Thoughts on Phoenix Point ahead of Backer Build One (long read)

[Kurungu]

Ah yes, I forgot about fog of war, that should solve the problem.

[Siilk]

@Kurungu

I’ve been thinking about return fire some more. Perhaps the way to make it more useful would be to simply limit the weapon range? I don’t know if that makes sense given the map size. The way I would handle this is taking current weapons and finding out the distance when the weapon stops being effective. Effective in my head would be the chance for at least one bullet hitting the target. So I’m not saying chance per bullet, but rather total chance to hit (at least) once. For example, if you fire 10 bullets and one of them hits (on average), that would be 10% chance to hit. Anything worse than that would be wasting ammo, in my opinion, so that’s where you would limit the weapon’s range. I’m not sure if I explained this idea well, would be a lot easier if I had a piece of paper and a pencil. And some actual drawing skills. Maybe there could be an option to force a shot regardless of hit chance, for when you’re really desperate.

The same rules would apply to your opponents as well.

I gave this one some some thought as well. My opinion is, both overwatch and return fire should be customizable in a way which takes your idea of effective fire and takes it a step further. Firstly, when setting overwatch, there should be a way to specify the zone to cover, i.e 160 deg forward, 90 deg to the left etc. I also think that to distinguish overwatch form return fire, it should have a limit on the zone a soldier can cover, say no more than 180 deg. Return fire will have no such limit(i.e. as long as a solder is being shot at, he can return fire).

Secondly, and here is where your idea comes in, an engagement range should be specified. By entering either a max engagement range or minimal chance to hit, players will be able to determine when to fire, avoiding the situation when your soldiers will fire at an enemy which just entered the field of vision but is so far away that taking pot shots at it will be nothing but a waste of bullets. Instead it should be possible to ignore distant targets entirely and wait for a closing enemy to get into a range for a more reliable shot rather than shooting it right as it appeared in the distance.