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Immersion of realism broken when soldiers do too strange actions


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Hi, I love Xenonauts and UFO enemy unknown. 

 

What I really enjoyed about Xenonauts apart from the game being a fun blend of turn based tactic story, research and base building, is that it feels "realistic". As in no comic book aliens, no weird future, but without plausible technology.

Having it set during somehing looking like the cold war era, made it plausible that they did not have satellite images helping them on their missions etc.

 

There is one thing that do break the immersion though and always make me feel it is a game design error and that is
when the soldiers mess up and fire at each other or throw a grenade so close that it lands on their friends.

Makes it feel like playing with toy soldiers instead of real soldiers.

Especially when they fire at each other from very close range, it might even be that I as a player made a mistake and clicked wrong, not sure that happens but, it removes all the feeling of realism, immersion and feels just like a computer simulation throwing dices. I think the solders should be able to fire past each other at close range, without hitting their friends, just that they might get a penalty on their aim. 
But it feels very unrealistic that they would fire at a friend standing next to them especially if the soldier in front of them is sitting.

Or when they throw a grenade into a wall just where they are standing.

That is one of the few things I think really remove some from the game, and at times, when that happens it just feels ridiculous.

Imagine in real world if a soldier fire at his own friend standing in front of him or just a few meters away, in really close range, that soldier would not be popular at all.

When it happens it makes the solders feel lifeless and dumb. 

These are my 2 cents on how to improve the game. In what I feel would give most bang for the buck.

Of course there are other things such as rain or snow/snow storm would make for a great mood enhancement. But those things would require way much work for what they give.

 



 

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Friendly Fire / Colleteral Damage is realistic. You see it every day in the News (Police / Military / Security-Work). As well as that throwing is not only straight. One throws Higher but Shorter, an other one Lower an Farer and all have either an right or left drawl of throwing.

I was in the Military and know that.

Esp. when the Soldiers get Mind-Controlled you don´t know what they do or get Crazy like the Guy in Germany last Week.

Edited by Alienkiller
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20 hours ago, oldgamer said:

Especially when they fire at each other from very close range

if they are in adjacent cages, the soldier standing in the line of fire must sit down. Then he will be safe.
Otherwise, if the soldier is on the line of fire, there will always be the possibility of friendly fire.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/2/2021 at 12:29 PM, Alienkiller said:

Friendly Fire / Colleteral Damage is realistic. You see it every day in the News (Police / Military / Security-Work). As well as that throwing is not only straight. One throws Higher but Shorter, an other one Lower an Farer and all have either an right or left drawl of throwing.

I was in the Military and know that.

Esp. when the Soldiers get Mind-Controlled you don´t know what they do or get Crazy like the Guy in Germany last Week.

 

There is no "friendly fire" when you are in the army. Op talks about reaction fires that end killing your soldiers instead of the aliens. In military conditions this cannot happen. It is also quite funny how reaction fires end hitting up your soldiers regurarly but not the aliens. Op do keep in mind game is in development. I am sure this too will get fixed down the line

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  • 3 weeks later...

I think it's a shame that the switch to a 3d engine didn't also come with a redesign of how firing works. If I am playing an FPS game and shoot a gun with a 5 degree cone and there are objects in that cone then the chance that I hit that object is whatever % of the cone is taken up by the object. The % chance I hit the target is whatever amount of the cone is taken up by the target. I really do wish that this game did that instead of the current 0% chance to hit that hay stack that's in the way but 40% chance to hit it if you take one step back.

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  • 1 month later...

In general friendly fire can happen, but i agree that in X1 the situations are ridiculos from time to time, exspecially when you consider that the xenonauts should represent the finest soldiers of humanity (i guess they recrute from special forces around the world). In this regard i also find it strange that your soldiers are still developing their basic skills (accuracy, strength, etc.). They should be at 95% at their weakest skill. Therefore a better system would be to give them specialised trainings for equipment and let them get "familiar" with it. This would also give them more individuality.

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