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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Chain Explosions And Volatile Equipment


NKF

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Had an interesting revelation this evening. It's completely destroyed a decade of equipment piling goodness.

 

You cannot expect equipment to reliably explode when destroyed by an explosion. At least, not all the time. It was quite a surprise when I threw an AP grenade to blast on impact on top of a vortex mine, and it didn't fire off.

 

The first thing I noted, volatile objects travelling in mid air that get caught in an explosion aren't affected at all. This means that it's okay to have an alien throw its shield high into the air and then have it drop all of its grenades to blast on impact or 0.25 seconds. The shield should be safe until it lands and not sustain any damage. I mean, if a Stun grenade can last a mid-air vortex mine explosion... But I suppose more tests might be useful.

 

The other, when on the ground, it is possible that the volatile object will get destroyed entirely without having any effect whatsoever (like they did in X-Com UFO). See, what I did was create a bread-crumb trail of AP grenades, then set it off at one end. I expected it to detonate all the way. The first AP grenade in the chain blew up (this being the secondary explosion), but it wiped out the second AP grenade without setting it off, ending the chain right there.

 

 

When I hit an explosive item with the very fringe of the AP blast, it didn't get destroyed. That's expected, since I don't think there was enough damage to breach through all the durability of the item. But on the next blast, it just vapourised it with no effect. On the other hand, without delivering any weak damage to the item beforehand, the item seemed to get set off quite regularly.

 

I wonder if too much damage is done that the item doesn't go off? I mean, if the damage puts its durability too far into the negatives, it just wipes it out, but if it's quite close +/- to 0 durability it goes off?

 

Hmm. Not too sure what to make of that, but I might just drop my use of the "extra super duper enhanced" proximity mine pile a bit - it might not be as potent as I thought. In any case, I can't rely on more than 1 fresh undamaged exposed item (of the same damage type). It's hard to tell if items are damaged or otherwise, since only armour parts show their durability.

 

Also, while experimenting with this, I noted something else. Dropping lots of explosives at blast on impact at the same time doesn't work so well when setting off an alien's entire stockpile of boomeroids at once. It's better to drop one on 0.25 or blast on impact, and set the rest to go off at 0.5 and 0.75 intervals but leave them in the backpack. This ensures at least 3 explosions in sucession. Being, 1 exposed (mid-air or contact with ground), 2 while it's in the backpack, and 3 whether it's still in the backpack or outside of it.

 

There might be more to it, but I think that should provide the best bang for your buck.

 

- NKF

 

edit: On a less related note, the AP grenades have a much greater fringe than animated - I noticed this when my disrupter shields crackled when I was a tile or two away from the visible edge of the explosion. Most interesting indeed. Doesn't deal anything significant to armour, but can hurt unarmoured units.

Edited by NKF
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only new info to me here was the edit. xD

 

But its good for you to mention these for the folks who havent actually decided to try making the trail before ^w^!

 

 

One of my favourite silly explosions involves a crapload of plasma ammo and a proximity mine. [:

 

 

XXX

XPX

XXX

 

Looks like fireworks imo. ^^'..

 

So funny to see someone walk over it xD..

 

Edit: Oh and about the thrown objects not being affected by explosions, the reason for this is that the game treats thrown objects like a falling projectile, and in this game the projectiles do not have damage ammounts allowed to them, although that would be very Sweet. ^^

 

*snipes a rocket* PEW PEW.

 

I actually remember doing that in halo once while it was coming out of the launcher, Im now banned from that server for apparent Hacking. >>

Edited by NRN_R_Sumo1
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Yeah, I really wish you could blow up explosives by shooting at them in Apocalypse (and the two earlier games). Would've added a nice additional action you could use against the aliens (and vice versa).

 

---

 

Considering I've spent most of my time trying to understand UFO/TFTD (which is okay, since a lot of it translates across, such as damage) and that I've only properly played the game a few times every year these past 3 - 4 years (even then only a few missions at a time), the fact that you could not rely on everything to blow up was quite amazing news to me. I did have an inkling that explosions only affected inert objects - I just needed to confirm it for myself. Fun stuff all around.

 

Makes me wonder if my massive chain reaction experience (a real beauty - made my computer suffer just trying to animate it) was not so much a bunch of munitions going off at the same time, but a series of well timed exposions being set off between terrain exploding (megapod pieces), and explosives becoming exposed just at the right time to get set off again, and repeating until the whole room was wiped out.

 

On an unrelated note, the weapon ROF you see in the ufopaedia refers to aimed speed (RT, of course). Does anyone know what this value is mulitplied by for the no-fire, snap and auto modes?

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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  • 2 years later...

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