mg sweeping?

i was wondering if it would be possible to allow large automatic weapons like the tank and inf mg to sweep a selected area? say by seting 2 points on the screen before firing to mark the target area. could be usefull if covering fire has any use or if bullets can pen buildings.

to balance it the area that can be sweeped could be limited , the squad mg gunner can only cover a 3 or 4 block area while the hunters mg could sweep 10 or so.

bullets can destroy but not penetrate buildings. dont think covering fire has any affect either.

you can already burstfire on a single alien.. not sure what penalties you could apply to sweeping to prevent it from being too powerfull? You would effectivly have it miss 95% of the bullets and cause it to eat your entire clip/mag whatever. Not really but it cant be anywhere as effective as burst fire at least.

It's not planned, no. But I hear Laser Squad had it as a feature and it worked rather well. I don't quite see how it would be implemented though - how it would be better than firing a burst directly at the target?

I don't quite see how it would be implemented though - how it would be better than firing a burst directly at the target?

If you introduced suppressive fire, I could see myself utilising such options.

i was thinking it would be handy for the mg hunter as it seems to be a bit over kill to use all those bullets on one target.with sweeping it could engage a few close together targets or if supression is added pinn them inplace for the squad.

What would supressing fire do mechanic wise? sap AP? root? sap moral?

What would supressing fire do mechanic wise? sap AP? root? sap moral?

Having suppressive fire drain units' (be they alien or human) action points is what I had in mind.

Having suppressive fire drain units' (be they alien or human) action points is what I had in mind.

Would this be any fire (so reaction fire saps AP as well) or would it be a seperate action? I'm pretty sure i would hate if reaction fire sapped my AP since i know I would end up in a sitiation where one of my solders are out of AP in a doorway blockiing other soldiers.

have it drain some ap and moral , could also force an affected target to croutch or go prone.

edit (have it sap ap or force takeing cover if the target fails a moral check)

Here's how Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 HAM handles it. The system is comprehensive to the point of being crippling, but a bare-bones iteration could serve Xenonauts well, methinks.

Maybe suppression fire could be implemented in a more temporary manner, where a machine gunner lays down suppressive fire, preventing enemy reaction fire (and minor stance/moral penalties) whilst 1 (or maybe 2?) Xenonauts run for cover. Then reaction fire for the enemy units would revert back to its normal state, provided they haven't panicked or spent one to many AP's changing stance.

Hopefully by limiting the benefits of suppressive fire to one or two units within the player's or the AI's turn, it would keep it from becoming overpowered.

I think it would also look awesome if the soldiers firing and running animations were played simultaneously, but this may be a bit of a hassle to implement.

Guy Incognito, I'd just logged in for the first time to suggest exactly the same as you, not realising your post was on page 2.

That sounds perfect, IMO. A temporary effect to enable safer advances at the cost of ammo.

Also, to prevent it becoming overpowered maybe rather than an automatic "the enemy is suppressed" result, the success of the suppression could be based on some kind of check, involving an alien's bravery stat maybe?

You could further expand on this (i'm getting carried away now...) if you had leader units for each alien race. The leader unit could exert his higher bravery stat on surrounding allies, so that as long as he's around, they're less likely to suppress. So, having a sniper take out a leader would lead to the remaining aliens being easier to deal with.

Not sure if that's practical, but in my head it sounds ace!

Just quickly off topic; I've just downloaded the game tonight and I just have to say "finally!!" I've been waiting for a game like this for years! I feel like I'm 15 again, and venturing down the ramp of a Skyranger into the unknown for the first time...brilliant work, Chris, and everybody else involved.

Glad you like the game jimbob. To everyone else, I'll have a read of the JA supression fire mechanics that iamkyon posted, and have a think about it. I'm not necessarily averse to implementing suppression as a way to deal with units that have reaction fire. Seems quite a good idea actually.