Talk:Stun Rod

I have a question: this page says the stun rod is a 2-handed weapon. Normally using a two-handed weapon with one hand results in an accuracy penalty (-20% if I remember). Since I tend to use low-quality soldiers to try and stun aliens early in the game, I am thinking it would be wise to always try and use stun rods two-handed, to avoid the accuracy penalty. Am I right in looking at it this way?

Also, I see a few weapons with their "handedness" listed (mostly if they're two-handed) but most weapons entries don't mention if they're one or two-handed (Small Launcher, for example). This would be a good thing to accurately list for every weapon.

I'm also thinking there could be a separate wiki page for explaining "handedness", the importance of it, thoughts on the tradeoffs, etc. For example, I think the accuracy of the Blaster Bomb is 120% but it is considered a two-handed weapon, so my understanding is, you can put a second item in the other hand with no practical penalty.

- Erik

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I don't think I've ever seen the stun rod miss. This is probably because you have to use it at point blank range - The only way you could fail to hit the target is if your unit actually turned away when you told him to use it. I've only ever seen a weapon misfire that badly once, so I don't think it's much of a risk.

Someone did some tests with the Blaster Launcher a little while ago, and it seems to be as accurate whether you're holding another weapon or not. My personal theory is that the accuracy only effects the initial launching of the weapon, and once it starts following waypoints it's effects are lost.

- Bomb Bloke

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That someone was me, and Firing Accuracy (high or low) didn't seem to seem to affect any part of the bomb's flight path -- through the first waypoint, or otherwise. It might have an effect on reaction fire with a Blaster Launcher.

I've never tested to see if a Stun Rod could miss. Sometimes it fails to knock out an alien, but I always assumed that was because it did low damage. I guess we could try hacking its accuracy (and a soldier's melee accuracy) to see if it can miss.

--Ethereal Cereal 20:16, 2 July 2006 (PDT)

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Regarding the stun rod, if the game were to use your hidden melee accuracy stat to calculate melee hit accuracy, then the grip would certainly matter. The game appears to have hard coded the melee accuracy to always hit adjacent targets. Whether or not you do any damage is up to the random number generator and the target's defence. So it's okay to use the stun rod with another weapon in the other hand. It's still a two handed weapon, but because accuracy does not matter, it works just as well.

Just an interesting note. The firing cost for the blaster launcher is in actual fact 66%. Not 80% as it is reported in the ufopaedia. The launch command is actually separate from the normal firing modes that we're accustomed to. I'm guessing the accuracy is in the same boat as melee accuracy. It is perhaps a fixed value that works independantly of your soldier's accuracy, so accuracy doesn't matter. Has anyone ever tried it with a 0 accuracy unit, such as what can be found on a mind controlled chryssalid? If you haven't, do give it a try and make what you will of it. Use the inventory trick or the mind controlled zombie trick to get one.

- NKF

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I've just got two observations about the stun rod to add.

The first is that I've never ever experienced an alien firing a reaction shot when hit with a stun rod, even when hit from the front. I also think nearby aliens will not reaction fire either.

The second is that if the stun rod does do 65 (stun) damage it seems to take far too many hits to take down any alien. I might try an experiment sometime where I take a skyranger full of flying suit vets with psi amps, mind probes and stun rods to test out exactly how much damage they actually do. If so I will report the results here.

--Hot Logic 21:11, 7 November 2006 (PST)