I am thinking about what can be done with mechanics we already have in game. Everything in game have some speed value so I assume engine can determine how many tiles someone traveled. Then there could be some arbitrary number, for example 3%/tile. So if enemy moves 20 tiles everyone shooting at him will have -60% acc. Weapons would have “handling” stat that mitigate this penalty. For example SMG with handling 80 would reduce this penalty by 80%, so 60x0.2=12. Only 12% penalty for SMG. SR could have negative handling stat, like -20. 60x1.2=72. -72% to accuracy. I believe that would be easier to implement than giving every weapon unique range/accuracy curve.
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Actually that’s not bad, except making it work smoothly with freeaim.
Playing devil’s advocate here, but presumably if that movement affects aim for the player, then it also affects aim for the AI. - How do you prevent a situation where the player is continually moving soldiers back and forth between cover in order to build up that speed penalty for when the AI is going to shoot at them?
Well if some soldier is capable of running half map in single turn (so around couple seconds) he should be really hard to target. But to answer your questions, balancing this would require limiting dash to just few (2?) uses, on top of giving Pandas some mutation that increases “handling” if player is consistently abusing this system.
Its drawback is the AP cost to fire.
SR takes 3 AP to fire while AR takes 2 AP to fire a burst and Pistol and Crossbow can shoot for 1 AP.
Excuse me for stating the obvious.
Well. It means there are 2 shots with Rapid Aim and 4 with Adrenaline Rush.
Yep. Against 4 shots with Rapid Aim for AR, so? 
Pin point accuracy and range. It allows you to disable any body part of your choosing at greater range. Potentially disarming 4 Arthrons in one turn.
Edit: I have a soldier specifically kitted for ARs (AR perk, Reckless, Cautius) at +20%(+45% with Rapid Aim) Acc and 40% dmg for AR specifically. My Sniper/Serkers are still more efficient at mid-long range. AR are good only up to ~20 range against human sized enemies and only if they are not overly armored. SR are just so much more versatile once you pair them with Adrenaline.
Guys the shotgun and melee need differentiate in use for sake of soldier class…other weapon seems fine to me, perhaps SR can’t be used at 0-2 tile range (forcing player to use pistol or bash), or make SR accuracy drop drastically at those distances.
- SR/Rocket launcher = 100% accuracy at 10 tile it’s their effective range. The lower their distance, the lower accuracy will drop and the higher than 10 tile will drop their accuracy as well.
- AR/GL/Canon/MG/Bazooka = 100% accuracy at 5 tile (effective range). Higher or lower than 5 tile it will drop their accuracy.
- SMG/Pistol/Crossbow = 100% accuracy at 1-3 tile (effective range).
- Shotgun = 100% accuracy at 0-1 tile (effective range). At 0 tile distance shot, gives penalty that hurt it self.
- Melee - Bash - Strike = 100% accuracy at 0 tile.
Sorry for my English.
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@gauthel I think there might be another problem with your suggestion. It might make SR useless against moving targets at long distance, making it easier to hit them with a PDW than with a SR.
As to sniper/berserker I agree that as stationary glass cannon they are incredibly powerful, especially against the larger Pandas. The armor shred + blood lust + adrenaline rush with a SR - a combination so meta it’s straight out of a spell book - is devastating. However, I think that it’s largely a problem with the serker class.
The more I think about it and read the comments to this thread with many interesting ideas, the more clearly I see that a fundamental choice is whether to muck about with the freeaim/targeting, where the chance to hit would change depending on what is being aimed at (whether because of range or something else), or not.
TBH, personally I like how clean, simple and predictable the current aiming system is, so I will be the first to say that anything that complicates it must yield more than a marginal improvement on the gameplay.
@Lorifel explained my point of view. 
I’m not sure if anyone of you posted any reasonable solution to the aim penalty above (tl:dr for me). But with the aiming system which is implemented in Phoenix Point you can’t give any penalty to the weapon per enemy. System doesn’t calculate accuracy differently depending on enemy.
If my post is TL:DR for you then in short: apply damage modifiers instead of aim modifiers for certain weapons.
I think of two modifications that could be introduced and were mentioned above:
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Apply aim penalty if there is any enemy withing certain range from a soldier with specific weapon (something similar to Master Marksman skill but applied for all classes and weapons). For example for enemies withing 10 tiles for sniper rifles, 3 tiles for assault rifles, etc. But it has big flaw that you receive aim penalty no matter at which enemy you aim at. That would be too much penalizing because why soldier would need to have aim penalty when aiming at distant target? Advantage of this solution is worse than disadvantage. For me not worth bothering just for the sake of lower aim at close range.
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Modify aiming system to detect if there is an enemy within aiming reticle - not only in center of circle, as players would probably try to overcome aim penalty aiming just a little to the side from the enemy or just between body parts. Then apply penalty if detected enemy is closer than certain range. If there would be more than one enemy then would be a problem, which could be solved in two ways:
- apply modifier for closer enemy as he is probably partly covering enemy in the back and to not let the player to cheat with aiming at the enemy in the back. That would mean decreased accuracy for the enemy in the background and would penalize aiming if our primary target would be enemy further away.
- apply modifier as for the enemy in the back, but then players would probably overuse that positioning soldier to have two enemies in line while truly aiming at closer enemy.
I suppose that system would also need to work when there is some destructible cover between soldier and close enemy, as players could try to overcome accuracy penalty aiming at those obstacles. Overall for me that solution is also not good way to deal with the problem as it still can penalize the player when it should not.
To be true I don’t see any good solution for this with aiming system available in Phoenix Point. I would also remove any skill or perk or overall modifier (ie. vivisection results) that modify damage of any projectile or explosive weapon. This is unrealistic that something other than weapon modification modifies damage output of it. BUT… in case of problem discussed in this topic for me less penalizing all possible cases and less realistic, but understandable gameplay-wise solution would be system like with Berserker’s damage resistance skill (less damage in close combat). Just apply it for all weapons in certain range, where assault rifles has closer penalizing range, and sniper rifles longer.
Yet.
Any solution may involve a change to the aiming system.
I won’t edit my previous post.
Lol, but they have. Lower damage output than automatic weapons if enemy isn’t too much armored.
Some variety in ammunition types could go a long way to solve the issue of assault rifles being unless once enemies are armoured. If you could load in some armour piercing rounds it’d be a viable weapon choice again.
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But they would overcomplicate system which should not take too much time. I don’t want to zoom in and out waving my aiming reticle in circles while searching for a good target and less penalizing modifier. I just want to to press fire ability, correct aim and press fire. With dynamic size of aiming circles I wouldn’t do that quickly.
I agree, but I was discussing drawbacks of sniper rifles not the assault rifles.
I already do all that faffing about just trying to get the most of a creature inside the reticle or picking a body part, to which it makes not a great deal of time difference from my starting point. The whole system is a pain, but it it’s going to be there it might as well be made use of.
You were, I wasn’t
Yes, I have to agree, ultimately it creates more problems than it solves.
I’m not sure I see too much of a problem. As a starting point, I would say that if the targeting reticle doesn’t touch the close target, there shouldn’t be any penalty. I also think there shouldn’t be any penalty if the outside circle of the targeting reticle does touch the close target but not so the inside circle, as it would in any case reduce the chances to hit to <50%.
This for me is a strong argument against mucking with accuracy, but the only way to know how disruptive this would be is testing.
I understand where you are coming from, but it’s just such an unsatisfying solution…
Yes, I agree. In fact, it makes a lot of sense gameplay wise. That would be the edge that ARs have over other weapons. Also, assault class has a skill to reload without AP cost.
I wonder does the 3rd person shooter mode have the same damage with iron sight mode or the iron sight mode has opportunity for having an extra damage beside crippling enemy body parts?
Damage is damage. All regular aiming does is auto-target center mass or possibly the torso. So short answer, Yes.
Actually this plays into your “pressure” penalty idea really well. The aim penalty is a flat one due to the “pressure” of having an enemy “right on top of you” as determined by weapon type. I’d cap it at 5 tiles though. Maybe 5 tiles for SR, 3 for AR. You’re not affecting the accuracy of the weapon just the soldier’s ability to focus on targets which would perfectly explain why it applies to distant targets as well. Hard to focus on the guy 50 meters away when there’s one right over there.
This in my opinion is the idea that makes your original post work perfectly and addresses the points in nearly every post of the thread after. It’s also perfectly doable within the existing game mechanics.
- Enemy adjacent to the shooter: Sniper rifles, heavy weapons, and ARs can’t be shot at all.
- Enemy 2-3 tiles away: SR, HW, and AR shoot with an accuracy penalty.
- Enemy 4-5 tiles away: SR, HW, shoot with an accuracy penalty.
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