Forget the fact that they blow up when the die… they release a swarm of flashbangs from an incredible distance. How the hell do you take these guys on? And they show up pretty damn early too.
RUN…RUN…
I complained bitterly about these when they were added. They still make ZERO sense to me (zombies are too stupid to open doors, but they can activate grenade-bots?!?), but I have accepted that they will exist.
Until you are a very good shot and have enough ammo, you just plain stay away from them. Full Stop. That goes quintuple for the ELITE grenadiers - they have a lot more hacks AND one mini-nuke hack (which they can drop active on death, actually, if they haven’t used it yet).
(If you find one in a lab, you can open the door, get it to release a hack, then close the door. Lather-rinse-repeat until they kill themselves.)
Once you have a way of shooting down the hacks before they kill you, you can just hang out, killing hacks until the grenadier goes from “tracking” to “hostile”, which means it’s out of hacks… then, when you kill it, it drops no active hacks.
Also, once a grenadier has “died” once (doing the “drop some active hacks” thing), it is out of hacks, so if you have a way of killing it (like staying in the general vicinity while it kills itself walking on wreckage, for instance), but you don’t manage to pulp the corpse, that’s ok - it’s basically a glorified normal zombie when you come back.
Last one I killed was in a city. I managed to sneak up on it (as in, get within about 8 squares of it) because it was lingering behind a van that was still functional, hop in the driver’s seat, and back it over. Then I threw it in drive and peeled out as all its bomb-hacks went off simultaneously. I’m presuming if you were moving fast enough, you could probably just drive over them and keep on going to avoid the explosive retaliation, but I haven’t been bold enough to test that theory yet.
I'm never bold enough to test a theory...
Where are grenadiers anyway? are they just rare in cities cuz I've looked all over my city and never found one. The only times I ever found a lab, i never managed to get inside. I always got my bionics from shockers and rare electric stores. However, if YOU have a grenade, you can throw it accurately from a long distance with enough throwing skill to wreck many enemies. I assume it would work, but I've never met a grenadier before...I had just survived my first winter, finally built my fledgling death mobile, and was trucking on down to the refugee center when I ran into one of these elite grenadier things. It was hiding in the forest alongside the road. It released a swarm of hacks and blew me to smithereens in no time.
Absolutely ridiculous.
I almost lost my current character to one of these buggers in a lab. Open door, shoot in face, V to check the activated bombs, close door. Hear two explosions. Open door. Step inside. You are caught in the explosion!
Oh right…there was an active C4 hack too…I was one tile inside the blast radius (from the far edge) and it still took like 70% of my health and put me in a ton of pain.
The concept was good before the explosion mechanic was changed, but now that they basically detonate everything within the screen it’s a bit ridiculous.
[quote=“redxlaser15, post:5, topic:13467”] I’m never bold enough to test a theory…
Where are grenadiers anyway? are they just rare in cities cuz I’ve looked all over my city and never found one. The only times I ever found a lab, i never managed to get inside. I always got my bionics from shockers and rare electric stores. However, if YOU have a grenade, you can throw it accurately from a long distance with enough throwing skill to wreck many enemies. I assume it would work, but I’ve never met a grenadier before…[/quote]
I’ve only ever seen them in lab barracks and military outposts. The ones in outposts I treat the same as the milspec turrets, just plink at them from a long distance with a rifle… you should have no problem shooting the grenade bots down before they get anywhere near you.
The most common place I see them is military crash sites, but even then, they aren’t really all that common.
The next most common place I see them is military outposts, but the turrets usually put them down for you the first time, so…
They seem fairly rare in labs (always in the barracks rooms, though stairs in there let them out every once in a great while), though I have seen two in the same barracks a couple of times.
I don’t recall ever seeing them anywhere else (at least, natively - I have hordes on these days, so they can end up anywhere).
Manhacks cannot go through cars.
But grenadiers don’t use manhacks, they use explosive hacks of various kinds, and while the hacks themselves can’t go through cars, their explosions absolutely can.
High speed drive-bythrough can be a way to deal with them, if the grenadier is in a good spot for it. Since they don’t follow you, they are difficult to position.
I've never done a LOT of things in Cataclysm, in short: what is a manhack and the other 'hacks'? Are they robots of some sort? I've always been a bit of a character that 'turtles,' going slow, taking few risks and not going to far from home a lot of the time. Thus I've missed out on a lot.Yeah, they are very small robots.
Manhacks are basically sharpened frisbees with an engine to keep them in the air - low damage, but quite difficult to hit in melee. These are very much the most common type, as they can be found loose in labs, and the can also be dropped by scientist zombies.
The other hacks are all released by grenadiers/elite grenadiers, and the all fly at their enemies and explode. Teargas hacks, flashbang hacks, they aren’t TOO bad, but grenade hacks can ruin your whole day, and don’t get me started on C-4 hacks.
Mininuke hacks are, luckily, VERY rare - the elite grenadier can launch just one at you. Those are bad things. Make sure you have a ranged weapon that you are a VERY good shot with - don’t want that one going off anywhere you can see it.
Have you fought coyotes? Manhacks are mini flying steel coyotes with combat knife fangs.
Well, I can apparently hit a spider better with a throwing stick than with a melee weapon. Not sure if it would do enough damage to get through much armor, since robots tend to have some.
*remembers zombies trying to hit eyebots, rarely hitting and then not mattering when it actually does it cuz of armor* I broke into several places around my base so there are like five groups of zombies trying (and failing) to kill eyebots. Not sure how close hacks are to eyebots though...Depending on strength and throwing skill, stuff like throwing sticks CAN damage hacks, though you might need a few of them. Since ranged attacks ignore dodge, this is actually one of the better ways to deal with them. Trying to take them in melee is a annoying prospect of endless misses for anyone with skills below about 5, though. Still doable since they do very little damage per hit, but expect to take countless minor hit and have your clothes heavily ripped up by the end.
Well, seeing as 'ranged attacks ignore dodge' is it not possible to get high enough in dodging to dodge a bullet? cuz I've always wanted that really badly, i'm high enough in dodge that brutes and hulks have trouble hitting me. Of course, you can't dodge an explosion, though...Under normal circumstances, no, you cannot dodge a bullet. There is, however, a CBM called “uncanny dodge” that DOES let you dodge bullets. Not sure of the exact mechanics behind it, but it works.
[quote="§k, post:14, topic:13467"]Have you fought coyotes? Manhacks are mini flying steel coyotes with combat knife fangs.[/quote]i luled
Just killed one recently, made for a terrifying early game experience.