dissociative wave

[vitamin j]

I recently heard of the wave special ability not to long ago. Never used it in all my smac. I understand that it nullifies other special abilities on offense, but what about defense? Example: A wave equipped chopper attacks a wave/AAA garrison - do the waves cancel each other out? Hope someone can understand and answer my question...
If there is no defense against wave air power it seems like a game-ender to me...
Any comments from the oracle?


Thanks,

vitamin j

[Fitz]

Actually, if you read the manual, D-Wave is only supposed to work on defense. I never have tried it on offense because I consider it a bug, and as you say a game-ender.

[vitamin j]

So can anyone verify if a wave/AAA defender will still be AAA vs. a wave chopper?

[Ned]

I don't know the anwer to the question, since I play SP and have never seen the AI use WAVE. However, I use it on choppers and tanks one available. It certainly works on offense.

Fitz, I believe I recall that one of the Readme's in one of the patches stated that D-WAVE was fixed so that it now worked on offense.

Ned

[Tau Ceti]

D-Wave works both in attack and defence, but as a defensive tool it is pretty weak. The reason is that it only disables the abilities that affect combat value, specifically:

• Empath and Soporific Gas on the attacker
• AAA, Trance and ECM on the defender

Of course, disabling Trance and Empath is only useful if you have Psi weapons or armour on conventional units. The big killer is disabling AAA, especially considering that defensive D-Waves do not work against Nerve Gas.

But I do not consider it a game-ender. It lies on a not very popular research path in MP, and by the time you get it, your opponents are likely to have Tachyon Fields, which gives them a very good chance even against an X/Wave chopper.