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Omniscient AI?


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I'm currently playing on version 1.09, and every once and a while i run into a situation where I feel as though the AI is either impossibly lucky or just outright knows where my soldiers are at all times (particularly the sniper, but I'll get to that later). One such occasion was when i was about to breach a small scout ship on an industrial map. I had about five of my men huddled around the front of the ship, about to block the doorway on the next turn, with the rest of them scattered about the the map.

As soon as I hit the End Turn button, the aliens must have decided that they've had enough of my door-spamming antics, so they jumped out, and proceeded to rip my team a new one. While it was a nice and refreshing surprise that I wish would happen more often to spice things up, what surprised me the most was how one of them came out of the ship and shot one of my men from clear across the map, instantly killing him, even though I'm 99% sure that there was no way he could have seen him or known he was there. I know cesians have a sight distance of about 18 tiles, but I'm pretty sure he was much farther away than that, since the ship was on the far left side of the map, and my guy was somewhere around the far right side.

Another example that happens much more frequently is how the aliens seem to have an uncanny ability to know when my sniper has a clear shot on them, even when he should be well beyond their field of vision. I say this because, they always seem to want to move behind cover that would block his shot, even if it puts them within easy closing distance of one of my other soldiers that they should know are there. Sure, it might just be my impression, but it happens so often that it really makes me wonder.

Is this kind of behavior normal for the AI? Is it a bug? Or am I just missing something?

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Lining your guys up right at the door of a ship is a common rookie error, it may work on the first few missions but you will get smashed doing that. The AI doesnt know exactly where your men are, BUT if you close to within a certain about of tiles there is a % chance it will switch to an aggresive mode (dependent on species etc). This is what is likely happening. Aliens are quite happy to muck about in ship, then you get close, they switch to aggresive and actively come out looking for you. Since you are all bundled at the door and the act of opening a door doesnt trigger reaction fire your toast. I find it much safer to have your men well back. for smaller ships you can have a door opener who runs around from the side of the ship to open the door. but to be honest i mostly just nuke it with c4 or rockets >:-D

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Lining your guys up right at the door of a ship is a common rookie error, it may work on the first few missions but you will get smashed doing that.

Yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way. Sebilian officers sure do love them some 'nades, don't they? xD

Ah, so that explains why they went all Rambo on me. But what I still don't get is how that cesian managed to pull of that shot. It seemed like it would even be beyond a weapons normal range, unless their weapons have infinite range or something.

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Cannot comment on very long range shots unless it is possible that another alien also had seen the soldier. But, 1.09 has bugs with LOS. Sometimes you can be seen through cover, especially when around corners, or from higher buildings. It's buggy and fixed in the Community Edition.

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The Alien Plasma Rifle has a range of 30 tiles which is where accuracy starts to drop off, same as your own rifles. Enemies decide if they can take a shot based on the hit chance and if they can actually see your soldier. Ceasans have a max engagement range of 25 tiles though so your soldier couldn't have been outside of that range or they would not have fired. I would also assume that they must have been just inside the 18 tile range and probably in the open for that shot to have been picked as the best option at the time but without being in that situation it is just an assumption.

If your soldier was outside of 18 tiles without being seen by another alien, or outside of 25 tiles even if they were spotted by another, then it could well have been a bug.

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Thanks for all the input guys!

Hmm, I didn't take into account that there may have been another alien watching him. I suppose it's possible, since i didn't have anyone else in the area so no one was watching his back. As far as the actual tile distance though, It sure seemed like it was an absurdly long shot, but since I didn't take the time to actually count the tiles, I'll just assume he was in range. I'll just have to be more careful next time :P . In any case, i think I'm going to take Solver's advice and switch to the community edition, it looks pretty sweet!

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