Nerf Teslas (I promise this is well-explained)#1555

—-PLEASE READ THE COMMENTS AS THIS HAS MULTIPLE PARTS.—-

TL:DR
Tesla weaponry needs range reduction. Not by a little, by a lot.
Tesla turrets need a range AND health reduciton. Not by a little, by a lot.
The nerf to their health was not enough.
Teslas are balanced around the fact your enemies fight as a swarm. A single COG is never that dangerous.
But you’re only 1 player. So Teslas are able to completely focus you and shut you down HARD.
Teslas are a hundred times stronger in the hands of the COGs than in the player’s hands since Teslas have zero weaknesses when used against the single player.
They can completely glue a player in place and render their strongest tools completely invalid, all from UNGODLY long range.
They NEED a nerf.

Now for the long part where i go into real detail and provide genuine analysis of this stuff so it doesn’t just sound like i have a skill issue:

The Tesla update.
The update everyone loved.
Cool tech everywhere.
Tesla rifles, cannons, turrets, EMP grenades, etc.

But as is the way of the game, anything YOU get, the COGS get too.

And this is where the teslas fall apart.
Or more accurately, where they stand as supreme titans of making the game annoying to play sometimes.

The key thing that makes teslas awful to deal with are that they are WAY WAY WAY more effective in the hands of the COGs vs in the hands of the player.
COGs are built to swarm. COGs are dangerous when there’s 5+ of them taking shots at you at the same time. Lone COGs are as good as scrap metal.
Everything that the player has is balanced around that fact.
Everything the player has is incredible against single targets, but requires skill and resources to fight off hordes of robots.
A single COG is not meant to be tough. All of your weapons and tools and turrets can easily take down a singular COG.

But the player is only 1 entity.
1 person.
And the COGs always get what you get.
And when the “Swarm-balanced” weapons suddenly get turned on a single target, things start to become problematic.
With traditional weapons and turrets, it’s manageable.
You can defenitely notice how much more effective everything is, but it’s reasonable.
But Teslas are not.
They are brutal and AWFUL to fight against.
They deny projectiles, they glue you to the floor from huge distances, and they’re everywhere.

Against COGs, the ability to zap away projectiles is balanced. After all, COGs can approach from different angles at once, and they dont really need explosives to still do massive damage to your ship.
Against COGs, the ability to slow/stun is balanced (though maybe on the powerful side). COGs swarm, and the 3 basic tesla weapons can only zap 1 thing at a time. The cannon and the heavy turret can stun entire groups, sure, but they’re expensive and still have limits.
Against COGs, the ability to hit from long range is balanced. Again, COGs swarm, so if you hit 1 COG, there are still more.

Against the player, the ability to zap away projectiles is awful. When you’re trying to bomb a tank, or attack a drillship, or even just deal with a group of enemies, having your projectiles be continously rendered null is infuriating. Unlike COGs who have infinite ammo, you need to waste ammo taking out the projectile zapper just so you can use them at all and not waste precious explosives.
Against the player, the ability to slow is awful. Remember, you’re the only target. A single tesla weapon is all it takes to glue you in place and allow the swarm to get free shots on you.
Against the player, the ability to hit from long range is awful. You can be trying to plan out an attack, only to walk within the 50 billion mile radius of a turret and get zapped. If there’s even a SINGLE TESLA NEARBY, you need to keep a MASSIVE distance to avoid having your explosives vaporized and feet stapled to the floor.

The ONLY REASONABLE WAY to deal with a tesla weapon is to stay super far away, and snipe it/the COG using it.
This is annoying when its a hand-held weapon, but against turrets, this is a resource sink because of how much health they have.
A SINGLE tesla turret forces you to waste a ton of time taking potshots at it until it goes down… only for you to push in and get hit with the 2 mini teslas that you couldn’t see.

Again.
The key problem is this:

Every weapon/turret/thing in the game is balanced around the fact that your enemy relies on swarming and outnumbering you.
The horde feature is what keeps everything in check.
Sure, your sniper might be able to 1-shot every COG, but when there’s 7 of them pushing from around a corner, it becomes hard to use.
Sure, your gatling gun might be able to reduce a robot into scrap in less than half a second, but against 5 of those robots hitting you from different angles, it requires good positioning and skill to use.
Sure, your tesla rifle might be able to completely stunlock a COG and let you take it out from a good distance, but against a horde rushing you down, you need to pick the target carefully or maybe even swap to something else.

Every weapon is incredibly deadly against single targets, but only reasonable and balanced against swarms.

But the player is not a horde. They are 1 entity.
And this is where the weaknesses of Tesla weapons stop existing.
Teslas HAVE NO WEAKNESS against single targets.
All of their strengths shine, and make the player’s job a nightmare.

So how could this be fixed?
…
…
Reduce the range of all of them, and reduce the health of turrets.

Yep.
Reducing range would make it all much more reasonable. Your projectiles wont get reduced to atoms from the other side of a canyon, and would force tesla-weiling COGs to actually come within a reasonable range to zap you, giving you proper chance to shut them down.
Teslas are currently capable of inflicting misery on the player from completely unreasonable distances.
And i don’t mean “reduce it by like 15%.” I mean “cut off 33-50% of their range”.
The sheer range that teslas have now makes fighting them without a sniper practically impossible.
And remember, you dont get anti-material rounds until area 3! Which means all those area 2 teslas are sitting nice and safe and zapping you from huge distances.
And that leads nicely into the health reduction.
“Wait a minute, didn’t we, the devs, already do that?”
Yes! And it didn’t change anything!
Teslas still tank a lot of damage, and when combined with how far away you need to be to even attack them safely, it takes even MORE shots due to falloff!
Teslas are unironically some of the hardest things in the game to deal with.
The health reduction that was already implemented was not enough.
They still eat up tons of shots thanks to the forced damage falloff you suffer from.
I should not be expected to waste SEVERAL magazines on a SINGLE TURRET just to be allowed to push in.

Teslas do too much, and do it too well.

They force you to keep a MASSIVE distance.
They can soak up tons of shots thanks to the borderline forced damage falloff thanks to their previously mentioned insane range.
They deny your most powerful tools.
They are completely and utterly unfun to deal with.
You dont feel accomplished when you take down a Tesla, you feel annoyed that it was that tricky to deal with in the first place.

They are mostly balanced against COGs, but horribly unfun and unfair against the player.

Reduce the range of all of them, and reduce the health of the turrets.
Not by a tiny amount, by an actually functional amount.
The player NEEDS to be able to take them out without needing to sit a mile away taking potshots at it with max falloff causing them to spend 3+ magazines.

wall o’ text here, a good one atleast…

It lives up to the title

Your post is great, however I have a simpler solution. Faraday armor upgrade. The devs have posted about modular armor (If I remember corectly), so in my opinion, it makes sense that this could be a possibility.

I like the tesla weapons but make it so the bots get less range and health but the player has more range and such