OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Work In Progress => Topic started by: kikimoristan on March 12, 2015, 05:31:23 pm
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On the modsite https://www.openxcom.com/mod/stealth-suit
Stealth Suit
(https://www.openxcom.com/content/modimages/thumb_CCNEPFUK031320150225.png)
Cloaks your unit making it harder to be shot at.
REMEMBER: Unit rotation does not matter. Looking left or right does not rotate your LOF. Verticality/horizontality/diagonality is relative to the map and does not change on the map.
How or why this works:
This is achieved by giving it a no center LOF template (rather than the default central cylinder) making the OpenXCom engine targeting calculations fail if enemy is standing up down left right relative to the map and on same x/y as your unit. In order to hit this armor you ned to be situated only diagonal angles relative to the map. Due to lack of LOS to target enemies will be unable to detect you at times. Only exception are melee units that go straight for you.
Take a look at the following pictures:
3 normal dudes and 1 stealthed guy
(https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3471.0;attach=14116;image)
Aim straight and this is what happens NO LINE OF FIRE
(https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3471.0;attach=14118;image)
this is 1st ps view. check the difference between stealthed guy and regular 2 guys. that's why no LOF....game thinks shot just goes right trough him. to hit him you need to hit any one of those 4 corners
(https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3471.0;attach=14120;image)
Aim diagonally and it works. Also yes cloaking is broken once unit dies and you can see how the armor really looks like cause in active inv is cloaked still.
(https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3471.0;attach=14122;image)
There are 8 possible perfect positions to fire at an unit. And others in between. What this armor does is it cuts all possible possitions in half to 4 essentially making you 50% invisible. But for melee they don't give a shit cause they gonna com at an angle every time. For ranged units is harder as they need to be in the right firing position otherwise they can't see you. The close they get to you the easier it gets to find the right angle to shoot you.
Tech is same as power suit but a bit cheaper and much longer build time/research time.
If you have any ideas or find bugs or any suggestions or comments please let me know!
Enjoy
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Thats really cool concept, do like.
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Thats really cool concept, do like.
Thanks . I updated the description of why or how this works. Just an idea I had wanted to try it out turns out it actually works.
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Very interesting concept, but it has the Huge possibility to become OP!
My thoughts are that this stealth suit should make it impossible to use ranged weapons. You might be able to add huge aiming penalties with OpenXcom Extended. Lore wise this would make sense, since any weapon fire from the stealthed soldier should reveal its position. It might be best to only have it able to use melee weapons. OXE could boost melee skill too, which could greatly help out some melee systems (i.e. combat knife) that rely on melee skill, since standard soldier melee abilities are pretty weak.
It would be interesting to see how it holds up with melee enemies. Throw it into a battle generator with a terrorship and chrysallids and see if it gets targeted. ;) (Stealth Zombies O.o)
And... omgerd. If you can do this for Xcom..... you have to develop a stealthed alien race as well!!!! Ack!! Chrysalid incoming! Can't target it! Prep grenade and kiss your butt good bye!
Cheers, Ivan :D
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Very interesting concept, but it has the Huge possibility to become OP!
My thoughts are that this stealth suit should make it impossible to use ranged weapons. You might be able to add huge aiming penalties with OpenXcom Extended. Lore wise this would make sense, since any weapon fire from the stealthed soldier should reveal its position. It might be best to only have it able to use melee weapons. OXE could boost melee skill too, which could greatly help out some melee systems (i.e. combat knife) that rely on melee skill, since standard soldier melee abilities are pretty weak.
It would be interesting to see how it holds up with melee enemies. Throw it into a battle generator with a terrorship and chrysallids and see if it gets targeted. ;) (Stealth Zombies O.o)
And... omgerd. If you can do this for Xcom..... you have to develop a stealthed alien race as well!!!! Ack!! Chrysalid incoming! Can't target it! Prep grenade and kiss your butt good bye!
Cheers, Ivan :D
Thanks Ivan. I'm working on Stalkers a stealthed alien race that gonna unlock this armor . Stealth stuff is easy to do cause is just outlines. Thing is I want stalkers to be like dogs 4 legged and melee so i kinda wanted the to be terror units but I dunno. Maybe I'll make a whole race of stealth guy and stealth terror . Stalked deff in it. Stalkers are hard to fight cause they cannot be targetted so you need melee . I keep trying to find a way to make my melee weapons relevant as well. Eventually I'll put all these thogether :)
Eidit: in my playtest I was literarily walking around aliens and thy rarely reacted but few times they did i insta died. Is kinda risky armor is about being brave and kinda going all in.
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It seems like the simple counter to stealthed units is grenades. See one coming? Just hit it with grenade, etc. Therefore, their underarmor should be significantly strengthened. Maybe only killable by HE Packs, or 2-3 grenades. Making for really, "Oh, Cr*9!" moments.
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So, can they target you from the sides?
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yes the LOS template I use i think is #65 (if I remember correctly) which is kinda like this
XXXXXXX
XOXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
so only when center of fire lands on that O LOS calculation is a success...sides more chance for hit %...front and back too much gap. diagonally might work.
is deff not untargettable just less targetable.
yeah grenades and he packs deff will work and stun and he and anything with area damage cause you just hit beside them but you know if they have like 100 hp you gonna run out of grenades eventually fighting 3,4 of these guys.
also not in the picture but when the guy dies he's no longer stealthed as a corpse and you can kinda see how the suit really looks like. only then. that's an easter egg :)
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There was a stealthy alien in the mechtoid race mod earlier, although it was only graphical. You can also play with the height to make the target area smaller.
Does the suit work in the open? In theory, there would be nothing obstructing LOS to the target, so it doesn't really matter where relative to the graphic it is..
Once you figure out how to use it, it feels a bit gamey. Obtaining it right at the beginning with personal armor sounds really early. Personal armor rarely save the life of an operative getting shot with anything but a plasma pistol, whereas rarely getting shot at is definitely going to extend your life.
To me it seems like it might be a better concept for aliens than XCom.
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Aliens and Soldiers can be stealth? I have no words! :o
This is super effective!!!!
Can be a whole new branch tech: Hyper-wave, Ufo Construction, Psi-Lab and now Stealth!
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you can't play with the height is hardcoded to maximum amount of layers in a unit tile. you can only play with the type of LOF. if anyone knows better post code here.
yeah i might make stealth appear later in the game like power suit level but it depends on the effectiveness of stealth suit. might be that is not as OP or maybe it is that op. also once volutar fixes the aim might make this not as affective but luckily will be an optional setting so for now it works.
positioning matters..essentially it reduces the locations and alien can be to more like corners and sides . what you need is to have that LOS Template orange stick be at the center so if you move your guy around eventually you will find a position you can hit them from. those positions are left right and kinda diagonal. whee before they could shot from any directions now they can shoot from only about 6-10 positions out of all possible squares around you.
yeah i got an alien planned that unlocks this tech.
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Wow.
I'd have to test it in game to be sure, but... wow. Such a simple concept.
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Very inventive. Thumbs up!
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you can't play with the height is hardcoded to maximum amount of layers in a unit tile. you can only play with the type of LOF. if anyone knows better post code here.
As far as I know, you are limited to height 25 but you can make a unit that is very short and floating, which would have a really hard to hit target (essentially a floating disk that you can miss from above and below when shooting straight). How useable it is to reduce the likelihood of being shot/hit, I'm not sure (depends on the hit area of a successful shot).
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As far as I know, you are limited to height 25 but you can make a unit that is very short and floating, which would have a really hard to hit target (essentially a floating disk that you can miss from above and below when shooting straight). How useable it is to reduce the likelihood of being shot/hit, I'm not sure (depends on the hit area of a successful shot).
thanks for feedback Arthanor. in my tests aliens don't reaction fire like 50-80% of the time when walking past and even if they do they seem to miss shots even if you're sitting right beside them . fist time i seen a cyberdisk miss a shot 1 square away. but abut 20% of the time (perhaps more) they hit you and you're insta dead. i could experiment with standing height floating height stuff making it be a floating ball but i kinda like the stick makes it a bit more fair. is hard enough for them to hit me as it is. i still gonna try for aliens.
edit: also chryssalids don't give a shit they just bust you down really fast as it checks if a unit is there not los. right?
i can make an alien with LOF Tmplate 0 meaning cannot be targeted at all. i have tried it and it works and is annoying. haha.
i was debating in making stalkers lof 0 so you need to use melee/explosives only but that kinda breaks the game also makes my mods a bit more useful (but this is not the scope). breaks the game cause what if you are against stalkers and you have no explosives/melee/stun on you. is gg. they cannot die.
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i was debating in making stalkers lof 0 so you need to use melee/explosives only but that kinda breaks the game also makes my mods a bit more useful (but this is not the scope). breaks the game cause what if you are against stalkers and you have no explosives/melee/stun on you. is gg. they cannot die.
"Abort! Abort! Abort!"
God. The pain would be so real!
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I had intended to use the "tiny target area" & mostly invisible sprite for an extra-dimensional alien race, phase-shifters or something. I think an (almost) invisible alien that can still be killed/stunned by explosions and melee would change things significantly and provide refreshing game play opportunities. And it's a mod, so people who use it know what they are getting into as well.
Have to make sure you allow the player to see them, and maybe make them a melee/short ranged alien, so they don't sit at range and shoot you while you can't shoot them though ;)
You mechanic of abusing the line of fire is a bit different though, more like a space-shit (being somewhere else) than phase-shift (not being there).
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"Abort! Abort! Abort!"
God. The pain would be so real!
i have an idea for the race that goes well with stalkers and then i kinda want them 4 legged terror units but then i wanted them as a regular race. . damn i really wanna make them 4 legged. I DEFF don't want them to use weapons that would be a BS unit that can hit you but you can't hit i don't know.
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I had intended to use the "tiny target area" & mostly invisible sprite for an extra-dimensional alien race, phase-shifters or something. I think an (almost) invisible alien that can still be killed/stunned by explosions and melee would change things significantly and provide refreshing game play opportunities. And it's a mod, so people who use it know what they are getting into as well.
Have to make sure you allow the player to see them, and maybe make them a melee/short ranged alien, so they don't sit at range and shoot you while you can't shoot them though ;)
You mechanic of abusing the line of fire is a bit different though, more like a space-shit (being somewhere else) than phase-shift (not being there).
i just take advantage of everything volutar said is wrong with the aiming in this game . i kinda like it now . although i d agree with volutar the funky aiming does make for some interesting mod builds like this.
phase shifting would be cool. if they cool switch armor by choice they go in and out of visibility that would be nuts. i might make them lof 0 untagettable by ranged and give them a short ranged arced acid spit attack and a melee attack. and their main race is gonna be something else i had in mind.
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ok just did a test and it works TOO WELL. nobody attacks me is like i'm invisible. melee says nobody is there. i need to fix it up a bit more. i just cleared and entire base with 1 stealthed guy. they all walk past me. deff power armor next level tech maybe next armor after power armor making it cost like 1 million bucks. is too crazy right now. and alien with this capability would be most annoying thing in the universe. an LOF 0 makes all weapons unable to target it including melee. only grenades and explosives would work but alien AI doesn't get it . for them if there is no LOF then just means nobody is there and continue on attacking other units.
i think chem thrower would be the only weapon useful to kill a cloaked alien with LOF 0. im gonna experiment with other lof variants this one is too nuts.
i mean yea OP armor but not just be invisible walk around like a chum. i need to make it have built in fake weapns so you can't use weapons when in cloaked armor or something needs to be done. walking around like this is cool for a scout type guy but weapons and invisible nah. too much.
EDIT:
i figured out a better LOF type that makes you untargetabble from front/back and sides but makes you targetable diagonally so is kinda like chess. you wanna be the rook and don't get caught by the bishop. seems a bit more fair.
also i messed up in the rulset the corpse was wrongly names so it crashes the game when it dies. fixed it in this new version i'm working on.
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Hey guys uploaded a new version
fixed bug of corpse crashing the game
changed stats 20 armor everywhere +10 tu +10 stamina
changes req and costs now requires elerium and alloys and costs a bit less than a power suit but much longer manufacturing/research times
changed LOF to a more balanced logical more targetable one
melee units like chryssalid can always hit you but ranged units need to shoot at you diagonally only (relative to the map). LOF does not spin with unit and is just added to the map where unit it the same way. added an LOF that is balanced diagonally but not frontally to make it easier to walk up to an unit and get no reaction fire.
this armor is perfect for scouts and ppl that have to go first trough doors as they take NO reaction fire vertically or horizontally only diagonally.
plz let me know what you think
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I would be interested to see if its still harder to hit using LoFtemp 078: since its single pixels spread apart, the aliens would see and target it from all angles, but would the bullet be able to pass through the target's tile and not hit anything? that'd be good for a phased out alien/armour (if it actually works...)
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=File:Loftemps.png
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aiming in this game is not intuitive (and is not just openxcom vanilla was the same). it targets the middle of a tile for LOF calculations. so if you can hide the center it looks like you are not there to the AI. honestly, in debug mode you don't even get enemy notifications. so all you care abut is the aim trajectory hitting anything solid in the center be it 1 pixel o anything.
78 has a core of 5 dots is more likely it will register as something being there.
85 is best one because is no core but all corners can be targeted. enemies if are close enough will actually move to corners to attack you they get it. it was the only one that made AI react intelligently.
65 makes you invisible and same with 53.. these break the game as you can kill anything with 1 guy alone nobody targets you. cheating. 94 is not so bad .
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ok so more research making an enemy with LOF 0 doesn't register as being visible so you get no number on the right as it has no LOF possibly making stalkers attack without warning. you can still see them moving around but you can't tell where they are you need to use your eyes rathe than the enemy markings .
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Yeah, that would be going too far. The off-centre idea seems much better.
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ahah relax man i didn't get it from you i didn't even read all your ideas was too much i wanted to experiment witch changing unit/armor lof see what happens. mr drama queen over here.
EDIT: The name is in fact taken from Fallout 3/NV Chinese Stealth Suit. https://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Chinese_stealth_armor but the armor itself and the idea comes from dune 2 Saboteur https://dune2k.com/Images/Duniverse/Games/DuneII/special/saboteur.jpg ...original name for the file was Saboteur Armor.rul but changed it later to be like Fallout ..and proof that it was chinese stealth suit originally the UFOPAEDIA says Chinese experiments in nanotechnology... Sorry man but you're not the only person to think of stealth armor. There are dozen upon dozen of games I played that all have cloaking and stealth. In fact I say YOU also took the idea for stealth from these games.
hey guys i noticed another thing. if enemy never notices you while cloaked (ie you never expose yourself vertically) then they don't know you're there. you need to be noticed once and they remember you and once noticed they will try to attack you at an angle .so if you think you were spotted backoff fast. the closer you get the more likely you gonna die.
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Hey that's my idea for one of the armors in the mod I was working on that abandoned itself yesterday.
you made me download your text file ..your armor is similar to mine in name only. but that's where similarities end. first it says nothing about LOF, about cloaking, about line of fire or changing LOF template in rul . you experimented with none of that. you can't say this is the armor you thought when you obvs didn't think of changing armor loftemp to make your unit cloaked. second stats are all different. you just came up with a high tu armor with same name.
also you abandoned it it didn't abandon itself
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A tale from the XCom secret archives.
It was Captain K.'s first mission, yet he was sure of success. He beamed with assurance, so even if some rookies in the Skyranger didn't understand everything of his fiery victory speech, as he was speaking a rather broken English, they were still instilled with courage and boldness, especially when he started waving his Samurai sword around (camera footage shows that he was inches from cutting Sergeant Zander's face).
Even as the soldiers were running down the ramp into the hellish plasma barrage, he was still shouting encouragements from the rear. Once he made sure everyone was well clear of the ramp, he punched the "close" button (which, as everyone knows, immediately starts "take off and return to base" sequence in Skyranger's electronic brain).
Commander Andianov was rather troubled. He looked at Captain K. gravely, and said, "Captain. Your report says you gave yourself an 'Excellent' rating for your first mission. However, you've returned empty-handed and without any soldiers. What happened?"
"It's all their fault, Sir. It would've been the best mission in the history of XCom, that's self evident. Only these spineless traitors have abandoned me!"
"I see. Do you have any proof of that?"
"Sure I do, Sir. Now everyone is monkeying my inventive tactics of going down the ramp to leave the Skyranger. These shameless copycats!"
"I see. Well, Captain... in the old times, my superiors would've given you a free ticket to one of many vacation resorts they've built all over Siberia. But I think I have a more fitting solution. There is one facility at the base almost no-one knows about. You see, we didn't know how aliens would be like. Evil, insidious, subversive, megalomaniac, who knew? The Queen of Egypt proposed another likely scenario: aliens who aren't really bad, just needy, egotistic, ungrateful, disrespectful and generally kind-of-well-intended a-holes. With some reservations, we still thought preparing a special facility for them according to her proposal was a right thing to do."
"I thought I knew all of the base. Where is this facility? And what is it?"
"You're standing on top of it, Captain," said Andianov with a weary look, reaching for the release handle. "And it's an alligator pit."
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guys i was wrong . after equipping this suit on enemies and doing more calculations this suit makes you 87.5% invisible. ....chryssalids and most other melee units somehow always find you as they walk towards your troops and notice your guy on the way there and kill him first. so is not effective against melee.
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There was a stealthy alien in the mechtoid race mod earlier, although it was only graphical. You can also play with the height to make the target area smaller.
Yes, I know this thread is quite old, but I wasn't playing OXC for some time now...
No, that stealthy mechtoid was not just graphical. I've run into the same kind of problems this design has, namely that using too empty loftemps leads to the unit becoming invisible and untargetable. So I gave that stealthsuit loftemp 001, the smallest possible one that remains reasonably targetable. It made him slightly harder to hit but not that overpowered.
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Any chance of making this armor a bit more resilent as 20 all around won't survive a lot of the weapons. However I must say this suit is cool as I have my scouts using them in my current game of redux. One more thing I was wondering was if u leave ur troop blocking a door and the alien doesn't c u will the AI start firing blindly @ what is blocking its way thru the door or worse grenade the area?
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@Harald_Gray: My apologies. I have underestimated your mod. It is a shame that your finding did not get the attention it deserved.
@SIMON: No. The AI is not coded to fire at obstacles, nor to blow up terrain. It targets soldiers and civilians and if it cannot see one, it will not fire.
That being said, the aliens remember your troopers for several turns and will know their exact position, so maybe it is possible that an alien could chuck a grenade at one of your invisible soldier because it remembers it, knows it's there, but can't fire at it.
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@Harald_Gray: My apologies. I have underestimated your mod. It is a shame that your finding did not get the attention it deserved.
No harm done :-)
BTW, imagine my face the first time I've tested this with loftemps 0. My plan was to test whether the alien would stay vulnerable to explosive rounds. I was thinking maybe I could call this a deflector field to explain why some alien has to be killed by HE fire while bullets and beams seemingly pass through him. Turned out he was *invisible* and I had to aim my shots by observing where he fired from. I could drive a tank a meter from him in broad daylight and he'd *stay* invisible because loftemps 0 meant there was no part of him the code would consider visible.
What was even funnier was giving loftemps 0 to my own soldiers. This time it was the aliens who were unable to see their enemies. I was able to walk right next to an alien and the AI would ignore me. However, I saw no sensible application for either of these two extremes, as invisible aliens are too hardcore and invisible operatives too munchkiny to my taste.
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No, that stealthy mechtoid was not just graphical. I've run into the same kind of problems this design has, namely that using too empty loftemps leads to the unit becoming invisible and untargetable. So I gave that stealthsuit loftemp 001, the smallest possible one that remains reasonably targetable. It made him slightly harder to hit but not that overpowered.
Loftemp 001 really does nothing, I haven't noticed any real drop in enemy accuracy between 005 and 001 despite quite heavy testing. Makes it easier to fire 'through' your soldier with your own units though. loftemp #85 remains my favorite although it is quite hardcore, not to be abused too much.
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using loftemp 85 is a really bad idea, from an engine perspective. this number not only represents the loftemp index but ALSO the radius width of the unit in voxel space. this number should not go above 3 or 4. using 85 will bug out a lot of the calculations. seriously i cannot recommend anyone do this.
note: this does not apply to 2x2 units, they have special handling.
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using loftemp 85 is a really bad idea, from an engine perspective. this number not only represents the loftemp index but ALSO the radius width of the unit in voxel space. this number should not go above 3 or 4. using 85 will bug out a lot of the calculations. seriously i cannot recommend anyone do this.
Ummm... Since you know the code, at least I guess you do, could you let us know whether changing a unit's loftemps makes it easier/harder to hit?
I never had the patience to reliably test hit percentages so I've *assumed* that my mod would make the stealthsuit less visible and harder to hit. It seemed logical, based on what I read about hit calculations, but now that Dioxine claims it has no effect I'm a bit torn about this. Can you enlighten us?
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short answer: sorta.
long answer:
a lower number makes them "thinner" so to speak. so yes, they present a smaller target, much like a crouching unit, making it harder to spot or target them in the first place. making a unit harder to hit is a sort of a misnomer. when taking a shot, a unit targets a voxel that they *can* hit, and it's more about how much the bullet deviates from there. a "hit" will deviate less and a "miss" will deviate more. the greater the distance the more appreciable the effect. a thinner unit requires less deviation for the bullet to miss than a thicker one would, just as a shorter (or crouching) unit does as compared to one standing tall. it does technically make them harder to hit in this regard, but it's by no means any guarantee, a really good shot will still hit you (and the aliens are really good shots).
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Thank you for the clarification. I think that none of us considered thinner units safe, this was about hit probability. My understanding of the algorithm was that when a unit fires, the game rolls pseudorandom numbers based on skill and weapon accuracy and these numbers (which can also be zero) determine the angle and direction relative to aimpoint. So a good shot hits the place it was aimed at and an exceptionaly bad one goes wildly off the target. And since this is based on angles, targets at a distance are easier to miss.
So the idea is that a thinner unit is harder to hit, the probability is say 20% instead of 30% for a standard one. Which is why Dioxine's results confused me and I'm glad to know that the thin units (alien, in the case of my mod) are indeed harder to hit.
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I'd rather say, you'll get, like, 29% or so instead of 30%, from what I've seen, that's why I said it does nothing (even if technically it does something - certainly helps hiding behind objects). Although this is based on my observations only, which might be faulty.
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I'd rather say, you'll get, like, 29% or so instead of 30%, from what I've seen, that's why I said it does nothing (even if technically it does something - certainly helps hiding behind objects). Although this is based on my observations only, which might be faulty.
I'm not disproving your claims. Like I said, I've never had the patience to test this, because reloading a game several hundred times and writing down the results seemed too time consuming. And I saw no other method of testing this.
Which is why I'm bothering Warboy about this, as simple logic (which might not apply here) tells me that the difference in width should lead to non-negligible difference in hit probabilities. Sure, there would be no dramatic drop in hit ratios. The difference between 20% and 30% means the shooter needs, on average, 5 shots instead of 3.33 and we're all used to even longer streaks odf misses. I was *expecting* that the effect would be subtle. But in the long run, thin units should be harder to hit and I would like to know whether we're dealing with the 30%->20% scenario or the 30%->29% one.
Edit: I should add that I'm mostly talking about targets at longer ranges, as good shooters with good weapons will fire the majority of their shots within such a narrow angle that they'll hit even thin targets with high probability. But at say 10+ squares, the spread should be wide enough to cause said non-negligible difference.
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i couldn't give you a fixed % as there are too many factors to take into account, range being foremost among them.
very long answer:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47596892/exampleA.png)
assume the shooter to be on the left, the intended shot to be along the adjacent, and the actual shot trajectory to be along the hypotenuse.
in this example, you can see the difference that it makes, and you can see that in this case, at these ranges, the shot will miss both the small and the large target. however:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47596892/exampleB.png)
same shot deviation, same enemy sizes, transposed distances. the larger unit would be hit, and the smaller unit would be missed by a large margin.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47596892/exampleC.png)
again, same setup as before, but in this case, it would hit both targets because they are closer, so the deviation has less of an effect.
note that all these examples are given in 2d form as viewed from directly above, with the deviation taking place purely in the lateral plane. shots also deviate vertically.
any given shot can deviate by any given angle, and the smaller or further away the target the greater the chance this deviation will cause the shot to miss. but the chance to deviate, and the angle of deviation can be thought of in terms of a constant when comparing two shots. in this respect, it is no harder to score a shot that deviates very little against a thin target than it is a thick one. remember that there are multiple calculations taking place, the "to hit" determination effectively dictates the multiplier for the amount of POSSIBLE deviation, which is fairly random. if the shot is good, it's good. however if the shot DOES deviate, the angle of deviation required for a shot to miss a thinner unit is shallower.
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i have thoroughly tested this mod and i can tell you this
1. loftemp 0 makes units completely invisible meaning AI doesn't react at all . is like you're in a parallel dimension. is no fun.
2. any loftemps that are not mirrored up down left right in other words not same from all sides will have odd and unpredictable effects such as the unit randomly appears and disappears or visible but untargetable etc
3. any loftemps that dont have a centered side will also cause problems
4. any non 0 loftemp will still make your guy targetable by misfire ..so your dude can still die.
5. 85 for me was the best . the other ones had unpredictable results.
6. if any alien spotted you ONCE all aliens spot you and they remember your last location and will try to shoot you from a position that you can be shot at. 85 is the only loftemp that does not confuse AI shooting calculations. if an enemy unit has enough TU left and spotted you and still remembers you then you will die cause they just go and shoot you at an angle.
once spotted they will know you are there. that's why i like 85. makes easy and predictable. don't come at an angle ..only up down left right. etc
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i couldn't give you a fixed % as there are too many factors to take into account, range being foremost among them.
very long answer:
Is it too rude to tell you that those graphics were unnecessary because I do understand basic geometry?
I was not asking for exact %. You could say I was asking whether the shot deviation angles were evenly distributed between zero and maximum for a given situation or whether the function in non-linear.
Even distribution should mean that once the hit probability against a normal-sized target on flat and empty terrain drops to say 40%, a target half as wide has roughly 20% hit probality. So this would mean that lower loftemps provide non-negligible drop in hit probabilities, say something like the 30%->20% scenario.
If the angle distribution is uneven and more shots have minimal deviation (say one fifth of the shots in a given setup have zero deviation and the rest are evenly distributed between zero and maximum) then lower loftemps are less helpful. Should say 20% of shots fly into the aimpoint voxel, and the rest with a random deviation, we would be getting closer to Dioxine's 30%->29% scenario.
And I guess there's no need to deal with the fact that this is about voxel space instead of an abstract continuous one. The differences in results should not matter much.
Have I explained my question? Or am I still being too incomprehensible?
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sure, YOU understand geometry, but there's no harm breaking it down for anyone else researching into the topic.
the "to hit" determination effectively dictates the multiplier for the amount of POSSIBLE deviation, which is fairly random.
there's probably no such thing as "0 deviation" (or at least, it's like... unicorn rare). the only factors influencing the "to hit" determination are your firing accuracy and that of the weapon you are holding. if the action menu says 80% acc, you have about 80% chance to hit. if you are determined to have hit, your shot will deviate by somewhere between let's say -5 and 5 degrees for the sake of argument (this includes decimals). if you are determined to have missed, the shot will deviate by somewhere between -40 and 40 degrees (or something). so it's possible for a "hit" to miss, and a "miss" to hit. at a range of say, 10, a thinner unit would stand less chance of being hit, statistically speaking. we're talking like.. 3 degrees of deviation either side being the "margin" between what misses a larger unit compared to a thin one, or roughly 7.5% of our "missed shot" field. let's assume these margins lie between 4 and 7 and -4 to -7 degrees.
so in this case, there's an 80% chance of having a 20% chance to miss, and a 20% chance of having a 90% chance to miss, or for a larger unit, an 80% chance of having 0% chance and 20% to have a 82.5% chance of missing.
bear in mind that these numbers are all purely theoretical to explain the mechanics, real world results may vary.
Have I explained my answer? Or am I still being too incomprehensible?
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Have I explained my answer? Or am I still being too incomprehensible?
Thank you, that was perfectly understandable and thorough enough. Sorry for that jab about geometry, I was feeling like I've failed to make it obvious I do understand at least some of this, even if I've never read the actual code. Soooo....
If I do understand this correctly, this should lead to the following:
At close ranges, the effect of thinner loftemps will be less pronounced. This is caused by several factors. The unit's height stays the same. 5 degrees at four metres is only about 0.4 m from the aimpoint and that is about the maximum possible deviation for a "hit" so many of those will hit even the thinner targets. "Misses" can go so wildly off the target and are so frequent, at least in early and mid game, that this random noise drowns the whole effect. Use of burst fire at close ranges also drowns this effect, as one-hit kills are frequent and most players are unlikely to perceive how often it was the second or third shot that hit because the TUs are wasted anyway.
At longer ranges, the effect of thinner units should be measurable but not overwhelming. "Misses"are likely to miss both thin and normal units and "hits" are less likely to actually hit the thinner units. E.g. a shooter with 60% displayed accuracy has a 25% chance of hitting a normal unit and, roughly speaking, 13% chance against one that's half normal width. And low hit rates at long ranges are perceived as common and their relative rarity leads to both psychological and statistical consequences.
Yes, I do like the results. Stealth suits based on loftemps 1 or 2 offer reasonable protection at longer ranges and very limited help at close ranges, which makes sense. Suits based on loftemps 85 offer far better protection but lead to various glitches. Some other loftemps, like 78, 65 or 96, might also lead to both interesting results and glitches.
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no matter what loftemp you use, as long as is not 0, your guy can still die.
i can tell you from practice it reduces the chances but they still die. they die less not due to smaller loftemp ie shots go trough them but due to making them invisible from certain angles. due to the unpredictability of shots in openxcom and the amount of aliens /soldiers in any one mission is guaranteed your guy will die from misfire especially if the cloaked guy sits nearby allies.
my mod makes the soldier wearing it about 20% visible because you can only shoot from angles meaning out of 8 positions only 4 work but at longer range due to the size of 4 corners in 85 loftemp the angle is much more narrow making the 4 corner positions very tight. you literarily need to be chess bishop shooting mode to accurately hit if you're by 1 square off you don't even spot the soldier.
also note due to the way the engine is coded once you're spotted the AI will calculate the best path and it will always be a diagonal bishop style and AI if it has the TU will do it and you will die just like any other soldier. i n fact at an angle you're just as visible as a regular soldier due to 4 corners spreading out the unit shape even more. there are 3 places to shoot at .
also note use this mod and this idea at you own discretion. the engine was never meant to do this. i am kinda cheating breaking the game a bit by using the functionality and flexibility warboy , supsuper & openxcom team provided. due to the fact is mostly calculations in pseudo-3d space changing loftemp seems to primarily affect AI by making your guy not easily spotted and inability to shoot at it even if spotted unless sitting at perfect diagonal angles. however, there may be side effects unaccounted for.
85 was the most logical and tactical and predictable outcome of all the other ones i used. you can kinda make decisions and you can kinda guess what's gonna happen and if they have an angle to shoot you.
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Tested the suit for some days now and i really like it, it is a great idea and it works very good. It took me some time to adapt my tactics to the new requirements (avoid locations where you can be seen diagonally etc) and i had losses in my team, but once that was behind me it worked as adverised :)
Really great mod, it adds a lot to XCom and it also paved the way for stealthy enemies! Thanks a lot for your work, tollworkout. 8)
Oh and you managed something that no mod ever did in 20+ years of Xcom: You made the motion scanner worth using!!! :o Awesome.