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Newbie Questions / Moving Civilians

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mikehg:
I just had this exact same thought playing a jungle map with a walled compound in the bottom left (and... grrr... most of your spawn points in the open halfway across the map. Feels like an artificial way to make it harder, to be honest).

The only sane way to tackle the map is to retreat behind smoke into buildings and take up cover. Here you find civilians wandering around like nothing is happening, blocking access to rooms or walking out into a full on firefight - "Offer the Phalanx soldiers some tea while they're reloading would you dear? I'm just nipping down to the shops to get some biscuits..."

:P

This breaks immersion.

I think civilian psychology would be the most 'realism adding' element. If an alien approaches, or a human (Phalanx or civilian) gets shot in close proximity, civilians could have a certain probability of panicking / bolting / hiding (would be great to have extra graphics for that, but I suppose it isn't strictly necessary...).

If you could take some TUs to order calm civilians to a back room, even better. They could obey on a certain probability, perhaps weighted according to your reputation with the nation? (evil / desperate players could send them out as 'scouts' to expose enemy positions. A costly tactic, but hey, war is hell...)

Perhaps you could knock them out with the butts of your guns? Quicker than using antipsychotics on them... doing it could annoy the nation, but less than the civilian dying (perhaps it could have a small chance of killing them anyway).

Grug:

--- Quote from: mikehg on May 30, 2014, 02:13:52 pm ---I think civilian psychology would be the most 'realism adding' element. If an alien approaches, or a human (Phalanx or civilian) gets shot in close proximity, civilians could have a certain probability of panicking / bolting / hiding (would be great to have extra graphics for that, but I suppose it isn't strictly necessary...).

--- End quote ---
The problem is the civilians take their turn just like the aliens and soldiers. They do move away from aliens when it is their turn.

It's difficult to picture how the scene would work an a realtime sense... in realtime, they would be panicking and probably going in different directions and generally getting in the way as there would be shots all around. So I think the current movement is possibly realistic (except for the not attempting to hide), but it looks odd because it is turn-based.

Visually, increasing their movement speed might give the impression of them panicking.

It would be nice if they tried to hide better but that would require a more advanced AI of course.


--- Quote from: mikehg on May 30, 2014, 02:13:52 pm ---If you could take some TUs to order calm civilians to a back room, even better. They could obey on a certain probability, perhaps weighted according to your reputation with the nation? (evil / desperate players could send them out as 'scouts' to expose enemy positions. A costly tactic, but hey, war is hell...)

--- End quote ---
When I first started playing I kept trying to figure out how to get the civilians to go back to the "Safe Zone" areas. Eventually I gave up.

Interacting with civilians would be neat. I initially thought they might follow a soldier once they were in an adjacent square or something. That would allow you to lead them away without having to add anything to the interface, but would cause issues if you were just trying to pass them while hunting down an alien.

I also like the idea of being able to command them somehow. If nothing else, just to tell them to get out of the way. I've no idea what would be a good interface for this however.


--- Quote from: mikehg on May 30, 2014, 02:13:52 pm ---Perhaps you could knock them out with the butts of your guns? Quicker than using antipsychotics on them... doing it could annoy the nation, but less than the civilian dying (perhaps it could have a small chance of killing them anyway).

--- End quote ---
You can stun them already, but knocking them out with your gun would save you having to switch weapons back and forth.

mikehg:

--- Quote from: Grug on June 01, 2014, 06:16:10 am ---The problem is the civilians take their turn just like the aliens and soldiers. They do move away from aliens when it is their turn.

It's difficult to picture how the scene would work an a realtime sense... in realtime, they would be panicking and probably going in different directions and generally getting in the way as there would be shots all around. So I think the current movement is possibly realistic (except for the not attempting to hide), but it looks odd because it is turn-based.

Visually, increasing their movement speed might give the impression of them panicking.

It would be nice if they tried to hide better but that would require a more advanced AI of course.

--- End quote ---

They do indeed try to move out of the line of fire of aliens, but I've seen them wandering out of some quite sensible places into some really bizarre ones. It also seems rather static, in that they don't seem to react particularly differently if for example one of them gets shot.

What I was imagining is they could have three states:

1) Normal - more or less what they do now, which does create a fairly good illusion of intelligence in that they often bunch together somewhere out of the line of sight of aliens. Perhaps if other states were added, it would make sense to tone this one down - make them move around less.

2) Hiding - I'm not an AI programmer, so I have no idea how hard this would be. But I guess it's possible eventually. They could find a spot nearby on the map that is hard to get to (has few routes to it, or is behind bottlenecks in the available paths, or where you can't see much else of the map...), then just sit there and pray, gibber, cower and wet themselves like civilians probably ought to be doing in this situation.

3) Outright panic - running at full tilt to another point on the map, without much thought to what they're running through.


--- Quote ---...
I also like the idea of being able to command them somehow. If nothing else, just to tell them to get out of the way. I've no idea what would be a good interface for this however.
You can stun them already, but knocking them out with your gun would save you having to switch weapons back and forth.

--- End quote ---

Could be as simple as selecting one of your soldiers, then selecting a nearby civilian (would probably make sense if several in a group were all affected). A 'fire mode' type dialogue could pop up, with "Evacuate to (X TUs)" written on it. You click on that, then click on the destination. Would be useful even if it only worked over short distances.

And yes, you can stun them if you're equipped for it - I've taken a few out with smoke grenades entirely by accident. But I kinda wish I could whack 'em round the head with my rifle when I run round a corner and find one blocking a corridor... :)

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