Rework UGL's

[Karmac]

Summary (a quick, 2-3 sentence summary): UGL's have always been a sore point for both Marine and Xeno sides; For example, every MK2 rifle comes loaded with a UGL that contains two shots, however the grenades launched are nothing more than standard hand activated grenades that are fired a few tiles further due to being launched from a gun. This might appeal to some players, but to the experienced marine, you will understand that unlike a regular hand-held grenade, you cannot cook this one, meaning you must wait a full 3 seconds after the grenade is launched before it actually explodes, minimizing it's overall utility. To the Xeno player however, a gunline of UGL's can be scarier than the most heavily kitted up baldie scientists could create, due to them being readily available, storing more than one grenade, and in the right hands quite capable of being used to stun and kill any caste that is affected by them. So I propose a change to the UGL, instead of having it stock standard on the rifle, make it a completely detached attachment that must be asked for at Requisitions, to offset this however, change its variables to fire impact-detonation versions of the grenades it currently uses, essentially just making it so the second the grenade lands on the intended tile, or is blocked and lands on an un-intended tile, it explodes, for better or for worse. It would still hold the base two shots per UGL, but I feel this is much more utilizable and justifiable as an attachment instead of the current method that is "Let's give it to them because it's in the lore, but we're not going to make it very utilizable to put people off actually using it".

Benefits (How this will benefit the server and game as a whole): The utility and justification for using a UGL would greatly increase, albeit at the cost of another potential attachment. This would make it essentially at the same tier of usefulness as any other attachment while still putting the marine using it as a disadvantage, sure he just stunned that queen, but are any of his shots going to hit without the accuracy mods he could've gotten? I personally believe this will promote smarter combat and better gameplay situations while still not overpowering marines in combat against xenos.

Details (Description of how you think this would work, the benefits, etc): As it would no longer come stock standard on the pulse rifle I believe people may have some outcry against this, however I'd like to remind those people that the UGL's is horribly underused, I hear people talking all the time about them grabbing unloaded pulse rifles from the marine vendors just for the UGL's, which is an interesting tactic, but I've never actually seen in use. Therefore bringing an actual justification to pack this attachment feels like it will drastically change marine gameplay and strategy to focus more on offense instead of the very defensive gunlines you commonly see in-game. UGL your target, it stuns them or crits them on impact, your gun lacks accuracy so you jump past your barricades to finish the job before another alien can snatch your kill away from you.

Implementation (Optional, if you have an idea how to implement it): Remove it from pulse rifles and change the vars to make the grenade have a 1 second delay or shorter after reaching the tile it was/wasn't aimed at.

EDIT: If players are worried about it becoming more of a weapon and less of an attachment, then to balance it out you could completely remove its ability to stun T3's, ensuring it doesn't become the new SADAR.

[MrJJJ]

just a FYI its not 4-5 full seconds, its shorter, but its not short enough that even the slowest caste can't dodge it and step away from the radius

[Karmac]

just a FYI its not 4-5 full seconds, its shorter, but its not short enough that even the slowest caste can't dodge it and step away from the radius

I'm pretty sure it's about three seconds, I'll test it in a moment to be sure.

EDIT: Yeah it's on the shorter side of three seconds.

[Halinder]

-1 simply because if this is the case, xenos will have no warning (all they'd see is a normal old rifle) before being stunned instantaneously by the grenade function.

The UGL is great as is for capitalizing on an attack, but this would be more along the lines of making it its own standalone weapon (despite being an attachment). It's there to provide extra utility, just like the masterkey shotgun (4-shot fuck-off cannon to anything trying to melee you) and the flamer (self-explanatory).

[Karmac]

-1 simply because if this is the case, xenos will have no warning (all they'd see is a normal old rifle) before being stunned instantaneously by the grenade function.

The UGL is great as is for capitalizing on an attack, but this would be more along the lines of making it its own standalone weapon (despite being an attachment). It's there to provide extra utility, just like the masterkey shotgun (4-shot fuck-off cannon to anything trying to melee you) and the flamer (self-explanatory).

Yet the other weaponry provided have exponentially higher DPS and are better choices than the standard UGL due to the delay, and it's not like everyone would drop their regular attachments to grab it after they realise 50% of the time grenades don't kill things so they can't just 1v3 because lul impact gernades, making them less of a fear-facter weapon and more genuinely utilizable in more situatons is the goal here, while nerfing them in the fact that quite obviously not everyone will get one, keeping in mind RO will have to hand it out and probably won't have more than 6 at round start.

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear I don't want it to be something this powerful whilst still being readily accessible because powergammers would just hoard that shit, this way it becomes a justifiable attachment while still being something you have to decide you want to incorporate into your style of gameplay.

[Swagile]

+ 1

Considering ive seen rows and rows of detached underslung launchers one round in marine prep and part of Escape hallway, its easy to see this is the most unloved attachment and is simply used most of the time because it starts in the gun itself.

[nerocavalier]

-1. It'll be Sadar-lite. The timer is the only reason that xenos don't get murderized by UGLs. All you have to do is land one UGL nade and then you can land another and very likely take out an alien that tries to rescue the downed one. The difference between UGL and the other ones is that if a UGL hits, something is going to have a very bad time.

Except now it's instant. It needs a nerf in order to compensate for the fact it's instant.

As for the unloved attachment thing, there's plenty of people that would get UGLs even if it wasn't standard.

[Karmac]

-1. It'll be Sadar-lite. The timer is the only reason that xenos don't get murderized by UGLs. All you have to do is land one UGL nade and then you can land another and very likely take out an alien that tries to rescue the downed one. The difference between UGL and the other ones is that if a UGL hits, something is going to have a very bad time.

Except now it's instant. It needs a nerf in order to compensate for the fact it's instant.

As for the unloved attachment thing, there's plenty of people that would get UGLs even if it wasn't standard.

Once again, there's roughly five of these in the RO line if I recall, so that's 10 shots and you have to use the 'load from attachment verb' between each shot. As for the nerf, would you consider dropping it's ability to stun T3's and lowering it's stun time for T2's? I don't feel it needs to do less damage but that's just a personal thing.

[nerocavalier]

Once again, there's roughly five of these in the RO line if I recall, so that's 10 shots and you have to use the 'load from attachment verb' between each shot. As for the nerf, would you consider dropping it's ability to stun T3's and lowering it's stun time for T2's? I don't feel it needs to do less damage but that's just a personal thing.

Macros mean that you can fire off a shot then fire off another one within the half second. That T3 is still going to be hurt and that T2 is very likely going to die even if you reduce its stun since it can still get stunlocked.

[Karmac]

I believe that level of damage is acceptable considering the flamer has more shots and can put most xenos in crit with one, as for T3's, the masterkey will still out-damage the impact UGL.