Sorry, no update yet, but would like some input on a possible change.

Since you guys want the Aliens to be much more powerful, how would you feel about Alien Plasma weapons damaging vehicles? I recently did this with XCOM's Rail weapons, and since the Aliens need a firepower boost (AND since XCOM rail tech is based on Alien plasma weapons,) I figured it would make sense. Plasma can melt through anything short of titanium, so it seems reasonable to me.

If I were to do this, though, I would need to balance it. Here's my thoughts:

-Any Alien plasma weapons that can damage vehicles have a 100% chance of killing infantry. (Not my balancing, that's just how it works.)
-The Stormgun, Carbine, Needle Rifle, Plasma Pistol, and Masterkey will not damage vehicles, for balance's sake.
-So, that leaves the Suppression Rifle, the Plasma Rifle, the Heavy Rile, the Alloy Cannon, and the Sniper Rifle.
-Suppression Rifle is now useful, as it has been a bit underwhelming for some time. Can tear apart vehicles in seconds.
-Sniper would be able to 2-3 hit light vehicles, such as Jeeps.
-Plasma Rifle would be slightly more damaging that the XCOM Rail Rifle.
-Heavy Rifle would be slightly more damaging than the Plasma Rifle.
-Alloy Cannon would be great for Thin Men saboteurs.

I think this would work out well, but I want your guys input before I do that.

Thanks!

I think that makes much more sense, especially with Earth based armour probably being next to useless against energy weapons.

In my opinion, I think the Aliens should have the strongest weaponry while Xcom could have the best armour (explained by reverse engineering Alien tech to keep their soldiers alive,) in order to counter this. Exalt would probably be far more reliant on quick and calculated hits rather than open combat, preferring to let Xcom take the hits while they can swoop in to claim the win.

This change also gives the aliens a feasible anti-armour setup. The blaster launcher is still next to impossible to aim, so for me dealing with an enemy tank usually boils down to tossing all 4 Alien grenades at it.

We'll have to see how it works along with the addition of the Chryssalid and the Advent Stun Lancer to the Alien ranks. Having heavily armoured bum rushers might be enough to improve the factions inherent strength (especially if you include my previous suggestion for the 'Lid of the vest that can take... oh, 10 hits was it? With no stun potential.)

Essentially, yeah. EXALT doesn't do well in prolonged fights. Once enemy reinforcements arrive, things get exponentially harder for EXALT. Best way to play them is to take small strike teams and capture the enemy's lightly defended outposts and cut off their supplies and manpower (whereas the Aliens and XCOM have the muscle to slug it out head-on.)



I like this. Unstoppable force vs. an immovable object.



I had meant to mention this, but yeah. Considering EXALT and XCOM have special vehicles that suit their playstyles, having the Aliens forego special vehicles for enhanced anti-armor capabilities would work out nicely.



Going to rework it before this next update. Probably make it burst-fire instead of scatter.

Thanks for the input!

-UPDATE!-

-Changelog: Second Wave Edition-

Features & Touch-ups:
-Added the ADVENT Stun Lancer unit for the Aliens. This unit operates off of Berzerker AI, and carries an ADVENT Mag Rifle. They wear covert ops vests for a speed boost, and will disregard cover to get in close to enemy units to finish them off with a melee strike or point-blank shot. More common than an ADVENT Captain, but less common than a Soldier.
-Replaced two ADVENT Soldiers in the ADVENT Trooper Call with ADVENT Stun Lancers.
-Touched up on the Alien Plasma Carbine model.
-Floaters are back! They now should properly "hover," and the tiny voxel needed to make the skeleton work is no longer visible. Special thanks to The Soldier for indirectly showing me how to do this.
-A new default EXALT model. Ported over from Acake's XCOM mod, and slightly edited.
-AIs can now be seen carrying MG, MiniG, Cover, and Mortar Deploys.
-Deployables have been revamped in cost and rank requirement. Edited from BalanceRethink values.
-Frag Grenades and Alien Grenades have their proper XCOM explosion sounds.
-AIs will now occasionally use Stun Grenades.
-Aliens have exclusive access to the new Buggy, renamed the "Raider."
-The Raider MG shoots plasma, and can damage vehicles.
-The Alien Plasma Rifle, Heavy Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Suppression Rifle, and Alloy Cannon will now damage vehicles, cover deploys, and shields.
-Updated for 1.2.

Balancing:
-None.

Bugfixes:
-None.

Credits:
-None.

There is some content missing from this update that will be in the next. I wanted to get this updated to 1.2, so that's why I'm releasing it early. Thanks to Kcin for finding the fix! Download link has been updated.

Short post this time to provide some quick feedback based on a little test on this new update:

- The grenade sounds are vastly improved. They really sound like they have some OOMPH this time around.
- The new Advent alien troop has an awesome looking model (as do the advent guys themselves actually!) and I really like the berserker code you've attached to him. Watching two or more of these guys surging forward into enemy positions is fairly enjoyable... especially when they come out on top. I hope to see even more additions to the Advent side of things.
- The Floater is kind of funny looking with the lack of legs, even a little cute, but it's definitely nice to see in the Alien rota as well for a bit more variety and inclusion of alien units.

And now for one giant glaring problem:

- As the selection of Alien Plasma weapons can now damage vehicles, they are also capable of team killing. This has resulted in me repeatedly being killed by one of my own AI team-mates wielding the Alloy cannon. I mean -every- fire fight I get into I'm usually getting rinced by a trigger happy Muton on my own side. I'm considering just shooting any Alloy cannon allies on sight because of this. I recommend removing the vehicle damage potential (and thus friendly fire capacity) from this particular weapon.

The ADVENT Shieldbearer was recently revealed at Friaxicon. I'm planning on adding him in, it's just a matter of figuring out how to recreate his signature ability in RWR. My current idea is giving him a special grenade that explodes instantly when thrown, but instead of harming units, it gives all units within a certain radius a special "vest" called the Shieldbearer's Shield, which allows you to shrug off one lethal hit.



I'm ashamed to say that I didn't get to playtest this update much before I released it. Will do a small bugfix and balance update within the next day or two (possibly today, even) to fix this, among other small issues I've noticed. Will finally get around to reworking the Blaster Launcher, too.

Thanks for the feedback!

Hey, that's what we're for too y'know. Enjoying the mod -and- playtesting it along with you.

I would also like to point out that in addition to the alloy cannon, the alien suppression rifle is now a monster. It's the equivalent to a plasma lawnmower which I kinda feel is somewhat balanced due to the AI only occasionally or rarely spawning with it. Sort of conveys the notion of severe target prioritization which is nice. In the hands of a player though... well, I'll let you try it out yourself.

I had initially tested it against a Spawn Truck, and while it was powerful, it didn't tear it to pieces instantly. Against smaller vehicles, though... wow. I mean, all I can really say is...





...this is what you wanted.

I think it's more befitting of the aliens to have ridiculous firepower. The suppression rifle is fine in the hands of the enemy because it's not a very common sight and the aliens only have access to a vest 2 equivalent armour so it's not like you can just walk into a bunch of Xcom or Exalt soldiers and hope for the best.

I'd say it's 'balanced' by that fact alone, but I'd like to know how you feel after some more playtesting with it and the other alien upgrades too.

Yeah, the idea of the aliens is to have big guns and cost effective equipment. Where as EXALT's gear is cheap and dinky, and XCOM's is expensive but tough, the Aliens strike a nice balance in-between.

I also finally found what was making the Blaster Launcher so goddamn inaccurate. There's a "randomness" value in the weapon file that I never noticed before, that accounts for how much rockets will scatter once you fire them. The Blaster Launcher was set to 8, and I've toned it waaaay down to one. The BL still shoots 3 projectiles, but the spread is much tighter, and they should stay fairly level in flight.

Hotfix will be going up soon, be on the lookout.

EDIT: I meant to ask, how's the Raider working out for you? It was intended to be a throwaway anti-vehicle ambush vehicle/mobile turret. I've found it works great for flanking units that are on the move, especially in instances like Railroad Gap's opening. The attackers move in as a convoy, usually with an APC/Armory truck in tow.