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Suppression Mechanics


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If there's no branched effect due to cover ala http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/1551-Suppression-Mechanics?p=19845&viewfull=1#post19845 (based somewhat on quartermaster's post), I'd go with the following:

Background mechanics:

* all shots have some suppressive value, higher caliber have more. if you want to use the AP of 5 soldiers taking potshots at someone behind cover, feel free! also agree that armor needs to be taken into account relative to caliber/dmg. to simplify: only heavy weapons get a suppression bonus (sniper, launcher, MG), armor reduces suppression rating by x%. taking fire by up to 2-3 units that aren't using heavy weapons should result in little to no supression effects, though there would be some buildup.

* burst mode changed to a more JA2 like model - initial shot is accurate ala aim2 then it drops off (and can level somewhere for long bursts, how the numbers balance would be solely based on gameplay, but having accuracy drop off provides suppressive value in misses and also limits the OP nature of firing a long burst without having to create a separate "suppressive fire" and you at least have a good chance of having that first shot hit then the rest is distance and the RNG gods). maybe this is why I don't like the Xeno AR yet, the burst feels wrong. this doesn't have to be implemented obviously, but it would make me happy.

* having this be a bar that overlays bravery in some way sounds good

* not sure how the cone aoe of the range of fire will work in practice (too confusing? there'd have to be an overlay), having units be affected by bullet proximity seems the cleanest way of doing it.

Effects of Supression:

* suppressed units will only be able to fire a burst (based on snapshot, not normal aiming) or standard snapshots. this makes more sense than greatly reduced accuracy or higher AP cost because you aren't going to be making an innacurate aimed shot because you are rattled, you're going to stick your gun up, take a peek and then fire before ducking down again. this would scale up from losing top aim modes very fast, to losing normal. if gameplay testing would merit a small penalization to accuracy on top of this, that'd be fine. suppressed units will be supressed at distance (otherwise just toss a grenade!) so limiting to snap/burst seems realistic, with only a minor accuracy reduction on top of that for losing some aim due to the "peek and fire" feeling.

* suppressed targets have a reduced LOS

* not deal with movement or AP reductions at all, but give a bonus to cover if there is no movement (but opening you up to flanking) while making a unit more susceptible to reaction fire the next turn (due to just getting the hell out of there and not really paying attention to the environment, etc) if they do move. this is simpler, and probably gives the most accurate representation of suppression given I go U go mechanics. you could even give an AP cost reduction to any units firing reaction shots at suppressed targets to sweeten the sense of danger. ideally people would be able to choose from a crawl or sprint mode ala JA2, but oh well. this effect would scale as suppression builds, and take longer to drop off.

* how long it takes for suppression to taper off should be up solely to playtesting

Edited by erutan
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* not deal with movement or AP reductions at all, but give a bonus to cover if there is no movement (but opening you up to flanking) while making a unit more susceptible to reaction fire the next turn (due to just getting the hell out of there and not really paying attention to the environment, etc) if they do move. this is simpler, and probably gives the most accurate representation of suppression given I go U go mechanics. you could even give an AP cost reduction to any units firing reaction shots at suppressed targets to sweeten the sense of danger. ideally people would be able to choose from a crawl or sprint mode ala JA2, but oh well. this effect would scale as suppression builds, and take longer to drop off.

Only part I strongly disagree with is this. As you don't target things for reaction shots, reducing the AP cost of this doesn't work at all. You'd still need to reserve the full amount on the slider. I guess you could make snap shots normal, or aimed even, as an implementation of this when shooting at units that are suppressed but this is not very intuitive.

If you don't increase AP costs of actions, and allow only snap and burst shots, the result would be dual suppression as both sides spray wildly at each other. Granted, this is something that happens, surely, but I'm not sure it would be very enjoyable.

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I assume suppression will only be applying to units in cover? If you're caught out in the open it would make sense for burst shots to potentially hit you and do normal damage, and for any shots that didn't hit you to have no affect on your subsequent sprint for cover. :)

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@Ice The reaction shot AP thing was a kind of toss away idea - I agree with your call on just improving accuracy on the fleeing target (a free aim level upgrade or something) works better. I don't think you'd get into a situation with dual suppression, unless you had two units with heavy weapons firing at each other from cover - keep in mind it'd take a number of units dumping all their APs with non-heavy or full-auto weapons to suppress someone. Also someone that is supressed would be firing at range with low accuracy, so they probably wouldn't be able to suppress an enemy. If that did happen they could also pop some smoke and run for cover, therefore ending the suppression standoff if something were to occur... assuming a teammate didn't sneak in and finish them off from an enfilade or drop some explosives in. :)

Having an increased AP cost for firing when suppressed is possible, but I don't think it'd be needed. That would be something that would come back in testing - no strong feelings on it. Having an increased movement cost or decrease in total AP breaks it for when someone is suppressed in the open.

@54x Suppression works in both cases - if you in cover you can stay there and get a little bunker defense, more ineffective while there offensively, and be more exposed when leaving (the up on reaction shot accuracy is to try and simulate a hail of bullets around you / your nerves when leaving so being a little less dodgy w/o a bizarre time delayed AOE damage mechanic). In the open you are still totally free to move (no movement penalty) but you are rattled enough to not be able to stop and aim back (again simulating a barrage of bullets in a non IGOUGO world) and still suffer from some tunnel vision... and have a little increased chance to be clipped by a shot (reaction time) - it still seems to be a reasonable scenario. If there are a bunch of 50 cal machine gun bullets whizzing by or you have RPGs exploding around in an open space there is some effect to that.

The +accuracy to reaction time thing... is it perfect? No. But it's a lot better than having a magical aoe damage, or restricting movement AP, or a stun, or whatever. It seems to more or less capture the danger of being suppressed, while keeping the basic idea of it being dangerous to move away from your position, but keeping a false sense of security staying there. If no enemy troops have reaction time saved, well then they got lucky and you flushed them out at least. :) I really do wish there were 4 speeds of moving sprint/normal/crouch/crawl - then you could just say "when suppressed you can only sprint or crawl" therefore naturally giving either a movement range decrease or an increased chance to hit from haste.

Edited by erutan
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Aiming tier penalty:

Remember that burst fire only has a single aim tier so if your suppression has no accuracy effect but instead only limits aim tiers it will not have an effect on burst fire.

That would mean a suppressed machine gunner, and to a lesser extent AR users, would be just as offensively effective as when not suppressed.

That doesn't have to mean two heavy weapons troopers duelling, you could just as easily ignore the suppressor and continue attacking other enemies as he is effectively giving you a cover bonus for no penalty.

Reaction penalty:

Works as a deterrent to running off but does leave you open to getting shot by reaction fire every time you take a shot yourself.

I know that does make some sense but it also feels like a double penalty on your offensive capabilities.

If the penalty can only apply when the unit is not in cover then that would be a much better proposition.

I don't know if cover is tracked as you move but if so then you could stay behind cover and not suffer a penalty until you stuck your head out.

It would be nice to know if the game engine could handle those penalties being linked to cover and limited to only apply in the proper direction.

LOS:

By this I am assuming you mean sight range.

This will have very little impact on the game if you have at least one non-suppressed trooper in the same area.

It might be a problem if it was your solo scout who got suppressed and the enemy was at a long distance.

If you are planning on making suppression essentially limited to heavy weapons then you are unlikely to have more than one unit suppressed at a time.

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Guaddlike can't the sightrange reduction work pretty decently in junction with other effects? We don't have to rule it out because it will in some situations be useless by itself do we? In most situations it will probably only feel like an extra effect that you can work around with ease. but in some situations it could be rather efficient.

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I don't see it being much use in most situations but that could be my play style.

I tend to keep groups of troopers together.

If a mechanic needs adding that will only be marginally useful in some situations is it worth it?

Wouldn't it be better leaving it out and balancing the other penalties for as many situations as possible without having to take another more situational one into account?

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accuracy: I personally don't care for the burst fire mechanics as they are now, but point taken on it being gamed by a suppressed character with a weapon geared towards burst. It should be refined to burst and snapshot only with a minor nerf (20%?) to accuracy (but snapshots are already somewhat inaccurate, especially at range - some ideas in the thread about a 70-90% penalty seem far too extreme), actual percentage based on testing. Good call.

vision: The shared/overlapping vision in Xenonauts means that the LOS change won't be significant as it could be, but if it isn't too much trouble to put in I think it's worth it... if nothing else the person suppressed will be somewhat exposed and could be point, so might not be able to see the people suppressing him!

reaction fire/cover: I didn't take into account the reaction fire reacting to firing (I blame no Xenonaut reaction fire in the alpha!) but I think that could actually work out quite well. re: cover, I assume you have different cover ratings for penetration/hit (stone wall is .5, picket fence is .1) unless they just always block the first shot and have less health. If you are in the open, you essentially have no cover. If you do have cover it is multiplied by 1.5x (made up unbalanced number). Higher chance of reaction fire on action and/or accuracy of reaction fire is increased by 1.5x. This also plays somewhat into the "tunnel vision" idea - if you're not sure where the fire is coming from it's a little harder to have the right evasive pattern to dodge it?

A point I didn't quite think of before - this accuracy penalty would apply to any reaction fire on the side of the suppressed as well.

So let's game this out:

a) Person is in the open, gets a hail of .50 caliber bullets, decides there are better places to be. If they fire that draws more attention to them (better reaction fire against them) or if they move they are moving in a dangerous zone so hence the greater risk. If they go for near cover and fire some wild shots, the cover multiplier and reaction multiplier even out. If they just run they might get clipped leaving but at least they aren't gimped for TUs and have to take another turn or two to get out of there. This is the weakest scenario as there is no constant suppression in IGOUGO, but it still makes some real world sense. It also helps avoid the "well there are no enemies near me so i'll just stand in the middle of this field because nothing bad can happen" - suppression can happen even if they can't hit you!

b) Person is under cover. They can remain under cover and if they don't fire they get a nice defensive bonus, if they do fire that evens out with the bonus chance of reaction fire getting them, plus they are at a disadvantage in terms of accuracy - but it isn't some crippling half TUs or 70% accuracy. That being said the odds weigh in the attackers favors in regards to accuracy. Sitting in your nice little fox hole with the defensive bonus makes it easy to stay alive... but you are effectively suppressed and will be flanked grenaded before too long. I think it captures the dilemna of being suppressed. If there's enough cover they get the bonus moving through all of it... well then they weren't really in a suppressible position to begin with, though you could turn off the cover multiplier when moving (since there is no crawl etc in game and nerfing move messes up people suppressed in the open).

Keep in mind the reaction fire advantage can also be negated somewhat by tossing some smoke grenades between you and the attackers - as it should be. There is also no guarantee anyone with TUs left over for reaction shots is within range. ;)

PS - re: it only being one unit... not necessarily. it'd most likely be one small area at a time, but if you have a small group huddled behind a wall they'd be close enough that the hail of badness would affect all of them.

This actually also works really well for flashbangs! The affected enemies would only be able to snap/burst with a minor accuracy penalty (anything larger and it's just auto storm doors/corridors) and would be disorientated hence the effects on reaction fire.

Edited by erutan
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(out of bed, urgh, must stop thinking about xenonauts)

I think the suppression meter should be allowed to rise x% with no effect, these are soldiers after all and a few bullets are rather normal. Once it hit the break point the aim levels start dropping and the reaction/accuracy nerfs start sliding up until they hit the max. Not sure how fast it'd slide down, but that would be something to playtest more than theorycraft.

If there is some way to calculate cover near a player that'd be handy, at least for gameplay purposes it would be nice to have suppression not ramp up as much if you're just caught in the open, because as godlike said, there's a decent chance you might take one of those rounds anyways.

To clarify ~3-4 soldiers with assault rifles should be dump all their TUs into burst firing someone behind cover and suppress them, but that's probably not the winning combination of how to use your resources.

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re: cover, I assume you have different cover ratings for penetration/hit (stone wall is .5, picket fence is .1) unless they just always block the first shot and have less health. If you are in the open, you essentially have no cover. If you do have cover it is multiplied by 1.5x (made up unbalanced number).

I am not really sure what numbers you are applying the multiplier to so it is hard to comment.

Cover has a chance to be hit instead of the soldier, it also has hitpoints so if you made the cover get hit more frequently, because of the soldier behind it being suppressed, then the cover object would be destroyed more quickly.

I.E. 50% chance to hit the soldier/cover object, normally 30% cover, 20% soldier.

With a bonus to cover save that could be 40% cover, 10% soldier.

That would leave your soldier exposed with a good likelihood of being fired on if he tried to move from the spot or return fire after the wall falls down.

For a shot or two it would make a difference but you have effectively made him harder to hit but the wall in front of him easier to hit.

However making both the soldier AND the wall he is behind harder to hit just because you have suppressed the soldier makes no sense.

Have a look at the accuracy and cover sections of the wiki for information on how it is supposed to work.

http://xenowiki.goldhawkinteractive.com/index.php?title=Accuracy_Calculation

PS - re: it only being one unit... not necessarily. it'd most likely be one small area at a time, but if you have a small group huddled behind a wall they'd be close enough that the hail of badness would affect all of them.

I haven't seen how you wanted to apply suppression to the units.

I am assuming then that you were considering the option I put forward where all shots give a suppression effect in an area around where they hit?

Area effect does make it less likely that you will have multiple targets able to see the enemy.

In that situation a sight range reduction would be of more use.

Edited by Gauddlike
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a quick response - re: numbers I think that's just something that comes down to what feels right, it's not something we can sit here and accurately theorycraft. The +cover mechanic does need a little tweaking - it could be that the soldier has a smaller chance to be hit (an accuracy debuff on opponents) because he/she is really bunkering down under withering fire and presenting a smaller target than a normal crouch and have your head peaking over, but then we'd need to bump up the accuracy debuff on them to compensate... which makes them a little bit more wildly inaccurate because they don't have time to really look down the sights/scope, while also giving them that sense of false security to stay suppressed in that position. It's less than ideal, but I can't think of anything better.

imho given that there aren't alternate move modes (sprint/normal/crawl) and we're using a IGOUGO model this will never be entirely accurate, but I feel after digesting the majority of this thread it's on the right track.

My thoughts on range were in my earlier post where I had the mechanic split into two parts based on context, they're the same as yours as far as I can tell. All shots give a suppression value to unit(s) within x tiles, with a value multipler to heavy weapons fire.

I'll check out the wiki page later, gotta run to meet a client.

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a quick response - re: numbers I think that's just something that comes down to what feels right, it's not something we can sit here and accurately theorycraft.

Yeah I wasn't thinking about the actual numbers you used, I figured they are as good as any for an example.

I just wasn't sure what you were talking about applying those numbers to.

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If it's too much trouble we could cut out the defense buff when near cover mechanic and just have the debuffs. I do like the fact that it's not entirely one sided being suppressed (though still one sided enough one would want to do it). It would promote sitting tight for one turn before someone can toss a smoke grenade / people come to harrass the suppressors.... but opening yourself up to flanking/grenades.

Edited by erutan
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I'd have another variable tied to bravery, morale and supression: mental state. in XCom, soldiers could go panicked or berserk. How about expanding on this? Say, solider who's been shot few times, outgunned and outnumbered, but not panicked might go into some kind of Rambo mode, which freezes its current morale, lowers AP for everything but accuracy too, type of desperate-berserk. Sort of backed-into-corner all-or-nothing behavior.

Or solider who's been extremely successful and bagged some aliens, moves in a team (let's check if he had friendlies in some preset radius for x numbers of turns), might also get morale fortified, and for x number of turns (until effect lasts) gets a boost on all or some stats, AP cost decrease for everything and walks around like messiah not afraid of anyone much and being extremely efficient. Let's call this "confident" and have various factors affecting it.

Of course I don't mean any "going superhuman" here, just that the mental state of solider is the controlling mechanism and it's vast and complex where supression is only a small part of it, aside being a "thing" by itself. Same for morale, wounds, teammates fallen, dead bodies seen, whether if he's near xenonauts craft or inside dark corridors of alien ship, etc. I think this isn't as complex as it sounds, just a long formula or two to determine mental state.

Also, mental state during battle would result outcome, in terms of stat increases. Solider who shot 3 aliens, but for rest of the round shivered in corner, doesn't level up as well as dude who shot 2 aliens, but felt confident all the time, worked with a team all the time etc.

Why would this be good? It would do what XCom did: Create a story. There's 2 things about xcom:

1) It suffers under what Sid Meier named as Covert Action Rule: You have 2 complex games going at once, and when you switch, this or another sort fades into background, stealing your focus and breaking the whole, while games compete with each other.

Therefore, it's most important that whatever happens on battlescape will get carried into geoscape too in some form. "+12 accuracy and wounded for 14 days" isn't enough I think. You should really feel that solider who was on battlefield came home and didn't instantly forget what happened there. And that it will affect further development of those soliders.

2) Create a story: every xcom veteran loved game for the stories it created. Soldiers being affected mentally would enchance those stories alot. If we'd go further from there, we could even make a "reputation" stat for soliders, like one solider who's been on 5 missions and panicked in 4 of them is known as coward, while other as local base hero, etc. Maybe other soliders feel safer near a base hero and less secure near someone known as coward or who goes berserk often? JA had stat named "leadership"... anyway,

So every solider actually has a history instead of just number of missions and kills. Although I have no illusions of something like this actually making into game.

Enough theorizing: how would it work in practice?

*Mission starts: Since game knows number of aliens and soliders, starting mental state could be set from there: 10 soldiers going against 30 aliens would set mental state "slightly afraid" or "aware". Which means that their morale actually decreases every turn, albeit very slowly.

*Pvt. Allen spends first 5 turns with his team around xenonauts craft, he has at least 3 team members in vicinity of 15 tiles, who all are alive, he sees less than 4 aliens at any given time during those turns (not overpowered) and isn't wounded or supressed. This should give a little boost to his mental state, say after 3 or those 5 turns, his mental state goes into "hopeful", fortifiying a bit of morale (cannot go under number x), maybe adding tiny boost to his stats

*Suddenly 1 teammate dies, he sees 6 aliens (overpowered!), he makes 2 shots and they miss. They supress a bit though. Aliens make also number of shots that supress him.

His mental state goes into "afraid", since situation looks rather intimidating. Whatever he does and happens next decides how it will affect his morale, since it loses fortified status and starts to decrease. Unless he can even odds (kill 3 of the aliens, get more squaddies into vicinity, move closer to xenonaut craft to have escape route, etc), his morale will continue to drop every unsuccessful turn. So does mental state, which is tied to morale and supression anyway, which, when going worse, will in turn make morale disappear even quicker, make aim worse, etc.

* Even "negative" mental states should affect solider. So he's "very afraid". Let's reduce accuracy - you cannot shoot solid with trembling hands! But let's make running cost less AP-s, so if player decides to flee, it's really effective with solider who's about to pee himself. And so on. It sounds like it's same thing as morale, but it's not. "Very afraid" solider LOSES morale every turn, but as soon as situation normalizes, it will get back into rise. And even if morale runs out but he's still not in "panicked" or "broken" mental state, he will act differently, like backed-into-corner-rage like I described (which has way different stat boosts than panic).

* Same goes for "positive" mental states. So you have overconfident solider? So he thinks "we'll just squash em' like bugs". Let's reduce his vision distance! He's overconfident and not as aware as soliders with different mental state. So player who's running around map with a single solider and being a terminator suddenly turns around and sees a flock of aliens, just because he wasn't aware and cautious and got reckless. Sounds like a story to me!

Not the best description of my ideas (not native english speaker) but I think point gets across. It would add extreme amount of tactical depth, although I see how hard it would be to balance correctly.

Edited by InCreator
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Going into that sort of depth feels like it might take some of the control away from the player to me.

A lot of that seems to tie in with the morale aura provided by being close to a higher rank trooper.

Stay close you get a bonus to morale, run off an your own and you won't have the bonus.

If your suppression is based on your morale then staying in a group would have more use.

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Suppression is a fairly objective thing - there are a ton of bullets whizzing around you to the point where you can no longer safely move or take time to aim. A confident person could not be as fazed by it (and tying it to bravery which has minor fluctuations accounts for that), but it's not like "oh hey i'm confident, I'll just walk into a barrage of machine gun fire and lay down a nice aimed sniper shot".

That said it would be interesting on some level to have personality traits - JA2 had these to a certain extent... characters might randomly forget what they were doing and lose TUs (forgetful), or fire burst when you wanted a snap/aimed shot (psycho), optimists and pessimists. Soldiers could have phobias - dark, bugs, compact spaces, etc.

http://www.jagalaxy.com/index.php/faq/headrock-s-how-does-it-work/3006-Character-Skills.html (go to Character Attitude and Personality Traits)

One problem about tying these things into char growth is you'd not have any reason to keep a non-confident soldier, and you'd be gamed into keeping everything in a group regardless of tactical situation. What about snipers, or spotters? Also having every soldier have a different set of TUs for moving/shooting and different reactions would be overly complex IMO - the game is now about managing these personalities. While that is in a way realistic (loner for sniper, keep a nervous person around a charismatic one) I feel that would overpower the tactical element of the game. Maybe make a separate feature request for personality traits? Having soldiers basically be the same (they die and will be replaced often) but with a little color quirk sounds good to me.

Edited by erutan
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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.

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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.

Edited by erutan
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@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).

Edited by erutan
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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/forums/showthread.php/1833-Any-way-to-change-stance-%28crouch-etc.%29?p=20558&viewfull=1#post20558

Edited by erutan
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/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 ;)

Edited by kingmob
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