BTA - I meant simple as compared to building in the ability to target individual body parts - not neccesarily developing routines to determine critical hit areas on the body - I'm with you 100% on keeping things asa simple as possible.
I think you misunderstood me on this. I wasn't saying I want to keep things simple. I do, it's just not what I meant. What I'm saying is, it's NOT POSSIBLE, codewise, to know what an "obvious LOS" or a "straightforward shot" is. It's not even possible to tell the LOF is being interrupted by an object no higher than the soldier's waist. All you know is that the line is interrupted. You don't know by what, or what shape the offending object has. This makes it impossible to do what you're suggesting.
But you have raised an important point - if the ability to change the angle of the shot can be adjusted by the player - is it such a massive stretch to make the originating point of the shot adjustable too? a simple up/down control on the vertical axis would do it
I already answered this. Yes, it is possible, it's a matter of changing a value somewhere in the code. The reason why we're not doing this is, as stated, that the point of origin should match up with the model. It's not a strict necessity, but it's a hard requirement we're making, take it or leave it. Ergo, we are going to need a character animation that shows the soldier firing from the shoulder. Provide us with this, and you shall have your fix.
On a side note, don't expect that to solve everything, either. No matter what point of origin you choose, there will always be objects that are inconveniently JUST in the way when they wouldn't be if the soldier had [insert very small change here]. I remind you that it is not possible to detect this in the code, and as such impossible to avoid.
