Hi, just started playing the game recently, like the idea behind it but it has major balance issues like nothing I’ve seen before.
The first run I had wasn’t good, so I read a guide saying you should build the the APC as soon as possible. It’s overpowered at the beginning of the game as you can nuke a group of enemies with a single shot.
By the time you are attacking a nest with level 6 people it’s all but useless because you only get 5 shots with it, for the price of 3 spots on a transport.
Heavies with grenade lunchers, for example, carry 8 grenades in the weapon itself, and you can usually take 1 or 2 extra reloads. So you can get around 60 grenades if you equip people or 5 if you take the APC.
Also people can take cover, heal, and navigate the difficult nest maps and use abilities.
I’m honestly not sure how to fix that, maybe allow it to be a pack mule for the team and carry reloads for itself and make it take less room, but gate it behind research to make it inaccessible from the beginning.
Also, on a side not, I would love some direct fire weapon on it.
Yes. I wasted a lot of resources building one in BB5 and decided I really didn’t understand why I’d bothered. Particularly as the armour wasn’t exactly stellar.
It’s better to concentrate on getting a strong heavy, ready for when a shoulder launcher becomes available. At that point, one of those, stacked with rockets, will be much more useful.
I agree, the Scarab was only useful until my characters reached a certain level, and there did not seem to be upgrades…at least not yet from what I see.
My issues with the Scarab in itself are:
Armor, which you mentioned. If ammo is the limitation on the Scarab, I would think Armor would be a saving grace, but it gets whittle down very easily once you reach a certain point in the game
Missile Collision - probably one of the more annoying things I have ran across (which is across the board with grenades and missiles). It seems like a clear shot, but a tree ends up getting in the way, a pole, etc. Sometimes both missiles are a loss. The other part is I have hit a light pole quite a few times and it breaks the light pole, but does not explode. Very infuriating
Bad Accuracy - a very surprising mechanic, not sure if intended, is that BOTH missiles will go in completely different directions. Sometimes even completely miss my target zone. I would understand better if it hit the target zone, but not with pin point precision, but the last thing I would expect is both missiles going in completely different directions.
I agree with the limited ammo on the Scarab but 3 double shots gets to be insignificant later on … and not that much later.
You are already facing a big drawback in only being accompanied by 3 soldiers and that means the Scarab needs to make up for that somehow but not in an OP manner.
That’s not what they mean by mounts. That’s for the tech’s claws, the heavy’s rocket launcher, and the other items you can craft for those slots that you unlock through research later on.
Vehicles are very powerful when used correctly. For example, a scarab without ammo is useless, right? Until you figure out that it basically means free movement for up to four guys.
1, load scarab with soldiers who have assault rifles
2, next turn, drive the scarab around the aliens covering behind their big shields, right through all overwatch and whatnot - the vehicle can take it
3, position the scarab so that the exit point from it is next to/behind an enemy
4, unload a guy from scarab. This takes 2 action points, leaving him 2 for shooting at point blank range into enemie’s squishy bits with 100% accuracy. After that, load the soldier back into scarab(it costs 0 AP)
5, repeat up to 4 times.
Absolutely wonderful. As long as the vehicle stays alive, the soldiers are all immune to mind control, immune to poison, fire, … the only thing that can possibly hurt them is return fire, so work around that.
i agree, ive been doing that, however the scarab hp and armor is still low so be warned. also depending on where enemy is, its hard to position, but that has been preventing my team from getting destroyed by sirens. glad to know others thought of this too.
I would recommend that you be allowed to mod your vehicle with multiple weapons, armor, etc. so it can be customized however you want it at the cost of speed/armor/ whatever and that tech from Synedrion, Anu, and NJ change what you can do with it with all 3 factions offering different materials and advancements as well as special features like hovering with Synedrion.
I don’t know if you are serious or just trying to justify a waster of resources on four wheels. Why would anyone waste 2AP + turn (one to get into vehicle) if you can just use dash, by 3 extra guys who can be in the place of the vehicle. On top of that, just about time it takes to make one, you will typically have enough enemies to shoot your vehicle into pieces in a matter of few turns. Vehicles are very situational and in most cases are less useful than what you can do for the same resources and 3 more soldiers.
How does that changes anything? You keep your guys in the car all time and pop to take a shot at siren? There are so many ways to kill a single enemy even with a weak team. Anyway, enjoy.
Using dash is not free, it costs willpower. It leaves the soldier open to opportunity fire, and after he shoots, open to retaliation during enemy turn. If you do this with a vehicle, you can repeat the maneuver from complete safety, over and over as long as the vehicle stays alive.
It only takes 4 days and a change to have the vehicle ready. At this point, enemies most definitely won’t shoot the vehicle into pieces in a matter of few turns, because they mostly are using weapons that do 30-40 damage per bullet, and the scarab has 50 front armor. By the time it loses half health, all enemies will be dead.
if the mission can be completed with a scarab and 3 soldiers, then having more soldiers instead of the scarab is a liability, not a bonus, because the whole team becomes vulnerable to things like mind control/poison/fire etc.
It is really weird ammo limitations are used to balance the vehicles in general. That doesn’t make sense, doesn’t match real life, but it also makes them useless very quickly.
I dont see it like that. It is no more broken than a mortar freezing your whole team in place on turn 2 and then a pair of sirens mindcontrolling the whole lot. Or a squid disappearing from being scratched, then approaching you while invisible and blowing your head off point-blank with a shotgun.
I like it when games throw seemingly impossible odds at you, but then let you figure out something that counters it.