Home » SIRTECH CLASSICS » Jagged Alliance 2 » The A.I.M. Library » Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired
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| Re: Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired[message #220248]
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Tue, 09 June 2009 18:21  
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| Headrock |
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Messages:1757
Registered:March 2006
Location: Jerusalem |
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No, CQC is pretty much screwed. One thing I'm doing now is making it harder to fire at point-blank range, even with a pistol, but it doesn't solve the entire problem.
I suggested two other options in the past, one is hard to implement (tried and failed), the other may be possible with some work.
The first idea is to allow interrupting an enemy when he/she spots you. That is, if you've got an enemy in view but he can't see you, the moment he spots you you get an interrupt for everyone who can see him and has their gun "readied". This way, you can cover your sneaker as he goes in for the kill. If the enemy turns around, one of your other guys can shoot him before he can do anything about it. I tried to implement this feature, but failed miserably due to not understanding how the interrupt code works... 
The second idea is to conserve APs. I.E. you press a button or a key at the start of a turn (only at the start!) and immediately lose all of your APs. However, on the next turn, you have double the APs to use! The extra AP can only be spent on movement. This allows you to "sprint" at an enemy with 100AP, then use the remaining 100AP to beat the crap out of him or slash him up good. This allows you to cover the last few feet towards an enemy and not end your turn a sitting duck hoping he doesn't kill you the next round. There are several problems with implementing this though.
As to the use of rifles and other long-range weaponry indoors, this is difficult because the game doesn't have any foolproof way of distinguishing between "indoors" and "outdoors", at least none that I've come across or can remember at the moment. I don't have any good solutions to that problem.
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| Re: Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired[message #220255]
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Tue, 09 June 2009 19:30
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| Headrock |
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Messages:1757
Registered:March 2006
Location: Jerusalem |
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Quote:I like the idea of saving APs for the next turn as it seems like the easiest to implement
Unfortunately, it isn't.
Quote:but surely it would be too easily exploited!
That's basically what I'm afraid of (pretty much always) but I don't believe you can exploit it too much. Sprinting from place to place would be very useful even during a firefight. There are several ways to rebalance it though:
A) Penalties on accuracy while moving. This doesn't happen when running normally in JA2, mainly because you're not really shooting during running but rather stopping and shooting. Still, we could force a penalty for every tile moved during the sprint turn, so you can't run in at an enemy and shoot the crap out of him in a single sprint, you'd just end up wasting bullets and opening yourself to return fire. Knife/HTH attacks would suffer much less penalty for this movement.
B) A lower exchange rate. I.E. you "waste" a turn doing nothing, and then on the next turn get only 50% of the APs as the extra bonus. This should be enough to extend your running range significantly, but you've still wasted 50% of a round where you could've done something more productive. So it only really becomes useful when charging in for a melee attack, especially when combined with A, above.
C) Teaching the AI to do this would be very cool, and probably not too difficult. An enemy with melee capabilities could be set to prefer this type of action when the target is too far away to attack in a single turn. It's certainly easier than group tactics, and if the enemies can do it properly that might balance the entire feature.
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| Re: Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired[message #220276]
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Tue, 09 June 2009 22:11
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| coffeecommander |
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Messages:86
Registered:June 2009
Location: Europe, and pitying you. |
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HeadrockI don't see your point. Are you saying that enemies shouldn't be able to / want to sprint?
Sprinting means having a disadvantage in ranged combat due to the CTH reduction, but melee combat remains at its usual effectiveness. If I fail my interrupt check, I can do absolutely nothing against an enemy trying to cut me up. Survive it maybe, and kill him with a shot to the face, but enemies risking that would be unrealistic/dumb.
So what it would take, imho, is an increased probability of interrupts the longer the distance the enemy covers with his sprint. So sprinting from cover to cover to close a distance would be useful enough, but just running at someone remains suicidal.
[Updated on: Tue, 09 June 2009 22:12] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal 1st Class
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| Re: Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired[message #220292]
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Tue, 09 June 2009 23:23
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| coffeecommander |
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Messages:86
Registered:June 2009
Location: Europe, and pitying you. |
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HeadrockWhy?
My solo merc was never stabbed to death (unless first shot) yet, and always got a killing shot off at his attacker afterwards...so maybe it's just my style of play, but charging enemies would have to be suicidal. Somewhat successful if attacking en masse, but suicidal nonetheless.
HeadrockThat can be arranged, I think.
Looking forward to it!
[Updated on: Tue, 09 June 2009 23:27] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal 1st Class
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| Re: Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired[message #220298]
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Wed, 10 June 2009 00:03
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| Headrock |
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Messages:1757
Registered:March 2006
Location: Jerusalem |
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Quote:My solo merc was never stabbed to death (unless first shot) yet, and always got a killing shot off at his attacker afterwards...so maybe it's just my style of play, but charging enemies would have to be suicidal.
Well, with grappling, it'll be much tougher to make that killing shot, especially after you've just been punched in the face or stabbed in the kidneys. Still, as I said, only the most experienced AIs with traits befitting the job would dare do this, because that's what they were trained for/good at. And then the sprint is followed by a hell of a stab that could take out half a merc's life. That merc would not win a grapple with his injuries in the next turn, and therefore must resort to returning a blow or running away, neither of which are very good options. It'll put more emphasis on mercs covering each other.
I still think it all makes sense, but this is a good debate nonetheless.
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| Re: Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired[message #220306]
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Wed, 10 June 2009 00:54
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| Headrock |
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Messages:1757
Registered:March 2006
Location: Jerusalem |
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Well that is definitely going to change. HTH shouldn't be an all-powerful tool, but it is certainly underpowered at the moment. Features like the ones I described above are the way to do that. There's a long way to go of course, but I believe it's quite possible to make close combat much more realistic and much more useful than it currently is. It's a matter of determination, really. The end result would be that charging at the enemy lines through an open battlefield would be stupid, and yeah the enemies will probably do it occasionally unless that hole can be plugged as well, but in the meanwhile it'll be a very useful tool for anyone who has the HTH skill, especially in areas where there are more obstacles of any kind.
HAM already allows increasing the penalties for shooting at a moving target. I'll probably add some CtH penalties for shooting after movement, at some point. Then there's some changes done recently by Sandro that improve close combat traits and the way they're assigned to enemies as well. Follow it up by some twiddling for more logical interrupts, couple that with grappling adjacent enemies, and teach the AI at least to avoid misuse, and you've a wholly revamped close combat.
It's a lot of smaller projects that need to coincide, of course. That's how these things work with much of 1.13. They can probably be introduced gradually, at least some of them at first, and then add the tricky ones. The real problem is that there needs to be a breakthrough in how to make "AP Saving" work at all. I've got a few ideas, but prehaps not enough skill to implement them yet. Still, talking about it makes more people interested who might help, right?
EDIT: An interesting balancer could be that only characters with sufficient AGI+STR, good health/fatigue, and a melee combat skill could even sprint at all. That would prevent much of the exploitation possibilities, and will also prevent much of the AI doing it stupidly until we can find a way to tell it not to! 
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| Re: Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired[message #220689]
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Fri, 12 June 2009 02:04
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 Thor |
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Messages:420
Registered:February 2007
Location: Belgium |
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Quote:save APs
Don't like that... Then you just use 2 turns...
Quote:characters with sufficient AGI+STR, good health/fatigue, and a melee combat skill could even sprint at all
Don't like that at all... everybody should be able to run, certainly when wounded (although with an AP penalty the way it is now)...
What I would suggest is simpler:
- use Sandro's improved values for close combat (both for mercs and enemies)
- when using firearms:
*pistol/ machine pistol: CTH is VERY low. There's a chance the person shooting hits himself. You're in a struggle now  Enemies seldomly will use their pistol this way.
*any other gun: CTH=0
- when an enemy is right before your merc other enemies don't fire at your merc (because there's too much chance they would hit their comrade) They just get nearer to you or shoot at other mercs.
Maybe an elite could be an exception to this if you prefer it complicated... They may have ignore redshirts.
The rest is up to the player, I believe...
I would use close combat waiting around the corner, in the cover of darkness, in bad weather conditions, or with camo & stealth for an important mission (e.g. rescuing prisoners and not having a silencer)...
If you really want to charge an enemy in the open, then hope that the CTH penalty your oponent receives because you are runnig will be high enough.
I did some tests with Sandro's HTH, martial arts, and knifing traits. I didn't have any problem clearing the first sector without being shot once using either fists or a knife (expert mode, one merc only). Preventing them from using a gun would be nice, but not necessary. I also killed Spike from San Mona with my bare hands with a regular HTH skill.
I remember the first time I played on insane mode (a long time ago) an enemy had sneaked up on me from behind the sandbags and cut my merc down... Thought that pretty cool, though, so I hope they'll try that again.
[Updated on: Fri, 12 June 2009 02:07] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Master Sergeant
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| Re: Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired[message #220862]
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Fri, 12 June 2009 18:07
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| Thor |
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Messages:420
Registered:February 2007
Location: Belgium |
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Quote: Actually, it's exactly the opposite - it narrows the gap by letting people act "out of turn".
There you're wrong, Headrock. I'll give an example...
Let's say there's one merc against 6 redshirts. The six redshirts are in the open, the merc is behind rocks and is almost impossible to hit... Two enemies could probably suppress the merc from 40 tiles away, probably even one could do it, I dunno... What matters is, the rest of the enemies could run THROUGH THE SAME SPACE AS THE SUPPRESSION BULLETS flew in the exact same turn and cover that distance...
You call that realism? That's the thing I'm talking about... It's the flaw of turn based and adding this extreme sprint would widen the gap, IMHO... Do you see what I mean?
Maybe I misunderstood you again....
Quote: Funny, I see that as the desirable outcome.
Okay, but I'm not the one playing with 32 mercs and saving/loading when one is wounded or dead... 
I still want to see the end of this game some day or another...
[Updated on: Fri, 12 June 2009 18:33] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Master Sergeant
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| Re: Close quarters combat and pistols: useless but desired[message #221247]
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Mon, 15 June 2009 18:13
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| Headrock |
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Messages:1757
Registered:March 2006
Location: Jerusalem |
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Quote:But not for the sprinting. In this case it would mean doubling the distance of running through your faction's bullets.
Firstly, we already run through each others' firing lines. That's what you get with a system where you can choose the sequence in which your men move!
But mainly, I think you misunderstood what sprinting is all about. The idea is that you do run faster during the same amount of time, not stretch the amount of time you get. As stated earlier, this is the difference between "time units" and "action points", at least from the theoretical perspective.
The soldier gives up a round so that he can run faster in the other round. This allows covering a larger distance while being less vulnerable, so you can close the distance with an opponent or dash from cover to cover in open terrain. So yeah, it does exactly what you said, but without breaking the turn system.
Skipping your turn usually puts you in a disadvantage, and if the enemy is already within firing range, could be deadly (especially if you've got suppression turned on, in which case you're going to lose all the APs you were wanting to save!). And if you were outside an enemy's range before sprinting, then the sprint can't put you in much of an advantage anyway, especially if CtH penalty for a sprint are made very severe.
So the usefulness would either be to run between cover, or to charge into melee range from a greater distance.
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Thought:
Perhaps the amount of points you can save should be proportional to your strength and agility scores. The stronger and faster you are, the more you can sprint. You still give up an entire turn, but the bonus APs at the start of next turn could be larger.
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