Any way to change stance? (crouch etc.)

Is there any way to crouch/prone, and change movement speed? If not, I hope this can be added if the kickstarter goes really well (and it looks like it will)

It really adds another layer of depth that I enjoyed in JA2/Silent Storm.

You can crouch, but that's only when standing still. You can't move while crouched without standing up first.

Ah yes I see it now thanks.

I hope prone can be implemented as well though and perhaps the ability to move while prone or crouched. (maybe lessen the chance of getting spotted)?

And different speeds of running as well would be cool. I really liked how in Silent Storm if a character ended the turn in a sprint he was less likely to get hit.

I've been whining about a JA2 sprint/move/crouch/crawl in a few threads. Perhaps if the kickstarter does super well!

I think it'd be something along the lines of the following modifiers (all kind of hand waving theory crafting):

standing: +0% harder to hit, +0% accuracy. 4 TU down to crouching. 75 Soldier Stopping Value?

sprinting: move takes 3 AP per tile, chance to be hit by reaction fire +20% (you're not weaving or anything, just full on sprint). to be used only when you really need to get somewhere or you're sure no one is around and you want to find that last damn alien hiding somewhere.

default move: what we currently have. 4 AP per tile, neutral chance to be hit

crouching: +20% harder to hit, +40% accuracy. 4 TU up to standing, 8 TU down to prone. 60 Soldier Stopping Value.

duckwalk: move takes 6 AP per tile. you have better cover by hedges and are 20% less likely to draw reaction fire and retain the +20% harder to hit.

prone: +35% harder to hit, +40% accuracy (+50% accuracy with sniper or MG, or negating an "accuracy down if not prone" debuff) 6 TU up to crouching. 40 Soldier Stopping Value.

crawling: move takes 8 AP per tile. you will be invisible under most cover. you are 60% less likely to draw reaction fire and are 40% harder to hit.

We can get away with only having stand/crouch/prone for stationary, and default/crouchwalk for moving and still have a good range of options. prone is good for obvious reasons, duckwalking for going along walls/hedges/being on a roof.

Crawling and sprinting would be great for suppression (limiting suppressed targets to these two options makes for a dangerous flight or a temporarily safe turtle). Thoughts on suppression here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/1551-Suppression-Mechanics?p=20599&viewfull=1#post20599

I kinda hope there will be a crawl, like X-COM: Apocalypse, but the likeliness is very small.

I've been playing JA2 most recently and admit that I've tried to get my Xenonauts to crawl or crouch while moving, too. I'd love to see it added but I'm guessing it may not be - as is the case with adding female soldier models, the issue is that there's a huge number of art assets required for each new soldier model, since you need to make one for facing/moving in each direction, holding different weapons, etc. and it adds up quickly...

Well the kickstarter campaign is kicking ass so far - it's about 40% less than a day in. So MAKE NOISE FOR STANCES!

©RRRAAAAAAAAWWWRRL

I played JA2 many times through about a decade ago - I love the humor and merc interaction. Neither of which is appropriate to Xenonauts really heh.

erutan - have you tried the 1.13 mod for JA2? It has added a more interesting inventory system and made tons of tweaks (and guns, if that's your thing) to make the original more challenging and interesting. I dusted my game off a few months ago, installed the 1.13 mod and am having a blast.

I tried the 1.13 back when it was in it's very early stages - I had a forum account on JA-Galaxy years back. I stopped following it at some point. Diablo 3 is coming out in a week (please please don't judge me o forum of strategic combat thinker types) so I'll be busy smashing up demons with my friends. I'll give it another look - it seems like there have been some more substantial improvements over time.

Each movement mode would be another few thousand sprites.

It isn't something to be done lightly.

If it added a lot to the game then I would support it if the kickstarter goes well enough.

It would need to have some use other than look good though.

Some obvious uses:

laying stationary if you get caught in the open and cover is far away / there is risk of reaction fire on the way

being able to move in cover, instead of uncrouching and walking and crouching again (think moving along hedges, walls, etc). right now it's kind of silly to duck behind a wall and then walk upright along it.

you could add a modifier to heavy weapons (sniper, MG, etc) that they are less accurate unless prone, thus effectively increasing their AP cost and encourage people not to move around so much without an abitrary setup time / can't move this turn.

more thoughts up the thread @ http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/1833-Any-way-to-change-stance-%28crouch-etc.%29?p=20558&viewfull=1#post20558

Each movement mode would be another few thousand sprites.

It isn't something to be done lightly.

If it added a lot to the game then I would support it if the kickstarter goes well enough.

It would need to have some use other than look good though.

Goodness, I make games and I don't do thousands of sprites for that stuff... I understand its harder because the pseudo 3D though.

It isn't pseudo 3D.

It is actually more like pseudo 2D.

let's assume 8 new spritesheets for crawl (compass directions).

At the moment there are 19 weapons listed in the basic armour folder.

Assume 7 sets of armour also as I remember that number being used, possibly by Chris.

That is already 1000+ new animation files.

I would guess that, as the current weapons only cover the first two tiers and there are going to be four plus alien weapons, you could easily double that at least.

Same again on top if you added sprint and wanted new animations for it (the current one speeded up would look silly).

As I said, doable but not without a good reason.

I think crouch walking would really improve the combat, especially if it decreases the chance of alien reaction fire. Now it seems you have almost no way of sneaking up to an alien or passing a wall without drawing reaction fire.

If crouch walking is too difficult to implement then I think that a good compromise would be that when moving from a crouch position to another place it shouldn't cost extra TU to stand up can crouch again.

I don't think going prone would be of much use in the sort of combat we see in Xenonauts. It would only provide slightly more cover and stability than crouching, and to be done proper it would make turning and moving cost greatly more action points. This is fine when you're up against a line of soldiers advancing on you in JA2, but it wouldn't do very much good at all against aliens that want to annihilate you with plasma cannons and inject their eggs in your spine.

Fighting aliens just isn't the same as fighting soldiers in JA2 is my point, and the same tactics don't and shouldn't apply.

If they were using some kind of 3D-to-sprite tool and they could add new animation sets to the game with relative ease, then I'd say go for it, and let the people who want to crawl through missions do so, but I'd rather they focus the significant energy involved into features that are more vital and interesting in this setting.

Can aliens crouch btw? If going prone was implemented would Chris have to make sprites for aliens to go prone as well?

Can aliens crouch btw? If going prone was implemented would Chris have to make sprites for aliens to go prone as well?

No, you just have to assume that the aliens thinks they're so bad ass that they don't have the necessity to crawl/crouch. heh

They probably will crouch and use cover properly once the AI is more complete.

The only exception is the Andron.

The armour plated wossnames won't bother with cover and will probably be able to walk right through walls to get at you.

Walking right through walls to get at you? OOOH I hope you're right and this wiil get implemented because it's incredibly badass! T-800 style!

@stromko - re: prone would be useful if you were low on TUs in the open and wanted to drop more than a crouch, or couldn't reach the next patch, I originally stated that it'd be minimally nice to just have prone (immobile) and a crawlmove/duckwalk. It'd be useful if you were sniping from a roof that didn't have a nice little railing around it. I don't see how aliens having plasma weapons means that it's a superior strategy to stand up from your crouch in cover, jog over to the next spot exposed, and then crouch again vs duckwalking along a stone wall to stay in cover.

@stromko - re: prone would be useful if you were low on TUs in the open and wanted to drop more than a crouch, or couldn't reach the next patch, I originally stated that it'd be minimally nice to just have prone (immobile) and a crawlmove/duckwalk. It'd be useful if you were sniping from a roof that didn't have a nice little railing around it. I don't see how aliens having plasma weapons means that it's a superior strategy to stand up from your crouch in cover, jog over to the next spot exposed, and then crouch again vs duckwalking along a stone wall to stay in cover.

You really want to give your guys a chance of survival, don't you? How very un-X-Commey

Commey

Que American patriot ranting about communism.

I don't mind not having prone/crawling, but after getting opportunity fired at by a Caesan through a window because my guy had to stand up in order to run to an adjacent grid, I would really like to see duckwalking.

Eh... I'll be the naysayer. "Duckwalk" sounds like a lot of animations for a feature I'm not terribly interested in. I'd much rather see prone if they were to add new positions. I don't guess it really matters, but duckwalking is excruciating in full gear. Crawling is probably be faster and require less effort and be more effective. I learned three different crawls in combat training, but nobody ever taught a technique that resembles duckwalking.

If realism is unimportant to you (and I don't think it's an important argument myself) then consider that even while crouching, you're still visible behind short walls. The fact is that sometimes you have to break from cover, and sometimes in XCOM there's not a "safe" way to enter a room or cross an open area. I think part of the game's charm is that even in the end, you can still take a plasma bolt in the face when you breach a door or step into the open.

In short, I think "duckwalking" is unnecessary as a gameplay mechanic unrealistic to boot.

Fair point, but even crawling (or crouched movement) is, IMO, more desirable than not being able to, if being crouched can reduce the enemy's CTH compared to standing up.