First things first: loving the backer build. The visuals, music, tone, mechanics . . . it all just feels right.
Second: how about soldiers who reload keeping partially-used magazines? This would certainly help with the scarce ammo in the backer build. It’s also an actual technique used by military and law enforcement. More than once I’ve had soldiers running around with no ammo and no grenades desperately looking for a crate.
This would be good. It would also be pretty cool if your soldier could combine half filled ammo packs as an action. Maybe add it into the ‘recover’ option, where it merges partially empty ammo blocks into full ones and a remainder one. This way your soldiers could rearrange their ammo during quiet moments and leave you better prepared for the next part of the mission.
(Note: they wouldn’t fill their current clip. They would only combine clips in the backpack.)
Hello all,
If I remember well, it is not yet implemented, but it will be in the future when you will have different types of ammo’s. So you will be able to switch between the ammo packs.
High explosive rounds, armour piercing rounds or even some weird DoA stuff packed into a bullet?
Count me in
Yeah, in this sort of hardscrabble post-apocalyptic setting, you’d expect soldiers to hang on to half-used clips/magazines rather than toss them into the ether.
While we’re at it, ammo count should be displayed in rounds, not in barrages. Or at least provide a way to view the actual ammo count for a mag. Will come handy when fire modes will(hopefully) be implemented
Absolutely. Almost got an assault guy killed cause I thought he had one burst left, moved him next to a crabman with a shield and carapace, aimed for the head and then only shot 3 times instead of 6. This was because he’d had a reaction fire that left him with a half ammo clip. So the crabman survived and I had to use my heavy to take him out, leaving a gunner alive instead, who then shot my assault.
I believe UV said retaining partially used mags is the intention, but it haven’t been implemented yet.
Take the clip out of guns you can’t or aren’t gonna use. That’s what I want. I’m finding assault rifles in crates when I already have plenty of guns. I’d like to just take the clip and leave it.
Manual mag unloading should fix that. AFAIR original XCom had that feature.
Hunting for ammo is a bigger problem and is totally unrealistic (hope it’s only there for the demo or very specific missions). Modern infantry carries over 200 rounds and machine gunner carries 600 rounds of ammo as standard. In this case, I actually prefer the current XCOM series with unlimited ammo and it will be one of the first thing that I’ll mod if possible.
Unlimited ammo is a bit of an overkill. It’s not like I’m absolutely hate it, but I’m strongly believe ammo management adds to the tactical combat experience. I’m with you on scavenging though. While resource scarcity might play it’s role in PP, it should not be implemented that way, we should not be expected to send our fire team into combat with weapons they cannot possibly have enough ammo for.
Ammo scarcity, while a topic worth an in-depth discussion, should in my opinion come into play at the strategic, not tactical level. I would prefer to basic ammo for non-exotic weapons to be available for production at rather low cost with more advanced ammo types(AP, Incendiary etc) as well as energy cells being harder to obtain, potentially requiring scavenging parties to be sent to abandoned military facilities or even raiding the rival faction’s storages. Both of those could be actual missions to carry out or just behind the scene activities, you will have to direct your non-essential personnel to.
Honestly, I’m inclined to agree. You would only ever find ammo, guns and grenades lying around in urban areas if you were playing missions exclusively in gun crazy american neighbourhoods. 
Either that or the world’s armies set up military checkpoints literally everywhere.
There’s also the issue of deciding how many inventory slots to fill with ammo and how many to fill with medkits/grenades etc. when really they would have ammo attached to their belt or a harness instead. If it takes X action points to open the inventory then it should take X+Y action points to reload, where Y is the action point cost of actually reloading.
I would like to see each soldier start with an ammo pool, separate from the inventory. Actually swapping mags like that would be less than optimal. I would prefer it if it were like first person shooters, where you have an ammo pool and each time you reload it only reloads the empty bullets, rather than tossing a whole clip. It would also make more sense for soldiers to only recover ammo from enemy corpses, since there’s not going to be any other reasonable source unless they’re on a specific kind of mission.
Another idea is having the ability to call in an emergency ammo drop. Say you underestimate how much ammo your soldiers will need for a mission, you could have one of them spend a turn to call in an ammo crate that will arrive in 2 turns time. It might also cost you resources from the strategic side as well, like fuel for the plane or something.
Or a kill crazy New Jericho neighborhood… lol
Another thing that makes hunting for ammo very unrealistic, why would there just happens to be random crates with ammo in the mission area? Not to mention ammo compatibility. Instead of random ammo cache on the battlefield. I would rather see missions to former factory/military base to recover material that can be use as resources to fabricate current weapon and ammo.
Alternatively, instead of unlimited ammo, You should at least have enough ammo with a little spare for the current mission. If they want to make ammo matters, Then they can always throw you a curveball with a link mission without allowing you to RTB and rearm. Maybe your ground transport have suffer damage and cannot make it back to base but could get you to a nearby abandoned outpost where you might find parts for the repair, then it would be logical that you may also find a compatible ammo cache. Or you are task with helping a friendly force under siege, then it would be logical to get ammo from their supply.
Given the “humanity is on the brink of destruction” vibe I am ok with the limited ammo. Besides that, I got the impression these soldiers were in the process of making a tactical withdrawl when they were denied for already being infected. Then they are subsequently told to return to the Haven and secure it, at least as long as they can. This is also corroborated by the fact you can see some dead soldiers strewn about. So you’re left with a skeleton crew with skeleton levels of equipment left.
@Wiz33 keep in mind in the final game you will decide how many magazines a unit will carry to a mission.
That’s why I said that I hope it only happens in the demo or very specific missions. Otherwise, it’s totally illogical. You’re putting your troops at risk. It’s takes more resource and much longer to train a trooper than whatever ammo will cost.
Its been widely confirmed that you get to pick how much ammo you bring.
Personally, i’d rather see a happy medium. Unlimited ammo is overkill, but i really dont want to have to sit around worrying about partial clips, either. I know its more realistic, but its getting too micro-managey for me at that point.
Honestly, i’d also support free-action autoreloads at the end of a clip. Switching mags takes a handful of seconds, especially for a trained soldier (and should be second nature when the breech locks open as well).
Interesting, unlimited ammo is “kind of” more realistic then having it in scarce and finding it around.
Since weapons are exchangeable, and I hope we can loot corpses at some point, I vote against unlimited ammo. Sucks and is for shooter, not strategy games.
Absolutely, but more clips/grenades/rockets means slower soldier with less TUs, less throw etc.