AI Reaction Fire WTF

[Ishantil]

So...I think I've hit an alien on a reaction shot probably once, maybe twice, ever, in my entire time playing the game.

In this base attack, I've seen the AI make two deadeye straight instant kill shots. One from through 4 different pieces of pieces of cover.

If I shoot at something, any piece of cover in the way, and I get a massive penalty, which invariable goes wide (like 70 degrees) and hits one of my guys. And hitting a 93% shot? Probably more like 50/50.

So is this bugged or something?

[Mytheos]

Reaction shots tend to be a presetup thing....you cant much randomly count on one.

But if you know Aliens "can" come around a corner, or through a door... then if you set up 2 rows of soldiers with the first row crouched, you'll probably get off enough reaction shots to kill anything you see.

Though this is mostly a Base/UFO assault thing tho.

The way suppression works it tends to be a rather lackluster tactic tho I admit. (Although with my mod I have been using it like its part of the game)

[Ishantil]

So this guy keeps walking back and forth through all this cover. I just missed yet another 95% shot. Katarina shot the thing she was crouched behind, for some reason, which makes about as much sense as the laser going sideways and hitting her squadmates.

These same pieces of cover (for of them) didn't seem to matter when I walked my guy out there to investigate the room.

I think I might start using the Sathra approach. Blow up everything around you. Everything.

I can't hit the aliens in this base unless I saturate the room with rockets first. They seem to have no trouble shooting me, though.

I'm guessing the "I can see this alien, but I can't shoot him" is to simulate combat movement or something?

[Ol' Stinky]

I'm guessing the "I can see this alien, but I can't shoot him" is to simulate combat movement or something?

Do you mean when you get the crossed-out symbol? That's a bug with kneeling behind cover/smoked tiles, iirc.

Also, I've mentioned the aliens having success shooting me through smoke before, but it was investigated and it turns out that I just don't have much luck with reaction fire. One of my rookies died in a base assault when a seb guard landed a reaction shot through something like five tiles of smoke. The chances of that should be something like 5%, I think? Good thing it was only an expendable newbie.

[Max_Caine]

Just as an FYI. The hypervelocity tag is still borked. If you use a sniper weapon or any weapon with the hyper tag switched on, the percentage will be presented as if there were no cover or intervening objects between the squaddie and the target. However, when the shot is actually calculated, cover and intervening obstacles are taken into account. Hypervelocity weapons can pass through cover/objects, (they have to do X amount of damage per prop, I believe) but they can also be stopped by them. It's quite common to see a sniper calculation presented as "you can't miss!" but then you do, because cover+props are not taken fully into account.

In addition, the largest piece of intervening terrain is taken into account when calculating the chance of an object stopping it (this is not exactly true, it's more a defacto ruling rather than dejure). A shot can intersect several pieces of terrain, but realistically, only the highest stopping chance is taken into consideration.

EDIT: Only the tile in front of a squaddie is ignored for the purposes of intervening terrain. If your squaddie is behind an object two tiles long (such as a stone trough or a empty flatbed train carriage) the first tile is discounted, but the second tile is taken into account.

Edited August 10, 2013 by Max_Caine

[Ishantil]

Ah, so that's what the hypervelocity bug is.

And for the record, my sniper was in front of a single piece of cover, one square big. The seems to have no problem aiming her rifle at it, either. Since he hits that more than just about anything.

How do diagonals work into the whole cover thing? I have a guy who just got owned and he's behind cover, or sort of. Half?

[Mytheos]

Do you mean when you get the crossed-out symbol? That's a bug with kneeling behind cover/smoked tiles' date=' iirc.

Also, I've mentioned the aliens having success shooting me through smoke before, but it was investigated and it turns out that I just don't have much luck with reaction fire. One of my rookies died in a base assault when a seb guard landed a reaction shot through something like five tiles of smoke. The chances of that should be something like 5%, I think? Good thing it was only an expendable newbie.[/quote']

Seeing as how there is a prop range limit on grenades of 10, which causes flashbangs not to work outside that range...I wouldnt be surprised if that also somehow effected smoke.

But as it is, I dont think smoke really helps much with reaction shots

[Ol' Stinky]

How does smoke fit into the picture? I've looked at the wiki page and it doesn't mention it.

I've been assuming that it's used in the "umodified accuracy" section. Smoke grenade tiles are a x0.7 acc mod judging by gas_gc.xml, so the unmodified acc for a sebillian guard, at max range, with an alien plasma rifle and making a snap shot would be:

Shooter Accuracy * Accuracy Modifier * (Range to Target / Weapon Operational Range) * Smoke Mod = Unmodified Accuracy

so

0.5 * 0.4 * 1 * 0.7 = 0.14, or 14%.

Does that sound right, or am I comically wrong in my assumptions and/or in my math?

Seeing as how there is a prop range limit on grenades of 10, which causes flashbangs not to work outside that range...I wouldnt be surprised if that also somehow effected smoke.

But as it is, I dont think smoke really helps much with reaction shots

By the way, I've tried increasing the range tag like you suggested for grenades, and it does seem to help the suppression side of things a ton. They're still weird if they land in props/walls, but changing the range to be much higher did make FBs/elecs more reliable suppressors.

[Ishantil]

OKay, yeah, I just got the bug that Ol'Stinky was talking about. "No cover at all between us and I'm not allowed to shoot this guy." Literally straight shot, nothing in between.

I think the cover system still needs some work.

Does the game "remember" the shots between saves? Does it use a seed like X-COM2012 does? I want to run some experiments using the numbers. I just missed two more 62% shots. Good times.

I'm guessing that the percentages are lying to me all the time?

[Mytheos]

I havent yet discovered any reasonable mathematical way to understand how smoke works yet.

It does do something as it will cause Aliens to not take shots, but it isnt a sight range thing, tho it could have some effect on that as well.

Like we talked about earlier just seems like if accuracy is reduced enough they dont bother shooting.

However I have been testing reflexes and it really doesnt seem to make any difference in protecting against those, nor does it seem to decrease the accuracy very much, and I would honestly say it doesnt effect accuracy of reaction shots at all from the testing I have done.

[Mytheos]

OKay, yeah, I just got the bug that Ol'Stinky was talking about. "No cover at all between us and I'm not allowed to shoot this guy." Literally straight shot, nothing in between.

I think the cover system still needs some work.

Does the game "remember" the shots between saves? Does it use a seed like X-COM2012 does? I want to run some experiments using the numbers. I just missed two more 62% shots. Good times.

I'm guessing that the percentages are lying to me all the time?

The ONLY thing I use percentages for are telling me if I can throw a grenade at a certain tile.

Other than that they are...well they end up being probably +/- 50% of the shown value.

So yeah kinda worthless, so much goes into the accuracy rolls that by the time its all said and done, the displayed values arent even close enough to be considered a rule of thumb.

[Ishantil]

The aliens must be ignoring cover. There's no other explanation. I just shot 7 times with a sniper rifle at this guy, no cover between. Missed every shot. He then smokes my sniper behind cover and walks across the room. First try.

[Ishantil]

For the record, I don't mind the game being hard, but I do mind it being unfair. That would be where the rules don't apply equally to both sides. And that's what I'm seeing here. Constantly.

[Mytheos]

If I AM within range of the weapon, and I am not obstructed and there are no standing soldiers next to me or ANY soldiers standing or not...in front of me...then I take the shot.

I make 0% shots all the time.

[Ol' Stinky]

I only trust the game's accuracy gauge when it's a clear shot from me to the target - no cover, no smoke. You'll see it a lot with smoke in particular: not only that "no shot for you!" bug, but 0%ers when the minimum chance to hit should be 1%. The only time it should say 0% is when your target's behind an LoS+LoF blocker like a tall wall, but you get the same deal when targetting an alien through smoke.

[Max_Caine]

I'd suggest using the debug version of the game, so you can see what's happening.

[Ishantil]

How do I use the debug version of the game?

I see so many problems I can't tell what, if anything, is actually working.

[Mytheos]

For the record, I don't mind the game being hard, but I do mind it being unfair. That would be where the rules don't apply equally to both sides. And that's what I'm seeing here. Constantly.

You're going to die unless you play the Aliens cant shoot me game.

Which means keeping your distance and using smoke if they have any kind of LOS, and paying serious attention to the Alien target indicators on the side of the screen, red means dead, orange means ok, they wont reaction fire or take a shot unless they move closer.

And the indicators arent 100% either and they dont update well, and the whole situation is REALLY screwed up by the Aliens seeing through walls combined with squad sight.

You essentially never know when and what Alien can see you for sure, so the only thing you can do is stay at as long of range as possible and keep smoke tiles protecting your flanks and in between you and the aliens.

You can generally find a point of mostly consistent gameplay, but it's an experience and feel thing at the moment which I imagine would make newer players rip their hair out as nothing seems to make any sense

[Ishantil]

I played the hell out of every X-COM game. I love turn based strategy games, and I'm pretty good at them.

But this game has a whole bunch of bugs that make the experience severely inconsistent. I'm here reporting bugs because I would love to help make this game great.

I think the "aliens seeing through walls" bug is probably key in getting some of this other stuff working right. I think that a lot of serious experimentation should probably be run with the cover system.

And obviously, I wouldn't mind helping, considering I've been screwing with this base assault for the last three hours.

[Max_Caine]

Here we go. took me ages to find the reference: Aaron and the Debug Kingdom. Once you run the debug version, if you press U you'l get an overview of the map and can fiddle about with the various units.

[Ishantil]

Thanks, Max. Was wondering if you might have a link to some forum post, haha.

[Max_Caine]

Oh hush. Just because I read the forums.... a little too much.... okay perhaps WAY too much... doesn't mean I remember where every details is!

[Ishantil]

Uh huh, sure.

[xcomnaut]

I noticed that cover or smoke is ignored by reaction fire. Aliens dont shoot over smoked area, but they do if reaction fire triggered. Next thing is high accuracy of reaction fire. I mean shots are not very accurate, it is like snap shot, but if there is 4-5 spots of cover, when there is no chance to hit by normal fire, reaction fire works perfectly. There we many situations when soldier was behind so many cover spots that hiting % was 1-3. Aliens never try to shoot when so many cover involved, but if soldier or alien trigger reaction fire, other side hits very good, successfuly ignoring any cover.

[Max_Caine]

Sounds like a bug, that reaction fire doesn't take into account negative modifiers.