[Squad] Neo-Machina (updated)

[neozoid]

Neo-Machina uses shields and the powerful Proton Beam to destroy the Vek - but be careful what you shield!
Thank you to Djinn for the custom mech sprites and tosx for the rebalancing tweaks!
Download here.

[Captain Trek]

I discovered a possible bug, so I'm gonna hold off on giving Neo-Machina a rating for now:

- When you give the Warp Point weapon the damage upgrade, whatever you target will take both hits of 2 damage for a total of 4 damage if it has nothing to swap with. Is this intended?

There's also the fact that the Ion and Warp Mechs can't fly when they seemingly should be able to, but we discussed that on the Discord already.

[neozoid]

1. That's not intentional, but that's pretty interesting - I may or may not keep it.
2. Yeah, they're definitely both flying - just forgot to implement that.

Also, you might wanna just @ me on the discord - I'm more active there.

[Captain Trek]

1. That's not intentional, but that's pretty interesting - I may or may not keep it.

Well I'll give this squad its rating once you've made a call here.

[Captain Trek]

Apologies that this was such a long-time coming.

Neo-Machina are a difficult squad to play. Their mechs all have nifty abilities that feel like they fit well together thematically, but getting them to actually perform requires a lot of careful thought and positioning, especially with the ion mech's capacity for indiscriminately dealing massive damage to the rest of your own team if you aren't exceedingly careful with it (and thank God it starts with buildings immune!), while at the same time faring poorly against alphas due to its low damage. Its upgrades as well are pricey and can very-much be a double-edged sword as you can easily wind up shielding more enemies than your proton mech can then effectively kill. The combos are satisfying, but certainly difficulty to set up effectively.

However, on the whole I wouldn't say that they're underpowered. Rather, they're on the lower end of balanced, similar to Steel Judoka. This makes them an excellent mod squad for players seeking a challenge, and my time spend with them was certainly engaging even if it was simultaneously frustrating at times.

Overall, I would give this squad a B-. They're actually not bad for what they are. Obviously they desperately need custom sprites and weapon portraits, which could easily push this rating up to an A-, but that almost goes without saying at this point.

[Djinn]

Added sprites!

Unofficial link here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vq2yx499n9x5s ... a.zip?dl=0

[Robert Scythe]

So, I just played these guys and wow did I have a good time! 4 Island Hard on first try, and it wasn't a breeze just an intriguingly well-balanced squad. Was only going to do a 2 island run but was having a good time and a pilot was going to level up to max and had a chance of gaining a core so I wanted to put it to good use since, I don't believe, one cannot manipulate your mechs during the final battle (or any). 3rd was the hardest, usually is for me, and the only one that I did not complete perfectly. I started with Kazaa in the Proton just because I thought it might need the early variety of attacks, good choice. Near the end of the 2nd I found Mafan with an additional core and put him in the Ion, very useful. At the end of the 3rd available for purchase was a shield tank!! That put them in overdrive and I had to play the 4th to get enough cores to max everything that I wanted to use. Because of the shield tank I did not bother with the shield upgrade on the Warp but I might not have anyway since the Ion was doing well enough with it. I had 31% Grid Defense going to the Volcano Isle which (I pretend) was invaluable, especially since I made a stupid mistake and lost the Warp with 2 turns to go on the upper level. I ended that with only 1 power grid left so had to play perfectly on the bottom level. I finally got a slight break when I took out almost everything before the last turn and just shielded as much as I could and faced 6 more Vek. Only 2 attacked unshielded pylons and there you go, Victory! Plus one of my highest level scores/statistics. Loved Djinn's sprites, as usual. Nice work neozoid!

[neozoid]

Replying to bump - I've updated the mod download with Djinn's sprites and balance tweaks from tosx.