Flamethrower Mechanics

[Gazz]

That would be a pretty good start.

A "fuel" rating for each tile because even painted concrete can burn... briefly.
It's probably not in the design specs of the tile editor so adding this value would take some effort...

In addition to that, each "application" of flamethrower adds 1-2 turns to that number.
Given that Chris' design includes a density, too, the center of the effect might burn a turn longer, having the cinematic effect of the fire shrinking, then going out.

[Black_Legion]

I think may being near an enemy flamethrower burst (either the short or long variant) should cause some kind of morale penalty or check. Being burned to death is a reasonably bad way to die and we have an ingrained fear to flame weapons. If I remember right flamers were just as useful for their bunker busting and morale dampening factors. I don't know about the Alien's psychology but they may have this fear as well.

Essentially using a flamer or suffering an attack from one should have a chance to panic a unit( in the case of using it on an alien, that alien may panic, not the wielder or his squad-mates) , in which they make their way away from the attacker or just are frozen in fear. This could make up for having relatively short range to other weapons, and giving them some added oomph... if shooting a searing stream of fire and fuel already wasn't enough.

A possible scenario could see a group of greenies(rookie squad-mates) be ambushed by a flamer wielding alien that could see the whole group (or at least the survivors) panic and either freeze or run. Either way you would have to move to support them fast if you want at least some survivors. Any thoughts?

[Sathra]

Hmm, I did bring up earlier that being on fire causing a major morale penalty (above that from being injured). Could have them cause morale damage as well as normal damage.

Having them cause panic from near misses might be too much though. They're already pretty good weapons for close quarters (not too close though).

[anotherdevil]

True. Maybe only morale loss for those directly affected. And then at the loss of life due to external combustion, any ally within a certain area of the dead guy takes a morale hit? Sort of like the reverse of the officers moral boost perhaps?

[MickeyC]

hmmm, this is a tough one, yes throwers are a weapon made to inspire fear as well as damage, so for realism there should be a certain morale hit for people close to a flame burst and definitely to anyone hit by flame, but as far as game mechanics go it may be a bit much to try and add a zone of negative morale. If it could be done then something else to consider would be adding a secondary zone whereby allied troops would get a bonus to morale should they be in the area when an enemy gets torched ...

[Sathra]

Shouldn't be needed if Xenonauts keeps X-com's morale stuff (I think it does). If you kill enemies, you gain morale for everyone. If troops on your own side die, you lose morale. Death morale loss is global, "nearby trooper" boost is local (rookies give a penalty, but every other rank gives a bonus. The higher ranks give more).

Might need to balance it a bit better for the aliens though. One of the oddities of the larger ships was that if you manage to kill about half or more without losing any yourself, they'd panic en masse. Gets amusing when you consider the minimum alien bravery was 80.

[Gauddlike]

The global morale loss could be much smaller while making each death generate a negative morale aura, in the same way an officer has a positive effect.
Small effect to everyone with the full effect only to those nearby.
That way you could make death by flamethrower give a one time bonus to the "death aura" without overly affecting enemies outside of a small distance.
Adding similar effects to certain things (like death by Chryssalid in X-Com) would be possible.
The death aura could also be bigger for higher ranks.
Hmm I suppose you could do the same with positive bonuses, centred on the trooper who got the kill or the nearest officer for example.

[Elydo]

Another concern is how the flamethrower tier will progress. I understand that we need to figure out how it works in the fisrt place, but that seems to be well in hand and I agree with the thoughts, so I'm going to put problem two out there. How will research and successive weapon tiers improve or provide a replacement for the flamethrower?

There isn't much point to working out a system of viable fluid mechanics for a realistic interpretation of how a flamethrower works, then move up a tier and develop a weapon that doesn't use those mechanics. At the same time, only having it exist in the first tier of starting weapons, then have no improvements makes it either a niche weapon to be discarded after the start, or overpowered AT the start.

Of course, this could have been resolved already, I've been away a while, so I'll wait to voice my own ideas to see if it has. I can see in the OP a section on such matters, but no discussion, thus...

[Sathra]

We haven't really been told. Just that there are higher-tech-level versions of the flamethrower.

[Elydo]

But surely how they're implemented depends on the original mechanics. Or, if they don't, and are just subsequent niche weapons that fill a specialist battlefield role, is there much point to coding a specific mechanics system for only one weapon that won't be used very much?

All of the other weapons have specific assigned functions; shotgun for close range, precision rifle for long range anti-armour etc. Even the rocket launcher; high damage AoE. And they can all upscale in line with their function; laser rifles, photon burst shotgun, hell you could even have a bomb-pumped laser warhead for the launcher (part of me is laughing hysterically). But the flamethrower doesn't fit into an assigned role, what function it'll fill on the battlefield is in part dependent on the mechanics under discussion here. But that role needs to be known before upscaling it to subsequent tiers can be conceptualised.

Or alternatively, the flamethrower upgrades can be tied to a different research path from the rest of the weapon tiers. My point is that requiring the breakthrough into laser weaponry is only relevant to the flamethrower if the improvement to the flamethrower requires laser technology to enact. If it's, say, a fuel mix alteration or materials improvement to make it lighter or smaller, it'd be more in line with research into ufo propulsion or armour.

Or, and I suggest this hesitantly, we could just go to the fuel-air cloud-that-is-then-ignited model. That would scale to the higher weapon tiers better: plasma venting for instance. Or (wince) some sort of emitted prismatic cloud that then refracts a high-powered laser.