Panicing Soldiers wrecking havoc amongst their own team

[zodde]

Hi.

I have played a few missions now on 2.1.1 release and I must say im quite happy with  how the game plays. One thing however I noticed that made bit furious.

I was playing a mission based on a hydrodam. (Correct word?). Anyhow as I progressed on the map some alien poped up and shot some kind of plasmaball against me which ofcouse exploded.

After this, when two-thre of my soldiers died others paniced. This is OK and was a feature in the originally game. One thing I noticed thou.

Even if a soldier panics, in the original UFO XCOM the drawback for that was that they ALWAYS dropped their weapon and run away. In UFO AI they run away and start shooting against their own soldiers.

I dislike this "function". This should only happen when a Alien performs Mind Control one my soldiers, when they panic:s they should drop their weapon and run.

What do you think?

[blondandy]

i suppose the soldiers have got so scared they cant tell friend from foe. i think a solution is to prioritise the "mind" stat when picking soldiers. and maybe not getting 4 guys killed with a plasma blaster

i think its quite a good piece of game design.

[zodde]

Hm, I dont think I agree. A paniced soldier should drop whatever he/she is carrying and try to run for safety. That means not towards the enemy but back where they came from.

I still think a Paniced soldier should be able to tell the differance between friend or foe. But just want to survive and be able to run as fast as possible (Ie no weapon in hand!).

This is punishment enough for me. I mean we have 8 soldiers to start with. If I loose 3 of them in a bad move, and one or two panics. If thoose two kills of one each I have 5 killed and two paniced. That leavs me with 1 soldier left. If I instead have 3 killed, two paniced  I have 3 that still can combat and hold my grounds until the two who paniced calms down.

[Voller]

I guess you'd have to distinguish between being struck by panic and going berserk (like in Xcom). I agree that a panicking soldier would probably just cheese it or freeze in fear unable to do anything (zero TUs). A soldier who goes berserk on the other hand would shoot at anything he thinks might be an enemy. However, I think that shooting at any unit in sight is not necessarily a good solution for this. It would be more appropriate to limit this to new units that come into the FOV of the soldier. So if the soldier can see his team mates all along, he won't shoot at them. But if someone comes into his line of sight, for example a civilian popping round the corner, he just pulls the trigger in panic.

[Wanderer]

Well, the reason there was a difference between panic and rage was what they'd do.  I agree with Zodde here.  A panic'd soldier would drop his gear (including a primed grenade!) and run in random directions.

An enraged solider would charge and kill the nearest unit, repeatedly.

Right now there's not a lot of difference between the two.

[Malakie]

Well, the reason there was a difference between panic and rage was what they'd do.  I agree with Zodde here.  A panic'd soldier would drop his gear (including a primed grenade!) and run in random directions.

An enraged solider would charge and kill the nearest unit, repeatedly.

Right now there's not a lot of difference between the two.

I too think this needs to be changed.. Although a soldier who is in panic mode OR berserk would not realistically kill his own peers.  That should ONLY happen IF the soldier is under mind control.  In real life, when one is in panic, they run.  In berserk or anger they charge the enemy.  But if one is under mind control, well then it is anyones guess.

Malakie

[zodde]

I think Malakie nailed it down.

Paniced soldier: Drops weapons, run for cover

Berserk soldier: Stops taking orders and charges the Enemy. Not your own though.

Mind Controlled soldier: Well, I would suppose the Mindcontroler want to do bad things such killing my soldiers so thats OK.