Kills performed by the servo-skull are counted as ranged kills made by the player, and they can trigger related talents. This allows the player to consistently and continuously gain talent bonuses, even if they have only been using melee weapons and have not fired any ranged weapons at all.
The skull is equipped with a firearm for ranged attacks, and I don’t see any issues with that mechanic. Alternatively, we could change its energy cost to consume the player’s ammunition instead; the skull would stop firing once the player runs out of bullets.
Or we could create an entirely new variant servo-skull that flies out to maul enemies. Another idea: mount a chainsword onto the skull so it can swoop in and tear foes apart, turning it into a melee unit.
At the same time servo skull doesn’t seem to get damage increase bonuses from neither general damage increase perks nor range specific ones, like Channeled Motive Force +15% damage doesn’t buff the skull, Hybrid Combat Covenant, Assassination protocols, Weakness Analysis Doctrine/Retribution Conduit, % Strength gained, etc., not gona name every perk you get the idea.
So it’s indeed either it shouldn’t be considered ranged attack or should start benefiting from related player damage increase buffs, as it is a part of a plyer damage kit. And I am leaning towards skull being considered as player’s ranged damager :>
The problem lies in the fact that this allows players to gain buffs—for example, talents such as restoring toughness after ranged kills or increasing damage after ranged kills. The servo-skull bug essentially makes these buffs active for almost the entire mission, even if the player hasn’t used a ranged weapon at all.
I think it’s fine the way it is. In havoc, the only way to constantly have the buffs from ranged kills up with the skull is by spamming noospheric command, which effectively prevents you from having an ultimate ability. It’s a fine trade-off and I think the servo-skull minion build is pretty fun even if its weaker than 5 chord-claws in a row. I think FS should leave the servo-skull kills counting as ranged kills alone.
Only thing I could think of is if it interferes with that one talent,Rad Sink, of not firing gaining a damage boost to next shot… doesn’t appear to in Psychanium
Got acknowledged… Guess it was a bug. Hope they reconsider though, i think this is one of those things that should be considered an unintended feature instead of a bug.
It makes sense thematically and makes the servo skull a far more interesting pick.
