I tried out the Kodachi today, and I'm obviously missing something. I had two of them fighting Morties (assisted by Freakers) and found their low accuracy to be a huge problem. Plus, they often fire when they don't have a clear shot (which is particularly bad when you want to pull them behind cover to reload) - they even occasionally kill each other.

How should I be using them? Solo? Purely as an offensive unit for burning bases down?

edit: semi-related question, when is it time to use the big shields instead of the small shields?

imo you need a pack and they are fairly micro intensive as you sort of need to skirm in and out of range to put them to good use.

KR just made the unit because core was lacking a cheap versatile tank i dont think it was the best solution. (Just like the damn unnecessary 2nd core AA boat instead of scaling down the other AA boat ,role redundancy much..)

I think they suck a bit and tend to not use them ive gone off making core tank lab as a starting lab and if i do make the lab its in mid/late game when i can field heavier units and dont make kodachi's.

The problem wasn't skirming in and out of range - that's fine, I know how to use a low-ROF weapon. The problem was the terrible number of those crucially rare shots that went awry.

as i said it sucks a bit and imo needs a new weapon or some tweaking on the weapon and effect at least.

I love it...

A few of them will eat flash swarms for breakfast.

it's about the best think in the Core tank factory for anti swarm bar the very expensive goli.

in a group the missing isn't really a problem as they AoE the target area nicely.

enough firepower to take down light defenses quickly as well.

Never really had a problem with missing.

the 2 aa boats however are kinda self defeating.

Well, the Kodachi is a fairly straightforward weapon. Given the curvature and semi-standardized length of the blade, proper use involves tight swings, and definitely favors a neutral or aggressive posture over the passive. Since the length is limited you don't want to discard your defense with wide strokes, particularly to either side.

Of course, it has been some time, and I handled one but briefly.

Yeah, that doesn't sound wrong in any way shape or form...

How much this thing misses is a pain in the butt IMO. I dont know what KR was thinking with the weapon type.

But, didnt you rape me with kodachi's just the other day in a 3v3 on geyser?

That was after I made this post, I thought I'd give them another try. It took a lot of micro. I don't know that the 6 gators I would have had instead of the 3 kodachis wouldn't have done a better job, but they were fun to use... the challenge is keeping them firing properly - keep them spread out, avoid any obstacles that will block the shot, etc. But still, the basic premise of "rush into close range, fire, retreat" is tons of fun.

The other usage problem I see with them is they'll have an enemy with a sliver of health left, on fire (and thus doomed to die) and they'll shoot it anyways instead of a better target. I've tried using them on return-fire mode, but then it's tricky to keep them moving while explicitly assigning targets.

If nothing else, I love the effect. Kodachi needs a unit response upon firing like
SUP BITCH GOT FIRE? BOOM!!!

I gave them the spreading bomblet weapon because I couldn't figure out a way to get them to set stuff on fire reliably otherwise; with a single-hit weapon (such as a rocket) it seemed pretty unpredictable in tests, and apparently actually set stuff on fire less often with a direct hit than when shooting at the ground in front of the target.

There should be a better way...

Increase the firestarter tag value to a couple orders of magnitude larger.

The pyro (with the new fake flame) didn't set anything on fire with the value at 100, but at 10000 it does so nicely.

How does fire work? Yesterday I was speccing a game and a Stinger burned to death from almost full health. I sat there and watched it.

Doesn't raising firestarter also increase the duration of the burn? (mind you, this comment is based on the gadget from nearly a year ago)

is there a way to stop the fire? repairing doesn't seem to do the trick.

Yeah, apparently everything that is set on fire by a pyro now burns for ridiculous amounts of time. Sorry maackey, you might need another solution cause pyros just became super ridiculous

nanolathe should stop burning could that be lua'd??

Come up with an implimentation that doesnt lead to 'touch unit to stop burning' widgets and such.

If you have to repair for some time to stop the burning them you're going to need like a seperate 'fire' health bar or something. Overly complicated.

repair to full health... (or perhaps around ~80%) to stop burning?

Stop burning if their auto repair should have kicked in? Burn already does something though, it stops cloak.