Before I post a bug report has anyone else seen this?

[StellarRat]

I have my squad about 7 tiles back from a Sebillan that's facing away from them crouched down behind a wooden crate i.e. they snuck up behind him. In front of the him is my Hunter scout car (a good distance away, but still within spotting range.) On the Sebillan's turn he spins around and drops one of my guys then goes back to facing the opposite direction. I have verified that there is no other alien that can spot my squad. How did he see my guys? Do aliens not use FOV like the Xenonauts do? I've had similar incidents like this with Sebillans swarming out of a building there were in and attacking one of the guys sneaking up the side of building where there were no windows that the Sebillans could have seen him through. It's like they had X-ray vision. Is this intentional behavior?

Edited March 6, 2014 by StellarRat

[Skitso]

Yeah, I have noticed similar happening. Aliens seem to be able to sense xenonauts presence and it's (almost) impossible to ambush or flank them. They also seem to turn towards nearest xenonaut at the end of their turn even if they shouldn't even know there are enemies. (behing a wall for example)

[Chris]

I think the aliens turn around to check if there's anyone sneaking up on them at the start of the turn, so it probably just saw your guys and then shot them.

The "always face the closest Xenonauts" is a hack, but it's there to make reaction fire reasonably effective.

[kabill]

It's plausible this is working as intended. There's a property in AIprops.xml labelled 'sound' which attracts AI attention as a result of actions taken (presumably by player units?). The description implies that it would preduce precisely the kinds of effect you describe.

For reference:

"Sound: Each action will cause a rippling, decaying function originating from the source. Negative attracts unit to the source"

EDIT: Or what Chris said!

[Skitso]

Hmmm... I'm not liking it. Out smarting and flanking your enemies is one of the high points of these games. Maybe have them face closest closed door or window if no xenonaut location is known, but sensing flanking enemies behind walls looks and feels cheap.

Also, aliens checking their flank should be random and not automatic every turn. AI shouldn't always make optimal decisions but try to give suitable resistance while maintaining as high fun factor as possible.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Skitso

[StellarRat]

I think the aliens turn around to check if there's anyone sneaking up on them at the start of the turn, so it probably just saw your guys and then shot them.

The "always face the closest Xenonauts" is a hack, but it's there to make reaction fire reasonably effective.

I can buy this if they spend the TU to turn around and check behind every once in a while (or at the start of every turn even), but I can't buy them sensing my guys when they are in a building and they would have to see/hear through a solid wall to detect them (my second example.) This makes it very difficult/impossible to pin them down in a building and blow it up with C4 or throw a grenade through a window after you've carefully snuck up by skirting along a wall. My guys can't detect aliens in building through a wall nor can they hear aliens moving up. I've also had the aliens come swarming out of UFOs, rooms in bases, etc... when my guys were close to the door. Seems a like a pretty big cheat for the aliens. I would probably be OK with this IF the Xenonauts got "sound" markers or a warning message like they gave you in JA2 ("Bull hears footsteps coming from the southwest.")

This also brings up a question: If the Sebillan turned to check his rear view and shot one of my guys, why didn't he stay facing my squad? He shot and then went back to facing the wrong way. My Hunter was very far from him, so I don't think he was able to see it although it could see him.

Edited March 6, 2014 by StellarRat

[frank_walls]

I find the aliens are always doing things my guys can't do. Such as running up to FOV with my guys, snapping off a shot that hits my guy, and then running back behind cover. Hardly any of my guys can do that.

I'm stuck at a point where my base gets invaded because my planes are beat up and I can't take down the alien ship. Anyway, I've tried 3 times to defend my base with the 9 guys in it and the aliens are slaughtering me! I have all 9 guys taking on each breach one at a time. There's 3 breaches, and by the time I get to the 3rd I'm down to 4 guys if I'm lucky.

The most frustrating issue is the reaction fire. In order to move the game along I usually have 1/2 to 2/3 of my guys maneuvering into a better fire position or get close enough to throw grenades. The problem I see is that aliens hardly move, and just kind of camp there and pick off my guys with reaction fire. My weapons don't seem to have much suppression power, where as the aliens almost always suppress my guys with bursts from their rifles.

The only thing that seems to work is to either camp there and wait for aliens to wander into my guys FOV and hope they get them through reaction fire, or just spam them with rockets or grenades. However, grenades don't work well because throwing them indoors over obstacles like 4 foot tall crates is impossible. So I guess I'll just load up on rockets.

Edited March 6, 2014 by frank_walls