Have you ever wondered why every second hit from an Inferno Cannon is almost guaranteed to hit your Colonist? Have you ever thought some kind of change should be in order?
Well fear not, for I bring you Mechanoid Nerfhammer!
So... Let's talk about Mechanoids. The Scyther is a glass cannon; superior range, high damage, fast but otherwise fragile. At first glance melee might seem like the obvious solution but they excel at slicing up your guys too. Nevertheless they can be taken out quickly by concentrated firepower. Applying proper tactics against this foe is essential if you don't want to lose an arm or brain. Centipedes, on the other hand, are the tanks; slow and durable, packs a punch but usually can be circumvented by not grouping up your forces.
Except for one.
That's right, the goddamn Inferno Cannon. So let's see why this thing is annoying:
- Outranges most firearms
- Bunkerbuster
- Anti-personnel, fire panics pawns
- Explosion area so huge, forced miss radius doesn't do much to prevent a hit
- Crowd control due to dealing damage in a large area
However! This wouldn't be a problem if we could take out the target after it fired a few rounds. But since we're speaking of a Centipede, that's not going to happen. If this was used by a Scyther it wouldn't be a problem due to focus fire.
When facing an enemy in any game, there has to be some kind of counterplay. Now, if the counterplay exists but is "unfun" then it's bad. So what is the counterplay to this?
- EMP Grenades. So it's basically a double stat check: do you have a trigger happy pawn with EMP grenades? If no, your pawn will die either before or after throwing that stuff and you're just delaying the inevitable. Why? Because I'm not talking about 2-3 Mechanoids here, I'm talking about 4+ or more. Sure, most of the time they clutter up but you can't always expect that. Super late game when you face 15+ of these things this becomes a suicide mission. Except if they dropped right on top of you but then you have other problems. Too bad grenades can't be used with a personal shield. Rejected.
- Rockets. Sure, because you'll always have those around, right? You can stock up on them but this isn't a reliable way. Rejected.
- Mortars. Now, this would work if the Mortars had better accuracy for closer targets. But they don't. However, you can just use more Mortars. It's a gamble but you can use quntity to overcome the shortcomings of quality. However, sould we really consider shooting them from afar, waiting for the lucky shot to connect and then just bash them a real, good counterplay? It's like throwing a dice and if you throw a six you instawin; use more dice for better chances. Not really fun, nor does it interact with the Mechanoids in a meaningful way. And let's not forget when they drop right on top of you. Rejected.
- Melee. Oh, that was a good one! What, you were serious? I've told you to leave that yayo alone, dude!
- Outrange with snipers. Since these things usually aren't alone, Survival Rifle isn't an option. So good luck with kiting Centipedes for days! This is more tedious than fun and more like a stat check than real counterplay. Rejected.
- Engage from behind fortifications. Great, there goes most of your firearms since this outranges everything except Snipers, Survival Rifles, Assault Rifles, Miniguns and Bows. Did I mention they also outrange Turrets too? So basically this becomes a stat check again. Do you have the proper weapons or not? But even if you do, this weapon was designed to screw up fortifications. So good luck with that! Rejected.
- Fight on open ground. Although you can use natural objects as cover to advance, they give much less cover and chances are you're going to be surrounded with flammable stuff. Even worse than being behind fortifications. Rejected.
- Pop in and out of cover and shoot it while it aims. Retreat until it stops aiming. Rinse and repeat. Sure, tell me how you can describe doing that with 12 colonists against 5 centipedes without saying tedious. This is not fun, this is boring. Rejected.
- Use pawn with Personal Shield as decoy to cheese AI targeting. First, this is an exploit. Second, even though the shield blocks the pitiful 13 damage per shot, a fire will still spawn on top of the pawn. You'll have to move the pawn immediately or undraft and then draft again so it beats the fire out, if you don't do it you're screwed. Although less tedious than the previous one, it's still based on an exploit. Rejected.
- Killbox. To hell with killboxes, I want actual combat where I actually have a chance to win by applying smart tactics. Killbox is basically another exploit and Tynan is working tirelessly to finally kill it once and for all. And honestly, can a killbox really stop 15+ Centipedes? Rejected.
One Centipede can usually be dealth with. The problems start when you start getting 4-5 of them. You can't reasonably kite them because they can take enormous amounts of punishment before they die, resulting in tedium. The Inferno Cannon's forced miss radius and huge explosion range is basically an accuracy hack, no matter how much you damage the thing, every second shot will likely connect.
The problem is that this weapon's niche hasn't been clearly defined. Charge Lance is an anti-personnel Sniper, Minigun and Heavy Charge Blaster are crowd control guns, and then comes the Inferno Cannon which is a... bunkerbuster, anti-personnel and crowd control gun all in one? Really? Talk about weaknesses and strengths.
So... How to fix it? Let's see what are the main problems:
- Sets pawns on fire, can't fight back, "mad firedance of death" causes pawn to quickly get gunned down by both friendly fire and other Centipedes
- Too big explosion radius
- Too long range
You can't really say Inferno Cannon without saying inferno, can you? The fire has to stay. So let's fix the other stuff:
- Range decreased from 27 to 24 to match most other guns' range
- Explosion radius now equal to Frag Grenade's
This will make Inferno Cannons (and more importantly, MASSED Inferno Cannons) more manageable. You may still lose pawns (let's remember, losing is fun) but at least you won't feel so cheated about it.
Overall, Mechanoids need an overhaul. Centipedes pose almost no danger unless they have an Inferno Cannon, in which case they have no meaningful weaknesses. You can't just fight against them like you can fight Raiders or even Tribals. There is no grey area against Centipedes with Inferno Cannons, you either cheese them or interact with them in a way they can't interact with you. Nothing else will work. This mod won't truly fix that but it does give the player a higher chance to win. After all, if you were relying on EMP Mortars and Grenades from the start, this mod changes almost nothing for you.
Hey, these things were the top of the food chain for so many Alphas. Serves them right.
Anything that changes the Inferno Cannon's range and projetile explosion radius via patching might be incompatible.
Version 1.0.16.0.0
- Initial release
Version 1.0.17b.0.0
- Updated for A17b
- Switched to patching for editing vanilla defs
Version 1.0.18.0.0
- Updated for B18
- Optimized Xpathing code