Gun minimum skill requirement

[naldon]

Probably been suggested before but I've just had 2 colonies ended because raiders with skills 0-3 in shooting 1 shot multiple colonists from massive range and my snipers with skill 10+ always missing. Chance is important but a <5 skill shooter should not even be able to use a sniper rifle.

If anyone has ever done shooting IRL then you'll know what I'm talking about, depending on distance there is a lot you have to account for meaning you can't just pick up a rifle and hit every shot as a novice. It's not about luck it's just not possible. In my opinion the same should be accounted for with large machine guns.

Thoughts?

[Goldenpotatoes]

Welcome to the beauty that is the dice roll. Nothing is impossible when chance is involved, XCOM taught me this well.

[naldon]

Welcome to the beauty that is the dice roll. Nothing is impossible when chance is involved, XCOM taught me this well.

I know the feeling too, I play a lot of D&D - poor rolls are my thing.

Still, I think there is a point when luck doesn't matter because you're just so unfamiliar with the action.

[Vagabond]

My two cents:

Each tile contains a person, if we take from that, that which is the general convention - That such a tile is about 3' - 5' square, then it isn't to far off that any joe shmoe can make the shot. 3*50= 150, while 5*50= 250. 150 feet is 50 yards or 46 meters, while 250 feet is 83 yards, or 76 meters. With a long barrelled rifle, using a high powered scope, a shot at that distance isn't difficult. With a good teacher, you can have someone shooting a snub nose on target at 15 yards on the first day. My dad as I brought my little brother out to shoot for the first time awhile back, using a 20 year old target pistol (.22lr), and by the end of the day he was shooting on target (1:1 scale silhouette target) from 30 yards. To be clear, his groups were non-existent, most of his shots weren't center mass, and he only accidentally made headshots (when he tried for one, he always went over the right shoulder). Still, the important thing is he hit the target.

With a high powered rifle, a hit anywhere is going to be devastating, and even with body armor the impact would be as well.

Now, this doesn't change the fact that RNG is BS sometimes. Nor am I saying the combat simulation doesn't need improvement. Far from it, I believe that:

-Missed shots don't spread around as far.
-Hit chance should be affected by whether or not your target is moving straight towards you, away from you, or some other direction.
-Being out of cover should be very dangerous in a firefight.
-being in full cover in relation to an attacker should make you nigh untouchable barring penetration of that cover or explosion.
-Ammo should be craftable and required for the operation of weapons. In a firefight, there is no bigger "Oh s**t" moment than hearing "click click click" and realizing that was your last magazine. To prevent the convoluted mess that would become of such a system if every caliber of bullet was represented, there would only be 5 types of ammo: Light Ammunition, Ammunition, Heavy Ammunition, Energy Cells, and Explosive Ammunition.
-"Hunker Down": a command that can be issued to conscripted colonist that forces them behind cover and halts their firing (as popping out of cover to shoot should lower your concealment level by a step).
-"Peek": Quickly peek out of cover, shoot at nearest target. Aiming speed bonus, to hit chance lowered.
-"Suppress": Targets enemies in cover and in range, if they try to shoot from cover, or leave it, the suppressing pawn gets to fire instantly at them. Always popped out of cover, waiting to shoot.
-Shot difficulty, four buttons used to determine when the pawn will shoot. "sure shot" 75%-100%, Good Shot 50-74, poor shot 25-49, itchy trigger 0-24. Useful because even missed shots can hit something, but sometimes you want to control ammo use.

Things like this would make it better, imo.

[Kashipoi]

A sniper rifle isn't really a magical object with new rules compared to a regular plain old hunting rifle, you know that right? The only real difference is quality control and longer range sights.

You can give bob redneck a sniper rifle and while he'll have no earthly idea what things like MOA or how to read mil dots for range, he can still make shots that he'd do while out hunting just fine...

[cultist]

The problem with the sniper rifle is damage, not accuracy. No other weapon (apart from rocket launchers and grenades) can blow off limbs with a single shot, and since combat bascially comes down to who can incapacitate the other side faster, snipers skew the odds considerably. The range is just icing on the cake.
Reducing sniper damage so it doesn't automatically remove limbs would go a long way to make it more in line with the rest of the weapons.

[Goldenpotatoes]

Going against snipers when they have their range advantage is a very, very bad idea. You always force them to close the distance unless you have some semi-reliable way to push them (personal shields, lots of wall cover to make runs between shots).

I never have too much of an issue with sneaking around snipers as I play mountainous regions, but I can imagine it being problematic on hill/plain maps. The baiting tactic is still very much needed, though.

[SpaceDorf]

Well back to the topic.

All your examples actually promote the notion that preexisting rifle skill is required to effectively use a sniper rifle.

The younger brother is a good example of how raising a skill in real life works.
At the start of the day he was at shooting lvl 2 ( because I presume he shot other guns before )
Now his Dad explains to him how to correctly Hold and Aim the rifle and he starts practicing.
At the end of the day the Boys skill increased so far that he can hit a standing target but not enough
to make called shots. Congratulation he has increased his skill to lvl 5 the basic skill to use the Sniper Rifle.

What skill should also account for is the handling of the weapon.
Since we also have weapons quality in the game now this should be : jamming, removing the jamming( time ) , the cooldown/targetting time and not getting bruises in the face or shoulder from mishandling the weapon under stress.

[skullywag]

My mrs has had no rifle training whatsoever and still hit a van sized target at 800m iron sighted (think about that for a second).

Your choices are either use combat realism (when I or someone else updates it). Or mod it yourself. I doubt this is ever gonna change in the base game.

The other point to keep in mind is the positioning of your pawns, It could be that the enemy had a clearer sightline than you do to him, were you lit up and him  in the dark, all this matters for accuracy even in the vanilla game.