Removing Stun Gas Grenades?

[Chris]

I was thinking earlier that Stun Gas grenades are a bit boring. Stunning aliens is much riskier (and therefore potentially interesting) if you are forced to run up to the alien and club him with a stun baton rather than use stun gas on them.

I was therefore thinking we could either just flat-out remove stun gas grenades, or perhaps move them to after the Alien Soldier interrogation research project. It's just a thought that struck me, nothing too concrete at this point.

What does everyone think? I know Stun Gas grenades get used a lot, but do people honestly feel they add to the game or do they think that it makes what would otherwise be quite a risky operation really quite easy?

[Max_Caine]

There are other options rather than having them, not having them or delaying their entry. Remember they are currently free and infinite in number which is a big part of what makes stun grenade spam so attractive. Putting a hefty price tag on them would make them finite, more valuable, less spammable. It doesn't have to be a dollar value either - they could need exotic ingrediants, such as the rendered down corpses of Caesans.

[StellarRat]

I sure don't want them removed. I think they are an interesting alternative weapon. I think removing them will make the game more boring as it takes away another type of weapon. Your going to push everything towards more "sameness". If you really feel that you don't want them in the game please consider having them do something different than they do now instead.

Ideas: Maybe instead of knocking the aliens out they cause long term suppression or maybe they immobilize the aliens, but don't knock them out completely i.e. they can still shoot.

Maybe they act like smoke AND cause suppression?

What if they were highly unpredictable in how long the aliens remained stunned? Maybe your alien would wake up and shoot you unexpectedly.

How about an incendiary grenade instead of stun?

Maybe change them so the aliens won't enter the area and ones trapped in the cloud are suppressed and make the gas last a long time, like a form of tear gas that affects aliens (and humans.)

A proximity grenade would be awesome too.

Please don't take them completely out of the game! We already have nearly ZERO area denial weapons. The OG had both fire and proximity weapons for that purpose. All we have are stun grenades and they don't even affect some units!

Edited April 1, 2014 by StellarRat

[smoitessier]

I could see them later in the tech tree, that's my biased opinion only because I played a lot of UFOAI, we're you started out with a stun rod, then got gas later (or I think it was, I forget)

[TacticalDragon]

You can put chemical armor in some kind of aliens to correct stun grenade.

I had test stun grenade against chemical armored units, that result failing or taking too much time to stun that unit.

Stun staff deal energy damage, and grenade deals small amount of stun damage against chemical.

I usually assume that Sebillians, Harridans and Wraiths has natural resistance against chemical, making them hard to stun with gas grenade.

In other hand I assume that some ranks of Caesans are vulnerable to stun, making this grenades effective against it, even more than normal grenades and leaving the equipment intact. (In Xnats - Into Darkness recovering and selling UFO equipment is vital)

Plz dont remove it.... removing things make the game less diverse and less tactical, instead play with the HUGE and AMAIZING diversity that your system has (I already say this LOT of times).

Personal request: Can you put again or put an option for flame thrower and removed weapons? plz

Edited April 1, 2014 by TacticalDragon

[huhn]

i think they are not as op as shock grenades, if they stay as rocket i think it is an good idea you can't spam rockets. i think making them very weak is more interesting so it take time to be effective, like 25 "hp" stun per tile/turn and armored alien with helmed get 0-25 "hp" per tile/turn if armor is damaged and gain 5-10 gas "hp" per turn. so you need to hurt them to get stunned.

i don't like that grenades got bigger radius then gas rockets is so bug this should be nerfed a lot.

[Max_Caine]

Having come back from doing a bit of shopping and having a chance to think about this some more, I think that if you want players to use shock prods more, then you need to make them more fun. You want that irrational "Wow! This is a totally impractical weapon, but it's just SO MUCH FUN to use!" response when using the shock prod. Crank up the amount of stun/emp damage it does to ludicrous levels - we're takling 1.21 gigawatts here. Change the sound on it to something more meaty, something like

or

or this. Have Aaron put some fancy arcing into the animation. Drop the AP cost to 25%. Heck, give it the same reaction modifier as pistols or shotties. But above all, make the player feel like a BOSS when s/he uses his/her shockstick, and s/he'll keep using it for irrational reasons rather than use the rational, practical but lame stun grenade.

[TornadoADV]

Using a Stun Rod should be the same as using them from Demolition Man. An amped up billy club. Plus, as far as the Gas Grenades go, you've already made it so alien units that have suits are practically immune and those that have helmets have a heightened resistance to it.

[dpelectric]

There are other options rather than having them, not having them or delaying their entry. Remember they are currently free and infinite in number which is a big part of what makes stun grenade spam so attractive. Putting a hefty price tag on them would make them finite, more valuable, less spammable. It doesn't have to be a dollar value either - they could need exotic ingrediants, such as the rendered down corpses of Caesans.

My vote is for this idea. That way stun grenades stay in the game as an option; but if you opt for this safer, easier route you'll pay (one way or the other) for it. The greater risk of a shock baton should be rewarded

[Arghy]

I love them as area denial weapons and they are so integral to creating areas of control. Dont remove them, make them not stun if anything but make them suppress/damage you so you want to get out of the cloud or not get into it.

Stun batons are pretty absurd since you need to charge an alien to use it and you got things that resist stun/flashbangs. Add in a gas mask, a combination suppressing/hiding/damaging gas grenade and you got your stun baton units! You got an alien officer amongst 2 androns, you throw in a gas grenade then rush in a berserker unit who dodges all the reaction fire and stuns the officer then high tails it out of there while your regular troops clear out the androns!

Hell if anything just modify the smoke grenade like the regular grenades, after research it gains a weak stunning/suppressing effect on aliens and more research makes this stronger. When you first get stun grenades it would basically make the smoke grenades weak stun grenades and force your soldiers to equip gas masks or take damage when walking through it.

[ViewThePhenom]

I would only agree with this if stun grenades apply another effect. I like the idea of a cloud that does damage over time\per step taken (?) and reduces accuracy like smoke, while units can equip masks\helmets to negate it. That way, it strengthens the use of batons while keeping the benefits of area control.

Edited April 1, 2014 by ViewThePhenom

[jeon]

I like stun gas grenades. They are fairly situational and make for an interesting choice at times. I'd like to see some aliens more resistant to the gas, but other than that they are quite nice. I can't say I've ever used a stun baton, because charging into aliens with a melee weapon just seems silly. I have never used one in classic XCOM or in Xenonauts. The arc thrower in the 2012 XCOM is more reasonable (and much more important for overall research progression).

[Skybirduk]

Why do people have to run up to the alien to give them an electric shock when the Taser already existed at this time.

Why not have something like a one shot taser that has to be reloaded after each shot? You could have Taser pistols or Taser carbines.

[ViewThePhenom]

Taser would most likely need to be short range, and wouldn't fill the role of area denial that stun gas grenades currently do. A short range, one shot pistol would be less useful than a baton as well imo.

[dmholt]

Personally I like the stun grenades - they're another option to use that's different from other attacks. Also, I find that I generally end up using stun rods instead once I get to needing to capture officers, leaders, and praetors. The stun grenades can be quite useful in reducing the numbers in enclosed areas - and it's really fun to hear aliens expiring at the start of their turn becasue they have run into the gas. But grenades generally won't get all the aliens, except maybe in a small scout, and the leaders seem to be more resistant.

So it may be just a habit that I've got into, but I feel I need to use the stun rods to capture specific high level aliens. That means I end up using stun grenades on occasion, and other time sthe stun rods - which seems to me to be the ideal balance.

Also, are you going to take away guns, because people are shooting the aliens too frequently? Makes just as much sense to me.

[quiescat]

I find they become too unreliable to be worth using once we reach the time frame for when androns show up. After androns show i will have elctros shortly. so if you back off how long there in the game your going to effectively remove an item from its role early on, and make it pointless later. area denial is not a function i have ever gotten out of stun gas. i have had aliens that sit in the stuff for turns on end. the later ranks have too much health to care about anything but cover, and i dont have the patience not with my other options. out side of early ranks using stun gas just breaks game flow for me.

i do however fully support the idea of buffing the visceral effect of the stun baton, be it give it the 1 shot kill of the reaper, the 2x reflex mod of old shotguns, or a neat-o sound effect that plays to my sick desire to fry aliens with jumper cables(kidding about my suggestions not my support)

to out right remove stun gas no. i think you would be better off out right removing live capture at that point, and just craft a alien leader capture mission to focus on the virtues of the stun baton. something along the lines of the final mission.

[Mercent]

I second quiescat. My squad is only carrying a few gas grenades in the mid games. During the early games, gas grenades are life savers, making assulting encamped aliens in spaceships possible but in the mid-games, the aliens are already too resilient for gas grenades to be useful.

[Gauddlike]

Stun gas could maintain its usefulness for longer if some aliens relied more on armour than on health as stun gas should ignore non chemical armour.

As currently set up most aliens have no armour and rely on an ever increasing health pool to reflect their higher rank so stun gas has to do significantly more stun damage before it can have an effect on higher ranked aliens.

Caesans for example are supposed to be less hardy than humans but they are only weak if you compare it to a sebillian of a similar rank.

They range between 45 hp for a non-com to 200 for the elite, all without armour.

Sebillians range from 60 to 270 so stunning them would be a challenge.

I agree that stun grenades allow for different tactics so for variation sake should be kept.

I also agree that they are much less useful later in the game so either they need to be kept as an early item or changes made to the way aliens are currently balanced to allow them to be useful later.

[Xenomorph]

Having come back from doing a bit of shopping and having a chance to think about this some more, I think that if you want players to use shock prods more, then you need to make them more fun. You want that irrational "Wow! This is a totally impractical weapon, but it's just SO MUCH FUN to use!" response when using the shock prod. Crank up the amount of stun/emp damage it does to ludicrous levels - we're takling 1.21 gigawatts here. Change the sound on it to something more meaty, something like

or

or this. Have Aaron put some fancy arcing into the animation. Drop the AP cost to 25%. Heck, give it the same reaction modifier as pistols or shotties. But above all, make the player feel like a BOSS when s/he uses his/her shockstick, and s/he'll keep using it for irrational reasons rather than use the rational, practical but lame stun grenade.

IF anything, this.

Stripping soldiers from kill medals is not really a good deal, but surrounding an alien with shield soldiers and poking it to oblivion with a shock stick is way more fun then shooting them in the face

Oh wait, they get medals for capturing live aliens right?

Edited April 2, 2014 by Xenomorph

[frank_walls]

Please don't remove them for all the same reasons everyone else stated. I never use the baton because it's boring, but if you did what max said I might be prone to use it. Especially if it could take down androns and harridan with 1 pop.

[Commissar Pancakes]

Meh, all you guys...

Nothing better than to imagine the terrified faces of the Xenos as my tactical squads bum-rushing them with assault shields and Beating sticks. I'm fine with them as is.

[thixotrop]

Please don't remove them. I agree they are essential in (my) early game but not so necessary in (my) later game.

As they have an increased stun-smoke radius compared to V20, they require more carefullness when using them at close surroundings like inside ufos or buildings. Thus "spamming" them is not wise and hence not a "win-button" that makes the game easier. It is one element of tactic, I don't want to miss.

From all other ideas here:

• Harvesting/exploiting dead Caesans/Harridans for producing stun grenades would be cool. But please more than a 1:1 rate.
  
• If stun is too much overpowered (I don't think so) it might be valid to reduce TU drastically; like when moving through that smoke you become dizzy.
  
• Proximity grenade? Oh yeah, baby!
  
• At the moment in my opinion the stun baton is too weak or it takes too much TU to use. Getting near an alien prior to using the stun baton takes a lot of effort. And then you run towards just to find out that you can only hit once and it is not enough. However I also use them for capturing leaders due to the stun-smoke radius mentioned above.
  A single-charge one-hit stun button would be valid too, I also imagine the "Demolition Man" version here.
  
• An alternative to that stun buton could be a special stun one-bullet-ammo pack or a rifle grenade in WW2 style or like the M203 launcher.
  

[Chris]

I think I'll probably leave them in then.

[Caaygun]

Aliens in the command room of bases and ships need to be able to move and excape from the gas. When they just sit in place, they easily come down with gas. I would like them staying, with nerfed damage, and with the aliens being capable of escaping from the gas. With the current balance, I never take batons with me because its just much easier and risk free with the gas grenade.

[Beltorn]

To add: in V21 and V22 stun gas grenades also act as smoke grenades and as somebody found can save a soldier from reaperification (a major feature). If a player uses mostly stun gas grenades to battle aliens, he also loses out on developing accuracy stat of his soldiers.

Currently gas grenades are a bit too good, because they make alien AI run closer to you (due to smaller hit chance - same behavior as smoke grenades), make dealing with enemies easier (aliens can run into the cloud and lose consciousness), have very wide range - same as concussion grenades.

Making them producible wouldn't work, because currently your equipment replenishes after every mission, though this could be true only for unlimited equipment. I haven't tested what happens if one soldier loses a weapon and returns to base - i assume he gets an identical weapon. As i understand basically the player would only need to produce overall around 20-30 grenades for his squad to not require any more during the game. Definitely not hard to do.

My suggestion: reduce strength of gas by 20-25% and reduce its area of effect by 1 (to 3 tiles from center). To help with AI tell it to run away from smoke. Players would require to throw at least one more grenade of this type and throw a concussive grenade of either type to make aliens stay in gas longer (due to concussion).

While we are at it:

Electroshock grenades should have small area for stun - 2 tiles from center and 3 tiles for concussion, but higher chance concussion thyan concussion grenade and higher potency stun effect than gas grenade.

Smoke grenade could use a different change - smoke should linger longer the closer it is to center of explosion - currently it is a bit random in distribution.

I haven't used RPGs yet (don't want overkill), but i think that stun rockets should definitely be more potent and have higher gas area than grenades, but at the same time they should have a small area of medium damage (around laser pistol values) (the rocket explodes to disperse gas afterall).