Tweaking the shot odds

[graaa]

I need another set of eyes on this one because I'm trying to wrap my brain around what just happened. Let me know if there is anything that I might be missing with regards to adjusting the aim of an enemy in the defaultgame.ini

 

Right now I have Sectoids set on 60 aim and the Sectoid Plasma Pistol on -5 offence. This gives them 55 aim total. (Is there anything I'm missing here?)

 

I just had a sectoid hit my soldiers who were behind full cover three times in a row. The sectoid should have had a 15% chance to hit each time. (55 aim - 40 cover = 15)

So .15 * .15 * .15 = .003. What just happened had a less than 1% chance of happening, or 0.3% to be exact.

 

Bull! So did that just happen or did that sectoid have a higher aim than I am accounting for?

[johnnylump]

I need another set of eyes on this one because I'm trying to wrap my brain around what just happened. Let me know if there is anything that I might be missing with regards to adjusting the aim of an enemy in the defaultgame.ini

 

Right now I have Sectoids set on 60 aim and the Sectoid Plasma Pistol on -5 offence. This gives them 55 aim total. (Is there anything I'm missing here?)

 

I just had a sectoid hit my soldiers who were behind full cover three times in a row. The sectoid should have had a 15% chance to hit each time. (55 aim - 40 cover = 15)

So .15 * .15 * .15 = .003. What just happened had a less than 1% chance of happening, or 0.3% to be exact.

 

Bull! So did that just happen or did that sectoid have a higher aim than I am accounting for?

 

So Sectiods offense is 60

Sectoid Plasma Pistol is -5

Have you checked BalanceMods Sectoid iAim for the difficulty you are playing on? That's the only other modifier I can think of in DGC.

I *think* there's no aim bonus when sectoids use mindmeld, only a hit point and crit chance bonus.

 

Also, I recall reading somewhere that aim modifiers may only work in multiples of 10, but I've neither tested that nor looked in the code.

[graaa]

I need another set of eyes on this one because I'm trying to wrap my brain around what just happened. Let me know if there is anything that I might be missing with regards to adjusting the aim of an enemy in the defaultgame.ini

 

Right now I have Sectoids set on 60 aim and the Sectoid Plasma Pistol on -5 offence. This gives them 55 aim total. (Is there anything I'm missing here?)

 

I just had a sectoid hit my soldiers who were behind full cover three times in a row. The sectoid should have had a 15% chance to hit each time. (55 aim - 40 cover = 15)

So .15 * .15 * .15 = .003. What just happened had a less than 1% chance of happening, or 0.3% to be exact.

 

Bull! So did that just happen or did that sectoid have a higher aim than I am accounting for?

 

So Sectiods offense is 60

Sectoid Plasma Pistol is -5

Have you checked BalanceMods Sectoid iAim for the difficulty you are playing on? That's the only other modifier I can think of in DGC.

I *think* there's no aim bonus when sectoids use mindmeld, only a hit point and crit chance bonus.

 

Also, I recall reading somewhere that aim modifiers may only work in multiples of 10, but I've neither tested that nor looked in the code.

 

Good point - but iAIM was set to 0 for each difficulty.

 

If what you said is true about multiples of 10, then what just happened had a 0.08% chance of happening, which makes me feel a little better I guess lol =)

 

Ah well chalk it up to a fluke and move on I suppose

[Teraki]

While this whole thing is extremely unlikely, it was bound to happen to someone.

[PaxEmpyrean]

The game offers aim bonuses for short range. Starting at about half of max visual distance, the bonuses incrementally increase up to about +40% for point blank range with normal weapons.

[nobody4422]

I have to agree with OP in that something is fishy with the die rolls. I have had quite a number of inexplicable hit or miss chains with a less than 1% probability. Most notably, a miss chain 3 reloads long with 95% accuracy at 3 spaces, against an uncovered sectoid. I couldn't hit him until I brought in another soldier to do the job from a different angle. Im beginning to think something is just generally wrong with the game's die rolls. Maybe its a side effect of the way the RNG is persistently seeded.

 

Another possibility is that there are some invisible variables that don't show up as part of the to hit percentage, which I'm actually ok with. I would just like to know a little bit about these variables so I can make the appropriate tactical decisions. Thinking about it, I would be perfectly ok if ToHit% and Crit% was removed completely from view.

 

I haven't used the debugger to actually track die rolls, if its even possible. If it is did OP save a game reasonably before this instance? It would be interesting if you could replicate the results and watch them unfold.

[graaa]

I did not save the game unfortunately, and yes I've noticed what you are talking about with the same event unfolding after each reload.

 

Apparently, if you miss a 95% shot and then reload to take it again, you WILL miss again and everytime you reload UNLESS you have someone else fire first and THEN attempt the shot.

 

Without any knowledge of dice roll programming, I'll attempt to explain the way I think it works (which is probably wrong). The seeds are calculated at the beginning of each turn for each soldier and then saved. When someone fires, the seeds are recalculated for everyone again. This is why when you reload, you'll always get the same result each time for each soldier as the last load until you have a DIFFERENT soldier fire first or you MIX UP the order in which soldier fire. All in all, something is fishy and its never a truly random shot each time but its calculated beforehand I guess (randomly?)

[Yzaxtol]

EDIT: All aliens use human statted weapons. I turned the damage of Light Plasma Rifle down to 1 and watched as Mutons, Thinmen and Floaters failed to kill a rookie standing in the open. Edited February 26, 2013 by Yzaxtol

[nobody4422]

I just want to clarify. When I said reloads, I meant for the weapon, not the game. In other words appx 11-15 shots. I noted this instance as it was part of a game that seemed particularly brutal. Many shots in this game that should have hit were missing and ones that should of missed were hitting. After losing almost every soldier that came in in the first 4-5 months and getting flat wiped out a number of times I restarted and the game was a cakewalk again.

 

I found this topic on the random number generator, but haven't found anything in it like what we've seen