How can I tell if a unit is ducking or standing?

Question

I have a very poor short term memory (4 concussions, yaaaay), so sometimes I forget if I've given an order to a unit to change its stance in the past or not. I can't always tell based on the pose of the unit because when it's mostly behind the cover of a full height wall, it's difficult to see.

Is there any trick or shortcut or some sort of unit status window I'm missing, or is it actually just a matter of remembering?

Answer

There is a little icon next to the weapon the unit is using. If it is there they are ducking, if not they are standing.

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How do I gift my extra copy of Frozen Synapse that I received as part of the Humble Bundle?

Question

I recently received the Humble Frozen Synapse (And Frozenbyte) Bundles, and would like to gift my new copy of Frozen Synapse to someone. I activated all of the codes into Steam, but it doesn't seem to recognize that I own two copies of the game in the gifts list.

How can I gift this?

Answer

You can't. You only get two copies of Steam games in very specific cases.

I would have said that you shouldn't have used the key for it if you wanted to gift it, but that's not allowed either (though who knows if it's enforced).

This is all confirmed by the page where you retrieved the Steam keys:

Note: Steam will not provide you with extra giftable copies of any bundle games you already own prior to redeeming your bundle key(s).

...

Note: all keys are for your personal use only.

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How do I gift my extra copy of Frozen Synapse that I received as part of the Humble Bundle?

Question

I recently received the Humble Frozen Synapse (And Frozenbyte) Bundles, and would like to gift my new copy of Frozen Synapse to someone. I activated all of the codes into Steam, but it doesn't seem to recognize that I own two copies of the game in the gifts list.

How can I gift this?

Answer

You can't. You only get two copies of Steam games in very specific cases.

I would have said that you shouldn't have used the key for it if you wanted to gift it, but that's not allowed either (though who knows if it's enforced).

This is all confirmed by the page where you retrieved the Steam keys:

Note: Steam will not provide you with extra giftable copies of any bundle games you already own prior to redeeming your bundle key(s).

...

Note: all keys are for your personal use only.

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How to determine shotgun range in Frozen Synapse?

Question

Guessing wrong about whether or not a unit is within shotgun range has disastrous results. Is there anything in the UI that shows you what weapons range is, maybe something like the line-of-sight v hotkey?

Answer

Yes, you can use the v line of sight hot key to work out if your shotgun unit is in range.

While holding the v key, you can move the mouse to a point to test if it is in range. If it is in range, the line from the selected point to the mouse pointer will be shown as a dashed line:

If the point is not in range, then the line will appear slightly wider with a diagonal pattern on it:

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How does targeting work with spray fire?

Question

I had a hard time thinking of a title for this one that briefly encompassed my question.

If my unit using a weapon with bullets (vs. explosives; I know rockets and grenades kill everything in their radius), can the bullets damage a unit that is not the target? For example, if 2 enemies are in a line and I tell my unit to ignore one, can he still "accidentally" kill the ignored one? If one of my units is in the line of fire, either blocking the enemy unit or behind it, will my friendly bullets kill him?

Answer

The only friendly fire in Frozen Synapse is from your own rockets/grenades. Machine gunners and shotgunners cannot harm friendly units. I'll look through my video logs for something to upload to youtube, but not sure if I have that exact scenario.

As for targeting one enemy and killing another (ie one behind him), I'm 99% sure you cannot kill another enemy unit with "stray" fire. I have a match open and am playing the future turn with a unit directly behind another unit of mine under fire, and he is completely safe. If the future turn ends up like that, I'll upload the video to youtube.

As of now, I don't have any video evidence of either, but will look for it/test for it. But, I'm almost positive that aside from rockets/grenades, units will only kill the enemy unit that they are targeting, not any nearby units, whether they are friend or foe.

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Can the server choice in Frozen Synapse be changed at any time?

Question

I just created an account and I'm being asked to pick a server to connect to. Is this choice as binding as it would be in (say) League of Legends (airtight containers where you can't see anything of what's outside and you can't switch at a later time), or as free as it is on (say) Quake 3 (where you can join and leave servers at your heart's desire and it doesn't really matter)?

Also, why is there no online count for the 'ORIGINAL' server? Is it, in any way, special or something?

Answer

You get asked this question every time you sign in. Your account is not bound to a server.

In practice, everyone ever is always on the UK server, really.

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Where are my Frozen Synapse save files stored?

Question

In lieu of proper Steam Cloud support, I'm trying to set up Frozen Synapse to store its save files in Dropbox. What files or folders do I need to sync between my two (Mac) computers to achieve this?

(For bonus points: What about on Windows? Are the save files compatible between platforms?)

Answer

On the Steam version on Windows the files are in:

%SteamPath%\steamapps\common\frozen synapse\psychoff

In OS X, the files are in:

/Users/[Username]/Library/Application Support/FrozenSynapse/Psychoff

And are all the files beginning with spSave (I have three of this form).

^{Source - FS Forum post answered by a Site Admin}

I don't know if the files are cross-platform compatible.

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How exactly does cover work in Frozen Synapse?

Question

How close do you have to be to cover for it to count as being "behind cover"? It can't be just the presence of cover at any point between you and your opponent, or else it would be meaningless because you would both have cover at once.

So how close do you have to be to cover for actually count as cover? Or is it that if you're close enough to cover it doesn't count as cover for someone else.

Ridiculous case: 2 machine gunners across the map from each other shooting through a window equidistant from each of them. Who has cover? Let's say the window is 1 pixel closer to the red gunner. Who has cover in that case?

Answer

When a unit is behind cover, the amount of time between when an enemy unit spots the covered unit and when the enemy unit starts firing is increased. If, under normal circumstances, the two units would have equal time between spotting and firing, the unit behind cover will have the advantage and will win the engagement.

Whether or not a unit is considered behind cover depends on both units' distance from that cover. If the cover is more than two thirds the distance away from a unit, that unit will take longer to start firing.

Consider the following: a green machine gunner and a red machine gunner have spotted each other at the same time with cover somewhere between them.

  R----------|--------------------G      Red has cover  R---------------|---------------G      neither have cover  R--------------------|----------G      Green has cover

And in the case of two objects of cover or wide cover...

  R--|          ~          |------G      Red has cover  R----|          ~          |----G      neither have cover  R------|          ~          |--G      Green have cover

Note that the only distance that matters is that between the unit and the closest edge of cover. I don't believe anything between that closest edge and the unit being fired upon makes affects the outcome.

I deduced this from testing within the game using the level editor. In cases where neither unit has cover, green (team 1) always wins. I hope this is limited to the level editor.

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Any tips for dealing with AI rockets effectively?

Question

The AI's use of rockets in this game is infuriating! I often find that I have to just keep trying things that seem relatively absurd to avoid being blown to bits or hang out in an open area (where I'm easy prey for machine gunners/ and snipers) to avoid getting killed by them.

Any tips on how to deal with those pesky rockets?

Answer

Receiving rocket fire is always a pain, but against the AI (in the single player campaign) it is particularly awkward because the AI usually outnumbers you with a lot of supporting units.

A few bits of advice against rockets are:

• Try and eliminate rocketeers early, they are very dangerous (as you've presumably noticed).

• Be afraid of walls and cover, they are murderous.

• Rocketeers cannot hurt a unit stood out of explosion radius of objects, ie a unit out in the open.

• Stand back from cover. If you're 20m away (or whatever is out of blast radius) from cover and the enemy is 100m away then you still get the cover bonus.
  How exactly does cover work in Frozen Synapse? is useful for more information here.

• Rocketeers can only fire about every ~5 seconds - so once per turn - if they fire at the end of one turn you have several seconds to charge them down at the start of the next.

• Units can shoot through explosions, so if you stand back from a wall that gets hit your units may be able to fire at the rocketeer through the newly created gap.

• Units can run through explosions, which can be useful for catching people off-guard. The damage is only for the instant the rocket hits, the visible explosion has no effect. You can create a path through a wall (that you expect to be destroyed) using a Shift+Click when placing a waypoint, if it's not destroy the unit will just "stop" in the wall.

And I'm afraid that's all I can offer, the rest is down to you finding a way to out-manoeuvre and out-smart your opponent. But do note that the single player campaign is intentionally difficult. At least I've seen the developers reference this on their Twitter stream a few times before, I'll hunt for an example of this later, if I've got the time.

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In dark matches, do I “see” killed enemies that are out of my line of sight?

Question

Imagine for a moment that - in a dark match - I fire a rocket, which then successfully kills an enemy unit, but does so completely outside the line of sight for any of my units.

Am I informed of this kill?
Do I see that unit as dead, or "last seen at ..."?
Can I spot the body later to have the unit classified as down from then on?

Answer

Yes.

Even in darkness, you see all projectiles and deaths.

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Shooting at cover with a rocket launcher

Question

While looking at some replays, I have seen soldiers manage to hit cover - blocks and windows - using a rocket launcher. However, when I shoot at cover with a rocket it sails over the top and hits whatever is behind it.

Obviously, sometimes you want one result, sometimes the other, so how do I order a rocket solider to explicitly shoot at cover or over cover?

Answer

If your unit is ducking when it fires, the rocket will hit cover, while if your unit is standing while firing, it will fire over the cover.

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