How do I see the calculation for hitting the target?

[Aklys]

I have regularly felt like I was having some form of issue with hitting enemies with sniper rifles. I'm not saying there is a problem in the game, I just want to understand why I can see things like the following and less extreme but similar situations on a regular basis.

I have a character that has a shooting of 15, he has a 92% Manipulation and a 96% Moving everything else 100%. The environment is clear and 18% during the day. The sniper rifle is normal quality and newly made. I take aim at about half it's potential range at a sleeping Centipede and miss for the next 17 shots.

I find that the sniper rifle seems to do this more than other guns. At about mid range I mostly hit at a rate of about 50% and at it's max range I'm lucky to hit 20% of the time.

Is there a way to see what calculations are being performed under the hood to understand why I get such scenarios?

[Security Cam #7]

You can hold your cursor over an enemy to see the chance that a shot coming from your selected colonist will connect with the enemy.

I don't know the exact calculations, but this wiki page might help a bit, as it lists all factors that affect accuracy (doesn't include cover and weather effects):
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Shooting_Accuracy

[Stormblade]

With your pawn selected (can't remember if they need to be drafted), hover your mouse over the target. That should tell you what the hit chance is and what effects that. Weapons also have a base accuracy at certain ranges which you can check in their information, if you didn't know.

As to the exact calculations, I don't know that. The above should get you started though.

[The Blind One]

sleeping animals also have an 80% cover rating for being on the ground ... makes sense? No ... idk why the heck they implemented that. I guess its to prevent downed pawns from getting hit but they are not targeted anyway once they go down so who knows. But yeah sleeping animals have 80% multiplier on miss chance ... also normal sniper rifles SUCK, unless you got something like an excellent or masterwork, don't bother, but that's just my opinion.

For calculations, you should be able to click the attack button (must be drafted) and simply hold it over the target creature and it should show up all the modifiers that are involved in your chance to actually hit the damn creature.

[glass zebra]

The accuracy per tile calculation is usually what surprises people, as a plain 97% accuracy sounds rather good. On 20 tiles that's already below 55% and on 40 tiles below 30%. Centipedes have a 1.8 hit chance multiplier from their body size though.

The sniper rifle should not miss much more than other guns on mid range though, but it might feel like that because it's so darn slow. If you got guns that can shoot on that range, there is also not much reason for a sniper rifle. It's really good to do heavy burst on a very long range, but not so much for other things.

[Aklys]

Thanks to both of you I didn't realise you had the mouse over (Never held it long enough I guess). I was able to work out the general calculation from that. The calculation is fractions on fractions on fractions..... it seems which will always be an issue. Instead of a skill to using a weapon being applied your skill always reduces with distance, that will break a sniper rifle general purpose. Reducing it's capability drastically at a distance.

A sniper rifle with a 86% chance of hitting at 25-40 tiles away lowers down to 47% and any further aspect of cover or target size added difficulty will quickly lower that down to somewhere below 25% for a chance to hit.

So I now have to figure out why the enemy can hit my guys so much even when they have cover and I'm at a pretty big distance away.

Thanks for the help.

[glass zebra]

If you have a bunch of colonists close to each other, the missed shots of your enemies can hit your nearby colonists. Try spreading your colonists/cover further apart. The same bonus goes for you if you fire a minigun into a crowd of enemies. Enemies hitting your people is also much more memorable than you hitting the enemies, of which there are dozens each year, with hundreds of bullets flying your way.

[Aklys]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

The accuracy per tile calculation is usually what surprises people, as a plain 97% accuracy sounds rather good. On 20 tiles that's already below 55% and on 40 tiles below 30%. Centipedes have a 1.8 hit chance multiplier from their body size though.

The sniper rifle should not miss much more than other guns on mid range though, but it might feel like that because it's so darn slow. If you got guns that can shoot on that range, there is also not much reason for a sniper rifle. It's really good to do heavy burst on a very long range, but not so much for other things.

Yeah I am more inclined to do distance fighting. I'm more familiar with those tactics. Having long range with short range cover for when people get close. But I've been finding that my guys miss most of their shots and not get missed by the enemy nearly as much. But you say it shouldn't miss but when I end up with scenarios that are missing 17 shots in a row, well you start to wonder why lol. I've been doing more testing and I can can generally miss more than 10 shots in a row pretty commonly.

But I agree with your statement of it is so much more noticeable with the sniper rifle and it's slow reload lol.

[Aklys]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

If you have a bunch of colonists close to each other, the missed shots of your enemies can hit your nearby colonists. Try spreading your colonists/cover further apart. The same bonus goes for you if you fire a minigun into a crowd of enemies. Enemies hitting your people is also much more memorable than you hitting the enemies, of which there are dozens each year.

Colonists are usually spaced at least 2 tiles from each other minimum. Do they need to much more? I find when the enemy is close together they aren't getting hit by my missed bullets. But that is probably because I'm not using spray and pray weapons I'm guessing.

[Aklys]

Also sometimes it's just one guy shooting at the enemy and the enemy hits that one guy regularly and not the other way around lol. It's probably just bad luck but I've tested it a few times and more often than not their hit rate is definitely higher, just working my way towards to understanding why.

[glass zebra]

Shooting at long range and outranging enemies is a good tactic in theory, but you need really high shooting skill to pull that off. If you want to do prolonged fights on longer ranges, the assault rifle or maybe even the bolt action rifle can do wonders. Sniper rifles are really good for the start of the battle, for big bursts or kiting, but when your enemies close up they lose a bit power.

If you have some pawn with 2 archo tech eyes, shooting 20, luciferium, shooting specialist and a excellent+ quality sniper rifle, they can wreck havoc reliably even on max range.

For being hit by the enemy more than you hit them:
Depends on the case really. What kind of cover are you using, at what angle are you touching that cover, what is the other persons shooting skill etc. You might also hit enemies with armour which can just deflect the bullet. Standing on an open field and having 5 enemies trying to hit you with shoddy revolvers on max range can turn that feeling around quickly.

[Aklys]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Shooting at long range and outranging enemies is a good tactic in theory, but you need really high shooting skill to pull that off. If you want to do prolonged fights on longer ranges, the assault rifle or maybe even the bolt action rifle can do wonders. Sniper rifles are really good for the start of the battle, for big bursts or kiting, but when your enemies close up they lose a bit power.

If you have some pawn with 2 archo tech eyes, shooting 20, luciferium, shooting specialist and a excellent+ quality sniper rifle, they can wreck havoc reliably even on max range.

If I could get 2 archo tech eyes hahaha. But yeah shooting 15 and normal sniper rifles I guess means max of 22% hit which is kinda disappointing consider the point of a sniper rifle. They aren't nearly that hard to use. I've tried using bolt actions but the result isn't that much different other than more shots down range. It seems the game is built for spray and pray gameplay mostly as the successful method.

I was hoping to be able to try getting the drop when raiding places from a distance but I find that is basically impossible with hit percentages like that. Usually if I'm real lucky I can drop 2 our of 10 at a distance and then they are basically on top of you. And that's with 6 snipers. At best 2 hit their target and then it's just a matter of hoping damage wise you get lucky with the damage and what was hit. And that's with the combat command adding whatever it adds to it.

Usually hiding behind a wall corner, behind a tree or a stone chuck on the opposite side to them (Not sure if that's what you mean by the angle). Same as them. Sometimes they have armor, some not. And most of them have a shooting skill less than 10. Most of their weapon quality seems to be normal when I reload and wait for better RNG results.

[glass zebra]

The game offers more tactics the higher your people get in skill. I often start the game on lower ranges and spamming revolvers and at ~15+ shooting skill I start pumping out bolt action rifles for my pawns. Definitely does not feel like spray and pray at that point anymore. You just got to know the range your current pawns are still effective fighters (and pick the right weapon for that) and the game lets you go higher and higher the more skill levels or bionics you pump into your people. Being able to hit on 45 range reliably shortly after start would not give you much development after that.

Sniper rifles are really down the line which even the research indicates. If you want to use them early game, you can sometimes get lucky with one really good colonists which can poke the enemy from a distance before they attack, but just giving them to all your colonists will usually not work until you can get bionics and others boosts like gunlink or specialist. If you have a bunch of low skilled colonists without a passion, you have less choice in where and how to fight. Sniper rifle is a specialist gun here, not a bulk weapon (unless you have the boosts).

[Aklys]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

The game offers more tactics the higher your people get in skill. I often start the game on lower ranges and spamming revolvers and at ~15+ shooting skill I start pumping out bolt action rifles for my pawns. Definite does not feel like spray and pray. You just got to know the range your current pawns are still effective fighters and the game lets you go higher and higher the more skill levels or bionics you pump into your people. Being able to hit on 45 range reliably shortly after start would not give you much development after that.

Yeah I don't tend to get much luck with getting to the bionics currently (previous games I have). But fighting 20 combatants with unreliable shooting capability shortly after the start isn't much good either haha. But yeah starting out spamming revolvers you are better off just meleeing everyone. That has been the most successful tactic I've used so far. It stops all range combat quickly. But it's kind boring and not really tactical lol.

[Aklys]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Sniper rifles are really down the line which even the research indicates. If you want to use them early game, you can sometimes get lucky with one really good colonists which can poke the enemy from a distance before they attack, but just giving them to all your colonists will usually not work until you can get bionics and others boosts like gunlink or specialist. If you have a bunch of low skilled colonists without a passion, you have less choice in where and how to fight. Sniper rifle is a specialist gun here, not a bulk weapon (unless you have the boosts).

Fair enough about the specialist gun. But I get a similar result with the bolt action so we'd then have to say that's a specialist gun too I guess. Oh I have a gun link it hasn't improved things overly much. But yeah I don't have a specialist skill character yet. And the bionics haven't been available much yet.

But it's been good talking about the bits and pieces. Most of it I am aware of, but the approach of percentage upon percentage is a very taxing skill assessment haha. But at least now I know why.

[glass zebra]

Revolvers do have very good stopping power and shoot very quickly. You can pin down targets with that (especially rushing melees). Dps on low range is better done with something like SMGs, Charge rifles or even machine pistols. Revolver are pretty bad at their own max range and you might want to try shotguns instead. Lower range, but they can actually hit on their max range and enough stopping power for most stuff in the game. They do shot slower though.

If you have one or 2 high skill colonists, you can often intercept the enemies or flank them with little to no danger for exactly those colonists. Works even better if you have melees with shield belts trying to dictate the movement of the enemies. Getting in shots before the enemy even has a chance to fight back is also pretty good, even if you don't hit super good on those range. It's still free shots.

The bolt action has a bit more dps and shoots faster and the range is lower. That can make it more reliably especially because the faster speed makes the stopping power better. It has less range than the sniper rifle, but if you feel you can't shoot at 40+ anyway, the bolt action is a nice alternative. It's also super cheap and fast to make, which also makes it able to get good quality quickly. It's still for high skill/high range, but a little less so than the sniper. Assault rifle is the best longer range dps/spray and pray weapon.

Bolt action rifles also outrange centipedes (and lancers), hit them well enough and are quick on cooldown so you can basically kite centipedes as long as you want. Just got to take care of the other mechs.