UFO:Alien Invasion
Technical support => Feature Requests => Topic started by: NicSO on January 25, 2014, 06:57:08 pm
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For all you who played prequel of UFO Enemy Unknown, Laser Squad you remember reaction fire from that game. Game would stop, you had certain number of Aps you left for reaction fire and you decided how to spend them: snap shot, auto fire or aimed.
I think this option would be great in the game so player can choose will his soldier shoot on auto, snapshot or aimed.
btw. UFO: EU was developed under the name: Laser Squad 2 :)
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This is something that is sorely needed because one snap shot is not enough to stop a alien from mowing you down.
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Also, there are sometimes several soldiers that get the reaction fire simultaneously and the solider that is going to take the shot might not be the best option (they might be better placed to cover a different angle, etc and so keeping their reaction fire could be advantageous). Some way to select which of the available soldiers takes the shot would be handy.
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Erm, by selcting a check box you can actually already select what fire mode to use as reaction fire... most useful with laser weapons where the TU cost for a multi shot is still kinda low, the assault rifle (for the same reasons), and for turning the ball mode off for the plasma blaster if you expect a very close range ambush shot.
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Erm, by selcting a check box you can actually already select what fire mode to use as reaction fire... most useful with laser weapons where the TU cost for a multi shot is still kinda low, the assault rifle (for the same reasons), and for turning the ball mode off for the plasma blaster if you expect a very close range ambush shot.
I know that...I dont wanna choose which fire mode I want, that is the problem....not until my soldier spots enemy, then I wanna decide how to spend TUs.
What if I have 20 TUs and I select auto fire (12 TUs) then I have 8 TUs wasted and I could of use them as a snap shot!
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Oh, right. So you would like soldiers to reaction fire to use all and any TU's, working thier way down the firemode scale? Now I get it - much clearer, and not that bad an idea. I personally would prefer ALL reaction fire to be snap shots (or equivalent) - that seems to fit the idea of "reacting" far better, and would encourage agressive fire and movement based gameplay, instead of sitting back and waiting for your opponent to come at you. Reaction fire is currently (and should remain IMHO) a last resort compared to firing and keeping in cover. If you choose to sit in the open, you should get mown down.
I do forsee one main complication with your proposed mechanism though - such as, getting it to trigger correctly in a way people would use. Currently, an enemy needs to spend say 8 TU's to trigger a potential reaction snap shot. Lets say this occurs, and you then get your 3 options, only one of which is selectable as the other 2 have not yet had the enemy spend enough points to trigger them. So you neglect to take the shot, waiting for the enemy to spend another 6TU's so you can try a 3-round burst. The enemy continues to move, and maybe fires and kills your unit so you lose the reaction fire opportunity, or doesn't (or can not) due to TU shortage trigger the other fire modes. You then kill the enemy on your next turn. In this potentially very common scenario, the whole extra complexity has been pointless, gained the player nothing and not really altered the outcome from a gameplay perspective, other than the slim possibility of the reaction fire saving the death of a unit. Now, yes, I suppose an enemy could in theory contine advancing, and trigger the option of a burst or full auto fire mode, but way more probable is that the enemy unit would have taken a shot that wounds or kills a unit before that takes place for most multifire mode weapons.
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Oh, right. So you would like soldiers to reaction fire to use all and any TU's, working thier way down the firemode scale? Now I get it - much clearer, and not that bad an idea. I personally would prefer ALL reaction fire to be snap shots (or equivalent) - that seems to fit the idea of "reacting" far better, and would encourage agressive fire and movement based gameplay, instead of sitting back and waiting for your opponent to come at you. Reaction fire is currently (and should remain IMHO) a last resort compared to firing and keeping in cover. If you choose to sit in the open, you should get mown down.
I do forsee one main complication with your proposed mechanism though - such as, getting it to trigger correctly in a way people would use. Currently, an enemy needs to spend say 8 TU's to trigger a potential reaction snap shot. Lets say this occurs, and you then get your 3 options, only one of which is selectable as the other 2 have not yet had the enemy spend enough points to trigger them. So you neglect to take the shot, waiting for the enemy to spend another 6TU's so you can try a 3-round burst. The enemy continues to move, and maybe fires and kills your unit so you lose the reaction fire opportunity, or doesn't (or can not) due to TU shortage trigger the other fire modes. You then kill the enemy on your next turn. In this potentially very common scenario, the whole extra complexity has been pointless, gained the player nothing and not really altered the outcome from a gameplay perspective, other than the slim possibility of the reaction fire saving the death of a unit. Now, yes, I suppose an enemy could in theory contine advancing, and trigger the option of a burst or full auto fire mode, but way more probable is that the enemy unit would have taken a shot that wounds or kills a unit before that takes place for most multifire mode weapons.
A+ for reply :)
But...one thing...this works in Laser Squad. it is kinda different but it works.
Another thing is...I mostly use auto fire when I play, 12 TUs and in 95% cases I fire the first.
If enemy is far far away I would use snap but if enemy is closer I would go for auto.
Or...I Used 12 TUs on first enemy, there is second enemy and I have 8 TUs left but I cant make snpap shot....
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i agree, selecting on the fly whether to wait some more to take a better shot or which solider should fire first is a good idea. oftentimes the enemy comes around a corner and someone takes the shot who has a really bad angle wasting his ammo and reaction fire just to shoot at an obstacle. another unit takes the shot, kills the enemy and the first unit could have saved him from the second guy coming around the corner.
i think it's reasonable that if you take more time to place a proper shot, that you actually do a proper shot. aiming takes time, and waiting until you have a better aim CAN make a difference between wasting your ammo or killing an enemy.
so i think this is a nice idea to select who fires what, when.
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When you stand behind the door waiting for old snakeman to walk through, you are expecting to use reaction fire, in a turn based game the only way you can copy a reactional strategy is to have fire outside of your own turn. Therefore I think the character should be set with a button click to expect to react, rather than just leaving him in an open field doing nothing. But the fire mode should be one that is not specified as an 'in-turn' strategy action such as aimed, snap or auto fire, hidden to the player in the fire menu. It should allow that both parties are completing actions simulanteously. Some games allow a reaction or interrupt to give a whole team a chance of completing a whole new round whilst the opposing character spends that time picking his nose!.
Thinking whilst typing there, but a selected reaction shot on your turn should allow you to react immediately on sight of the enemy. But maybe once your character has reacted each subsequent action ( turn, shoot ) should only happen after a set number of action points expended by the opposition. thus
Turn on Reaction Fire -> Spot Enemy & Fire -> shot misses -> enemy spends 10 action points aiming & shooting -> he misses -> you fire again & use all reaction points -> shot misses -> Ortnok uses final action points and eats your brain.
This could allow the reaction statistic to be more relevant as well, providing a ratio from action points to reaction points conversion.
edit - or the reaction fire/speed statistic could be used to calculate TU's for the reaction fire only type shot. I would try and write a patch but my c++ skills are on the brink of meltdown with pointers/deferencers!
edit again - yes got it this time - each ammo has its own reaction fire type
Assault rifle clip - 2 quick auto type shots at 2/3 auto shot tu's
fletchette shells - 1 snap shot type blast at snap shot tu's
m203 grenades - blow your whole team up hiding in the skyranger for only 10 tu's, however you like.
On reaction fire confirmation would be great, click where to fire, right click cancel. can pops back up after 10 tu's of any alien if cancelled. allows for a little outmaneuvering.
Each soldier has his speed stat.
Speed 30 is your all alien or human average reaction speed only as an example which equates to no tu spend modifiers
reaction -: 1 ( speed 30 ) x 9 ( Assault rifle 2/3 auto-fire type reaction fire ) x 1 ( position latitudually to the north pole ) = 9 tu's for soldier 2 fire a couple of abysmal looking shots at alien, before browning he's trousers. Game user can curse at no logics but he's own poor strategy. Thus leading to more feature requests!
Kind Regards,
Tembero
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I may be alone, but like checkers or even chess what I like about turn based games is the ability to force the opponent into a move or series of moves that is ill advised or otherwise unwanted through superior positioning ( of my troops). ...or rather the supposed superior positioning of my troops.
IF I have the active abilty to choose my soldiers reactions to the enemy ON the enemies own turn; I kinda feel like my attempts at positioning are/were in vain. Also I may want to really play an RTS if I feel like it should be my turn/my turn or even my turn/your turn +++my turn and then /my turn. So yeah, I am super wary of allowing a player a choice during the opponents turn.
Also I believe that Reaction Fire works the same for both sides, so every ability you give yourself / you are also giving your opponent. But whatever RF system is used, in a turn based game, it should be a simple affair IE not just one that works for the player, but one that the player can easily intuit and combat against, fully allowing them and their enemy the abilty to plot.
Also /me I'm not terribly imaginative so I need to kinda 'hands on' see how things work, but that doesn't mean things should just remain at what they are / I like the ideas being expressed here and ultimately there are various play styles outside of my own.
What if I have 20 TUs and I select auto fire (12 TUs) then I have 8 TUs wasted and I could of use them as a snap shot!
Depends on range but with 20 TU's you could have thrown down an IC Grenade ( aka the only DOT weapon) which would have forced the Alien to move around your fire / not move towards your fire or even forced the Alien to move through your fire thus damage. At which point that extra 8 TU as a set reaction snap shot may just come in handy... although with 21 TU you could have crouched.. or sprung for the 12 TU 3 shots plus the IC Grenade at 22 TU's?
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Also I may want to really play an RTS if I feel like it should be my turn/my turn or even my turn/your turn +++my turn and then /my turn.
Love that one :)
Quote from my comments in the code of g_reaction.cpp:
* Note that in a turn-based game, reaction fire is a design bug in the first place,
* causing several logic problems. But we want it and we need it, so we'll have to
* work around those problems.
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Maybe we can do that like Fallout 3/NV does:
Break a shot timing into several stages. First, the aim, then firing each shot in sequence. That should be more realistic IMHO.
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I like these bars which show up. They are very helpful.
http://ufoai.org/wiki/Proposals/Reaction_Fire_UI
That said um, the weapon distance check is one of the last things right? ie you want to be able to fire at an alien who perhaps starts out of range but eventually steps into range rather then failing the check at the beginning and only waiting till the enemy is in range to begin checking.
That said, what happens when the distance check for RF fails? It seems like its reset (for that soldier)? If the only thing that is failing ( ie no other soldier takes a shot) then your unit should still have a full RF bar and be just waiting for the enemy unit to be in range.
Maybe thats the way it is. It seems like the soldier checks the TU ( say 12 TU) completes and then fails the distance check.. resets and counts again to 12, fails the distance check.. counts again to 12..??
**3rd Thoughts: It may just be the line of fire (LOF) being obscurred for that soldier during the one enemy movement which is failing and thus resetting the RF TU count. In fact that seems probable. It is still nice seeing the RF calculations in action.
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Sandro: good idea, but not new to me ;)
Always keep in mind that playability comes first, realism is only second.
I agree that if you stand behind a door, waiting for some foe to come out/in, pulling the trigger should take nearly NO time at all. In RL. No problem to implement.
But how would you clear a building then ? In RL, you'd throw some sort of grenade into the room before entering it. Now think of a map with many buildings/rooms eg. a hotel. It would take ages plus tons of grenades. No fun.
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Wolls,
most of the time RF is reset because of an interruption of LoS.
Starting the RF countdown uses the same check(LoS, range,...) as firing. So if ANY of the conditions in that check fails, the countdown will be reset.
I agree that the behaviour in the scenario "walk from out of range into weapon range" feels wrong. But changing it requires quite some refactoring. But yes, it should be changed some fine day.
Meanwhile keep in mind that RF is fair/symmetrical. Any improvement will also help the aliens ;)
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My long post to reaction fire was mainly an aversion to reaction fire in the turn based strat - Silent Storm. You would get spotted by the enemy from a free roaming scenario without the Time Unit counter and then the Computer would then move 20 units across your field of vision, into a comfortably prone position a yard from your characters nose and death-kill your digi-starlet. All of this at the most meandering pace a game can move at ( and they say that patience is a virtue ).
The mechanics of reaction fire here, in UFO:AI are reasonable in the sense that your own reactions on the mouse are not registered as a component of the outcome of the simulated developing situation.
Using the breaching door scenario it is reasonable to believe that you would want your character to have the cover of the walls around the door frame to remain himself concealed + reduce the angle of incident to the target in this instance probably firing on contact if even a civilian waltzes through gap . But knowing the exact moment your character will attack eventually becomes predictable along with the enemy characters preferred paths ( generally speaking for all computer games ). The style of reaction shooting in UFO enemy unknown created an exacting unpredictability on boths sides of the fence so the maneuver was always an enlightened gamble, but invariably the quickest reacting and best tactic was the victor. Considering that all actions available to the human are available to the computer in a small scale environment ( without the ability to spring out of a broom cupboard dressed as an ironing board for example ) then the computer can randomly and unwittingly create tactics to counter the player on occasions, adding a character reaction ability leaves you only escaping the encounter from the skin of your pants.
Edit:- Occasionally in XCOM ( EU ) Huge firefights would uncontrollably escalate across the map with human player RF, and if you had trained your characters well, you may stop the terror attack gloriously. Appreciating that reactions are not premeditated by context will create it's own battles for wisdom in the mind. But like the Frozen Synapse endeavour it is nice to release a larger strategy all in one click. click click boom.
OK - I'll make a stand, I would prefer a reaction stat to a finite action point counter.
Edit edit:- and finally in the editing edits sections of the post it's good to see that UFO:AI will make it into the Debian Repo's, I have been using Wine to play most recently but now armed with the knowledge that I will soon apt-get some fried aliens invaders I have reached 10 action points on the build-from-source counter and have a fancying to pack a blaster launcher in the 'ol codeblocks... good luck commander, you'll need it.
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in my opinion - if there ever should be nothing else important to do - there should be a rework of fire and reaction fire. one of the better approaches to it has been presented by jagged alliance BIA, even though that game has many other faults.
in general shooting should be split into aiming part and shooting itself. while soldiers that are aiming into the correct direction already (small angle, may be 5-10 degrees) already should have reduced reaction fire cost, all others should have to turn into the right direction 1st, raising the weapon after, and only then they should be ready to fire/RF. besides that, RF itself should be dependent of speed and/or mind.
why do i think so:
- at the moment it doesnt make no difference (in case its your turn) if you are already aiming at the target, or if it is in your back, neither for time required, nor for hit chance.
- at the moment, facing an alien with an 8 or 9 TU weapon, the best way to kill is not to shoot at it, but to get 4-5 soldiers aiming at the target in your turn, then "end turn".
-A split into 3 parts could look like: aiming into right direction 1st (1 TU per 45 ° turn, raise weapon 2nd (depending on weight may be, like 1 TU / kg), shot itself (1 TU pistols, 3 TU snipers, 2 TU everything else)
-A split into 2 would put together part 2 and 3, but wouldnt be THAT nice
-a shot of the same class (no movement) should always be faster than the corresponding reaction fire
the problem is: all that needs a lot of time to implement. I know that. it still would be the best aproach imho. breaking the enemies turn for your reaction fire imho is not the best way, at least not using ALL the rest of the remaining TUs. May be i will add some thoughts when im awake again, am too tired now.
cu later
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/\ o-t-<
This diagram was created with automatic blitz reaction fire, 1 tu to fire and 1 tu to reload.
zap zap
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For all you who played prequel of UFO Enemy Unknown, Laser Squad you remember reaction fire from that game. Game would stop, you had certain number of Aps you left for reaction fire and you decided how to spend them: snap shot, auto fire or aimed.
And "Power Dolls" got a little popup dialog that allows to respond now or wait to let them move a bit more - of course, you may also hold too long, let an enemy close enough to detect your unit and get shot for free.
I think this option would be great in the game so player can choose will his soldier shoot on auto, snapshot or aimed.
Well, yes. If a melee-range-only enemy like Bloodspider appears, may as well take a good aim instead of potshots.
Also, may want to let him approach closer for a sure shot, or veer out from the line to friendlies.
This is something that is sorely needed because one snap shot is not enough to stop a alien from mowing you down.
This is something solved by selecting Burst for reaction shot in the first place. :)
Also, there are sometimes several soldiers that get the reaction fire simultaneously and the solider that is going to take the shot might not be the best option (they might be better placed to cover a different angle, etc and so keeping their reaction fire could be advantageous). Some way to select which of the available soldiers takes the shot would be handy.
IMO it reflects that in a quickly changing situation they don't have to coordinate activities, only to make individual decisions.
The other side of this, of course, is that when a sniper is stationed specifically to watch that one window, he should not waste the only shot on competing with two machinegunners covering other places and then allow the intended target to pass unchallenged. And the way it is now, grenade launchers and reacion fire do not mix well.
But there may be a better solution for this problem (below).
in general shooting should be split into aiming part and shooting itself. while soldiers that are aiming into the correct direction already (small angle, may be 5-10 degrees) already should have reduced reaction fire cost, all others should have to turn into the right direction 1st, raising the weapon after, and only then they should be ready to fire/RF. besides that, RF itself should be dependent of speed and/or mind.
So, the conclusion:
it would be good to have functionality to assign firing arcs more narrow than "anything in sight". This would also allow to disallow risky shots - e.g. if you could tell a soldier with GL to take targets on the roof only, he won't see an alien elsewhere and kill nearby friendlies and thus RF with such a weapon could be useable.
Perhaps narrow arcs could give a little accuracy bonus, and if the selection is narrow enough (typically, one wants to cover a window, door, two squares near the corner), have part of TU cost "pre-paid", making the actual reaction counter shorter, so the enemy cannot pass as easily through the place at which someone already took aim.
Correct?