Supression Feedback

[Chris]

OK, so for the purposes of this thread, we won't be discussing changing the suppression to a "by bullet" system as I want to give this one a run first (and it gives us more leeway to tweak burst fire and how that works).

How do people like suppression at the moment? Is it useful? The other thread suggests some people find it too easy to suppress units - is this generally the case?

Also, peculiar behaviour - firing at close range can lead to you suppressing your own troops, including those behind the shooter. I can imagine that's a bit weird - are there other odd behaviours I should know about?

[Gorzahg]

Gazz had this to fix friendlies getting suppressed if they were close the shooter.

In JA2 (v1.13), friendlies are immune to suppression if they are in a certain radius around the shooter.

Having APs reduced to 50% seems a bit too much. Need the AI to get better to make a proper judgement tho.

[jimbobfury]

Chris, I think that with some fine tuning suppression will be a really nice addition to the game.

At present it's allowing me to send shotgun equipped troopers closer to an enemy safely under the cover of suppressing fire, so the alien is unable to reaction fire as my guys cross the open ground towards him. This, I would imagine, is one of the intended uses of suppression, and if that's the case then it's functioning as intended.

Could it be improved/fine tuned? Sure, there are already detailed suggestions on alternate systems in the other thread. But if you're really keen to use the current system then I'd personally be okay with that. Having played a few missions, I'd actually be happy enough if suppression was purely a tool to use in order to cancel out reaction fire, as I think those two aspects of the game have a nice relationship and would open up the tactics involved in setting up ambushes (your troops on reaction fire) and escaping enemy ambushes (using suppression to cancel enemy reaction fire).

A quick question, before I suggest some feedback: in the initial suppression proposal you posted, it mentions that the shots don't have to hit the enemy to have an effect. But do they have to land near the target, or can the fly off absolutely anywhere? I note in the weapons file that each weapon has a suppression radius, but I didn't know if this was just to calculate suppression in a radius around the initial target, or whether it calculated suppression from where the shot landed. If it's the former, any chance it could be the latter? An alien being suppressed because my rookie shot out the window frame next to him seems a little immersion breaking.

Cheers

[Max_Caine]

The machinegun very easily supresses anything in it's path. I found that after tweaking the damage value of the machingun so it was lower (trying to lock down the reason beind S.A.D.S.) I preferred it as a suppressor to a killer. Gauddlike was right. I was able to take two rookie corporals with machineguns, edge them into range then under the quite wild base of fire they supplied I could advance right up and take out aliens.

EDIT: This did involve a LOT of shuffling about to make sure I could start with suppressing fire first.

[Gorlom]

Can civvies get suppressed? One would imagine these units would rather keep running than hunker down behind cover.

[Max_Caine]

Yes, civvies can get suppressed, right alongside the aliens, actually.

[Chris]

OK. The friendlies being immune to suppression within a certain range of the shooter (I guess the weapon's suppression radius) seems a sensible fix.

The 50% AP reduction is more meant for there to be a use for the aliens suppressing your units, as units like the Light Drone will pretty much only do that in their final incarnation. It's something we can tweak though, of course.

It's possible that the machinegun could be tweaked to do less suppression, but I think it being great at doing that makes it a fairly unique weapon. I guess I should update the .50cal Ferret to be less lethal but far more suppressing too. That might make it more fun to play with. And a little less devestating against the aliens...which then would allow me to make it more resilient to enemy fire.

[Max_Caine]

Two more points on suppression. With suppression enabled, I found that it was worth shooting early, even if you stood no chance of hitting. Good example, one guy with a precision rifle was shooting from long range at a Caesian who was behind some cover. Now, my guy had at a 7% chance of hitting the Caesian - he either hit the cover or the shot went flying elsewhere. But the Caesian got suppressed after the first shot, and that let my shotgun-equipped guys move up.

Also, some weird activity. In another situation, one of my machinegun armed guys missed his target (a sebillian) badly amd the shots ended up near some guys trying to flank the same suppressed sebillian (the flanking sqaud was no-where near the sebillian at the time). Those guys got suppressed. But shouldn't only the sebillian have been suppressed?

[Gauddlike]

A quick question, before I suggest some feedback: in the initial suppression proposal you posted, it mentions that the shots don't have to hit the enemy to have an effect. But do they have to land near the target, or can the fly off absolutely anywhere?

The bullets are not considered, it is purely from the target point and used the weapon value.
When you are testing the suppression you can freely ignore where the shots land.
One of the other suppression posts has a lot of info about that though and Chris wants to avoid that discussion here.

I was wondering if suppression was being blocked by solid walls.
I have had a few fights with mixed results so I can't tell if the enemies inside the UFO were being weakened when I shot the one standing outside.

I also have found that it is incredibly easy to suppress enemies unless they are standing quite far apart.
This feels wrong that they are so easily affected but I am also concerned about morale.
Having officers near to your lower ranks is supposed to be a good thing when they start to lose morale.
My worry is that the best tactic will be to have your troops widely spread out rather than supporting each other closely, otherwise they could all be suppressed a lot of the time.
I am not yet sure if this makes for a good choice or not.
By that I mean stay close for support but risk suppression or stay further apart but risk your units panicking due to low morale.

[Comassion]

I find suppression to be a bit too reliable - for instance, right now I can stand in the door of a small UFO, fire one burst into it, and all aliens inside get suppressed for sure. That lets me safely walk in with someone else and finish off the enemies with no reaction fire possible. Also, I noticed that suppression markers are visible even when the alien isn't, so as-is you can use it for scouting too.

I think that once I fire a burst or two into a UFO it should *help* me, but not make it a walk in the park. If I don't know if an alien is suppressed or not, then I'll be more cautious with my assault. I think I'd rather see it work under a chance system - so when I fire an MG burst at something, there's perhaps a straight 30% chance it gets suppressed, rather than an automatic suppression effect.

Also, I don't know if MGs are currently suffering from the accuracy penalty while moving or not (I think they are), but regardless they're still such good all-round weapons that they're all my squad needs to take, and the suppression just makes them better. The low accuracy doesn't hurt them all that much when you're in real close quarters. I think MG's may need a serious TU increase or something, as you can burst fire twice with them (but not with an assault rifle), and each burst is deadlier than anything else the soldiers have.

The main reason its so powerful is because of the aggregate effect of many bullets firing. Even at very low accuracy values, being able to squeeze off five shots in a burst means your overall chance to hit at least one (and each shot hurts like hell) is very high.

Here's something to consider - double the cost for a burst (to 50! No more assaulting with these things!), double the shots fired (to 10), and possibly drop the accuracy a bit. I think I'll play around with the values and see what makes me still want to take MGs, but not take nothing but MGs.