General Gameplay Q&A

[Arcylis]

Ive been keeping notes of observations and questions I have as I go through my first scenario with a custom commander. My hope is this thread will shed a lot of light on questions you may not even think to ask.

1. How is overwatch range calculated? On my 7 range troopers its 6 hexes. On my 9 Range sniper hero its 7 hexes. I just modded some troopers and my heroes with rail accelerators (+1 range, +10% accuracy). As soon as I play a manual battle Ill know the overwatch range of range 8 and 10 units.
1B. Are there any 5 range units with overwatch and if so what is their overwatch range?

2. A question I just though of in relation to the rail accelerator mod... How is accuracy reduction calculated over hexes? The further the enemy is from your unit the lower the accuracy when trying to hit them. Does the range increase from 7 to 8 on medium ranged units such as troopers? Is there additional accuracy reduction for that one extra hex? If so then the +10% accuracy isnt really a benefit so much as a compensation for the accuracy reduction.

3. How does full action(continued) work exactly? So on a void tech hero I have the phase jump ability that lets them teleport 7 hexes I think. This ability's action use is considered full action(continued). From what I can tell it just lets you attack once after teleporting. Is it as simple as that or are there additional nuances?

4. Does the economist doctrine only affect the central resource building you build first for each colony? The description says something like basic resource buildings which is a little vague. I looked through resources after enacting the doctrine and the only increase I saw was from the central resource building, but Im only on about turn 30 so are there more buildings affected perchance?

 

[PatanWan]

Ive been keeping notes of observations and questions I have as I go through my first scenario with a custom commander. My hope is this thread will shed a lot of light on questions you may not even think to ask.

1. How is overwatch range calculated? On my 7 range troopers its 6 hexes. On my 9 Range sniper hero its 7 hexes. I just modded some troopers and my heroes with rail accelerators (+1 range, +10% accuracy). As soon as I play a manual battle Ill know the overwatch range of range 8 and 10 units.
1B. Are there any 5 range units with overwatch and if so what is their overwatch range?

2. A question I just though of in relation to the rail accelerator mod... How is accuracy reduction calculated over hexes? The further the enemy is from your unit the lower the accuracy when trying to hit them. Does the range increase from 7 to 8 on medium ranged units such as troopers? Is there additional accuracy reduction for that one extra hex? If so then the +10% accuracy isnt really a benefit so much as a compensation for the accuracy reduction.

3. How does full action(continued) work exactly? So on a void tech hero I have the phase jump ability that lets them teleport 7 hexes I think. This ability's action use is considered full action(continued). From what I can tell it just lets you attack once after teleporting. Is it as simple as that or are there additional nuances?

4. Does the economist doctrine only affect the central resource building you build first for each colony? The description says something like basic resource buildings which is a little vague. I looked through resources after enacting the doctrine and the only increase I saw was from the central resource building, but Im only on about turn 30 so are there more buildings affected perchance?

Hey, no idea about the first 2, I always assumed overwatch range was the same as the unit's range, never bothered to check but it's good to know! And I think the only unit with overwatch and range 5 is heroes with a shotgun or similar and the overwatch perk, but it's a really short range (maybe 4 hexes?) and not really worth it IMO.

3- Exactly like you described it, so it's best used to travel big distances, because regardless of how many action points you had when using it, you end up with just one. It's great for flanking with your shotgun (yes, I like shotguns) or using a short range skill, or even getting to safety and using defense mode.

4- Only for the central resource building. It's an early game doctrine and good for developing your empire early on (+30 food per turn is a great way for developing an early colony), but gets old when you advance in the society research tree.

 

[Elgareth]

Ive been keeping notes of observations and questions I have as I go through my first scenario with a custom commander. My hope is this thread will shed a lot of light on questions you may not even think to ask.

1. How is overwatch range calculated? On my 7 range troopers its 6 hexes. On my 9 Range sniper hero its 7 hexes. I just modded some troopers and my heroes with rail accelerators (+1 range, +10% accuracy). As soon as I play a manual battle Ill know the overwatch range of range 8 and 10 units.
1B. Are there any 5 range units with overwatch and if so what is their overwatch range?

That I'd really like to know as well. The ingame Codex doesn't help either, it says "attacking anything in their sightrange", so I thought the sightrange would be important. However there is no sightrange stat to be found anywhere, and mods that give +sight don't have any effect on the range (maybe because it's just strategic sight range?).
I'd wager a guess and say the "ideal range" is the range of overwatch (i.e. the range where no -accuracy because of "Long range" is applied). That makes overwatch somewhat useless unless you fight melee Units. 7 range vs. 7 range never triggers overwatch, which I find a bit weird.

2. A question I just though of in relation to the rail accelerator mod... How is accuracy reduction calculated over hexes? The further the enemy is from your unit the lower the accuracy when trying to hit them. Does the range increase from 7 to 8 on medium ranged units such as troopers? Is there additional accuracy reduction for that one extra hex? If so then the +10% accuracy isnt really a benefit so much as a compensation for the accuracy reduction.

I think the last two hexes of your range get -10% per hex. I don't remember if the mod says +1 max and +1 optimal range, I know that the Kir'Ko T4 unit skill adds +2 to both, so the Units get 2 more hexes without -accuracy as well.

3. How does full action(continued) work exactly? So on a void tech hero I have the phase jump ability that lets them teleport 7 hexes I think. This ability's action use is considered full action(continued). From what I can tell it just lets you attack once after teleporting. Is it as simple as that or are there additional nuances?

It's as simple as that, the important Nuance is in the difference of full Action (continued) and the "1 Action remaining" Actions. Full Action Continued requires all three APs, while 1 Action remaining can be used as Long as you have at least 1 AP left.

4. Does the economist doctrine only affect the central resource building you build first for each colony? The description says something like basic resource buildings which is a little vague. I looked through resources after enacting the doctrine and the only increase I saw was from the central resource building, but Im only on about turn 30 so are there more buildings affected perchance?

As Patan said, only the "Central XY" Building.

 

[jmcd30]

That makes overwatch somewhat useless unless you fight melee Units. 7 range vs. 7 range never triggers overwatch, which I find a bit weird.

It does not make overwatch useless.

It keeps the enemy (especially AI) at their max range (7 hexes) when they engage you. Which means they are shooting with long range penalties and are not coming within range to use 5-3 range skills and melee which usually cause stagger.

This allows you to keep your mobility and max fire output.

I used to think overwatch was not really worth it until I realized the above. Now you can control the battle and maneuver you flanking forces. If the enemy does charge forward, you will light them up.

 

[Arcylis]

First off, thanks everyone for your input! Ive verified the overwatch ranged for range 8 and 10. for range 8 overwatch range is 7, for range 10 overwatch range is 8.

As for the effectiveness of overwatch that depends on another question Ive thought of. When overwatch is initiated are range and cover penalties applied. I can see no way to check, but so far Ive found overwatch shots to be very accurate, perhaps more so than regular shots.

Overwatch isnt that great in my opinion. There are unit abilities and mods that avoid it altogether, but more importantly it allows the opponent to control the shots. They can obsure a tanky unit to advance into as many overwatches as possible to absorb all the fire, which then frees the remaining enemy units to engage units that arent defending. Then the enemy can simply heal the unit they used to absorb the overwatches.