it occurs to me that the FP9 is hardly ever used as intended. What I mean by this is that it's supposed to be a large chunk of high explosive, yet mostly people use it as a grenade, since you can peg it at someone's head and detonate it when it's close enough. As it is it's more suitable as a grenade than an ambush device. Here is what I propose to change this:

*Decrease the number of FP9's spawned with in loadout to 2, with an extra 1 acquired per ammo bag picked up.

*Remove the ability to throw the device

*The player must now "arm" the device by walking up to where they wish to place it and holding down the fire button for around 3-5 seconds.

*The device cannot be detonated for 3-10 seconds after being placed.

*The explosion radius is increased to 3-4 times the size it currently is

*The damage is increased slightly

*The tripwire laser is made slightly less visible


These changes would make the FP9 useless as a grenade, but excellent for springing traps, since a single device could destroy an entire room full of people if placed well and detonated at the right time. Unlike the land mine the explosive device would require the user to keep an eye on the target area, (unless using tripwire mode) but the payoff would be a much more powerful explosion.

What does everyone think?

I think if there was just a way to keep it from being used as a noob's grenade...

I say make it so it can't be detonated until after it hits ground and/or comes to a stop.

This way it'd still be easy to use but eliminates the grenade style usage of it while keeping all other functionality.

I'm not sure I like this. I never thought it even could be used as a remote grenade and I was really supprised how effective it was. I myself can't use it like that and I'm a decent player. I find it rather skilled if you can use it good. Multiplying the blast radius with 3 to 4 is way too much IMO. The laser transparency is a good point though. I must say I havn't seen much point in such weapons where you see a bright beam. :/

it's an ok weapon, but the damage and the limit of FP9A1's you can place need to change, due to the fact by placing a few at the onslaught core and instantly winning the round or match.

Thats not really the FP9's themselves at fault there. All Ballistic Weapons do insane amounts of damage to vehicles, cores, and nodes.

I like the idea... but no more damage/blast-radius increase, please.

Another way that see to avoid use it as grenade, is make throw range keep the player inside the blast area, so you blow yourself up if try to detonate it while at throw range. This one matches with the radius increase above mentioned, may be by just reducing throw range if needed.
There is still left the kamikaze use if you see yourself unable to escape or win, but I guess you lose 1 score point for suiciding with it, so it would be only worth use in kamikaze way vs someone who picked a hard to find weapon or vs at least 2 other players

Oh it definitely doesn't require much skill. One of my clan members who is not as awesome at the game as I (hehe) once almost beat me in a Deathmatch when all she did was just chuck the things at people and detonate it in their faces.

Some things I would like changed with the FP9:

- Remove its grenade ability by giving it a "fuse" per say, with may be a three 3 second delay between throwing or planting the device before it can be detonated.
- Add a fragmentation plate to the front of the explosive, so that when it detonates, it sends a blast of shrapnel in front of the device, where the laser is pointing. Standing six feet in front of the device would be like getting hit with an M290 from the same range. Maybe rename it the FP9-C7 Claymore device.
- Add a camera lens to the device and a screen or camcorder-style scope to the detonator, so that you can use the Iron sights feature to see what's directly in front of the device. Unlike the M50's camera, the camera view would not be adjustable.

Increasing the damage or the blast radius would be a terrible idea.

Those are some pretty cool ideas Kaboodles.

Dude, thats huge, giant even. Way larger than the bloody G5 explosion. I find its used effectively, and just adding or taking away would just ruin it, since you can't FORCE people to use the FP9A5 the way you think its made for.

Sure you can. Just change the functionality of the weapon so that it would be impossible to use it the "wrong" way. Like adding a detonation delay or an "arming time" after tossing or planting.

In its current state, it can be a little too effective when used as an instant close-range explosion, especially when its blast radius allows you to drop, dodge, and detonate on enemies without getting hurt yourself.

Well obviously I can't read the developer's minds, so I don't know their exact intentions when they designed it, but since they put the pineapple in game I'm going to guess that it isn't supposed to be used as a grenade, which is what most people use it for. In fact I think it out grenades the grenade, since you don't have to worry about timing at all.

So if you lower/remove the throwing range and add a fuse to it, then you stop people using it as a grenade, but as a trap it's inferior to the landmine because you have to actually keep an eye on your devices and detonate them at the right time. In a fast paced game like BW it doesn't pay to sit around doing nothing for several minutes waiting for someone to run past your bombs. I've played against several people who got lots of kills by planting mines all over the place, but nobody ever uses the explosive device for that sort of thing because having to sit around waiting for someone to walk into your trap does not get you very many kills at all.

This is why I think it needs a larger blast radius. If it's not going to be a grenade then it really needs something to offset the severe disadvantage of the player actually having to keep an eye on it. Anyway, by the look of the model the FP9 is supposed to be a huge chunk of high explosive, so a large blast radius isn't really out of character. Maybe 3-4 times larger is a little big, but I don't see why it shouldn't be bigger than the G5.


EDIT: I forgot to say, I like kaboodles idea, but I'd rather see it implemented as a separate weapon (like a proper claymore) than as a change to the FP9

I guess you haven't tried its Weapon Special. The Weapon Special key turns the explosive you're holding into a laser-trip mine, so you don't really need to watch it at all. If you push the Weapon Special key while pointing at one of your deployed explosives, it will toggle the laser on and off.

As for the claymore idea, I've already got one of those in the works. I got the fuse working beautifully, though the shrapnel is giving me problems.

I'm well aware of the laser function, but since it's impossible to place the device in any place where your enemy won't be able to see the laser before running through it (unless you play against someone with a habit of running backwards) it's really not very useful at all. Yes it works against bots but in games with people I've only seen someone run into one once. Mines on the other hand can be placed so that your opponent isn't aware of them until it's too late to do anything about it.

Laser mines can be just as effective as ordinary mines if you know where to place them. Stick them around corners or right along the ground to make them less visible. More often than not, most people will by moving at full speed, too fast to notice it in time to react to it and stop. In this game, if you go slow, you die. You can even carry more of them than you can of landmines. And the best part is that even if they jump over or crawl under the beam, you can still detonate it manually and kill them. Can't do that with the BX5.

EDIT: Also, here are the damage and blast radius values for the FP9, Pineapple, G5, and the BX5 Spring and regular mines.

FP9
Damage: 350
Radius: 350

Pineapple
Damage: 250
Radius: 450

G5
Damage: 200
Radius: 488

BX5 Vehicle mine
Damage: 400
Radius: 350

BX5 Spring mine
Damage: 250
Radius: 400

I think the FP9's blast radius is quite large enough. The BX5 vehicle mine could use a much smaller blast radius, as those things are supposed to blast upwards to punch through vehicle armor. The Spring mine should have lower damage as it's supposed to be just an anti-infantry mine. The G5 ought to have a smaller blast radius but more damage, so a direct hit from it would kill someone regardless of shields and health. Similarly, the pineapple should have a smaller blast radius but a whole lot of fragmentation to compensate for the lower blast radius, as right now it's just a concussion grenade instead of a frag.