It's a great mod but I don't think it should impact the ennemies rng factor.

I'm playing with the long war mod and when there's 8 ennemies it makes the confrontation almost impossible.

this description is perfect, I had fun reading it and I would really like to see more people do that

@Taberone Not that I know. I don't know how similar the codebase of CS is and if it can even be ported easily. I don't think I'll do this anytime soon but you never know. WotC port also happened eventually after many many years :)

Has anyone ported this to Chimera Squad by any chance?

uh hello based department?

People, the WotC version is out. Let me know if you find any issues with it. This is an almost completely rewritten version. The main difference for the player is I no longer override the ShotHUD because this caused issues in the old mod with other mods. In addition WotC has some nice features like orange damage values when you deal bonus damage that I didn't want to break.

Give it a try :) https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2409840472

Great to hear dani. Looking forward to it. I actually downgraded my game so I could use this mod. Looking forward to playing WotC with it.

That would probably make me reinstall XCOM 2.

@Darkhellxrx Thanks for the offer to get the game for me, that's really nice. However, I did get it myself during some sale already some time ago but never played it.

@Rommelthedesertfox Thanks for your kind words!

Good news: I will have a look at porting my mod over to WotC. I had a quick look today already and initial results look great. Most stuff already works out of the box again after fixing a few compile errors due to updated WotC code.

If all goes well I can probably release an initial version pretty soon (most likely within February) and will update this page with the link to the WotC version so you can guys can give it a spin.

It really is the best mod I have ever seen for xcom. Its so good that it has real world effects. The number of mice and chairs I have broken after missing a 99% shot has gone down dramatically. Updating for WotC would be awesome.

@Dani I added you because I will literally buy you War of the Chosen if you wanna make this mod for it :)

This is the greatest mod ever. It removes the frustration from the game. I really wish it was updated for WotC

it seems there hasn't been much activity on this mod, which means that it will not be made for WOTC, which, combined with the fact that LW2 might never adapt to WOTC is a real shame. All these great additions from the DLC, and we can't really use them without losing these great mods.

Realized how much I missed this mod when my one of my soldiers missed 3 flanking shots in a row on 3 separate turns in WotC.

Hope it's coming alongo okay, @uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

EDIT: I actually typed that comment mid combat. Correction: It's now 5 shots in a row, plus my Sparks also just missed a 92% chance to hit flanking shot. xcombaby.jpg

@Shadow
I don't know how you reached your conclusions. Flanking, cover and height difference still "improve your chances". However, rather than influencing the hit %, they directly increase damage. This means a flanking shot will ALWAYS deal more damage than a non-flanking shot, something that is not guarenteed in the original game. As for your "Lucky" vs "Expected" argument, the difference in "Lucky" hits vs "Expected" is much smaller than in the base game (e.g. in the screen shot 4 dmg in this mod vs 20 dmg in vanilla). Less variance = less random. I'm truly confused how you came up with your assessment.

If you don't mind me pointing it out, how does this mod, with base settings, NOT thoroughly minimize the point of maneuvering, flanking, height difference and cover altogether?

Paradoxically enough, it seems the rather exaggerated aversion to the RNG instead creates a more random experience, considering you're mostly removing the key tactical options which allow you to significantly improve your chances.

Instead, both sides meet in battle, terrain largely irrelevant unless it breaks LoS, and one side may win entirely because it's luckier than the other, getting more Lucky than Expected hits, with zero player agency. Sure, in the base game you may have better chances and still lose due to RNG, but that's a far rarer scenario than it would be with these rules.

The result seems to be a more shallow and more uncontrollably random experience. Not quite reliable.

I am going to try and update the mod to wotc, but as I have just started using the mod tools I may not be able to. If you want to add me I may be able to ask you some questions and succesfully update it, but I may be able to do so regardless. Cheers

@crt-error

I don't own WOTC (yet), and I do not see me buying it soon unfortunately (i.e., will probably be a few months if at all). However, anyone that is interested can take this mod's source code (will be in the workshop folder) and update it for WOTC and upload as a new mod, that's totally OK. I'll update the mod description with this note as well.

Any chance someone update this brilliant mod to WOTC?

@XIII
I always welcome ideas to make the game less random :) Just quickly glanced though your changes. Keep in mind that changing the HP system is a change that ripples through to pretty much everything in the game (HP values / damage values / items / damage over time / etc) and requires an insane amount of INI / code changes. I wanted to do this at first (the * 100 variant) but the sheer amount of changes required (and probably compability issues) kept me from doing it which is why I just roll now for the final damage value. Anyway, I'm not really playing this game anymore, so I unfortunately do not see myself developing another mod. I read your own modding skills might not be sufficient, so I hope you can find someone else to make it for you! Of course you are welcome to use the source of my mod as much as you want :)

@dani
I'm looking forward to using this mod as soon as I finish my LW2 campaign. I too tire of the silly RNG of this game and want a more consistent experience.
I have some ideas for a mod in the same vein as this one, would you take a look if any of it interests you? https://www.reddit.com/r/xcom2mods/comments/6v2mdv/lw2mod_idea_rng_begone_reliable_damage/

3 months later, and Reliable Damage is still my preferred way to play. It is very hard to go back to praying to RNJesus, every time you take a 80% flanking shot.

One issue that persists however is that suppresion is too easy to remove. Overwatch is no longer an issue, as the mod accounts for damage, and a high enough amount is needed to break overwatch. Suppresion, however, is not afforded this luxury and ends up being a lot worse (in particular Area Suppresion, which can be broken by the first alien who takes a shot).

For the purpose of LW2, I have removed Grazing Fire and Walk Fire from their respective classes, since they were useless, and instead replaced them with Damn Good Ground and Holo Targetting, respectively.

@Anderson,

I have posted an update which should fix the Graze Band issues and also fixes Double Barrel.

I have identified the issue with Double Barrel and it is fixed in my local copy. Luckily it's not an LW2 specific fix but a general one. It's just that none of the vanilla weapons used the function that I required to use. I also identified an issue with Critical Damage calculation in my mod that appears to slightly lower the value compared to what it should be. I expect to upload these fixes later today. I might take a look at the Graze Band issue (which seems to lower damage more than it should) but I am a bit reluctant regarding LW2 specific fixes. We'll see :)

Regarding the damage spread, I actually kind of like it, since it keeps some RNG in the game, but without those "Miss a 90% chance flanking shot" situations.
Only real issue is that some abilities in LW2 become useless - Grazing Fire, Walk Fire in particular, and some abilities that increase Crit Chance tend to be worse than just straight damage increase. But that is a fine price to pay.

One actual issue I saw was the Ranger's Secondary weapon, the shotfun. The Double Barrel appears to inflict the same damage as single barrel for some reason.

I added a section on Long War 2 to the description. Upon inspection of the mechanics and some of their source I do expect some issues (i.e. damage numbers that are not completely correct), but there do not appear to be major game-breaking issues, although the Graze Band does not appear to work properly so just turn that off (= set it to 0).

Hi Anderson,

Good to hear it mostly works. I modify weapon templates and the way damage is applied in a very general way, which should indeed also work for any new weapons / abilities that are added by other mods, such as LW2. I can imagine however there are abilities that won't work exactly right, Chain Shot for example (there were some issues with that in Vanilla too, nothing too major but still). Not sure yet, I haven't tested it much. I may do some testing myself soon.

About the consistency: that's due to the damage spread not being removed for LW2 since they use different config files than Vanilla. That is, the Assault Rifle by default has like 3-5 damage or something, which with a 50% shot will translate to 1.5 - 2.5 damage. You can remove the spread (to make the damage 4 in this example) in LW2's workshop folder, then Config, then XComGameData_WeaponData, and replace all Spread=X by Spread=0. That should make most damage a single number rather than a range.

After a brief run with Long War, it does work, but the damage is not cosistent. When you fire, you will see something like 1.45 - 2.36 when you try to attack. That is fine, as it leaves a little bit of randomness in the game, which also means you can sometimes take 0 damage when the enemy is disoriented and such.
I am not sure if this damage spread is due to Grazing band, or just general calculations involving graze shots.

Does this work with Long War 2?

Oh. OK. I'll probably try this out. It's basically what I was wanting.

Sectoids? Really.

i keep getiing killed by these big things with lasers on their arms they do 4dmg in one hit

Yeah they just lower the damage, since Aid Protocol increases your defense (= less hit % for enemy = lower damage) and Suppression lowers the enemy's hit % (= lower damage). Both are basically still as useful. Enemy shots will always still hit, but sometimes just do 0 damage. Comparable to when you use Hunker Down for increased defense.

So are aid protocals and suppresions useless now, or do they just lower the damage of the enemy?

My campaign with it is on youtube. Campaign is not over, and the game is heavily modded, but the mechanics of the Reliable Damage part are easy to see. It can be found at WWZD Gaming - XCOM 2 Roads to Legendary Campaign: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuQO-92oX7AqvAt0Q2FptnGaMZgWybAHR .

I didn't take it that way, no worries :)!

Oh yeah, don't take this as me saying I don't like the mod. I think it is fantastic and definitely worth a playthrough. It just doesn't suit my particular playstyle. That by no means means it is bad.

Thank you for the extended feedback, there's a lot of truth in the things you have observed. There's definitely ups and down. I think we have discussed this before, but DeadEye generally does increase the damage for me when I play, perhaps there's some ini change for you that messed it up or so. Stock also still adds quite some damage up to the point where your hit chance is 100% *after* removing defensive bonuses, I wouldn't underestimate them too much :) Anyway, glad you enjoyed it!

Overall, the mod is fantasic. Don't let my rant below make you think otherwise. However, it does have a significant impact on gameplay that is difficult to realize until you experience it. Stocks become almost obsolete, skill choices become useless without edits, and the game definitely becomes easier. I had a lot of fun with the mod, but ultimately decided to turn it off, as the changes were too much for me. However, some of those changel were to mods you may not use, or some of my own .ini edits that others don't do. With this mod, alone, the game definitely becomes better. With other changes, it becomes a murkier. I would recommend at least trying it, and deciding for yourself.

If you use the Long War perk pack, the issue becomes a bit more troublesome, as there are a lot of skills that need to be modified in the .ini for various reasons. There are a few that guanantee hits for low damage which are useless in a game where you aren't going to miss. One skill comes to mind that disrupts overwatch, but this can be done pretty easily since you never miss, but there is a built in fix for this in this mod, to a degree, in the form of a required hit chance to remove overwatch. This goes a long way towards rebalancing things.

Certain skills and tactics become obsolete with this mod. Anything with guaranteed damage is less useful, except for high end psi powers, like tier 3 Soulfire. Combat protocol is not as appealing, though it can help against high armor mecs and sectopods. Any skill that has an aim penalty for bigger damage becomes pretty useless, as the increase in damage does not exceed the decrease from the reduced aim, though this can be overcome with simple .ini edits. So things like Dead eye and Chainshot need reworked to make them viable.

So I have played half a campaign with this mod (up to and though the forge mission.) This mod is great for a lot of reasons, but there are drawbacks
For the beginning of the campaign, you will have issues with injury timers, thought I consider this a perk. It really makes you rotate and have reason for a B or C team. Most shots do very little damage on both sides, but you are always reliably doing damage. The issues start to appear later in the campaign. The damage numbers for the enemy have a lot of problem keeping up with Xcom, so the advantage is with the player. This is made worse if you play with something like Red Fog or It's Just a Scratch/Spark. With damage so low, you rarely have injury time with the latter mod, and the Red Fog mods can make Advent all but useless, especially if you have armor.

This is so awesome. I was wondering what this exact concept would be like when i first played xcom2. Thanks for making this!

@下一回合准备中
Thank you for your kind words :)!

XCOM2 can't be called a tactic/stategic game until this mod

@MechWarrior001

I'm a bit rusty currently, it has been a while since I developed this. But essentially I had to replace an X2AbilityTemplate "AbilityToHitCalc" which defaults to X2AbilityToHitCalc_StandardAim with my own (I named it X2AbilityToHitCalc_StandardAim_RD), and in there I could force shots to hit regardless of the hit %. Then after that, I had to replace X2Effect_ApplyWeaponDamage with my own class (X2Effect_ApplyWeaponDamage_RD) in order to alter the applied damage.

You can just browse to the source which is in \workshop\content\268500\688497616\Src\ReliableDamage\Classes (start in ScreenListener_RD which sets everything up).

@dani How did you get the game to use your custom chance-to-hit code?

I can't seem to get the game to use my own changes in regards to mod-authoring.

This mod is perfect and this is how tactic/stategic games should be made.

Thanks!