Shooting Accuracy

[Meridian]

...and seeing multiple shots in a row go center of the target and keep going, finally impacting on something behind the target. I NEVER saw that in the original.

Here, attached video from the original... a shot goes right through the floater's right arm and impacts on the wall behind him (at 1:30).
Took just a few minutes to reproduce.

As Warboy said one post above, 2D sprite and 3D model are just different, no magic involved.
Shots going (only visually) right through the legs and arms are quite common.

As for going straight through the dead center of the unit... that should not happen in vanilla, but can easily happen in mods.

But even in vanilla, it can (only visually) LOOK LIKE it goes straight through the center of the unit... depending on the angle of the camera and angle of the shot.
For example, a soldier shooting directly upwards (i.e. from screen bottom to screen top) and a (missing) shot going just ever so slightly above the target's head in 3D space... will definitely look like a headshot or chestshot that goes straight through. Such situations are less common, but happen every now and then.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

As for going straight through the dead center of the unit... that should not happen in vanilla, but can easily happen in mods.

It happens in openxcom without mods. It happens a lot in some cases. I haven't figured out what makes it happen more but I suspect lower firing accuracy is at play, given that the X-Com Classic Remastered mod (which doesn't change the hitboxes) uses a lot of low firing accuracy and has it happen a lot, whereas my own Reaver's Faithful mod has a lot of high firing accuracy (also doesn't change hitboxes) and doesn't get the issue happening as much as it does in just plain unmodded.

[Meridian]

It happens in openxcom without mods. It happens a lot in some cases.

Well, if it happens a lot, make a video of it, post it here and we will explain what is going on.

[adam]

the accuracy model in openxcom is 1:1 with the original, we went to painstaking efforts to ensure that.

Oh, I concede it. I'm alternately infuriated and greatly amused.

Someone should make a game like this, but a little less... insane.

[adam]

I posted another topic on this, and then realized I'd already said it. It keep blowing my mind.

If our soldiers aimed like this, we would have lost EVERY war.

[Solarius Scorch]

Feel free to headcannon it.

For me, your men aren't soldiers at all. They are government agents, more like the FBI or the KGB. While trained, they cannot compare with actual military personnel.

[adam]

Another example: Base raid, I walk past an "arrowhole" window in a hallway and the alien shoots me. I reload, replay it a bunch of times, alien kills me maybe 3 out of 5. But, if at the point where he kills me I wheel and shoot -- well, I can't. "No line of site." The path that works for the alien apparently doesn't work in the opposite direction.

It's stupid and aggravating.

[Solarius Scorch]

Another example: Base raid, I walk past an "arrowhole" window in a hallway and the alien shoots me. I reload, replay it a bunch of times, alien kills me maybe 3 out of 5. But, if at the point where he kills me I wheel and shoot -- well, I can't. "No line of site." The path that works for the alien apparently doesn't work in the opposite direction.

It's stupid and aggravating.

Additionally to the above, line of sight is calculated (roughly) from the unit's eye level, while the shooting line is calculated (roughly) from the weapon's level. Naturally there are many cases where an alien can see and shoot you, but you can only see them, or only shoot them - especially when the alien is of a different height (like a Sectoid) or standing on something.

These are some basic tenets of X-Com mechanics, and I really don't think anyone will be interested in changing them. People have asked before, but it would break the compatibility with vanilla game and is therefore out of the question.

Sorry, but no amount of complaining, no matter how valid, is going to do anything about it. The only sensible response is "it's an open project, if you want it different, make a clone and code it yourself". I am not trying to be an asshole, this is simply how it is. [Devs: If I'm wrong, please correct me.]

[Meridian]

Sorry, but no amount of complaining, no matter how valid, is going to do anything about it. The only sensible response is "it's an open project, if you want it different, make a clone and code it yourself". I am not trying to be an asshole, this is simply how it is. [Devs: If I'm wrong, please correct me.]

You are 110% correct.

[normae]

on this topic, is there an understanding of how close range increases the accuracy of fire in xcom? ufopaedia has an excellent article demonstrating it happens (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Firing_Accuracy_Testing), but there does not seem to be a general formula for this topic unless it has been discovered elsewhere.

A quick glance at the figures on ufopaedia would suggest approximately a x1.79 modifier at range 2, x~1.483 at range 3, and x~1.236 at range 5. But of course these crude estimates are probably wrong.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

on this topic, is there an understanding of how close range increases the accuracy of fire in xcom?

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/File:FAT-FFA45.png
The graph in the article seems to show that shot groups get slightly tighter the further away the target is. The model spread line is a straight diagonal dissecting the graph, indicating a firing angle of 90º total, regardless of distance to target. But the actual spread begins slightly higher than the model, but gets slightly lower with greater distance on a curve that appears if the chart went out to 60, they would deviate greatly.

I'd say this concurs with my own experience in the original game. Many times I noticed that getting closer to the target didn't help much because the shot angle just got wider, that is until they got adjacent with the target in which case suddenly all shots started hitting.

I've ran a considerable amount of testing attempting to discover any such angle change using both OXCE and UFOExtender accuracy, and generally speaking, the weapon always seemed to fire with exactly the same firing angle at any range. It would only change when hit chance reduction from being outside of visual range took effect. I was able to create scenarios in which the angle changed, but only with bizarre setups that result in listed firing accuracy going through a drastic change over a short distance, ie. with a shot range of 15 and a dropoff of 5. Maybe UFOExtender accuracy is somehow mediating and making the result appear to maintain the shot group, but one way or another it seems to just work, where before it didn't.

[normae]

I'd say this concurs with my own experience in the original game. Many times I noticed that getting closer to the target didn't help much because the shot angle just got wider, that is until they got adjacent with the target in which case suddenly all shots started hitting.

yeah, I'm not eager to run testing but I want to get an understanding of the aproximate multiplier. Right now I'm trying to figure out the true 1-fire action-kill effectiveness of various weapons vs various aliens (IE: multiplying accuracy * % of the time that the weapon has sufficient damage kill an alien), and realize that without the proper inputs for close-range fire I can't accurately model the true effectiveness of auto fire. Cursory attempts to trial weapon accuracy suggests noticable improvement at range 3, but I really need to get a set of numbers

[adam]

Oh, I wasn't expecting anyone would fix it; I've seen enough threads here to have the vibe down. But the title of the topic is "open feedback". It's feedback. As with line of sight, I get how the game works -- it's stupid and irritating, but hey, that is how the original worked, too. It was less irritating when DOS was the program loader and it took trickery to get more than 640k. In the modern era...

But sure, your goal is to replicate the original (except you don't, you add all sorts of bells and whistles). It's a great achievement, in that sense.

There are a million of these things. My soldier (er, "agent", if that makes you feel better) steps forward and suddenly the muton pops out of nothingness. It made sense in the early 1990s. Now... it seems bizarre.

Maybe I'm just too old. I've played a lot of X-COM over the years, and openxcom has been part of that, but... I just can't suspend disbelief like I once could.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

There are a million of these things. My soldier (er, "agent", if that makes you feel better) steps forward and suddenly the muton pops out of nothingness. It made sense in the early 1990s. Now... it seems bizarre.

I didn't think it made sense back then. But hey, that's the beauty of modding: I get to fix the game's problems the way I think it should be!

[adam]

I just meant it made sense given the technological limitations... there was no great way to show that you could only kinda/sorta see them.