I really hate needless friendly fire deaths

[The Man with No Name]

I really hate needless friendly fire deaths in this game. I've had a couple in my current game.

The first was in about the first raid. The raiders were fleeing and I ordered three or four colonists to melee attack a wounded enemy who was hobbling away, and moved another guy out of the way. The guy I moved out of the way then turned around and shot this woman who'd joined my colony point blank and killed her instantly.

Then in my current game, a woman I'd spent ages in recruiting finally joined my gang. She was making her first pair of pants and went berserk. I moved another nearby colonist out of the way, but not far enough, as she instantly turned around and shot the berserker in the head, giving a permanent brain damage injury, which means I'm going to have to harvest her organs and kill her.

I guess ultimately it's my error for not switching off auto-fire and not being super-careful enough. I wish there was a better way of trying to avoid these things.

[b0rsuk]

There is a sure way to remove friendly fire from your colony. Make your colony all melee. You can supplement it with war beasts to catch some bullets for you.

[Greep]

You could always wear energy shields while not in battle.  That's what I do with my doomsdayers, since an accident with them would be pretty bad news.

[b0rsuk]

I don't understand - people not in battle don't attack, unless you set them to crossed swords. I think even when drafted rocket launchers have a special case and must be manually ordered to fire.

[Shurp]

It's the usual cleanup problem.  The enemy is retreating, so you start undrafting selected pawns and tell them to pick up stuff and order other pawns to kill the survivors...

...but you forgot about Engie standing over there with a minigun who decides to shoot at some of the retreating pirates...

It'd be nice if pawns had a "don't shoot if a friendly pawn's head is in the way" setting.

[eadras]

A16 added a "hold fire" button between the draft pawn and manual attack buttons.  This button is your friend.  I hear you though, friendly fire accidents are very frustrating.  If you aren't the type of player who micromanages combat frame by frame, it happens all too often.

[The Man with No Name]

How about a rule something like that colonists will hold fire if a colonist, or berserk colonist, has a chance of getting shot. This could be overriden my manually ordering the colonist to shoot after this has been taken into account.

So a colonist is shooting at an enemy. Another colonist moves into a position where they might be shot. The shooter would suspend firing at the target while there was a chance of shooting the friendly pawn. To continue to fire at the target, and risk shooting the friendly, would require being on manual control and re-ordering shooting at the target.

I think something like this should be added as needless friendly fire deaths add a cloud over one's game.

[The Man with No Name]

For me, finding a solution to this issue is No. 1 priority on the list of fixes and improvements to the game.

So, to recap, it could go something like this...

A colonist will not fire their weapon/will stop firing in the following circumstances:

a) At a hostile pawn if there is a chance of shooting a friendly colonist.

b) At a friendly pawn that has gone berserk.

c) At a prisoner who has gone berserk or is escaping.

In such circumstances, the pawn, if on automatic control, would select another available target to shoot at. If there were no other available targets, the pawn would hold its position and cease firing. The pawn's status would read as "Holding fire" to indicate that it would be shooting, but has stopped for one of the reasons listed above.

The human could make a conscious decision to shoot at the target by ordering a pawn to fire at the target, whether in automatic mode or manual mode.

[Greep]

I don't understand - people not in battle don't attack, unless you set them to crossed swords. I think even when drafted rocket launchers have a special case and must be manually ordered to fire.

Right, but you might draft them and forget to unclick the autofire for domestic cases.  That's why the energy shield.  As for the special case, I haven't been too keen to find out lol.  I'll be sure to try it when doing mod testing in godmode though xD

[Ukas]

Just accept all casualties and move on. Friendly fire has, and will always be a part of combat.

Sometimes these incidents make great stories, well in a sad but weirdly fun way. Like, one female colonist was "accidently" shot in the head by his husband during a fight against manhunter pack. She had cheated the guy with another colonist. The bullet caused a brain damage, the new boyfriend lost interest soon and moved on to chase another married woman - dirty ghoat was like 73 yrs old hahaha, I loved that guy. Anyway, the jealous and angry husband got to keep his wife after all. Brain damaged and unhappy wife, but I guess he was the type who felt no love, but couldn't just let go lol.

[The Man with No Name]

The role of automatization is to reduce micro-management by the human player - so to predict what the human player would do in order to disencumber him/her from having to do it himself/herself.

In the cases I listed above, the automatization is doing the opposite of what the human would intend to and is therefore not working as intended in these circumstances.

[Wex]

A16 added a "hold fire" button between the draft pawn and manual attack buttons.  This button is your friend.  I hear you though, friendly fire accidents are very frustrating.  If you aren't the type of player who micromanages combat frame by frame, it happens all too often.

Wait, there's another way of doing combat in this game?

[The Man with No Name]

I mean it's ridiculously stupid. A colonist will automatically open fire through another friendly colonist at the other end of a one-square wide corridor, when the chances of hitting the friendly pawn are close to 100% and the chances of hitting the hostile target close to 0%.

[AngleWyrm]

It's the usual cleanup problem.  The enemy is retreating, so you start undrafting selected pawns and tell them to pick up stuff and order other pawns to kill the survivors...

...but you forgot about Engie standing over there with a minigun who decides to shoot at some of the retreating pirates...

It'd be nice if pawns had a "don't shoot if a friendly pawn's head is in the way" setting.

I've tried the Achtung! mod which micro-manages combat, but it slows my system to a crawl. Has anyone with a top-shelf PC seen less friendly-fire damage from it?

[keylocke]

Just accept all casualties and move on. Friendly fire has, and will always be a part of combat.

Sometimes these incidents make great stories, well in a sad but weirdly fun way. Like, one female colonist was "accidently" shot in the head by his husband during a fight against manhunter pack. She had cheated the guy with another colonist. The bullet caused a brain damage, the new boyfriend lost interest soon and moved on to chase another married woman - dirty ghoat was like 73 yrs old hahaha, I loved that guy. Anyway, the jealous and angry husband got to keep his wife after all. Brain damaged and unhappy wife, but I guess he was the type who felt no love, but couldn't just let go lol.

i agree with this dude, just roll with it coz friendly fire generates "drama" and it does make sense having it. accidental or not.

coz if you prevent your colonist from getting friendly fire, then how can you shoot one of your colonists deliberately?

friendly fire also works well against your enemies, since they themselves are prone to friendly firing their own comrades. it just balances things out.