Author Topic: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)  (Read 8839 times)

SagaDC

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Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« on: September 28, 2013, 08:09:18 am »
So I've started running with my sixth character (Medium Armored Gunner with a focus on Crafting, Stealing, and Traps), and it's given me time to formulate my thoughts on the current state of Traps.

Personally, I almost entirely ignored the Traps skill on my first few characters - at least until I reached Junkyard. At that point, after exploding a dozen or so times, I re-evaluated my need for the ability to disarm traps. Given the curve, the Traps skill is still forgiving enough to be used as a lower secondary skill (I think you can disarm most of the mines encountered with a skill of 50-60).

At the moment, there are only three types of traps (EMP Mines, Frag Mines, and HE Mines) in five grades of quality. All three are craftable, with fairly simple recipes that closely resemble the recipes used for grenades (albeit with larger quantities of explosive required). Properly assembling mines requires a mixture of Mechanical and Chemistry skills (or Electrical when crafting EMP Mines).

Using traps gets a little trickier. It either requires foreknowledge of where a patrolling enemy will be going, predicting where a stationary enemy will move once combat begins, or using a high level of Stealth to plant a mine near an enemy. A secondary concern is, of course, moving away from the mine quickly enough to avoid being caught in the blast radius. For most light-to-medium armored PCs, a single mine of the lowest grade can often mean instant death.

With that in mind, the first thought is to increase the variety of traps for other tactical situations. As it currently stands, there are no low grade traps - Mines are expensive and dangerous for a beginning character, and they aren't encountered at all for the first three or four story missions. A good starting point might be something like a 'Snare' or 'Bear Trap' type of trap.

A snare-trap would be single-target with a temporary immobilizing effect, but causing no damage. A bear trap would be similar in concept, causing a temporary immobilizing effect in ADDITION to causing damage (and possibly bleeding?). The added benefit of a bear trap would be that, from a crafting standpoint, there are already scaling components (ie, Serrated Blades) that could be used to make varying levels of bear traps (with higher qualities causing more damage or immobilizing for a longer time?).

Then there are potentially other types of traps that cause damage other than mechanical. We have EMP Mines for use against Sentry Bots, but there's no reason you can't run further with the idea of specialized explosives. Incendiary or Napalm Mines would be easy to implement (as would Incendiary Grenades), using the Magnesium or Napalm C items from a crafting standpoint. The potential utility would be for a grenade/mine that causes less immediate damage than a Frag/HE explosive, but has a high chance for causing ongoing Fire DOT with the attached Fear/Panic effect.

On a similar note, there might be some potential for a Molotov Cocktail type of grenade (using the Gasoline component, and maybe a Flask?). It might be used as a low-damage grenade that leaves a small, lingering field of fire (similar to the Acid effect seen on Mutated Dogs). From a cost standpoint, a single unit of Gasoline and a Flask might be too low, so multiple units of Gasoline (or maybe a few units of Fabric Scraps) might work better.

Beyond that, there's the potential for other exotic traps or grenades (along the lines of the Chemical Blob Trap, which I completely forgot about). Poison-spraying traps. Flashbang Traps. Freezing Cryo-Traps. Shrapnel Traps (causing bleeding damage?). Maybe even some kind of psi-negating traps, that damages or blocks the psi-abilities of those caught in the blast?

There's also some potential for alternate components. Maybe an Optional Slot on Mine Blueprints, where different types of detonators can be fitted. A proximity detonator might allow a mine to go off when an enemy passes within two or three spaces, instead of moving directly adjacent. A timer might disable the adjacency trigger entirely, causing the mine to go off after five or so seconds instead. A camo tarp (or something similar) might make it harder for an enemy to detect the trap - although I've yet to actually see an enemy try to avoid or disarm a trap.

In regards to Feats, there's also a few potentials that spring to mind. At the moment we only have the Trap Expert Feat, which allows the PC to plant traps more quickly (with a reduced detection chance). Other potential Trap-oriented Feats might include:

Catch! / On The Fly: An active Feat that grants the ability to plant a trap during turn-based combat mode. Allows the player to drop a trap to cover their retreat, or to go out in a blaze of glory. High AP cost and/or Cooldown to prevent abuse.

Cautious / Watch Your Step: A passive Feat that increases the player's trap-detection skill, or that gives them a set percentage chance (maybe scaling with their Agility or Dexterity?) to not set off a trap when they stumble onto it. Provides an option for avoiding traps more efficiently, even without sufficient skill to disarm them.

Demolitionist / Precision Placement: A passive Feat that improves the damage or grants a crit-chance to traps the player plants. Effectively a similar Feat to the 'Three-Pointer' Feat, but used with traps/mines.

Duck and Cover / Hit the Deck: A passive Feat that increases the player's Resistance/Threshold against damage caused by explosive Traps and/or Grenades. Maybe it prevents the player from setting off his own traps, or provides an additional degree of resistance/threshold against their own traps?

Finders Keepers / Waste Not: A passive Feat that decreases (or eliminates) the additional difficulty to Traps checks in regards to recovering a disarmed trap. Maybe it applies a fixed percentage chance of trap recovery, to prevent an excess build-up of cash from disarming. An alternative might be recovering components instead of a full trap (mine case, explosives, etc.), when disarming with insufficient skill to recover the trap intact.

Red Wire, Blue Wire: A passive Feat that allows the player to disarm traps more quickly, in addition to another minor effect. Maybe it prevents a critical failure from detonating a mine? Maybe it slightly reduces the disarm difficulty?

As a final note, I would suggest a new component for Goggle/Helmet crafting. Polarized Lenses. Fighting Sentry Bots can be a huge pain, due to their Flashbang grenades, so an optional component that increases resistance to Flashbang-induced incapacitation would be welcome. :)

maheusz

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2013, 11:52:37 am »
I approve of this message! :D

It sure makes sense that arsenal of mines and traps gets wider and wider with game progress, but making simple ones should still be nice. Also I could add that there also may be shotgun/weapon traps - where they shot a passerby who triggers it (it could be used only on doors and similar entryways, to make it more realistic). There are also simple naiboard traps - just nails sticking out of the ground. Really simple and really painful, but not damaging in any way. I could also thing about all these 'Bouncing Betty's' mines - specialized to deal area damage by 'jumping' on the level of about 1,5 metre. Devastating. Also there could be a possibility to use feromone trap - ie. to utilize some of wild animals on the map as deterrent. And sight of two groups of enemies fighting always warms my heart :D.

So these are my suggestions :).

SagaDC

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #2 on: September 28, 2013, 04:41:13 pm »
Yeah, as I mentioned above, I totally forgot about the Acid Glob traps until I was, like, halfway through writing the whole thing out. :)

As for Frag Mines, yeah, I can see how they're military-grade shrapnel bombs. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of the good old nail bomb, or something to that effect. Maybe a lower grade Frag Mine for characters with less skill? Jar (or Vial) + Metal Fragments + TNT/Hexogen? I guess that might be more like a grenade, though.

I've seen mention of TNT and C4 from time to time (mostly on the wiki), but I was under the impression that they weren't implemented yet. I think I found a Blueprint for TNT once, but it was glitched out, with a 'place holder' image.

And I can see nail traps being easy enough to implement. Maybe the player could even use the 'Steel Spikes' or 'Tungsten Steel Spikes' objects in their construction, with the quality of the spikes determining the quality of the trap? But then again, spikes are pretty expensive. Maybe they'd be better used for some kind of pneumatic spike trap or something.

Another thought in regards to the idea of 'optional' components for traps - there's already an Anticoagulant component, and an Anticoagulation debuff, so that might work as a component for certain traps. Applying it to the construction of a trap involving blades, spikes, or shrapnel might add a bleeding / Anticoagulation type debuff to the affected targets.

Kaerius

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2013, 05:25:21 pm »
Functioning TNT recepie is in the latest build, along with the TNT Charge item(timed bomb), you gain access to it after getting the drill parts, buy it from the SGS armory.

The TNT Charge item can blow up the targetable blocking rock in various places, allowing more exploration.

SagaDC

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2013, 05:50:35 pm »
Interesting. I was wondering what the piles of targetable rocks were for, so the TNT thing makes sense. If it's unlocked by a certain story event, though, then I can only assume that the random glitched blueprint that appeared in a locker (specifically, the unlocked locker on Level 3 of SGS) was an error of some sort.

Styg

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2013, 05:54:21 pm »
Lot's of good stuff in this thread. :)

I especially like the idea of introducing a cheap early game traps for players to get use to the trap mechanics before using the more deadlier stuff.

UnLimiTeD

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2013, 12:06:32 am »
Or being used by it. 8)
I remember the first time I got to the junkyard.
Damn that was frustrating, save scamming at it's finest. :P
I commend this thread!
First person to give Styg Karma.

I hereby declare that I love the oddity system and am in favour of shop and carry limits.

Elhazzared

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #7 on: September 30, 2013, 09:35:47 pm »
Great ideas here but it does not solve the most pressing problem of traps which is the ineffectiveness of them. Say you place a mine in the right place. aggro a pack of enemies and flee out of the blast radius. First enemy comes in and dies, all others move through and ignore it. Realisticly they all should be moving at the same time  and once once steped overit him and his palls should all take the damage... To this end I propose a small change to the operation of traps. On the turn that a traps explodes, any one moving into the radius of the explosion after the first guy set up the mine all take damage. this would make it more realistic and would actually make traps useful against groups which is my current problem with it.

Also because I use psionics my grenades have earned a new nickname. Minesweepers. I'll waste the hell out of them to clear mines. Still needs some scumsaving cause my skill at tossing them is atrocious. lol

Phyroks

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2013, 10:37:30 pm »
Great ideas here but it does not solve the most pressing problem of traps which is the ineffectiveness of them. Say you place a mine in the right place. aggro a pack of enemies and flee out of the blast radius. First enemy comes in and dies, all others move through and ignore it...

There are some multi usage tools in game already, would it be hard to give the mines option to have instant triggering and delayed one? (exploding at start of players turn after triggering). It could also have some skill requirement for the 2nd trigger option.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2013, 10:39:22 pm by Phyroks »

Elhazzared

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2013, 10:40:03 pm »
no it wouldn't. just put an area effect damage for that one turn, move in, take the damage.

Phyroks

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2013, 11:24:47 pm »
If you would make all the ones passing the area take the damage it would not really make it "realistic" as not all monsters move at same speed, at least with delay it would considering the speed if someone was just way more slower to even get into the explosion in the 1st place. It might be hard to estimate all of the monsters stopping points but isnt that part of skilful trap laying? ^^

Or am I understanding your problems totally wrong?

ps. I ran into those mine "1st runs and explodes the mine" problem with burrowers and it seems the small ones are much faster.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2013, 11:27:51 pm by Phyroks »

Elhazzared

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2013, 11:36:34 pm »
Speed isn't too much of a factor though. Consider that the explosion occurs when someone steps into the mine, which gives time for many of the slower ones to at least be within the blast radius area. If the movement wouldn't bring them into the blast radius then next turn the area effect damage won't be there anyway. Now I do realise that there are still other things to take into consideration like say, one guy triggers the mine, another moves shoots from outside the blast radius which is a sizable pause and then advances into the blast radius and that small bit wouldn't too make much sense. But we gotta realise that turn based has it's own limitations and it's better to just incorporate an area effect for one round to mines to actually make it hit multiple opponents to make them viable, rather than have it be wasted on singular opponents. A delay base wouldn't work, many enemies would move past the whole area of effect and it could just blow without actually damaging anyone at all.

Phyroks

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #12 on: September 30, 2013, 11:58:31 pm »
Yeah I dont know wich would actually be better, but I do know it needs to be improved, just dont know what is easy or reasonable way to change it to be better.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2013, 12:03:19 am by Phyroks »

Styg

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2013, 08:27:11 am »
Great ideas here but it does not solve the most pressing problem of traps which is the ineffectiveness of them. Say you place a mine in the right place. aggro a pack of enemies and flee out of the blast radius. First enemy comes in and dies, all others move through and ignore it. Realisticly they all should be moving at the same time  and once once steped overit him and his palls should all take the damage... To this end I propose a small change to the operation of traps. On the turn that a traps explodes, any one moving into the radius of the explosion after the first guy set up the mine all take damage. this would make it more realistic and would actually make traps useful against groups which is my current problem with it.

While I understand the problem, I strongly disagree with your proposed solution. It would feel very out of place to have a mechanic mimic something happen simultaneously while everything else in the game is sequential.

SagaDC

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Re: Thoughts on Traps (And Grenades)
« Reply #14 on: October 03, 2013, 10:47:01 am »
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.