Foam flamer

General Discussion
1

What do you guys think of the PR so far?
What needs tweaking?

3 Likes
2

Haven’t played with it yet,

First impression just seeing what it does:

  • Looks useful
  • Will never be made/used without pre-existing fuel tanks
  • Serious skill issue if a xeno gets caught by that, so probably not unbalanced

I think you should include a couple tanks of this stuff on the almayer to begin with, whether in OT workshop, engineering, requisitions, idk, but people need an easy introduction to it and an opportunity to use it before they’re going to start asking for it regularly.

Maybe even make a re-sprited maintenance tech “flamethrower” that’s preloaded with this? Underbarrel extinguisher + metal foam spray honestly gives an MT a lot of utility when it comes to building/fixing problems, and fits the maintenance theme of patching holes and putting out fires on a spaceship.

2 Likes
3

How does it work? Just a flame based dispenser of metal foam?

We do have a metal foam backpack that the Synth can use. The fact you never see any Synth using it is indicative of how useful it is.

4

Okay first impressions from using it,

  • Took me 30 minutes to talk someone into even making it.
  • Getting a resupply was IMPOSSIBLE, had to go back up to the ship to get a (single) new tank because ordering over comms? Forget it.
  • Fuel was used up in like 8 shots? Just 2 tiles took up 6% of the fuel. (mathing, that’s 20% for 1 actual shot so ~5 shots per fuel tank…)
  • Foam takes ages to form, you’ll never trap anything but the dumbest suicidally overextended xeno player with it
  • Not useful anywhere but a chokepoint
  • If you aren’t incredibly careful you get stuck on the wrong side of your own foam because of xeno stuns and that kills you a lot faster than it does if it’s a xeno trapped on the wrong side (basically there is enough time to spray the foam, get grabbed by a warrior, dragged THROUGH your foam spray, and then it solidifies behind you)
  • Even if you trap a xeno with it, marines shooting the xeno break apart all the foam walls blocking it, almost immediately letting the xeno escape anyway

Here’s my recommended changes:

  1. Make it an optional ammo ordered through req with some supply on the ship to start; chemline making it is just never going to work
  2. Decrease how long it takes the foam to form into metal by 500ms, maybe even 1000ms
  3. Decrease fuel consumption, it needs easily quadruple the amount of shots it gets, if not more

MAYBE

  1. I don’t think disallowing the underbarrel nozzle was necessary (but maybe it is)
  2. Increase how much damage foam takes before it breaks by 1 slash

As it stands, with how much effort I had to go through just to get the fuel and use it (a lot), for how effective it actually is in practice (not very, almost useless actually), I wouldn’t ever try using it again in its current form.

These are first impressions anyway. Honestly getting a good feel for stuff usually takes a couple weeks so I might change my mind about some of this once I use it more/see it used more.

3 Likes
5

Love it, more fun ways to use chems is always dope. (its actually kind of disapointing how much chems are disabled for flamer.)
And its in general a baller tool for comtecs to have.
Spray a foam line and you have a safer time building a cadeline behind it.
And better comtecs migth see better ways to use it then my dumbass ever could.
But yeah, dope tool.

1 Like
6

add a foam chemical to remove weeds instead of making walls and I’m hooked.

yes I know fire does this, but you have to extinguish the fire

7

I think its a cool idea but I wonder how long until someone finds a way to use it in a really annoying way for xenos that results in it being nerfed into being nigh useless

8

The only reason foam was nerfed in the first place, was that people would load up 1000u of foam in a tank, and create a 20x20 space of foam, that xenoes needed 3-4 hits to get rid of one.

It was especially prevalent on hijack, where some dudes just foemed the entirety of pumps and lifeboats making evac 100% guaranteed.

9

foam has, and will always be bad because #1 it blocks shooting, #2 takes little effort to remove, and #3 doesn’t kill bugs. even if there was a way to fire it over xenos, the length of time it takes to “firm up” makes it pointless. the only real benefit of foam is how you know someone is breaking it because of the loud “BANG” sound every time a section breaks