Firebeetle does friendly fire

[Rienzilla]

Last week, I decided to do a snipe with the much underrated Cybran Firebeetle (t2 mobile bomb). The snipe was extremely effective, as my enemy died immediately, but to my surprise, so did I

Is firebeetle supposed to do damage to friendlies?

(see attached replay at ~8:20)

[MushrooMars]

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.

[Adraius]

If I remember correctly, Fire Beetle friendly fire damage was supposed to have been removed by a recent patch. Can't seem to find the exact patch notes...

[noobymcnoobcake]

They do not do friendly fire to each other but do to your own units other than firebeetles

[MushrooMars]

He's right. I just tested them, Fire Beetles no longer do damage to eachother. I'm happy.

[sarcasm]
Now only if we could give them jump jets...
[/sarcasm]

[Softly]

Lets make it so they can fly in from space!