The Question(s) that Rends Souls

[timur]

How do you use a LAW ?! Why would you? How can you properly?
Can an entire team only using LAWs survive on suicidal or even hard?
Does the LAW actually have a purpose? Why does the hints consider it good? MY Brain is exploding!

Timur blew up.

Anyways.....

If anyone has any answers to these questions, please enlighten me.
Because I honestly am having trouble finding a use for it.

Its overkill for clots, and somehow doesnt kill larger specimens. It requires a loong time after every shot, and most perks can't even carry a support weapon with it.

I cannot imagine a team surviving on LAWs.

So anyone with LAW strategems or tactics or advice, please tell. Because no matter how long I play this game, the answer still stumps me.

 

[Johnny86]

I will accationally use the LAW but there are much more effective load-outs.

A level 6 support can carry a LAW and a pump. This is really the only reasonable loadout I can find. The problem is that the LAW is very difficult to use on some maps, if your going to try this setup, I suggest play on westlondon, farm, or factory.

If any other class uses the LAW they have to much difficulty dealing with trash zeds.

 

[smilin]

So we took an experienced team of 6 guys that I play with and for pure fun decided to take the patriarch on hard.

It was pathetic. We fired rocket after rocket into him and it was like spitballs. Our opening salvo caught him with like 4 of them at once. This is again an experienced team and was able to stay alive for a long time while landing many shots.

It just doesn't have any punch at all.


The ONLY use I've seen for it: "Preventative medicine"... you let your medic use one so that he has something to do on a team that doesn't otherwise get hurt. Seeing the occassional --wwhooooosh--BOOM-- is comedy gold.


There is a parable about the LAW that I *could* share but it makes your head asplode...

 

[CandleJack]

Tips for the LAW:

Check for stalkers. Check again. See? You missed that one.

Make sure you always have the room to maneuvre and shoot. Or at least enough armour to take the explosion.

Try quickscoping the LAW. If you don't know what i mean by this, it's like the RPG-7 on CoD4 when you noscope it. That's a quickscope.

Always make sure each shot is worth it. 12 shots for Demo, 15 for Support. You have to make them last.

Carry a Shotgun with you for single specs and for when you've run out of ammo.


I was using the LAW when i accidentally the rocket. wat do?

 

[UponDoom]

I was using the LAW when i accidentally the rocket. wat do?

I lol'd.

 

[Compass]

I've only found a single PRACTICAL use for the LAW and leveling Demolitions. Unfortunately, that practical use is considered an exploit and I cannot explain such a thing to the public.

 

[9_6]

It's good for blowing things up.
Things like yourself.
YouTube - Judge Dredd - Law

 

[scary ghost]

Well, for what it's worth:

YouTube - Killing Floor - LAW and M32 Testing v2

Scrakes have 1750hp on solo suicidal which means it should require 3 shots unperked (850 damage per rocket) to drop them. Here are some things I noticed with the LAW.

• You can get head shots with it and it does 1.1x more damage (~935) even though DamTypeLAW has "bCheckForHeadShots=false". When I shot the scrakes in the head, I only needed 2 shots to kill.
  • Sharpshooters apparently do not get a 50% head shot bonus with it which kind of makes sense since the TakeDamage() function in KFMonster.uc shouldn't call the headshot code. Yet somehow, the headshot multiplier is being factored in somewhere.
• Only Demolitions gets a damage bonus with the LAW (60% bonus). Apparently they do 2000+ damage with a LAW to the head as I could 1 shot a suicidal scrake (1750 hp), beginner patriarch (2000 hp) and 3 shot a suicidal patriarch (7000hp). I have no idea where all this extra damage comes from since 850*1.6*1.1=1496

All numbers grabbed from:

• LAWProj.uc
• M32GrenadeProjectile.uc
• DamTypeLaw.uc
• DamTypeM32Grenade.uc
• KFMonster.uc
• KFVetDemolitions.uc
• KFVetShaprshooter.uc
• KFVetSupportSpecialist.uc
• ZombieBossBase.uc
• ZombieScrakeBase.uc

 

[HaTeMe]

Its utterly useless, just face it. Theres absolutely no reason to pick the law over any other weapon. Thats right, over ANY OTHER WEAPON.

Think about it this way. If you could choose ONLY one weapon to bring with you (meaning you couldnt use knife, nades or the 9mm unless one of those were the weapon you chose), why would you ever take the LAW?

Your chancess of survival would be higher with any other weapon because once the specimens get too close to you, youd be dead due not being able to fire up close without killing yourself. While the grenade-launchers also have a similar problem their blast radius is much smaller and therefor they are also much safer to use yet effective, not to forget they have more ammo, they weight a lot less, they are faster to use and can be fired from hip if necessary.

You might say the LAW is a support weapon and isnt ment to be used alone by yourself, but it does a lousy job at that too since the blast radius doesnt even kill suicidal gorefasts, and all the bigger guys have resistance against it. All this would be fine if the weapon either had more ammo or weighted less so you could get a backup weapon without having to be support perk who doesnt even get a damage bonus, but no.

 

[Compass]

There is. It's just... an exploit

Let's just say that, if used, would allow someone to level up Demo VERY fast.

 

[scary ghost]

Its utterly useless, just face it. Theres absolutely no reason to pick the law over any other weapon. Thats right, over ANY OTHER WEAPON.

Think about it this way. If you could choose ONLY one weapon to bring with you (meaning you couldnt use knife, nades or the 9mm unless one of those were the weapon you chose), why would you ever take the LAW?

Your chancess of survival would be higher with any other weapon because once the specimens get too close to you, youd be dead due not being able to fire up close without killing yourself. While the grenade-launchers also have a similar problem their blast radius is much smaller and therefor they are also much safer to use yet effective, not to forget they have more ammo, they weight a lot less, they are faster to use and can be fired from hip if necessary.

You might say the LAW is a support weapon and isnt ment to be used alone by yourself, but it does a lousy job at that too since the blast radius doesnt even kill suicidal gorefasts, and all the bigger guys have resistance against it. All this would be fine if the weapon either had more ammo or weighted less so you could get a backup weapon without having to be support perk who doesnt even get a damage bonus, but no.

Scrakes do not have explosive resistance, and fleshpounds do not have resistance against LAWs. I don't know where or when these were thrown around but there is nothing in any of the Zombie files or KFMonster.uc that give resistance to the 5 explosive damage types.

http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showpost.php?p=622895&postcount=23

 

[Merin Redplate]

The only real effective use for this here LAW, is for a large group of clot/crawlers/stalkers. There's a good chance it'll gib gorefasts, but no guarentee.

 

[Compass]

Scrakes do not have explosive resistance, and fleshpounds do not have resistance against LAWs. I don't know where or when these were thrown around but there is nothing in any of the Zombie files or KFMonster.uc that give resistance to the 5 explosive damage types.

[url]http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showpost.php?p=622895&postcount=23[/URL]

Scrakes definitely have resistance to explosives, which is why they are harder to stop with pipes than FPs.

 

[Old Ranger]

Support level 6 can carry for example:

LAW + M32 + Pipes + 11 grenades

LAW + Shotgun + Pipes + 11 grenades

LAW + Katana + M79 + Pipes + 11 grenades

LAW + Katana + SCAR + Pipes + 11 grenades

In normal difficulty LAW is just fun weapon to use. Its good that there are couple of guns you can carry with it, i hope they wont add some weapons weight.

Ill go and test em in HARD.

Maybe ill test law with scaar first.

"I need money!"

"Now I am going to get serious."

 

[scary ghost]

Scrakes definitely have resistance to explosives, which is why they are harder to stop with pipes than FPs.

No they do not. Did you even read my older post that I cited? Open up ZombieScrake.uc. See anything in there that contains DamTypeM32, DamTypeM79, DamTypePipeBomb, DamTypeFrag, or DamTypeLaw? That's right, they're not in there. Now open up KFMonster.uc, which is the base class all specimens inherit. See them in there either? Nope, which means by default, all specimens should take unscaled damage from explosives unless the specific specimen class modifies the behavior. But since you believe that the scrake does have explosive resistance, how much does he have?

Now open up ZombieFleshPound.uc. Oh look, the TakeDamage() function has those 5 damage types and gives them extra damage except for DamTypeLaw which receives no bonus or no resistance.

It's all there (or not) in the code. I'll quote you from my older post on why you need more explosives to down a scrake since you seem to have missed it.

You need more explosives to drop a scrake because they have more hp in a 6-man game than FPs and FPs have explosive weaknesses.

Scrakes (1000 hp base + 500/extra person) have the same hp as as fleshpound (1500 hp base + 375/extra person) in a 5 man game, and more in a 6 man game.

---
Level 6 demo has some serious firepower with a LAW.

YouTube - Killing Floor - LAW Testing #2

I don't what is going on with the law code but even with the explosive bonus, a solo suicidal fp shouldn't be going down that fast (2625 hp).

 

[HaTeMe]

V

Scrakes do not have explosive resistance, and fleshpounds do not have resistance against LAWs. I don't know where or when these were thrown around but there is nothing in any of the Zombie files or KFMonster.uc that give resistance to the 5 explosive damage types.

http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showpost.php?p=622895&postcount=23

According to the wiki they do and thats what it looks like too. Would be nice if TW could confirm either way.

 

[scary ghost]

V

According to the wiki they do and thats what it looks like too. Would be nice if TW could confirm either way.

Well, I have not seen anything in the source code that suggests they do. The reason I give for needing more explosives is correct, though it doesn't address whether or not Scrakes have resistance. However, when you look at the Scrake code and compare that to the Fleshpound code, the absence of any explosive types in the Scrake [ZombieScrake.uc] file and the KFMonster [KFMonster.uc] base file means that they take unscaled damage whereas the Fleshpound code [ZombieFleshPound.uc] specifically lists them out and scales damage accordingly. Likewise with the Husk code, the base file [ZombieHuskBase.uc] has a variable, BurnDamageScale, which is used whenever it takes flame damage [ZombieHusk.uc]. Again, if the scrake does have explosive resistance, then how much is it? That number should be retrievable from the source file similar to how I can tell you how much flame resistance a Husk has or how much extra damage an FP takes from an explosive.

In the video I linked, the scrakes are being dropped by 2 rockets to the chest/head and 3 to the lower torso/legs from the non-demo perks. LAW base damage is 850 with 935 on head shots (which shouldn't be happening but it does) while the scrake has 1750hp on solo suicidal. If they did have a sliver of explosive resistance, say 10% (935*0.9=841.5 dmg), 3 rockets to the head would have been needed instead of 2.

Also, I wouldn't trust everything the wiki says. While nice, the wiki doesn't cite any sources, can be modified by anyone, and has some incorrect information posted on it (hunting shotgun pellet count comes to mind) which is possibly outdated. As far as I know (and I could be wrong), the KF-Wiki doesn't have any review policies and doesn't go through the pages to make sure the information is in fact correct or up to date on a consistent basis. I can go on the wiki right now and change the scrake page to say that it has no explosive resistance. This is why I never cite the wiki when I need to back up what I say. I will always quote code straight from the SDK or list a file name because that is something only the devs can modify and can only be interpreted 1 way.

EDIT:
I made a quick video where I use pipe bombs against scrakes.

YouTube - Killing Floor - Scrakes Do Not Have Explosive Resistance

Fast forward to the 1:15 mark for the explosions to start. Pipebombs do 1500 damage with damage fall off based on how far away you are from the bomb. M79 nade does 350 with the same damage fall off mechanics. Scrakes have 1750 hp on solo suicidal. One pipe bomb explosion wipes out approx 85% of the scrake's hp with 1 more M79 nade to the head to finish the job. That's a max damage of 1850 minus some damage because the scrake may have avoid a bit of the pipe bomb blast. This pretty much confirms what I have said and what is in the source code.

 

[Old Ranger]

I tested how i would survive with law, in Hard multiplayer game. This was my first time in Hard with LAW.

Map was WestLondon.

I started as sharpie, with friend, we shared kills, sold xbow and 2. wave i started with Scar (changed perk to commando).

And bloody hell i died in 2. wave. Lucky me, my friend survived, and i get my scar back also.

To 3. wave i spawn as a commando and had that scar also.

No problems with waves 3-5. We got new player, we gave him a money. Also perk change to Berserk in between.

At 6. wave i finally got LAW so i had LAW, Scar + even katana also. Perk change to Support ofc.

At this point we had 4 players, medic, support with law, and commando and sharpie.

Wave 6. was fine. There was "lol" when i first time shot LAW.

7. wave was pretty fine. Too bad one man died at this wave.

I died in 8. wave. I took scrake with katana, but crawlers killed me. Only one of us survived.

I spawn as support of course. I get my katana back to wave 9. Also i got money to buy LAW, also found LAR in a map. Not full of ammo, but I survived wave 9.

To 10. wave i have money to buy also AK47, so i had LAW, AK47 + Katana. But not of full of ammo of those. Nearly forgot to buy ammo for LAW x). In team there was 5 of us. Me with law, medic with xbow, demo, commando and sharpie.

Bloody hell i died in wave 10. Sirens came from other side, i was running away from FPs to take a LAW shot from distance. I was stupid, stupid mistake. It was about 115 specimens left when i died. 3 men of the team survived.

With Patty i didnt use LAW, even if i have had money to buy it. Imo i think LAW is funnier weapon in previous waves.

Without mistakes, and a little much more practise, i would say LAW is pretty fine, or perhaps not fine and handy, but fun.

I just shot in a crowd of little specimens when ever i saw em, a group of 3-5+. Ammo was pretty fine. Katana was handy. Also normal pistol, and also assault rifles when you got one. And also grenades.

Husks were pretty annoying. FPs was a real thread.

A team perhaps didnt knew that katanaman can take scrake easily and others can take weaker specimens around.

With a team of level 6 support specialist it would be fun to try this LAW thing. Maybe took some practise. I think they would survive wave 10. Dunno how money thing goes.

MUST try another time, this was fun.

EDIT: 2. try went better. Maybe because of 2 sharpshooters. Hard 6 men. No deaths for me now. Couple of times i shot pretty near, accident, stalkers. We were in tunnel Westlondon. Our side was lvl2 commando, and level 4 sharpshooter. I had Scar and katana and law and pipes, i gave scar to commando, cause he died. 10 wave i went with handcannon + law + pipes + katana. There was 1 rough situation about when 50 specimens left. We had retreat to other side of tunnel. LAW was handy when i shooted wall and middle ceiling in that situation. Also LAW was good against sirens. We got our side back. There was people <50 health. I had 1 ammo left when wave 10 end. Everybody survived. GG, pretty easy, because of Sharpies i think, but with LAW, i thank em.

Theres also a little smoke problem with LAW and nearbylike enemies, its okay and fits. Commando is good to have near.

Scar in my hands runs out of ammo pretty fast. Im thinking next secondary weapon. HC was maybe as good.

Also must try this as Demolition. Interesting.

Imo LAW should take Husk in one shot. It does not now. Maybe that buff would be enough?

Im sorry my bad english.

 

[9_6]

Hey, new update is out.
It changes everything about this old weapon and it's now a viable choice.
...right?

 

[scary ghost]

Hey, new update is out.
It changes everything about this old weapon and it's now a viable choice.
...right?

The only things different about it is it is officially a demo weapon now. The Demo bonuses, gathered from KFVetDemolitions.uc are:

• gets a damage bonus for the impact damage of dull rockets/nades (demo has always received an overall damage bonus for the LAW - see above video)
  

  static function int AddDamage(KFPlayerReplicationInfo KFPRI, KFMonster Injured, KFPawn DamageTaker, int InDamage, class<DamageType> DmgType)
  {
      if ( class<DamTypeFrag>(DmgType) != none || class<DamTypePipeBomb>(DmgType) != none ||
           class<DamTypeM79Grenade>(DmgType) != none || class<DamTypeM32Grenade>(DmgType) != none ||
           class<DamTypeRocketImpact>(DmgType) != none )
      {
          if ( KFPRI.ClientVeteranSkillLevel == 0 )
          {
              return float(InDamage) * 1.05;
          }
  
          return float(InDamage) * (1.0 + (0.10 * float(KFPRI.ClientVeteranSkillLevel))); //  Up to 60% extra damage
      }
  
      return InDamage;
  }

• can carry extra rockets for the LAW
  AddExtraAmmoFor()
  

      else if ( AmmoType == class'LAWAmmo' )
      {
          if ( KFPRI.ClientVeteranSkillLevel > 0 )
          {
              if ( KFPRI.ClientVeteranSkillLevel == 1 )
              {
                  return 1.10;
              }
              else if ( KFPRI.ClientVeteranSkillLevel == 2 )
              {
                  return 1.20;
              }
              else if ( KFPRI.ClientVeteranSkillLevel == 6 )
              {
                  return 1.30; // Level 6 - 30% increase
              }
  
              return 1.25; // 25% increase
          }
      }

• a LAW discount.
  

  static function float GetCostScaling(KFPlayerReplicationInfo KFPRI, class<Pickup> Item)
  {
      if ( Item == class'PipeBombPickup' )
      {
          // Todo, this won't need to be so extreme when we set up the system to only allow him to buy it perhaps
          return 0.25 - (0.03 * float(KFPRI.ClientVeteranSkillLevel)); // Up to 93% discount on PipeBomb
      }
      else if ( Item == class'M79Pickup' || Item == class 'M32Pickup' || Item == class 'LawPickup' )
      {
          return 0.90 - (0.10 * float(KFPRI.ClientVeteranSkillLevel)); // Up to 70% discount on M79/M32
      }
  
      return 1.0;
  }