Ground Combat Balance Discussion V19 Stable

[VaeliusNoctu]

I'm the opposite way: I don't feel the aliens coordinate and work together enough. IMO they should be coming at you in groups most of the time.

Problem was if the Aliens do so you can sit on a easy to defend spot and pick them up. I like more Exploring a Map and have much tactical battles each a bit other as the last bevor. Sometimes much Aliens, sometimes less, or only one or two. And Surprised from Reapers in dark rooms.^^

Happens to me in a Sebillian, Reaper, and this Sniper Race (forgot the name) Base. I run in mouch Reapers often in weird Situations^^. Battles was Tactical Interesting, the Snipers Defend the Sebillians and give Fire Support and the Sebillians Run against me. Very nice match.

[Josip Broz Tito]

That's more of a map design issue. More cover in terror missions would make alien group attacks more effective and tense, less cover= the situation you're describing. While it's good to have both scenarios, I favor more cover in maps.

I'm like you in that I want to be a bit paranoid about checking corners...except I want that to be because the aliens are hunting me back.

And yeah, it's awesome when the aliens spawn in the right ratios to keep you on your toes. I wish that the game would aim more for that situation, rather than 1 type and rank of alien predominating.

[VaeliusNoctu]

Great, you understood me.

Yes, I would like to be chased by aliens, intelligent. So far, it is often through sheer mass, which bores me.

I do not want to be misunderstood, the AI in the game I find very good. How else could make such a fun UFO wreckage?

One would merely something hone some scenarios and how you said provide for more natural coverage. It is important if you do that you should not while watching the map get the impression that some objects were placed to cover the pure purpose, it is also natural and beautiful look. Not like a training ground for the army. ^ ^

A cool idea would be a TIMER. That is to say if I need to turn off a group of aliens long, so dawdle, they get reinforcement. That would force me to try risky maneuvers, so I do not fight more and more aliens. This can then go as far as I finally have all the aliens on the neck.

That would please me much better.

I Hope my English is a bit better now.^^

[KateMicucci]

The difficulty of the terror missions and base attack missions is very high. Even with all soldiers in Jackal armor, and making good use of smoke, suppression and explosives, I either fail the mission or succeed with only 2 or 3 heavily wounded soldiers left over. I do not mind the number of aliens, but it's very hard to beat them when you are in a crossfire from two directions, and vastly outnumbered, outgunned, and outarmored. And the aliens always seem to get much better cover. If the aliens weren't so heavily armed in early attacks, or I could bring an extra pair of soldiers, or if my own heavy weapons were more effective, the difficulty would probably be fine.

I was unlucky enough to get Androns for my first base attack. My soldiers were slaughtered in the first room. Their firearms (M16s and shotguns) were unable to do much more than 10 points of damage. I managed to kill around 8 of the Androns only thanks to spamming C4 and alenium grenades. The Andron's quirk that they don't take cover hardly matters when there is so much in alien bases.

The range of the frag and alenium grenades is far too short. In order to use them I'm having to smoke my soldier just so that he can run close enough to grenade an alien across the street.

Gas grenades are useless.

The 65 strength requirement for heavy weapons is too high. Even my soldiers who have survived for 10 missions don't have a strength that high. We should expect to be able to recruit soldiers who are able to use a machinegun or rocket launcher without accuracy penalties. At the moment their accuracy is so low, even before moving, that they probably aren't worth bringing. Heavy weapons should be able to get kills, not fill a purely "utility" role.

On alien weapons:

The sebillians probably should not be issued precision plasma, to fit their theme as close-range fighters. I've had several soldiers (in armor) one-shotted during terror missions by Sebillian snipers outside visual range.

The plasma shotgun has been a terror on base assault missions.

The aliens with the big plasma guns shouldn't be allowed to fire four shots in a turn.

[VaeliusNoctu]

The difficulty of the terror missions and base attack missions is very high. Even with all soldiers in Jackal armor, and making good use of smoke, suppression and explosives, I either fail the mission or succeed with only 2 or 3 heavily wounded soldiers left over. I do not mind the number of aliens, but it's very hard to beat them when you are in a crossfire from two directions, and vastly outnumbered, outgunned, and outarmored. And the aliens always seem to get much better cover. If the aliens weren't so heavily armed in early attacks, or I could bring an extra pair of soldiers, or if my own heavy weapons were more effective, the difficulty would probably be fine.

The range of the frag and alenium grenades is far too short. In order to use them I'm having to smoke my soldier just so that he can run close enough to grenade an alien across the street.

Gas grenades are useless.

The 65 strength requirement for heavy weapons is too high. Even my soldiers who have survived for 10 missions don't have a strength that high. We should expect to be able to recruit soldiers who are able to use a machinegun or rocket launcher without accuracy penalties. At the moment their accuracy is so low, even before moving, that they probably aren't worth bringing. Heavy weapons should be able to get kills, not fill a purely "utility" role.

On alien weapons:

The sebillians probably should not be issued precision plasma, to fit their theme as close-range fighters. I've had several soldiers (in armor) one-shotted during terror missions by Sebillian snipers outside visual range.

The plasma shotgun has been a terror on base assault missions.

The aliens with the big plasma guns shouldn't be allowed to fire four shots in a turn.

It is true that alien bases are just too hard in the beginning. And the aliens are upon entering the room usually are almost all perfectly placed. It would be better if both parties, players and aliens, have another look at the base. When both parties come together then they have to use the cover that is just there. That would be the fight more interesting and intuitive.

The alien commander should be in the command center with some guards. So just like before.

I also find that the Grenades a greater range I should not be too much, so it is not unrealistic. Gas grenades I have never been able to use.

Sebilians with sniper rifles? This seems really unusual for this breed. Is four shots in a round are too much. I need at least 40 units of time for such weapons.

I can only agree, heavy weapons should be available from the beginning of some soldiers without deductions.

A few fine adjustments and I see it coming I play through again UFO 20 times. ^ ^

[Bansheedragon]

I posted in the announcement thread as well, but I suppose this is a better place to bring it up.

I just started a game after updating to V19, and I'm left with the impression that the TU cost of firing weapons have been dialup up significantly compared to the number of TU's a soldier has.

A soldier trained in using a sniper rifle, dont even have enough TU's to fire an aimed shot.

If I move the soldier he dont even have enough to fire a normal shot only a snap shot.

And the snap shot can only be fired in the soldier does not move more than 1 square, or he dont have enough TU's for even that.

Whats the point in having a soldier tried to use a sniper rifle, if the soldier cant fire it because of lack of TU's?

Right now I feel that the sniper rifles are pretty much useless, since I dont have the TU's us properly use it, so I usually just equip everyone with a regular rifle.

[Gorlom]

A soldier trained in using a sniper rifle, dont even have enough TU's to fire an aimed shot.

If I move the soldier he dont even have enough to fire a normal shot only a snap shot.

And the snap shot can only be fired in the soldier does not move more than 1 square, or he dont have enough TU's for even that.

Whats the point in having a soldier tried to use a sniper rifle, if the soldier cant fire it because of lack of TU's?

Simple answer? They aren't. You have mistaken a feature for sometyhing completley different. Those are quick loadouts. you can equip a character with whichever gear you want, save that specific loadout to a "role" and then load that role onto other soldiers by equipping that role to those soldiers and pressing a button.

Your soldiers are equally proficient with any of the weapons in your arsenal. There are no specilisations.

[kabill]

@Bansheedragon - it's worth bearing in mind that the 'normal' (50tu) shot with a sniper rifle is already at 150% accuracy, probably giving you a ~90% shot anyway (cover/range aside). The extra 'to hit' from taking an aimed (60tu) shot is therefore normally negligible, unless you're moving and shooting or firing outside of standard range (at least, I think the 'heavy weapon' and range penalties are applied before the 95% accuracy cap, anyway).

[TrashMan]

Missions still need some balancing. Seems a bit hit-and-miss in some places.

Terror missions seem to just throw TONS of aliens at you...like 30+.

I'm playing a modded game. With better weapons and aircraft. So I'm doing very good research/equipment-wise. And sometimes those terror missions still seem like hell. 20 aliens camped outside of your dropship.

I even upped the stats and number of allied AI considerably (12 allied soliders on terror maps). It is brutal (and it should be), but in another way.

Seems armor doesn't play a role for aliens, since I didn't see any resistances in their files...just buffed HP. Weird.

[Ol' Stinky]

Just androns and sebs get armour, as far as I can tell. Drones should probably get a bit of armour to make it feel like you're shooting something that's made out of alien-steel.

[StellarRat]

Drones should probably get a bit of armour to make it feel like you're shooting something that's made out of alien-steel.

I think of the drones as built from alien-aluminium so I think they are fine. They're already plenty dangerous without any help.

[Max_Caine]

When will sight no longer be persistent?. It's a feature I'm a-waiting, as that will change the game considerably.

[StellarRat]

When will sight no longer be persistent?. It's a feature I'm a-waiting, as that will change the game considerably.

It will be a huge change. Of course, gettting rid of squad sight completely would really alter the game.

[GizmoGomez]

I bumped that thread. Lets see what happens.

[Wraith_Magus]

If they get rid of squad sight entirely, LOS needs to be severely extended - basic LoS is hardly beyond shotgun range. It's a little absurd that the "scoped" precision rifle soldier can hardly see across a whole barn in broad daylight. (I honestly don't see why we even have a maximum LoS range that isn't determined simply by wherever the first obstacle is - these maps are too claustrophobic to really need it.)

Anyway, to bring it back to the "difficulty", playing through recently, I was stunned by just how much a jump there is in difficulty between a Light Scout and a (full) Scout. Light Scouts start to get practically trivial as soon as you have any armor at all, but the first time you find a full Scout, I walk off the chopper, and suddenly have 7 Trekkies firing from beyond visible range, killing guys they weren't even aiming at in one hit.

Because it was basically all open terrain, the only prayer I had of getting even within sight range of the enemy was constant streams of smoke grenades. Nothing else was even in range, so there's basically only one viable strategy, which rather hurts the premise of a strategy game. It's a pretty absurd difficulty spike. Upping the ratio of non-combatants to guards in those ships, at least until November, would help immensely, while maybe having an odd guard in the 8 non-combatants in the light scouts might help transition things more smoothly. As it stands, Light Scouts are just tasty XP snacks, while Scouts are (in spite of a minor difference in nomenclature) just SURPRISE! Turn one Total Party Kill if you don't have (and occasionally, even if you DO have) Jackal armor.

And you can get those things before September's even over...

[GizmoGomez]

I don't think they're going to get rid of squad sight (as it's kinda needed), but persistent sight. Like, you need to have a guy actively looking somewhere to see anything. That should make it rather important to have well defended scouts, I would think. Also, sentinel armor will be even more useful with that +sight range.

[StellarRat]

If they get rid of squad sight entirely, LOS needs to be severely extended - basic LoS is hardly beyond shotgun range.

The ranges for spotting and shooting are severely compressed in Xenonauts so that range actually matters. If true ground scale were used every shot with anything bigger than a pistol or shotgun would be 100% on any target no matter where it was on the map. You'd be pinned down the moment you stepped off the chopper. JA2 is the same way. You simply can't have really detailed maps like Xenonauts has AND have true ground ranges. The maps would have to be enormous. So big it would take DAYS to download them and your PC probably wouldn't have the disk space or the CPU to deal with them. Edited October 3, 2013 by StellarRat

[Wraith_Magus]

The ranges for spotting and shooting are severely compressed in Xenonauts so that range actually matters. If true ground scale were used every shot with anything bigger than a pistol or shotgun would be 100% on any target no matter where it was on the map. You'd be pinned down the moment you stepped off the chopper. JA2 is the same way. You simply can't have really detailed maps like Xenonauts has AND have true ground ranges. The maps would have to be enormous. So big it would take DAYS to download them and your PC probably wouldn't have the disk space or the CPU to deal with them.

I think you're arguing against some completely different argument than what I was actually making...

It's not so much about gun range, it's that, without spotters, there would be no point in longer-ranged weapons at all - you can barely even see to the extent of shotgun range right now. Without spotting, you'd need to decompress the ludicrously short LoS maximums at least a little to allow snipers any chance to actually snipe.

Besides which, it's not as if it's necessary for every single map to have an open line of sight to the other side of the map. It's not even the case, now. You just don't build such long-range maps, to make long-range opportunities more uncommon.

And anyway, I find it more than a little silly that apparently, guys need to radio in/use their shared telepathic link (which they don't have anymore in this game) to fire a supposedly scoped sniper rifle at ranges where even the shotguns are still effective. There aren't even any accuracy penalties for firing at something you can't see, because the standard range for the rifle is beyond visible range. Even when you supposedly have a scope.

Edited October 3, 2013 by Wraith_Magus

[StellarRat]

I think you're arguing against some completely different argument than what I was actually making...

It's not so much about gun range, it's that, without spotters, there would be no point in longer-ranged weapons at all - you can barely even see to the extent of shotgun range right now. Without spotting, you'd need to decompress the ludicrously short LoS maximums at least a little to allow snipers any chance to actually snipe.

Besides which, it's not as if it's necessary for every single map to have an open line of sight to the other side of the map. It's not even the case, now. You just don't build such long-range maps, to make long-range opportunities more uncommon.

And anyway, I find it more than a little silly that apparently, guys need to radio in/use their shared telepathic link (which they don't have anymore in this game) to fire a supposedly scoped sniper rifle at ranges where even the shotguns are still effective. There aren't even any accuracy penalties for firing at something you can't see, because the standard range for the rifle is beyond visible range. Even when you supposedly have a scope.

I think the spotting ranges are fine for what they're trying to portray and weird weapon range scale. In my mind I'm assuming that my guys are trying to see aliens that are trying to hide. Now I know that doesn't make a lot of sense when an alien is standing out in the open, but it sure makes sense when he's in a building. Also, shotgun effective range is much less than spotting range. I'd be willing to bet you wouldn't be able to see hidden enemies most of time at the ranges that even the Xenonauts see them at. It's very hard to find someone (with skill) that is trying to hide at any distance.

[Wraith_Magus]

Well, the problem with the weapon "scale" right now is that it's rather arbitrarily applied.

Pistols are only vaguely shortened in their effective ranges (if we assume actual 2-yard tiles, as they say they are, even though they certainly look like less), since actual pistols really do start have accuracy issues (especially if you're firing one-handed,) at ranges of around 20 yards or so, and are only considered effective out to around 30m/32 yards. (Which is near sight-range maximums right now.)

Shotguns, likewise, are basically not really that compressed at all - they're bizarrely quite accurate out to ranges that assault rifles are accurate to, given similar aiming. (And significantly more accurate than burst fire at any kind of range.) This is assuming, however, "accuracy" means "at least one shot hits", not giving 'em the whole barrel. Using unaimed shotgun blasts as a "melee weapon", however, remains hilarious and deadly.

It's the "precision" rifle that has its effective range hobbled the most - it's basically only twice the range of the shotgun. The assault rifle is only 4 tiles less before accuracy penalties. Considering the ranges we fight at, I don't see there being a reason for accuracy penalties for range on the precision rifles at all. (Or if so, the range should be so large as to be meaningless, like 100 tiles.)

Then, there's sight ranges, which are, again, basically shotgun ranges.

Hence, saying it's to "scale" makes no sense, as every gun's range is scaled completely arbitrarily. (As are the lengths of tiles, compared to visible size.)

Now, yes, there could certainly be a difference between the ranges of seeing buildings and seeing individuals who are trying to hide... so why don't we do that?

To pull up Hammer & Sickle/Silent Storm, again, you could see the open field from across the map (and it was a bigger map than we have now), but every unit had their own stealth/detection ratings, both visibly and audibly. It meant a single sniper, without a spotter, with enough of an eagle eye could spot a soldier running through a field and take them down from across the map. (Provided they could actually make the shot in time - sniping took multiple turns for aiming.) Conversely, a commando could be within tiles of an unaware unit, and shiv them from behind without the enemy noticing.

Some of the more stripped-down and gamey elements, like aliens always facing the nearest Xenonaut exploits would make much more sense with actual detection ranges, and just plain the ability to see most things beyond just a dozen and a half tiles. Of course, that would just bring back up the issues over not having the animation frames for things like crawling, but even without the animations for it, just plain having the option to say "move quietly" with no animation difference or hover-kneeling would still be an asset if we could have detection ranges.

In fact, just consider what it would mean if there was the ability to see terminators or terror weapons more easily than the Trekkies hiding behind rocks, or wraiths.

Even in Rebelstar: Tactical Command, a game that was basically just a stripped-down version of X-Com made by the same guy, you could fight terror weapons with sniper rifles from well outside the ranges at which any other weapon was effective, or even how far the terror weapons could even see your character. (Visual range was actually tied to a stat, so high Perception ratings meant you could see quite far.) And this was a game that also had melee weapons that were actually practical, expecting you to really get to point-blank inside enemy bases.

And it was a Game Boy Advance game, so there's basically no excuse for "it could handle bigger maps". Considering that the game even tells players that it will have better load times, later, I'm expecting that a nice optimization of the engine (which was never designed for what's being asked of it) is upcoming, and the slowness we have now is just from a bad engine, not from the idea that a modern PC is somehow incapable of handling sprite graphics and maps with tiles of over 50x50x5. (Dwarf Fortress would laugh at your idea of a large map. And then simulate flooding you with magma to a degree of detail down to which toenail melts first.)

Ultimately, your, "This is the only way it could ever be done," argument rings quite hollow.

[Ol' Stinky]

Wraith, I'd say you're seeing the effects of two (interlinked) problems. The first is that it's not clear what the penalties for shooting outside of range are. The second is that the penalties for shooting out of range might not be doing their job.

Each weapon has a range defined in Xenonauts\assets\weapons_gc.xml; the shotgun's is set to 10. This is what StellarRat means by "effective range". Firing at a target beyond effective range makes the shot:

• more inaccurate. This is the only one of the maluses that the UI tells us about!
  
• less damaging. An individual shotgun pellet does 20 damage in range. At 20 tiles, it'll do 10 (I believe), putting aside factors such as the random +/- 50% and armour. The game does not tell you this. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people thought that shooting a target in the yellow zone simply made the shot more inaccurate.
  
• deal zero suppression. Unlike the other two, this doesn't taper off, it's binary. Inside of range, the shotgun has a suppression value of 15. Just one tile outside of range, 0 suppression.

So unless you want to cause suppression, most weapons are, um, actually pretty effective outside their effective range. A regular sniper at 30 tiles is still going to do ~40 damage with a shot on average. Light scout, scout and corv maps tend to be 60x60 while landing ship and cruisers are 70x70 (at time of writing), so 30 tiles is not an insignificant range. On the more open maps, it's not unusual for my snipers to bag an alien from well out of sight.

[Wraith_Magus]

I find your lack of hard numbers disturbing.

That means it's time for !!SCIENCE!!

OK, apparently, the game's interface lies to you about actual ranges, first off. Not just the tooltips that have discrepancies from the stats in the info screen when equipping an item, but both information readouts are actually lying to you about the ranges and effects of the weapons.

In spite of what it says, the effective range of shotguns is, actually, 10 tiles. (And for clarity of terms, I will hereafter refer to the "green line" range where you suffer no penalties as the "effective range", and refer to the range beyond which no shot will basically ever hit as the "maximum range".) The game says 24m, which should be 12.

• Pistols have an effective range of 10.
  
• Shotguns have an effective range of 10.
  
• Assault Rifles have an effective range of 20.
  
• Machine Guns have an effective range of 20.
  
• Precision Rifles have an effective range of 24.

Accuracy Beyond Effective Range

scales based upon distance and the effective range, itself. Specifically, the Maximum Range of a weapon is twice its Effective Range.

Within Effective Range, every range besides the Short Range Bonus range (5 tiles) will give you the same chance to hit.

This chance to hit is reduced by a percentage of your standard chance to hit for every tile of range outside Effective Range. For a weapon with 10 tiles of Effective Range, this means every tile beyond 10 is a 10% penalty to your little THAC0. This drops linearly (rather than a logarithmic curve) until it hits the "red 1" minimum of 1%. For a weapon with 20 tiles of Effective Range, then every tile beyond 20 will drop your accuracy by 5% of your normal to-hit number.

The Short Range Bonus

Starts at 5 tiles away from your character. (Or ends at it, depending upon perspective.) It is a flat +15% chance-to-hit per tile within 6 tiles. (I.E. you get +75% chance-to-hit for standing one tile away.)

This does not apply to precision rifles, notably, but precision rifles have no "minimum range" penalty, either, so there's literally no difference in accuracy from 1 tile to 24 tiles range for a precision rifle.

At Effective Ranges

it is worth noting that there is no other modifier for range beyond these two bonuses. With a rifle, there is no difference in the chance-to-hit between firing at a target at 6 tiles away or a target 20 tiles away, provided the amount of intervening cover is the same. Hence, don't bother thinking that moving closer will make your shots more accurate unless you are within 5 tiles. This also means that, for an alien rifle, there's no difference between the ranges at which it is accurate or not. (Alien plasma rifles also have a range of 20. Hence, even firing from outside of human visible range, they have no accuracy penalties for range.)

=====

Anyway, as to what my point was before that caused you to respond in that way...

My point is not about where a weapon is actually "effective", so much as it is about the differences in the so-called "scaling" compression.

A pistol in real life is effective out to about 15-25 meters, depending on the weapon in question. A precision rifle can be effective out to hypothetically a kilometer and a half, but around 300-500 meters is before you have to start really breaking out the tables and calculating how much wind speed will affect your bullet, and taking significant time between each shot.

So, just for simplicity's sake, let's say that a precision rifle should be effective out to 20 times the range that a pistol should be effective. You could argue different numbers, but these rough estimates are good enough for jazz for the point I'm trying to prove.

In a game that genuinely has a scale where everything is subject to equivalent compression, that should be the way that the game maintains the actual scale of the effective range of these weapons.

This is not at all what happens. The pistol's range isn't "scaled" at all - it's actually around the real-life effective range of a real-life pistol. The precision rifle's range, however, is positively hobbled. The difference in ranges is not a scaling of 20:1, but suddenly becomes 2.4:1.

That's an order of magnitude of difference. It's not even close.

If the game kept the current precision rifle ranges, and actually scaled down the effective range of the pistol to match, you'd have a pistol with a range of 1 tile. Now, obviously, that's not what we really want, but if we're going to pretend that we're dealing with scale, and we don't want 1-tile pistols, we need to drastically increase the range that a sniper rifle is effective to, if only just in name because of the map sizes. If we want to really have compressed maps that still, 5-tile-range pistols/shotguns with 20-tile-range assault rifles, and 100-tile range precision rifles would be a simple 2:1 compression that doesn't warp the ranges too arbitrarily.

So, again, no, I'm not buying the notion that weapons are "scaled", they're just arbitrarily put to range categories.

Now, that's not to say I'm demanding absolute realism or even an absolutely consistent scale. Giving pistols and shotguns more range than they should have for simple gameplay balance makes sense, but then, why have such a severe compression on the long-range weapons? Why can't a precision rifle have any chance greater than 1%, the same as a pistol, to hit a target 49 tiles away?

... That said, the accuracy calculations on this game are just flat-out lazy. We need more variable odds than this.

Edited October 6, 2013 by Wraith_Magus
I left an incomplete sentence the first time.

[Wraith_Magus]

Incidentally, now that I've gone and given a critical eye to the accuracy numbers, I went and tried reverse engineering how accuracy works in the game right now.

Apparently, there isn't even an accuracy difference between any of the weapons besides the precision rifle. The Assault Rifle is supposedly more accurate than the shotgun or the pistol, but that isn't true. (At least, within effective ranges.)

Everything else is just a multiplier based upon some constant.

I.E. multiply accuracy by 1.2 for crouching.

Basic standing snapshot accuracy seems to be (Character Accuracy / 2.5). Precision rifles get snap shots that are twice as accurate as other weapons. (Character Accuracy / 1.25)

Non-precision rifle normal shots are (roughly) 2.25 times as accurate as snap shots.

Aimed shots are roughly 3.0 times.

This translates into basically just a flat 1.5 times TU efficiency for both normal and aimed shots.

Bursts are 0.75 times as accurate as snaps, but fire three bullets (or five, for MGs) for twice the TU.

This translates to 1.125 times TU efficiency for AR burst fire, and 1.875 times TU (hypothetical to a snap fire mode) for the MG.

Precision rifles get 1.5 times accuracy for normal shots, and 2.0 times accuracy for aimed shots. This amounts to 1.2 and 1.333 times TU efficiency, respectively. (Although you WILL hit accuracy cap with aimed sniper shots.)

Accuracy penalty for moving with a heavy weapon is a flat 0.5 multiplier. (Accuracy cap does not apply first, here.)

Notably, an aimed shot from a regular gun (which costs 40 TUs) will give 50% more accuracy than a snap shot with a precision rifle, despite costing the same number of TUs. Relative to non-precision rifles, you get no bonus to accuracy-TU efficiency on snap shots, and lose accuracy-TU efficiency on normal or aimed shots. The advantages of those weapons are almost purely in damage.

You can also see what obstacles do to your accuracy right on the screen - it's worth noting these reduce your post-accuracy cap accuracy, so aimed sniper shots do nothing if you already have 95% accuracy with a normal shot.

Keep in mind that some obstacles do not actually appear on the screen - stun gas is apparently worth around 20% to shoot through, and some of the fallen log items don't show percentages of obfuscation when aiming.

All this testing is upon ballistic weapons.

Edited October 6, 2013 by Wraith_Magus
Added a few additional calculations

[Ol' Stinky]

I believe the wiki is still largely correct when it comes to the various accuracy/damage calcs.

Also, don't believe the UI when it comes to accuracy reductions when firing through smoke/stun gas/etc. It doesn't seem to be true. Fortunately, the AI doesn't know that.

Anyway, the crux of the matter seems to be:

Why can't a precision rifle have any chance greater than 1%, the same as a pistol, to hit a target 49 tiles away?

As the sniper currently stands, I don't think it would be the end of the world if snipers got a range boost in their current state, as long as they don't get back the old hypervelocity.

With hypervelocity, high range made the sniper rifles overpowered. Hypervelocity allowed bullets to ignore cover, and so with an unlimited range, snipers would be silly. They were too strong even with 30 range and hypervelocity.

Right now, hypervelocity's being tweaked, and is horribly buggy. The devs have turned it off for snipers in v19 stable until it can be fixed, and gave snipers a stat boost until hypervelocity can be enabled again. Last I read, the intent was for hypervelocity to do -50% damage for each piece of cover it penetrates. I don't know if that's still what they're working towards or if they're mulling over the best plan for hypervelocity. While you can reactivate it in weapons_gc.xml, I'd recommend you not do so, since you'll get erratic behaviour like being unable to fire over bodies of water, and it won't penetrate cover like it used to anyway.

I'm not keen on the idea of more variable odds for accuracy. We already have the +/-50% random damage factor, that's enough uncertainty for me.

[Wraith_Magus]

Nice to know every number that appears in the game is lying, then...

Anyway, when I say "variable odds for accuracy", I don't mean making it any more of a crapshoot than it already is, but just making the difference between 6 tiles and 10 actually matter for accuracy in some way.

A better base accuracy measurement would be something incorporating Target Size / Distance^2 to reflect the drop in accuracy over distance, as that reflects relative target size. There's also absolutely nothing bell-curving the accuracy at all, when rolling multiple "dice" to get away from these linear progressions would do a lot of good. (And unlike real-world dice, rand()-type functions can be called hundreds of times without anyone noticing a slowdown.)

This honestly kind of reminds me of one of the stupider/more hilariously mood-breaking elements of Silent Storm/Hammer & Sickle, where, if an enemy got to melee range, firing your pistol at them would involve your character literally taking a second to slowly put their hand so that the muzzle of the gun actually pushed through the back of the target's head in order to shoot their head. Then, the next shot, he would calmly move his hand to aim at the target's foot over the course of a second to shoot them in the foot. Then, taking his time, would swing his arm 120 degrees to the side, just to find an angle that would "miss", and then swing around to be pointing directly upwards to "miss" again. It was, to say the least, the least convincing example of a close-ranged firefight I'd ever seen modeled. It's all because they were using awful dice pools that didn't simulate end cases well.

Anyway, these formulas are awful, as they stand, (although I'd hope they are mere placeholders,) so I'm going to tinker around with finding a formula that makes sense, and probably make a suggestion thread on it.

Edited October 6, 2013 by Wraith_Magus