Suppressive Fire Alternative

[Gazz]

Some games (like JA2 v 1.13) feature suppressive fire that saps the target(s) time units for it's next turn.

That is one way but it really only works for humans. Oh, and it's very straightforward so easy to implement.

The downside is that this takes away the decision that suppressive fire actually presents to the player (and to aliens).

A completely fearless alien might not honour the suppression and want to advance regardless.

A soldier might advance and storm the pill box because there is no other way out of a bad situation.

That is what you cannot simulate with the basic movement-sapping approach. The decision is made by the engine, not by the player. That is anathema for a strategy game.

A reverse way to handle suppression: (easy to visualise, too)

The act of laying down suppressive fire builds up a virtual damage bar on the target(s).

Lots of bullets = lots of suppression,

high damage attacks / explosives = lots of suppression.

Suppression is generated by any bullet or AOE that comes close enough. The closer, the more suppression.

Damage type still takes effect. If you are wearing the Firestarter Armour (100% fire resistance) and something attacks you with a flamer, you smile and walk right through it. No suppression is generated.

Plasma bolts, however, have right of way. Duck!

If it's your turn and your soldier is suppressed:

Any TU expenditure while you are not "in cover" against all visible enemies causes damage to you.

Expending TU on weapon fire causes a smaller amount of damage than movement but still relative to the amount of TU spent.

Leaning out of cover for a

long

time, lining up an aimed shot : more damage.

Every turn (or by certain abilities), the suppression is reduced by some amount, probably with a bonus for TU not spent.

Moving from one bit of cover to the next while not exposing yourself to an attacker also reduces suppression. You are "sneaking away while keeping your head down".

It reduces suppression as if you were hit, transferring the virtual damage bar into damage - but the damage doesn't materialise while you stay in cover.

This system bridges the gap between suppressive fire happening in one turn and the target's decision (keep head down or charge out of cover) in the next turn.

With this system, an actor can decide if the suppressive fire is too heavy or so sporadic that it is more useful to go full auto on the enemy and turn the tables.

Or the actor is a crazed muton who doesn't give a damn.

You can't do a decent AI if the actors can not make decisions because they are forced onto them.

Same goes for the player.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Gazz

[Chris]

I don't really think that's a particularly good system. The first bit about suppression gradually building up I agree with and it is something we'll already be using in the system I want to implement, but I don't really think what follows that would be a great system.

As far as I'm concerned, being suppressed is as much a "choice" as being shot is a choice - it's not. It's something the other side does to you. Your choice comes in how you use the mechanic against the opposition,.

I take your point that not all aliens would react to being suppressed in the same way as humans, but that's reflected in the fact that several alien types flat out can't be supressed.

[Jean-Luc]

Sounds like an interesting system though managing the "hypothetical damage" would probably feel quite awkward in practice. "Damage received" is something that one expects to occur during the "shooting phase". Damage being incurred afterwards when the soldier is merely moving would create an odd sense of disconnection (imo) though this system, perhaps ironically, does seem a tad more realistic even though I'd argue that fear doesn't always leave us with a choice. Bravery checks would be in order to determine if a suppressed actor is capable of action.

I take your point that not all aliens would react to being suppressed in the same way as humans, but that's reflected in the fact that several alien types flat out can't be supressed.

If the old info is anything to go by Androns are a prime candidate for suppression immunity. They'll be all like:

[Cream-of-Plenty]

I think a simpler solution is to use the exact system JA2 1.13 uses, except instead of suppressive fire directly affecting AP, it affects "morale". When you run out of morale, your unit panics or freezes up. Because of this, athletic units could be more susceptible to suppression if they have poor morale, and vice versa--after all, dexterity or agility have nothing to do with attitude. This would also enable you to create units with extremely high morale without needing to give them ridiculous sums of AP.

[Gazz]

As far as I'm concerned, being suppressed is as much a "choice" as being shot is a choice - it's not. It's something the other side does to you. Your choice comes in how you use the mechanic against the opposition.

Acting while "being suppressed" is definitely a choice.

I didn't envision the damage transfer as a guaranteed and fixed price you pay. That was only simplified.

Suppression amount is both a measure for the chance of getting hit as well as the amount of damage.

A high suppression would mean a high chance of getting hit when you stick your head out.

If the dice decide that you got hit, the amount of TU you just spent (or rather an equal percentage in suppression damage) would be the upper value for the determination of how much damage you actually take.

Popping a quick snap shot is comparatively low risk.

The big downside to the JA2 1.13 system is that once you are suppressed, it's game over.

There is nothing you can do. No chance to break out. You just wait for death.

That isn't a choice at all.

With my proposed system, a soldier still has the option of doing something to save himself.

He could throw a smoke grenade or two (possibly getting hit in the process) and run like hell.

I consider that a lot more realistic because the soldier can try to save himself - at some risk - or the player is using other soldiers to get the suppressed soldier out of this mess.

I think a simpler solution is to use the exact system JA2 1.13 uses, except instead of suppressive fire directly affecting AP, it affects "morale". When you run out of morale, your unit panics or freezes up.

Too predictable, IMO. These are men, not robots who run out of morale fuel.

Can't disagree with the basic premise, though. Morale has to play a role.

I didn't want to bloat the OP with all the details (and I didn't really consider that aspect =) but...

The way I see the part of morale is that at the start of the turn a soldier's morale is compared to the total amount of suppression.

If he fails the morale roll, he freezes of panics.

Modifiers like having team mates close by as well as their ranks should play a part.

[Gorlom]

Wait was the dmage from the virtual bar supposed to be transfered to the health bar or the bravery bar?

I admitt I only skimmed Gazz's post but I assumed that he would involve the bravery stat in some way?

Edit: I think your character takeing extra damage depending on the action taken while suppressed will be a confusing and frustrating mechanic. It doesn't sound intuitive at all. Some players are already haveing problems with things like the TGL RF button... and this system is far more subtle by magnitude.

If it affected the I don't AP cost of performing actions instead of dealing damage. Or if it hurt the bravery bar I could understand it. But deleyd damage from a nearby explosion sounds frustrating.

I consider that a lot more realistic because the soldier can try to save himself - at some risk - or the player is using other soldiers to get the suppressed soldier out of this mess.

I consider realism to be the enemy in this instance. I don't give much for realism if it hurts the gameplay.

Edited April 27, 2012 by Gorlom

[Gauddlike]

A few ideas for suppression off the top of my head:

Suppression should be influenced by bravery.

Maybe use the bravery stat for suppression damage as you would use armour for normal damage calculations?

Your courage is your armour.

Suppression points change the colour of your AP bar from the bottom as they accumulate (like stun damage on the HP bar).

As you enter that coloured part of your AP bar actions begin to take some extra AP to accomplish.

Represents your trooper trying to keep his head down as the suppression begins to affect him but will always allow him to take some actions.

When the AP bar is fully suppressed then the morale bar starts taking damage, again armoured by bravery.

You have taken as much as you can and your nerve is finally starting to go.

[pack.wolf]

While I agree that suppression should not just sap AP (as I posted in the community involvement thread) I do not think it would be very transparent to a player that suppression can damage your troops (or the enemies) after the actual shooting has stopped. Imo that would be a bad game mechanic.

I understand that leaving cover you were hiding behind while pinned down in reality would most likely kill you, but I think it is better to handle this with reaction fire than with suppression. Maybe MGs should get really high bonuses when RFing at a previously suppressed target?

[Chris]

Getting reaction fire involved in this is not a good plan. It's too unreliable and you need to save APs for it, which you probably won't have if you've been using the MG to suppress the troops in the first place.

[Cream-of-Plenty]

Too predictable, IMO. These are men, not robots who run out of morale fuel.

Can't disagree with the basic premise, though. Morale has to play a role.

I didn't want to bloat the OP with all the details (and I didn't really consider that aspect =) but...

The way I see the part of morale is that at the start of the turn a soldier's morale is compared to the total amount of suppression.

If he fails the morale roll, he freezes of panics.

Modifiers like having team mates close by as well as their ranks should play a part.

The morale is too predictable? You seem to miss the part where those same units have nominal values for health and actions, as well. Isn't HP just a "fuel" for the difference between being alive and dead? And AP is just a "fuel" for what a unit can do in a given turn?

Your proposal seems to want to turn the game into an Isometric Cover Shooter, with an over-emphasis on a complex mechanic that will turn a lot of people off to playing the game.

[freeaxle]

I'd prefer an approach with less abstraction. What do you use suppression fire for? To convince an enemy to keep their head down. You do this by peppering their cover with bullets, essentially saying, 'stick your head up and it'll get blown off,' not by sapping his energy or morale. So as a suggestion: make suppression fire an action you take on your turn. Next turn any enemies in the area you've chosen are 'suppressed'. Rather than loosing APs or morale or accuracy (all things which restrict your choices, which is not good in a tactical game) give the suppressor some high accuracy 'reaction' shots automatically if the enemy attempts to leave cover. This I think introduces a good cost/benefit. Firstly, suppressing is not always the best option with a MG. If you're out in the open and you choose to suppress from there, you run the risk that the suppressed enemy will risk the reaction fire and shoot you. The suppressed soldier on the other hand can chose to stay behind cover with no risk but at the cost of not being able to do anything, run away at the risk of getting shot in the back or attempt to take out the suppressor at the risk of getting shot in the front.

[Lotean]

that and I think we're missing one key aspect here. The alien plasma weapons aren't 'rapid fire' so to speak. So they would have an instant disadvantage in this mechanic. Plus your system advocates simply throwing a lot of rounds in the air and hoping for the best, hoping that you aren't fighting something like 'the Andros' that can simply take your fire and don't get suppressed.

realism is good but we need to sometimes suspend our disbelief. besides aren't most xenonaughts hardened combat veterans that have come out of S.E.A.L.S training, Vietnam, Afghanistan, cypress and didn't we put them through another training program when they got there to become 'corporals'.

Which I think they should really be 'rookies' until they have the training, then 'privates' even though that might not sit well with some of the men. I mean some of them might have been E - 5's or greater going into xenonaughts. Just saying.

[Gazz]

give the suppressor some high accuracy 'reaction' shots automatically if the enemy attempts to leave cover.

Buffing your own accuracy does seem like a very strange effect of suppressing someone else.

Basing all effects on your own reaction fire is also extremely unreliable.

[freeaxle]

Hmm, I explained myself poorly, so here goes for (attempted) clarification: It would work that you would choose to suppress an area as an action (you could even have an area surrounding the target for automatic fire count as suppressed). Next turn, if an alien attempts to move in or out of the area a soldier is suppressing the soldier gets automatic, guaranteed, free shots at the enemy. These are not reaction shots, they are suppression reaction shots and are guaranteed. This represents the alien moving into a 'hail of bullets' as it were, the 'buffed' accuracy of a few shots is designed to represent that there are bullets everywhere. Alternatively, you could have a spray of low accuracy bullets, but either way the effect is the same.

This avoids the problems with an AP sapping system and provides some risk of suppressing (ie. you might not prevent an alien taking a shot at your suppressor, so being in cover is important) making it a tactical decision rather than an ability you use all the time. You would have to use a different system for explosives, though I would argue that there is a significant difference between being suppressed by small arms fire and stunned by a nearby explosive or flashbang. That is perhaps better represented by an AP sapping system.

[Gauddlike]

I don't like that idea.

If they hide behind cover all you have to do is use suppression every time and you will get free shots whenever they move.

It sounds like a very exploitable system to me.

It gives the suppressed trooper the same options as the accuracy reduction system but then practically removes both the movement and firing options by giving free shots to the enemy if you do them.

[Mandabar]

I dunno, I do like the way Firaxis XCOM is implementing this. Its a hail of bullets that last until your next turn. Which makes sense. If someone walks thru were there is a hail of bullets going thru, there is a good chance of getting hit by said bullets. Which is the point.

Remember, this is a turnbased game, and all these actions on our turns is.. er.. well sorta happening at the same time but not... So the action of a suppression is not just a short 3 second firing, its a long drawn out storm of hellfire and brimstone in your general direction.

[Gauddlike]

How exactly would you represent that?

Either as an animation that loops constantly until the turns end or just represent it with some kind of reaction fire type mechanic?

Neither of them seems overly appealing to me so I am open to suggestions.

[IceVamp]

The hail of fire could work, if it was an attack that started when you ended your turn, so it only plays during HM. But I don't like the idea. Neither would it be very intuitive in my opinion. Suppression is about.. suppressing, and not necessarily about doing damage.

I'd like all fire to suppress. Some weapons (MG, Sniper, Scatterlaser) more than others. That is, firing at someone suppresses them. A lot of fire suppresses them a lot, but not so that they can't do anything, making it safer to do a flanking manoeuvre. You might of course end up killing them, which is good, and the reason you're shooting at them in the first place.

I feel suppression should be a by product of shooting at the enemy, one that you can plan for, and use to your advantage. But using the tools we already have, not adding more fire modes etc.

[jamoecw]

OK, if we are going to compare real life suppression to things, we might as well know what real life suppression is. in real life 1 bullet that is well placed is all that is needed to suppress a person. in fact if you can shower a person with shrapnel from the cover they using they will most likely end up hugging what ever cover they can find. in world war 2 soldiers who grew up on tales of brave men charging head on against their enemies, prevailing through superior valor, were in fact suppressed, even when they wanted be the hero they felt they had to be. discipline, was about shutting off common sense in order to do just that, when you were told to do so. successfully charging an entrenched position involved flanking the position, even if it was just enough to simply be out of the immediate field of fire.

text book period method for engaging an entrenched position with small arms:

http://members.chello.nl/~p.vandewal/4%20dick%20winters%20medal%20of%20honor.htm

notice that there was extensive use of suppressive fire, and flanking. suppressive fire is a psychological attack that prevents enemies from firing, and/or observing. suppressive fire uses the threat of bodily harm as the means to deliver this psychological attack, which affects the soldier, not the commander.

so to translate it into game terms is pretty difficult, perhaps making it so that every shot fired has a chance to 'suppress' the enemy in a wide cone, checked against bravery. when a unit is 'suppressed' by a shot, they won't cross the tiles in which the shot had traveled through. therefore a machine gun would have increased suppression power, due to the high volume of fire.

not the best solution, but it is simple and works better than giving the 'option' of being suppressed to the commander, or turning it into a different form of xcom panic (loss of AP).

[Gauddlike]

All shots should cause SOME suppression.

A single shot that you know your armour will likely protect you against will do very little while a 15 round burst from a scatter laser would be more convincing.

Extra fire modes should be limited to things like the machine gun.

Adding a high AP shot type with lower accuracy but more rounds fired would be the ideal suppression mode without worrying about a specific suppression attack.

The machine gun will be a heavy weapon that loses accuracy if you move in the same turn as firing so that type of mode would probably not be over powered, that would be for balancing to decide though.

You could suppress an enemy by firing loads of rounds at them anyway, just the machine gun would be particularly good at it.

The precision rifles are already better at ignoring cover so giving them another advantage might be too much.

We really need to combine these two threads on suppression though, too many ideas flying around to keep separated.

[freeaxle]

There's a whole other thread on suppression! The difficulty I see with various methods of modelling suppression fire is that X-COM is a game entirely based around fear. You walked your soldier into the unknown, and maybe, just maybe he lived to tell the tale. Similarly, attacking an entrenched alien position (like a ufo). A lot of suppression mechanics, those that sap AP, those that 'lock-down' soldiers etc. take away that fear by taking away the uncertainty. This was a problem I had in JA2 1.13. You suppressed an enemy, and then did what you wanted because there was nothing they could do to stop you.

@jamocw, whilst the typical response to fire was to hunker down, and thus the typical method for taking an entrenched position was suppression fire (I apologise if I've mis-interpreted your post), you do get responses like that of Rodger Young (read massive starship troopers fan [book and film]) who actually advanced on the machine gun position shooting at his squad (leading to his death). In fairness, the bravery check in your system would allow this sort of thing to happen. Ha ha, now that I've written this in fact, I quite like your system, so read the first paragraph as support of that over the AP sapping system. It'd make bravery a value I actually pay attention to If that was combined with significant loss of sight then you could allow them to keep their reaction fire (preventing suppression fire from becoming the sure way to get someone with the baton).

Perhaps in the interests of simplification you could change the system so that a suppressed soldier flat-out can't move. There is still the element of uncertainty in that you're not guaranteed to suppress a soldier. There is also still that element of choice in that your soldier can perform other actions normally like shooting and reaction (albeit with greatly reduced LOS and accuracy) which also means suppressed soldiers are still dangerous.

Edited May 2, 2012 by freeaxle

[Gauddlike]

Sight range reductions wouldn't work.

You can see anything that any one of your troops can see.

Reducing the sight range of the suppressed trooper would only have any effect at all when none of your other troops could see the area.

[freeaxle]

Sight range reductions wouldn't work.

You can see anything that any one of your troops can see.

Reducing the sight range of the suppressed trooper would only have any effect at all when none of your other troops could see the area.

Isn't reaction fire based on the sight range of the soldier in question though? That would be the main point of reducing sight range. The accuracy penalty would deal with the being able to shoot anything teammates can see.

[Gauddlike]

Not as far as I know, could be though.

Wouldn't it be simpler to reduce the soldiers reaction stat if that was what you wanted to affect?

[pack.wolf]

I'd prefer an approach with less abstraction. What do you use suppression fire for? To convince an enemy to keep their head down. You do this by peppering their cover with bullets, essentially saying, 'stick your head up and it'll get blown off,' not by sapping his energy or morale. So as a suggestion: make suppression fire an action you take on your turn. Next turn any enemies in the area you've chosen are 'suppressed'. Rather than loosing APs or morale or accuracy (all things which restrict your choices, which is not good in a tactical game) give the suppressor some high accuracy 'reaction' shots automatically if the enemy attempts to leave cover. This I think introduces a good cost/benefit. Firstly, suppressing is not always the best option with a MG. If you're out in the open and you choose to suppress from there, you run the risk that the suppressed enemy will risk the reaction fire and shoot you. The suppressed soldier on the other hand can chose to stay behind cover with no risk but at the cost of not being able to do anything, run away at the risk of getting shot in the back or attempt to take out the suppressor at the risk of getting shot in the front.

I really like this idea. It's kind of like using APs on suppression fire to "load up" your "free buffed reaction fire points". I feel like this would be a pretty accurate simulation of reality and good gameplay mechanic. The only problem I see with this is how do you distinguish between suppression fire and regular "kill the alien"-bursts? Because the suppression fire should not be able to damage the enemy twice (during your turn and again with the free reaction shots). It would have to be a different fire mode or something.