Reaction fire

[Noordung]

So i have a little problem with it. I cant understand it.
Sometimes aliens shoot before my soliders sometimes after my soliders. Many times they will shoot you even if you shoot them at flank, you shoot one and 5 will than shoot at you.
So why cant my soliders do that? Sometimes they even wont shoot back or even if you have raction fire on 5 soliders aliens will shot 6th and none of mine will do nothing about.

And i use 2.4. Dont think 2.5 had any improvments on human reaction fire...

So is alien reaction fire intentialy superior to human?

Sometimes aliens will shoot if you heal/walk. Why cant my soliders to the same?


And whats the difference between very easy and very hard campain? I didnt notice aliens would be any easier to kill or that they do less demage. But must admit i only tried heard and normal.

[GPS51]

From what I understand (and I don't understand it very well), it has to do with how much TU is used up in sight of the alien? So if you take a shot at an alien that takes up say 25TU, then aliens with RF and shooting a weapon taking less then 25 TU shoot at you. However there was a bug where aliens were getting TU both at the start of their turn and the start of the human turn (giving them a LOT of RF shots).

[H-Hour]

Aliens tend to select low-TU firemodes for reaction fire, which is why they seem to RF a lot. If you want to increase the amount of RF your soldiers take, be sure you are using low-TU firemodes as your RF firemode. It's easy to miss, but you can select the RF mode by clicking a small circle in the bottom left of the firemode panel.

Also keep in mind that if a unit loses sight of another unit at any time, the TU accumulation must start again from zero. In 2.5-dev, at least, I find aliens are good at walking behind you before firing, so in tight spaces I'll often try to form a line to block their movement.

[Noordung]

Well i know how to turn it on. Its just that when i shoot one alien five of them will shoot back at me, but my own soliders cant to such coorinated attacks. I generaly looks like aliens are much much better in RF than my soliders.
Yes and i also understand that if ypu shoot alien in back there will be no RF. It just seems that view angle od aliens is much bigger than human. Maybe we could determine that angle with autopsy? That would be very useful information.

Its also aliens many times can shoot more than one shot on RF. And i never know will there be one shot or more. I also noticet with needler gun shooting on RF that attack is different. I cant normaly use that attack.

So if aliens on RF are intentionaly better than my soliders may I suggest that as my soliders become more experienced they would become better at it. Mainly that they cover eachother. So one alien shoots all of my man shoot back. Alien move or come to view angle my man shoot. Similar like aliens do.

Its just sometimes alien RF seems too good or at least much much better than one of my soliders.

@H-Hour I cant see option to choose how many TU you can use for RF. I can only switch RF on or off. I see you can reserve some TUs for shooting but does than mean whey will be used in RF? And sometimes aliens use RF even when your soliders just walk around. Never saw my soliders do the same.

[Anarch Cassius]

Some tests have shown rapid fire weapons/modes are more likely to fire. Accuracy is a big deal for RF and so accurate weapons or ones that spray will be most likely to fire. The aliens may in general be a tad more accurate than your soldiers and/or using low TU weapons.

It not an angle thing, but some races have better accuracy than humans and/or more TU. Aliens are also more likely than most human players to leave a pile of TUs for reaction fire.

Also 2.5 may not have any improvements on human RF but I think there have been some tweaks and bug fixes to RF overall and alien AI, so what you've seen may be related to old bugs.

I don't think the Needler has any hidden attacks. What you're seeing may be the way a lag sometimes causes it to fire a burst rather than a stream but the game effects are identical. It just seems to be a visual glitch.

[Noordung]

I don't think the Needler has any hidden attacks. What you're seeing may be the way a lag sometimes causes it to fire a burst rather than a stream but the game effects are identical. It just seems to be a visual glitch.

Ah that explains a lot. I alway wonder how can aliens use different affacks for needler wich i cant.

So there is not 100% that human/player with enabled RF will use it even if enemy is visible? And I use pistol I will get better RF? Like alien will just walk and my solider will shoot at it?

And when you say

Aliens are also more likely than most human players to leave a pile of TUs for reaction fire.

this means that if I turn on RF witch nedd lets say 15 TU and I have 30 TU on the end of the turn may soliders may be better on RF?

[Anarch Cassius]

It depends on range and cover.

I don't know if having more TUs makes them more likely to fire, I was offering this as an explanation of them performing RF several times a round.

A pistol is more likely to fire because the enemy won't need to spend many TU before you fire but you will still need a good chance to hit.

High accuracy soldiers with low TU, high accuracy and/or spray weapons will do the most RF from what I've heard.