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Shooting Over Cover 1 Tile Away


Snarks

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The current mechanics allow soldiers to fire over adjacent cover. However, if a piece of cover is 2 tiles long, the further tile will count as obstructing their field of fire and will soak up bullets. Given that there is a lot of cover in the game that is 2 tiles long and that it seems unrealistic that a barrel just about one meter away will obstruct a soldier's field of fire, could it be changed so that soldiers can shoot over not just the adjacent cover, but also cover that is 2 tiles away?

This may also be a game engine/coding problem in which case there's probably little that can be done.

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Yeah, the issue needs a fix. I'd like being able to shoot over things (and therefore soldiers) a tile away. I'd be able to simulate a firing squad to execute aliens. ;)

This way I'd be able to have a crouching guy, a crouching/standing guy, and a standing guy in a row facing an alien.

I'd fire with the crouched first guy, fire with the second guy over first's head and have second crouch, and fire with the third guy over first and second's heads.

[a] [C]

[a] [c]

[a] [c][c]

= standing Xenonaut

[c] = crouching Xenonaut

[a] = alien

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A similar issue - and the worse offender IMO - is hedges / fences and the likes being able to block the same shot twice. Below 4 dimensions two straight lines can only ever intersect once, that's basic geometry.

At the very least, if a trajectory crosses a group of homogeneous neighboring tiles, only the first one intersected should be able to block bullets. Following existing game mechanics this means if that tile is adjacent to the player, there is no blocking at all. Ideally this rule should be extended to non-homogeneous chains of non-empty tiles so that only objects higher than the entry tile can block and even then only proportional to height difference instead of absolute height.

Not sure I'd want to be able to fire over barrels two blocks away though, that seems kind of arbitrary. The way I see it adjacent objects don't block because the soldier can lean on them while aiming.

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Part of the problem is that Xenonauts can't "track" shots the way the original one did; this one uses a kinda of bastardized system halfway between the OG and the EU:2012 reboot. The original one simply had shots travel in a cone that was tightened by accuracy and firing mode, and the round could go wide, up, or down. Cover reduced chance of being hit by flat out blocking a shot that was flying your way... like real cover does, not by reducing the accuracy of the round flying out the gun's barrel. That said, Diner Dash wasn't built to simulate bullet physics, so...

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seems like theres actually 3 issues discussed here:

+ Firing over an adjacent object more than 1 tile long ( tree log, hay ) will incur a penalty for the non-adjacent tiles of the object

+ Firing over any adjacent collection of objects with a similar shape ( crouching soldiers ) will incur a penalty for the non-adjacent objects, even though mathmatically speaking, if you could shoot over the first object the trajectory will never go through the rest.

+ Obstacles increase the spread ( cone ) of the shot instead of simply blocking the shot

I agree with all 3 being very detrimental to gameplay - a tactical game is based on manipulating tactical advantages where you perceive them and if these perceived advantages are simply not there then you can't play properly.

A solution is either to model them in such a way that they are no longer perceived as giving the advantage ( add a branch to the fallen log object ) OR to fix it so that any perceived advantage is actually there.

I really hope there is time / capacity to fix this because I think it would make a big difference.

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That about sums it up yes. On another note, as far as I can tell the Firaxis game uses actual 3D bullet tracing yet I find it less consistent and predictable than Xenonauts. UD and TFTD are even more reliable but that is mainly due to a simplified ruleset. The best implementation I played so far is Fallout Tactics and that game uses a system similar to Xenonauts in the same sprite based 2D layout.

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Ehhhhhhh, the Firaxis model is even simpler. First it rolls Shooter's Aim - (Target's Cover + Target's Defense) = x. Then it rolls a 1d100; if this number is less than or equal to x, the shot is successful.

Not talking about what factors into the calculation but how the bullet is actually traced. As in the game has a full fledged 3D engine and uses hitscan to trace bullets. At least that's what I was trying to say.

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The Xenonauts are visually challenged. Apaprently shooting over tables becomes impossible if the table is long.

Even with All TU's invested in an aimed shot.

A way to fix it would be to take into account distance to target. The firther away the target it, the less the first few tile closest to the shooter matter.

Or better yet, it should take proportions into calculation, not actual distance. Up to 1/3rd (or 1/6) distance to target, any cover tiles are ignored for the shooter.

So if you're 30 tiles from the enemy and shooting behind a long table or log, the first 5-10 tiles will be ignored and will not count as obstructing the shot.

***

Also, bloody redicilous aiming calculation. How the FRAK do my soliders manage to hit a guy who is standing to their left and 1 tile forward. He isn't even in the 90° forward cone. Heck, he isn't in the 120°cone! Just how drunk you have to be to miss that badly?

cit_bleach_-_table_flip.jpg

Edited by TrashMan
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No, I didn't mean fixing the shooting over cover thing. I meant the "cover reducing accuracy of the weapon instead of simply blocking the normally well-aimed bullets" thing.

I'm pretty sure this is actually the case. According to the wiki (which, in fairness, isn't the most reliable of sources!), the accuracy penalty for cover is factored in such that if the shot misses *because of the cover* then it hits the cover (rather than scattering as for a regular missed shot).

It's possible the game actually work like this, but my own experience playing seems to corrispond with this system (which is to say, I've always assumed that if a shot hits a cover prop then it has missed because of the cover, while if it misses by scattering it's because the shot just wasn't on target. Snipers would be a good way to test, since usually their accuiracy is super-high against non-covered opponents, so shooting against a target in cover should result in most shots which miss hitting cover).

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That doesn't mean we won't do it, of course - it's just not the only thing we're working on. It's more than likely that some accuracy problems are fundamental and won't be correctable, but others can be fixed. It's a complex system and there's a lot to consider with it...but it is being looked at.

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