During the first round of testing, many of us got to thoroughly test the flamethrowers and gather opinions about them and what could be done better with them. We see after this recent major update, they have received an improvement:
- Flame of flamethrowers can now go through small openings and bypass obstacles. Also the fuel now splashes when hitting hard obstacles, increasing the combustion zine.
- Now you can request fuel for a flamethrower from a soldier in the squad.
These are certainly good improvements, but I believe there are still things that can be done to improve them.
The first thing that I believe could be improved for these flamethrowers is the accurate representation of their ignition systems. Some flamethrowers, like the Flammenwerfer 35 that we see in game, or the American M1 Flamethrower, used a Hydrogen torch as means for igniting the flame. These types of flamethrowers would see practically no difference of operation than what we currently see in game, since these torches can stay lit for long periods and can be reignited many times. However, some other flamethrowers use a cartridge based ignition system, such as the Soviet ROKS and American M2 Flamethrowers. This system would introduce the ammo type of cartridges, as these are what is used to ignite the flame. These cartridges would be lit when you were ready to fire, and would stay lit for a certain period of time, but after they go out, the next cartridge would have to be lit for your next shot. If you run out of cartridges before you run out of fuel, you will have to replace them before you can fire again.
The next suggestion I have, I believe a lot of people will agree with. I hope that the flamethrowers will actually be attached to the soldier’s backpack tanks by hoses, instead of being disconnected like how it was, and that equipping a flamethrower to a soldier will always also equip the backpack for it as well (before, you could equip the flame projector without having the right backpack, or you can pick up a flamethrower and wont have the right backpack either). There should also be a mechanic where if a bullet pierces one of the tanks on a soldier’s backpack, he will be engulfed in flames, or all of his fuel will drain away.
Lastly, I have a suggestion to address what I feel like was a lack of lethality on the flamethrower’s part. In the last part of the test, you needed to hold the flamethrower on someone for quite some time for it to kill him, and in many cases, he could actually shoot back and kill you while he was on fire! In this case, in order to realistically increase the effectiveness of the flamethrower, instead of having it do more damage, I believe that whenever a soldier is lit on fire, he must put out the flames before doing anything else (this would be a realistic “automatic” response from any human). This will make it so that someone cannot just easily snapshot you while he is on fire, and will actually give the flamethrower an edge in close combat (which I believe it did not possess before. This mechanic would also slightly benefit the effectiveness of the Molotov Cocktail as well.
So, those were my ideas of how the flamethrowers can be made more realistic, and also more effective in the role that they are designed for. What do you think, and are there any other suggestions or feedback on flamethrowers that you might have?