You're missing the point here, besides the speculative fire which is another entire thread's worth of arguments as to how strong it should be any of those options still require you to brute force deep dive your opponent's most defended area on the table which will require alot of things dieing in the process. You want Jazz? You're going to have to wade through repeaters, mines, koalas, and her whole fireteam first. Your opponent isn't just gonna put her out there for you to kill. Can you get to her? Sure, it's possible but that's not the point. The point is to do it you practically need to table your opponent first. The game forcing players into all in DZ rushes is bad. It's not healthy even if it's possible. You shouldn't deploy and go "hmm how will I do this mission ohwaitfuck Jazz/Dartok/insert problem hacker here time to rush them down" every time they hit the table.
To be clear - I was proposing this as an extreme and probably suboptimal solution. This isn't really the same thing; it's a binary yes-no for "is target a valid hacking target?". You never have a situation where one hacker is bad because they have an Oblivion program and some circumstances make that worse at winning the FtF roll than Carbonite. There are cases where the damage profile of one program may or may not make it preferable, but it's nowhere near as extreme as in gunfig Because it's generally hard to do. Any table with that much LoF blocking would basically turn into Template City, and buildings need to be very large to stop a repeater on one side from hitting units on the other side. And that is leaving aside Hecklers, who have a 20" threat radius for suicide dropping FastPandas (if desired), which is close to impossible to stop via table setup. It is an option that exists, though PanO is notably bad at it; to by knowledge, there are no Impersonators or Parachutist (Dep. Zone) options in faction. The things that exist (regular Infiltrators, Parachutists) are highly board dependent; sometimes parachutist is a good fix, someones it's totally zoned out. Trying to move a camo marker all the way from the midline into the enemy DZ to hit one of their most defended models is a non-trivial proposition. However, I will agree that this is a good solution for Kosmofloat, HB, and Combined Army. Likely the best of the proposed solutions. A Squalo or a pure-linked Fusilier can hit on 9s with Spec Fire; the Squalo has a ~29% chance to put a wound on an unliked PH 10 Arm 1 hacker, though it drops to ~23% on such a hacker in a 4-man link, and the lower damage of a fusilier GL means his odds drop down to a hair over 20% on a linked hacker. It's obviously terrain dependent, and it has wrinkles; if the hacker isn't right on the line, the Squalo can probably get into firing position in about one order if it's deployed to allow that, once you deal with enemy hard AROs, and that rather presupposes you can clear enough repeaters to not have to worry about your Squalo getting hacked trying to move into the midfield. This gets worse for Fusiler/Regular links, as they can only move out 8" into no-man's-land even if deployed on the line, and you have to deal with maneuvering a full core fireteam, on top of their odds being notably worse. That said, all of this gets much worse against something like a Dartok, with the fusiler link dropping down to ~18% chance of pushing one wound through when it's in a link. Even so, it is at least an extant point for Vanilla and NCA. This is a joke, right? I think you seem to be operating under the impression that PanO has access to Impersonators. This is incorrect.
Yes, I do not see how you cannot use Super Jump and shoot somebody prone in the basic buildings, I have done it others have done it to me, it is quite possible. This Is not your opinion, or more precisely its your opinion and assumptions presented as statements, you state CB does not know what they are doing and they do not care for their product and then inject as an opinion that you believe there is no coherent design since Varuna. I think you should try to clarify what you want to say and how you want to say it. It is entirely different to state CB does not care about their game and do not know what they are doing and an entirely different thing to say you think CB does not care about their game and do not know what they are doing. I give you the doubt that you are a native speaker and I am not, but still your posts especially about the company come as making provable authoritative statements and not stating an opinion.
I think the point about buildings is that you cannot do it ouside the enemy Zone of Control, meaning you are getting hacked. Not that you cannot physically do it. I would say that the perception is that CB has lost interest in Infinity a bit, focusing more on side games that they can mix in other minis into Infinity from. Slow updates, odd release choices (Lobos, what is your purpose), no real updates about goals and stuff as far as the game itself goes. Just new minis you can buy. The bright spot is we are coming up on the mid edition update (hopefully) with the new fluff book.
it depends. A 25mm S2 base is IIRC 2mm high, so if it's behind a 1" parapet some basic trig says you need to be a bit more than seven inches above them to do it from exactly 8.1 inches away horizontally. A Seraph can do it from a slight elevation advantage (3" on each end of the parabola up and down, and a a bit less than 3" of high on the S7 model), but that means it needs to have an elevated piece of terrain at exactly the right distance. The elevation required increases as a linear function of the difference, so trying to do it from more than like 16" away horizontally quickly becomes impractical. In any case, the primary utility of C+ or Super Jump is going to be getting into an elevated sniper position in midfield, if one exists. However, I'd re-iterate a point I've made previously, that the existence of positions from which you can relatively easily shoot S2 models trying to hide in the enemy DZ creates a lot of external problems in as far as allowing very oppressive long-range shooting attack runs goes. Basically, if you can kill Jazz or Dartok or whoever else when they're trying to hide with methods other than suicide attackers, you can probably kill all of the enemy cheerleaders. This is a fundamental problem with how hacking interaction (or rather, the lack thereof) works, honestly. I think the fact that hackers are made safer from retaliation by hiding behind repeaters is an issue; if allows you to get more reward for less risk.
Given that many, if not all, the side games are done from side teams and are not drawing recourses from the Infinity development I think it is not correct, indeed we have seen several key and important updates this year alone, I do take note on the Lobos comment though, I am not sure if any other wargames company makes commentary on new units releases or updates/ changes but I will propose it.
I figured as much, I just thought it might be good to explicitly state why I also thought it wasn't a great solution. If I understood you correctly, I think we are actually thinking the same thing on this point and it just didn't translate very well from my own thought process to what I wrote. The reason why I said that hacking, per se, had a sort of range band is because, based on the way that I think about range bands, I am first asking a binary yes-no question on whether or not the target is within the hacking area. If yes, then I can hack, and if no, then that course of action is invalid. How this relates to range bands on a BS weapon is that, prior to declaring a BS attack, I'm first considering if my target is even within the range bands of the weapon I am using without regard for the positive or negative range bands (mod calculations are the next step in my decision-making process). This is another binary yes-no question. For example, if I'm shooting at a target 30" away and my troop is armed with a machine gun, then the target is a valid target. However, if my troop is using a shotgun, then 30" is out of range and therefore not a valid target. Once I have established if a target is valid or not, then I take range mods into consideration. In the case of hacking I just skip the range mod consideration because it doesn't apply to hacking at all, so long as my target is within my hacking area. Hopefully this is a satisfactory explanation of my thought process. But I will restate that I think we're more or less on the same wavelength.
I just did a little bit of digging on the Infinity wiki because I remembered that deactivators exist and was wondering if they can be used to disable deployable repeaters. The answer is, yes, deactivators can be used to disable deployable repeaters as they have the 'deployable' label and are thus valid targets for a deactivator. All that is needed is to gain LoS to the deployable repeater and pass a WIP roll modified only by range and ignoring other mods like cover, mimetism, etc. Passing the WIP roll immediately removes the target from play. Additionally, deployable repeaters can also be valid targets of a BS attack, as I failed to find anything to the contrary, and deployable repeaters have ARM & BTS 0, 1 STR. So, since I don't recall seeing anybody mention it before, I am going to say that this is an option that PanO has to deal with deployable repeaters. Is it a particularly good option? I don't know, and I am going to test it out for myself. I highly doubt that it will solve all of PanO's problems in dealing with offensive hacking attacks since PanO gets relatively slim pickings with deactivators and is still subject to LoS requirements, and it doesn't work with on-board repeaters. But, it is still an option that might come in handy every once in a while. And then there's the good ol' fashioned shooting enemy repeaters, if you can get LoS. Articles consulted: https://infinitythewiki.com/Deactivator https://infinitythewiki.com/Deployable_Repeater https://infinitythewiki.com/Repeater https://infinitythewiki.com/Pitcher https://infinitythewiki.com/Traits#Deployable
Repeaters are S(X). Any repeater deployed on a rooftop, or tucked into a corner behind terrain is practically unassailable. We are talking about PanO, right?
It's funny too, because in N3, they were S1... it's like there was a consistent effort to make certain kinds of hacking nets unassailable (camo Morans during playtest etc).
Yes, that is one of the challenges, and I neglected touching on the possibility of deploying a repeater on a rooftop. This scenario is exactly why I explicitly stated that I wouldn't bet on this solving all of PanO's problems with hacking and would only come in useful every once in a while. The deactivator gives you the following mods for the WIP roll: 0-8" +6 WIP 8-16" +3 WIP 24-32" -6 WIP Quoting directly from the wiki page for the deactivator, "The WIP Roll only applies MODs for Range, but not those from Special Skills (for example Mimetism), or Cover." So, while PanO WIP sucks, any troop that is using its deactivator is only making its normal roll (which I also failed to specify; deactivator rolls are normal rolls) based on range. My suspicion is that if one were to use the deactivator, they will probably be rolling in the positive range bands (otherwise I would question the opponent's judgement in placing their deployable equipment), and therefore even the WIP 12 Machinist will most of the time be rolling on WIP 15 or 18, which aren't terrible odds for one roll. And if the target is farther out than that, then one could switch to shooting it with their primary weapon. I will reiterate, again, that this is probably not the best option, and that PanO would greatly benefit from getting another way to deal with an offensive-hacking opponent. There are many problems with relying simply on a deactivator, such as having a repeater deployed somewhere inaccessible. Additionally, in some, maybe many instances, getting in range to use the deactivator may expose the user to being hit with Spotlight, Oblivion, or whatever else the opponent might have. But, as suboptimal of an option as it is, it is still an option that might come in handy once in a blue moon. It's certainly better than just getting stuck and checking out, even if its only marginally better. And having and utilizing this option does not invalidate the need that PanO has for some other method of dealing with offensive hacking. I just wanted to bring this to the attention of anyone who might not have known or forgotten about it. It certainly isn't going to hurt my feelings if anyone decides that using a deactivator isn't worth the effort.
To finally join into (this part of) the discussion, since it is dear to my heart: I wouldn't say CB has lost interest in their game. But I would say it's understandable when people come to that conclusion anyway. And that comes down solely to the consistently bad communication from the company. I have opened my own thread about it. Basically, what people experience is: Balance issues raised by the community are responded to not at all or whimsically at best (was the Avatar nerf because of us? Who knows?). And with "responded to" I don't even necessarily mean fixed, I simply mean given a statement. Rules questions and suggestions by the community go unanswered for long periods of time or not at all. Bug fixes in the army app don't get addressed for long periods of time, if at all. Releases and rules updates are left unexplained (are Spiral going OOP or not? And why? Why retire a single Zulu-Cobra? Why release a second Hulang that no one asked for, but not a second Liu Xing that many people asked for? Why has no Tikbalang been re-released, even with the MO update? What are you planning to retire/release next, and I don't just mean next month) Even more strangely, rules and miniature eleases outside of Adepticon and Gencon are left completely unadvertised. I don't count listing them on your Homepage as pre-orders as advertisement. Profiles are left without minis for extremely long times (Karhu, Shakush, Yara Haddad, Rem Racers, Uhlan back in the day), even though this has gotten marginally better. The biggest example, however (even though I don't want to start a discussion about it here because it's the wrong thread — I just want to mention it), is Warcrow the tabletop game (not the Kickstarter). It's an entire new wargame that is supposed to come out in three months, and we haven't seen a single piece of advertisement for it. We also haven't heard about a delay yet. Compared with with Infinity, where we know at least a tiny bit about what's coming in August, we haven't heard anything about Warcrow. So yeah, I understand why some people think CB doesn't really show interest in its games. I know it's not true, but the company doesn't seem to prioritize combating the impression, either.
As other people have said, it's about how tall you need to be to see over the lips on buildings that CB makes for their terrain. You have to get *substantially* higher than whatever someone's posted up on to see them without getting into their hacking area, as otherwise your sweet super jump guijia will just get hacked. This is a very basic idea; the fact that you didn't pick up on what I was saying is very questionable. I said "I think" that makes it my opinion. Get mad, I guess. Read what I said again. I'm not particularly worried about keeping that line, however, as you and Mao and others don't extend me the same courtesy but here you're demanding it.
No, I understand what you said about the buildings and the hacking area and I will reiterate what I said, you are either speaking of some fictional and highly optimized game table that would make such a fictional scenario possible, or you play on some really weird game tables that have no verticality. Your scenarios sound hyperbolic to emphasize an ideal situation as an example, acceptable up to a point, but not something one would or should encounter on a real situation. Otherwise, to be honest I have several questions about the game tables you play in.
@Hecaton is entirely correct about the terrain, no matter how rude he may be in stating it. It is not at all hyperbolic to say that prone models on rooftops are disproportionally difficult to assault. @Valiant Storm showed the math. Unless your table consists of 16" towers, most tables are not sufficiently vertical to shoot down at a prone model behind a rooftop parapet.
It is not. Guarda de Assalto exists, and as long he exists Vanilla Pano and Shock Army of Acontecimiento has access to the one and only Eclipse Grenade Launcher of the game. Ignoring a possible vector (eclipse template) only because the troop is unusual, or requires an specific way of playing it, does not eliminate the fact the troop is still there and available. It has access to camouflage troops and KHD troops who can cybermask. And that allows you to move through shooting galleries with impunity if the table allow its. When you do move+move from total cover to total cover in marker state, the most your opponent can do with their AROs troop in the layered defence is to declare discover. That is the “ablative” defence of marker state: if you’re in total cover/out of LOS after the move+move you can always recover your marker state by spending an order. So that, combined with vertical mobility and/or stealth, will allow you to get into shooting position against the piece you’re hunting.
Okay. I would hope you understand why saying "To deal with a mode of attack with ignores line of fire, just block line of fire bro" might read as a joke to some people. I agree, an EGL that hits on 10s isn't as nice as regular eclipse grenades which go down on 16s, and still get similar odds in their disfavored 8.1-16" rangeband. "Spend all of your orders hoping that coin flips go your way so you can play the game" is indeed a very specific way of playing it. Moving 4" per order is amazing. Astounding. This is, indeed, a brilliant tactic to deliver a Skirmisher unit into the prime position to eat a template and die when he trades with the [idiot with chain rifle] body blocking the ladder* or stairway to the rooftop where the hacker is hiding. Moving 4" per order is going to get you from the midfield line to the enemy deployment zone in no time (3 orders), as long as they don't have mines or anything. Threading the needle to actually get where you are going in the enemy DZ, where they have spotters, corner guards, Ikadrons, flashbots, etc that are positioned so an artillery trooper in your own table half cannot effectively knock them down might even also be possible. *I am sure someone will chime in to say they pay on third-party terrain rather than what CB provides which doesn't have usable rooftops, so in that fairy tale scenario this is a non-issue. Yes, it's like a trashier version of the protection offered by the IMP-1 state. I know how Heckler suicide runs work, but they only need to get within 20". Not going to let you re-camo in a repeater area without getting spotlit, but I will assume you're going to say that's irrelevant because we have a theoretically perfect scenario in which you can always move from total cover to total cover and ignore the result of Discover attempts. Are at the point where committing a 30+ point model and burning through the better part of a Combat Group-Turn to eliminate a 20-odd point Dartok/Bit & Kiss/Jazz/whatever is considered good strategy? Is the idea here that we're meant to evaluate the faction in a vacuum and pay no attention to the Rasyat and Fiday behind the curtain? InB4 "but PanO shoots good" - yes, shooting almost as good as Combined Army is clearly amble compensation for behind heavily restricted in engaging with large sections of the game mechanics.
