Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)

[SagaDC]

Honestly, I plan my trap usage around the fact that Underrail is a sequential, turn-based game. Most commonly, I'll set a mine at a choke point with enough room to move around it, then I'll aggro the enemies while standing right in FRONT of the trap.

Given the current state of AI in the game, melee-centric enemies will then rush to attack me, piling up at the choke-point (and into the blast radius of the mine). Then, the next turn, I'll retreat back past the mine and out of the blast radius. That ensures that when the mine detonates, as many enemies as possible are in the blast radius.

It's not the most ideal strategy, but it was invaluable during my Trapper's progress through the last few areas in Junkyard. Those Mutants were a huge pain to kill conventionally.

An alternative I've had some success with is using traps in conjunction with a high Stealth rating. With a high enough Stealth skill, the player can sneak up on enemies and set a trap very close to them. Almost impossible to do without the Trap Expert Feat, due to the long trap-setting time, but particularly handy for set-piece battles (the Raiders under GMS, for example, or the Toll-Takers in mid-Junkyard).

The easiest method of use, at the moment, is when ambushing Sentry Bots. Due to the very predictable patrol pattern that most Sentry Bots follow, it's easy to set an EMP Mine in an area that they're sure to pass through. Then, once the EMP mine detonates, it's a simple matter to leap out and spray the incapacitated Bot with a large number of bullets.

[Elhazzared]

Problem with setting traps on robots. They almost always see it and go aroud. How do you show them that you don't give 2 shits about them seeying the trap? EMP is harmless against humans so set it on a corner. Bot comes along, avoids it and you step into the trap and trigger it yourself.

As for normal traps that do hurt you, I've found that the only way to somewhat reliably use them is to see where enemies are, save the game, aggro them and see their movmeent paths towards you. then set a trap accordingly.

For example I did this test at the GMS compound. I went through the side door rather than the door in the hallway. I started combat, used a cheap psi abillity to aggro. Then used sprint to get out into the hallway so their movement wouldn't stop when they could shot at me. Then I looked at where they stoped. I loaded the game, set a trap slightly off the path they took but in a place that the blast radius would be where all the 3 of them stoped. Then I aggroed them, sprint into the hallway so they'd take the same predictable path. Then I poked my head into the building, watched them stand close to a mine, threw a grenade and say hello to 2 blasts in the face.

Still this feels wrong. Mines do less damage than grenades. They cost more resources to build. They require set up time and if they were to be used exactly like they were supposed to, they'd ever only affect one enemy. Clearly this needs to change. Either traps must be done in a way that will always set off on multiple targets just with normal placement or they spend less resources and do more damage to compensate for the fact that they really are made to affect one enemy.