So one list used a Kamau HD and another used a Zulu Cobra KHD. I would say that was a limited/basic hacking presence.
Yeah. The kamau looks like it was in a haris with Quinn and the engy to support the tag and make it hard to just take. He seems to like a Quinn haris a lot which is neat. Lots of specialists packed in it.
Basic, yes, but is basic enouph? I have done enouph hacking disruption and damage with a hacker and a killer hacker even with PanO.
Could you elaborate on this, please? What units are you taking, and in what sectorials of PanO? What tactics do you use to get results from your hackers? Are there any armies that you have more success with using these strategies on, and are there any armies that you're going to be playing conservatively with your hackers? I'm coming at this from the perspective of a primarily-Ariadna player, so I have little experience with hacking, and even less with PanO. But I hope this line of questioning might serve to produce some light.
Yup, too many of the ITS missions reward noninteractive play and have objectives that can be accomplished without interacting with your opponent.
It works well into opponents like most Vanilla factions, Haqq and PanO itself, but Nomads and CA can destroy the investment trivially and factions like sectorial Yu Jing can mitigate it well. It's why in my own lists I tend to skew towards either Hidden Deployment/Marker or minimal-investment Hacking. Hidden Hackers can pick their fights and get the best use of their tools, while going for the cheap Fusilier at least extracts an Order tax from top-end Hackers that they probably weren't expecting to waste on something so insignificant. My exception to this rule is the Locust KHD, which is taken mostly for Cybermask to enable first-turn attacks on defended DZs and scalpel out key enemy units rather than actually hack anything.
I would consider it circumstantial, I mostly played Neoterra and Military Orders last year and this not much since I played mostly Invincible and White banner, mostly the weight of hackers (I try to have two normal and a killer) and the fact all our assault remotes have repeaters created the opportunities for hacking to happen and the weight of numbers carried it through. But I consider it circumstantial, the passive repeater network was advanced and the existence of hackers in the list happened to grasp the opportunity presented.
Let’s make a mission tour: Acquisiton: To control the antennas and the tech coffin you need to interact with your opponent, as you either kill, get killed, or you both survive but none get the control. Anhilation: To win you have to kill your enemy more than what he kills you. Biotechvore: To win you have to survive more than your opponent. This is usually done by killing them. Capture and Protect: The only way to do this mission in a non-interactive way is to have your opponent literally not protecting their own beacon. Countermeasures: The first one that can technically be won without shooting a single time, given the proper cards appearing and being lucky. Usually won by reaching an equilibrium of killing your enemy and trying to accomplish as much classifieds as possible. Criogénics: while the HVT finding may be performed in a non interactive way if given the proper table setup and enemy deployment, the quadrant control requires to Interact with your opponent. Decapitation: The whole mission requires to kill your enemy. Firefight: except the 1 point from panoply, the whole mission requires to kill your enemy. Frostbyte: The first mission in which I can see a proper army build can absolutely ignore the mission “end of game condition” and try to kill your enemy by destroying / activating all by non-interactive stuff… but then the very same build would be extremely vulnerable to the same non-interactive stuff Frontline: To dominate a sector usually you need to interact with your enemy, by killing them. Highly Classified: Same as Countermeasures Looting and Sabotage: While there are ways to non-interact with your enemy to do stuff here, the big points are achieve usually only after you can neuter the whole defense of the enemy. MindWipe: Quite similar answer as with Looting and Sabotage Panic Room: To win you need to kill more people inside the room than your enemy. PowePack: The big points swipe are obtained by controlling the enemy objective each round and in the end of the games. And to control you need to literally kill whatever is in contact with it. Quadrant Control: Same answer as Frontline. Rescue: Quite similar answer as Capture and Protect. Supplies: Although the boxes can be pick up by non-interactive ways, you can always kill the box holder as there is no way to non-interactive make it impossible to do so Supremacy: Same as Quadrant Control although there are some points that can be obtained non-interactively The Armory: Same as Panic Room Unmasked: This mission I can see that could be done non interactively in a big part of it given the table set up and enemy deployments. But the actual killing the HVT part is going to make you exposed usually. ————————— I think that after the tour there are significantly more missions that require to interact with your enemy than not. But I would let the community to discuss it.
Fair enough. If I understood you correctly, you usually take three hackers in your lists (PanO being the assumed army for this discussion), and since remotes usually have repeaters on them anyway, you have the ability to project a hacking net that you control through weight of dice. I'll have to play around with that when I have a table-ready collection of PanO. Sounds like a workable strategy to me, but now I'm curious to know what faction matchup does for your hackers. I imagine that against an army like Yu Jing, which I am assuming has "average" (whatever that means) hacking, you might be able to effectively utilize your hacking net. But against top-tier hacking armies like CA and Nomads, have you been able to effectively challenge them with that hacking setup, or do your hackers get their brains scrambled by these armies? Would you be able to post a list that you used in the past? I just looked at the rosters for NCA and MO, and I think that that hacking setup would be easy enough to do in NCA, but I don't see it being so easy in MO. I think that what was meant by 'non-interactive' was more along the lines of tactics like spotlight-guided missile strikes to attack the opponent's forces. Tactics that, if you fail your roll, the worst that happens to you is you have to spend another order at little to no risk to your own troops, but if the opponent fails his roll, his troop dies, and there isn't much he can do about it besides roll to dodge/reset and hope you miss. Which is its own discussion but might have some relevance here. @Hecaton, is this an accurate summary of what you meant by, "ITS encourages not interacting with your opponents," (paraphrased)?
It's a combination of not agreeing with @Rabble 's assessment of a lot of the missions in question, and what you're talking about - if PanO has to shoot someone off an objective to take it, but Tohaa can just use Mirrorball, then the Tohaa have better tools for completing the mission.
Understood. In the case that you described, what would be your ideal solution for remedying this imbalance, if it is needed?
Changing mission design, including progressive scoring, could go a long way. Making hacking (and pheroware) more interactive. Some sort of ARO if someone puts a deployable in your LoF or tosses smoke where you can see it would probably require an edition change to implement, but I think it'd be a good idea.
The fact you disagree, without an explanation, does not create a valid explanation, regardless, we already have mission with progressive scoring, hacking has been more interactive than ever, sixth sense has been nerfed to reason, and what? gaining ARO from non game interactive elements (mines, repeaters, fast pandas)? the amount of abuse that would create only by casual thought experiments is massive, and even if it was done, then one would complain about non interactive game elements placed in ZoC and not in LoF...
I think we need to be honest here. Regardless of edition, winning in Infinity has always been about making the game as non-interactive as possible for your opponent. Also people git gud during pandemic. If you want to make N4 more interactive consider doing some or all of the following: - Change missile launcher dmg from dmg14 AP+EXP to dmg14 DA (like it was in N3) or even just dmg14. There are plenty of other weapons in the game for each faction to chew through heavy armour. - Allow troopers do declare Dodge ARO if deployable is placed in their ZoC. - Allow guts move from successful Reset (like it was in N3). - Remove all restrictions from Guts move. IMHO 90% of the Infinitys interaction problems would be solved if Guided missile dmg was flat 14. By nerfing the last part of the killchain, other forms of infowar would become more relevant. People might even (gasp) shoot Targeted enemy troopers with normal weapons!
This weapon is used for other uses other than guided attack, and given its abysmal R of 1 the current damage is what keep the weapon interesting for its main use: ARO. The “fun” problem is with guided attack. Not with the actual weapon normal profile. Allowing ARO Trigger if a deployable / template point of origin would be positioned within ZoC or LoS with the usual restrictions of what ARO can be declared is something I am more than willing to explore. I do currently favor list that present a wide network of repeaters and some hackers with the whole intention of applying targeted states in my reactive turn to better favour my FtF rolls later. With 0 guided attack missile skills included in the lists. As I find it more efficient, less easy to counter, better for mission objective order efficiency, and more fun than just trying to use guided missile attack.
@Rabble Perhaps guided attacks should all use the dmg14 circular template regardless of actual weapon profile? Such an easy fix that would only affect the most oppressive hacker lists out there.
What's with the whole "Make it work" crowd? Any time I see discussion of the game or how this troop is better or worse someone drops some "Make it work" meme and thinks they have this superior moral ground already. Don't get me wrong, this is still Infinity. Playing the "worse" faction still has much less weight than the skill of the player. Give me a sword and make me fight with a swordmaster with a stick. The swordmaster will knock me out in one move. That doesn't mean we cannot compare the damn stick to the sword, specially if we give them to two begginers and make them fight. So let people talk about the state of the factions, sectorials and the current meta, etc. Join the conversation or not if it is not interesting to you. But droping some "Make it work" meme is just silly and such a low effort comment.
It is essentially deep down a philosophical debate, you are given a task and a set of tools to do the task. One side says these are the tools I have and figures out how to do the task, Other side says the tools are inadequate/ insufficient/ not up to standards and demands, better tools or tools others have to complete the task. Both sides, up to a point, have their valid points, their pros and cons, the Internet though is prone to hyperbole and unnecessary dramatization.
It's not that complicated. Vanilla PanO (and PanO sectorals) lacks multiple reliable alpha strike vectors. I mean PanO has excellent shooters, but what are you going to do if enemy does null deployment? Take for example vanilla Haqqislam. The tried an true alpha strike requires Saladin (for 3 reserve troopers), hunzakut with deployable repeater (essential for the GML strike), Armand-MSV (to kill enemy long range AROs) and Fiday (wrecking havoc if enemy doesn't have mines/MSV AROs). It is very difficult to defend against this alpha strike that has all these vectors available. This is the reason why vanilla Haqqislam is a popular faction.
I think you are confusing some things that are part of your meta versus what it is in general. Vanilla Haqqislam is in the middle of the pack for N4 popularity: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/faction-statistics-popularity-vs-efficiency.41445/
