Cannon borgs are broken!

[NF-Elemental]

I am referring to the balance as of beta 9. In case you haven't seen how broken cannon borgs are, try them out for your selves. It currently takes about 10 mins to wipe 2 computer with them.

The facts about them

They take about 4 secs to build
They are dirt cheap
Their hp is stronger than tanks (i watched one of them kill 4 viper tanks and live)

Nothing can beat them! I know, you might be saying i don't think your right. OK, go into a multiplayer game and build nothing but cannon borgs and see how that game turns out for you. In fact i hope everyone starts using this strategy until it is rebalanced because it will show how badly this needs changing.

[KukY]

Nothing can beat them!

Do you know that WZ has Flamers?
That's it, few cyborg flamers finish big group of them quickly.

But they are good.
First thing I do is build 5 Cyb Factories and set them on infinite cannon production.

[Terminator]

Anit canon-cyborg tactic is cybors flamers and machineguns. Or Tank Assault gan or Machine gun. It really works. I've tested.

[Zarel]

MRA also does a fair bit of damage to them, as do grenadier cyborgs, artillery emplacements, and pretty much everything except the classic "anti tank" weapons (namely, cannons and rockets). Cannon cyborgs actually have the worst damage rate of any cyborg.

Warzone really is reasonably well balanced, and there are hard counters to ensure that no single weapon ever gets too out-of-hand.

[Assault Gunner]

Correct. Whenever the AI tries to cannon borg rush me, I nail the borgs with flamers, HMGs, or a combination. Never lost a single unit yet. And that's with a true "rush", where there are at least twenty.

[Saberuneko]

Good things come in small packages!!

Whatever... Just use flamers and your problem with the cannon cyborgs will dissappear in a cloud of smoke ^^

[Assault Gunner]

If there were better death animations, that would happen literally. Not complaining about death animations as they currently are, just saying, if anyone wants to try to implement it, it would be cool.

That being said, the explosions are really neat.

[3drts]

What, you want cyborgs to run around screaming when they catch on fire like scavenger infantry does?

Borgs are pretty darn good, yet most people still don't use them.

They are better than a light bodied tank (maybe the retaliation Nexus body is better), at least a wheeled one.
The machinegunner cyborg has better DPS than the vehicle mounted MG

Cyborg body
HP 200 Armor (K/T) 12/6 cost $25

Viper
HP 65 Armor (K/T) 10/4 cost $30

Retaliation
HP 100 Armor (K/T) 20/15 cost $68
(though, as noted in the body usefulness thread, body cost is basically insignificant later in the game, IMO).

Cyborg Propulsion
HP modifier 150% cost $10 (im not sure how the other modifiers work, I don't think cyborgs can go 400...)

Wheels
200% $50

Half-tracks
300% $75

Hover
250% $100

Tracks
400% $125

So we see the cyborg body is cheaper than the Viper (same cost as bug body), has more armor way more HP, and is paired with a cheaper "propulsion).
200 base hp * 1.5 prop modifier = 300 hp.
Viper, tracked= 65 * 4 = 260 hp.
Cyborg cost before weapon: 25+10
Viper cost before weapon: 30+ 125
Of course, the cyborgs have one of the worst modifiers: 1.4 * damage for AP weapons (ie, machine guns), 1.3* damage modifier for flamers...
But cyborg armor is stronger than the base MG damage (though the modifier can change that), thus you need at least twin MG to be effective (also note mg upgrades are available before armor UGs) - by heavy MG, with upgrades and the damage modifier, cyborg armor should be pretty insignificant.

But anyway, look at Machine gunner(cost 50) cyborg damage:
Machinegunner HP 370 Damage 12 (average Damage per second(10) ROF100
Vehicle machine gun:
Machinegun (10 additional cost)
+75HP Damage: 10 Average DPS(10) ROF 120
The cyborg machine gun fire slower, but is more powerful, making it more effective against the armor of starting tanks- its damage is greater than the base armor of a viper.

Cannon Cyborg:
Cost 70: Damage 40s DPS(6.7) ROF 20, HP 380
Light cannon:
+180HP Damage 35s DPS(5. ROF 20
So cyborg weapons are in general more powerful than the "light" weapons in a weapon line (oddly flamer cyborgs do less damage than the flamer- this favors vehicles, Lancer cyborgs do more damage per rocket, but fire 1 rocket instead of 2, this is good though against heavily armored targets)

A cyborg is basically intermediate between light bodies+ light weapons, and medium bodies + midweight weapons (the "heavy" machine gun isn't that heavy)


For 700 power you can get 10 cannon borgs, or 14 machine gunner borgs.

Each machine gunner (no upgrades), does 12*1.4 - 12 damage, 100 times a minute (I am ignoring accuracy, as it may be a good idea to do when large groups fight) = 4.8 damage per shot -> 480 damage per minute with perfect accuracy.
Cannon cyborgs:
40 * 0.6 -12, 20 times a minute = 12 damage per shot, 20 times a minute: 240 damage per min with perfect accuracy and no upgrades -> machine gun upgrades are much quicker and easier than cannon UGs....
Machine gunners beat "Heavy gunners", I think its even worse with flamers, and you can build more machine gunners than heavy gunners.

Heavy gunner vs Mg viper wheels-> I'd have to give that to the machine gunner.
vs a tracked/Half tracked cobra HMG? cyborgs dont look so good anymore.

The fact is light bodies just suck, and once you can use something else, you should do so......

It doesn't go: Cyborgs<Light tanks< medium tanks< Heavy Tanks
Its more like Light Tanks< Cyborgs ≈Medium tanks < Heavy Tanks
And even that last one is dubious.... spamming lancer cyborgs is probably cost effective against HMG tracked pythons, and maybe even up to Assault guns...

But cyborgs lack anything like "bunker busters", or Heavy cannons, and thus aren't great against HMG/assault gun hardpoints, and they get pwned by artillery (1.3 modifier).
Needle gunners are the best anti-structure borgs, and those come fairly later, needlers against pulse hardpoints... ouch
Needlers against twin AG hardpoints or bunkers, ouch...

[Assault Gunner]

Darn right. But seriously, the argument is if Cannon borgs are too heavily unbalanced. From your arguments, I see that you think it is balanced, correct? So, then. We are agreed that cyborgs are balanced. Excellent. Case closed.

And by better death animations, I mean that the cyborgs should burn away like here, only disappearing in a cloud of smoke or in a big flame, like the zealot death animation in StarCraft, Brood War, and SC II.