I’ve asked a question on General, but I wanted to say something about radios. I dropped a boombox to encourage a hunter into my ambush. I had placed it too far away, so I went forward and could pick up the gas bottle, but not the boombox. Why not? You want it to be at the maximum range to give yourself the time to organise. If you’ve overcooked it, you need to pick it up and put it closer. But you can’t! Can we please pick them up again? At that point I only had two and haven’t dared use the other one, in case that didn’t work either. I can’t think of any good reason why it’s not a reclaimable/reusable.
Likewise I dropped two runner cans, and by the time I’d lured something near, they had gone! They are recoverable, but not sufficiently durable! Can they not stay in place until you pick them up again, or the end of a session?
If you cunningly employ an ambush, you need to know that whatever you put down to lure or destroy (unless it’s a flare, obviously) you can pick up again if it hasn’t been destroyed in the firefight. Some things are really rare, and they should be like a weapon - a re-usable item. Why not?
Sadly the garbage collection code seems to have issues.
Iv’e dropped an object to do some rearranging and have watched in horror as a really good pistol vanished due to the garbage collection assuming any nearby object isn’t required.
Same thing happened after sniping 3 hunters, the garbage collection code removed two of them before I got to them.
For the boombox it’s probably a slightly different matter, I suspect they cease to be objects you can pick up as soon as you trigger them to play (ie throwing them down.)
From from a programming point makes sense (as it’s similar to grenades, flares and fireworks) and makes players a little more precious regarding their use as you otherwise picking it up and dropping it until players got the result the wanted. To do anything else would mean you may have code to keep track of how long the radio had been on the ground and how long it had been making noise.)
I would suspect that people would keep on picking up the thing and throwing it down again and trying to create an everlasting boombox.
Personally I would like one that couple play for a specified length of time and then stops working, but the player doesn’t actually know how long remains, so you can throw it down and it only works for a second or two (or not at all.)
Also that it would keep playing during any firefight resulting in either trying to pick it up (during the fight) to use it again, or simply writing it off.
i think a reasonable solution would be to make us activate the boombox after placing it, then you can place it and pick it up as many times as you want until you activate it.
It’s an option though I think the only activation method I can think of is to shoot it.
Personally I like the thought of traps having the random element of will the boombox even play (batteries don’t like the cold) and the added annoyance during an encounter of that’s my last boombox and I really should try to pick it up.
oh sorry, i thought you were saying that you shoot them now to activate
i would rather not have to shoot them to activate them myself, i would miss the boombox and hit the tank i put down with it.
and i believe this update will give some of the boom back to our explosives
I actually can’t be bothered taking down tanks at the minute, had to take one down for a mission on Saturday night and that was something like 20+ recoilless rounds and it was only a Military Tank
The issue for the devs is to try and find the usage method that suits the greatest number of people in the greatest number of cases, is simply starting to play a couple of seconds after being thrown down is the least worst option.
I would like to be able to shoot it to shut it up though plus it would be handy when some idiot pops into your game and throws a boombox down then runs away (yes I have seen that happen.
It might be mildly amusing to shoot somebodies boombox and disable their trap ruining their trap (and less annoying than actually triggering the trap.)
Well, the first aid pack you throw down, and then hold your “action” button to interact and heal. Boombox could be the same. I don’t mind it starting when you put it down (or a couple of seconds after) but it only plays for ten seconds and then you can’t pick it up, to move the ambush. It could be really easy to damage, and it’d be damaged in the firefight - fine.
I think if you put down a gas bottle of an explosive (a normally recoverable one) that should stay in place until you leave the session. After all, it was there before you picked it up for however long! So should dead machines. I like seeing the metal corpses as I go back that way…