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Drahkan

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  1. ...especially when I already move my soldiers at a snail's-pace so that they are always behind cover (if possible), kneeling, and have at least one overwatch shot available...
  2. Ugh, yeah, I forgot about that "start of turn" issue. :-/ However, couldn't it be something that only happens when you click End Turn? As in, when your - or the alien's - turn ends, anyone with enough TU's to fire go into "overwatch stance", and stay that way until they no longer have enough TU's to shoot (at which point they go back to default stance or what-not). It might even give a neat "end-turn aesthetic", since you'll get to see all of the overwatch-ing mobs all suddenly shift their stance right before the other side's turn begins. Just because mobs are glancing around doesn't necessarily mean that their vision cone must change (or go away); it's kinda like how this thread started, there's got to be some level of abstraction with any game, let alone a turn-based one using some sort of "action points", and ambient animations is probably the best kind of abstraction to justify at the sake of "realism". There's already the (glaring?) issue that vision cones seems waaaaay too constrained, as it should be ~115 degrees not counting peripheral vision (which gives almost 180 degrees of "situational awareness" total). So if anything, I'd suggest that, if adding in animations involving head movements, to just increase the vision cone (which I vote for, period ) to make it seem more realistic...and in a sense to actually explain what's going on, given that the current vision cone literally makes me feel like my soldiers have had all their vertebrae fused together.
  3. As a latter add, I second SebilIAm's idea of an "overwatch stance" as well, both for players and for enemies; not only do I sometimes forget which of my soldiers might actually react to enemy movement, it also seems unusually stressing to wonder which aliens might be ready to shoot at me when, if they are visible at the time of my movement, there should be some sort of hint that they are essentially "waiting in ambush". It wouldn't have to be anything huge, basically a stance half-way through the animation that plays when the model goes from standing to shooting..?
  4. If shot spread is reduced, as makes sense, given that the hit system is percentage-based it would be easy enough to determine if 1) the shot missed due to cover, 2) it missed by a near margin (say, 50% or something), or 3) it missed by a far margin (everything else). If split up that way - or split up even more, if the time/money exists to do so - then you could have specific reactions to each "miss category": really dig in behind the cover if that's what blocks it, dodge/step towards cover if the shot comes close but misses, wince and glance to the side if the shots go wide, etc. Even the sounds of gunfire could change some due to misses: they already seem to sound different when some types of terrain are hit (or did I imagine that? ), in certain cases (such as really close misses) you could change one (or more, in the case of a burst) sounds of gunfire into the zip of a bullet nearly missing you, occasionally have cover-blocked shots make richocheting sounds, etc. Just a few more (relatively) little things that would make the combat much more "alive". (I'm not even sure I've even seen any other games in the genre that have taken this "multiple reactions and sounds" sort of approach beyond a single level, like XCOM's dodging..?)
  5. It wasn't an issue when using much more static, 2D sprites, but adding the third dimension and more realistic environment(al effects) does make it seem more than a little strange that the best soldiers in the world can't hit the broad-side of a barn (very often quite literally ) until after they've been in a dozen battles. Another idea: maybe adjust the actual stance of mobs that are behind cover - both if they are standing or kneeling - as if they are "using" the cover even when not being shot at, probably based on the direction they are facing. For example, if there is a tree next to them and they are facing in any of the 3 directions that would put it "in the front arc" of their LOS, have them lean behind/around it; if it is a wall, they suck up to it and glance around the corner. (The latter would be especially good since it would really give a visual explanation of how the "you can see around a corner, but the enemy can't see you" mechanic works. Really, there's no good reason - besides time/money/animators, granted - not to make use of the new 3D models to "explain game mechanics" in whatever form they can.)
  6. Yep, agreed; I wasn't even thinking about XCOM's implementation of "dodging" when I wrote my post - it was just the first thought I had to help with the whole "abstracting line-of-sight vs. cover bonuses" thing - but you're right, that really did give a better feel XCOM combat. So, hey, I guess that means the idea is time-tested and proven to be successful, eh?
  7. ...and don't forget the fact that, with a turn- and square-tile-based "combat sim", everything is an abstraction at some level...and something like cover is deeply abstract. Just because Xenonauts 2 is using a 3D graphics engine doesn't mean that it suddenly can, or even should, become more "realistic" than Xenonauts 1 was; just because you think you can see an alien's body better from one angle than from another doesn't mean that, in the meta-game, that alien can't duck behind that heavy cover to get the 50% bonus, or is so much behind the lighter cover that no matter how your soldier might be aiming they're still at a 30% penalty. Now, that thought does pose a question/idea: why not create "dodge" animations for mobs - possibly just three each ("step to the left, step to the right, hunker down in place" - and that last could be a quick up-and-down of the crouch position, even), and have them use whichever is appropriate by having the shots pathfinding splitting the highest-level intervening cover object into 3 quadrants and, based on which quadrant the shot passes through as a straight mid-square to mid-square line, does the appropriate animation to indicate that the target is "making use of the cover?" That's a pretty simplistic description for the idea, but hey, "abstractions", right?
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