It seems as if the devs plan to double the deployment shield resistance (ref: Sep 18). This makes a Colossus backed by cortium refilling ANTs invincible from the perspective of a Bastion, as even with today's values a Colossus facing continous Mauler fire can still take down several weakpoints before succumbing. A better strategy - whilst requiring coordination - is to simply have a handful of capable soldiers jump the Colossus with C4. This has happened to me twice - a few seconds after coming into range I'm C4ed and my colossus heavy tank is destroyed. IMO buffing the deployment shield without a corresponding C4 resistance increase will only increase the disparity between these two strategies. The colossus will still be a joke to experienced players but even more of a threat to newbies.
Actually able to counter the fight-ruining bastions? Check Able to be killed by a coordinated team of planetmans? Check Both of these seem good to me! Also a well supported colossus should have a dozen spitfires around it to deal with any close range c4 fairies, And some of your support sundies/ants should have AA weapons to take out valks/gals If they drop c4 from high above you could even have a galaxy of your own hover over the colossus as an extra meat shield It takes 5 c4 detonated at the same time to take out a galaxy, anything less and your repair sundies will keep it alive forever You could even have one of your ants build a sky shield if you're not in a no deploy zone. Lastly, if C4 resistance goes up, how will people kill colossus? We'd Ironically have another annoying invincible vehicle, which was added to deal with an annoying invincible vehicle. Getting inside the shield and C4ing the bastion seems like the only real tactic that will work now (Besides a gigantic tank/air zerg)
I'm kind of curious, how are you being reached by infantry in the first place? Colossi have 1 driver, 4 gunner slots surrounding all 4 diagonals, and will likely have at least 1 ANT support. Typically I only ever see them in the middle of armor columns as well, so they should be surrounded by eyes able to watch for and kill incoming infantry long before they get a chance to deploy c4. Unless you are way out of position, completely alone it should be extremely unlikely to get c4'd.
On several occasions I have been quite successful pulling a colossus against the Bastions of smaller outfits launched during off-peak hours. Usually I can plink away relatively undisturbed, take out several weakpoints, with the only real danger being random others or the Bastion starting to follow me. The first time the C4 strategy was applied to me I was completely alone during late evening/early night with not that many people logged on. I expected to be able to plink away but was kindof shoked when 4 interceptor ESFs started to follow me, first draining the deployment shield then had C4 fairies jump out of the cockpit like savages. The second time however, which was yesterday, was during prime time where there were several Bastions on the field and hundreds of aircraft around. Being a lot more careful, the colossus was driven to a PMB where it had 1 repair sunderer, 1 ammo sunderer, skyshield on top, painfield + AI controlled turrets, several engineers/gunners. Basically all the support you could ever ask for. This might be why the enemies had to do several attempts but in the end somehow still managed to C4 the thing. I also think the colossus should have an engagement radar as a passive as it is intended to be used to counter Bastions where enemy ESFs can be abundant. This would give the driver & gunners a better warning of imminent C4 attacks, as they would see the ESFs on the radar instead of just hearing a crash nearby and seeing C4 dropped on the tank.
The colossus is a large target and is easy to drop c4 on from so high that the spitfires does not shot.
Trickling in from free ESF's and dropping a couple bricks of C4 on a gigantic Tank Model the size of a Colossus is hardly "coordinated" team play. It's the lowest of low bars infact. IT MIGHT be seen as requiring "some" skill if C4 had ever been given a real arming time before detonation or at least moving it off of Client-Side activation (so it couldn't be spammed for tons of free kills in infantry fights too). ...but that's obviously asking too much of any of the developers this game has ever had. My outfit drops LA groups on sundy balls all the time. It doesn't matter how much Anti-air and Pew-Pew topguns you have... the LA's have basically instant destruction power or roughly 9.8 meters per second squared and it's not conditional on the instant you saw them pop out of a Valkyrie because on their screen they're already a whole second or two ahead of what the Server is telling you that YOU'RE SEEING
and i'd fully expect those "trickling in" LAs to get shot from the sky by the supporting sunderers, ants and any other vehicles (and the 4 turrets on the collosus) and a bunch of spitfires. and the combination of repair sundies and several engies should easily out-repair uncoordinated damage of the sporadic c4 fairies who make it to the tank. i'm not in an outfit, but if i was and we wanted to pull a colossus i'd imagine that we make a big deal out of it and actually bring a squad or two. i see no reason for "trickling in" c4 fairies to pose any threat to a coordinated well prepared colossus squad.
Then why make those assumptions when someone with hands on experience is telling you otherwise? I totally respect you NOT being in one, I've said from the very beginning that this entire outfit wars push was nothing but stupid Spectacle to justify the Shareholders' portfolios more than to add depth to the game. But you can't just expect things to go exactly the way you plan them to whenever you have a whole platoon of Cats being poorly herded on the Terran or Conglomerate side. Those LA's will get through. They won't be shot out of the air unless you have an ESF god picking them out instantly while they're briefly floating above (or lagswitcher is more likely when we analyze why this works more often for VS faction). And the Rep-Sundy repair rate (b/c it doesn't STACK) on its own doesn't ever keep up with the giant CHUNKS of HP taken out by cheap a** C4 spamming. If you really want the Colossus justified, then ya do what my Outfit did which was pull 3 of the them at once and wait until the Bastion came close enough to our Warpgate to kill it before it even realized what was targeting it
because i don't need to play colossus to know how well Walker's work on a sunderer, and any squad with several walker repair-sunderers shouldn't have trouble from ANYTHING in the air. (besides stupid invincible bastions) if you aren't using walkers on your repair sundies then you should try that. what support are you bringing with your colossus?
Well all else considered I might have been the victim of a lagswitcher yesterday (or 2 cheaters conspiring together). Seeing how the c4 magically appeared on the backside of the tank and the killer's location was not shown on the killcam afterwards. From testing in the VR it takes a whooping 8 packets of c4 to kill a colossus, which is already far more than what most squads are capable of putting on it. But only 2 lagswitching engineers, reconnecting at the same time, will insta-kill a colossus. Either that, or they were high up LAs dropping packets down, I don't know if the c4 passes through the skyshield? Also Liewec there is no way to see LAs hovering 100m above you, through a skyshield, with gunfire, ESFs and Bastions all around, in the middle of the in-game night time. Hell most players don't even spot a galaxy at the skyceiling unless they see men falling down from it.
I'm not sure if it's just the C4 resistance that needs to be changed but you just don't see many of them running around. Why? Devs should do something about it.
Why on earth does it take 8 C4? I'm sorry but these things routinely wander around with repair sundee escorts as well as the general melee of battle. If I get close enough as an engineer to plant 4 C4 on one, I expect to be rewarded. At the minimum I should have gotten some xp for damaging the damn thing. Instead I'm out 300 nanites for what will ultimately be healed by it's escorts in less time than it took me to get to the damn thing. I don't know what the devs did but I'm fighting 4 VS Colossus' at the moment, they're practically invincible with a few repair sunderers and for some god only knows reason the ability to tank nearly a players full stock of nanites.
The colossus is meant to be an ops centerpiece, not something you bring out for small ops. If your own outfit isn't big enough to support it properly then you'll have to reach out either to one of the big fits, or team up a few small fits for colossal operations. Drivers should always carry spitfires, and deploy them when staying in any one area for more than about 30 seconds. 20+ spitfires make a no fly zone for light assaults.
