New to UFOAI have some questions / critisisms / suggestions

[Gantoris]

Hi, first up id like to congratulate the developers on this amazing open source project im not ashamed to admit that i made a small mess in my pants when i realized what this was as im a huge fan of the original XCOM games. I started playing the 2.2 version for a few days and recently switched to the developer version 2.3 r30221 when i saw what new features where in there and was initially very pleased with what i found. However after playing for a short while i have hit a wall of frustration that for me has broken the game, that wall is reaction fire. At first i thought i was doing something wrong as my men failed again and again to ever use this feature and then after awhile i thought this must be a bug and began searching these forums for answers...

What i can figure is that someone complained so much about it that a system that has worked fine in various squad based games for years was changed to one where an enemy literally has to use enough TUs to walk up to you, shoot you in the face then teabag your corpse before your soldier reacts. This is just complete madness and the whole thing makes no sense at all, in my mind reaction fire, overwatch or whatever its called in whichever turn based game you are playing is basically your soldier looking down his sights and staying ready to fire in an effort to cover his friends. The idea that a soldier doesn't fire his weapon the very second an enemy comes into a view is to be quite frank retarded, bears no resemblance to reality and renders the feature worthless.

I have played many similar games notably the original XCOM and the Jagged Alliance series and reaction fire as it is was fine, tactically useful and needed no changes and i just cant wrap my head around why it has to be the way it is. If the enemy is using reaction fire against you then you pin them down and flank them (have the area there hiding in covered with your own reaction fire units then work other soldiers round the side) as you would in real life, or use a smoke grenade and approach under cover. I understand 2.3 is an incomplete build and from what ive read this issue is under development but its my humble opinion that all you need to do is have it as it was in XCOM or Jagged Alliance and not try to create some crazy system of only reacting when the enemy has used X amount of TUs. One idea to offset reaction fire slightly might be to tighten the soldiers field of fire as he readies his gun and looks down his sight thus making it harder to cover a huge area, if possible a clearly visible cone could show this field of fire for you and your opponent if your playing multiplayer.

Now that ive had my little rant i also have a couple of small suggestions which id like to make, firstly to clearly see how much exp a unit has/needs before leveling and to also maybe have training facilities to build in your bases where you can train various stats on your soldiers. Also i love the addition of pilots for craft, its a nice feature but would be awesome if they had there own unique stats and could level up like soldiers and effect craft speed, defense and accuracy ect.

Thanks again for resurrecting this great game, keep up the good work!
Gantoris.

P.S. I found this thread http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=4879.0 which supposedly sets the reaction fire system back to the 2.2 build but i have had no success making it work. Maybe im just being retarded but i followed the instructions, made the file and added the text yet it has no effect could someone perhaps help me with this?

[Hertzila]

What i can figure is that someone complained so much about it that a system that has worked fine in various squad based games for years was changed to one where an enemy literally has to use enough TUs to walk up to you, shoot you in the face then teabag your corpse before your soldier reacts. This is just complete madness and the whole thing makes no sense at all, in my mind reaction fire, overwatch or whatever its called in whichever turn based game you are playing is basically your soldier looking down his sights and staying ready to fire in an effort to cover his friends. The idea that a soldier doesn't fire his weapon the very second an enemy comes into a view is to be quite frank retarded, bears no resemblance to reality and renders the feature worthless.

Unless that soldier of yours happens to be a particularly trigger-happy machine gunner, he will NOT shoot ANYTHING the very second it comes to his view. At least one second goes to checking who you're targeting (might be half a second since the aliens are fairly different from humans so checking is easier) and unless the hostile happened to walk right into his sights perfectly, your guy also has to aim. Depending on the weapon in question, it could take from ½-second (shotgun, machine gun) to something like 10 seconds (sniper).
The reason why machine gunners are partially excluded from this is because they usually got enough ammo to spray a little.

This poster got it right and the proposal is reasonable IMO:

It seems to me that there are two different kinds of RF. Aimed and non-aimed. Aimed is where the TUs are spent aiming the gun and only the very last TU involves any actual firing. On those it would make sense for the target to spend that many TUs in the line of sight of the reactor, since it takes that long for him to aim. A sniper isn't going to shoot unless the target is in the crosshairs.

On the other hand are the non-aimed shots. An machine gunner is not going to line his target up perfect, he will just get his gun pointed in the right direction and spray until the target dies. However, if an alien peaks around a corner for 3 TUs, he shouldn't get a full 25 TU burst to the face.

So, here is my proposal. for aimed shots, they need the full TU time to take the shot. For non-aimed like full auto and burst, its a partial shot. For every TU the alien spends in his line of sight, he gets to fire a TU on his gun. Alien spends 6 TU walking into the middle of the street, so the MG gets to fire 6 TU of his 25 TU burst at the alien. Alien steps to next square for 2 TU, and the MG fires his next 2 TU, so his 25 full auto is down to 17 TU left of shooting. You would have to be able to pause the burst mid-fire and to pause every step to let the MG fire, but this way the alien takes an amount of fire equal to what he actually does.

Welcome to the forums!

[Gantoris]

Thanks for the welcome, i don't however entirely agree with your assessment.

A don't for a second believe a trained Spetznaz, US Ranger, SAS or any highly trained soldier would only be able to react to an enemy during an engagement after he has walked 15 yards and taken a shot and your troops in UFO are after all supposed to be the best of the best. The quote you linked does make one point i would concede to with regards to aiming the shot, reaction fire is by definition not a carefully aimed shot but a way of offering cover fire which is made useless by the current system. A very simple solution in my opinion would be to limit reaction fire to snap shots and perhaps lower the accuracy on machine gun fire slightly.

Also realism aside this is a game and you need to balance what works and the system used in every other similar game i can think of DOES work and the one in 2.3 does not (This is quite obvious when an alien can walk 5 steps in front of 4 soldiers with RF, kill 2 of them and then return to cover without any soldier doing a damn thing). Just copy Jagged Alliance 2 tbh, the game is a masterpiece.

[homunculus]

if i attempt to be really serious, then in my opinion a well thought out reaction fire system improves the game more than any storyline or new equipment or even equipment balance.
the question about implementing a nice rf system is probably not about 'if' but 'who'.

[Hertzila]

if i attempt to be really serious, then in my opinion a well thought out reaction fire system improves the game more than any storyline or new equipment or even equipment balance.
the question about implementing a nice rf system is probably not about 'if' but 'who'.

Here was one try. Too bad he seems to have gone missing, his RF idea was great IMO.

A don't for a second believe a trained Spetznaz, US Ranger, SAS or any highly trained soldier would only be able to react to an enemy during an engagement after he has walked 15 yards and taken a shot and your troops in UFO are after all supposed to be the best of the best. The quote you linked does make one point i would concede to with regards to aiming the shot, reaction fire is by definition not a carefully aimed shot but a way of offering cover fire which is made useless by the current system. A very simple solution in my opinion would be to limit reaction fire to snap shots and perhaps lower the accuracy on machine gun fire slightly.

Running 15 yards takes a bit more than a couple of seconds so of course a soldier who knows how to use a gun would use it. He wouldn't even have to be a special force guy to hit him too, unless training standards have gone down when I wasn't looking.
I'm not so sure RF is actual cover fire. Cover fire is usually done to keep the enemies heads dows and is exceptionally badly aimed. Reaction fire, on the other hand, is a method to make defensive play possible and make this seem more like actual combat (aka. real-time instead turn-based). Eg. a shot from shotgun when the alien has moved right in front of you is not exactly covering fire.

Also realism aside this is a game and you need to balance what works and the system used in every other similar game i can think of DOES work and the one in 2.3 does not (This is quite obvious when an alien can walk 5 steps in front of 4 soldiers with RF, kill 2 of them and then return to cover without any soldier doing a damn thing). Just copy Jagged Alliance 2 tbh, the game is a masterpiece.

Agreed, when it's realism vs. gameplay, the gameplay should win but a reasonable use of realism tends to be positive.
I haven't played JA2 so I don't have any opinions on that. However, the devs have said (a long time ago) that pure copying is not preferable.

[Borsti67]

It's not only that the aliens can do that (walk, kill, go to safety). Assumed the RF has a "random" component this could happen (but it should only in rare cases).
Much more annoying IMO is the behaviour of "locking" a target.
The turn-based gameplay should somewhat simulate the action game. So it is logical that you can move a unit freely until it gets into LOS of an enemy - at this point RF comes into play. The enemy now gets a chance to fire at the spotted moved unit.
After this interruption you need to decide if you try to get your unit out of sight, fire back or whatever. Every move THIS unit makes, will of course trigger the enemy's RF.
In general, you will try not to move but get another unit into firing position to cover the 1st one. The current system does not allow to do so, because EVERY movement of ANY of your soldiers will trigger alien RF on the poor looser. There's NO tactical decision you can do, the only chance you have is ending your turn and pray for the dumbness of the aliens - the 1st unit is dead meat otherwise.
This is highly annoying, irrealistic and in no way a transfer of real action into turn based strategy, just ridiculous.
2.2.1 still did it right, but somewhen in the path of 2.2.3 this has been changed unfortunately. Since then I was playing once a month instead of 4 times a week, and just to see the great efforts in graphics because battling is no more fun to me.

[Gantoris]

if i attempt to be really serious, then in my opinion a well thought out reaction fire system improves the game more than any storyline or new equipment or even equipment balance.

I agree and the system in the original XCOM games, Jagged Alliance Series, Fallout Series, Chaos Gate, Silent Storm and countless other truly great squad based combat games works just fine and does not need to be replaced by an overly complex system that doesn't work at all.

I'm not so sure RF is actual cover fire. Cover fire is usually done to keep the enemies heads dows and is exceptionally badly aimed. Reaction fire, on the other hand, is a method to make defensive play possible and make this seem more like actual combat (aka. real-time instead turn-based). Eg. a shot from shotgun when the alien has moved right in front of you is not exactly covering fire.

This is debatable but ive always seen reaction fire as cover fire translated into a turn based system as it serves the same purpose, you advance a few men while others sit with reaction fire on to cover that advance.

I haven't played JA2 so I don't have any opinions on that. However, the devs have said (a long time ago) that pure copying is not preferable.

Thats a shame but not entirely unexpected, JA is an unappreciated gem and if you like the XCOM games you owe it to yourself to give it a go. To me it is the finest example of a squad based combat game there is and like UFO blends a non linear over map with a squad based combat system to make something truly special. And i don't literally mean just rip it of completely but just use something that works from a game that does this kinda thing so so well, to quote my father "If its not broken don't fix it".

t's not only that the aliens can do that (walk, kill, go to safety). Assumed the RF has a "random" component this could happen (but it should only in rare cases).
Much more annoying IMO is the behaviour of "locking" a target.
The turn-based gameplay should somewhat simulate the action game. So it is logical that you can move a unit freely until it gets into LOS of an enemy - at this point RF comes into play. The enemy now gets a chance to fire at the spotted moved unit.

I agree 100% and in most of the games mentioned in my post this is exactly how it works, a unit using RF should only be able to shoot at what is in his direct line of fire.

[Edi]

If you wish to enable RF the way it was in 2.2.1, see here:

http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=4879.0

[Gantoris]

If you wish to enable RF the way it was in 2.2.1, see here:

http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=4879.0

You might have noticed in my original post i mentioned that, said i couldn't get it to work and asked for help

[Edi]

Sorry about that.

Relevant questions:

What operating system? Windows XP/Vista/7 or something else?

Do you know where the profile directory for your game is? The profile directory is very different from the base directory in the install path. In XP the path looks like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Application Data\UFOAI\2.4-dev\base

That's the place you need to put the autoexec.cfg and you also need to have hidden files and folders viewing enabled in the Windows Folder options. I don't know the profile path for Vista or 7, because I haven't ever played UFO:AI with those operating systems.

[Gantoris]

Ahhh i put it in the C:\Program Files part so hopefully this will work thanks a bunch.

[homunculus]

Here was one try. Too bad he seems to have gone missing, his RF idea was great IMO.[...]

oh, a lot has been going on in the coding forum.
i am not a c coder myself, so i do not read there.
however, had he posted something in the design forum or even here, i would probably have noticed it, and then i would certainly have had comments.
don't know if he would have liked them, of if those things could be done that way, but maybe it would have helped with some issues.

for example, there was a problem that once a rf target is aquired, etc...
i would certainly have asked if it could be done so that only shooting at the same target gets the burst tu bonus, but shooting at another target would need more tu spent by the opponent before new opponent becomes the new target.
if he is gone, then whatever, but in the end i think it might have been possible to design a multiple shot (multiple burst) reaction fire.

the statements about breaking game balance seemed funny, though, considering that the official claim is that weapons are not balanced atm.

I agree and the system in the original XCOM games, Jagged Alliance Series, Fallout Series, Chaos Gate, Silent Storm and countless other truly great squad based combat games works just fine and does not need to be replaced by an overly complex system that doesn't work at all.[...]

if that was really intended as a reply to me, i did not say that reaction fire system should necessarily be simple.
simple and intuitive as experienced by the player does not necessarily mean simple.
as far as my non-dev opinion goes, an ideal rf system should be simple and intuitive for the player, and consistent, and enable to do the things that the player expects from the game.
and i guess it would be more like a design problem at first, and i am afraid it would take a long discussion to arrive at something workable.
i would not be against simplicity, but i am afraid that simple is exactly what the rf system is right now.
for the player, it seems like a pain in the ass, though.

[Gantoris]

Simple is your men firing reserved TUs at enemy's when they enter there line of sight, that is completely fine and i don't understand why its been changed at all.

I agree that you shouldn't be able to attack anything that isnt in your LoS with reaction fire and i feel that you should only be able to do basic shots like snap shot other than that it should be immediate with no screwing about. As i said previously when you go into reaction fire mode you could also tighten up the characters LoS a little to represent him focusing down his sights to cover a specific area which would help balance it slightly aswell.

[homunculus]

Simple is your men firing reserved TUs at enemy's when they enter there line of sight, that is completely fine and i don't understand why its been changed at all.[...]

my best guess is that it was changed because snipers (or anyone with an accurate long range weapon) on reaction fire were too powerful, and the game was played not the way it was intended.

it seems that for this reason, the probability (of enemy movement in your los triggering reaction fire) was set lower.
also, the probability seems to depend on time units that are needed for the shot.

with your system, each time an alien moved 2 tu in your los you could snap shot the alien from e.g. a sniper rifle (which is 12 tu).

in fact, the previous system was very similar (the rf probability was high enough), giving you such insane reaction fire that keeping snipers crouched on reaction fire resulted in much more damage per round than shooting aliens during the player move.

see?

on the other hand, when the probability was set too low, aliens could walk in front of your soldiers freely.

this is why a system that has more reliable reaction fire, but counts time units (tu of enemy movement in your los), may start to appear very much appealing.

(disclaimer: this probability thing is what reaction fire has looked like when i have played the game)

[Gantoris]

So because snipers are over powered the solution is to utterly breakdown a fundamental mechanic of a squad based game instead of nerfing just the sniper? Did it not occur to anyone to make a sniper rifle take more TUs to fire perhaps, or dramatically tighten the snipers line of sight so his coverage on reaction fire isnt so great. Also, and i feel this is an important point... aliens SHOULD NOT be able to walk into the open in front of player with RF set up without being bloody shot at that is the very reason for reaction fire.

What you have just described is exactly the function of a sniper in games like this and real life for that matter, you put them in a good spot with good coverage and anyone who walks into there sights gets shot. That area is covered and instead of crying the enemy must work around it by trying to flank the position or using smoke grenades, the logic of totally breaking the game rather than snipers being powerful on a battlefield is insanity.

Most games like this when you activate Overwatch/Reaction Fire ect... the unit in question will spend some TUs to raise his gun and sit there ready to fire in the direction he is facing. This will limit his field of fire quite a bit so coming around the side is very possible, also sniper rifles should take considerably more TUs to fire than they do perhaps 16-18 for a snap shot and 22-24 for an aimed which would achieve the results your after without breaking the mechanic. Also letting you take direct control of reaction fire would be nice but importantly you wouldn't be able to move at all and you can only fire at what is directly in your line of fire.

This is a system that has worked very well for this type of game for as long time and does not need to be changed at all, if you want to nerf snipers be my guest but don't destroy an entire game mechanic to do it.