M4RA Attachment - Under-barrel flare launcher

The M4RA is functional, but doesn’t really have any fun attachments or gimmicks to work with. I dont want to touch gun power balance, but I think there is some room with adding unique utility to the gun.

Under-barrel Flare Launcher

  • Takes the Under slot.
  • Basic functionality is like an under-barrel shotgun with a three round flare magazine. Both normal and targeting flares can be loaded. Flares fire at a faster velocity than flare gun (20%, 50%, whatever works)
  • Can zoom in with the flare launcher as far as the optics of the gun allow.
  • Compatible with the M4RA and M4RA custom.

I think this would add a dynamic that makes the gun a little more interesting, and makes the use of a scope a little more viable. Good for lighting up the perimeter out to your targeting range on defense, can sneak in a tricky targeting flare on offense, and allows for bragging rights for the person that can get a 4x flare kill. A scout with this might be pretty scary.

Edit: If there is a way to toggle between firing a flare and firing a bullet without canceling zoom, that would be cool too.

21 Likes

Reminder to vote as well as like idea guys posts! Bros at 14 likes but only 9 votes!

Why I love this!

One of the M4RAs defining features is no slowdown when wielded, making it an amazing chase weapon. This feels really good to reinforce that niche. Not just lighting up rooms when you push, but direct flare hits giving a single stack of flame to a xeno making them glow in the dark is gonna be really nice.

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Balance TLDR: No IFF

x8 scope CAS flaring behind lines feels strong, but it is requiring 2 attachments to do something anyone with NVGs and a LD can do. I would probably not give the underbarrel IFF just to let the normal flare gun keep it’s role. Bonus points for the funny that is flaring a marine to set them on fire.

Indent

Should it be on the Pulse Mk2? TLDR: Yes

I can see it being too long for smg, and interfering with the shotty breech, but putting it on the MK2 would be good to stop it from being as unused as the poor shotgun choke. Still shines with M4RAs no slowdown, and is niche on Mk2 since you lose the UGL/UBS/Underflamer slot.

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Thanks for the reply! I got the impression that it was so simple that you didn’t really need to add anything to it with a reply or what not, but was still a popular thing. I think keeping the flare launcher IFF should be allowed. Flare launchers arent OP because of it, and a variable zoom underbarrel for the long gun wont make the flare gun obsolete or overpowered. I actually ran into a situation where I was defending a cade line with a M4RA with scope and didn’t have enough lit vision to operate and had to fumble with flares which cause my face to be nomed.

First Implementation should be fairly straightforward. Further balance tweaking should be based on how it performs as is.

  • Base the item off the under-barrel shotgun code, but have 3 flares be the ammo. You want to be able to flare left, right, and center. Anything more would be to much.
  • Copy over the flare launcher code to do the pew pew part. Add some velocity.
  • Copy the bit from the bi-pod that allows the attachment to be activated during zoom and not cause it to cancel the zoom. If you zoom in and its all dark as hell, press a button and light it up. Pure quality of life.
  • New image for the item and meta data.

It seems like an easy win, but my only mod experience was doing silly shit with Battletech. That superheavy battlemech needs a pair of bunkers on the shoulders for battlearmor to fire out of, and I do not apologize.

As for it being on the MK2? no. Because now you have to deal with the opportunity cost of taking the DMR instead of the line weapon. One of the goals was to have something unique, yet mundane for the ‘RA. That and flares are MUCH larger than 40mm nades. My 2 cents.

2 Likes

I like the idea as a big issue with the M4RA use as a sniper is the fact you rarely can get the light you need.

Now the question is what is the trade off? Is it just the opportunity cost of use of the under slot or would it give debuffs? As to what my thoughts are is that it should give small wield delay debuff after all it would make the gun a bit more clunky.

2 Likes

The drawbacks currently is that you need both a scope, this attachment, and you will probably need to be using a flare pouch to get the most out of it.

Also note the scopes and extended barrel add wield delay, so you kinda get that clunkiness since you cant get angled grip. Any more clunky and it might be a little to much.

Maybe a little speed loss? I honestly dont know and kinda avoid touching gun balance because I don’t know enough about it.

1 Like

Unless it`s missing from the wiki, underbarrel attachments like gl, shotgun, flamer or extinguisher do not apply any debuffs. So maybe none are needed?

2 Likes

A pretty interesting new underbarrel attachment, nice. Honestly, anything that incentivises more flares is good.

Balance wise I’m not really sure if allowing xenos to get set on fire by the UBFL should be enabled, long-range heal denial is pretty huge given there’s minimal FF and the M4RA is a dedicated chaser weapon.

I have a feeling it’d unironically just be the UBF but better (use binocs to scout unaware xeno, gain reaction speed advantage, start the engagement with a flare, chase until crit and kill). Flare gun can also do this but it’s kind of clunky due to reloading and having to actually switch weapons + storage space.

Obviously this is just theorycrafting though, it’s impossible to know for sure until it’s tested in-game.

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Best drawback would be a wielded speed nerf, so it isn’t as usefull to chase.

I honestly kind of like the idea of that. 2x/4x Scope attachements are currently useless and devmemes aren’t apparently keen on giving just them NVGs, so this might be next best thing, kind of a “super” flare launcher that can illuminate areas as far as x4 scope can see.

Maybe make it load only one flare and it has to be special (can use regular too, but those have limited range) and can’t shoot normally if it is loaded (kind of like WWI rifle grenade launchers). Dedicated PFC sniper attachement.

So a scope drawbacks with this flare launcher attachement drawback (wielded speed delay) M4RA becomes more of a sniper rifle that you can use, but isn’t too oppresive.

2 Likes

When a marine with an RA wants to focus on firing flares at aliens, they aren’t firing the gun. Here are a few use cases

  • If this is because of the marine blob being in the way, then they have something to do with their scope they wouldn’t have been able to do before. That’s good?

  • If they want the flare effects during a chase, then the aren’t firing a bullet or two (depending on their keybind micro). This kind of evens out maybe.

  • If they just want to all flares all the time, flares are only 8 per pack, so unless you are hauling around an entire crate of flares you might run out kinda quick. It would be a funny build though to just go full flares. Flare dude, complete with all the equipment that light things up and a hi-viz vest.

A slow-down while wielding would prevent the chase scenario if its a problem.

So this attachment idea seemed to have been decently popular, does anything need to happen to get it pushed to a to do list? Is it a no-go?

Welcome to ideaguys

Unless its SO cool it convinces someone who can code to make it, it won’t happen. Theres a lot of ideas here that have literally gotten nothing but broad applause, have never happened.

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okey I am gona code it… pff can not let the ideasguys to be sad

5 Likes

@cuberound Yaaaay! You are awesome.

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[NEED SPRITE] M4ra flare launcher by cuberound · Pull Request #10869 · cmss13-devs/cmss13 · GitHub gona need sprite for it and that is more work then the code itself

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Thank you for taking the time to make the PR.

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Looks like a lot of the functionality discussed previously is being ripped out but I guess a nerfed flare launcher could be ok ish. lets see how its feels when deployed.

I am taking creator liberty on it, 4x scope range is too much (4x scope is just in a weard spot tbh), it is given miniscope range same as flaregun. signal flare firing does not fit the role that was stated, providing light for sniping or chasing. scout has NV so I do not see a reason to make them able to flare but can add it if rly wanted I quess. I do not think any of my changes are unreasonable in keeping flaregun better at flaregun job while having undebarrel flaregun able to perform its intended job. it is still quite powerful both with scope and without it

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It sounds like the zoom of the attachment is disconnected from the gun and will require re-zooming in order to switch between flares and bullets. Is this the case?

no, you just zoom with scope and fire the attachment same as you would fire any attachment and the flares just have max range of 13. I am also removing ignire from the flares being shot from this, I do not want it to be used for ignite even with how weak the ignite is, brings more frustration to xenos then the real benefit of that for marines. I might add greater range when it has no ignite as that was a concern too, def do not want both signal flares and long range and I am more inclined to long range over signal flares

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no ignite, no iff, ubg cooldown, 21 tile range not full x4 but max range lights up the max range of x4 scope by edge of light, no signal flares (with the range it would be too much) default m4ra attachment

2 Likes