Balance: gunner secondary, chameleon suit

[trihero]

1. I heavily question the role of the gunner's knife. It's cool that he has a unique secondary like everyone else has their signature secondary, but I just don't get why this one is so crappy.

2. The chameleon suit doesn't quite make sense to me. I believe that infiltration times work on some kind of multiplicative/diminishing returns scale. Specifically if your team of 6 is equipped with 6 advanced suppresors (little to no reason why you shouldn't they are fairly easy to manufacture after a while and cost 20 supplies per pop), I noticed that further equipping a chameleon suit drops infiltration time by only like 1-2 hours per soldier. The suppressors are cheaper and easier to manufacture and don't cost you a powerful utility slot. I think the cham suit perhaps could benefit from either higher infiltration reduction and/or covert detection radius reduction. I guess if you really want to stack infiltration items then the cham suit provides that option but again because of diminishing returns it seems like a rather poor investment of faceless corpse + elerium + 20 supplies per suit and the mobility loss with no in combat bonus either.

[Valaska]

1. I heavily question the role of the gunner's knife. It's cool that he has a unique secondary like everyone else has their signature secondary, but I just don't get why this one is so crappy.

2. The chameleon suit doesn't quite make sense to me. I believe that infiltration times work on some kind of multiplicative/diminishing returns scale. Specifically if your team of 6 is equipped with 6 advanced suppresors (little to no reason why you shouldn't they are fairly easy to manufacture after a while and cost 20 supplies per pop), I noticed that further equipping a chameleon suit drops infiltration time by only like 1-2 hours per soldier. The suppressors are cheaper and easier to manufacture and don't cost you a powerful utility slot. I think the cham suit perhaps could benefit from either higher infiltration reduction and/or covert detection radius reduction. I guess if you really want to stack infiltration items then the cham suit provides that option but again because of diminishing returns it seems like a rather poor investment of faceless corpse + elerium + 20 supplies per suit and the mobility loss with no in combat bonus either.

The gunners blade actually does pretty decent damage and is SUPER reliable. If you are sick of melee oriented aliens killing your tank gunners the knife as a counter works out pretty well too. I've used it to for certain finish off low health aliens here and there. Its not arc thrower or sword fantastic... But its there if you need it. Their guns are badass as it is.

[trihero]

The gunners blade actually does pretty decent damage and is SUPER reliable. If you are sick of melee oriented aliens killing your tank gunners the knife as a counter works out pretty well too. I've used it to for certain finish off low health aliens here and there. Its not arc thrower or sword fantastic... But its there if you need it. Their guns are badass as it is.

I get where you're coming from but melee aliens don't necessarily target your gunners to begin with, and that perk comes at the huge opportunity cost of losing central mass, which makes the gunner a fearsome primary range attacker.

If you used it to finish off low health aliens here and there - wouldn't a pistol work just as well? Pistols have amazing accuracy at close range which is what the knife does. I understand that pistols cost money to make, require AWC training, and require a utility slot, but all things considered the pistol just outright replaces the knife for those "mop up close range" opportunities. None of the other secondary items can essentially get replaced by full AWC training - no amount of training is going to replace arc thrower, or a sawed off shotgun.

[Valaska]

The gunners blade actually does pretty decent damage and is SUPER reliable. If you are sick of melee oriented aliens killing your tank gunners the knife as a counter works out pretty well too. I've used it to for certain finish off low health aliens here and there. Its not arc thrower or sword fantastic... But its there if you need it. Their guns are badass as it is.

I get where you're coming from but melee aliens don't necessarily target your gunners to begin with, and that perk comes at the huge opportunity cost of losing central mass, which makes the gunner a fearsome primary range attacker.

If you used it to finish off low health aliens here and there - wouldn't a pistol work just as well? Pistols have amazing accuracy at close range which is what the knife does. I understand that pistols cost money to make, require AWC training, and require a utility slot, but all things considered the pistol just outright replaces the knife for those "mop up close range" opportunities. None of the other secondary items can essentially get replaced by full AWC training - no amount of training is going to replace arc thrower, or a sawed off shotgun.

In the end I think these guys are serving their purpose, the minigun really does its work and at much further out than it used to in Vanilla (I believe?) so while yeah a pistol could work as a finisher for close range etc, this is a free slot allowing you to take survival utility slots for the Gunner, bringing it into the role of tank.

[Goumindong]

While its true that a pistol will eventually be better than the knife it will not be immediately. A pistol uses a slot and does 2-5 damage (assuming Center Mass). Without training it ends your turn as soon as you shoot it. The knife will do 2-4 damage with +20% aim and +20% crit. Like the Shinobi's regular blade attack the knife attack does not end your turn or prevent you from attacking again.

So if an enemy moves into melee range for you the pistol is 2-5 damage (ideally after a move... but if you're moving you might as well use the cannon) and the knife is 4-8 with a higher probability of hitting and critting...

All in all, if you're not focused on being a straight damage dealer then combatives is the better option. The dodge is useful all the time and the counterattacks mean melee aliens might not even get to do anything when they close. If you're like me and you suppress and area suppress all the time(despite taking all the straight damage options) you might find that combatives would have been a better option.

[JLtheking]

1. There is some interesting discussion going on above about the combat knife. I, too thought it was rather useless, but in my opinion, it shouldn't be any other way. The gunner's primary means of effecting the battlefield should be, as its namesake, its big beefy gun. Any other notable Secondary would have taken away part of the class' identity. I like that with the current tree, you can create different builds revolving around its primary weapon, be it one maximising DPS, one spamming suppression while maximising the gunner's own defense (as enemies will prioritise the gunner while suppressing), and/or having a variety of special shots, and that is how it should be.

Interestingly, I have never considered going with Combatives on my build, until I read some of these comments (always thought it was a token perk. "Hey! I have a secondary too! ...*crickets*") It's a pretty cool defensive option against pesky units running up to it and meleeing it, cancelling area suppression and screwing up the rest of my squad. Definitely considering it in future Gunners

And yes, utility slot pistols exist

2. Here's what I pulled from the relevant .ini file, regarding infiltration bonuses for equipped armor.

Code: Select all

(Itemname="ChameleonSuit", CovertnessValue=0f, CovertnessWeight=0f, IndividualMultiplier=0.8f)

Default armor uses this

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(CategoryName="armor", CovertnessValue=100f, CovertnessWeight=2.0f)
(Itemname="LightPlatedArmor", CovertnessValue=90f, CovertnessWeight=2.0f)
(Itemname="HeavyPlatedArmor", CovertnessValue=110f, CovertnessWeight=2.0f)

Suppressors have this

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+EquipmentCovertness=(Itemname="FreeKillUpgrade_Bsc", CovertnessValue=0f, CovertnessWeight=0f, IndividualMultiplier=0.85f)
+EquipmentCovertness=(Itemname="FreeKillUpgrade_Adv", CovertnessValue=0f, CovertnessWeight=0f, IndividualMultiplier=0.8f)
+EquipmentCovertness=(Itemname="FreeKillUpgrade_Sup", CovertnessValue=0f, CovertnessWeight=0f, IndividualMultiplier=0.75f)

while default weapon upgrades use this

Code: Select all

(CategoryName="upgrade", CovertnessValue=100f, CovertnessWeight=0.25f)

So from what I can guess (and I definitely need confirmation on this), is that every equipped item on a soldier contributes to infiltration weight (armors = 2, weapons = 1 [SMGs are 0.75], upgrades and ammo = 0.25, every other utility item = 0.5). This is why adding or removing equipment can cause a small but noticeable change in infiltration time in hours. Armor has the biggest impact, with a weight of 2.

So compared to light armor providing a weight of 2 * 0.9 = 1.8, the chameleon suit provides nothing. On top of that, there is an IndividualMultiplier factor which I assume is an overall multiplier for the whole soldier. Suppressors reduce the entire soldier's infiltration weight by 15-25%, while the chameleon suit reduces it by another 20%.

So a soldier wearing a Chameleon suit, advanced suppressor, and SMG and nothing else would have a weight of (0+0+.75) * 0.8 * 0.8 = 0.48.
One wearing light armor, advanced suppressor, and SMG would have (2*.9 + 0 + .75) *0.8*1 = 2.04
A regular one wearing medium armor, any other weapon upgrade and an assault rifle would have (2*1 + 0.25 + 1) = 3.25
Let's say a technical (who has a 1.1 penalty) wearing heavy armor, an extra rocket, and an assault rifle with no upgrades and nothing else would have (2*1.1 + 1 + 0.5) * 1.1 = 4.07

And that's with ZERO utility items, each adding 0.5 inside the brackets, and NO upgrades or ammo, each adding 0.25. You can see a soldier wearing a Chameleon suit by default already infiltrates with more than 4 times less weight than one wearing the second lightest equipment. Six times a regular soldier. He's practically free, weight wise.

Running the numbers, if for some reason your one-man infiltration swiss army hand cannon is packing all 3 utility items and 2 other upgrades, it would work out like this:
Camo guy: (0+0+.75 +0.5 +0.5 +0.5 +0.25 +0.25) * 0.8 * 0.8 = 1.76.
Light armor guy: (2*.9 + 0 + .75 +0.5 +0.5 +0.5 +0.25 +0.25) *0.8*1 = 3.64

There IS another huge factor.

Code: Select all

+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[1]=0.6f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[2]=0.65f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[3]=0.7f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[4]=0.8f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[5]=1.0f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[6]=1.25f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[7]=1.5f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[8]=1.8f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[9]=2.8f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[10]=4.0f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[11]=5.2f
+SquadSizeInfiltrationFactor[12]=6.4f

Every single soldier added onto a mission increases this overall multiplier to infiltration time. So yes, even if your soldier weighs absolutely nothing, you still get a hit to infiltration time.

Again, I have no idea if my numbers are correct to how the engine uses it. I'm just making an educated guess. YMMV.

So considering all the numbers here, the camo suit should provide a noticeable impact to infiltration times. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[moroniccinamun]

Damn, I had no clue the infiltration time was so complex. So even weapon upgrades, like scopes and stocks and stuff cause it go up?

[trihero]

I really appreciate all the numbers JLtheking, I'll have to look at the numbers more closely but simply from empirical testing, again if you have 6 men with advanced suppressors, each cham suit you add on top of that only reduces infiltration time by 1-2 hours. This is totally empirical. It doesn't seem to be worth it. Advanced suppressors are easier and cheaper to produce than cham suits. I don't think suppressors should be nerfed or anything ,they feel about right, it's just that I don't get the value of cham suit due to the fact that you usually have other infiltration bonuses and these guys suck up a utility slot and more resources to craft so it's not "worth" the infiltration you get in return.

With the combat knife thing, I kinda understand why it shouldn't be that good, but how about something like...gunners get the parry innately, and that skill is replaced by infighter? (25 dodge for each enemy within 4 tiles). Then the knife wouldn't feel like absolutely useless if you happen to take center mass and go pistols.

[JLtheking]

No problem I myself am extremely impressed that PI managed to create a system with this many variables ALL EDITABLE IN THE .INI and so many moving parts that makes a lot of intuitive sense, sense enough that you wouldn't even need to run the numbers to get a feel of the infiltration weight system.

But yes, the empirical issue that you raised DOES seem to be an issue worth investigating. You mentioned you used 6 soldiers. Would it change if you only had 1? Perhaps the weights are messed up in their code somehow. Perhaps I am just totally, utterly wrong in my guesses.

It would be a shame if such a complex system mattered so little. I wonder what might need to be tweaked in order to get it to work better.

From my own experience, I sometimes was 3-4 hours over my infiltration mission. So I flipped around some classes, substituted a grenadier for a technical with an SMG, removed all the grenades and was able to glean enough time off the clock to be able to get to 100%. That was a great exercise in evaluating what could stay and what had to go. Perhaps the ghost suit was made more in line with this sort of philosophy? To be subbed in onto 1 or 2 soldiers if the mission called for it?

[JLtheking]

Regarding the combat knife, I read somewhere that some testers has great success with the combat knife. Something about the knife having a higher aim bonus than the sword, and it made a reliable way to finish off a nearby enemy within blue-move range.

The good news is, you can just mod your idea directly into your own game . Simply go into the XComClassData.ini file and edit the perk tree! It's super easy to figure out.

[Valaska]

Regarding the combat knife, I read somewhere that some testers has great success with the combat knife. Something about the knife having a higher aim bonus than the sword, and it made a reliable way to finish off a nearby enemy within blue-move range.

The good news is, you can just mod your idea directly into your own game . Simply go into the XComClassData.ini file and edit the perk tree! It's super easy to figure out.

Yeah, I've used the vibro knife a few times over my Shinobi, even running Sword Accuracy (Seriously, I take Kendo and was nationally ranked in Fencing, Sabre... NO ONE is going to miss that rank with a freakin sword lol >:|) you still end up missing. Grazing I get but a miss should just... Not exist with a bladed weapon.

But yeah I have used the combat knife to kill things from time to time over my Shinobi which is just, wrong imo lol. But it definitely gives the combat knife some use, plus if you are using your gunner as a tank then the parry ability they get is super useful. Especially in an instant where you are suppressing a melee unit and they move, you damage them and before they manage to land a hit you just poke them with your combat knife and problem solved.

[mattprice516]

Specifics of how it all works are a bit beyond my ability to explain concisely (a lot of those variables don't do all the much in vanilla LW2 IIRC and are just there for configurability), but the Chameleon Suit should be basically as effective as an Advanced Suppressor. Try equipping a soldier with the Cham Suit only, then the Adv Suppressor only, and total infil time should be the same.


The advantage of the Cham Suit is that it stacks with the Suppressor though. I believe multiplicatively, though don't quote me on it. I think that is why they're less effective together - 0.8*0.8 is 0.64, so the second one is only worth an "absolute" reduction of .16 next to the first one's .2. The squad stealth scores are also averaged, so you'll see little effect changing stuff on a single soldier.

It's complicated, but hopefully that shed a little light on it at least.

[NephilimNexus]

With the knife fighter perk and red fog turned on any stun lancer that comes after your gunner is going to be in a for a very nasty surprise. Remember the first time you tried to sword attack a muton and got b*tch slapped for it? Yeah, like that.

[trihero]

But yes, the empirical issue that you raised DOES seem to be an issue worth investigating. You mentioned you used 6 soldiers. Would it change if you only had 1? Perhaps the weights are messed up in their code somehow. Perhaps I am just totally, utterly wrong in my guesses.

Your guesses are correct, if you only have 1 soldier, the cham suit provides about 10 hours reduction on infiltration time (even when advanced/elite suppressor are already equipped). I'm just showing that cham suits dont' really help with typical 6 man suppressor setups. If you're going lower than that I guess you could try to make some strange 2-3 man infiltration teams that can get down to 2 day infiltration times, but otherwise I think cham suits could stand a buff seeing how expensive they are to make and the utility slot they take compared to suppressors.

The advantage of the Cham Suit is that it stacks with the Suppressor though. I believe multiplicatively, though don't quote me on it. I think that is why they're less effective together - 0.8*0.8 is 0.64, so the second one is only worth an "absolute" reduction of .16 next to the first one's .2. The squad stealth scores are also averaged, so you'll see little effect changing stuff on a single soldier.

I'm aware it stacks and like I said in the original post I suspected it's multiplicative. The point is why would you take such a minor infiltration bonus from the cham suit when you have other utility items you could have?

With the knife fighter perk and red fog turned on any stun lancer that comes after your gunner is going to be in a for a very nasty surprise. Remember the first time you tried to sword attack a muton and got b*tch slapped for it? Yeah, like that.

But you don't know when the gunner will actually be targeted for melee; I've had many a stun lancer ignore my frontline and go to someone squishier in the back. Plus, in order to have parry you are giving up Central Mass, which IMO makes the gunner's dps actually good.

[GavinRuneblade]

For me, I want knife over pistol every time.

If I miss with the pistol, my turn is over, if I miss with the knife I can try again. This is so important to me. Also pistols suffer from cover but knives don't

[trihero]

For me, I want knife over pistol every time.

If I miss with the pistol, my turn is over, if I miss with the knife I can try again. This is so important to me. Also pistols suffer from cover but knives don't

I'm afraid I don't understand - if you train the quickdraw perk, pistols can fire twice just like the knife does (both require you to not move if you want both shots). There is no advantage of the knife over the pistol here.

Pistols suffer from cover, but in the equivalent situation (you are in melee range), there cannot be cover by definition.

I would always want the pistol since it does the same in worst situations and in the best situations it can fire at range and has a wide range of perks to support it.

Yes yes pistol perks take time to train but you generally have enough time to think about the long term and you usually aren't dying in the early game because you didn't have a pistol instead of a knife.

[JLtheking]

Why not both

Anyway, I build my Gunners to be area suppress masters, so having any form of extra defense when it comes to a hit not disabling my suppression is worth considering. Also means that I care more about the suppress debuff than I do about the +1 damage.

Of course, it all depends on your build For DPS I build and use my Assaults for that purpose instead. It's so, so good to area suppress a pod, run and gun an assault to take out the highest threat while flanking the rest of the pod. My overwatch specced ranger also goes into overwatch. Enemy turn, everyone runs and gets hit in the face from area suppression and guardian overwatch. It's basically a grenade every turn. (Flashbang for added security)

In LW2 units using suppression also become priority targets to be targeted.

[JLtheking]

Specifics of how it all works are a bit beyond my ability to explain concisely (a lot of those variables don't do all the much in vanilla LW2 IIRC and are just there for configurability), but the Chameleon Suit should be basically as effective as an Advanced Suppressor. Try equipping a soldier with the Cham Suit only, then the Adv Suppressor only, and total infil time should be the same.


The advantage of the Cham Suit is that it stacks with the Suppressor though. I believe multiplicatively, though don't quote me on it. I think that is why they're less effective together - 0.8*0.8 is 0.64, so the second one is only worth an "absolute" reduction of .16 next to the first one's .2. The squad stealth scores are also averaged, so you'll see little effect changing stuff on a single soldier.

It's complicated, but hopefully that shed a little light on it at least.

Alright. Thanks for the input. My guesses aren't too off then

I wonder what tweaks are necessary to increase the effect equipment load outs have on missions. I really enjoyed that exercise where I picked and chose what had to stay and what had to go. Unfortunately it only came up once so far for me, more often than not the decision only came down to the number of soldiers you could afford to send up to the mission expiration, and all my soldiers had optimal load outs in each and every mission (barring resource shortages)

If you're a covert agent, carrying a more compact weapon and not having grenades and rockets spill out of your pockets should have a much greater impact on infiltration imo. Perhaps tier 1 resistance armor that looks like civilian wear should have a much higher boost to infiltration compared to the over the top wacky tier 3 armors.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At least the good thing is that if someone manages to figure out a nice balance, you just need to copy paste the .ini tweaks and you're good to go.

[GavinRuneblade]

I'm afraid I don't understand - if you train the quickdraw perk, pistols can fire twice just like the knife does (both require you to not move if you want both shots). There is no advantage of the knife over the pistol here.

Pistols suffer from cover, but in the equivalent situation (you are in melee range), there cannot be cover by definition.

I would always want the pistol since it does the same in worst situations and in the best situations it can fire at range and has a wide range of perks to support it.

Yes yes pistol perks take time to train but you generally have enough time to think about the long term and you usually aren't dying in the early game because you didn't have a pistol instead of a knife.

If you are including quick draw then knife gets three attacks (quick draw plus two knife stabs) pistol gets QuickDraw plus one pistol.

And at point blank i have seen a pistol with 32% to hit, knife was 78%. Stun lancer and gunner were on two corners of the same high cover lamppost. 90-degree angle from each other.

This was when I stopped giving my gunners pistols.

[trihero]

If you are including quick draw then knife gets three attacks (quick draw plus two knife stabs) pistol gets QuickDraw plus one pistol.

I hope you understand that just puts things in favor of the pistol, because a gunner with pistol gets pistol + 2 knives, vs a gunner without a pistol is just 2 knives.

Sounds like you got a buggy situation since that should be a flank.

A simple buff suggestion I have would be to give the gunner parry by default to make it feel like the knife is doing something without having to invest in a perk, and to replace that perk with in fighter (25 dodge within 4 tiles). Could do something boring like changing knife stats but I don't think that's necessarily a good route to go.

[JLtheking]

Wait, what? Doesn't quick draw let you fire your pistol with one action? Unless you're talking about lightning hands.

As for 32 vs 78 it could be because of cover blocking you from stepping out to flank

[Saracan]

I actually like the knife, at least in the early game (which is what I'm at). Gunners don't have amazing aim in the beginning (I haven't actually looked if their gun gets an accuracy boos at close range, but it feels like they don't), so even if I move in to flank an enemy point blank I might have like a 60% cth, which is... not good. The Knife doesn't deal a lot of damage, but you don't always need a lot of damage. Yeah, skilling pistols might provide a similar benefit, but that is more tube time for your trooper, and since gunners - for me at least - have the job of supressing enemies or engaging mechanicals, I don't really see the point of having them block the AWC tube to give them a backup weapon that - the way I use it - does the same exact thing as the secondary weapon they already carry. I'd rather get pistol skills on my snipers and shinobis.

Sure, eventually you might get all your soldiers to learn all the skills, but early on (And probably for me way into the midgame), the time you have to spend in the tube where you can't go on a mission and the limited number of slots available means no pistol skills for my gunners.

This is anecdotal as hell, but I remember a mission where my gunner got three kills without ever firing a gun.
Could I have done the same thing with a pistol? Probably. But I didn't need to bring a pistol, because I had a knife ^^

Yeah, the knife is situational, but that is okay. I can go through a mission without ever using the knife, but occasional it turns out to be useful and I'm glad my gunner can stab someone with it.

[TyreT]

Pistols suffer from cover, but in the equivalent situation (you are in melee range), there cannot be cover by definition.

This is not completely true. I had a situation where both my gunner and an advent unit where in low cover from 2 sides but still diaginally next to each other. And since melee does work diagonally...

To better visualize: here X = low cover, E = enemy unit and G = gunner
X E
G X

In this case, the gunner can diagonally attack the enemy without the enemy being uncovered. A pistol in the same situation would suffer from the low cover accuracy penality.

I realize this situation will not happen often, but with this, there can be cover while in melee range.

[trihero]

I realize this situation will not happen often, but with this, there can be cover while in melee range.

Cool, I'm glad you know you're nitpicking. So what kind of buff do you think the gunner's knife should get?

[TyreT]

Maybe something that gives it utility instead of just damage?
Like debuffing enemy mobility/aim/will , in a way crippling the enemy.
Could be a free action with a cooldown that allows the gunner to fall back to a new shooting position.

Not sure how usefull that would be in practice, I didn't play much LW2 so far(currently waiting for the patch).