Things that have changed
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Weapons rebalance:
- Conventional guns are baseline, but a bit more damaging to address critter hitpoint changes and be a bit more useful in midgame stages
- Lasers do a bit more damage than conventional weapons and more accurate, but don't crit inherently - only with skills and flanking. Environment damage is slightly more than bullets - lasers burn holes in things
- Plasma weapons do most damage but are less accurate. Highest chance to damage the environment and do criticals, but overall do a bit lowered environment damage (in vanilla plasma destroyed almost everything with a single hit, which didn't feel quite right)
- Shotgun have its range normalized to other weapons (27 range), but given aim penalties instead to reflect its close-range role. To get good aim ratings with a shotgun, you have to get close and personal with the enemy
- Pistols have slightly less chance to hit to reflect their close-range role
- Pistols need to be reloaded, just like every other weapon
- Assault rifles and LMGs are just baseline, with LMG being slightly more damaging, while AR being slightly more critting
- Sniper rifle gets slight aim bonus, as well as its close-range penalty removed (it already requires 2 turns to shoot without Snap Shot training, that's harsh enough)
- SHIV weapons rebalanced according to weapon type used (Chaingun is similar to LMG, Laser cannon is similar to Heavy laser, Plasma cannon is similar to Heavy plasma)
Characters rebalance:
- Human rookies start with 6HP (5HP base + 1HP Kevlar armor) on all difficulty settings (to remove difference in starter and hired Rookies, as well as address critter HP and Plasma weapon rebalances)
- Human soldiers gain more Will with each level to decrease the chances of panic (overall panic rate was too high, our Rookies are actually supposed to be the best of the best the Earth international military, police and special forces have to offer, instead they start act like a bunch of pussies as soon as any one of them gets shot)
- Human soldiers who panic won't try to kill your own soldiers anymore (the guy who thought this was a great idea deserves to be hit by a car, hanged on a tree and shot repeatedly)
- Wounded Soldiers recovery time is up to 20 days - so they will miss a few missions if Gravely Wounded
- Tanks recovery time is up to 7 days
- Changed alien hitpoints based on difficulty level (read below for exact changes), mostly for early to midgame aliens
- changed alien stats so they don't get cheating +crit bonuses on higher difficulties (like Sectoids 1-shotting anyone with Plasma pistol from across the map), instead starter aliens received some aim bonus to make incoming fire more linear and less randomized
Items rebalance:
- Arc Thrower now goes in the pistol slot (apparently it had full graphics and code for this, so we guess that was intended by developers in start, why would it be removed is unknown)
- All armors except starting Kevlar now provide two item slots instead of just one (more inventory managing now, as well as more deep tactical choice on what to bring/equip) *
* PLEASE NOTE, as pointed out by Brotte, if you have armor with 2 slots filled on your Support soldier, and take the Deep Pockets ability - the game will let you have 3 item slots, but the item in second slot will be destroyed in the process (apparently, the game clears the second item slot first)
- S.C.O.P.E. aim bonus reduced to reflect inventory changes - giving 5 aim bonus now (was 10), because with more inventory space it will be much more used now. You will still get the full crit bonus after Foundry upgrade.
Strategical mode rebalance:
- Removed Workshop and Laboratory requirements of 6 personnel to build (starting the game, all you could build is 1 Power generator, very fun. Also, this made players to pigeonhole every first mission to take Engineers as a reward, regardless of mission country or other rewards)
- BIG! Science times increased (sometimes considerably) to make Laboratories more useful. Now you actually have to pull out your wallet and build those Labs to do some research. I wish I could also set specific scientist amounts required for each project, but so far it seems impossible
- The missions the player ignores won't increase the panic level of entire continents anymore, but only of specific countries
- Panic penalties will mostly apply to single countries, but the panic penalties are bigger
- When it's time to decide whether to leave the council, continents with a satellite have a small chance to stay, countries with a sat have a bigger chance to stay
- Satellites are more likely to decrease panic levels inside the country once a month
- Countries with no satellite in their entire continent will leave at the end of the month when their panic level reaches level 4
- Normal satellites have a 90% chance to be destroyed by UFOs when undefended (80% on second UFO pass)
- Stealth satellites have a 10% chance to be destroyed by UFOs when undefended (20% on second UFO pass)
- Increased chance for UFOs showing up
- UFOs doing missions can be intercepted sometimes, if you have satellites in the region
- Europe and Asia country fundings are rebalanced (Germany/Russia and Japan/China now give 120 credits, was 100) to put more incentive into satelliting 4-country regions. Yes, it will affect your starting money, but for a small amount really.
- Psionic training time reduced to 7 days (10 days is just too much for doing nothing at that stage of the game)
- Psionic training slots increased to 4
- Rebalanced starting Base Power according to difficulty settings (40 Power on Easy, 35 Power on Normal, 30 Power on Hard and Impossible)
- Base funding is balanced according to difficulty level (175 on Easy, 150 on Normal, 125 on Hard and 100 on Classic/Impossible)
Additional tweaks:
- Second Wave is enabled. You need to have completed the game first to see the Second Wave advanced options, or you can download a mod here on the Nexus with profile, who have finished the game and unlocked it
- Second Wave Marathon mode is fixed. You can build the Hyperwave Relay with just one Hyperwave Beacon.
- Civilians killed offscreen by Chryssalids will turn into zombies on all difficulties. The dead are walking!
- On all difficulty levels after Easy, the AI should now use more than 5 NPCs. Prepare to see more enemies, more flanking and more patrols reacting
- Easy, Normal, Classic and Impossible difficulty levels should feel different now, apart from hard-coded differences, like more enemies and unlocking the full AI, as well as critter hitpoint changes
Please see below for detailed balance changes:
WEAPON REBALANCE
The original problem was that weapons didn't feel like they take a niche they supposed to get, as well as weapon types are not behaving according to their damage types, so this is what we are attempting to address here.
Conventional
Conventional weapons get some minor tweaks to ensure their place in the early stages as well as some part of the midgame, taking into consideration the HP changes on early game critters.
All conventional weapons can crit now, the crit amount depends on weapon type
All conventional weapons except Pistol have a slight damage increase to address the early game critter HP changes
Pistol 2 damage, -5 aim, +5 crit
Assault rifle 4 damage, +10 crit
LMG 5 damage, +5 crit
Shotgun 5 damage, -10 aim, +20 crit
Sniper rifle 5 damage, +5 aim, +25 crit
Laser
Everyone is pretty much ignoring laser weapons completely in vanilla game, just rushing to plasma (just as in original UFO, I guess that's a curse of the series, sigh)
So, by slightly raising hitpoints on early and midgame game critters we make beam weapons take their role - they will ensure a kill, where conventional weapons would give a damage discrepancy and no sure kill.
The overall idea is - lasers are a little more damaging than bullets, they are more precise weapons, but they are doing constant stream of damage - so lasers don't crit inherently, only with skills usage and flanking.
This way we have logical pros and cons for a midgame weapon line, and people might actually consider researching and producing those, instead of just doing science rush to plasma and completely skipping lasers.
Overall lasers get +1 damage over conventional weaponry, +5 aim and no inherent crit compared to conventional weapons.
Pistol 3 damage
Rifle 5 damage, +5 aim
Heavy 6 damage, +5 aim
Shotgun 6 damage, -5 aim
Sniper rifle 6 damage, +10 aim
Plasma
The initial idea on plasma weapons is that plasma is much less precise, but more damaging and more critting.
Also, aliens should be much more fun to fight against in early game stages vs beefed up 6 hp rookies ;)
for example, by the time you meet Light Plasma Rifles you are supposed to have frontliners with over 10hp, that's few soldier ranks + fiber + carapace armor.
You WILL feel those crits, but they usually won't oneshot your tanky soldiers, just lob you enough to hide tail between your legs and sprint to your Support :)
Overall plasma weaponry gets +2 damage over lasers, as well as -10 aim and +10 crit over conventional weapons.
The only exclusion is Outsider weapon, which is brought in line with Plasma Pistols, albeit him having a Light Plasma Rifle. If given the proper Light plasma stats, he will just destroy a Rookie squad if you get the UFO mission prior to getting any armor upgrades.
Also, all starter critters have aim bonus on Classic difficulty to overcome the change a bit and be able to put up a better fight in the early game stages, since inherent Plasma aim penalty made them less viable in first missions.
Pistol 4 damage, -10 aim, +15 crit
Light rifle 6 damage, -5 aim, +15 crit
Rifle 8 damage, -5 aim, +20 crit
Heavy 9 damage, -5 aim, +15 crit
Shotgun 9 damage, -15 aim, +30 crit
Sniper rifle 9 damage, +35 crit
CRITTER REBALANCE
Since Firaxis nerfed HP of some starting critters (namely Sectoids, Thinmen, Floaters, Cryssalids and Mutons) for all difficulty levels (why??!) the game actually feels much more like a cakewalk even on high difficulties now.
Also, since purchased Rookies always have 6HP compared to 5HP starting Rookies on Classic and 4HP Rookies on Impossible, I feel it would be better just baseline all Rookies to 6HP and go tactical from there.
I balance all critters around Classic settings, and change their respectful stats according to game difficulty, so you will get 3HP Sectoids in Easy and Normal, while they will be proper 4HP on Hard and Classic.
I also removed additional critter bonuses to crit based on difficulty mode - I think the weapons rebalance, as well as sheer amount of critters is enough, coupled with full AI for Classic, so aliens don't need to cheat just like that.
Critter rebalance on Easy:
- Sectoid, HP=3 (4 with mindlink)
- Thinman, HP=4
- Floater, HP=5
- Muton, HP=8
- Chryssalid, HP=8
- Outsider, HP=5
Critter rebalance on Normal and Classic:
- Sectoid, HP=4 (5 with mindlink, balance based on Assault rifle, while Sniper and Shotgun will usually 1-shot them on full damage roll. Also, frag grenade is doing 3 damage, and was not supposed to just 1-shot them right away - it will, however, oneshot them on lower difficulties, which is intended to make life easier on newbie players)
- Thinman, HP=5
- Floater, HP=6 (these guys felt like nothing, and coupled with horrible flying AI they just didn't feel like any serious addition to the battlefield, so we beef them up a little)
- Muton, HP=10
- Chryssalid, HP=10
- Outsider, HP=6
Critter rebalance on Impossible:
- All starting critters received +1HP
- All midgame critters received +2HP
- All lategame critters received +4HP
- All critters after starting ones received +1 damage buff across the board (your Soldiers should be beefy enough by that point not to get oneshotted, but to be abused enough by this). The reason for this is that after getting good armors, aliens did not pose any serious threat anymore unless you make some serious tactical mistake
Happy hunting!
Frikazo
Clásico
Asiduo
Veterano
Freak
Leyenda
