Flak tank firing sound

[Stoddard]

Built a flak tank at last and was disappointed by the firing sound. It lacks authority.

Replaced with the attached one (cut from some random video from Youtube)

Then actually looked at the tank sprite and noticed it's not 4-barrel (as implied in ufopaedia), but a rotary instead. Well..

Btw, the hell the forum takes exception to the file name suffixes??

[Ethereal_Medic]

So someone actually build that thing?
I'm not a huge fan of this version of the basic hwp and consider the howitzer to be much more efficent.
The howitzer has a free maschinegun with a lot of rounds and decent firespeed and a huge mortar to soften grouped foes.

The general idea for a tank would be facetanking snapshots with the frontplate and scout to leave the statgains for your squad.
Unless shotgun tanks can gain xp I see no need for it other than flavour and stylepoints.
The shotgun would serve much better onto an armored car-design usable by the player in early/midgame.

[legionof1]

I really like the flak tank. But i dislike HWP units in general in because individual gals are so much more capable, compared to vanilla dudes. The only HWP i run is mutated reapers because regen and chem weapon.

Every other HWP is pretty much a waste of space for assault teams. Base defense they are useful but that's more about having morale immune big AOE to blast the hangers and elevator with. Which flak tanks are not.

[Stoddard]

Yeah, tanks are meh. Especially their abysmal accuracy. But, since heavy freighters bring in the wrecked units regularly, I use them to scout around and as self-propelled roadblocks to guide the enemies.

[Starving Poet]

My only problem with tanks is that until the thunderhorse, I don't want to sacrifice 40% of my crew for a tank.  I don't mind about the loss of stat gains, or their general inaccuracy -  they're there to grab reaction shots, after all - the 'cost to deploy' is just too high until then.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Using 4 slots for deployment will remain the deal for 2x2 HWP's unless every vessel gets fixed spawnpoints for HWP's only.
It's hard to code I can imagine because the game treats an Alliance Doctor for an AUX-slot just like a hovertank.

4 Gals or a bullet-sponge, thunderhorse and beyond we can freely spent those slots unless we board battleships or fight gauss-weapons-only encounters.

[legionof1]

Even after a point the tanks become bad as bullet sponges, 4 gals at 80hp or one tank at 110-140. Admittedly this is at brute armor or later.

Gals from the point of 37mm rifle and RPG's will do 4x the damage with greater accuracy.

[Martin]

Solution: give tanks a lot more armour

Power armour should not be as good as vehicle armour even when magical forcefields are involved.

[legionof1]

Funny that's exactly the design goal for traditional power armor concepts. To meld fighting machines durability and firepower advantages with individual soldiers flexibility and maneuverability advantages.

Although in most Sci-fi the machines just scale up right along with them. Infantry-armor-artillery-air status quo of modern era remains unaltered in spite of supposed centuries of intelligent civilization.


That said HWP getting more armor is not the solution. There are abundant armor killers weapons in the mod that largely ingnore armor or do so much raw damage that it doesn't matter after a few hits anyway.   

[Ethereal_Medic]

So a better approach is to add more health.
This way the HWP's do the job better against high dmg rolls and armor-shred.

[Dioxine]

HWPs are already very powerful. Not buffing them further.

[Ethereal_Medic]

HWPs are already very powerful. Not buffing them further.

In that case lowering acc. for gauss-hwp (mercs) and battle-cannon hwp?

[Dioxine]

Why? Please explain. I thought 'crappy accuracy' was the problem.

[legionof1]

I think he is talking about the players HWPs being to a degree very weak against some foes, particularly mercs and there tanks. Anything that packs gauss has the same effect but mercs are gauss and better only.

Neither tanks nor gals are particularly resilient to those weapons which is okay, but HWP primary feature being durability, just fails before your able to produce most of them.

HWP aside from the mutated reaper(regen) and the artillery(rockets and howitzer ammo advantage) are categorically worse then 4 rookies, particularly with the new tier of hireable gals. There is no incentive to use or research them. Give them a reason to be a competitive pick compared to rookies.     

[Ethereal_Medic]

Why? Please explain. I thought 'crappy accuracy' was the problem.

My posts currently ask for nerfs after nerfs. Guess I'll just "git gud" instead and "deal with it" as a basic mindset.

One problem I see with HWP's in earlier stages are the deploy-cost of 4 slots in comparision to the limit vessel space.
A "light-tank" design is currently not available. It might be too complex to tell the game-engine to take 2 slots for a light tank (2x2 unit) instead of 4.

Besides that and many ways of ignoring/melting armor, HWP's got thier place to draw attention and soak up 1-3 hits before running back to the craft.

Considering the mentioned gauss-ownage of mercs. Mercs currently are the hardest opposition to face (besides cydonia), got the best mixture of vision-denial and camo/smoke-denial, have the best acc. and the most powerful piercing weaponry. Going for guessing games using aye-phones quickly drains through your supply of grenades, mortar-shells and rockets. All those destroy loot and bodies rather easily and the recommented usage of laser/plasma/chem is currently flawed.

Lasers lack the power to punch through the large HP-Pool or fail to do any dmg. Plasma-dmg weaponry is tight and barely available the time you fight mercs for the 1st-3rd time.
Chem. dmg get's no additional damage-amp and the best solutions available (like Toxiguns) are rather close-quarter solutions and getting close to mercs isn't adviced without proper gear.
I don't thing voodoo is much of a help here either (considering the conditions for unlock and training needed) and with the latest seductress nerf and the huge HP pool of mercs this strategy isn't too viable considering the LOS needed to do the attack, the RNG for the stun-success and the RNG for the stun-value role.

The player can deploy the most piercing resist armors (80% in best case) yet the high damage value of those precise snapshots punches through in many situations and gauss hits incredible hard.
I have no clue or suggestion for those mutons, I'm glad we can just milk Megapol pigmen to get a "less-suicide" way for valuable synthmuscle mesh.

Is it intended that a kustom handcannon uses 50-150% dmg formular while XG-Gauss weaponry uses 0-200% ?

Is it worth a thought to give weapons with 1-shot-per-turn (all firemodes) the TFTD formula?
My thought behind that is the sole reason to make things like super-slow sniper rifles and the portable lascannon feel satisfying and reliable for the high TU usage.
Nothing more frustrating to shot a humanist stormtrooper in the back with a lascannon (nuclear ammo) for 0 damage.