The effects of cover and kneeling

[Jebu]

How much does kneeling in cover help when you're under fire? I'm thinking of low obstacles that don't obstruct the view completely, like rocks, small trees, low brick fences and the such. Obviously the chance of hitting you is lower when you're kneeling, and the shot could hit the thing you're behind. What I'd like to know is, does the object you're kneeling behind lower the chance to hit even more. Like when behind a low brick fence, the enemy should only see you from waist up, or less. Does the enemy try to hit your visible part, with lower chance of success? Or does the shot have normal chance to hit, but it might go for your legs, which are behind the fence, thus making the shot hit the fence?

 

Another thing, does the cover reduce the damage from a successful hit? I've seen my non-armoured soldiers get shot with plasma weapons (probably pistol though), receiving 0 damage. The soldiers were usually kneeling beside something, like a landing gear of the Skyranger.

 

On the sidenote, I recently found out about the difficulty bug, and downloaded xcomutil to fix it. So I'm for the first time playing in (real) Veteran mode, and the soldiers definately need to stay in cover as much as possible.

[Zombie]

I would suspect that objects which only partially obscure a soldier would decrease the overall chance to hit calculation. Well, the chance to hit calculation is probably an independant calculation done first, ignoring obstructions. After the bullet leaves the gun, it has a tendancy to "drift". If this drift is significant enough, the bullet might impact the cover item instead of the intended target. This is only a theory, but it seems to hold up under scrutiny.

 

Cover does not reduce the damage inflicted to a target. The amount inflicted is variable. Depending on ammunition type, most ammo has a range of 0 to 2*listed damage (ignoring damage modifiers). Therefore, a target has an equal chance of getting hit for 0 damage or max damage. So even though your soldier got hit, the ammo might not damage him for anything.

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

Each piece of terrain is actually a 3D model. For example, you can shoot through a window, or you could clip the edge and destroy it. So standing behind small items means aliens have to aim low, meaning there's a better chance they will hit what's in front of you.

 

Also, since they aim low, there is a change they will miss the soldier and hit the ground the soldier is standing on. I've never seen this happen while the soldier is standing upright. A soldier in the open, with an alien standing at point blank range, is much safer if he kneels.

[Jebu]

Thanks for the replies, cleared things up for me. I knew the weapon damage varies from the listed value, but didn't know it can be down to 0, so I assumed the cover reduced some damage.

[storm turmoil]

also, even in just flight suits, you're troops do have a minimal armour amount ( I think its 10 points all round) so that depending on the damage inflicted, even 'unarmoured' troops may survive a damging hit ( don't rely on it. get personal armour asap, or abuse tanks a lot)

[Zombie]

Well, the "minimal armor" you talk about is the protection offered from their clothing (khakis, or camo) or some claim a tight fitting "bullet resistant" clothing of some sort. The numbers for an "unarmored" soldier are:

Front: 12

L/R: 8

Rear: 5

Under: 2

 

These numbers do not get tacked on to a soldier's overall armor rating if he/she is wearing a suit of armor too (Person Armor, Power or Flying). For instance, if your soldier is wearing personal armor, his numbers would just be:

Front: 50

L/R: 40

Rear: 30

Under: 30

 

Not this:

Front: 62

L/R: 48

Rear: 35

Under: 32

 

Would be nice to cram all that extra protection underneath a suit of armor!

[Stun Grenade]

So if i kneeled in front of a Sectoid and he shot, his shot would be weaker then me standing??

[Jman4117]

Not weaker, just more likely to hit the ground around you.

[Tsereve]

Well, that would be the case if it were a regular Plasma weapon. However, with explosive, stun, or smoke-creating weapons, it stands to reason that being lower down would increase stun damage done.

 

Although I don't know if this is what happens in the game, IRL, it would make sense that the guy's knee would block his front while kneeling, causing the game to calculate damage using Under Armor rather than Front Armor.

[Blehm 98]

The game calculated explosions and stun explosives without looking at your positions. It only does damage compared to the tile you are on compared to the central point and which way you are facing it