Accuracy vs TU Efficiency

Proposal

Would it be unreasonable to correct the TU and/or accuracy values of human weapons, so that if we call the efficiency (hits per unit of time)

K = accuracy/TUs

and we have

Kai (K - Aimed) Ksn (K - Snap) Kau (K - Auto)

we correct the game tables to ensure that for any given weapon:

Kai > Ksn > 3 Kau

( In an unmodified game, this relationship does not hold, in a large number of cases. )

The purpose of this modification would be to ensure that, in terms of delivering hits to the target per unit of time, Aimed fire is more effective than Snap fire, which in turn is more effective than Auto fire.

Otherwise there are few reasons not always use the fastest available fire rate.

(3 reasons I can think of are:

• Conserving ammo - often of minor importance
• Avoiding "collateral damage"
• "First shot kill" - killing the target before it can reaction-fire

But for general combat, there is often no reason to prefer Aimed fire over Snap, or Snap over Auto.

Having said that, analysis of 20th century battles showed that ordinary soldiers were more effective at killing the enemy when they were given automatic weapons. Resistance to equipping troops with full auto small arms as standard was mainly on ammunition cost grounds (as well as conservatism). This was further refined by studies showing that a burst mode (as used in XCom) was optimum.

However, this was true only for the ordinary troops, who were found to be too unsettled by combat to fire in a controlled fashion. For the minority who had the presence of mind to fire under control, taking slow, carefully aimed shots was more effective and this is where the bulk of the overall effective firepower of an entire formation would come from.

Now, which group do we think XCom soldiers fall into?

Spike 13:28, 10 November 2008 (CST)

Discussion

X-COM soldiers are selected as the best available volunteers from the various militaries of the funding nations, according to backstory. Thus they'd probably be more geared towards the latter class. However, given the...shall we say...less-than-ideal stats of some recruits, its clear that even then that's not going to hold. Bravery would probably be one of the main stats applicable to this argument. It should also be noted that X-COM soldiers are fighting a completely different war, one which could well make most regular soldiers break down from the stress alone. Think about it, for the first half of the game, at least, X-COM soldiers are out-equipped, fighting ALIENS, some 4 times thier own size, who can kill them in one glancing hit from a PLASMA weapon, while they themselves have trouble even hurting some of them, and whom are coming from OUTER SPACE in UFOs they can't scratch on the ground and which can VAPORIZE F-22s(or whatever the Interceptor is). That's not even mentioning the funding issues, terror attacks, or psychological scarring. And every time the Skyranger goes out, they can pretty much count on the fact that at least 2 or 3 of the people they're inside it with will be coming back to base in a body bag. This is liable to put ANYONE, even a battle-hardened combat vet of a normal earth military, off balance, at the very least. Which can be seen in how rapidly X-COM recruits tend to panic when things go bad. Overall troop morale would be one X-COM's (or any such organization's) greatest problems.

As for the use of aiming/snap/auto, it's basically been established that in UFO, auto reigns supreme. Whereas in TFTD, auto fire is only available on a handful of weapons, with horrendous accuracy for it, and usually with a fairly small clip. I don't know how many Aquanauts I've had run dry on ammo at a critical moment because I used the Jet Harpoon's Autofire too liberally(read: use at all) TFTD's weapons, however, have awesome Aimed accuracy stats, swinging it in the opposite direction of UFO; aimed is the prefered fire of choice. Also, perhaps use Scout/Sniper some more if you want to use Aimed mode; it increases overall safety. :) Arrow Quivershaft 13:50, 10 November 2008 (CST)

Good points there AQ. It's probably reasonable (for many reasons) to treat XCom's "elite" recruits as effectively rookies when tangling with aliens and alien weapons.

Thinking about auto modes, actually it does make sense that they have better firepower than the other modes. Otherwise why would they be used at all? Auto should be more effective per unit of time, less effective per unit of ammo - which it is.

That being the case, a more moderate proposal would be to tweak the game to ensure that Kai > Ksn, i.e. Aimed fire is more effective than Snap, per unit of time. Surely that is just common sense? Otherwise there is very little reason ever to Aim.

By the way, could you expand on your thoughts about Scout/Sniper? I'm not sure I understand how this tactic gives greater weight to Aimed Fire. Are there any considerations apart from reducing friendly fire and enemy reaction fire?

Spike 09:32, 11 November 2008 (CST)

One additional benefit I can see for using the scout/sniper strategy other than the benefits already mentioned would be the fact that the sniper will not have to move as much, if at all. Therefore the sniper will have more TUs available to make aimed shots. Obviously this means nothing for some weapons that can only be fired once per turn on aimed, but for weapons that can be aimed several times, then every extra TU helps. Just as snaps and auto shots bank on extra attempts to improve their odds of success, the same can apply to aimed shots too. -NKF 22:38, 12 November 2008 (CST)

Data Analysis

OK I did some quantitative analysis and the results are not good. The only weapons for which Aimed Fire has better efficiency of Accuracy::TU compared to Snap Fire, are Rockets and the Rocket Tank. In the notation above, there are only 3 weapons for which Kai > Ksn. In most cases, Snap fire is considerably more efficient - typically around 70% more efficient. Even for the Rocket weapons, Aimed Fire is only 25% (i.e. one-quarter) more effective. For all other weapons, including HWP and alien built-in attacks, snap fire is more efficient (in terms of generating hits on the target per unit of time). Obviously it is not good to have a game mechanic that is barely used because it has no real usefulness. I guess the proposal would be to raise the efficiency level of Aimed fire, and leave Snap fire where it is now. This would be the least unbalancing change, since Aimed fire is rarely used now, and even if it was more effective, it is tactically problematic to use because of the high TU cost. Even if you adjusted all weapons so that Aimed fire was 25% more efficient than Snap fire, I doubt that would be much incentive to use Aimed fire. 50% efficiency gain would be more likely to actually create real tactical alternatives that would get used by players in the game. By way of example, this would mean increasing the based Aimed accuracy of a Laser Rifle to around 200% (for 50% TU cost; vs Snap at 65% Accuracy for 25% TU cost). Spike 18:17, 6 December 2008 (CST)

There's other measures of efficiency, as well. For example, with any explosive munition, Aimed fire gets a second chance because as a general rule, you don't want an explosive going off in the wrong place. Particularly true with the Large Rocket and HC-HE. (Also somewhat of an issue with the Small Launcher, but it's mitigated because affected units are only stunned, not killed.) On a similar note, aimed is nice in Scout-Sniper so you don't shoot the spotter(The aimed guy doesn't have to move much so has lots of TUs for aimed fire.) Arrow Quivershaft 18:27, 6 December 2008 (CST)

Yes I definitely agree there are non-firepower benefits of Aimed fire, that are already present in the game. As you say these include control of collateral damage (with HE or with exposed scouts), and ammo-efficient (also "opportunity-efficient") use of single-shot weapons. Fair point! Can we list out all of the non-firepower benefits? I'm really trying hard to see if it's possible to make the case that Aimed fire is not pointless, from a game design / game balance point of view. Spike 19:21, 6 December 2008 (CST)

Well, one big thing is that reloading a weapon takes 15 TUs flat. This is actually a fair bit. For a rookie, it can be anywhere from 1/4th to almost 1/3rd of his full TU allotment, whereas its just below 1/5th for a top-level veteran. Any weapon with a small clip is going to require reloading on a regular basis if repeated snap fire is used. Anything with a 1-round clip counts, any arguably, so does the Heavy Cannon. (Though the Blaster Launcher has no mode other than Aimed, so is only included for example). The more ammo you use, the more you need to carry, thus the more space you need in the transport.

A single soldier can carry, at most, 5 rockets, 7 Blaster Bombs, 66 Heavy Cannon shots(11 clips), or 25 Small Launcher rounds. (These numbers do not take into account Strength limitations, or use of the Item Stacking bug. Also note that there's no reason you should need that many Small Launcher rounds.) Consider how many spaces this is on the transport, for one. Then multiply this across the number of associated weapons...you hit 80 pretty fast. Using lots of ammo means less room on the transport for other gear. Also consider how weighted down the soldier is. A soldier hauling around a rocket launcher and 4 reloads is carrying 50 units of weight, leaving not much room for other gear.

The collateral damage is an issue that needs to be watched for, of course. Snap-firing a Large Rocket can kill large portions of your team if not done properly. Even if none of your soldiers are killed, you may destroy valuable equipment if not careful. (Especially true near UFO power sources!) And at range, snap fire's path can intersect the position of a soldier.

Cost is yet another. In particular, in the case of the Small Launcher, ammunition requires Elerium to manufacture. And Large Rockets don't come too cheap if you're firing them off willy-nilly.

And finally, when dealing with the tanks, the Ammo problem is even worse...you CAN'T reload in the middle of battle; you get one magazine and that's it. (This is only truly relevant for the Rocket Tank and Fusion Hovertank.) Plus ammo is even more expensive!

There was another idea I had, but it escapes me currently. Still, I think this is a fairly comprehensive list. Arrow Quivershaft 20:18, 6 December 2008 (CST)