[Suggestion] Concealment rework

[TempuSFatumA]

Hello everyone! I love LW mod, but I have an idea how you could improve it a little IMO.

The main idea I propose is: "if soldiers are hiding behind covers motionlessly or out of enemy LOS, why would they be spotted?".

I suggest:

1. to give all soldiers and VIPs "Partisan" Perk: "When the squad is revealed, unit remains concealed. Unit will lose concealment, if it stays out of high cover within 5-tile diameter from the loud sound source."
   • There should be no detection for squadmates, if Action Sound Range is less than 9 (i.e. Holo targetting, Moving, Hunkering, Melee). But shooting will reveal surroundings. Thus, you can create a chain detection overwatch trap.
   • Your concealed soldier comes close to his revealed squadmate, into low cover. Than squadmate fires. Concealed soldier will lose his concealment.
   • "Low Profile" Perk should be applied properly.
2. to remake "Phantom" Ability into "When enemies look for your squad or detect it, their detection range against this soldier remains unchanged. Your squadmates can't reveal you.";
3. to stretch enemy detection ranges to enemy FOVs' ranges, if they are on yellow or red alert;
   • I'm not sure if on VIP extraction (when you lead a VIP) missions or most of Retalliation missions enemies are on yellow alert by default. Their detection ranges should be stratched at the start of mission, even if they have green alert. Or they all just should be on yellow alert by default.
4. to add the new mechanic to "Hunker Down" Ability: "Also restores concealment, if used out of enemy line of sight";
   • This will also improve "Deep Cover" and "Shadowstrike" Perks, that are rather useless right now.
5. to give "Standard overwatch" to any soldier (doesn't remove concealment on activation), that will trigger if some soldier has lost his concealment;
6. to give "Concealed overwatch" (doesn't remove concealment on activation), that will trigger only if this particular soldier lose his concealment (inavailable, if soldier has no concealment);
   • Maybe, this one should be the part of new "Phantom" Ability, thus usual soldiers wouldn't be able to overwatch their surroundings without exposing their positions, cos they pop out their heads.

For points 1-3 I've drawn this picture: On it:
1. You haven't lost concealment at all;
2. Your soldier steps into enemy detection range and becomes detected;
3. Your other soldiers become detected, if they can be detected.

Thus, player would be able to act with some soldier, get him spotted and move him away to position, that is surrounded by other soldiers, thus enemies will try to chase after him, and there player gets aliens torn with his squad. Or player would be able to make aliens chase after the soldier to let the rest of the squad move further w/o breaking concealment. And mr.Sniper will not be spotted by this cute Berserk girl, if he is on top of the building on the other side of the map.

TY 4 attention!

[TempuSFatumA]

Deleted.

[NephilimNexus]

I would change it so that concealment is only broken within, say, 15 squares of the soldier who voided their own concealment.

I can see one guy firing drawing enough attention to bust the guy standing next him. I don't see why it should affect a rooftop sniper hanging back over a block away.

[TempuSFatumA]

Deleted.

[TempuSFatumA]

I would change it so that concealment is only broken within, say, 15 squares of the soldier who voided their own concealment.

I can see one guy firing drawing enough attention to bust the guy standing next him. I don't see why it should affect a rooftop sniper hanging back over a block away.

Well, 15 squares is rather huge radius. Maybe operatives that are in low cover and are within 15 squares diameter (7 squares each side) will be exposed, but it may be hard to code.

[JLtheking]

This is an excellent idea.

Your posts make it seem super complicated though for what can be a simple idea:

So if you have a soldier without Phantom that did was not part of the original ambush / discovered by being flanked, you retain individual concealment, BUT the detection radius for that soldier basically extends out to the whole 27 tiles visual range. So doing anything, moving, firing etc with the exception of overwatch/hunker will reveal the soldier. HOWEVER you can use this to your advantage by luring enemies into an overwatch trap if they pass by your cover, or an easy flanking shot the next turn as they would position somewhere ignoring those soldiers.

To simplify your point 6 I would just modify hunker down such that hunkering without LOS on any enemies would restore this 27 tile individual concealment. This prevents dashing into easy LOS blocking high cover next to an enemy to abuse this concealment system.

As for whether or not this is feasible, I don't know. It would require some unreal script to dynamically alter the character templates' Detection ranges. You might also need to basically give every soldier a hidden, alternate Phantom perk, to simulate this individual concealment. Could a perk give the functionality of the former?

I would like to learn how to Unreal Script sometime too

[TempuSFatumA]

Your posts make it seem super complicated though for what can be a simple idea

I guess you're right. It's become rather complicated.

So if you have a soldier without Phantom that did was not part of the original ambush / discovered by being flanked, you retain individual concealment, BUT the detection radius for that soldier basically extends out to the whole 27 tiles visual range. So doing anything, moving, firing etc with the exception of overwatch/hunker will reveal the soldier. HOWEVER you can use this to your advantage by luring enemies into an overwatch trap if they pass by your cover, or an easy flanking shot the next turn as they would position somewhere ignoring those soldiers.

Well, "was not part of the original ambush" -> "was not part of the standard overwatch ambush" and "with the exception of overwatch/hunker" -> "with the exception of overwatch/hunker/otherConcealedAbilities", I pressume.
And yes, this is the main idea.

To simplify your point 6 I would just modify hunker down such that hunkering without LOS on any enemies would restore this 27 tile individual concealment. This prevents dashing into easy LOS blocking high cover next to an enemy to abuse this concealment system.

Umm, point 4, maybe? And that's a really good idea. I was crawling into it when I was sleeping. I think, I'll edit it now.

As for whether or not this is feasible, I don't know. It would require some unreal script to dynamically alter the character templates' Detection ranges. You might also need to basically give every soldier a hidden, alternate Phantom perk, to simulate this individual concealment. Could a perk give the functionality of the former?
I would like to learn how to Unreal Script sometime too

I guess, some modding monsters can do it. LWteam surely can, if they would like to.

[code99]

I too think something like this would be great to see

I never quite understood why my sniper thats on the other side of the map gets "revealed" if some dude fires his weapon on the other end of the map ... you get the point ... makes no sense to me.

[TempuSFatumA]

Edited first post, comprising later posts and some new things.