[FIXED] Soldiers do not react to shots from behind them

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I don't know if this is intended behavior, but I've been noticing that soldiers will not react to shots that hit them from behind. This is contrary to aliens, who will react to shots that hit them from behind. I am fairly certain that this behavior was in the original game, though it could have been difficult to tell given how uncommon it was for a soldier to survive a hit, let alone react to it. But I have soldiers with high reactions fighting aliens with low reactions, and my soldiers will definitely shoot back when they can see the alien, but they will not shoot back at an alien they are facing away from.

Shouldn't X-Com soldiers be able to react to being shot from behind?

[Warboy1982]

code dive in progress, please check back later.

[Warboy1982]

results

[Dwarmin]

Nothing better than sneaking up on that muton and shooting him in the back, only for him to spin around and gun you down like Neo from the Matrix. 

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Line 873 says: we don't extend the same "enhanced aggressor memory" courtesy to players, because in the original, they could only turn and react to damage immediately after it happened.

They can't turn and react to damage. They can only react to it if they're facing either directly at it or 1 rotation away.



Line 874 says: this is because as much as we want the player's soldiers dead, we don't want them to feel like we're being unfair about it.

It seems pretty unfair to me that the aliens get an enhanced aggressor memory and player units do not. How would it be unfair to have internal consistency and give the player the same capabilities that the aliens have? The aliens already possess higher attributes and technology, which can be further altered by mods. It doesn't make any sense to me to force the player to be at a very specific and unexplained disadvantage which cannot be altered by a modder.

If player units could react to fire from behind them, a modder could easily disable it by giving them a low reaction score.
If player units cannot react to fire from behind them, there is nothing a modder can do to change that.

[Warboy1982]

you seem to have misunderstood: those comments were added to reflect the changes that i made.

They can't turn and react to damage.

actually they very much can do that now, that was the purpose of the commit.

It seems pretty unfair to me that ... [snip] ... which cannot be altered by a modder.

modders have never been able to alter the game mechanics, and players were at an extremely similar disadvantage in the original, as explained in the comments.
the only difference is that the player can no longer exploit the subtleties of the system.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Oh, I see. Thanks!

edit: I just tested it in the latest nightly, it works!