[7.4 Ground Combat] HEVY launcher guy shot herself rather than target

[Max_Caine]

This happen twice in the first mission I tried with the new update. Each time, the HEVY launcher guy contorted herself and fired a shot at her feet. The second time, she killed herself. Frustratingly, I don't think I have a save as I'm also trying out the Iron Man mode to see how that works - unless it saves anyway? 

[chiroho]

I've had general concerns about this as it's definitely happened to me before as well. Things like the soldier using the HEVY Launcher shooting something immediately in front of them, going almost 45 degrees either left or right, or even shooting half as far or twice as far as the target. While I certainly understand the fairly low chance to hit that sometimes comes up, these are supposed to be soldiers pulled from the elite of the elite of the world's military, come to fight against an alien menace. And even though the HEVY launcher is a newly researched item, it's not really that different from many grenade launchers used throughout the world's military. So while there only may be a small chance of hitting the target, it would make much more sense to me if a miss resulted in going a few squares left, right, over, or under. The lower the hit possibility, the more likely to be further away from the aiming point. So some sort of grid or circular template with possible hit chances around the target would make a lot more sense than the current behaviour.

Similarly for throwing a grenade. These aren't civilians who have been conscripted into the fight, and throwing a grenade directly into the tree right in front of them seems extraordinarily unlikely for any highly trained solder. They may not hit the exact square they're aiming for, but they're not going to miss 45 degrees to the right and half the distance they were aiming. Even people who aren't great at throwing objects like balls usually can manage to get it in the general direction they're aiming. 

Anyway, that's just my thinking on this, but it would probably entail a significant redesign of the way things work. I totally agree though that the shooting at your feet that happens quite a bit in the game seems pretty ridiculous given who our soldiers are supposed to be.

[Ruggerman]

Anyone who has thrown grenades will have a better appreciation of the skill needed, and the mental state required to use these weapons.

When you throw a grenade, and watch from safety, you will see that they make one hell of a loud noise that there is only a very bright flash, and not a movie style gasoline explosion!!

As they are a fragmentation grenade, and not Molotov cocktail. 

[chiroho]

On 9/20/2019 at 5:39 PM, Ruggerman said:

Anyone who has thrown grenades will have a better appreciation of the skill needed, and the mental state required to use these weapons.

I completely agree. But given that the Xenonauts are supposed to be drafted from the elite military units of the participating nations, they should already be very well trained in both the skills and the mental state required - even if they're still rookies in terms of facing non-terrestrial beings.

That said, I had a mission today where the soldier with the HEVY launcher managed to, twice in a row, actually fire in the opposite direction of the target and hit the wall behind them, injuring both themselves and the soldier next to them. Which seems ludicrous. Even someone with little to no experience with a gun/grenade launcher isn't going to fire it backwards.

Edited September 22, 2019 by chiroho
Added information

[stewpidbear]

The miss chance and supposed random scatter of the fired grenade is awesomely stupid, if the chance in real life was like this the army would be running out of troops and the government would be calling an extremely urgent enquiry!

[ooey]

Did you ever consider that the HEVY launcher may have been introduced to the Xenonauts by an Alien tech infiltration unit?! 

[stewpidbear]

2 hours ago, ooey said:

Did you ever consider that the HEVY launcher may have been introduced to the Xenonauts by an Alien tech infiltration unit?! 

Well if they did was one of the most devastating weapons they ever deployed!‍

[Chris]

This isn't a bug exactly, but it is unintended behaviour that we want to fix up. Grenades and grenade launchers are difficult to balance compared to other weapons because they have a blast radius, so if you don't set them up to scatter more than other weapons then they essentially end up being 100% accurate. But if you do set them up to scatter on miss shots then at medium range you can end up scattering a miss back onto the feet of the attacking soldier, which is also stupid.

Updating the miss calculation isn't too big a task, it's just a question of what that design should be. But to inform the new design it's definitely helpful to understand exactly why the current system is failing - i.e. what you were trying to do before the grenade launcher did something stupid. It might be that making a small tweak to the existing formula would fix most of the issues.

Anyway, this is an instance where it is very helpful that the game saves the random number seed into each save game you make, because it means that if you quicksave the game before you fire the HEVY launcher anyone can reproduce the effects of the shot by loading the save and choosing the same shot type on the same target.

I therefore suggest anyone using a HEVY just presses F5 before they fire it each time. If it does something stupid, post up here with the save file and a screenshot showing the shot crosshair / fire mode you used to generate the problematic shot. That'll give us some idea of the different scenarios where the current formula falls apart.

[chiroho]

3 hours ago, Chris said:

I therefore suggest anyone using a HEVY just presses F5 before they fire it each time. If it does something stupid, post up here with the save file and a screenshot showing the shot crosshair / fire mode you used to generate the problematic shot. That'll give us some idea of the different scenarios where the current formula falls apart.

Attached is a save game where I used the HEVY launcher and the first time I fired after doing the Quick Save instead of going near the Andron, the shot hit the hose the three soldiers to the left of the line of fire were clustered. 

However, each time I loaded the quick save and took the shot it ended up somewhere different - and I wasn't using the option to reset the random seed when I loaded the save. So hopefully this helps. I'll obviously keep trying to come up with a scenario when the shot goes really weird. In general though I've found that the more there is an obstacle somewhere in the line of fire, the more likely something weird is to happen - especially if it is closer to the firer. 

quick-12.json

[stewpidbear]

Purely from an obersvaetional point the problem I’ve noticed seems to be objects and LoS effect the scatter more than anything. Can grenades and especially launchers be used in an indirect way? Soldier A says there’s an alien the other side of the wall Soldier B lobe a grenade over it to flush it out or mallet it? Grenades tend to fly in an arc up and over, not in a straight line is the game treating them as a straight shot?

Edited September 24, 2019 by stewpidbear
Additional question

[chiroho]

Here is another example. If you load this quick save, any shot taken towards the open spot in the UFO results in the soldier shooting at their feet and injuring all the soldiers near them. Even moving the aiming point a couple of squares further back so the chance to hit is 27% results in the same result - the soldier shooting the ground at their feet.

As you can see there are no obstacles to the shot. I think it's merely distance that makes it such a low chance to hit. But even if they miss the intended target, it should be somewhere in that general direction. Not at their feet.

Original aiming point:

Adjusted aiming point to get a higher %chance to hit:

quick-23.json

[stewpidbear]

Any update on this yet, really putting me off playing, sorry.

[MrR0ket01]

2 hours ago, stewpidbear said:

Any update on this yet, really putting me off playing, sorry.

iam with you buddy sadly this is deep beta and it has many issues in gameplay overall if you participate closed beta thats what you get.

Next best choise we have is to wait for cpl of months for the devs to throw out some hotfixes/patches but tbh dont expect that soon

Edited October 3, 2019 by MrR0ket01

[stewpidbear]

Oh I realise it’s a Beta, finding things like the Grenade Launcher Goof is what it’s there for. But for some reason nearly every time I try using the launchers early in game they goof and poof! a big section of my squad has gone. Perhaps it’s the tactics I’m using, but the game should be able to manage multiple tactics. Will keep persevering!

[stewpidbear]

And yet again very first mission totally screwed. Hevy Launcher guy 3rd out of the chopper standing on the ramp, fires a snap shot .......at his feet that kills a third of the team. Please get this fixed.

[stewpidbear]

Just noticed you can see the animation of your trooper just as it does something stupid. Bends over aims at the ground and fires. Perhaps a minimum miss distance?

[stewpidbear]

Any update on this Chris?