How the fug does dodge or cover work?

[Black Hammer]

Guy burst fires lasgun from across the screen.

Cassia has 95% dodge and full cover. Now, I know lasgun gives a -30 to dodge chance, but a guy with 44 BS should not have a 90% chance to hit her, in cover, WITH ANYTHING, EVER.

And yet this happens constantly. Enemies spam burst fire and land rounds ridiculously often. Meanwhile, I stick 60 BS Argenta into cover, stack buffs, get her over 100 BS, activate an ability to boost her burst fire further, and she lands one out of four shots on crap mobs standing in the open, usually without doing enough damage to kill them.

What am I missing here? Same thing for parry and the like, none of it seems to actually matter. Enemies just run up and slap 95 parry 60 dodge Abelard and two-shot him.

[Daliena]

Las also seems to reduce cover efficiency. Which.. Isn't really stated anywhere other than "las weapons are good against targets in cover and enemies with high dodge" but it only says dodge reduction stat-wise, but in my observation that do be how it goes.

Also Argenta's starting bolter is.. Pretty weak, I'd suggest replacing it ASAP with one from Rykad Minoris. There's two in there, one in a trash can after the two fights to get off the starport landing pads that requires an awareness check to find, and another on top of the building on the Upperway where the rebel sniper takes potshots at you near the AA gun.

If you right click an attack in the combat log it'll usually give you a lot more info on what goes on behind the numbers, like this. https://i.imgur.com/XiL9MkP.png

[Black Hammer]

I've been looking at the combat stats, and they make no sense. The AI seems to just get free auto-hits on ranged and melee attacks constantly, that basically ignore dodge, cover, or the need for an attack roll.

These are trash mobs with no weird ability just rolling up and slapping people for 2-3 times the damage my people do even while buffed.

Two of them just did this to Argenta, back to back automatic hits for 18+ damage apiece on AoE melee attacks. Two trash mobs just did 54 damage.

Here's another one. Abelard has a dodge of 58%, the enemy has a BS of 32. His hit chance is 87%.

My operative firing a long las with stacked buffs barely gets over 90, and this clown has an 87% while debuffed?

[.//slayer]

If you right-click the message about being hit in your combat log, you will see the full description of all buffs and effects that go into calculating the hit chance and dodge. It's extremely thorough and has been entirely fair to me throughout the game.

[Black Hammer]

Originally posted by .//slayer:

If you right-click the message about being hit in your combat log, you will see the full description of all buffs and effects that go into calculating the hit chance and dodge. It's extremely thorough and has been entirely fair to me throughout the game.

Except when it completely forgets about the existence of cover, for instance.

As far as I can tell, the AI simply does not roll to hit for most of its AoE attacks, and simply autohits unless you make the -70% dodge. It also ignores cover completely on these attacks.

So someone at maximum possible range (20) burst firing their lasgun with a -12% BS leaving them with a 23 BS has a 100% chance of hitting your character unless you make a dodge at at least a -70 penalty. Since the AI outnumbers you, cheats on initiative rolls, and loves to spend their turns running away, that means you're going to eat a lot of spam shots that you can do literally nothing about.

Or like them burst firing at one character but landing two of the four shots on a different character in full cover further away.

[Black Hammer]

Ah, another lovely first turn, as four AI characters automatically go first and unload lasgun bursts at max range, landing 9 hits, all on people in full cover.

[Zsrai]

What difficulty are you on? Higher difficulties reduce your dodge %, IIRC. They also buff enemies (meaning higher BS, f. ex.)

[Raynn von Valancius]

Originally posted by Daliena:

Las also seems to reduce cover efficiency. Which.. Isn't really stated anywhere other than "las weapons are good against targets in cover and enemies with high dodge" but it only says dodge reduction stat-wise, but in my observation that do be how it goes.

Also Argenta's starting bolter is.. Pretty weak, I'd suggest replacing it ASAP with one from Rykad Minoris. There's two in there, one in a trash can after the two fights to get off the starport landing pads that requires an awareness check to find, and another on top of the building on the Upperway where the rebel sniper takes potshots at you near the AA gun.

If you right click an attack in the combat log it'll usually give you a lot more info on what goes on behind the numbers, like this. https://i.imgur.com/XiL9MkP.png

Also, get her the 'blessed bolter casing' as soon as you can. Ensures that every 'single shot' bolter round she fires is going to hit. Turns her into a damn machine when you encounter the Aeldari.

[Mr.Pessimism]

in a lot of rpgs ai gets way better chance to hit to make up for its lack of understanding of the game play basics.

[Morgian]

First off, besides some weapons reducing the effect of cover, so do several abilities, one of which completely negates it. The NPCs have the same abilities you do, and it makes sense for the gunners to have it. Bolter weapons can shoot straight through cover, although few NPCs use them.
Second, your grand 90% dodge are almost worthless. The enemy uses laser against you, so it is 60% (or 40% if they have laser expert). Of which he subtracts his perception. Leaves you with like 0-10%, as NPCs have often high perception.

Cover comes in two variants: half and full and they can be destructible. Only solid full cover is useful, but it is rare on many battlefields. If it can be destroyed and falls on the first hit (like many barrels do), the remaining salvo has you in the open.

You stand effectively behind a flimsy obstacle without dodge. You can debuff the NPCs to your hearts content, but the debuffs usually reduce their defenses, not their offense.
When I looked at the combat log (only sometimes), I could see that the results are OK. Initiative is not cheated either or I would not go first so often (after Seize the Moment). You need good AGI, though, or at least not suck at it. The starting 30 are too low, but most people spend their points in their main stats. That is fine, but it means that in exchange for whatever you raised your initiative is going to suck. Unfortunately has nobody AGI as main stat, and even an AGI buff is useless, since you need it before the fight.

That leaves out that higher difficulties come with modifiers. Really, the top difficulty says it all with its name, but people seem not to get it.

[Black Hammer]

OK, so we're back to

Originally posted by Morgian:

First off, besides some weapons reducing the effect of cover, so do several abilities, one of which completely negates it. The NPCs have the same abilities you do, and it makes sense for the gunners to have it. Bolter weapons can shoot straight through cover, although few NPCs use them.
Second, your grand 90% dodge are almost worthless. The enemy uses laser against you, so it is 60% (or 40% if they have laser expert). Of which he subtracts his perception. Leaves you with like 0-10%, as NPCs have often high perception.

High-stat enemies should have high accuracy under those conditions.

Guys with 30 Perception and 25 Ballistic skill should not be landing 60% or more of hits against targets across the map in partial cover.

Or burst-firing on one target, but landing two MASSIVE DAMAGE shots on a separate target, in cover, beyond range.

I wish my act 1 lasguns did four shots of 15 damage apiece that went through walls and had homing to automatically murder everything on the map.

[Black Hammer]

Originally posted by Mr.Pessimism:

in a lot of rpgs ai gets way better chance to hit to make up for its lack of understanding of the game play basics.

I can understand a 20% bonus to hit.

I can't stand the "free crits against random targets every time the AI burst fires."

Trash mobs should NOT be one-shotting your units in cover at random.

Full health Cassia, in cover, with 90% dodge and a -12% penalty to the targets BS? NOPE, EAT 40 DAMAGE FROM A SCRAPPY LASGUN.

I pick that gun up, it does like 4 a shot and misses everything.

EDIT: I figured it out. AI gets an asinine buff that increases damage for every ally killed, meaning the last guy or two left get a +12 to all damage, turning any AOE or burst fire ability into effectively free one-shots. And since their burst fire seems to ignore all penalties (ballistic skill debuffs, being blind, cover, dodge, anything else) and has a flat 90% hit chance, the last couple of guys are basically guaranteed to kill a couple of people every time. Nothing can be done to stop it, as they have effectively infinite range, too.