Latest changes (05-10-2011): Falling and targeting

[kkmic]

The latest changes pushed in today add two new changes:

• Falling TUs costs
• Accuracy depends on distance

I'm just curious about several aspects regarding these changes:

•   Regarding falling time units cost:
   
  • The vanilla UFO had TU costs when falling (ignore the other point bellow if this is true)?
  • From a quick glance at the code I saw that falling costs 6 TUs per battlescape "layer" (correct me if I'm wrong)
  • What will happen if your soldier only have enough TUs to walk over the ledge but not enough to fall to the ground?
       
    • Will the soldier be prevented to move?
    • Will the soldier be "stuck" in the air for the remaining of the turn?
    • Will the soldier be able to use the remaining TUs to turn around if stuck in mid air? (Look like bullet time to me :p)
       
•   Regarding distance-dependent accuracy:
   
  • In vanilla UFO distance is not a factor when calculating accuracy
  • I agree that in RL is easier to hit a close target compared to hitting a distant one, but adding this won't change the one of the important mechanics of the game?
  • Would one be able to turn this "feature" off?
  • Will there be an on-screen indicator on if you have a bonus or a penalty when aiming at a specific target?
         
    • Change crosshair color, perhaps to something like this:
               
      • Blue for "accuracy normal"
      • Green for "accuracy bonus"
      • Yellow for "accuracy penalty"
      • And maybe red for "very low chance of hitting" - when accuracy is under 10%, regardless of contributing factors
             
    • Show a numerical indicator/percentage next to the crosshair when aiming at a tile/object?
       

To be clear, I'm not against any of these changes. I am just curious on how will they integrate in the long run with OpenXcom.

[Daiky]

1. yes it has a TU cost for falling, although it's a very strange one in the original xcom: 6TUs for falling down from 1 layer, but 0TUs when falling from higher - I did not implement this last one, it's just 6TUs per layer. The fall movement is not a real "step" it's TU costs are added to the horizontal step - if the total cost is higher than available TUs it will not allow to move.

2. I know openxcom does not have the same accuracy as vanilla - it has already been discussed about a year ago that the accuracy will depend on distance (we ended up with a gaussian distribution of an error in horizontal and vertical angle, but taking in account all things we know the original game does). But other accuracy calculations are not hard to implement if there would be a need.
There is no on screen indication - yet. But it is a good idea, because you might not always be aware of how much your hitchances are. I would vote for the percentage indication.

Also note : when testing openxcom now, you are probably every time testing with rookies with sometimes very low firing accuracy, as low as 40. It can make for lots of missing shots and very frustrating experience: don't blame this on the accuracy system

[kkmic]

There is no on screen indication - yet. But it is a good idea, because you might not always be aware of how much your hitchances are. I would vote for the percentage indication.

I've played TFTD quite a few times and UFO twice or so. When the flying armor beamed available, the overall strategy was to leave a sniper or two on a elevated location (above the craft or on the top layer of the battlescape) and use several scouts to look for aliens and shoot them using the snipers.

I'm sure that mostly everyone used this strategy at least now and then during their game run.

Obviously, this led to to some extreme range shots, that had 100+ accuracy across the entire battlescape. Not realistic, but the scream of the falling alien was SO MUCH fun!

The basic idea is that you knew all the time your real chance of hitting that target (rounded down ), so I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that the right approach is to show the (true) hitting chances for every shot, even if the accuracy formula is changed a little bit.

[Daiky]

Hi,

indeed, the sniper/spotter tactic will be harder to do now. I do not recall using it a lot.
Well, it's actually very easy to switch to non-distance related accuracy - it's just that I will need to add an option for that somewhere and then decide which one should be default.

[kkmic]

Well, it's actually very easy to switch to non-distance related accuracy - it's just that I will need to add an option for that somewhere and then decide which one should be default.

Yeah, basically an IF and a entry in the config file
I hereby volunteer to implement the latter 

[Volutar]

I've made my own tests of ufo:eu. and found that there's no any falling penalty at all. You just loses TUs for crossing collapsed wall section (which is 6) and TUs for landing to the ground/object tile (which depends on what kind of tile it is). Falling itself doesn't consume any TUs. Though deliberate moving downwards cost 8TUs...

[Daiky]

Damn, that explains everything... My test was wrong, or let's say I interpreted the results wrongly. I tested the falling from 1 level through a broken wall and the other from jumping of a roof.

[Volutar]

How much TUs will be going through "L" like adjacent collapsed walls which have different TUs cost?
On the picture.. vertical wall walk cost 6TUs, horizontal - 5TUs, tile itself cost 4TUs (+50%=6TUs for diagonal).

When avoiding diagonal movement there could be two routes:
1. 4+4+5(horizontal) = 13 TUs when walking North then East
2. 4+4+6(vertical) = 14 TUs when walking East then North

And 3 options of walking diagonally:
1. 6(tile) +6(vertical) +5(horizontal) = 17 TUs
2. 6(tile) +6(vertical) = 12 TUs
3. 6(tile) +5(horizontal) = 11 TUs

Obviously option1 is unwanted, its too costy (walking hor+vert is much cheaper).
Buth what option UFO:EU will choose?

[hellblade]

Regarding distance-dependent accuracy:

After all the years of testing and playing with extender.  The best setting for improving gameplay so far is reducing the accuracy ONLY for auto-shots.  This adds whole a new meaning to aimed shots.  And snap shots actually become useful ingame.

[Daiky]

Regarding distance-dependent accuracy:

After all the years of testing and playing with extender.  The best setting for improving gameplay so far is reducing the accuracy ONLY for auto-shots.  This adds whole a new meaning to aimed shots.  And snap shots actually become useful ingame.

Thanks for the input. I actually have no playing experience with extender.

However, currently the range at which the snapshot begins to loose accuracy is at 15 tiles, which is choosen as the average visibility range, which varies from 9 to 20 tiles (depending on the light).
This way the snapshot actually IS useful for what is supposed to do: shoot at a unit which you can see. And it allows for ONLY using aimed shot for the "scout & snipe" tactic.
Otherwise, once you have a unit with firing accuracy > 100 you get +-100% accuracy with the snapshot (ex. plasma rifle or heavy plasma + kneeling). Combine this with an unlimited range and the snapshot becomes overpowered.

[Chiko]

My X-Com has the extender mod and the distance-dependent accuracy is in it. I like that new feature mainly because it makes sense. You can actually have hard to hit roof snipers and makes Auto Shot kills a lot more harder to pull off at distance. It adds gameplay challenge and a more tactical approach in choosing weapons for your Squad.