Rebalance OT casings

Development Ideaguys
1

The system was pretty much abandoned shortly after addition and has never seen proper balance changes despite them being quite obviously necessary. It’s almost entirely degraded to someone waking up, pumping a bunch of overpowered rockets or grenades for first drop and going back to cryo.
In order to fix this I want to

  1. Turn OT rockets into AP rockets++ via massive AoE nerfs and raising total explosion damage and fire intensity.

  2. Tweak the other less used casings (claymores, c4, mortars) to be more attractive and balanced options as they’re never used anymore due to being weak or otherwise valuable only as a meme (maxed out c4).

No details because having approval before committing time to testing the sizable amount of number values is preferable.

Obligatory @Morrow mention and the form

  • Gameplay:
    Does it feel good to use?
    Depends on the casing. Weak ones no. OP ones yeah, for sure. Goal is to make sure they all feel good to use and remain fair to play against.
    Does it feel good to play against?
    Depending on how OP or weak the casing in question is. 3+tile t3 gibbing rockets in particular are extremely unfun to play against. HE rockets were previously nerfed because of this so its rather mind boggling these remained in their current state for so long.
    Does it affect other systems?
    Combat. Possibly requisitions.

  • Roleplay:
    Does it increase immersion?
    If it leads to a bigger variety of OT goodies produced and less weirdly powerful effects, yeah, a little.
    Does it increase communication/interaction between players?
    If it leads to more OT players then yes since OTs work with req, medical and the groundside forces.

  • Simulation:
    Does it fit in the CM universe aesthetically?
    N/A
    Does it fit in the lore of CM?
    Yeah, things should make more sense in-universe/in comparison to everything else once rebalanced.
    Does it make sense “realistically”
    Currently no. But part of the plan if it fits into good balance, for example claymores should not have a massive flame radius, it should be small with a way stronger fire intensity instead.

2

After playing xeno a bit more I can see where the OT explosives can feel egregious. If they are manufactured well they are extremely devastating, you can have grenades capable of dealing significant damage through multiple layers of hardened resin walls and stunning xenos for a long duration, or you can have OT rockets that deploy a triple length WP rocket flame that deals massive amounts of damage to xenos that are caught in it to the point a full health T3 will die escaping.

The main issue I see is two-fold

  1. The entire OT concept is balanced only around the competence of the OT role.

  2. You can not tell how strong a OT explosive is going to be until it detonates, so you see a OT grenade and you can not tell what you will get until after it detonate. It could produce a 1 tile explosion, or a near maxcap explosion that covers the screen.

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