MickeyC Posted October 24, 2011 Share Posted October 24, 2011 Send your men into a crash site with a water pistol full of fuel and a matchbox and I don't think they will thank you. Perhaps not, but if they came through unscathed with an empty pistol and one match left to light the cigar at the end of the mission, they would be pretty badass Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black_Legion Posted October 24, 2011 Share Posted October 24, 2011 Aye. The limitations... The "Xenonauts Flamer" would be the first ever to model it's tactical role of attacking bunkers/fortifications/cover by attacking and filling a volume of space. That is simply unprecedented. This is what I'm most excited about if this comes to fruition. It's a horrific weapon to use, especially given the damage it causes to tissue, lungs, and morale of anyone taking the brunt of it. Then you have to take into account the other guys have the same thing but smaller and with plasma/ other fuels, devastating ray guns, and high-tech armor. You have some poor bastard with a fuel bomb strapped to his back. I do like the idea of a temporary zone around the area attacked by a flamer that inflicts morale damage. Essentially hardened troopers could weather the storm, given they survive... rookies on the other hand would break very quickly. I think a system like this is already in place as the death of rookies doesn't have much of an effect on veteran troops. also since its a flame weapon I think this applies: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazz Posted October 24, 2011 Author Share Posted October 24, 2011 I do like the idea of a temporary zone around the area attacked by a flamer that inflicts morale damage. Essentially hardened troopers could weather the storm, given they survive... rookies on the other hand would break very quickly. I think a system like this is already in place as the death of rookies doesn't have much of an effect on veteran troops. Nothing at all is confirmed about how the morale system works. It could go by deathcount only, could depened on how many enemies / friendlies are within X tiles, could depend on unit health or not, could depened on the health of nearby units or not, could sustain "damage" proportional to the damage taken by nearby units... Without any base it's really hard to speculate on the way how a flamer attack could affect morale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black_Legion Posted October 24, 2011 Share Posted October 24, 2011 True, but I think that was how morale worked in the original. If you lost a high ranked trooper like a Commander or Lt. then most of your other units would panic. Of course we don't really know how the morale system is structured so everything is open to interpretation. We will have to wait and see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gauddlike Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Looking back at the info posted by Chris I have to wonder how the flamethrower will actually work with cover. It looks like hitting an object would make the fire splash back away from it rather than hitting anyone behind it. If that does happen then it makes the flamethrower worse against entrenched enemies than other weapons. Others have the chance to penetrate the cover and hit the target. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 I think you're misreading it. The note in the file says structural walls, which are the man-high non-cover walls. Chris has previously mentioned that flamers ignore cover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Perhaps when it does splash, it automatically splashes in all directions (essentially splashing up and over the cover). That way it could go over cover, but something like a tall wall is too high, and it ends up just splashing back on itself? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gauddlike Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 That depends on your definition of cover. Are there only 100% size and 50% size objects? If not then what is the cut off for sizes that are ignored by flamers? Hitting one type of object but ignoring another similar looking object would be a little counter intuitive. A flamethrower would not necessarily hit the area on the far side of a waist high wall. Especially not at range. I am curious about whether the flame would hit the cover object and if it takes into account any other walls of the same size that may be between the firer and target. I assume the flamethrower will mimic a ballistic arc to go over objects and that may explain it. That would pretty much prevent any damage on areas between the two points however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 I think it fires a jet that blooms into the blast. Causing damage the whole way (and the inherent risk of blasting yourself). Going by that, only the jet section of the shot would have a risk of striking cover (since the bloom would just fly all over everything), but that might be messy to code. So, ignore all cover-type objects (everything that has cover makers attached to it), everything else stops the shot and the bloom generates from that point. Although, having said that, what Chris might have meant was that the bloom effect is what ignores cover. The bloom would be generated from whatever strike point the jet reaches (either wall, unit, or cover-type object), but the bloom itself isn't constrained in shape, damage or hit chance by cover-type objects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Flames have a 50% chance of disappearing and turning to smoke each turn, and smoke has a 50% chance of dissipating each time. The fire mechanics we will implement in the final game is that any flammable tile hit by a flamer is instantly destroyed and replaced with a fire, and any flammable tile that ends a turn with a flame tile next to it will automatically catch fire too. Yes, the graphics need an update, we're aware of that. Morale penalties - yes, this is a possibility. Bring it up in the beta testing part of the game, I think. I'll write a wiki post with the current morale values and how the system works, because I imagine that's something that we'll want to polish up some more too. There will be alien weapons that behave like flamethrowers, so you'll get flamer upgrades later in the game that behave the same way. Re: cover, the flamer ignores cover. It only bounces back off structural walls, but will ignore cover (waist high) walls for propogation purposes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Wait...so there's a chance we could end up with huge firestorms raging across a map? I can't decide if that horrifying or awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gauddlike Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Wait...so there's a chance we could end up with huge firestorms raging across a map?I can't decide if that horrifying or awesome. Why not both? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 That's part of the problem. It really should be one slightly more than the other. On consideration though, I'll take a third option: Hilarious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Yeah, but it depends on what is classed as flammable. Stuff made of wood and cardboard would be, but vegetation grass isn't flammable per se. I guess we might have to divide tiles into 'flammable' and 'burnable' with the latter being destroyed if hit by fire, but not actively spreading the fire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gauddlike Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 That makes more sense. Plus no more aliens hiding in corn fields... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazz Posted October 25, 2011 Author Share Posted October 25, 2011 I guess we might have to divide tiles into 'flammable' and 'burnable' with the latter being destroyed if hit by fire, but not actively spreading the fire. I think it would help a lot if a tile could not just be one or the other but had a numerical "fuel" value. A higher fuel value tile creates fire that burns longer than one turn or creates fire with a lower chance to go out each turn. It also catches fire easily - both from fire attacks or fire in adjacent tiles. If the burning adjacent tile has a high fuel value and burns for a long time, the lower value tile has more consecutive chances to catch fire. So more "resistant" materials may catch fire eventually but they would not spread it "like wildfire". Code-wise it makes no difference if you use an integer or boolean but the integer offers a lot more flexibility in tuning the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elydo Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 I like the flammable/burnable difference, that would add quite a bit of gameplay consideration to the system, allowing you to predict how a fire could spread better, or vice versa be surprised by one if you don't take enough care. Opens to possibility of starting a fire to have it spread and be an environmental hazard intentionally, which I like. The idea of tiles having 'fuel' values is also pretty interesting for much the same reasons. It could get complicated pretty fast though. Not just tiles but also object upon the tiles would have to have values as well. Are other sources of incendiary potential under consideration? Rounds, grenades of either thrown or launched variety, jump jet exhaust (wouldn't that make the jump mechanic more fun)? Alien fire breath? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 Probably better to keep it just to incendiary weapons and explosives. And yeah, fuel rating doesn't sound too bad. Thumbs up from me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black_Legion Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 Probably better to keep it just to incendiary weapons and explosives.And yeah, fuel rating doesn't sound too bad. Thumbs up from me. The fuel rating could lead to some intriguing "story" like encounters, besides just working as a fun mechanic (of which I heartily approve). Possible scenarios (maybe for modders) include needing to breach a building with a gas leak/ alien supply ship that has been damaged. Most of the terrain inside would have a high fuel rating representing volatile chemicals or gases dispersed in the air. One wayward flame and BOOM, the facility you were trying to capture, and anyone unfortunate enough to be inside is... well dead. Now the building wouldn't blow up per se, but it would become unpassable as it is consumed by flames. I like the fact that flamethrowers will negate at least some forms of cover, making their functional use much closer to its true functionality. The reflecting from walls should also help it fill up the "volume" of enclosed spaces quite well. I wonder if the calculations involved could have unbounded recursion though. Flames reflect off wall A to wall B which reflect to Wall C which reflects to wall A... thus creating a spinning vortex of fire. Potentially very fun and deadly but I assume there is a degradation mechanic added to the number of times it can reflect? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathra Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 Would make the gasworks a fun building sub-map. I don't think it actually reflects, its probably more that each blast-shape has a set number of 'tiles affected', and the game rearranges them if it can't generate the full shape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MickeyC Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 oh my word! What a fun little discussion has been had while I was at work. Am loving the flammable/burnable distinction and also the fuel value ideas, certainly could lead to some very interesting issues when trying to navigate a battlefield, particularly if a fire is 'racing' towards some accidentally discarded heavy explosives ... I'm looking at you Sathra ... But yes would be very interesting if a spreading fire could set of secondary explosions, and for realism's sake, let's say that this would include certain map items and not just explosives brought onto the map by one side or the other, much fun much fun much fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazz Posted October 26, 2011 Author Share Posted October 26, 2011 flammable/burnable distinction and also the fuel value ideas The "fuel level" concept actually includes the "flammable/burnable" concept... only with a greater degree of freedom for the map design. Something with a fuel level of zero won't burn. Ever. FL 1 is very hard to get burning and any fire that would be started, goes out quickly. FL 6 would burn for quite a while and if an adjacent is on fire, it would spread to the FL 6 tile very easily. That's how you can model the desired propagation of fire but by including "fire breaks" in your map design, you could guarantee that it doesn't spread across the entire map. Fire would still be useable in FL 1-2 areas but it would mostly smolder a bit without propagating very far, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gauddlike Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 Giving different aliens a fuel level would also be quite fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazz Posted October 26, 2011 Author Share Posted October 26, 2011 LOL! A both wonderful and disturbing idea! =) It would actually make sense in light of this concept... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherdevil Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 Damn those mysterious red barrels all farmers seem to keep lying around! =p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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