Excuse me if this topic has been discussed already, I looked for it but could not find it. For those disinterested in reading this post, the TL;DR will be at the bottom.
I came back to rimworld after a long hiatus to find that some pawns when killed just started turning into green clouds of acid. I thought it was a siege tactic. A way to punish funneling enemies into a thin corridor blocked off by pawns in melee combat. I thought that the acid would affect nearby pawns and thus force them to reposition else take heavy damage. Sadly from what I understand, I was wrong.
Reading some posts about the death acidifier, it seems like it doesn't even deal damage and it's only purpose is to melt the gear off of an extremely well-equipped pawn. In other words, a way to force you to make your own power armor instead of stealing five sets off of raiders. Well I might be wrong, maybe the acid does deal damage or has some other effect, but I think there's a better way to do the above and more.
Introducing explosives. Do you have a pulse? Good, cause that can be used for a dead mans switch. Simply hook up some explosives to a pulse monitor and when your heart stops beating, your body goes boom. Certain explosives are capable of withstanding gunfire without detonating, and this method is probably way easier to make and set-up than an acid filled chest implant.
If ease of use isn't a good enough reason, how about using it as a siege weapon? Sure, the explosion could hurt fellow pawns, but something as simple as a pawn equipped with a wireless device to hold off detonation until they're out of range of the explosive device could work. I wouldn't know this personally, but it doesn't seem too hard to have bluetooth built into whatever computer controls the detonation, at least when compared to plasma weaponry and faster than light space travel.
It just seems to make more sense to me to use modern explosives to destroy all your equipment instead of high tech implants filled with acid, especially when those explosives can cause much more damage to structures and enemy pawns. Or maybe it can't. I don't know anything about explosives, I'm kinda just going off of what google tells me.
TL;DR - I think it would open up more tactical play and make more sense to replace death acidifiers with explosives.
I came back to rimworld after a long hiatus to find that some pawns when killed just started turning into green clouds of acid. I thought it was a siege tactic. A way to punish funneling enemies into a thin corridor blocked off by pawns in melee combat. I thought that the acid would affect nearby pawns and thus force them to reposition else take heavy damage. Sadly from what I understand, I was wrong.
Reading some posts about the death acidifier, it seems like it doesn't even deal damage and it's only purpose is to melt the gear off of an extremely well-equipped pawn. In other words, a way to force you to make your own power armor instead of stealing five sets off of raiders. Well I might be wrong, maybe the acid does deal damage or has some other effect, but I think there's a better way to do the above and more.
Introducing explosives. Do you have a pulse? Good, cause that can be used for a dead mans switch. Simply hook up some explosives to a pulse monitor and when your heart stops beating, your body goes boom. Certain explosives are capable of withstanding gunfire without detonating, and this method is probably way easier to make and set-up than an acid filled chest implant.
If ease of use isn't a good enough reason, how about using it as a siege weapon? Sure, the explosion could hurt fellow pawns, but something as simple as a pawn equipped with a wireless device to hold off detonation until they're out of range of the explosive device could work. I wouldn't know this personally, but it doesn't seem too hard to have bluetooth built into whatever computer controls the detonation, at least when compared to plasma weaponry and faster than light space travel.
It just seems to make more sense to me to use modern explosives to destroy all your equipment instead of high tech implants filled with acid, especially when those explosives can cause much more damage to structures and enemy pawns. Or maybe it can't. I don't know anything about explosives, I'm kinda just going off of what google tells me.
TL;DR - I think it would open up more tactical play and make more sense to replace death acidifiers with explosives.