A counter to overwatch/reaction fire

That’s a good point. It may just be that this early version of return fire isn’t fully finished (I feel like I remember UV or someone saying that it’s not meant to be infinite shots, could be misremembering though). The only other semi realistic thing I could see is a skill that let’s them return fire again either on the same target, or a second target that is in the same firing line as the first. Someone with hyped up reflexes could conceivably take two bursts at the same guy or shift aim and take a second on someone else who is close by in their sight picture in 6 seconds (I would think, do not want to do the math on actual shot times :p, but I know most autos can dump a whole clip in a few seconds).

It’s a combination of a lot of different things. The enemy currently don’t run out of ammo. Line of sight is currently infinite, return fire is currently 360 degrees, and we haven’t added any of the skills and abilities designed for dealing with return fire. All of these things will change as they’re added and implemented.

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Thanks. Didn’t want to put words in your mouth, but I felt like I recalled something being mentioned about how it was off at the moment (reading that list, I think it was the infinite Los and 360 that I saw previously).

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Don’t forget that Return Fire is also more limited than standard Overwatch. A regular shot/OW is actually six shots (not sure how many shots the crabmen take with their gun for a standard burst) while Return Fire is half that. So it isn’t like they’re getting a full OW shot off with the ability.

There’s other ways one could explain it as well if they don’t want to go with the default “it’s a game” answer. For example it’s a freaking mini-gun. Him taking shots at everyone is really him just holding down the gun and sweeping it across the battlefield towards anyone who shoots at him.

I think there comes a point though where we just have to accept that it’s a game. For example in X2 the Ranger using a sword is just beyond stupid if translated into real life (and is part of why I was against it from the beginning) but it works because of the turn-based and hit-point nature of the game. In PP you’re going to be able to have 9-16+ people melee hit the same target in a single round of combat due to how TUs let you move in, hit, and then move out (FiraXCOM would still let 8 people melee hit a single target). There’s no way such a thing is realistic in an ~6second time span of actual combat (I’m sure it could be done with enough practice for a highly choreographed fight sequence). So some things we just have to accept as “gamey” though I don’t think this will be as bad once other mechanics like actual sight ranges and OW cones are added to the game.

Unfortunately not. At least not right now in BB2. It is the same half burst as Return Fire. And enemy gun has 6 shots in burst.

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Actually, I think you’re both wrong. With the AR, it’s 6 for a normal shot, 4 for overwatch and 3 for return fire - though that could have been tweaked.

I certainly wouldn’t mind if it got tweaked. Having ammo being spent in 6s and 3s is fine, as you can consider a burst of three as your yardstick, but 4 is really an oddball and means that at some point, you’re likely to be stuck with a 2 bullets burst, which is pretty weak.

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You could even end up with 1 → 4+3+4 = 11 which means that you’d be at one shot left if the rest were 6 shot bursts.

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I will test that. :wink: EDIT: Well they tweaked it. My Assault took 4 overwatch shots and 4 reaction fire shots with one magazine.
Order looked like that (my counting/your counting):
1st turn

  • overwatch -3 bullets=21 left/-4 bullets=20 left
    2nd turn
  • overwatch -3 bullets=18 left/-4 bullets=16 left
  • reaction -3 bullets=15 left/-3 bullets=13 left
    3rd turn
  • overwatch -3 bullets=12 left/-4 bullets=9 left
  • reaction -3 bullets=9 left/-3 bullets=6 left
    4th turn
  • overwatch -3 bullets=6 left/-4 bullets=2 left
  • reaction -3 bullets=3 left/-2 bullets=0 left
  • reaction -3 bullets=0 left/-3(not possible) bullets=0 left
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Different bursts is completely fine…if the UI changes to support it. As it stands I already dislike how the dots only stand for 6 shots with no half symbol. There should be a way for us to properly know just how many shots are left. I don’t mind there being less than a full burst in the final shot, but I should be able to know that before I fire along with just how many shots are remaining. A diagonal half-box would be completely fine if the options were only full or half bursts, but if a normal shot, OW, and RF all have different values then such a simple design wouldn’t work to give one an accurate reading of remaining ammo.

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This will be changed to represent that. The UI isn’t finished yet.

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Great. Will you also implement different damage based on range of fire? Something like was on first screenshots - or was it just indication of possible damage with different hit chance:

PS. I have posted my observation about size of bursts with different abilities above.

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Is this something we really want? Damage already drops with distance by simple virtue of having less bullets hitting (or hitting less vulnerable areas) and adding a flat damage reduction on top of this can really castrate long range combat.

That was the gameplay argument, not let’s think about realism.

As far as ballistics go, I’m not sure if it makes sense since maps are quite small to begin with and I’m not sure bullets from assault rifle and similar weapons would lose that much punch over such small distances. Gun enthusiasts on this forum will probably know a lot more about stopping power than I do though.

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I don’t say it is a must. But maybe they have such plans. If not I won’t oppose. :wink:

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I seriously hope they don’t add in damage drop off. Imo it worked for that pre-alpha build you pulled the SSes from, but only because all shots were a 100% hit chance as they hadn’t implemented ray-casting for shots when it was made.

In regards to the ballistics, well it would depend on all sorts of things. For example a bullet fired straight up in the air wouldn’t kill someone as it literally stops before falling back down, at which point it has expended all of its kinetic energy before falling back to Earth and only falling at a rate of its terminal velocity (which given its mass might barely be enough to break skin, though I’m sure it would still hurt).

Now you fire that same gun at an angle and it’s a whole other story. Yes the bullet will lose its vertical energy but it still has so much horizontal energy that it’s going to have no problem ripping through flesh. But then we hit the next problem. This is a game and as such it uses things like hit points and generic armor values. IRL your armor is going to be more effective at such long range shots but at the same time a single penetrating shot can incapacitate or even kill you (not to mention that body armor isn’t a literal suit of armor that covers every nook and cranny of your body).

We had this type of system basically in UD where ~46% of shots were either ignored completely or outright killed you, with the remaining ~8% merely hurting you (comparing a Heavy Plasma vs frontal Flying Armor here) and it wasn’t overly enjoyed. Hence TFTD lowering damage to 50-150% of listed damage and Apocalypse making further changes. I don’t see them returning to this type of armor/health/damage system.

As such armor would become disproportionately more powerful at range. We already have ray-casting for each shot to reduce the amount of damage one takes. Armor already applies to the whole body part as opposed to the localized spot of the actual armor. So by having damage also fall off you’re going to effectively make even lightly armored enemies immune to longer range shots. Not to mention you now risk further nerfing Snipers.

If this game used a FiraXCOM style of hit/miss then I think damage falloff could work (though then it wouldn’t need an accuracy penalty as seen with Squad Sight). I see no reason to further penalize the player on longer-range shots given that already almost none of the shots are truly long range shots where bullet velocity (basically RL damage) would be an actual factor and accuracy/map design are already there to help force closer range combat.

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Probably you are right. But if this could be implemented I would apply this modifier to shotguns and SMGs shooting for more than 25 tiles, and auto rifles shooting through whole map (~50 tiles, maps usually now have 64 x 64 tiles), Sniper Rifle would be unaffected. :slight_smile:

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Sorry, but what you say is bullshit. Looks like you did not have a physics at school, because you do not seem to know Newton’s laws of gravity…

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Did you even read what you linked? Do you even understand it? Did you comprehend what I wrote? Because it looks like you failed at all of it.

A gun fired straight up, as in perpendicular to the ground, is going to stop in the air and then fall at terminal velocity, which is different for each bullet. I don’t have time to go over all the reasons why what you posted is misleading/crap but even your two sources contradict each other as the wiki states a .30 caliber bullet would hit at max, 186mph while your video tries to claim such a bullet would be at 400+ mph for its terminal velocity.

And I’m well aware of Newton’s law of gravity, though apparently your school didn’t teach you that we don’t live in a vacuum where things can continue to accelerate indefinitely.

Also here’s the quick recap of when Mythbusters tested this. In short, vertical shots will be less-than-lethal while angled shots are likely to still be lethal.

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on the size of maps we have seen, and on maps that are bigger, the damage drop off would be fairly minimal. A 9mm bullet is still lethal at over a kilometer away, you just aren’t going to hit someone that far out deliberately. The current record for longest range deliberate kill is around 3.6 kilometers at the moment.

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I approve the use of Mythbusters to make one’s point :smiley:

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