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Disabling reaction fire against mind-controlled troops?


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It'd be ideal if after your first encounter with a mind-controlling enemy, you were presented with a research opportunity for "Counter-psionics" which resulted in short range weapons that broke any mind control on a hit, but resulted in suppression with a side order of stun damage.

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i am going to go with the simple answer of yes.

the fact that i enjoy using reaction fire, but once mind-control hits is almost too risky to use the mechanic; if at all possible let med-kits heal stun damage for a revive( it might already do this i never checked try not to stun my own guys ). say i start shocking my own with stun rods to save lives; if i do get to the point where i feel i need to retreat i don't like the idea of carrying my fallen all back to the drop ship in backpacks while realistic would be tedious; this could also be viewed as a not so subtle request to give Valkyries the same extraction zone as base missions have. 2 cents hope its useful

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Having it moddable or selectable in game would probably be best, but assuming this is more work than is possible at this stage, I'd argue for not reaction-firing against 'friendlies'. Reasons include:

- There's no stun weapons capable of reaction fire and reaction fire cannot suppress. So the only useful outcome of reaction firing is to kill the target, and having more dead soldiers isn't very helpful when you're facing MC.

- Even if there were stun weapons capable of reaction fire, a stunned Xenonauts is as good as dead during the mission since you can't revive them. So again, stunning them might not actually be very useful, since you're depriving yourself of another soldier for the mission.

- MC'ed soldiers can be used as reaction-fire bait. While I doubt the AI would intentionally do this, it would be terribly frustrating for a squad to reaction fire a MC'ed soldier to death, only to be attacked by another alien later in the turn who would have made a more suitable target.

Overall, then, I'm not sure there's any advantages to reaction fire against MC'ed soldiers. The only 'useful' outcome is that the soldier dies and that's only useful if that soldier would have killed two or more soldiers in its turn (assuming all soldiers are equal).

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I'd prefer no reaction fire against MC, just like berserk now prioritizing enemies. That's what would they do in real life, that veterans wouldn't just shoot at their 30 mission teammates because they took some snapshot at them under alien control. They might well punch them hard on the face tho. Or perhaps its just hollywood that makes me feel like this. Even if not completely disabled, it should be somewhat toned down I think.

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They might well punch them hard on the face tho

Or maybe a low level Taser which would wouldn't kill or stun, but would shock them back to their senses. Perhaps have them interlinked by radio, so if a soldier sees his MC buddy take a shot, he mashes down on the 'shock' button.

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I would say yes, in the heat of the moment you would be unlikely to fire on your own side if they started acting oddly.

MC would be invisible so the actions of the MC'd solider would come as a total surprise.

If anything the fire/actions of the MC'd soldier should cause suppression due to shock value.

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Let's keep it on topic, please. I've noticed quite a few complaints about having soldiers MC'ed and then having them shot dead by their team-mates, but I just wanted to check both sides of the debate before we made the change. I don't want to start adding special suppression rules and all that too :)

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I would say turn it off against mind controlled friendlies. I would think firing on a friendly like that would be a command decision, and not a choice left to an individual soldier. I would assume that if these are some of the best soldiers humanity has to offer they would have the trigger discipline to not just shoot whatever pops out at them without confirming a target (If they didn't you would be wasting civies left and right from reaction fire).

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Vey tough decision...

On one hand the arguments for disabling it are obvious...

On the other... I can just imagine a soldier carrying a rocket launcher getting MCed and coming back around a corner... Guess what happens to half of your squad because your troops couldn't reaction fire?

From an "authenticity" perspective it could go either way. I can see troopers not understanding what is going on, or being unwilling to fire on friendlies. But I could also see ruthless commanders who know full well their soldiers are going into combat against aliens who can mind control, issuing orders to shoot any soldier immediately who shows hostile behavior.

For what it is worth, if a friendly fired on me in the middle of combat, and it was obvious he was doing so knowingly and intentionally, I would sure as hell shoot back no matter who he was. Even if he was a buddy who I've been on patrols/missions with.

Edited by legit1337
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  • 1 month later...

Add one round of "struggle" for mind controlled soldier, he spends this first round after mc with 0 time units. This way you can adjust your tactics and decide if you need to enable reaction fire or not. Secondly, soldier that is "killed" under effects of mc should have moderate survival chance, as his buddies should try to shoot non-lethal body parts.

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