Melee attacks -- roadmap?

[Jagger]

Swords were still used during WWII in some parts. And they were effective, until they came up against the fully automatics, which ruined them.

And guns have only gotten better.

Personally when playing I look at the MP as being like the MetalStorm, which would really mess you up heavily compared to a sword, sure, you can stab a guy, slash teh crap out of him, whatever. But is it really more effective than putting the gun up close to them, and just letting loose with a few rounds at high speed. The velocity of the bullets would only be higher due to shorter distance.

Heavier weapons, stuff like the bolter rifle, I'd be holding waist height, someone comes around the corner, it's pointing at their gut. I'd just fire off a round (RF) and it would go through them, faster than a sword.

Problem imo is that people are comparing a sword in it's scabbard to a holstered gun. These people are in a LZ, they have their guns out, and expecting enemies. From readied, pulling the trigger is faster than swinging a sword or thrusting a knife.

Knives have high killing power, kerblades even more so, I say raise the damage (Ok, maybe not, it's pretty freakin high) but have aliens RF, guy comes running at you with a knife, you'd fire off a few shots his way, if he's alive and able to fight, you're going down.

All the aliens have throats which they use for breathing, armour does not seem to protect that, if headshots cause higher damage, knives should own, once you manage to hit.

[Aiki-Knight]

I'd love the potential for skilled hand-to-hand combat, but hand-to-hand is a last resort in such conflicts. Let me address some of the thoughts here:

1. I'd rather not wrestle an Ortnok. It's several times stronger than any human. Anyone with wrestling or Judo experience knows that super-strong wrestling opponents are a problem. Better to knock him out or go for throat/eyes. Or run away!
2. Brass knuckles  - who's going to have time to slip them on? A hand-to-hand fight is going to happen on short notice. Anyway, brass knuckles can break your own fingers if you're wearing them at the wrong angle when your punch. It doesn't seem realistic.
3. I wish I could do the animations, but basically, I suck. I'm sorry. I wish I could. I really do wish I could do something to help these fine, fine people.
4. A very simple assortment of moves: punches to face (cross & hook), front/side kick at waist level or lower, a Judo throw or two(maybe Judo's seoi-nage and Aikido's kubi-otoshi). Some newaza (ground-fighting/wrestling) is a fun idea, but too hard to script and also impractical. You don't want to be lying on the ground grappling when your enemy's pals show up - no escape mobility that way. If this is implemented, just keep it simple and elegant. Fancy stuff usually doesn't work and would be hard to do in a full suit of body armor.

[Aiki-Knight]

Well, I can't agree with you there. Neither the Roman Legion, nor the Phalanx, were the unstoppable war machines that you describe. Sure, if you stab a sack of straw with a spear or a short sword, you will "kill" it instantly. If you stab a man with a shield and a sword, it all depends on how good you are vs how good he is.

A bullet travels at hypersonic speeds. A stabbing sword or spear is much slower. Ipso Facto: you can do something about an incoming melee attack (dodge, parry), you really can't against a bullet. Unless you are Agent Smith.
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Now, back to the discussion on melee damage and TUs. We have several choices here:
- Make melee attacks fast or slow
- Make melee attack damage high or low
- Make melee attack damage spread tight or loose

At the momnet, I favour fast attacks with either low damage or a large spread. Fast attacks with a low damage means that while you can kill your target with melee, you will give him multiple opportunity for Reaction Fire. Seems like a nice balance of game mechanics to me, preventing this turning into.

Another mechanic which would be nice is giving Primary weapons (longarms and heavy weapons) a minimum range of 1 square, so that it is impossible to shoot at targets right up against you with those weapons.

What do you think? Lets try and stay on-course


nemchenk

I think you're both right. The gladius isn't all bad an idea: the aliens do carry and use blades. A two-handed claymore etc is just too heavy and cumbersome - even sheathed, it'd be banging into every doorframe and letting the whole world know where the agent was. A more manageable short sword could be useful in room-clearing, where you could be faced with an alien standing right in front of an agent. A gladius or waki-zashi (short "samurai" sword) could work. I'd like the option.

But evolution has a way of working on its own: modern soldiers, including special forces, don't carry swords because it's not worth the weight, burden. Firearms have largely eliminated the efficacy of large bladed weapons, even though we think it would be cool. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for it, but I understand if the creators don't make it any kind of priority. If more of us knew how to program, who knows - we could have samurai-ninja agents hurling throwing stars and wielding razor-sharp swords for assassination-type kills, doing cool Jiu Jitsu, but even so, we wouldn't want to make this highly realistic and detailed game "kinda lame" for all the medieval interruptions to what is otherwise a very special-forces type combat.

[DanielOR]

My $0.02

Bayonets can only apply to rifles, I really do not easily imagine such attachments on machine guns or GL's - so, we are talking about a fair bit of coding work for a modification of what - 3 weapons?   

I've had several opportunities to discuss hand-to-hand and martial arts with a member of Israeli special forces (suspect any country's SF would have said the same).  his training, while very rigorous and bloody, was aimed at pushing the opponent away, not beating them into submission.  Because, he told me, you should always have ammo.  (believe there was a very valid point earlier of low ammo not being a problem).  Why do the Israeli SF pay that much attention to hand fighting? "so you can push a terrorist away, maybe knock him to the ground.  Then take a step back as you draw your pistol and shoot him in the head."

Much the same, I imagine a PHALANX soldier would rather push an alien away and then either shoot or run.  Another valid earlier point was engaging hand-to-hand with a huge (forget armored) monster is not anyone's idea of a good day.

So, coding recommendation:

Implement "shove" that (is successful) pushes an alien at least 1 square away.  Exact distance and success rate depends on comparison of strengths and sizes.  Push can be an automated RF action, i.e. if alien walks up to a soldier, soldier pushes them back.  If they do, alien can't cut them.  As far as weapons - sure, pushing with something large in your hands is way better than pushing with a pistol or empty hands.
This (if easy) could be short term solution, until detailed h-2-h system is decided upon.

[Darkpriest667]

Daniel that is a genius Idea and i was about to mention the same issue within the next week.  Almost every standard infantryman is taught some sort of self defense.


But this brings up another issue for me.

aliens are from a 1G world or a 10G world.... if its 10G world then the aliens should have superior unarmed combat capabilities compared to humans.  i.e. you can only push him but he CAN beat you to death in 1 or 2 blows with relative ease.

Its just a few more things that we've been looking at as far as the "reality" of the game.  in the old xcom it was assumed that aliens were from mars... About .6 G meaning they would have been significantly weaker in hand to hand combat.   UFO AI has not addressed the issue of "where" so we cant really know "how" until the where is established.   

any one else thought about the gravitational homeworld differential besides myself?

[DanielOR]

Thanks, Darkpriest!

The Ortnok/Mutons are specified following the autopsy to be WAY stronger then humans, regardless of the original world.  So, the "1-2 combo of death" does sounds realistic, maybe provided the alien wins reaction/agility check by ALOT.  If he wins by some, just a bad stun + some injury (knockout/knockdown).  Gives our guys and gals a chance to duck.  The armor, I would imagine, would help some.  But, the reverse is true - kicking an armored alien, even a wimpy grey, is probably a looser.

[Darkpriest667]

Thanks, Darkpriest!

The Ortnok/Mutons are specified following the autopsy to be WAY stronger then humans, regardless of the original world.  So, the "1-2 combo of death" does sounds realistic, maybe provided the alien wins reaction/agility check by ALOT.  If he wins by some, just a bad stun + some injury (knockout/knockdown).  Gives our guys and gals a chance to duck.  The armor, I would imagine, would help some.  But, the reverse is true - kicking an armored alien, even a wimpy grey, is probably a looser.

but pushing him away so you can run around the corner where your buddy is waiting to unleash fury on him is not a futile effort!!

also... If the alien is from a high gravity world (3 times earth gravity or more) his reactions and agility are going to be dramatically higher on our 1g world dont you think my friend? he'll win the agility check everytime wouldnt he?


Also whoever made mention of bayonets in this post ... should be given a medal....

[DanielOR]

The question of adaptation from high to low G is a very interesting one.  I think we need a biologist or best - a NASA person who can tell us about coordination in low gravity right after departure from earth.  I imagine now overshooting every motion would take some getting used to. 

I would guess that reaction time to stimuly would remain the same, but the large movements would be faster - for this reason runners and some martial artists train/warm up with wrist/ankle weights and take them off right before competition.

[Darkpriest667]

right, exactly, you are spot on again where i am going with this daniel..

I was also wondering if the future of the storyline takes you to another world maybe a gravity chamber would be needed to train soldiers to walk on the foreign world..

However, I think the more logical conclusion is powered armor (needing energy source for that particle cannon from the other thread?) powered armor would solve a lot of the problems AND it would put the humans on an equal reaction footing with the aliens on home turf.

[TrashMan]

I think you're both right. The gladius isn't all bad an idea: the aliens do carry and use blades. A two-handed claymore etc is just too heavy and cumbersome - even sheathed, it'd be banging into every doorframe and letting the whole world know where the agent was.

WRONG. A common misconception really. Two-handers weighed from 1.5kg to 3.5kg in general, with the biggest, ceremonial blade weighing 5kg (and it wasn't meant to be used in battle). They were also well balanced and fast weapons..exceedingly deadly. Mastering such a weapon earned a soldier DOUBLE pay.
but it would be a bit impractical indoors, yes

[Aiki-Knight]

WRONG. A common misconception really. Two-handers weighed from 1.5kg to 3.5kg in general, with the biggest, ceremonial blade weighing 5kg (and it wasn't meant to be used in battle). They were also well balanced and fast weapons..exceedingly deadly. Mastering such a weapon earned a soldier DOUBLE pay.
but it would be a bit impractical indoors, yes

I suppose the point is moot, but there's lot of information suggesting such weapons were heavier. Medieval two-handed weapons were intended to pierce plate armor, and needed to be heavy. A standard heavy kevlar vest and full load of webbing and weapon is already quite heavy. Running around with a very large sword would be difficult. Not impossible, but questionable in terms of practicality. I myself have often wondered wheher a nice sharp katana could be added to the troops. Again, though, a hip-slung sword would indeed bang into every doorframe and chair unless the agent were very careful about it, and that's likely a hindrance to special-forces types who must be as stealthy as they can.

That said, if someone codes swords, you can bet my best agents / door-stormers will be carrying them. In the right situation, a sword, axe, or spear would put a melee fighter at tremendous advantage over an opponent armed with a short knife, or nothing. The question would be to choose the right agent(s), and the right application(s). I can see how hammering down on an Ortnok's skill with a large battle-axe in melee fighting would be preferable to trying to stab him with a standard knife. If someone coded throwing stars, I'd try them. If I know anything, anything at all about programming, I'd try it. Sorry!

After all, if someone coded all these weapons and made them realistic, it would be up to the player to decide what works best, and the divergence of styles of each player would become interesting. It's not really fair to ask the creators to do this, but if other people joined who'd do it for them, sweet. You could potentially have players trying to make agents/teams who could subdue the aliens with modernised medievalised fighting. I remember NKF on the XCOM3 forum does this. Over the years of playing, he is at the point where he prefers power-sword kills. As long as the weapon is not made to be silly or grossly over-effective, the potential is fascinating.

[Aiki-Knight]

My $0.02

Bayonets can only apply to rifles, I really do not easily imagine such attachments on machine guns or GL's - so, we are talking about a fair bit of coding work for a modification of what - 3 weapons?   

I've had several opportunities to discuss hand-to-hand and martial arts with a member of Israeli special forces (suspect any country's SF would have said the same).  his training, while very rigorous and bloody, was aimed at pushing the opponent away, not beating them into submission.  Because, he told me, you should always have ammo.  (believe there was a very valid point earlier of low ammo not being a problem).  Why do the Israeli SF pay that much attention to hand fighting? "so you can push a terrorist away, maybe knock him to the ground.  Then take a step back as you draw your pistol and shoot him in the head."

Much the same, I imagine a PHALANX soldier would rather push an alien away and then either shoot or run.  Another valid earlier point was engaging hand-to-hand with a huge (forget armored) monster is not anyone's idea of a good day.

So, coding recommendation:

Implement "shove" that (is successful) pushes an alien at least 1 square away.  Exact distance and success rate depends on comparison of strengths and sizes.  Push can be an automated RF action, i.e. if alien walks up to a soldier, soldier pushes them back.  If they do, alien can't cut them.  As far as weapons - sure, pushing with something large in your hands is way better than pushing with a pistol or empty hands.
This (if easy) could be short term solution, until detailed h-2-h system is decided upon.

This is indeed a very good point, and well-taken. A little anti-climactic, but well-argued and sensible. I think we can say that there's a chance an agent is completely out of ammo and is swarmed by an enemy. So, if some hand-to-hand were incorporated, just a little practical "fighting" would be sensible as well. A couple of strikes and throws. Throws also create space in order to resume knife or firearms-based solutions.

The thing is, this game is so good already, that what we're talking about is not making a good game, or even a great game, or even a fantastic game. We're talking about how to make THE game of all games. The fantasy game. The game that does every little thing we ever dreamed of in our XCOM-starved imaginations. We're talking about merging Rainbow Six with every really decent marines/special forces vs. aliens movie made, and we want to throw in some martial-arts movies and MMA. Just as it is, the game is just awesome. These discussion, if implemented, would be great. Would I ask the developers to do it? Well, I'm reluctant - I don't want to seem ungrateful. Still, these are good ideas and are fun to talk about!

[TrashMan]

I suppose the point is moot, but there's lot of information suggesting such weapons were heavier. Medieval two-handed weapons were intended to pierce plate armor, and needed to be heavy. A standard heavy kevlar vest and full load of webbing and weapon is already quite heavy. Running around with a very large sword would be difficult. Not impossible, but questionable in terms of practicality. I myself have often wondered wheher a nice sharp katana could be added to the troops. Again, though, a hip-slung sword would indeed bang into every doorframe and chair unless the agent were very careful about it, and that's likely a hindrance to special-forces types who must be as stealthy as they can.

Sigh...the best source for anything relating to matrial arts of the medieval-renesance era is ARMA. A whole lot of very interesting essays. Read this:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html

you might also want to check out this one:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/TopMyths.htm


Melee weapons are not used today in general, but they could be incredibly deadly under right circumstances. Tight allies, ambushes, jumping an unsuspecting alien - a chop with a battleaxe or a greatsword delivers a huge amount of force - not to mention the shock and trauma.
Even armored opponents could get pulverized.

If modern materials are used, it would be even more effective. However, the mantra for today is - travel light, use the gun. What's the point of having them if you have to resort to such "primitive" weapons anyway, right? Thing is, even primitive weapons can be very effective.