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Shooting out walls and windows


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Okay, so I know my rookies have horrible aim and I understand why. That's not a problem. Except when I just want them to knock down a wall segment or window for me, and they're standing one or two tiles away, and they hit the floor, nearby walls, anything but what they're meant to hit. So my humble suggestion is: please give my soldiers an accuracy bonus when attempting to shoot out a wall or window they're standing right next to. In my view, they should have nearly 100% accuracy when doing this, because as it is I find myself wasting tonnes of ammo to hit, litterally, the side of a barn. While standing less than a metre away :P .

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Okay, so I know my rookies have horrible aim and I understand why. That's not a problem. Except when I just want them to knock down a wall segment or window for me, and they're standing one or two tiles away, and they hit the floor, nearby walls, anything but what they're meant to hit. So my humble suggestion is: please give my soldiers an accuracy bonus when attempting to shoot out a wall or window they're standing right next to. In my view, they should have nearly 100% accuracy when doing this, because as it is I find myself wasting tonnes of ammo to hit, litterally, the side of a barn. While standing less than a metre away :P .

Isn't it more realistic to have to destroy a wall using a grenade anyway? A rifle round to the side of a building should not be able to bring a wall down should it?

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Isn't it more realistic to have to destroy a wall using a grenade anyway? A rifle round to the side of a building should not be able to bring a wall down should it?

That's XCOM physics for you.

I'd really like to see some changes made to wall durability, so a single standard rifle round can't destroy one. Windows shouldn't be obstacles at all. The glass breaking effect is cool, but windows stopping bullets isn't an acceptable break from reality for me.

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So okay, the first thing I did after reading Ljas' post was to type "shooting out windows" and "shooting through windows" into google, to see what realism has to say about shooting out windows and shooting through windows and whatnot.

And would you believe it? Youtube has a lot so say on the matter:

But then I found a document that rigourously treated the mechanics of shooting through glass.

The behaviour of bullets

It would seem that if you shoot through glass, the bullet will pass through, but the longer the range you shoot from, the great the penalty to accuracy.

Then while on youtube, I also found....

Now, to be honest, I don't think realism has too much place in games like this. I mean, what do you want, really? For it to be realistic, or for it to make sense? Do you want cover to be as variable as it is in real life? Or do you want to be able to put a solider behind cover and think "he's safe - for now".

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So I went ahead and asked the Internet what it thought about spess layzors as well. Because if we want to be realistic about bullets, then we should want to be realistic about everything else. It can't be one rule for some, it has to be one rule for everyone.

So, okay, firing a laser through a window. Would you believe that people have thought quite seriously about this?

The answer is it is unlikely to damage the window.

Holy crap laser attack?

Posters on Snopes.com sez some lasers will cut though glass, some won't.

Edited by Max_Caine
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All right, I may have been playing too much ARMA 2 lately, but the windows as they are now are kind of silly. If I have a 'Naut inside looking out of the window and seeing an alien only three tiles away, all taking a shot at it does is break the window and give it a reaction shot against me.

Having to break the window to get a firing position only serves to make buildings less useful.

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So okay, the first thing I did after reading Ljas' post was to type "shooting out windows" and "shooting through windows" into google, to see what realism has to say about shooting out windows and shooting through windows and whatnot.

And would you believe it? Youtube has a lot so say on the matter:

But then I found a document that rigourously treated the mechanics of shooting through glass.

The behaviour of bullets

It would seem that if you shoot through glass, the bullet will pass through, but the longer the range you shoot from, the great the penalty to accuracy.

Then while on youtube, I also found....

Now, to be honest, I don't think realism has too much place in games like this. I mean, what do you want, really? For it to be realistic, or for it to make sense? Do you want cover to be as variable as it is in real life? Or do you want to be able to put a solider behind cover and think "he's safe - for now".

Curse you Hollywood and your breakaway glass (that is used in bottles broken over the head of an actor without injuring him) , cars that explode as soon as they are flipped over and indestructible diamonds!

You lie to me about physics! UNFORGIVABLE! :P (sorry, I'm in a funny mood. It's not anything meant towards you Ljas or Max_caine, it's more about me being annoyed at the false representation of things in fiction that are so widespread they are mistaken for truths :P )

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Right Ljas, so you want it to make sense. And the way you put it, it does seem silly. Perhaps Chris and his merry band could do something where you go straight to "damaged window", and just apply an accuracy modifier when you shoot through a window for the first time.

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The windows need to be physically damaged to go from intact to broken.

In game terms that means they need to be actually hit, unlike a real window which can be effectively broken by something passing through it without impeding the bullet/rock too much.

I don't know if it would be possible to have semi permeable items.

It would allow windows to be fired through, and broken on the way, without having to actually hit the window first.

Thinking about it that would also allow other things, like a thin wooden wall, to be fired through as well.

That could make the cover system incredibly complicated though.

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Hey, do you guys think it would be hard to make windows act like doors? That is to say, if you go next to a door, you click to open it without much issue. Can you use that same tool in the game's engine to create a click to break window? Heck, even to just open the window; I just think bashing it seems cooler. Since opening door doesn't have your soldier use any sprite, I don't think anyone would be mad if the window just burst and made a nice glass smashing noise.

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Don't see why not.

It would just involve changing the window sprites to have an open state.

I would have to look but I am pretty sure you can still set them to be impassible until they have been shot a few times and to have limited cover potential even when they are open.

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Just had a play with the editor and it is possible.

I added an open state to a window and changed its settings to have the same stopping chance as the damaged window state.

That means you can walk to it and use the right click command to open it in the same way as a door.

I also changed both the damaged and open states to be classed as cover so you get a cover indicator when you stand by them.

I used the damaged state to represent the open window, which works until you close the window again and it magically repairs.

I don't know if opening the window will still trigger reaction fire though.

Oh and I set the window so that you can vault through when it is open or damaged.

*edit* the animation clips the sides of the window a bit as you go through but it works.

Edited by Gauddlike
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  • 2 weeks later...
Isn't it more realistic to have to destroy a wall using a grenade anyway? A rifle round to the side of a building should not be able to bring a wall down should it?

It ought to takes hundreds of small arms rounds to bring a wall down. Really only practical way is to use demo charges or larger explosive rounds (like a vehicle cannon, or rocket launcher. ) I'm not even sure conventional grenades would do it in real life. Does anyone know?

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So, StellarRat, is that what you want? Would you prefer building walls to behave like wood and bullets to pass through them instead of cause damage? If you do, fair enough. How then would you like lasers to treat buildings? If all walls are wood, then lasers and plasma, which work through the transferral of heat should set it on fire, right? That'd be fun. A stray alien shot hitting a building wall, then setting the whole damn place on fire, turning everything into a smoking wreck. Every map.

EDIT: Or we can say that bullets pass through walls. Lasers and plasma can't. Or we can up the armour value of walls, so bullets can't hurt them. Sound good?

Edited by Max_Caine
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