Hydra "Special" not bound by AP

[johndramey]

So since I've been having so much fun using my hydra soldiers I've found a pretty small, but relatively interesting bug. It appears that the Hydra soldier's special ability, which is being able to fire at nothing for those that don't know, doesn't really require an AP. By that I mean this;

-If you fire your special while you have AP remaining it will use 1 AP

but

-If you fire your special while your Templar has no AP remaining he will still fire, you can then fire the special as many times as you want.

This is.... exploitable. I tested it out and found that it was easily repeatable as of the latest version, just boot up your squad with a hydra and special him till he runs out of ammo. I imagine you could even special his melee attack, making the Hydra soldier the best defensive unit in the game!

[slayernz]

Hmmm ... but kills aren't guaranteed. I've seen Xeno's wade through the fire and attack the Hydra specialist (and rest of party). Further, when Xeno is 3 or less squares from the HS, he tends to burn his own feet because of the splash radius of the blast. Hydra should always burn outwards from position not burn a radius from target square.

As such - Hydra still causes more pain than good and Neptunes ROCK. My squad of ultimate Neptune bad asses (Drake, Vasquez and Apone) have not come across anything they haven't been able to handle.

[Cory Trese]

That AP rule you mention is on purpose.

I'm not sure I get the comment about ammo?

[slayernz]

Err, I think John is saying that you could, in fact, use the Special to expend your Hydra ammo in turn 1 by repeatedly using it after you have run out of AP.

Benefit - fire ... pretty fire.


Unsure about usefulness though as Xeno's tend to die afer a couple of hits, and heaping flame over the same spot doesn't increase the amount of damage caused by traversing it - or does it?

[Cory Trese]

My design intent was that the Hydra gunner doesn't have to spend AP to "keep the trigger down"

Like the game in the screenshot, ammo is a big issue for fire bugs.

[johndramey]

Haha I'm sure the Neptunes can put out way more in the way of direct fire, but I like the area denial of the Hydras more. You can use them to shut down one are of approach pretty much single-handedly. I like the Aliens cameos by the way, although Apone should be a soldier or captain in my opinion. I could see the smart gun basically being a Neptune cannon though XD

@cory, Ah, so the Hydra gunner is supposed to be able to fire even though he has 0 AP remaining? Meaning if my Hydra has 5 AP I can take 5 steps forward and then, with 0 AP remaining, light off the incinerator? I guess that would make them very good for area denial, but maybe you should limit it to 1 use per turn? As it is you could have the Neptune walk forward into a hallway, and leave someone with the 2 defensive AP behind him, if a xeno closes then you can manually switch over to the hydra and fire off his special even though he's out of AP.

[Cory Trese]

From a math standpoint, Hydra and Neptune are very similar.

Neptune can "fire for 0 AP" just the same as Hydra can, only at different points in the turn.

The Neptune has a wider fire arc, but overall does less direct hit damage.

I am thinking about it in terms of how many shots they can fire onto a target per turn. The Neptune and the Hydra try to balance each other out in that regard.

It depends a lot on terrain and xeno activity as well, of course.

Great discussion ...

[johndramey]

Hmm, I guess I can see your point Cory. The Neptune does get free shots if he hits, so it would seem only fair that the Hydra get some kind of balancing. Well, in that case, disregard my report. I was all proud of myself for catching a bug haha.

Either way, I like the way the Hydra's work. I think they fit my play style much more than Neptunes simply for their area denial abilities. I constantly use my Hydra, whereas Neptunes are pretty much used primarily on defensive maps or maps that have a central choke-point. Being able to blast a corridor and then move is such an easily overlooked ability. Sure they don't have the raw power that Neptunes carry, but Hydras can nail xenos around corners and out of LOS. Their effective range with the starting incinerator is 8!

[slayernz]

I've got a relic hydra weapon found during the Narvidian Dawn campaign, so I'll test it out

[johndramey]

What are the stats on that bad boy? Maybe it's time for me to actually tackle the campaign, always mean to go at it but get daunted and don't want to risk the squad.

[slayernz]

Name	Relic Incinerator	Plasma Incinerator
Class	Prized Relic	Prized Relic
Damage:	18	16
Damage Type:	2	2
Attack Bonus:	6	5
Ammo:	16	15
Range:	4	4
AP:	1	1
Splash:	3	3
Found	Nav Dawn	Store

So you can see the benefits of the Relic Incinerator

Strangely, Relic Devastator has no benefits at all over the standard Long Devastator. It would have been nice to have ammo and/or damage bonuses.

[xdesperado]

The splash on the Plasma Incinerator should be 4 not 3.

Believe a recent update was suppossed to fix that in the listed stats.

Don't know what the Relic Incinerator's actual splash is though.

[slayernz]

I typed the values out directly from v1.5.7 ... double checked them for validity tho, and they display as they are in the table

[Cory Trese]

Apr 30, 2013 19:22:21 GMT -5 slayernz said:

Strangely, Relic Devastator has no benefits at all over the standard Long Devastator. It would have been nice to have ammo and/or damage bonuses.

I have logged Ticket #1246 to investigate this issue with Relic Devastator.

[slayernz]

I tried a Hydra on Surface Elevator thinking "it would be great for the Hydra to roast all of the Xeno eggs at once", but the Hydra specialist was so incompetent all he could do was set his feet on fire. Sadly, he roasted to death after turn three.

Neptunes. Neptunes for the win!