Aimed shots to unseen enemies

[juanval]

Hello all. I'm one of the big comunity of people who enjoyed playing Xenonauts 1. I'd like to open this thread to tell one of the most unrealistic things I saw in Xenonauts 1, in order to ask if is possible to correct it in Xenonauts 2.

I find totally unrealistic the situation in which a soldier who can't see an enemy (yellow alien icon in case another companion detects this enemy) can perform an aimed shot. In these cases the soldier should only perform a snap shot or burst shot (if weapon allows it), forbiding the possibility of permorfing aimed or normal shots. What do you think?

Thanks in advance and good luck to the project and the kickstarter campaign ;D

 

Edited December 18, 2017 by juanval

[13obo]

How about imagining the soldier cannot spot the alien initially due to distance/camouflage, but once a squad mate has reported it, he can see it? That would explain aimed shots (or any shots at all).

I find your logic a bit lacking, because the only thing if the soldier cannot even see a target is that, he/she can shoot in the alien's general direction based on a radio signal/shout of a comrade in the direction of the alien. Good luck hitting anything like that.

[Shoes]

I always interpreted the kind of shot was simply how much time the soldier spent readying their weapon. A snap shot is as described: the soldier snaps to the target and fires, spending little time aiming. Nothing is stopping the soldier from taking their time in making the shot, except for maybe feeling silly that they're trying so hard to hit something they can't see. 

[juanval]

22 hours ago, 13obo said:

How about imagining the soldier cannot spot the alien initially due to distance/camouflage, but once a squad mate has reported it, he can see it? That would explain aimed shots (or any shots at all).

I find your logic a bit lacking, because the only thing if the soldier cannot even see a target is that, he/she can shoot in the alien's general direction based on a radio signal/shout of a comrade in the direction of the alien. Good luck hitting anything like that.

Yeah, but if the soldier who detects the alien turns 180 degrees (or simply 90 degrees) the first soldier cannot see anything (no alien icon) and he can't shoot any type of shot.

One solution could be that, if someone detects an alien, this alien can be seen during the entire turn (red alien icon) by all the soldiers who have direct sight (no obstacles) to this alien. Yellow alien icon is useless. I think this was the mechanic that worked in the xcom series.

[Shoes]

I can get behind that. While the soldier can still shoot at an empty tile, it would require effort on the part of the player to remember where that alien was. If the UI can manage it in a pretty way, I think it would be beneficial.

[Ninothree]

Well, imagine a sniper and a spotter. The person looking through the scope has a very narrow field of view so they have someone with binoculars to do the scanning. 

[Conductiv]

On 12/18/2017 at 0:53 PM, juanval said:

Hello all. I'm one of the big comunity of people who enjoyed playing Xenonauts 1. I'd like to open this thread to tell one of the most unrealistic things I saw in Xenonauts 1, in order to ask if is possible to correct it in Xenonauts 2.

I find totally unrealistic the situation in which a soldier who can't see an enemy (yellow alien icon in case another companion detects this enemy) can perform an aimed shot. In these cases the soldier should only perform a snap shot or burst shot (if weapon allows it), forbiding the possibility of permorfing aimed or normal shots. What do you think?

Thanks in advance and good luck to the project and the kickstarter campaign ;D

 

it is something that happens in games where the weapon has a range greater then the users LOS, for gameplay reasons LOS is restricted..but in order to give some long range weapons the correct feel, they have a range longer then a soldiers sight

IRL people can see quite a bit further then the ranges shown in this game...actually, barring a obstruction or lack of light, we can see all the way to the horizon..beyond a certain distance our vision blurs and things become practically unidentifiable, but they don't just vanish. (in order to assist with long range optical indentification, various optics like scopes and binoculars can be used, turning a dot on a hill into a lighthouse)

now when firing at something far away that isn't identifiable (but has an unobstructed straight line of sight to it) it is definitely still possible to aim your weapon. so I can't say I agree with your reason you should only be able to snap/burst at it

[jamoecw]

pretty much all games shorten ranges on weapons, and to a lesser degree spotting distance. the whole hitting unseen enemy has to do with the abbreviated way spotting and weapon ranges are done. if things were realistic one could radio back to the shooter to walk the fire into the target. of course in the case of snipers usually someone acts as a spotter, which means that they use their eyeballs for a wide field of view, then when they think they spot something they use binoculars to narrow their view (magnify) to the area in question, and on confirmation they then call it out to the sniper (which is in close proximity). the sniper then uses their scope to get a very narrow field of view and spot the target, line up a shot and fire. the recoil makes it hard to keep track of the target, so the spotter then gives feedback on the reaction of the target and the fire given. of course the team may decide on a different way of doing things, like having the spotter not track the target and fire using binoculars in order to keep a lookout, or the spotter may not confirm the target and simply have the sniper do that. this is just snipers.

 

now we have machine gunners. they have people spotting for them as well, though in their case it is the whole fire team (squad). the team spots a target and calls for fire support from the gunner. the gunner then lines up on what they think is the target and gives a burst. the person calling for support then confirms or denies the target chosen. the team may decide to have their gunners hang back or they may use binoculars to spot targets at range. in any case the gunner would be firing beyond their spotting distance.

 

grenade launchers are aimed at areas of suspected enemy activity, rather than at enemies themselves.

 

people doing suppression fire aim at where the enemy might pop their head out, and not at enemies, often times never even seeing the enemy.

 

of course only one of these is an aimed shot, but the idea of spotting your target is nebulous in real life. the game sets up a spotting distance that lets you see things clearly, if they had something a bit different it would be much more complex. you'd have a spotting distance, then an acquisition distance, and then a visual distance. these would change based on where you focused and what tools you used. so someone scanning the area are more perceptive of there peripherals, but don't focus on the details and thus would have a wider cone but a shorter cone. as the adrenaline increases, or the focus on a target increases the cone would narrow and extend. binoculars would narrow the cone quite a bit, but extend it quite a bit as well. of course too narrow of a cone would mean that you might not be able to see things right in front of your face, or things sitting right next to you.

 

i am not adverse to attempting a new sort of visual system, but the safe method is to use what has worked for the past 3 decades.

[Ninothree]

As far as I'm aware, none of the games of this genre has played around that much with spotting/acquisition distances. I think the UFO spin-offs use a perception stat, XCOM2 has the stealth mechanic and the armours in Xenonauts1 allow for different vision cones - apart from that, spotting aliens has been quite a passive effect of soldier placement/orientation. Ideas like this may be a little late to the party, but specific actions that affected vision cones would be an interesting addition, maybe a usable item like binoculars to spend TU to reveal some map or give a buff to squad sight. But then, I can see how added vision is quite contrary to the desired, claustrophobic, feel of ground combat. I'd certainly lean towards mechanics that are gamey rather than realistic (though all the above is interesting!)

Similarly, I remember a lot of forum discussion about scopes, that in terms of gameplay they must come at some trade-off, else why not equip everyone with one by default. Maybe this issue could be that trade off, that a scoped soldier has a better effective weapons range (possibly allowing aimed squad-sight shots) but they also have narrower field of view. Thus, most map layouts would demand a mixture of scoped and non-scoped soldiers. Currently the feel of ground combat is that soldiers feel like very isolated assets on the field, they aren't really an interdependent squad with overall tactics; there is an element of positioning and flanking but effectively each soldier is just another gun.  

[jamoecw]

jagged alliance 2 (1.13 mod) did a bit, it wasn't a big difference so you probably didn't notice a difference. xcom and most remakes have done stuff with vision cones and light.

as for gamey trade offs for scopes, there has been a few squad games (JA2 included) that have it take a bit longer to take a shot, for increased accuracy or range. as for why not equip everyone with scopes, the same could be asked as to why not cover the entire game with bases on day one? cost often times is used to limit things that seem really good. personally i prefer extra costs to far outlandish downsides to equipment in order to keep balance. but of course if the downside (what ever that is, cost or otherwise) is too great then their isn't much point in even having it in the game.

in the end weapons are pretty gamey in all games. JA2 which models things closer to reality than most games still has pistols being about 1/4 of their range and rifles about 1/15 of their range to prevent pistols from being completely outclassed. in reality the draw time is a big factor in their usefulness (one reason they are popular for guard duty), as well as the deficiencies of the human element. a rifle can reach well out beyond what you can see, so scopes are a no brainer for any military, but they aren't used much due to the tunnel vision they cause and their problems at close range. all of this is coupled with durability in the field and maintenance of the device. iron sights are very reliable, while a scope needs some attention to ensure it stays zeroed in. training new shooters also have issues if they learn on a scope instead of learning on irons, and then learning to use a scope. they tend to time their shots to hit their target instead of learning to keep their sights on target, which results in greater inaccuracies as they get better (glass ceiling essentially), and their inability to handle things too far away or too close with a scope, in addition to not being able to use iron sights effectively. these issues are something people not only don't realize exist, but consider to be artificial feeling when simulated, and thus disliked.

 

think of it like fatal injuries, in real life medieval weapons cause fatal injuries far more gently than modern weapons (little concussive shock to your system). this means that if you stab a person in the heart, he will die, but not for a minute or two. if you put that into a video game people would tend to dislike such stuff very much and call it fake. balancing reality with people's expectations is an art that is delicate, too much realism and people call it fake, not enough and people call it fake.

[RustyNayle]

Taking the gamey approach, if there were a single mod slot, into which bayonet, flashlight, laser sights, scope, motion scanner, or whatever could be placed, and/or if only soldiers with special training could use certain items, this would encourage diversity of use.  I actually like the idea of "wasting" TUs to look through the scope / binoculars to dispel a bit of the Fog of War in a narrow cone until the end of turn.  Spotters working with snipers would definitely form some sort of synergy / soldier bonding if you're going to use that mechanic.  In Xe1 it was challenging when aliens with better sight than humans would be sniping from a distance but there was no way to try and spot them while remaining in cover, so you always had to rush them (which brought you into range of more enemies).  This is a much better option, I think!