aliens

Author Topic: Bughunt  (Read 17588 times)

Offline Stoddard

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #15 on: August 22, 2016, 11:05:53 pm »
I'd say if only HWPs remain, surrender is unconditional, since there's no one left to control them

Offline Star_Treasure

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #16 on: August 23, 2016, 02:13:30 am »
I proposed something like this, rather than all panicked enemies counting as captured however, I proposed that the game ask the player if they want to end the mission, and counting all remaining enemies as escaped.

Offline Surrealistik

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #17 on: August 23, 2016, 02:31:49 am »
I'd say if only HWPs remain, surrender is unconditional, since there's no one left to control them

That's what I proposed as a caveat to Scorch's solution.

Offline Starving Poet

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #18 on: August 23, 2016, 04:49:40 am »
Aye - I just threw those numbers out - I like the idea of setting flags and giving the option to accept the surrender after a certain threshold is met.

Maybe instead of attaching it to a fixed turn number, you can have it tied the aliens lowest turnssincespotted flag.   

I am aware that most deaths come during the final couple turns, but there is always a mission when you're playing and 10+ turns pass without seeing any hostiles.   

This can, of course still be gamed, but what can't?

Offline legionof1

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #19 on: August 23, 2016, 12:48:20 pm »
I would make it operate on 2 conditions, has it been more then x turns since player has seen anything plus sufficient fraction of total enemies dead.

Offline Boltgun

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #20 on: August 23, 2016, 01:31:40 pm »
That's what I proposed as a caveat to Scorch's solution.

The HWP and other mindless units have 110 bravery to prevent panic. I think it's something we can base it on instead of adding another flag to rulesets that are getting really complicated.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #21 on: August 23, 2016, 10:22:07 pm »
Maybe a "flee" condition would be better than a "surrender" one?

With either, you potentially escape the deadly encounter with the last enemy, when you finally encounter it. However, with a "flee" condition, the enemies just leave with everything they carry, thus reducing the reward, compared to the "surrender" condition giving you captives for every unit left, which is the best possible reward (captives being the best kind of way to take out enemies). There isn't much of a choice if the enemy offers surrender. There's no downside to it except that you can't exploit training xp on the last few units (which isn't much of an issue with the gym).

By opposition, a "flee" option gives you less reward for the diminished risk since you lose the opportunity to capture/kill/loot the fleeing units. This way there is a cost to the option. Make enemies flee automatically if a certain % (based on the average bravery of the remaining units?) have been killed and there has been no encounter with the player's force for X turn (meaning the player lost contact) instead of a decision for the player and you get an extra incentive for not camping. Why the hell would GOs and researchers sit around if you deploy, hide behind smoke and wait to snipe them? You're not following, so they should just run for their lives and get the hell away from the crazy gals with big guns!

HWPs are either more or less mindless or are remote controlled, so self preservation shouldn't be an issue for them and thus they won't flee. Basing things on bravery becomes more believable (if you have a tank/monster still kicking on your side, you're more likely to think you can make it). Or they simply don't disappear when the fleeing units run away.

In fact, if the % and fleeing likelihood were checked for each units, you could do something like:
- Beginning of enemy turn: calculate the % of units remaining
- Upon activation of a given unit, check if unit panics:
     - If the unit panic and there are more units than (100-bravery)% of units, panic as usual.
     - If the unit panics and there are fewer units remaining than (100-bravery)% of units, unit drops what's in its hands and runs away (unit is removed from the battlefield with all it still carries) (could be limited by  requiring that no player units see this unit or having another check with a % chance to run away, something like 100-Current%/Treshold%, so the fewer there are, the more likely units are to run away instead of panicking).
     - If the unit doesn't panic but there are less than (100-bravery)/2 % units left, loose some morale. This avoids the "I'm the last one of 20, but nobody died recently so I'm invincible!" syndrome. Over time, this may make isolated but otherwise brave units run away any ways, as even the most iron willed soldier should eventually recognize defeat. The truly brainwashed can be given bravery 100+ which makes it impossible for the unit to flee (can't have less than 0% of units left if that unit is left))
     - Otherwise (no panic, lots of units left) business as usual.

Doing this, you get rid of the annoying last GO/Researcher/Neophyte sulking in the toilets (but also lose their loot/ransom, although that's not much of a loss), but the last chryssalid/merc is likely to stay and mess you up. And you get situations like Researchers running away while the Osiron security guards and cyberdiscs cover them. You can also use the mechanic with animals (scorpions? And some of Solarius' beasties in the XCom-Files potentially) as they would flee from danger, even though surrender makes little sense for them.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #22 on: August 24, 2016, 12:10:35 am »
Ideally we should have both mechanics.
- Enemies who recognize there is no point in further fighting, would escape (no, without throwing their weapons away). They try to disengage, and if everyone left alive is disengaged, they will flee. Or they can flee individually by reaching the edge of the map or their deploy points?
- Enemies who cannot escape/do not believe in escaping would try to surrender. (Enemies who dropped weapons at least once. either due to panic or dropping unconscious, count as willing to surrender?). Naturally there are voices that the player should be able to go all 'murder them ALL!' option and refuse. But if surrender was forced on the player, it'd be harder to play 'shoot Muton with pistols for Reactions' game.
- Mindless beasts like Reapers, if bereft of masters, are too stupid to surrender or flee. Robotic drones like tanks, and monsters like Chryssalids do not fear anything. Both groups will fight to the death, out of stupidity or programming.

Threshold conditions for escape/surrender are naturally not easy to fine-tune.

Offline Arthanor

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #23 on: August 24, 2016, 12:26:19 am »
I was seeing "fleeing" as more of a "OMG let's get out of here everyone is getting murdered" type response than "hang onto your gun and retreat", given that even normal panicking units do drop their guns currently. Of course, there could be a "retreat" behavior (where units keep their guns and potentially shoot back on the way out) on top of "flee" (drop the gun and run for it, hence why I suggested the unit just disappears, but running to the map edge works too) and "surrender".

I did not take the time to distinguish between retreat and flee, because the difference is not that big for adding yet another layer to the AI. Same with surrendering. Of all the mechanic, flee encompasses the most to me, and allows to reduce the boredom while remaining some cost (as opposed to surrender, which has no cost).

But I understand that your response started with "Ideally", so if we're dreaming up a system, we might as well dream up a big one with all the different responses :D

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #24 on: August 24, 2016, 12:29:28 am »
Well, I've always interpreted dropping guns as willingness to surrender (although there is no mechanic for that)... It simply cannot be logically explained otherwise. If you were chased by some murderous bastards, and fleeing for your life, dropping your gun would be the last thing you'd do...

Offline Arthanor

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #25 on: August 24, 2016, 01:12:00 am »
But what if it made you run faster?

Arguably, guns may not be all that encumbering, but I'd still expect untrained people to drop them and run. Especially in Piratez where the gals are often pretty much immune to the guns of panicky units (or in vanilla facing alien terrors playing with your brains in the dark). Dropping it may only increases your chance to run away by 1%, but if it has 0.1% chance of taking out the threat before you get killed, it's still the wiser choice.

Offline Surrealistik

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #26 on: August 24, 2016, 02:18:23 am »
- Mindless beasts like Reapers, if bereft of masters, are too stupid to surrender or flee. Robotic drones like tanks, and monsters like Chryssalids do not fear anything. Both groups will fight to the death, out of stupidity or programming.

Just to clarify, I assume that drones/Chryssalids will surrender with their masters though, like Reapers?

Offline Drasnighta

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #27 on: August 24, 2016, 02:20:21 am »
Having a Huge, Slavering, Bipedal, Stomping, Eating Machine on your side tends to lend a certain amount of temporary courage to a situation, I feel :D

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #28 on: August 24, 2016, 02:29:51 am »
But what if it made you run faster?
Dropping it may only increases your chance to run away by 1%, but if it has 0.1% chance of taking out the threat before you get killed, it's still the wiser choice.

True, as the last thing, you'll drop it, maybe... But what benefit is from escaping, if you end up lost in the wilderness without a gun? And while citing border cases (untrained, stupid, scared out of their minds people) lends credibility to this, they're just that - border cases, not a typical battle situation. An engine should, IMO, focus on typical situations, not border cases. Sure, it might be different for vanilla X-Com - there dropping guns can be interpreted as supreme confusion reaction, not that uncommon when fighting alien horrors that play with your mind (or when being a disoriented battle-clone shown outta ship to kill some weirdos on an alien world).

Offline Arthanor

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Re: Bughunt
« Reply #29 on: August 24, 2016, 04:51:31 am »
I guess living in the 26th century Piratez world is quite different from living in 21st century Canada ;)

Good point! Expecting Piratez "civilian" units to behave in the middle of nowhere like I'd expect Canadians to behave in Canada isn't quite accurate.