Augustus Gloop

/sarcasm

I don't know if this has been publicly discussed before, but Clark RDX appears even more useless now than it was before the most recent patch.

Some of the 3rd and someone else (forgive me for forgetting who you were!) were messing around on our private server after a glamorous photo shoot, and naturally the action turned to messing with some of the less used items in our 2142 arsenal. Smoke grenades, radar grenades, and the always popular Clark RDX.

An epic C-RDX duel erupted, eventually sucking 6 people into the mayhem, and after 10 minutes of free-for-all, we'd had about 3 deaths. The fuse is so long that people would stroll away from a glowing, hissing cluster and take no damage. Aiming them is a nightmare. The bombs no longer stick to people. They don't detonate regular RDX or APM's. It takes more than a full clip to destroy a FAV, and more than one to kill a soldier.

The only improvement is landing two in a cluster of motion mines will set them all off with an impressive bang, and woe to any engineers caught in the middle of laying them out.

So- IMHO we can safely shelve the Clark: RDX as useless once again. Bring your IDS and EMP grenades instead folks.

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Bagheera

That other person was me. The other thing we found out about the Clark-RDX is that it DOESN'T detonate a recon's RDX, nor APMs either.

We were also testing other detonation techniques, and found that yes, a Zeller will cause an APM to explode with damage, but it will detonate an RDX harmlessly, without any damage to anyone around. The smoke grenade spam was hilarious. What was your call on the radar grenade? Any good? How was the radius and duration?


Watching the Clark-RDX fight was like watching a bunch of one legged men in an ass-kicking contest. The Clark-was about that effective.

MDFubar

I was playing around with this the other day in our server, actually shooting at passing gunships..........Don't ask. But I did find that on a map like CG when people are up in the landings it comes in handy. I got a couple of kills by sticking them to the ceiling and sides of the walls. Aiming is a bit of a b....., but it is like shooting the nade launchers in BF2.
Used with a team, the noise from the fuse will make the enemy move into the open where the others can pick'em off. It was fun to use, but not as effective as it should be.
I think we can find uses for it, a hiding sniper up high in a tower, etc....

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Razcsak

During some tests earlier, I found the radar grenade to be fairly effective, but still probably not worth leaving the defib.

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Arithea

Honestly, I think the radar grenade is a very situationally effective item. I don't think it's something people need to carry on a regular basis, but every once in a while, maybe while assaulting a flag, one person in a squad could carry radar grenades for use in the assault. They can be useful if you have a commander who doesn't use the UAV effectively.

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MDFubar

Yeah, and utilizing the fact that there are 6 members of the squad means that you can have some diverified kits. You just have to make sure you sm's know to pick up that kit and revive if that person goes down.

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Thesleeper01

RDX is a sweet situational weapon. An often forgotten thing about them is that they can be fired in large arcs, with there timer the first thing they will hear if you do it right is the explosion as they fall out of the sky and explode just as they get to the targets level, they do take a lot of work to get familar with BUT on choak point maps where the enemy isdefending or attacking over a narrow area haveing one to 2 people spamming these makes a great effect both for haveing the enemy comming in hurt and preventing many rushes.

I just got it for that reason, when useing it as a squad recived upgrade I have had full squads charge in to kill me because it is so hard to get around stop or counter act.

Augustus Gloop

I kind of wonder how they would do on Titan Corridor defense, with a few people staggering their shots for continuous explosions.

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Thesleeper01

I tend to think it would do nice but not as good as the instant firepower of the rifle rockets.

Crux

Actually, the Clark RDX is one of the most misconstrued weapons in the game. At one point I was 80 or so in the global rankings with it (dropped down now to 111 due to a lack of recent use).

For starters, it will detonate a recon's RDX. Unfortunately, it will only do so when the RDX is placed on a vehicle. Obviously not as great, but at least it has the remote possibility of being useful. The clearing mines has already been commented on. For the record, the Clark RDX would never stick to an infantry, before or after the patch.

Anyway, the thing about the Clark RDX is it has to be used with the right mentality. It also takes a lot of understanding of the flow of the game to use effectively. If I take it onto any kind of an assault/defend map where one team has a ucb and the other does not, I can consistently get 4-8 kills with it, most of which I would not have been able to do with grenades.

1) Accuracy. It is not an easy weapon to learn to shoot well. It takes time and practice.
2) Arch. You have to understand the trajectory of the weapon. Once you do you can learn to place those glowing balls of christmas cheer in places you couldn't reach with a grenade.
3) Prediction. Use it in conjuction with an IDS or UAV. Learn not just where the troops are standing, but where they are going.

Once you have these three elements in place, you can start to do some damage. Here is how I've found to use it best.

- Place rdx shots behind a corner someone is about to run around. If you do it right they'll die almost instantly due to two rdx balls blowing up in quick succession.
- Place rdx shots on walls, ceilings and other unexpected places. Belgrade is a great example. If there's a guy in the building above you, hit the roof. He might hear the hiss but he won't see the ball unless he's looking the right way
- When possible, find targets who are focused on other things. Snipers and support campers are great victims
- Fire from cover. You can frequently hit your enemies without even being visible due to the arc of the weapon

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MDFubar

Very well put Crux. In addition, just as the support weapons can supress....the clark RDX will make the enemy move from thier position if you don't kill them. This too can be very important.

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SharinganTH1422

I guess it was over-powering all of the other weapons...(sarcasm)

The uselessness of this gun occurred to me a couple months ago (maybe longer) when a player and I (I think it was OF-Geus) were the only ones on the TG server, it was not long after he had started and we decided to seed it. He wanted to test out the RDX Clark, and it was terrible, a direct hit would not even take more than half damage, and I got so bored of waiting for it to explode, I pulled out my knife, took his tag, then ran back to the spot where he shot the RDX and I was barely hurt...then it turned into an hour of knife and Krylov hunting...lol, good times.

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Anger is a gift - Malcolm X

...If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

Anospa

Heh, it was actually very funny, I was sitting not paying attention to what was going on, looked down and saw like 2 or 3 globs at my feet, realized it'd hurt, so I started walking very slowly away.

I think I took 12 dmg.

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"Brittle?! Dude you just took a localized tactical warhead to the face." -Eroak

SharinganTH1422

Well, I don't ever get put off by Clark-RDX, I just run at it, even if it hits directly, It would hardly make a difference, (and the person who fired is obviously trying to deter me, which would make it even better to keep going).

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Anger is a gift - Malcolm X

...If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

Anospa

It wont' kill you, but one glop will do a solid 50 damage if you're within 1m of it.

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"Brittle?! Dude you just took a localized tactical warhead to the face." -Eroak