Prox mines.

[Mouse Nightshirt]

I've only ever used 3 prox mines in the 5 years I've played UFO. Do you use them that often?

[Mike]

Never in terror missions, I lost too many civilians that way.

 

3 soldiers were able to defend an X-Com base once because of them.

 

And although my luck varies on all other missions I carry at least one on all soldiers. They are great if you know a spot (especially in the alien bases) is a bottleneck and you want to come back to it while clearing the rest of the base.

[Slythe]

If I'm approaching a ufo from the opposite side where the entrance is, say a large scout, I try to toss one to where I know the door is (one square out more specifically), to help me in securing the doorway as I round the corners to get my soldiers set up for reaction fire. They're also great for base defense if your defenders aren't all that skilled.

[Solfius]

There's proximity mines on UFO???

I've never noticed them before, how do you get them?

[BladeFireLight]

the purchase/recrute menu

 

I like to use them a lot. Base Defence moslty but also when aproching a UFO I toss them at the door if it's one the aliens walk out of alot.

[ignore my tentacles]

I use 'em a fair bit, especially on recovery missions. As mentioned earlier, they are useful for covering entrance/exits of UFO's while you set your men up for an ambush. Any alien exiting will suffer damage, importantly this effects their aim (or should do) to help prevent casualties on your side in the event of the alien getting of a few shots before your men can reaction fire.

 

Occasionally, if I stun an alien (accidently), but not one I particularly need for research purposes, I'll leave an armed proxy grenade on their body. If the sucker awakes whilst my men are busy elsewhere, I get a warning that the alien is loose. Usually the grenade will finish it off though. This saves me from having to hunt it down later in order to successfully complete the mission.

[Hankosha]

yeah, on base missions, i leave a couple near the entrance to the 'control room' so that I can clean out the rest of the base before coming back.

[Mouse Nightshirt]

As I said, I don't use them. Maybe I should (uses up your 80 limit tho)

[NKF]

Do it the way I do it then. Just bring 1 - 4 proxy mines. Just enough to use a few, but not too much that it'll wreak havoc on your item limit. It's not going to use up your 80-item limit up any worse than your grenades will.

 

Due to the proxy-mine bug in the Collectors Edition, I've been cutting their use down a little these days. Must make sure every armed proxy mine counts as I don't want to have unsuspecting blaster-bombs on the next mission take on the qualities of an armed proxy mine.

 

- NKF

[Solfius]

It's not going to use up your 80-item limit up any worse than your grenades will.

What do you mean? Grenades account for most of my equipment with regards to the limit. Grenades for everyone !! one of each for all soldiers, 1 smoke, 1 normal, 1 flare. (I had to restart so I'm back to good ol terran tech)

[NKF]

That's what I mean. It can't get any worse than the space your grenades will take up. Besides, you can always pick up alien grenades off dead aliens if you run out.

 

By the way, you shouldn't need so many flares. Remember - reuse.

 

- NKF

[Ion Mage]

My version has this bug were PG's will arm themselves when i dont want them too.

 

That may not sound like much, but heres an example of when it is a problem.

 

Soldier Jane has a medkit, and a proximity grenade on her. Also the normal equipment, but that stuff is irrelevant in this example.

 

Sectoid bob shoots her, and kills her.

 

Soldier tom shoots sectoid bob, then goes to retrieve Jane's med-kit.

 

Somehow, the 'auto-prime' bug happens, killing tom when he gets close to her.

 

Any ideas on what causes this??

 

(BTW, im on the collectors edition, the PCGamer one to be exact)

[NKF]

It often happens if you armed a proxy mine in the last mission but did not spend it.

 

I don't know why, but it appears that the game passes the armed proximity mine trait onto one of the items in the next mission. Sometimes it's a harmless object like an electro flare, sometimes it's harmful, like a rocket.

 

I'm guessing the game's doesn't completely clear out all the states for items in the item table currently stored in memory. So, in the next battle, any item taking the proxy mine's previous slot gets turned into an armed proxy mine.

 

I think this doesn't happen in the dos version of the game because the item table is discarded the moment tactical.exe exits.

 

 

To get around it, save before the next mission starts then either:

 

1. Launch a mission or start a new game, drop everything you're carrying and step on all sorts of things until something pops. Then reload.

 

2. Quit the game, restart it and reload your mission. This should clear the object states in the item table.

 

3. Endeavour to not step near any object on the ground until the pop associated with the proxy mine is heard. Before that, never walk into the 8 tiles surrounding the object or onto the object itself. Always float down onto an object by falling down or using a flying suit. This way you can safely pick up armed proxy mines.

 

Alternately, stun a soldier, toss the soldier's body onto the proxy mine or object with the armed proxy mine state and wait till the soldier wakes up.

 

 

 

To prevent all this from happening, make sure all of your proxy mines are used. Destroying unwated armed mines with grenades might help.

 

- NKF

[AcidBoot]

Prox grenades are great on defence missions. Best of all they don't take up any of your 80 item limit. Sometimes if you have too much gear at a base though, you may not have access to the items you want when arming, and will have to collect them from the stores mid-mission.

 

Generally they are less useful, but still fun, in other misions. Once you start getting psi attacked though, cut back on thier use. You don't have the time to sit about waiting for the aliens to get stupid.

[Jman4117]

Hands down the best nade there is.

[Zombie]

For some strange reason, I have a certain affinity for Proximity Grenades. Early in the game each soldier carries one (except for the heavy weapons folk).

 

Part of the reason I like them so much is because I first started playing X-COM on the Playstation. There are no proxy "bugs" in the PSX version, so they work the way they were meant to. I feel sorry for the folk who were introduced to this grenade on the buggy computer version. You really are missing out on a wonderful tactical weapon!

 

Another reason is: once you toss a primed proxy mine at an aliens' feet, you can focus your attention to other enemies. When the mine goes BOOM!, I listen. If a death scream is heard, I do nothing. If there was silence, I send a trooper back to investigate. A stunned alien is separated from his weapons, while a live alien is met with a flury of laser fire or another mine!

 

I also like them for setting booby traps and preventing aliens from surprising me. The only thing I do not like about Proximity Grenades is that you have to buy them, and buying = waiting for them to arrive. By late in the game, I forget about proxy mines because I play more offensively, and the best offensive grenade is the ones aliens use!

[Jman4117]

+cheap

+good power

+alarm system

+dejavu in regard to this post..........

[Pumpkinhead]

Proxy's are the only nades I've ever used, even once I had alien ones. I found their sentry abilities more valuable than the latter's superior damage.

 

Q. Does anyone know what the trigger radius and damage radius are?

[FullAuto]

AFAIK the trigger radius is just one square around the grenade, and the damage radius is something like: it's 70 HE damage on the square the grenade is on, then 60 HE damage on the surrounding squares, then 50, then 40 & so on til u get to 0 in a series of concentric squares.

I think.

[Pumpkinhead]

So the damage radius is 6 squares (7 inc. the centre)?

 

I wonder how much damage a tile needs to change to the "burnt" texture? The proxy nade had a burn radius of 5, so I'm guessing 20, but I think some more experimentation is needed to be more conclusive.

[FullAuto]

I'm not sure how much damage a tile needs to change to burnt, but I know pretty much any weapon will do it, so it's probably set at 15 or something.

[Pumpkinhead]

I just did some more experimentation, and don't think the 10pts per tile thing really works for the blaster bomb, because it's 200 damage would create a blast radius of 19 tiles, and yet in reality it created a burn radius of 11.

 

Also, the alien grenade, being 90 damage, created a burn radius of 6 tiles, so the tile burn limit can't be 20, or even 15, because at 6 tiles from the centre, the damage from an alien grenade should theoretically be 30.

 

Maybe there is no formula. Maybe they just created a blast radius value for each explosive and the game interpolates the damage values within that

[FullAuto]

Maybe it drops by 20 per square with the blaster bomb? I don't know, mate. I'm just guessing.

[Pumpkinhead]

Actually, the OSG says the same thing-10pts per square.

 

Maybe NKF can shed some light on the situation? He seems to be the leading authority on the inner workings of the game

[Hobbes]

I wonder how much damage a tile needs to change to the "burnt" texture? The proxy nade had a burn radius of 5, so I'm guessing 20, but I think some more experimentation is needed to be more conclusive.

Each object has MCD values, one for constitution, another for fire resistance.

When there's an explosion, if the strength of the explosion is greater that the constitution then the object will be replaced by another (a wreck) or will simply dissappear.

The fire resistance works the same way: if the value is overcome a fire will start there and it will last for a specified number of turns until the object is destroyed.