Giving Blue tail for Neon Gold tail. pages.tankionline.com/build-a-tank/trade/ia2YJFFDIqHQ24WICFPv

Giving Green Engine in exchange for Neon Gold. pages.tankionline.com/build-a-tank/trade/ilI0yWjG7V0MRDh0gzsj

pages.tankionline.com/build-a-tank/trade/8DdjxyTKUY3VCT9HinNV

@Gabku It results in a 25% damage (that's very little compared to Vacuum Missiles and Vacuum Shells) increase at the very best, which you cannot guarantee to happen every time - so most of the time, it will be around 10-15% of an increase, assuming you don't end up dealing less damage than stock - and this isn't even about being good with it, connectivity and the wonky nature of the way the blast registers as a result can be a problem too - unless you have incredible internet connection, I suppose. Yes, the altered explosion radius can be very beneficial in specific scenarios, but it's not a pure gain - not having the ability to hit a target directly is a disadvantage whether you're good at using the turret or not. And I simply do not think the augment offers enough to justify that, especially compared to others within its class.

Well, this is shaping up to be the worst minigame yet. We'll see when it actually arrives, I guess.

@Gabku It means it will take longer to charge up a shot, which means it's a nerf to an augment that's already pretty trash in its current state. Mortar will be very good now, though.

@mrvomit Hydra launches 20 rockets with halved damage, both normal and critical. This is the equivalent of 10 normal rockets. By comparison, Cyclone, an augment most people have access to, launches 8, amounting to 7200 damage. So Hydra's salvo deals more damage, 9000 in total. Halving it with Orka (Striker protection), you are left with 4500 - so yes, unless you also use Defender, Lifeguard or activate an OD, you are not surviving a full salvo. But the thing is - releasing a full salvo with Hydra takes a long time. Much longer than Cyclone - Hydra needs to chuck 20 rockets with a 20% interval reduction, meanwhile Cyclone "only" needs to launch 8 with a 40% interval reduction. Of course, Hydra locks on much faster, but that's another thing - it's just to actually activate the salvo, because Hydra's missiles do not chase you, Cyclone's will. Additionally, Hydra's single shots are worse than stock - halved damage with a 40% cooldown reduction. It also has a doubled reload time after salvo. What I'm trying to say is that, with how long it takes to release all 20 rockets and the fact the missiles will not attempt to follow you once launched by the user, you have only yourself to blame if you let all 20 hit you - similar deal to taking a Scorpion salvo (excluding Spear and Swarm at close ranges, it's not always possible to dodge that). Now, am I saying that it's not a strong augment? No, it certainly is strong. But I'd say it is weaker than things such as Faust, Hyperspeed Shells, Shredder (which results in an astounding DPS increase, over 80% iirc), the Vacuum augments (excluding Magnum) or Adaptive Reload (Thunder). The difference is that Hydra is very flashy. Once the hype of a new toy wears off, I'm sure you'll see Hydra much less. Lastly, about the user not dying at close range - that's simply inaccurate. Hydra can very much so kill its user, just like any Striker augment except for Meteor. The reason it doesn't is usually that the user has Orka, and also will not blast all 20 rockets in their own face; with how long the salvo takes, they have ample time to get away from the target a bit. If for whatever reason they don't - they're dying too, you can be sure of that. There's also the possibility they have Lifeguard.

I'm quite surprised to see that Spear is considered OP now - given its nature, the Crisis nerf affected it quite heavily. I can only see it being a huge problem if you play with unprotected light hulls. I personally have all Scorpion augs save for Pulsar and Phoenix - and when I do use Scorpion, I find that Swarm and Tornado are the way to go these days. I use the Vulture module, so whenever I run into an enemy with Spear - I can pretty much ignore them and keep going wherever I wanted to go because those 4 rockets just tickle me.

This update is a clean buff to Scorpion only if you're using Wolfpack, Swarm or (especially) Spear. The homing ability of the stock rockets has been significantly weakened, removing the possibility of abusing Tornado by turning away and thus forcing the rockets to hit their target at close range. It also makes them less effective in general against mobile targets. This renders light and medium hulls capable of easily dodging them - unless, of course, the Scorpion in question is using one of the 3 augments I mentioned, as that is their purpose - with Wolfpack, it makes some concessions in order to remove this weakness; you could say that this update gave it purpose. Swarm and Spear meanwhile alter the turret's role altogether. Overall, I'd say it's a healthy change - it gives Scorpion and its augments clear role definition, and can be a net buff if you adapt & use them the way they're meant to be used; which in the case of anything involving stock rockets means only using them against heavy/stationary targets.

The difference is that an augment can be paired with the other drones. Say, how killable do you reckon will an active Paladin with Lifeguard and Defender be? Or better yet, two of them attacking together, perhaps with the ability to freeze you and thus disable your damage boosters as well?

I can't help but feel like this is set up for the Lifeguard and Miner augments. THOSE are going to be a mess...

This makes the most sense, and I'm not sure why can't they give us direct info on what an augment currently does in the game itself rather than throw in some useless fluff and refer us to the wiki which may or may not be up to date - I'm sure it would be possible to automate this too by tying the current parameters to those descriptions. I personally believe the matter of the range on Mag's debuffs is logical in this set-up - Burning and Freezing are different, and generally weaker than EMP/AP/Stun (unsure about Jammer, it's pretty inconsistent; some turrets apply it with every hit, some with crits only), so it is reasonable to apply the debuff on the entire splash with the former and the limited 5m to the latter. At this point it's not even about accuracy, but the ability to burn/freeze multiple tanks at once; to punish grouping (which can be pretty toxic in modes like Siege, but that one has bigger "problems" - namely Tesla).

To be fair, using it as a drone meant you couldn't use any of the (significantly more powerful) alternatives. The opportunity cost was far too high to justify what you'd get out of it. Now you can combine the two at the price of your chosen immunity. I am not saying it's a stellar business practice, but the drone and the augment are not 1:1. The drone was pretty much useless, the augment is not.

So like, is the GT series such a flop that you guys are comfortable putting two sets of brand new HD skins in funds? Augments are cheaper to make and motivate us to play more, so why take this route?

It's not one-sided. In ASL, usually either team greatly dominates; either the match ends in a few minutes by the attacking team, or the point is so easy to defend that they don't manage to capture a single one no matter how hard they try. Of course, this is just as bad and does stand testimony to the mode being awful by design. The devs did address DM in matchmaking. It wasn't popular enough, so they left it for special weekend modes.