[Suggestion] Sniper/Scoped rifle inverse accuracy

[Pendra37]

Sniper rifles should have something like an inverse accuracy. They should get more accurate as distance to target increases. The reason for that is the scope. It gets very hard to acquire target and aim accurately at short distance with a high power scope.

If the weapon is scoped/sniper, the aimRange should work inversely. Say aimRange is 30, drop off 2. If you want to fire an aimed shot with a scoped rifle at a target 5 tiles away, your aim acc will have a ((30-5)*2)=50 handicap (-50). 25 tiles away, it would be only -10.

Snap/Auto not affected because for those, you don't line up with the sights. Just fire instinctively.

[Juku121]

More or less already exists as 'minRange'.

Snap shots at any but point blank range do suffer somewhat from excessive scopage. Not all snap shots are point or hip shooting.

[Pendra37]

Similar indeed but not quite. It applies to all fire modes, not just aim. And as the dropoff is the same for all modes, it will make Snap/Auto even less accurate. That is not the intention.  It is to make scoped/sniper rifles less accurate on short ranges when using the scope (ie Aimed shot)

[Juku121]

From my experience, that's a good thing. Your average mod's 'sniper' rifle has way too accurate snap shots, if it uses some or all of the special tricks that make the gun 'snipery' (quadratic stat scaling, lesser LoS penalty, damage bonuses, etc). YMMV.

I would also like some more distinction between shooting modes, up to and including full damageAlter based on mode. Doubt it'll happen, though.

Perhaps something can be done via y-scripts, or if not, Yankes could be petitioned to look into adding relevant hooks.

[Pendra37]

What do you mean by "quadratic stat scaling"? The hit chance model is quadratic in the game for evety projectile weapon. Also the higher the accuracy the lesser the "LOS" penalty. You will hit in a tighter circle. That is how it works even now.
Damage bonus is noooo. Snipers aim for center mass not for boom headshots. Actually, that is also realistic in the game.
The Snap shot should not suffer because your sights are optimized for long range. For short range, you just point and click.

[Juku121]

I mean weapon/ammo data commonly used to make sniper weapons distinct. Like

Code: [Select]

accuracyMultiplier:
  firing: [0.0, 0.01]            # quadratic in FA

noLOSAccuracyPenalty: 75         # if, say, 50 is the default

damageBonus:
  firing: 0.2                    # base damage + 20% FA

damageAlter:0
      RandomType: 7              # 50-200%
      ArmorEffectiveness: 0.8    # Armour only applies 80% of nominal value
This is all in addition to regular projectile mechanics.

Not all snap shots are fired at point-blank range, and a scope obscuring your vision can be somewhat detrimental then, depending on how the whole thing is put together.

My main opposition to this is due to sniper rifles already firing mostly snap shots because of better action economy for all but the rarest of situations, due to all the bonuses scaling with FA^2, which can easily get you to over 200% accuracy over a 'normal' soldier.

If you can avoid that in your mod, sure, doesn't sound so bad. But you'd probably want a hip/snap/aimed distinction now, too. And thus we enter the rabbit hole.

[Pendra37]

Hm, you say the current sniper rifle implementation is kinda lacking. You end up with such OP monsters that the players use Snap shots because even those hit.   
Here is something that would not result such thing:
Aim: 110 Acc / 60% TU
Snap: 70 Acc / 40% TU

damageAlter:0
      RandomType: 7              # 50-200%
      ArmorEffectiveness: 0.8    # Armour only applies 80% of nominal value

AimMinDistance: 20
snapRange: 15
DropOff: 3
With a 90% Acc shooter, these will be the hit chances:

shot	1	2	3	4	5	10	15	20	30	40	50
aimed	82	79	77	74	71	75	82	94	94	93	92
snap	87	84	83	79	75	66	64	47	19	0	0

From 15 tiles on, the snap drops off (normal accuracy calc) and the aimed takes (inverse or minrange acuracy calc) over the hit chance.

DamageBonus none, you already have a huge Critical damage bonus rolled into the damageAlter.

[Juku121]

Sure, but a) that's what players like and b) unless you take away accuracy scaling via stats and thus remove sniper specialisation from soldiers, you're still going to end up with either good snaps, or useless snaps.

Your example is more of the latter. Snipers already tend to carry backup weapons that are better for close-range combat than their main gun. Thus this kind of snap shot doesn't really do much, although I'll grant you that it does look sorta realistic. There are sniper guns that lack a snap shot altogether, which is not too different from this.

I'm also not sure where you're pulling these numbers from. Range 20 snap shot should be 0.7*90 = 63 - 5*3 = 48. And no matter the calculation method, how can you have 66 at range 10 and 64 at range 15, when the dropoff is 3 and neither threshold (snapRange or AimMinDistance) is crossed?

Your sniper gun is also one with double snaps, which is one way these things can grow out of hand. And start enroaching on assault/semi-auto rifle territory.

Also, since your mod is likely not going to have vision ranges in excess of 40 or so - unless you want non-tiny maps to slow to a crawl. So the higher-range hit chances are going to be different, unless you either don't use the no-LoS penalty, or remove it from sniper weapons due to 'scoped'.

Also, what about auto-shots? Yes, there are automatic sniper rifles around, both IRL and in mods.


All in all, sure, the idea doesn't look too bad. But its 'realism' is somewhat debatable, and the end result can be approximated relatively well with current tools. But, again, it's not me you need to convince here.

And excessive feature-dipping by sniper rifles is one of my pet peeves, so it's not as if I like these super-snipers. But they did begin with good intentions.

[Pendra37]

Automatic Sniper rifles . Scopes on mounted M2 are a thing but I would not call them sniper rifles. Even M82s are not classified as sniper rifles. Most of the semi-auto "sniper rifles" act more like DMRs (or Anti Material). Where the main advantage is the longer reach of a full load cartridge, compared to an intermediate cartridge. There are some very accurate semi-auto rifles, but those are rare exceptions, issued to highly trained specialists. A sniper rifle is accurate, simple, light and kills with one shot.

Added double tap for kicks. Maybe it is an M21.

The numbers are from my calculated hit chance table. Simulated about 142 millions shots using the game's hit calculation method at a 8x8 voxels target (some mild cover) between 1-120 range and 0-120 final acc ratings. The excel is available as a download in my other thread regarding hit chances if you are interested. 

40 distance is not unheard of. It is like 28x28 tiles away where the average map is 50x50 tiles. My shooters usually engage from super long distanced. The spotter rookie runs around and finds targets for the shooter teams waiting BVR.

The MinRange is not bad, but using it for all fire modes makes it somewhat tricky.

I run some numbers, and that may even work:
Aimed Acc: 110
Snap Acc: 140
SnapRange: 6
MinRange: 22
DropOff: 4

Between 1-10 range, the Snap has a 10-20% higher hit chance on average.
At 13 it crosses over, Aim has a 77, Snap has 75 hit chance.
At 20, Aim 96%, Snap 74% hit chance
At 30, Aim is 99%, Snap is 40%
At 40, Aim is 99%, Snap is 1%

That behaves like a sniper rifle should.
 

[psavola]

I'm not sure what 'snap' is actually meant to be versus 'aimed'. I suppose aimed means use multiple seconds for careful aiming and is applicable only against stationary targets.  This is because reaction shots are always snap shots.

Suppose you have a sniper waiting at a good location, preserving all TUs to shoot if an enemy appears a little bit further away (e.g. at the edge of visual range).

At least I would think that the sniper should have a very good chance to reaction fire the enemy and score a hit. Unless you think that snipers can only hit stationary objects through careful aiming, not moving targets at all.

[Juku121]

Eh, it's debatable whether most enemies are actually stationary. They do move during their turn, it's just the turn-based abstraction that makes them look like they're standing still and getting shot at.



Automatic sniper rifles are a bit silly, yes. But AS Val exists, and so do scoped machine guns. Hathcock's record was with an M2, for that matter.

'Sniper' and 'designated marksman' are more of a doctrinal thing. You can certainly have your DM use 0.25-MoA bolt actions and have snipers creep closer and use one of the plethora of modern sub-MoA semi-auto rifles with rapid follow-ups.

Anyway, in terms of this proposal, there's really not much of a difference between a 'sniper rifle' and a 'DMR'. Both have scopes, both are long-range precision weapons used mainly against 'soft' targets.

Incidentally, that's where the actual draw of the semi-auto is. Not range or whatever, you were almost always going to use a full-power round anyway (and semis are worse for those than bolt actions). Rather, it's the rapid follow-ups and multi-target shots that are the draw, compared to bolt actions. Well, I suppose nowadays it might be shooting at drones, too.

Precision semi-autos are far from rare, even in military contexts. The US Army moved from the M24 to the M110 and then an HK417 variant, for crying out loud.


40+ distance itself is not the issue, its interaction with sight range is the thing to consider. If you have open desert or arctic terrain, you can shoot from one end of a 40x40 or even bigger map to the other. I see that you're a fellow sniper enjoyer.


The numerical data are interesting. While not quite what you envisioned, it's not too badly off.


I too would like more fire mode customisation, but I'm not holding my breath. Getting typed hangars would be a major move forward and more useful to many people. And there's all the other stuff on the devs' todo lists.

[Solarius Scorch]

Not only it would be more anal retentive than acceptable, but also it would misrepresent the weapon's usage. Snap shot does not mean shooting the sniper rifle from a hip, this isn't Soldier of Fortune - it's pretty much the same type of action as the aimed shot, only with less preparation.

[Meridian]

Sniper rifles should have something like an inverse accuracy. They should get more accurate as distance to target increases. The reason for that is the scope. It gets very hard to acquire target and aim accurately at short distance with a high power scope.

If the weapon is scoped/sniper, the aimRange should work inversely. Say aimRange is 30, drop off 2. If you want to fire an aimed shot with a scoped rifle at a target 5 tiles away, your aim acc will have a ((30-5)*2)=50 handicap (-50). 25 tiles away, it would be only -10.

Snap/Auto not affected because for those, you don't line up with the sights. Just fire instinctively.

I'll have a look if there's any low hanging fruit around...