troubleyoucalldw

Trip report: it works, but as expected, it makes the game REALLY easy. That or I was already so used to the psychic bum rush that anything less felt easy in comparison.

Seriously, can anything be done about this? Is enemy AI moddable? Can someone comment out the knowExactlyWhereAllMyMercsAre() function?

I sometimes set up ambushes and/or cover certain areas with my B team while my A team is off doing something else. Is there a way to implement some kind of command to repeat the character's last-used overwatch?

Yeah, I've had them work many times. And then other times, for no discernible reason, psychic zerg rush.

There's puzzles, and then there's just plain cheap. Enemies aggroing on mercs whose location they have no way of knowing is super, super cheap. If there's an optimal solution for each sector, that's one thing. Setting up invisible walls to force other solutions to artificially be less optimal? That's an entirely different thing. Which is why I really hope this is just a bug that can be fixed, rather than an intentional 'feature'.

You can also find intel by hacking items on the map. I rarely send her scouting, usually I've got items for her to repair, but I search each map fairly carefully so a lot of the time I'm able to get intel.

As in JA2/2.5, I like making use of stealth. For the most part, the enemy AI reacts mostly logically. But on some maps, if an enemy sees an ally die but isn't able to spot the killer, the entire map will instantly aggro on one or more mercs, even if those mercs are stealthed at night in a rainstorm halfway across the map and haven't taken an action since deploying. It's bizarre and frustrating. Basic example: my IMP is stealth focused, so I'll send her around the perimeter of a fortress map and take out any loners or snipers. The rest of the team, I'll leave stealthed behind cover near the deployment zone. I have Livewire and usually have intel, so I know the enemies' locations. They're usually 40+ squares away from my mercs, often on the other side of multiple walls. After taking out the loners and snipers, I'll often try taking out one of a pair of guards, just to create some chaos and maybe shake out a few more loners. I snipe them with a silenced rifle from a significant distance away and get the stealth kill. The second guard sees the death but doesn't spot my IMP. He freaks out, sounds the alarm... and suddenly the entire map is booking it towards the deployment zone, where the rest of my squad is chilling. Sometimes, I'm able to sneak my squad to another location before the enemies get in range. The enemies will mill around, then wander off. But the next time a mob notices a kill or finds a body, the entire map zergs on my squad's new location. Doesn't matter where I go, the entire map automatically rushes to exactly where they're hiding. With some care and a lot of quicksaves, I've learned ways to frequently manipulate this behavior to my benefit. Set up ambush formations along the mostly like route, etc. But it's still frustrating. Even if the map zerged on my stealthed IMP, that would make at least a little bit of sense—at least they'd be in the right area to find the killer. But no, my IMP is usually left twiddling her thumbs all the way across the map from where the rest of the squad is desperately trying to sneak away from the tidal wave of mobs that appears to know their exact location. Is this a bug, and if so will it be addressed? Is it intended, and if so... why?