by MushrooMars » 19 Aug 2012, 21:57
Yes, it is supposed to do friendly fire. This is designed for balance, so that you can't just hot-drop 50 fire beetles on something and watch them nuke it to death.
In my opinion (read: this is my opinion, not fact or something I am forcing upon anyone), the friendly fire damage (at least towards other friendly fire beetles) isn't really needed.
They both cost the same amount of mass (300), with the Mercy costing just over 3x more in energy.
The Mercy does 2400 damage per unit, while the Fire Beetle does 4500.
The Mercy is considerably faster and more agile than the Fire Beetle.
I would gladly pay an equal amount of energy per Fire Beetle for some sort of added perk. Maybe they hover and avoid unit collision, maybe they don't do damage to each other, maybe they're just faster, or maybe they have a shield.
Reason Mercies are more popular than Fire Beetles, is because there is always a chance the Mercy will get to it's target, even if it's flying through AA. With Fire Beetles, that chance is very slim, as they are often gunned down by the armies they have to run through, or just shot to death by the enemy ACU.