I’ve been doing some intensive testing with killing hidden NPCs, here are my findings:
- Poison clouds DON’T kill people in containers
Now, onto explosions, this is more tricky. NPCs can die with explosions, BUT there are multiple caveats.
First let’s list most of explosive arquetypes:
- Throwable (granades)
- Contact (golf balf, molotov, etc)
- Placeable (can be placed on walls, most explosive devises and the breaching charge are here)
- Propane tank
With that said, let’s see the findings:
- In general, placeable explosives are the most consistent to kill. For box type containers you have to place them right on the front side of the box (this also applies to breaching charges), now there are some inconsistensies across boxes. There are some like baskets or plastic ones where you can get a kill by placing them on top (doesn’t apply to BC), but there are others like metal ones where you don’t. In general, if the material seems thick, then you won’t be able to kill from the top.
For closet type containers, the only way to kill is by placing them on the door (applies to BC) or on the floor in a way that the device slightly clips inside the container (doesn’t apply to BC). Placing them in any other side won’t kill the NPC.
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For throwables, is almost impossible to kill on closet type containers, very rarely the granade will land in position where it can actually kill but It’s really hard to get consistently. For box types, the only way to kill is by throwing them on top of the container, the restrictions discussed above also apply, which means that you wont be able to do this on all boxes. Throwing them to the sides does nothing.
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Killing with contact explosives seems to be impossible
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Killing with propane tanks also seems to be impossible
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One notable exception are curtain type containers, since you can actually throw items inside it, you can use any explosive type to kill.
If you’re wondering, ducks and non lethal explosives cannot kill.
Oil or water puddles cannot kill.
There is nothing fancy going on with contracts mode, the game just registers any kill normally as if the NPC is outside the container.
In conclusion: while it’s possible to kill hidden NPCs with explosions, you have to go out of your way to intentionally kill them this way, which means that it’s very unlikely you’ll get any accidental non-target kills, so any established strategies shouldn’t be affected by this change.