Friendly fire overwatch

[Draygarth]

Can we get a feature to not have soldiers take overwatch shots if there is a possibility of hitting an ally? Right now if a hidden enemy shows up on the flank there is a distinct chance that one of your soldiers will calmly place their weapon against their comrade's temple and fire at the enemy. 🤣

[Goldhawk]

Originally posted by Draygarth:

Can we get a feature to not have soldiers take overwatch shots if there is a possibility of hitting an ally? Right now if a hidden enemy shows up on the flank there is a distinct chance that one of your soldiers will calmly place their weapon against their comrade's temple and fire at the enemy. 🤣

Yup, we already have one. It's in the Settings, first tab, "Allow Overwatch Friendly Fire".

[Draygarth]

Oh... well good work then.🤣

Maybe set it to off by default for the first couple difficulties, for idiots like me.🤣

[Aerrin Longheart]

Originally posted by Draygarth:

Oh... well good work then.🤣

Maybe set it to off by default for the first couple difficulties, for idiots like me.🤣

This is a strategy game. Would it not be better to learn to position your soldiers and their facing better to avoid situations where they can shoot their comrades?

[Draygarth]

Sure, but would it not be more realistic for the soldiers to not shoot each other? In reality if you order a soldier to shoot at their ally they are going to wait for a clear shot. Allowing friendly fire makes it feel like we are playing with brain dead zombies.

[Aerrin Longheart]

Originally posted by Draygarth:

Sure, but would it not be more realistic for the soldiers to not shoot each other? In reality if you order a soldier to shoot at their ally they are going to wait for a clear shot. Allowing friendly fire makes it feel like we are playing with brain dead zombies.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_friendly_fire_incidents I quote:
"There have been many thousands of friendly fire incidents in recorded military history, accounting for an estimated 2% to 20% of all casualties in battle.[1][2]". Your point doesn't seem to reflect what really happens in real life.

[Solomon Kane]

Originally posted by Aerrin Longheart:

Originally posted by Draygarth:

Sure, but would it not be more realistic for the soldiers to not shoot each other? In reality if you order a soldier to shoot at their ally they are going to wait for a clear shot. Allowing friendly fire makes it feel like we are playing with brain dead zombies.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_friendly_fire_incidents I quote:
"There have been many thousands of friendly fire incidents in recorded military history, accounting for an estimated 2% to 20% of all casualties in battle.[1][2]". Your point doesn't seem to reflect what really happens in real life.

And your point does not reflect the fact, that this is not a battle human against human, but human against alien, in which it is pretty clear by visuals, who the enemy is, also, friendly fire happens, due to bad visuals and lack of intel or information, it should and is, common sense though, that a soldier does not shoot against enemies, if a comrade stands right in front of them, aka, willingly shooting through them, as this would not be considered an accident anymore at all, but outright and willingly killing your fellow soldiers.

[Aerrin Longheart]

Originally posted by Solomon Kane:

Originally posted by Aerrin Longheart:

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_friendly_fire_incidents I quote:
"There have been many thousands of friendly fire incidents in recorded military history, accounting for an estimated 2% to 20% of all casualties in battle.[1][2]". Your point doesn't seem to reflect what really happens in real life.

And your point does not reflect the fact, that this is not a battle human against human, but human against alien, in which it is pretty clear by visuals, who the enemy is, also, friendly fire happens, due to bad visuals and lack of intel or information, it should and is, common sense though, that a soldier does not shoot against enemies, if a comrade stands right in front of them, aka, willingly shooting through them, as this would not be considered an accident anymore at all, but outright and willingly killing your fellow soldiers.

If I were on the battlefield against aliens with their vastly superior weaponry, and utter lack of compassion for humans, I would shoot at any alien I saw - even right through a fellow human. The sheer terror of fighting against a vastly superior set of weaponry is going to make even the finest soldiers panic and shoot at anything that moves.
A calm, and measured manner against half the nightmare creatures we can see in the images is wishful thinking.

[Punished Fish]

Originally posted by Aerrin Longheart:

Originally posted by Solomon Kane:

And your point does not reflect the fact, that this is not a battle human against human, but human against alien, in which it is pretty clear by visuals, who the enemy is, also, friendly fire happens, due to bad visuals and lack of intel or information, it should and is, common sense though, that a soldier does not shoot against enemies, if a comrade stands right in front of them, aka, willingly shooting through them, as this would not be considered an accident anymore at all, but outright and willingly killing your fellow soldiers.

If I were on the battlefield against aliens with their vastly superior weaponry, and utter lack of compassion for humans, I would shoot at any alien I saw - even right through a fellow human. The sheer terror of fighting against a vastly superior set of weaponry is going to make even the finest soldiers panic and shoot at anything that moves.
A calm, and measured manner against half the nightmare creatures we can see in the images is wishful thinking.

Yea exactly lol. If an 8 foot tall 300 pound Sebillian kicked down the door in front of me, I'm gonna freak out and mag dump it, and probably get some friendly fire.

[Solomon Kane]

By that Logic the entire Game would make no sense, as humanity would stand zero chance against such a vastly superior enemy, and as far I know, Panic is a game mechanic that can happen already and I can assure you, other soldiers fighting alongside you, as soon they see you kill your own willingly to ensure your own safety, lets just say, they would make sure you dont return either from that engagement anymore, besides, you brought up real life examples, and all to quickly, you again return to a fantasy setting, in which case, I would assume, Xenonauts are trained to fight an Alien threat, otherwise the devs would make every soldier panic in each turn, by your logic.

[Aerrin Longheart]

Originally posted by Solomon Kane:

By that Logic the entire Game would make no sense, as humanity would stand zero chance against such a vastly superior enemy, and as far I know, Panic is a game mechanic that can happen already and I can assure you, other soldiers fighting alongside you, as soon they see you kill your own willingly to ensure your own safety, lets just say, they would make sure you dont return either from that engagement anymore, besides, you brought up real life examples, and all to quickly, you again return to a fantasy setting, in which case, I would assume, Xenonauts are trained to fight an Alien threat, otherwise the devs would make every soldier panic in each turn, by your logic.

I hate to say it, but the logic of the entire Game makes no sense, as humanity would stand zero chance against such a vastly superior enemy.
A simple (for a vastly technologically superior alien species) would be to create a simple spreadable disease. Today, with our technology, we can create diseases that can wipe out all of humanity. Imagine what a space faring race that can travel across the cosmos would be capable of? How about a nuking the world? I mean, today, we have technology that can easily wipe everything out - aliens would too.

This wouldn't be a fun game though.
This isn't a planned out war - this is a surprise invasion. Your soldiers have never seen aliens before - none of humanity has. Everything your soldiers have ever fought before have been other humans, or maybe an animal. Maybe, after years of battling aliens, they won't panic when facing them... but this is literally the first encounter with aliens, right? Xenonauts can't have been trained to fight an alien threat because nothing like this ever existed before.

[Highway_Crossing_Frog?]

What we could really use would be an intermediary setting. I don't necessarily want to turn off ALL friendly fire on overwatch, but I *would* prefer my rifleman not put his gun directly against the back of his ally's head and unload.

[DaviddesJ]

I agree that it makes sense for this option to be off by default.
Why does *everything* get so heated?

[Sinjen Blackstar]

I would say that a lot of the "blue on blue" or "friendly fire" incidents are from area effect weapons such as artillery and bombings. Prior to precision munitions artillery and bombing could be pretty dangerous to the good guys. It still happens even now with our tech. I am not saying that on occasion soldiers don't accidentally shoot each other(particularly green troops using automatic weapons). However, it is a far more common problem with indirect fire and air to ground weapons. Game wise more realistically your guys would chose not to fire at all if their LOS was obstructed by friendlies. That could be pretty frustrating too. So I am glad they added an option to turn it off.

[Magnus Gray]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ:

I agree that it makes sense for this option to be off by default.
Why does *everything* get so heated?

Yeah, we're talking about an option for a game that allows the player to manage certain situations.

Obviously to talk about something so simple and straight forward, you have to fight about wikipedia articles about historic events, statistics and speculate about the mechanics of the human psyche.

I'll always find it hilarious how much weird, bloated ♥♥♥♥ people have to pull for their "arguments", instead of just simply talking about what it would change about how the game plays, which is the only thing that matters. I for one will always support giving the player choice and options.

Anyway, about the feature: glad it's in the game, but it's probably not very obvious in the main menu options and feels more like something you should be able to choose or expect to find during gameplay.
I think something to consider would be making the player able to toggle the option right on the in-game UI during combat for each soldier, turning it into a tactical choice. It would give us another opportunity to judge the situation based on our soldiers loadouts, positions and how to fight.

[Butterhai]

the setting doesnt do anything? my guys still like shooting each other's backsides