General > Discussion
2.5 sucks completely
Merlin:
--- Quote from: kurja on June 04, 2013, 11:41:57 pm ---No!! Not a matter of semantics. An 8TU snapshot as reaction fire costs 8TU, not 16, no matter how you turn it. If you have 40TU, spend 32 walking and shooting so you have eight left, you can activate RF and the 8TU shot will then happen on the alien turn (if conditions are met). 8, not 16!
As it is, reaction fire sure isn't suitable for sniper overwatch or similar as you've noted but it still has it's uses. I use it extensively.
--- End quote ---
Yes. It is a matter of semantics. I get that it doesn't take 16 TUs to go into RF mode, thanks to Shipit explaining it to me. It only costs/takes/save/needs/youcan'tusetheseTUsifyouwanttodothis 8 TUs. But regardless of the number it still costs/takes/save/needs/youcan'tusetheseTUsifyouwanttodothis. You're saying it doesn't take 8 points to use because they are still there, I'm saying it does techincally take 8 points(because again Ship explained it with the pic and I get it now), because while I don't lose those 8 points, I still can't use those 8 points in my turn if I want to use RF.
The points are lost but I can't use them if I want to RF. So it has a cost, a refundable cost if you want to do something using those points instead of using RF, but a cost none the less. And again, I used the Sniper example for hyperbole. Lemme try this again. I use 8 RF on a shotgun to watch the door. The alien walks in a way to not let me see it for 8 TUs and shoots my guy in the side killing him. A sniper watches an area, and never shoots anything because the TUs are too high for him to cover. A shotgunner has to get lucky that the alien is brain dead.
--- Quote from: H-Hour on June 04, 2013, 08:57:14 pm ---So, now we've learned that you didn't understand how reaction fire works when you became frustrated with it. And we've gone through quite a lot to explain to you how it does work. And you're not even going to try it out?!
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I still don't see how it works. No wait, I see how it works mechanically, not practice. The only time RF will work is if the alien is in vision enough. And there's very few times where you can grantee that the alien will spend the TUs to be allowed to get shot. Here lemme see...
--- Quote from: H-Hour on June 05, 2013, 12:15:07 am ---RF is much more than just a shoot now or later choice. If you can shoot at an alien safely and move into a safe position during your turn, you should almost always do it. Reaction Fire is for all the other times when you can't quite kill an alien and need an alternative solution.
Consider a situation where you have an alien at mid-range spotted by two soldiers with laser rifles. You estimate that a burst shot has a good chance of hitting with one round at this range and two hits are enough to bring down this alien. However, one of your soldiers already used many of his TUs. If he fires a burst shot at the alien, he won't have enough TUs to move into a safe position, so any other alien can walk into the open area and fire at him.
Instead of taking the chance and hoping to get lucky, you can move your soldiers behind a nearby building and put one crouched in front of the other. Now they only have enough for a snap shot, but at this range they're almost certain to hit. The alien is almost certainly going to come around the corner and fire at one of your soldiers, so with their 8 TU snap shot they'll get their shots off first. Now you've traded one likely kill for an even more likely kill, and added on the bonus that your soldiers will be in a safer position.
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Ah ha. Depending on how the alien moves, your two soldiers won't get a shot off. He can spend enough to get killed, move enough so only one can fire, or moves the side of the second guy(the standing one) with TUs to spend. Aliens have weird movement patterns and it makes little sense covering alien UFO doors in places as they can walk to your side and kill you that way. I said the AI is kinda dim yes, but this is an XCOM style game. The AI always has weird movement patterns.
Which brings me back to, why take a chance on RF when Smoke saves my bacon more often. The reason I wanted RF explained to me was to see if I was doing it wrong, to see if I can shoot them when I see them. I was wrong in both. I wanted RF to be 'prepare to shoot' rather than 'prepare to react to shoot'. So thanks for putting up with me and thanks for explaining how it works, even if the answer wasn't what I was expecting.
kurja:
--- Quote from: Merlin on June 05, 2013, 04:34:56 am ---Yes. It is a matter of semantics. I get that it doesn't take 16 TUs to go into RF mode, thanks to Shipit explaining it to me. It only costs/takes/save/needs/youcan'tusetheseTUsifyouwanttodothis 8 TUs. But regardless of the number it still costs/takes/save/needs/youcan'tusetheseTUsifyouwanttodothis. You're saying it doesn't take 8 points to use because they are still there, I'm saying it does techincally take 8 points(because again Ship explained it with the pic and I get it now), because while I don't lose those 8 points, I still can't use those 8 points in my turn if I want to use RF.
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OK, activating RF does take away from what you can do in your own turn. Good that you now understand the actual TU cost (8 instead of 16). But what would be the alternative? Have RF cost nothing?
--- Quote from: Merlin on June 05, 2013, 04:34:56 am ---The points are lost but I can't use them if I want to RF. So it has a cost, a refundable cost if you want to do something using those points instead of using RF, but a cost none the less. And again, I used the Sniper example for hyperbole. Lemme try this again. I use 8 RF on a shotgun to watch the door. The alien walks in a way to not let me see it for 8 TUs and shoots my guy in the side killing him. A sniper watches an area, and never shoots anything because the TUs are too high for him to cover. A shotgunner has to get lucky that the alien is brain dead.
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And if your options are going through the door with 8TUs, finding yourself facing an alien with 0 TU left? You'd rather do that than instead wait for next turn by the doorway with RF activated?
--- Quote from: Merlin on June 05, 2013, 04:34:56 am ---Which brings me back to, why take a chance on RF when Smoke saves my bacon more often. The reason I wanted RF explained to me was to see if I was doing it wrong, to see if I can shoot them when I see them. I was wrong in both. I wanted RF to be 'prepare to shoot' rather than 'prepare to react to shoot'. So thanks for putting up with me and thanks for explaining how it works, even if the answer wasn't what I was expecting.
--- End quote ---
OK. If it sucks so bad you're probably better off not using it then.
imho some sort of overwatch mode of rf would be sweet, like pre-targeting a square for quick rf if an enemy walks there, but afaik such a feature is not planned (can a dev confirm this please?)
H-Hour:
--- Quote from: Merlin on June 05, 2013, 04:34:56 am ---Ah ha. Depending on how the alien moves, your two soldiers won't get a shot off. He can spend enough to get killed, move enough so only one can fire, or moves the side of the second guy(the standing one) with TUs to spend. Aliens have weird movement patterns and it makes little sense covering alien UFO doors in places as they can walk to your side and kill you that way..
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The situation where an alien walks around a corner then past your units (and thus out of view) is a fairly simple tactical problem that you would be able to solve if you weren't trying to find a reason to think RF is useless. The solution is to position your soldiers not right on the corner, but at least 4 grid spaces from the corner. This way, the alien will not be able to get past you without spending at least 8 TU. See attached image. Note: the aliens know this, and you'll see different behaviour when you position your soldiers this way.
I'm not sure what you mean by "move enough so only one can fire". If you meant walking out of view, then disregard this. But if you meant that an alien can spend just enough TUs for only one soldier to fire -- that's not possible if they both have the same 8 TU firemode for reaction fire. As soon as the alien goes over the 8 TU threshold, all soldiers who have an 8 TU firemode on reaction fire will fire (assuming they maintained view).
--- Quote from: kurja on June 05, 2013, 11:32:53 am ---imho some sort of overwatch mode of rf would be sweet, like pre-targeting a square for quick rf if an enemy walks there, but afaik such a feature is not planned (can a dev confirm this please?)
--- End quote ---
It's not officially on the roadmap or anything, but I am in favor of this and hope we'll get there eventually.
ShipIt:
@Merlin
What´s the build date of your version? You should see it at the bottom of the main menu.
kurja:
shipit, in some earlier version a shot from a standing actor would hit a squadmate crouched in front of him/her, has this changed?
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