PepprmintButler

re : alien vs human balance I think you could possibly have an alien significantly better than a human if the player isn't given access to more than 1 or 2. But that would mean that doing the mission to get it and field it on your team every mission would clearly be the optimal way to go, which is not a desirable state (less choice) ; so even in limited numbers and/or with an expensive buy-in, the power level IMO needs to stay comparable. "One step up" is fine though - there's an investment involved after all. re : Chrysalid I like the panic inducing bit. Could sort of make sense on a muton too, but making enemies go "oh sht" is definitely what Chrysalids do. I' d much prefer a regular sized one to a gigantic 4-tile 2-slot monster. I'm still not super hype about the thing, TBH ; headcannon and all that. re : Viper I think reintroducing more stealth is good. Danger's version seems wildly OP to me, but the general concept is cool. Note that there is at least 1 other mod I can think of that does precisely the "attack and stay concealed if the target dies" thing - it's the Rogue Class. I think in the case of the Viper, a "Tongue Pull does not break concealment" perk would be very cool (it does not need to instakill !). This does however raise the question of how practical it would be to get the viper in tongue range but outside of detection range ; it seems quite difficult to pull off with default values, actually. Adding a few tiles of range to tongue pull (or reducing detection range) in the same perk would help if that's too much of an issue. I'm not sure I like the primary weapon attack without breaking concealment deal (even hinging on a kill to proc) ; rifles do plenty of damage and kill easily. They're also quite loud. What I could see is a spit variant that doesn't break concealment either ; possibly something single-target and long-ish range. At any rate, especially with in-concealment abilities, the amount of access to concealing abilities should be watched closely ; I'd say there's a fine line to walk there for balance. If you can just pop back in whenever you mess up, and continue generate value from safety, there'll be an issue. Muton if Chrysalid is a heavy debuffer, Muton should be focused on buffing rather than a mix of the 2. That plus perks making him useful by himself makes a nice 2 sided tree. War Cry already exists in the LWS Centurion ; there's also inspiration to be found in the Leader mod ; and I do think they should be able to inject themselves with berserker serum as a perk (1 charge per mission ?). I would find it funny if that had a perk that let them shout at or even kick an ally to rid them of status ailments (panic, mind control, disorient, maybe even unconscious). They also badly need a buff to their base weapon and an upgrade to it. I do think the grenade focus is not a bad one, probably better than melee (which should be the Chrysalid's turf anyway).

I have to say I like the above framing of alien roles a lot. It's very true that controlling more closely how/when/how much of the aliens you get, which is what giving them out as mission rewards does, brings higher focus on the question of where to put them in the power spectrum relative to humies. Thanks DangerM for the fresh perspective! (no I'm not even on the mod team but I do give this a fair amount of thought)

I do think too much availability is better than not enough. The class is supposed to be balanced anyway, and it's not like it's free and instant either. I think the two issues this brings about is : - can I get a MEC too early and have too powerful a unit ? This doesn't seem like much of an issue, this is entirely solvable with appropriate costing, gating behind an appropriate research, and careful consideration of the early game balance of the unit if you choose to make it available early - can I game this to give me a lot of missions and farm many MECs or loads of XP for my team ? Again, appropriate costing of the project should prevent that well enough. Is there another issue I'm overlooking ?

That's great ! I do think this would be great for all alien types, possibly others more than the MEC (being able to rebuild/deprogram them is believable enough, while cloning Vipers seems a bit more of a stretch). I think the project -> mission -> reward structure is perfectly fine. I do think the project text is a bit too dry right now. Maybe adding something about a secret lab doing experiments either on advanced AI or on uploading a human consciousness to a MEC unit would help. I do find the latter a bit more interesting ; it's better motivation for the unit to defect, and adds to the "aliens are toying around with the human race" vibe that's already in the game. There's some lab that's working on better understanding the human brain, they managed to insert a human mind* into a MEC, but it turned out to be *too* human and as such hostile to the aliens. *(either some snapshot through whatever technology they could have, or cutting out and wiring in an actual brain up there ; again, my personal preference goes towards the latter) I would very much like to see similar missions for Viper and maybe all other aliens. Gameplay wise, this is particularly relevant to MECs I think due to the heavy shortage of wrecks up until later than I'm personally comfortable with ; however there are other workarounds to that particular issue - I've started lowering the wreck requirements for the project, even testing with no requirement at all besides the autopsy and supplies+alloys which doesn't actually seem that unreasonable (provided higher cost). I say put it in the next version ASAP, with an ini-unlock that's off by default if you're worried about "the general public" having issues with it. This requires testing.

Re : MEC offense - I was the one saying it was too weak in the first place... But yeah with the defense working well and not starting at squaddie mid-game + the upgrade really curbs that. I would maybe make the upgraded cannon 7-9 instead of 8-9 and/or unlock it with Plasma, personally. Re : Viper skills - that's the big question eh. I'm not sure what would fit best without overlapping too much with ranger. I think some like conceal and run&gun or rapid fire can be reused without it being much of an issue. I think at least some of the skills should play into the specific strengths and abilities of the Viper, like the sword skills on the ranger (which are useless but that's not my point). upgraded spit and slither are already very nice examples of this. Have you tried making it possible to tongue pull and/or bind non-humanoids ? It would be pretty neat to be able to upgrade that for use on more stuff. Even without and upgrade, these should ideally work on Sectoids, which are pretty much humanoid (and easier to fling around and crush, if anything). A stronger, late game viper being able to grab mutons and maybe archons would be neat. Not sure about enemy vipers. The other aliens seem too big (berserker), heavy (MEC/Andro) or pointy (chrysalid) to be reasonable targets. I can see how the Chrysalid could be interesting. Not my personal jam though, so maybe I'll continue brainstorming on MEC/Viper and maybe cook up a proposal for an interesting Muton build.

Finished a C/I playthrough with MECs and Vipers. I was curious as to how they would hold up very early game so I consoled myself two of each right after gatecrasher. I have to commend you guys for the work, it's shaping up to something really cool. The animation and cosmetics work is very neat, looking forward to more. MEC Very very powerful early game, although that's sort of irrelevant considering you shouldn't be able to get them then anyway. With the built-leveled thing though, they'll probably appear at Lieutenant-ish level. That's already 3 points of armor and a whole lot of HP plus regeneration, aka invincible. I think that's a bit of a problem. I've been running my MECs point on all missions, soaking up whatever fire was coming at my team (which was admittedly not that much, this being an ironman run I was playing fairly safe in general although not with the MEC specifically ; they did end pretty much every mission with the "most shot at" award). At no point in the game did one of them ever dip below half their life, and if they did get somewhat close they quickly healed back up. I'd argue their HP total and maybe the amount of regeneration they get could do with being toned down. As for offense, I was surprised to see the upgraded weapon pop up with Gauss rather than plasma. They didn't really feel behind at that point, and it made them extremely potent even though I was using almost purely defensive trees. 8 min damage is a very sweet spot to reliably get rid of Sneks, advanced Advent, MECs (with AP rounds which I ran most of the time). They performed consistently well into late game with this, and that's with attachments not working. I feel their offense might be a tad too good from the perspective of a defensive/support role when that gets sorted out. At least the timing seems a bit off. The micro missiles upgrade is quite powerful too, although I think the timing is right on that one. It's on par with a couple of Volatile Mix grenadier plasmas, although the AoE is smaller. I think I would like endgame micro missiles to be something different than more damage though. As I mentioned before, I'd like to see a large AoE, high env damage, low/mid actual damage, maybe higher ammo count version for late game that would cement the MEC as a support role. Could be added as an alternative to the existing upgrade rather than replace it, options are always good. As for abilities : - Shieldwall : even mod-buffed, I never used it. Not once have I found a situation in which it would have been relevant. It's flavorful and consistent and animated and all, but gameplay wise it's a waste of a slot :sad: - Overvolt is also much more situational that I expected it to be ; I have not used that a single time either. - Damage control, as mentioned earlier, is possibly a bit too good especially when there's already Regenerate. - I think Suppression should probably be somewhere in there. It's a native thing the opponent MECs do after all, and it's consistent with the general role - I think there's room for one more "defining" active skill, one that would be more relevant than Shieldwall or Overvolt. I was initially thinking Battle Scanners, but I'm not sure how good that would be. A Heavy Weapon would be great (either a slot for one you can unlock or a specific one you get as a skill, like "Lieutenant : Flamethrower OR Rocket Launcher" or something to that effect, that works with just ini tweaking). Viper Not as OP early game as I expected them to be. Tongue pull accuracy is extremely low as shipped. I gave it a flat +20 aim and still it missed quite often - even late game with an Aim PCS. I think that's a fair change to make, maybe even 25. situations in which this is useful are scarce enough to reward them highly ; if you had a good shot on the target, you'd shoot at it instead of tongue it, so it needs to have a decent chance of pulling a target in solid cover. As for spit, for some reason my Vipers didn't actually have the ability at all. Not sure what happened there, I just sort of went "meh" and ignored that but that should probably be looked into (David, you can probably find that in the save file I sent you earlier). That bug aside, it should be relevant, especially with the boost available at so low level (probably guaranteed to have it by the time you can recruit one with the pre-leveling). Again, I think an Acid version for late game would be good. Up until early plasma I had one viper on my team quite often, but it got phased out pretty hard after that ; the expected fall in usefulness is real and armor hate is a good role to fill that void. I found myself multiple times with the viper going out of binding an enemy with 1AP instead of 2. UI shows 2, but I only have a yellow move and functionally 1AP. I distinctly remember getting 2AP in the same situations with earlier versions (3AP with Implacable and killing the bound unit at the beginning of the turn). Was there a conscious choice to change that ? I kinda liked how it was before better. I think their HP/defenses are in a good place, no qualms about that. As for weapons, I still sorta think shotguns would be relevant on them, but I can see how you would want the class not to be a repeat of the Ranger. Although I personally think that's not actually much of an issue ; being a Viper, plus the tongue and the spit is enough uniqueness, and the frontline-shotgun-flank role is a major one. I think there's room for ranger + viper in that space. In vanilla, most of my teams have multiple rangers anyway ! Abilities : - Molt sounds cool but is pretty much useless. :sad: - Slither is cool - Run and gun at colonel is weak, so is shadowstep at major (not even a consideration against rapid fire and untouchable) - I'm not sure I like the overwatch theme on them. It's universally useful, but thematically meh, and not very exciting Muton Made one without cheating it out, never used it. His weapon is guaranteed to be obsolete by the time you get them and he doesn't have any abilities that would warrant taking him anyway, even if you get him as a Lieutenant or something. I would buff his base weapon and maybe give it an upgrade too. As mentioned before, a buff/debuff role would probably fit him well. I'll not go over that again, it's in this thread. I think a strong melee theme is nice too, I would like to see Reaper at the bottom of the tree. Execute is unusable unless/until we get a semi-reliable way to stun enemies. Might as well give it as a base ability or a set together with something else. Bonus notes : The Legion voice pack (from Mass Effect) is fantastic on the MECs. Wrex or Urdnot Grunt, still form ME, are great Muton voices. There's nothing as obviously on-point for the Viper I know of, but either Tali'zorah or EDI (if your headcannon for their voice is a BMI with voice synthesizer) fit nicely too.

David, sending you a save file now. The MEC armor is not selectable anymore which is why I can't go back.

There may be an oversight with the MEC ; now that you mention it, I was actually able to do just that with the Viper too.

I think there's a fairly significant issue with alien armor and tier upgrading :http://i.imgur.com/wVvUx1h.jpg This is what happens to my garrisoned MECs when I upgraded to Predator Armor from Kevlar. I can't get them to equip the MEC chassis back. It's hilarious, but gets old very quickly... In case anyone runs into the same issue : you can fix the visuals with Uniform Manager mod, provided you planned ahead of make a fresh, non broken MEC to make a uniform off of. Predator armor stays on.

Strictly gameplay wise, I find both suppression and hold targeting to be low impact, low value abilities. I'm still not going to be interested in investing 1/6th of my turn on a weak shot that gives a marginal advantage to follow ups on the same target, not when a ranger shotgun to the face would have probably killed the thing outright ; or suppression as it is in vanilla, aka weak (I strongly recommend suppression buffing mods). Im not saying these are irrelevant, but they IMHO belong at sergeant-ish, not major.

The sectopod can go down in elevation, but not up. As far as I'm aware the only missions that require to climb are VIP extraction missions. The first black site mission's extraction point is not elevated anymore since the patch.

Regarding MEC targeting, I've seen it happen relatively often. As far as I understand, AI targeting is mostly based on the target's defense (ie where they get the higher hit %). As my MECs are low level is a relatively high level squad, when everyone else is in proper cover, the MEC takes it. If someone else in flanked or closer in half cover, they seem to take priority, which I'd say makes sense. I do not have that much testing with that TBH, considering XCOM is all about not letting the opponent take shots... I do like the viper getting a strong armor hate theme going for late game, where humanoid hate falls off sharply in usefulness. with a decently powerful poison spit and an Acid lategame variant, that'd be a good start already ; you *could* just also put shredder in her tree too. I don't know about the disorient spit, that sounds interesting but would need playtesting. Immobilize would also make for a strong situational ability. As for my feeling on Viper balance/progression, they're good at the point you get them (plenty of advent around) but nowhere near OP, which could possibly change with a better spit. Tongue probably needs to be more accurate. Getting a few ranks doesn't seem to do much; I would like to see at least one more impactful skill by the third level up. I do agree with a previous poster than MEC offense is trash. You get the damage of a t1 cannon by the time you should be well into magnetic territory. Working attachments should help a bit but I really do not like how tedious it is to even get them to level up. I also still find MEC wrecks too hard to come by, making them enter play late, and they don't have much to justify their spot in a squad by the time you can get them. I've already mentioned that, but I enjoy giving them Shieldwall, Energy Shield, and Battle Scanner, which I find all flavorful and consistent. Granted none of that helps much with the offense bit, but it does give it a unique role on the battlefield. If it's going to be a support class, it should probably get a high kill assist XP to make the leveling more bearable. But still, I would plain boost the damage on the base and upgraded MEC weapon (maybe +1 across) ; the aim is bad enough as it is, if the damage is bad too there's very little point to the weapon at all.

For the record, mod is now working fine on my end (the broken viper thing is gone). Not completely sure what fixed it TBH, but oh well. I did find another issue that led to my viper getting plated armor. It happened without input from me. The cause is either an automatic upgrade when developing the tech (timing about fits), or a mod that I use that automatically unequips everyone in the barracks. Probably the latter now that I think about it, as unequipping the snek's armor manually (cross in the corner is still available) equips them with the highest tier armor you have (and that cannot be reverted AFAIK). My latest test run is on a Marathon mod (which I also really wanted to test) so it's not very fast -.- Just got my first couple vipers and MECs should follow soonish.

mMy vote goes towards regular sized MECs. It really isn't much of an issue in barracks or skyranger.

About the MEC weapon - it's not unequippable, it works fine, it's the *attachments* that I can not put any on. (I click upgrade weapon, the available slot, and it shows my scopes and whatnot greyed out). It may be related to Grimy's LootMod now that I think about it. Re tiny MEC : that's intended. I find them really tiny, possibly too much. Very minor gripe though.