Annihilator's Flame Thrower can miss (despite description saying it can't)

[Houtamelo]

Started a new character with the Annihilator class: https://te4.org/characters/304520/tome/ ... af90a74100

Activated the flamethrower and started shooting, about half the shots were missing (the combat log also says that it indeed miss).

However, the description of heavy weapons says that the flamethrower can't miss, is this a bug or a design change that happened without updating the description?

[Moasseman]

It's neither. "Can't miss" refers to it not checking accuracy vs defense, not the projectile physically missing the target (as in target moves away before it hits)

It's part of the jank club alongside Skirmisher's Called Shots & Archer's Headshot/Volley fire

There's an addon which fixes this jank https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/skirm_dejank

[Houtamelo]

So the flamethrower is a projectile? I thought it was supposed to be a cone like flame breath, how does it hits multiple targets then?

[Erenion]

Flamethrower works by you targeting a cone, "marking" every hostile creature in that cone and then firing a very fast (but not instant, which is why it can miss) projectile at every enemy marked this way.

[Houtamelo]

I see, that makes sense, thanks!

[Houtamelo]

Upon further testing, I think I might not be understanding this correctly.

With skills that throw projectiles, if the projectile misses, the log doesn't mention anything.
In the screenshot bellow, it is mentioning that the Flame Jet missed the enemy.



And that was with me using the de-jank mod. Why am I still missing? And why would it stop missing if I increase my accuracy?

When I took the screenshot, I had 7 accuracy, and I was missing about 75% of my flame jets despite being directly adjacent to the enemies I was targeting.

Then I tried taking the accuracy talent, going to 22 accuracy, which instantly made me not miss a single flame jet for the next 100 or so enemies. I missed again upon firing on an enemy with 40 defense.

[nsrr]

It's neither. "Can't miss" refers to it not checking accuracy vs defense, not the projectile physically missing the target (as in target moves away before it hits)

It's part of the jank club alongside Skirmisher's Called Shots & Archer's Headshot/Volley fire

There's an addon which fixes this jank https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/skirm_dejank

I don't see anything that affects the accuracy check. The talent does, in fact, seem to be lying. The projection has 1000 increased APR to 'ignore armor' and it has phasing, so projectiles won't get stopped by an actor in front of the target (incidentally it also means it won't hit its intended target if that target moves from that tile, even into the path of the projectile, i.e. 'the jank'). It would have to also include "archery_auto_hit" in the target table to actually accomplish what it seems to claim.

If the intention of the description is to convey the fact that the projectiles will pass through targets to (possibly) hit their mark, I don't think it's doing that very well. If the talent is indeed intended to not miss due to Acc vs Def, as the description seems to imply, the talent needs some change to make that happen.

Flamethrower works by you targeting a cone, "marking" every hostile creature in that cone and then firing a very fast (but not instant, which is why it can miss) projectile at every enemy marked this way.

It's not actually fast, either. Only 200 speed, same as most ranged weapon projectiles. Skirmisher's called shots, for comparison, use a speed of 2000.

If I feel motivated, I might poke Raz and see what the intention was and then either fix up the description or the projection.