all you needed to do to acheive that was add some attraction values of like... 8 or so to plasma weapons, blaster launchers, small launchers and their ammunitions.
I'm using that option, and most of the original code, but I streamlined it a bit -
The old code picked only weapons it really liked and was really close to, then filtered it out based on some extra criteria.
Once it filtered it didn't go for a second choice it just gave up.
The result was that almost never finds a weapon because it's scared of being seen, or some other reason.
I combined the extra criteria into the finding function. Aliens never fail to find a weapon now - anything with an attraction above 0 will do.
it shouldn't, it should only be targetting units it can pathfind to.
it doesn't prioritize rear armour, it prioritizes attacking whatever's closest. and for the record, a chryssalid should have no problem reducing a tank to a pile of rubble.
I haven't modified pathfinding and the chryssalid paces away all his TU in the two sqaures on the ground in front of my flying armor/hovertank.
I've seen melee units walk past the front and around the back before attacking - perhaps because it was out of sight ?
Yes in the unmodified game, a Chryssalid kills almost anything in one round and most things in one hit...
In the unmodified source code, any hit kills literally any woundable unit at the end of turn regardless of armor or damage - it doesn't even have to deal damage to kill.
Some people may like it that way, but I didn't, so I fixed it.
My chryssalids actually have to inflict 1 damage to infect you and infection is a degenerative state instead of instakill. ... etc.
they do to some extent, aliens will use squad sight for targetting far away units with blaster launchers, and once the aliens spot a player unit, they keep "psychic" track of him for a few turns, leaving him vulnerable to mind control/panic. they don't use squad sight for regular shooting YET, but i have some thoughts on this.
I did see that - sometimes aliens just kind of ignore me and just keep pacing back and forth.
I ran into some Mutons in a barn - I surrounded the entrance with guys w/Laser pistols (veteran difficulty)
The Mutons would generally attempt to leave the barn, then realize I was shooting at them and re-enter the barn. They rarely fired back.
I spent a lot of turns playing fish in a barrel.
The other aliens didn't try to flank me - they stayed in the UFO.
Eventually I knocked out the back wall and they ran - had to chase them.
Admittedly I had 8+ guys covering the door with LasPistols... so the 'threat' was pretty huge and it probably decided to run, but had only one place to go and it had no exit.
the "threat to tile" is based on the number of units that can see the tile. taking into account what those units are holding is a bit... iffy, i mean, they might be holding motion scanners and medikits, but have a blaster launcher in their backpack.
The 'find cover' logic was deliberately tweaked to STOP units using each other as cover, as hilarious as it was, they often decided that directly behind/beside your men was a pretty good place to keep out of sight. even more hilariously, it often worked.
Ah yes the old giant weapon hiding in backpack trick...
I really wouldn't mind that problem - I mean if the aliens were really calculating and I wanted to draw them into a trap it's what I'd do.
And OTOH if I were the alien commander it's not something I'd really worry about - alien forces are infinite - They can lose every battle and win the war.
Ex: Sectopods usually take me 10-15 shots to take down due to their armor. But they rarely fire back. Instead they run and hide. I simply must fix this.
the "choose target" logic, generally speaking, prioritizes whoever's closest, because naturally, there's a better chance of hitting them, and in the case of melee, it means more TUs left over when you reach them to use on chewing and swallowing.
And that works great your units can likely damage anything (or aren't supposed to be smart enough to worry about it)
I admit I don't know how to keep my reapers dangerous by the end if they aren't overpowering in the early game. I'm thinking about balancing it with an armor piercing damage property - it would reduce the effectiveness of armor for purposes of determining damage, but wouldn't become damage after successful armor penetration.
about the AI states: the ai functions in two basic modes, "patrol", where he just wanders from map node to map node, looking for something to kill/eat/experiment on, and "aggro", when he has found somebody he doesn't like.
in the patrol state, he reserves a % of TUs as he wanders about, in case some hapless soldier wanders into his field of vision.
in the aggro state, he stalks his prey, and when he spots it, he makes a quick (very slow and cpu intensive) assessment of the cover around him, chooses a spot to move to, and reserves enough TUs to get there, spending the rest on shooting at his opponent.
unless he's psionic or has a blaster launcher, in which case he tries to use those instead.
So if I were to 'aggro' all 'patrolling' alien units at the beginning of any alien turn in which an xcom unit is spotted, the result would be the battle of Normandy !?
Phez
