What does the negative "to hit" penalty to crit chance mean?

[nmkaplan]

I am noticing that my rookies (at least) are getting a penalty to crit chance when flanking. On the right "wing" where the crit bonuses are listed when previewing a shot, it lists "flanking +33%" and "to hit -16%".

The penalty appears to be slightly different for each soldier, but doesn't appear to change based on range. I'm not very far into the game yet, and I sort of have the feeling this is working as intended, but I'm curious what it's about.

[profDEADPOOL]

The less likely your shot is to hit in the first place the less likely you are to get a crit.

The to hit penalty to crit is from the chance of the shot missing.

[nmkaplan]

Oh that's really interesting. So the final crit value is the absolute percentage you have to score a crit, not the "if you hit, this is your crit" chance.

That's actually really good to know, since sometimes you know you have to crit in order to score a kill. I've often done the math on hit%*crit% to see what my true crit odds are.

Thanks for replying!