Dog/Cat/Rat hidden ambush out of bush/grass/flower field

[remiz]

As i understand now a small body creature has problems attacking out of walkable texture field. Grass/bush/flowers.
please add option for textures to not obstruct creature if it wants to attack somebody outside of that texture field.
creature fails to connect.
Unless that texture is made on purpose to obstruct vision to outside.

modders need more options for this to work. please.
example:
https://github.com/SolariusScorch/XComFiles/issues/181

[Meridian]

And what exactly do you want?

All of this is already optional.

Dogs can be made smaller or taller; textures can be made lower and higher; textures can be made transparent, etc.


You can have one or the other, not both... a texture cannot both obstruct and not obstruct at the same time.

[remiz]

Hey thanks for noticing

(thats might  not work on current engine build)

I want that small body size creature could hide in plants and be able attack enemy. So enemy wont see it but creature could see it and attack it.

Now it can see out-of-grass but cant attack. "There is no one here".

Like you said i want sadly sort of both. So third type of texture, or "vision rule" (could be optional for modders so others wont have to deal with this)
Texture type that obstructs vision but not movement. if you inside it, it wont obstruct vision.

maybe there could be dependency, how small body should be, so that vision obstruction would work.
rat hides in a bush, but human cant unless that bush is big enough.

i hope i explained good enough

Something like this
Vision Obstruction if: Body size=1/3Plant size
body size X
plant 3X
might add to that calculation hiding skill. (not sure if it is engine stuff or xfiles mod stuff)

sorry, i dont know how engine works, so i am suggesting nonsenses.
it just sad that such good game has this engine limitation.

[Irismono]

If a mod is making use of a camo system I could see something like camo getting a significant boost in that terrain, but to be honest this feels situational at best to use, and a pain to fight against if you're fighting against such enemies - though I suppose it would be rare that they would make use of it given TU costs.

Also don't small creatures usually use melee attacks? I can think of a few that don't but they're either utilities (eg. Dog bark drain TUs) or only on enemies (eg. Bombardier Beetle in X-Com Files)

[remiz]

i  am having problem in xfiles mod. rats standing in flowers cant attack enemies. dogs same. some grass is okay, the other prevents attack.
Asked Solarius Scorch about issue. He said he cant fix it as a modder, because adds body size problems :/

so here starts to fight those two texture types and body size. one texture sort of blocks small body inside, other does not.
hiding in grass/flowers defeats purpose of hiding if you cant attack, or it works for some textures.
then there come question why to hide with small body animals -> but you need to be sneaky cause rats/dogs/cats are squishy.
if map has places/textures to hide near, then player will use them. Piratez mod has lots of odd plants to hide in too.

this is why i am trying to rise this issue.

ps. I am sorry, my sentences are mess "D

[Juku121]

Hiding in grass doesn't really hide you, unless the grass is basically a low wall. Your whole idea of 'hide in grass and jump out to attack unsuspecting enemies' is nowhere near implementable in the current engine. Unless you make rats completely invisible, or something.

Your rats can always come out of the grass and then start biting. And making rats bite people is a suboptimal tactic, anyway.

[remiz]

Hey @Juku121, it is tactics. this game is all about mix and mash tactics. Player decides how to play. Put ton of options in the game and it will attract different people.

Moders adding different stuff, so it not just rats. I used rat as example of small body.
However small body impedes attacks if "grass" is big, so you not even can hide, you are punished, and enemy can attack you freely.

check github link with Solar Scorch:)

[Juku121]

I have had a Github version of XCF 3.4 installed for quite a while, thank you. Still doesn't mean it's a good idea to make rats bite people.


Putting in way too many options is something that is by no means guaranteed to improve the game, contrary to what many a player who's never sat in the design chair thinks.


You can always change the grass yourself to be visual-only, if you really want rats to be able to bite through it. Current grass does protect you a bit, and more if you're as small and low to the ground as a rat. It's just that it goes both ways, and rats don't get to aim around it.

It's a trade-off, and Solarius sees more problems with changing the current situation than not changing it. Similarly, having a 'bite-through' MCD would be troublesome to implement, not do much for most players compared to the effort required to troubleshoot it, and would need modders to at least go over their terrain files, which can easily go into the hundreds. All to enable a somewhat niche tactic. Well, dogs are also bothered by tall grass and they do have a real bite.



All in all, I'd want an ability to bite the grass and destroy it. I'm not really certain why rats can bite fences, but not grass. Because they're 'walls'? But rats can bite trees, too...

[remiz]

Agree on Biting flora. I had mission , where my dog was in bad spot. so i tried to bite of bush-wall, sadly it didnt help :/
So Melee should be able to destroy almost all stuff. But sometimes some shrubs are invincible.

We need fix on Openxcom, so modders dont have to bother fixing textures(or something else). Yes for devs it will be lot of work.

This is why i am asking here. I hope it gets attention and wont be left between huge pile of suggestions