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Stun Grenades


Ishantil

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That's a good point, StellarRat, I see what you mean by the lingering effects making cleaning out a UFO too easy. I guess my biggest problem is that they seem completely ineffective.

2D100-100 would have a flat curve with the highest results around 100. Thus, half of the time, it's going to do nothing. The rest of the time, the highest probability will be 1 damage, with decreasing probability as you move upwards.

Awesome link: http://anydice.com/program/293b

The original damage per turn is 20 according to the files, but that means eight full turns of exposure to down your average low grade alien. I have no idea if stun damage dissipates, either.

If you limit the amount that can be taken per tile to one exposure (having more gas in the tile doesn't help, just makes the gas stick around longer). Meaning you can't stack the effect (like hitting someone with a taser twice).

So how about we make the exposure 2D20 (so the skew will be around 20 damage) but that's the maximum exposure rate per turn?

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So how about we make the exposure 2D20 (so the skew will be around 20 damage) but that's the maximum exposure rate per turn?

I still like my formula better. It's far more unpredictable. Also, I'm not sure if stun gas stacks. Aaron? I would prefer it to just hang around longer in that case. If it stacks, we're back into "insta-stun" territory again and that makes it too good. I'm trying to keep the gas and rod very different in their behavior.
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I suppose we need to really define what we're trying to accomplish here.

With your formula, about 50-60% of the time, it does nothing significant. About 40% of the time, it does a somewhere between 15-100 damage, with the skew tilted towards the bottom end. If that's the case, with the wild skew on the numbers, the gas grenades would be extremely unreliable, but randomly super effective.

I think it would be better to have the gas be effective, but very short lived, after the first turn, half is gone, 2nd turn, it's all gone. That would mean you'd have to take continual risks in order to keep the gas going (throw every turn). That's the whole point of the gas grenades.

If you don't want to be able to basically clean out an enclosed area with gas grenades, it would be better to take them out of the game, I think.

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The use of stun grenades to my mind should be tossing two or three (Or four. Or five) into a confined space then waiting for four or five turns before storming in, and finding that most aliens except the very strongest have gone down. As an example, two or three grenades over five turns should fill a light scout (if thrown into different areas) and incapacitate the crew. If they decide to come storming out, set your guys up for reaction fire. This shouldn't be any more unbalanced than flashbangs working as intended; suppressing aliens and allowing soldiers to move in and shoot at minimal risk (until the turn ends...)

In open areas you wouldn't expect stun gas to be that effective anyway, aliens can, do and would just move. Gas grenades are inherently a very situational weapon, but in their niche they should be effective.

Edit: I wouldn't have a problem with a shorter-lived gas that needed to be topped up, but in return I'd like stun damage to progressively drain time units, as targets get progressively groggier.

Edited by Elydo
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I'm kind of opposed to any "lingering" continuous type of damage like Ish and Stinky have proposed. I also don't like the idea of "instant" damage. The grenades should probably detonate at the end of the turn just like frags.

While I agree that a lingering system is actually the most realistic GH had good reason to get away from that. GH didn't want it because it makes taking UFOs too easy. You open the door throw/fire a bunch of stun gas in and close the door and wait for the aliens to get to medium rare. That's why I'm proposing a highly unpredictable system. With my system, it is very possible lots of aliens will be just fine when you open the door again OR you might get really lucky and they'll all be asleep. That makes the game more suspenseful and, IMO, more fun.

But, no matter how we slice it, the stun gas is useless right now (that appears to be a consensus) and something has to be done. I'm pretty sure after last night experiences I'm not going to bother with it anymore.

Hm. I'm not a fan of the random spread of damage - I've had a taster of that with the flashbangs-into-UFO bug, and I don't like the thought of taking along a bunch of grenades that might turn out to not do anything at all. But you're right that lingering effects might be too strong, too. It's a tough one to balance.

Maybe the solution is simply to make stun grenades unlock from a much later tech, and not Alien Biology. Instead, have tox grenades/rockets from A. Bio, or incendiaries from another tech, so we still get area denial tools (which can be more easily balanced, since they'll be lethal instead of stun). That way the stun baton is competing against flashbangs until shock grenades.

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... I don't like the thought of taking along a bunch of grenades that might turn out to not do anything at all. But you're right that lingering effects might be too strong' date=' too. It's a tough one to balance ... [/quote']Well, on the average they will take down some aliens under my system. Remember, I'm talking a about a separate roll for each and every alien in the gas every turn it's active. Granted, most will probably not go down, but if say four are exposed for one turn, you could probably expect one to go down. That's still one less to fight when you enter. Also, of course, the more times you try the greater the chance they go down. Right now, there is just about no chance anything will down.
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I kinda liked how stun grenades worked in JA2 - they would suck all the air out of your lungs and leave you without TU's (or VERY few TU's) for a turn or two. They had a very small blast radius.

It wasn't a long stun, but it gave you an opening, so you could come in and finish them (or in Xeno casue use the stun batton for proper stunning)

JA2 also had stun gas grenades (a bit slower acting, but a lot bigger radius). And Mustard gas (inglorious death to the enemies).

I've been throwing grenades like crazy and the only effect is the aliens wasting some TU's running out of the cloud. Space better used for flashbangs.

Edited by TrashMan
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I still like my formula better. It's far more unpredictable. Also, I'm not sure if stun gas stacks. Aaron? I would prefer it to just hang around longer in that case. If it stacks, we're back into "insta-stun" territory again and that makes it too good. I'm trying to keep the gas and rod very different in their behavior.

No. It should stack. Because it makes sense that it stacks.

After all ,you do have to get pretty clsoe to use greandes, you have to spend 30-something TU's and if you've thrown several, that means you have several soldeirs with low or no TU's in close proximity to aliens. You're taking some big risks there.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The only good use I found of Stun Grenades were to throw them into the enemy ships. Got me 2-3 Captured Aliens every map, cus they didn't run out of the ship (probably because I had a Sniper, some shotguns and some rifles waiting for them outside). Took 3 turns and like 6 or 8 Stun Grenades to get them to drop (Insane Difficulty).

What was the design idea of Stun Grenades?

An idea I get is that Stun Grenades start with 3x3 AoE and then grow a turn at a time til they are as big as the Smoke Grenade/Flashbang AoE. It seems to me that the Stun Grenade Smoke also lasts shorter than Smoke Grenades, but it might just be because of the size difference.

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Huh. I actually like stun grenades, and find them pretty effective. I use them to "soften up" capture targets - pop smoke in front of the door, open the door, toss in a bunch of stun grenades, close door, wait.

Repeat once more a couple turns later.

After a time or three, smoke the door again, and throw in several flashbangs to suppress (and likely finish off a couple of the gassed aliens). Move someone in, toss an electroshock grenade on each of the surviving aliens (if I have them, else more flashbangs) and then retreat until it's all toasty.

It's a good combination of "safe" and "not destroying of every valuable in the room you want to loot". I think they key is that you just have to have patience.

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My main problem with the grenades is that they should really fill the entire area with gas. It's frustrating that they leave big gaps, so even my strategy of throwing in a dozen of them can leave the aliens perfectly safe and non-inhaling of the gas just by standing in the right place. It's kind of silly.

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My main problem with the grenades is that they should really fill the entire area with gas. It's frustrating that they leave big gaps, so even my strategy of throwing in a dozen of them can leave the aliens perfectly safe and non-inhaling of the gas just by standing in the right place. It's kind of silly.
Yeah, that's another problem.
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Yeah, with the current utility being dependent on effect-over-time, the duration and coverage really isn't up to the task. I'd almost prefer a smaller area of higher concentration gas which has more of an effect. And by 'almost' I mean it'd need practicality tests before final approval.

Or a launcher to increase the range at which they can be deployed. Hell, make it a dedicated launcher. I know rods are supposed to be the primary vector for stunning but there's a difference between 'secondary' and 'ineffectual'

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Stun rockets being three times bigger than grenades (less per soldier meaning can't spam), almost impossible to fire at a rate faster than one every two turns (can't spam) and unlike grenades travelling in an arc, can shoot straight past their target and be even more useless than a missed grenade due to not even leaving a cloud of gas in the local proximity.

Each gas rocket is currently a lost explosive rocket which is multi-purpose (removes cover, damages and causes suppression. And potentially fire) and scales up over the game. I do like the existence of the stun rocket, but currently the stun gas isn't much use. The only viable way to use it is to blanket an area, potentially over multiple turns, and rockets don't allow you to do that.

I wonder why we don't get electroshock rockets. To unbalanced somehow?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Electroshock grenades are doing the job very very nicely now.

However they don't do anything against the Autons. I thought they were supposed to double as EMP grenades?

A big clustered mass took 6 of them and came out smiling. I reloaded, threw 4 normal nades in and walked through the scattered circuitry. I wonder if it is because electroshock do stun damage + autons dont seem to be stunnable?

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Currently Electroshocks do stun damage against all targets, meaning they don't do much against aliens immune to stun, like Androns and drones. EMP damage is supposed to be inflicted instead against such targets, but it's currently disabled.

The inquest into the needless deaths of most of Able Squad came to the same conclusion. The lab technicians who promoted the development of the electroshock grenade have been conscripted as stun jockeys. Though they will not benefit from the devices that they birthed, out of respect to the six brave men and women who were mercilessly gunned down by their android foes.

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So, this whole thread kind of begs the question, WHEN WILL ELECTROSHOCK GRENADES BE COMPLETELY FIXED? i.e. work against machines too? It's been months now. It's hard to properly balance the game when not all the weapons are working like they're supposed to. The hour is nigh! ;)

Edited by StellarRat
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