[QoL] If there are too few TUs to fire an autoshot, fire a snap shot instead

[Tamren]

Weapons capable of automatic fire can usually fire a number of autoshot per turn that equates to a whole number, most commonly 2/3/4. However if a soldiers moves or performs other minor actions like unholstering a weapon, you will no longer have enough TUs left for a whole second, third or fourth autoshot. You will often have enough TUs to perform a snapshot instead, but the current method players must use to fire "one last snapshot" after a series of autoshots is a bit of a process. If you try to fire an autoshot and get the popup about lacking enough TUs, you have to first unselect your attack, click on the weapon button and select snapshots before aiming and clicking on the target again. You can speed this up a little bit using keyboard shortcuts, but not by much.

The feature I'm proposing is that if you try to fire an autoshot but don't have enough TUs, the game will automatically attempt to fire a snapshot instead allowing you to quickly use up your remaining TUs before switching to the next soldier or ending the turn. This can save tremendous amounts of time in aggregate if you deploy many soldiers to the same fight (as many as 24 in XPiratez) and/or rely on automatic fire as your primary attack.

Optionally the same feature could also be applied to aimed shots, it is not uncommon for aimed shots to require more than 50% TUs, in which case you will only ever get one aimed shot per turn, but usually have enough TUs to fire a snap shot as well.

[Meridian]

No.

[Yankes]

To expand Meridian answer, in some weapons auto shot and snap shot can be unrelated attacks (different cost/different ammo/diffret effects).

Another thing is from player perspective, there is big difference between 3 shot or 1 shot. This could means killing alien or not. if you can't kill it, you should hide.
Automatic change to worse attack expose you to retaliation that could have fatal consequences.

[Tamren]

Err, sorry I'm autistic and I took the "explain the problem" part a little too literally and didn't spend enough time to explain the solution. So let me just skip to the chase:

Proposed feature: Shift clicking on the battlescape with an attack selected will fire a snap shot at that tile.

This gives players a shortcut to select snapshots and fire a quick follow up shot to an autoshot or aimed shot, without having to go through a multi step process to select snapshots as your attack type. Effectively this gives you a way to control two different attack types at the same time, like pressing RMB to alt-fire in an FPS game. This control scheme is intuitive for the player because we already have a similar command. Shift-Fire = Fire a snap shot (instead) at the designated tile vs Ctrl-Fire = force fire a shot at the designated tile even if there is no LOS.

The chances of activating this feature by accident are nearly nonexistent because you have to have an autoshot or aimed shot selected and a hand on the keyboard before the shift command can do anything. Even if you try to Ctrl-Fire and press Shift-Fire instead by accident, Shift-Fire will not shoot accidentally because it won't fire without LOS.

Would that be acceptible?

[CrazedHarpooner]

What about the case of wanting to shift-click, but miss-clicking on the ctrl instead? You would force fire whatever shot you selected, possibly into the back of another of your units. That IS a possibility with that setup.

[Tamren]

What about the case of wanting to shift-click, but miss-clicking on the ctrl instead? You would force fire whatever shot you selected, possibly into the back of another of your units. That IS a possibility with that setup.

Theoretically possible, but highly unlikely. 99% of the time a player would only attempt to activate the shift-click shortcut if:

1. They already have aimed shot or auto shot selected (this is required to activate the shortcut in the first place)

And

2. They know that they do not have enough TUs to fire the aimed shot or auto shot they have selected

Hence this shortcut is reasonably fail-safe:

- If you try to Ctrl-Click to force fire but hit Shift-Click instead by accident, nothing will happen because your snap shot requires LOS.
- If you try to Shift-Click to fire a snap shot but hit Ctrl-Click instead by accident, nothing will happen because you do not have the TUs to fire an aimed shot or auto shot.

If you want to make it even safer you could make this an advanced Opt-In option that players must toggle in the OXCE settings menu.

Again, I know I didn't make the greatest first impression because I'm not great at explaining things, but the point of this suggestion isn't to add a pitfall that players can fall into, it's meant to be an advanced shortcut to speed up one of the most common actions players must do on the battlescape. I did consider the potential pitfalls like activating this accidentally, but I don't think the risk is significant enough to worry about. It is already fail-safe in several ways and you are vastly more likely to just click on the battlescape and shoot the ground accidentally than you are to stumble over this shortcut.

[Stone Lake]

There's hotkeys for both selecting left / right weapons and aimed / snap / auto shot / melee. I feel they do the same thing and are pretty comfortable. Why do these do not work for you?

Disregard above, I see you've brought up hotkeys. OK.
Personally I don't see how "auto-selecting" shot types would noticeably expedite things.

[Delian]

Proposed feature: Shift clicking on the battlescape with an attack selected will fire a snap shot at that tile.

I do not like this suggestion for the following reason:
1. You already have hotkeys to fire a snap shot: RMB-click + Q/E + 2
2. Your suggestion only applies to snap shots, so it's not custom enough for most situations.

However, I do feel there is some redundancy in procedure of the said hotkeys usage, so I'd like to propose a different suggestion based on your suggestion:

Battle Action Hot Swapping
Allows using hotkeys to swap battle action even after the action has already been selected.

Use case 1 (easier consecutive attacking):
1. Hover cursor over a target
2. Press E to select right-hand weapon
3. Press 3 to select Auto
4. Press LMB to fire
5. Press 2 to select Snap
6. Press LMB to fire

Notes:
- In step 5: If the firearm does not have the battle action defined, the battle action is cancelled (same as RMB-click)
- The solution only applies to swapping between 3 Firearm actions (BA_AUTOSHOT, BA_SNAPSHOT, BA_AIMEDSHOT) and 2 Psi-amp actions (BA_MINDCONTROL, BA_PANIC)
- It's player's own responsibility to be highly familiar with the weapon so that after swapping and firing, they have enough TU left to retreat to safety.

Use case 2 (easier accuracy comparison):
1. Hover cursor over a distant target
2. Press E to select right-hand weapon
3. Press 3 to select Auto and observe accuracy
4. Press 2 to select Snap and observe accuracy
5. Press 1 to select Aimed and observe accuracy