Opening door should trigger reaction fire

[TacticalDragon]

To be honest, I don't think flashbangs need to go anywhere at all. It's worth noting that a flashbang is only especially powerful against Caesans who are all more-or-less one-shot suppressed by a flashbang. In contrast, many Sebillians (either from Guard or Soldier upwards, I can't quite remember) are resistant enough to suppression that one flashbang isn't enough (and therefore they get to fire on the flashbang thrower) while Androns are entirely immune. The same is true for the machine gun.

So I'm not sure that a nerf to these items would make a huge amount of difference. It would certainly make Light Scout and Scout assaults more difficulty, since those are the instances where suppression is especially powerful. Elsewhere, though, I'm not sure it would matter all that much.

(And I like flashbangs a lot. Non-direct-damage equipment is cool; it would be a shame to lose some of it).

EDIT: Not sure whether this would actually help much with the problem, but - randomized suppression damage? Part of the reason why flashbangs and machineguns are good against early aliens is that they always suppress their targets, therefore are a safe bet. If suppression damage was randomized, this wouldn't always be the case so you'd have to take additional precautions or else take a different approach instead.

Agree flashbangs rocks! but their use is limited, thing taht make the item interesting.

[Gauddlike]

Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about. I said that I think that opening door should trigger reaction fire and that reaction fire should consider everybody visible as a target not just the soldier who did the action that triggered it. Doesn't that clearly define in what situation and to who that would apply? And, since this would make the game harder, I also said that there should be a modifier per level, let's say 0 for easy, 0.3 (=30%) for normal, 0.6 for veteran and 1 (i.e. the normal 100% value) for insane. What bonus and different rules are you talking about? It is perfectly consistent with the rest of the game (and also with many things being adjustable per difficulty level).

No I didn't find your suggestion to be clearly defined to be honest.

I was looking at it from the context of the current system though so perhaps the inconsistencies explain that.

Unless your suggestion is just poorly worded it does not make a lot of sense for it to run alongside the current system.

It is a different set of rules because your suggestion appears to be that opening a door should trigger reaction fire and anyone in sight should be a target while at the moment no other action triggers a reaction in that way.

If it doesn't apply in every situation that makes it a different rule for specific situations.

Currently reaction fire is triggered when a unit encounters an enemy with a higher initiative.

Actions do not trigger reaction fire, spending enough TU to drop your units initiative below that of the enemy units who can see them does.

Making door opening trigger reaction fire would be introducing a new and specific rule just for opening doors.

You would then also be adding another new rule where the units relative initiative is ignored so they can be targeted by reaction fire triggered by the previous new rule.

To me that is clearly a case of using a different set of rules for door opening to the rest of the reaction system.

Opening a door costs very little TU so would be unlikely to trigger a reaction in the current system unless you where silly enough to not use a high initiative unit.

At least it would be consistent if it was fixed though.

I don't really know what the bonus/penalty by difficulty level you are also suggesting is supposed to achieve.

I am not convinced you have thought a 70% reduction in reaction fire across the board out fully.

Unless of course you are intending that to only apply in a specific situation as well?

[llunak]

First of all, you apparently don't know how reaction fire works, since your facts are incorrect. It can be easily checked that just spending TUs doesn't trigger reaction fire, a soldier can spend all TUs e.g. crouching and standing up and will not be shot at. Only specific actions such as moving, shooting or throwing trigger reaction fire (reaction fire check, if you really need everything spelled out). Door opening currently is not such an action and the first suggestion is that it should be. So much for new specific rules.

As for you not understanding what I mean, I think I've said it already enough times in different ways, so I'll pass on that one, and quite frankly I don't know if you're not just kidding me (of course the modifier is supposed to apply only to the situations I'm talking about, what do you think it should apply to?).

[llunak]

Or you could just limit the door to being activated once per turn.

Thinking about this more, there seem to be 3 related things that can be easily abused: 1) Opening the door and immediately taking action since there's no reaction fire. 2) Using squadsight to snipe aliens while the soldier who provides the squadsight is safe from reaction fire. 3) Closing the door at the end of the turn to keep the squad safe, since the AI rarely opens the door again.

These are related but not the same, and each seems to require its own fix. Therefore I'd support also doing something about closing door, regardless of the issues I brought up. In fact I think it simply should not be possible to manually close UFO door at all. The AI doesn't seem to do that anyway, and for players it's usually just a cheap way to avoid alien fire during the alien turn. Also UFO doors seem to close again on their own, at least the outside ones. So maybe this should work just like in the OG, door can be opened but not closed manually, and it'll close automatically at the beginning of the next turn.

[Troublechuter]

To be honest, I don't think flashbangs need to go anywhere at all. It's worth noting that a flashbang is only especially powerful against Caesans who are all more-or-less one-shot suppressed by a flashbang. In contrast, many Sebillians (either from Guard or Soldier upwards, I can't quite remember) are resistant enough to suppression that one flashbang isn't enough (and therefore they get to fire on the flashbang thrower) while Androns are entirely immune. The same is true for the machine gun.

So I'm not sure that a nerf to these items would make a huge amount of difference. It would certainly make Light Scout and Scout assaults more difficulty, since those are the instances where suppression is especially powerful. Elsewhere, though, I'm not sure it would matter all that much.

(And I like flashbangs a lot. Non-direct-damage equipment is cool; it would be a shame to lose some of it).

EDIT: Not sure whether this would actually help much with the problem, but - randomized suppression damage? Part of the reason why flashbangs and machineguns are good against early aliens is that they always suppress their targets, therefore are a safe bet. If suppression damage was randomized, this wouldn't always be the case so you'd have to take additional precautions or else take a different approach instead.

I'm a little surprised to see so many people wanting aliens to be able to shoot the moment you open the door; all I can see this doing is resulting in a lot more frustrating, unavoidable deaths. If this were switched back on, I'd want it to happen on Insanity difficulty only; I still take plenty of casualties breaching UFOs even if I do play silly door games, especially with the corridor of doom that Corvettes have.

That said, I would be happy if doors could only be activated once per turn, or with randomized suppression damage, as suggested above, although frankly Sebillians resist plenty of my flashbangs as-is!

[fahugugahds]

Hey, just registered and thought I would drop by for this discussion. IME on insane difficulty:

Flashbang reliability is way too high while in the UFO, but seems well suited while on the field. Despite the throw % modifier being low, the throw ends up being accurate. I can reliably suppress every single alien in a large UFO room with a single flashbang on every UFO up to landing ship (haven't played past that), sebilllians included. If their radius was decreased I would not be able to use them very well in the field any more, though. They're integral to the feel of the game, I would be very sad to see them removed.

I would mirror the earlier suggestion of preventing soldiers from closing UFO doors and allowing them to remain open through the alien turn. That was actually the assumption I was operating under until seeing the icon to close doors by chance of a wandering cursor. It also kind of doesn't intuitively make sense that soldiers would be able to deftly manipulate UFO doors like that - it detracts from the dangerous mystique of the alien architecture. Before the open/close flashbang tactic, I would also be wary of leaving soldiers out in the open in sight of an open UFO door, but now I can just have them blow all their TUs on a shooting spree after a shield scout opens door -> flashbangs -> close door. The aliens never come out, and couldn't anyway because they're all suppressed.

This tends to translate to an almost surefire way to kill all hostiles in even large rooms on the first floor of UFOs without losing a single soldier on insane, even without any armor to speak of. I seem to recall that in earlier builds of the game, breaching a UFO was the most harrowing experience on offer, and I miss that.

I do not think that allowing aliens full TU reaction fire after opening a door is a good idea. That results in a massive alien advantage in too many situations. How can you possibly react to consistently having to open doors to rooms of ~5-6 aliens if they all react first? It also wouldn't coincide with my expectations; if a squad opens a door, they're going to do it mentally prepared with guns blazing, not the other way around.

Edited May 18, 2014 by fahugugahds

[legit1337]

I still think the most reasonable solution would be to have doors only be able to be activated once per turn.

But when I proposed it 4 months ago a lot of people shot me down saying that "it would be confusing for new players". Chris himself said he didn't like that idea and instead upped the TU cost for activating doors.

That wasn't enough IMO. Door closing is still very viable and by far the safest way to engage aliens hiding inside a room.

Flashbangs are fine IMO. They perform their purpose well.

[kabill]

That said, I would be happy if doors could only be activated once per turn, or with randomized suppression damage, as suggested above, although frankly Sebillians resist plenty of my flashbangs as-is!

One of the consequences of randomised suppression damage is that, actually, sometimes a single flashbang would be enough to suppress even quite resistant targets (I had in mind a +/-50% like weapon damage). It wouldn't be reliable, but there'd be a chance.

[ventuswings]

Having the doors be usable once per turn solution seem to be better than removing the flashbangs outright, but I concur communicating that successfully to new players may be difficult...

Regardless, having 'crossed out symbol' show up instead of the 'door symbol' would easily indicate it is not a bug, and players would learn after making that mistake once I think.

Edited May 19, 2014 by ventuswings

[StellarRat]

I'm thinking of removing flashbangs and toning down the suppression radius down on MGs so they can't suppress all the aliens in a room with a single burst. UFOs are a bit easy to assault at the moment.

Please don't remove the flashbangs. If you really think a change is needed make them less effective somehow (more TU to throw, shorter range, smaller radius,etc...) Each choice you take out of the game makes the game less interesting to play. Edited May 19, 2014 by StellarRat

[TacticalDragon]

Please don't remove the flashbangs. If you really think a change is needed make them less effective somehow (more TU to throw, shorter range, smaller radius,etc...) Each choice you take out of the game makes the game less interesting to play.

Agree! Flashbangs are great!

[legit1337]

I also concur, I love flashbangs.

[smoitessier]

I don't know if this was suggested, but what about increasing the TU cost of opening doors so it puts the soldier bellow the enemies reaction threshold? Of course this can be mitigated by waiting a full turn to be at full TU before opening. So it would be great if there was more edgy suspense, ie the AI could open doors without having to cross it, and shoot at you, or even better clear a way and rush out and flank you

Edited May 19, 2014 by smoitessier

[kabill]

That's what happened when this topic came up a while ago! The TU cost for opening doors used to be something like 4.

I'm not sure it makes much difference, though. The kinds of strategies which have been discussed above still work pretty much regardless of the TU cost to open the door, because they rely on other units than the one which opened the door doing something.

[Gauddlike]

First of all, you apparently don't know how reaction fire works, since your facts are incorrect. It can be easily checked that just spending TUs doesn't trigger reaction fire, a soldier can spend all TUs e.g. crouching and standing up and will not be shot at. Only specific actions such as moving, shooting or throwing trigger reaction fire (reaction fire check, if you really need everything spelled out). Door opening currently is not such an action and the first suggestion is that it should be. So much for new specific rules.

As for you not understanding what I mean, I think I've said it already enough times in different ways, so I'll pass on that one, and quite frankly I don't know if you're not just kidding me (of course the modifier is supposed to apply only to the situations I'm talking about, what do you think it should apply to?).

Interestingly the part I disagree with is not that door opening should be treated as all other actions (as should kneeling and standing) but that you appear to be suggesting that the initiative system should be ignored for opening doors while it is not ignored for any other action.

The OG system that Xenonauts reaction system is based on does have reaction fire on kneeling/standing and I have never noticed that it was not the case in Xenonauts, possibly because I don't tend to use those actions more than once a turn.

I admit I tried to simplify my previous post to avoid it dragging on too long and cut too much from it so it didn't make much sense so I apologise for that.

There is a reaction test triggered by actions which I feel all actions should be part of unless they are hidden actions, for example moving items in your inventory.

However those actions only trigger any kind of reaction if the initiative of the opponent is higher.

If opening a door immediately triggers reaction fire on any and all enemy units in view it does have a very different method of operation than any other action as it ignores the initiative requirement.

I also feel that this would be a horrible game play feature.

As for not understanding your modifier to reflexes that is because you have never clarified who you would apply it to or what situations you are actually talking about using it in.

You mention the 'defenders' in one post but I am unsure if you mean the defenders of the UFO (making reaction fire rarer only when breaching), the defenders of the map (i.e. xenonauts in base defence, aliens in base assaults etc which is unlikely as it penalises the defender rather than the attacker) or if you mean the defender in each and every reaction situation (i.e. the unit that is moving in its own turn, making reaction fire across the board much rarer).

It should be a simple matter to clarify this for me to help me understand what you are trying to accomplish.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Gauddlike

[Solver]

From the work tracker, it appears that Chris wants to go with the solution of doors only being usable once per turn. I support that solution.

[KevinHann]

I would much prefer aliens to reaction fire when doors open and get the player to find other solutions like smoke grenades, etc. but if this is what the powers that be prefer so be it. But honestly while I recognize the need of a fix I frankly hate the proposed change. It just doesn't feel natural to be only able to open/close door once per turn which brings an obvious "we couldn't figure another way around it so that's that" vibe to it. There is just no logical reason for soldiers to "forget" they can actually use doors after the first use of the turn and a lot of players might feel unfairly limited in order to give the aliens an artificial advantage.

[StellarRat]

One would think the aliens would be well aware that the Xenonauts are outside about ready to enter the ship. Certainly, they have already received reports from their (now dead) guards on the outside that something is up. You have to believe they have some type of monitoring (cameras, sensors,etc...) capability outside the ship.

[KevinHann]

If we have to discuss the sheer realism of the situation it's exceptionally strange the aliens would be so "surprised" that a human soldier opens the door to their UFO that they couldn't fire in response. The entire purpose of standing behind to protect the ship is you are watching at the door to shoot down any pesky intruders - how on earth could you be surprised when they actually show up??

Of course the game mechanics don't exclusively need to adhere to this but it does leave the sense the aliens aren't very bright or combat prepared (as if they are actually on a global invasion or something).

[llunak]

One would think the aliens would be well aware that the Xenonauts are outside about ready to enter the ship. Certainly, they have already received reports from their (now dead) guards on the outside that something is up. You have to believe they have some type of monitoring (cameras, sensors,etc...) capability outside the ship.

I would say they do know (meaning the AI), but it appears that the passive aliens that stay inside the UFOs are way too passive and rarely do much more than sit in place and shoot at anything that appears in front of their guns. That makes them pretty vulnerable to any of the three exploits I listed here . And I expect their passivity is not something that'd be easy to improve reasonably, as they can't e.g. charge out of the UFO, since that'd make slaughtering them even easier.

So as much as I find making doors usable only once per turn a poor solution (even not allowing closing them manually at all would probably look better, as is the case e.g. with Xenonaut base gates), fixing at least one of the cheap solutions at least this way is still far better than nothing.

[ventuswings]

It just doesn't feel natural to be only able to open/close door once per turn which brings an obvious "we couldn't figure another way around it so that's that" vibe to it.

It can be argued that each turn constitutes several seconds, which is enough time for someone to open & close the door but not enough to do so repeatedly. Even if we assume each turn to be longer, it's extremely unnatural for one to be able to manipulate the UFO doors so easily - even light scout doors are two tiles wide; that's pretty massive gateway. It also wouldn't be stretch to assume that alien craft doors have some sort of automatic security mechanism which need to be circumvented before each usage. Even at Earth, I don't have to walk far to see doors involving electronic key, cards, and remote control...

[Solver]

Or you can say those are automatic doors. Takes them a while to open/close, they're too slow to do it twice in a turn.

[KevinHann]

It can be argued that each turn constitutes several seconds, which is enough time for someone to open & close the door but not enough to do so repeatedly. Even if we assume each turn to be longer, it's extremely unnatural for one to be able to manipulate the UFO doors so easily - even light scout doors are two tiles wide; that's pretty massive gateway. It also wouldn't be stretch to assume that alien craft doors have some sort of automatic security mechanism which need to be circumvented before each usage. Even at Earth, I don't have to walk far to see doors involving electronic key, cards, and remote control...

That argument could be expanded when you throw in the fact the change will cover all doors and not just UFO doors and it suddenly isn't that simple. It's also pretty arguable whether you can't open/close/open/close/open a door in the same time you could open/shoot/reload weapon/crouch/heal a heavy wound with a medikit or any other viable actions combination.

I'm not saying I won't get used to it over time. I will. Although it still won't feel natural and I doubt there won't be a significant number of players who will think the same when playing the game. I sincerely hope this doesn't get in reviews of the game after release as one of the insignificant but annoying features (and I can see that happening). It would take away from what Xenonauts deserves!

[Mikhail Ragulin]

My Xenonauts attract reaction fire by using a medikit. They find it damn rude that the same doesn't happen when they open a door.

[StellarRat]

I think some of you missed my point. All I'm saying is that it seems every alien gun in the UFO would be aimed and waiting for some poor Xenonaut to open the door, so therefore the opening door triggering instant reaction fire makes a great deal of sense. If that is exploitable somehow then that may preclude such a mechanic. Even if it weren't, it's possible that you might not ever be able to enter I UFO without losing at least one Xenonaut, that would be a balance problem.