Part 8: Sortie 8 - Tactical Robot Action

Sortie 8 - Tactical Robot Action

Today on AC2AA, we're taking on the title of Solid Raven, strapping on a giant bandana, and engaging in close quarters combat with other giant mechanical monstrosities. Joining me on today's sneaking mission are nine-gear crow and motoh once again.







So. Arms. Honestly, aside from general shared functions across all the main body equipment like AP, energy drain, and defense, there isn't much to set arm units apart, other than what might appeal to you aesthetically. They have a couple of unique stats to them, but for the most part, they make very little noticeable difference unless you are doing some giga twink level building about a dozen orders of magnitude over what any basic player would ever see. But hey, let's break 'em down anyways

Extension TP: This is one of the most hilarious 'stats' assigned to anything in the game. It's supposed to designate if there's a hardpoint for mounting Extensions on your arms, but there is absolutely no pair of arms in the game that do not have this as Provided, making it completely and utterly pointless. C'mon, From, give us some credit here. At least they made parts later on in the series with improved stats in some areas but lacking in extension hardpoints, making you have to make actual decisions and plan out your builds. Oh well.

Energy Supply: This is an odd one. You'd think this would be related to Energy Drain and reflect on how much power is being drawn from the Generator, yeah? Nope! This is how much energy is supplied to your left hand weapon like blades or shields, and affects how much damage those do/reduce. This makes choosing your arms pretty damn important if you're looking to do a lot of blading/shielding, as it can change the damage pretty noticeably. Of course, that only matters if you're deciding to make either of those your focus, and if you're not doing a lot of either, a good rating won't change your mind on a set.

Recoil Control: This affects how much your aim will jitter within the timeframe right after firing your right hand weapon, with a higher rating usually being found on heavier arms that wouldn't get so blown back by firing a big weapon. Uuuuunnnnnfortunately the stat range on this is so small and basically every weapon that actually has any affect on this stat has such long reload time that you will never ever see a substantial difference between your accuracy when firing in quick succession. Kind of a shame, it would make for a cool extra level of strategy in fights, waiting a bit longer to make sure your aim was true before firing again but not here boys and girls.

Accuracy: Here we go, it took until the last unique stat but we've finally got a winner that actually kinda does something noticeable. It's exactly what it says on the tin, determines how accurate your shots will be to where the target is whenever you're not double locked. When choosing a set of arms to take on a mission, the accuracy is easily the most important unique stat to take into effect, and there are times where you'd actually want a lower figure, depending on what you're firing or fighting. Machineguns work particularly well with low accuracy versus highly mobile foes before you get a double lock, whereas obviously if you're looking to snipe some stuff, you want to be as dead center as possible before you started leading things.

Movement Ability: Another one of those weird truncated list items that means basically nothing. Effectively, this is an aggregate of the accuracy and recoil control stats, that doesn't actually come out to a sum total or anything like that. Ignore at all times.

So then, what to choose when picking out a set of arms for your murderbot? Well, in summary, Accuracy is the unique stat you want to focus on, maybe energy supply if you're going for a shield or blade focused build. For non-unique stats, arms make a great way to round out some extra AP or defense for a cheap cost in overall weight relative to other part categories, which is definitely where they shine. Heads are usually too light to matter, and the option slots, OB stats, or VS MG systems may not give you the freedom to switch out a core to get a slight edge, but arms are perfect for that.

tl;dr: Arms are great for making small changes to your universal stats without affecting weight or movement drastically. Accuracy is the unique stat to look for. Energy supply great for blades/shields.


Discrete Fire