It might be an unpopular view, but I think everything is all right with the robot HP.
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@pegnose
It’s not the HP, it’s their ‘intellect’ and virtually non-existent reaction speed that annoys me beyond anything.
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Yes, I’m much more efficient at killing the robots now that I know how to do it, but even if I play more careless spray and pray with the AG4 (not my preferred weapon by any means) I’m not having the same experience with regular or even FNIX robots that I have with the apocalypse machines.
Fair disclosure: I dislike the apo machines enough I rarely bother to fight them, and half the time if I meet them I’ll just quit the game and go and do something else instead. I’ve had zero fun with them. They’ve taken the bounce out of my bungee.
By bullet sponge, I’m referring to the mechanic where an enemy takes a lot of resources and time to destroy, while not changing their behaviours or offering much in the way of damage feedback in the process. Bullet sponges are a grind of the same simple loop over and over, and often give a disproportionately low reward for the effort invested. This is separate from my opinions about their weapons.
Things were different early in the game with poor weapons. Very early on I had a rusty 12G shotgun and I think birdshot. I was leaving Stenhaga farm heading for Mörtnäs, and I was on my way to the bridge. My encounter with the proto hunter was a case of hiding and being discovered, and I shot the hunter in panic and took it down ok. It was nothing like my experiences with my 5* weapons vs the apo hunters. Perhaps they feel bullet spongy because I’m not spamming the X-PVG-90 at them.
The first proto tank I met ate a lot of rockets and walked away. I thought it was almost mocking me, but now I know it was actually retreating. Later I probed for weak spots, figured out weapons, and had the battle. With the big robots the components become stages in the battle. I can shoot off the armour plates on the knees and I get feedback. I also open the core drive to attack, and I get the blue sparks. When that’s destroyed, I’m motivated to shoot at something else. There’s a change in the battle as components get knocked out.1 At lower levels with poorer equipment the tanks are tough, but the shape of the battle shifts a bit which keeps me engaged. With the apocalypse hunters I don’t get that feedback or change in a timely fashion, it’s a grind that’s suddenly over. I just get annoyed with them and feel my time is being wasted. The tanks are an even worse chore for that, even with their novel strategy of laying a mine field and trying to chase you into it with ticks.
I admit I didn’t know that 90% of the apo-hunter’s health was in its mortar. That’s bizarre and almost worse, I have a tiny target to shoot at in all the chaos. (Or I retreat really far and peck it to death slowly.)
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Even then.
I actually have experienced this with harvesters, I think: shooting their knees seems to make them turn less quickly, or less deliberately. It gets easier to shoot them in the back.
Same with tanks, I believe, now that I think about it. At some point they tend to walk away exposing their back. Which you mentioned above.
I think this formulation is not fully correct. You can kill a hunter by taking off the mortar and add another X-PVG shot (roughly). But you can also kill the hunter while leaving the mortar fully intact.
It is rather that it is not a valid strategy to take off the mortar first. It won’t come off until the whole machine is basically done.
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With the coming of Plundra and folks just stashing ammo/explosives/whatnot we sadly need these bullet sponges.
Devs created a serious problem for balance, and it seems they want to use these to get rid of much.
Kind of like money sinks in games?
At least, that is how it feels to me…
The way the robots work is that they have a global health pool, and any shot to them will reduce this pool. The level of sparks implies a damage multiplier. Knocking out components removes their share from the health pool. It’s possible to destroy a tank by solely shooting it in the foot. Similarly destroying the fuel cells on the back of the harvester drop its global health significantly. So for the apo hunter, you’re not required to destroy the mortar, but it helps a lot if you do.
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That is my understanding, yes.
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Sure, when machines get miniguns and mini-nukes…
They are already equipped with 20mm auto cannons,cluster rockets and flamethrowers;)))
Which, if the above would be added, is no longer on par with it. XD
I don’t know if feasible but I would like to see bows in the game
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Would that do anything in reality?
I mean…
Merely asking…
I am actually a compound bow nut myself. 
Think about the medical time and knight worn armour and arrows pierced armour so in theory with modern advancements yes, well definitely
compound bows not to sure about recurve bows and using bodkin arrows i think it could take on runners and hunter for sure
I would love to have an bow in my arsenal
A compound bow with say, explosive or EMP arrows would be cool.
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Explosive tips just like rambo🤘
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Like Rambo?
Jezz no.Better crossbow then)))
If there’s one thing this game needs it’s rambo.
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