Instant instant grenades option

[DeltaEpsilon]

(The title contains no typos)

There are certain situation where you'd like to have Instant Grenades on. The easiest example of such a situation is when you are bombing some strong enemy. If you play without instant grenades, you are pretty much forced to do 1 grenade at one time because an explosion of a grenade destroys other grenades without detonating them. Another example would be smoke grenades at Turn 0. You see, sometimes you can start your combat having a bunch of enemies watching you while you are still in the craft. This situation is bad to say the least. You can counteract it if you throw an instant smoke grenade in front of you, breaking visual contact.
On the other hand having instant grenades always turned on is not always needed. First of all, grenade relay. How are you supposed to relay a grenade if it explodes upon hitting ground? Second, HE pack. There is almost no way apart from having highly trained thrower throwing HE pack to survive it if it explodes in available range for most rookies.
Switching the aforementioned option back and forth is incredibly annoying and you can sometimes forget if it's on or not leading to some stupid mistakes.

I propose changing Instant Grenades mod so that it will add "-1" timer setting which will make an explosive instant.

[Yankes]

This already done (sort of) in Extended version. Grenades cant destroy each others if explode at same turn and some grenades can made be instant even without option.

[DeltaEpsilon]

This already done (sort of) in Extended version. Grenades cant destroy each others if explode at same turn and some grenades can made be instant even without option.

Well, instant grenades mod is in vanilla OpenXCom. Actually, that gave me an idea. I changed the suggestion a bit.

[Warboy1982]

adjust the armour value of the grenade items to stop them destroying each other.

[DeltaEpsilon]

Grenades destroying each other is not the only problem.

[Coincident]

I was thinking about creating a new thread, but I found this. I believe this suggestion from EditorRUS is important.

At the moment, the instant grenades option remove the choice of using the grenade relay tactic.
It is also important to have the choice of grenades exploding at the end of xcom turn, which is very useful for heavy explosives: short distance throw, but the soldier needs time to run before the end of turn explosion. At the moment this is impossible; if you prime with "0" (instant) the soldier has no time to run away, and if you prime with "1" (end of alien turn), the aliens will move away from the explosive.

Personally, I think that a "-1" option would look weird, and would require reworking the interface graphics.

I believe there's an easier way to solve this:
 - Make the "0" act like instant grenade.
 - Make the "1" act like the old "0" (end of xcom turn - supports grenade relay).
 - Make the "2" act like the old "1" (end of alien turn).
etc.

No graphics change required, and the player does not lose any tactical option.

(okay he loses the 23 turn prime, which acts like 22... but who uses that anyway?)

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, that wouldn't be instant grenades, right?

[Coincident]

Well, that wouldn't be instant grenades, right?

Yes, it would. Priming "0" would make grenades instant, just like it does now.

I'm not sure what do you meant there.

[Dioxine]

If you want to eat the cake (instant grenades) and still have it (normal-behaviour grenades), you can turn the instant grenade option off to revert back to normal, then turn it back on when needed. At least put your back into it when you're cheating

[Coincident]

If you want to eat the cake (instant grenades) and still have it (normal-behaviour grenades), you can turn the instant grenade option off to revert back to normal, then turn it back on when needed. At least put your back into it when you're cheating

No, I'm actually playing without instant grenades at all because of the limitation being discussed in this thread.
It is extremely disruptive (and doesn't make sense) to ask the player to change the game options every 2 turns or so...

Why do you consider that having two choices is cheating?
This is a tactical/strategy game so giving the player multiple choices, so that he has to make non-trivial and situational decisions, is a natural part of the game.
In my opinion removing choices from the player only makes the game more linear, and less interesting.

[yrizoud]

Grenades already have the advantage of being much more reliable than guns (Typical hit rate 80%, damage less random).
The current implementation of "instant grenade" loses the advantage of (hot) grenade relay. If it had both choices, it would be even more overpowered then either system.
It's especially unfair that the AI doesn't really benefit from instant grenades.

[Yankes]

In extended version you can have different favors of grenades. Some explode at end of turn other when hit ground (and some that have fixed delay).
And more importantly concurrent explosion don't cancel each others.

[Coincident]

It's especially unfair that the AI doesn't really benefit from instant grenades.

I understand your point; you're right. It does raise a balance issue.
However, balance can be easily tweaked through modding. IMO it does not justify this engine limitation with the instant grenades option.

In extended version you can have different favors of grenades. Some explode at end of turn other when hit ground (and some that have fixed delay).

Ok, thanks for the info. At the moment I'm using the nightly build.

But to be totally honest I have mixed feelings about there being 2 versions: nightly build VS extended version.
Isn't it bad to have the (small to begin with) community split in 2? (off-topic, nevermind)

[Joe Cool]

I think I might just change this:

Code: [Select]

if (Options::battleInstantGrenade && item->getRules()->getBattleType() == BT_GRENADE && item->getFuseTimer() == 0)to 23. Then instant grenades only happen when the timer is set to max (which I cannot fathom anyone using anyways).

I'll report back when I tried it with what this change has broken.

[NKF]

For what it's worth, X-Com Apocalypse implements both systems in its real-time and  turn-based modes. LMB for timer settings as per usual and RMB for detonate-on-impact.

One solution would be to add another function to the ALT key. Hold it down and whatever time setting you choose defaults to instant. The more labour intensive option would be to have an alternate timer selection menu pop up while ALT is held down.