AI assumes a soldier deploying combat shield as a exposed soldier.
Therefore player can uses him as very attracting tough decoy.
I think that AI should assume deploying shield as low cover.
1 Like
My experience is that soldiers who sit out in the open with a shield deployed just end up getting shot in the head. A lot. Like suddenly that triton on the other side of the map has a moment of supreme skill, fires its shotgun from way too far away, and lands half the pellets right in my operative’s eyeballs peeking over the shield anyway. If this is not your experience, you are blessed.
Assuming that the average player’s experience is that the shield actually does something for you, then yeah, this sounds like something that should be taken care of. Maybe have them prioritize repositioning or using accurate weapons against a shielded target rather than just laying into the shield.
I’ve had the same issue with shotgun tritons. My character with AR was about eight tiles away and was life was taken down significantly with just two shots, even though only one pellet hit him on each shot. The rest went wide. Doesn’t make sense because I used a “captured” Anu Assault LPC with a shotgun who, on standing right next to said triton, barely touched him. I was two squares away and did barely any damage. While there is armour reduction cost to damage my AR guy did more damage further away with his rifle than the Anu did with the shotgun right next to him. Something is definitely not right there.
I very quickly stopped using shields shortly after they where introduced. Heavy killed by shot to the head behind shield …
You are unlucky then. Shotguns outperform ARs a lot in range of 4 tiles.