General > Discussion

Again on reaction fire

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Xeinar:
I am a veteran with X-Com (I bought it for the Amiga version, the terror missions took ages to load...), through Apocalypse and the latter Aftermath and so on. I find UFO AI a great game, really devoted to the spirit of the original game and the most amazing thing is that it is developed by volunteers and with a freeware license - I'd like to help in translating it in italian once I'll have completed my first campaign.

So far, the only thing I really don't like is the way reaction fire is implemented. I've read and understood how it works in 2.5, but to me it is a non-sense. Let me explain.

Theoretically, when saving TUs for RF, it means that I'm using only part of the actions I could take in my turn for using them later. So my soldier is basically on guard, scanning for movements in front of him; this means that he should be ready to fire.
In the way it is implemented now, instead, my enemies can perform many actions, and I could not be able to fire at them: for example coming out from a door (no TU as they appear), take another step in my direction (2TU), then back (2TU)and then again in the room(2TU). Even with a simple snap shot I couldn't have the chance to fire at them; so, in the end, I'm penalized for not having used all my TUs in the previous turn (I could have thrown a grenade instead, to maintain the same example).
Having a sniper in reaction fire mode is useless: it is almost impossible to see an alien fired with an aimed shot, and the snap shot is unaccurate even at close range.

In X-Com (I know, it is a different game) the soldiers shooted as soon as an alien walked in front of their LOS; as far as they reserved TUs in the previous turn for the selected shot, they were able to fire immediately, and I feel it is the right way to use the RF factor. The only exception I can understand is if the target is "quicker" and has an extra movement allowed (I see you while turning to your direction, I jump in cover). This could be handled by the soldiers/aliens stats.

Another thing I'm not able to understand: how is it possible that the aliens can RF even if I'm not in their LOS? I could understand they shoot me after I've fired and they survive... but before? When shooting at their backs? Is it a matter of telepathy?  ;)

Ok, this is my two cents. I hope this could give ideas and a different look at the aspect!  :)

H-Hour:
The problem with the method you describe is that it promotes excessively defensive tactics. By giving the inert unit a shoot-first advantage in all encounters, you increase the incentive to camp your soldiers in a defensive place and you decrease the incentive to make contact with the enemy.

In the original X-Com, this was mediated by the fact that often aliens could see you and shoot at you from farther away. It was up to the player to make contact or he risked being picked off from the shadows. We don't have a visibility-at-distance mechanism in the game or an AI that could effectively take advantage of this.

Because we use a straight TU system, managing your low-TU firemodes is crucial to effective use of reaction fire. You may want to look into pistols or other low-TU weaponry. (Side note: this was supposed to be one of the roles the Shotguns play, but I can see now that the 10 TU firemode undermines this and so I will probably reduce it).

Regarding the use of Snipers for effective reaction fire: there is a very big danger of making snipers overpowered if they can quickly execute an aimed shot in reaction fire. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of our maps are quite open and the AI is not smart enough to hide indoors in most cases. I understand the broader point you are making -- that in real life a sniper would zero-in on an area and then be able to shoot fairly quickly. But I'm not convinced we have the mechanisms to balance this properly at the moment.

I hope eventually we will have some kind of "focus" mechanism that might, for instance, allow me to spend extra TUs to designate a small area of "focus". The soldier would then gain an advantage in response time when sighting an enemy in that area, but may lose the ability to see or respond to targets quickly outside of that area. Such mechanisms might allow a properly balanced implementation similar to what you are seeking.

I also hope that, eventually, we will have some stat that effects reaction fire, so that soldiers could become quicker at it over time. In the past we have had problems with reaction fire being very inconsistent, and this leading to a lot of confusion for players. This is why 2.5 features the very straightforward reaction fire mechanism it does -- and trust me, it's a lot better than what was there before (thanks to aDuke).

Triaxx2:
As above, pistols are the way to go, averaging 5 TU for a Snap Shot for the base human pistol, 4 for the Alien Pistol which means they'll be getting reaction shots every turn without fail until you have Plasma Pistols. Of course then they move up to Plasma Rifles which mitigates the reaction fire.

Second, mostly the problem is the wide difference in the amount of TUs necessary for movement versus the TU's necessary to shoot. When aliens gain the ability to crouch, that appear, step back and fade would provoke a reaction shot. 9 TU versus 6 TU.

Speed should be the governing ability for reaction fire. Considering an average 20 speed, it means that the enemy has to spend the 8 TU for a snap shot before the soldier can shoot. If you have each point of speed above that and each below modify the Reaction fire, a soldier with 18 speed would have to have them spend 10 TU for the same snap shot, while one with 22 could fire after only 6. Just as an example. This also means that more experienced soldiers would have a better chance of getting off a reaction shot, making them more able to survive, while at the same time making it more useful to ensure those soldiers survive earlier.

nanomage:
First of all, congratulations with implementing a great and reasonable (imo at least) system of reaction fire. I like it very much and if I may I'd like to suggest a possible improvement to it.

I disagree that raw speed should determine the proficiency in reaction fire. In my opinion, total available TU's should be used instead, taking encumbrance modifiers into account. Using ratios of used TU's to total TU's to determine reaction fire chance would be more precise, I think.
So, if an unencumbered soldier with 45 TU's available is standing on guard with a shotgun snap shot of 10 TU's, a moderately encumbered alien (with 30TU's, let's suppose) should spend 7 TU's in soldier's arc of sight to trigger reaction fire (7/30 > 10/45, BAMM). I definitely agree with game's point that reaction should preceed the last triggering action. Maybe speed can be used to adjust this value a bit, but I think that would be unreasonable: after all, we've already taken speed into account when we calculated units' total TU's, haven't we?

This would be in accord with intuitive feeling that faster units should generally react, turn and aim and pull their triggers more quickly then slow ones.
Also this would make unarmoured soldiers a more viable option (although the latter might be a drawback instead)

H-Hour:
This is not a bad idea, but I think it will lead to the previous problem we faced where it was very unpredictable, and this led to confusion and frustration. It also faces a key problem in that aliens do not have the same TUs as soldiers. Many have a lot more TUs. So the effect of a system like this would be to make reaction fire more rare, which isn't really the intention. Our TU-to-TU numbers are not really set up to balance this, and giving some aliens a lot more TUs is part of their "identity".

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