yeah.. it's an odd take on it, but depending on the armor of tanks, I could see them being much better scout than anything else. Especially if when destroyed they give you a wrecked tank from which you can manufacture a new one. A lot of the encounters in Piratez are with enemies that don't have great ways of dealing with high armor targets and the AI doesn't necessarily think of using its high explosive instead of its shotgun..
Dioxine, if you want a way to nerf tanks, why not make the early tank (and early overtank?) designs unstable since the runts/brainers don't really know how to make them. Blows up on death, maybe not much power, but it's enough to destroy the corpse, make going down first a bit risky for the other gals and prevent the infinite loop of rebuilding tanks. Engine developments could lead to some kind of safeguard and safer tanks.
As far armor, I heavily use armor, as I am a strong believer in gal survivability. Increase the survival of your gals and you increase the average stats of your gals (because they live longer, they have more time to improve more), which in turns increases their survivability since they hit more/are stronger and carry bigger guns/have better reactions so react or don't get reacted to. As your team improves, so does the survival, and it spirals into getting a really awesome team, especially if you can also support them with good tech.
Of course, good tactics also improve survivability and definitely should be used, but it does not replace armor (although tanks might replace tactics, but I dislike tanks, or rather prefer gals). After a year in game, (it's not as much, I know, but still) I have:
Spoiler:
Used:
- smokey/mesh armor for support gals (really like mesh)
- tac/revenant armor for the front lines (the later being
Teh Awesomest thing EVER (so far
).
- guerilla for the midfield (and for rookies going on "training missions" since it's cheap, expendable but still good).
- Heavy armor works well for valuable midfielders and heavy flamer gals (not frontline so the stam regen/reactions nerf doesn't hurt to much, but close enough that additional armor is good).
- Storm Marine/Defender armor for advanced midfield/boarder (in Piratez, haven't discovered it yet in XPiratez due to missing my PCM on the one trader pogrom I saw
)
- juggernaut for "tanking" duties, unless the enemy is using Gauss weapons/baby nukes (damn you supply ships!).
Not used/disliked:
- helmeted tac armor: The same downsides as heavy armor but less protection, for barely less than a heavy armor?
- basic armor: Too many negatives for the gains, I'd rather use guerilla for shooty gals, or pirate/tac vest for frontlines.
- Gym/Swimsuits are.. an interesting idea. I know Solarius likes them for melee, but I want my gals to be able to take a facefull of shotgun shells and give some love back. Maybe for melee rookies to "hit and run" support to my real breachers? But 4 breachers is usually enough.
In a move completely against typical "rookie first" standard XCom doctrine, my boarders are my most experienced gals, in the best non-reaction hurting/reaction boosting armor I can find, so they have the highest reaction score I can get. (stamina loss is compensated by combat drugs). Ideally, few guns can do enough damage and kill them in one shot, so they heal back to shape if they get hit (even though it can take a while.. Too bad the surgery room doesn't help with wound recovery). But most of the time they don't get hit since they react and don't get reacted to, and being high accuracy and strength, they hit well and hard.
Melee weapons wise, I personally don't rate the hammer. Too much stamina to swing, too slow, too annoying with the diagonals, too heavy. So it's already where it should be.. I have one on my breaching team because it is great at clearing elevators (can't melee above.. but you can "shoot" a hammer up), used by the juggernaut gal (since the carrying buff means I don't care for the weight, and she's armored enough to tank shots coming down the elevator shaft).
For terrain destruction, pickaxes are just as good and fit on the belt for less weight. For damage, cutlasses, billhooks and axes are ok at the beginning, and techblades later. Plus, melee attacks don't get reacted to, whereas shooting a hammer can get you killed if you don't kill first. And smaller TU usage means you're more likely to react with a blade than you would be with a hammer too. In Piratez, the hammer was REALLY good, in XPiratez? meh..
I've had a hard time finding a good use for most other melee weapons though, especially spears and daggers. Rapier is cool on high melee weak rookies, short sword is an ok side arm for midfield gun gals especially in dense pogrom terrain. I really like the balance of knuckles/handles/cattleprods. Knuckles are better on strong gals, but you risk killing your targets (especially if trying to stun them after they woke up), so cattleprods for the prisoner watchers are really best, and handles for rookies.
Pff.. long post.. Sorry Dioxine, I hope there's something interesting somewhere in there for you
I'm procrastinating boarding that landed trader cruiser I know I "need" to pilfer!
