I Can't Cut Anyone's Throat

[Mack the Knife]

sorry for the gruesome title but have a quick question. i'm in one of the russion missions and all my guys have knives. i crawl within striking distance of an enemy, click the knife, i see the guy draw the knife, the reticule turns red, i click the enemy and he puts the knife away, draws his weapon, and shoots!! hello? i have to hit S to cancel it but what gives? ONE time (in fact the first time i tried using the knife) the guy threw his knife and killed the bad guy but that was the only time i got it to work. what am i doing wrong? thanks!

[corleone11]

dude, you have o throw the knife. it handels like a grenade without the noise and the explosion.

[Mack the Knife]

thanks for someone finally responding but my question is still the same. i'm 10 feet from the bad guy, i select the knife, i click the bad guy. my guy doesn't THROW it, he puts it away and draws his primary weapon. slitting throats was just an expression, he doesn't throw it either! am i too close, too far away? what?

[Prowlinger]

Could be a direct control thing...

The knife can only be thrown.


Put the knife in your 2nd hand (right hand) and select it like you select a
grenade... then target enemy from a short distance... Your solider should throw it but will not if the enemy is in full cover (behind good protection).

Hope this helps!

[Mack the Knife]

crap...thanks guys, i'm doing everything you suggest. as i said, i can see him draw the knife so i know he has it. the cursor turns to the red target thingie and i click on the bad guy (who is not behind cover, he's sleeping out in the open) and the turd puts the knife away and draws his gun. could it be that i'm lying down? can it only be thrown standing up? oh well, i don't know what the *%$#@ i'm doing wrong....

@prowlinger,

what do you mean about the direct control? are you saying i may need to be in direct control mode? or not? all the stuff i mentioned above is NOT in direct control mode. i'll switch over and try it but i wouldn't think it would be a requirement that you be in direct control just to throw a knife...thanks

[Mack the Knife]

well, went back the the game and did an experiment. threw all my guys guns on the ground and tried to throw the knife and the turd puts the knife away and throws a grenade! threw ALL weapons accept the knife on the ground and he had it in his hand but wouldn't throw it, he just stood there. prowlinger had the answer...i switch the direct control mode and viola, he throws it. kind of dumb that it's this way (not in the manual) but that's that....thanks

[Prowlinger]

Maybe the knife is set to direct control only?

Hmm..

ok looking in the game code.. I do see a knife front attack / melee

{tags "knife basic"} ; strikes types see at {strokes} in set\ability\melee.set
{distance far}
{self
{enable_items "knife"}
{animation "fight_front_knife"}


But it is set to distance far...

Not sure if this weapon is bugged or what... seems strange though. I have seen a melee kill with fists... so maybe the melee knife is redundant and they forced it to be distance only?

If that is the case... maybe there is a priority the AI uses to resort it to nearly the last thing to ever use... hmm.

Ahhh... try this! Set the soldier to HOLD FIRE. Equip the knife.. and then force attack him on someone... I bet that will work.

I think the AI looks at all the weapons in the inventory of the soldier and puts the knife at the last priority short of melee fists... so it will always choose a gun or grenade over a knife and fists while it is set to "auto fire".

[Charlie Brown]

can all knives be thrown?

[Prowlinger]

I definitely could be wrong but extracting the code above from the weapon data... I ***think*** all knives are short ranged thrown weapons...

[Ossian]

select the knife and use the melee action, should be F6 or something.