash command. Pity it was left out.

 

- NKF

[The Veteran]

Try embarking on a mission with nothing but psiamps for everyone and one laser rifle... Each time you spot an alien, control them and randomly shoot the wall to deplete their ammunition. When that's done with everyone get them all to throw away their weapons and you can send in your laser guy to get all the experience he wants!

I discovered that one a while back actually... I wanted my sergeant to actually be better than the troops he commanded so he was the one with a laser rifle!

[Commander Cobbweb]

I agree, a bash command would do well in this game. i don't know how many times i would rather bash an etherals head in rather than waste my ammo.

 

another fun thing to do with psi-amps would be to have all the remaining aliens toss thier weapons and use your mass of troops to round them up like cattle in a pen. maybe it's our turn to do some mutilation... :devil:

[AcidBoot]

You can always throw your empty gun at them... it might work...

[NKF]

Heh, funny you mention that. When I was playing my first ever X-Com game (TFTD), and was on one of my earlier terror missions, that was one of the first major blunders I ever made.

 

No, it doesn't work. Pity.

 

Heh, when you think about it, the gas cannon should be able to at least concuss a gillmen pretty badly...

 

- NKF

[The Veteran]

I thought about that for the UFO fic actually. I figured Warlord would probably end up knocking a few aliens out but the game doesn't allow it... So I start thinking maybe he could throw his cannon at them and knock them down with that...

The great thing about writing is that if you want a bash function... you just make one!

[tftd fan]

As a HTH weapons fan, I would be very sad if someday running out of ammo in a mission.

 

And, humm, TJ this is not a bad idea after all. In close combat for example, how about knocking out few aliens by using jammed plasma rifle? That could increase the emotion at the fic though.

[InsaneLapin]

lol, this shows that Laser rifles are so useful

[The Demi-Godly One]

Ex-act-ly! I use only laser rifles through the whole game, no matter

what. I love laser rifles! :inlove:

[Solfius]

are heavy lasers any good? cause i've never tried them before

[NKF]

Hmm, well, the heavy laser is good, but tends to get rather poor first impressions. It's one of the few weapons that demands you kneel before you even attempt to shoot it. (Yes, you can 'kneel' in the air too, for those who didn't know)

 

Aimed shots are time consuming, and snap shots are horribly inaccurate (much better than the laser pistol). And it lacks autofire. That last 'feature' is usually what causes most people to toss the gun right into the reject bin. Avid TFTD players probably wouldn't mind.

 

On the bright side, it's quite powerful for a terran weapon. On the downside, it isn't strong enough to make holes in inner UFO walls. But that's what heavy plasmas are for.

 

Oh, and it looks cool.

 

The laser tank's heavy laser is slightly more superior to its handheld counterpart (110 vs 85 laser damage to be exact), so you might want to use that instead if you feel the handheld is unsatisfactory.

 

- NKF

[The Demi-Godly One]

I find that heavy lasers suck, I keep trying to make them useful but in vain.

But that's just me.

[Orac]

A player is usually just going to dust off or reload the game if they run out of ammo regardless of how the alien's supply is. Unless of course you just want your squad to be a free lunch for aliens.

 

I agree that it would be cool to see more melee combat options. In TFTD Mythos listenned to it's fan and added more melee to the game. To bad xcom1 doesn't have the "hit" attack like what's shown in the manual pictures. I remember scratching my head that that one when I first played xcom1. For weeks I thought I was overlooking something.

 

I especially like that idea of bashing aliens with the butt of your rifle or pistol whipping them, that was hit upon earlier in this thread. That would be real cool.

 

Of course it would change the balancing dynamics of the game, but that could probably be addressed by tweaking the TUs it took along with the amount of damage properly - i.e. taking around the amount of TUs as an aimed shot (maybe more or less only testing would reveal). Afterall, one could snap shoot faster than they could swing a rifle at their opponent, but aiming takes around a second, give or take. That's probably about the same time it would take to melee attack with a rifle. Barefist could do less damage but be faster. Pistol whipping could fall somewhere in between in TUs and damage. So you could think of it along the lines of:

 

-Rifle butting: takes most TUs of the three, (explained by that you're trying to bash with something bulky and heavy) but does the most damage of the three. This is the form of melee attack when a rifle is in your hands. Maybe off hand should be required to be empty to have as an option.

 

-Pistol whipping: Less TUs than riflebutting, but more than bare fists. More damage than bare fist, but less damage than rifle butting. Only available when equiped with some form or pistol. Off hand doesn't have to be empty.

 

-Barehand punch (brawling): Least amount of TUs of the three. Also does the least amount of melee damage to target of the three. Requires at least one free hand to have available as an option.

 

So let's say a soldier had one hand free and a pistol in the other hand. He'd have both the option to either pistol whip or barehand attack. Soldier with rifle in one hand and other hand empty only has rifle butting option available. When he's wielding a rifle and the other hand is NOT free, he doesn't have the option for any of these three melee attacks. Rifle butting is still a good form of attack though, because it does the most damage. Should be able to do enough damage in comparison to the other two forms to merit it as a form of melee attack.

 

Of course with all three forms of melee attack the attacker should be standing in the square right next to their opponent and be facing them to have the option available.

 

Then if a good "thud" and "ooomph" sound was added, melee attacks would be a nice addition.

 

Of course the amount of TUs and damage (or possibly instead of regular damage it does stun damage) would have to be tweaked and adjusted to fit in with the overall balance, but those are my thoughts of some general guidelines of how I'd love such a feature to be implemented. Also the possibility of H2H weapons would also be nice. Like an assortment of two-handed and one-handed weapons. Some of them doing regular damage, some doing stun damage, and some a mixture of both, based upon what seems logical. Like blade or impaling type weapons should probably do regular damage solely. While bludgeoning weapons (like billy clubs or batons) should do stunning damage mostly with perhaps a little bit of regular damage (of course modified by what the alien is resistant to. Like an alien with a think hide would probably take less regular damage. While aliens with weak hides would tend to take more regular damage and there's more risk of killing them with such weapons). Any form of stunner (tazers and stun rods etc) should of course do stunning damage solely. All melee type weapons could keep in mind that one-handed variants do less damage than two-handed variants but use less TUs.

 

Imagine a chainsaw. A two-handed (can't wield unless other hand is free) weapon that follows the rules for bladed weapons. It could be real heavy, but relatively very damaging and take a good amount of TUs attack with. Then imagine a combat knife. It follows the blade rules (regular damage only), much less damage than chainsaw, but one-handed, and requires much less TUs to perform an attack with.

[darkvenom]

So many posts in one day... i am a busy bee...

 

One thing id like to point out... It is correct when saying that aliens have finite weapons, however, have you ever mind controlled an alien and then do the rountine of checking its armaments... You will notice that with most aliens armed with a Heavy Plasma or Blaster Bomb Launcher that in their right leg (from their view) there are several clips and bombs placed into the one square... how come we cant do that!!!

[NKF]

It's because the programmers never wanted us to access the aliens' inventory, so they didn't bother with ordering the items that the aliens get, thus we get the stacked items in the right leg problem.

 

You CAN stack two items into one inventory cell with a little trick by picking up an item and clicking on the floor inventory scroll arrow, placing the item, then putting something else on 'top' of it.

 

Just beware that stacked items tend to force you into a never ending loop if you pick up a stacked item and don't have any TUs to drop the item or any space to put the item back.

 

- NKF

[darkvenom]

Yep had that happened... supprising though the program doesn't come up with a exception! infinite loop detected... hehe

 

[JellyfishGreen]

Funnily enough, NKF has discovered that this stacking bug, when used to combine the stun rod and rifle, seems to give the rifle a bash function!

I think this voids the warranty, though.

 

The problem for some hot programmer adding the bash function would be creating the button for it, unless it appears as a viable option in the aimed shot/snap shot menu when you're standing next to Mr. Snakeman. Throw-down damage might be easier.

[NKF]

Yes, the people who sold you the stun-rods aren't going to be very happy to find that you've been abusing them by supercharging the stun-rods and attaching them to your guns as bayonets.

 

But I'd still like to point out that stacking items can be dangerous, especially if you stack weird item combinations in your hands and try to 'use' it. More importantly, NEVER unload a weapon if one of the previously stacked items is still in your hands.

 

But for dropping items on the floor, it's very useful. See, sometimes you have too many items on the floor and need to drop something big, but there aren't enough items on the floor to make the scroll arrow open up a clear bit of floor. Just pick up an item (about the size of the item you want to drop) off of the floor, do the stack bug thingy, but put it on the floor instead. It'll leave a big gap about its size. Just pick up the item you want to drop and put it in its place. The next time you hit the arrow button, the items will reshuffle and you can get access to an empty bit of floor. Very useful for those base raids where your soldiers pick up far too many weapon clips.

 

The stacking bug is fixed in TFTD.

 

- NKF