So I didn’t fight a Harvester since the update, but I’d expect that sticky flares are now pretty effective against them.
Also, the developers mentioned that they are planning to expand on crafting.
And since they created a game mechanic that makes those flares probably pretty effective, I’d say we’ll be able to craft sticky flares pretty soon.
And where is your theory about harvester’s ability to call in hunters? 
Or did you wrote wrong topic title?
My theory is that the implementation of this ability is a prelude to sticky flares becoming craftable.
Sticky flares have always been effective against machines and the harvester’s ability to call in hunter pod airdrops has little to do with it. Instead, people have started to use sticky flares more due to the increased difficulty April’s Update brought and that is the reason for sticky flares popularity in current time.
As far as what is most effective against new harvesters (or any machine in that matter) is 6* .50 cal with AP ammo. No other weapon even comes close to the raw output damage of 6* .50 cal. Might as well say that .50 cal FMJ and AP ammo popularity is prelude to the ammo crafting.
However, one or another item’s popularity doesn’t explain the machine’s new ability. Item popularity is symptom to new ability, not the reason for new ability.
So, any other theories about harvester’s new ability?
That it was a completely misjudged attempt to increase difficulty that instead makes it so that dealing with harvesters at all isn’t worth the ammo unless you have an Experimental .50?
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But what about the Experimental Lmg?
The internal arcs cause tons of damage particularly to larger enemies, but also hunters.
Yeah, I’m liking my LMG. The .50 is better for alpha strikes, the M60 is better for sustained fire. It will crack ticks, and break hunter squads, but it’s still messy as hell, and you burn through a lot of ammo to make it happen. Also, there’s a real fall off with larger groups of machines, where once you break the center, the ones on the periphery are damaged, but still active, and too spread out to arc between.
To me, there’s no need to deal with harvs and their increased danger at all due to the poor loot table harvs have had all along. Best to avoid them and leave them be.
Though, while 6* .50 cal is most effective against any machine, other weapons are effective as well but take more rounds and time to drop harv. E.g 6* AG4 is one of my favorite weapons due to the extra damage heated bullets do.
It does but for it to be effective, you need to be relatively close (medium range), else-ways, the bullet spread is so high that hitting with it over longer distance isn’t worth the ammo spent.
With harv’s weapon range of 200m, every weapon that can deal damage at that distance or greater is effective against harv, so that you won’t get the bugged rocket barrage in the face. Those weapons include, but are not limited to: .50 cal, AG4 with 4-8x scope. What are excluded but not limited to, are: LMGs (too wide spread), SMGs (low damage per bullet and bullet drop).
As far as my theory about harv’s ability to call in hunter pod airdrops go, i don’t know how it would tie into game’s lore. But what i do know is the devs reason of introducing the new ability.
In the past, many players have complained that the harv is mostly defenseless by having only one ranged attack and being slow moving (you won’t see harv running at you as you can see tanks doing it).
Harvs real defense is in it’s escort machines - runners. But since it’s relatively easy to take out the runners, harv in a whole isn’t that big of a threat.
And my guess is that devs decided to make the harv much bigger of a threat by giving it the new ability to call in support machines in form of a hunters.
Sadly, the bug with machines weapons ruined the new ability launch, making harv far bigger threat than it was intended.
This is, kinda, a problem. You have a challenge that is not worth the payout. Especially given tanks, which are now easier, have a better loot table.
It’s pretty solid evidence that this, “we’re just going to make things harder,” objective was completely misguided.
You mean the Challenges where kill X amount of X type machines? Or the overall challenge presented by one type of machine?
If it’s the former then Fuel to the Fire challenge isn’t the least rewarding. Pest Control challenge is, since there is no loot from ticks and you have to kill a lot of them, which is very tedious, even if you can get reliable source producing those. Where only reward is one apparel item.
Kills wise, in Fuel to the Fire, you need to kill total of 50 harvs where 20 of them must be FNIX, while in Pest Control, you need to kill 1000 ticks in total.
If it’s the latter then it has been so more-or-less from the beginning (launch day). Compared to the effort and ammo spent, harvs have always had the poorest loot table and not worth the time spent on them.
Right, but if you get too close, the charge grounds out by zapping you instead of nearby bots.
(This actually reduces your health)
Might be nice if you could turn the juice off for close combat. (I’ve checked and V doesn’t do it)
The tricky thing about those examples is that, you can see the finish line. There’s no assurance that you’ll get a gold weapon from this harvester kill, but if that harvester is the last one you need to down for the FNIX cosmetic, you know that’s there.
It is extremely disappointing to down a tank, and walk away with a fistfull of ammo you don’t use, some plastic and steel scrap you don’t need, a consumable you don’t use, and nothing else. Knowing that you’re six tanks away from getting a costume piece helps take the sting out of that, but aside from that? Yeah, it’s a little rough.
There is only one experimental weapon who’s ability is toggleable: 6* Kpist. All others have their ability permanently turned On. (Though, you can also fire only 1 rocket with 6* m/49 but it takes a bit of fiddle.) Also, if you don’t want do use the experimental ability, you can use the 5* or lower counterpart of that weapon.
In the early days, it was exactly like so, with one exception that made all of it worthwhile: every FNIX tank gave you random 5* weapon 100% of times and there was a 50% chance to get random 5* weapon attachment as well. And the ammo it used to give wasn’t that useless. Tanks only gave .50 cal and rockets as ammo.
Now, we have Machine Loot which i don’t like at all.
I’d rather take the hard time through the game and guaranteed reward in the end (early days) than easy time through the game with grind in the end (current situation, excluding machine bug that came in April '20 update).
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