Fire Beetles or Mobile Bomb

[Gunseng]

So lets talk about fire beetles...

The damage buff in the new patch is awesome! However, it's useless when they don't actually explode. It seems that they have a charge up before exploding, which makes them a very easy target and pretty useless against moving units.

Basically I built 5-6 fire beetles to fend off a GC (I wasn't going to make it so I thought why not? xD). Well I ended up with a couple of the fire beetles headbutting the GC's feet and doing no damage at all. If it was a target with equal or near walking speed I could understand, but a GC?

And yes I do know you have to tell them to attack the unit directly for them to explode, but that wasn't the problem here. They didn't explode until the GC stopped moving, so I'm guessing they have to "charge up." I'll have to do some more testing, but if Aeon have mercies can Cybran at least have a mobile bomb that works a little better? :'(

[FunkOff]

If they didn't attack until the GC stopped moving, I'm guessing it's some kind of problem with the attack weapon that doesn't allow them to attack unless they are close enough. lemme look at the script... yep, the max attack radius is 3. I'm 99% certain it measures from the center of the firebeetle to whatever bone it's targetting on the GC. If the GC's bone is farther than 3 away... and it very well could be because the GC is huge, like at least 8 wide, then the firebeetle will bump into it forever.

To fix this is simple... just give it a higher range on the main weapon. I'm guessing we should do that.... shame it doesn't have a death weapon or the GC would damage itself with the tractor beam claws XD

[Gunseng]

Ah I see, that makes sense now. Well it is an option and could increase the usefulness of it. Or maybe a hot-key to tell it to self-destruct?

If it did explode after death it'd probably be too powerful, but would be awesome to see a GC killing itself with tractor beam!

[FunkOff]

Well, loyalists can stun GCs with their death weapon... I'm thinking loyalist + firebeetles could very easily take down a GC cost-effectively. You'd only need 23 fire beetles and a handful of loyalists, costing a total of like 8,000-10,000 mass to beat a 27,000 mass GC

[Isen]

the theory look easy funk lol

[FunkOff]

lol yes.... it would be easy to take out a GC like this if it were alone. If it were escorted by even a couple of harvogs or gunships, I think this tactic would fail miserably XD

[Isen]

hehe, i never see it tried, but could be fun!

[Ze_PilOt]

I've saw a ML fails miserably by walking on top of a T3 factory building harbs... Was freezed forever

[uberge3k]

To fix this is simple... just give it a higher range on the main weapon. I'm guessing we should do that....

NO.

It's already *extremely* powerful as an ACU sniping weapon. The only reason it's balanced right now is largely due to it's terrible pathfinding - which means that you need the target ACU to be alone and distracted by some other units so it can't OC them fast enough. If you make it any easier to detonate, then we might as well forgo any form of offensive ACU use as we'll see beetle spam in addition to mercy spam...

Again, we're looking at units in isolation instead of in real-world situations...

[Kryo]

what can I say... i saw an teammate's ACU explode because of Fire Beetles. So I guess they are cool now: P