[0.9] Grenade is still made of coal and bad

[Coolthulhu]

10 damage might be good for clearing trees. Oh wait, it's not - even (non-combat) shotgun does it better and much, much cheaper. The only "real" use of the grenade is dropping it in own base and watching how construction bots react.

With its current damage, it would be better named "dynamite" and made before submachine is available from coal and maybe a tiny bit of wood. Or coal and biter guts or something. Just not the useful materials.

Rocket uses the new "explosives" resource that has a convenient icon. How about just make explosives throwable for 10 damage and let them replace the pitiful grenade?

[slpwnd]

The idea was to keep some weapons for the "pre-oil" part of the game. At the moment all there is are submachine / shotgun, defender bots and the grenade. Maybe the grenade could be boosted to kill small biters at one go (damage 15).

[Coolthulhu]

Boosting the damage would be helpful, but it wouldn't solve the parts where it's much too expensive to bother with and only available after the much better and much more efficient submachine gun.

At 15 dmg it would be 5 iron 8 coal per biter group. You'd need to kill 4 biters for it not to be strictly worse than regular magazines. That requires either skill, luck or a sacrifice (some of own or attacked buildings' health) - early on biters form small, often sparse groups, not that easy to cover with the grenade. With a submachine gun, you can just get near and hold space. Shotgun is a better choice when you're not trying not to damage buildings.

I'd say it would be better for it to be overpowered than underpowered. Overpowered things get quickly nerfed and since factorio is a singleplayer game, not using things is always a choice. Underpowered things are just icons people only click once, test out and then forget about.

With current cost, 40 damage. An emergency burst damage weapon against medium biters, before they get into effective flamethrower range. Using rocket effectively requires a car, so it wouldn't really replace it as a siege weapon.
With lower cost, 15 damage and no techs required it would also have a niche.

[syneris]

I actually used grenades this version and found them rather useful. I thought they did kill small biters with a single blast, but maybe I was wrong. What's stopping you from shooting and throwing grenades? I see them as a good early game weapon.

[Coolthulhu]

The cost/usefulness ratio and having to research them first.
I never see biters bunched up properly for it to work well. Approaching them and just blasting them with bullets was always a cheaper, safer and more reliable alternative for me, even though I don't produce armor piercing rounds till I start making defense capsules.

[syneris]

I checked to make sure and the damage on grenades says 25 explosion. You say it is always cheaper, safer, and more reliable to use bullets, but grenades are a lot faster, AoE, and do explosive instead of physical. Your movement isn't hindered as much by tossing a grenade either, unlike the crawl you get while shooting.

[Sedado77]

I think they should be upped a little bit... at least up the splash radius. They aren't bad per se, but having to throw 1 granade per bitter, being that they are too separeted to kill more than 1... is a little bit wastefull... AND too expensive. Specially for early game...
IMO

[slpwnd]

I checked to make sure and the damage on grenades says 25 explosion.

Yeah, that is true actually. So we boosted them in the past already

I think they should be upped a little bit... at least up the splash radius.

Done for the 0.9.1. Increased the radius by 30%.

I find the grenade to be especially useful when attacking enemy bases to deal with the first / second wave of the enemies. That is the time when they often are in the group and the grenade is most effective.

[Sedado77]

I think they should be upped a little bit... at least up the splash radius.

Done for the 0.9.1. Increased the radius by 30%.

Yeeeey! Thanks!

I find the grenade to be especially useful when attacking enemy bases to deal with the first / second wave of the enemies. That is the time when they often are in the group and the grenade is most effective.

Yup, that's the best time... but even if I landed 2 granades in the spawners before aggroing, I can only injure 1 or 2 small bitters (less than 1/frag) so the 30% radius will be apreciated!

Also, will it be possible to make poisson capsules to hurt worms??? When I reserched them the 1st time I immediately thought they would be very good for killing big (or at least small) worms... Imagine my surprise when i realized that it was like the warms where "Structures" and didn't get hurt... I felt like I had wasted my resources in 100+ useless green deforesters (only use i found for them untill now)


Thanks for the answers slpwnd!

[ssilk]

Worm vs poison: It's maybe, because the worms use poison themselves?

[slpwnd]

Also, will it be possible to make poisson capsules to hurt worms??? When I reserched them the 1st time I immediately thought they would be very good for killing big (or at least small) worms... Imagine my surprise when i realized that it was like the warms where "Structures" and didn't get hurt... I felt like I had wasted my resources in 100+ useless green deforesters (only use i found for them untill now)

Actually the reason why the capsules don't hurt the worms is that we thought it would be too imba. Never really tried it but maybe if it works in such a way that when the worm is in the ground he has higher resistance to the poison than when he is unfolded it could work.

[Coolthulhu]

Cue player standing near the worm just to stress the poor poisoned dude into breathing the fumes.
You shouldn't be afraid of things being too strong early on. Productivity modules (RIP in peace) were one of the most fun things out there. The 0.9 wood-piece-per-year burner inserters are actually worth producing. Even stacked productivity beacons and their energy->matter conversion shenanigans were fun.

Things being too weak stay that way for long, though. Everyone just forgets that they exist.
Flamethrower is a strange weapon that requires a car to be useful. With a car, you can use it to kill big stuff your physical weapons barely scratch. Without a car, those big things will easily rip you apart. Smaller things are better killed with a shotgun.
Rockets, even with medium worm nerf, are still relatively useless with no car or exoskeleton to offset the movement speed penalty. Now you don't need them for blues, so you will also need to explicitly set up a production chain for them. In midgame shotgun outdamages them and with shields, car and exo, shotgun is better. When it's not, it's a job for offensive laser turrets. Explosive rockets are fine though - they have a niche. Maybe get rid of non-explosive rockets?
Mines? When was the last time anyone placed a mine instead of spending the resources on more laser turrets? I guess it was to test construction bots replacing them.
Poison capsules need a lot of kiting to be worth the effort. Just get in the car/exoskeleton and spam explosive rockets.

[Sedado77]

Also, will it be possible to make poisson capsules to hurt worms??? When I reserched them the 1st time I immediately thought they would be very good for killing big (or at least small) worms... Imagine my surprise when i realized that it was like the warms where "Structures" and didn't get hurt... I felt like I had wasted my resources in 100+ useless green deforesters (only use i found for them untill now)

Actually the reason why the capsules don't hurt the worms is that we thought it would be too imba. Never really tried it but maybe if it works in such a way that when the worm is in the ground he has higher resistance to the poison than when he is unfolded it could work.

I agree that if they were too powerfull, they would become too imba for the balancing issues... but the idea that they act as structures when they're underground and not when firing would be very intresting! But, as Coolthulhu (GREAT NAME BTW) said, all weapons per se need a rebalancing...

Poison capsules, as they are now, end up hurting you more than they hurt the enemy. Maybe increase the time the enemy remains poisined, and diminishing the initial damage and damage/tick, and making you only stay poisoned half the time the bitters do... or creating a gas mask as inventory item for the armor... IDK, but they need some tweeks.

- Flamethrower is a strange weapon that requires a car to be useful. With a car, you can use it to kill big stuff your physical weapons barely scratch. Without a car, those big things will easily rip you apart. Smaller things are better killed with a shotgun.

- Rockets, even with medium worm nerf, are still relatively useless with no car or exoskeleton to offset the movement speed penalty. Now you don't need them for blues, so you will also need to explicitly set up a production chain for them. In midgame shotgun outdamages them and with shields, car and exo, shotgun is better. When it's not, it's a job for offensive laser turrets. Explosive rockets are fine though - they have a niche. Maybe get rid of non-explosive rockets?

I agree with him. I don't know what you should do with the flamethrower, but on the rockets dept, Maybe have a "rocket blast radius" in research, and make every rocket explosive... Or REALLY slow the fire rate, but make them do LOTS of damage... IDK what the correct/balanced formula should be, but i know that at the moment is not working as (i think) was intended.

Mines? When was the last time anyone placed a mine instead of spending the resources on more laser turrets? I guess it was to test construction bots replacing them.

Also True... I used them in my first deathworld, they are ok, but not worth the resources/effort... Also, IDK how to "fix" them.

I often use SMG till i get robots and combat shotgun, and then I never use another weapon again (combat shotgun is a great chainsaw, nothing more...)
I would LOVE to see a "Laser rifle" that works as the personal lasser turret, but that actually DOES SOME DAMAGE!, maybe it can drain your armor battery, or MAYBE (since now there IS a "Battery" item) you can use batterys as ammo in the ammo slot...
Also, this opens the door to lots of new mechanics, like:
-a new machine that Recharges your batterys... maybe it can be done so it recharges your armor batt faster as well, making it a needed defensive/offensive structure next to the lasser towers...
-Lasser turrets acepting batterys as ammo, and letting you place them away from your power grid, functioning as normal turrets, but being lasser.
-Battery operated Car/Train/etc...

The possibilities are endless!!! (they already are, but nevertheless...)
Can't stress this enought... KEEP WORKING AS YOU ARE. YOU'RE GREAT AND WE REALLY APRECIATE YOU HEARING OUR FEEDBACK AND WORKING TO IMRPOVE WITH OUR SUGESTIONS

[Coolthulhu]

I just tried using some of those weapons I criticized for being weak to make sure nothing changed/I got it all right.

I noticed that: when biters are too small to hurt (heavy armor), tanking them is totally an option. I based my experiences on medium biters - was their evolution heavily slowed down or is it just me? If I'm actually supposed to face only small biters by the time I'm researching power armor (second modular), then rockets are fine against medium worms that still hurt at that time. Still, turret rush does the same job cheaper.

Flamethrower has a niche, but it's open for a short time - between shotgun and combat shotgun. Burning spawners and worms with it is cheaper, but you need to stand less than like 3 tiles away for it to really work. It is nearly worthless as an anti-biter weapon, though. Even small ones don't die to it.

I would LOVE to see a "Laser rifle" that works as the personal lasser turret

+1

-Lasser turrets acepting batterys as ammo, and letting you place them away from your power grid, functioning as normal turrets, but being lasser.
-Battery operated Car/Train/etc...

Also +1

[ficolas]

-Lasser turrets acepting batterys as ammo, and letting you place them away from your power grid, functioning as normal turrets, but being lasser.
-Battery operated Car/Train/etc...

Turret used for offensive is something that shouldnt be there... Its cheatty, and there are better ways.

Why to operate a car/train with baterie when they can be operated with fuel? (they cant be atm but soooon maybe )