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Age of Wonders: Planetfall – Dev Diary #36: The Syndicate Faction Part II - Gameplay

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AC1632 said:
I wonder if you can provide control collar mods to Subjugators and Overseers... That would imply taking Syndicate society in a very different direction.
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Even rich slavers can fall (or be pushed) into debt on occasion. And when they do, better to use their skills rather than simply treat them as useless cannon fodder.

After all, what's the only thing better than an overseer to handle the nitty gritty details of making sure your minions perform adequately? An overseer who does so while being literally incapable of opposing your orders.
 
To me, placing control collars on all your Syndicate units suggests a society where free will has been more or less abolished. A House where even the elites exist at the pleasure of some supreme authority.
A sort of psionic-powered Orwellian dystopia.
I'm sure that could be considered 'enlightened' in the eyes of certain Celestians, anyway.
 
It's a bit unexpected that the assassin seems to be the anti-vehicle unit and the wraith better at taking down infantry and other biological targets. You'd expect the main battle tank to be able to answer armored units, but the psi attack of the tank and the arc weapon and breach rounds of the assassin would seem to indicate that the roles are essentially reversed.

The syndicate must be an interesting society if its assassins effectively use anti-vehicle weapons.
 
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Booo said:
It's a bit unexpected that the assassin seems to be the a anti-vehicle unit and the wraith better at taking down infantry and other biological targets. On some levels you'd expect the main battle tank to be able to answer armored units of other factions, but the psi attack of the tank and the arc weapon and breach rounds of the assassin would seem to indicate that the roles are essentially reversed.

The syndicate must be an interesting society if its assassins effectively use anti-vehicle weapons.
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It's worth keeping in mind that psionic weapons generally ignore armour. Lightly armoured vehicles are poor targets for psi-weapons, but when you get to the heavier tanks, you may be looking at a target which has more armour than psi resistance, which means that psi weapons start looking like suitable anti-tank weapons.

Conversely, it's possible that assassins tend to be drawn from members of Syndicate society who lack the ability to use psi-tech, and therefore fall back on using arc-based sniper rifles instead - not because they're effective against vehicles (although that is a nice perk), but simply because that's what the alternative option is.
 
Booo said:
It's a bit unexpected that the assassin seems to be the a anti-vehicle unit and the wraith better at taking down infantry and other biological targets. On some levels you'd expect the main battle tank to be able to answer armored units of other factions, but the psi attack of the tank and the arc weapon and breach rounds of the assassin would seem to indicate that the roles are essentially reversed.

The syndicate must be an interesting society if its assassins effectively use anti-vehicle weapons.
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Perhaps many high profile targets for Guild Assassins hide in Psitech vehiles. Plus arc damage does well enough against most biological targets.

Plus I think there are Mantras mods that can change the damage type of Psionic Attacks.
 
Yeah I noticed the ultimate Syndicate vehicle was resistant, but not immune, to psionic damage. That would seem to suggest that psychic attacks are a viable way to explode the head of a tank's pilot without having to deal with that tank's armour or shields... Though I guess we don't know for sure how psychic damage interacts with those defences.
EDIT: Actually I did just notice that all Syndicate vehicles are resistant to psychic but weak against arc. Maybe this is an inherent feature of vehicle type units? Either way, it's certainly true that assassins do better against Syndicate vehicles. That certainly is weird, but also I like it.
 
Damkac said:
Psionic damage ignores armor. And melee attacks ignores shields so it looks like Overseer's attack ignore both armor and shield.
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True, but that base damage is pretty miserable for a Tier 2 unit. Maybe ignoring an enemy's defences evens that out, but I suspect they are mostly going to be sitting back and buffing/torturing Indentured
 
I think it's a shooty staff not a stabby staff

Melee attacks have a different icon:
upload_2019-4-29_9-59-21.png

Shield shaped
upload_2019-4-29_10-0-4.png

The staff has the single target ranged icon
 
AC1632 said:
Yeah I noticed the ultimate Syndicate vehicle was resistant, but not immune, to psionic damage. That would seem to suggest that psychic attacks are a viable way to explode the head of a tank's pilot without having to deal with that tank's armour or shields... Though I guess we don't know for sure how psychic damage interacts with those defences.
EDIT: Actually I did just notice that all Syndicate vehicles are resistant to psychic but weak against arc. Maybe this is an inherent feature of vehicle type units? Either way, it's certainly true that assassins do better against Syndicate vehicles. That certainly is weird, but also I like it.
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I think it is a generic trait of vehicles, yes - they have a bit of psionic resistance and arc weakness.

If a vehicle has enough armour, though, it might still be worthwhile using psionic attacks instead.
 
AC1632 said:
Yeah I noticed the ultimate Syndicate vehicle was resistant, but not immune, to psionic damage. That would seem to suggest that psychic attacks are a viable way to explode the head of a tank's pilot without having to deal with that tank's armour or shields... Though I guess we don't know for sure how psychic damage interacts with those defences.
EDIT: Actually I did just notice that all Syndicate vehicles are resistant to psychic but weak against arc. Maybe this is an inherent feature of vehicle type units? Either way, it's certainly true that assassins do better against Syndicate vehicles. That certainly is weird, but also I like it.
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They went through the system back in the tactical combat dev diary. Weakness, resistance, armor, and shields are added together. Psionic attacks aren't affected by armor but are affected by shields.

There's a break-even for psionics and arc weapons against vehicles with 6 armor. If you shoot at a 2 armor vehicle (like the Wraith or Zenith) arc weapons do roughly 50% more damage than psionic ones. Land crushers have 6 armor and is the highest armor seen yet without mods, so I'd assume that's unusual for a vehicle.
 
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AC1632 said:
I wonder if you can provide control collar mods to Subjugators and Overseers... That would imply taking Syndicate society in a very different direction.
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If you look at the prequistes you can stick them on Overseers, but not Subjectators, because Overseers are infantry, while Subjectators are something else.
 
AC1632 said:
I wonder if you can provide control collar mods to Subjugators and Overseers... That would imply taking Syndicate society in a very different direction.
Click to expand...

If you look at the prequistes you can stick them on Overseers, but not Subjectators, because Overseers are infantry, while Subjectators are something else.
 
AC1632 said:
Ooooh, well spotted! I guess that makes it worse at ignoring shields, though. They probably do less against shielded enemies than a T1 Indentured.
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It's probably not supposed to replace them, but to support them. Refunding the action points of an Indentured means that the turn it does that, the Indentured unit's damage is essentially the Overseer's damage - and in the meantime, the unit in question can't die while under the effect. Furthermore, if both units move, using the override could be more than doubling the damage output from the Indentured that turn.

It also looks like there might be a heal on the Overseer's bar as well, so that's a lot of support there.
 
Yeah that's what I'm thinking, they probably aren't going to do the defense-breachy stuff talked about earlier. Celestians might have a melee psychic guy in there, though. I bet they have some sort of Jedi-type melee infantry.
 
Stafie said:
Keep in mind that entire AoW serie was "tolkien-esk", full of elves, dwarfes etc. In fact, is one of the reason I was enjoing it so much.
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I think that's part of the point. Some people enjoying sticking to 'safe' fantasy themes, some people prefer things a little more exotic, and some people like a bit of both.

Mind you, I always felt that part of the charm of the fantasy AoW is that while outwardly Tolkeinistic, it took the "elder races diminishing so that humans can inherit the world" trope so common in fantasy - even in fantasy that changes the name rather than having elves and so on - and turns that on its head.
 
Draxynnic said:
It's probably not supposed to replace them, but to support them. Refunding the action points of an Indentured means that the turn it does that, the Indentured unit's damage is essentially the Overseer's damage - and in the meantime, the unit in question can't die while under the effect. Furthermore, if both units move, using the override could be more than doubling the damage output from the Indentured that turn.

It also looks like there might be a heal on the Overseer's bar as well, so that's a lot of support there.
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Yeah Overseers, Mirage, and Subjectators are a hardcore support units.

Indentured, Guild Assassins, Wraiths, and Sentenials are more the damage dealers. The Zenith is both firepower, support, and recruiter.

Runners, Guild Assassins, and Mirages are good scouts.

I see two main tactics Indentured focused and Wraith focused.

Indentured backed up with Overseers, Subjectators, and Zeniths.

Then Wraiths and Mirages, Psionic stealth vechiles, with Psionic Mods, like Chimera Mantra.
 
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