NEW: Hydra and Neptune

[grävling]

The flamer is cool. Wish I could order it from the armory, though.

[Rico's Roughnecks]

Even if you could buy them, I wouldn't want more than 1 in a squad. They do have their limitations.

Why the change to light leviathans? Before anyone could use a sword/rifle as primary weapon and a light lev secondary. Now only the captain can do it. Was this just to prevent having a hydra and a light lev?

Assuming pistols would eventually be for sale I liked the option of having a pistol backup, especially as new specialized weapons come out, or the possibility of having 2 pistols and firing both at the same time. the hydra is at a big disadvantage at any kind of close range with no pistol and setting himself on fire if he uses hydra and using up all his cp to fire it. I imagine a neptune templar might want a pistol too, since he can't move after firing the neptune gun it would be good to have a pistol to finish off a xeno and advance or to fire while backing away. And who knows what other weapons will come out later. You could even reduce the damage or range of the pistol, but Removing the secondary weapon option takes flexibility and customization away from the player.

if you really don't want hydra/pistol together, couldn't you set the hydra as a 2handed weapon but still leave the pistol option open for others? Or is the issue that you didn't want anyone except the captain using the sword/pistol combo. Then set the sword as a class-specific to captain. I still think it would be cool to have the musketeers, but I can see the logic of the captain-only restriction. But taking secondary weapons away from every except the captain is illogical and feels too, well, restrictive.

[Rico's Roughnecks]

The hydra acts more like a grenade launcher than a flame thrower, since the fire comes out in a circle from the target point. Any chance that we could be able to lob shots over other templars/xenos and detonate on the other side of them?

Or (dare I to dream) get other types of grenades?

[Rico's Roughnecks]

Since mission 2 crashes and I couldn't advance, I geeked out and spent the day playing with fire instead (yes my mama told me not to when I was littlle). I experimented on easy difficulty with each templar wearing different armor (heavy,elite,incinerator,scout) and found that templars and aliens almost never take damage by standing or fighting in fire, but do take damage about 50% of the time when they rotate or move.

I did an experiment and stood in fire and attacked aliens as they came without moving. I kept track of 25 attacks (mostly by the captain in heavy armor) and templars didn't take any damage from fire. While doing this, all 4 templars were standing in the fire without moving for 30 turns and only 1 guy took 1 damage from fire (and it was the hydra in incinerator armor!). 4 templars for 30 turns is 120 turns worth of data, so taking damage once is less than 1% of the time standing still.

But then I stood in fire and rotated in place and took tons of damage. I changed facing 50 times with each templar in different armor (I had a lot of free time at work) and took damage about 50% of the time. Heavy armor was the worst 54%, scout and incinerator were both right around 50% and standard armor was the best at 40%, but that has no correlation to the plating or shielding or the armor types so I think it was just random variation and with a big enough data sample all 4 types of armor would work out to 50%.

So, 2 questions. Shouldn't damage come from REMAINING in fire not moving in it? Maybe even no damage the first turn (these are hostile environment suits after all) and then an increasing chance every turn after. Or at least a steady X% chance of taking damage while standing,fighting or moving.

And shouldn't armor type come into play? What is plating and shielding anyway? Could the incinerator armor be completely immune to fire? The hydra has a lot of restrictions already and at close range he frequently is forced to set himself on fire to attack at all.

[rhunter]

How does one get these two weapons?

[fallen]

rico - mission two bugs should now be fixed, btw.

[fallen]

rhunter - in the Elite version, you can play a campaign called "Vestmarch Burns" to get access to the Incinerator (flamer). More campaigns are coming with access to both the Neptune Cannon (heavy MG) and the flamer.

[blackgauntlet]

Let the Xeno sing a Song of Fire (Hydra) and Ice (Neptune)! ;D

[Rico's Roughnecks]

So the flames burn out now? That's not good. Hydra had a lot of drawbacks already (using all cp to fire, no backup weapon, setting himself on fire at close range, can't fire past other units) and that might be the final thing to put him on the bench. The only use I had for the fire was to seal off alien approach routes, set it and forget it so I wouldn't have to cover that direction anymore. Now the fire is half burned out in 5 turns and essentially gone after 6 or 7. The hydra moves very slowly while setting up a covering fire, since setting the fire uses all the hydras cp, and the fire doesn't do that much damage so more than one fire is needed to stop the aliens. Now the fire will be petering out almost before he's begun to move away.

The hydra would be viable if the fire was a permanent barrier, or if the fire did more damage so it would at least temporarily stop the xeno, or if the hydra could fire on the move so he could be gone by the time it burned out, or if he had a secondary weapon, or if he could "lob a grenade" over other units so he could be in the middle of the templar formation instead of exposed bringing up the rear.

I don't want the hydra to be perfect, but as it is now he's plain ineffective.

[fallen]

rico - thanks for the stern feedback. I think we can take a number of these into account and insure that we bring the Hydra back into efficiency. My preferences would be higher-damage fire (I agree... seeing an alien get through fire is awfully painful). Having a secondary weapon (a Light Leviathan) would be grand. We will keep working on it.

Next up is the Neptune Cannon, who has his own list of limitations and advantages. His massive multi-fire capabilities is a pretty clear advantage, but like any heavy weapons specialist, he is slower and costs all his CP to fire.

[whitegauntlet]

I can not wait for that Neptune Templar specialist to be updated into the game!

[spike]

I'm guessing the Hydra is some kind of intense plasma or possibly semi-fusion weapon. Since our suits are combat-evolved versions of suits for working at Jovian pressure, and the Xenos are roughly as tough as us (?), there's no chance we're talking ordinary fire & flame here right?

[Cory Trese]

no -- and your armor suit's Shielding value is what protects against super-heated hydrax-plasma.

[lyzard]

sorry but I don't understand how work AoE? I think a fire damages the weaker the shells, and strangely, that xeno is not afraid of fire and are not looking for a another ways. Let me remind you that in space hulk, fire primarily served as an obstacle to aliens ...
Incidentally, damaging fire depends on skill - ranged? do not understand what is a fire on 2-3 turns bound to the skills? or flamethrower is not dependent on the any skills?

[Cory Trese]

Templar Assault is not Space Hulk. We're not trying to copy it or use the rules. SH is fun, but TA will be better

The initial attack damage done with the Hydra Incinerator is based on the Ranged Skill.

Once burning, the fire is not based on Ranged Skill, only Shielding vs. Fire Power.

Fire Power is shown by the fire icon (big, small) for that sector.