Rifleman Archive
Thread: Conceal shot?
No, not at the moment. We're hoping that it does in the future as it would make sense for a sniper to use those sorts of tactics.
Empearian wrote:
Does mask scent, or Ranger Concealment help I dont want to train it if it doesnt
Empearian wrote:
Does mask scent, or Ranger Concealment help I dont want to train it if it doesnt
Keep in mind the way Concealshot and creature/NPC responses work. You can usually go prone at long range and get off 3 to 6 shots (depending on your speed) before the creature/NPC will attack you. This is because, you will pickup a TEF (Temporary Enemy Flag) as soon as you attack, making you a threat, but the creature still has to detect you before it can attack. Your range and your posture will affect how quickly the creature/NPC will detect you. The lower your posture and the greater the range, the harder it is for the creature to detect you. Thus, if you are prone and at 50m - 60m, you will be harder to detect than if you are standing and within 10m of the target. The harder to detect you are, the more shots you will get off before the creature responds. However, for shots other than Concealshot, if you do not kill it first, the creature will eventually automatically detect you and respond.
For Concealshot, all that happens is it prevents the creature from detecting you simply because you are shooting it. It does not prevent the creature from detecting you for other reasons. For instance, if the creature wanders too close and would normally detect you because it was that close, it will still do so and respond. As mentioned in a previous post, if you miss twice, it will detect you and respond. Also as mentioned elsewhere, any shot can cause a random bleed. If this occurs, when the bleed ticks off, the bleed will cause the target to detect you. If the creature is already aware of you when you start shooting, it will attack.
Therefore, Mask Scent and Conceal will help in that they will allow you to get into position undetected. At some point, the Devs decided that Mask Scent would break as soon as combat started. I have not had Mask Scent for a while, and do not have /Conceal, so I do not know if this is still the case, but I suspect that it is. So while it will not likely help prevent them from detecting you once the combat starts, it will allow you to get into position undetected, which means you will have a better chance of starting out undetected.
Also are there any bio-clothes that can add to our conceal chance?
Cheers.
LyteFoot wrote:
Mask scent doesn't break in combat, it only breaks if a creature "detects" you "despite your attemptsat camoflage". I often fight and clear a whole layer with mask scent in place, both in up close and ranged situations. I've had situations where I had to run in and stim a brawler friend, continue shooting the creature I'm engaged with, and have another creature 10 meters away ignore me.
Just last night I was running the squill cave, not the best place for ranged combat. I tapped several squill to agro them to me for a lower level friend to get xp off of. Even with 5 squill pounding on me I had mask scent hold once.
Is there a macro that will do conceal shot twice then peace? I've tried /concealShot; /concealShot; /peace and it goes directly to the peace command.
I think that everybody makes this mistake. I certainly did. We mistakenly assume the macro processor will shoot a /Concealshot, wait for the first shot to finish, then fire the Concealshot, then wait for the second shot to finish, then execute the /Peace. But that is not the way the macro processor works.
/Concealshot (or any /specialofchoice) does not mean to the macro processor, shoot this special. It means add this special to the combat queue.Since thecombat queue is a separate process from the macro processor, that only takes milliseconds for the macro processor to execute. So a macro with 15 specials will queue up all 15 specials and end long before the specials actually execute in the queue, most likely before the first special actually even fires.
Now consider what /Peace does. Peace ends combat (for you, not necessarily your target) and clears the combat queue. This keeps you from continuing to shoot and allows you to do things like /healdamage without having to waitfor the queued specials to fire.
So what your macro will do is what you have told it to do, queue up two concealshots, then immediately clear them from the queue and stop fighting.
The way around this is figure out how long it takes for your two concealshots to fire and put in an appropriate /Pause to allow both shots to fire. Then do the /Peace. This works because the /Pause does not go into the combat queue, but works on the macro processor saying,"don't do anything for this amount of time." Therefore, the /Pause before the /Peace keeps the /Peace from queueing to the combat queue, allowing the shots to actually fire before the /Peace clears the combat queue and ends combat.
For instance, if you are at Rifles Special Abilities 1 and are using a 7.5 second T21, you would make your macro look something like this: /Concealshot;/Concealshot;/Pause 15;/Peace. This will queue up two Concealshots, wait 15 seconds, then do a Peace. Why 15? because at Rifles Special Abilities 1 with its +40 to Rifle Speed, it will take 13.5 seconds to fire Concealshot. Thus, the macro will queue the two Concealshots, and, assuming nothing else is going on, the first will fire almost immediately. 13.5 seconds later, the second Concealshot will fire. Then there will be another 13.5 second delay before the next special or Autofire will go off. Thus, as long as you do the /Peace sometime in that second 13.5 second period, you will have given sufficient time for both shots to have fired but not enough time for the second delay to expire. Having a pause somewhere in the 15 - 17 second range should give sufficient time for the second shot to have fired but execute the /Peace long before the delay for the second shot expires
However, keep in mind that if you change rifles, if your speed mod changes (e.g., you move up inRifle Special Abilities), or if you are lagging, you may need a different time for the /Pause. For instance, at Rifle Special Abilities 4, you would fire Concealshot with that same rifle at only 6.8 seconds per shot, meaning you would be ready to do another special or would start autofiring at 13.6 seconds from the start of the macro, which is 1.4 seconds before the /Peace takes effect with a 15 second pause. Thus you would need a shorter pause at that point.
Also, queuing up a second round of this macro before the delay from the previous shot expires will throw off the timing. For instance, you queue up this macro. The two Concealshots fire, and the /Peace goes into effect at the approprate time. However, you get ahead of yourself, and you fire off the macro right after the /Peace from the first one takes effect, you could, say, have 10 seconds left from the delay from the first go around. Thus, the second attempt will queue up 2 Concealshots, but the first one will not fire for 10 seconds. It fires, then 5 seconds later, the /Peace will execute, clearing the combat queue, which will keep the second Concealshot from executing.
You may also want to add a /Aim before each /Concealshot, because this will make it less likely that you will miss. However, you will need to adjust your /Pause accordingly since /Aim will add some time to the execution of both shots.
However, as long as you know the behavior, you can work with it.
Personally, I have not bothered going this route. My Concealshot macro simply queues up 3 Concealshots. I typically fire off a couple of those to get 6 or so Concealshots in the queue then watch the target and damage. If I miss twice, I hit peace immediately. Also since any shot can trigger a random bleed, if I see a bleed show up on the target's status, I wait for the target to aggro from the bleed then hit peace and switch to a faster, higher damage special. I also watch the target's range. If it starts getting too close or goes out of range, I will hit peace and setup again at the appropriate range. Conversely, if I do not miss, if I get no random bleed, or if the target stays in range, I just hit the button to queue up three more Concealshots before the last one queue fires, usually while there are two left in the queue. This prevents me from inadvertently autofiring, and I just keep doing this until the target is dead.
I find having a macro with three better than just hitting /Concealshot three times and not so many that the queue fills up too quickly. Anyway, it works for me.