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Two questions about Stun Lancers:

1. They expose themselves to other than the targeted soldier to melee attack. Are they meant to be suicidal? I can see them risking the flank on the targeted soldier but being flanked by other soldiers doesn't seem to have significant or any value.

2. I had to retreat from a pod including a Stun Lancer and completely broke LOS. Before any other member of the pod reestablishes contact to my squad, the Stun Lancer double moves to melee my soldier hiding behind a building wall, who the lancer could not have seen after his blue move. How is this possible without tile checking?
(More so, the player can tile check but can't start a melee/Fleche without vision, I think.)

P.S.: First post, first questions. I tried to use the search function and checked the last 10 pages but couldn't find anything related.
If this topic already exists please link and close thread. Thanks.

burns wrote:Two questions about Stun Lancers:

1. They expose themselves to other than the targeted soldier to melee attack. Are they meant to be suicidal? I can see them risking the flank on the targeted soldier but being flanked by other soldiers doesn't seem to have significant or any value.

2. I had to retreat from a pod including a Stun Lancer and completely broke LOS. Before any other member of the pod reestablishes contact to my squad, the Stun Lancer double moves to melee my soldier hiding behind a building wall, who the lancer could not have seen after his blue move. How is this possible without tile checking?
(More so, the player can tile check but can't start a melee/Fleche without vision, I think.)

P.S.: First post, first questions. I tried to use the search function and checked the last 10 pages but couldn't find anything related.
If this topic already exists please link and close thread. Thanks.

Lancers are suicidal yes, they care much less about their well being then any other alien, same as Chrissies, berserkers, and faceless, except they're the only ones who can be flanked. It's a small price to pay however, for being able to attack accurately from such a distance.

It doesn't seem like that should be able to happen except if they could see some other member of your squad, so probably a los bug.

The LOS bugs and the bugs that let Viper Spit and Rockets go through solid walls (like the cliffs you have in outdoor maps, even if your soldier isn't even close to the edge) are just unbearable in Ironman.

Yeah its intended behavior. A stun lancer can do ridiculous damage to your capabilities so its a balance check for them.

They actually seem less suicidal to me than in vanilla. It could just be memory bias, but it seems to me like stun lancers are totally fine with sitting behind high cover and shooting at you instead of moving forward to get better range on their melee.

Manifest wrote:The LOS bugs and the bugs that let Viper Spit and Rockets go through solid walls (like the cliffs you have in outdoor maps, even if your soldier isn't even close to the edge) are just unbearable in Ironman.

Melee attacks appear to go through wall often as well. I've been able to Fleche with my Shinobi through a building wall if someone else has LOS on the enemy. Them's swords are OP!