Sleeping spot hard to hit exploit

[Disnof]

During combat you can force a colonists to lay in a sleeping spot. This will make it so the enemy has almost no chance to hit them.

One way to make them lay in the sleeping spot is order a medical operation.

[Tynan]

What's the bug here?

[Zhentar]

Sounds like more of an exploit than a bug. Get a decoy colonist to lay down, raiders target them and take a huge accuracy penalty. Could be pretty effective when you don't have prepared defensive positions, like caravan ambushes.

[Disnof]

Guess this is more of a balance issue than, make combat far too easy. However, I guess the player can just choose not the use this strategy.

[Tynan]

But they can't fight while laying down, so what's the point?

Can someone outline how this can be used to gain player advantage?

[bobucles]

It's more the idea that the prone bonus grants 80% hit reduction. combine that with cover, maybe a shield and say the colonist is a non violent jerk who's only good for soaking bullets. Put him in the front to get a super tank.

[Zhentar]

I've attached a demonstration. The scythers prefer Vasalo because she's closer to them, but they only had a 3% hit chance even before they started taking damage. Over the course of the fight only one single hit was landed on Vasalo (amusingly, I made her lay down with an 'install denture' operation and it shot her jaw off).

If, hypothetically, the AI preferred to attack more vulnerable and/or more threatening targets rather than simply the closest target, this exploit would be effectively eliminated.

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

[b0rsuk]

But they can't fight while laying down, so what's the point?

Can someone outline how this can be used to gain player advantage?

Some colonists can't fight anyway ! Either they're incapable of violence, or cataracts, or terrible skill with no passion. Hell, it doesn't have to be a colonist, but can be a stoned mufallo.

I wonder if the 'lying down' bonus stacks with sandbags and other cover ?

Tynan, squirrels report you're doing some tweaking to the targetting AI. If you could make raiders prioritize targets which are biggest threat, then a lying down pawn would be naturally considered low threat because it can't shoot.

[Jimyoda]

Granted an AI will always have limitations and derps, but smarter target selection seems reasonable. Enemy pawns' AI should be smart enough to favor decent targets over ones they have little hope of hitting. The player is able to see their pawns' hit chance ('shot by' tooltip) and choose targets  sensibly. It's only fair that the AI of enemy pawns be good enough to do the same. Otherwise, the AI is open to exploits like this.
tl;dr: Agree with Zhentar's solution.

[J_Dawg_27]

All good until someone throws a grenade or rocket at them.

[Play2Jens]

Granted an AI will always have limitations and derps, but smarter target selection seems reasonable. Enemy pawns' AI should be smart enough to favor decent targets over ones they have little hope of hitting. The player is able to see their pawns' hit chance ('shot by' tooltip) and choose targets  sensibly. It's only fair that the AI of enemy pawns be good enough to do the same. Otherwise, the AI is open to exploits like this.
tl;dr: Agree with Zhentar's solution.

Also agree. It would be cool to see the enemy AI target different pawns, instead of just the closest. Some of the factors which together could be used for selecting a pawn:
- Shield bearing
- Pawn strength
- Distance
- Hit Chance

This would eliminate exploits like using the above example, using shields as baits or using cheap animals as bait (by creating an animal zone right in the middle of the battlefield).

[ison]

bump

[b0rsuk]

Bump !

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=31155.0

[ison]

bump, I think Tynan should address this

[Tynan]

Yes.

Targeting has been reworked, so this exploit won't be nearly as effective (if it works at all) any more.

We'll have to see, with A17, if it's still worth doing and adjust the targeting/accuracy algorithms if so.