Is height advantage a thing in PP?

#1

In almost every game, standing at a higher elevation than your target provides some kind of advantage, and/or units firing at someone who has the height advantage suffer a penalty. Is this the case in PP?

I have the impression that it’s not. I’d expect that there’d be a bonus to accuracy and range, and a penalty when shooting at someone higher up, but I don’t see it.

Actually, going to a higher position appears to be a negative, because you give the enemy the opportunity to blow up the floor under the unit and make it fall down and take extra damage.

Also, the rails on the edges of buildings very often mess with your LoS when firing, especially for heavy weapons, while providing almost no cover.

It’s another thing that seems to punish tactical movement. I hope the game will be balanced so that moving a sniper to an elevated position really provides an advantage.

#2

That’s my experience too. If enemies have snipers half cover on the roof is a deadtrap.

#3

Actually, high ground in this game gives you the real bonus that every other game only simulates. When looking down on someone, the target is (very) slightly bigger. When looking up at someone, the target is smaller because of the ground that takes away some vision on the target (and also some half cover he would have in front).

Now, the biggest problem is that the half cover you usually have blows away with a single bullet and the following bullets touch. The floor breaking because of a grenade … I don’t know if real grenades can do that.

By going up, you see more and more see you, so snipers are a threat, but that’s true in real life too and has nothing to do with height advantage.

So I think that apart from the scenery high destructibility, high ground has the real benefits and drawbacks.

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#4

I think the real advantage of high ground in real life is it making prone position vulnerable for those at low ground. There is no point to lie down next to a building if there is a sniper right above you!
However we don’t have prone position in Phoenix Point, sigh. I remember using it a lot in X-Com: Apocalypse))

#5

Is it? Let me phrase it this way:

  1. Attack Anu’s base
  2. Climb the first ladder you see
  3. Shot the ladder off

Now watch if you have any advantage over these bersekrers, mutogs and losers with pistols :smiley:

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#6

Yes but also:

  • There’s a problem of cover and visibility. Stay on top at border with cover exploded by the soldier or enemies is quickly a problem. Move back and forward is problematic when there’s no other soldiers to scout what you can target.
  • High positions in the game reduce a lot the mobility, and at reverse they aren’t designed for los domination. Many los will be blocked, enemies manage it fairly well and you won’t be able counter it well unlike on ground because your mobility is seriously minimized.
  • Static positions aren’t good in the game, and high position lead to it. It’s not good on defensive aspect, but also because of enemies mobility that tend move the front a lot.
  • Map size aren’t big enough to sustain well high positions.
#7

As others have said, yes but not in the way you mean it. There is no arbitrary bonus to hit/penalty to hit.

The primary issue with elevation in PP however is the inability of soldiers to lean over the blasted railing. Railing screws up LOS as a result. Also the inability to kneel or lie down to lower the sniper’s profile negates some benefit of higher elevation.

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#8

An other bad thing when in high elevation is that if an Arthron grenades you, you go through the floor.
The big problem about this, is that if there is no free tile on the floor below, you just die.
Fall on the floor ? You lose a bit of health for the fall.
Fall on a table or a chair ? You die. Even if you were at full health with 300 HP in Anvil-2 armor.

This is one of the cases where I hit the “restart button” for a mission (an other one being dying at the end of a jet jump - hasn’t happened in a while now - maybe corrected in a patch).

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