Talk:Reactions
Question: How is having weapons in both hands handled when dealing with reactions? Is there a "favored" hand? Is the quicker weapon always chosen? Are both weapons checked?
This is important because if I have a Laser Pistol in one hand and a Blaster Launcher in another, most of the time I'm not going to want my soldier wildly firing Blaster Bombs. Also, if (for example) it always checks the right hand first and I happen to put the Blaster Launcher there, I will fail a lot of reaction rolls I could have made if it had checked the other hand holding the Laser Pistol.
Have people noticed that the soldier always fires just one weapon... or have people seen soldiers alternate?
I've just run a test. I edited a soldier to 80 TUs, 200 reactions and 200 all-round armour. I then got a pistol, laser pistol and a blaster launcher and went off to run a few tests. Here are the results.
Attacks of opportunity are performed with the active weapon. That is to say, the weapon that's visible on your sprite. The weapon that is activated when you bring up the weapon's attack menu. I think putting a new weapon into your right hand will also change your active weapon to it.
You will continue to use the active weapon for reaction shots until you run out of ammo, then your active weapon will switch over to the other weapon. Assuming it's got ammo, of course.
I tried this first with the pistol and laser pistol combo and it worked as I've outlined. Then I tried it with the laser pistol and the blaster. Again, the blaster only fired after it was set to the active weapon.
In summary, accidental reaction shots with the blaster can be avoided by arming another weapon and having it as the active weapon at the end of the turn. I'd go with a laser pistol myself. You don't want to run out of ammo and then switch over to the blaster.
This works well with the blaster as no accuracy is lost. With the launcher or small launcher, you'll suffer the accuracy penalty, but you will otherwise be able to control them in the same way.
Oh, this only applies to reaction fire. Not unit mind control.
- NKF
P. S: One thing I noticed with the blaster launcher in the Collectors Edition while running the test. You no longer get a dud shell left behind for reaction fired blaster bombs. However, you will still get the dud shell when you actively fire a blaster bomb with only one waypoint - and if it hits. If it misses its mark and flies off the map, the blaster will not have a dud shell. Interesting. I'll go and put this in the blaster launcher entry.
A good question was asked on the xcomufo boards by Seeker whether you get a reaction point if you are in such a condition that your turn-towards-attacker spin is initiated, but you run out of TUs to fire your gun as a result. I'm sure this was mentioned somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.
Also, regarding the free experience point earned by soldiers in a group when one soldier manages to kill the alien before the rest. I guess all units are sorted in an iniative queue, and every time you or the enemy spend TUs your position in the queue drops. Every time a reaction shot is triggered, the game runs through all units above the alien in the queue and give the experience point to the ones that were able to trigger. I guess that's how it works.
- NKF
One thing that came to my mind this afternoon:
Starting stats for reactions are 30 - 60. Now, that's fine and all, and I accept this - it's mentioned in the official strategy guide after all. But I recall that I was able to generate a brand new soldier with 20 reactions on one of the easier levels. I'd like to figure out how to get this reproduced.
- NKF
Hmmm, do you remember what version you were using? That might play a role. (And if I ever find the starting stats in the executable, this would be the easy way to verify). The only other thing may be corruption, but this cannot be reproduced without luck.--Zombie 19:27, 17 January 2007 (PST)
I know, that's what I thought. I'm sure that I cannot reproduce it in the CE (I've tried), but I believe it was through the Dos version. I'll try and run a few tests on my copy as soon as I can clear the olde-computer table and find the keyboard - or even the PC itself if I'm lucky!
I just recalled that I was challenged years ago about the reaction's starting level, and having actually seen a reaction stat at 20, I'm a little unsure now. I'm still all for the official starting values, I just want to see if this little glitch is reproduceable and would like to add it as a footnote to the official entry.
- NKF