Jumping Soldiers

[Crix Dorius]

Can our soldiers jump over little fences/stone walls... ?

Or some meter down... ??

Or into cover... ???

[Guest Jim69]

Hmmm, would they jump up and make themselves more exposed to fire? I'd say not, tho a roll into cover would be nice 2 see. Maybe in an automatic motion, say it's the aliens turn and u r out in the open. They open fire and a solder has a percentage chance, based partly on speed, remaining TU's and reactions, of rolling behind some cover if any is available.

[miceless]

The ability to roll left or right while crouched/prone would be great. Having to stand up, turn around take a step and then kneel again is a little unrealistic. Makes ir great for those guys who want to pop around the corner to fire. :uzzi:

[Rhyos Beoulve]

It could also be a sort of reaction thing... set aside a certain amount of TUs for "reaction" as opposed to the snap, aimed, and normal shots. That way, they're ready to get the heck out of the way if something gets in their field of vision.

[fux0r666]

It takes a lot less time to pull a trigger than to try to get out of the way. If I was in that situation I would just shoot if I had the where-with-all.

[Rhyos Beoulve]

Then again, if you're gonna hit the deck, it wouldn't take much energy at all to let your legs drop out from under you. I still think the whole dodge/ready to move thing would be feasable. I'd rather be able to resist a hit than take a shot and leave myself in the open.

[fux0r666]

Then again, chances are, if you shoot someone with a long gun at centre mass they're either dead or incapacitated, even with body armour. This is speaking in reality, of course. 5.56mm bullets make hiddeous wounds.

 

If you have an automatic weapon you don't have to worry about being caught unawares... and noone would pile out of a door with a bleeding, screaming friend of theirs who is full of holes.

 

Letting your legs drop out from under you is quick, but not as quick as a twitch of your assailant's trigger finger. You'd probably hit the ground dead.

 

In game terms, I think that the shooting reaction is sufficient. Usually I set my guys up with overwatch reactionary shots in mind. If the AI had the option of either/or they could get a lot of their friends killed.

[Guest Jim69]

Saying that soldiers ( at least in the UK ) are trained to drop and then fire. Would take an extra button to ask them to drop as well, it wouldn't always work but would be an addition assuming we have prone soldiers.

[fux0r666]

That's a great tactic for ground troops but in HRU's and in urban assaults where the gunfights happen within a stone's throw, there isn't much suppressing fire to avoid by reducing your sillouette. Since your enemy can be seen, most shooting is directly at you. If you drop you severly hamper your mobility and slow the entire assault down because of the confined areas in which it all happens (inside buildings, etc, ESPECIALLY if you're right in front of a doorway).

[j'ordos]

But it's not all city fight, there are missions in the wilderniss as well, just depends where the UFO lands

[fux0r666]

Very true.. but I got the impression that these reactionary shots were happening in doorways or in close quarters. If you engage aliens over a large distance and they are in your field of view, you would use up all your TU's shooting at them on your turn. If they just hopped out from around a corner at range I would still rather have my troops shoot at them.

 

It's all personal preference, I guess. I think that if your soldiers were going prone on their own it would reduce the tactical value of having a prone button because you wouldn't have to think ahead so much.

[Rhyos Beoulve]

Then again, it's not really just going prone. Perhaps ducking back behind a corner?

[fux0r666]

Well, letting your legs drop from under you would render you prone ;p

 

So since we're back on the topic of actual movement during the reactionary round I would reintroduce the premise that it takes a lot less time to pull a trigger than it does to move your body.

 

I think that movement in the reactionary round would detract from the peril of leaving your men out in the open, at least for v1.0, and would make tactical decisions less tense.

[Ancalagon]

But the whole ducking around corners thing does raise the issue that you should be able to peak around corners/into windows/into doors instead of walking out looking, seeing that you don't have enough TU to shoot, and walking back. There should be a peak button that decreases the chance of a reactionary shot by the enemy, but doesn't let you shoot at them either. There could also be an option that could let you shoot a at enemy around corners etc. with a decreased profile(by leaning) and shooting. Much like in america's army(the game, also known as AA). Although if we are getting into realism kneeling should probably be changed to crouching, since kneeling is generally a bad idea in combat.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I like most of your ideas, Anglacon, but I wouldn't want the ability to shoot enemies around corners (except when playing American football with blasterbombs:)) I dont really like it because I think it would take away form the difficulty of assaulting ufos (and most other missions) considerably.

[Raven Squad]

Climing over fences would have been great in original xcom, so u dont have shoot hole to the fence. But in Xeno, dont know depens much our level desining.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Well, Jagged allience 2 allowed you to climb stuff like fences, walls, rooves, ect. and that didn't seem too hard to code to me. I could be wrong though

[Rhyos Beoulve]

However, if you're going for realism, I think the peek idea would be a good one. I mean, if I'm trying to get a look around something, I don't stand out in the middle, stop, turn, stop, realize that the muton right beside me has the definite advantage, realize that I don't have enough time to shoot, and just think "F**K! ", I'd much rather take a quick glance, and pop back behind cover.

 

 

Which poses another conceptual question.... is there any way to make teh troopers walk with weapons at the ready? Sacrifice movement distance for the chance to squeeze off another shot? Just an idea! Talk amongst yourselves!

[Fred the Goat]

Peeking and walking with weapons at the ready sound great, but I'd probably put them at V 1.1. As for going prone/dropping to the ground, that sounds almost reasonable for V 1.0, since it was implemented in X-Com 3. Of course, one thing to remember is that while it doesn't take much energy to drop, it takes longer than you'd think. When a person is falling off a building, it sure feels like they're going very fast, but that's only because they've had time to accelerate. You have to wait for it to speed you up, and when you're being shot at, waiting for gravity to pull you to the ground is a significant delay. It should take a few t.u.s, is all I'm saying. Actually, so should kneeling and going prone, that wasn't really realistic in the first game. It takes a lot more time to kneel than it does to run a yard, IMO.

 

- Fred

 

[Edit] Wait, you couldn't go prone in the first game, right? That didn't come till apoc, RIGHT? AH! THIS IS GOING TO DRIVE ME MAD!

Edited October 11, 2003 by Fred the Goat

[j'ordos]

I guess this one is more of a lab item...

[Minion]

Aside from the "reactionary round", I'd like to toss one for the ability to move over/under simple obstacles. Like climbing over a fence jumping into a building through a window and so on. It should consume a lot of TU's of course, and it would leave you exposed, but I can still picture lots of conditions where I would prefer to do it.

 

Sometimes it seems rather riddiculous that you have to walk around, or blow up stuff to get through. After all, humans are very agile beings -_-

[warhamster]

Just a question, wasn't it that maybe in the xcom series, the presumption was that your soldiers already rolled and stuff. What I mean is that when an alien shoots and misses, your guy already did his roll and everything in his training to make himself harder to hit. It's just that the programmers (by default or design) didn't elaborate on this in the graphics. They kinda just left it to your imagination to explain why the alien missed.

 

You guys get what I'm saying?

[Laitanyel]

Well, gotta say this:

 

Peeking around corners and taking cover behind corners should be as obvious as kneeling behind a rock. If you can kneel behind a rock, why shouldn't you be able to lean out behind the wall and blast of a shot? You can STILL get hit by return fire, BUT you are less likely to get hit.

 

I actually hated that in Xcom. I KNOW there's an alien behind this corner, but I HAVE to walk straight into his field of vision to kill him, instead of making a sneak attack from the corner. If you wanted to do this, you would normally lose 5 or 6 soldiers, which made you try something else. That's not very tactical, it's just cumbersome.

 

And if you think the game gets to easy if you can do this, then rebalance! You shouldn't leave a good option out, just because it tips of balance a bit. Quite often, this is easily solved by rebalancing a few other things.

 

But, these are just my opinions.

Edited December 9, 2003 by Laitanyel

[NickJones]

Three things.

 

1) we are way off topic, however, This discussion is an important one.

 

2) The imagination idea (third post up or something). YES. That is what X-Com is all about. Fancy graphics are nice to look at, but the more detailed everything is, the less imagination needed to play. And it gets kinda boring when you cant use your imagination.

 

3) Jumping should be allowed. Its hard to imagine a guy jumping over a fence when he has to walk 20 spaces to get around it.

 

A few things i like from X-COM Apocolyps is that the soldiers had more mobility. They could actually RUN and walk, and jump, and even lay down. I would like to see that carried over into Xenocide.

 

looking around corners and laying up againts walls would be nice.

 

I feel ya on the walking around the corner only to get shot. But thats what grenades are for.

 

Thats part of the game. Problem solving. If your restricted in one way, you have to create another way to overcome that problem.

[Laitanyel]

Yeah, problem with realism though...

 

Now I know Xcom isn't meant to be realistic in anyway, but hurling a grenade around a corner instead of peeking sounds stupid to me. What if there's a civvie there, and you blow him to heck? Bad move, IMHO.

 

UFO:AM implemented the peeking feature and AFAIK everyone who played it loved the feature.

[Puasonen]

Really? How is it done in UFO AM? How do you tell what direction and from where he has to peek?

[Laitanyel]

if you position your soldier at a corner, no need for facing, as facing is not counted in AM, and then tell him to fire at an alien/transgenenant coming from behind the corner, he'll lean out and fire. HOWEVER, the lacking feature is that you can't make him lean, unless he's firing. Which is a bit of a miss.

 

What I would like, is a feature to make the soldier lean, EVEN if he's not shooting. Just to make a peek, around the corner.

 

Then you could lean&shoot, and have less chance of getting hit by return fire.

 

Standard cityscape combat tactics. USE COVER!

 

So maybe I was a bit misleading in my info, you CANNOT peek around a corner to see what's there, which is what I really want, but you can lean&fire.

Edited January 9, 2004 by Laitanyel

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I'd perfer it if you couldn't lean and fire. It would either:

A: Make the game too easy (alien chokepoints are useless now!)

or

B: Make the game harder! (The aliens camp inside the ufo around a corner, pop around and blast your guy.)

 

Leaning, is however, a really good idea imo.

[Puasonen]

I agree. No leaning and fireing at the same time please. Peeking would be an ok feature though..

[NickJones]

IF leaning was implimented, there would have to be a drawback. Maybe a FA penality, a big one. This would allow close range targets to be killed, and it would stop units from abusing the action at long range.

 

And about the grenade: An expert call kill an alien with a grenade who is standing right next to a human. Why the alien allowed the human to live when hes in plain view, well i dont know its your scenario. And if you say the blast radius is too large, you must not be using regular grenades to their full potential.

 

Aside from the leaning option, a dive or roll of somesort ending with a quick shot or blast of the gun, would still move the agent that one square, but it could decrease the reactions of the target, and if the target, or another unfriendly unit fired, it could decrease their FA as well.

This wouldnt allow aliens and agents to abuse the lean, because it still moves them from their position. Analogus to the walking out and shooting option we "enjoy" in X-Com today.

[Zipperhead]

the jumping idea would be sweet.

it would be cool to watch a agent run up to a fence and hand vault over it

[LeFire]

I think that the reserving-TU's-to-duck-shots idea is great. Just needs a little tweak.

 

The thing is, you CAN dodge incoming fire. Remember, you can't duck the bullet, but if you can see the other guy take aim/raise his weapon, you may just be able to move out of the way in time.

 

Why not this?

 

If targeted soldier can see alien that fired the shot, then he has a chance to dodge the fire if he has TU's reserved.

 

If the alien that fired the shot cannot be seen, no chance to dodge.

 

And ALL soldiers should be able to tackle any obstacle (eg. high wall) given enough time. That's why we train in obstacle courses. Rule of thumb: A typical soldier in full combat gear can tackle a wall as tall as he can leap and get his hands on top of. A buddy pair can easily send a third soldier onto a 2nd floor.

Edited February 11, 2004 by LeFire

[Aosar]

Yeah, in Silent Storm you could climb to the next floor, trough windows and over fences, rocks and other obsticles, but so could the enemy. They would be crawling trough the windows and climbing to the next floor. If these thing will be implemented into Xenocide, they should be usable by the aliens as well.

 

If you can lean, you should be taking a risk of getting shot, as you do for walking around, less change of hitting you, but more chance of hitting critically, you don't poke out your leg, you poke out your head, remember... If you could shoot around corners it should take more TUs and be less accurate, to balance and to simulate the fact that you have to position yourself and then shoot instead of just walking up and shooting...

 

Am I making sense or is this too Engrish?

[Wujubird]

I think Aosar has the right idea here. It makes no sense that a highly trained military operative would put himself in direct line of fire by moving around a corner, PARTICULARLY if he'd just seen one of his comrades get shot.

 

Adding the ability to shoot around corners, but with a severe accuracy (-50%) and TU (+25%) penalty would really add to the depth of combat. This would be even more so if reactionary movement were permitted (picture alien ambush taking cover, giving your men time to move to more effective positions).

 

It certainly would not eliminate choke points, since by necessity only two of your agents would be able to be in a firing position (either side of the doorway), and severely hampered in their ability to fire effectively. A comment earlier mentioned the risk of killing civilians with a grenade, well the aliens have no such qualms and would likely reply to your shooting around a corner with a grenade if you failed to follow up your covering fire with better troop deployment.

 

NickJones: yes, it is possible to kill an alien standing next to a human with a grenade without killing the human, but there's no way a conscientious person would do so. That it is possible is an artifact of the game environment. Realism is an effort to simulate the real-world, and that includes human nature.

[sir_schwick]

Shooting Around Corners:

 

I imagine by the time Xenocide is set, LandWarrior style systems will be more common. This means most of the rifles will be equipped with cameras on the end. This means that the soldiers can just stick the gun around and peek and shoot. Of course aiming through a camera is inaccurate, but doesn't put your figure in line.

 

Aliens of course would use similair or more advanced technology and tactics. If they see a rifle jutting around a corner, they will try to fire through the building into the space they think the soldier is. Also, you could set your reaction fire to any grenade launchers attached or independent of a rifle. This would be how you entere UFOs, you wait for an alien to open the door and fire and your grenade launhcer fires a stun bomb.

 

Shoot-Dodge:

 

You could set your reaction to Fire, Shoot-Drop, Shoot Dodge. Fire means they auto-fire towards the source of the offending fire. Shoot-Drop means they snap a shot off while dropping their legs. Shoot Dodge means they snap a shot off while dodging into a predesignated space. The idea is that the snap fire will suppress the other firer.

[shevegen]

When you talk about cameras on rifles, you need to think about more advanced strategic command, like system to survey all your units and enemies at a central position, and using

unmanned aerial vehicles to get accurate information of the surroundings.

 

Hmm i hope complexity doesnt make the game too difficult to develop

[sir_schwick]

Unmanned aerial drones seem like they could at least get the lay of the land before overland missions. They might even get a pic of the UFO and some gaurds at the time of the fly-over. Kinda like the unmanned drones in 'Nam.

[Dover]

Back to the original subject of jumping.

 

Although not all operatives are as elite as we'd like to think (Case in point, No-ranking rookie butterfingers Joe who can't hit a barn door with a blaster-bomb), so I think we can safely rule out some of the more advanced tactical manuvers (The new Splinter Cell's co-op mode let you do some pretty crazy stuff that the average rookie won't be able to do, for sure).

 

However, there is some basic stuff that's found in basically every military boot camp. Stuff like crawling under barbed wire, over fences, through pipes, etc. I'm sure that hopping a small fence (Or climbing over a larger one) would fit in there somewhere.

 

However, my biggest beef with the lack of jumping in XCOM1 was jumping small gaps between buildings. Unless I had flying armor, rooftop-to-rooftop moving was impossible. For some reason, the scene didn't fit in my mind.

 

Sergent: Why aren't you moving to the next rooftop, squadie?!

Squadie: Well, it's a whole 4 feet or so, and if I try I'll just fall to ground level.

Sergent: JUMP DAMMIT!!

 

 

That reminds me of an off topic complaint I had with XCOM1--lack of falling damage. You could have anybody jump off 4-story buildings as many times as you want and not get hurt. At all. What the heck?!

Edited February 18, 2006 by Dover

[fux0r666]

Haha. Would you jump between buildings with 60 lbs (27kg) of armour, 10 or 20 lbs (5 or 9 kg) of weapons and another 20 lbs (9 kg) of extra equipment? If so, you're a braver man than I.

[[NKF]]

Obviously Xenocide isn't going to copy the originals verbatim - I for one wouldn't want to mimic the original's physics engine.

 

I haven't been following this discussion closely, but a thought did occur to me. Jumping and weight.

 

Your weight should control some aspect of your jumping ability. A soldier with no gear and in fit condition should be able to leap from building to building easily. A soldier in full armour and the heaviest gear available trying to attempt the same thing should fall short - if not falling through the roof before even attempting the jump.

 

It could control how much noise you make when you land after a jump. The louder you hit the ground after a jump, the more aliens will hear you. (Brings up another idea - ground sound supression or amplification, or put simply, mud and hard surface and... no I don't seem to have any point with this line of thought so just forget about it.)

 

Also, it could even help you if you decide to jump vertically into the air and land on the same spot. If you were to want to break through a loose grate or glass floor, jump up to mantle a ledge, mimic throwing a tantrum or you just want to stomp an alient to death with your sheer weight by jumping repeatedly on it.

 

- NKF

Edited February 18, 2006 by NKF

[Blood Angel]

NKF's ideas are indeed ruling. I can't help but think of an item in a book called a "moonbelt" which would make anything hung on it weigh less. Perhaps this could be technology researched from aliens? Work on moonbelts?

[Oldblue153]

Hmm looking around corners sounds like a good idea....I wonder what kinda technologys you would have to develop to do that...perhaps a small lightweight device that you could hold out that would reflect an image back to you of whats around the corner...pretty high tech ...wonder what they would call em ...I'm guessing "Mirrors"

[Dover]

Haha.  Would you jump between buildings with 60 lbs (27kg) of armour, 10 or 20 lbs (5 or 9 kg) of weapons and another 20 lbs (9 kg) of extra equipment?  If so, you're a braver man than I.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

With the distance between the roofs, I wouldn't even have to jump. I could step and make it across.

 

But seriously, If a slightly overweight 16 year old can do it, certainly a hardened alien butt-kicking veteran can do it, and the equipment obviously isn't that heavy if it's not imparing movement at all. Consider that the max strenght is 71 in XCOM1. That's practically body-builder status. Is a rifle and a medi-kit really going to weigh that much?

[[Blehm 98]]

Well, lets see, unless you're in light infantry most soldiers will carry between 45-80 lbs of equipment (find the kg yourself please), and a lot of that is the helmet, canteen, gas mask, and stuff for the camp (tent, sleeping bag, etc), xcom soldiers would usually only carry ~25-40 lbs of equipment. 40 lbs if you are the guy who carrys the rocket launcher and its ammo around, or you have one of the cannons

 

Not to mention these guys are naturally going to be stronger, faster, more fit, and probably in most cases taller simply because they are supposed to be an ultra-elite fighting group, not some recruits