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Eat This Grenade. Period.


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If anything, the issue will be that aliens are quite tough and reaction fire is always (inaccurate) snap shots.

I don't understand this statement. In my experience, my riflemen always burst fire in short distance reaction situations (in fact, that's one of my little pet peeves, that they always burst even when you nominally have them set to single shot on the UI). And they are supposed to get the short range accuracy bonus as well.

In my example quoted above, both of my highly accurate riflemen (a colonel and a commander) let loose with very short range bursts and both my shotgunners fired. Irrelevant. The seb threw his grenade anyhow. I stand firm in my belief that 50 colonels could've burst-fired from point-blank range, and that grenade would've been thrown. Period. There is no way to stop it. And this is based on numerous instances of it happening.

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Ah, OK, then it's only aliens that always use snap shots. I forget now tbh.

Either way, the AI doesn't have priority over game mechanics so I'm pretty sure that's impossible. Get a save game, set the alien to 1 HP in the editor and then test a few times to see if reaction fire can kill them. If the game somehow prevents them from ever being killed in that situation then you might have a point, but I doubt that'll happen.

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You guys all realize that TU expended to throw a grenade doesn't count against your reaction fire trigger? Only the movement spent running up to toss counts, IIRC. The Xenonauts have the same "advantage".

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure I've had a guy sitting in front of the door, opened it, and threw a grenade in, and still took reaction fire.

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You guys all realize that TU expended to throw a grenade doesn't count against your reaction fire trigger? Only the movement spent running up to toss counts, IIRC. The Xenonauts have the same "advantage".

I didn't know that. At first glance, this might help explain things. But not when my troops are high-level officers with fast reactions shooting with full TUs at almost point-blank range with shotguns and rifles. And against sebs with reactions of only 40-45 and TUs of 65-70 (elites and leaders). My troops have both substantially more TUs and notably higher reflexes. I cannot, again, find any explanation of this behavior other than the aliens throwing grenades are going to do so, period, regardless of any and all combat conditions

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Get a save game, set the alien to 1 HP in the editor and then test a few times to see if reaction fire can kill them. If the game somehow prevents them from ever being killed in that situation then you might have a point, but I doubt that'll happen.

That sounds logical. Thank you. Unfortunately I don't have a save with that scenario at the moment. I'll keep playing and start saving every single turn until I have one

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I'm pretty sure grenade tossing TUs don't count (now disproven by community evidence). I think they was a lengthy discussion about this when the reaction system was implemented. In the OG throwing a grenade counted as an immediate counter fire trigger, but in this game it doesn't and I don't think the expended TU counts either. Chris would have to clarify.

That's not to say there isn't a bug somewhere maybe it doesn't check damage until after an alien grenade is tossed. I don't know. Have you caused MULTIPLE reaction fire hits on a target sufficient to guarantee there is no way the alien should have survived? Most high level aliens require two to four hits with a fairly powerful weapon to guarantee a kill. It would surprise me to get off enough shots and hits to take one down with only reaction fire unless my LMG guys opened up too.

Now that I think about this the OG probably made reaction fire automatic to mitigate exactly what you MIGHT be experiencing. If you think about it, the reaction fire calculation is done AFTER each tiled moved, a turn, or a firing/throwing action, so unless you've been cut down moving up to throw you're always going to get the grenade (or shot) off. (If I'm wrong about the "after" part you can just ignore the rest of this.) :D You may die afterwards (especially if RF was auto-triggered like in the OG), but if you got close enough to throw it's a done deal. I also don't think TU spent to open a door counts because you don't know there is anyone to fire at until you can see them (no LOF) and, of course, closing the door wouldn't count either because there is no target once it closes and closing/opening happens instantly when the TU is spent. You could fix that by making a reaction fire check immediately after a door opens (using the opening TU as the trigger amount) and immediately before it closes (again using the close door TU as the trigger amount.) However, to fix all the RF problems you would need an intermediate reaction fire check to occur for every point of TU expended. For example, you order your guy to throw a grenade, I think that takes around 30 - 40 TU, so you would do 30-40 RF checks (one for each TU) before the grenade was finally in the air. In other words, by decreasing the granularity of the reaction fire system it would be it possible for your guy to get cut down in mid-throw. Also, in the OG priming a grenade took TU so that had a chance of triggering RF by itself. In this game we don't have priming.

In summary, if ANYONE, alien or human, gets close enough to throw a grenade and has the TUs to make the throw, there is no stopping them. It's not a bug per se, it's a reaction fire mechanics issue.

Edited by StellarRat
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I just had a situation somewhat similar to this one.

The alien in my situation used what looked like a plasma weapon that cause AOE damage like a grenade.

What happened was that I had 2 of my soldiers lined up outside the door to a downed UFO.

Now there is no way that the AI inside the ship should know I had my soldiers lined up there, yet still the alien knew exactly where my soldiers were and fired at them.

If I didnt know better I wold have thought the alien had X-ray vision or something.

The Alien did not open the door, he just fired right through the door and destroyed that as well and was able to hit my soldiers as well.

After reading through this thread and having my own situation I cannot help but wonder if there is a problem somewhere.

Maybe its not exactly a bug but something with how the AI calculates the detection of your troops as well as evasion and hit detection that causes some unintended situations like this.

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I just had a situation somewhat similar to this one.

The alien in my situation used what looked like a plasma weapon that cause AOE damage like a grenade.

What happened was that I had 2 of my soldiers lined up outside the door to a downed UFO.

Now there is no way that the AI inside the ship should know I had my soldiers lined up there, yet still the alien knew exactly where my soldiers were and fired at them.

If I didnt know better I wold have thought the alien had X-ray vision or something.

The Alien did not open the door, he just fired right through the door and destroyed that as well and was able to hit my soldiers as well.

After reading through this thread and having my own situation I cannot help but wonder if there is a problem somewhere.

Maybe its not exactly a bug but something with how the AI calculates the detection of your troops as well as evasion and hit detection that causes some unintended situations like this.

I've never see the AI fire through a closed door. Also, are you sure there wasn't a different (perhaps unspotted) alien outside the ship that could actually see your people? The aliens do use squad fire just like your troops.
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The only situation where I've seen the aliens lob nades is when the 'nauts are in adjacent tiles. Space them out, then one doesn't eat frag.

Great advice, but maybe I should have stuck to it.

RbzcJaE.jpg

First turn, got everyone behind cover (of sorts). The debris is where a soldier was, got lazy and left him in an adjacent square. Nade pops over the hedge, kaboom. I told me so.

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Ok, to clear some things up:

There is no magical, unblockable behavior for the AI. It plays, and follows the exact same rules the Xenonauts have.

(The AI only asks the system to execute an action; not just "executes it")

So an unblockable grenadier seems out of the question (or there's some very unlikely bug).

The AI only throws grenades when multiple hits are possible; or when your units have a shield equipped. (the other case)

Grenade throwing does work in squad sight; and most likely, if a unit has spotted your units; was killed, but your units didn't move afterwards; you will get 'naded by different units. (AI considers it a good "chance" to just toss a grenade at a potential group he has seen if no activity is seen coming from that location. As in; if the AI doesn't see you leave; it'll assume you are still at your location. Mikhail's above post is a good example)

The explicit rule is that there should have been sight on at least one of your units (or squad sight).

If the AI thinks you might be holing up with several units (think walls so it doesn't have LOS), then it might just take a chance and throw a grenade in there.

The AI is quite reckless in collatoral damage; as long as it is in terms of property damage. Unless it provides a real benefit, it won't use AOE damage if this causes collatoral damage for friendlies or self.

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Well, theoretically; but the chance is so low, it might just as well not happen.
Yes, that makes complete sense. If the AI never saw you move out than odds are very much that you're still there specially since it's using squad sight. The only way out of that would be if you killed the alien spotter somehow then moved everyone then the throwing alien tossed the grenade.
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Um, yeah, I hear what you're all saying, and maybe I've just had numerous examples of repeated bad luck. But at the risk of sounding stubborn, I still don't think so. I have had situations over and over again when an alien walks around a corner and my guys almost instantly cut him to ribbons. If an alien walks around the same corner against the same group of soldiers with the express intention of throwing a grenade, however, the same reaction fire will NOT kill him, and the number of misses goes through the roof.

My bitching is all just anecdotal, though, until I get my hands on a save with this scenario. I'm trying.

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@StellarRat

I meant that (IIRC) I threw a grenade and then took reaction fire (from a single alien, in this case). It was a gas grenade.

Well, it could be that the TUs to throw do count, but you still get the grenade off no matter what, you just might be dead afterwards. Did the guy that threw the grenade go from crouching to standing or turn and face a different direction before throwing? Those all count against your reaction chances. Edited by StellarRat
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I've never see the AI fire through a closed door. Also, are you sure there wasn't a different (perhaps unspotted) alien outside the ship that could actually see your people? The aliens do use squad fire just like your troops.

Yes I'm sure there was none outside, because once I had cleared the ship of aliens the mission ended.

I dont know how else the alien could blow up the door unless they tried to shoot through it with some heavy weaponry

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I have definitely received reaction fire from a grenade throw.

I had opened a door, no reaction; turned to face, no reaction; was already standing. Threw the grenade, hurt three aliens, then five reaction fired the guy to death.

Well that blows part of my theory, however, the part about nothing can stop you from throwing is still correct.

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