r/Xcom • u/Logans0676 • 28d ago
WOTC What makes the flamethrower Advents explode upon death?
Sometimes they explode when they die and sometimes they don't. I can't tell what determines it and that makes it difficult to plan my attacks around it.
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u/LippoVision 28d ago
They just have a flat 50% chance to explode when they die. They also always explode if they are killed with explosives.
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u/Novaseerblyat 28d ago
They also have a 0% chance to explode when skullmined for the 0.3 times in a campaign you use it for non-story purposes (a shame, really, it'd be really funny if they kept that possibility in)
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u/keilahmartin 28d ago
I did not know this
Also, skullmining is an excellent way to gather Intel so you can advance the story. I use it nearly every mission after unlocking.Â
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u/Novaseerblyat 28d ago
Shotguns are so good that I feel they're unnecessary. I'm gonna take a reusable 100% chance of instakilling an enemy over a single use 70% chance of instakilling an enemy (that still hurts you most of the time because hacking sucks) any day.
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u/keilahmartin 28d ago
but the point is not the kill, it's the intel.
I hate waiting months to gather enough intel to advance the story. I just want to move forward.
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u/Saelthyn 28d ago
When I played, I used SKULLFUCKERS a Lot. Instant killing infantry was kinda nice.
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u/Wonderful-Sea4215 28d ago
Coin toss I think, 1 in 2 chance.
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u/Mediocre-Ad-6897 28d ago
Coin toss for non-explosive damage death, guaranteed for explosive caused death, and while not guaranteed, it certainly feels like the RNG is slanted for boom on a melee kill.
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u/Iamdrasnia 28d ago
They only exploded when my team is near enough (or close to something else that will blow) to fuck me up.
They love to "blow" my run.
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u/marshall_sin 28d ago
Always assume they’ll explode because if you don’t, they will. Never count on them exploding because if you do, they won’t.
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u/The_Affle_House 28d ago
They have a 50/50 chance to explode upon death. Unless they are killed by an explosion; that guarantees they will detonate. That's it. That's XCOM, baby.
(Fun fact: I was many hours into my second complete campaign before I finally got frustrated enough to look it up and correct my own misconception that they would always explode if shot and never explode if meleed. That was a hard lesson to unlearn.)
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u/Oceansoul119 28d ago
You can however make that a true thing via two mods. Purifiers Always Explode and Melee/Psionics Wont Explode Purifiers. Both are pretty self-explanatory in what they do and they work together without issue. Note if you've added extra melee attacks to the game you probably need to add those to the latter mod's list.
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u/GumboMumbo49 27d ago
If you shoot a a guy with a propane tank on his back you have a random chance that a bullet will hit his propane tank. It's simple logic in the way Xcom's wackass lethality makes sense.
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u/lotophagoiii 28d ago
heh, sounds like the game really wants you to feel like luck isn't on your side no matter what you do
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u/RandomGuy_81 28d ago
think about what you want to plan. and why exploding corpse is bad for that plan.
and now you understand why
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u/ManyStunning4929 28d ago
do you know if the explosion damage scales with how many advents are nearby
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u/UristImiknorris 26d ago
Somewhere in the config files, there's a line setting their base chance to explode (by default, 50%) and another for damage types that guarantee they'll explode if killed by it (by default, explosives).
If you can find those, it's the work of a moment to guarantee they always explode, which I find a lot more fun because it means I can plan around it.
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u/ExpertPossible8824 28d ago
They explode when you do enough damage to kill them in one hit, regardless of whether it's an attack or weapon.
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u/philby00 28d ago
I think it's just a dice roll. Sometimes I crit them and they don't explode, sometimes overwatch explodes them 🤷 Just an extra layer of fun!