Caesan Accuracy

[Belmakor]

Ok firstly, I understand that Caesan are supposed to be weaker, but more accurate than Seb's but I can't help but feel cheated every time I play against them.

Normally I would pass off single shots from a Cas at around 15 tiles range that hit the mark as fair.

However, I am repeatedly being hit by Caesan burst fire at this range with every single shot hitting. I don't mean its happening every time, but by golly it feels like it.

At anything more than about 3 tiles range and without any obstacles in the way my Commander/Majors accuracy is in the 30% region.

Put in any form of object, be it a broken window or partial cover and these percentages even at three tiles can be like 12% for an experienced soldier and as low as 4% for a Rookie.

I keep seeing a Caesan burst fire me from well outside my vision (I know they have extra vision on me so that's fine). What isn't fine is when they almost always get me with every single shot from that burst, even when its through cover. I am losing soldiers like flies, even when they are in cover and wearing Wolf armour simply because the Cas are able to take 4 shots per turn with the vast majority of them hitting whereas I have to gang up about 4 or 5 to 1 just to get enough shots on target that hit.

Maybe this is coming across as a moan but I am just concerned that this isn't supposed to be the correct behaviour and that there is something up with the way Alien AI calculate burst accuracy. Has anyone else found this to be the case?

Or perhaps it is a case that the Aliens have a full map of all the spaces and their chances to hit (on a burst) so that they are able to always select the space that maximizes this (and hence why it happens so often)?

A few points before the inevitable "here are some tips"

1) I am well versed in how to exploit cover

2) I am well versed in using smoke cover, though I admit I don't expect to have to use it on a solider who is in partial cover and not in LOS of an alien.

3) I always try to move to avoid shooting through or over cover to maximize chances to hit.

[kabill]

It's worth noting that there utterly no difference between shooting at 6 tiles away and at 15 (effective weapon range notwithstanding, of course). So the range isn't especially important here.

In terms of the AI knowing where the best shots are, I'd be surprised if this wasn't the case (as it would take a lot more effort to hide that from the AI than for it to know automatically, I would think). So I imagine it will tend to pick good places to shoot from (although in my experience it often doesn't do that, too).

Other than that, I'm not sure I've experienced the same thing as you at all. If anything, I find Caesans much less of a pain to deal with than Sebillians (who seem to hit me just as often as Caesans in spite of their lower accuracy, but have extra toughness and see through smoke, too!). There was a slight bug until recently where burst fire on the alien plasma rifle was accidentally set with a higher aim modifier than should have been the case, but that was patched out a week or two ago. So unless you're using an old build, that shouldn't be the problem.

[xXSunSlayerXx]

did you update your game to version 1.06? if you don't have the game on steam, you have to do that manually.

i had the same problem in the release version of the game, turned out alien plasma rifles had nearly twice the intended burst accuracy. never faced that problem after the patch again.

[Irishguy117]

Alien AI was in fact calculating burst accuracy incorrectly. If you're not using the most recent build you are absolutely correct.

[Belmakor]

Ah ha, as I suspected! I am on 1.04 just now so that explains it. Darn, all those deaths for nothing