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Soldiers blow up with frightening regularly under plasma cannon fire! Help!


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OK, before I post this in "Most Annoying Bugs" I'm going ask if this by design or error. I've played the same terror mission three times now and the reason is that my guys seem to simply "blow up" in a massive explosion with frightening regularly when subjected to plasma cannon fire. I'm talking complete destruction here, nothing left but a burnt spot on the ground. I feel like Beatty at Jutland. Not only do they blow up but the explosion is so large that it takes out guys around them too. I believe that Chris mention something about C4 pack detonating when hit. Is this true? Is it by design? Because it's REALLY annoying. If it is by design I'm going to have rethink my loadouts.

Edited by StellarRat
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Hmm - I'm at risk of misreading you here. Is the problem that the plasma cannon is causing explosions, or that the explosions are very large?

Alien plasma cannons have a radius, so that part is intentional. But the radius is set to '2' in weapons_gc.xml and I'm sure the explosions I've seen are larger than that ('2' is the size of a grenade explosion, which is tiny). I always assumed that it was simply meant to be large, but thinking about it many of my soldiers were packing C4 as well. I was going to say that it might be overdamage damaging the C4 and therefore causing it to explode, but the Alien Plasma Cannon doesn't have that property set.

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Were the exploding soldiers carrying C4? C4 is meant to explode from damage if it is on the ground, not while in a soldier's pack.
They were carrying C4 in their packs, but I hadn't placed any. However, I can't be sure that I hadn't taken a casualty that would have left some on the ground with the body i.e. could have hit salvageable C4 laying on the ground. Edited by StellarRat
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Hmm - I'm at risk of misreading you here. Is the problem that the plasma cannon is causing explosions, or that the explosions are very large?

Alien plasma cannons have a radius, so that part is intentional. But the radius is set to '2' in weapons_gc.xml and I'm sure the explosions I've seen are larger than that ('2' is the size of a grenade explosion, which is tiny). I always assumed that it was simply meant to be large, but thinking about it many of my soldiers were packing C4 as well. I was going to say that it might be overdamage damaging the C4 and therefore causing it to explode, but the Alien Plasma Cannon doesn't have that property set.

No, this was no plasma cannon burst. It was a full on C4 sized explosion. Killed over half my team instantly.
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C4 shouldn't explode because of damage; it should be destroyed, but not explode. That's why we use C4; it's insanely stable. You'd destroy the detonator, and thus render the C4 useless, but you would not cause it to explode.
As far as I know all high explosives no matter how stable can be detonated by sufficiently powerful blast nearby. If that were not true you wouldn't able to detonate them at all and that wouldn't be very useful would it? :D That's what a detonator does, a small HE charge to detonate the main charge. The real question is does/should any alien weapons create enough over-pressure to cause the C4 to detonate. Apparently, Chris thinks it should. We could argue this from a balance prespective, but I think it is scientifically possible for it to happen. I guess my new SOP will be to pick up all C4 from dead bodies if I'm going to stay in the area. Edited by StellarRat
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No, that's not how C4 works. You can set it on fire but doesn't explode (which is basically like being hit with a plasma blast, it doesn't detonation). You basically can't blow up C4 unless you use a detonator. You need a combination of extreme heat and a very fast shock wave. As was mentioned, it's why it was invented, so it could not be set off accidentally.

Basically, if the C4 gets set off by being shot with a plasma rifle, everything in the inventory would go off first, ammunition, grenades, everything. All of that would blow up first. Now add some more heat and a faster shock wave. Then the C4 might go off.

Simply put, if the plasma weapons aren't setting off all of the ammunition and grenades and everything else the soldier is carrying, the C4 should not be detonating.

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No, that's not how C4 works. You can set it on fire but doesn't explode (which is basically like being hit with a plasma blast, it doesn't detonation). You basically can't blow up C4 unless you use a detonator. You need a combination of extreme heat and a very fast shock wave. As was mentioned, it's why it was invented, so it could not be set off accidentally.
Well, since it's a made up weapon we don't really know how powerful and hot a plasma cannon shot is. It could in theory detonate the C4. Anything is possible with made up weapons, right. I think the main question here is whether or not it's OP to have C4 blow up when hit.

Also, just as a side note, I don't believe any heat is needed. High explosives "blow up" through the spontanous decomposition of their molecular structure. Basically, the molecules instantly fall apart into simpler elements as the chemical bonds are broken. The breakdown generates a tremendous amount of gas and heat (exothermic reaction) nearly instantly hence the explosion. The decomposition can be initiated by a sufficient powerful shock wave traveling through the molecules because the bonds are not "tight", heat is not required. (Dynamite can be detonated by a sufficiently fast rifle bullet. C4 is much less sensitive.) Once the decompostion starts it's a self-feeding reaction. However, heat does encourage organic molecules to degrade more rapidly and, of course, the detonator is going to generate a lot of heat since it is a small HE charge, so it helps the process along.

Interestingly, there are newer even less sensitive explosives now (yes, less than C4):

"About 20 years ago, less sensitive high explosives were developed that have significantly improved the safety and survivability of munitions, weapons, and personnel. TATB (1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene), for instance, is virtually invulnerable to significant energy release in plane crashes, fires, and explosions or to deliberate attack with small arms fire. But this extreme insensitivity has its drawbacks. Initiating a TATB detonation is not easy. Detonation is still fast but by no means instantaneous. The resulting shock wave propagates differently from that of sensitive explosives, and the molecules that detonation produces are different. Using TATB and other insensitive high explosives effectively in weapon systems has required a more sophisticated understanding of the physics and chemistry of initiation and detonation."

These didn't exist when I went to college.

Edited by StellarRat
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C4 is designed to be very stable. You can shoot it all you want, throw it against a wall, light it on fire, drive over it with a tank, and it still wouldn't go off.

Basically the only, repeat, only viable way to get C4 to go off is by using a detonator. It needs extreme heat and a powerful shockwave to detonate. Plasma would only provide heat; heat alone isn't going to detonate it. It would destroy the detonator, rendering the C4 useless, but not cause the C4 to explode.

Also, plasma weapons aren't made up. Plasma's a real state of matter, and we know what a plasma weapon would do. All of the damage is thermal, there isn't any shockwave, because there's no significant kinetic damage. It's like a steam gun. It sprays super heated water at you, burning you. However, there's no projectile, shockwave, or significant kinetic energy damage. It's just a burn.

Going back to what you were saying about it being OP or not:

I say that one of the main reasons we would issue C4 is because it's so stable, and doesn't detonate upon taking any kind of damage. You should be able to be comfortable taking C4 with you because it won't go off; otherwise you'd probably never put any in your soldiers packs. What happens if someone dies, and their C4 goes off? Everything goes wrong. Thus, C4 being detonated by anything but it's detonator is OP and broken.

Rockets and grenades, however, should go off when they get damaged. Heat would indeed detonate those.

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C4 is designed to be very stable. You can shoot it all you want, throw it against a wall, light it on fire, drive over it with a tank, and it still wouldn't go off.

Basically the only, repeat, only viable way to get C4 to go off is by using a detonator. It needs extreme heat and a powerful shockwave to detonate. Plasma would only provide heat; heat alone isn't going to detonate it. It would destroy the detonator, rendering the C4 useless, but not cause the C4 to explode.

Also, plasma weapons aren't made up. Plasma's a real state of matter, and we know what a plasma weapon would do. All of the damage is thermal, there isn't any shockwave, because there's no significant kinetic damage. It's like a steam gun. It sprays super heated water at you, burning you. However, there's no projectile, shockwave, or significant kinetic energy damage. It's just a burn.

Going back to what you were saying about it being OP or not:

I say that one of the main reasons we would issue C4 is because it's so stable, and doesn't detonate upon taking any kind of damage. You should be able to be comfortable taking C4 with you because it won't go off; otherwise you'd probably never put any in your soldiers packs. What happens if someone dies, and their C4 goes off? Everything goes wrong. Thus, C4 being detonated by anything but it's detonator is OP and broken.

Rockets and grenades, however, should go off when they get damaged. Heat would indeed detonate those.

OK, Gizmo, we can disagree about the chemistry (even though you are wrong ;) and that was my major in college.) But, I mean, if Chris wants to say his plasma cannons can detonate the C4 that's up to him. They do explode at the impact point so something else is going on besides what we understand as the real physics. After all, they can destroy a tank, right? I think it's OP, but I can live with it if I know what to look out for. Edited by StellarRat
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I'm not too bothered whether it's realistic that the C4 would explode or not, tbh - but the C4 was never intended to explode as the soldier died, even if he dropped it in the process of dying. It was C4 that was "active" and placed on the ground that this was meant to affect.

The current behavior isn't really intended, but might be also caused by plasma cannons (with their blast radius) activating C4 on nearby corpses maybe?

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OK, Gizmo, we can disagree about the chemistry (even though you are wrong ;) and that was my major in college.) But, I mean, if Chris wants to say his plasma cannons can detonate the C4 that's up to him. They do explode at the impact point so something else is going on besides what we understand as the real physics. After all, they can destroy a tank, right? I think it's OP, but I can live with it if I know what to look out for.

Yeah, I'm wrong occasionally; I can admit that. ;)

@Chris:

So, you're saying that only C4 that has had it's timer set already should be able to explode? That I can support; that's not too OP.

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