Priming grenades

[Gimli]

I've been doing some thinking on grenades today and realized that I always set the grenade to explode at the end of turn.

 

So my question is, do you ever use any of the numbers other than 0? I could see myself setting it to 1 turn, but for others I really can't think of a use. I'd be more likely to forget about it and get my soldiers blown to pieces. If you do set them to more turns, in what situations do you do that?

[Knan]

I sometimes use more for High Explosives, in order to get out of the blast radius. Otherwise, seldom.

[NKF]

I can't say I actively use the higher settings either. It's always either 0 or 1.

 

I guess higher settings can be used for high explosive packs that you want to set in place and then give yourself some time to escape. Even then you'd only need to give yourself 2 - 3 spare turns (3 - 5 grenade turns). I find just throwing the high explosive to be adequate myself.

 

For those who haven't used it before, 1's special because it explodes at the end of the alien's turn, but before any of the doors are closed.

 

- NKF

[Danial]

Yeah, I've never used anything other than 0. Never found a use for it. Even with HE, I've always been able to throw it where I want it.

[Bomb Bloke]

The problem is that you never get time to think too far ahead. If you know there's an alien somewhere and you want to kill him with a grenade, you want to do it on the spot. If you wanted to leave grenades around as traps... You'd use prox mines.

[Gimli]

So what do you think would actually be good times to put for grenade priming? The way I see it, it would be Now (for when you are a safe distance away from an alien), End of turn (for when you are close to an alien and want to make sure the grenade hits the spot and still have time to get away), and End of Aliens' turn that NKF mentions.

 

Anything else?

[Danial]

0 or 1, that's it. I can't think of any possible reason to use anything higher.

[FullAuto]

I've used 2 & 3 against far-off Chryssalids before, with mixed results. Their wandering takes them all over.

[Zombie]

Rarely do I use anything other than 0 for priming grenades. In some cases when I use a High Explosive pack, sure, I'll set it to 3 or 4 and then shove it through the ceiling at aliens hiding above which gives me some time to get my men to the steps. And priming the HE pack for later detonations is helpful in the Medium Scout where the aliens are crowded inside the ship and you need to make a tactical (albeit, temporary) withdrawl.

 

- Zombie

[Tepid tasoth]

For those who haven't used it before, 1's special because it explodes at the end of the alien's turn, but before any of the doors are closed.

 

I wanted to do just that in base defence missions where some floaters showed up in the lift. It didn't work, the grenades exploded at the end of my turn, no matter what I set them to. Bummer.

[Kret]

If once primed, you don't throw the grenades their counter still goes down, but they won't detonate until they've been thrown. Thus, any grenade that has been set to greater than 0 should be thrown inmediatly or else start deducting time available for it to detonate.

 

Guess this could be the only reason you would odd number priming greater than 1. Prime it to 3, hold onto the grenade so next turn you have more TU, then approach and lob the grenade so it detonates at the end of the alien turn. Not that usefull for even number because you can hold onto it with a primed setting of 0 and lob it when you need to.

[NKF]

Tepid Tasoth: Have you tried it again since then? I once experienced a similar problem with the grenade timers when the game was getting quite unstable.

 

All grenade settings ended up exploding at the end of the turn, some even started behaving like armed proximity mines and one even blew up as it landed (or something went pop, anyway). After the game crashed, I restarted the game and reloaded the mission and everything was fine again. Mind you, the game was really crazy for a while, what with bits of the skyranger getting blown away by silent shots from aliens, and ALL the text graphies were turned into a jumbled up mess.

 

Fun with memory leaks and pointers.

 

- NKF

[Tepid tasoth]

If once primed, you don't throw the grenades their counter still goes down, but they won't detonate until they've been thrown. Thus, any grenade that has been set to greater than 0 should be thrown inmediatly or else start deducting time available for it to detonate.

 

I remember when I played that EU demo, the grenades used to detonate no matter if you held them in your hands or not. It's fun to lose your whole squad inside the Skyranger.

 

Tepid Tasoth: Have you tried it again since then? I once experienced a similar problem with the grenade timers when the game was getting quite unstable.

 

You're right, I should give it a try again.

 

Edit: So I tried it this time and it worked. Strange.

[kennyc]

i wish they did go off at the time they were primed for. and i wish you could throw two and have double the explosion. i have a feeling if two detonate near each other one destroys the other? im not sure actually will go check it out.

[NKF]

Grenade timers are tricky, but you can easily time them to go off at specific times once you realise that they work in half-turns, not full turns.

 

See, a single game turn is made up of your turn and the alien's turn. Two turns will have passed before you get to make another.

 

Grenades blow up at the end of the turns, and the countdown counter begins with 0, so that it blows up at the end of your current turn but before the start of the aliens' turn. 1 means it'll detonate at the end of the alien's turn but before your turn. 2 means it'll detonate right after you end the next turn but before the start of the alien's turn. So on and so forth.

 

So, unless I'm performing a fencepost error in my calculation, if you wanted the grenade to blow up in 3 turns time before the alien turn starts, you'd select 6. If you want it to blow up in 3 turns after the aliens have moved, you'd select 7.

 

I suppose another way to look at is that you could just take the grenade timer and divide it by two. The integer will give you the turn it'll blow up on, and if there is a fraction (.5), then it means it'll blow up after the alien's end their turn.

 

--

 

Grenades in UFO destroy each other, so they are wasted this way. TFTD however attempts to fix this by making them indestructable to their own attacks, but not necessarily against stronger grenades.

 

- NKF

[Knan]

Grenades in UFO destroy each other, so they are wasted this way. TFTD however attempts to fix this by making them indestructable to their own attacks, but not necessarily against stronger grenades.

 

Aha! That could explain some of the more horrifying carnage those dastardly aliens have inflicted on me.