Current Stealth mechanics - questions

Before the last patch, I could shoot people with high stealth, but they remained maximal detected, but unrevealed, when being out of the detection range of the enemy.

How does stealth work currently?

For example the infiltrator:
If he stands further then 5 tiles away from the enemy, shoots and hits. Will he get unrevealed? Or just located?

What about the silenced weapons augmentation?
Can all those units shoot, hit and remain unrevealed? If so, how does such a silenced soldier get unrevealed?

Shooting a non silent weapon will reveal your stealth Infiltrator if any enemy has LOS (line of sight) to him, distance doesn’t matter and also if you kill the only one who has LOS.

First, he will get revealed and not only located, see above.

Second, 5 tiles are the minimum distance when a stealth Infiltrator without vanish* will be revealed. You have do some math to get the distance how close you can go.
Examples:

  • Enemy with 30 perception, Infiltrator with 75% stealth:
    30 x 0.25 = 7.5 tiles to get revealed
  • Enemy with 60 perception (triton with double perception), Inf with 75% stealth:
    60 x 0.25 = 15 tiles to get revealed

Yes, with the Echo Head any weapon is silent so you can shoot without getting revealed.
But see above, even with the Echo Head Infiltrators are not endless invisible. Also mist will reveal all stealthy units.
That said, some evolved Tritons are the biggest thread for Infiltrators because of their double perception and/or mist mutations.

100% stealth is not as broken as it was before but is already very strong because then you have always 5 tiles to get revealed, no matter what perception the enemy has.

*Sidenote to the vanish ability:
If you vanish you can get direct close to any enemy (no 5 tiles rule), but shooting a non silent weapon will also reveal you like described above.
BUT, the vanish status ends on the end of your turn. On the enemies turn your Infiltrator is again in his normal stealth mode. So ending a turn near to living enemies is always a very bad idea.

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Ok, so when does a unit get “located”, when “unrevealed”?

I saw Tritons shooting at me, and remaining only located.
According to your word, any unit, shooting without silenced weapons should get unrevealed, doesn`t it?

Someone wrote in my Infiltrator class Thread:

How could he shoot the Triton without getting unrevealed, if EVERY shot without a silenced weapons get you unrevealed according to your words?
Sorry, that confuses me.

No, because some Tritons have the same ability like the Echo Head augmentation you can use and with this all weapons they use are silent.

Edit:
“Located” means that a unit can hear something from an enemy unit and this happens also to your Infiltrators. Thats why Chirons bomb you if you in their hearing range even when you’re unrevealed.

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@MadSkunky:
Could you please position yourself, why Pantolomin in the linked thread wrote, that he could stay out of the perception range of an enemy, shoot it, without risking to get unrevealed (without using silenced weapons)?

This is an old thread with the old stealth mechanics, most of what he wrote is outdated.

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Ah, good to know. Thank you for the information.

One thing more:
If I use a silenced weapon, according to your posts, I remain unrevealed.

But will I get “located” or remain even “unrevealed”
If located: Enemies like the Scylla and Chirons would likely attack my position, no?

I don’t know how exactly this workes but i assume, you get located anyways when you’re in hearing range independent of using a silenced weapon.

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So, the status “Located” is like the hearing range?

Is there any range, it is concerned to?
For example: If I open a door or crash a window, am I “located” to EVERY enemy on the field or only to once within a certain range?

I’m thinking of silenced weapons. According to your word, “located” is the effect, when using them (Otherwise shooting Tritons would remain hidden for me, which they don`t).
Will I be located by EVERY Pandoran or only some withing a certain range?

As I said, I don’t know it exactly.
First of there is no indicator that tells you that you’re located.
But what I can say is that not every enemy reacts when it is obvious that you’re got ‘located’. It seems to me, that only the closer ones get alerted.
By the way, the ‘alerted’ status of the enemy is also such a mystery for me. For example, as long as a Chiron is not alerted he will not bomb you, but if he is alerted he will bomb you even from max range (where he normally can’t ‘hear’ you).

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Only differences between old and new stealth mechanic are those:

  • You are within 5 tiles of enemy you get revealed no matter how good stealth you have (except for Vanish skill).
  • When using non-silenced weapon within enemy line of sight you get revealed no matter how good your stealth value is.

Other changes:

  • Crossbows are now always silent
  • There is bionic head which helps with any weapon to get stealthy.

Alerted status of enemy means that he has located one of your units. From what I have seen such unit will stay alerted even when your units will loose located status. Such alerted enemy will actively search for your soldiers.

Unfortunately there is no UI telling if your unit is located or revealed (except Infiltrator special state can tell you if he was revealed). So you can’t be sure if your stealthy units other than Infiltrator are in danger.

If your unit is located it’s location is revealed to any enemy who is in hearing range of your unit or in hearing range of his fellow aliens who located your unit. So if there are many enemy units standing on the map and one of them will locate you then you can be almost certain that all of them will know this location.

And only units with indirect fire range can attack your located units (Arthrons with grenade launchers, Chirons, Scylla with mist launcher + blasters(?), any human with grenade, grenade launcher or back mounted launcher). All other forms of attack require your units to be revealed.

At least I assume what I wrote is correct. But without access to the code I can’t be sure for 100%.

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Didn`t know that.
What about that weapon from the infiltrator with the spider mines (or was it the crossbow too?: Didn’t use any infiltrators in the last 4 playthroughs).

Better stay away from line of sight. :slightly_smiling_face:

Ok, you are not sure… Then I will have to find out the hard way :slight_smile:

If they not changed it with the last patch then Arthrons or humans don’t use their grenades or launchers on only located soldiers, but Chirons and Scyllas will do their attacks, also the scylla blaster.

Edit:
Oh, and not to forget the Sirens, if they have the psychic scream ability they will use it when they are close enough to a located soldier.
Edit 2:
Also all sentinels do their stuff if you close enough, but i assume this has not to be mentioned(?).

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Exactly what I was going to answer :wink:

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Panto, you’re back!
Good to ‘hear’ from you again, my man. I was afraid you had left us for good.
I still religiously use your ‘RF a la Carte’ mod - it makes the game sooo much better than the horrible RF mechanics they have now.

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I still come every day to see if someone’s asking me something.
Even-though I stopped playing and can obviously not update my mods, I like to know if everything’s still fine.

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You should try the game again after they implement the next patch.
There are some good changes in the pipeline.