Pavonis Interactive Forums

Change it so that soldiers that only loses their ablative hit points doesn't panic.

What, you think getting hit with a bullet that doesn't go thru your bulletproof vest doesn't make weak-minded people question their own mortality?

The real strange thing with ablative points is a cosmetic one. When your soldiers only loose ablative and start yelling: I'm hurt!!! Need a medic!!!

Well, being hit by a bullet in body armor can hurt quite bad. Maybe they can't immediately tell if they have a hole in their liver or just bruise and it takes them a few turns to feel under their vests, find no bleeding and get their s**t together.

azarga wrote:Well, being hit by a bullet in body armor can hurt quite bad. Maybe they can't immediately tell if they have a hole in their liver or just bruise and it takes them a few turns to feel under their vests, find no bleeding and get their s**t together.

Except you can see the blood splattered around the ground even if they lose only ablative hit points.

bountygiver wrote:

azarga wrote:Well, being hit by a bullet in body armor can hurt quite bad. Maybe they can't immediately tell if they have a hole in their liver or just bruise and it takes them a few turns to feel under their vests, find no bleeding and get their s**t together.

Except you can see the blood splattered around the ground even if they lose only ablative hit points.

It's ketchup from those damn juicy ADVENTburgers. Can't go on a mission without couple in your tac.pouches to munch on while you wait out those 8 turns until Firebrand arrives.

Ok let me explain my reason for the suggestion a bit. It has to do with the graze band. You get hit more with it.

It means sometimes when you use a rookie and you know he's going to panic if he gets hit. So you place him in a strong position. But he still gets hit because of the graze band allows complete misses to hit.

So, despite you are making a tactically correct choice your rookie will screw up the battle anyway because he got a graze hit and you cannot wait another turn for him to un-panic because of the tight turn schedule.

1: A. Remove panics from "graze band" grazes or B. Reduce the risk of it when a graze band graze happens
2: Reduce will lost (reduce risk of panic) from ablative hp lost.

TL;DR Cosmetically it makes sense that ablative hp lost means panic though what I was looking for is a balance against panics from grazes from the graze band mechanic.

This is how graze band works:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/ ... it_chance/

From my own experience across 1.5 campaigns, panic from wound/shot has only happened in the VERY early game, like rookie-squaddie. I don't think I've ever had a LCPL+ soldier panic from a wound. Or perhaps I don't get wounded enough to notice, that's possible.

Personally I don't think panic itself needs tuning specifically for the graze band and/or ablative hp. Getting hit is getting hit, it fits thematically, and it's already working mechanically. If it's not broke don't fix it, don't re-invent the wheel, and other such phrases?

If a player personally is not that great at tactical layer such that they get hit often, and thus are frustrated by panic, I'd simply suggest turning off the graze band, or perhaps modifying base soldier will in the ini.