Hybrids and Librarians

[alex3337]

While adaptinig missions to AA, I usually find myself in trouble with advanced missions featuring captains, librarians, and hybrids ...

Hybryds were added to AA, point 1 fixed. The Captain has been discussed extensively ... the grenade launcher is the problem, it was discarded, we'll live with that. If you enable the CP and close combat experiene bonus, then a Rank 5 Sgt is "almost" a Captain (+2 combat bonus + parry, 5.5 CP average).

Then there's the librarians ... in the past, people have adapted missions replacing them for assaul cannons. It's not quite the same, especially now that they can reload. Too powerful!

Reviewing the rules for Librarians when not using the psychic cards, they basically are marines with Storm Bolters and a close combat edge: the have 10-40 PSI points (level 1-4) that they can channel through their Axe as a close combat bonus.

Could they be added to the game? They could have an ammunition bar, just like the cannon or flamer representing PSI points: 10 points, with up to 3 (automatic) reloads. When they go into close combat, they will spend PSI as needed to kill their enemy. Or, they could always spend 5 PSI on each close combat, leading to 2-8 "ammo" units.

They are not super-powerful, but in certain missions they can play a unique function that neither the claws or a storm bolter marine can play, without being an assault cannon that often unbalances the mission in the marine's favor.

Begging for them ...

[the_Fifth_Horseman]

Um. Have you got any idea why we didn't include that in 1.0?
Yeah. Too much changes to almost everything.

[alex3337]

Of course, I haven't seen the code, and can't judge on how hard it would be.

But, from my perspective it's "just" adding another close combat weapon (Force Axe) that gives you parry (already there), and a +5 combat bonus. Not so different from the hammer & shield, or even the Sgt's sword.

The big thing, is this close combat weapon has limited ammunition: 2-8 uses. One could just decide to avoid the "level" issue by making them fixed at level 2 or level 3 (4 or 6 uses).

There are secondary effects in the armory (non-trivial I assume) and the editor (running out of F keys?), and maybe others I can't think of right now ...

Again, I have not seen the code, and can't judge. And of course, I can't abuse Niklas' time any more either. I just suggest, and you decide. For the time being I'll just replace librarians for regular marines and live with that.

[Niklas]

Well, it wouldn't be that much problem with adding it, it would not change too much of the current code. But it would be a lot of new content, new hud and new systems how to perform actions / cast spells.

It will not be in V1.01 - we will have to see about V1.02.

About captains, they was never implemented due to lack of time. Sure the grenade launcher messed up the action layout a bit but it would be possible to fix. I know a sollution for it now. However I didn't add it (and the same goes with librarians) since they are not in every mission. They are so rare it feels almost like a waste of time. Some (casual) players would never see them since they are not in any of the missions released with the game.