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Stun Grenades


Ishantil

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I just did an extensive test of the stun grenades and have the following findings.

in V18 the stun grenade did 40 stun damage and the gas from stun grenades did 50 stun with a dissipation chance of 35 which meant aliens caught in it gas were guaranteed to go down at the start of the next turn.

but the gas seemed to stay around way too long. for example on an early base mission I tossed 2 stun grenades in to a hallway with 3 aliens in it. filled the hall with gas and all three aliens were down by the start of the next round but it took an additional 3 rounds before enough of the gas had dissipated enough for me to move my troops through the hallway.

These effects coupled with the V18 grenade throwing which made it seem that all of your soldiers could get jobs as outfielders for major league baseball teams made stun grenades the OP weapon of choice in V18.

However the changes in V19 have made stun grenades virtually useless. Stun grenades now do 1 point of stun damage and the gas now only does 20 stun damage and has dissipation chance of 50. along with this V19's reduced grenade range severely limits the use of grenades.

To test the stun grenades I cornered a sabillian and had my team toss 5 grenades at him 2 of the grenades landed in his square the other 3 landed in adjacent spaces. This created a thick cloud of gas 3 squares deep in any direction the alien could move. and also filled his square with gas. on his next turn the alien casually walked out of the stun smoke and killed 2 of my squad members. in the following 2 rounds 4 additional smoke grenades and the alien literally fighting for 2 rounds in a cloud of stun smoke finally brought it down but cost me another 2 squad members.

So from OP to worthless in a single version change.

Recommendations to the Dev Team for stun grenade revisions

weapons_gc.xml entry

<Weapon name="weapon.grenade.stun" type="chemical" bulletType="gasgrenade" emptySound="Empty Click 1">

<props range="20" hands="1" recoil="0" weight="1" isHeavy="0" clipSize="1" reloadAPCost="0" hpLimit="80" disableDamageScaling="1" explodeAtTurnEnd="0" />

<SingleShot delay="0.85" sound="Weapon Grenade Throw" suppressionValue="50" suppressionRadius="1">

<Set1 ap="20" accuracy="30" />

</SingleShot>

<BurstFire/>

<GUIImage name="gui/weapons/GrenadeStun.png"/>

<GroundImage name="grounditemimages/grenade2.png"/>

<Ammos>

<Ammo name="ammo.none" damage="0" stunDamage="40" mitigation="0">

<Projectile spectre="projectiles/grenade" speed="600" />

<Impact spectre="particles/smallgrenade/small_grenade" radius="2" sound="Weapon Gas Grenade" fireChance="0" smokeChance="80" gasType="StunGas" />

</Ammo>

</Ammos>

</Weapon>

gas_gc.xml entry

<GasType name="StunGas">

<Anim name="particles/purplesmoke/purplesmoke" />

<Props damage="0" stunDamage="40" damageType="chemical" dissipationChance="50" accuracyReduction="10" />

</GasType>

The changes I made are as follows

SuppressionValue changed from 0 to 50

Grenade stun Damage changed from 1 to 40

StunGas stunDamage changed from 20 to 40

these changes should make the stun grenades effective without being overpowered.

Landing a grenade in the same square as an alien now gives a reasonable chance of suppressing the alien as well as potentially stunning it directly. This makes a direct hit very effective and a close shot have a chance of actually stunning an alien but the gas dissipates quickly so it is a short term effect.

anyone else want to check my findings?

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Thanks for the feedback.

I am open to stun weapon tweaks, but those changes would indeed be OP. You have to keep in mind it is very easy to use multiple grenades against a single target - so a reasonable chance for one grenade to stun an enemy means that a team of 2-3 dedicated grenadiers with those same grenades are a stun-damage machine that can knock out almost any alien in one turn.

The intent for stun weapons is that they are dangerous and risky to use - especially those you can use at range. They are not intended as viable alternatives to normal weapons.

You are right though that aliens shouldn't just be able to casually walk out of a deep cloud - I think this is a problem with the way stun damage is applied (end of turn) - I will probably try re-implementing direct stun damage on detonation at the same level as the gas (20).

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I can agree with that they should be unreliable in an open environment. but for example in the confines of a small room or say the interior of a light scout the alien should not be able be all but immune to the gas.

here are a couple of idea's for a fix

first one might be to change the smoke chance to 100 so on first detonation the grenade fills all spaces in range with the gas. Then up the dissipation chance to say like 70-75 then up the damage of the gas to 30-40.

This way while the gas can be potent it dissipates too quickly to be effective in an open area where the aliens can easily avoid the gas. but aliens trapped in an enclosed space where they can not escape would quickly fall victim to the gas.

the second idea would be to create some system for gas density. ie three grenades into the same space would have a cumulative damaging effect so that while one grenade may be ineffective multiple grenades will work. The issue is that it should not take the entire squads grenades just to bring down a single alien

on that note the AI should likely be configured to try to avoid the gas filled spaces if it isn't already

The basic point that I think we disagree on is that I do not feel that any of the weapons should be inherently useless

The changes that I recommended are not from my view overpowering especially with the current V19 throw mechanics since with the map layouts require your troops to get into extremely exposed positions to employ the stun grenades against an enemy.

The way I see it stun weapons should be scaled between safety and effectiveness. so the stun batons should be the most effective stun weapon since they have the highest risk needed to implement. and the stun rockets should be the least effective since they can easily be fired from long range this makes the grenades the middle ground.

With the current build they are the least effective of the stun weapon with no payoff for the level of risk to use.

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Thanks for the feedback.

I am open to stun weapon tweaks, but those changes would indeed be OP. You have to keep in mind it is very easy to use multiple grenades against a single target - so a reasonable chance for one grenade to stun an enemy means that a team of 2-3 dedicated grenadiers with those same grenades are a stun-damage machine that can knock out almost any alien in one turn.

The intent for stun weapons is that they are dangerous and risky to use - especially those you can use at range. They are not intended as viable alternatives to normal weapons.

You are right though that aliens shouldn't just be able to casually walk out of a deep cloud - I think this is a problem with the way stun damage is applied (end of turn) - I will probably try re-implementing direct stun damage on detonation at the same level as the gas (20).

I think the immediate stun effect should be about zero, but the gas should cover a fairly large area and linger for a long time AND it should do a fair amount of stun damage while someone is standing in it. I don't know of any gas weapon that is immediately effective. It usually takes a while for the gas to knock out/kill a person. Of course, if the gas was an irritant like pepper gas or tear gas that would be a different story, but it's not. That would solve your problem with a bunch of grenades being thrown, but it would also make them more useful. Of course, the aliens will try to move out of the gas and will probably not get stunned unless they are trapped or the cloud is truly huge. This should allay your concerns about the gas being too effective. Just my two cents.
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How about keeping the intial damage low, but making them take stun damage for each tile of gas they pass through? Or perhaps to back up a bit, how much gas exposure should it take for an alien to be stunned by the gas, and then work backwards to numbers that support that?

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How about keeping the intial damage low, but making them take stun damage for each tile of gas they pass through? Or perhaps to back up a bit, how much gas exposure should it take for an alien to be stunned by the gas, and then work backwards to numbers that support that?
I don't think the numbers of tiles should have anything to do with it. It should be the length of time that the alien is actually exposed. I'm think 10 - 20 points of stun damage for every turn of exposure (including the initial turn.) It should be variable to make the gas unpredictable. I also don't think the number of grenades ought to make much of a difference either. Gas tends to fill whatever space it is allowed to. It doesn't just stay in one spot. Therefore multiple grenades should just make a bigger cloud not a "better" cloud unless it's used in very confined space.
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As the game is now, I don't even bother with stun grenades. I don't even equip them any more. My shotgun guys all have shock batons.

There's a variety of way to make them effective, but I'm not sure how to make them effective in a way that isn't able to be abused, unless there some sort of internal limit placed on how much stun damage can be done per turn. As I understand it, it's all about dosing. So a more intense dose would be more effective, but also more likely to accidentally kill.

It should also be noted that traditional "knock-out gas" doesn't really exist. There are a few agents listed here, but they have a decent change of killing the targets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incapacitating_agent

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I think Ishantil's onto something here. You could have stun grenades do an equal amount of stun damage and actual damage so if you lob too many stun grenades you're going to kill the subject rather than knock it out. Then possibly you'd have the chance to synergise stun grenades with shock batons - use a stun grenade to give it a taste of what's to come, then close in and shock the bastard.

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I still like my original idea of having them be very random in effectiveness. That makes them dangerous, but occasionally useful, unlike now where they are completely useless. I think Aaron is shooting for making stunning alien very risky compared to shooting them. An extremely random stun grenade would do that. I believe I might have posted that in this thread somewhere.

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Yeah strictly speaking I agree that the grenade should not do stun damage on detonation however it should have a potential suppression effect. The argument for that is simply the effect of any explosive device detonating in close proximity to a person has a potential of disorienting that person. its the same concept that flash bangs were actually built specifically to exploit. but it is an effect that should be present in any kind of explosive device.

Now in terms of gas effects. I am going on the description and I am more interested in the duration of the chemical effect. cause the description states that it is a chemical agent which binds with the blood and temporarily prevents it from carrying oxygen.

If that description is not a great reason to include status effects in the game I do not know what is.

and it would make stun grenades work completely differently. instead of applying stun damage for a round when someone is in the smoke instead it applies the stun gas status which gives say as an example of 20 stun damage a round for 3 round (assuming it is metabolized quickly to prevent brain damage.) now 20 points of stun damage a round for 3 rounds is not likely to actually drop a xenonaut or alien.

Aliens or xenonauts who remained in the gas would have that 3 round timer reset each round they started a turn in a gas filled square.

The effect would then be true to the description so if you exposed an alien to gas for 2 rounds and then it fled or otherwise got out of range of the gas they would continue to suffer the effects of the gas since it is a chemical reaction in the blood. and thus might receive a total of 4 rounds of 20 stun damage which might very well drop a Xenonaut or weaker alien

it conveys both the danger and effectiveness of the stun gas. The danger being that you have to get fairly close to use the grenades which means exposing your troops to potential enemy fire and the effect takes time so that alien is still a threat until the gas effect has time to work.

but by that same token an alien exposed to the gas for 2-3 round is assured to go down even if the gas has faded away.

I know the mechanic for a status effect is in the game because you see it with the bleed mechanics the gas would simply have a 100% change of applying the damage over time and the damage would instead be stun damage.

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