Now that Ratels are back, I remember how little I miss them

[Vipermagi]

Ratels are far and away my least favourite enemy. I started a fresh account a while back, and lacking Arcane Aegis made me realize how amazing that Arcane feels. Relying on Shields kinda blows 😕 My main account doesn't notice them because a maxed Arcane Aegis largely nullifies their existence, and I can actually rely on Health (= non-Recharge EHP recovery) if I so desire. You don't have that luxury for a while though, and Ratels really hammered that home. 

- The mere existence of a Sniper Crewmen invalidates the concept of Shields. The army of Ratels will prevent your Shield Recharge from being functional; they always know where you are, are faster than you, and have hitscan lasers. If there was a spawner somewhere on the map and enemies had put the hurt on me, I'd almost invariably die because I had to rely on Shields and could not recover them. 

- Their tiny stature combined with unpredictable (jittery), rapid movement makes them very obnoxious to hit with non-hitscan projectiles, and any slow weapon will have issues once multiples invariably show up. Hope you have a good slide attack range! And, don't ever use Artemis Bow against the Corpus I guess? Just be invisible forever and have no energy for your other abilities. \o/ 

- Ratel spawners are always dumped at the ass-end of whatever place you're at (they are created by Snipers so fair enough), and invariably end up hidden behind a stack of crates or clipping sideways into the ice. Okay, not ideal, but on top of that they're a convenient blue-on-blue! I could take more Shield damage looking for these things, but that's kind of a waste of time. It's far more efficient to jump ahead three rooms, and hope to kill the chaser Ratels before I die. 

 

Sadly my brain sucks and I cannot fathom how to make them less oppressive against Shields without invalidating their existence. Making their spawners relatively visible would be a great start though 🙂

[Xzorn]

I just completely dislike them as a unit no matter how they're adjusted. I really hate the bug swarming effect that occurs in Corpus missions.

I think the spawn-adds in Fortuna are much better and more in-line with Corpus robotics. They summon Hyenas.

Like why would a Corpus humanoid summon a tiny offensive bot? I understand the utility of shield drones but all these other Osprey and tiny units just makes me go AoE on Corpus now and it's sad to think long ago I thought Corpus were the most well balanced Faction using primarily Projectile weapons though this was all the way back before Oxium Osprey were even a thing. Let alone the multiple other Osprey and Nullifiers.

Far as making the unit less of an annoyance I'd suggest they limit the spawn per pad period and adjust the Sniper's AI because often they will throw down the pad and run into another room or not even have LoS of you making them extra annoying. If it's supposed to be a utility unit for the Sniper the Sniper should probably be involved more. Oh and their seemingly limitless range from the pad's origin is also a problem. Perhaps such a small unit runs out of battery power so they're not chasing you through half a map.

[Kontrollo]

13 minutes ago, Vipermagi said:

...

- Their tiny stature combined with unpredictable (jittery), rapid movement makes them very obnoxious to hit with non-hitscan projectiles, and any slow weapon will have issues once multiples invariably show up. Hope you have a good slide attack range! And, don't ever use Artemis Bow against the Corpus I guess? Just be invisible forever and have no energy for your other abilities. \o/ 

...

Or *insert meta AoE weapon here*. When I came back this year I was really wondering about them as well. They're obnoxious; them and their spawners are relatively hard to see and hit with regular guns, not just projectiles. Not individually of course, but there's usually enough going on at any given time (Sapping Ospreys and their mines say hello, too).

I guess DEs answer is: just bring a flame thrower instead? Or make sure that Maiming Strike macro is up to the task. /s

 

26 minutes ago, Vipermagi said:

Sadly my brain sucks and I cannot fathom how to make them less oppressive against Shields without invalidating their existence. Making their spawners relatively visible would be a great start though

Well, I guess they charge Adaptation really fast? We should be able to kick them into the nearest wall. That would at least be hilarious and satisfying.