Tactical Combat Suggestion; Headshot/Critical shot

[jimbobfury]

Hi all,

I've seen a few comments from people asking about implementing the ability to hit different parts of a target's body, but it seems that the consensus is that coding this in would be a hell of a lot of work and isn't practical, which is fair enough.

So, I thought that maybe instead of outright targeting different body parts, we could simulate the effects of this via the same method that allows you to put more AP into a shot to increase the accuracy.

So when you're setting up your shot, you'd cycle through the aiming options with the right click and a new option would be added, whereby allocating slightly more AP to a shot results in attempting a critical/head shot. From a balance standpoint, I'd imagine the accuracy of this shot should be lower than your standard chance to hit, but it could result in double damage if the shot lands. This brings in an extra layer of depth to consider when making your shots, with a high risk/high reward option.

You could take this a step further and add a second critical shot type, which simulates aiming for the alien's legs, resulting in lower health damage, but a reduction to the aliens movement/AP, useful for stopping Xenonauts' equivalent of the Chyssalid in it's tracks when you're not confident you could outright kill it in time.

What do people think? Would this be possible to code, I guess that's the most important question. And would it add to the game?

Cheers!

[BobbyDylan]

I would LOVE the ability to target different parts of the body. And the head should not always be the most vulnerable, either. It'd take some research to work out which is the most sesitive area of the alien.

[Amiga4ever]

It'd take some research to work out which is the most sesitive area of the alien.

I agree I thought about it in 1994 when UFO launched. I mean about alien corpse research - to find weak point of current alien.

I like this idea

[poulwrist]

Wonder how it worked in Apocalypse... I feel like installing Apocalypse again

[jimbobfury]

The thing is, with this system, you wouldn't actually be aiming for specific body parts. It's just a possible way of representing shots to more sensitive areas using the current aiming mechanic. So I'm not sure researching the alien to find it's weaknesses could be bought into play, sadly. Don't get me wrong, I think that would be fantastic too, but I'm sure I've seen either Chris, or somebody else on the team explain why they don't think they can incorporate so much detail into the current aiming system.

It'd be nice if I was wrong though!

[BobbyDylan]

If some form of critical hit was included, it'd be quite straightforward to do. Lets say wit no research done on that alien type, you get a possibile critical at 10% (possibly working in soldier stats too in some mathimatical way). If to have performed the research, you get the possible critical at 25%.

To balance this out, it could only work with aimed shots, and require 3 dead and 3 live bodies of those aliens t complete the research.

[anotherdevil]

but the problem with this system is that there is no way of increasing your accuracy. Right now you spend more AP, you have a higher chance to hit. What you suggest is you spend more AP, you have a lower chance to hit, but if you do hit you do more damage.

I'd prefer just random criticals myself

[GreySciTe]

The idea with the criticals depending on alien body research is a nice one.

[Ziggarius]

Does anyone know if they're using the damage scaling that X-Com did? I.e. a weapon can critically hit, or critically 'miss', in other words, the damage listed in X-Com was the average. It could do 0 damage, or it could do twice the listed damage, however over time it would do the listed damage on average.

If it was like this already, then the research alien body could adjust that scaling. Maybe make it so when we get it a hit it's more likely to do non-zero damage, and have a chance to go above the double damage. ( maybe 10% to 250% instead 0% to 200% )

Course, that all depends on how the damage scaling is done currently of course.

[anotherdevil]

I think it does +/- 20% at the moment...

[MrPyro]

You could combine a critical hit system with the accuracy system by having a critical hit if you beat the target percentage by some set amount.

For instance: you have a shot with a 70% chance of hitting, which means the computer is going to randomly generate a number between 1 and 100, and you hit if it is less than 70. You could add a system whereby if the random number beat the percentage by , say, 50 (so in our example you would have a 20% chance) you score a critical hit.

[Szabtom]

I think a flat % chance of critical hits (maybe based on maybe weapon type i.e. pistos, rifle, shotgun, etc), improved by researching alien autopsy, would add plenty of flavor and just enough complexity.

e.g. Pistol 2%

rifle 10%

shotgun 15%

And then the research into the xeno bioforms would add 5% on top.

Or something along these lines.

[Gorlom]

10 % sounds a bit high for rifles imo. 15% for shotguns could work if its just for the ballistic version and the later tiers that has smg mechanics instead gets a lower crit rateing.