Flashbangs

[Ishantil]

So...that was the first and last flashbang I'll use in this version. Dude throws it, it literally does nothing to any of the three caesian non-coms in the UFO. Promptly gets autofired to death.

Might as well take them out of the game. Useless.

Rocket time.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Ishantil

[OndieJ]

I've only had them play up on the odd occasion and when they have, yeah it's annoying as all hell, but it is conceivable that the alien b$tards saw it coming and shielded themselves.

[EchoFourDelta]

There's not really any "shielding" yourself from a flashbang, but that's neither here nor there. I'm concurring that the things are damn near useless in their current incarnation; it's better to just get some standoff and spray gunfire in, or slam a bunch of grenades and rockets inside.

[lemm]

If the grenade went off in the middle of the room, it probably wasn't close enough to any of them.

[Ol' Stinky]

It's a bug with UFOs: throwing them in from the outside is dodgy as hell. Outside, they work fine.

You can test it out for yourself.

1) Save the game before you breach the UFO.

2) Set up the smoke and try using an FB. There's one of two outcomes with Caesan non-coms: either all of them will be suppressed, or none of them will. It doesn't seem to matter whether the FB lands at their feet or not.

3) Load and try again. Eventually you'll see both results happen. Given that suppression doesn't seem to have a random element - or at least, if it does, it doesn't happen outside! - this shouldn't be the case.

If you're not sure where it's safe to throw FBs from, here's a guide. Make sure there's some smoke in the blue tiles, and have the FBer stand in one of the yellow ones. Only move a shieldbearer into the blue to open the door until everything's suppressed. Ignore the crosses, they're only there because I loaded the lightscout in the submap editor to cobble this pic together.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Ol' Stinky

[kabill]

I used to get this problem a lot attacking UFOs, but I've not seen it in a while. Was this with the new v19 Stable?

One useful tip, to build on Stinky's: place soldiers in the blue squares indicated in his picture, and then place soldiers with flashbangs two tiles behind (in the south-east yellow squares, so there's a gap between them and the front-most soldiers). Open the door, then toss flashbangs in from the soldiers behind. These throws won't draw reaction fire from aliens inside, as your own soldiers in the blue tiles are obstructing their LOS/LOF. This is my standard tactic for dealing with doors, now (I guess it might be an exploit, though).

[Ol' Stinky]

I used to get this problem a lot attacking UFOs, but I've not seen it in a while. Was this with the new v19 Stable?

One useful tip, to build on Stinky's: place soldiers in the blue squares indicated in his picture, and then place soldiers with flashbangs two tiles behind (in the south-east yellow squares, so there's a gap between them and the front-most soldiers). Open the door, then toss flashbangs in from the soldiers behind. These throws won't draw reaction fire from aliens inside, as your own soldiers in the blue tiles are obstructing their LOS/LOF. This is my standard tactic for dealing with doors, now (I guess it might be an exploit, though).

I first saw it in 19.7 and have seen it in all the builds I've played since. At the time I thought it was a problem with suppression itself, but since then I've only seen a flashbang dud when throwing one into a UFO from the outside.

If you're behind the smoke, you shouldn't be getting reaction fire anyway, regardless of whether there's a soldier in the blue tile...? I think I'm misunderstanding you here. Either that, or I wasn't very clear in my previous post (sorry).

[Ishantil]

I was using V19SC3. And no, I won't bother with flashbangs anymore. Unless I mod them. If I can't suppress the weakest alien with a flashbang to the face, there's no point in bringing them into combat.

[kabill]

If you're behind the smoke' date=' you shouldn't be getting reaction fire anyway, regardless of whether there's a soldier in the blue tile...? I think I'm misunderstanding you here. Either that, or I wasn't very clear in my previous post (sorry).[/quote']

No, I don't think I was very clear. You don't need the smoke - the presence of soldiers in the spaces adjacent to the door (your blue tiles) will block the alien's LOS to soldiers behind, allowing them to throw grenades with impunity.

[Ol' Stinky]

Ah, right, I'm with you now.

[Ishantil]

My problem wasn't so much with being shot in the face, but rather that the grenade didn't do anything. Thus, my disappointment, and subsequent anger at the flashbangs for being worthless.

[GizmoGomez]

So, are they bugged? Or are they simply made of Nerf foam?

[EchoFourDelta]

They feel bugged. Like, sometimes they flat-out don't do anything when you chuck them into a UFO.

[Xintrosi]

A recent mission that got a few of my xenonauts wounded/killed was due to 4 different flash bangs not suppressing despite being targeted right on. One of the Caesans actually managed to get knocked out before he got suppressed! I hadn't realized that might be a bug; I figured there was some hidden die roll I was losing.

[Ol' Stinky]

So, are they bugged? Or are they simply made of Nerf foam?

When I use flashbangs outside, they've worked as intended. They put out a lot of suppression as it is. C4 and electroshock grenades beat them, but neither of those are very practical suppression tools. I think it's just a bug. Maybe it's to do with the reworking of the UFOs to allow aliens to react fire on soldiers outside, but there's not any way for a non-dev to be sure.

[Dranak]

So, are they bugged? Or are they simply made of Nerf foam?

There seems to be something odd with them, as I've seen some inconsistent behavior from them (normally when throwing into UFOs). Sometimes a direct hit on a seb non-com will suppress them, sometimes it does nothing. I haven't been able to figure out any totally consistent pattern to it though.

[crusherven]

There seem to be a number of issues with the UFO entry. Your own accuracy is very low firing in, and likewise aliens seem to miss a lot firing out (I see them hitting the tile right in front of my troops).

[Ishantil]

I don't even bring them anymore. And actually, the stun gas grenades are fairly useless too.

I basically just stacked three grenades on top of a Caesian non-com and he brethed it like it was nothing. So....why have them in the game if they don't work? Am I supposed to use 50? It's so easy to avoid the smoke that there's really no point to even trying anymore.

I expect the stun missile will be nerfed next.

At which point, I'll be modding about half the starting weapons. Bah.

[Josip Broz Tito]

Didn't they just change it so that the initial release of gas from grenades doesn't deal stun dmg, but only the gas released afterwards does? I don't know if that was part of the rollback or not (haven't been able to play today and yesterday).

Personally, not a fan of that nerf. Rather just use the rockets and batons now.

Gas rockets should be fine- it's harder to spam them. Glad they actually made them release a full cloud of gas a build or two ago.

[Ishantil]

I don't mind them making the stun gas only do the stun damage, but I want the grenades to actually matter. Rather than have the guy walk through seven tiles full of gas without caring. It's silly.

[Big Z]

I don't know if you've tried this yet, but most of the ineffective grenade bugs when dealing with entering a spaceship can be avoided by walking into the very first tile of the ship itself, and then throwing the grenades. Assuming you can get that far without being ventilated, that seems to alleviate the issue.

[Ishantil]

I'm talking about throwing three of them at the face of a non-com Caesian in the open. I'm sorry, that's completely unacceptable. He's taking 0-10 stun damage per turn. He's got 60 or so hitpoints. I guess I'm supposed to convince him to sit there and breathe it in for 25 turns?