Eat This Grenade. Period.

[dpelectric]

Has anybody else encountered what seems to be unstoppable alien grenadiers, or is it my imagination?

I thought I'd noticed this behavior before, and just came across it twice again. First time was storming a corvette. My guys are lined up at the front door. Seb comes out of nearby interior door. My guys blast away at him, wound but don't kill him, he tosses a grenade in their midst. I deliberately reload the game, same thing happens again. Reload. This time seb comes out of different door, same scenario, reaction fire misses and misses, he throws grenade.

Next mission. Caesan runs around a wall. Four guys reaction fire at him. Can hit, but not kill him. He throws grenade. Reload. Same thing. Reload. Same thing.

Is this just incredibly bad luck with the RNG? It seems like once the game has determined the ET is going to throw his grenade, he is going to throw it, period. Has anybody else witnessed this...?

[KevinHann]

Or maybe you are looking at it from the wrong angle and the aliens in your example can calculate the odds to get killed by your reaction fire are surpassed by the chance to inflict grenade damage to your compact force and it jumps at the chance.

If the natural course of the string of events you describe is that grenade is going to be thrown, you can't expect reloading to get you off the hook. You would be the one who would need massive luck to avoid it, not vise versa.

And yes, it has happened multiple times for me, too. Always because of bad decisions to cluster soldiers who can't effectively reaction fire cover the field they are guarding. Pumping even five or six soldiers together and ending turn is not always a good way to be sure they will gun down whatever shows up, even on a door. Sometimes especially on a door.

[dpelectric]

Very interesting response. Yes, perhaps I am looking at it from the wrong angle.

However, in my examples the ETs were not aware (or should not have been aware, unless the game "cheats") of my troops' presence until they opened that door or walked around that corner. They should not have been able to make a calculation that my massed soldiers were all (or almost all) going to miss with their reaction fire, enabling them to throw their grenade. They walk out in front of a group of Xenonauts 4-5-6-7 tiles away with full TUs, which should at least usually be suicide, and always survive to toss their grenade.

Something about that still does not seem right

[KevinHann]

When have heavily damaging situations against a player's "I'm perfectly camped" stand felt right? The game would not be as memorable if there weren't one or two of those little bitchy things to annoy you in terms of difficulty.

[dpelectric]

Well, I guess that's true enough. Eat this grenade. Period. Ok. Lol

[KevinHann]

See, life's so much better this way

[Chris]

The aliens will almost always throw a grenade if they have one and enough troops are clustered together.

[Irishguy117]

Corvettes have been the bane of my existence, along with androns, for exactly this reason. I even had an alien drop a grenade inside a door without opening it to kill my guys on the other side once.

[dpelectric]

The aliens will almost always throw a grenade if they have one and enough troops are clustered together.

Granted, they should naturally do that, to inflict the maximum damage possible. Absolutely agree.

But my point is that this action seems to be sometimes unstoppable; no matter how many troops shoot how many reaction shots, the alien is NOT going to die, and he IS going to throw his grenade. I've had 4-5-6 soldiers blazing away from close range (4-5-6-7 tiles) with an astronomically high number of misses that seem designed to allow the ET to throw that grenade, period. It's like once the AI chooses that course of events, it cannot be any other way, regardless of the number and accuracy of any and all reaction shots

[ViewThePhenom]

Had a pinned alien officer close to death take my shield unit with him via grenade drop because I left the Corvette room door open. Talk about the captain going down with the ship!

[dpelectric]

Just happened to me again. Twice.

The most blatant example was I had four high-level, high-reaction officers two spaces away from a corner. Two armed with MAG rifles, two MAG carbines. All of them full TU. All of them staring at the corner; two crouched, two standing behind them. A seb walks around the corner into a hail of gunfire. ONE bullet actually connects. From two (for the crouching soldiers) to three (for the standing soldiers) spaces away. The seb yawns, leisurely tosses a grenade into their midst, and walks back around the corner.

I flat-out consider this to be a bug. When the AI decides an alien is going to throw a grenade, it is going to do so, PERIOD, regardless of any and all conditions, and no matter how ridiculous the scenario may be. In the example just quoted my troops laid down enough firepower to kill Godzilla. Irrelevant. And extremely frustrating.

[StellarRat]

Are trying to say that aliens that are throwing grenades are immune to reaction fire? Or that the reactees don't fire enough? Or what?

[dpelectric]

The aliens are utterly immune to your reaction fire. You might hit with one bullet, but never kill him, and never stop him from throwing his grenade. I'd bet if you had 95 soldiers lined up with shoulder-fired tactical nuclear missiles the ET would still throw his grenade.

Sorry I'm a bit frustrated. This just cost me a colonel and a commander.

Edit: In other words, once the programming has decided that an alien is going to throw a grenade, that equation overrides all others. If one bullet hits (which usually happens) all others, be it one or two hundred, are going to miss so that the master equation can be carried out

Edited June 24, 2014 by dpelectric

[KevinHann]

I've just reaction killed an alien trying to throw a grenade

[Chris]

If anything, the issue will be that aliens are quite tough and reaction fire is always (inaccurate) snap shots.

[Mikhail Ragulin]

The only situation where I've seen the aliens lob nades is when the 'nauts are in adjacent tiles. Space them out, then one doesn't eat frag.

[ViniJones]

I had this sebilian officer blowing up half the corvette by hitting the alenium reactor... talk about going down with the ship some more.

I ate a lot of grenades too, always more than one trooper hit. true

Aliens could never see there were more, it was over a wall = they cheat. true but nothing new

[Tiresais]

Frustrating, but logical - if aliens didn't throw nades at clustered marines surely that wouldn't make sense? I'm always paranoid at breaches now, so will have shieldmen at front and no more than 4 close together (and preferably the rookies)

[Tulx]

If I understood it correctly than GH's AI developer stated that aliens only throw grenades in one very specific situation. I guess this is it (more than one soldier in grenade's hit area; I don't think I have seen them to throw them at a lone soldier).

[KevinHann]

Well I had a Ceasan throw a grenade at a lone soldier without anyone in the vicinity. Really caught me there, I thought I had all angles covered.

[Tulx]

Okay so it might be some other condition. Although KevinHann it depends on what version it happened. In the earlier versions the rules for throwing grenades were different I think and it was changed some time.

[KevinHann]

It happened on 1.06.

[Dranak]

I don't think I have ever seen an alien throw a grenade.

[KevinHann]

I don't think I have ever seen an alien throw a grenade.

They don't do that in air combat, you know?

[Martian]

I flushed a Seb out of a corner with a rifleman firing at long range. It walked out the door into two snipers at a dozen paces, whom promptly reduced his brain to so much purple mist with reaction shots.

Rookie snipers, mark you- this was during my second mission.

Could have just been dumb luck, for either of us.