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Grenade Rolling


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as the title suggests.

For instance if you throw a grenade it could roll 1-2 squares according to the direction you throw it in.

For realism? For gameplay reasons itt seems pointless.
also, there could be a system that allows you to bounce grenades of walls.

I think Chris said the engine can't handle that.

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I have wished for rolling/bouncing grenades too.

Sometimes everything in a room prevents a good arc of the grenade, but it is all full of tables to skid something across the floor. Like in some action movies where an ice hockey disc stops near the bad guys and they have a surprised look and...bam.

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Doing the animations for all Xenonaut armours (except Predator) rolling a grenade would be a pain in the arse to do. If you want to add another month to the project where the devs are sitting around waiting for it to be animated and spritesheeted then you're going to have to make a good business case for doing so.

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So... what you're asking for is to make every UFO, every base, every urban encounter incredibly easy. If my soliders can throw grenades without exposing themselves, all I'd have to do is stock up on grenades and spam them from safety.

Why don't they do this in real life?

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RL is real-time, baby. You can't have two guys sitting by the door throwing 4 grenades through it without anyone inside being able to react in a meaningful manner. Be kinda funky if RL was IGOUGO. Everyone would be sitting around all the time waiting for their turn to do something.

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You didn't answer. What stops me from taking 20 grenades on urban assault to lob them around corners? The answer isn't that simple as just "they will react in a meaningful manner". This game have its means to implement somewhat simultaneous actions.

For example, "Throw it back" tactics nonwithstanding, most obvious course of action will be to hide. This can be emulated via some kind of "reaction ducking", minimizing grenade damage before it explodes. Spending reaction points on actions is already in place and functioning.

Of course, this won't save anyone from 20 grenades, but then again, even in RL, what will?

Things like collateral damage and, most importantly, limited supplies come in mind, as well as general danger of using explosives. If you are throwing consecutively, latter ones can be thrown back in your face by earlier blasts. Shards and pieces will be everywhere, blastwaves will add up, and probably it's not a good idea after all.

These things can't be modelled easily, and that's why it's hard to balance some aspects of grenades.

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Ah, but I did. "Reacting in a meaningful manner" is a perfectly reasonable, if somewhat vague answer as the motion of throwing a grenade IRL takes a specific period of time and has a prescriptive approach to doing so safely for the operator. In this period of time there is the opportunity for the other party to respond, but unlike throwing a grenade where there are training manuals there is no prescriptive aproach to responding to a grenade thrown. There are common approaches, there are reccomended approaches, but there is no prescriptive approach as it depends upon the situation.

In an IGOUGO game, that window of time is entirely in the control of the player in charge of their turn, and in Xenonauts, the ability to react in a meaningful manner in response to a grenade being thrown is limited specifically to being able to shoot back, and only with a gun. Previously aliens had been able to respond with grenades as well as guns, but this was specifically withdrawn following complaints. Therefore in Xenonauts, a solider that does not have to expose itself when throwing a grenade does so without his opponent being abe to react in a meaningful manner to the grenade.

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If a grenade is being thrown from a safe position around a corner the only possible reaction the alien can have according to the game rules is to fire a reaction shot.

That would have very limited effect if the person they were reacting to was stood behind a solid wall with 100% stopping chance.

If it is a corner then I guess it is actually two walls with 100% stopping chance, just in case the first one is destroyed.

That also assumes the aliens have anything to react against.

Assuming the soldier never needs to put more than a single hand around the corner for a fraction of a second to throw the grenade it makes very little sense that the aliens would be able to spot, react to, and do meaningful damage to the soldier throwing the grenade.

In fact isn't the lack of options available to the enemy and being able to attack them with impunity why this feature is suggested?

Counters to this tactic would be limited in most turn based games.

You could likely come up with a few options on new types of reaction to code in to try and make this feature balanced enough that it doesn't become the only real option in the situations where it is possible.

For me though if you need to put in that amount of work just to nerf a new feature you are adding then that feature is probably not a good idea in the first place.

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A violent rappid entry approach on a door or room can be done in several ways.

Through door.

Wall

Window

Roof

Floor.

In the world many forms of tactics have proven succesful. And all depends on the desired results.

Take a look at lets say a hostile known threat within a single room.

1 approach within stack formation in a line along the wall. With all fields of fire covered.

2 the lead man is in control takes position to open said door to room the number two is the breacher (grenades, stun grenades, etc) the third is the first person through the door once grenade or device is completed.

3 first open door slighty, two send in grenade, device explodes, signaled by one number three enters sweeping in an ark down sights of weapon followed by number one then number four then followed by number two leaving behind number 5 how covers the exterior of the room.

4 number three sweeps right to left and moves left.of door. Number one sweeps right to left and moves forward and to the left standing to the right of number three, then number four steps in heading front and center right of number one sweeping right to left. And then number two steps in repeating steping to the right of the door. All 4 covering fields of fire in a fan shape.

This is all done by all parties opening the door a crack and sending in a grenade using a grenade from the edge of the door frame.

A standard stack and breach tactic used the world over for urban close combat situations.

The device can be a door breaching device. A framed wall breaching device. Directional leathal or none leathal.

But the most basic is the grenade format.

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I know the tactic but what does this have to do with the game implementation of it?

The game version of that would be creep up to door frame with backpack full of grenades.

Stand out of sight of the enemy and throw in grenade.

Repeat.

Walk into room full of corpses and stand by next door frame.

Stand out of sight of the enemy and throw in grenade.

Repeat.

Don't get the real world mixed up with a turn based game.

Some things just do not translate well between the two.

In your post you say a grenade would be the opening to a manual breach but why bother with the risky part of you can just continue to throw grenades from safety?

So far I have not seen a single suggestion about how this could be effectively balanced that I would consider viable, either in this thread or any of the previous ones on similar subjects.

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So far I have not seen a single suggestion about how this could be effectively balanced that I would consider viable, either in this thread or any of the previous ones on similar subjects.

I did not have in mind to throw tons of grenades around the corner, just a single flashbang, smoke or other.

If raining grenades would be a good tactic, all you need is a strong soldier who can throw far and seven other donkey-guys loaded with grenades like hell....boooring.

What I thought was:

  1. Your troop gathers outside a room/around a corner. The room is not yet visible, i.e. you don't know the interior and/or if enemies are inside and where nthey are.

  2. Before throwing a grenade, the soldier has to risk a short glance into the room like poking the head around in a swift movement. Reason: There could be a wall directly behind that door, because it is not a room but another doorway, and the grenade bounces back. Would be fun to watch if my soldiers would perform a ducking/diving reaction movement to avoid that blast :)

    This glance-around-the-corner could be an own command and not related to the grenade throwing action, but it has to be done before the grenade is thrown that way.

  3. So with the short glance, some parts of the room will be visible and also if enemies are there.

  4. Then it can be decided if it is ok to throw something.

If there is nothing to throw at the soldier should refuse to throw, best done with a small message on screen like: "No target, this will be a waste of ammo, pal!" (This somewhere at the side and not to be acknowledged, this would be annoying). This can be backed by general order in the mission briefing to avoid to much unecessary damage due to salvaging.

This same refuse can also happen if the room is already visible and nothing is there to throw at.

Bear in mind that any grenade mechanic that is granted to soldiers will also be granted to aliens. I can see a lot of people screaming when the aliens start throwing grenades around corners during base assaults.

I think reaction movement is already part of the game, because when you guard a room, aliens enter and your soldiers reaction-firing the alien tries to move out again. This can happen when grenades are thrown also.

Sometimes when I see a grenade coming to my soldiers I wished I could have an reaction dive with losing all th TUs just for survival. Aliens should have the sama ability.

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Lol your thinking fragmentation. I was thinking concusion. Thunderflash. Type.of grenades.

But having the option to project a grenade from the side of a door way than having to stand directly in front of it is a viable tactical option to reduce return fire or nap.shot.. They are trained soldiers after all.

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@thixotrop That would mean the player is able to throw grenades any time they want and at any location apart from when they are standing by a door frame when the soldier they have selected suddenly refuses to perform the action.

There is a major disconnect there between what is normally possible and a sudden limitation for no good reason.

I can throw a grenade at a tree just in case there might possibly be an alien behind it, no matter how unlikely, but I cannot throw a grenade into a room that has a high likelihood of alien presence because the soldier doesn't think it is a good use of grenades?

What about when you see an alien walk into the room at the end of their turn but cannot quite see it at the start of yours?

Why would it be a waste of ammunition then as you know it is there somewhere, just out of sight?

What about if you want to use a frag grenade to destroy cover inside but cannot because of this limitation?

Taking a step away from the door after performing the sneaky look would then allow you to throw a grenade into the room using the normal mechanics?

This is also quite safe as you now know there is no enemy to reaction fire on you but you can work around the odd behaviour of the soldier preventing you throwing the grenade where you want it.

@Draken why would the grenade type make any difference?

If you can throw one from a safe position surely you should be able to throw any?

If you have the option of suppressing the alien then risking your soldiers or just throwing frag grenades and killing the enemy with no risk what would be the most popular choice?

There are many actions that would be possible for a real life soldier that are not possible in Xenonauts.

The argument that a real soldier would be able to do it is not a good reason to include it.

As a game mechanic in a turn based game being able to do damage (or suppression, stun damage or whatever) from a completely safe place with no chance of retaliation is a very bad idea.

I think you are still getting real world and game world mixed up too much.

Real world equals take out enemy with absolute minimal risk to your side.

Game world equals take out enemy in a fun manner for the player without being too frustrating while maintaining some element of risk to prevent the player getting bored.

No risk equals no challenge.

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