Strange hit calculations in GC

[Skitso]

I've experienced multiple situations where within a certain, seemingly random turn, nobody (any of my units or aliens)manages to hit anything regardless of high to hit probabilities, even from adjacent squares. When this occures, the bullets tend to hit targets feet (ground in the same square) without any impact sound(?) which looks always kinda cheap regardless of the situation - I think most missed bullets should fly past it's target..

Anyways, when this kind of turn happens, my whole squad might miss their every shot no matter how easy and after that, aliens do the same. Next turn everybody hits with no problem. Posting a save doesn't help, because after loading everything works fine. I have a feeling it could happen when shooting from one submap to another or near ufo (from outside to inside) but can't say anything for sure.

This is the single most frustrating bug in the game! Has anyone else experienced the same, or am I making this up in my head?

Edited January 15, 2014 by Skitso

[StellarRat]

It could be a random number generator glitch. That would explain the fact that a save won't replicate it. If it is there may be very little GH can do about it. Could also be a working variable that isn't properly cleared at some point. That would also be fixed by a reload.

Edited January 15, 2014 by StellarRat

[Ol' Stinky]

I don't think it affected the alien, but I have had a soldier miss something like four pistol shots at point blank once. It was displayed as having a 95% chance to hit. That's it, though, and both units were inside the same room in a ufo. You're targetting the alien and not the tile(s) behind him, right?

[Skitso]

Sounds exactly like that. I've too had a simlar situation where my pistolero emptied a clip in an adjacent alien with 95% change with not a single hit. It was also inside a ufo. There has to be something fishy going on there... Are you getting hits in the ground where target stands? It should be taken away or reduced significantly... it just looks stupid and feels cheap. "Dammit, that should've hit!!"

And yeah Stinky, I always make sure my target turns green when aiming.

[Ol' Stinky]

Yeah, when it happened, the shot hit the tile every time. I figured it might be a bug to do with the new "shoot a tile beyond the target and be rewarded with hitting the alien's feet instead, bwah ha ha haaa" feature going wrong at close range, but I'm guessing you were at range. I'm afraid all I can do is reassure you that yes, there is a gremlin on the wing of the plane and yes, he's gonna crash the plane into a squad of your soldiers. I can see the little blighter too.

[Skitso]

Strange thing though, if anybody else isn't noticing this...? At least it isn't reported in the bug section...

[StellarRat]

A long time ago there were issues with accuracy related to what kind of tiles the target and firer were standing on. Maybe that has come back? But then, it wouldn't change on reload.

[Max_Caine]

I've noticed it myself, but only when shooting at a kneeling alien in a UFO. It's very specific for me. Perhaps this thread should be moved to the bug report thread?

[Skitso]

Yeah, could a moderator lend a hand, perhaps?

[Skitso]

Does anyone know what these are in the config:

<CrouchingStoppingChance default="80" oneTileDist="80" />

[Chris]

Yeah, it says that crouching gives you 80% of the chance to be hit that a standing soldier has.

Regarding the accuracy calculations, try playing the gc_editor.exe version of the game while running the debugger: www.xenonauts.com/devfiles/xeno_debugger.exe

That will post debug information on the numbers the accuracy formula is using for each shot. Might shed some light on what's actually happening.

[jeon]

Ah, a debugging tool, I will use it to see if I can help track this problem down (although I have not seen it at all). I have tried it out some and noticed that suppression acts weird, applying or not applying to various aliens in the room from what are, as far as I can tell, identical shots. I'm guessing there is some other roll related to suppression that is not shown in the tool because it apparently can miss. I have seen some random number clumping, but nothing that would cause everyone in a turn to miss or hit.

[Chris]

Supression can't "miss" as far as I'm aware. It's applied to the tile you're aiming at rather than where the bullet lands, though.

[jeon]

Supression can't "miss" as far as I'm aware. It's applied to the tile you're aiming at rather than where the bullet lands, though.

Shotguns don't appear to apply any suppression at all, even when you are shooting someone point blank in the face.

I was wrong about the missing thing. The suppression does appear to get blocked by cover though, although I haven't tested how little cover it takes to completely block it. I shot a rocket launcher on one side of a table with 37.5% cover and the suppression hit my soldiers 4 squares away, but not the guy only 1 diagonal square through the table away from the blast that blew up the table and injured him. Or if I shoot all my weapons at the same square instead, people will take suppression if they are out in the open, but the guy diagonally behind the corner never takes any.

I did some tests with shooting at the alien and tossing flashbangs at him and discovered that the suppression is not applied for the flashbang if the alien succeeds in his reaction fire test. I bumped up the reaction multiplier to 3x on his plasma rifle and he would never take suppression from flashbangs unless he was out of TUs to make a reaction fire check. He did still correctly take suppression from normal weapons fire (except shotguns), and he wouldn't take suppression if my shot hit the cover 4 tiles away from him, so that part does appear to be working, it is just flashbangs and weapons with a pellet count that seem to be bugged (I just put pelletCount="3" on the pistol and it stopped creating any suppression just like the shotgun).

Also, the chances to hit the shield is not coming up right. Any shot from the front is showing chance to hit shield = 60%, while a shot from the back shows chance to hit shield = 100% and the alien did shoot past my shield a few times from the front and being shot in the back gets blocked every time.

[StellarRat]

Shotguns don't appear to apply any suppression at all, even when you are shooting someone point blank in the face.

I was wrong about the missing thing. The suppression does appear to get blocked by cover though, although I haven't tested how little cover it takes to completely block it. I shot a rocket launcher on one side of a table with 37.5% cover and the suppression hit my soldiers 4 squares away, but not the guy only 1 diagonal square through the table away from the blast that blew up the table and injured him. Or if I shoot all my weapons at the same square instead, people will take suppression if they are out in the open, but the guy diagonally behind the corner never takes any.

I did some tests with shooting at the alien and tossing flashbangs at him and discovered that the suppression is not applied for the flashbang if the alien succeeds in his reaction fire test. I bumped up the reaction multiplier to 3x on his plasma rifle and he would never take suppression from flashbangs unless he was out of TUs to make a reaction fire check. He did still correctly take suppression from normal weapons fire (except shotguns), and he wouldn't take suppression if my shot hit the cover 4 tiles away from him, so that part does appear to be working, it is just flashbangs and weapons with a pellet count that seem to be bugged (I just put pelletCount="3" on the pistol and it stopped creating any suppression just like the shotgun).

Also, the chances to hit the shield is not coming up right. Any shot from the front is showing chance to hit shield = 60%, while a shot from the back shows chance to hit shield = 100% and the alien did shoot past my shield a few times from the front and being shot in the back gets blocked every time.

As far as I'm concerned EVERY weapon should have some suppression ability. Any time bullets or explosions happen nearby there is fear and the urge to take cover. For some weapons the suppression chance would be real small of course. It really ought to be based somewhat on how close the bullets come to hitting the victim. A hit with any weapon should be highly suppressive, near miss somewhat, area fire even less, etc....same with explosions.

[Skitso]

I'd like to have a Jagged Alliance style system where every landed shot reduce target units AP's even if it isn't suppressed, and high one time damage numbers could render target unconscious for few turns.

[StellarRat]

I'd like to have a Jagged Alliance style system where every landed shot reduce target units AP's even if it isn't suppressed, and high one time damage numbers could render target unconscious for few turns.

Yes, that was a very realistic system. Unfortunately, I think it might cause balance issues this late in the game.

[Max_Caine]

The suppression does appear to get blocked by cover though, although I haven't tested how little cover it takes to completely block it. ]

Suppression radiates in the same way explosions do. If the explosion code was repurposed for suppression, it may cause issues where suppression is absorbed either partially or completely by objects.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Gauddlike

[jeon]

I'm not so sure how the suppression works with cover. Even a flashbang does damage to someone crouched behind cover and that has numbers much smaller than the suppression so the code is different for the explosion damage and suppression spread. Suppression appears to only hit for full, half, or none so it might be ending up below half and just going all the way to none or something like that. Oddly enough, if you add a burst fire mode to a shotgun, the suppression values for the burst fire mode is used for the single shots as well as the burst fire. I tried just putting the suppression values on the burst fire mode, but it appears it requires a valid burst fire mode to make the single shots cause suppression.

Still no luck with the all shots missing or hitting problem in this thread though. I've noticed several streaks of 2-3 rolls of the same number in a row, maybe a bit more clumping than a random number generator should give you, but I haven't noticed anything horrendous that would cause a whole turn of all hits or misses. (Especially the 95% misses that were reported)

Edited January 17, 2014 by jeon

[Ol' Stinky]

Supression can't "miss" as far as I'm aware. It's applied to the tile you're aiming at rather than where the bullet lands, though.

Should my shieldbearer outside the UFO be getting suppressed in

situation, then? He's ~5 tiles away from the targeted tile, and yet he gets suppressed when an LMG has a suppressionRadius of 4.

I also miss a ton of shots against that Caesan non-com at the front there if you rewind to

. I don't know whether Skitso used any burst fire, but that seemed to be the only thing that'd hit the Caesan. The alien also missed my shield guy (lucky for me since I messed up the angle coming in) and a civ at pretty close ranges, too. It could have been bad luck all around, though, since it wasn't all 95%ers, it was mostly 60%+. The misses look like they always hit the tile the target's standing on, too, like Skitso said in his OP.

No idea if it's any use, but I did take a save game. It's a Stinky Map Pack 2 map, though.

Edited January 18, 2014 by Ol' Stinky

[Chris]

Shotguns don't appear to apply any suppression at all, even when you are shooting someone point blank in the face.

I was wrong about the missing thing. The suppression does appear to get blocked by cover though, although I haven't tested how little cover it takes to completely block it. I shot a rocket launcher on one side of a table with 37.5% cover and the suppression hit my soldiers 4 squares away, but not the guy only 1 diagonal square through the table away from the blast that blew up the table and injured him. Or if I shoot all my weapons at the same square instead, people will take suppression if they are out in the open, but the guy diagonally behind the corner never takes any.

I did some tests with shooting at the alien and tossing flashbangs at him and discovered that the suppression is not applied for the flashbang if the alien succeeds in his reaction fire test. I bumped up the reaction multiplier to 3x on his plasma rifle and he would never take suppression from flashbangs unless he was out of TUs to make a reaction fire check. He did still correctly take suppression from normal weapons fire (except shotguns), and he wouldn't take suppression if my shot hit the cover 4 tiles away from him, so that part does appear to be working, it is just flashbangs and weapons with a pellet count that seem to be bugged (I just put pelletCount="3" on the pistol and it stopped creating any suppression just like the shotgun).

Also, the chances to hit the shield is not coming up right. Any shot from the front is showing chance to hit shield = 60%, while a shot from the back shows chance to hit shield = 100% and the alien did shoot past my shield a few times from the front and being shot in the back gets blocked every time.

Good research there, thanks. I'll look into it tomorrow.