(v13.01) First impression of C4

[Max_Caine]

Needs more bang.

That's all I can say about it, really. I really appreciate that it's cheap in AP to set up and throw. In fact, I appreciate that I can throw it at all! If I couldn't, then it would it would become special-case weaponry that I would only take out for specfic mission types. As the aliens don't have vehicles and the alien outer hull is invulnerable (for engine reasons, I understand), there aren't that many reasons to prefer it over a rocket launcher which has a longer range, does more damage and has a bigger blast even with the basic frag rocket. So give it more bang. More ohmph.

[Gorlom]

I thought it was for gameplay reasons and that it wouldn't make sense that you needed air to air weaponry to damage the hull in aircombat, but would be able to use a rifle or machinegun to destroy the hull in ground combat.

or what do you mean by engine reasons?

[Khall]

I'm not really sure what role it is supposed to be. Right now it just seems like a grenade with a timer, but should it not be more like a breaching charge, with high damage, low radius and low thowing accuracy (encouraging you to set up by dropping it beside a wall).

[Xitax]

I don't get the point of C4. Is it just a substitute grenade?

IRL, C4 without some kind of containment wouldn't do enough damage. That's why it's used only for demolition. You have to put it inside or between something or else the blast will just disperse without doing any damage.

EDIT: I suppose the shock wave would be lethal at very short range, but since C4 requires an actual detonator and not a fuse I don't think it would be useful in a tactical way. Claymore mines, or something like that, would be pretty useful however.

Edited August 5, 2012 by Xitax

[Jean-Luc]

I imagine that without the ability to destroy ufo hulls C4 isn't very useful. It really shouldn't be a grenade substitute and the only purpose that remains is building demolition which is very, very situational and can already be achieved by other weapons (though perhaps not as efficiently).

Would be better if it had a proximity setting (along with the timer) or even a manual detonation option but I dunno.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Jean-Luc

[Max_Caine]

Gorlom, don't you remember being part of this discussion for high explosives? There was a post from Chris on page 4 on alien hulls there.

Now that we have collapsing buildings, one value I see in C4 charges is to be able to rapidly sweep buildings by having a demo guy set enough charges on load-bearing walls the thing collapses in on itself, killing any aliens who are impertinent enough to hang around on upper floors.

EDIT: And there's alien bases. While alien hulls might be invincible, with a powerful enough demo charge, I can't imagine the walls and doors in alien bases will be the same.

[Gauddlike]

So what have people used C4 for so far?

Is there any specific role it should fit in to that it doesn't at the moment?

[Gorlom]

Gorlom, don't you remember being part of this discussion for high explosives? There was a post from Chris on page 4 on alien hulls there.

I think that is the very post I as referring to.. Where does it say anything about engine issues? All I see is "too many tiles" and "doesn't make sense to destroy with bullets when it needs air to air weapons in air combat."

[Gauddlike]

I think he was classing the abundance of tiles as an engine issue.

Damn you tiles *shakes fist*.

[Leonatus]

While i can understand UFOs being indestructable because of some game engine/balance issue or plain laziness/lack of ressources the background explanation is just dumb.

It's not like anti air weapons are all that strong to begin with. Certainly the real world stuff like Sidewinders and the basic machine guns are nothing to write home about and UFOs are being shot down with these all the time.

So if they can (obviously) damage UFOs a pack of C4 or a rocket launcher with armour piercing warheads would abolutely be able to affect the alien hulls in a meaningful way.

Games like these often require suspension of disbelief in many ways. We can take one more. Although it was quite fun in the old game to create backdoors with fusion bombs.

Leo

[thothkins]

I used the fusion bomb back door a little sparingly to be honest. It just felt a bit unfair. After all the Ethereals didn't send a blaster bomb into my Skyranger on turn one, so I figured we had an unwritten agreement there.

[Gauddlike]

I don't see why it should be easy for a hand held weapon, even one with an AP warhead, to make a man sized hole in the hull.

Yeah sure they might punch fist or head sized holes, but to consistently make holes large enough to walk through?

The massive damage to the hull on crashed craft is more than likely caused by impact with a medium sized planet at high speed, or detonation of the insanely powerful engines inside the hull which is probably not set up to contain those sorts of forces within it.

Air to air missiles are only a small part of the carnage.

It's not like anti air weapons are all that strong to begin with. Certainly the real world stuff like Sidewinders and the basic machine guns are nothing to write home about and UFOs are being shot down with these all the time.

Forgot to add that the Soviet RPG-7 has a maximum 10lb warhead while the sidewinder (smallest missile used in the game) has a 22lb or 25lb warhead while the Aim-54 which has similarities to the avalanche has a 125lb warhead, slightly more likely to leave a dent.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Gauddlike

[Gorlom]

Leonatus if C4 and rockets can damage structures so can the rifles and pistols... and even the melee attacks. How would you feel about the hull buckling and being destroyed under fire from a pistol for a few rounds? Or by being poked with the stun rod enough times? ok maybe not the stun rod but melee attacks with the butt of the rifle is planned so destroying it with the back of a rifle would be possible.

[Leonatus]

Leonatus if C4 and rockets can damage structures so can the rifles and pistols... and even the melee attacks. How would you feel about the hull buckling and being destroyed under fire from a pistol for a few rounds? Or by being poked with the stun rod enough times? ok maybe not the stun rod but melee attacks with the butt of the rifle is planned so destroying it with the back of a rifle would be possible.

Huh, yeah, we are talking game engine here, are we not? I hope we are, otherwise it's going to be hard to talk if we can't agree over explosives bringing more destruction than 9mm bullets and fists. That's why in mining people use dynamite instead of kicking the rock to gravel.

If we are talking game engine then I already agreed to let it fly. So the engine doesn't support different damage types to let stuff withstand bullets (even lots of them) but give way to higher tier weapons.

That's an ok reason to give.

Leo

[catmorbid]

Oh man, that's why you want to have armor rating for tiles as well, to allow varied effects like this. And no, health isn't enough, you can't produce the same effect as with armor rating and health - considering armor rating as an absolute threshold instead of some percentage reduction. Nope, that wouldn't work either.

[Gauddlike]

It would be nice for tiles to be able to use armour for this.

I don't mean physically but to use armour values from a file in the same way xenonauts do currently.

So you point concrete wall tiles to the tileresist file.

the concretewall entry would then tell it that that piece has high resists against plasma but low against explosives etc.

You could easily alter every piece of scenery in the game to tweak its reaction to certain weapons rather than just altering hitpoints for each individually.

Might slow the game down to check that file for each piece of terrain but it has to check the individual spectre now anyway...