KHDs are great at taking care of hackers, the problem is that some people are trying to cram a square peg into a round hole here. What inane.imp writes is important: just because it's a killer hacker doesn't mean it should be at an advantage against all other hackers, and particularly not in the reactive turn. If you can single out a regular Hacking Device, Trinity is the superior program - in the active turn. The problem remains that hacking is a passive part of the game. You focus all your hacking in one spot with repeaters and wait for your opponent to have to go through them, simply because you're much weaker in the active turn as Repeaters are currently designed. "But Firewalls". Square peg. Round hole. Shoot them. "But really high BTS units". Huge square pegs. Tiny round hole. Stop it. Seriously, it's like trying to use Tao Wu versus an Epsilon sniper. At 40" range. Not the correct tool for the job, but the correct tool for a different job. Focus really needs to be shifted towards active portion of the game, IMO, giving the players that spends the resources to activate a trooper a bit more of an advantage. A shift towards burst and away from exotic and high DAM ammo on programs in general could accomplish this, as can an adjustment to the value that disposable repeaters play (what if disposable repeaters had bandwidth issue, or what if disposable repeaters only had power for one turn at a time?). I think it's important to note that I'm not necessarily talking about increasing the damage that hacking does, considering that hacking is designed to be combat between a one unit that has a weapon and a unit that can't defend itself, but the hacker still needs to get value from the order expenditure meaning the likelihood of winning the FTF needs to be more in the ballpark of the active hacker
As a small aside, tables that lock units into lanes with difficulties switching between them do tend to make hacking stronger than it has to be because if there's only three lanes to move, the opponent can typically place three repeaters by the inevitable mid-section LOF blockers which leaves them with little choice but to brute force the repeater. Table design is a huge impact on gameplay and it's not just an issue of dense terrain or light terrain, it's very much an issue of what terrain is placed where and what alternate lines of fire. If you load up TTS and subscribe to the White Noise N4 map pack, and load the Ikari Mindwipe map you'll see some pretty dense terrain with a lot of very interesting fire lanes. Seriously, there's so many places where snipers can set up to guard firelanes and opponent can set up counter-snipers and the whole map has a bunch of orthogonal firelanes that means it's always possible to switch it up. Not all maps are this level of good in the map pack (load Fort Kickass for an example...), but the Ikari Mindwipe one was a pleasure to play on because it didn't railroad specific paths.
I actually like Hacking as primarily positional gameplay. I don't see this as "passive" (you're imposing your game onto your opponent), but I get what you mean. The benefits of Hacking is that it's assymetric: when well used it takes less orders to set up than it takes to tear down. Infinity is ultimately a game of Active vs Reactive balance. You need tools that work well Reactively to balance the inherent strength of the Active: taken too far and it's boring though. I think the removal of Blackout and Nullfiers has left a hole for anti-Hacking tech. I think - in particular - removing Disabled was a mistake. I think a better option would have been to fully separate Isolated and Disabled into two separate states: Isolated only affects Order Pools and Disabled only affects Comms Equipment. This would have provided a way of neutralising Repeaters and Hackers short of Oblivion / killing them: this could have been made relatively efficient (Trinity equivalent odds). It would also make Dep Reps intrinsically worse than equipped Repeaters due to the interaction with Reset: Dep Reps can not Reset.
Honestly kind of proves my point in that the KHD is more or less pointless, in a version of the game where slots are limited having something that is marginally effective at best is a waste, especially when the other device can do what it does better and do more. why trinity when you can just shoot it or oblivion? Unless you are picking on Line infantry scrub hackers or other skirmishers where it will actually kill an enemy hacker like it's name suggests it should, killer hackers are just slightly better specialist operatives in that they get bonuses in certain missions. Also heavily disagree on hacking being a purely passive aspect of the game, while it has gotten stronger in that capacity its is very effective in an active role. When leveraged properly aggressive use of hacking can be crippling. firewalls, shoot them, cool KHD pointless high BTS units, stop it and shoot them, again KHD pointless Tao wu vs epsilon sniper is a bit disingenuous, no-one looks at tao wu and goes yeah this guy is anti sniper as nothing about him says as much. If Tao wu had a piece of kit that said sniper killer device and it was just a combi then you may have a point.
It's more MB HMG vs Jotum as an analogue. There's a whole host of situations where a KHD is still very useful, but yes: I've certainly been swapping KHD Zeroes for HD Zeroes and eating the no-insignificant cost increase because I value what the HD does over the KHD. Principally, KHDs are still useful vs non-Apex HDs. The midfield Hacker vs midifeld Hacker or SK Hacker vs Fusi-Hacker fights. For instance, even with Firewall penalties a Zero KHD will - relatively trivially - Wound a Fusi Hacker with Sixth Sense (BS13s DAM11 vs B1 12 DAM 16). This strips the +3 BS from the ORC Feurbach, making him more tractable for your Lizard to FTF. The Zero HD isn't as effective in this role. Basically we're left with a Hacking environment that isn't: KHD > HD/HD+ > HI/TAG > KHD. But rather where the quality of the Hacker matters. A high quality HD/HD+ is more useful in the Hacking game than a low quality KHD which is still very useful vs Line Hackers. Personally I think Carbonite is the worst program this edition. Against BTS6 opponents Oblivion is a better option, based purely on the likelihood of imposing an outcome. And that's before you account for the fact that Isolated is, generally, the worse of the two states.
This is not a good comparison considering Taowu isn't supposedly optimized for blowing up snipers. Anyway, if these "Apex hackers" aren't meant to be defeated with hacking, it'd be nice to see them spread around more factions, that are supposed to be actually good at hacking. I think it's more likely there just wasn't enough thought put into what exactly the dice math of trying to hack them means.
Carbonite pretty much only exists to interfere with Morat stuff, slap another -3 to their reset (often making it virtually impossible to break out) after being Iso'd, or to brick something before you step around the corner and light it up on normal rolls, ideally with a MR/BSG/SMG.
This is the weirdest argument to me. Infinity was meant for different groups to have different strengths and weaknesses. Not every faction has apex shooters. Not every faction has great aggressive LTs. Not every faction has great specialists. Why should hacking have parity, when so many other parts of the game do not?
It’s only natural, if misguided, for folks to want their preferred factions to have all the toys. Makes for a boring game, but it’s an eminently understandable urge.
I agree with the thought here, but the divide at the top end is annoyingly close to insurmountable. An Interventor or KoJ with a Firewall only has a 5% chance of taking damage from a base Trinity hit if it has a Firewall (if you even win the FtF, difficult in the Interventor case especially if it's a KHD)- and sometimes it simply isn't possible to remove the Firewall due to a Tinbot or good Repeater positioning. At least in the case of my NCA, there's no way to get around it at that point because three quarters of the army is Hackable itself and can't approach. Don't know why anyone would need to complain about OCF though; they've got probably the single most desirable KHD in the game with Kerr-nau's upgraded device, and he's a Wildcard with a Pitcher too. And it's not like the rest of the Onyx Hacking stable is bad either.
I can totally understand that stance. But from my perspective, that feels like just part of the current game. Intervenors are supposed to be one of the best hackers in the game. Hacking them with a basic KHD, to me, should be like attacking an Avatar in cover with a combi: a very bad idea. And I totally empathize that it feels unfair that NCA hackers have only a negligible chance to do something about them. In Vanilla Haqq, we have little to none that can shoot a linked Kamau Sniper or many of the new hard fireteam link options. It can be extremely frustrating, but I feel as that is still the game working as intended.
I think it's good because of this. I picked the example because it's totally obvious that this is silly, but that's basically how Hecaton is asking; he's taking a unit type that is made to take on a specific target and try to alter the game to make that unit good in a situation against another unit that is specifically designed to be good in that situation. It's up there with "make my Teutons kill Domaru in melee reliably". KHD are pointless as hacking devices because Hacking Devices out on the map is pointless. KHD are also pointless as hacking devices because spending orders on Hacking Devices is pointless. The logical conclusion and how it is also played out in game is that the intended targets of your killer hacking devices are never going to over-extend close enough to your killer hacking devices for you to spend orders on your own hackers to engage in the hacking game. I get that it is logical to ask for killer hacking devices to go back to the state where they did their hunting through enemy repeaters, but the current hacking game is poorly designed and the previous hacking game was also poorly designed. Also, having the KHD operate primarily through the enemy repeaters also doesn't solve the problem where volume of hackers will kill or disable the KHD just like it does now. Why do we choose between two bad designs? So, as I see it, here's a small smörgåsbord of issues; Hackable BTS vs Hacking DAM is off. It makes sense that the BTS is naturally 3+ on these units because that protects them against the weapon that's designed to take them offline; however, those weapons have received a significant boost to DAM and exotic ammo to make them able to punch through those high BTS, meaning the high BTS on the hackable units is pointless while the more varied BTS on hackers kind of suffer for it. Repeaters are too effective. Because a Repeater allows any unit to use it, it focuses ARO. As anyone who has played with (and I dread to bring this up) fantasy intent AROs is aware, once AROs are stacked it becomes almost unfeasible to play an active game. Hackers have to choose between a good gun or a hacking device. Just in general, there are very few units with a good gun and a hacking device. The game is designed so that a Combi Rifle is not sufficient to provide an advantage, and that's what most hackers have. Activating a hacker is discouraged. As a result of the above, a hacker is discouraged from leaving the deployment zone. There is no need to leave the deployment zone, where they are protected and can still do their job without being an order expenditure for the player. Hackers are still necessary. With the altered direction of HI and TAGs and the improved manoeuvrability of REMs, meaning that being hackable is no longer exclusively a disadvantage, it is necessary to slow enemies down because your opponent is encouraged to use high-powered units with this drawback. Guided. This should be a no brainer. Guided is really good. Really really good. Spreading Marked state out liberally makes it far too good. There's probably a lot more I can write on this, but frankly my brain is wandering so I'll just go to the next point. What can be done to adress this? Make hacking, just like shooting, an active turn advantage. This is the over-arching goal of just about everything below. Hunters should have the tools to hunt. This means Killer Hackers. There should not be a choice between being a hacker or being fighter. Nourikas is a good design in this regard. Sombras also seem like a good design with this in mind. Hacking is potentially overpriced. With the correction for being vulnerable carrying a discount, perhaps the prices of hacking should go down further. Disposable Repeaters need to be nerfed. Hard. This is the primary driver for hackers not getting out and about on the map. Three base line trooper hackers hidden in the DZ can't be beaten because the game is not designed for an active unit to take on three+ enemies of any kind at once unless you have a true top-line unit and have outmanouevred those units through positioning - which you can't do versus a Repeater. Hacking still need to be a viable weapon versus hackables. Not too viable, the advantage those hackables get is fairly small and there's factions that need to function without hacking versus hackables. So, to put this together in a more concrete way: 1. Disposable Repeaters last for 1 turn. Like smoke. 2. Being directly targeted by Guided is a cancellation condition for Marked. 3. Increase the burst of hacking programs to be more in line with specialist guns. B3 or B4. 4. Reduce the damage of hacking programs to be more in line with specialist guns. Roughly DAM 13 if there's exotic ammo involved. 5. Explore giving hacking a -3 or -6 range band at 8-16" (remember, we're talking about Oblivion being DAM 14 Normal at most here) 6. Explore normalising BTS to ARM values Basically; make hacking less good in the reactive turn and more reliable in the active turn Or hunt the non-Interventor hackers that can't find a spot in a Fireteam with a -6 Firewall Tinbot? How many Interventors could Svalarheima possibly field? When was the last time you saw a Hassassin Barid in a Fireteam with a -6 Firewall? There are a very limited number of factions and a very limited number of units that actually makes KHD pointless - provided you can avoid doing so through an enemy repeater. For almost every other target a KHD is like using a Combi Rifle versus an Adhesive Launcher at 0-8" in an environment where Mimetism and even cover is extremely rare.
The difference is that there used to be tools for much more effectively killing interventors with hacking programs. Your argument at that point boils down to "other hackers should be nerfed in infowar without their factions receiving anything in return."
Implying that I want my faction to have all the tools is an outright lie on your part. I just want it to have all the tools it had in N3. You're so full of it you should be growing mushrooms.
You honestly believe that OCF didn't get anything in return in N4? Umbras got better, Unidrons got better, Imetrons got better, all your TAGs got better. You can argue that you don't feel like the loss of some of the hacking power was worth the tradeoff in OCF. But it feels disingenuous to say that OCF didn't get something in return.
From the player who spent three years of his life shitposting complaints about jammers so loudly that the signal-to-noise ratio noise-dived off a cliff, we bring you: 'N4 hacking is bad actually and should return to the N3 equilibrium which was good'.
Umbras got *marginally* better, and the Shock Immunity that was handed out to everyone and their mother hurt us as much as anyone else, since with N3 marksmanship you could put that wherever you needed it. Super-Jump's nerf and the fact that their CC attack is only B1 now has arguably made the Samaritans worse. Unidrons are able to go prone now, but other than that... they're showing their age in the fact that there's so many things that utterly outclass them in a firefight. Ímetrons I'll give you, that part is nice, but they're such a small part of the list, points-wise, that it's not a huge effect. Not really a good analogy at all, because Teutons could never reliably take out Domaru in melee. I mean a Berzerk EXP CC Weapon dude is pretty good at it, but that hasn't changed. So try again.
Not what I'm saying. I'm saying that factions shouldn't have had their relative skill at hacking changed dramatically without receiving anything back to compensate. "Killer hackers being a reasonable threat to Interventors" doesn't assume a return to the N3 hacking paradigm.
