Thoughts on vehicles?

True. Imagine an Armadillo with a laser turret instead of that gat.

Now would be the time to quote Hudson’s speech from Aliens inside the APC.

BINGO!!! Vehicle customization is completely missing from the game.

useless
except for the first few fights, which I guess gives them some meaning since for some reason we are not allowed to recruit anyone unless we randomly stumble upon a haven from another faction that happens to have a recruit … gah … i hate that aspect so much :expressionless: almost as much as return fire …

They need something to scale them with. They also can not navigate lairs/nests while lairs are usually the maps where you kinda want to bring a strong setup.

I usually reveal all 3 havens within the first 24 hours.

Usually ? So how many campaigns have you played since its release 2 weeks ago ?

Random is Random. I don’t like it and thats that.

3 campaigns and played 5d or about 100 hours so far. Playing about 10 hours a day since launch. Lately progress has been much slower due to the stupid freeze bug introduced by the latest patch.

Yea so 3 starts. I had starts where I have not found any haven that offers recruits for the first 2 weeks. That’s what Randomness implies. Not all havens offer recruits.

But that is just one side effect. Another side effect is that PP does not have any identity and instead feel like parasites leeching from other factions because they cant get anything done on their own.

i tried once a mutog and has been fired 3 time by an arthron with evolved machinegun and died. In combat spam 40 dmg for 2 AP is just like try to break a wall with a flaccid penis c’mon.

If they didnt take up mission slots (of the max 8) id love to use them.
But as soon as your soldiers are about lvl 4ish, 3 soldiers are so much better than any vehicle.

Its be enough to count as 3slots for transport purpose in my opinion. At maximum count as 2 soldiers.

**[quote=“trihero1, post:1, topic:7742, full:true”]
I haven’t found spare resources to make/use vehicles; in particular is the scarab good or not? I’ve heard it both ways - not worth the effort, and totally worth the effort. And what about those funny single seat support vehicles?

Side question: how many slots does the scarab use on your DEPLOY card? I’m aware that it costs 3 space inside your aircraft but does it count towards the usual 8 man limit?
[/quote]

*How vehicles should be… I’m ready, man. Check it out! I am the ultimate badass! State of the badass art! You do not want to f&@k with me. Check it out! Hey, Ripley, don’t worry. Me and my squad of ultimate badasses will protect you! Check it out. Independently targeting particle-beam phalanx. WHAP! Fry half a city with this puppy. We got tactical smart missiles, phase plasma pulse rifles, RPGs. We got sonic, electronic ball-breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks…:wink:

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Don’t like vehicles. Sure, super-powerful, but three good soldiers take up its place anytime and grant much needed flexibility.

Since they’re a transport, at first I thought they were an alternative to the aircraft. obv I assumed MUCH slower and worse range, lower capacity etc. But they would have been perfect for defending the immediate area around your bases (or parked permanently at a Haven)

Was VERY disappointed in the final result.

Since they’re a transport, you should be able to put soldiers in them and THEN they take up aircraft space. (Maybe with the penalty of slowing the flying speed?)

I was also sad when I tried out the Synedrion flyer, who’s description says “can carry 5 soldiers and a vehicle”… (obv a typo). That would have been quite nice imo

Yes, currently the vehicles feel underwhelming.
Take the Armadillo, for instance - it uses up 3 soldier slots, has about x4 HPs compared to a soldier, but only about x1 attack.

It definitely needs a buff, but, more importantly, it needs to be fun to play while not being too OP in itself - staying more in a support role.

Let’s say that we want the optimal way to use Armadillo to be loading it with assaults, heavies, and charging up, guns blazing.

For that, we can redesign that tank as follows:

  • get it a pair of close-range flamers (a weapon which is fun but which you wouldn’t otherwise use often). Doesn’t need a lot of damage, but needs to have a large AoE, produce a lot of smoke, fire, strip armor, panic/debuff enemies, etc.
  • make its minigun do weak damage but strip a lot of armor, to soften the enemy up for shotguns.
  • add a mid-range top-mounted automated grenade launcher with some weak-but-large-AoE grenades.
  • allow free dash (or half-dash) on disembarking troops from it, or some other close-range buff to troops upon disembarking.
  • reintroduce charge&ram mechanics, preferably with an animation that knocks the hit aliens back 10-20 squares :slight_smile:

Then ‘load it up, soften the enemy with grenades, burn them, ram them, get the heavies and assaults out, war cry, clean up’ becomes a fun and viable tactics, and the vehicle gets a clear mechanized assault role of “safely get the close-range folks to point blank range, while throwing all kinds of fun stuff at enemies to soften them up”

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Vehicles are very situational now, either change the vehicles or how they are brought into battle.
Like Soldiers will be “roped” (not native English, insert right term) right in the battlefield, vehicles have to be ordered by taking a few full turns from a soldier (or leaving one solder out to join in a few turns into the battle).

Certainky taking 3 slots on the transport is too much.

they are all underwhelming compared to soldiers but come with some niche capabilities.

the mechanical vehicles all come with a swath of immunities that make some enemies completely ineffective. but all come with very limited ammo to sustain them through extended fights.

the scarab is an artillery platform with insane range on it, but it lacks the staying power of an actual APC and its the easiest to replace in function by grenade/rocket launching heavies.

the armadillo is tough and fast, and combines quite well with the same factions technician class…its gun sucks hard though and it is “weak” to one of the most common enemies you’ll face…flipping machinegun crabs. but otherwise it attracts and can take an enormous amount of hits when supported by a techy, it is however…a glorified decoy in that role.

the espida is a heal-bot and paralysis support, it will for 1 charge completely heal any soldier, or apply 20 paralysis to the target (the tooltip states it is a burst…but it will only hit once) while AP effective in its stun and the heal being more powerful then the technician equivalent…3 slots is a very steep price to pay for what a single technician with a neuralizer can do…slightly worse.

there are a ton of mutog variants, but they all consist of a combination of parts. as a biological unit they don’t have the immunities of a mechanical entity nor can they ferry other soldiers. but they do benifit from rally and frenzy skills. on top of that they primairily use melee attacks that never run out…but are compared to soldier options relatively weak in the damage department. they come with a sort range leap skill allowing them to hop over some obstructions, a form of rapid clearance and the ability to feed off enemies they manage to kill for half the targets max HP…they also seem to come with a form of 1-AP bash skill button that can never be used (paw attack or something like that, why is that button there if you can never use it?)

so far I used 1 variant…a agile, bashing tail + ramming head. the ramming head deals 50 flat damage for 2 AP…and has no “charge” or ramming maneuver atoll that I could see.
the bashing tail hits for a paltry 40 damage, but does come with 150 shock damage and 50 shred…it can punch holes for other characters to use but the location seems to be completely random.
the agile body just adds to the speed total…at a speed of 28 it is faster then most soldiers…but any for of dashing or jetpacking outdoes this bodies agility.

overall vehicles, and mutogs need a buff to compensate for the massive opportunity cost of taking them along. on top of that their weapons and abilities should be clearly described before you build them so you at least make a guess as to how effective the unit will be.

From Easy (not that easy) difficulty point of view, I tried scarab during first month and they have a different role than 3 soldiers:

  • Much cheaper than 3 soldiers and then it allows setup faster more squad.
  • Cannon fooder, it’s only 700 Hp and 31 Armor, but they can sustain a lot of attack, particularly many grenades.
  • Lure enemies to take them busy thanks to the cannon fooder aspect.
  • Moving wall, they can’t be used as cover but can be used as obstacles to block los.
  • Scout, they are very fast if you don’t use attack. They are fast enough to eventually move and move back.
  • 3 possible attacks during a missions, with not that bad AOE damages, and attack that can go above cover is there’s no roof. It’s a secondary occasional role.
  • Box of soldiers, exit cost 2 AP but enter none, you can exit/shoot/enter with the 3 soldiers.
  • Bulldozer to destroy obstacles quickly, they can get some damages but it can be very useful to open fast a path, or destroy a cover.

They are useful in missions with secondary objectives that aren’t just clean the area:

  • Haven mission with peoples or buildings (scout/lure/cannon fooder)
  • Nests (scout/box/bulldozer)
  • Ambushes (walking wall/box)
  • Scavenging missions (scout/lure/cannon fooder)

Their weakness:

  • Lowdown a lot damages ability of the squad.
  • Cannot heal during travel, no endurance but this is still less flexible than soldiers.
  • Reduce the team to a small size, you’ll hardly split it in two groups with a vehicle.
  • Require base with hangar to be repaired, so a lot of base slots used.
  • Building time is a bit long for what they are, half a plane.
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Another downside to Mutogs (from the above thoughts) is that they can be mind controlled. I tend to only keep an Armadillo around for base defense, since they can be moved to completely plug the entrance to where the Pandorans spawn when they assault Phoenix Point or others. Use a Tech to heal it up every now and then while driving it forward and back like an opening door to let my troops shoot.

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I’ve made a suggestion for vehicles take only 1 slot in mission deployment screen. I think it would make them a good option in late game when your soldiers are already very strong and you have some free aircraft space to carry vehicles.

A mutog is no way a vehicle, only scouting is move and back. They also aren’t good as moving wall, their morphology makes a lot less intuitive what los they block, got a soldier killed because of that.

The Mutog you buy seems always the same, for now I found it good to eat worms, there’s something special here despite their attack damage is lower than a worm HP. And this mutog get 2AP for each worm eat.

I also found it ok as cannon fooder to block a side.

It’s very hard to organize chain kill for this mutog because the damages attack is very few damage. You can still heal him a bit during a combat through making it do kills.

For now not much more. That’s why I think two slots and healing during travels should be a fine rebalance attempt.