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Thoughts on increased randomness


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Makes little sense for veteran armored xenonauts to get suppressed from a flesh wound either. (that said, never been shot, so if someone has= throw your opinion up please)

Even if you're wearing armor that stops the slug in its tracks, you're catching a shit-ton of kinetic energy, and the shock of being struck can drop you, even if you're nominally uninjured. If you were capable of thinking about it on an intellectual level after being struck (which I can't see happening) you'd realize that that particular round was a few inches away from dropping you for good, and that round your armor did stop probably isn't alone; being shot at is a scary thing, and gunfire coming your way doesn't stop being scary or less threatening no matter how many times you've been in a fight, and all armor is doing is keeping what would have been lethal into something that's survivable if you're lucky enough for the round to land in the right spot. Any one of those little pieces of metal flying at you can end your life, and it's in the back of your mind.

I had the displeasure of taking a 7.62x54R from an SVD to the chest once; it struck my front E-SAPI, roughly an inch thick. I'm not gonna lie, I dropped. After my brain started working a few seconds later, the pain hit, and I honest-to-God thought I'd been shot through and was dying. After laying there for a few seconds, my squad leader came over, checked me and my vest over, and started shouting at me to get up and start shooting. It's an incredibly striking experience, incredibly painful, and it's not exactly something that makes you want to get up and start shooting back.

The aliens are smart enough to build and operate reactionless drives and plasma weapons, and human weapons seem to kill them well enough; the ones that get shot have to realize that the event isn't exactly a pleasant experience, and that taking one in the wrong spot or too many times has a less than desirable outcome. They duck when bullets fly at them for a reason, right? Getting shot can't be better than getting shot at.

Edited by EchoFourDelta
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Echo, that's why I acknowledged my inexperience.

On-hit suppression would make sense for xenonauts then. I've never really had my soldiers get suppressed except when hit with a plasma cannon. Maybe this needs to be tweaked overall.

BTW, glad you're physically OK from taking a hit like that. Glad my tax money partly goes to armor : ) Although, I can imagine that would be an experience that would stick with you for a lifetime.

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The aliens are smart enough to build and operate reactionless drives and plasma weapons, and human weapons seem to kill them well enough; the ones that get shot have to realize that the event isn't exactly a pleasant experience, and that taking one in the wrong spot or too many times has a less than desirable outcome. They duck when bullets fly at them for a reason, right? Getting shot can't be better than getting shot at.

I'll second this. Having been caught in an explosion, had shots very close, and an accidental discharge very close, I can assure you that you are useless for a minute or two, even if no one was actually trying to kill you.
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Well I think the main reason is self preservation and fear of death/pain.

Just like the storm troopers in the new movies, they were all clones and fear was removed from them, and there were several scenes where they were waist deep in combat with bullets flying all over the place, and they didnt even seem slightly phased.

I would imagine what they were created for would have a big difference on suppression, like a NonCom or support type would need a higher sense of self preservation where as an Elite/Warrior/Soldier would be created with the idea that...

"They Shall Known No Fear"

(please dont sue me GamesWorkshop)

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Making someone fearless of bullets doesn't make them a good soldier. It makes them easy to kill, and when all the willing, ready-to-die drones are dead, there's no one left to complete the mission. You can't finish the job if everyone's dead because they were too brave to duck the bullets. Successful infantry work requires a fluid, dynamic mind conscious of the risks and consequences, so as to better determine the situation, and how to best go about resolving it while preserving the lives of the soldiers around them as best as possible, and keeping the accrued expertise alive and ready to pass on.

A large, hulking target unafraid of bullets is little more than a walking, ready-to-shred pile of hamburger.

(Also, Star Wars may not be the best place to look for good tactics.)

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Was just an example, we dont clone soldiers so each one is more valuable as well as their experience.

However in this game as a specific example, does being suppressed help the Aliens? No. They duck if they can when suppressed which makes them harder to hit, but by them not taking reaction shots it allows us as the player to run up and pet them if we want.

Which not shooting someone in the face when they run into melee with you because you are scared doesnt make much sense.

Look at the old XCOM. Did your squad function better when everyone lost their Shi& and started firering off randomly, dropping their weapons and running away or ducking and cowering in fear?

Of course not.

When your soldiers get suppressed now do you feel that aids them or hurts them? Obviously it is a penalty.

So I would counter, if you had a nearly inexhaustible supply of clones, yes being fearless does make them a good soldier.

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The simple truth is fear slows you down, makes you loose focus, makes you waste actions, and puts you on the defensive.

Not to get started on a bad topic, but for a lot of the Jihad type soldiers, their religion tells them that if they die they go to heaven with 72 virgins or whatever.

Which makes them not afraid of death...and its a fact that suicide bombers are incredibly effective normally being around a 1 to 30 kill ratio.

So using religion to make your soldiers more brave and more fearless wasnt an accident, I assure you it was done entirely on purpose.

And if it wasnt effective they wouldnt be doing it.

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Yeah, if you're making a suicide bomber to attack people with no way of detecting or stopping it. You don't exactly get an effective assault force like that, though.

Fear can slow one down if dealt with inappropriately, but it's the tempering mechanism that prevents suicidally stupid actions and a throwing away of the assets that represents. It's not a stumbling block; it's a guiding notion that preserves you and those around you so you can complete your objective.

In the context of our theoretical infantry force, a group too "brave" to realize it's smarter to get out of the way of high-velocity chunks of metal are going to be too dead to realize that sometimes it's smarter to defend than assault, or to pull back rather than advance, and will spend themselves before they accomplish much of anything useful besides running out a magazine or so of well-placed fire by troops that aren't morons. In an environment where you're usually deploying with or engaging with fewer personnel than the enemy, this is obviously not a way you win a fight.

Aggressive, violent response obviously has its place in combat, and once an action is initiated, it's the fastest way to see it through to its conclusion. Discretion has its place as well, and is what keeps the troops around long enough to make a difference.

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@EchoFourDelta I believe in this context (Xenonauts), suppression embodies the "bad" side of fear. When you're suppressed, you can't do anything but crouch under cover; on the other hand, when you're not suppressed, you can choose to either stay in cover or shoot back, or anything in between. As such, a "fearless" soldier doesn't need to be a stupid one: as long as he uses tactics he'll have a great advantage over someone who can be suppressed, as he can evaluate each situation and decide if to seek cover or not, instead of being forced to do nothing. Being immune to suppression doesn't automatically mean the soldier will disregard cover and charge head on.

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@EchoFourDelta I believe in this context (Xenonauts), suppression embodies the "bad" side of fear. When you're suppressed, you can't do anything but crouch under cover; on the other hand, when you're not suppressed, you can choose to either stay in cover or shoot back, or anything in between. As such, a "fearless" soldier doesn't need to be a stupid one: as long as he uses tactics he'll have a great advantage over someone who can be suppressed, as he can evaluate each situation and decide if to seek cover or not, instead of being forced to do nothing. Being immune to suppression doesn't automatically mean the soldier will disregard cover and charge head on.

This

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Fearless means you dont let fear guide your actions, and when you do it's never a good thing.

It doesnt mean you have no concept of fear and dont have the ability to understand this is a good choice this isnt.

But being shot in the shoulder and dropping your gun and then holding your arm, as you fall to your knees crying isnt as effective as shrugging off the shot and keeping presence of mind enough to return fire, and kill the guy that shot you.

Dont get me wrong I am NOT saying fearless = Not using cover and just marching towards the enemy like a terminator.

I am just saying that if I had a clone army I would want it to be smart and tactical as well as fearless and have a reduced sense of pain.

In fact you could remove pain all together as it would serve no purpose.

Therefore in general being shot should increase the amount of suppression more than having a shot miss, granted.

But in no way can I think from a reality or sound game mechanic function that 1 hit suppression makes any sense...for the Aliens anyways.

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I disagree on the no-pain part there: there are people with a nervous system disorder that doesn't allow them to feel pain. These people can damage themselves without realizing it or kill themselves. Walking on a broken leg, biting their tongue off, etc.

Example: Sebillian elite has the genetic markers that allow for pain turned off. He gets shot in the chest with a human plasma rifle. In reality he's close to death, and if he felt pain he'd realize the bolt melted through his armor. Instead, he didn't feel any negative sensation and charges the xenonaut who shot him, only to die from a second shot. If the shot hadn't've penetrated the armor, this would've been a viable choice.

If the sebillian had been able to feel even reduced pain, it could've tried to retreat to cover. Not to preserve it's own life, but to increase its chances of killing before it died.

My overall point is that pain is present in most lifeforms for a reason= it's useful. Reduced pain for combat ranks makes sense to reduce autonomic responses to pain that could hinder their ability to fight. However, some pain allows combat ranks to judge their physical condition to choose how to kill xenonauts.

This isn't exactly represented in game well yet, but the lore in the xenopedia seems to support this. I'm cool with androns and heavy droids acting suicidal in combat, and am ok w/ sebillians being slightly too aggressive (but not suicidal as that is detrimental to killing xenonauts).

This is a good discussion. Haven't seen the bravery/suppression aspect talked about all that much in my previous lurker existence.

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In war pain isnt useful for disposable soldiers.

Yes all lifeforms have pain, because we arent disposable it's needed.

However we have adrenaline too...which nullifies pain...

Thats why you get in a wrestling match and feel fine, but quickly afterwards you start to notice the damage you took...if you felt it at the time it would be detrimental, causing you to loose a fight MUCH more often than it caused you to win it.

Hell recently a UFC fighter broke his big toe in a majorly screwed up way (The youtube video makes me cringe) and went on to win the fight, he didnt even notice until he was having his arm held up to show he was the winner.

If he HAD felt it, he would have lost that fight for sure.

Again the Aliens dont really care if they take losses...therefore the positives of feeling pain are vastly reduced, and not feeling pain would be better.

I mean just imagine an army of humans with no fear and no pain...they would mess stuff up..MUCH higher casualty rate but MUCH higher kill rate too.

And again, disposable soldiers = who cares about losses...the Aliens could loose 100 soldiers and it'd be worth it if they could take out 1 of your 8 Commanders/Colonels.

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I mean just imagine an army of humans with no fear and no pain...they would mess stuff up..MUCH higher casualty rate but MUCH higher kill rate too.

That, or they'd all be slaughtered 500 meters from the objective by troops in prepared covered & concealed positions. You know, one or the other. Which is sort of how warfare works. This is why we stopped standing in battle lines a la the Civil War. Machine guns and rifles that fire semi-automatically from magazines sort of rendered the concept you're suggesting fairly useless. Especially when the guys you're fighting are found in groups of like... a half-dozen to two dozen.

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Yeah but again we are not talking about normal situations, we're talking about a helicopter landing and 8 troops running out.

Not trench warfare.

Either way feeling you were shot and feeling crippling pain are two different things.

Pain = Bad for combat situations, which again is why your body turns it nearly off when you are in a fight or flight situation, its more effective...

YES you do take more damage, however more damage is preferable to death due to crippling pain.

I mean imagine two boxers, one with pain one without. Who has a longer career, the one with pain. Who wins the fight all other things being equal, the one without.

Granted it might be his first and last fight, but when you can punch so hard you break 5 bones in your hand, and continue to pummel the crap out of your opponent unphased...any way you look at it, it's an advantage.

*Cough* Disposable Soldiers *Cough*

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But that's not the case in-game; they duck when they see bullets coming, so they know they're lethal, and get a stumbling block put in their way if a few rounds fly too close. What we're saying is that given that characteristic it would make even more sense for them to sit down, get behind cover, and plan some shit out if they actually get hit.

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It's not logical to have all the aliens be suicidal, even if they're disposable. From an efficiency standpoint, you would still want most of your troops to extend their lives until the point that they've killed at least 1 human, especially in the smaller scale this game takes place in.

Easiest way to do that? Use cover, and make judgments based on the resistance you're facing. One element of that is visual and audible data, what the alien sees and hears, with another being its own physical state. If you're getting shot= decent clue you need to move to cover and reassess the resistance you're facing.

Easiest way to tell you're being shot for a biological life form? Pain. It doesn't have to be strong, but it does indicate to the alien that their armor has been compromised.

I feel that adrenaline or some form of synthetic stimulant as well as anti-coagulant is already present in all of the aliens. This is because they don't bleed out, and remain able to fight without consequence until their bodies fail. The aliens do feel some pain since they make noises when hit. For the xenonauts, they have adrenaline, and likely very strong convictions and resolve to fight. That could be a reason they also fight until their bodies fail.

BTW, Mytheos, look up human wave attacks in Africa. They're literally armies that feel no pain. Generals and warlords take men/boys and pump them full of cocaine, adrenaline, and other substances until they don't feel pain then send them en masse against fortified positions or armies. It tends to work how Echo has mentioned. Lots of dead soldiers, with the position untaken/ army undefeated. Wave attacks are usually the province of fools and those without artillery/mobile armor/planes.

If you don't feel pain, you don't know when to alter your behavior to avoid physical damage. A solider that lives longer has more opportunities to kill their enemy. There's a reason most animals w/ a decent amount of neurons evolved to feel pain. Reduction of it is useful to keep the sensation, but not the crippling effects- elimination of it is foolish.

There's no reason for the aliens to act in such a way, even with reapers. It makes more sense, and makes the game more fun when aliens use cover for protection, and to advance.

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@ Josip Broz Tito

I think we're getting off subject, I wasnt talking about the AI or saying it should be suicidal. Obviously it shouldnt, short of Androns and Reapers perhaps.

But there is NO benefit to being suppressed (In game), other than you might duck, which really isnt going to help you much.

Suppression is assumed to be the Alien being "Pinned Down" unable to react, fire or move because it feels if it does it will be at grave risk of injury or death.

Therefore you would assume the Aliens would have higher bravery than your average human, as well as a MUCH higher tolerance to pain.

Especially higher ranked ones, and specific types.

So again from a reality and game mechanic standpoint...and again this is the only statement I am qualifying... "Being hit a Single time should not Auto-Suppress Aliens"

However being hit would logically cause more suppression damage than the bullets that count for suppression but dont hit their target.

Now that is out of the way...Human Wave Attacks, thats a bit of an off example, due to the nature of being pumped full of cocaine...it might reduce pain but it doesnt keep you cool/focused or calm...the opposite really.

But the Africans need 12-20 years to create a troop, the Aliens could only need a few days/weeks/months maybe?

So depending on how many troops you have and how expendable/replaceable they are has a lot to do with it.

But anyway you look at it suppression = no return fire and defenseless. Which is bad. In the game they dont run to cover or retreat...they just stand where they are and crouch.

Its more like going into shock than being suppressed really.

So making every time you shoot an Alien = Suppressed = Easy Mode

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