China Black Lotus vehicle attack range is lower than attack range of most vehicles

[xezon]

China Lotus vehicle disable range is lower than attack range of most units. Vehicle disable ability is almost never used with China Lotus, because Lotus will take damage if she does. Considering she never levels up to Vet2 for self heal ability, this makes it really risky even against tanks, which are not strong against infantry.

China Lotus vehicle disable ability is bad vs

• Quad Cannon
• Gatling Tank
• Humvee
• Rocket Scorpion
• Anthrax Scorpion
• Anthrax Marauder
• Combat Cycle
• Rocket Buggy
• Nuke Overlord
• Paladin
• USA Tank with Attack Drone
• Battle Bus
• Outpost
• Troop Crawler

China Lotus vehicle disable ability is OK vs

• Battle Master
• Overlord
• Crusader
• Marauder
• Scorpion
• Sentry Drone
• Nuke Cannon
• Infernal Cannon
• SCUD Launcher
• Tomahawk
• Bomb Truck

Infantry Lotus is much better. It has twice its range. Maybe China Lotus vehicle hack can be increased a bit to make it usable. Will help China.

[xezon]

See also

• 399

[Madrageeeeee]

Dont feel the range of normal Lotus needs changing.

If anything slightly nerf the insane range of infantry lotus while still Giving her a clear edge of a normal Lotus.

[RisingZH]

I would describe the fact that super lotus continues to disable a vehicle even when it is driving further away as a bug. Seems like if it drives out of range the disable should stop.

Super lotus is very OP in Inf vs tank and inf vs nuke because of this.

[xezon]

@alanblack166 @Generalcamo @commy2 can the behaviour RisingZH describes controlled in any way?

[commy2]

The vehicle hack is controlled by a SpecialAbilityUpdate module. That module has a StartAbilityRange defined with value set to 150.0 for normal Lotus and Super Hackers, and 300.0 for Super Lotus.

The module also supports a AbilityAbortRange and it actually works. However, if the target moves out of range, the PrepSoundLoop keeps playing. So it actually seems possible to make this ability abort when the target moves out of range, but some (but not all) of the sounds played would have to be removed.

[xezon]

Which sound is that? Is it important? Using AbilityAbortRange could make sense, but it should still be larger than StartAbilityRange, otherwise it could abort too often on borderline hacks.

I think StartAbilityRange 150 for normal Lotus is too small. 225 could potentially be better. China Lotus vehicle hack is almost never used because Lotus will die most of the time.

[commy2]

Which sound is that?

PrepSoundLoop           = BlackLotusPrepLoop

The noise that is looped during the hack.

[commy2]

Ok, I couldn't reproduce the sound glitch when not loading an older save, so forget about it.

[xezon]

Sounds.zip

[commy2]

Tech demo:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6576312/135538291-04530eb0-9533-4702-9c13-fb862722effa.mp4

[xezon]

May I suggest following setup for starters:

China Lotus StartAbilityRange = 225 (+75)

China Super Lotus StartAbilityRange = 300 (+0)

China Lotus gets +50% attack range. Puts it at 75% of Super Lotus range.

[commy2]

Should Super Hacker get that too or stay at 150?

[xezon]

Good question. I am not sure. Could be interesting if China Hackers would be bundled with attack armies or defenses as a result of that. You do not really see Super Hackers used for attacks today, because attack range of 150 for Super Hacker is as lousy as Lotus and Hacker will die on most attempts. Maybe could consider a smaller buff only.

[Jundiyy]

Dont feel the range of normal Lotus needs changing.

If anything slightly nerf the insane range of infantry lotus while still Giving her a clear edge of a normal Lotus.

I would describe the fact that super lotus continues to disable a vehicle even when it is driving further away as a bug. Seems like if it drives out of range the disable should stop.

Super lotus is very OP in Inf vs tank and inf vs nuke because of this.

Whilst it has super range, Inf doesn't have much else late game vs most factions unless it managed to get an edge early game. All GLAs and all USAs. This would only help vs Nuke and Tank but become a nerf vs the other 8 so should it really be played with? What do you think?

[RisingZH]

I don’t think it’s much of an issue vs gla as disable isn’t that impactful, vs USA it can be useful vs avengers pre pathfinders but it still could be even with this specific issue fixed.

In general I think keeping ‘bugs’ (illogical game behaviour) because they currently benefit balance (debatable in this specific instance) is the incorrect approach to take. I would look to fix the stuff that doesn’t make sense first and then look at balance changes afterwards.

As a mental exercise I think it is useful to consider if the ‘fix’ was the current situation, would anyone advocate to change it to 1.04? In this case, if lotus disable currently worked more similarly to an ecm disable, would you suggest it was changed so that the disable continued to work regardless of how far the vehicle moved away?

[Jundiyy]

I didn't really consider it a bug, hence why I didn't see it as a problem. Just more of a balance issue and asked a balance question. But when asking if it was already the other way round by EA, I wouldn't be against it no, but still wouldn't think this way was a bug as well. And if it worked as ECM then I would say it shouldn't follow, and that would be due to the beam not connecting.