Melee attacks -- roadmap?

[nemchenk]

The main point why i would not included blunt attacks is, that they would make other melee weapons worthless...why bother changing weapons for close combat...

Because of their damage type. You want a guarantee to stun someone, use the stun stick. You want to kill someone, use the knife. The blunt attacks are nowhere as good at either task.

Would you agree?


nemchenk

[burns77]

Melee weapons are practically useless in this game... if you have any thing else at your disposal, you will use it first.  The only way that a knife would be lethal is with some degree of stealth coming into play, say sneaking up behind an alien undetected...not to mention we are suggesting that alien anatomy is just like ours... most of the aliens have some kind or natural armor... or if they are wearing armor that is effective vs. bullets... do you really think a knife is going through at a much slower velocity than a bullet?   

The argument of melee weapons from history being more brutally effective than modern day firearms is absurd.  The invention of the crossbow and the longbow  brought new standards to medieval warfare, sure swords are effective, but the counter to a sword was armor, plate mail in fact... you know what really changed all that?  Firearms... bullets made armor ineffective... now with new armor being developed, the latest will stop multiple assault rifle rounds, it's weaponry's turn to evolve.

I agree with making melee weapons fast, with a low TU count, and damage being low... one stab...much like one 9mm round won't drop a person, unless you get really lucky, and I also think that long guns should have a range restriction, making them less useful in close combat... but you should also take into consideration that long weapons make great hand-to-hand weapons for blocking knives, or delivering blunt trauma, which could possibly stun an opponent. 

You could always make it so that the only effective weapons at adjoining spaces could be knives... everything else could have a minimum firing distance, else it makes little sense in using a knife when I could put a full auto assault rifle burst into them from 3 inches away.

-Burns77

[nemchenk]

I did make long-arm Bludgeon attacks better than pistol-whipping, to represent their improved usability as melee weapons. I should probably drop pistol-whip--like attacks a bit more -- they really are not as useful as a smack with a rifle butt.

I'm not sure if you were referring to Panthera Leo's point or mine about the knife being lethal/non-lethal. I meant it was more lethal than blunt damage, e.g. a rifle butt.

I'll see about another version of the patch, with the melee attacks being quicker but less damaging...


nemchenk

[Panthera Leo]

Sorry, got a little too attached, so I took a brake. I did derail of more then a bit. My over all point? Guns a neat, but melee weapons are lethal as such should be greatly feared as such. A good rifle should be the preferred weapon, but never the de facto end all weapon. Melee shouldn't be a side note, maybe a burden, never a side note.

I guess they should be fast over anything else. I'm just thinking whatever form it takes, it should be well worth it. I know it puts a crimp in balance and seems odd, but don't under estimate a sharp blade as anything less awesome in its killing power. (As in the kerrblade being able to slice someone in half, not just be mean to them.)

[shevegen]

but you should also take into consideration that long weapons make great hand-to-hand weapons for blocking knives, or delivering blunt trauma, which could possibly stun an opponent.

I think that should depend formost on the available TU

if someone moved all his TU, then how could he still defend as good as someone who is cautiously and slowly moving around (and thus has more TU left)? I think the guy that is cautious would be better at defending against melee

Anyway I totally support melee combat getting a boost. Right now its kinda useless and i think this is sad. Yeah a kerr blade kills my guys happily, but the alien normally ends up next to my guy too and gets shot down, which is less effective for the aliens than a guy with a long range that snipes my guy and goes back into cover again :>

[knightsubzero]

first off, at close range a sword is far more lethal and faster than a gun, (pistols however are quite fast) but if you put me and you in a small room me with a knife or sword, you with rifle, you would not be getting up (yes i know how to use a sword, knife and various other weapons), a rifle butt slam would not however be an instant kill, especially with these aliens.

that being said....

 a knife is faster, a bash with the gun is also fast (pistols exepted (perhaps)), so time units for bashing with a gun should be less than shooting maybe about 7 -12 for a bash attack with rifle (bayonets would be nice), but perhaps damage should be less, and random effect with death vs knockout.

this will make it an option if your really really close, but normally you would just shoot em, cause the range is the safer option.

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off topic....

i aggree that medieval weapons are far more lethal than modern weapons....however that is only at close range, guns were invented for 3 main reasons, 1 they had good range, 2 they had good accuracy (less training), 3 they could punch thru armour at that range.....a sword or a mace could punch thru armour just as effectivley, the armour way mainly used to stop arrows and untrained mellee attacks, a skilled fighter would attack the gaps in the armour, and with a heavy weapon the armour did very little against it.

modern rifles are more lethal than medievil weapons, but only at their appropriate range, once you get into close quarters its how fast you can react, pistols however are designed for close quarter fighting, so they are quite fast weapons also (crap at any range over 5 meters).  you can survive a bullet (maybe not a 50cal), but you cant survive a missing head or having your body put into 2 parts.

the rifle was at first designed to replace the crossbow and the long bow, the soldiers for a long time (up until world war 2 in some cases), still carried large melee weapons.  after world war 2 these were replaced (slowly), by the pistol.

[nemchenk]

Thanks for your feedback, knightsubzero. Some interesting ideas. Leaving aside the debate of which is more deadly, melee weapons or guns, I would like to discuss some points you bring up:

- I will be working on a patch / code change that will allow multiple types of damage per attack. So, these types of "blunt" attacks will carry something like 60/40 (?) split of stun and kill damage. I should probably start another thread about that...

- You mention that you think a bash with a pistol should take longer than a riflebutt -- that's an interesting idea, probably correct. It would make some interesting changes to the way we think of the game: At the moment, these attacks are essentially a proportion of the weapon's Snap Shot firemod. Pistols may be quite different then -- their Snap Shot would take less time than their Bludgeon attack, making the Bludgeon really only useful to subdue, or when out of ammo. Did I understand you correctly?

- Finally, while I did originally add a Bayonet attack, I decided to remove it because I felt it would make the Knife totally obsolete. I mean, why bother if you have the bayonet? It's perhaps not totally realistic, but it is my concession to gameplay balance.

- An idea that I am leaning towards at the moment is minimum ranges for longarms, so only pistols would be allowed to shoot at point-blank range. Thoughts?


Cheers!


nemchenk

[knightsubzero]

not exactly (unless it was a typo)...but kinda....a pistol would be quite fast, whether shooting or bashing, however pistol as a bash would not be too effective, cause its not that heavy, basically bashing with a pistol would be less dangerous than bashing with a rifle but it would be faster cause a pistol is quite a light weapon.

not being able to shoot with a rifle style, or  heavy weapon in melee range would be a good idea i think...perhaps with a mouse over kind of warning.....something like "cannot shoot at this range" with the rifle greyed out, but the weapon bash would have a time units cost and would be ok....heavy equipment, like the rocket launcher, would either be a very high time unit cost (cause its slow, but maybe cause more damage), or you not be able to lift it with maybe a too heavy warning.

the bayonet would likely make knives obsolete, so i can see your point there, a bash with the rifle wouldnt, cause people would use the knife due to cheaper time unit cost (people would carry a knife and pistol) and the damage would be greater, people would still use the stun rod cause its a guaranteed (pretty much), of alien capture.

i would suggest being able to use a pistol in mellee range, the pistol is the modern mellee weapon, this would make the pistol a more important weapon.

[knightsubzero]

i would say something like this....i am not up with my ufopaedia knowledge, so some interpretation may be required also i may have left some out (probably in fact).

mellee weapons.

knife: very low - med damage  4 TU.
pistol whip (pistol, machine pistol, micro shotgun, maybe smg): very low to low damage, very low knockout chance, low-med stun chance. 4-5 tu
alien knife: low to high damage 8 TU
2nd alien knife: med to very high dam 8TU.
rifle bash: low - med damage, low knockout chance, med - high stun chance. 10-12 TU (maybe 8 for shotgun)
stun rod: no to very low damage, high knockout chance, very high stun chance 8-12 tu.
advanced stun rod: same as stun rod, with maybe a 3-5 square range.

the rest of the weapons leave TU as is.

close combat weapons

pistol - low damage, can be fired in mellee, very accurate 0-3 squares, accurate 3-5 squares, inaccurate 5-10 squares, very inaccurate 10+ squares.
machine pistol- as above but take off one square for each accuracy range.
flamethrower- max range, 6 squares, med chance of fear. high - very damage can be fired in mellee.
micro shotgun - melee fireing, same range as pistol or machine pistol, higher damage.
shotgun - cannot be used in mellee (must us bash, but at cheaper cost), range 0-5 very high accuracy, 5-10 high accuracy, 10 -12 med accuracy, 12 - 15 low accuracy, 15+ very low accuracy.


assault weapons.

all assault: no melle range,  0-10 very accurate, 10-15 accurate, 15-20 med accuracy, 20 + low accuracy.
heavy machine gun - same but slightly less accuracy.


grenades

flashbang - high stun chance.
shockwave grenade (researchable) -high stun chance, med knockout chance.
normal grenades should maybe have a slight stun chance as well.
and incendary should have a slight fear chance.


other weapons

grenade launchers and rocket launchers should have about the same accuracy as assault guns, with limited to no bashing ability.

sniper rifle should be able to be bashable and should have the most accuracy out of any weapon.

[Doctor J]

- Finally, while I did originally add a Bayonet attack, I decided to remove it because I felt it would make the Knife totally obsolete. I mean, why bother if you have the bayonet? It's perhaps not totally realistic, but it is my concession to gameplay balance.

- An idea that I am leaning towards at the moment is minimum ranges for longarms, so only pistols would be allowed to shoot at point-blank range. Thoughts?

Six of one, half dozen of the other.  A bayonet [at least what i had when i was in service] is a knife with a clamp to attach just below the muzzle of the rifle.  You can also use it in your palm like a normal knife.  So in game terms, we could say that the bayonet attack is not allowed unless the soldier is carrying a knife and a rifle or assault weapon.  It would be going too far to require the player to click somewhere to actually install the knife on the rifle... unless ... it could go in the "Extension" space above the weapon?  I don't yet know what goes in there.

Of course i'm going to agree about longarms in melee.   

grenade launchers and rocket launchers should have about the same accuracy as assault guns, with limited to no bashing ability.

sniper rifle should be able to be bashable and should have the most accuracy out of any weapon.

I would quibble with only a few items.  The grenade launcher still has the butt of a rifle and could still bash the same.    I agree the rocket launcher is too delicate to be used in melee, it would be destroyed.  Actually, the sniper rifle would be in the same category.  Any bending to the barrel, or even jarring to the scope, would ruin the accuracy.  It would still fire, but would be useless for sniping.

[Greiger]

Woot first post.

Anyway, for whatever it's worth I like the thought of longarm weapons being unable to be fired from point blank.  Gives secondary weapons more utility. 

Not so keen about flamethrowers being usable at point blank though, I'm no expert but I would think that without protective clothing the flames would splash back on you doing as much damage to you as the alien.

I also like the idea of beating the aliens with the butt of the weapon.  I recently brought a bunch of plasma rifles to druglord.  The fight went badly due to my noobishness and just about everybody ran out of ammo despite an extra clip for each.  (and for some reason my sniper's rifle disappeared from his corpse so nobody could take his job)  Only my guy with a modded kerrblade could continue fighting, even when I managed to get into melee range.  The aliens appeared to be out of ammo too.  Thus turning the battle into an endless stalemate. Nobody could do anything.  Hitting with weapons would fix that.  I vote same cost for beating somebody with a rifle as a snap shot.

Great game though.  I love the moddibility I can't code worth a darn but Ive modded files in everything from Unreal Tournament to Dwarf Fortress.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion between people who actually know what they are talking about.

[knightsubzero]

well if an alien was in your face you wouldnt be too caring for your weapon, you would just bash him and hope for the best....maybe there would be a chance on bashing that your weapon gets broken?  maybe only for more delicate weapons....or just for the game purposes let people bash with sniper rifle.

i could go either way with grenade launcher and rocket launcher....either way they are heavier weapons and would be a bit slower to lift, but would do more damage if they hit you.

[Doctor J]

Not so keen about flamethrowers being usable at point blank though, I'm no expert but I would think that without protective clothing the flames would splash back on you doing as much damage to you as the alien.

You seem to hit on something that may have not been considered yet.  The firedef for flamer does not currently have a splash as defined in 2.2 or 2.3.  Perhaps it should have a small one, maybe only for Inferno Sweep.

[keybounce]

After reading all this, I have an idea:

Can you define melee weapons so that they are strong against low-armor enemies, and weak against heavy armor enemies?

Then, give them a small chance of penetrating (ignoring) the armor.

Fast, good against unarmored foes, and weak (unless you get lucky) against armored foes.

[Silveressa]

Another melee weapon that would be helpful for the soldiers would be a upgraded bayonet.

Having a few inches of solid steel on the end of a rifle would make it much more effective than a simple butt stroke. (which given some of these aliens armors would likely just make a dull thud sound and not much else) It would also make it much easier for a soldier to engage in melee combat without having to drop her rifle to draw another weapon.

Make the bayonet work like a modern day switch blade, with the blade concealed in a housing that would deploy upon the press of a button. (this way the blade would be covered and not in the way of normal handling of the weapon. Replacing the spring system with a high tension spring that deploys with a few hundred lbs of force would also give the weapon enhanced penetration against body armor. (you strike the enemy with the front of your rifle then deploy the blade point blank. Granted re sheathing the blade after deployment might be difficult, but being alive to do so is better than the alternative)

On a side note, a person can drive a combat knife through a modern Kevlar vest without too much trouble; this is due to the way the material is layered so as to stop a ballstic weapon. Wether the armors in the game would be constructed along similar lines or not would depend largely on the purpose they were designed for.