Grenade balance

[zolobolo]

I have the feeling that grenades need adjustment. Things that come into my mind:

1. Our throwable objects seem less accurate than they should be. Grenades and torches miss their target too often. Flares at least should be very precise

2. Grenade types seem underpowered. Need 3 stun grenades to put the smallest alien to sleep. Grenade should probably be something for crowd control - larger area effect even if the damage is not too high

3. My soldiers often hit a nearby object with their grenade which bounces back on them. Maybe repositioning the soldier just to get a better chance to throw the object to the location you want to should not be such a necessity

4. I haven't seen any aliens throwing grenades. This may be due to the Normal difficulty level, but they should use those sometimes if we mass troops together or play to defensively, maybe even time them to give us a chance to escape - that would be neat . I guess this point goes under enemy AI and making it fight more aggressively

[Bansheedragon]

I havent had the chance to play V18.3 yet, but in HF2 I noticed the lack of accuracy when throwing grenades.

I lost count of the number of times I lost a soldier to a bad grenade throw.

When I say a bad throw, I mean that my soldier would throw the grenade at his own feet and thus killing himself rater than actually throw the grenade towards its intended target.

Even with a 0% chance to hit I cant imagine any soldier not being able to at least throw the grenade far enough away from themselves to not get hit, rather than just toss it at their own feet.

I could understand the grenade landing at the soldiers feet if there was an obstacle, but I had this happen in open terrain with no obstacles in the way, as if the soldier just dont know how to throw.

[StellarRat]

The throwing over objects and blowing yourself up thing is a known bug. My opinion on grenades is that you can throw them WAY too far. Your grenade throwing range exceeds the operational range of both the shotgun and pistol. Does that seem right? They should go about 10 tiles at the most and probably should always land within one or two tiles of where you were aiming. Right now, our Xenonauts are human mortar batteries.

Edited April 29, 2013 by StellarRat

[crusherven]

To me their biggest problem is just that they hit like wet noodles. I guess that's the range bug in effect. They don't need to be as devastating as alien grenades in the OG, but still. It's hard to think when using a frag grenade for 32 TUs is more worthwhile than firing a weapon for 31 or less.

[Megajoel]

Time for grenadiers? Like those from the cnc games. Who needs the shotgun or pistol?

[GreySciTe]

Grenades should also have an indicator like guns where you can see what is maybe in the way. It is very hard to estimate if a corner is in the way or not. Also the thing with throwing over obstacles is annoying atm. Last terrormission my guy wasn't able to throw a grenade over a park bench(the ones with table and two benches) 3 tiles away from him.

Blinding grenades should have a larger area of effect. Atm i can't barely use them to protect my soldiers because to throw them accurate enough that they work i have to move my soldier into line of fire anyway and have to hope that the reaction fire misses.

[zolobolo]

Ok, so maybe following could be proposed for DEVs:

Pros:

+ Grenade ignores cover

+ All throwable objects are relally accurate in short range and only get stuck if the target is covered with roof right on top of him

+ Area of damage increased

+ Do damage to cover

Cons:

- Lower damage comaper to 1-2 shots from riffle from equal technical tier

- Extremely low accuracy from mid range on - no chanche in long range

The goal of these changes would be to establish grenades as the low range anti-cover that is equally good against massed aliens which is pretty much also their real life purpose as well. Aliens would also use grenades for this two purpose forcing the player to go out of cover and not amass troops in a single location. Damage should not be too high though compared to EU.

A classical situation for grenade use would be: soldier spots two aliens close to each other in cover. He is not strong in TU but has grenades. Risks to run close to enemy and throws grenade. Grenade has a shure hit, and does moderate damage to both aliens as well as their cover making them easy pray for the sniper of rifle burts fire since only one or two hits are missing for a kill for each and cover is providing less protection. Risk: If one of them survives he will probably shoot down (or granade) the grenadier, and then retreat to his pals.