Request: Headshot mode for sniper rifles

[sirg]

To balance this the devs can do alot of things such as making it difficult to have many good snipers, high skills requirement, TUs, etc.. and also none said the headshot is a guaranteed hit! So you have almost no chances with a rookie sniper to shoot an alien in the head at a great distance.

[sirg]

Stay away from the one-hit-kill idea.  The snipers will be up against beasties of unknown biology and durability, and shooting the head off of some of these may only accomplish pissing them off.  Then then there are the robots...  High damage or a multiplier or something I could understand, but the instant-kill option should not be. 

It's a very fun game concept that you are missing here. The idea is that if you hit you kill the target. But in order to hit, you have to apply different tactics. Having more tactics to apply = more fun. This isn't like a cheat. It's real warfare.

[Sophisanmus]

Okay, so if you hit the tank with the sniper rifle, the tank dies automatically.  Very real.  Or the gelatinous blob.  Or the 7-brained giant insectoid.  Hell, you should just replace the SAM sites with teams of snipers.  I'm sure one of them is bound to hit the UFO, and once that happens... boom. 

[BTAxis]

Models for those aliens, please?

[Sophisanmus]

Seriously, though, I will take a stab at the insectoid.  The 7 brain think is a cockroach reference, which wouldn't look all that scary, but something fast with some wicked-sharp appendages and durability up the wazoo sounds fun.

[DanielOR]

Forget 7 brains - no brain centers at all - highly distributed processing - brain is, effectively, throughout the body cavity which is covered by the exosceleton.  They need not be too smart, they are the top of the evolutionary chain because they are damn near impossible to kill - a whole in a body would hit some organs, and the functions are taken over by redundant ones.  The way to kill such a thing is to either literally blow it to bits, pump it full of led (literal here), or burn it.  Lasers hit well enough, but have almost no effect (self-cutterizing wounds - awesome!).  Fire or explosive ammo, ot TONS of led slugs. 

[TrashMan]

How many redundant organ can it possibly have? I mean, there are limits... You can only stuff so much stuff within a certain volume, and it will have weak spots, since everything in this universe has them.

Has it eyes? Shoot it in the eyes. Can't hit you if it can't see you!
Hunts by smell? Shoot it in the nose!
Bipedal? Shoot the knees!
Has a spine? Shoot it there!
Has a stomach? Ooooo...those acids are nasty..hurt like hell too.
Exoskeleton? Crack in a few strategic places and it will hardly be able to move.

EDIT: Even assuming it has multiple brains, those hardly wouldn't be set on OFF and turned on only when another brain "dies". More likely it would get dumber or loose body control with each dead brain.

[Sophisanmus]

Still, that's, what, 7 sniper rounds before its braindead, which is kinda the point.

[DanielOR]

Even a human brain has redundancy, i.e. parts of brain can take on roles of each other, at least to a degree.  We have two kidneys and can live with one, same goes for anything else, pretty much, we have two of.  transition from kidney 1 to kidney 2 is seemless...not sure why brain would be that different.  maybe memory loss and eventually - high cognitive function.  But not easily...

Now imagine you redesigned a human for maximum survivability.  place all vitals in chest cavity and make ribs stronger.  Feed 'em special goo, so that digestive system can be vastly simplified and the track shortened shortened.  The remaining space can house the (second) brain, another liver, a third lung, second spleen...  Any docs in here?  What if there is no need to digest anything - just transfer from liquid to blood...No solid waste, either...How much room would be saved?

The extra space is packed with hard muscle that surrounds and compartmentalizes the extra organs.  Compartments mean that bleeding is limited and fragments/bullets are less likely to damage multiple organs.

What else...Eyes - add a few more, some fixed around the head, a couple of flexible stocks.  Expand the range of visible frequencies a little into infrared.  Ears - screw it, two are enough, maybe three, but make 'em movable like those of a deer.  Add hearing in frequencies bats use.  In a pinch can be used for navigation.  A couple of noses, two at the most - shooting by smell is not reliable, and two are plenty for tracking. 

The head no longer houses the (only) brain.  No brain - smaller head.  At least thicker skull.  Prefered "forward" is no longer needed.  Periferal eyes + two on stocks guarantee that even with all eyes on one side burned off, the two stocks can still provide depth perception and allow to attack (shoot/strike/persue precisely) in the direction.

Speaking of direction.  Three legs, at least 3-4 arms.  3-prong system is way more stable for shooting and even a complete loss of a leg "reduces" the creature to human mobility.  4 arms = 2 two-hand weapons.  With full set of eyes - fixed perimeter eyes + two on stocks = depth perception in two directions at once, so aimed shooting in two directions at once.  Hands: one thumb?  Weak!  two thumbs, three opposed fingers.  I'd prefer all joints (at least sholders and elbows) to be omnidirectional.  If that is too difficult muscle-wise, at least full range of motion in two directions - very double jointed.  Makes hand-to-hand extra fun.

So, by my reckoning, with one leg and two arms blown off, half the torso a mess from a frag grenade or a rifle salvo, and side of the head burned to crisp - what is left will be equivalent to a pissed off PHALANX soldier.

how's that for ET?

[TrashMan]

how's that for ET?

How about "stupid"?

You can't just lump organs as you wish and play Dr. Frankenstein.
Genetics and biology are a weeeee little more complicated that that.

[DanielOR]

Honestly - the somewhat rude response aside - I don't know!  Does someone here have a medical degree or an anatomy degree?  Maybe locations of organs are not random.  Fine.  But aside from that - what was so stupid? 

[TrashMan]

Yeah, it was a bit rude..Sorry about that. Some responses just make my blood boil

[sirg]

Okay, so if you hit the tank with the sniper rifle, the tank dies automatically.  Very real.  Or the gelatinous blob.  Or the 7-brained giant insectoid.  Hell, you should just replace the SAM sites with teams of snipers.  I'm sure one of them is bound to hit the UFO, and once that happens... boom. 

I think you are deliberately missing the point here. None said that you can destroy a tank with a sniper rifle LOL. How exagerated is that? If it's a joke, I'm amused.

But, high power sniper rifles are used to disable vehicles, and even light armored vehicles, like crippling the engine or killing the driver/gunner. Not even the most powerful sniper rifle can penetrate the armor of a tank (i guess that's obvious)
Battlegrounds are a bit more complex than 1 and 0 logic (alive or dead/destroyed). To destroy a tank you need a missile, to blow it up, but you don't really need to destroy it. If you cripple the tank, like destroying it's track, you make it lose it's offensive capability. If that happens (track gets destroyed) the crew will most likely abandon it before some chopper comes to shoot a missile at it.


From your posts I see that you understand a target as a single entity with no components and not as a sum of parts, like all real beings (natural or artificial) things are. Well, if the game wants to be a bit realistic, you can't have that. Even if the target has 7 brains, or 7 limbs, it has critical parts. THat's why you have a lab at HQ to disect aliens. To learn about their weakneses.
Having redundant organs doesn't make a creature stronger in battle. Even if the human body has 2 lungs, a shot in either of them is almost fatal if not fatal. Even if you have 2 eyes, if someone shoots you in the eye, you are dead, right? The idea of a creature with 7 brains is funny, but absurd imo. I guess each brain works one day/week and sunday halftime.

The concept behind the powerful sniper shot wasn't one to allow squads of snipers, but to have one precious sniper in the squad or in the entire phallanx, that would have a chance for a kill shot maybe once each mission.

[Redtide]

Just my 2 cents but I've gotten tired of the argument of the "realism" of the power of modern weapons when the entire premise of the game is made up. Guess what, we have not, and I believe, will not ever find aliens. Balance is always> Realism. In the original Xcom, Grenades became obsolete due to tougher aliens. Even the rocket launcher wasn't powerful enough for certain enemies, ie: cyberdisc. I am a firm believer in this game design. You can't have equal or inferior enemies or the challenge isn't there. There will always be a way to exploit AI to gain the upper hand. If they start out equal to begin with, you have a boring, dull game.

On topic about the headshot feature: I think it should either be removed or have it cost the unit a turn sort of like silent storm sniping. The next turn the sniper can take a carefully aimed, precision shot with X chance of doing say double damage. This way it still scales decently and the later aliens would have enough health to essential "tank" at least one shot. I'm not sure you could do that with the engine but its a thought.

[Sophisanmus]

The tank thing was half joke, half not.  I've always been a fan of compartmentalized damage, ever since playing my first online game, Starsiege.  In this game, though, there is no compartmentalized damage, and I do not think there are plans for that.  It has to be faked.  The tank reference was an approximation of the protection level of alien heavy armor, with thousands of years of development and resources of many planets, versus considerably lower-tech weapons.  

The seven brain comment was a reference more to creatures with decentralized nervous systems, like our friendly neighborhood cockroach.  Blow off the head, it will eventually die, but that may take weeks.  If a giant one came at you in heavy armor and a plasma torch, one sniper round is not going to keep it from slicing you up real nice, and probably several of your best friends.  Yes, the sniper rifle will probably inflict lethal wounds with just about every adequately-aimed shot, but not all will be fatal in a convenient time frame.

Perhaps a compromise is needed.  The old X-COM had a "Fatal wound" system which essentially amounted to life-threatening bleeding.  Something similar, and possible with any weapon inflicting sufficient damage to a target, and the Precision Shot could have a disproportionately high chance of inflicting such a wound.  It would consequently be more effective against aliens with low HP (less vital distribution/redundancy) and less effective against more distributed/redundant/durable targets.  There is still the idea that the sniper has caused some serious damage, but there is not one-hit-kill-versus-anything mentality.  

To be honest, if you have a sniper who can OHK, even just once a turn, you end up with a situation where it feels like the aliens are hiding from you, and you're just there to exterminate them and move on.  There will [need to] be aliens, whether monstrous beasties or armored up the wazoo, for which there are no quick fixes among human infantry weaponry.