Sugested feature: Being outnumbered effects behavior?

[Tam Elbrun]

here's my idea, a little something just to make the higher difficulties even worse. Add a line of to code or two to the ai scripting that does the following:

If (non-supressed, visible hostile forces within sight radius of this unit - non-supressed Friendly forces in same range) x panic modifier > Bravery, unit panics and either freezes up or tries to flee, regardless of what you or the AI tell them to do.

each race would have a base modifier, that the game tracks.

Armor would reduce the panic modifier, better the armor better the reduction. riding around in a tank reducing it to 0. bleeding wounds, low HP, or Critical HP could increase it. suppression level influences whether you run or freeze up.

Run away? blow all your ap moving in the direction with the least hostiles, regardless of what the player/ai told you to do.

Freeze up? reduced to half ap. normal reaction.

Freeze up while suppressed? reduced to one quarter ap. suppressed reaction.

Freeze up while suppressed repeatedly? reduced to one quarter ap. suppressed reaction. cumulative 5% chance of being removed from active duty after mission due to PTSD therapy.

Because when outnumbered, cowards rarely keep calm and stick around, even those who consider them self brave start to get a bit shaky.

[Gorlom]

Would this affect players, aliens, friendly AI forces and civilians or just one/some of those factions?

[Giovanni]

You're basically describing the current morale sistem, with slightly modified rules. The only difference I see is that the morale system does take in account many factors, but the presence in sight of an hostile unit is not considered.

Currently, a low morale rate (given by friendly units or civilians killed, recieved wounds, distance from higher ranks soldiers, etc) leads units to have an higher chance to panic/flee/bezerk.

A panicking soldier will just drop all the APs for the current turn, a fleeing one will drop its weapons and start running randomly until he uses all the available APs and a bezerking soldier will target a random unit (not caring if friendly or hostile) and will shoot at it until he runs out of APs or ammo.

Killing an alien or being near an higher-ranked friendly unit will increase the morale and reduce the risk of the above to happen.

[Tam Elbrun]

Would this affect players, aliens, friendly AI forces and civilians or just one/some of those factions?

All of them.

You're basically describing the current morale sistem, with slightly modified rules. The only difference I see is that the morale system does take in account many factors, but the presence in sight of an hostile unit is not considered.

Currently, a low morale rate (given by friendly units or civilians killed, recieved wounds, distance from higher ranks soldiers, etc) leads units to have an higher chance to panic/flee/bezerk.

A panicking soldier will just drop all the APs for the current turn, a fleeing one will drop its weapons and start running randomly until he uses all the available APs and a bezerking soldier will target a random unit (not caring if friendly or hostile) and will shoot at it until he runs out of APs or ammo.

Killing an alien or being near an higher-ranked friendly unit will increase the morale and reduce the risk of the above to happen.

Oddly enough, I've yet to have ANY of that happen, so i wasn't aware it had been implemented. My bad. Still, panicking due to being surounded/outnumbered would make sense at least to me.

[Gorlom]

All of them.

Oddly enough, I've yet to have ANY of that happen, so i wasn't aware it had been implemented. My bad. Still, panicking due to being surounded/outnumbered would make sense at least to me.

Might make sense, but It might also be far too frustrating or exploitable. It invalidates some tactics and encourages others that might not be all to smart.

Having the player move all his guys in a big bloblike grou, just to have all his soldiers visible by the aliens, so that the aliens will panic doesn't sound fun to me.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Gorlom

[Tam Elbrun]

yes, but then that invites them to throw grenades and take you all out at once, you have to be smart about it. flank em, while staying within sight of eachother (which is what, 10 paces? not actually that hard to do without bunching up.)

break into two teams of four, and have them move in pairs with each pair staying at the edge of sight range for their partner pair. I dunno.

[Gorlom]

yes, but then that invites them to throw grenades and take you all out at once, you have to be smart about it. flank em, while staying within sight of eachother (which is what, 10 paces? not actually that hard to do without bunching up.)

break into two teams of four, and have them move in pairs with each pair staying at the edge of sight range for their partner pair. I dunno.

This doesn't change anything. You can't throw a grenade if you are running away. My point still stands.

[Gauddlike]

What about breaching the enemy ship, or walking through any doorway for that matter?

First man through the door may have many aliens in sight and will almost certainly lose sight of friendlies.

[Khall]

I think maybe a slight penalty (around -5) if an alien is in sight would be ok with the current radius based bonus that other soldiers give. If a soldier is cut off from his team with 3 or 4 aliens bearing down on him I would expect him to have a chance to panic, likewise if it was the other way around. Yes, you could potentially exploit it by moving everyone in a blob but there are so many ways to counter it (grenades, AOE weapons, burst fire) or give the aliens a radius bonus as well.

What about breaching the enemy ship, or walking through any doorway for that matter?

First man through the door may have many aliens in sight and will almost certainly lose sight of friendlies.

You should probably have to choose one of your braver soldiers to breach UFOs (which gives you something else to think about when assigning equipment, plus a little bit of realism ) and with a radius based bonus morale system, your team behind him stacking should give him a bit of confidence.

Basically, I think a slight penalty to bravery when they see an alien should be added

[Gauddlike]

Maybe the first few times you see a Ceasan you would be afraid but every single time?

Surely soldiers are trained to not panic when a few enemies are in sight?

I could understand them being more cautious but why would they be more likely to run away screaming?

[Khall]

It would be a slight decrease so they wouldn't be likely to panic unless they saw a whole load or other factors were involved. Maybe a lower decrease than -5 (like -3). As your troops gain bravery i.e. your more experienced ones that have seen more aliens, they wouldn't be likely to be affected by that factor alone.

Surely soldiers are trained to not panic when a few enemies are in sight?

They would be more likely to panic than someone not looking at several alien that want to kill you or sitting in the chinook. You can either show that by giving a bonus to the person in the chinook or a penalty to the person in combat.

A criticism I have of the current morale system, apart from the way you gain bravery, is that too much of it is global penalties or bonuses. I don't expect the soldiers in a firefight with aliens to have the same morale as the guy sitting around in the chinook. So that's why I would like more LOS or radius based modifiers to show that teams in different situations on the same mission have different levels of morale. So the guy that just saw 2 people blasted in front of him would be more likely to panic than someone on the other side of the map. But that would be my ideal moral system and a different topic.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Khall

[Gauddlike]

I don't like penalising your troops because they have done what they are supposed to and got their eyes on the enemy.

It could also double penalises anyone taking fire from multiple enemies if suppression is affected.

I believe the penalty should be range based.

I would use the same calculation that is used for weapon damage.

Each rank has a set amount of morale loss when killed as now but when it happens the effect centres on the dying soldier.

Each rank also has a unique range in the same way weapons have an effective range.

Everyone within this range takes full morale damage, while anyone outside of that range takes less damage due to the falloff.

Civvie kills by would have a lower penalty but a large range, Alien kills and Xenonaut team kills would centre the effect on the Xenonaut doing the shooting.