Blast charges

[Shaft]

It seems like blast charges mainly exist as mines for raiders.  I have already seen an almost foolproof post earlier regarding setting up a nice kill box for them.  Here are some suggestions for how to balance this mechanic:

- Make the charges unreliable.  Maybe the blast charge can have weighted effects like a radius from 1(dud) to whatever the current value is.  Maybe sometimes the charges are "shaped" in a random direction, with the length longer than the normal radius.  If the charges were not perfect every time, people might think twice about how they are used.

- Have a new raider type of "scout" that can identify charges when close(based on percentages maybe?).  If identified, other raiders will avoid or attempt to destroy the charge depending on their weapon.

- possibly remove charges completely.

I guess what I am saying is that charges are OP at the moment due to invisibility from raiders and consistent blast radius.

[Kender]

What's the point? They are not mandatory, only an option. If you don't like the tactic, don't use it in your game, It's not a competition between human players after all.

[NephilimNexus]

My only problem with blast charges is their exorbitant cost (35 metals for 1 charge?!).  Realistically, they should only cost 1 metal and 5 nutrients.  Why nutrients?  Fertilizer.  Chemicals.  Explosive components.  The metals is just the casing and a fuse.

[reidglanzer]

I like the demo charges as the game piles on more and more raiders I need a ace in the hole for my last line of defense. Granted I could use them as my one and only in a tiered defense of room after room with a charge at or behind the door with the raiders at the door. I'd like a trap system personally. like they bust through a door and I drop a wall behind them as they wade into the kill zone, or pit falls my people walk around but they either drop into a stake pit or a pit for later capture (often rare that I have a live raider I can get to the hole). electrified doorways that they need a researcher or enough guys to bypass. Basically I want more traps.

[ShadowDragon8685]

- Make the charges unreliable.  Maybe the blast charge can have weighted effects like a radius from 1(dud) to whatever the current value is.  Maybe sometimes the charges are "shaped" in a random direction, with the length longer than the normal radius.  If the charges were not perfect every time, people might think twice about how they are used.

This would make them utterly useless for all purposes, both as traps and to smash rock walls that you know are going to bring down the house when they vanish.

- Have a new raider type of "scout" that can identify charges when close(based on percentages maybe?).  If identified, other raiders will avoid or attempt to destroy the charge depending on their weapon.

Makes them extra-pointless, in other words. No.

- possibly remove charges completely.

No.

I guess what I am saying is that charges are OP at the moment due to invisibility from raiders and consistent blast radius.

In a game where the game throws escalating hordes of baddies at you, you need some pretty damn OP defenses to not get your shit wrecked.

[Otleaz]

What's the point? They are not mandatory, only an option. If you don't like the tactic, don't use it in your game, It's not a competition between human players after all.

The player should not have to deprive himself of certain parts of the game to keep the game fair and fun. I can understand avoiding the use overpowered tactics that break the AI, but having to avoid the use of something as basic as mines means something needs to be fixed. AI that spreads out should solve this nicely.

[Galileus]

The player should not have to deprive himself of certain parts of the game to keep the game fair and fun. I can understand avoiding the use overpowered tactics that break the AI, but having to avoid the use of something as basic as mines means something needs to be fixed. AI that spreads out should solve this nicely.

This and once again this.

And I'll talk to myself once again, because the same few people seems never to listen or acknowledge the issue: "don't like it don't use it" is not an argument. If you give a player god-hand mechanic, he's going to use it, because he doesn't know he's not supposed to. If you then throw anything at him that requires him to use other tactics - he's done for, because you failed to telegraph game's intended gameplay to him. It's not his fault for failing - it's yours for designing the game badly. If one choice is superior to all others, it's a bad game design.

Also, while I agree charging blasters need to be balanced bad (and as far as I know they will be changed in next update), I'm not so hot about "chance to fail" mechanics. In other thread I suggested auto-detonation (if mines are placed to close to each another) and ability to place them only in diggable terrain - but all in all this still does not fix them. At this point I would probably support full removal, unless Tynan can come up with some wonder solution.

[Workload]

could lower there HP, make raiders spot and shoot them and also give them longer charge delay

[Zebedeu]

I agree with Galileus and Otleaz.
One of the hard things about developing any game is achieving a proper balance.
Balancing requires taking into account all of the possibilities available to the player and making sure that those aren't either too powerful or to weak when confronting your opponent.

The simple fact that mines exist in the game means that the game balance has already considered them. "Don't like it don't use it" isn't therefore an option, since the game will otherwise be stacked against you.
The only reason it isn't like that currently is because the mines are overpowered (i.e. game isn't properly balanced yet), but that's subject to change.
You can, of course design "god-hand" mechanics into the game for those players who want to use them, but those are usually presented as cheats, which are not considered for balance.

So the solution here is to nerf the mines, improve the opponent's AI/weapons to deal with mines, or get rid of mines altogether.

Personally, I don't like mines or turrets that much. To me they're too technologically advanced for the setting.
I think having defensive structures is great, but I'd rather have more primitive ones, such as disguised holes, traps, bunkers and that sort of thing.
It'd be incredible if we could build networks of tunnels for guerilla strategies - think of Viet Cong tunnels during the Vietnam war - or for emergency escapes.

[theSovietConnection]

I've been thinking on the blasting charges, and I've come up with a couple of ideas on how to potentially correct them as far as defensive use goes that I'll run by the people here.

One that I think would help significantly with the problem, from what I've come to see on here (I don't use the blasting charges myself except as a fallback, if my colonists get taken out trying to strike the raiders pre-emptively) would be to eliminate the ability for blasting charges to detonate each other. Maybe maintain it if they are right beside each other, but I'd be all for just straight up removing that.

A second idea that feeds off the first would be to provide two firing modes for the charges, active and passive. You set the firing mode on construction of the charge and that decides how the charge will be handled. If you set it to passive, the blast radius shrinks, but the charge will deal higher damage in a smaller area, maybe within 1-2 squares of the charge at most, and the charge will be insantly detonated the same way a landmine would. Maybe even set it in the higher difficulties that the charge will also disappear from the map after a few in-game days, so you have to mark the area as being a minefield. Active firing would be much like how blasting charges work now, except that they deal smaller damage over an extended area, maybe a little smaller then the current blast radius.