Boa

Insane Systems

Arm, lvl2 lightning hover

Buildpic: The unit has an odd, unfitting angle and is presented in perspective, while the terrain around it obviously dosn\'t follow. The unit also seems to be a bit off color-wise compared to the background. The background is also too blank and plain to create any feeling of a hovercraft presense. Hovers, that even in the game go pretty rough on water. Unit 2, Background 2, Merging, 2.

Buildpic: 6

Model: I like the model mostly, due to the OTA-shaped look, that basically comes from stolen model parts. Two things, tho. The rocket and lightning turrets should have been made to aimindependantly and the lightning gun should have a point in front of it to shoot from. Having the shot going off from the middle of the barrel just doesn't look good [3]. The texturing is pretty well except for the dark and light logo texxes that in my opinion should be switched [4.5]. The corpse is good... I saw enough of it in-game [1].

Model: 8.5

Script: Standard, although quite bad aiming because of two different weapons sharing a turret and making each other wait at times.

Script: Not counted

Balance: This unit is slightly underpowered. The Arm Anaconda, the closest friend of the Boa (actually brothers, they share chassis) does 67 d/s on a range of 300 while Boa itself only manages 77 with it's main weapon, that has a lot shorter range, and have a Rocko rocket doing about 26 at a range of 400. All for a price increase of almost 30% (120M). Even though this unit does more damage/second than the Anaconda on paper (uh, in code), it is in reality very crippled because of it's shorter range. The Rocko rocket is useful, but all it does is to bump the balance back to Anaconda's costs (slightly under, even). Indeed, it has a minor armor upgrade, even though the model looks a lot more fragile than the An, but in my experience, the Boas are always the first to die and could really use more armor... or lower costs. 400M is a bit too pricey, even for a hover.

Balance: 5

My score: Hovers suck. All of them. Not because of their models or ability to cross water, but because of their insanely bad balance. They are cost in general at least twice as much as they really should. Ground units own hovers at any time. Sea units own hovers ESPECIALLY at any time and even subs own hovers if you force-fire just behind one (the torpedo will hit, how unlikely it might sound). Nothing against this yunit in perticular, I just don't understand what the Cavedoggies were smoking when they created that stuff.

My score: 4

Review by Storm | Others by same