Flashbang tactics

[hoiba]

Hello everybody!

I just registered an account here, to share my first (and only) experience with FBs:

I started with UFO:AI (2.5 Win version) about a week ago, because I'm in love with XCOM for nearly decades now

So, on a battle with some Tamans in the very beginning of the game I tried the FBs, because they were new for me and I wanted to find out, if they could be of some use or just junk which is not worth buying it.

There was one Taman just 10 fields from my squad on open ground, so this was the perfect opportunity, to give it a try. So I tossed 2 FBs at him, exploding within 1 and 2 Fields in front of him (btw.... does it matter, if it explodes in front or behind the enemy??).
When I ended the round, the Taman was not influenced by both FBs at all!! .. he rushed up to my squad and killed 2 of them with snap shots.

The FBs went out of my storage and squad equip within the next seconds, because I thought, they were completely useless. But now I read, they are a great thing to have in fight.... which confuses me a lot 

What went wrong with my FBs? Did someone else experience the same?

Greetings!

Hoiba

[anonymissimus]

I am guessing that they exploded in a way that the Taman couldn't see the explosion. They need to explode in the target unit's "cone of vision" and maybe not too near, because then they might be out of that vision field. If you use the words "in front" and "back" then I assume it refers to the Taman's position with respect to your own units, which is irrelevant for this problem. The radius of exploding flashbangs is several fields, so it's not too critical. 10 fields distance is rather far away. If I use flashbangs, the user is a cannon fodder unit most of the time and only 5 fields or so away, so it enables the valuable soldiers to safely move near to the target to kill it.

[hoiba]

No, "in front" and "back" refers to the Tamans front and the Tamans back. The first FB went off 1 field away from his feet right in his line of sight. The second one went off 2 fields right in front of the Tamans line of sight. I intentionally let them explode in his LoS because I already supposed it would only work when it happens in this 'cone of vision', as you called it.
But thank you for verifying my assumption!

Anyways... I'll give it one more try today and give feedback as soon as I have results. Maybe it was a one-time bug, the Taman had his tired eyes closed or wore sunglasses 

[anonymissimus]

It's quite possible it is bugged, sometimes works and sometimes not. In this thread I claimed (and still am sure) that flashbangs wouldn't work against sheevar, but someone else obviously had them working.

[hoiba]

I'll give some Sheevars a try too, just to be sure 

[MonkeyHead]

In 2.6, you can easily tell if you "hit" with a flashbang as the alien pain noise is audible.

[DarkRain]

It's quite possible it is bugged, sometimes works and sometimes not. In this thread I claimed (and still am sure) that flashbangs wouldn't work against sheevar, but someone else obviously had them working.

I gues it could be a release-only bug (even if I don't see any reason for that) as I always compile in dev mode...

Does that mean they SPEND that TU or just set it aside 'as if' RF was optioned?  My impression is that it seems like the math assumes RF is enabled for all parties so it 'holds' and thus wastes that TU?  Presuming you have RF engaged?

I will of course honorably treat this information with the most respectable of conditions.

I somehow missed this, alien RF works the same as your soldiers' when enabled will 'reserve' enough TUs to fire a single shoot and those won't be available to the alien for moving or shooting, since the AI cannot enable/disable RF during combat (only enable it randomly at mission start) yes it can waste said TUs if some other strategy was better (it can't disable RF for extra moves/shots while PHALANX isn't around, for example)

[hoiba]

short reply from me:

at first, I think I have to correct myself. It wasn't a Taman which refused to get influenced by the FB.. it actually was a Sheevar! Sorry for my fault!

I was not able to confirm this in my last few combats. They were all long-range firefights. No use for FBs so far.

[anonymissimus]

at first, I think I have to correct myself. It wasn't a Taman which refused to get influenced by the FB.. it actually was a Sheevar! Sorry for my fault!

Okay, so that supports my claim.

I gues it could be a release-only bug (even if I don't see any reason for that) as I always compile in dev mode...

Quite possibly. I probably was using a release built on my trials. I'm going to check with a debug build then.

[hoiba]

Well, yesterday I had the opportunity to FB an Sheevar, but I didn't want to risk the mission on this as I already had some wounded soldiers. So I just shot it.

Is it possible to save the game during the combat and reload it? Didn't find the option. Would be nice to be able to redo testing like the possible FB-Bug on Sheevars.


##EDIT##

Just found the answer myself. No saving during battle 

[anonymissimus]

Well, yesterday I had the opportunity to FB an Sheevar, but I didn't want to risk the mission on this as I already had some wounded soldiers. So I just shot it.

Is it possible to save the game during the combat and reload it? Didn't find the option. Would be nice to be able to redo testing like the possible FB-Bug on Sheevars.


##EDIT##

Just found the answer myself. No saving during battle 

This is exactly why the "you shouldn't be able to save during battles" mindset is wrong, and I am sure it results in quite a number of bugs.
As a slight workaround, you can arrange it so that in case it doesn't work, you can only loose cannon fodder units. Best situations are at mission end with the last alien.

[hoiba]

My bigger problem is, I'm able to play max 45-60min a day ... so if a fight lasts longer I lose all progress. I'm already thinking about setting up a VM where I can 'snapshot' the system if I have to leave.

But back to topic: yesterday I had the opportunity to FB a Sheevar without lots of risk because of 4 units with reaction fire ready. The FB went off 1 field in front of him.. but when I ended my turn the Sheevar died of the wounds I inflicted in the round before.
Man.. if there is a FB-bug with Sheevars its a real struggle to figure it out 

[anonymissimus]

My bigger problem is, I'm able to play max 45-60min a day ... so if a fight lasts longer I lose all progress. I'm already thinking about setting up a VM where I can 'snapshot' the system if I have to leave.

Great idea. Probably not that much work on my ubuntu system...if I use the same client system as the host I should be able to execute the built from the host. Base attack missions are a pain, I need to make sure I have 5+ hours.
If it actually works.

But back to topic: yesterday I had the opportunity to FB a Sheevar without lots of risk because of 4 units with reaction fire ready. The FB went off 1 field in front of him.. but when I ended my turn the Sheevar died of the wounds I inflicted in the round before.

You could have healed him with a medkit.

[DarkRain]

Mmmm so it works for me in release mode both in master and 2.5 branches, haven't tested it es extensyvely as the last time (due to the difficulty of setting it up) but I was able to succesfully 'flash' two of the three shevaar in my last try (I might have missed the third as I was trying to flash two of them at the same time and this time they weren't looking the same way)

[ShipIt]

... (due to the difficulty of setting it up) ...

If somebody wants to test, it should not be a problem to mod the alientype_missions.ufo (so only Shevaar will appear in each mission), mod the equipment_missions.ufo to give them only Kerrblades as weapons (so they want to come close), mod the weapons_melee.ufo to make the Kerrblade do just 1 damage and finally mod the maps.ufo to only allow a map that is suitable (like dam).