Thought I'd chance an Autocannon potshot to tie up that one remaining loose end. Luckily for said loose end, it went off-target and he lived to hunt down computers and scientists another day...
Heh heh! About halfway through I basically gave up on trying to rescue prisoners and opted to focus on taking out all your guys instead. But in order to lure them out I had to try and keep up the pretence that I was sticking to Plan A, which was a difficult balance to strike. A great game, though, which I agree could have gone either way right to the very end.<br /><br />Still a swapped-sides Stardrive up for grabs if you want it...
It happens if I equip on the webapp then deploy using the Android app. But only very occasionally, so I can't rule out that it's just me pressing something silly. But no, nothing to warn me about the lack of equipment until I start deploying and find I'm carrying nada.<br /><br />I realise I've asked for a rollback a lot, and that it's caused problems for others before (xeno ending up with duplicate equipment etc.), so I won't say yes to it this time unless the others are happy for me to do so.
Sorry about that. Just to confirm what happens: you select your equipment, go straight into the game, and when you come to deploy, none of your units have any equipment? And there's no errors or anything?<br /><br />I can revert it back to the Equip stage if you want. Not sure why this happens a lot to you? Do you use the Android app?
@SteveSmith, it's happened again - none of my equipment selections have saved! This has happened ridiculously often now, so perhaps I'd better just suck it up on this occasion; it is "only" a practice game, after all...
Yup, and I had no other weapons, so my only hope was sneaking up behind one of your guys. When that option became closed off, I opted to balls it out...
What a game of cat-and-mouse that turned out to be...except with heavily-armed mice...go on, finish me off...<br /><br />...and then feel free to add your name to one of the other games I have set up.
Sorry not to put up tougher opposition - my strategy might actually have held you up a little more had I not rushed the execution and ended up roasting five of my guys myself...
I have been playing it recently on a small Chromebook, where SF opens in a tiny window, it's probably just my fault and I didn't notice. Rookie error, apologies Rost!
I've just made the change. The Game Stats are available here, under the Stellarpedia menu option: <a href="https://www.stellarforces.com/dsr/miscstatspage.cls">https://www.stellarforces.com/dsr/miscstatspage.cls</a>
I can't say I saw anything particularly unbalanced about Hideout myself. I take it A Tale of Two Moonbases is because side one goes first, can't recall noticing any more wins playing that side than the other. But then you have the stats available. Never played the other two enough to form a view either way.
It's that time of the decade when I look at the winning/losing stats of the missions and tweak the ones that seem a bit unbalanced. I'm going to make the following changes. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions:-<br /><br />Hideout: Side 1 creds from 280 to 300, side 2 creds from 180 to 160<br />A Tale of Two Moonbases: Side 1 creds from 320 to 300<br />Rebelstar: Alien Hordes: Side 2 creds from 290 to 320<br />Paradise Valley: Side 2 creds from 260 to 290
Well, you did better than I did, but one thing our shared experience makes clear is that it's bloody hard to win Paradise Valley as the humans! Fancy Rescue or Stardrive next?
! Just watched the playback. For some reason I can?t fathom, I had no idea that unit was an ambassador. I thought those guys were always in white? This was just a soldier. Maybe in the 2v2 games only one ambassador shows as white?!
It looks like it's doubled up your equipment, which sometimes happens when I revert the game back to equip. The easiest thing is to select the game on the website, go to Equip Units, and on the armour page, select Don't Buy Armour. You can then easily remove the unwantd equipment.
@SteveSmith, I seem to have "equipped" with nothing! Suspect I must have accidentally nudged "Finished buying equipment". Any chance you can roll the gameplay back to before I...um...failed to equip?
Yeah, I think you have to play at least 5 turns before you can concede; there is an option to "force cancel" at my end, though, which has pretty much the same effect...<br /><br />...but are you sure?! It's essentially The Assassins crossed with "British Bulldog", except that the only person you have to "get" (OK shoot, stab or blow up) before they reach "base' is Sterner, and everyone else is a bonus. Whatcha say...?
Steve the only way I can see this happening is if the LOS was not blocked by smoke on my turn,then blocked by smoke on the enemy turn enough to hide movement through 2-<br />3 squares adjacent to my units. Then the smoke disappears again. I just don't see how it's possible. It's like the Superhumans are using a Stealth Boy. :D
The Java version does not have the option List Current Games under the menu Start or Join Game.<br /><br />This button should probably be called "Start Join or List Games".<br /><br />The Rate and Feedback buttons are also missing from the Java version but that's for obvious reasons
I guess another option would be to use the weapon stats from the first XCOM game. Julian's third iteration of these rules. Those are very well balanced.
Fixing lasers is a lot harder than I first thought.<br /><br />Going back to first principles:<br /><br />I don't see any reason why they should be inaccurate. On the contrary they ought to be more accurate than ballistic weapons. For related reasons they should be rapid firing in all modes. Recoil is minimal, gravity drop is nil, air resistance effects minimal.<br /><br />You could decide that the mechanical rate of fire is slow due to heating or whatever. But the human factors of rate of fire should be beneficial.<br /><br />You could decide they are heavy. In principle there's nothing wrong with that. But, you then have to give a reason why someone brings a heavy object to the battlefield as their main weapon that determines if they live or die. If it weighs the same as a heavy weapon it needs heavy weapon advantage of some kind.<br /><br />Going all the way back to the source for these games: Traveler. In that game lasers are heavy but hit very hard and have huge ammo capacity. They are also armour piercing and can kill hardened targets. That is the only reason that justifies carrying them on to the battlefield.<br /><br />In SF terms those laser weapons would have damage of say 80 for a laser carbine and 100 for a laser rifle. Ammo would be 50 and 100 respectively. Accuracy and APs would be similar or better than the Marsec long guns.<br /><br />In Traveler lasers don't have auto fire due to cooling limitations and that's a balancing factor.<br /><br />In Laser Squad and Stellar Forces lasers have auto. In SF terms (SF is scaled to 60APs = 100% APs) the laser auto modes should be 2APs per shot. In Laser Squad these shots are at 3% accuracy. I find that low accuracy hard to justify when there is almost no recoil. But some limitation is needed to stop auto lasers being OP. I would suggest reduced damage per shot when in auto mode. An explanation could be made for that.<br /><br />Alternatively you could drop the weight to normal levels, same as ballistic guns, and then either drop the damage or drop the ammo. You still have a superior weapon. But we don't develop and deploy new types of weapons unless they are superior in some way. Maybe as a further balance factor lasers can't be reloaded in combat (az in Traveler).<br /><br />Anyway those are the ideas I have been kicking around.
Game type 84<br />Says there are no enemies, but of course there are enemies and they do shoot at you<br /><br />Needs to say something like "basic AI enemies"?
That's a strange one, the log says they were killed twice as well. I don't think that's anything to do with the new client though, as the code is the same.
Got an odd error<br />gid=54248<br />If you look under Private Harris there are two corpses and one weapon but only one Fugitive and zero assassins have been killed in the game (and that was by gunfire).<br /><br />Looks like a corpse was duplicated?
As you said in a post long ago Steve, the stats in the original game are a mess - at least if the manual is to be believed - I may take a look at the code to see if Gollup rationalised the weapon stats beyond what the manual says, but the original Laser Squad manual data is full of illogical and contradictory data. Some themes emerge however. <br /><br />- compared to Stellar Forces pistols are significantly worse in accuracy and accuracy per AP. Their increased RoF does not really compensate for this. SF makes pistols much more viable by greatly narrowing the gap between pistols and rifles on accuracy, accuracy/AP and ammo capacity.<br /><br />- base weapon accuracies are much lower in the original, although the effect of skill in the original is very complex and not well documented, so that would require a code dig. <br />- the clear overall winner in the original game is the MK-1,far more clearly even than the Marsec Autogun is in Stellar Forces. Not great game design in the original to have such a go-to weapon. <br /><br />- the "laser sniper" (L80) is the very clear winner in absolute first shot accuracy, again much more starkly so than in Stellar Forces. This at least makes sense and is balanced by many other drawbacks of this weapon. <br /><br />- pistols do not have auto fire apart from one type that has comparatively poor autofire and is generally inferior to the other pistols in single shot mode. That's kind of realistic about how ballistic pistols work. Physics etc. <br /><br />Generalising about original Laser Squad lasers<br /><br />- ridiculous weight and size<br />- much higher auto ROF than any ballistics<br />- somewhat better snap ROF than ballistics and about the same accuracy/AP, but with substantially lower damage <br />- generally shockingly bad accuracy, with the sole exception of the "laser snioer".<br /><br />In summary it's hard to understand why anyone would bother developing these weapons let alone deploying them, apart from the sniper role for the L80 and the spray and pray close assault role for the H50 or the virtually identical Heavy Laser. Basically these are shotguns.
True, dat - the last thing I was expecting from you was a frontal assault, so without my realising it within a few turns your guys were nearly all in my midst, and I suddenly had to strike a balance between shooting/evading you on my turns and leaving enough APs to opp. fire on yours. More often than not I got that balance wrong. Rookie stuff, really - if I'd sussed what you were up to sooner I could have stayed far left for a few more turns and just blasted away...
Well, that was a tactical car-crash!:Apologies - I'd hoped to engineer a much closer game than that. By wY of making up for it, feel free to choose one of the other five games I have set up.
Thanks Steve. I didn?t wanted to suggest changing what everyone has got used to for 14+ years hence asking if theee was a way to load an alternate equipment file. <br /><br />But thank you for the suggestion, I will give that some thought. <br /><br />Lasers are not great in original Laser Squad either, ironically. But they do have two benefits that are not in the current equipment data, namely <br /><br />Much higher ammo capacity, about double that of ballistic weapons <br />More rapid fire (lower AP) with similar overall accuracy per AP <br />Similar or better ammo costs per shot
There isn't I'm afraid. That's the file the server loads for all equipment. However, if you feel any stats need changing, feel free to post to the forum where it can be discussed and if there's general agreement, I can change them. I've not looked at the stats for a while. I usually look at what are the most/least popular weapons to see which ones might be over/under powered.
Is there a way to specify an alternate equipmnet.csv in the definition of a mission, or to load an existing mission but specify an alternate equipment.csv?<br /><br />From the directory structure of /serverdata and the way the data loaders seem to work, it does not look possible, but I thought I would ask anyway. <br /><br />Basically what I'm getting at is whether I could for example play a game with original Laser Squad equipment stats, or a set of equipment stats where lasers are buffed so they are not generally inferior to the other weapons.
Xeno's low & high cost games are great...make some more dude. 400% credits, no walls left...low credits it's all power swords, knives growling and punching each other...yes punching can kill!
I purposely create 50% games for us to use the lesser credit weapons, changes the dynamic of the missions. As I often do with 150%/200% to use the more powerful ones. With this facility game creation is compelling.
I actually thought the SP50 WAS a pistol until I checked the stats more carefully - it?s a huge beast the size of an autocannon. Crap but cheap - is it supposed to represent some earlier generation of laser weapons or something?
Oops Inkidu just accidentally won a game (supposed to draw them all) ina super comical grenade chain reaction that took out Regnix on turn 2. <br /><br />Well this is why we practice - to learn what NOT to do! ;-)
Basically you got the right assessment of the weapons. Las rifles have an advantage over all other guns over distance...they punch 100% damage without losing any & highly accurate. MK1 is handy, can shoot it like a pistol almost, cheap AP's, accuracy is reasonable...Best for close to medium range. A group of Sniper rifles is a very effective against most situations, a sniper single unit with good stats can repeatedly perform surgical actions. You're right about explosive weapons and opponents using them. But the big guns & launchers soon run out of ammo with one exception the Auto Blaster. The best gun in the game. Will kill most armoured men, make handy holes in walls, good accuracy...expensive but used wisely gives an edge. The problem with weapon comparisons is context. Each mission is different,varying opponents and their ever changing choices and the unique unfolding of the individual battle. Even when the ingredients are the same the outcome can be wildy different. It also comes down to personal style and likings as much as strategy & tactics. Rabid is bang man, rocket launcher expert. If he can take you out early...he will but on quite a few painful occasions he's saved a few rockets late in the game and reversed his situation and won. I used to win Underground using a lot of smokes. Then people caught on and then it became a disadvantage. It's still useful to have smokes but I use other complimentary weapons for different effects.
Well that is a valid point but it doesn?t explain why it?s a rule as opposed to a choice. I might have my reasons for waiting to take reaction fire rather than shoot now. For example the shot now might go through one or more diagonal corner edges. Or it might pose greater danger to a friendly unit where the enemy is now vs where they might move next<br /> Or I might prefer melee reaction to an aimed shot. Etc<br /><br />So unless there?s a risk of an exploit I would say leave it to player choice?
Even if the walls were solid, the doors aren't (and that's not changeable). I have a distinct memory of a game where the player rushing in the first door and then threw two grenades in; the first one destroyed the inner door and the the second destroyed the computer, and they won very quickly. Once this tactic was discovered I had to ban them.
The rule is if the unit can be seen at the end of your turn, they won;t shoot them during the enemy's turn. I think the main reason for the rule is because, if you wanted to shoot the enemy and could see them at the end of your turn, you would. If you didn't want to to shoot them, why would you then want to shoot them almost immediately afterwards.
Just my own thoughts but this will not come as a surprise to anyone here I'm sure. <br /><br />Generally speaking (ignoring heavy weapons and melee weapons) <br /><br />Marsec autogun ><br />Mk1 rifle ><br />Marsec M4000 ><br />SP30 pistol ><br />Marsec pistol ><br />L50 pistol <br /><br />The higher ones in the list (apart from the Mk1) are better value for money, so buy the most expensive one you can afford. <br /><br />The Mk1 rifle has a niche advantage in burst fire but otherwise is inferior to the slightly cheaper Marsec Autogun. <br /><br />Lasers in general seem to be a waste of time with the exception of the L50 as the el cheapo "Saturday night special". Though arguably a good melee weapon would be better in most situations. <br /><br />The two sniper weapons are difficult to use for reasons I will go into elsewhere but there is no point taking the laser version apart from very special circumstances.<br /><br />So overall explosive weapons and grenades seem to be the go-to ranged attacks just because of the much higher probability of an effective hit, plus the tactical utility of reshaping the terrain (on most maps). <br /><br />But these are relatively expensive so you must "cut your cloth". <br /><br />Armour seems poor value because it's never going to give you more than a chance to survive a hit, and once that unit is dead the benefit is lost and can't be transferred to another unit (like all other weapons and items can).
Also removing this rule would greatly simplify the coding of the opp fire logic which is at the moment heavily sensitive to the "did I see this enemy last turn" logic, and I would say, very vulnerable to any edge cases in that logic messing up opp fire.
By the way Inkidu is just an alt of me so that I can do practice matches on maps that don't have an AI opponent. Those matches will be mutual concede draws (now I know how to do that).<br /><br />Cheers<br />Spike
By the way Inkidu is just an alt of me so that I can do practice matches on maps that don't have an AI opponent. Those matches will be mutual concede draws (now I know how to do that).<br /><br />Cheers<br />Spike
Ok fair point. The playback shows SH1 walking exactly between the two defenders which it would have to do as they were om either side of the doorway but that was a fire hex. Does fire also block LoS? And you're right the two units were facing each other but as far as I knew that does not block reaction fire unless the units are also adjacent?<br />Still trying to get the hang of the tactics but yes good game and see you on Sigma 7!
Hi Spike,<br />I think mission log can partly/almost answer for your question. Sometimes event playback does not show quite exactly the events, but mission log does. 4 defenders are shown in playback, but at that point there were only 2. The movement of SH1 isn't shown exactly also, after entering the NE door he turned to the right and walked through the smoke so he could be out of sight from one of the defenders (I didn't noticed any of the dedenders). I think the other defender's sight could be covered by friendly unit or he couldn't fire because of friendly unit in view.<br />I hope I could answer your question.<br />Anyway you well played, Spike<br />See you in next mission
If the reason for banning grenades was that destroying walls made the game to easy for the attacker, wouldn't it be easier to just to mark the walls (and maybe doors?) as indestructible? <br /><br />Although I can also see that with their super high AP totals, giving grenades to the Superhumans could make this scenario even more one sided.
Hi all<br />I am wondering what the rationale is for the rule that a friendly unit can't reaction fire on the enemy turn, against a unit it had sight of during its own last friendly turn. <br /><br /><br />I don't see why I can't have sight of an enemy, that might be in difficult cover say or poor range, and reserve AP to fire on that enemy when it moves. That does not sound unreasonable. It is also how opp fire already works, in that each additional movement, even as much as small rotation, triggers further reaction fire. <br /><br />So what is the reasoning for this rule? Does it prevent some kind of exploit or something? What would be the harm in allowing reaction fire against targets that were seen during (or is it, 'at the end of'?) the friendly unit's previous turn?
Hi Steve<br /><br />Any idea why around event 990 when Superhuman 1 comes through the NE door, my units 1 and 3 guarding the door don't reaction fire at all? There is no smoke shown on the square they in or the adjacent square they should both be reaction firing in to. <br /><br />thanks<br />Spike
It is a kind of a handicap system, it all depends what league points you have, the higher the points you have the less points you get for a win, lower you are, the more you get, plus less points for a loss.