Explosives and Mines

In Last Frontier, explosives aren’t about “more damage” — they’re about controlling space. A grenade, a mine, or a charge can decide a fight in corridors, against clustered enemies, and in tight spots, but that same area-of-effect power easily reaches your allies, your own character, and the loot. Here’s how it actually works in the current version.

The key rule: blasts hit an area, with no falloff

Remember this first, because the conclusion isn’t obvious: blast damage does not decrease with distance from the center. Every living character inside the radius takes the full hit, and everyone outside takes nothing. There’s no intermediate “weak damage” zone: a target is either inside the kill circle or outside it.

The effective radius is the charge’s base radius plus ability bonuses (but never less than zero). That’s why it isn’t just about the charge’s power, but also about the point of detonation — it determines who ends up in the zone at all.

What can amplify the hit on a specific target (on top of the base blast damage):

• Direct hit — a target at the epicenter, or the target you selected, takes an increased percentage of damage.
• Blast direction — based on the “attacker → detonation point → target” angle: frontal and flanking targets are counted separately.
• Self-hit — a separate multiplier in case the bomber lands inside the radius.
• Robots and machinery — mechanical targets (police bot, robot tank, turret) are counted with a separate percentage.

Grenades: a throw to a hex

A grenade is a thrown weapon from the “Explosives” branch. It flies in a line to the chosen hex and detonates at the point of impact; targeting body zones isn’t available for it. A grenade is single-use — it’s consumed once thrown.

A concrete in-game example is the “RPU-5” fragmentation grenade: 10–18 damage, a throw range of up to 16 hexes, and a blast radius of 3. It’s the classic tool for “blanketing a cluster of enemies at medium range”.

Mines and charges: set, wait, trigger

A mine or a demolition charge lives in two states: in your inventory the item is safe, but once placed on the ground it’s armed. A placed mine can’t be picked up, looted, or dropped — it’s already live on the terrain and carries combat blast fields.

Every mine has a detection and disarm difficulty, and a given payload variant often requires an unlocked bomber ability to place that charge at all (for example, a fragmentation mine needs the “Shrapnel Load” ability).

The variants behave differently. A fragmentation mine hits softer than high-explosive at the center, but covers a wide area (armed-version damage 24–40, radius 3). A toxic mine deals moderate blast damage but leaves heavy poisoning on survivors and turns the fight into a war of attrition. The live set currently includes fragmentation, toxic, and EMP mines, as well as demolition charges of various types — incendiary, flash-bang, chain, and others — with remote analogues and separate breaching charges.

Trigger methods

• Pressure mines — trigger when a victim steps onto the spot.
• Timer — items with a fuse can be armed through the timer screen by setting the seconds; the value is clamped to the allowed range, and zero means a regular placement with no timer.
• Remote detonation — remote charges have a separate detonator: the charge sits like an ordinary hidden mine, but the sapper picks the moment and detonates it manually on the current map.

Triggers aren’t mutually exclusive: a charge with a timer still keeps its pressure or remote trigger. Whichever fires first wins by destroying the armed item — the remaining delayed triggers are simply canceled once the mine is gone.

Secondary effects: fire, poison, shock, blindness, immobilization

A charge isn’t only damage. Depending on its payload, a blast can add:

• fire (subsequent burning);
• poisoning (raises the target’s poison level after damage is calculated);
• shock (briefly knocks the target out of rhythm);
• blindness (degrades combat control);
• loss of mobility (the target can’t move).

A separate mechanic is chain explosions: some charges create additional detonations around the point of impact. A charge’s specific “shape” (wider zone, stronger hit, chain, one secondary effect or another, anti-machinery boost) is set by the bomber’s abilities — it’s not a free bonus to everything, but the payoff for investing in the branch.

Breaching charges against doors and containers

A separate class is the breaching charge: a shaped charge used on a locked door or container to blow the lock and direct the main wave forward. It requires the unlocked “Directional Charge” ability: without it, the target just shows the usual lock marker, and the prompt you need only appears once your character has a suitable charge and the ability unlocked.

How to read a mine on the map

Armed mines and charges give clear feedback:

• a state label and colored outline: a basic pressure mine is marked ARM, while payload variants show FRG, CHN, EMP, TOX, FLA, FIR;
• a blast-zone preview — a faint highlight of the area of the coming explosion, with an outer ring added for chain charges;
• a countdown on fused charges: a yellow outline with the seconds, switching to flashing red right before detonation;
• the sapper’s work: FOUND on a successful detection, FAIL on a failed detection/disarm, DISARM on a successful clearing.

What matters to the player

The mine game starts long before the blast: the point of explosives is to read the enemy’s route, the place of the fight, and the moment of triggering. An experienced sapper spots others’ mines better, disarms them more confidently, and can prepare a charge tailored to the job.

And the main price of that power: the radius doesn’t tell friend from foe. A bad position is dangerous for the group — near allies, on a retreat path, or beside valuable loot, every plus to the blast zone also raises the risk of hitting your own. Think about the point of detonation first, and the power second.