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Comparing Crane Contemporaries

Discussion in 'Yu Jing' started by Weathercock, Sep 28, 2021.

  1. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    Weathercock complaining about the Crane? Who would have thought?

    So, looking back at the Crane again, I've opted to compare him to his similarly-functioning analogues in other factions, to better examine just how well he stacks up. The main criteria for a Crane-like trooper being a 2-wound CC bully with solid gunfighting capability, and the ability to join a core link. Considering most major factions come with at least one trooper in a sectorial fulfilling this role, I don't think it's unfair to make such a comparison about the archetype. For the sake of these comparisons, I'll mostly focus on the Spitfire version, but will refer to the MR Sensor and Hacker profiles where applicable.
    Additionally, while there are several others that aren't included in this list, I'll just be focusing on wildcard-capable analogues for now.

    First off, looking at the Crane:
    Craneprofile.png

    We've got a fairly basic slow HI frame with higher end ARM and BTS, loaded with some potent CC stats. Unfortunately, despite using the Shang Ji armour, the Crane is still awkwardly stuck at PH13 and MOV 4-4. Weaponry here is fairly basic and straightforward, with the +1B Nanopulser being considerably less impressive in N4. X-visor available to the spitfire and sensor profiles does enhance their viable (albeit not ideal) range, which is a nice perk.

    PanO - Military Orders/Svalarheima - Knight of Justice
    Of all the Crane-likes in the game, the KoJ has got to be the most similar. In exchange for 1 point of CC and 1 point of WIP, the KoJ gains superior MOV, BS, PH, ARM, and a beastly BTS9. The change to Martial Arts is ineffectual, with the KoJ's superior PH making up the difference with additional utility on top. In exchange for the DTW and X-visor, the KoJ gains forward deployment on its spitfire profile. It also gainst D-charges on most relevant profiles.

    The specialist profiles downgrade the rifle to a combi, but in its role as a hacker, that enormous wall of a BTS value is a good trade against 1 point of WIP.
    Missile version is also a brick shithouse, although there are no equivalent comparisons for the Crane.
    Overall, aside from the surprising lack of DTW (which, admittedly, is a notable downside, albeit somewhat mitigated by the high CC potency), the KoJ runs all over the Crane. The slight difference in CC ability is inconsequential in comparison to the better CC weapon and higher (and more useful) PH to make up the arbitrary difference after the Martial Arts change going into N4. With how close these guys are, whoever comes on top could come down to some preferential differences, but it feels like the Crane overpays somewhat on some of those trades.

    Ariadna - USAariadna/Kosmoflot - The Unknown Ranger
    Where the KoJ is a trade-off that leaves the Crane feeling a bit left out, this one doesn't end up so kind. The UKR ends up with a pretty similar stat line to the Crane, but with a few extra perks and negligible downsides. While UKR loses a point of WIP and all BTS, he's also not actually an HI, and thus not hackable to suffer as much from those losses. He loses a point of CC, but Natural Born Warrior is awesome compensation. Lastly, he comes with 6-4 MOV.

    On top of that, he gets MSV and Mimetism for far superior gunfighting prowess, an extra built in order with Tactical Awareness, and all profiles are specialists. Furthermore, he gets AP ammo on his spitfire, ensuring that even heavy armour is scared of him. All this, and despite being almost strictly better by quite a bit, he somehow costs less than the Crane. Yes, he's built with a lot of cost-saving optimizations, but that more than anything just shows how bad they have to cheat their own point system to make that price point work for an equivalent trooper.

    Haqqislam - Hassassin Bahram
    This one's easy. 10 points less for a profile that is strictly better in almost every capacity, with a bunch of extra toys thrown in. Frenzy is busted. I've gone on about this one enough in the past. It is absolutely asinine to be paying so much more for a profile that is so much worse.

    Combined Army - Shasvastii - Sheskiin
    Not one that immediately comes to mind, but Sheskiin does tick off the boxes. Similar to the UKR, she lacks the HI distinction (exclusively to her benefit), making her not hackable. She loses 3 points of armour and gains a nanoscreen instead, which is a bit of a wash. The rest of her stat line is about as crazy as you'd expect a morpho scan of Achilles to be, with significantly higher BS and PH than the Crane, and she moves faster than Usain Bolt. She does have 1 less WIP.
    In terms of skills, her Protheion is a huge one, allowing her to gain momentum from her CC engagements in ways that very few others can, making her one of the premier CC fighters in the game for it. Combined with either D-charges or a DA CCW hitting at DAM 18, she towers above the Crane (and everyone else in this list) in close quarters.
    Her red fury fills the same role as the Crane's spitfire, with its slightly improved range band filling much of the void where the missing X-visor might be found. And thanks to BS Damage +2, it hits harder to boot.
    She trades the burst 2 small DTW for a single burst large one.
    For everything she brings to the table, she's only 5 points more than our humble Crane. It's kind of crazy when you think about it.



    Ultimately, our bird brain boy (and the KoJ to a lesser extent) really doesn't stack up to well against its similarly-built contemporaries. He asks a lot for a kit that lacks the efficiency and functionality you'd expect for his point cost. Sure, there is the argument that you can throw him into a fairly cheap 77 point core for those sweet fireteam bonuses, but that's not exclusive to or even done best by the Crane (you can put 4 rokots behind the UKR for 79 points, for example, and they're actually better armed than the Kuang Shi), and we know that mixed fireteam bonuses will likely be changing soon anyway. The argument that the Crane has to be held back due to sectorial synergies doesn't really hold weight anymore when you look at how troubled ISS is in general with its transition into N4, and definitely not to the extent that he is.
     
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  2. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    LOL I was just writing a thread on HI hackers when I saw this. The Crane is a pretty good Hacker. The KoJ and Crane cost the same but Crane has better WIP and KoJ better BTS. They both have similar problems with being in teams with Tinbots. For KoJ it's only Hospitlars or a Santiago. For Crane it's Wu Ming. The Crane hacker I think is a multi-threat. He can shoot well, CC well, and hack well. The only ones I think as good or better are the Carontid and Anathematic. But of course at high prices.
     
  3. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    De Fersen? His statline is very similar to the hacker Crane, and he comes with a spitfire and Trinity. There's also the Hollowmen hacker, who comes with his own tinbot. Asura hacker is a beast of a machine that can also combine it with MSV smoke shenaningans in vanilla, and of course YJ's own in the Hacker Tao, even if it is usually outclassed by the HMG version, and the actually fairly good Daofei and Zhencha hackers.
     
  4. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    I don't know if it's fair to count the characters against baseline profiles, better comparison would be Crane Adil vs De Fersen.
     
  5. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    Woah, something in the game is worse than Sheskin or The Unknown Ranger? Shock horror!

    I'm not saying the Crane is fine and couldn't use a boost, but... come on man, UKR and Sheskin are better than a lot of things.

    If we are going to talk Crane contemporaries, we should mention Crane Adil. I know he gets hate, but man, the fact that he is a specialist, keeps the sensor and isn't a hacker is a big deal for me. Just the type of HI I love running. But then, I haven't gotten YJ to work in years lol
     
  6. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    There's nothing wrong with being weaker than the Unknown Ranger and Sheskiin. There is something wrong when you're paying the same price or more than them for the privilege. Infinity shouldn't be herohammer, being a named character isn't a free license to automatically be better. A 50 point trooper should offer comparable value to others of its role regardless of the name tag.

    Adil is mostly fine, outside of some issues with his stat line (4-4 MOV is a curse upon all Cranes, and WIP 13 is as odd as it is annoying on him), and also the fact that none of his setup really reflects anything that we've seen him do or be told about in the fluff (dude can tank a mono sword and fight through it while going through muscle spasms, and can shoot a helicopter down through its missile tube with a rifle while aboard a moving vehicle. Where's Berserk and Marksmanship?). MOV value aside, the biggest problem he faces is that there's no real point for him in vanilla and ISS has enough problems all the way down that he can't really shine in there.
     
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  7. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I agree, it's just not the most convincing thing to start an argument with "my unit is worse than UKR". That thing is so fucking busted.

    Always found the character thing annoying. Shit like only characters being smart enough to bring smoke in JSA. My understanding is many characters are built off of the RPG and as RPG characters are typically defined by some sort of human logic, in a gun shooting game this is going to result in logical options and lead to optimized profiles when ported over. Thats fine but then why is everyone else in the Infinity universe too stupid to do the same thing?

    I dunno about Adil in vanilla. Whenever I've tried making a YJ list since 4th (never managed to bring myself to put them on the table) he's right up there alongside the other HI options given he can fight decently, clear skirmishers, and score. Is he really that bad, or just bad compared to the same points competition?
     
  8. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    It doesn't matter if everyone thinks UKR is busted. He, Sheskiin, and the Asawira define the new standard that troopers are held against. People aren't going to accept worse options because they're not characters, it'd be silly to do so. Of the five examples listed embodying that archetype (again, admittedly I was fairly strict with the classification, limiting it to wildcard troopers only), the majority of them are 'busted' profiles in one fashion or another. It's just the direction the tides are moving as a whole.

    In my experience, I would say the latter. His Lt profile is a non-starter for obvious reasons. He costs enough that he's competing with Neo Kokram, Hulang FD8, Mowang, and he's even not too far off from options like the Daofei or Su Jian. It's a rough, order hungry competition that he's in for mid-field sweepers.
    He just pays so much to start in the DZ with such limited range and no marker state, and can't really back that up on his own.
     
    #8 Weathercock, Sep 28, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2021
  9. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    Cranes make me sad. I want to love them.

    I think they are unique, but with the loss of sniffers and 4-4 move, they're just a little too hard to leverage enough of their skillset to justify the price in the N4 world of order scarcity
     
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  10. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    Something I find irritating is that they only have X-Visors or Sensor on certain profiles. Just give to all of them! Would it really be overpowering to have those on the Hacker? I don't think so.

    I absolutely love the Adil-Crane figure and will use him for a Crane. I'm not sure about an actual Adil though. Unfortunately the track record for Yu Jing characters is pretty poor. It's like they go out of their way to make them mediocre or not usable. Well, ok Krit is NOW good. But look at him before N4! No one took him. Tai Sheng is good but not one I take every game because she's that good.
     
  11. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    I think you overlook the utility of Sensor and Triangulated Fire on some profiles here. It would be nice if it was on *all* profiles, but CB have been pretty careful to not give burst 4 weapons triangulated fire. Wildcard HI with sensor are pretty great to mix into links and go wading through an Ariadna army, and they have +6 to discover vs Camo also. Another great trick sensor cranes have is being able to triangulate fire into ongoing close combat without risk of hitting your own guys. The 4" dodge seems very useful for setting up a triangulated fire as well - dodge interactions make it a more powerful skill than in N3.

    (For internal balance, it's worth noting that MI Adil brings wildcard sensor with a breaker rifle, unhackableness and Chain of Command which is obviously better if you're going to wade into a pile of camo tokens that might contain a hacker. I guess that does make me less likely to take sensor crane in N4... unless I need the DA CC weapon.)

    Another important point is that none of those alternative HI get to link with 28 points of Kuang Shi and tool around the place as one of the cheapest beatstick links in the game. I'm pretty sure the crane has been left a little overpriced and with 4-4 move simply to make this less broken.

    There are plenty of tweaks you could give them, here's a menu of fun wishlists:
    • I think pushing the crane to 6-2 mov is a no brainer. They're wearing Shang Ji armor, so there's no reason it should be slower than the IA brothers. (Hey, why not give Wu Ming a speed boost at the same time.)
    • Drop CC to MA-2, raise PH by one.
    • Peripheral Kuang Shi (nice idea from the JingWei)
    • Tinbot B (Hey, why not a crane mini me? I'd buy it)
    • MSV 1 and/or Biometric Visor
    • Native Sixth Sense, so they'd pull their weight more in a haris and make the hacking device as terrifying as their subordinate, the Zhanying.
    • Deployable repeaters or more repeater coverage for the faction, the crane hacker has a really hard time projecting his hacking area, as does the Zhanying. If only every mission could be transmission matrix, eh?
    But... this is all wishlisting and armchair quarterbacking. The crane isn't actually super broken. Sure, on paper and by comparison to other faction units they lose out. On the flip side though, whenever I've played them they actually tend to do fairly well. All the profiles are solidly capable in your active turn, they're pretty great at shooting, dodging and getting around the table and very resilient. I almost always use them to smash objectives like the AC2 or mindwipe servers and they always get the job done, generally beating up a couple of units on the way there. They're also pretty great at holding objective rooms, where a 4" dodge makes them hilariously agile if your opponent surrenders a dodge ARO anywhere near the room.

    Anyway, it looks like the Crane glass is half empty, but it's at least half full. Also they're some of the best miniatures in the game, so they've got that going for them.
     
  12. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Not true.

    ZULU-COBRA (Triangulated Fire, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Jammer / Assault Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 29)


    This chucklefuck's favourite trick last edition was to triangulate fire through a -6 Nimbus zone

    Haqq also picked up a Rafiq last edition that was given a B4 weapon

    RAFIQ REMOTE FTO Red Fury, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 20)
     
  13. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    Hey, they were pretty careful not to give Yu Jing models burst 6 shooting also. Not that they managed to keep it that way for everyone...
     
  14. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    I find triangulated fire and x-visor overlap a lot now in N4. Out to 32", except against strong camo mods you're pretty much samesies.
    Also, triangulated fire only gets rid of a -3 MOD. You can still hit your peeps in combat now (misses are hits).

    Using triangulated fire against camo-6 is pretty much reserved for desperation plays as well and I hardly consider it a benefit worth paying for, more of a tangential perk to add spice to the game.

    To be fair an asawira with ghulam only locks in at 6 points more and brings a heck of a lot more versatility if we're going for absolute bottom of the barrel cheap 5 man bonii.
     
  15. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    Hmm, yeah. It's better at shooting into combat than a normal model, but still not safe.
     
  16. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    Compare the following:


    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]5 [​IMG]3
    CRANE AGENT (X Visor) Spitfire, Nanopulser(+1B) ( ) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 49)
    CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
    KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
    KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
    KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)

    2 SWC | 77 Points

    Open in Infinity Army



    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]5 [​IMG]1 [​IMG]4
    UNKNOWN RANGER AP Spitfire, Chain-colt / Heavy Pistol, T2 CC Weapon. (1 | 47)
    VARANGIAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 9)
    VARANGIAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 9)
    VARANGIAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 9)
    VARANGIAN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 9)

    1 SWC | 83 Points

    Open in Infinity Army



    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]5 [​IMG]1
    UNKNOWN RANGER AP Spitfire, Chain-colt / Heavy Pistol, T2 CC Weapon. (1 | 47)
    ROKOT Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 8)
    ROKOT Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 8)
    ROKOT Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 8)
    ROKOT Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 8)

    1 SWC | 79 Points

    Open in Infinity Army



    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]5
    ASAWIRA AP Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 39)
    GHULAM (NCO) Rifle, Grenade Launcher, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 15)
    GHULAM Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11)
    GHULAM Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11)
    GHULAM Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11)

    2.5 SWC | 87 Points

    Open in Infinity Army


    The cheap Kuang Shi link means nothing as far as justification for holding back the Crane or anything else in ISS. It looks great until you look elsewhere and realize that he's just barely treading water.
     
    #16 Weathercock, Sep 29, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2021
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  17. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    An Asawira with four Ghulam is definitely worse than a celestial smoke launcher and 3 dogged kuang shi. Ghulam are significantly more squishy, so if you're running that up table the link will fall apart more easily and you still don't have smoke. The Asawira *is* better than the Crane, but the bare bones link is worse. Sure you could add a smoke launcher to the asawira link, but then you'd be spending 2.5 SWC and even more points. Adding a boarding shotgun Kuang Shi improves that link with a close quarters point man for fewer points.
     
  18. Sedral

    Sedral Jīnshān Task Force Officier

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    I find interesting that the crane+kuang fireteam is basically a low-tech ubermaxed fireteam in an otherwise fairly techy faction. Kinda like how yu-jing is the only faction with both cheap warbands and HI high-tech monsters like the hac tao.
     
  19. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    There's literally a smoke GL on the Ghulam that also has NCO. That link is far superior to the crane one.


    Yu Jing isn't the only faction like this, CA does the same as well as O-12 with Varangians (which are much better in the Tactical Window format than irregular warbands).

    And I mean, what the fuck is the Vostok, chopped liver? It's basically better than an HI high tech monster given you can buff it and it wildcards into literally any core you like. Add Nomads to that list too.
     
    #19 Triumph, Sep 29, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2021
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  20. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    The most notable deficiency is that the Crane's spitfire doesn't have AP. Obviously that would be super useful, especially if you're handing your core link to supporting one model with a mid range gun.
     
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