XCOM EU Drastically Improve Cover

[dyssomnia]

My vision is a mod that drastically increases the defense bonus of cover, making it basically required that both aliens and humans flank the enemy, use overwatch or destroy cover to do damage. To me, full cover (like being behind a wall) should reduce hit chance to practically zero, and half cover should still make a hit pretty unlikely.

 

Here are some ideas about how to implement the mod:

• Full cover increases defense by 100
  
• Half cover increases defense by, say 70
  
• Any reaction fire on an enemy that is firing from behind cover (due to Covering Fire from the Support class) would have a hit bonus to cancel out all or part of the cover defense increase (since the alien firing would be leaning out of cover to do so).
  
• Possibly increase the hit chance of Flush to make it a viable option to get enemies out of cover
  
• Possibly improve the sniper hit% so he still has about the same chance of hitting enemies behind half cover (since he's a sniper and all)
  

And these are some of the consequences I would want to see resulting from these changes:

• Abilities like Overwatch, Covering Fire, Suppression (to lock down the enemy while you flank) and Flush would become very important
  
• Grenades and rockets would become more important (for destroying cover)
  

But there are some potential negatives I could immediately envision:

• Enemy AI may not prioritize flanking even if they have a low hit chance, so the enemy may be too easy if they just keep trying to fire at you while you're behind cover
  
• The aliens don't have as many abilities that would nullify cover. They pretty much just have Overwatch, Suppression and occasionally grenades.
  

 

I'm considering just learning how to mod and making the adjustments myself. I don't think many variables would need to be changed to accomplish what I'm looking to do. But I thought I'd post this here to see if anybody who already knows how to mod is interested in banging it out or if anyone has any suggestions of how to best implement the idea.

[FlyingHigh10000000]

This is surprisingly easy to work into the game, and definitely something I'd be interested in, having found "full cover" to be ridiculous in terms of what bonuses it confers. Not sure if we'll need to edit a UPK to change the cover values, but sniper rifles can be given extra to-hit bonuses without affecting any other weapon, and all weapons can be allowed to target and damage cover, using their EnvironmentDamage value, in the main ini file that modpatcher works with. the actual cover-values might be a ymmv thing, though. Personally, I'd prefer a 45/90 increase.

 

<div><br></div><div>Regarding your concerns about the AI, they tend to do two things when their hit chance is low enough that it'd be a waste of a turn to fire.</div><div><br></div><div>1 - Overwatch.</div><div><br></div><div>2 - Flank.</div><div><br></div><div>3 - Grenade, if they're a Muton.</div><div><br></div><div>I've almost never seen the AI waste a shot on a low-percentage attack, so no worries there. If you give soldiers and aliens reaction values in the ini, they'll actually take "free" reaction shots at enemies that move/attack(attack only if they're support with the ability that lets them react to attacks) counting each square moved as a chance to shoot. Setting it to a value of 5 or so leaves a 5% chance to reaction-fire when someone runs out in the open, and even then, only if the shooter isn't being suppressed. I personally gave a flat value of 5 to soldiers, and "tough" enemies like Mutons, with lower values for Sectoids and Floaters, since they're the "weak" enemies.</div>

Edited November 13, 2012 by FlyingHigh10000000

[dyssomnia]

This is surprisingly easy to work into the game, and definitely something I'd be interested in, having found "full cover" to be ridiculous in terms of what bonuses it confers. Not sure if we'll need to edit a UPK to change the cover values, but sniper rifles can be given extra to-hit bonuses without affecting any other weapon, and all weapons can be allowed to target and damage cover, using their EnvironmentDamage value, in the main ini file that modpatcher works with. the actual cover-values might be a ymmv thing, though. Personally, I'd prefer a 45/90 increase.

 

Regarding your concerns about the AI, they tend to do two things when their hit chance is low enough that it'd be a waste of a turn to fire.

1 - Overwatch.

2 - Flank.

3 - Grenade, if they're a Muton.

I've almost never seen the AI waste a shot on a low-percentage attack, so no worries there. If you give soldiers and aliens reaction values in the ini, they'll actually take "free" reaction shots at enemies that move/attack(attack only if they're support with the ability that lets them react to attacks) counting each square moved as a chance to shoot. Setting it to a value of 5 or so leaves a 5% chance to reaction-fire when someone runs out in the open, and even then, only if the shooter isn't being suppressed. I personally gave a flat value of 5 to soldiers, and "tough" enemies like Mutons, with lower values for Sectoids and Floaters, since they're the "weak" enemies.

 

Awesome, thanks for the reply! I remember seeing a mod to activate the built-in reaction shot chance, but I didn't even think about integrating it into this concept; that's a great idea.

 

I'll try to start picking through the mod documentation to find the values that need to be changed to accomplish this, hopefully in the next week or so.

[FlyingHigh10000000]

The value for enabling the snapshot thing is "Reaction" in the stats for soldiers, and aliens. One thing I do suggest is not giving melee units or Ethereals Reaction values. I haven't seen melee units do anything weird with a Reaction value set, but Ethereals will use an invisible plasma gun to reaction-fire. It's kinda weird, but also proves that Ethereals have animations for shooting.

[Odie1974]

Heh, changing the cover values - buffing up the HC bonus and adjusting the LC bonus is one of the ideas I am working on right now... But the cover constants do not seem to be in the DefGame ini file. Tried searching the upks as well but did not find anything promising... Will spend some more time on this...

[dyssomnia]

Heh, changing the cover values - buffing up the HC bonus and adjusting the LC bonus is one of the ideas I am working on right now... But the cover constants do not seem to be in the DefGame ini file. Tried searching the upks as well but did not find anything promising... Will spend some more time on this...

 

Yeah sadly I didn't find them in the ini file either, which is all I'm really comfortable editing. If you find anything, I'd love to know about it. I'm certainly not against doing the work myself, but anything outside the ini file is probably beyond my current skill level.

[FlyingHigh10000000]

Heh, changing the cover values - buffing up the HC bonus and adjusting the LC bonus is one of the ideas I am working on right now... But the cover constants do not seem to be in the DefGame ini file. Tried searching the upks as well but did not find anything promising... Will spend some more time on this...

 

Yeah sadly I didn't find them in the ini file either, which is all I'm really comfortable editing. If you find anything, I'd love to know about it. I'm certainly not against doing the work myself, but anything outside the ini file is probably beyond my current skill level.

 

With the right tools, you might be surprised at what you're capable of. Once you know what values you need to change for a specific thing to happen, hex editing(which is the next step after ini editing, and pretty much the only other way to mod the game right now.) is as simple as searching a .upk for one string of numbers and replacing it with another string.

[PSPSoldier534]

I feel that this cover system (personally I would use 50 for low cover and 100 for highcover) would work extremely well with the reaction fire mod. That would REALLY make suppression important. Right now, especially with second wave options, it is simply too often that I get a mid-range shot at a target in full cover with a 76% chance to hit. 96% in low cover.

[Trucidation]

New to the game, haven't tried looking at the files yet, but I do agree cover feels worthless a lot of the time. Would definitely love to up the cover values, especially as you guys have said even the AI is smart enough not to waste making an attack with a low to-hit% shot.