[Resolved] Interrogating fragmented enemies

[ushas]

How to bring enemies back capable to spill the beans? - by fire or just blow them up.

HowTo:

• Everybody in kill mood.
• Proceed to kill all but towards the end use grenades so at least one of them will die from fire or grenade damage itself.
• After the win the interrogation screen actually occurs normally like when we simply incapacitated enemies. No dead screen nor a delay as in case when enemies were killed by other means.

Does dying by fire and grenades count as kill or incapacitation?
Does it depend on the grenadier being in a killer mood or peaceful at the time of the throw or at the time the death occurs?

It seems to me that the damage stays the same, so the preliminary conclusions are that grenades and fire-over-time accounts for incapacitation no matter what. If this behavior is intended, then it's possible there is no additional issue than those already reported about interrogation and normal killed conditions.

However, how it should behave might still be up debate. And perhaps worth to revisit later if there are future changes to the killing mechanic?...

Next on the menu: bleeding to death.

[Daithi]

Will need to think about it some more. There was an issue with enemies being registered as killed, which is fixed now. This might resolve the issue you mentioned, but will have a look, and will look into the lack of extra damage from grenades.

Possibility: certain items will have a minimum % to kill the enemy, even in non lethal.

[ushas]

Yeah, figured this probably won't need to be dealt with now.

Just a recapitulation how it behaves (v16, not taking into account the fix):
-- If I kill everybody but incapacitate at least one, the proper interrogation with a living subject will proceed.
-- If I kill everybody but use grenades to finish at least one (regardless of the mode), the proper interrogation with a living subject will proceed.
-- If I kill everybody without using grenades, the dead interrogation screen proceeds.

Possibility: certain items will have a minimum % to kill the enemy, even in non lethal.

Sounds interesting, but what that % mean? A small chance to kill an enemy regardless of health, or chance to kill him if his health reaches zero with the help of that item? One other option for % I recall from JA2 where there was a chance getting a slow internal bleeding, eventually leading to death if not treated.

[Daithi]

There were two code issues. Most of the time, enemies weren't being properly registered as killed and there was some test code in there - subsequent testing causing no bugs. Will test grenades killing though. Code for this should be good now, and the damage is correct between lethal/non lethal.

Idea is that even if used non lethally, certain items might end up killing the target anyway (explosives being an example, or headshot with gun), with more dangerous weapons having higher risk of doing so. Bit wary of this, as don't want to substantially reduce the player's weapon choices if going non lethal. Perhaps have misunderstood, but not sure about the idea of player giving medical treatment to downed criminals - it's an interesting idea, and have never heard of it before, so that's a plus, but it would require some very fundamental changes to add.

[Daithi]

Found issue causing grenades to be counted as non lethal. Fixed!

[ushas]

Never heard of x-com? Well, I guess aliens != criminals.

Anyway, not married to the idea. Probably not even viable one if requires fundamental changes. Was thinking how to deal with puzzlement of lethal mode - not being lethal at all until it's the last hit. So the risk to put a unit on 'destined to die if downed' list is just one possibility, calling it internal bleeding is merely an example of implementation. 

Naturally I would imagine being killed as default and if players want talk with subjects, be good and such, they need to be more careful. But you've turned the table and offered players a peaceful safe-space (mode), in a way it makes one more responsible for his actions. Intrigued, as it forces to think differently, makes me look more critically into the implementation, if that makes a sense. Not sure if contributing anything though, so don't hesitate to tell stop babbling.

Idea is that even if used non lethally, certain items might end up killing the target anyway (explosives being an example, or headshot with gun), with more dangerous weapons having higher risk of doing so. Bit wary of this, as don't want to substantially reduce the player's weapon choices if going non lethal.

Certain weapons (explosives) or approaches (lethal, headshot) not being a gentleman's way to fight? That's interesting indeed

The question was how exactly this chance works. For example, could throwing a grenade which wouldn't normally eliminate the target (eg. 6pt damage vs. 20hp enemy) kill him on the spot if it rolls right, or does it work as the lethal mode again - only the last hit counts (this time with a random chance at play)? Btw. the lethal-mode way makes it much easier to use at higher difficulties with such high HP increase of enemies.