Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N11 22-Mar-2025

[ontherun]

Silencers not only make the sound of the shot quieter, but also remove the muzzle flash.

The way I see it, regular weapons should immediately spot an invisible unit for snipers, regardless of the damage done. The unit remains hidden if it fires a weapon with a silencer, a crossbow, a bow, a pistol with darts, and so on.

But such a change is not a five-minute fix. It will take a long time to think about how to change the balance.

well it is a bit more realistic indeed, maybe in the nex major update(O series?) i wish it gonna be implemented 

edit: missing "t"

[kelltozet]

Another rather strange behavior of weapons that haunts me is chainsaws.

There are three scenarios.

1) A close-range attack. The opponent can deflect the attack completely. How to deflect chainsaw blade with hands is to our imagination.

2) Attack an empty cell by pressing CTRL. The enemy doesn't deflect attacks, but evasion seems to be working.

3) Attack from above. The enemy can't do anything at all.

What is even the intended behavior?

[Yankes]

You mean some kind of modifier to the sniper reaction chance? Or to the spotter feature to work in the first place?

Hmm... HMMM...

More options to config spotter mechanic, right now its hardcoded but what if we could write script and set that if you attack unit in smoke it can't notify other that is attacked? or if its attacked in smoke or using weapons that we consider "silencer".

For "sniper reaction chance" I could too do something here with current script hook to add some additional parameters to have more fine grained control on other factors here.

[Dioxine]

1) A close-range attack. The opponent can deflect the attack completely. How to deflect chainsaw blade with hands is to our imagination.

Creating a strawman doesn't help your argument.

[Blind Cedrick]

Is it a strawman? He might just not understand how it could work.
FYI for anyone who is wondering, if you're fast and have good timing you can dodge the cut or grapple the person behind the weapon. The "deflect" can just be a representation of 'oops, hard miss.'

AS for spotting... Idea?
Add two stats under the hood. Vis_Range and Vox_Range.
Give each weapon category defaults to minimize the need to re-code. If stealth is a key word, add an automatic reduction.
Example:
Melee: VisR = 10, VoxR = 20
Pistol: VisR = 15, VoxR = 25
Rifle: VisR = 20, VoxR = 30
Possible parameter adjust based on lighting or weather. IE reduce Vis in daylight or rain.
Possible to reduce when in smoke.
Possible to reduce on individual units with perks

Something I would like to see but would be a pain to get right (because it would need smarter AI) would be to give rockets backblast.

[Juku121]

Any range damage to the spotter makes the attacking unit a target for snipers, if spotter wasn't neutralized in a single hit. Lethality or damage type doesn't matter.

It's a bit more complicated than that. What matters is whether the target is hit by a 'projectile'. So near misses with AoE weapons or grenades don't spot you for snipers, a fact quite a few people have used to cheese XCF ironman. I think grenades don't count as 'projectiles' at all, even if they hit the Sectoid on the head. At least I've never managed to get them to count.

And that applies to 'sniper spotted'. Plain 'seen' doesn't count 'stun' damage, only visuals and kills, including delayed kills.

[Dioxine]

The "how you can deflect chainsaw blade with bare hands" is a strawman. It paints a picture of someone trying to deflect chainsaw blade with bare hands (because it paints a picture of a not-too-bright lumberjack trying to grab working chainsaw by its blade, with obvious consequences) to ridicule the idea of ranged weapons being able to miss in melee range due to enemy evasion. Purposefully ignoring such cases as 'enemy might be armed' or 'enemy might deflect your hands or your whole body, not your blade' because they don't sound ridiculous.

As for spotting system, personally I see no issue to fix. It does work as intended, that is, according to original intention: "create a mechanic that removes or at least reduces the disgusting turkey shoots when you lit up enemies and kill them with complete impunity". The "one shoot kill doesn't make you spotted" rule I added because while it dillutes the original intention and leads to some silly behaviours/exploits, it is just too counterintuitive to have it otherwise.

a fact quite a few people have used to cheese XCF ironman.

Don't be under the illusion that it's ironman players who cheese the most. My own observations do not show any such conjecture.

[Zesty]

I can think of like a dozen ways to extend the sniper/spotter system, but I feel like the mechanic is already hard enough to understand and doing more just makes it increasingly inscrutable. But if we're collecting ideas:

- Weapons with a flash and sound range. Flash reveals you automatically to anyone if you're within that range and LoS of the enemy, and spotters then can communicate to the rest of the enemies. Sound reveals you within that range even through walls.
- Spotters with a range in which they can see friendlies get shot and then notice you.
- Spotters that can only alert friendlies within a certain range rather than the whole map (they are just yelling and pointing, not radioing in airstrike coordinates).
- Spotters that are "slow" and need to survive to the beginning of their turn to alert the team.
- Spotters that can't communicate with everyone at once, instead say a spotter can alert X number of enemies and once X number of enemies have made their attack you become hidden to the rest of them.
- Spotters that only alert enemies to use direct fire weapons against the player and not indirect weapons or thrown grenades. Calling in an artillery strike takes math, some enemies don't have that.
- Spotters that remember a location on the map rather than the player's position and tell enemies with indirect weapons to just keep pummeling the same place for a certain number of turns.
- Spotters that can direct general AI movements towards a location over multiple turns (this would probably be really hard to implement).

With regard to melee getting revealed, I feel like Melee should be incentivized and should never trigger being spotted as long as the enemy doesn't turn around and see you. Even if it takes multiple hits to kill something being pummeled to death isn't really a situation in which you can phone a friend to tell them about it. This also incentivizes weapons that sap enemy TUs to prevent them reacting.

[Juku121]

Some of these things exist in BOXCE, like enemies 'guessing' your location from map and shooting patterns.

Myself, I'd be happy if both the player and the computer had to have a unit with 'spotter' and LoS to the target in order to use squadsight. Otherwise, eat the no-LoS penalty.



As to cheese, I have no real data about whether ironman is more or less cheesy on a player level. It's just that most mods' grenades are as OP as in the OG, and the additional sniper-prevention makes them very attractive to ironman players. That is, cheesy.

[kelltozet]

Purposefully ignoring such cases as 'enemy might be armed' or 'enemy might deflect your hands or your whole body, not your blade' because they don't sound ridiculous.

I'm not trying to purposefully create a straw man.

I don't even have an argument. I'm trying to figure out how to use chainsaws by design.

Okay, deflecting an attack in close combat is intended behavior. It displays situations where the opponent has captured the arms, body, and so on. Good.

What about attacking through a cell and attacking from a higher or lower level? In these situations, the enemy cannot deflect the attack? Or is it a bug or a limitation of the core game mechanic?

[Zesty]

Myself, I'd be happy if both the player and the computer had to have a unit with 'spotter' and LoS to the target in order to use squadsight. Otherwise, eat the no-LoS penalty.

Ehh? If you don't have LoS then you and the enemies always eat the no-LoS penalty, usually a 1/2 reduction to your CTH.

It's just that the AI has a lot more units and can afford to take 10% potshots until it ruins your day. And explosives, fired or thrown, are probably gonna hurt someone in your team regardless of how inaccurate the enemy is.

[Juku121]

Well, this way you'd not get the no-LoS penalty if a spotter is actually spotting your target, LoS or no LoS. And maybe computer units should also lose squadsight/sniper without active spotters, although that kinda brings back the player advantage that was the root of the issue. Or perhaps an increased LoS penalty would make more sense.

[Blind Cedrick]

... is it a bug or a limitation of the core game mechanic?

I am going to say limitation of the game mechanics. Vanilla XCom didn't even have melee, except for the zombies. If you need something to help visualize melee attacks stretching over one square, look up greatsword use on youtube. The whole point of a long weapon is to prevent your opponent from getting close enough to fight back. I would be happy if any sword+ sized melee weapon could stretch over a tile but that would throw out the game. IE cool if it works well but you won't get it to work well.

Try not to worry too much about the details of game mechanics. They don't have to be entirely sensible. A rifle may have a weight of 10. IS that pounds? A little on the heavy size but not unreasonable. A body will weigh 40 (If I remember correctly). Is that pounds? I'm guessing my gnomes weigh more than that. Is it kg? 40 kilo is a very petite woman. reasonable for a catgirl, not an uber. IE, don't worry about it. Game good more important.

... that kinda brings back the player advantage that was the root of the issue...

By modern standards Vanilla XCom is already hard core. Piratez turns it up to 11. I will take any advantage I can get. Personal opinion, accuracy is universally too high. A flat 50% reduction on everything would suit me. Maybe more. Range accuracy isn't battle accuracy.

[kelltozet]

If you need something to help visualize melee attacks stretching over one square, look up greatsword use on youtube.

But we have melee attacks stretching over one square like spears. We even have greatsword in game. But spears and barbaric sword have attack range of 2 cells. If enemy near your gal, she can step back and completely avoid chance of deflection. Chainsaws have 1 cell range. In normal situations you cannot avoid deflect mechanic. But for some reason in specific cases, like when you on lower, or upper level deflection doens't work. And i still don't understand is specific cases a bug or limitation or intended behavior.

And i don't have a problem with visualization in my head. This is a game. Some level of abstraction is fine.

[Blind Cedrick]

On an attack, the game checks adjacent cells of the same level. If you want a more involved/advanced check, it needs to be coded. That sort of thing is up to dio and sol. And they are making this stuff for free. Donate, do it yourself, or make puppy eyes and try to engage their interest in something.

So...

   ....Dio?
add new kit? Field guns.
Early game 2x2 units gals can use. High firepower but low mobility (TU = 50?). Big guns that gals may already have access to but reconfigured.
The bandits already have the 25mm.
2x2 wheeled pirate cannon. Alternate to the hand held cannon but much higher fire rate and reload.
Volley gun. 4x pirate cannon with 1 or 4 shot option.
Same idea with MGs, grenade launchers, rockets, and mortars.