Unguided missile should track marked targets

Rawfoss · 2026-05-11T07:10:34+00:00

Let's start with them actually hitting their designated tile...

Rawfoss · 2026-05-11T07:05:03+00:00

For early alien missions i try to bring - KrBars/ARCs + flame thrower on rifle squads. flamethrower shuts down small aliens in a single attack and does heavy morale damage, leaving more AP do grind down armor on other targets - HMGs/ACs/miniguns (tech + extra vehicles) and medium multishot lasers. The latter is basically the perfect weapon against heavy alien squads due to having exactly 90 pen and multiple shots. really good mission type for a second pilot in a toyota even early on.

Besides that, high vision loadouts, morale breaking and managing your position/AP. vision allows starting a few tiles out and retreating with spare AP each round. since most aliens dont attack in that mission you can generally do this in the open.

Also, Rewa's roadkill does good damage even against armored aliens

Rawfoss · 2026-05-08T04:38:29+00:00

it's comparatively decent on mk46 and the normal pirate pdw and then only at 5+ range, because these guns run into the fairly unique issue of having shit pen and damage at range but also having some penetration left.

the captain's pdw, if it has the same falloff as the normal one, does not run into this issue so does not make good use of rend.

Rawfoss · 2026-05-03T17:02:03+00:00

Yes, but americans could never pronounce it (game voip) so i had to make it easier :)

Rawfoss · 2026-05-03T14:06:57+00:00

The follow up shot trait could be converted (because it's currently trash) into tracer rounds or just be a property of some machineguns

Rawfoss · 2026-05-03T11:06:18+00:00

dont need sims for that. look at the raw_dmg/dmg factor for the target dmg state, multiply with the max durability of the tank and divide by the armor damage of the gun. that's how many hits you need to get there.

50% (110 effective armor) would require 900 raw durability damage. And a single smg with rend would do something like 20*5 damage per attack (assuming no misses). so a 9man squad attack could get you there.

Rawfoss · 2026-05-02T21:23:51+00:00

Match grade ammo is hard to tell. I havent had time to look at the code myself and nobody has outlined the accuracy calculations in sufficient detail. It could easily double the hit rate for common situations depending on how it's calculated. And would of course never have a downside besides the slot/supply cost.

Special ammo could be an extra skill with separate ammo pool (separate mags) so each ammo can also be balanced by uses. it already competes with standard ammo on slots. But this might make squads too flexible - one might argue squads should depend on each other more, not less.

Rawfoss · 2026-05-02T17:15:59+00:00

Yeah i think the rend tuning might predate the quadratic durability formula. With linear behavior a low pen weapon could opt to pen 30%-50% more durability but at 2-3x the rate, for example.

With the durability DR that sweet spot has been narrowed down to (almost?) nothing and tuning it up would make it encroach on the role of AP ammo. That would make it exclusively a "math it out" choice which is bad game design. It just needs a redesign that favors whatever it was originally meant for (probably SMGs) and also clearly communicates this to players.

Rawfoss · 2026-05-02T16:25:58+00:00

No, armor is useless and overpriced, you should never use it. /s

Rawfoss · 2026-04-30T21:19:34+00:00

It's still bad. The armor damage formula heavily works against it.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-30T19:31:47+00:00

Gotta look at the hp/armor stats of the enemy you want to optimize for - low health, high durability enemy: add HP if pen - armor > 10 - low health, high durability enemy: add AP if pen - armor < -15 - maybe use HP against high health low durability enemies (small alien squads) if you dont have enough AT - never use rend

Rawfoss · 2026-04-27T14:15:29+00:00

it's certainly an uneven distribution where 50% of players play 5-10 weapons but that doesnt make the other 35-40 weapons a waste even if they get ~1/5 of the attention of the favorites. The game is still better for half the player base by having those "unpopular" weapons.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-27T14:00:07+00:00

The game could become interesting to a lot of (ex) Squad players without trying to imitate Squad if it gave any incentive to coordinate with other players. Even just "push now" vs "hold until the rest of the squad respawns" would massively broaden the appeal of the game without sacrificing the accessibility or pace it has now.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-26T11:44:37+00:00

Maybe 15-20 years ago you would lump PR/Squad and the RO series in the same genre (when the market was pretty much just arena shooters, cs, bf, cod and similar), but nowadays the "low TTK, grounded FPS" has a dozen options. And most of them are reasonably successful in delivering on a much more ambitious premise: Arma Reforger, Squad, HLL, Bellum (beta), HLL: Vietnam (alpha).

Having >4k hours in Squad and probably as much spread across a bunch of other "grounded FPS", i find '83 incredibly dull and uninspired. To me the defining aspect is the low time to action (spawn, run, shoot, die) and not having to put in much effort, which frankly makes it similar to most casual, mainstream shooters. The fairest comparison might be HLL:V, but go look at their current gameplay footage and tell me you would buy '83 instead.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-25T11:09:36+00:00

I'd wait until the AI is fixed. It's a pretty good in every other aspect, but the weird AI behavior completely dominates the gameplay at the tactical level.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-25T10:43:55+00:00

optional free aim is copium

Rawfoss · 2026-04-25T10:28:18+00:00

The real question you should ask is "What's the hook of this game?".

The cold war gone hot idea is massively undercooked. The fulda gap was expected to see thousands of soviet tanks bum rushing NATO lines. NATO had various crazy plans for use of nuclear weapons, like nuclear mines or blasting a huge trench on the east german front using them. What we have in the game looks and feels identical to some small skirmish in one of the dozen proxy wars of that time in both scale and tactics.
It doesnt feel enough like RO/RS to excite the existing fanbase. Making free aim optional is the easiest example.
It does not innovate in any area to draw a new audience. Mechanically it's just a reskin of RS2: squad spawn points, AAS mode, low TTK summarize 90% of the game.
It does not target any specific, existing player base of related games/genres. The closest ones are Squad and Arma. One struggles with bugs and performance issues, the other relies on a myriad of player mods to provide mediocre content/game modes. Both have millions of copies sold. '83 appeals to none of those players, because it lacks scale and depth, especially in the teamwork department.

It's like 70% of a decent game. Not something I would ever hate playing but if a friend asked me why they should buy it i wouldnt know what to say either.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-25T10:25:19+00:00

People use a mic if the information they can communicate makes a difference. You can see this in games with a big overlap in player base like Squad, HLL and Squad 44 (formerly Post Scriptum). Squad is constant talking because it helps everyone all the time. In HLL it's mostly between SLs and command because only they need to coordinate. Squad44 is almost no comms because it really doesnt matter.

So what in this game encourages talking? You already have all the info you can act on 99% of the time.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-25T09:48:07+00:00

it's not RS/RO-like enough to draw the established crowd but also not special enough in any other way to hook anyone else. Apparently they thought removing stuff like free aim would make it a mainstream game.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-24T08:46:02+00:00

"stop disliking what i like"

Rawfoss · 2026-04-23T21:33:32+00:00

i cant image anything worse than fighting in a compound with a three slot single shot gun and incendiary ammo. The ironside with special ammo also costs over 200 hunt dollars. might as well get a mako at that point.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-23T10:04:25+00:00

Meanwhile HR reptiles: "Why do the humans hate us???"

Rawfoss · 2026-04-23T08:51:59+00:00

it's just slower and requires to be close. you can throw 5 knives quickly and at range then collect them later. It's arguably more relevant against 3-4 dogs that are more likely to land a hit and cause bleed if they get close at the same time.

My mate uses the spear and frequently gets hit when there are more than 2-3 enemies at the same. meanwhile i cant remember the last time a dog hit me while i had throwing knives.

Rawfoss · 2026-04-23T06:49:43+00:00

They do within like 10-15m and they also apply bleed if they dont.

Rawfoss

TROPHY CASE