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Suppressive Fire Alternative


Gazz

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It is quite similar. Since both suppression and reaction fire basically simulate real-time behavior in a turn based environment that isn't all that surprising imo. Both serve a similar purpose gameplay-wise too (deny the enemy the chance to kill you). Maybe the two systems shouldn't be separate at all but instead have reaction fire sap AP in addition to health and also on misses. But then again there is the problem of aliens not moving at the same time, so the first one that triggers RF gets suppressed, the group that follows doesn't. If you split it into two separate mechanics that problem can be avoided but it gets less intuitive. If you use suppression to just AP drain or accuracy drain you get a less believable simulation.

Since the real world isn't turnbased there's always going to be compromises that have to be made. If you really break it down it's all about striking the best balance to get a system that is intuitive to use, fun to play, and a reasonable approximation of reality. It's difficult to find that sweet spot. I'm quite happy it's Chris' job and not mine :D

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it also wouldn't be suppression at all, though the real world equivalent would be 'lining up a shot' which is done quite frequently on moving targets, or targets that appear in the same place (think carnival gallery shooting where targets pass in front of an opening). not a bad idea, just not suppressive fire. if i remember correctly altair's first ufo game did something like this, it made reaction fire much deadlier for both sides. to combat this they failed to add side stepping, instead it was walk backwards, which cut down the time needed to turn if used correctly, though once the enemy reacted when had a shot lined up it only took .1 seconds to fire, instead of having to spend the .4-.6 secs to line up a shot.

p.s. - deny the enemy the chance to kill you = cover

suppressive fire = convincing the enemy to not fire on you

lining up a shot = preparing for shooting a target at a specific spot

Edited by jamoecw
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There's a whole other thread on suppression! The difficulty I see with various methods of modelling suppression fire is that X-COM is a game entirely based around fear. You walked your soldier into the unknown, and maybe, just maybe he lived to tell the tale. Similarly, attacking an entrenched alien position (like a ufo). A lot of suppression mechanics, those that sap AP, those that 'lock-down' soldiers etc. take away that fear by taking away the uncertainty. This was a problem I had in JA2 1.13. You suppressed an enemy, and then did what you wanted because there was nothing they could do to stop you.

@jamocw, whilst the typical response to fire was to hunker down, and thus the typical method for taking an entrenched position was suppression fire (I apologise if I've mis-interpreted your post), you do get responses like that of Rodger Young (read massive starship troopers fan :D [book and film]) who actually advanced on the machine gun position shooting at his squad (leading to his death). In fairness, the bravery check in your system would allow this sort of thing to happen. Ha ha, now that I've written this in fact, I quite like your system, so read the first paragraph as support of that over the AP sapping system. It'd make bravery a value I actually pay attention to :D If that was combined with significant loss of sight then you could allow them to keep their reaction fire (preventing suppression fire from becoming the sure way to get someone with the baton).

Perhaps in the interests of simplification you could change the system so that a suppressed soldier flat-out can't move. There is still the element of uncertainty in that you're not guaranteed to suppress a soldier. There is also still that element of choice in that your soldier can perform other actions normally like shooting and reaction (albeit with greatly reduced LOS and accuracy) which also means suppressed soldiers are still dangerous.

the reason as to why i felt that not having a soldier not wanting to cross paths with the suppressing bullet, was so that a suppressed soldier could decide to take a different route. a good example of this would be a text book scenario of a squad of 4 being suppressed at the corner of a building. splitting in 2 groups of 2 one group stays put so as to keep the opfor busy with suppressive fire, while the 2nd group circles around the building and flanks the opfor, ideally attacking from an angle which denies the opfor cover.

@gauddlike - i disagree that a weaker shot would have less suppressive capabilities, after how would the soldier know that the plasma shot that flew at him was from a plasma pistol or rifle? i think that volume of fire, and perhaps proximity should be the only factors.

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That's what I meant to say. Since a turn based approximation of the real world can never be a perfect model the necessary simplifications can make it difficult to distinguish between concepts that are easily separable in a real time environment. Suppression fire has to affect the enemies turn. Do you shoot before that and have the effects carry over from your turn? Do you just give the order and see it executed during the enemies turn? In the later case if not all enemies move simultaneously during their turn, how do you handle that?

The Ufo: After* series and various JA wannabe-titles try to handle all these problems with their pausable realtime combat systems. Frozen Synapse and Flotilla attempt the same with having simultaneous turns. Some titles are closer to original XCOM and JA like Silent Storm and use interrupts/RF.

But I have to disagree with the assessment in your PS though. Cover and suppression serve the exact same purpose (stop the enemy from killing you). They just achieve it in different ways. Basically suppression (or "cover fire") creates cover out of thin air by sending a hail of bullets towards anything that wants to off you. It's one of the basic concepts in small scale infantry combat. When an enemy force is encountered the first thing to do is deploy the MG and keep them down while the rest of the group fans out, finds cover and waits for the sergeant to tell them which flanks to attack from. Lining up a shot is something that is hardly ever done and has a very limited scope, i.e. when defending a position with designated FOFs. At least that's what I remember from infantry school :D

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Since the real world isn't turnbased there's always going to be compromises that have to be made. If you really break it down it's all about striking the best balance to get a system that is intuitive to use, fun to play, and a reasonable approximation of reality. It's difficult to find that sweet spot. I'm quite happy it's Chris' job and not mine :D

TF2 Medigun disagrees :P

Or possibly just proves the sweetspot has a restraining order against reality.

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@pack.wolf - your first statement was that suppressive fire denies the enemy the chance to kill you. the subtle difference is that suppressive fire doesn't deny them the chance to kill you in the slightest, it just keeps you alive by convincing the enemy to not shoot at you. there is a difference, but yes, both of them stops the enemy from killing you.

as for the lining up a shot having limited use, it all depends on the situation, 60% of the time a sniper takes a shot he has lined it up well in advance, in addition to defending a position with designated FOFs. but yeah, general infantry are not going to sit there and patiently line up a shot to pick off someone walking along. there are some accounts from hunters turned GI doing such in WW2, less in vietnam.

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@gauddlike - i disagree that a weaker shot would have less suppressive capabilities, after how would the soldier know that the plasma shot that flew at him was from a plasma pistol or rifle? i think that volume of fire, and perhaps proximity should be the only factors.

I think you missed the point.

The point was that if you have armour that is practically impervious to plasma weapons then you aren't going to worry so much about keeping your head down if a plasma shot comes near you.

If you were taking laser fire though, and your armour was much weaker against laser energy, then you would be more likely to be suppressed.

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I think you missed the point.

The point was that if you have armour that is practically impervious to plasma weapons then you aren't going to worry so much about keeping your head down if a plasma shot comes near you.

If you were taking laser fire though, and your armour was much weaker against laser energy, then you would be more likely to be suppressed.

i see your point, though perhaps it should be based on damage type rather than value?

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though perhaps it should be based on damage type rather than value?

... Isn't that what Gauddlike has been suggesting all along?

PS. By value do you mean how much damage the shot would hit for after armour reduction or something else?

Edited by Gorlom
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I would personally say damage type (laser, plasma etc) but the other option also works in a way.

It might not be easy to tell if a bullet impact came from a pistol or a rifle if you didn't hear the shot but a burst from a machine gun is distinct from a shot from a sniper rifle or shotgun.

Giving the sniper rifle or shotgun extra suppression damage might make sense as they can only fire a single shot but have quite impressive results in the correct situation.

That makes it a little complicated though.

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