[A15] Weapon Rebalancing

Started by Razzoriel, October 05, 2016, 02:36:06 PM

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Razzoriel

DOWNLOADING
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Alternatively, check http://www.nexusmods.com/rimworld/mods/150/?

DESCRIPTION
This mod intends to be a very simple, but welcome addition to vanilla gameplay. It has no additional features, other than simply rebalancing weapons for better, more realistic feeling. Perhaps the spotlights of Weapon Rebalancing are:

* The work to make and materials required to craft weapons were largely unchanged. You won't have differences in these instances between before and after you installed the mod.

* Fists are greatly nerfed. Whenever a pawn is forced to enter melee with his fists, you'll notice he'll be way, way less efficient than before. However, this has a benefit; forcing capture through fisting (giggidy) using unarmed combat raiders is easier, since the damage they deal is less than before.

* Using ranged weapons in touch range (Also known as firing at enemies melee'ing your pawns) is now heavily nerfed. The larger the weapon your pawn is carrying, the more the accuracy penalty for shooting at someone directly close to it. This is even truer with bows, since drawing, aiming and shooting at someone too close for confort is a real challenge. However, smaller weapons, like a Pistol or a Machine Pistol, are more efficient in this endeavour since they can be controlled easier than a long-barrel sniper or survival rifle.

* The Charge Rifle is redesigned to not be a glorified Pump Shotgun. It now has the same range as the Machine Pistol, and functions like a flexible, shorter-range Assault Rifle. The damage has been nerfed to nearly half to compensate all the goodies it received, however. So whenever you equip a pawn with a Charge Rifle, you'll notice that it is severely lacking in power compared to the vanilla one, but in exchange it will fire from further away, with lesser cooldown between shots, more accurately.

* Most of the weapons received an increase in their bullet speed. Real-life ballistics from bullets were used to calculate this, and they now move at about 90% of their muzzle velocity (since bullets cannot lose their speed through their lifetime without use of scripts in Rimworld). For instance, the vanilla Pistol and heavy SMG were calculated using a .45 ACP, a slow-moving, but heavy-hitting projectile, while the Assault Rifle uses the 5.56x45mm, a very fast-moving projectile that moves about twice as fast.

I've been playing vanilla with these changes for about a couple months, and so far, there has been very little change to combat. Charge Rifle pirates with Awful firearms are still dangerous, but not gamebreakingly powerful. Bows are still primitive weapons that should be replaced ASAP, but now better reflect their own roles. Tribesmen with pilas now are still dangerous, but not one-hit kill machines.

IN-DEPTH CHANGELOG

RANGED WEAPONS

- Short Bow
The Short Bow remains the original low-value, initial ranged weapon for pawns. It has received a nerf in its damage and range, but has been buffed slightly in accuracy with targets at short-medium ranges (how they were supposed to work) and target acquisition time (warm-up).

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 89%-25% (-64%)
Short: 64%-72% (+8%)
Medium: 41%-45% (+4%)
Long: 22%-22% (Unchanged)

* Damage nerfed from 10 to 7.

* Warm-up time reduced from 170 to 150 ticks.

* Range reduced from 31 to 29 squares.

- Great Bow
Great Bows were massively overpowered due to their insane damage and huge damage output even when you are kissing tribals. These weapons are now very inaccurate at touch range (how they should be). The damage was reduced, and now the weapon is more accurate at longer ranges. The arrow now moves faster than short bows.

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 93%-20% (-73%)
Short: 77%-80% (+3%)
Medium: 59%-60% (+4%)
Long: 42%-50% (+8%)

* Damage reduced from 15 to 10.

* Bullet speed increased from 49 to 60.

* Range reduced from 34 to 32.

- Pila
The massive damage of the Pila was heavily nerfed. Since Rimworld counts arrows and flying spears as weapons that can potentially amputate arms and legs, there's nothing I can do but reduce the damage output of these. They are now useless in touch range, but still deadly in short to medium range, which is where it is supposed to shine.


* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 91%-10% (-81%)
Short: 71%-95% (+24%)
Medium: 50%-50% (Unchanged)
Long: 32%-12% (-20%)

* Damage reduced from 30 to 18.

* Warmup time reduced from 260 to 240 ticks.

- Pistol
One of the few weapons with very few changes. The accuracy changes were simply rounding numbers. It is one of the few ranged firearms which the Touch accuracy remained high.

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 91%-90% (-1%)
Short: 71%-70% (-1%)
Medium: 50%-50% (+4%)
Long: 32%-33% (+1%)

* Bullet speed increased from 55 to 70.

- Pump Shotgun
Though it was heavily nerfed on Touch range (like all larger firearms), the Pump Shotgun remains largely unchanged from before, with the exception that on long ranges it is not as efficient anymore. The bullet speed change was massive, with buckshot now travelling more than twice as fast as before.

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 80%-50% (-30%)
Short: 87%-87% (Unchanged)
Medium: 77%-78% (+1%)
Long: 64%-40% (-24%)

* Bullet speed changed from 55 to 120.

- Machine Pistol
Buffed mostly to operate slightly better at short and long ranges, the machine pistol is now an all-around firearm, like it is supposed to be. It now fills the niche as a firearm which can be used quite well in nearly every range, with the exception of long-range fires, where it falls off, like planned. To show how these firearms usually had lower recoil, the cooldown was buffed, as well.

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 73%-75% (+2%)
Short: 62%-70% (+8%)
Medium: 43%-41% (-2%)
Long: 15%-25% (+10%)

* Bullet speed increased from 55 to 120

* Range increased from 24 to 26

* Cooldown reduced from 0.6 to 0.5.

* Burst ticks reduced from 7 to 4.

- Heavy SMG
Changed to become a less brutal change from the PDW, but at the same time an upgrade.

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 89%-81% (-8%)
Short: 64%-64% (Unchanged)
Medium: 37%-45% (+8%)
Long: 22%-28% (+6%)

* Damage nerfed from 10 to 9.

* Bullet speed increased from 50 to 70.

* Range decreased from 24 to 20.

- Survival Rifle
Heavily nerfed in Touch range; a longbarrel, bolt-action rifle shouldn't be used in touch-range. However, it was still slightly buffed in longer range. Predicting from the Combat Realism mod, the .303 British cartidge has muzzle velocity close to the 5.56x45mm.


* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 75%-30% (-45%)
Short: 96%-90% (-6%)
Medium: 92%-95% (+3%)
Long: 88%-90% (+2%)

* Bullet speed increased from 70 to 140.

- Assault Rifle
Largely unchanged from vanilla, with slight buffs to short and medium range shots, but a slight nerf to longer range. Damage was increased to better reflect the lethality of firearms of this caliber. Being a longbarrel firearm, accuracy in touch range has been largely nerfed; still, operating a fully automatic weapon in melee helps slightly, when compared to the survival rifle.

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 70%-35% (-35%)
Short: 87%-90% (+3%)
Medium: 77%-80% (+3%)
Long: 64%-60% (-4%)

* Damage buffed from 6 to 9.

* Bullet speed increased from 70 to 140.

- Sniper Rifle
Lower damage output, but also a lower cooldown. As any other longbarrel weapons, it is now inefficient in melee range, resulting in drastically lower accuracy. However, since it is the king of long range firefights, it has been buffed slightly in this regard. Surprisingly, the .454 Lapua cartidge (the one used for the Sniper Rifle) is slower in velocity than the 5.56mm. To reflect that, the Sniper Rifle's bullet speed is only slightly increased.


* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 50%-30% (-20%)
Short: 86%-82% (+4%)
Medium: 86%-85% (-1%)
Long: 88%-92% (+4%)

* Damage reduced from 40 to 32.

* Bullet speed increased from 100 to 110.

* Cooldown decreased from 2.4 to 2.

- LMG
With few changes to accuracy values, the LMG remains being a short-medium range beast. To better reflect that, it was slightly buffed on shorter range accuracy. Damage for this weapon was buffed, to reflect the 7.62x51mm cartidge. It also more than tripled bullet speed, to reflect exactly the ballistics of this cartidge.

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 50%-35% (-15%)
Short: 64%-70% (+6%)
Medium: 41%-45% (+4%)
Long: 22%-21% (-1%)

* Damage increased from 8 to 12.

* Bullet speed increased from 40 to 170.

* Range reduced from 27 to 26.

* Cooldown reduced from 1.26 to 1.2.

* Burst shot count reduced from 6 to 5.

* Burst shot delay reduced from 7 ticks to 4 ticks.

- Minigun
Still a short-range mower with buffs to accuracy in nearly all ranges and damage as well. You will notice that shooting a minigun in longrange shots is now not a complete waste, because of the accuracy buff. However, to manipulate this beast, the range was reduced, and in melee range, it will still miss plenty of the shots.

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 50%-20% (-30%)
Short: 42%-50% (+8%)
Medium: 18%-23% (+5%)
Long: 6%-11% (+5%)

* Damage buffed from 8 to 10.

* Bullet speed increased from 70 to 120.

* Range decreased from 32 to 27.

* Cooldown increased from 0.6 to 0.87.

- Charge Rifle
Not a powerhouse anymore, but a generally more efficient firearm in nearly every range, including melee. It also has a very low warmup period, becoming one of the quickest short-range firearms with decent damage to boot (just not completely damaging). It is very accurate still, and compared to other firearms, the charge rifle will put others to shame, with slightly reduced damage, however. The range was increased to better reflect the changes of the firearm.

* Accuracy changed. Previous-New range values:
Touch: 80%-63% (-17%)
Short: 83%-83% (Unchanged)
Medium: 68%-80% (+12%)
Long: 53%-65% (+12%)

* Damage reduced from 13 to 7.

* Warmup time reduced from 90 to 45 ticks.

* Range increased from 22 to 26.


MELEE WEAPONS

See attachment.

Q&A

Q: My weapons are useless in melee!
A: Yes, your ranged weapons are useless in melee range. Pick a firearm with lesser penalties, or prepare yourself accordingly. Leave melee weapons near shooting places, like nearby sandbags.

Q: This weapon sucks now!
A: I'm not against changing it to better adapt the weapons with the more drastic changes. For example, the Pilas were largely nerfed, but only because they were too strong in the first place for what they were supposed to be. Charged rifles were too strong, and filled niches of nearly every firearm, while providing no drawbacks whatsoever.

Q: Melee sucks now!
A: Yes; your unarmed pawns cannot overpower pawns with guns and weapons as easily. Like it is supposed to be, and it also works the other way around; equipping your own pawns with melee weapons is now more effective, since firearms are now nerfed in touch range. This means your pawn can engage pirates with sniper rifles in the vicinity and whack away with less danger.

Q: This weapon is now too strong!
A: Some weapons were buffed to better reflect their new stats. Miniguns, for instance, are supposed to be mowers in short-range encounters. If you feel like one weapons is too strong compared to others, feel free to post here and explain your reasonings.

[attachment deleted by admin - too old]

Dingo

This looks really interesting! There is apparently a big combat rebalance/overhaul in A16; but A16 isn't out yet, of course.

Razzoriel

Quote from: Dingo on October 05, 2016, 02:45:48 PM
This looks really interesting! There is apparently a big combat rebalance/overhaul in A16; but A16 isn't out yet, of course.
I got tired of waiting for A15's CCL. So without Combat Realism, I tried my best to replicate the ideals behind the better realism it portrayed. If this mod is well-received, it will open up some space for me to come up with a mod adding new firearms and melee weapons of all technologies.

kaptain_kavern

Congratz on the release.

It's obvious you spend time to do your research and think about your stuff. I like that  8)

Thx for your time, will gladly try this one

Tindahbawx

Quote from: Razzoriel on October 05, 2016, 02:36:06 PMforcing capture by fisting raiders is easier,

You probably want to re-word that just a bit.  ;D

KTVSUN

Thank you for a nice mod.

At first I loved it.

Then I started a new game in extreme as a tribe... oh boy these changes have a huge impact on the difficulty of playing Tribe. Gamestart is always the hardest and with these it hurts a lot, range dps is much lower so it s harder to kill anything before they get to you and once they do, you are toast.

Will keep playing though

k

K.

Razzoriel

Quote from: KTVSUN on October 08, 2016, 09:56:19 AM
Thank you for a nice mod.

At first I loved it.

Then I started a new game in extreme as a tribe... oh boy these changes have a huge impact on the difficulty of playing Tribe. Gamestart is always the hardest and with these it hurts a lot, range dps is much lower so it s harder to kill anything before they get to you and once they do, you are toast.

Will keep playing though

k

K.
Did you also start the game on an ice sheet with mods that make it insanely difficult too?

Just kidding.

Look, I don't know what to say. You're on purpose starting a game which is supposed to be incredibly hard. It's not like my mod is making the game hard, it is already stupidly hard by default on those settings! If anything, most of the raiders you'll encounter will also be slightly easier for you to deal with, since the changes, surprisingly, affect them as well. The big offenders against tribe players are exactly the weapons which i've changed to be not as powerful; the charge rifle, the sniper rifle, the shotgun... these firearms are now changed to give you time to respond accordingly, while not losing their effectiveness.

Also, great bows and pila are still useful, they're just not as powerful and/or useful as guns because it's insane to have this concept in the first place. With this being said, the pila is accurate at short ranges (4-5 squares, i think) and the great bow is more accurate at long ranges, so it's not like you cannot defend yourself with primitive weapons. Engaging raiders is also encouraged, due to the nerf to fist damage.

I strongly recommend you to keep playing. Your game mode is very hard on vanilla. My mod isn't supposed to be a difficulty bump, but simply a shift in power of the weapons.

KTVSUN

Actually i play in a desert with a mod for extreme heat wave ;=)

Sorry if my post seemed negative it isnt. I was just pointing out how these changes up the difficulty of playing tribe. It takes a long time to research firearms. I got my ass handed to me yesterday, today i m doing better, i just researched electricity so i ll soon craft firearms but have various colonists in very bad shapes with missing limbs and injuries due to such tough fights.

All in all it s nice, forced me to think out of the box since strategies I used normally suddenly did not work no more, and that s what this game is about.

So thanks again for a nice mod. 10/10

Cheers,

K




Mehni

Interesting mod, and I can see you've put a lot of thought into it.

I'd like to point out that a lot of your changes have no effect, or maybe the opposite of what you want. Touch, short, medium and long range are 4, 15, 30 and 50 tiles respectively. Accuracy gets interpolated between those values. A 12% increase on the long range accuracy of a charge rifle with a range of 26 doesn't do anything. Same with the minigun.

In the case of the LMG, the difference between Touch and Short range is massive. If someone is 10 tiles away, the accuracy is like 50%. I'm not sure if that's what you've intended to achieve. The same goes for the pump shotgun as well, the range where it used to be effective is now the range where it's least effective.

Definitely keeping my eye on this. Vanilla weapons could certainly use a rebalance, and this is a great step in that direction.

Razzoriel

#9
Well, I can tell you that the charge rifle is noticeably more accurate after the changes. I always thought that the range denominations were percentages, not fixed. So Short Bows take no accuracy from long ranges, since their range is >30? If that is the case, I have no problems in reworking the stats to better solidify the concepts applied.

I'm going to run several tests and come back to this later.

EDIT: Actually, what you said is 100% correct. I ran a test with short bows, and it showed 29% accuracy at long ranges, but at the edge of its range (29 sq) it was showing 45% weapon accuracy.

I'll do some numbercrunching. Next update will feature all the intended changes as they are supposed to work. So expect it to be more crazy numerically, but actually better in-game.
All in all it s nice, forced me to think out of th

Razzoriel

#10
Quote from: KTVSUN on October 08, 2016, 02:20:02 PM
Actually i play in a desert with a mod for extreme heat wave ;=)

Sorry if my post seemed negative it isnt. I was just pointing out how these changes up the difficulty of playing tribe. It takes a long time to research firearms. I got my ass handed to me yesterday, today i m doing better, i just researched electricity so i ll soon craft firearms but have various colonists in very bad shapes with missing limbs and injuries due to such tough fights.

All in all it s nice, force me to think out of the box since strategies I used normally suddenly did not work no more, and that s what this game is about.

So thanks again for a nice mod. 10/10

Cheers,

K

I don't mind negative criticism, if they make some sense. It just was kind of a problem that my mod was making your life harder, when that is exactly what you're looking for. I don't take this as a bad thing, I like the game being hard myself too. This mod is intended to make it so you won't feel like the game is harder, just more sensical in real life in the Rimworld's universe. Yes, arrows and prison shivs will still amputate arms and legs, but what could be fixed with simple changes was, such as rifles being more accurate when someone is in CQC with you than if they are at the optimal firearm's range.

Razzoriel

I'm going to make changes regarding the accuracy of Touch range weapons. Expect it to become quite game-changing and not be as close to Vanilla.

grifo

#12
Hi, Razzoriel!

I really like that simple and solid idea behind your mod since I was looking for more realistic experience in vanilla without adding tons of content or jumping to ARMA like realism when one bullet kills 9 times out of 10.

I dont have a skill to mod but I started to dig in to the theory and found this:
https://cityofthesky.com/RimworldAccuracyCalculator.html

If this calculator is correct, and it probably is, then unfortunately it seems that your concept may fall into conflict with core accuracy formula. Im not an expert in math but it seems that:
1) Final accuracy can never be higher than initial weapon accuracy (touch)
2) From that point it most likely degrades with distance, with exception for few rare instances

Correct me if I wrong here, but it looks like if you make your weapon a 30% accurate on touch its accuracy will hardly go up higher than 30 even if its 90 on short. So making weapons inaccurate at close range basically makes them useless at any range. I dont know if you are aware of this and changed a math which powers accuracy calculation. I can edit xml files and fine tune working mods for myself but I dont have a clue how to extract data from core files and compile all the stuff together and im terrible at math. I hope you are not abandoned your mod since your idea of making large ranged weapon useless at touch range is great and I would love to use your mod when its done.

Well, Im nobody to lecture you, I just hope you aware and able to beat all that math cancer and your idea will finally come into shape and compatibility with current version and will get acclaim, and good luck anyway!

:D