Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle

[Dioxine]

Criticizing 0-200% damage spread will get you nowhere since it's not going away, period.

[Ethereal_Medic]

KK

[Bacon_Hero]

I think Oharty is working on a new feature that dramatically decreases accuracy of shots beyond the vision range. This will promote weapons with extreme accuracy.

That's a pretty cool change... does that mean my gals can safely walk out of the ship on turn 1 and not worry about getting hit?  Will night affect this too?

@Troubleshooter: Tip: Don't manufacture more than 1 of the same type of prize. I've wasted lots of tokens doing just that

@Ethereal_Medic: You could mod it and change sniper weapon damage type to roll 2d100 instead of 1d200, or even 50%-200%

[Solarius Scorch]

That's a pretty cool change... does that mean my gals can safely walk out of the ship on turn 1 and not worry about getting hit?  Will night affect this too?

Clearly there has been some miscommunication, since I have no idea how to arrive at your conclusion.

Anyway, no. If anything, it would be more dangerous to step out of the craft, since they could die to someone who is far away and normally wouldn't fire at all, because they can't see the target. With the proposed change (including AI update) they could, if their friend sees you.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Sounds like Squadsight for the A.I.

[Solarius Scorch]

Sounds like Squadsight for the A.I.

Yeah, but without the hefty accuracy penalty, it would be too good.

[Ethereal_Medic]

One thought just came up.

This new "Squadsight" for A.I. should be super ugly to fight using the menace-class ships and the thunderhorse as those have big open ramps for the A.I. to abuse unlucky map-spawns and facing enemies with full TU packages.

If this feature gets build into the engine, other second-class dropships with doors (and no ramps) need buffs in soldier-size (2 more for each vessel might do it) since open-ramp-dropships will get extremely dangerous to use against enemies packing the tools to snipe your deploying team or just snapshot babynuke the whole team + all items in your ship)

Even a 0% chance to hit baby-nuke can ruin your day and multiple triggered rockets (HE/Plasma etc.) doesn't sound like fun or fair either. Since smoke-throwing triggers reactionfire you have to get lucky spawning save with no one seeing you and let the smoke drop beneath your feet before you're allowed to move an inch. Dying during the alien-turn can still happen tho. (since you're not allowed to get rid of the spotter or reaction fire)

A second thought while I played some Xenonauts.

Is it possible to get stungas-rockets and stungas-mortar shells?

[BBHood217]

Won't this make fighting invisible enemies more annoying?  As in you have one unit get close to an ethereal to spot it and then open fire on it with other units; but since they technically don't see it, they'll have difficulty hitting.

[legionof1]

snip
Even a 0% chance to hit baby-nuke can ruin your day and multiple triggered rockets (HE/Plasma etc.) doesn't sound like fun or fair either.
snip

Should not happen since there is code to prevent the AI from shooting below a certain threshold of chance to hit(2% if recall correctly). If the squadsight change comes with a significant penalty as was described most weapons won't be used beyond there effective range. Most foes have considerably worse firing skill then the gals so i'm not too concerned.

Won't this make fighting invisible enemies more annoying?  As in you have one unit get close to an ethereal to spot it and then open fire on it with other units; but since they technically don't see it, they'll have difficulty hitting.

Depends on exactly it would be calculated but your probably correct. But unless the malus is huge by the time your challenging etherals the gals should be able to absorb the penalty without much issue. And even it is a large penalty use weapons like shotguns and snipers that have more then 100% accuracy.   

[Absalom]

How does the squad sight affect those with only a melee attack?

Only thing I would be concerned about atm is Celatids with squad sight

[legionof1]

So melee only mobs start moving towards your gals the first time you get spotted. I fail to see how that's a bad thing. Very often the melee mobs end up sitting in some lonely corner of the map and have zero impact. Getting them to pull their thumbs out of their asses and contribute to the tactical environment is better for the game.

[Absalom]

So melee only mobs start moving towards your gals the first time you get spotted. I fail to see how that's a bad thing. Very often the melee mobs end up sitting in some lonely corner of the map and have zero impact. Getting them to pull their thumbs out of their asses and contribute to the tactical environment is better for the game.

Is that how it works?  I was only asking if they made use of it too, not casting judgement

[Solarius Scorch]

Is that how it works?  I was only asking if they made use of it too, not casting judgement

I think melee behaviour would not necessarily by impacted by this change. The proposed change is simply to allow shooting at invisible units, it probably won't affect AI awareness as such. But of course it depends on how you go about coding this.

Having said that, I agree with Legion.

[Dioxine]

The squadsight will only work for selected enemy types. 'Spotters' share info on what they see; 'Snipers' can target those seen by any 'Spotters' (or themselves). A unit can have both flags, ofc. Spartans and Humanists will all get either of these flags on basically all units, most other factions won't. Celatids will be spotters for sniper Beastmasters, but certainly not snipers themselves.

Squadsight won't allow enemies to break visibility rules on reaction fire (just like the player can't). Can it help with melee? I doubt it as AI is yet lacking a routine to 'charge towards enemy even if out of charge range'.

I think the AI dance should be improved with some extra flags as well:
- Assaulter. Advances all the time, unless low on TU and has good cover nearby, then takes for cover. If has a ranged weapon, uses 30-60% TUs to fire, depending how good are hit chances. Assaulter tries to keep 15% TU for dodge attempts, unless charging.
- Ambusher. Runs away into good cover, then tries to leave as much as possible for reaction shots
- Harasser. Fires, hides, pops up next turn to fire again; tries to use most TU
- Investigator. Instead of patrolling, heads toward player's LZ when not busy
- Guard. If idle, doesn't patrol but makes a 360 sweep and stands place. Tries to look at other doodz from his own team.
- VIP. Reserves 50% TU to get into cover after fighting normally

[Martin]

I would think of mercenaries and marsec, not spartans or humanists.