Vehicles, useless in combat aside from Red Nix?

[jerryfanfan]

So, yeah all the vehicles got very little health compared to the player health limit for any given mission at any difficulty level. Tanks don't really have much firepower. Apcs aren't useful either cuz you rarely need the whole team to get around to anywhere. Motorcycle is hard to control, and helicopter has wonky controlls. Helicopter is only situationally useful to get non-flying classes on top of stationary ships or buildings.The only vehicle useful seem to be the flame thrower Nix, which is both fast and heavily armored. Other than that I find vehicles to only be good for picking up loot.

Also Cave Crawler is actually pretty good cuz you can't use air support.

Have you guys found any good uses for vehicles?

[Angela™]

Ambulance for obvious reasons.
Naegling to deal with air better.
Titan/Proteus for coop good times.
Barga for absolute tankynes.

Red nyxes just let you charge in harder, which isn't your primary function as an AR.

[Timi]

Grape is great for scooting around the map, and usually is the default vehicle I use if there's no other pressing need for a vehicle.

Naegling are great versus massed enemies (particularly flying) as well as versus Deroys.

Railguns have their uses now and then due to their range and damage.

Cannon Nyxes work well against Transports, especially if all you otherwise are bringing are just airstrikes.

[Krim]

Everything you mentioned is the typical entry-level opinion of vehicles. Spend some more time using them and you'll figure out where they shine. You can place bunkers, turrets, beacons, posts, decoys, claymores, and c4 on them. Be creative and use your imagination. If you think they don't have much health, then put a guard post and some bunkers on em for near-invulnerability. If you think their firepower is low, place power posts and turrets on them.

Tanks are a little underwhelming, but all around balanced. A perfect platform for deployable modification. Grape has good crowd control, speed for kiting/sniping, pickup ability, and works well with turret drive-by tactics. Your Big Core Wing Divers will thank you for driving them around with it. Motorcycle is like the Grape, but with obscene firepower instead of crowd control. Helicopter is top-tier once you get used to controlling it, and is an expert at anti-air combat. Depth Crawlers are a cheap middle ground between Blacker and Nix, with decent mobility, surprisingly high firepower, and good infantry support. It can get you on top of buildings and mountains easily. Beacons can be used with Naeglings for massive single target damage, and you can swap between two of them while firing for even more missiles. There is a whole lot more to vehicles than this as well. So many little quirks and tricks that I couldn't possibly list them all.

The problem with the red Nix is that it is just so strong, mobile, and versatile for such a low cost that it makes everything else look bad. After a while you may decide to stop using it as it trivializes any potential challenge. It is fun to use though.

[きょすけ]

Red Nix is pure power, I'm going through hardest and inferno thanks to it, as flamethrowers stun lock most enemies.
The problem with vehicles is that at low levels their hp is really low, but things change on higher levels: red nix from hardest has around 36000 hp, while the inferno one 78000, and that without taking in account the increased movement, rotation, and jump speed.

Sadly the other nix are meh, the granadier is utterly useless, and the others are between too slow or unable to jump more than a human.

Honestly aside a vehicle with guided missiles to clear quicker maps with aerial enemies, I'd stick with the red nix for all the day.

[Reffy]

Tanks with piercing shells can destroy multiple enemies at once.
Other tanks can do the same.

Neagling for anti-air.
Choppers are nice too.

Nix can stun and/or destroy multiple enemies.

They are actually good.
Especially the later onces, which have more armor.

[All talk and no fight]

Heh. These vehicles are alot better than in 4.1, i mean the highest level vegalta in 4.1 has 20k hp. melts on inferno multiplayer.
Highest level non-dlc Nyx? over 100k health.

[Krim]

Mentioning Nix health isn't really fair though as their health values are on par with Titan and Proteus. Everything else is about 6000~45000 at high level. As mentioned before, though, you can place guard posts on em to cut their damage taken by up to 60%, or use bunkers to completely negate damage, effectively infinite health if you replace em regularly.

[Zeddy]

Originally posted by jerryfanfan:

Tanks don't really have much firepower.

How much stronger than "oneshots most enemies across the map even online while outrunning wing divers" do you need?

Here, I'll demonstrate.
You can find all enemy health values here: http://leafierlemon.com/edf5/calc.shtml

A standard Species Alpha (black ant) has a base HP of 60. The highest multiplier possible is if you're in a full party on the final mission of DLC2 on inferno. The multiplier for this is 2.4 (for a full party in DLC2) * 33 (end of inferno DLC2), ending up with 4752.

So when your tank does 4752 damage, it'll oneshot species alpha, species beta (who have less health), and flying aggressors (also less health), two of the tadpoles (much less health), and do at least 2/3 damage on rollers.

When do you get a tank with at least that much damage? The level 71 Blacker E3G2 has a howitzer with 6600 explosive damage, which means that at the end of hardest you have tank strong enough for the end of DLC2 Inferno in a full party.

[Gracey Face]

The vehicles are complete garbage by and large. Don't even know why you like the red nyx, all the nyxes are immobile and have too little health for thier lack of mobility (I mean ♥♥♥♥, you can't strafe in the nyxes. Why can't you strafe?).


Only good vehicles are the cave crawlers on underground maps because they get called in instantly so act as ablative health (it's odd, I remember them having a call in animation where they dug out of the ground...), the Howitzer armed Grape APCs because they're fast enough to outrun some enemies and the Caliban because it's the only form of "repeatable" healing that you have.


The weakness of vehicles is a shame, as they'd be an interesting extra bit of gameplay, but you're hobbling yourself by calling them in.

[Kashra Fall]

Originally posted by Bert Sampsen:

The vehicles are complete garbage by and large. Don't even know why you like the red nyx, all the nyxes are immobile and have too little health for thier lack of mobility.


Only good vehicles are the cave crawlers on underground maps because they get called in instantly so act as ablative health (it's odd, I remember them having a call in animation where they dug out of the ground...), the Howitzer armed Grape APCs because they're fast enough to outrun some enemies and the Caliban because it's the only form of "repeatable" healing that you have.


The weakness of vehicles is a shame, as they'd be an interesting extra bit of gameplay, but you're hobbling yourself by calling them in.

Much like everything in the game. It is all situational. Specific Nix's, tanks, barga etc, all have their place at specific times. Problem is, most people don't know those specific times, so it results in wasted credts+more time in the open.

If you summon a busterlord at the right time though...there is no comparison.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Originally posted by Bert Sampsen:

The vehicles are complete garbage by and large. Don't even know why you like the red nyx, all the nyxes are immobile and have too little health for thier lack of mobility.


Only good vehicles are the cave crawlers on underground maps because they get called in instantly so act as ablative health (it's odd, I remember them having a call in animation where they dug out of the ground...), the Howitzer armed Grape APCs because they're fast enough to outrun some enemies and the Caliban because it's the only form of "repeatable" healing that you have.


The weakness of vehicles is a shame, as they'd be an interesting extra bit of gameplay, but you're hobbling yourself by calling them in.

Much like everything in the game. It is all situational. Specific Nix's, tanks, barga etc, all have their place at specific times. Problem is, most people don't know those specific times, so it results in wasted credts+more time in the open.

If you summon a busterlord at the right time though...there is no comparison.

Honestly the biggest problem with situational vehicle spawns for me is the huge delay between call in and deployment and the waste of credits since you don't carry on earning once your vehicle slot is full.


It's why the cave crawlers on underground missions seem so powerful, because they're just there.

[Kashra Fall]

Originally posted by Bert Sampsen:

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Much like everything in the game. It is all situational. Specific Nix's, tanks, barga etc, all have their place at specific times. Problem is, most people don't know those specific times, so it results in wasted credts+more time in the open.

If you summon a busterlord at the right time though...there is no comparison.

Honestly the biggest problem with situational vehicle spawns for me is the huge delay between call in and deployment and the waste of credits since you don't carry on earning once your vehicle slot is full.


It's why the cave crawlers on underground missions seem so powerful, because they're just there.

Yup, it took some getting used to in 4.1 as well, but once you mastered it? It was a life saver. I've been with many AR's that don't call in vehicles and on higher difficulties, they get shredded when their air raid misses the targets that are now a lot faster. Hiding in a vehicle with similar damage that a ranger can do on foot, or a fencer can do is a good way to stay alive. Just takes practices and situational awareness.

[Krim]

Originally posted by Bert Sampsen:

The vehicles are complete garbage by and large. Don't even know why you like the red nyx, all the nyxes are immobile and have too little health for thier lack of mobility (I mean ♥♥♥♥, you can't strafe in the nyxes. Why can't you strafe?).

Remember what I told you yesterday? Nixes get more health than Titan or Proteus, and can be further improved upon with other equipment. You can also strafe in them by just turning their torso or turning while boosting. The red Nix can jump several city blocks in one go and chain them together for some of the fastest movement in the game, while also significantly increasing its survival and combat ability. It also has some of the highest damage AR can deal against a wide variety of targets in a wide variety of situations. Combine all of these and you have an absolute monster on the battlefield. It is without a doubt the best vehicle AR can use. The first time I played 5, I beat hard and inferno using it on just about every mission I could. I even defeated the mothership with them by stacking em on top of an electric tower and jumping up to shotgun its core. You just can't beat the red nix.

[jerryfanfan]

Yeah, that Titan, you can't climb on top of it easily, so no equipment.

[Krim]

Originally posted by jerryfanfan:

Yeah, that Titan, you can't climb on top of it easily, so no equipment.

You don't need much to get on top of it. Drive up to a rock, some rubble, a car, fence, NPC, anything to give you a little bit of height, then you can jump on top of it. It certainly isn't easy, but not anywhere near as hard as trying to climb on top of a nix.
I haven't tried this with it yet, but you should also be able to just jump against it while aiming at the right angle to deploy things onto it as well. That is the trick for getting horizontal shields on surfaces, but in this case it is not so useful for shields since you need them facing towards enemies.