OK, there just seems something wrong here. Before the new patches things seemed basically OK. Now there appears to be problems with combat.

1. Combat seems screwed up when the squad is fighting in and around rooms in buildings. I have to click on the mouse randomly more then once to get a movement. There is a irritating lag between when I command a move and if and when the member moves to the new location.

2. I have upgraded a couple of weapons above 5 (as was found available in the Santa Fe Springs from the new traders) but the squad does not seem to be fighting any better with either weapons or melee without numerous shots or hits from the melee weapons. The squads armor seems to be fairly descent, but firing even at a "jerk" with 3 armor I can NEVER get more then one or two shots in before I run out of AP. The members appear to be leveling up OK however.

3. For some reason the squad keeps getting spotted when they are to far away from the enemy and as a result I am forever having to move each one up costing enough AP that they can normally never attack after the relocation now. When I use the more powerful 7.62mm sniper rifle I can get a shot in or maybe two but, unlike before the newest patches even after 2 shots the jerk just keeps on ticking and I have to run a member with melee to finish the job, in which sometimes that isn't even enough. Sneaking up does not seem to fair to well either.

4. Fighting around rooms. In the hospital one melee member opens a curtain and finds a "jerk" and enters the room. NOW no matter what NO ONE can fight in the building. With the member face to face in the same room the restriction " out of site" or there about keeps coming up. The jerk can attack the member but even being at the foot of the bed they are not allowed to because of out of range (in melee). I checked to make sure that person was selected and not someone in the other room. Also I NEVER get the yellow grid marker no matter which member I select. I do get the blue grid however. So does that mean no fighting allowed in the hospital and if so why can the jerk fight my squad member and why does it seem only the Provost can shoot a gun in the room?

All I am saying is it is getting irritating to do the combats. It really gets boring when my squad of 7 face up to a larger group and it seems like they need to just about empty their entire ammo supply AND have to use melee to finish the job. It just is not right. I keep trying to use different tactics, but when a squad member takes long snip shots several times with no good result It just keeps getting "curiouser and curiouser". And I just about have canned the head shot trick as that pretty much NEVER seems to work!

The big one, why doesn't the yellow grid show up in the hospital building when in combat mode?

I went back into the game. It is noted that there are 4 occupied beds. However when all the rooms are checked that are only 2 occupied beds. Also, in the what appears to be a main surgical room the Doctor says close the curtain so know one sees the dead little girl but there is a full grown man laying there.

I'm pretty sure this won't help you to solve your issue, so my apologies, but when I enter this hospital, all I see is one bed being occupied, first on the left, by Tom IIRC, whos parents stood in lobby. Other beds are empty, and they were empty before patches.
Probably because I paid with "hot lead" for entry and disposed leather jerks right near radio tower first (and those were all leather jerks present inside city). So when I discussed this city with other people, I don't understand what the hell they are talking about, as I haven't seen those quests they mentioned.
In addition, those quests I have or had seems glitched, or not exactly working as intended. Maybe due to same reason - quick "force" resolution of occupation.

Thanks for the replies. To make it clear I really do like the game. And, I am not stopped from continuing on. I will have to look closer at why I have trouble doing in-building combat. Will move the camera around more and see what happens. I restarted the hospital scene again and this time stayed out of the room that the jerk was in but did talk with Tom. I just did no aggressive actions and left. I will continue on and try to figure out what the sweet spot is for using the sniper rifle. My character has a 10 for sniper rifles but still building other stats. I am off to two medically related quests and see what happens. The team does reasonably OK in combat with many foes but it just takes so long to bring down each one of them unfortunately, and it just seems to add up to a LOT of time trying to get through the larger combat situations.

Yeah, I think this game heavily relies on you getting the good stuff asap once you hit LA. There's a pretty nice sniper rifle you can get right away (can't recall the name offhand), and one of your Assault Rifle users should be able to get an AK-97 very early on as well. The issue with sniper rifles is they're just not as good as AR, but the one you get early has potential to do some very good damage per shot, so that will help a lot for that character.

I specced out 3 of my Rangers with Assault Rifles and all of them have 10 ranks in the weapon (and at this point they're all using AK-97s). My other Ranger has 10 in Sniper. I also have Pizepi with 9 or 10 in Energy Weapons (I think it's 10) and she's using the uber powerful Gamma Ray Blaster, which makes pudding out of heavily armored opponents, usually with one three-shot burst (she can easily do well over 200 damage to heavily armored opponents). I also have Rose whom I had started speccing with Sniper Rifles, but switched her to Energy Weapons as well. Finally, there's Lexicanum, whom I have using things like grenades and rocket launchers as well as SMGs (8 or 9 in that weapon). The SMG isn't that great, but he can be useful to finish off weakened enemies that have closed with the party.

For almost all party members, my attribute points at levels 10, 20, 30, 40 are dropped into Awareness for the improvement to Combat Initiative. This makes a huge difference, as you get to act before your opponents, and often get a couple turns before they can close with your party. Yeah, it often takes concentrated fire to bring down some of the mobs, since they have a lot of HPs, but make sure you have your weapons modded with as many mods as you can. I'd go for higher crit chance as much as possible. Range is also good, so try to strike a balance. But if you can crit about half the time, you'll find it makes an enormous difference in combat.

Hope that helps a bit. :)

TX,

I took a JPEG of your reply and will be looking for the weapons you mention as I get further in. It looks like I might do a little tweaking with Ranger abilities but at the moment they seem to be doing fine. If the Gamma Ray Blaster is the one out of AZ I think I missed my chance on that. Would have been nice to get that for Pizepi.

Yeah, you get it by turning in a toaster item to Mercaptain.

It could be glitch, not proficiency issue: currently I ran into Inglewood glitch (again (for third time)): upon shooting from afar game zooms out and then it turns into nearly impossible fight: I can't see where I'm aiming at, and even if chance to hit is shows as 100%, there are no hit registered. So I had to reload. Could be something similar - unfortunately game has technical issues. Ditto. Had to retrain my team after Ag Center, as all other guns beside sniper rifles turn out to be rather weak, and most importantly, short ranged. Plus shotguns have that odd spread cone, making them dangerous when there are allies or neutrails present. So Assault Rifles for lowly armoured enemies, Energy weapons for armoured cans. Sniper rifles - for NPCs. Endgame rifle works wonders.
The only problem all new players are going to have (and we too), is that one of patches removed traders' stock respawn, so you can't just re-enter location and stuck on good guns. At least I no longer can (not that I need that at the moment). I'd say that limits us even further, and forces us to spend time gambling on leveled loot chests. I want to play game, not trying to equip my team with uniform weapons.

To be honest, that approach inXile chose for weapon system rubs me wrong way. I don't ask to "nerf paladins", but seriously, I'd vote for Jagged alliance 2 approach, where guns had "recommended" range, and bullets flew farther, not just stopped at 13 metres, turning anyone using pistols, SMGs, and shotguns into sitting ducks. Where guns were more or less equal, so you could pick them up according your own preferences, not because one gun is tier above than another, like M24 and M40.
Or, better, follow New Vegas approach, where nobody rechambers M14 and M2 for .223.:D Where armour-piercing characteristic is tied to ammo, not gun, and where weights and weapon modifications makes more sense: flash suppessor - 4 pounds (flash suppressor for cannon?:)), flashlight - 3 pounds, high-cap magazine, adding just 4 rounds, generally overweight ammo...
But I got carried away, sorry. Just want this game to be flawless. Again, ditto. Some quests' flow, or some characters offers line about something they shouldn't,since my team shouldn't know about that yet. Guess that's the price for playing again system. :) FREEDOM! I think this game relies on equipment tiers much more than it should - strolling through LA with M16 and other AZ stuff was possible, but it took more than twice more time and ammo to drop same enemies.
SR indeed lose to AR of comparable level for most points, as long as AR allow you to make 2 shots per turn - sometimes it's more efficient, than single burst or aimed shot (those usually suck in terms of cumulative damage/accuracy). Being able to score burst and single shot (with AP saved from previous turn) couldn't be ignored either. So AR rules the waves. :) My first team, from first playthrough, lost a lot of points spent into wrong weapon skills, as it turns out those weapon types weren't as effective as they should be. But general spec was similar to yours. On second playthrough I even risked going into 4AR and it paid well in LA, as my team was tearing through basically anything.
As for recruited NPCs I used Rose, who, with her Intelligence, is easy to train into trainwreking combat monster, wielding anything (picked SR/EW on first playthrough, for second I chose AR and gave her more non-combat skills). Lexicanum is nearly as versatile, but retains same drawback as Rose.
Next teammate was Ralphie, who is realtively easy to train into sniper, but you had to invest into improving his AP first for endgame, he needs 9, IMHO.
Current last team member is Thomas, who went strictly into EW. He is best example why SMG sucks - he has least damage and kill count, starting from his recruitment, as he has to wait till enemies gather closer to team, and at this point most enemies died before they could get into his SMG range. And SMG aren't effective against armoured enemies.

As for grenades and launchers, I used them evenly, not hoarding at certain character's inventory. Sometimes it was better to use volley to bring LAW to the land, so to speak. :) Ditto. At times your team could "loop" their turns twice before enemies make one. That, plus long range advantage of AR/SR, and there will be few enemies to fire back, when it'll be their turn. Concentrated fire could work wonders when performed at edge of maximum range, outside of actual combat. This first volley could bring even very powerful enemies, like Meson cannon, down (or halfway there), before actual combat starts.
As for mods I'd went range mostly: tactical scope, long barrel - few more "grids" make a difference between enemy firing at you at the end of his turn, or simply standing there, ready for your team target practice. Of course, if encounter seems to be in close quarters it would make sense to swap long barrels for suppressors. Having Bow trinket on your "strike team" members also helps. Having laser sight greatly helps to fight penalties from short range, should it get really up close and personal. Flashlight is useful, but a way too heavy.
Just remember, with all that stuff on your guns, they will weight around 18 pound apiece. So plan accordingly - your team will need a lot of stuff to carry.