Again on reaction fire

[Wolls]

  The idea that you can set reaction fire and just 'sit' is one that the aliens seem to use, this perhaps creates the impression of reaction fire favouring the aliens.  And to a certain extent I agree, however this is almost the only 'tactic' the aliens take any advantage of.. so just in terms of keeping your troops from entirely running them over (and making the game no fun) it has a place.
  On the human side there are so many advantages/tactics that the aliens don't employ (or employ poorly): wide array of weapons and tech (the aliens have one tech line), true sniper weapons (with through-wall capability), the use of 'area of effect' weapons  in the form of splash radius/splash damage in close(grenades), mid(grenade launcher), long (rocket launcher), a cohesive 'group' attack with true support (medikits to using suppressive fire to human RF)....
  But specifically in terms of reaction fire, I can attack this numerous way(ways the aliens won't); directly by using flash bang grenades to disable alien RF, indirectly by using smoke grenades to obscure alien lines of sight or even using incendiary to discourage aliens from taking certain positions** or at least softening them up if they do.  Even avoiding it, walking around to attack from the side or coming in from the back.. (most time on spotting you IN their turn, the aliens either shoot and stop or just stop..)
  I mean you consider that the majority of the missions are urban/guerrilla warfare and your opponent has the tactical intelligence of a newt (augmented by the alien tech being kick-arse + supa high stats so their tech in their hands is even more kick-arse) then gameplay / balance is has to be considered.  IE I havn't played multiplayer, but there a truly robust RF system would work, both sides are fully capable of employing/exploiting tactics.. trying to take that robust RF and just dropping it into the campaign??? I pity the fool.

  I ramble but, some Q's: **When the Alien takes it turn does it account whether the player has RF engaged? Enough that it discourages them from entering LOS??        Also with the light and heavy sub types for aliens, does that 'help' with the aliens taking full advantage of the alien weapons? So even if they rely entirely on primary, you can at least switch the primary in each sub class.. or um..

[H-Hour]

Also with the light and heavy sub types for aliens, does that 'help' with the aliens taking full advantage of the alien weapons? So even if they rely entirely on primary, you can at least switch the primary in each sub class.. or um..

This is a temporary work-around for the Taman species only. They go from unarmoured to lightly armoured to heavily armoured throughout the course of the campaign. In order to keep them from being too fast at the beginning of the game (when they wear no armour and so carry little weight) to being too slow late in the game (when they wear heavy armour), we created these duplicate variants of the Taman species. In the future we'll be able to do this within a single race without all the extra fuss, but for now this is the only way to get this balanced properly.

[nanomage]

2krilain: that's some impressive reasoning, I wasn't actually meaning that. For me, auto-RF with remaining time is just a matter of convenience, so that I wouldn't have to cycle through the soldiers once more to find those who still have time for RF, or to check that tiny button or press x to make soldiers advance carefully.
I think that current UI regarding RF is more a thing of the past when TU's from the next turn were used for it, and then you had strong incentive to not RF. An option for disabling auto-RF, rather than enabling RF, would seem more convenient for me. idk how do other players regard that though.
As for hurting friendlies with FR: I believe the game has already some checks for this. I often tried to make aliens waste ammo or shoot each other with RF, but it seems to me they have checks to not shoot when target is off range or when  LoF is broken, even in clear sight. With this in place, how difficult would it be to add the check for friendlies near LoF? I tried once to code something for this project, but my meager c skills failed me through those heaps of code. maybe it's time to try again.

[Triaxx2]

The reason the AI just sits and RF's is because it's got enough TU that it can get four or five reaction shots so it doesn't have to advance just sit and wait until you do something stupid like attack. Thankfully they do seem to be only capable of snap shot reaction fire, otherwise the game would be unwinnable.

[Wolls]

Disclaimer: I don't know if its possible to implement a more realistic RF without destroying the gameplay, but here are some cloud castles-

 RE: Reaction Fire / once more unto the breach

Consider Offensive Issue
'So my soldier is basically on guard, scanning for movements in front of him; this means that he should be ready to fire.' - Xeinar
'... reaction should preceed the last triggering action.' - nanomage
'Range is an issue.' - Telok
'.. give UFOAI RF more sense, and make it more captivating.' - krilain

Consider Defensive Issue
"... 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." - H-Hour

- Premise:  Instant RF (Of some Form)
   Argument: ..but this favours a defensive camping tactic.

- Give each soldier a limited Instant RF Pool from which to draw from, X amount of shots. Any shot, any TU cost. Once depleted normal RF rules apply (Cheap SHOT!)
     If a person wanted to they could just camp and 'save', using their RF pool that way, doesn't address defensive issue.

- Allow unlimited IRF pool, but access to pool is retricted to first X turns (GUNG HO!)
   Promotes aggressive activity; In that sitting and waiting essentially wastes IRF opportunity
   More tactical players will feel like they are being rushed into combat
   Once IRF pool is closed, how jaring will the the diff be? Intense firefight-BAM!>-BAM!>-BAM!>-BAM!>----BAM!>----BAM!>Everything slows down       and stays that way for rest of battle
   Certain maps/spawn points, itll take longer to engage enemy as first few turns are moving will feel like play is penalized/lose IRF time

- Option to enable TEAM REACTION FIRE, IRF mode that lasts 1 turn.  Either one per mission, or rule: Cannot be used in X consecutive turns (X       turns = recharge time)
   Players get to choose 'When', making it a more viable offensive tool (it is easier to determine when you start attack vs when alien will start attack         you)
   Feels like a party buff, sounds llike a party buff, does this game have party buffs??

And See also,
- H-Hours Plan '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.'
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'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).'  H-Hour
   That would be cool, and thanks for the clarification re: Taman sub classes.

until you do something stupid like attack.

 ...so there are at least 2 reasons to stop picturing my soldiers semi-clad with red bandana's wrapped around flowing locks... 

[Anarch Cassius]

It seems that a defender can and will shoot first if their TU cost is equal to or less than the acting character's and the aliens use this a lot. If the defender isn't winning ties they probably should (so an active player firing a weapon will fire after a reactor firing the same attack) but I think they do.

Really I think the issue is more that the aliens are more accurate and have lots of TUs, so we see them killing our people with RF but green soldiers can't do the same. With advanced troops I can bet on a small squad gunning down an alien coming out of cover before it can fire.

Another slightly cheap trick. Flash bangs are quicker to draw and throw than nearly any RF attack in 2.5. If you have only one enemy or they are clustered you can disable them and fire at will. Flash bangs also don't cause friendly fire so you can do this at very close quarters. I fear the day the aliens develop flash bangs.

[ShipIt]

I fear the day the aliens develop flash bangs.

I fear the day aliens start to use their plasma grenades again. 


About reaction fire, you should take into account that a change will affect the player and the AI the same way.

Maybe we could take the stats/skills into account. Based on the current system, a high minded (=good situational awareness) soldier with a high speed stat who is proficient in his weapon skill should be able to fire his weapon quicker than a rookie, lowering the TU costs for his reaction fire.

Maybe, if we could have critical hits implemented, we could also give the reaction fire a higher chance there.

[Triaxx2]

Unless something has changed since the nov 1 version, they still should be tossing nades. They do in mine at least. Unless we've gotten lucky and the aliens are penalized by the weight system as well, and no longer carry them. Which would be awesome.

[Wolls]

  The only time I've seen the Aliens toss a plasma grenade was my first time on the Dam map, my soldiers all grew beards (even the females) in the time it took me to cross.  I'm still not sure if the aliens ran out of ammo, or were so thankful ( it was a hot day and my snipers were fanning them from across the map ), but one threw down its weapon and ran, when I finally closed it appeared in a doorway and tried to toss a plasma at me.   The grenade hit the door frame and blew up the tossee.

  It would really make sense that a person with RF engaged, watching an area would benefit from a critical hit.  I'm leery of the aliens stats though, if they get critical RF hits I am going to develop some serious 'avoidance' issues.

  On flash bangs, it would be nice if there was some kinda indication of whether or not you hit or failed to hit the alien with the splash radius.  The stun rod and tazer (and gas grenade?) use 'stun' damage, while the flash bang uses 'shock' (I think..heeh).  So there's no animation for the damage type.  Seeing as its my number one move to disable alien RF, its me hawk-eying my flash lobs and counting squares.. usually I toss 2.. if I'm unsure (and I think I am).  Better then thinking, well maybe and getting blasted (to death).

[Anarch Cassius]

That's odd. The only time I saw an alien draw a grenade it also blew itself up.

I've seen this once in over 90 completed battles in 2.5. I think something is discouraging them from trying, possibly the blowing themselves up

[maackey]

I want to add something to nanomage's comment about automatic RF.

Fallout Tactics had a system where your units would automatically shoot only if you had a certain percent chance to hit (eg. 33%, 66%, 90%, never) numbers may be off but that isn't important. Instead of manually setting RF each turn I want the ability to set a percentage to hit threshold where my units would use leftover TUs to fire at enemies above the threshold. This system allows so much more control and on top of that it reduces tedious micromanagement because your troops only have to be set once. And then if you really feel like you don't want to shoot the alien for whatever reason, you can simply change the mode to "never" when the situation pops up, instead of changing the mode *every* *single* *turn* you *do* want RF.

[Anarch Cassius]

So the proposed change is...

You no longer select RF or not, instead you set a threshold to perform RF at. If you've got the TUs you fire when your chance meets the threshold.

Hmm, assuming we keep the mode of selecting RF type the same and considering we can still reserve TUs using the TU reserver (which I never use now, I use the RF marker for that too for simplicity) I don't see a problem.

The biggest issue would be getting people to use the TU reserver to reserve for RF. I'm not sure this fixes moist of people's problems but it would be a nice option to have.

[krilain]

2krilain: that's some impressive reasoning, I wasn't actually meaning that. For me, auto-RF with remaining time is just a matter of convenience, so that I wouldn't have to cycle through the soldiers once more to find those who still have time for RF, or to check that tiny button or press x to make soldiers advance carefully.

I must apologize here for I often dont understand everything and more English language is not my natural one (french). But even if we disagree with the maneer we should extend the RF, extinguishing it for you (if i understood !) , or pushing it further like a natural behaviour for me, we at least agree to the fact it doesnt get for the moment his maturity. But hopefully it will with the time and the developers job. I must add here that i dont really know today what should be this maturity. The intersting point for the moment I think, is to ear each others opinions.

As for hurting friendlies with FR: I believe the game has already some checks for this. I often tried to make aliens waste ammo or shoot each other with RF, but it seems to me they have checks to not shoot when target is off range or when  LoF is broken, even in clear sight. With this in place, how difficult would it be to add the check for friendlies near LoF? I tried once to code something for this project, but my meager c skills failed me through those heaps of code. maybe it's time to try again.

In fact Friendly Fire on Reaction Fire should add something to the game if only it evolves (decreasingly) with the soldier/alien XP. Anyway that adds something more to the tactics.

You no longer select RF or not, instead you set a threshold to perform RF at. If you've got the TUs you fire when your chance meets the threshold.

I take the occasion of your quite good synthesis to argue again about the fact that the reaction can be also viewed as a free range of behaviour for your soldier. It could be also a part of a bigger "Reaction Freedom", including any action - as reloading or crouching, or looking around. I already exchanged some point of view with H-Hour at page 1 about this, so I wont say more, but reaction could also be the way to give every soldier a single personality (leading the game slightly further in RPG style). The day (if it comes such a day) the soldiers will be more like RPG characters (with a wide-range XP system) it will be a possible way to bring them such a shade (human-like reactions).

I didn't say an important thing. All that would give the possibility for the player to manage his team with more macromanagement (choose of a general set of soldier's behaviours) and less micromanagement (only move orders and some explicite shots)  which sometimes, after repeated missions, would be more relaxing.

Omg I'm still adding remarks  Ok last, but not least. I would really like to share this ultimate point of view. It is I see that the team is for the moment a set of different lonely soldiers not so much linked each others (there is not team action like grouped RF as said on the thread), and I would like to be able to make the team more like a single entity which I would be able to expand on the map and manipulate eventually at a micro-scale (as much as at a more deployed-team-scale). In the second style (deploying one entity), more (and suffisantly predictable) self-determination given to the soldiers is wished. For instance, maybe some of you played already games such Gunship2000. It is approximatively the model to which I refere. In this tactical game at least there were the 2 maneers for deploying his team (helicopter team). - Here in UFOAI , Reaction is the only way I see to build a bridge for doubling the game set of playing styles.

Sorry again for the bad english :/

[Telok]

If I'm reading the code correctly then hovernets take 10 TU per shot. Is this right?

I'm doing reaction fire tests using a Dam map save.

[H-Hour]

That's correct. 10 TU for a hovernet shot. Same TU for a combat hovernet's burst.