Suggestion, Flamethrowers!

We used flamethrowers in general up to vietnam, although they’ve never been really widespread.

Incidents of flamethrower explosions in the real world were incredibly rare.

Not sure how binary explosives got related into it, but flamethrowers do not work on the same concept. Flamethrower fuel isnt inert until mixed, it just requires a perfect storm of circumstances to be punctured in such a way that the gasses can mix in the environment and basically generate an improvised fuel/air bomb.

And all that being said, you cannot put flamethrowers in a game (or movie) without giving them a chance to explode. Pretty sure that’s at least a class II misdemeanor.

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EU/EW had flamethrowers on the MECs and it couldn’t explode. X2 has it as an attachment for the heavy armor with no chance to explode. The OG XCOM games had incendiary ammo for multiple weapons, which granted isn’t a flamethrower it achieved the same effect and couldn’t explode. Granted I get it that you’re making a joke, just figured I’d list a few offenders :wink:

As for how binary explosives got brought into this, it was as an example. People like to say that flamethrowers must explode because their fuel is flammable and/or explosive when ignited (see a propane tank shot by a gun) and I was saying that if such a thing was really an issue then I’m sure people could design a system where the flamethrower fuel is inert until mixed akin to binary explosives.

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In real life, propane tanks also dont explode when shit by a gun. At least a few models of flamethrower actually worked on propane.

I’m not sure you could rig a flamethrower to work on a binary mixture. Explosives are a different animal than flammables (even though one can cause the other). I suppose there may be a substance that’s only flammable when mixed with something else, but i’ve never heard of it (at least not one that won’t also set itself on fire due to the chemical reaction in the first place).

Then again, we are also operating in handwavium territory, so i suppose it doesnt matter too much.

Mainly, what it boils down to is, in real life “explosive” gasses arent really all that explosive, and bullets dont set things on fire unless they’re incendiary, and they dont set off explosives, unless the explosive is impact sensitive, and noone is packing flamethrower tanks full of nitroglycerin.

Exploding tanks are fun and cinematic, though. :slight_smile:

Also, you’re right, i had totally forgot xcom had already broken that hollywood rule.

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Hah, dang. Guess all those hours of playing Company of Heroes finally caught up with me (poor exploding engineers). I think this is spot on:

While not realistic, as Finitethrills mentioned there’s enough fictional precedent for there to be justifications for tanks to explode… or not, you know, because realism.

Also, random tangent here but I loved Dead Space 2’s alt fire for the flamethrower. Just launched a burning fuel cylinder that exploded. Very not-realistic but also very awesome.

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Thanks. Games are entertainment after all, so I feel like some cinematic license isn’t a huge problem, even in a more sim-ish game. You’re never going to get 1-1 real life fidelity no matter what you do.

When you mentioned alt fire, all I could picture was a side slung rack of ghetto beer bottle molotovs. Press secondary, and a little pilot flame pops out the side, lights a wick, and then it throws it with a slingshot type mechanism. Probably a little redneck engineered for the new Phoenix project style. :stuck_out_tongue: Could just have an attached grenade launcher with incendiaries on it tho.

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Rocket-propelled Infantry Flamethrower - this is how modern flamethrowers work.

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Please flames.

Flame on!!!

5 damage to unarmored enemy. Is that continuous damage? Or has area of effect like grenade?

I hope we can die in friendly fire :wink:

I dunno, fragging friendly soldiers tends to bring down a lot of unwanted heat

If they look half as good as the concept I AM SOLD!!

I like the sounds of Julian saying they are specially effective against swarms. A mission with swarms of aliens and flame thrower soldiers repelling them… I would play the shit out of that!

Double that, if it looks even close to the concept!

The Twitter link above shows the flame effect in game, though the weapon model isn’t in yet.

Thanks Finitethrills, I missed that! Dam that is looking good already :+1:

Flamers at the front, Firecats in the middle, snipers at the back. Can’t wait for BB4 now!

They could just make it so that if the flamethrower was damaged by fire it would explode… so you would have to beware because grenades could take out a flamethrower and anyone too close. Also if there are incendiary rounds… explody bits!