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Proposed Suppression Model


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Reducing the APs is the obvious way to represent that. If you have a better suggestion, by all means put it forward so we can discuss it.

What about my idea for only slowing those who are suppressed, and forcing a crouch, but without actually allowing them to be frozen?

Suppression could also get pretty detailed, with more suppression being generated from tiles which have overflying and landing shots. That way, accuracy does play some part, but only in how finely you can control where suppression is laid, not its strength. The idea of a suppression radius, or width, could still be very useful for this.

With each round having a suppression width, for the whole bullet path, the tiles with the most overlap get the most suppression. The strength of each bullet determines its suppression strength. This way, the machine gun potentially gives the most suppression, because it has the most most powerful bullets coming out within a turn.

I also had the chance to mess around with a few machine guns recently, although, I didn't fire anything. They really are a pain to hold standing, and only easy when on the ground. I still think it makes sense for them being only good at suppression while standing, and deadly accurate when crouched. And, maybe it should cost more to change from stand to crouch while holding a machine gun, because the weapon is unusually heavy and cumbersome. Same for the rocket launcher.

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What about my idea for only slowing those who are suppressed, and forcing a crouch, but without actually allowing them to be frozen?

I don't understand what the difference is? and what do you mean by frozen? According to the first post in this thread, the suppressed unit on that units turn will have 50% of his standard AP. He can't lose all of it.

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I took the opportunity to try out Gauddlike’s nightmare scenario – a Chinook full of rookies armed with machineguns. It didn’t work out. The problem with Gauddlike’s scenario is that the machinegun is pretty much a move-or-fire weapon. Between the AP hit from the weight of the weapon, and the ungodly number of APs required to fire the damn thing, I never was able to fire more than 2 machineguns at a particular alien at any one time. The farm tileset was slightly more forgiving as far as line-of-sight was concerned (I could fire 3 machineguns a few times), but the industrial tileset made it very difficult to bring weight-of-guns to bear.

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I'm afraid that's just not correct in any case except for the rocket launcher, which is a special weapon. Every other weapon has all of those stats set by the weapon rather than the ammunition. Referring to ammunition types is just confusing the issue.

I am going by the weapons_gc xml file which has those stats on ammunition that I posted rather than on the weapon as you mention.

Is that xml file wrong?

The ammunition in that file carries all of the stats for shot damage for all weapons.

If that is not the case where is the weapon damage etc set?

Well... shouldn't the guy with 90 accuracy be hitting the target instead? Since you have argued that every shot should have a suppression effect instead of a separate suppression mode, shouldn't the goal be to hit the target instead of hitting near it?

I am unsure why you think suppression and attacking the enemy should be separate.

Both troopers should be trying to shoot the enemy.

My issue is that both would be equally good at suppressing them regardless of their chances of actually hitting the target.

I would prefer the impacting shots to cause the target to keep its head down rather than just the action of clicking fire.

I took the opportunity to try out Gauddlike’s nightmare scenario – a Chinook full of rookies armed with machineguns. It didn’t work out. The problem with Gauddlike’s scenario is that the machinegun is pretty much a move-or-fire weapon.

And if the rookie was to move to just within visible range and sit there, out of danger, and just wildly fire towards the enemy?

Remember they don't need to hit.

In fact they may even be better at this role if you put them somewhere their shots can't get far so there is less risk of friendly fire.

They can keep an enemy down to 50% AP as long as they are in their line of fire and leave everyone else free to act.

Their effectiveness is not tied to their abilities.

That is my concern and what I was trying to represent with that example.

Also I would like to mention that I was not suggesting that every member of your squad should have a machine gun, only that it would be the preferred rookie weapon if it had the highest suppression effect and required no accuracy to provide that suppression.

Sorry for coming across so negatively yesterday, had a bad day :P

I think the system could use some revision still but it is still better to have it than to not have anything.

Edited by Gauddlike
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I also don't see any alternatives to suppression causing AP damage. As far as I can see, you've not provided an alternative and being suppressed involves not moving and acting as freely as normal because you're trying to not get shot. Reducing the APs is the obvious way to represent that. If you have a better suggestion, by all means put it forward so we can discuss it.

I haven't gone back over the suppression alternatives that I (and others) put forward in the other thread (which reached 18 pages) as I thought it would be covering the same subjects you had already read there.

I can put together the ideas I had as a single suggestion and post them here later if you want to see them again.

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@ Gauddlike - Hmm. For weapons_gc, you're actually right. I forgot we'd changed it to make it easier for modders to add multiple ammo types for each weapon. Nevertheless I still think it's better to tie it to the fire mode per weapon than to the ammo, because otherwise the relationship between the shots fired and suppression recieved would be linear and that defeats one of the main points of having suppression - which is to add a bit more differentiation between normal shots and burst first (less damage per AP, but more suppression and ammo consumption).

Also, your scenario with a rookie with a machinegun firing from a distance and not killing anything but keeping the target suppressed - I'm not an expert, but isn't that exactly what supporting fire from a machinegun is intended to do? That'd actually give the machinegun a separate battlefield niche and I'm all for that.

I think we'll probably try the current system and see how it works. We can always change the mechanics later if it's easily abusable.

Bibdibop - I don't have your suggestion to hand, but what's the difference between your method for slowing the enemy and mine where they lose 50% of their APs?

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I didn't read the full 18 pages of the other thread, unfortunately. Some people suggested that accuracy would be reduced instead but I'm not sold on that being a viable alternative, although I did come around to the view that being able to apply a full stunlock would not be beneficial.

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First of all Gauddlike, let me quote you, page three of this thread:

Give all your rookies machine guns and fire on everything, it will make them suppressed even if you have no chance of hitting or hurting them.

So.... if you weren’t suggesting it, what’s this? Scotch mist?

Secondly, let’s consider your current theory.

And if the rookie was to move to just within visible range and sit there, out of danger, and just wildly fire towards the enemy?

It doesn’t work. By that statement you presume that a rookie with a machinegun can fire in the same turn it moves into visible range. They can’t, or at least, I could not find a rookie that could. A rookie that edges into visible range has to wait until next turn to fire that machinegun. So, unless you are not letting any of the rest of the squad shoot at that alien (and why not?), that alien will either be dead or suppressed by another unit by the time the rookie gets his turn

Furthermore, a rookie armed with a machinegun will shoot his buddies if they are even vaguely in the way. Rookies and machineguns need very clear, very open lines of fire at anything other than short-to-point blank or they wound/kill their own. This I found out when playing the scenario you offered.

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It doesn't matter what weapon you use really, the machine gun will just be the best option for everyone.

Your rookies don't even have to hit anything with the proposed suppression mechanic.

As long as they intend to fire at someone they will be suppressing that target.

Well, that's how it works IRL Sherlock.

Supression isn't about accuracy - it's about throwing tons of lead in your general direction. And even the most average soldier will have no trouble doing that. More than enough shots will land clsoe enough to count anyway.

So no, the system makes sense.

There IS a connection between a weapon supression and ammo. It isn't hard-coded one, it's a manual balance one. The amount of surpression will roughly match the caliber and number of bullets in the burts.

Edited by TrashMan
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I am unsure why you think suppression and attacking the enemy should be separate.

Both troopers should be trying to shoot the enemy.

My issue is that both would be equally good at suppressing them regardless of their chances of actually hitting the target.

I would prefer the impacting shots to cause the target to keep its head down rather than just the action of clicking fire.

That... wasn't actually what I was arguing. But I can understand your confusion I was expressing myself poorly. Instead take a look at Chris post right after mine:

The suppression mechanics represent the fact that any unit is going to get spooked with enough potentially lethal bullets heading their way, even if those bullets don't actually hit them. If you have a squad of 90 accuracy veterans, it won't matter - the barrage of bullets would have killed the alien rather than suppressing it. That's the benefit of having more accuracy. By tying it to accuracy you're essentially making suppression pointless given that the troops most likely to cause it are also the troops most likely to just kill the aliens by shooting at them, so there won't be many situations where it actually happens.

My issue with the mechanic working like you want it to work is that it will be pretty much pointless. Instead of a suppression mechanic we could have an injured mechanic that reduces AP when someone gets injured, because units are only going to get suppressed when the enemy is hitting them anyway... or a far too large area is going to be suppressed.

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  • The suppression damage is applied to the target unit, and all other units within the suppression radius of the target.

  • If a unit is in the outer half of the suppression radius, rounded up (eg. 3 tiles away with a suppression radius of 5) then the suppression damage is reduced by half, after the armour check is taken into account.

What about the spread of bullets in the burst?

If a 2nd alien stands 6 tiles away but bullets of the burst are buzzing past it's nose, it would get zero suppression from that because it's standing more than 5 tiles away from some "target" it doesn't know about.

The AOE effect of suppression already makes soldier accuracy far less important in a suppression role, giving rookies a perfect opportunity to do something useful without getting their behinds shot off in the first mission.

Of course it's easier to simply ignore the actual bullet path or fire but since you have to calculate collision detection anyway, you might as well tie application of "suppression damage" to the actual bullet objects.

The suppression damage done is the Suppression Value of the shot, less the appropriate unit armour value.

I think armour should be less effective against suppression than against damage.

The target may not be able to tell which exact weapon is shooting at it.

And even if it knows the precise capabilities of each weapon and armour type - even at 70% armour resistance you get hurt for 30% damage if hit.

If that happened to me, it would suck 100% so the weapon would do more suppression than damage.

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Gazz, the only issue that I see with tying suppression to bullet travel path rather than intended person or point-of-impact are those unusual scenarios where a projectile could theoretically traverse past several targets and suppress the lot. In fact, if it were possible to hit the floor or a wall rather than a target alien with a projectile weapon, wouldn’t it be better for a veteran with good accuracy, faced with a group, to fire at the floor in-between targets to maximise the number of aliens suppressed within the bullet travel path? Or if firing at non-alien targets is not permitted, then wouldn’t it be better for the same veteran to fire at the furthest alien in a group to maximise bullet travel path suppression?

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one thing i am wondering if for some strange reason one of my rookies would stand in the supresion range of the alien i am shooting at will my rookie get supresion damage or not?

if so then adding the supresion on the bullets will set the supresion on any friendly soldier it flies by so that is kinda dumb dont you think?

if you put it on point of impact then the use of supresion is not needed i mean we are talking x-com accuracy you mis by half the map if you miss so why ad the supresion in that way then?

once again i find the way it is portraited now perfect great for avoiding the rookie with the stun baton getting killed by reaction fire

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My issue with the mechanic working like you want it to work is that it will be pretty much pointless. Instead of a suppression mechanic we could have an injured mechanic that reduces AP when someone gets injured, because units are only going to get suppressed when the enemy is hitting them anyway... or a far too large area is going to be suppressed.

It would be far from pointless.

For your statement to be true you would need to show that you never end a turn with enemies you have fired on still living.

In any other situation, even when you have not managed to do any damage because of their cover, they would suffer suppression.

The only real difference in the suggestions is that I would tie the suppression to where the bullet hits not where the target stands.

You could just as easily say that the current suggestion is pointless because if you are firing at a target you will probably hit and kill it anyway.

Both comments would be wrong.

You are also ignoring the fact that the suppression effect would not simply work on hitting the target, it is an area effect so would suppress targets when you manage to get shots close enough to them to make them worry about getting hit.

If you miss the target and land a shot near a different enemy they would also suffer some suppression.

Currently if you fire at an enemy but hit near a completely different one (over 3 tiles from the target was it?) the enemy you fired at would be suppressed but the enemy who just had a bullet fly past his ear would not be.

Gazz, the only issue that I see with tying suppression to bullet travel path rather than intended person or point-of-impact are those unusual scenarios where a projectile could theoretically traverse past several targets and suppress the lot.

Currently the best course of action is to always target the enemy in the middle to make the most of the suppression area.

It also makes no difference how good a shot you make as the suppression will always affect all targets in range of your primary target.

At least if it is tied to the actual shots you would need to hit somewhere near those enemies to make any use of your tactic.

First of all Gauddlike, let me quote you, page three of this thread:

The part you quoted states all of your rookies, not all of your troops.

I never advocated taking a full transport of rookies, merely that the preferred weapon for the rookies you did have would the one that has a high chance of suppression and disregards their poorer accuracy.

You assume a lot in your own posts but criticise me for the same?

Once a rookie is in a place where he can see an enemy then he does not need to move again until his target dies.

Chris does cover it nicely when he says that suppression could be a large part of the usefulness of the machine gun and I do not disagree with that.

My example was supposed to show (in an exaggerated way) how ignoring the accuracy of the troops when firing (only for suppression) works so much differently to the rest of the ground combat

Well, that's how it works IRL Sherlock.

Supression isn't about accuracy - it's about throwing tons of lead in your general direction. And even the most average soldier will have no trouble doing that. More than enough shots will land clsoe enough to count anyway

So you would ignore the bullets hitting the door frame by your head because you somehow knew they were aimed at someone else?

A machine gunner opens up and fires a couple of dozen rounds into the barrel you are stood behind but you wouldn't duck because he didn't mean to hit you, he was supposed to be shooting at someone stood 10 paces behind you?

You are focusing on the effect on the intended target, I am focusing more on the effects on other targets.

Try to keep up or at least to be a little less patronising with your replies.

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Gauddlike.. and what do you have to start with? Veterans? And what troops can you get when you build a new base. Veterans? You say "give all your rookies machineguns" well damn, yes, I did that. I started a new game and gave all my rookies machineguns. Which is everyone. And it didn't work. But, fair enough, let's say they aren't all rookies. So, again, as I wrote last time, if it takes a rookie a turn to get into a position, then a turn to shoot, which I found was the case when playing the scenario, why isn't the alien dead/suppressed by other members of the squad? Rookies with machineguns don't work. But if you can show that they do, then I will be happy to concede the point to you.

However, rookies with assault rifles is a different story. This I would say strengthens your point. Being lighter, they are capable of moving and shooting. And they have a burst fire, which would hopefully do more suppression and less damage. Therefore, rookies with assault rifles can get into position far more easily than rookies with machineguns could, and dakka away in the scenario you paint. And having just started a new game and done that exact thing (to see if that works), it does. I can set up rookies with assault rifles to burst fire at extreme range in the manner you describe in your scenario, and yes, bullets do go everywhere. Huzzah!

I would argue that it does make a difference how good a shot the unit is if tying suppression to bullet travel path. Namely, the ability for the player (or computer) to maximise the no. of enemy units affected by the bullet travel path. As you have written, to maximise the no. of targets in the bullet travel path the shooter should aim for the center. So if the unit is a poor shot, and the bullet travels outside of the center mass, the bullet travel path will effect one side of the mass less than the other. Bullet travel path is quite zen - it looks for equilibrium in all things. Unless the AOE of bullet travel path is massive, of course.

--------------

I think the point of the previous pages comes down to this. With the system Chris proposes, the worse the shot, the more effective suppression is. The better the shot, the less effective suppression is. Is that an acceptable game mechanic?

Edited by Max_Caine
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the worse the shot, the more effective suppression is. The better the shot, the less effective suppression is.

Other way around.

It's equally effective in either case.

At the combat ranges we see in Xenonauts, this is pretty realistic. Unless you bring a complete moron, a soldier will be able to hit the general vicinity of the target.

The better marksman will merely have a greater chance to land direct hits on top of the suppression value.

I would like to see a more detailed suppression system where range and accuracy have a meaning but unless Chris changes his mind, it will never be in Xenonauts.

This game isn't very modable so there is zero chance of someone creating a bullet-centric suppression model after release.

I didn't read the full 18 pages of the other thread, unfortunately... although I did come around to the view that being able to apply a full stunlock would not be beneficial.

Then it wasn't all in vain. =P

You can't play the game if you can't play...

Edited by Gazz
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So, about those 18 pages of discussion in the previous thread. On page 13, Erutan summarised the discussion up to that point.

In Erutan's words:

* scaling tunnel vision

* re: kingmob below, suppressed targets have a lower chance to make reaction shots

* try the MG having 3 burst and a full auto (the latter highly innacurate)

* heavy weapons have a significant suppression modifer > normal weapons

* some kind of armor check (9mm rounds won't suppress someone in super exo power plasma armor) against weapon damage/type

* reducing AP/TU or increasing move cost is a bad solution because this breaks when someone is suppressed in the open

* fully suppressed targets cannot aim (snap or burst)

* suppressed targets will need an additional accuracy debuff due to burst optimized weapons

* suppression affects all units within x tiles of rounds - this ideally uses bullet path rather than bullet impact (if shots whiz by but hit out of range, that should still create suppression)

And pages 14-17? The following is a condensed version of the discussion.

- Suppression should be based upon suppression per bullet (Gauddlike).

- Suppression should be a separate fire mode (Trahsman)

- Suppression mode should cause less damage and more suppression, and visa versa (James)

- Some aliens should be harder to suppress than others, and visa versa (Gauddlike)

- Suppression should build up a "suppression bar". As the bar builds, accuracy and reactions decrease (Gauddlike).

- Suppression should reduce or remove reaction fire (Gauddlike)

- Suppression should increase the chance for the suppressed unit to be reaction fired on (Gauddlike)

- Suppression should reduce accuracy (Gauddlike)

- The longer the distance away, the less effect suppression has (Gauddlike)

- Suppression "mode" gives the suppressing unit a bonus to-hit when reaction-firing at suppressed moving units (Trashman)

- Armour should affect suppression, based upon armour type and weapon type hitting the armour (Gauddlike)

- Shots should have an Area of Effect for suppression, based upon hit, near miss and wide miss (Gauddlike)

- Suppression should stop a unit from moving (Trashman)

- Suppression should add a cost to all actions through a multiplier with a cap (Bidibop).

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Well Gazz, I would contest that. The more effective at shooting a unit is, the more chance it has of killing the unit it is shooting at, by being able to cause more damage through more shots that land on target. Therefore, if armed the same, a better shot will kill an enemy sooner than a unit that is a worse shot. If the chance of suppression in the case of a worse shot is the same as the chance of suppression in a better shot, then a worse shot benefits from a longer period of suppression than a better shot would. As a thought experiment, a better shot may kill an enemy in the same turn it shoots at it, whereas a worse shot may kill it in the following turn. In that situation, a better shot does not benefit from suppression on that target, but a worse shot would.

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Gauddlike..

As I said, it was an example to show the down side I was describing rather than a gameplay suggestion :P

I could have said pistol but I used the machine gun because it had been mentioned as a good way to provide suppression.

I think we got a bit caught up on the details of the example rather than the thing it was supposed to be an example of.

The point was that you could use a weapon with a high suppression value and cause that suppression without any need to actually be able to get your shots on target.

I don't personally feel that fits in with the rest of the ground combat where effectiveness is based on the stats and ranks of the troopers involved.

Using the bullet impact point to determine the centre point of the suppression effect feels like it not only makes more sense but would fit in with the stat based gameplay of the rest of the game.

The way I suggested it would be like an explosion of suppression damage at the point of impact.

Incidentally it may also make flashbang type weapons easier to do as you would just add a grenade with no physical damage but high suppression damage.

I would like to see the bullet path have an effect on suppression as well but I didn't add that to my suggestion as it involved more work for the devs.

The actual effect of suppression on troops is another matter, I don't like the idea of AP reduction but I want to try it before I bother making other suggestions that may be worse.

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I also don't see any alternatives to suppression causing AP damage. [...] being suppressed involves not moving and acting as freely as normal because you're trying to not get shot. Reducing the APs is the obvious way to represent that. If you have a better suggestion, by all means put it forward so we can discuss it.

One alternative to lowering AP is raising AP-cost. These are not equal, as raising AP-cost can be done individually for each kind of action. When suppressed you may need double or triple AP for movement or an aimed shot but shooting blindly may be just as cheap as when not under fire.

Edited by Myth
english as a foreign language
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Once a rookie is in a place where he can see an enemy then he does not need to move again until his target dies.

When I read your posts I get the feeling you expect suppressed targets to be completely useless. Wouldn't the suppressed target shoot back on their turn and kill your rookies? The rookies that has 10 accuracy and who's only job is to suppress?

Are you bothered by the potential tactic of using a spotter and then using machinegun fire from outside the targets visual range to suppress it? If we ignore the chance of killing your spotter in that example, how about tying in the suppression value to the weapon range to make it less useful to suppress a unit from too far away?

Edited by Gorlom
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Using the bullet impact point to determine the centre point of the suppression effect feels like it not only makes more sense but would fit in with the stat based gameplay of the rest of the game.

I understand where you are going with this idea, BUT there is a major, major flaw with it. It seems really open to abuse by players by means of funky targeting. And in some circumstances, having a lower accuracy would actually increase suppression capability. Your rookie whose bullets fan out and strike everywhere would likely cause suppression in unintended targets, making him actually better at it than someone who is more "on target". Since suppression is a binary state, most of the veteran's bullets at the intended target would be "overkill". It would also create situations where you would fire at the ground near a target much more often than at the target itself, because bullets that miss the target will usually fly a good distance before hitting anything. If you target the ground near the target on the other hand, your misses will all impact much nearer the target. Not to mention, a target with a wall behind him will be orders of magnitude easier to suppress than a target with no wall behind him.

Brief aside: This discussion triggered images in my head of rookies in X-com Apoc equipped with marsec flying suits and HE-autocannons... targeting the ground FTW!

I also object on realism grounds... suppression fire is literally "spray and pray". No skill needed. Further, the fear caused by suppression doesn't come from the bullet impacts (which you might not even hear in a pitched battle), but rather from the telltale noise coming from the weapons in question. You'd never find a suppressor (silencer) on a machine gun, because the whole point of it is to be loud and scary. When someone opens up with one of these in your general direction, you hunker down (or not, as the case may be) as soon as you see (muzzle flash) and hear the shots being fired. You do not have a chance to observe where bullets are impacting and then decide if you are scared or not.

Light machine guns (light=able to be carried by one man) are almost purely considered support weapons. You don't give it to anyone with above average marksmanship, but rather to the strongest who can bear its weight more easily.

This brings me to my only concern with the proposed system... should "suppression" have its own, shorter maximum range (per weapon), independent from the max range of the weapon? Or maybe suppression damage should increase as the shooter closes distance with his target? It seems like parking rookies at max weapon range would be a "safe" way to suppress a distant target... Obviously someone up in your face firing full-auto is scarier than someone way off in the distance.

Edited by JonVanCaneghem
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