[NEEDS FIXING!] Stance makes no difference to Friendly Fire!?

[GODSPEED]

 

Surely a headshot from a crouched character wouldn't hit a prone character, right?
WRONG!
 

Taking a headshot with Dr. Q caused Vicki to take damage. But she is prone, Dr. Q is Crouched.

There should be a distinct level of difference between body position and the "level" at which the shot originates.

In JA2, if you we're proned in front of a crouched character, no friendly fire from the crouched char. Same for a character that would be crouched in front of a standing character. The standing character wouldn't friendly fire.

The game is good enough to give us mercs that peak around corners... but not good enough that we can't shoot our own merc in front of us.

Some of these things need revision!

 

[D13]

I think it depends on the type of gun. Is Q holding a shotgun? With those I've seen it as well (not sure if ammunition like buckshot or mods like sawed off barrel a difference). With a normal rifle or pistol it should not happen.

[LXant]

I can absolutely confirm that stance does have a profound impact on shot trajectory. I do the setup very often, in which the 1st row lies down and the 2nd row kneels. Although I use single shot high precision weapons, like sniper rifles, the FN-FAL or the AK-74 for its higher penetration power. Works like a charm.

[GODSPEED]

5 minutes ago, D13 said:

I think it depends on the type of gun. Is Q holding a shotgun? With those I've seen it as well (not sure if ammunition like buckshot or mods like sawed off barrel a difference). With a normal rifle or pistol it should not happen.

Yeah, but the M1014 is a long-barrelled one. Same range as pistols +/- There is absolutely no reason for Vicki to get hit!

I've saved/loaded many times to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

 

3 minutes ago, LXant said:

I can absolutely confirm that stance does have a profound impact on shot trajectory. I do the setup very often, in which the 1st row lies down and the 2nd row kneels. Although I use single shot high precision weapons, like sniper rifles, the FN-FAL or the AK-74 for its higher penetration power. Works like a charm.

Dr. Q is crouched, aiming at the head of a standing enemy; meaning my shot should go "upwards". Yet, Vicki is hit, and she is prone. So why does it not work here?

I've experienced this in other cases too, where a merc taking a burst, even if he's crouched, will hit a prone friendly in front of him. Not shotgun, but AR as well.

 

[D13]

You're not wrong. I had hoped for short barrel and buckshot as then it would have made some sense at least. Enemies suffer from this as well, I've just had a battle where I hit one of the guys who carry a shotgun and automatically return fire. He was standing and when I hit him, he shot his mate who was crouching in front of him. Then I shot the shotgun guy again and he hit his mate again, killing him. Felt as if my bullet had ricocheted off a human wall.

As for the burst fire, when I had that happen, there was no indication of friendly fire risk. IMO they should remove it altogether if it's reliable, unreliable indicators are worse than none (then you know you always have to think for yourself).

[LXant]

29 minutes ago, GODSPEED said:

Dr. Q is crouched, aiming at the head of a standing enemy; meaning my shot should go "upwards". Yet, Vicki is hit, and she is prone. So why does it not work here?

I've experienced this in other cases too, where a merc taking a burst, even if he's crouched, will hit a prone friendly in front of him. Not shotgun, but AR as well.

I think it is because there's a difference between precise single shots and burst fire/shotguns. The latter tend to stray far more in all directions and tend to hit whoever is lying down before you. Although there's an argument to be made about the size of the hitboxes in general.

Anyway, I'd heavily advise against using unprecise weaponry when a friendly is right in front of me, because accidents happen.

[GODSPEED]

1 hour ago, D13 said:

As for the burst fire, when I had that happen, there was no indication of friendly fire risk. IMO they should remove it altogether if it's reliable, unreliable indicators are worse than none (then you know you always have to think for yourself).

Yeah!

The friendly fire indicator does advise you, and it even shows how much health it will remove from your friendly... but the problem is the adjacency and stance should be revised in a case such as this, as it makes absolutely no sense... although, I'm seeing many things in the game that make no sense, so maybe my argument is a moot point.

[Uncle Nick]

Haha, it's like the Doctor gave Vicki busted ear drums, and red hot bullet casing burns. Yeah this shooting high & low thing doesn't work in the game. Had same problem with Barry and my IMP at D10 using single shot sniper rifles. It's a problem to code, it's like the proximity of Vicki being infront LOS of the shooter just triggers a friendly fire outcome. Good to know now, I just avoid putting the mercs into this scenario.

 

If you still have the game save file, can you or someone try placing Vicki in crouch stance and take 'cover', see if she will also receive any damage? Maybe they need the 'CQB' perks to cancel the friendly fire outcome? 

[Solaris_Wave]

Either that needs fixing so the person in front can be prone, the next person behind crouching and another standing, to be able to create the old fashioned ranked fire, or maybe friendly fire could be disabled for anyone that is right next to someone else. Maybe friendly fire should only become a risk after one tile/space away. The game can't really produce what you could do in reality by being able to fire over someone's shoulder or slightly past them. Risk of hearing damage aside, the game needs to take into account that your mercs aren't necessarily crawling through a tunnel with no room to manoeuvre.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[Jaywalker]

Stances work, the problem here is that the shotgun blast is not an actual cone, but a calculated projection, so it doesn't care for elevation: you will send the buckshot against a guy on the roof, and everyone on the ground on the way.

[Solaris_Wave]

How are the individual pellets calculated? If you aimed at someone on an elevated position who was behind someone at ground level, do they both get hit or does the person in front (who isn't blocking the person behind) take the full force of the shot instead?

[GODSPEED]

4 hours ago, Jaywalker said:

Stances work, the problem here is that the shotgun blast is not an actual cone, but a calculated projection, so it doesn't care for elevation: you will send the buckshot against a guy on the roof, and everyone on the ground on the way.

Well, if stances work and a shotgun blast doesn't care about stances, then stances/shotguns don't work and need to be tweaked/fixed for these exact situations.

It's broken if a shotgun blast originates from the ground because they used a different projection method than for bullets.


But I see what you mean, stances work for normal bullet calculations, just not for shotguns due to the way they made shotguns function. Pretty much automatically hits anyone within the "triangle".

[Jaywalker]

What bothers me most about this is that they already have a working "shotgun" spray for Tex's skill.
Tex makes a cone and takes actual shots that can fail or mishap following the normal shot rules (i.e.: hit an ally if they're in the way) without any of the shotgun magic.

They could have just made shotguns work the same way, just without the animation.
Or better yet, make them work the way Ice's skill works, and just fire a # of pellets at the target randomly.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Jaywalker

[Skaldy]

I think game accounts for RNG to fail your shot anyway and hit friendlies. For example in Xenonauts, soldiers next to each other immediately adjust their aim if someone(even enemies) are next to them. Need to know if it is designed thinking about critical fails or just a bug