Teiwaz Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 Xenonauts does some neat stuff in terms of allowing soldiers to take cover behind waist-high walls. However, a more common circumstance is taking cover at a corner, like the corner of a building, or at a doorway. I always have a heck of a time with tile-based squad games like this positioning my troops in cover at these corners - either they are behind the corner, and so can't be shot at all but can't see either, or they're standing in the open in order to see, but don't benefit from cover at all. Cover at corners is critical in indoor spaces, and in most maps tends to be substantially more available than waist-high walls. I suggest implementing a system similar to the mid-level cover system to allow soldiers to take cover behind corners, but still be able to see, shoot, and be seen and shot in return. For example: #| 3 |###| |###| |###| |[u]##[/u]#| 1 2#| In the current system, soldier 1 can see and shoot at alien 3, but is completely exposed. Soldier 2 is completely obscured to alien 3, but can neither see or shoot at him. Soldier 2 *should* be able to take cover at his present position, but lean out around the corner to see alien 3 and shoot at him while only minimally exposing himself to return fire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 I think you might actually find that soldier at 2 can actually see alien at 3... http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Line_of_sight However I agree with you. Perhaps kneeling at a corner provides a few extra tiles of vision around the corner. Though for shooting to work, new animations would have to be added, and that might be asking for too much... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 This would kind of screw with how the basic game mechanics work though (units don't go outside their tiles in any other circumstance), so it's not something I'll really consider until the beta. Anotherdevil - nah, 2 wouldn't be able to see 3. His view cone would be 45 degrees in front of him due to the corner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Ah true, sorry read the diagram wrong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teiwaz Posted November 7, 2011 Author Share Posted November 7, 2011 D&D 4th edition traces line of sight to and from the corners of tiles, rather than to and from the center of tiles, which covers this circumstance nicely. (The algorithm is essentially that you pick a corner of the tile you're in, and you trace LOS to the corners of all the tiles the enemy is in. If you have LOS to a single corner, you have LOS, but unless you have LOS to all corners, the enemy benefits from cover.) In Xenonauts, this could be represented by modifying the... I forget what it's called... base hit chance of the target? (i.e. the value that's 60% for crouching troops and 100% for standing. Multiply that by number of exposed corners / total number of corners.) I find not being able to effectively use corners as cover extremely counter-intuitive, and having my fragile soldiers run around corners like idiots (facing the wrong way, no less!) rather than pie corners, or use doorways as cover, very frustrating. I'd be concerned about leaving something like this all the way until beta, as it's a low-level technical/mechanical change, it would have a substantial effect on balance (the amount of available cover in an area would easily triple), AI would have to be updated to understand that when attempting to move to establish line of sight to a unit, it works to get line of sight to an adjacent tile, but would be *better* to establish line of sight to a different tile, etc. Lots of knock-on effects. I'd be surprised if something like this would be feasible as late as beta, which would be very unfortunate, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 You are referring to 'stopping value' I believe my good sir (or madam) This does however mean that you would be able to effectively see around corners (as the corner of your tile is right on the corner, and can therefore see around the corner (just) to about anything, even those who are standing against the wall quite a bit away (around the corner that is) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teiwaz Posted November 7, 2011 Author Share Posted November 7, 2011 Yeah, "stopping value" sounds right. (I can't even remember where I read that.) Yes, the "d&d4" system means you can use a corner as "cover" any distance away form it. I don't think this is a problem, however, and is quite realistic. If you can only see a fraction of my body around a corner, it doesn't matter how far away I am from the corner, it's still doing its job of making me harder to hit. The advantage of being closer to the cover object than your opponent is that you have to move less and your opponent has to move more in order to alter the amount of each of you that is more or less concealed. The other advantage of this method for calculating corner cover, rather than creating a special exception case (where people can trace LOS from an adjacent tile, but only when they're in cover) is that it covers a number of edge cases very well. For example, imagine a doorway in the side of a hallway. With this system, you could move up to the doorway (but not all the way into the hallway) and scope out the hall with the safety of cover from the door by looking both ways, rather than the current system, where you have to boldly leap all the way out into the hallway before you can see down it. There are also a lot of realistic tactical applications - the first soldier could stop at a corner and provide covering fire from protection while the rest of the team moves ahead. Flanking, pincer actions, and making multiple simultaneous entries into a room becomes more important, as suddenly there's more available cover which can be defeated by getting around to the side of it. (As the threshold for exposing a third "corner" of a tile to reduce the cover bonus is a less drastic move than that required to avoid shooting through the facing edge of the tile, as is the case when trying to deny waist-high wall sorts of cover.) It turns the "all or nothing" approach of regular tile based LOS checks - where either you're completely exposed, or not exposed at all - and introduces a middle-ground where you can peek around corners, and be partially exposed to attackers and so be more difficult to hit but not impossible to hit, which is really the essence of cover. And it just makes more sense to someone who isn't intimately familiar with the mechanics underlying the game. (If I'm partially concealed, I just expect to be harder to hit. That's not the case, right now.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 X-com was a bit screwy with the whole "LOS and corners" thing. Adding being able to see/shoot around corners would be a good thing, but as Chris said, very hard to do without messing a bunch of other things up. Just something to work around while playing. On advantage we do have however, is being able to blow up buildings. So rather than go around the corner, go through the wall (then through the other wall). As long as we can also ambush the aliens in the same way around corners, it should be quite acceptable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Ah Sathra, always the positive angle! =] And always with the explosions too... Coincidence? I think not! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Its a legitimate strategy. Effective one too. The wild laughter is entirely optional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catmorbid Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 This would be a good idea. Definitely something that makes sense and is lacking in pretty much every squad-based tactical games so far. It would however, as pointed, require quite a few new animations. I'm thinking a lean-against-wall pose plus lean-shoot -animations from both standing and crouched position. However, I think it would be simply awesome and should be taken into consideration if time allows. What comes to line-of-sight, it feels logical that a soldier hiding behind corner would stay hidden unless they attack or glance. So in the earlier example, a look action from 2 in the direction of 3 would allow both 3 and 2 to see each other, otherwise 2 relies on 1's line of sight and 3 doesn't know 2 is there. 2 would by default stay hidden, so he needs to either glance or fire at 3 each round to maintain the line of sight. #| 3 |###| |###| |###| |###| 1 2#| In hidden state (no look action or shoot action that turn) corner would offer 100% cover, but if a lean-shoot or glance action was taken, the amount of cover should be left as the soldier is more exposed for a moment. Maybe make the exposition increase gradually, with glance giving just a little and lean-shoot the most. In fact this kind of mechanic would probably make sense with all types of cover. I.e. if you don't move while in cover, it means you're staying as much is cover as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuttss Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 X-com was a bit screwy with the whole "LOS and corners" thing.On advantage we do have however, is being able to blow up buildings. So rather than go around the corner, go through the wall (then through the other wall). . Going through the wall was always my prefered method to keep my troops alive. I read some where else that xenoauts doesn't allow going through the wall of an alien craft. I haven't tried it yet, is that true? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catmorbid Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 @Nuttss: As I've understood it should be possible, as everything should be destroyable, but you'd likely need a powerful weapon to be able to do that, so it might not be that viable tactic, at least not during early stages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoywolf Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 It would be cool to have breach bomb or something specific to open up walls or doors. assuming you can probably do that with grenades your troops would not be able to stand next to the entrance your making. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamkyon Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 It would be cool to have breach bomb or something specific to open up walls or doors. assuming you can probably do that with grenades your troops would not be able to stand next to the entrance your making. Explosive devices with timers will be in the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joeneren Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Its a legitimate strategy. Effective one too.The wild laughter is entirely optional. Optional? You mean I can choose NOT to? Hmmmm I'll need to look into that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 That comment fits so well with your avatar. The breaching charges (they've got an image on the Xenonauts site, looks like C4) might be able to blow through a UFO hull, but we don't know yet. Hope so though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joeneren Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 hehe yeah, he and i DO share a fondness for senseless destruction..... and a love for silly titles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 I thought it was more the pondering of your avatar =p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonshine Fox Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Clearly, you have not experienced the awesomeness that is "Richard", anotherdevil. Also, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Chris was leaning towards NOT being able to breach UFO walls, because it made the UFO assault so much less exciting. Can't find a reliable quote though, and he might've changed opinions in the months I've been away Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Na HE charges were always supposed to be able to breach some UFO walls, as far as I'm aware Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 It's more than likely UFO walls won't be breachable. Maybe the doors can be blown off. Basically it's a factor of the designs we're using for them. To make them look good on the ground the tiles will have to be of varying thicknesses and therefore they won't take damage well... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lobster Man Commander Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 I think this actually adds to the realism to the game. UFOs have thick - near impregnable armor. Xenonauts craft has to use missiles with big warheads to stand a chance to harm them. Even the smallest "Scout" Ufos can take a lot heavy auto cannon fire before going down. And that's a lot more caliber then anything we can bring to the ground. Always found it strange that I could use regular small arms fire to punch holes in the downed UFOs of the old series. While I had to use every missile I had from the interceptors to do the same in the air. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raidsoft Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 I hope that UFO's will have damage related to their combat in the air though? For example a UFO that landed and you intercepted it while it was on the ground would be completely unharmed but a say you took down a scout ship with some of the later aircraft weapons in the game that "overkilled" it would be fairly heavily damaged? Any plans for this? It would kind of suck to see pristine ships that had just been shot down if you get what I mean Though this is probably completely unrelated to this thread but the conversation was kind of hinting that way so thought I'd ask anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lokik Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 I hope that UFO's will have damage related to their combat in the air though? This is something I hope to see as well. Holes in the shot down UFO and some of the crew already dead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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