Cannot Fire at target (cannot hit target)

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Why can't the pawns automatically path towards the nearest available tile in which they can at max range fire at a target? (When you set them through military action to use their ranged weapon?)

Pawns already do this when you are hunting animals, so why is this different?

[Astasia]

Because you shouldn't be in that situation. You want your colonists in cover at all time, you should be setting up defensive structures and letting the enemy come to you. Having the AI automatically leave cover so they can get closer range and shoot at an enemy is suicide and the last thing anyone wants their colonists doing in combat.

The game has that capability, it's just disabled by intent. If you want a mod that allows you to toggle it on there is one. I would highly suggest only using it for "cleanup".

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1467764609

[M.K.]

Originally posted by Scarlet:

Why can't the pawns automatically path towards the nearest available tile in which they can at max range fire at a target? (When you set them through military action to use their ranged weapon?)

Pawns already do this when you are hunting animals, so why is this different?

Because hunted animals tend not to shoot back with firearms.

Do you *really* want your rifleman you leap out from behind his sandbags, to get in range to shoot at the enemy?

Really?

[Holce]

I the contextual menu when you click on an ennemy you can fire at the ennmy or attack it in melee. It may possible to add "pursue".

The colonist will not do it on his own but we could ordered him to do it.

[M.K.]

Originally posted by Holce:

I the contextual menu when you click on an ennemy you can fire at the ennmy or attack it in melee. It may possible to add "pursue".

The colonist will not do it on his own but we could ordered him to do it.

Now that is a possibility.
Would need to be able to specify the range of pursuit, too. Sometimes you want to close with the target, sometimes you want to stay at max range, depending on your own weapon abilities.

[VayneVerso]

I wouldn't mind having it there for when enemies are fleeing wounded, or when your character has a machine pistol and is fighting a guy with a wooden club who refuses to stand still. Though I do understand why a "hunting" style action is not a thing for humans.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Because you shouldn't be in that situation. You want your colonists in cover at all time, you should be setting up defensive structures and letting the enemy come to you. Having the AI automatically leave cover so they can get closer range and shoot at an enemy is suicide and the last thing anyone wants their colonists doing in combat.

The game has that capability, it's just disabled by intent. If you want a mod that allows you to toggle it on there is one. I would highly suggest only using it for "cleanup".

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1467764609

I think you misunderstand the situation I'm trying to give, I'll try my best to explain ,can so you understand.


Pawns 1,2 and 3 and already engaging an enemy via gun fire, all pawns are already under cover including enemies,

I want to tell my pawns 4,5,6,7+ ect who were too far to start the fight to automatically find the farthest range possible, acquire cover and start shooting at the enemy while I am microing my other pawns who are fighting the enemy.


( because I do "Pincer" attacks ,Or attacks on all sides, (No one escapes me) by sending some pawns out to encompass the would-be raiders.)

(I don't want to keep pausing the game to super micro manage everything )

I don't want to mindlessly send them into the middle of cross fire of course that would be stupid.

Because hunted animals tend not to shoot back with firearms.

Do you *really* want your rifleman you leap out from behind his sandbags, to get in range to shoot at the enemy?

Really?

I guess you take me for stupid, No I don't want them to methodically break cover to do something as inane to get a better shot, because of an enemy moving,

The idea behind this is for micro, I want them to "Start" going to the area in which they need to be to be closer to max range to start firing, during while I am already microing the battle with the other pawns that are engaging (Ever play Starcraft? ) so when I see them getting closer (I have no mini map to tell me ) I can re-position them as I need.

Also, there are times when an animal decides its hungry and attacks one of my pawns working in the field and since its far away I have to pretty much tell multiple pawns to melee the damn animal just to bring my pawns closer to shoot while I micro the pawn that is being engaged by the animal around to kite while they can shoot at it.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Scarlet:

I think you misunderstand the situation I'm trying to give

No, I understood. The mod does what you want, but it's still not a good idea. It sounds like you are trying to use trees or natural cover, which isn't going to work past the very early game or the easiest difficulty. You should have properly defined defenses with fixed emplacements for your colonists based on their weapon ranges, and then you don't have to move them during combat unless they get injured overwhelmed and you want to pull them back. If you are trying to play without a killbox it requires a lot of extremely minute control of colonists an a lot of pulling back behind doors and AI manipulation. Running out to a swarm of 200 enemies and doing a rambo "pincer attack" with a handful of colonists is a nonsense concept in the game.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by Scarlet:

I think you misunderstand the situation I'm trying to give

No, I understood. The mod does what you want, but it's still not a good idea. It sounds like you are trying to use trees or natural cover, which isn't going to work past the very early game or the easiest difficulty. You should have properly defined defenses with fixed emplacements for your colonists based on their weapon ranges, and then you don't have to move them during combat unless they get injured overwhelmed and you want to pull them back. If you are trying to play without a killbox it requires a lot of extremely minute control of colonists an a lot of pulling back behind doors and AI manipulation. Running out to a swarm of 200 enemies and doing a rambo "pincer attack" with a handful of colonists is a nonsense concept in the game.

I have never had a problem with my play style, my losses have always been minimal to non existant; and your interpretation of what I do is very inane at best, either you lack any respect for my ability to play well or you really don't get what I'm trying to say but no one is running into the enemy rambo style, and if there were to be an expectation of 200 enemies I would certainly have built a proper stage to deal with such a gauntlet.

Lets keep the ball in the proper court.

Do you know what micro even is? It means I manually control every single pawns action to duck in and out of cover per shots, if they become injured I pull them back, if they are killing enemies I advance and start to "Pincer" to prevent escape.

I just want pawns that are lagged behind to catch up without me having to micro back and forth between screens, that gets very annoying so setting them to just fire at an enemy would achieve this, yet, it cannot because of how its wired in, weather you recommend it or not is of no consequence of me, I have the skills to micro it.

[Astasia]

Honestly I was trying to help, my advice wasn't meant as an attack against you. You can play the game however you want.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

I appreciate it really, I can extrapolate from viewing your profile that you've played this game quite extensively, the reason why I got annoyed is no one understood why I want this and assumed I don't know what I'm doing. I've played the game on and off for a couple of years myself. I didn't really take it as a personal attack, but it was a minor annoyance.

Sometimes trying to explain things to people is impossible sometimes, especially on your common ground steam forums.

I get what you/they were trying to say, never imagined asking about something so...simple turned out to be such a...complexity.

Perhaps I can make it a little more clear why I wanted this.

Say I have 4 pawns engaging with 2 enemies, (random numbers )

I have 3 attacking now, and I have my 4th moving in to cut off, but there's freaking trees all over the damn place and this is on a caravan quest where I don't have the ability to setup an elaborate battle station.

So I want that pawn to auto acquire the best route to be within firing line of sight, with all those trees it makes it very complex to figure out the best route, and by moving the pawn around trying to find it, I am wasting valuable time trying to find that "Sweet Spot" for Line of Sight, Once acquired I can re-assume manual micro control over that pawn to duck in/out of their Line of sight between shots.



Thats why I want it. not because I want an A+Rclick.

[Astasia]

In that case it might help to know that trees do not block line of sight or projectiles. If an enemy is taking cover behind a tree, that one tree will stop some bullets, but if there is a forest between that enemy and your colonists, none of the other trees matter or have any effect on accuracy. The same goes for any other passable cover, like chunks, sandbags, embrasures, etc.

If you replace "trees" with "walls" then I think I understand what you are saying. It's just never something I've really thought about before.

[M.K.]

Originally posted by Astasia:

If an enemy is taking cover behind a tree, that one tree will stop some bullets, but if there is a forest between that enemy and your colonists, none of the other trees matter or have any effect on accuracy. The same goes for any other passable cover, like chunks, sandbags, embrasures, etc.

Just a detail.
The first *two* tiles worth of potential cover in front of a target reduce your accuracy to that target, with the tile adjacent to it having a much greater effect.
So yes, a double-layer of sandbags provides better cover than a single.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by M.K.:

Originally posted by Astasia:

If an enemy is taking cover behind a tree, that one tree will stop some bullets, but if there is a forest between that enemy and your colonists, none of the other trees matter or have any effect on accuracy. The same goes for any other passable cover, like chunks, sandbags, embrasures, etc.

Just a detail.
The first *two* tiles worth of potential cover in front of a target reduce your accuracy to that target, with the tile adjacent to it having a much greater effect.
So yes, a double-layer of sandbags provides better cover than a single.

Just the 8 tiles directly adjacent to a pawn effect cover in any way.

XXX
XOX
XXX

If the direction of the attack is at an angle and goes over two of those X tiles, then they can add up slightly and over cap cover by 10%.

This setup:

#####
#XXX#
#XOX#
#XXX#
#####

Will never provide any additional cover compared to the one above no matter which direction the shot is coming from, the # tiles never do anything.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by Astasia:

In that case it might help to know that trees do not block line of sight or projectiles. If an enemy is taking cover behind a tree, that one tree will stop some bullets, but if there is a forest between that enemy and your colonists, none of the other trees matter or have any effect on accuracy. The same goes for any other passable cover, like chunks, sandbags, embrasures, etc.

If you replace "trees" with "walls" then I think I understand what you are saying. It's just never something I've really thought about before.

Then you've succeeded because this information was very helpful!