Cover system

[Solus]

While new animations would obviously make this ten times more awesome, my suggestion is much simpler. If there is an obstacle (obviously one you can see over) between you and the enemy, it gives debuffs to both you and their hit chance. This could be done with a pathing script, if the path is blocked, initiate debuffs, though I'm not entirely sure how one would determine whether it is low enough to see over, though if you could connect the first check with pathing, and the second with view distance, etc, that would make sense. Anyway, if a character is immediately next to the object in question (0 tile distance) then the debuff is removed. The debuff simply represents the chance of hitting the obstacle instead of the target.

[Styg]

This was something I've considered in the past, but you pretty brought up the problem I ran into - "how one would determine whether it is low enough to see over". Because the game was not designed with this from the get go, it would take a lot of work to introduce the necessary properties to the objects and relate them to their position (which is not always centered on the tile) for this work.

So no, concealment modifiers from terrain won't be implemented. However, they might be implemented for other stuff such as smoke.

[Solus]

Well, an alternative that I can imagine working is a duck and cover or crouch ability, that increases your accuracy and dodge chance, but reduces your movement points to zero, and costs a certain number to activate/deactivate. Though this would require new anims, so I guess you could rename the ability to something that doesn't require you actually duck to use, but yeah, I'm just spitballing ideas at this point.

[WolveNZ]

Donno if it would work (Would probs require fuck loads of Re-Doing Maps) but how about how the burst fire system works, with targets that arnt targeted having a % Chance of being hit if they are in front/Behind. Would work if Objects were done in the same manner as Entities I guess? Would be good to even out some of the harsher fire-fights, being in cover, luring people into traps etc...

[Deckard]

All that might be needed to implement a basic cover system, to enable more tactics is simply this:

Treat any object that even partially blocks a direct line between a target the same as you would a wall or door, except....That the object does not completely block an attack, it gives a base percentage of missing, say 30 or 40% across the board.

To keep it simpler, every blocking object would get the same cover percentage.

[blackmoor]

This was something I've considered in the past, but you pretty brought up the problem I ran into - "how one would determine whether it is low enough to see over". Because the game was not designed with this from the get go, it would take a lot of work to introduce the necessary properties to the objects and relate them to their position (which is not always centered on the tile) for this work.

So no, concealment modifiers from terrain won't be implemented. However, they might be implemented for other stuff such as smoke.

That's understandable. A cover system is incredibly complicated because every piece of terrain has to know what percentage it covers and from what direction the cover protects. Smoke would be interesting tactically and I assume it would be easier to implement. Plus, we can always have more Feats.

[n21lv]

Sorry for necroposting, but I couldn't just walk away without giving a few thoughts.

I'll jump straight into business by saying that there are tabletop wargames like Infinity where cover system is really good and works really adequately. In short, you can claim cover if you're standing right next to something that covers at least 30% of your silhouette. Every model in the range has an assigned Silhouette value ranging from 1 to 7, with most models having the 2nd. And the general rule is "if you can see me, I can see you too".

There are two main cover types: Partial and Total. Partial cover means you have a bonus to your armour and enemies have less chance to hit you, while you don't have any penalties at all (basically that's how it works in real life). Total cover basically means you're out of sight from the point behind the cover and you can't be attacked from behind your cover except by some non-conventional means such as hacking or by using AoE weapons.

In addition to that, there are also various visibility conditions: clear, Low visibility, Poor visibility and Zero visibility. Clear means what it is -- you have no penalties for shooting. Low visibility zones add a slight penalty to hit your target, comparable to shooting an enemy behind Partial cover. Poor visibility adds a double penalty to hit your target. Zero visibility makes shooting totally impossible as you don't have LoF to your enemy. Now, all these visibility conditions only affect your chance to hit your targed

[crossfirex]

I actually thought this would be a good addition but it is much more difficult to implement than it looks I would say. Smoke grenades wouldn't be too far fetched though since the cryo grenade sort of already spreads like one. The only thing you'd have to implement is the sight coverage it provides and possible infrared goggles or something as a counter tactic?

On top of that, it would make for a valid melee vs. range tactic, if you had the ability to see/sense enemies (possibly adding a thought control sense ability for seeing through smoke). This would allow melee characters more viability against ranged enemies, especially at end-game levels. Plus if you had something like a feat or special ability based on perception it could also be a factor for hit chance vs. smoke.