Suppression Mechanics

[thecaptain]

As to machine gun burst fire and suppression: (apologies if this has already been mentioned in the thread)

Similar to how the assault rifle is proposed to fire a single aimed/snap shot (higher damage, lower suppression), and a ~3 shot burst (low damage chance, high suppression):
Perhaps the "snap/aimed" machine gun shots should fire a burst of individual bullets as they currently do in game (eg: 3 to 5 bullets), while the "burst fire" should rattle off a long burst which deals higher suppression damage.

This would help machineguns chew through ammo much faster, while still allowing them to take individually targeted, damage dealing shots and suppress a wider area when needed.

[erutan]

Heavy MG going to burst and full auto has been mentioned.

AR would do higher suppression with burst, but you'd need a few people firing burst rounds to suppress someone, it really is meant to be a "oh shit, it's really dangerous to move", well moreso than a battlefield already is. Also AR burst does more damage at close range, so damage and suppression aren't necessarily opposed. Though full auto on a MG would have to be pretty inaccurate to justify spending that many rounds and would fall into that binary category.

[erutan]

@godlike I've gone over your accuracy formula, and yes I'm at a loss. If the player is harder to hit, so is the cover. However if we just do a (if suppressed, then dmg * .9) to reduce damage that only affects the player after cover is destroyed, and it makes even less sense to give extra health to cover. blargh.

So it seems we agree generally on:

* scaling tunnel vision
* re: kingmob below, suppressed targets have a lower chance to make reaction shots
* try the MG having 3 burst and a full auto (the latter highly innacurate)
* heavy weapons have a significant suppression modifer > normal weapons
* some kind of armor check (9mm rounds won't suppress someone in super exo power plasma armor) against weapon damage/type
* reducing AP/TU or increasing move cost is a bad solution because this breaks when someone is suppressed in the open
* fully suppressed targets cannot aim (snap or burst)
* suppressed targets will need an additional accuracy debuff due to burst optimized weapons
* suppression affects all units within x tiles of rounds - this ideally uses bullet path rather than bullet impact (if shots whiz by but hit out of range, that should still create suppression)

What needs to be resolved / worked around:

* increasing reaction shot accuracy or chance to instigate a reaction shot will adversely affect cover if a suppressed target is shooting from behind cover. we could change this to only take place when moving, keep firing/actioning at normal levels due to the person being cautious vs. having concentrated fire.
* decreasing suppressed target damage taken only takes effect when cover is not present
* decreasing targets chance to be hit also increases the lifespan of cover
* something like the above points add the sense of danger and desire to turtle that would complete suppression

As far as I can see, the issues cannot be 100% satisfactorily resolved in this system. If we have uber rendering power from kickstarter and can implement sprint/move/crouch/crawl modes, then we can have it so someone in suppression can only sprint (get out of there as fast as you can, but more prone to reaction fire do that modes inherent mechanics) or crawl (an effective movement nerf, but one that gives extra survivability to the suppressed target - presumably in cover someone would be in prone/crawl mode and then crouch to fire and go back down again).

[erutan]

A thought for a non-stance solution

One option I thought of was increasing the cover stopping value and decreasing accuracy to hit, but that runs into issues as well. What about "if target is suppressed, object does not equal cover" then you treat incoming fire as modified accuracy with no cover save. All rounds that would have hit the character hit what was cover (might need to add a "if target is suppressed, check if cover, if cover stopping value is less than the stopping value of crouched soldier (0.6?) set to .6, unflag object as being cover". Just raising cover stopping value would make it too easy to hit. If you lower soldier stopping value then once cover is destroyed it breaks. Thoughts?

So if you're behind good cover, you can safely turtle.

If you raise your weapon and take a quick shot, some kind of reasonable reaction shot bonus is given to the attackers due to increased focus on target area + inherant danger of suppressed area. Likewise if you run you expose yourself to that danger. However just turtling means a) your cover will be blown up eventually b) you will be blown up by a grenade or flanked.

Solution with stances

Fully suppressed targets can only sprint or crawl.

my thoughts on stances here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/f...ll=1#post20558

[kingmob]

/Disclaimer I've only read the first few pages and am completely new to the forums!

I think what is being left out in this discussion is when and why one would surpress rather than just kill. We all 'know' supression from reality, but let's face it, TBS is not always a good model. In most situations you would just go for the kill, unless surpression is so overpowered you always want to use it first, if you get my meaning.
The main use I can see is a position held by the aliens (or yourself) that is extremely well fortified in the sense of reaction shots and limited flanking possibillities. This is a situation where it is hard to hit the aliens themselves, but where surpression can lead you to tactically new situations. That leads me to the conclusion that surpression should mostly impair reaction shots and accuracy, and nothing else.

I assume reaction fire works the same as in X-COM, so a reduced reaction also means that an alien that runs from cover while being surpressed in its own turn, will more easily trigger reaction shot from your soldiers. This will effectively pin them down, while still giving them the option of running like hell. It also 'simulates' reduced awareness when being pinned down, making a flanking manouever possible that at first might've been too dangerous. Finally, by reducing aim you simulate the fact that they will be unable to take careful shots, although you could also just 'disable' aimed fire when pinned down or something similar.

I just think this makes more sense from a gameplay point of view, more so than affecting AP (which sounds horrible to me) or just aim (too ineffective).

My 2 cents

[edit] I see now that the poster above me says something similar

[Gorzahg]

I totally agree with kingmob.

[IceVamp]

Well, yes. While some seem to want suppression as an action, I and a lot of others want is as an effect (of shooting to kill). There's a big difference, so it's not being left out of the discussion. But the discussion is very TL;DR.

[Gorlom]

TS;Mi

[Gauddlike]

I think what is being left out in this discussion is when and why one would surpress rather than just kill.

You are assuming that suppression is a separate action from attempting to kill the target.
Instead think of it as another effect of the same process.
Some enemy is spraying lots of bullets your way.
If you take a lot of hits you will probably die.
If you take a few hits and a lot of close calls you will probably want to keep your head down and become suppressed.
Those are not separate things at all.

Finally, by reducing aim you simulate the fact that they will be unable to take careful shots, although you could also just 'disable' aimed fire when pinned down or something similar.

Already pointed out in a few posts that this would have no effect on burst firing weapons as burst has no aimed fire mode.

[erutan]

@kingmob I never thought of also reducing the chance of suppressed targets to make reaction shots, but that makes total sense. Where I'm stuck at is the "there should be some sense of hiding from the fire + some risk to run, but no impairment to do so"... the risk is largely implied because suppression doesn't make total sense in a IGOUGO setting.

I agree that in game it will most likely occur when you are trying to flush enemies out from cover or negate their advantages of being in cover. That being said if you have a waves of full auto bullets screaming around you in the open you are most likely going to drop prone and crawl for cover or sprint to get the hell out of there... it could be the target is far enough away you don't have to time to go for a proper kill or there are a small group in the open and you happen to have a MG with a line on them.

Full auto on an MG would be used for suppression (lots of large bullets, inaccurate, possibly only feasible if lying prone if more stances are in game) but you could also kill someone if they or a small group were silly enough to hanging out in the middle of a parking lot. Having non-heavy weapons create a much smaller suppression effect stops it from randomly happening in battle (wtf my soldier had two semi-auto bursts and now he's suppresssed) without just making it a "hit this button to suppress the target and not do any damage"

also let me know what you think of my stances post, I'm trying to raise awareness about that without being too much of a repetitive asshole. now that KS is doing well I think there might actually be a decent chance it could be done. http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/f...ll=1#post20558