Hmm…this ‘accuracy’ made a bit difficult, why not just reduce the damage if they far from weapon effective range and 100% damage at their effective range. Remember we have overwatch, would be funny once enemy show up in front of the soldier, but the soldier do nothing because of that. Yet I feel AR underpowered, Imho it should have same damage as SR if meet their effective range.
This is sort of already the case. “Effective Range” is the distance in game at which you have a 50% chance of hitting a man sized target. So if the target is “far from effective range” the amount of damage you’ll deal is a pure gamble if any. The game weapons are already toned way down from their real world counterparts taking the grid at its apparent face value of approx 1 meter squares in this regard.
The AR deals more damage than the sniper rifle by far but is just countered easier by armor.
@Vipre so the argument for this would go something like: the enemies nearby [and I would add within LOS], exert pressure on the shooter when wielding weapons for medium to long range, because on the one hand it’s hard to aim them at the nearby enemy and on other concentrating on a distant enemy when you feel you can’t adequately deal with the one nearby makes you nervous. Correct?
Actually, now that I think of it, this was in Wasteland 2 for AR and SR.
Pretty much, yes. That “nervousness/pressure” throws off your aim/concentration resulting in a drop in accuracy. I think it ties everything up rather nicely.
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If that’s true it should be no issue, but apparently not as they closer to the shooter. I don’t know, Imo as I mentioned before the damage mechanic should works something like the picture below.
*The circles represent of X,Y,Z (3D world)
or something like this since the game base have cone
Edit : try fixing sentences and add another suggestion, apologize for my horrible English
I think this is very clear. At least I think I understand it.
There are two things I don’t like about using damage instead of chances to hit to differentiate weapon types:
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I assume (someone correct me if I am wrong) that’s not the way weapons behave in the real world, because a bullet starts to lose momentum even before it leaves the barrel and momentum is what makes bullets hurt. So lowering the damage at short distances is quite an abstraction to reflect that the weapon is less effective at that range.
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One of the advantages of PPs damage system is it’s predictability, and this would kinda mess it up.
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@ Vipre what I like about it is that it avoids messing with freeaim/targeting etc., it’s definitely workable with the current game mechanics and it’s not too much of an abstraction. It’s something that if e.g. is put in the tutorial, the player can say, OK that makes sense. It’s actually much easier to grasp than, for example, the description of effective weapon range in the game.
Finally, now that I remembered this in Wasteland 2 (which I backed, so I got to play the earlier builds) it basically solved the AR/SR supremacy, forcing the player to have close range specialists.
@Rasyid as to shotgun VS melee, I think that if melee gets Attack of Opportunity and scales with strength, it should be enough.
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When you put it that way… Maybe it is not so bad idea. It just would need to be clearly expressed somewhere in the tutorial and had proper UI message after tutorial. But still how big penalty you would need to apply to make sniper rifle inaccurate in range of 2-5 tiles? 
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Yes even wind could affect the bullet travel, wish the game base have those kind of element. Yea my suggestion can’t be applied for all weapon class, perhaps for some weapon such as AR-SR…anyways, it doesn’t have to be reducing the damage but it can be change into other penalties. Well I just trying not too far from the game base. That’s all I can think at the moment, thanks.
There’s the question. I think the only way to figure that out would be trial and error from adding a penalty and going up or down until it “feels right”. Large enough so you only have a 50% chance to hit? Less? More? I don’t know. Needs to be enough to make that enemy suddenly become a priority one target or encourage a weapon switch. Would it be possible even to start at 50% on tile 5 and by tile 2 be at 20%
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I just want to remind you that we already have “fumble” mechanic in the game.
Perhaps there would be a chance to fumble when shooting at point blank with sniper rifle?
Of course it should be clearly displayed in UI, otherwise it would lead to hate and ragequits))
Yes, and probably a larger penalty to SR than to HW. In any case - 50% to accuracy seems as a reasonable starting point. What you want is a relatively high chance to hit, but low precision.
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Doesn’t that defeat the point? If you still have a high chance to hit you might as well take the shot because damage is damage, especially with the SR. Your chance to hit should be at best 50/50, I’d even consider lower. If you’re going to average missing 60% of your shots with the SR against a target 5 tiles away or wasting half the rounds with an AR at 3 the smart move is switching to a different weapon, the obvious choice for the Assault being a backup shotgun.
Maybe a different way of doing things would be to keep the reticle the same size, but give it some movement whenever a solider is under pressure from a nearby opponent.
It’s not the weapon itself that become inaccurate all of a sudden, but the person wielding it so let’s simulate that.
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If the game engine is capable of that it would be great and have the same effect but would require a whole new mechanic be created. The “reverse Master Marksman skill” idea would be a rework of an existing one.
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No it doesn’t lose speed inside the barrel, the powder burns, it doesn’t actually pop instantly. That’s why the M4 carbines shooting the exact same 5.56x45 as M-16 becomes rubbish in medium ranges as the bullet exits the barrel before the powder charge has finished burning. You get extra muzzle flash too. Rubbish bit is not only slower muzzle velocity but also wound ballistics i.e. the bullet shatters on impact at certain velocities but that’s way beyond the scope here. And I’m not going to go into maximum barrel pressure and different powder burn rates either, my uncle used to load his own cartridges…
Anyways, you can’t aim rifle from hip and reasonably expect to hit someone unless you’ve got the barrel pressed on their tummy, especially if the other guy is running at you with honking big pincers poised to take your head off. Depending on the scope its going to have a minimum useful range as you’re looking at the world through a keyhole, even with iron sights it’s not optimal at all point blank, that’s why they put those pig stickers into bolt action rifles. If you want a crash course on long arms indoors, you can try Red Orchestra 2 - you get one shot and if you miss, bayonet is the next best option.
WRT game mechanics, I don’t really see why it should be difficult to implement larger reticle close in for free aim, but would likely allow for some cheesiness aiming between body parts etc. And it’d make the already frustrating dispersion feel worse, if your miss the 
coming at you really close, you’re not seeing bad guy rushing you, you see a target standing still and then your guy misses a target a blind grandma would nail…
Unless you want to go to pauseable real time (Hello, Xcom Apocalypse!), some things are always going to be a bit unnatural in turn based games.
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You’re right, but something he said sparked a thought.
First off, I like the idea that any gun shot at targets within 2 or 3 spaces to have a penalty of some kind against SOME enemies at least.
For that I consider a “self-defense” dodge animation or something (I’m imagining 2 short dodge animations, randomly selected with different dead spots - soldier fires somewhere between 30-70% into the animation and whatever you hit, you hit). Something to lessen the power of just closing into 1 tile to get the best possible shot on every target if they’re even just 2 spaces away. I like the idea that a pistol is small enough to be able to compensate for the dodge and cancel it so to speak, as well as melee weapons.
Really this game just needs more than 4 enemies that are basically dealt with in the same manner regardless of mutations. Like the dodge, or some sort of kinetic absorption plating on some. Where the harder your weapon hits (or more parts that is hit, or both) the more power the creature absorbs + reduces damage taken with each successive shot on each turn reducing the power of rage burst, while also having a way of unleashing that power on the following turn (you’re always going to accumulate some on it, but you don’t want to go overboard)… making acid/fire/poison valuable suddenly, because they wouldn’t count.
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That’s very interesting, thank you.
IMO some degree of abstraction is always necessary: it’s a matter of focusing on what you want the players to be doing, what kind of choices you want them to be making. I think the point of the current freeaim system is that it be as clear and as simple as possible. A reticle changing in size dynamically would certainly complicate that. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, just that it has to be worth it. And the “pressure” mechanic seems like it could do the same job (weapon types differentiation) using existing mechanics.
I think it shouldn’t get to the point where you would never take the shot (which for me with an SR would be, I think, at 50%), the point is to make it a suboptimal choice. Do you want to gamble at 7/3 or 6/4 odds for damage? Alright, but you would have better odds with a different weapon.
It’s important to factor in bonuses from armor and quickaim, and consider whether to increase the penalty as the target gets closer to the shooter (I think yes, because otherwise it will be easier to hit a target 2 tiles away than 5).
Bottomline: it has to be tested to see how it plays out.
Yes, absolutely. The kinetic armor is a great idea. Reminds me of the shields in Frank Herbert’s Dune. PP has a lot of potential for interesting enemies both because of its setting (there is tons of interesting stuff in the oceans) and mechanics. I really hope that Snapshot has the chance to multiply the Pandorian varieties.
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If you want to talk about realism… Guns are more accurate up close.
If someone is indeed right next to you and you have a longrifle you are not likely to miss your point shooting.
The only thing detrimental is being so close the target can grab or knock away your weapon… But thats a completely different topic.
Im assuming these soldiers have trained at least as much as i have… Im not a soldier or anything but have had defensive firearms training. Learned to point shoot and fire weapons with both eyes open and such n such.
It wouldnt be a problem for me to blow apart a fast moving crab right next to me at all.
Also, firearms will indeed do more damage up-close.
The more velocity… The more of an impact on the internal organs with the temporary wound cavity.
This is why body armor is more effective at longer ranges, bullets lose velocity and effectiveness.
weapon balance, personally I don’t like a close range penalty system. on top of that it doesn’t really solve the problem. sniper rifles aren’t super-overperforming, and even if one would think otherwise about that, it certainly wouldn’t be because they can be used accurately at point blank range.
anyway, my suggestions.
-overall suggestion unrelated to weapon stats…get rid of all +% dmg perks. keep them in to provide proficiency, accuracy and/or soft stat boosts…but remove the damage bonuses.
-overall suggestion, also severely nerf skills or limit the flexibility of skills that boost damage per AP by a significant factor (sneak attack, rage burst, marked for death and quick aim.)
-overall suggestion, change enemies to make armor more relevant, remove the acc penalty from heavy armor (keep the spd penalty). not having/having little armor to boost the acc stat should hurt more
shotguns.
-lower damage and increase the pellet count to be slightly over their current damage per AP, lower the overall harrower shred. this makes them more affected by armor and less prone to going on a killing daisy chain without softening up a target first.
assault rifles.
-half the burst count, double the damage per shot…increase effective range to the 35 (bulldog piranha)-40 (phoenix point)-60 (AR-L) area. for the piranha make it 3X50 to keep the damage per AP the same. this makes AR’s much less affected by armor, and is to better show the fact they are a step between a PDW and a full on rifle.
(sniper)rifles.
-lower AP to fire by 1, decrease range to 45-50-60, change damage to 120-100-110. firing a rifle isn’t inherently harder. the lower damage will somewhat offset the “free” increase to damage per AP
-all (sniper) rifles grant a skill to sight the weapon for +50% accuracy at the cost of 1 AP, their sights allow for more precise aiming at the cost of time.
-related: inverse the accuracy bonus on quick aim to become an accuracy penalty.
MG.
-double damage and shred for half the burst, increase range to 10-13.
pistols, hellcannon and PDW’s should remain as is.
launchers.
-can benifit from a second circle to show the weapon spread.
-mounted launchers go from 1 AP to fire to 3 AP, they are both extremely powerful and wayyy to cheap to use.
melee weapons.
-complete overhaul, I suggest making it the only weapon group capable of boosting damage by increasing the str stat
status weapons would benefit a lot from improvement of the relevant status effects (burn, acid and viral)
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