Explosions seem overtuned

[Vastin]

The sheer kill power of landmines would bother me more if they weren’t so damn easy to spot in the game - which is itself quite unrealistic.

I frankly think they’d make a more interesting obstacle/threat in the game if they occurred in more varied circumstances and were a bit harder to spot - but were less overwhelmingly lethal.

I mean, an antipersonnel mine is a pretty tiny thing, and I could easily see someone in full survivor body armor surviving an encounter with one with only moderate wounds - they are after all designed to cripple more than kill, and the game stats suggest that survivor armor has far better coverage and offers generally similar protection to standard military body armor.

An Anti-vehicular mine, on the other hand, would leave a human a fine red mist unless maybe they were in heavy power armor - and even then they should be significantly injured.

[Vastin]

As a note, the M14 mine is considered a very small AP mine with a low level of lethality to the primary target, as a below-ground detonation, it also has very little radius of effect.

The M19 on the other hand, will in fact blow you to smithereens, as it is designed to kill tanks - though for the same reason they are usually set to trigger at weights well above normal human body weight.

I’m assuming that the standard ‘land mines’ we’re seeing in the game are primarily anti-vehicular mines given their huge blast and high lethality even against heavily armored/massive targets - though why the US military chose to scatter anti-vehicular mines across the US northeast in the face of a zombie attack, is quite beyond me.

[kevin.granade]

though why the US military chose to scatter anti-vehicular mines across the US northeast in the face of a zombie attack, is quite beyond me.

Zombie hulks, and their big brothers.

[Solusphere]

Or just making sure the regular zombies stayed down. Maybe the regular anti-personnel mines are how we got all the zombie crawlers.

[tarburst98]

hmm, could that be done, if a regular zombie triggers a mine it becomes a crawler? like how zombies become burnt zombies.

[druidniam]

similar protection to standard military body armor.

If we’re talking about current and near future body armor worn by US troops, the stuff I was wearing 15 years ago wasn’t going to do shit if I stepped on a land mine. It wasn’t meant to stop something from coming UP at me. It was meant to stop projectiles flying AT me. That said, I was a mechanic and only ever wore it during training, but I’m friends with several IED survivors who don’t credit their body armor as what saved their life. It was usually the hummer, or the soldier who saw the suicide bomber and reacted just fast enough to neutralize the target outside kill range but still inside a range to cause significant injury. Just because it’s an IED doesn’t mean people don’t know how to rig a dead man’s switch.

[Vastin]

It wasn’t meant to stop something from coming UP at me. It was meant to stop projectiles flying AT me.

If your military armor is actually in the way of an AP mine fragment, it should stop it handily - the problem being, as you say, that chances are pretty good you’ll be hit in an uncovered spot.

CDDA more or less represents that through the fact that military armor mostly has really crappy coverage. Virtually nothing for the hands, poor armor for feet and legs, with a fair chance of bypass. Survivor armor, however, has near 100% coverage, albiet with somewhat lower actual armor values. As such I’d expect it to intercept attacks like shotgun pellets and anti-personnel fragmentation weapons pretty well, but not entirely stop them, resulting in more moderate injuries.

Heavy survivor armor with its near full body kevlar plate coverage (and obnoxious encumbrance) should, in game terms - provide pretty good protection against fragmenting AP explosives. Anti vehicular mines or IED’s would require something along the line of the futuristic power armors to mitigate of course, which is certainly the case in the game.

[druidniam]

If your military armor is actually in the way of an AP mine fragment, it should stop it handily

If you mean the idea of heroicly throwing yourself on a landmine or grenade to save your soldiers and friends, no sorry, you just created nowhere for the shockwave of the concussion to go except through the soft tissue of your frail human body. Sure, your armor stopped that fragmentation like it was meant to, but your insides were turned to jelly in the process of 8700~ m/s of VoD decide that you’re easier to travel through acoustically than the ground. Physics: They’ll fuck you in the ass and call you sally even in your fantasy.

Edit: I apologize for the above rant. I failed to read the word FRAGMENT. Yes, in most cases, unless you’re in the above scenario and at least 5 meters from the site of detonation standard military armor should stop most non-flechettes and military composite plates should stop flechettes.

Edit 2: Hell, I think the current weave they’re using in BDUs will stop fragments at 15 meters in lower velocity explosives.

Edit 3: For those who don’t actually know anything about landmines except from google, the lethal kill range of anything antipersonnel that isn’t a directional claymore mine is about 3 meters. Directional claymores are lethal to 15 meters and wound capable to 30 meters depending on if the target is armored, fortified or atypical of what claymores are used against (usually rebels and not standard militaries with a real budget for things like armor)

[Zanos]

Yeah, I was under the impression that current mines were supposed to be anti-personnel fragmentation mines, which as I understood killed by flinging a lot of metal bits at you at high speed, which 100% coverage steel plated kevlar should be reasonably capable of stopping.

I think that blast mines should probably be avoided from being included. I think they’re supposed to be banned under a bunch of treaties for being essentially designed to maim (blow people’s feet off). And dismemberment that can’t be recovered from is pretty much just death anyway.

I do think something interesting would be fragmentation mines in fields and such, but if a minefield spawns on a road for it to have anti-vehicle mines that aren’t triggered unless a huge mob or vehicle moves over them.

I don’t think the handling of minefields right now is great either. I think a map tile just has a random chance of being a minefield? It would make more sense if they were laid out around “hard” locations, like military bunkers/outposts, FEMA camps, etc.

[TheKobold]

When are we going to see hulk’s big brothers!

[TheZoneWizard]

Stepping on a mine with armor as Kevin even shown here will still kill the person 50/50. The average IED is enough to kill full armor from the shock wave alone. While this game is hardly 100% realistic. The idea that you can survive a mine directly in contact with the explosion is almost laughable.

As for hitler not dying? The shock wave diffused out the windows that were opened. They even made a friggin movie about it lol

As for the logical location of a minefield…that leaves a lot to be desired. I can understand a street built up as a barricaded “last stand” kind of alamo deally. But I also hate how they randomly appear with out any real justification. They just happen to be in my way and I ponder…the f**k is this doing in the middle of no where??

Seriously odd. Why not make bandits jump out of the shrouded areas. Like hidden behind trees. Barriers that block player vision and HAVE AT THEE KNAVE!!! TIS A ROBBERY!!!

[Zanos]

Stepping on a mine with armor as Kevin even shown here will still kill the person 50/50. The average IED is enough to kill full armor from the shock wave alone. While this game is hardly 100% realistic. The idea that you can survive a mine directly in contact with the explosion is almost laughable.

There’s nothing that suggests that. Kevin’s criticism of the research I did link are valid, but there’s nothing to suggest that landmines are as lethal as you claim either.

Here’s another link, although I’m not sure of the websites journalistic validity.

[TheZoneWizard]

Ask around at a veterans club mate. You see this $h!t for real with your own eyes and this isn’t a conversation at all =(

I won’t say you die 100%. I will say the LIKELY outcome is, the unlucky person turning into meat confetti(if only a leg or arm). It really is something you never want to see for real.

[Zanos]

Not trying to sound like a dick, but anecdotal evidence isn’t really valid. 0% of the people who I know who drove while drinking are dead, but I know it’s still dangerous.

[TheZoneWizard]

Not being a dick at all. A reasonable example. But how many of those got into an accident and got messed up?

I know several. I’ve been in a sober accident. Still alive thankfully. Where the only guy I knew drank like a fish got killed after I think was his 2nd accident being drunk.

Danger does not inherently imply mortal danger. It just means a boat load of agony when stepping on a land mine. I mean the things are designed for the purpose of killing -_-

If to assume we can survive them with a t-shirt and jeans being liken to full padded bomb armor…well people still get hurt when dawning kevins green gear up there ^

[druidniam]

There’s nothing that suggests that. Kevin’s criticism of the research I did link are valid, but there’s nothing to suggest that landmines are as lethal as you claim either.

Let me break down physics for you and skip everything you think you understand about a land mind.

At zero seconds you foot comes into contact with the detonator. Depending on if it’s set to trigger on release you may or may not have just shit your pants.

If it immediately detonates, and .001 seconds, a an electrical spark ignites a small cordite fuse.

At. .003 seconds 1- 5lbs of Composition B detonates.

At .004 seconds a shockwave traveling at 8750 meters per second travels straight up your nuts. This may or may not also be carrying with it thousands of tiny metal fragments.

At .005 seconds that full body steel mega power armor has successfully stopped every round of shrapnel from touching you because that’s what it’s designed to do.

At .007 seconds your internal organs begin to rupture from the detonation of the of the landmine as the shockwave travels through the armor instead of dispersing into the atmosphere. The fragmentation mine has just become a blast mine because essentially a tank just stepped on it.

At 1- 15 seconds you die from massive internal hemorrhaging.

For those unaware of what CompB is, it’s a mix of TNT and RDX. Yeah, that’s what you stepped on. Dynamite and Cyclonite.

A lot of you are getting your facts and data from the internet. That’s fine. I spent two weeks in the military learning to USE land mines before never having to touch them again (wrench turners unite).

[Zanos]

At 1- 15 seconds you die from massive internal hemorrhaging.

Except the tens of thousands of people who didn’t.

I’m not saying I’m going to go out stepping on landmines and be fine. That’s just stupid. But real-world data and UN law both suggest that landmines are far more likely to maim than kill.

[druidniam]

…are you just stupid or incapable of reading? We’re talking a survivor in full body power armor. A literal walking tank. Not Joe Infantry who stepped on a landmine.

[Zanos]

Keep it civil, there.

Why are we talking about full body power armor, now? I thought you were being sarcastic. Power armor is super science, which Kevin has been pretty specific about being pretty liberal with handwavium in Cata; armor that can stop a tank round is kind of useless if it survives a tank round but doesn’t have cushioning to diffuse the kinetic energy. The same physics would apply on a if you shot it with a big ol’ gun.

[kevin.granade]

Seconding the chill out request, if you’re frustrated at someone’s response, cool off for a bit, the discussion will still be there later.
It is suuuper frustrating when people seem to ignore your points, but it’s not against the rule. Calling someone stupid is.

Re: mines vs power armor
I’m not sure why this came up, but it’s a valid point.

1. Bounding antipersonnel mines. Power armor would do great against these, essentially being unscathed.
2. Blast-type antipersonnel mines. This is the type you address, and your argument holds as long as the armor is effective simply due to thickness, but as @Zanos points out, DDA power armor is supposed to be cutting-edge milspec protection gear, which would be rendered effectively useless if it could be defeated by a simple AP land mine. It may for example be possible to create a boot surface that redirects the force of the blast to the sides, and/or contain an integral shock absorption apparatus to disperse the shock to a tolerable level. Again, we’re talking a system verging on super-science
3. Anti-vehicle mines. If you set one of these off you’re pretty much screwed, even in power armor. Maaaaybe the heaviest power armor variety can do some redirection and absorption etc and end up with the wearer not-quite-dead, but in general it’s just too much energy to do anything about.

As for general survivability of land mines:

there’s nothing to suggest that landmines are as lethal as you claim either.

There are no statistics available either for or against, but an understanding of how landmines work suggests that they’re highly lethal, especially if the victim triggered the mine directly and has no support personnel available to supply first aid.