eezstreet
commented
7 years ago I'm of the opinion that the sting grenade should be given realistic behavior (this includes emulating the rubber ball physics) as opposed to outright removing it from the game. It is something that SWAT would actually use, but you're right that it's not very representative of what actually happens.
That being said, relegating it to being a multiplayer-only item would free up vital space on the command interface menus that could be used for other commands. Plus, I'm fairly confident that nobody actually uses stingers in singleplayer, since the AI has a tendency to just straight-up drop them instead of throwing them because of the way the maps are set up.
Out of curiosity, is there more data about other less lethal tools that could be tweaked in SEF?
jose21crisis
kevinfoley
I have found that I never use the Sting-ball grenade because it feels redundant and unnecessary. There are numerous less-lethal tools which all accomplish essentially the same thing - stunning targets for a few seconds - and since the String-ball doesn't seem to offer anything that isn't already provided by the flashbang and CS, it's hard to find a role for the Stinger.
I looked up the model 9590 Sting-ball grenade that is featured in the game to try and get a better idea of when SWAT teams might prefer this tool over a flashbang. I was a bit surprised to find that SWAT teams don't generally use rubber-ball grenades, typically relying on flashbangs and CS. More significantly, I found a university research study funded by the Department of Justice about the 9590 Sting-ball grenade which highlights several major weaknesses with this model of less-lethal grenade:
The hard rubber casing causes the grenade to bounce around unpredictably, making it impossible to throw accurately.
When the grenade is about to go off, it ejects the fuze (the metal part that the pin is connected to, not to be confused with the fuse which is the chemical timer for the grenade). The force of ejecting the fuse will propel the grenade anywhere from 2 to 17 feet away from where it landed
The casing fragments in an extremely unpredictable manner, which can massively increase the amount of shrapnel and can make the grenade much more dangerous.
The grenade does not have good 360 degree coverage
When all of these factors are taken into consideration, the 9590 Sting-ball seems rather useless as a tactical tool, since officers would have zero control over where it went off (or even whether it goes off in the correct room) and there's a big risk of it inflicting too little or too much injury, or injuring civilians instead of suspects. I know gameplay is often at odds with realism, but it seems like one of the goals of SEF is to make the game more realistic. Since the Sting-ball doesn't have a strong unique role in gameplay, and is far too unpredictable to use tactically in real life, I propose that the grenade be removed from the game. Alternatively, I think it would be interesting to try implementing realistic behavior for the grenade (i.e. have it bounce all over the place and then launch itself up to 17 feet before exploding) and see how the actual behavior of the grenade would affect tactical situations.
Note: the primary author of the research study I cited has authored numerous other articles about less-lethal tools employed by police. He has also participated in scientific studies of the range and accuracy of TASERs, the Pepper-ball launcher, and 12-gauge beanbag rounds, among other things. This literature might be useful in fine-tuning the characteristics of most of the less-lethal tools.