Jump to content

Ground Combat Explosives


dakta

Recommended Posts

Since it seems that there is little chance of a lot of changes for the release, I would like to suggest one last important thing for balance.

Explosives are not useful right now

Rocket Launchers:

  • Heaviest ammo in the game by far
  • Bulkiest ammo
  • Most expensive reload and fire(TU)
  • Radius seems to be 3x3 with full damage in the center(not sure about damage distribution)
  • Low environmental destruction with every rocket type
  • High strength requirement
  • Gas grenade > Gas rocket hands down since you mostly only have to gas in grenade range inside the UFO.

There is no logical reason to take the rocket launcher over any other gun

My suggestion is to make the enviromental destruction the core of the rockets.

HE Grenades

  • Short throw range
  • Explodes until turn end(doesnt allow me to know if enemy will die or not, leaving me open to flank or to die in the open).
  • 3x3 area
  • Low enviromental destruction
  • Cant throw in ARC, if the enemy is behind something and I dont have direct LOS, doesnt matter if I am next to him.

The low AOE and medium damage is not enough to justify being that close to use it, the lack of cover destruction and the fact that it blows up at the end of the turn makes it a sub par tool.

I need to reliably know the results of using them, If I want to blow up the cover, I don't want to wait until next turn to just have it move to another cover. If I risk exposing myself and grenade someone I want to confirm a kill, otherwise I just keep dumping bullets on him pointlessly.

My suggestion, make it blow up on landing, increase cover damage, make it the range longer or the damage higher.

Gas Granades

  • Overpowered
  • They make the AI unable to cross some zones its perfect for base raids.
  • Spam and forget.

My suggestion: They should work only on aliens low on hp, or sufficiently stunned, instantly.

Smoke Grenades

  • Overpowered
  • Cancels reaction shots competently, makes advancing a cakewalk.

My suggestion: Should still have a chance of triggering reaction shot with heavy aim penalties

Electric Grenades

  • Short range
  • 3x3
  • Never saw an andron stunned or dead by one of them.

My suggestion: none, never felt compelled to used them after a few tests.

Satchel Charges:

  • Not enough environmental destruction
  • 2 rounds minimum to explode making
  • Low throw range

My suggestion: make the environmental destruction key. Let them have big AOE that just cleans everything away leaving no cover and a bunch of smoke. Dont let me detonate them inside the ufo as easily since the AOE might hit me.

Make aliens run away from them.

Make throwing range shorter, make me run from them.

TL/DR: Explosives need to have a clear role. Make explosives destroy cover consistently, they are high risk no reward right now.

Edited by dakta
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You should find the explosives to be better with today's patch. There was a bug that caused RLs/grenades to do their 4x extra environment damage to enemies as well, meaning they'd produce some bonkers numbers.

As for electroshocks: they'd be good with a couple of tweaks. They put out more suppression than a flashbang and do 80 stun if they land directly on a target. Flashbangs are better for breaching because of the end-of-turn factor, and gas grenades are instant as well as leaving a cloud behind. Buff the suppression to 180 so that one shock can insta-suppress enemies all the way up to Seb warriors and make them detonate immediately, and they'd be better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Flashbangs could also use more powerful effects in their radius. Throwing a flash in the middle of a light scout does not suppress even non-combatants.

I'm still convinced that's a bug related to throwing a flashbang into a UFO from the outside. The fact of the matter is that Caesan non-coms should always be suppressed by a flashbang. A flashbang deals 100 suppression damage, a Caesan non-com has 40 suppression "health". I don't know if it still works, but it used to be that if you created a save just before you throw the flashbang and load if the non-coms aren't suppressed, sometimes the FB will work properly.

Edited by Ol' Stinky
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rocket launchers are amazing on terror missions, and useful for blowing open walls/cover. They're also great for if you are otherwise outgunned. My record is 5 kills with a single rocket on a terror mission. They aren't the right tool for every situation, but situationally they are great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah. That could explain things. I usually flash in the middle of two aliens hoping to catch them both, but see only 1-3 points of suppression being done.

Blue numbers are stun damage. You probably didn't realise that because stun gas clouds don't show how much stun they're doing, but that's because environmental damage doesn't come up as a floating number yet. We don't get any feedback on suppression other than "is suppressed" and "is not suppressed".

It's definitely an unfortunate bug, because people use an FB on their first light scout mission, see that it does nothing, and then conclude that FBs are worthless. They're fiddly because we don't have a line of fire going on for grenades, but smoke can help with that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As said, the rockets and other explosives should be better with the latest experimental (and shortly the stable version) since we were able to re-introduce the 4x damage multiplier on explosives against props.

Also grenades should certainly be able to be thrown over obstacles - we took quite a while implementing that; is it not working in some way?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...