Mods or options (for morale and precision shot)

[Benkyo]

I've Googled a few threads talking about the game becoming too easy in the later stages, but I'm looking for fixes.

In my first (and only) campaign it was fun until I got highly-skilled mechwarriors with high morale, at which point I just 1-shotted pretty much anything. Of course I was outnumbered, but that never seemed to matter. Anyway, the endgame was so easy it wasn't interesting.

With Flashpoint, and a bunch of options for career mode, I thought there might be a way to fix this, but all I can see is ways to make it harder to reach the endgame - slower experience, less salvage, less good salvage, more parts required, etc. All this will undoubtedly make getting to point where everything becomes trivial more difficult, but...

So, one thing I can immediately identify is a need to "fix" morale precision shots. Not sure how best to do it, but is there a simple mod that changes the bonus to hit to a penalty? Or something more creative?

Is there a mod that scales back the benefits of high-level mechwarriors? +20% to hit (+precision) seems excessive, and makes +acc mods almost irrelevant.

I'm sure there are other issues I haven't identified, and maybe even other broken strategies, so any suggestions on how to set up and mod a challenging career mode run, without simply deliberately tanking morale (and thereby saving a ton of money) would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

I really like your idea about revising Morale (Single-Player) and Fury (Multiplayer.)

I don't know if a Mod exists to do so, but @Amechwarrior, @ronhatch, @CWolfs or any of our other stellar Modders might. While links to Mods and Mod Collections can't be posted here, hopefully someone'll PM you soon with a Mod link. : )

 

[TostitoBandito]

The biggest thing I want to help with difficulty is better AI. Instead of kamikaze charging at me every single time, they should stay at optimal range, in cover, retreat when appropriate, abuse line of sight, etc... Also, the AI should be allowed to abuse the reserve mechanic just like you do, and they should have access to morale skills in some form. At least add an option to give the AI these abilities.

Right now I'm finishing up a career playthrough with enemy strength set to hard, and while it was rough at the beginning it quickly became apparent that all it basically does is add a skull of difficulty/tonnage to every contract. If you can survive the first few contracts intact it actually becomes quicker to progress than on normal difficulty because you get access to heavier mechs sooner (if you can kill them).

 

[Benkyo]

Thanks Prussian Havoc.

TostitoBandito - sure, strong AI would be great, but it is never going to happen (aside from using reserve, that would be simple). Strong AI is just so totally beyond the resources of most development teams it's not even worth hoping for. Anyway, I'm not asking for the moon, just for existing mods or simple mods.

 

[SQW]

Just edit the stuff in CombatGameConstants. You can change the morale cost, accuracy buff range and even the initiative penalty on target when using targeted fire (that one always seemed weird for me).

Or, just don't use them at all.

 

[Benkyo]

Just edit the stuff in CombatGameConstants. You can change the morale cost, accuracy buff range and even the initiative penalty on target when using targeted fire (that one always seemed weird for me).

Or, just don't use them at all.

Thanks. I have had a look at the file in Notepad++, but I am unable to determine which of the entries need changing. I think I can do the morale cost easily enough, but the effect of the Gunnery and Tactics divisor is unclear, and I can't see anything related to the accuracy buff or the initiative penalty.

I looked up the terms in a wiki too, and that was outdated and not very helpful.

 

[ronhatch]

[...] it quickly became apparent that all it basically does is add a skull of difficulty/tonnage to every contract.

Having fiddled with the underlying JSONs for the difficulty settings... yep, you nailed it. That is exactly what it does and all that it does.

As far as changing the morale abilities around, yeah, I'm not sure where the stuff you're missing gets defined either. You probably already guessed that Precision Shot and Vigilance go by the old names in the file (Offensive Push and Defensive Push). Other than that, I'm currently trying setting "CanAIBeInspired" to true along with setting "InspirationAccelerationMultiplier" to 1.0, but there hasn't been any noticeable difference yet. Most of the settings in the CombatGameConstants file have to do with what triggers Morale gains. In Skirmish mode (FuryConstants section), it's designed to be a catch-up mechanism and so it is gained when bad things happen to you... where in the campaign it's much more of a rich-get-richer sort of thing. Switching it to be more like the version in Skirmish mode may be a move in the direction you want, since the AI will be the one losing in almost all cases.

I'm also using the BetterAI mod from @Amechwarrior. He does a great job, but there is a limit to how much he can do with the tools we have. I'm currently noticing that for early campaign missions with "poorly maintained" mechs, it's too easy to trigger what I think of as the "bravely ran away" behavior. Sometimes it is important to back off a bit and save the mech to fight later in the mission, but when a light mech starts out with only 25 or 50 percent of its already low armor, it would really be better for it to just run into the buzzsaw. Teaching the AI how to correctly make that decision reasonably well for all cases is something that would be a massive challenge even with full access to the source code.

 

[Rojo]

Or just ignore the morale and don´t use it at all. It´s the way I play the game, and it´s perfectly playable (and more fun, I think).

 

[TheSicknessWithin]

Is there a mod that scales back the benefits of high-level mechwarriors? +20% to hit (+precision) seems excessive, and makes +acc mods almost irrelevant.

AFAIK a mod that changes the hit chances to tabletop levels should do that by decreasing overall hit chances.
As an easy alternative you could decrease "ToHitBaseFloor" in CombatGameConstants.json to simply lower the overall maximum of hit chances (a little bit "dirty" and of much more impact for rookie pilots).

So, one thing I can immediately identify is a need to "fix" morale precision shots. Not sure how best to do it, but is there a simple mod that changes the bonus to hit to a penalty? Or something more creative?

"ToHitOffensivePush": -4, (line 290 in CombatGameConstants.json) should be the to hit bonus for the precision strike, adjust it however you like.

I'm sure there are other issues I haven't identified, and maybe even other broken strategies, so any suggestions on how to set up and mod a challenging career mode run, without simply deliberately tanking morale (and thereby saving a ton of money) would be greatly appreciated.

I recommend you to try the BetterAI mod from @Amechwarrior, unshackles the AI nicely.

 

[SQW]

Thanks. I have had a look at the file in Notepad++, but I am unable to determine which of the entries need changing. I think I can do the morale cost easily enough, but the effect of the Gunnery and Tactics divisor is unclear, and I can't see anything related to the accuracy buff or the initiative penalty.

I looked up the terms in a wiki too, and that was outdated and not very helpful.

"ToHitOffensivePush": -4
Gives you that accuracy buff to Precision Shot. 0 for no bonus or 4 to simulate aimed shot difficulty like in TT. Can't find the initiative penalty part...maybe I remembered it wrong.

 

[SQW]

Thanks Prussian Havoc.

TostitoBandito - sure, strong AI would be great, but it is never going to happen (aside from using reserve, that would be simple). Strong AI is just so totally beyond the resources of most development teams it's not even worth hoping for. Anyway, I'm not asking for the moon, just for existing mods or simple mods.

BT actually have a decent set of AIs. Unfortunately, most mechs come with several range bands worth of weapons. Mechs with obvious range focus like Awesome and Jager perform better than mixed ones like LCT-1M in my opinion.

The BIGGEST flaw in BT AI is that it has no higher-level commander AI. It's less 4v4 and more 4v1 + 4v1 + 4v1 + 4v1 etc etc. Having to make decision individually as the battle field changes instead of having an over arching plan involving all the pieces available to the AI is the main reason why we can usually win against 2:1 odds.

 

[Benkyo]

... the main reason why we can usually win against 2:1 odds.

You mean, "always win even against 3:1 odds" =P

Anyway, here's my plan:

Keep morale, but have it only used for defence, to keep your guys alive. This provides a reason to keep morale up, spend money, etc.

Adjust precision shot to be as close to possible as the tabletop game - i.e., make it free in terms of morale, but make it sufficiently inaccurate to make using it a genuine decision. Not sure how high the "ToHitOffensivePush" should be for that. Probably higher than 4. Or maybe just a reasonable penalty along with the bonus to hit a specific location being significantly reduced - so more like a "called shot" to a side than a location.

In connection with the precision shot change, I need to make sure the bonuses enjoyed by a 10/10/10/10 pilot are greatly reduced, otherwise, for example, Gunnery 10 Tactics 9 will offset the penalty too much. Not sure how to go about this, but maybe start with the Divisor values?

Probably increase the indirect fire penalty, or reduce the Tactics bonus.

 

[SQW]

You mean, "always win even against 3:1 odds" =P

Anyway, here's my plan:

Keep morale, but have it only used for defence, to keep your guys alive. This provides a reason to keep morale up, spend money, etc.

Adjust precision shot to be as close to possible as the tabletop game - i.e., make it free in terms of morale, but make it sufficiently inaccurate to make using it a genuine decision. Not sure how high the "ToHitOffensivePush" should be for that. Probably higher than 4.

In connection with the precision shot change, I need to make sure the bonuses enjoyed by a 10/10/10/10 pilot are greatly reduced, otherwise, for example, Gunnery 10 Tactics 9 will offset the penalty too much. Not sure how to go about this, but maybe start with the Divisor values?

Probably increase the indirect fire penalty, or reduce the Tactics bonus.

Easy. +4 to hit in precision, zero morale cost and bump the base evasive from the vanilla 3/2/1/0 (I think) to 6/4/2/0 (what I'm using atm). Even so, those +++ weapons will be a nightmare to balance.

 

[Amechwarrior]

As mentioned above, I made Better AI to increase the challenge without adjusting the enemy tonnage or special abilities. Getting swarmed by 8x Lights in the early-mid campaign hurts when they can out reserve you. The various adjustments to the Morale gains/loss and enable/disable are in the CombatGameConstants.json in the data/constants folder, you will want to look for the section titled - "MoraleConstants" and you can adjust a lot of things about them there.

I just put out a version for 1.3 and I released another "shackle" on the AI. Raised its crit chance from 0.2 to 1.0, or "normal default" value like you would see in PvP matches. I also have seen what @ronhatch has seen with the very low armor units already starting "afraid" and I'm not sure what else I can do with that. I like how it works when a fully armored unit is brought down to that level, but starting with it doesn't play right. The biggest piece of work for my 1.4 version I just released was getting my Scouts role to be less afraid after the 1.3 ability revisions, the values were just too far combined with the changes up front with damage reductions and changed behind the scenes with AI routines.

 

[Benkyo]

Easy. +4 to hit in precision, zero morale cost and bump the base evasive from the vanilla 3/2/1/0 (I think) to 6/4/2/0 (what I'm using atm).

That's good, but doesn't go far enough for me. I still need to work out exactly how the +hit Gunnery percentages are calculated, and where the precision shot Tactics "Mastery" comes from and how to nerf it.

 

[Rojo]

In TT it´s not possible to make precision shots at 3025 level of technology. It´s something you can do with certain clan tech only (post 3050).

 

[Timaeus]

That's good, but doesn't go far enough for me. I still need to work out exactly how the +hit Gunnery percentages are calculated, and where the precision shot Tactics "Mastery" comes from and how to nerf it.

To-Hit modifiers: ±1 to ±10 mods step up in 5% increments (ex. +5 is 25% -3 is -15%) once the total modifier goes to ±11 or more the percent set changes to 2.5% (ex. +13 is 5x10=50% for the first 10 and then 2.5x3 =7.5% for a total of 57.5%). The Base to-hit is 75% and (all in CombatGameConstants I believe) Gunnery increments in steps of 2.5%

In TT it´s not possible to make precision shots at 3025 level of technology. It´s something you can do with certain clan tech only (post 3050).

It is if the unit shut down, or the pilot is incapacitated. Otherwise yes, a targeting computer is needed.

 

[Rojo]

Clarification accepted.

 

[Benkyo]

To-Hit modifiers: ±1 to ±10 mods step up in 5% increments (ex. +5 is 25% -3 is -15%) once the total modifier goes to ±11 or more the percent set changes to 2.5% (ex. +13 is 5x10=50% for the first 10 and then 2.5x3 =7.5% for a total of 57.5%). The Base to-hit is 75% and (all in CombatGameConstants I believe) Gunnery increments in steps of 2.5%

Thanks.

I think the relevant Gunnery value is ToHitGunneryDivisor? Changing that from 40 to 80 seems to make Gunnery half as good, which will have to do (I'd prefer lower return on investment as you increase it, to make rookies less bad, but that doesn't seem like an option).

Tactics though, is less obvious. There is a TacticsDivisor and a TacticsModifierDivisor, but I'm not sure if either of these affects precision shots or how. CalledShotBonusMultiplier? CalledShotBonusDegradeLerpFactor? As Rojo points out, called shot is still too good at +4, so I'd like to nerf Tactics, and reduce the odds of hitting the targeted location so you are more likely to hit adjacent - it should be a way of targeting an area, not a single part.

Similarly, I'm not sure how to increase evasion without increasing pips (of mechs only), which seems to cap at 4? So, for example, I can increase EvasivePipsMovingTarget from 1,2,3,4,5,6 to 2,4,6,8,10,12, but in the game I only see a max of 4 pips even for sprinting light mechs. Ohhh, wait, that's because of the piloting cap. Where's the cap? Also, how can I double the hit penalty for 1 pip instead?

 

[TheSicknessWithin]

Also, how can I double the hit penalty

Adjust the values in "ToHitMovingPipUMs":, they should be the to hit modifier for the different numbers of evasion pips as defined in "EvasivePipsMovingTarget":, which should be gained by moving the distance defined in "ToHitMovingTargetDistances":.