Highly limited ammo? Really? No upgrades? Really? Take place of 3 level 7 soldiers? Really? What are the devs thinking?
They are a lot more useful than they might seem at first glance. In scavenging and rescue missions, they are a real asset.
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Probably in Scarab. Yes it prevents the situation where we cover whole map with powerful missiles.
Mutog for example can attack indefinitely. 
And Aspida also has quite many attacks.
No, at least not yet. Probably in last DLC. Nevertheless vehicles even without upgrades are quite powerfulā¦ Of course 3 fully leveled soldiers have better power output, but still vehicle has better durability than any combination of 3 soldiers, and for example such vehicle is a lot better than 3 rookies. Vehicles donāt keep up with soldier progression, but they have their niche as @jrhebert mentioned. We will see how it will look in that DLC.
To add vehicles. Not to make them meaningful replacement for all solder combinations. Still this is one of the few (or only one?) tactical turn based games that has vehicles in repertoire.
Maybe I will mention their other use casesā¦ Or maybe not. Please search for similar topics about āunderpowered vehiclesā or something similar. People there explained few times what they are good at.
Found it. Here it is probably from this point of discussion where Rainer explains things:
Ugh. One of my more bitchy posts tooā¦ Hereās more:
They might be balanced around Legend difficulty, Iām not sure. On Legend, when soldiers start with 14 str, etc., vehicles are extremely helpful and are a huge boost to a squad compared to other difficulties Iād recently noticed. Opinions between those in different difficulties can surely vary.
Soā¦ IN Legend, they allow naked soldiers (with weapons of course) to be useful all throughout the first month (by which point they should no longer mostly be naked). You also recruit soldiers naked in Legend for really cheap, often around 300 food only, so you can easily acquire a lot of soldiers. Instead of spending resources on outfitting soldiers (while still gaining them field XP), the resources are instead spent on facilities research/fabrication/training/expansion/aircraft. Extra aircraft with more teams (vehicles and simple level 5+ soldiers) patrolling the world, doing more missions, more trades, etc, will earn more resources, and youāll be up to 10 labs within a week if you really want to (as well as fully outfitted teams, but itās grindy and unnecessary, and requires a bit of luck/exploiting). Most Iāve had was somewhere around 30 soldiers within the first month, most of which were level 5+. Thatās been good enough. Most Iāve lost were 5 soldiers, all easily replaced.
Mostly just the Scarab is useful in the first month, it outperforms the Armadillo against the weaker enemies in almost every case, and is nearly as tough against the weaker weaponry. In February against the Pandorans, the Armadillo outperforms as an APC, but the Scarab retains its usefulness as an artillery support/distraction for small teams doing simple missions.
By end game, even on Legend with only 5SP gain per mission and low stats to begin with, all those missions youāve done shouldāve earned a few hundred SP banked that can be spent into a few soldiers of choice to make them your āgodsā for the final mission and voila! - Iāve reached this point a few different ways now, but the earliest was at 6 weeks and the latest was at 8 weeks (mostly all with low-no use of exploits, and some self-restrictions in place) and Iāve come to heavily rely on and favor vehicle use.
Plus they just make missions faster/safer. A nest can be cleared in 1-5 turns with reckless abandon. Drive mindlessly down the hallways (actually thereās a bit of a pattern in these that can be learned overtime, youāll suppose where the hatchers are as soon as you begin to reveal portions of the map and know the fastest routes/dead ends after a little while) past threats to find the hatchers and kill them with the occupants on the same turn.
So to sum up: Vehicles are a powerful and extremely cheap alternative to 3 soldiers that make missions easier/faster/safer while facilitating the experience gain of weak and unequipped soldiers so that the resources that would otherwise be spent on their equipment + the equipment and soldiers that would replace it, can instead be diverted to expanding your own resource gain potential+progress, thereby snowballing you (economically/scientifically) early on and giving access to end game by the second month with ease (without needing to exploit - unless you want to consider abusing their power to snowball you an exploit - I think itās debatable and Iām a bit on the fence). Youāre prepared for everything and anything, but I have a hard time imagining achieving this without a lot of stress/time/casualities/exploits if it werenāt for these vehicles.
As it is, I currently find the vehicles to be extremely overtuned in the playerās favor, mostly because thereās few things to counter them (goo is probably the best) and the Scarab is just so damn powerful compared to its counterparts.
- ANU can mostly only damage vehicles with their melee weapons (meaning Berserkers only) and pistols throughout most of the game. Eventually get all their acid weaponry and Mutogs and CAN become a nuisance by the end of month two (end of the game really). Meanwhile the vehicle completely nullifies their Priest, so if they happen to deploy mostly Priests, ha.
- NJ poses the biggest threat to vehicles throughout most of the game. Would recommend relying on specific anti-NJ tactics to fight them, but vehicles can still be useful.
- SYN never develops a way to counter vehicles and you can always destroy them (as far as Iāve noticed). But if they happen to spam Snipers, youāll be less effective, especially at night. They like to throw their poison grenades at vehicles which not only wastes its limited use but also does no damage or shred. A sustained battle against Synedrion will eventually wear down the vehicle though. The downside to fighting Synedrion is that their maps are convoluted and tend to possess more targets within hard walls that a vehicle cannot break through.
- PAN mostly counter the vehicles through sniper rifles/arthron MGs/goo. Counters:
- the Scylla - as a form of ātankingā in those worst case scenarios, but 4-5 adequate soldiers can easily take on a Scylla,
- the Siren - they mostly become a threat in the form of melee attacks, but are also shredded apart at close range by occupants - psychic abilities are entirely nullified
- the Chiron - their worms tend to do nothing, can easily tank their attacks and drive people in close to cap/kill, and completely nullifies worms (- acid, unless you just outrun them, as they do no damage and fire wonāt even explode)
- Mindfraggers - they skitter about, doing nothing
- early Tritons - that big bad rifle of theirs isnāt as bad as their melee attack! ā¦or so they think, get in close to Tritons that have melee and theyāll prefer to do 20 dmg over 100.
- safe to say these new Mymidons? - rather they hit a vehicle than a soldier after that surprise leap. They have not changed my tactics so far, even the acid ones.
They are however useless vs. the Ancients I believe. Thatās fine if one enemy completely counters vehicles, especially if all the rest are so weak against them. Those laser beams more easily hit a vehicle than they hit soldiers, and theyāll shred that thing apart in seconds.
Anywaysā¦ apparently one of the future DLC is going to expand on Vehicles somewhat, and Iām unsure of what to expect from that.
If anything, Iād hope that the DLC would at least include modules for the vehicles so weād have to trade their strengths for weaknesses of choice, and overall just reduce the massive impact they have in specific areas of the game, while increasing their usefulness and variety of purposes all throughout. Would hope to see the Pandorans get an enemy specifically designed to counter reckless driving without proper scouting ahead or limitations on the vehicle as a result of increased detection (Iām talking about mines basically), same goes for Synedrion/Anu. At the very least, Iād be happy to see it counter my current go-to strategy which heavily relies on vehicles (ironically) in a somewhat bad way. If the vehicle slot were to be added to aircraft (something I once fought against) alongside vehicles being heavily re-tuned and less multi-purpose, but more effective in their dedicated/designed/modded roles, along with mines and stuff, then I would expect that to change things so fundamentally that my go-to strategy wouldnāt even make sense anymore. That would revive the game for me, and hopefully bring some balance to these things, and maybe make the whole experience a bit more enganging instead of constantly ādrive hereā¦ exit vehicleā¦ kill targetā¦ enter vehicleā¦ drive hereā 5000 times. Iāve done that so many times I wish those 5 steps were reduced to a single button āWhy canāt I just fire from inside the vehicle?! So many hours of time watching these animations would be saved.ā
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I tend not to use the embarkation polka, as it just bugs me from a realism standpoint. Thatās just a personal limitation.
Even so, vehicles are super useful for safely carrying troops and loot. Best way to get a panicky soldier off the field.
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Weāll have to wait until DLC5 comes out for vehicles to receive upgradable and customisable loadouts, but in the meantime there are some already existing āindirectā upgrades that vehicles can receive.
When the Synedrion Advanced Nanotechnology tech is researched by a player, its effects apply to vehicles as well, allowing player vehicles to ignore the first 10 points of acid damage they take from each attack. Itās a minor benefit yet it comes in handy for preventing vehicle armour from being shredded away too quickly by acid damage.
But getting access to the New Jericho āTechnician Developmentā tech that gives access to Technician-class operatives is what will really improve the offensive and defensive capabilities of your vehicles. Using the technicianās āRemote Controlā ability can allow a Scarab to fire itās missiles even after spending all itās 4 Action Points on movement. Scarabs can only fire their missiles a maximum of once per turn even with Remote Control, but Remote Control can be used multiple times per turn to allow Armadillos or Aspidas to attack multiple times per turn with each use of Remote Control on them. The Technician class can also repair vehicles with the Technician Repair ability of their VVA-2 Mech Arms to greatly bolster the survivability and endurance of vehicles, and even the Technicianās level 7 āElectric Reinforcementā ability works on vehicles too to temporarily boost their already high armour ratings even higher.
Using Technician-class operatives in conjunction with vehicles is a must if you want to get more out of your vehicles.
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Guys, vehicles are OP for a lot of missions, in combination with a technician even more.
I share a few videos:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19tzlthmDxw4hElvWuyoBkukSbN30Ckr9/view?usp=sharing
Of course Devs aware of this, because I brought the issue a lot of times to the Council, but they decided to keep things like they are, not increasing the cost from 0 AP to 1 AP re-entering a vehicle.
So I included new self restrictions, no vehicles for scavenging and never technician + vehicle in the same squad, of course if one operative leaves a vehicle he canāt enter again in the same turn.
If youāre concerned about OP stuff, donāt use the LotA gear.
I donāt, and I donāt use a lot of stuff and skills and perks andā¦
You will see how important vehicles are when you face new enemy in DLC 4
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