Yes, I had a lot of time. I originally played this game when it launched during the pandemic and stopped at 1k trophies, and picked it up again ~3 years later. I want to share my thoughts about the last ~15 days while it's still fresh and answer any questions people might have.
I have a 43% win rate in 3600 BR games, and 300+ games with each of the following heroes: Angel, Bastion, Blizzard, Blot, Cyclops, Ghost, Levi, Lynx, Ramsay, Raven, Sparkle, Vi. I have the most fun with Angel, Raven, Ramsay, and Lynx.
I've unlocked every hero except Alice, paid for Blizzard and Vi. I have a full pg set and two skins waiting for when she arrives.

Trophy Tiers

Broadly speaking, the percentage of poor players decreases as you gain higher trophies. Being completely honest, I saw a bunch of mistakes made by enemies, teammates, and myself at 9k trophies. At 10k+ trophies, most of the mistakes I see are my own.

Low Tier: <3k

I have a second account on an old phone at this tier that I use to play under powered / rarely used heroes in casual games. It's mostly bots and occasional humans with rudimentary gameplay.

Mid Tier: 3-7k

People are still misplaying all the time, but in general are improving and trying to coordinate as a team. Pickup teams are pretty easy to create and people are generally pretty friendly. Honestly, I probably had the most fun at this tier since I enjoy playing the game casually with a variety of heroes and different team compositions (vs trying to win all the time).
There's still plenty of bots in offpeak hours.

High Tier: >7k

This is the first tier where it starts to get competitive. Relatedly, this is also the first tier I started seeing bad manners and griefing.
Early on when I was around 2k, I teamed up with some high trophy players and played in 10k games. That's when I learned first hand how much faster and aggressive the game was. On certain maps (Bank, Village, Hotel), fights will often initiate after picking up ~2 items.
As for bad manners, I'm used to it from playing plenty of other online games but enjoyed the fact that Bullet Echo largely doesn't have it. However at 7k+, now you get a lot of people bm'ing when they kill you, if two people fight over an item, etc. It most commonly manifests as sprays/stickers, but also a lot of head shaking and the occasional teamkill grenade for taking "their" item.
Pickup teams are a lot more mercenary. People join up, and if the team loses 1-2 most will leave; there's little to no chat banter anymore. If someone misplays a few times, they often get kicked from the team, the team is disbanded, and/or they get defriended. This, uhh, has totally never happened to me.

10k

The "end game." Heroes' power typically ranges 1650 - 2200 (Ultimate level 70 to Divine). There's relatively few bots during peak times.
The games are fast and brutal, and any small mistake is quickly exploited. My winrate has dropped significantly even when playing my better characters, but I'm learning. Pre-10k, I'd typically open 3x battle and skull chests under 30 minutes. Now, opening battle and skull chests has become significantly harder.

Bravery Road

I don't have any experience with this tier since I lack Divine heroes. Others have shared that it's mostly full of bots.

Heroes

Tier List

This is based on 9k+ trophy BR in the hands of a good player:

• S: Vi, Lynx, Mirage
• A: Blizzard, Ramsay, Raven, Dragoon, Angel, Freddie, Arnie
• B: Firefly, Shenji, Ghost, Alice, Leviathan, Hurricane, Satoshi, Sparkle, Tess, Levi
• C: Blot, Bertha, Doc, Cyclops, Slayer
• D: Bastion, Stalker, Smog

Bastion

Bastion is great for bot farming and low / mid tier gameplay, but is easily outplayed in 7k+ games. I had a bunch of Bastion friends that I invited to 7k+ games and they've always left after a few games due to being outplayed.
Outplaying Bastion is usually done through kiting or baiting and flanking with teammates since their range is too short and movement speed is too slow. Bastion (and Blot to an extent) is outclassed by more mobile shield heroes: Angel, Hurricane, Satoshi.
Leviathan gets a special call out since his turret is great for zoning and has extended spray that can be abused to hit behind walls.

Grenade Users (Firefly/Shenji/Sparkles/Freddie)

Pre-10k, most of these are terrible nade spammers hoping to get an easy kill. I've seen so many Firefly users use more nades than bullets in a round, adding little value chucking nades into thin air. Shenji users, please use your nades to zone the enemies and less about trying to kill them. Also stop burning the grass because you can, especially when you're up against snipers.

Vi

My win rate with Vi is significantly higher than the rest of the field, which shows how broken she is. Even in 9k+ games, the winning team usually has at least one Vi. I think she needs to be nerfed, and she's my most played and highest leveled character (Stellar).
I also have some bad experiences after teaming up with a bunch of Vi-only tryhards (about 6-8 different teammates for 5+ games each). They're generally incredibly aggressive and good at racking up a high kill count, but often lack map awareness or team dynamics (besides spamming, "Let's go!").

Tips

League

Climb as fast as you can, as high as you can since you get more loot per chest depending on your league level, and streaking gets harder the higher you climb in trophies. Bot farming (read below) is the easiest way to streak games and hit the next league level.
I think there is an argument to be made about staying in purple 1. I found it significantly easier to win most of the contracts at purple 1, but I was grouped with all the other grinders once I hit purple 2. This may or may not be a red herring.

Spending Money

Contracts

• 7 day contract hacks (and assuming you have enough time to grind) is the most effective use of money.
• Consistently winning the 21 hr contract for 300 jokers is paramount.
• 3 hr contract (particularly in off hours) can be pretty easy to win for 20 jokers.
• Read the contracts carefully. Often you can use a hero to progress against 2 or more contracts simultaneously.
• Bot farming and SvS is usually the easiest way to quickly get contract points.
• Ghost in KOTH is a great way to grind "The Collector" contract.

Star Pass

• I don't mind spending $15 to get the new hero via the base pass, but I don't think the premium pass is worth it.
• I didn't get tiers 2 and 3 for Vi but still got her to Stellar with a lot of grinding via contract hacks and jokers.

Technology

It's $10/mo. You get a random hero motivated and 8 drone plugins (2 of each color) per week, and 10 tech tokens/day. 70 tech tokens/week is enough to get drone blueprints, 2xpersonal gears boxes, some squad gear, 500 nuts, and 5 costume tokens. Also your name is highlighted in gold.
I think it's great for the first month or two for the personal gear and drone parts, but not sure if it's worth keeping afterwards.

Bots

Recognizing bots means you can adapt your strategy when playing with and against them.

Identification

Pre-game

• in the same bot syndicates: CCCP, Botsavethequeen, Botdamnit, 486DX, etc
• are listed after human players
• don't have drones
• never play as the newer characters: Blizzard, Vi, Shenji, Ramsay, Lynx, Tess

You start recognizing the bot names after a few hundred games.

In game

• immediately opens chests
• goes in a straight line while swinging their flashlight, humans tend to run with their flashlight facing forward except when checking corners
• doesn't use any abilities

Farming (BR, SvS, sabo, koth)

Bot farming is a great way to hit the streak for a league jump or grind for festival tokens.
I find sabo, SvS, and sometimes arcade in offpeak hours (or other region's servers) the easiest modes for bot farming.
Generally bots will collect a few items and start roaming looking for enemies. If a firefight ensues, the bots will start swarming towards noise like zombies.
The best characters to farm bots are those that can do a lot of damage without taking any themselves. Since bots will run in a straight line towards you, assault rifles and snipers excel at bot farming.
Recommended heroes: Bastion, Satoshi, Blot, Hurricane, Levi, Firefly, Blizzard, Cyclops Not recommended: Ghost/Stalker (bots are not affected by cloak), Slayer (fire rate is too slow), SMG users (can't reload fast enough when swarmed)

As teammates

It sucks to get bots as teammates, but if you understand their behavior you can take advantage of it to try and win the round.

• don't get sucked into unnecessary fights, let them die and don't bother reviving
• use them as dumb scouts to flank the enemy
• treat the round as a training exercise on how to win one-vs-many fights. It'll happen more and more often as you climb trophies

Drones

• medpro is great for tanks, assault rifles, and attacking SMGs (Angel, Alice, Freddie, Ghost)
• zenith is great for snipers, Raven/Ghost, 10k+ games
• guard is useless except for the occasional ability to zone enemies

Zenith gets increasingly valuable in 7k+ games as you never have time to revive and/or enemies will camp dead bodies. Zenith's ability to revive through walls can also be exploited.

In game tactics

This is already a long post, so I'll brain dump common improvements / mistakes that I come across. Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

• Don't be greedy and go after risky upgrades. More often than not you're going to get sucked into an early fight. Even if you win that one, you'll quickly get swarmed by bots and/or other teams. It's not worth losing a round because you might get a purple upgrade.
• Don't be greedy for early ammo and upgrades. In 7k+ games, fights can/will happen by the time you've picked up 1-2 items. Taking multiple ammo means losing an effective teammate that can shoot a weapon. If you're a low ammo user (e.g. Vi, Slayer, Bastion), opt for a 2x or 3x ammo pack and leave the 4x ammo pack for high ammo users (e.g. SMGs, assault rifles). Leave and ping optimal upgrades for teammates. This means reserving scopes for snipers, armor for machine gunners, extended magazine for SMG/shotgunners, explosive ammo for DPS.
• Shotgun users should heal at spawn and save the armor pickup for others.
• Generally stick together as a team.
• Don't follow suiciders (bots/humans) and get sucked into unnecessary fights, preferring to fight 2v3v3v3. Yes this conflicts with the above bullet point.
• Learn the map. This means knowing where are the spawns, purple chests, hot zones, and choke points. This means you can anticipate where you'll need to slow down and prepare for a fight (e.g. early game near purple chests). In low/mid tiers, human teammates often run straight for a neighboring spawn while completely ignoring the safe purple chest right behind them because they run straight ahead in the direction they were facing when spawned. I find it easiest to familiarize myself with maps by using heroes with high vision like snipers (particularly Lynx) and Raven.
• Develop map awareness. You can tell who is left based on the gun sounds and the weapon in kill notifications. Generally avoid fights with many teams remaining, and go after the last two teams as they're fighting. If machine gunners are remaining, try to find open spaces. If snipers are remaining, try to initiate fights near corners and obstacles. In low/mid tiers, human teammates will often emulate bots and run straight towards the fight with a complete lack of map awareness.
• Good Shenji users use grenades to zone enemies rather than outright damage. Bad Shenji users kill their teammates / prevent them from being useful. If you're playing with a Shenji teammate, expect that they're going to nade everything and act accordingly.
• Tess users should try to use the lightning ball judiciously against enemy shields or to zone, and not disable their teammates' shields and abilities.
• Cyclops/Raven users should not spam their skill early game, and used selectively late game. It gives away your position and in high tier games only invites unwanted attention. Learn to use scan offensively and defensively when appropriate. At higher trophies, it can be used as a feint for an invasion or to lure enemies into a trap.
• SMG users should use stimpacks offensively rather than only to heal.
• There is a time to initiate and time to fall back. In early/mid tiers, people need to learn to retreat more often (and communicate it to their teammates). I wish I had more actionable advice, but I can tell when a fight was initiated well or poorly. Don't attack that unsuspecting enemy just because you can, but attack if it's the right time to do so.

tldr

I thoroughly enjoyed playing Bullet Echo, bots and all.

Egret has often been asked what it feels like to be in a jet while it crashes. She has never been able to answer that question until now. There was definitely panic, but also a lot of anger. One of her claws was desperately trying to keep her eagle jet level, the other was battling with the jammed eject throttle. She looked back at her jet to assess the damage. “By Cavora!” She cursed under her breath seeing that two-thirds of her wing had been sheared off. Her earpiece crackled to life as Eswald screamed. “Egret! EJECT! EGRET EJECT NOW!” The fear in his voice caused Egret’s own panic to rise exponentially. Her silvery feathers were all sticking up as the adrenaline and epinephrine levels in her small body rose.
“I CAN’T IT IS STUCK!!” Egret shouted back over the earpiece as she let go of the yoke entirely to tug on the eject throttle, but it wouldn't budge at all. She screamed in horror as the panic rose within her. “EGRE—” Her earpiece cut out. Both claws went back to the yoke as her jet started to do uncontrollable aileron rolls. She put all her strength into trying to regain control as alarms started to blare.
Her face lit up as the wind sheer, overspeed, bank angle, stall, engine fire, and GPWS blared their warnings and lit up all over the cockpit control boards. “I KNOW! I KNOW! I KNOW!” She cried, tears starting to form in her eyes as she desperately battled to level out her jet.
Her efforts did not prove fruitless as she managed to pull the plain into a hard but controlled dive. Her altitude warning started to go off, warning her that she was. “600 meters”
Her adrenaline levels were now off the charts, all the blaring and stimulation faded into the background as she stared at the now rapidly approaching body of water that she was hurtling towards at almost 2,000 kilometers per hour. “500” the soulless robotic voice informed Egret.
Not wanting to give up, Egret continued to pull up on the yoke, cursing under her breath. “400… 300… 200… ALTITUDE! PULL UP!” The warning screamed at her as she dropped beneath 100 meters to the ocean beneath her.
Her voice got very squeaky and high pitched, like that of a new hatchling as she launched into a quick prayer, her words slurring together. “Oh great eagle beast, please provide me with protection. May the lifeblood of chi sustain me in my time of need. And may the sky above give my soul freedom in the event of my death.”
“30.. 20.. 15… PULL UP! TOO LOW! PULL UP! WARNING OVERSPEED! WARNING OVERSPEED! WINDSHEER! STALL STALL!” All the alarms screamed at her as she let go of the yoke one last time and braced for impact. All the sounds and panic left her as she processed the water rising to meet her jet.
She expected to die on impact, but instead everything slowed down to an almost complete stop as she felt her jet bounce off the water's surface. She felt her body be thrown against her restraints and the speed of the jet start to spin vertically up. Anything not bolted down was floating in the air around her as the jet’s cockpit started to roll up towards the sky.
She was thrown sideways and forwards when the jet started another spin, she felt her left arm slide out of her socket as she slammed against her chair. She was jerked hard to the left as the jet’s other wing hit the water forcing a sideways roll. Her head collided hard with the hard metal sides and she immediately lost all conscious thought.
Egret coughed up a lot of blood and some fleshy chunks. In a panic she inhales and gets a lungful of water. Now hacking that up, with more blood, she started to panic. She fiddled with her still strapped harness and got it undone. She could feel the fear of death building in her as tears started to form in her eyes.
The jet groaned as it continued to sink down. Egret grabbed the hatch release and pulled it as hard as she could and kicked at her shattered but still intact windshield. Her movements sluggish and uncoordinated, her ankle bent at a very unnatural angle every time it collided with the cockpit hatch.
She screamed, her will to live surged through her as she gave one last kick and the hatch popped open and shattered. Egret started to push her way to the surface, every movement caused enough pain for her to almost black out. Her lungs screamed for oxygen as she approached the surface. She broke it and took a breath of fresh air. Oxygen never tasted sweeter. She then started hacking out all of the seawater she had inhaled, causing the water around her to turn into an off-red from the mix of blood and bile in it.
“Thank the beasts.” She sighed as she saw the shore wasn’t far from her. She slowly but strongly made her way to the warm sands. All the adrenaline and energy leaving her. Her body collapsed and turned her head to the sky as she passed out from exhaustion and exertion.

Yes, Sombra is the most hated character in OW and for good reason. Her character design is meant to be annoying at best and hair-pulling at its worst.
She's an assassin with soft CC, out of combat invisibility and essentially an omni-directional dash.
Alot of players find her annoying in all roles. Supports get focused and harassed, DPS get ganked and forced off highground, and Tanks get their defensive abilities and some ults cancelled or prevented.
And, in my opinion, that is okay.
Her kit is frustrating when executed well, but I don't believe its out of reason. Yes, if you throw out the words "Infinite Stealth" or "Silence+Burst Damage" than alot of people start lighting on fire.
But that stealth is only used to reposition, she isnt killing you while invisible and as of later seasons, isnt hacking you while keeping invis either. And staying in stealth indefinetly is actually detrimental to her since she's essentially making the game a 4v5 for her team. Also, spychecking exists.
As my argument though, Sombra plays a critical role in teaching players the importance of awareness and tracking, and how valuable information truly is. Keeping tabs enemy locations, positioning in hard to approach areas, and avoiding bad habits like tunnel vision are all lessons alot of players need to learn in order to improve.
And Sombra emphasizes that more than any character in the game because she wants your attention and wants to keep you confused and upset while she messes up your gameplans.
Other characters do this too to varying extremes. Reaper, Tracer, Wrecking Ball, Lúcio, and Genji all want to approach from off angles quickly to catch people off guard. And the way you deal with those characters is keeping your team aware and focused. Peel for yourself and your teammates, expect incoming abilities like Death Blossom or Piledrive, and ping those flankers if you catch a glimpse of them nearby and chase them down if you have an advantage.
It's not the most fun thing to do sometimes, but it's part of the work that needs to be done to get better at the game. And you're free to hate Sombra sure, but I don't think her kit is a problem to be fixed by devs but to be adapted to by the community.

What a round! Man it was a surreal day and round. One of those days where all things worked. Short game was on. Didn’t have more than a two putt all day. GIR all over the place and was relatively straight off the tee. Then, the two blow up holes.
Fresh off a par after hearing my playing partners boost my head up.
Par 5 water right

• Tee shot 1 snap hook left OB
• Tee up again dead straight but ended up in a terrible lie edge of a bunker severe uphill lie and above my feet. Just chip it up and limit the damage. Pull out the 6 iron to advance it. Shank into the water. Great. -Drop , 7 iron pushed into water again.
• Drop, chip to 1 foot tap in. (We “cap” at 4 over on a hole”

The very next hole.
Par 4 dogleg left.
Well aware of my last snap hook, I hit the dreaded straight ball into a bunker.
Chunked the next shot 12 yards into deep deep rough. Hacked the next shot out about 30 yards then absolutely pured my approach….with the wrong wedge. (Clearly I’m choking at this point) two more duffed chips and a one putt 7.
Chugged a beer…parred the next hole and continued onto a great day.

(I am not a creationist, but I am a bored contrarian and I need to argue with somebody right now. Also, I'm trying to get a better grasp of the rules of phylogeny, so maybe y'all can teach me something.).
Reasons that I think the LUCA was an animal:
1: Unicellularity is hard. We have this idealized conception of a unicellular microbe, where you stick a single cell on a petri dish and then overnight it becomes a million cells, but the vast majority of life can't do anything like this--certainly the LUCA couldn't, right? I think there would be an advantage to early life being multicellular, in that early life could "borrow" RNA/DNA/proteins with neighboring cells. Also they wouldn't need a full complement of molecular machinery if their neighbor can help out, even if their neighbor is a different species. Just like I can borrow my neighbor's stove if I'm making a special meal, early life probably borrowed very basic molecular machinery from the neighboring cell. And if any of their genes broke, they could maybe get a replacement from their neighbor? I think that it's hard to live all by your lonesome self if you're a primitive life form, so being multicellular is easier since you can rely on neighbor cells for various things and don't have to do everything yourself. I also think there's a very blurry line between a single multicellular organism and an interdependent community of unicellular organisms where none of the organisms could survive without the others. Many scientists agree that early life was like this—an interdependent community—and much life still is like this. But why should this type of community be considered to be closer to unicellularity than multicellularity?
2: The nucleus seems like a leftover relic from the RNA world. The primary function seems to be to separate transcription and translation, but why would you want to do this in a DNA organism? Why are you separating transcription from translation if you already have this elegant system in prokaryotes of just having the ribosome and the RNA polymerase right next to each other doing their things almost simultaneously, much, much faster and more efficiently than eukaryotes. Why make everything ten times slower by evolving a nucleus when you could just not evolve a nucleus? Evolution doesn’t plan ahead, and I fail to see how the nucleus is a favorable adaptation in the short term. On the other hand, a nucleus makes a ton of sense for an organism with an RNA genome because you'd need a way to separate your genomic RNA from your RNA transcripts so they could be regulated separately -- You wouldn't want to splice up or run a ribosome over your RNA genome, that would be a disaster.
3: Having a nucleus would make it easier to evolve DNA. Whatever enzyme is deoxygenating the RNA backbone wouldn't run into the problem of accidentally deoxygenating the RNA transcripts. Since the transcripts are outside the nucleus.
4: The nucleus could be an early form of cell specialization for a multicellular life form. If we think of the nucleus as a separate cell from the cytoplasmic space, I think the picture of early RNA life becomes clearer. Some cells/compartments evolve to specialize in replication and transcription -- these become the nucleus -- wheras other cells/compartments become specialized for translation of proteins --these became the cytoplasmic space, which ultimately engulfed the nucleus. In this primitive RNA organism, there would have been little distinction between replication and transcription. The cells of various sizes would have shared proteins, allowing the smaller cells specialized for replication/transcription to still benefit from the gene products being produced in the larger cells specialized for translation. The smaller cells would do a more faithful job of replicating the genome and not have to risk damaging their genes in the messy process of gene expression.
5: Based on the multiple chromosomes in the nucleus, the first Eukaryote was a likely a synthesis of multiple organisms. Multiple organisms implies multicellular. If we look inside the nucleus, we see multiple, weird, x-shaped chromosomes, with a bunch of dumb hacks (centrosomes, telomerase, etc) to keep them from falling apart as they replicate. The bacterial system makes so much more sense for modern organisms -- just having a single circular chromosome: simple, elegant, effective. Again, the eukaryotic system seems like a molecular fossil from an earlier era where these features were actually necessary. I'd argue that the eukaryotic system supports multiple chromosomes because the original chromosomes were the RNA genomes of different interdependent organisms that lived in a multicellular community. Their RNA migrated into a single nucleus for better regulated and better synchronized replication of the community genes.
6: The homologies between Porifera and Amoebozoa make no sense if Animals came from Choanoflagellates. It is widely assumed that multicellular eukaryotes evolved from single-celled eukaryotes, and this seems to be the case in land plants, at least, since they're so similar to algae which obviously came before land plants--but are we sure that it isn't the other way around for animals? Conventional wisdom is that animals evolved from choanoflagellates, and we see very similar cells to choanoflagellates in Porifera called choanocytes. BUT: Porifera (sponges) also have amoebocytes, which look and function a lot like amoebas. Amoebas are believed to be relatively closely related to animals, although not as closely related as choanoflagellates. Yet animals cannot have evolved from both amoebas and choanoflagellates, and choanoflagellates look nothing like amoebas. Isn't it an odd coincidence that amoebocyte cells in sponges are so much like amoebas? If animals came from choanoflagellates, then the similarity of amoebas and amoebocytes would have to be a coincidence. An alternative direction of evolution makes a lot more sense to me: Animals came first, and amoebas and choanoflagellates are separate lineages of reduced animals that have evolved down to only being a single cell. Other eukaryotes (such as fungi, algae and plants) could be evolved from these single-celled descendants of animals.
7: Gene homologies between microsporidia and prokaryotes. Since microsporidia are very obviously reduced fungi, this makes no sense in the current prokaryote-first paradigm, so these gene homologies are handwaved away as being the result of horizontal gene transfer. But what if it isn't horizontal gene transfer? Microsporidia is a parasitic clade of fungi which has lost most of its genes, seemingly lost its mitochondria (are we absolutely sure they ever had mitochondria?) and shrunk to about the size of a bacterium. Its shrunk so much and lost so many genes that it actually is able to withstand mutations to very basic molecular machinery such as its ribosomes, which are very different from the ribosomes of other eukaryotes and seem more similar to the smaller ribosomes of prokaryotes. Perhaps prokaryotes are just even-further-reduced microsporidia that have lost their nucleus, circularized their DNA (which can also happen in cancer cells, google "eccDNA") and further streamlined their molecular machinery.
8: We can learn a lot about the order of the clades from the type of ecological niches they currently occupy. For example: there do exist extremophile bacteria, so there's nothing inherent in bacterial microbiology that prevents them from evolving into extremophiles. So why do we see mostly extremophile archaea, but bacteria occupy almost all of the generalist, high productivity microbial niches? I'd argue: Probably, archaea had a head start in evolving specialized adaptations for extremophile environments. Probably, archaea came first. Imagine an archaeon existing before there were any bacteria, and it evolved to occupy all microbe ecological niches. Then bacteria came along in a new adaptive radiation with superior molecular biology. They were able to supplant archaea from most generalist niches but haven't been able to challenge archaea for extremophile niches for which archaea have specialized genes and specialized adaptations. And neither bacteria nor archaea seriously challenge eukaryotes for the larger ecological niches which require even more specialized adaptations. This to me implies that Eukaryotes came first, archaea came second, and bacteria are the most recent domain.
9: Animals almost exclusively occupy the large, complex, predator niche. I'd argue that the large predator niche, of all ecological niches, is the one where the greatest advantage is given to the organism who evolves to fill the niche first. Because selection pressure changes a lot once the predator appears: Things that can't run away from the predator are forced to make themselves as unappetizing as possible. So they can't have complex proteins, since complex proteins = tastier. So how can any clade evolve into a predator if there already exists a predator clade that could eat it? The fossil record seems to think: It can’t. Throughout the entire fossil record for which we have good records (since the Cambrian), the predator is always an animal. Never does a slime mold or a fungus something evolve muscles and teeth and start competing with animals for the predator niche. But this isn’t 100% true -- you have Venus fly traps, I suppose? So that’s one exception, the only one I can think of. Animal predators today have billions of years of evolutionary head start evolving such things as muscles, a nervous system, circulatory system, etc. If anything else other than an animal starts evolving complex structures or energy storage, it's only going to make itself tastier to an animal. The predator is also the niche that cares the least about the efficiency of basic molecular processes -- it doesn't need to be efficient when the world is its buffet. For this reason, I'd argue that the predator clade must have established itself very early. Probably the kingdom that occupies the apex predator niche at any given time is the absolute oldest lineage of multicellular life. Because long, long after all the original autotrophs have gone extinct, replaced with things that don't waste so much energy and have more efficient and streamlined molecular biology, the apex predator clade would remain on its throne, since nothing, I'd argue, would be able to compete with its evolutionary head start evolving so many complex adaptations for multicellularity. Are we to believe there was ever a time when the apex predator niche was something other than an animal? It's difficult to imagine. If that apex predator was a prokaryote, what is it about animal molecular biology that allowed it to overcome such extreme odds and supplant that prokaryote as the apex predator?
10: The fossil record of animals before the Cambrian is probably very incomplete. The first complex animals in the fossil record (the cambrian explosion) seem very, very advanced already -- I think this is a representation that our fossil record is incomplete and animals are a much older clade than they seem. Since predators are rarer in an ecosystem, and may have been even rarer when energy was scarcer due to less oxygen in the atmosphere (early heterotrophic life likely breathed sulfur compounds), we may simply not have any good fossils of animals from before the cambrian.
11: It's also possible that early animals simply weren't made out of the right material to fossilize. Maybe Archean-eon animals had no bones or anything like that and so they didn't fossilize, so we don't have examples of them. We can't assume that just because you don't find fossilized animals from ~3 billion years ago doesn't mean they weren't around then. And even if we did find fossilized animals from that long ago, they were probably so radically different from modern animals that we might misidentify them. For example, we have many fossils of strange creatures from billions of years ago, nobody knows what they are. Maybe they are animals? Example: Google “Grypania”. Currently there is a debate on whether these are algae or bacteria. But they are quite large, and they look sortof wormlike, so, in my view, there’s no reason they couldn’t be primitive animals.
12: Animals are slow reproducing but have the most sophisticated adaptations for multicellularity. The slower something reproduces, the slower it evolves, since there’s less opportunities for mutations. So how did animals have time to acquire so many complex adaptations for multicellularity? They must be an especially ancient lineage, something that has been multicellular much longer than anything else – otherwise they wouldn’t have had time to acquire so many complex adaptations for multicellularity.
13: Phylogenetic trees based on bioinformatics suffer from "long branch attraction" artefacts -- where fast reproducing, simple, and numerous organisms group together at the base of the tree. This is a well-known problem for making phylogenetic trees. Since prokaryotes are so much more numerous and reproduce so much faster than eukaryotes, it’s natural that they would have the most genetic diversity, even if they evolved later. The appearance of prokaryotes at the base of the tree of life derived from bioinformatics algorithms may be a product of long branch attraction.
14: Counterpoints on mitochondrias. I’ll admit that mitochondrias do look a lot like bacterial symbiotes, but that doesn't necessarily mean the original eukaryotes had mitochondrias. Once alphaproteobacteria evolved, it might have infected many lineages of eukaryotes simultaneously, since nothing had resistance to its infections yet. Maybe it impersonated the mitosome and supplanted its function, and did such a good job as a mitosome that the only surviving eukaryotic lineages are ones with alphaproteobacterial infections. Also, if we assume that bacteria are reduced eukaryotes, then many of the gene homologies for mitochondria associated genes could have been present in the eukaryotic LUCA, and perhaps they were used for regulating the mitosome which preceded mitochondrias. I think that the mitochondria is an interesting piece of the puzzle, but it doesn't conclusively demonstrate that prokaryotes came first.
….
I make ASCII phylogenetic tree for fun:

 _______________________________________________Placazoa 1____LUCA_____________________________________________5_____Ctenophora _______Cnidaria ___Bilateria ______________________________________________Porifera _____________Choanoflagellatea _________Dinoflagellata _______Algae ____Viridiplantae __2___________________________________Amoebozoa _________________________________Fungi _3_______Microsporidia __4____Archaea ^ ______Bacteria (endosymbiosis into various eukaryotic clades) _____Mitochondria ^ (horizontal gene transfer from now-extinct RNA life forms to bacteria and archaea) ______________________primitive RNA life forms (extinct) 1: A community of highly interdependent organisms evolves into multicellular eukaryotic progenator with a DNA genome inside a nucleus. This hypothetical LUCA is a relatively large and complex heterotroph which fed on primitive RNA life forms. 2: First truely unicellular (non-colonial) organisms (independent living isn't easy!) 3: Extreme miniaturization 4: Loss of eukaryotic nucleus 5: Complex adaptations for apex predator niches (neurons, etc) 

I remember that day as though it were only yesterday. My species, the rulers of a vast and mighty interstellar empire, had discovered a primitive species tucked away in a remote corner of our galaxy. Naturally, we were excited to discover them, for a new species on the galactic stage could potentially bring with them many exciting new developments to keep us all entertained for a few millennia.
Our survey ships, vessels of unparalleled stealth and subtlety, flocked to the single star system with its four gas giants, a boon for any developing species, and set up shop in orbit of their homeworld. We were all so eager to see what works of wondrous art and civility they had created, and instead we watched as a planet spanning war erupted. Entire nations were consumed, millions died within the first few weeks and we were left horrified by what we saw.
Yet by our own rules we were powerless to intervene, if it was their destiny to eradicate themselves, then that is what would happen. We expected this war to end in nuclear annihilation, for we had detected vast nuclear arsenals the moment we entered orbit of that glittering blue jewel in the dark.
Yet no such cataclysm came, instead, one by one tensions cooled, warriors dropped their primitive slug throwers and went home, seeking the comfort and peace of familiar and safe surroundings. A new government was formed, a unifying body that kept the peace for the next five hundred years to the best of its ability. Yet even then conflict still raged in the far flung places of the world, and we were left to wonder…
What would happen when they leave their world?
The question terrified us to such a degree that when it became clear they were making concerted efforts to leave their world and venture out into the stars, we panicked. A species as violent towards itself as they are would surely take one look at the galaxy and its many peoples and attempt to see them struck down. Some amongst the ruling body were of the mind that such a primitive and savage species was little more than animals that deserved to be put down.
Unfortunately, they were the most influential faction of our esteemed government. So when the vote was passed for the extermination of the species, the most the rest of us could try was to make it as quick and painless a death as possible. To be kind. But yet again, the most powerful of us decided that wasn’t good enough. They said that such savagery be met in kind, and so a terrible weapon was developed.
Fear and an overinflated sense of superiority drove us towards our ultimate shame.
The Affliction was released upon their homeworld, and any intrasolar outposts that we found were subsequently wiped from existence with lightning fast attacks from weapons of mass destruction. The affliction targeted everything from birth rates to skin growth, causing patches of necrosis to form externally and internally, all while heightening nerve responses. Our leaders wanted them to suffer for their savagery. While the powerful patted themselves on the back for their valiant defense of the galaxy from a potential threat, the rest of us were left to worry, to ponder our failings and hope against hope that we could be forgiven for our ineffectual protests against this course of action.
Another five hundred years passed and the galaxy forgot all about the now extinct species, focusing instead on their own problems and several other primitive races we had discovered. But something had not forgotten us, something had lurked in the darkness and waited till the perfect moment to strike.
At first the only knowledge we had of this entity was the brief contacts our sensor nets had with some strange anomaly. We shrugged it off as little more than a mere glitch, yet over time some of us began to see a pattern as the contacts began to linger for longer periods of time before vanishing.
It was far too late to do anything, as we would soon discover, as our outer colonies came under sudden attack from an unknown enemy. An unstoppable force that seemed to sweep over our defenses with ease. Yet we received no reports of the world being razed, instead the enemy was content to occupy the world and move on, keeping the civilian populace calm and cooperative.
Of course that didn’t mean we wouldn’t fight them, just because they were being civil towards our civilians didn’t make them any less our enemy. And so we mobilized, preparing our defenses as best we could and attempting to deny the enemy strategic resources as well. But as we soon learned, our forces were outmatched even in space.
I remember when I first saw them, having been assigned to a defense post on the planet Dingalea. A tropical resort world, with vast oceans and many pristine beaches. It was a tactically unsound planet to invade, yet this foe was clearly interested in all our worlds, not just the strategically important ones. We figured it was meant to force us to commit the bulk of our forces to liberation efforts, spreading our armies and fleets thin in an attempt to reclaim every planet.
I had taken position in a bunker on a cliff overlooking one of the more popular beaches when we heard a booming sound from the sky. Our eyes turned heavensward, and I beheld what appeared to be spears of metal rain from above. They crashed down into the oceans many yektra (miles) away, yet so massive they were that we all could easily see the detailing upon their exteriors.
From where I was stationed I could only see four of them, but as I would learn later, four was all they would need for the coming battle upon our beach. Granted we had set up defensive positions further inland, but the enemy seemed content to land out at sea which led us to assume that they were mostly aquatic based. How wrong we were.
An aperture opened wide upon each of the spears and from them water based vehicles emerged, elongated and rectangular in form, bouncing over the waves as they fanned out and made for shore. We watched and waited, my gripping hands clutching all the more firmly at my plasma pulse rifle. Heavy emplacements warmed up with a whine of charging power packs, the large turrets turning to face our foe. New vehicles joined the first models, these ones clearly armored assault vehicles of a type that was unfamiliar to us, as so much about our enemy was at the time. They kept a staggered and wide formation with the other vehicles, even as air superiority fighter craft started to fill the sky. I felt something twist in my thorax, a pit of fear threatening to swallow me whole.
As I lowered my eye to the scope of my rifle, I watched as the ring around its edge shifted from red to purple, indicating my target was in firing range. The call to open fire rang out from the fortifications around me and all twelve of the hells was visited upon our foe. Plasma and beams of energy lanced out from our lines, boiling the waters and leaving burn marks upon the metal hulls that approached. Artillery began to pound, hoping to inflict more destructive results upon the invaders.
They succeeded in scoring direct hits on a few of the craft, sending burning wreckage to the bottom of the sea, but the rest simply continued on, unfazed by the death and destruction around them.
The craft reached the beach and ramps descended and what we saw made us shiver in instinctual fear. They were tall, bipedal and heavily armored. What flesh we could spot from this distance was unnaturally white, they had no hair and no features upon their heads either. Yet they sported different body shapes, perhaps indicative of sex? It didn’t mattered, they were the enemy and they needed to be destroyed. Our weapons seemed to do very little to their armor, but any hits to exposed flesh did massive amounts of damage, sending the beings falling or flying into the water and sand, pale blue blood pouring from their wounds.
Then they started to fire back, their rounds weren’t energy based, purely kinetic and yet with the speeds they were flying they were clearly being launched by some sort of rail system. The rounds would strike and bury deep before exploding, heat and shrapnel working their deadly trade. Yet the enemy seemed more intent on forcing us to take cover than actually killing us, as became clear as they took cover in craters and behind resort walls. Then the armored vehicles made it to shore and they became the focus of our efforts. Their booming cannons and spitting rotary guns threatened to destroy bunkers and crew weapons alike. Even the aircraft swooped down to strike at us, dropping bombs and firing their dogfighting weapons as well before climbing back into the sky.
For every ten of the infantry or vehicles we destroyed, another thirty was soon behind them. So focused on simply surviving were we that we almost didn’t notice the newest threat. This one walked out of the sea itself, hulking armored forms that were bipedal like the infantry but not showing a single kepti (centimeters) of flesh. These behemoths strode slowly, ponderously across the beach, waving hands at the entrenched beings who would stand and form up with their larger kin. Almost immediately the incoming fire became more intense and precise, causing us to take cover far too often.
The order to pull back to the next line was given and we did so, just as the first of the behemoths burst through a barricade, the angular helmet it wore turning back and forth quickly. It did moved unnervingly fast, but not fast enough to dodge a shot from an anti-vehicle weapon. It staggered backwards, the shot burning through metal and flesh along one side of the helmet. Yet it did not go down, instead a clawed hand rose and grasped what remained of the melting armor and tore it free, revealing a face that’ll haunt me till my dying day.
It was a face of pale flesh, black fur atop their head and around their mouth and jaw. That mouth was twisted into an angry snarl, the one remaining eye burning a cold blue. Yet it was what was on the other side of their face that haunts me. Flesh had burned down to bone, yet there was no bone to be seen, just gleaming chrome. It leered at me, silver teeth clicking as it worked that jaw and began to advance.
Hours later, the planet was theirs. I suppose they wanted to show us that even in a fair fight we were horribly outclassed. That was a few weeks ago now I believe, they’ve just taken the homeworld and are preparing some sort of galaxy wide broadcast. I wonder what they’ll have to say about all this, will they condemn us all to death for one reason or another?
The screen flickers, the normal view of our governmental building coming into focus as one of these horrible monsters steps up to a podium, our leaders cowering behind them.
“People of the Milky Way. We are humanity, a species that knew not what awaited them outside the bounds of their home system. We were hopeful that when we ventured out into the black that we could have found friendship, instead we were nearly murdered in our cradle. Your leaders sentenced us to death out of fear, sentenced millions of children, both born and unborn to agonizing deaths. Your fear led you down a path of atrocities you were all too eager to visit upon a people that couldn’t defend themselves.” The human spoke, their voice rich and booming, met with a deafening silence by audiences on every planet.
“You thought us eradicated, all traces of our existence mere dust on the wind. But you failed. For you see we are a stubborn species and we are also spiteful, spite encourages adaptation. And adapt we did, for five hundred years we suffered your manufactured plague, till it became little more than a reminder of who we were to hate. Yet while many amongst us do hate you and with good reason, we are not here today to visit the same horrors upon your peoples. Instead, you will suffer the authority of another. Our authority. For the next five hundred years you will work to make amends for all you have done and when that time is up, we shall leave you be. For we are not the monsters you thought we were, nor are we the monsters you inadvertently tried to make us. We are humanity, and we will show your people a new and better way.”
The feed shut off and I could only sit back and sigh, resting my head upon the pillow of my hospital bed, as more of these humans surrounded me and began to treat my wounds. I was left to wonder about the future. I wondered at what humanity could show us over the next five hundred years.
And so I closed my eyes, and dreamt of the future.

"I will gladly take care of your Wyrm problem," the Knight in shining armor said to the princess.
The princess narrowed her eyes at him. "It sounds like you're saying Wyrm, not worm."
The Knight Flipped up his helmet visor, "What? Wyrms is Wyrms right? And the ones you need killed are up in the mountains. Earth Wyrms, yea?"
"Worms," The princess over exaggerated the 'o' as she said 'worm', "Yes. Gargantuan Earth Worms, they threaten to destroy the entire mountain range. I need them slain."
"Earth Wyrms! Easily done princess, they can't even fly." The Knight slapped his visor shut, certain he'd be able to handle these Earth Wyrms with ease.
Air Wyrms and Fire Wyrms could both fly and were therefor quite a pain to kill, having to track them relentlessly until they tired was... well tiresome.
Water Wyrms had to be killed underwater most of the time, because mankind had yet to make a fishing boat buoyant enough to fish one from the sea.
With a grin from ear to ear, a simple go there and murder a monster mission in mind, the Knight bowed deeply before excusing himself from the princess' presence.
She turned to her Advisor, "He does know they're Worms and not Wyrms right?"
The old wizard shrugged. "How difficult could it be to kill giant worms?"
The Knight and his squire and their company of friends, set out to the mountains to the north where their quarry was said to be. Among their host was a young wizard who had only barely passed his apprenticeship exams, there was a lady dwarf, who was of course a blacksmith. Her beard was always set with flowers from their next member, her husband the elvish archer. The elf say he's no true archer, merely a hobby, of a thousand years. Their final member was an ex-communicated clergy member from the empire on the other side of the mountains.
A few short days of easy travel over rolling hills and they'd made their way to the foot of the mountains. The Knight and his party experienced the first earth quake then, it was gentle enough that the Knight hadn't even noticed it. The dwarf sure did though.
"Something's not right," She said when the tiny quake ended. "Earth Wyrms must be fighting something else right now for us to be feeling this rumble."
"Then they'll be softened up for us when we get there, or maybe already dead. All that mattered to the princess was that they die, we need only verify those deaths." The Young Wizard said, hopeful he wouldn't have to fight at all.
The clergyman said a prayer to his strange god, and bid them all, "Prepare for the worst tomorrow, this way when it likely goes better than that, you can be overjoyed at our fortune."
The squire took the first watch, and the Knight the second. Nothing happened but the soft snores of their compatriots. For the third watch they had the elf. He required far less sleep than humans or dwarves, except for once a lunar month when he had to sleep for a whole day.
During his watch the ground rumbled again. More than rumbled, it shook and cracked. A span the size of large horse opened up and split their camp in half. The elf didn't exactly have to sound the alarm, everyone woke up to the thunderous crack of the landscape opening.
In the pre-dawn light leaking over the horizon they could see the fractures leading up into the mountains. Their camp just happened to be on the end of one such crack. The whole mountain they were headed to seemed to have cracked.
"These must indeed be large Wyrms." the Knight said. "I shall need all my weapons sharpened to their finest edge to piece their hides."
The Dwarf set to work spinning her whetstone and putting the sharpest edge on the Knight's swords and axes and even the arrow heads of her husband's arrows were sharpened. The squire was loaded down with heavy, very sharp weapons, and followed his master up into the recently cracked mountain. As they traveled the ground steadily rumbled.
They found an opening which they hoped would lead them into the caves inside the mountain where they might find at face these dread Earth Wyrms.
As they entered the caverns they were surprised to find a thick slime coating the walls.
"How curious." The young Wizard said, collecting a sample into a glass vial and staring at intently.
The clergyman said another prayer, and placed a blessing of damage resistance on all his friends. They would all be nigh-on unpuncturable, unslashable, and unbludgeonable for a few hours. You could do those things, and it might throw them around, but they wouldn't be injured any more than their pride. This foreign god's power was how the Knight had become so good at killing Wyrms. The clergyman had other blessings, which were not needed at the moment, fire resistance, and water breathing being two big ones. Air walking was a wizard trick, and so they recruited the young wizard.
The wizard projected a light up into the middle of the height of the cave they now found themselves in, and it showed that the cave was nearly as tall as the castle walls, in one direction it went off into the darkness beyond what his meek light could show, but the other direction was blocked by a gigantic wall of pink slimy flesh.
"Oh..." The wizard said, understanding a moment too late. "Earth Worms."
The Knight had approached the pink wall and tried to hack into it, but the slime coating the ouside of the great flesh mass was to sticky and too thick. It quickly stole his weapon from him, and then the next and the next and the next.
The gargantuan lack-minded creature, reacted to something behind it, and backed up in the tunnel. The Knight was quickly caught in the ooze, the squire too. The Elf unleashed a volley of arrows, but they met the same fate as their archer, only a few seconds sooner. The thick layer of mucus on the outside of the worms was the greatest armor they had ever faced. Almost as thick as a the knight was wide, it more than caught and stopped any attacks from such small creatures as the knight as his allies.
Trying desperately to help his wife escape, the elf and the dwarf ended up caught in the thick slime together.
The wizard knew he was boned, so stood and faced the slime with dignity.
And the Clergy man. Well, he said one final prayer for the souls of himself and his party members before being backed over by a brainless worm. His quiet hope was that his god would protect them all until the worm deposited them elsewhere as it continued to devour the mountain range.

Thank you for taking the time to read my weapon balance essay.
Yes, I feel just as silly typing this as you probably felt reading it.
But every good essay deserves a silly intro. So here we go.
​
The following is a collection of ideas I want to throw at the wall.
I hope that they are largely reasonable and more importantly, fun.
Even hope that someone at Arrowhead will read this.
And I want to see what you guys, the community, think.
​
**Discord Polls**
More of them! More! More!
Arrowhead, you receive such a loud clash of undiscernible noise from the community most of the time;
Why not pick out anything and everything that catches your eye and put it to a vote to find out what the community actually thinks?
It quickly lets people hear about the various ideas they likely miss in the chaos of the discord; Allowing them to discuss the ideas and vote.
Doing more polls will allow you to quickly filter through the bad ideas.
​
**All weapons**
**Better scopes**
We call the current scopes, ACOG.jpg scopes, not because they're good.
Specifically, the futuristic scopes with glowing bits and extra noise.
The scopes just suck trying to see targets through.
The only good sight in the game currently is the LiberatoSickle.
Please, consider real life scopes and pick stuff you guys would like to actually shoot with.
And add ladder sights to low velocity guns.
​
**Bolt Catch on empty mag**
Please Install bolt catches and bolt releases on anything it makes sense to.
Charging the rifle after every empty mag delays our ability to spread democracy.
Not every gun needs this, but it would be a nice little bonus to underperforming ARs.
​
**Energy Weapons**
Give energy weapons fire modes.
For all the beam energy weapons, give them an overclock option.
Something like +50% damage but +100% heat generation.
Or a burst beam with cooldown period; Something like the Halo spartan laser, and have it boost the penetration by one level.
Tweak the numbers to something that's fun and a reason to toggle between modes.
​
**Assault Rifles**
There are several issues and numbers that could and should be brought up.
But the biggest crime I would like to point out is,
A single shot from an AR does the same damage as a *single pellet* from a shotgun shell.
AR-23P does 45 damage, A single pellet from the punisher does 45 damage.
That's a travesty. Someone is staring far too hard at spreadsheets.
​
**MP-98 Knight**
Two things, please add it to the SC store from time to time. ( if agreements allow you to of/c)
And, if you can allow everyone to spend SC to get it, give it tier 3 penetration (medium armor pen).
So there is a reason to take it vs the other smgs.
Say the super scientists got the idea from an old earth TV show about a big circular stargate.
Tweak the fire-rate and magazine carry count to balance of course.
​
**SG-8S Slugger**
"The slugger is too good of a DMR so we nerfed the shotguns trademark stagger", what?
Just revert all the changes on it. Give back the stagger and demolition force.
Then increase the damage fall off a little bit. (and make the diligence a little better)
​
**R-63 Diligence**
Give the diligence 2 or 3 round burst fire or something.
​
**R-36 Eruptor**
shrapnel is the guns thing. so give it back.
Shrapnel killing chargers? Shrapnel killing helldivers randomly?
Reduce the shrapnel damage. That's what should have happened.
It did like 150 or 200 damage per shrapnel and it generated up to 20 of them.
That's 4000 damage. what.
Dropping shrapnel damage to 50 and boosting the base explosive to 200 should be a fair compromise.
tweak from there.
​
**LAS-5 Scythe**
Give the scythe the same scope as the Sickle. That's really the biggest thing it needs.
And the overclock fire-mode would be nice or the burst charge that boosts penetration would be better.
​
**PLAS-101 Purifier**
This thing is just sad.
Ok, so lets make this fun. Give it 3 firing modes. you select what the max charge is from the weapon wheel.
Each charge level takes one more ammo. and at level 2 or 3 charge, make it the first primary to penetrate tier 4 armor or heavy or whatever you want to call it. Also, at a full charge, or 'overcharge' have it blast the user backwards rag-dolling them.
Example numbers----
Base shot about 60 rate of fire, projectile: 3 pen 150 damage + 50 explosive damage, 1 ammo use.
Slower than the scorcher, but that's fine. The charge shots are what we're here for.
​
Charge shot +1 second to charge, projectile: 4 pen 200 damage + 150 explosive damage, 2 ammo use.
It can now penetrate Scout Walkers, and do more damage vs medium targets. has a little AoE.
​
Overcharge shot +3 seconds to charge, Projectile: 4 pen 250 damage + 250 explosive damage, 3 ammo use.
It now has a punisher sized AoE. And more comically, blasts the user backwards rag-dolling them. Probably make it so the user just falls backwards on his butt.
Now that sounds like a fun gun. Tweak the numbers of course as they're only given for rough examples. Give it a nice boom.
​
​
**RS-422 Railgun**
Just make it a primary
Tweak/nerf the numbers a little bit.
Likely nerf down to tier 4 pen for safe shots, and if you kept unsafe, probably let it have tier 5 pen.
Making this a primary would add to the variety of builds and stratagems that people will bring.
Extend the safety period/grace period of full charge; Add the charge gauge to the 3rd person hud cursor, And give it the liberators scope.
This would be such a nice boost to the die hard fans of the gun. And be a second primary with tier 4 pen. (and maybe the first with tier 5?)
​
​
**LAS-99 Quasar Cannon**
"Due to the ongoing war effort I.C.E production for the Quasar has worsened causing full charge shots to now take 15 seconds to recover from."
"So the techs have decided to hack in half power shots for half the cooldown recovery time."
Add a fire-mode that's half the damage for half cooldown time.
So we have at least one anti-tank weapon that does some sort of different damage.
​
**LAS-98 Laser Cannon**
Please, give this overclock or spartan laser.
I'm voting for the halo spartan burst laser firing mode.
Charge it for 3 seconds then you get a nice strong PEW. Give that tier 5 pen and make it the first support weapon at tier 5 pen!
So it's not quite at the level of anti-tank, but gives more options to deal with enemy heavy spam in high tiers!
Would give bug laser enjoyer's a option to fight titans with, and allow other options when dealing with several other common heavy enemy types.
​
Ideally, hopefully, more things are just fun. Numbers can always be tweaked. But more fun fire-modes will go a long way.
​

First, I'd like for us all to acknowledge how, uhhh, for lack of a better term toxic this game and community has become. In doing so, it's probably best for our own souls to simply acknowledge that we ourselves behave more toxically in this game than perhaps other multiplayer games. I know I personally do not get into heated arguments / name call / and 'git gud' other players in other games nearly as much as this one.
Often I've thought it's simply because I just care about this game so much or that it's simply a reaction to other players who really are toxic unlike me.
But let's be honest with ourselves - it's all of us.
However, it's not entirely our fault.
-- Here are my observations upon taking a break and going back to some old school games in the same genre (specifically, I've started playing Ultima Online again - which SDF emphatically told Terry is his primary inspiration for this game). --
When I first launched this game, like many of you - I expected something akin to a Dungeon and Dragons dive into the unknown. RNG was expected and yet, skill / knowledge should allow us to overcome some of that RNG and make the game work in our favor - at least for replayability's sake.
At first, that is how the game felt. Most players - like myself - had no clue what we were doing and were experimenting. The mobs felt scary, the minibosses near impossible, and extracting was a miracle that gave us a relief and a dopamine rush that made it all the stress feel worth it.
But as expected with practically everything in life once the mechanics are better understood, the mystery starts to wear thin. The same thing happens at a job, with political ideologies, hell the same thing happens when you get a partner. And this game is just a series of systems, so it's no exception to that rule. I fully expected some of the mystery to wear off, I fully expected to feel familiar with it after a certain point. What I didn't expect, was for the game to start feeling like a game of Counter-Strike where I am up against people with certain perks / aspects that make it feel akin to playing in a lobby where some people have hacks enabled and sometimes those players are me and my squad. (And certainly there are actual hackers no doubt, but I am not talking about that specifically. I am talking about how this game currently feels when everyone is "playing it correctly".)
Map knowledge, min-maxxing gear, perk and skill selection, comp selection are at an all time high right now (which again, was to be expected) but simultaneously - the end game content seems to simply be PvP, PvP, then when you're done and PvP some more.
This is where the game starts to feel like a CS lobby filled with hackers. This is where the frustration starts to build, and where I see a possible culprit as to why it's some common for people to be hardcore venting while being met with various "git guds" on this subreddit, discord, or simply being toxic dirtbags in VOIP. We didn't sign up for this kind of end-game but dammit if we didn't get addicted to it before it devolved and now - we're angry. We feel like we've lost something, but we can't stop trying to find it again.
The Dev's also feel like they've lost something and are trying to "find it again". They want to find balance, they want to maintain a healthy relationship with their player base, they want to compete with other games of a similar genre while maintaining their unique inspiration from late 90's hardcore fantasy games and DnD. In trying to search for this missing thing the devs have been twisting knobs back and forth in PvP balance for about a year now.
This is why it feels like we're being driven around by the devs in circles as we scream "take a left" and "No! Take a right!" and the devs seem to listen - we are all desperate to get back to that place where the game first captivated us and the mystery was strong.
How could such a feeling have been maintained, at least for longer? And how could the feeling of having lost it been staved off?
The simple answer (but truly complex if we're being honest) is this: The foundations of this game are not strong. The concept is strong but the foundation feels rushed to produce a playable version, rather than a quality vision.
One of those foundational issues is the modules, the zone / swarm, and maps themselves. The modules were advertised - some time ago - as being Dynamic. Meaning, each time you open a door to a new module you would not know what module you'll enter nor what creatures / loot may be hidden within nor how that module might connect with other modules.
I would argue that had Dynamic Modules been fully invested in and implemented from the start, the mystery could have been maintained for longer and the PvP "end game" might have been staved off in it's full edifice that has been erected today. Perhaps then even juiced players would have to deal with the RNG of the dungeon and callouts of "rotate" or "go on flank" would more often be supplemented with "fall back and regroup".
Also to blame is the swarm, forcing players to clear or avoid modules as fast as possible to avoid being left behind, and thus run into each other and forced to PvP.
I will also posit that the 'simple' mechanics of melee / ranged combat and the simplicity of movement and lack of meaningful evasion mechanics has been a failure in the foundational structure of this game. Had these areas been more 'cooked' then perhaps the game wouldn't be nearly as punishing - unfairly so - when one player simply out gears another or one squad simply rushes down another due to their comp. These very basic mechanics also mean that cheesing AI isn't just "the easy way to get through hell" but actually a preferred method in many occasions simply because once you get off rhythm, your ducking and mashing A vs D gets thrown off and you start to eat hits. It's not fun to dance around a Beserker and widdle him down and it isn't much more skillful than "I stood on a veiny Hell bloodclut and hit him in the head until he died".
This also affects compositions and how one team pushes into another. Half of the Trios gameplay is simply "Does their composition benefit from entering a doorway or holding it?" - what the fuck is that?
The simplicity of mechanics has also necessitated a simplicity of AI as an answer - if AI could climb, open doors, and properly scare the shit out of you - yet all you have to deal with them are these undercooked melee mechanics - you would get roasted by a basic Axe skeleton much more often than anyone would like to admit.
And yet, the lack of meaningful AI and mechanics means moving from module to module consists of opening a door, running past, and shutting it behind you. This might be good for when you're evading a buff ball team, but it also the same system that is enabling that team to begin with.
So here we are - the lack of dynamics modules and undercooked movement / melee mechanics has meant that the Devs have focused nearly entirely on balancing PvP rather than a core game-play loop. Entire systems and entire wipes have been devoted to "balancing" and creating QoL for these systems. Because if someone has better gear than you - they basically win - then gear needs to be stronger for beginners and thus a Squire and thus a Quest system and thus a Marketplace where the mystery and allure of items goes to absolutely die as everything in the game is accessible through gold. No longer does finding a piece of gear in the dungeon that fits your character hit in any meaningful way.
This is not a Dungeon Diver any longer. It will continue to bleed players, and new players who try it thinking "I like hardcore games, I like DnD, I like loot" will quickly turn it off once they realize it's just a shitty version of Counter-Strike but half of the lobby has speed hacks and extra damage and you do not.
Previously, I was for a Marketplace. Previously, I was all for GBMM. Previously, I thought I would one day be "good enough" to rock BiS because I will have mastered many difficult systems. Now it's just a matter of "do I feel like running BiS right now or not" - everything is so accessible that it has lost meaning and feeling and simply is a RNG of how geared the other team is on the map.
Now I'm more for self-found only gear, removal of marketplace, removing of GBMM, skill trees > Multiclassing - and I'd go so far as to say I think they need to turn this game off for a few months, put everything on a test server, and go back to fixing the foundation then relaunch it.
SKILL STILL EXISTS and I will never deny that - but it could exist in a more meaningful way with better foundational systems that do not force the entire game to devolve into PvP hit trading and door play.
TL;DR
The game's foundational systems are rocky and have turned this game into a PvP fest. The lack of Dynamic modules means the best compositions with the best items with better map knowledge will simply rush through and win. The fact that players often have better loot than half of the modules means that PvP is always the best bang for your buck. These incongruent foundations have devolved this game into a crappy version of Counter-Strike where half of the lobby has better damage / movespeed than you do. The melee / range and lack of meaningful evasion tools mean gear check will always be king and makes aforementioned "counterstrike feeling" feel ever worse. And yet, the devs - unable or unwilling or are simply blind to it - have instead been balancing the entire game around "PvP" for almost an entire year - taking up resources and time - because it's the one faucet of the game everyone agrees is causing issues. And yet, nothing has been done to prevent PvP engagement after PvP engagement from becoming the only real end-game content.
All of these foundational systems working incongruently are causing a fractured and toxic playerbase because we didn't sign up for a PvP fest, we signed up for a Dungeon Diving experience with a small squad.
I'll be playing Ultima Online Outlands in the meantime. I might check back on this game after sometime. I made a lot of cool friends and really enjoyed playing with some of you. My in game alias's were ThrustinTheseHips / Dolphin Lover - if you had a good time playing with or against me I will always cherish it! But boys, please take care of your mental health. This game can take a toll - no lies.

We're an in-development/beta server dedicated to 3 main points:

• Provide a variety of feature-rich modes
  
• Strict prevention of all forms of cheating, no matter the caliber
  
• A community that is friendly no matter the skill level. a.k.a no toxic behavior.
  

We try to provide a variety of content, however given how small the development team is (at the moment, only 3 builders and 1 plugin developer), updates and changes will take a long time. Basically every mode is being re-imagined (Our first of these will be Tower Defense coming out this month!). Given this nature, features, playerdata, and basically everything else isn't perfectly stable, and may change in a flash. Now is the perfect time to come playtest and not only help grow our community, but to help find issues and propose new ideas.
BudderCraft is extremely strict on preventing cheating of any kind. Due to this, no mods (except those listed towards the end) are allowed, and this will never change (except potentially for Fabric, Forge and Lunar in the far future when we can limit their functionality). No bedrock modding will ever be allowed mostly due to console users having no legal way of obtaining them. Any intentional ways to get around this will result in a permanent, unpardonable ban. However mods aren't the only way to cheat. Any other forms, weather with ways of automation (hacks, mods, resource packs, we don't allow them atm, but a whitelist feature will be added someday) or not (game exploits, alt accounts, "win-trading" - where people in competitive modes play for a specific result rather than trying to win individually, and many more), all cheating rule breaks will almost certainly result in an unpardonable ban. Any form of piracy will also be given the same treatment. Since Minecraft isn't considered abandonware (meaning its no longer sold anymore), you cannot pirate/steal it, and there is no excuse that can be made to justify it.
A central point to a fun online game is to only allow fun and friendly people to play it. Anyone being rude for no reason, whether in a competitive environment or not, will not be tolerated whatsoever, especially if it involves personal attacks against specific traits of the person (race, sexuality, gender, etc.). While there is a way to breach this unpunished, not only does everyone who can see the content have to have explicitly said they're ok with it, but mods and admins can disallow it for any reason (mostly to prevent people from harassing others behind their back). Further info about this exception can be found under Non-ruling terms in /warp Rules
Other small points:

• 1.9+ style PvP. 1.8 pvp is over a decade old at this point, if you haven't gotten used to it yet, skill issue. Some changes to the combat system do exist, such as making ender crystals harmless and when 1.21 comes out, nerfing the stupidly-overpowered mace with as much as a 91% damage reduction with a damage cap.
  
• there is a very quick section once you join for the first time. You must complete it to continue, and cannot chat or send commands (except /helpop) until you do so. It only takes 1 minute, if that. It only exists to filter out bots and people who have no ability to read (since it features things I had to have answered all the time).
  
• large scale farms are strictly prohibited. We believe all these massive farms that generate double-chests worth of items per minute ruins the economy and in the case of Factions, kills all strategy, since you would be basically forced to build these or you would stand 0 chance, and who likes a strategy game where only 1 strategy is viable? You can view an outdated list (will be updated come 1.21) of every banned farm under rule 9 in /warp Rules, but the common rule of thumb, if it seems hacky, requires an elaborate setup, or was never intended to be renewable, then its not allowed. Some common banned farms are iron farms, gold farms, raid farms, gunpowder farms, and most xp farms.
  
• If you are unsure about something on the server, rather than bothering busy staff, use our tutorials (either /warp HowToPlay or /help. Most modes have a "how to play" hologram at their respective spawnpoint). Staff are allowed to ignore help requests that these things answer and even mute players who repeatedly ask.
  
• Joining our discord is not required but highly recommended. It is very helpful for posting/getting feedback and update/uptime info. You can get our discord link by using /discord on the server (we aren't posting the link here as joining the minecraft server is a requirement to join anyways, so you might as well do that first)
  

If you're ready to check us out, join with the IP below. We always run on the latest version (as every server should), however it may take a week or two to update versions once a new one releases.
IP(Java and Bedrock): play.buddercraft.net
NO MODDED OR PIRATED CLIENTS ALLOWED!!!!!!!! IF YOU ARE CAUGHT USING ONE, YOU WILL BE IMMEDIATLY BANNED!!!!!!!!(However, we do allow some, which are listed below)(We are not open to suggestions for more)
Allowed Clients:
Badlion Client (Only specifed mods below are allowed)
Allowed Mods for Badlion (Note: any setting not listed here will be automatically disabled and blocked when you join!):
Animations
Block Overlay
Clear Glass
CPS
Crosshair
Damage Tint
Enchant Glint
FPS
Hit Color
Item Physics
KeyStrokes
OofMod
Ping
Tab
Please note that we are still in our beta phase, so expect bugs and lacking features. Feel free to make suggestions on what we need done before official release!

right now balls biggest issue is that he gets hacked on CD so he can’t effectively get hacked->survive because the second he’s healthy and engages again he will get hacked again bc it’s gonna be off cooldown.
i’m talking about hack duration as a whole not the ability lockout aspect. that should remain the same.
there’s only two things that would buff sombra in this scenario-> she’d be able to see ball through walls during this and her virus would trigger the fast dot on him. however keep it mind that the damage of virus alone is pretty laughable on tanks, and that sometimes its more powerful to virus without hack because the dps passive will keep procing for a longer time.
this would make sombra have to think about when to hack ball instead of just holding m2. it would also help sombra set up different plans vs squishies, actually getting use out of wallhacks and being able to hack, disengage and then engage with virus again

Berserk is ok and all. But I still don't think it still hasn't the wow factor of Sands or any Hacking build.
(aka those cyberware basically carried the anime.)
Even some Crome Builds can be tanker.
Example: If I had the wheel, I would add my favorite gimmick: More Pain, More Gain.
Aka: The more damaged a user is, the more damage they would do to others.
Including a damage resist buff based on that.
Having some kind of static effect, like the user has some kind of electrical current or aura (aka Super Saiyan.)
But how would you change the berserk cyberware?

The extended roster:
Wildmutt Role: DPS Play Style: Agile and ferocious melee attacker with heightened senses. Notable Moves: Savage Pounce: Leaps at an enemy, dealing damage and stunning them. Sensory Track: Detects hidden enemies within a certain radius. Razor Claws: Swift melee attacks that cause bleeding damage over time. Super Attack: Feral Frenzy - Enters a heightened state, increasing attack speed and damage for a short duration.
Grey Matter Role: Support Play Style: Strategic support with abilities to hack and control the battlefield. Notable Moves: Nano Heal: Deploys nanobots that heal allies over time. Tech Override: Temporarily hacks enemy gadgets, turning them against their owners. Intellect Boost: Enhances an ally’s abilities, reducing cooldowns and increasing effectiveness. Super Attack: Mastermind Machination - Creates a field that boosts allies’ intelligence, allowing for faster ability usage and strategic advantages.
Ripjaws Role: Tank Play Style: Amphibious brawler with strong underwater capabilities. Notable Moves: Aqua Slam: Jumps and crashes down, creating a shockwave in water. Bite Lock: Grabs an enemy with his jaws, immobilizing them briefly. Whirlpool: Creates a vortex in water, pulling enemies towards the center. Super Attack: Tsunami Strike - Summons a massive wave, knocking back and damaging all enemies in its path.
Cannonbolt Role: Tank Play Style: Rolling juggernaut with high-impact collision attacks. Notable Moves: Rollout: Turns into a ball and rolls over enemies, dealing damage. Impact Crater: Slams into the ground, creating an area of effect damage. Rebound Rampage: Bounces off surfaces, increasing speed and damage with each hit. Super Attack: Meteor Ball - Launches into the air and crashes down as a giant ball, causing massive area damage.
Wildvine Role: Support Play Style: Nature-based support with crowd control and area denial. Notable Moves: Thorn Barrage: Shoots thorns that damage and slow enemies. Vine Grasp: Extends vines to pull enemies or allies to safety. Seed Bomb: Plants a seed that grows into a trap, ensnaring enemies. Super Attack: Jungle Jamboree - Summons a forest of vines that entangle and damage enemies while healing allies.
Spitter Role: DPS Play Style: Ranged attacker with debilitating slime attacks. Notable Moves: Slime Shot: Spits slime that slows and damages enemies. Goo Grenade: Hurls a blob that explodes, covering a wide area with sticky goo. Mucus Bubble: Encases himself in a bubble, gaining temporary invulnerability. Super Attack: Acid Rain - Spews a cloud of corrosive rain over enemies, causing severe damage over time.
Buzzshock Role: DPS Play Style: Electric skirmisher with high mobility and shocking attacks. Notable Moves: Volt Dash: Dashes through enemies, electrocuting them. Chain Lightning: Strikes an enemy with lightning that jumps to nearby targets. Static Trap: Leaves an electrified trap that stuns the first enemy that touches it. Super Attack: Power Surge - Overloads the area with electricity, continuously damaging all enemies nearby.
Blitzwolfer Role: DPS Play Style: Lycanthropic fighter with howling attacks and enhanced agility. Notable Moves: Sonic Howl: Unleashes a howl that damages and disorients enemies. Lunar Leap: Jumps great distances, pouncing on enemies from afar. Claw Rend: Swift claw strikes that can bleed enemies over time. Super Attack: Moon Frenzy - Gains increased speed and attack power under a simulated full moon.
Upchuck Role: Support Play Style: Consumptive support that can absorb and redirect energy. Notable Moves: Energy Ingest: Absorbs energy attacks, converting them into health or ammo. Gastro Blast: Fires a concentrated beam of absorbed energy. Matter Munch: Devours objects to create barriers or restore health. Super Attack: Digestive Overload - Releases a massive energy explosion around him, using stored power.
Ditto Role: Support Play Style: Multiplicative support with cloning abilities to confuse and outnumber enemies. Notable Moves: Clone Swarm: Creates duplicates that attack and distract enemies. Mirror Maneuver: All clones mimic Ditto’s actions, dealing damage in unison. Replicate Retreat: Sacrifices a clone to teleport to its location, evading danger. Super Attack: Multiplicity Mayhem - Floods the battlefield with clones, overwhelming enemies with sheer numbers.
Waybig Role: Tank Play Style: Colossal tank with massive strength and area control. Notable Moves: Giant Stomp: Causes a shockwave that knocks back enemies. Cosmic Beam: Fires a powerful beam from his eyes, dealing heavy damage. Towering Defense: Uses his size to shield allies and block paths. Super Attack: Galactic Slam - Lifts a huge chunk of the ground and throws it, crushing enemies beneath.
Arctiguana Role: DPS Play Style: Frosty sharpshooter with chilling ranged attacks. Notable Moves: Ice Beam: Shoots a beam that can freeze enemies in place. Frostbite Grenade: Throws a grenade that explodes into a freezing mist. Blizzard Breath: Exhales a cold wind that slows and damages enemies. Super Attack: Avalanche Ambush - Summons a wave of ice and snow that buries enemies, dealing massive damage.
Chromastone Role: DPS Play Style: Ranged combatant with energy absorption and redirection. Notable Moves: Prism Blast: Fires a beam that can split into multiple rays upon hitting surfaces. Energy Shield: Absorbs incoming energy attacks to charge his next Prism Blast. Radiant Rush: Charges forward enveloped in a protective energy aura. Super Attack: Spectrum Surge - Unleashes a full-spectrum energy wave in all directions, dealing massive damage.
Alien X Role: Support Play Style: Omnipotent support with reality-altering powers. Notable Moves: Cosmic Restore: Heals all allies within a certain radius. Event Rewrite: Reverses the last few seconds of gameplay for all players, except Alien X. Existential Shift: Temporarily increases the abilities of all allies. Super Attack: Universal Rift - Creates a zone where all enemy actions are delayed by several seconds.
Nanomech Role: DPS Play Style: Tiny, evasive striker with the ability to infiltrate and sabotage. Notable Moves: Micro Missiles: Launches a barrage of tiny homing missiles. Infiltrate: Shrinks down to enter and disable enemy equipment temporarily. Nano Swarm: Releases a cloud of nanobots that damage and disorient enemies. Super Attack: Molecular Disassembly - Causes enemy gear to malfunction and fall apart for a short time.
Fasttrack Role: DPS Play Style: Speedster with rapid strikes and quick evasions. Notable Moves: Speed Slash: Dashes through enemies, dealing damage to all in his path. Blur Dodge: Evades attacks with superhuman speed, leaving afterimages. Momentum Punch: Delivers a punch that gains power the longer he runs before striking. Super Attack: Velocity Vortex - Creates a tornado by running in circles, pulling in and damaging enemies.
Eatle Role: Tank Play Style: Durable brawler that consumes materials to boost his powers. Notable Moves: Bite Crush: Devours objects to gain temporary health and armor. Shrapnel Spit: Spits out digested material as high-velocity projectiles. Ravage Rampage: Gains increased size and strength after consuming large objects. Super Attack: Digestive Explosion - Erupts with energy after consuming a significant amount of material, damaging nearby enemies.
Gravattack Role: Tank Play Style: Gravity manipulator with area control and enemy displacement. Notable Moves: Gravity Well: Creates a field that pulls enemies towards the center. Orbit Slam: Levitates enemies before slamming them back to the ground. Mass Increase: Temporarily becomes immovable and reduces damage taken. Super Attack: Black Hole Barrage - Summons miniature black holes that travel across the battlefield, devouring anything in their path.
Crashhopper Role: DPS Play Style: Agile assaulter with powerful leaps and crushing landings. Notable Moves: Leap Smash: Jumps high and crashes down, damaging enemies where he lands. Hopper Blitz: Rapidly hops towards enemies, kicking them with powerful legs. Bound Escape: Uses his legs to leap out of harm’s way, avoiding damage. Super Attack: Seismic Stomp - Unleashes a series of ground-shaking hops that create shockwaves, knocking back enemies.
Walkatrout Role: Support Play Style: Evasive support with distraction and escape tactics. Notable Moves: Slippery Dodge: Evades attacks with unexpected movements. Bait and Switch: Creates a decoy to distract enemies while he escapes. Helping Hand: Quickly aids allies, providing them with speed boosts or temporary shields. Super Attack: Fish Out of Water - Flops around wildly, confusing enemies and making them miss their attacks.
Molestache Role: Support Play Style: Quirky fighter with mustache-based abilities for control and defense. Notable Moves: Whisker Whip: Lashes out with his mustache, striking multiple enemies. Stache Shield: Uses his mustache to form a protective barrier. Hairnet Trap: Entangles enemies in a strong, hair-like net. Super Attack: Mustache Maelstrom - Spins rapidly, extending his mustache to create a tornado that pulls in and damages enemies.
The Worst Role: Tank Play Style: Indestructible tank that can absorb a tremendous amount of damage. Notable Moves: Unbreakable Stance: Temporarily reduces all incoming damage to minimal levels. Aggravate: Taunts enemies, forcing them to attack him over his allies. Endure: Regenerates health based on the damage taken in the last few seconds. Super Attack: Ultimate Sacrifice - Draws all enemy fire to himself for a short duration, becoming invulnerable and then releasing a retaliatory shockwave.
Kickin Hawk Role: DPS Play Style: Martial artist with rapid strikes and acrobatic maneuvers. Notable Moves: Talon Tear: Delivers a flurry of slashes with his talon-like feet. Wing Rush: Uses his wings for a burst of speed, enabling quick strikes. Feather Frenzy: Spins with outstretched wings, hitting all nearby enemies. Super Attack: Hawk Hurricane - Executes a high-speed spinning attack that damages and knocks back all surrounding enemies.
Toepick Role: Support Play Style: Fear-inducing support that debilitates enemies with terror. Notable Moves: Ghastly Gaze: Reveals his face, scaring enemies and causing them to flee. Creep Out: Emits an aura that reduces enemy attack speed and accuracy. Face of Fear: Targets an enemy, stunning them with fright. Super Attack: Nightmare Nova - Unleashes a wave of terror, causing all enemies to experience hallucinations and become disoriented.
Astrodactyl Role: DPS Play Style: Aerial attacker with high mobility and precision strikes from above. Notable Moves: Energy Whip: Lashes out with a whip made of pure energy, which can hit multiple targets in a line. Jet Flight: Uses his jetpack to fly quickly across the battlefield, avoiding ground-based hazards. Meteor Dive: Soars high, then dives down at an enemy, dealing significant damage upon impact. Super Attack: Starfall Barrage - Unleashes a series of energy blasts from the sky, targeting multiple enemies or focusing on a single target for increased damage.
Bullfrag Role: Tank Play Style: Tough and resilient front-line brawler with crowd control abilities. Notable Moves: Frog Slam: Leaps high and crashes down, creating a shockwave that stuns nearby enemies. Tongue Lash: Extends his tongue to pull enemies closer or disrupt their actions. Amphibious Assault: Charges through enemies, pushing them aside and dealing damage. Super Attack: Ribbit Rumble - Grows in size and gains increased health and strength, allowing him to knock back enemies with each attack and resist incoming damage.

Following on from the BBC article posted recently “explaining” the 115 charges laid at Man City’s feet, I decided to look properly at what the charges are, given that the article barely went further than rehashing that Man City cheated over and over again without any attempt at critical analysis.

What are the breaches?

There are 5 main areas that the breaches fall into:

• Accuracy of financial information
• Manager and player remuneration
• Compliance with UEFA regulations
• Compliance with PSR
• Cooperation with the investigation

The actual text of the Premier League’s statement can be seen here: https://www.premierleague.com/news/3045970

Where did the breaches come from?

The original source of the allegations were leaked emails from Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto. Rui Pinto was handed a 4 year suspended sentence last year for attempted extortion, illegal access to data and breach of correspondence with relation to the leaks, which were posted via his Football Leaks website in 2015. Emails from Manchester City were not the only things leaked - players like Messi and Neymar were also caught up in some leaks related to their salaries. In total there were millions of documents.
These leaked emails surfaced via Der Spiegel in 2018 as part of an expose feature which they ran, and spanned 4 articles at the time. You can read the first here: https://www.spiegel.de/international/manchester-city-exposed-bending-the-rules-to-the-tune-of-millions-a-1236346.html
On the back of these leaks UEFA, after launching an investigation in March 2019, charged Manchester City with breaches of their regulations which led, in 2020, to the club being banned from European football for 2 seasons alongside a 30m euro fine.
Alongside that UEFA investigation, the Premier League also opened an investigation. It took until 2023 for them to present their charges - the statement linked above. The case is ongoing.

What about those UEFA breaches?

The club denied any wrongdoing and appealed to CAS, the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Upon hearing the case CAS found no evidence to support UEFA’s conclusions with regards to the allegations. As a result the club’s ban from European football was overturned with immediate effect. CAS sided with UEFA on their non-cooperation charges and stated that the club could have done more to provide UEFA with documents when requested. CAS therefore issued a 10m Euro fine.
You can read the verdict here: https://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/CAS_Award_6785___internet__.pdf
This was the second time that the club had a run-in with UEFA. They first had a disagreement over potential breaches in 2014 related to the club spending more than the allowed amount in the previous season - the club contested that this was the result of UEFA not allowing deductibles for existing contracts started before FFP was introduced. There were no charges laid at City for this - the club entered a settlement with UEFA and a subsequent monitoring period with specific break even requirements and squad restrictions. That period ended in 2017 with UEFA declaring that the club had complied with all of the agreements within the settlement.

Didn’t City get away with it because everything was time barred?

The CAS verdict did find that the first 2 years of alleged breaches related to the club’s financial statements (the bits referred to as inflated sponsorships) were time barred (a process whereby the time permitted to bring forward the issue has passed and it is no longer possible to pursue the case - 5 years in UEFA’s rules), and so could not be considered. The rest of the years questioned were considered, and ultimately no evidence was found of financial irregularities.

Onto the 115

The Premier League statement lists 5 key areas of breaches, outlined earlier, which I will dive into more now. In total, the number of rules that the Premier League have accused Manchester City of breaching is 130. That is broken down into:

• Accuracy of financial information: 50 rules (2009/10 to 2017/18)
• Manager and player remuneration: 20 rules (2009/10 to 2015/16)
• Compliance with UEFA regulations: 5 rules (2013/14 to 2017/18)
• PSR compliance: 25 rules (2015/16 to 2017/18)
• Non-cooperation: 30 rules (2018/19 to 2022/23)

No matter how I try to recalculate it, I never get 115. I'm unsure of the exact place that the 115 number came from, and it certainly doesn't match the numbers when broken down in the BBC article.
I have broken down the list of breaches and cross referenced them with the Premier League’s handbooks for each season from 2009/10 through to 2022/23. With all five areas of breaches I have provided the text of the rule that the League included in their statement, plus a summarised version that tries to give a less legalese or technical reading. The tables are presented for reference and I won’t go into the specifics of them.

Accuracy of financial information

The Premier League stated:

In respect of each of Seasons 2009/10 to 2017/18 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those seasons that required provision by a member club to the Premier League, in the utmost good faith, of accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position, in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs.

Below is the list of breaches taken from the league’s statement, grouped and translated into easier language.

Rules	Season	Text	Summarised
B13, B15, B16	09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18	In all matters and transactions relating to the League each Club shall behave towards each other Club and the League with the utmost good faith	Act honestly and fairly towards other clubs and the league itself
C78, E3	09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18	Each Club shall by 1st March in each Season submit to the Secretary a copy of its annual accounts in respect of its most recent financial year or if the Club considers it appropriate or the Secretary so requests the Group Accounts of the Group of which it is a member (in either case such accounts to be prepared and audited in accordance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements) together with a copy of the directors’ report for that year and a copy of the auditors’ report on those accounts	Clubs must submit their latest audited financial statements, along with directors' and auditors' reports, to the league by March 1st each year.
C79, E4	09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18	The accounts referred to in previous rule shall: 1. include separate disclosure within the balance sheet or notes to the accounts, or by way of supplementary information separately reported on by its auditors by way of procedures specified by the Board, of the total sums payable and receivable in respect of Compensation Fees, Contingent Sums and Loan Fees; 2. include a breakdown within the profit and loss account or the notes to the accounts, or by way of supplementary information separately reported on by its auditors by way of procedures specified by the Board, of revenue in appropriate categories such as gate receipts, sponsorship and advertising, broadcasting rights, commercial income and other income.	Clubs must include detailed and specific disclosures in their financial statements about various types of payments and revenues. These details must be clearly audited and reported
C86, E11	09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18	By 31st March in each Season, each Club shall submit to the Secretary in respect of itself (or if the Club considers it appropriate or the Secretary so requests in respect of the Group of which it is a member) future financial information (“Future Financial Information”) comprising projected profit and loss accounts, cash flow, balance sheets and relevant explanatory notes commencing from its accounting reference date or, if it has submitted interim accounts pursuant to Rule E.6, from the date to which those interim accounts were prepared and expiring on the next accounting reference date after the end of the following Season. The projected profit and loss accounts, cash flow and balance sheets shall be prepared at a maximum of quarterly intervals	Each club needs to provide the league with projected (or expected) financial statements for the future. These projections include profit and loss statements, cash flow details, and balance sheets.
C87, E12	09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18	The Future Financial Information shall: 1. be prepared in accordance with the accounting principles adopted in the preparation of the Club’s annual accounts (except where the accounting principles and policies are to be changed in the subsequent annual accounts, in which case the new accounting principles and polices should be followed); 2. be approved in writing by the board of directors of the company to which they relate; 3. to include in the explanatory notes thereto principal assumptions and risks; and 4. include for comparison profit and loss accounts for the period covered by the annual accounts and interim accounts submitted pursuant to Rules E.3 and E.6, a forecast for the current financial year and a balance sheet as at the date of the interim accounts submitted pursuant to Rule E.6.	Clubs must:1. Use the same accounting principles as in their last annual report, unless planning changes for the upcoming year. 2. Get these forecasts approved in writing by the club's board of directors. 3. Include notes that explain the main assumptions and risks involved. 4. Add comparative profit and loss accounts and a balance sheet from their most recent financial reports for clear reference.
E49, E50, E51	13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18	Each Club shall notify the League forthwith of any circumstances which may materially and adversely affect any of the information or representations submitted to the League pursuant to this Section E, and on consideration of those circumstances the Board may, if it considers it appropriate, amend any decision or determination that it made based on such information or representations.	Clubs must immediately inform the league if there are any changes that could significantly impact the accuracy of the financial or other information they have previously submitted

Effectively the Premier League are stating that, for the period of 2009 until 2018, the club have not been filing accurate financial statements. This relates directly to the leaked emails that are presented to show members of staff discussing payment amounts and sources of monies that are paid to the club for sponsorship, namely for the two main sponsors, Etihad and Etisalat, that are referenced in the UEFA trial. As can be seen from the rules above, some of them are more obviously related than others. There has been some criticism of the Premier League for going for such a wide number of charges, as they have not focused on one area.
With regards to this section of breaches, the club claims that the leaked emails are not evidence of wrongdoing, and are not admissible as evidence. CAS found in favour of UEFA’s assertion that the emails were in fact admissible in their case, so the club is unlikely to be able to contest this point further. This section will essentially boil down to whether the leaked emails show enough evidence of wrongdoing, and whether any further context that has been provided by the club (something that was mentioned in the CAS trial as being helpful towards Man City’s case) is sufficient to prove guilt. It is likely that only 1 or 2 of these 50 rules above are actually key. Others, like B13, B15, and B16 which relate to clubs acting in good faith, would not be enough to charge a club without being bundled in with something else.

Manager and Player Remuneration

This section is broken down further into 2 key areas: manager remuneration, and player remuneration.
The Premier League statement:

In respect of each of Seasons 2009/10 to 2012/13 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those Seasons requiring a member club to include full details of manager remuneration in its relevant contracts with its manager

And;

In respect of each of Seasons 2010/11 to 2015/16 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those Seasons requiring a member club to include full details of player remuneration in its relevant contracts with its players

Grouped and summarised below:

Rules	Season	Text	Summarised
Q7, P7	09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13	No Club shall employ any person as a Manager unless and until: 1 the terms of the Manager’s employment have been evidenced in a written contract of employment between the Club and the Manager 2 the Manager’s contract of employment has been registered with the Secretary.	Clubs must not hire a manager unless the manager's employment terms are clearly stated in a written contract, and this contract is officially registered with the league's Secretary.
Q8, P8	09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13	Contracts of employment between a Club and a Manager shall: 1 include the standard clauses set out in Appendix 8; 2 clearly set out the circumstances in which the contract of employment may be determined by either party.	Employment contracts between a club and a manager must include mandatory standard clauses and specify the conditions under which either party can terminate the contract. Appendix 8 outlines that the manager must follow the rules of relevant football organisations, obey reasonable instructions related to commercial agreements, and resolve any disputes through arbitration or mediation.
K12, T12, T13	10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16	Full details of a Player’s remuneration including all benefits to which he is entitled whether in cash or in kind shall be set out in his contract.	A player's contract must clearly list all the payment and benefits they receive
K20, T29, T18, T20	10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16	Particulars of any Image Contract Payment in respect of the Player shall be set out in the contract with his Club	Any payments related to a player’s image rights must be clearly detailed in their contract with the club

The first two key rules relate to manager remuneration, and this is specific to the contract of Roberto Mancini. Mancini was the club’s manager from 2009 until 2013, and the allegations center around leaked emails that suggest he was paid £1.75 million annually as a consultancy fee for UAE based club Al Jazira on top of his £1.45 million salary at City.
For his part, Mancini has stated “I have paid my taxes, it's all above board. So I don't think anyone will be in touch” when asked about the case.
The second two rules are player remuneration and relate to Yaya Toure. The League alleges, again based on the leaked emails, that the club did not disclose all payments to the player, and that payments were made via his agent, Dimitri Seluk, during his contract with the club.
Seluk has stated “I know what has been said about Yaya's contract with City - and what I can tell you is that absolutely everything was done very cleanly, very honestly and with full transparency. Nothing was done under the table.”
Toure was at the club from 2010 until 2018. He originally signed a five year deal, before signing a new contract in 2013 taking him up to 2017. He signed his final 1 year deal in 2017. These allegations relate to his first 6 seasons.

Compliance with UEFA regulations

This section simply relates to the wording of the Premier League rules which state that clubs competing in European competitions must comply with UEFA’s rules in addition to the Premier League’s.
The league states:

In respect of each of Seasons 2013/14 to 2017/18 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those Seasons requiring a member club to comply with UEFA’s regulations, including UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations

Once again I’ve presented them grouped and summarised below:

Rules	Season	Text	Summarised
B14.6, B15.6	13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18	Membership of the League shall constitute an agreement between the League and Clubs and between each Club to be bound by and comply with: - the statutes and regulations of UEFA	Each club agrees to follow the rules and regulations set by UEFA.

This rule breach seemingly relates to the period of time that was not ruled as time barred within UEFA’s case, and is not related to the original settlement between the club and UEFA, but does include the 3 years of the settlement agreement up until UEFA declared City to be compliant. Presumably the Premier League have included these to link to UEFA’s allegations of financial discrepancies related to the Etihad deal. It is unclear how much this could stick, given that CAS ruled that there was insufficient evidence of wrongdoing.
It feels amiss of the Premier League to charge the club with breaches of a rule that had already been thrown out by CAS, so I can only assume that they feel that the club have either breached other rules related to financial fair play, which doesn’t seem to be the case, or they are using the non-cooperation fine handed out by CAS to bring these charges forward.

Compliance with PSR

The Premier League have also charged Man City with breaching profit and sustainability rules. These are the rules that Everton and Nottingham Forest have been docked points for recently and relate to the annual accounts clubs must file to prove their compliance.
The league states:

In respect of each of the Seasons 2015/16 to 2017/18 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those Seasons on Profitability and Sustainability

I’ve laid these out below, grouped again, and summarised. It should be noted in the below that any reference to T, T-1 and T-2 refers to the current season, previous and 2 seasons before.

Rules	Season	Text	Summarised
E52	15/16	Rules E.53 to E.59 shall apply with effect from Season 2015/16.	The following rules will apply
E53	15/16 16/17 17/18	Each Club shall by 1 March in each Season submit to the Board: 1. copies of its Annual Accounts for T-1 (and T-2 if these have not previously been submitted to the Board) together with copies of the directors’ report(s) and auditors’ report(s) on those accounts; 2. its estimated profit and loss account and balance sheet for T which shall: 2.1. be prepared in all material respects in a format similar to the Club’s Annual Accounts; and 2.2. be based on the latest information available to the Club and be, to the best of the Club’s knowledge and belief, an accurate estimate as at the time of preparation of future financial performance; and 3. if Rule E.56 applies to the Club, the calculation of its aggregated Adjusted Earnings Before Tax for T, T-1 and T-2 in Form 4A	By March 1st each season, each club must submit to the League's Board: Their financial accounts for the previous two years, along with reports from directors and auditors. A forecast of their profit and loss and balance sheet for the current year, ensuring it is up-to-date and accurately reflects expected financial performance. If required, a detailed calculation of their earnings before tax for the current and previous two years
E54	15/16 16/17 17/18	The Board shall determine whether consideration included in the Club’s Earnings Before Tax arising from a Related Party Transaction is recorded in the Club’s Annual Accounts at a Fair Market Value. If it is not, the Board shall restate it to Fair Market Value.	The Board will check if earnings before tax reported in a club's annual accounts from transactions with related parties are valued fairly according to market standards. If they aren't, the Board will adjust these values to reflect the fair market value.
E55	15/16 16/17 17/18	The Board shall not exercise its power set out in Rule E.54 without first having given the Club reasonable opportunity to make submissions as to: 1. whether the said consideration should be restated; and/or 2. what constitutes its Fair Market Value.	Before the Board can adjust any values in a club's financial statements, they must give the club a chance to present their case regarding whether adjustments are necessary and what the fair market value should be.
E56	15/16 16/17 17/18	If the aggregation of a Club’s Earnings Before Tax for T-1 and T-2 results in a loss, any consideration from Related Party Transactions having been adjusted (if appropriate) pursuant to Rule E.54, then the Club must submit to the Board the calculation of its Adjusted Earnings Before Tax for each of T, T-1 and T-2.	If a club's combined earnings before tax for the past two years show a loss, after adjusting any related party transaction values as necessary, the club must then provide the Board with a detailed calculation of its adjusted earnings before tax for each of the three years
E57	15/16 16/17 17/18	If the aggregation of a Club’s Adjusted Earnings Before Tax for T, T-1 and T-2 results in a loss of up to £15m, then the Board shall determine whether the Club will, until the end of T+1, be able to pay its liabilities described in Rule E.14.7.1 and fulfil the obligations set out in Rules E.14.7.2 and E.14.7.3.	If a club's adjusted earnings before tax for the current year and the previous two years total a loss of up to £15 million, the Board will assess whether the club can pay its debts and meet its obligations through the end of the next season as specified in other rules.
E58	15/16 16/17 17/18	If the aggregation of a Club’s Adjusted Earnings Before Tax for T, T-1 and T-2 results in a loss of in excess of £15m then the following shall apply: 1. the Club shall provide, by 31 March in the relevant Season, Future Financial Information to cover the period commencing from its last accounting reference date (as defined in section 391 of the Act) until the end of T+2 and a calculation of estimated aggregated Adjusted Earnings Before Tax until the end of T+2 based on that Future Financial Information; 2. the Club shall provide such evidence of Secure Funding as the Board considers sufficient; and 3. if the Club is unable to provide evidence of Secure Funding as set out in Rule E.58.2, the Board may exercise its powers set out in Rule E.15.	If a club's total adjusted earnings before tax for the current year and the previous two years show a loss greater than £15 million, then the club must: Submit future financial plans and estimated earnings up to two years beyond the current season by March 31st. Provide proof of secure funding as the Board requires. If the club can't show they have secure funding, the Board may take action as outlined in another rule.
E59	15/16 16/17 17/18	If the aggregation of a Club’s Adjusted Earnings Before Tax for T, T-1 and T-2 results in losses of in excess of £105m: 1. the Board may exercise its powers set out in Rule E.15; and 2. the Club shall be treated as being in breach of these Rules and accordingly the Board shall refer the breach to a Commission constituted pursuant to Section W of these Rules.	If a club's total adjusted earnings before tax for the current year and the previous two years show a loss greater than £105 million, then: The Board may use its authority as outlined in Rule E.15. The club will be considered as having broken the rules, and the Board will report this violation to a special Commission as per Section W of the rules.
E60	15/16 16/17 17/18	The sum set out in Rule E.59 shall be reduced by £22m for each Season covered by T-1 and T-2 in which the Club was in membership of The Football League.	If a club was a member of The Football League in the previous two seasons (T-1 and T-2), the amount mentioned in Rule E.59 will be decreased by £22 million for each of those seasons

A lot of this is not specific to anything the club will have breached, and is again a criticism that has been levelled at the Premier League for not being focused enough on charging the club and instead trying to go for as much as possible. Eg rule E52 in the 2015/16 season isn’t really something that would be up for debate, and rule E60, which refers to seasons spent outside the Premier League for adjusting the £105m 3 season PSR limit.
I don’t believe that the club has breached a lot of these rules specifically, and that the Premier League has just grouped PSR as a category together to hit the club with multiple charges. It is likely that the key rule in this section is E54, which discusses related party income and fair market value. This is an important one for City, as the leaked emails have been presented to show the club receiving money from sponsors with funds that have come directly from ADUG, Abu Dhabi United Group, owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and with an 81% stake in the CFG (City Football Group) that comprises the club.
City have always argued that these sponsorships are not related parties, something that has been previously accepted by both the Premier League and UEFA in separate agreements related to PSR and FFP under their rules. It is likely that the key here is whether the emails imply that they should in fact be counted as related parties, and therefore whether they represent fair market value.
For the other rules in this section, it is unlikely that anything of substance will be proven or even sought.

Cooperation with the investigation

In addition to the above 4 sections, which all covered rule breaches related to the hacked emails, the Premier League charged the club with non-cooperation with their investigation. This does not relate to the breaches themselves, and so you will notice that the seasons are all after the Der Spiegel investigation.
The charges are:

In respect of the period from December 2018 to date, the Premier League Rules applicable in the relevant Seasons requiring a member club to cooperate with, and assist, the Premier League in its investigations, including by providing documents and information to the Premier League in the utmost good faith

Grouped and summarised:

Rules	Season	Text	Summarised
B16, B15	18/19 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23	In all matters and transactions relating to the League each Club shall behave towards each other Club and the League with the utmost good faith.	Act honestly and fairly towards other clubs and the league itself
B19, B18	18/19 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23	Without prejudice to the League’s powers of inquiry under Rule W.1, each Club shall comply promptly and in full with any request for information made by the League (including, for the avoidance of doubt, any such request made pursuant to a demand from a statutory or regulatory authority).	Clubs must quickly and fully respond to any information requests from the League, even if these are prompted by a government or regulatory body's demands
W1	18/19 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23	The Board shall have power to inquire into any suspected or alleged breach of these Rules and for that purpose may require: 1. any Manager, Match Official, Official or Player to appear before it; and 2. any such person or any Club to produce documents.	The Board has the authority to investigate any suspected or confirmed rule violations. For this, they can: Require managers, match officials, other officials, or players to appear before them. Ask these individuals or any club to provide relevant documents.
W2	18/19 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23	Any Manager, Match Official, Official or Player who fails to appear before or to produce documents to the Board when required to do so under Rule W.1 shall be in breach of these Rules.	Anybody who does not comply with Rule W.1 is in breach
W12, W15	18/19 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23	It shall be no answer to a request from the Board to disclose documents or information pursuant to Rule W.1 that such documents or information requested are confidential. All Clubs and Persons subject to these Rules must ensure that any other obligations of confidentiality assumed are made expressly subject to the League’s right of inquiry under these Rules. No Club or Person shall be under an obligation to disclose any documents rendered confidential by either the order of a court of competent jurisdiction or by statute or statutory instrument.	The Board can request documents or information even if they are confidential. However, clubs and individuals are not required to disclose anything that is legally confidential due to a court order or by law. Clubs and individuals should ensure any confidentiality agreements acknowledge the League's right to inquire.
W13, W16	18/19 19/20 20/21 21/22 22/23	All persons who are requested to assist pursuant to Rule W.1 shall provide full, complete and prompt assistance to the Board in its exercise of its power of Inquiry	Anyone asked to help must fully, quickly, and completely help the Board with its investigations.

Three of these are your meat and potatoes non-cooperation charges, which the Premier League will have charged City with for not providing documents when requested. A couple relate specifically to individuals within a club, but otherwise these breaches will be the most likely to stick, similar to how they did at CAS.
Man City have maintained that they do not need to cooperate with the investigation which they state as being based on illegally obtained material and have stated that they do not trust the investigation.
Rules B15, B16 make another appearance relating to acting with the utmost good faith.

When will this hearing take place?

We don’t really know. The panel has been chosen and are presumably deliberating, but as with cases of this size and with so many documents, they take time.
League CEO Richard Masters has recently stated that the case will “Resolve itself soon”, which is badly worded and has led to speculation that the club and league are seeking a way out of the case following the charges being thrown out. This is unlikely, as it would be in the interest of both to end proceedings as quickly as possible.
There have been criticisms towards the Premier League regarding the secrecy around these hearings - it is actually within the Premier League’s rules that these occur in private:
Rules W70 and X25 state: The proceedings of an arbitration convened under this Section (W/X) shall be confidential and shall be conducted in private.

Aren’t Man City just stalling?

Not really, no. The club have been charged with non-cooperation by the Premier League for their initial investigation, but there is nothing the club can do to further postpone the hearing taking place. The time required is simply because of the magnitude and seriousness of the allegations put forward by the league.
The original BBC article alleged that City were “dragging their feet” - but this is not something that stops the league handing out charges, and isn’t something that will change the timeline of the independent panel’s investigation.

Punishments

So let's say that City is found guilty - what are the likely punishments to be? The answer is complicated, as it completely depends on what charges are ultimately determined to be warranted. Talk of points deductions amounting to the thousands are pure hyperbole. The specific breaches agreed by the independent panel will influence the size of any punishment.
Given the seriousness of the allegations - essentially fraud across multiple years involving the club, sponsors, auditors and governing bodies - there must be a high bar of proof. With such a high bar also comes a high punishment if the club is deemed to be guilty. It is entirely possible that a proportionate punishment to such deceit would be expulsion from the league. This would however be the least of the club’s worries, as it brings into question the legality of the breaches with regards to individuals, HMRC and other organisations from which payments may or may not have been withheld or deliberately reported incorrectly.
Some of the above charges do not risk carrying any sort of point based punishment. The non-cooperation charges, for example, would be a monetary fine. It is also very unlikely that the league would seek to remove past titles. The scope and burden of proof that specific breaches directly correlated to titles would be too complicated.
Expulsion from the Premier League would require the club to apply to join another league, the EFL the most likely candidate. It would be at the discretion of the EFL whether they accepted the club into their league structure. Given the size of the club and the need to replace the 20th team in the Premier League, it would be likely that they would agree to include the club in their league system as a space would open up in the Championship.

Can the club appeal a decision?

Yes, there are avenues for appeal. That appeal will not go through CAS, as correctly reported, but would go to another panel. Sections W through to Z of the Premier League rulebook detail different types of appeals and tribunals for varying reasons. Section W is the section specifically referred to in the PSR rules (within section E of the Premier League handbook).

There is no Time Bar though in the Premier League

Well, kind of. There is no time bar specifically mentioned in the rules. The Premier League handbook, which you can read at https://www.premierleague.com/about/publications,does state (Rule A7) that “these Rules shall be governed by and shall be construed in accordance with English law. Strictly without prejudice to the arbitration and other dispute resolution provisions of these Rules, disputes relating to these Rules shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.”.
Essentially this means that any rules follow English Law, which itself does state a time bar for cases. This is typically 6 years for most cases, with some differences based on specific situations.
In the case of fraud this can vary, and may be the avenue that the Premier League tries to go down (which itself makes the evidence required to prove the case more stringent). For fraud cases, English Law states:

Time bar of 6 years from the date cause of action accrued
Or, if the cause of action is deliberately concealed, 6 years from when the fraud is, or with reasonable diligence would have been, discovered.
Should this be the route the Premier League has chosen then there will have to be a discussion to determine what period of time the charges can be applied to.

What about the length of grass?

There was never a charge about the length of grass. Such narrative about what the charges were came from initial analysis by people using incorrect versions of the Premier League handbook (as the rules change from year to year slightly, and those rules shift in their assignment. This is is why I have grouped them as such in the above tables). All charges relate to financial issues and non-cooperation in the league's subsequent investigation.

What about the Cease and Desist?

Rumours began last week that the club had issued cease and desist letters to individuals and organisations within the public domain related to the charges. As of yet there has been no evidence that anybody has received such a letter (although you’d question why they would publicise receiving one in the first place). It should be made clear that any cease and desist that may have been received by anybody would not prevent them from discussing the charges with which the league have brought on City. Any cease and desist letter is a demand that the recipient stops any activity considered to be unlawful - eg. in the case of this case it would be accusations levelled at the club that are not true. Examples would be the club being called cheats because they’ve done specific things that have not been proven to be true like a false statement or libel.

Can’t we just dock points now like Everton and Nottingham Forest?

Not really, no. Cases of this magnitude take time to deliberate and cross examine. There is no quick way of dealing with such a large case. The Everton and Nottingham Forest cases, by comparison, are simple breaches that can be quantified by simply looking at the submitted accounts, which for both clubs show losses that are above the agreed amount in Rule E53 of the Premier League handbook (and Rule E54 in Nottingham Forest’s case due to their recent promotion that reduced their allowable losses).
Neither club claimed to have not breached these rules, but merely tried to argue the case that their losses were due to mitigating circumstances, which the Premier League did not agree with.
Anybody questioning why analysis of so many historical charges takes longer than clear individual breaches shown on a balance sheet needs to consider whether they want a case to be resolved quickly, or whether they want it to be resolved properly, as the two are mutually exclusive.

Who wins?

Ultimately nobody wins. Reputational damage is guaranteed for either Manchester City or the Premier League depending on the outcome. It can also be argued that enough reputational damage has already been dealt to both organisations. This is often why a settlement is seen as a preferred option, as there is no long drawn out saga. The club have remained steadfast and stubborn insisting that there is no grounds for the charges and that they are innocent on all accounts. The league have been criticised for their handling of the matter and for other PSR breaches recently and don’t seem to be keen to back down in this case either.
There was also the accusation that the league had rushed through presenting the charges in order to disrupt the introduction of an independent regulator by the Government and to prove that it can govern itself. That has largely failed as the IFR (Independent football regulator) looks likely to be going ahead.
The best case scenario for the club is being cleared of all charges - unlikely due to the presence of those non-cooperation charges - a win for the club, but there will be large question marks over the Premier League’s handling, the time taken, the accuracy of the verdict and the secrecy involved. The club will also have suffered reputational damage up to this point, particularly from sections of the football fraternity who have already made their mind up.
The best case scenario for the league is trickier - it doesn’t want to be seen to be a light touch, but conversely it doesn’t want to be triggering the sort of chaos that points deductions and league expulsions might have on one of its most successful clubs of the last decade. In some ways, the league has already lost.

Closing Thoughts

There will be details that I have glossed over for brevity - there is a lot more information in some of the linked documents plus the Premier League handbooks that provides a lot more important context.
I hope the above proves useful to anybody interested in the finer details of the situation, but appreciate that it is probably beyond the scope of the kind of person who posts 115 memes and gets agitated by the lack of discussion around the charges.
There may be inaccuracies. If you spot anything then please let me know and I will make a quick amendment.
TL;DR
Shits complicated Bro

I made some ideas for this hypothetical game those being the roster's moveset and giving aliens unique personalities and more. These are some examples of the aliens
Heatblast Role: DPS Play Style: Ranged combatant with area control abilities. Notable Moves: Fireball: Launches a projectile that explodes on impact. Inferno: Creates a ring of fire that damages enemies over time. Flame Dash: Dashes forward, leaving a trail of fire that damages enemies. Super Attack: Meteor Shower - Summons a rain of meteors that devastate a large area.
Diamondhead Role: Tank Play Style: Defensive fighter with high durability and crowd control. Notable Moves: Crystal Shield: Erects a barrier that blocks incoming attacks. Shard Shrapnel: Fires sharp crystal shards in a spread pattern. Quartz Quake: Slams the ground, creating a shockwave that stuns nearby enemies. Super Attack: Diamond Storm - Generates a massive storm of crystals that heavily damages and slows enemies.
XLR8 Role: DPS Play Style: Hit-and-run tactics with high mobility. Notable Moves: Speed Strike: A quick dash attack that can chain multiple enemies. Time Dilation: Slows down time for everyone but XLR8, allowing for rapid attacks. Whirlwind: Spins at high speed, creating a tornado that pulls in and damages enemies. Super Attack: Chrono Crash - Dashes through the battlefield at blinding speed, dealing damage to all enemies in the path.
Fourarms Role: Tank Play Style: Close-quarters brawler with high damage output. Notable Moves: Seismic Slam: Jumps and slams the ground, knocking back enemies. Boulder Toss: Grabs and throws a large rock at enemies, dealing area damage. Iron Clasp: Grabs an enemy, immobilizing them for a short duration. Super Attack: Earthquake - Unleashes a powerful quake that damages and disorients all nearby enemies.
Stinkfly Role: Support Play Style: Aerial support with healing and disabling abilities. Notable Moves: Healing Haze: Releases a cloud that heals allies over time. Sticky Goo: Shoots a blob that slows and damages enemies. Gust Blast: Emits a strong wind that pushes enemies away. Super Attack: Toxic Typhoon - Creates a large toxic storm that damages enemies and heals allies within its radius.
Upgrade Role: Support Play Style: Versatile support that enhances allies’ abilities and disrupts enemies. Notable Moves: Tech Boost: Enhances an ally’s weapon, increasing its effectiveness. Malware: Infects an enemy, causing them to take damage over time and reducing their damage output. Shield Matrix: Deploys a temporary shield around an ally, absorbing damage. Super Attack: System Override - Temporarily takes control of all enemy gadgets and disables them.
Ghostfreak Role: DPS Play Style: Stealth and disruption. Notable Moves: Phase Shift: Becomes intangible, avoiding all damage for a short period. Soul Snatch: Drains health from an enemy, healing Ghostfreak. Nightmare: Induces fear in enemies, causing them to flee in panic. Super Attack: Ectonurite Swarm - Summons shadowy clones that attack and confuse enemies.
Snare-oh Role: Tank Play Style: Crowd control specialist with trapping abilities. Notable Moves: Bandage Bind: Extends bandages to bind and immobilize an enemy. Mummy Wrap: Wraps nearby enemies, slowing and damaging them. Sandstorm: Creates a blinding sandstorm that disorients enemies. Super Attack: Tomb of Doom - Encases enemies in a pyramid, trapping them for a significant duration.
Frankenstrike Role: Support Play Style: Mid-range combatant with electrical attacks that can stun and disorient. Notable Moves: Shock Chain: Sends a chain of electricity that jumps between enemies. Static Field: Creates an electric field that slows and damages enemies. Revive Pulse: Sends out a pulse that can revive a downed ally with minimal health. Super Attack: Lightning Storm - Calls down a storm of lightning bolts that strike multiple enemies.
Eye Guy Role: DPS Play Style: Long-range sniper with precision attacks. Notable Moves: Laser Gaze: Fires a precise laser beam from his eyes. Optic Blast: Unleashes a wide beam that sweeps across the battlefield. Visionary Strike: Targets and marks an enemy, increasing the damage they take. Super Attack: Omniscient Onslaught - Simultaneously fires all eyes at different targets, dealing massive damage.
Swampfire Role: Support Play Style: Hybrid support with both healing and crowd control abilities. Notable Moves: Blossom Blast: Shoots a seed that blooms, healing allies in its radius. Flare Up: Emits a burst of fire that damages nearby enemies. Vine Vault: Creates a barrier of vines that can block enemy movement and projectiles. Super Attack: Wild Growth Overload - Engulfs the battlefield in rampant plant growth that heals allies and entraps enemies.
Echo-Echo Role: DPS Play Style: Swarm tactics with cloning abilities to overwhelm opponents. Notable Moves: Sonic Scream: Unleashes a powerful sound wave that damages and disorients enemies. Echo Chamber: Creates duplicates that attack simultaneously. Reverb Shock: Sends out a radial blast from all clones, dealing area damage. Super Attack: Resonance Cascade - Amplifies sound to create a devastating shockwave across the entire map.
Humongosaur Role: Tank Play Style: Heavy frontline bruiser with immense strength. Notable Moves: Tail Whip: Swings his tail to knock back and damage enemies. Mega Stomp: Stomps the ground, causing a tremor that damages and slows enemies. Dino Charge: Charges forward, pushing enemies aside and dealing damage. Super Attack: Titan Rampage - Grows to an enormous size, gaining increased health and damage for a short duration.
Jetray Role: DPS Play Style: Aerial assault with high-speed dive attacks. Notable Moves: Neuroshock Blast: Fires a concentrated beam of energy from his eyes. Aerial Ace: Rapidly dives towards the ground, striking enemies below. Sky Strike: Soars upward, then swoops down across the battlefield, damaging enemies in his path. Super Attack: Cosmic Storm - Unleashes a barrage of energy blasts while flying over the battlefield.
Big Chill Role: Support Play Style: Defensive support with ice-based abilities to control the field. Notable Moves: Frost Breath: Exhales a chilling breath that slows and damages enemies. Ice Wall: Erects a wall of ice that can serve as a shield or obstacle. Glacial Gust: Sends out a freezing wind that damages and has a chance to freeze enemies. Super Attack: Absolute Zero - Creates a blizzard that drastically reduces the temperature, freezing all enemies caught in the storm.
Brainstorm Role: Support Play Style: Strategic support with abilities that manipulate the battlefield. Notable Moves: Cerebro-Shock: Emits an electrical pulse that stuns and damages enemies. Intellect Wave: Boosts allies’ abilities and reduces cooldowns. Mind Field: Deploys a psychic field that confuses and damages enemies. Super Attack: Neural Overload - Overwhelms enemies with a psychic storm, causing massive damage and disorientation.
Goop Role: DPS Play Style: Elusive fighter with shape-shifting and corrosive attacks. Notable Moves: Acid Blob: Hurls a glob of acid that splashes on impact, damaging enemies. Goo Glide: Slides quickly across the ground, leaving a trail that slows enemies. Polymorph Punch: Transforms his arm into a large hammer to smash enemies. Super Attack: Meltdown - Dissolves into a pool, then explodes in a wide radius, dealing heavy damage.
Spidermonkey Role: DPS Play Style: Agile skirmisher with web-based traps and mobility. Notable Moves: Web Shot: Fires a web that immobilizes the first enemy it hits. Arachnid Agility: Leaps great distances and can cling to walls. Spinneret Strike: Spins a web in a wide area, ensnaring and damaging enemies. Super Attack: Web Cataclysm - Covers the entire area in sticky webs, greatly hindering enemy movement and dealing damage over time.
Loadstar Role: Tank Play Style: Magnetic field controller with abilities to manipulate metal objects. Notable Moves: Magnetic Pull: Draws in metallic enemies or projectiles, neutralizing them. Iron Surge: Charges forward, encased in a magnetic field that damages enemies. Attraction Zone: Creates a zone that pulls in all metal objects, forming a protective barrier. Super Attack: Polar Opposites - Reverses the polarity of the battlefield, causing chaos and damage to enemies with metal.
Rath Role: Tank Play Style: Ferocious melee combatant with high aggression and intimidation tactics. Notable Moves: Tiger Slash: A series of rapid claw strikes that deal damage to a single target. Roar Shock: Lets out a fearsome roar that stuns nearby enemies. Pounce: Leaps at an enemy, pinning them down and dealing damage. Super Attack: Apex Predator - Enters a frenzied state, increasing damage output and resistance to crowd control effects.
Water Hazard Role: Support Play Style: Mid-range support with water-based healing and control abilities. Notable Moves: Aqua Shield: Generates a water barrier that absorbs damage and heals allies. Hydro Pump: Blasts a stream of water that can push enemies back. Tidal Wave: Summons a wave that travels across the ground, damaging and slowing enemies. Super Attack: Monsoon Fury - Unleashes a massive storm that floods the area, disrupting enemy positions and restoring health to allies.
Ampfibian Role: DPS Play Style: High mobility and electric attacks that can chain between multiple targets. Notable Moves: Volt Dash: Dashes through enemies, dealing electric damage. Static Cling: Emits an electric charge that sticks to enemies and damages over time. Circuit Breaker: Disables enemy abilities in a small radius. Super Attack: Electro Storm - Creates a large electrical storm that continuously damages enemies within its range.
Armodrillo Role: Tank Play Style: Close-range combatant with seismic abilities to disrupt enemy formations. Notable Moves: Drill Charge: Charges forward with drills spinning, knocking back enemies. Quake Fists: Pounds the ground, sending out shockwaves that damage and stun enemies. Tunnel Trap: Burrows underground and emerges beneath an enemy for a surprise attack. Super Attack: Rumble Rampage - Causes a massive earthquake that damages all enemies on the battlefield.
NRG Role: DPS Play Style: Ranged damage dealer with radioactive abilities that leave lasting effects on the battlefield. Notable Moves: Radiation Beam: Fires a concentrated beam of radiation that pierces through enemies. Meltdown: Creates a radioactive area that damages enemies over time. Core Overload: Temporarily increases damage output at the cost of health. Super Attack: Nuclear Winter - Detonates a massive explosion that irradiates the entire area, causing heavy damage and debuffs to enemies.
Terraspin Role: Tank Play Style: Defensive anchor with wind-based abilities to protect allies and control space. Notable Moves: Gale Guard: Generates a wind shield that deflects projectiles. Whirlwind Spin: Spins rapidly, creating a tornado that knocks back enemies. Hurricane Hold: Creates a localized hurricane that traps and damages enemies inside. Super Attack: Aero Assault - Summons a massive cyclone that sweeps across the battlefield, carrying enemies away.
Clockwork Role: Support Play Style: Strategic support with time manipulation abilities to aid allies and hinder enemies. Notable Moves: Temporal Shift: Slows down time for enemies in a targeted area. Chrono Beam: Fires a beam that ages objects and enemies, causing them to deteriorate. Moment Freeze: Freezes an enemy in time for a brief moment. Super Attack: Time Quake - Reverses time for all players, resetting their positions and health to where they were a few seconds ago.
Jury Rigg Role: DPS Play Style: Saboteur with abilities to dismantle enemy defenses and create chaos. Notable Moves: Destructo Dash: Dashes forward, dealing damage and disabling enemy equipment. Gadget Grab: Steals an enemy’s gadget and uses it against them. Chaos Clamber: Climbs over obstacles and turrets, disabling them temporarily. Super Attack: Anarchy Ambush - Rapidly disassembles all enemy gadgets and barriers in the area, turning them into explosive traps.
Chamalien Role: DPS Play Style: Stealth assassin with camouflage abilities to sneak up on enemies. Notable Moves: Invisible Strike: Becomes invisible for a short duration and deals extra damage on the next attack. Camouflage: Blends into the environment, becoming nearly invisible to enemies. Predator Pounce: Leaps at an enemy from stealth, dealing significant damage. Super Attack: Stealth Surge - Extends the invisibility and damage bonus to nearby allies for a limited time.
Feedback Role: DPS Play Style: Energy manipulator with high burst damage potential. Notable Moves: Energy Absorption: Absorbs energy attacks, converting them into health. Power Surge: Releases stored energy in a devastating blast. Electro-Field: Creates an electric field that damages and slows enemies. Super Attack: Circuit Overload - Overcharges Feedback’s energy, causing chain reactions of explosions around him.
Bloxx Role: Tank Play Style: Shape-shifter with the ability to create structures and barriers. Notable Moves: Blockade: Constructs a large wall to shield allies. Brick Bash: Transforms an arm into a massive hammer for melee attacks. Fortify: Enhances his own durability, reducing incoming damage. Super Attack: Construct Cataclysm - Rapidly builds a fortress that allies can use for cover while dealing damage to enemies who get too close.
Ball Weevil Role: DPS Play Style: Trapper with explosive area denial abilities. Notable Moves: Plasma Globe: Rolls up a sticky bomb that explodes after a delay. Weevil Dash: Quickly rolls in a direction, leaving a trail of plasma. Sticky Trap: Sets a trap that slows and then detonates on enemies. Super Attack: Orbital Bombardment - Launches multiple plasma globes into the air that rain down on the battlefield.
Pesky Dust Role: Support Play Style: Disabler with abilities to put enemies to sleep and create illusions. Notable Moves: Dream Dust: Sprinkles dust that puts enemies to sleep. Nightmare Illusion: Creates a decoy that distracts and confuses enemies. Soothing Slumber: Casts an aura that gradually heals sleeping allies. Super Attack: Dreamscape Delirium - Casts a wide-area spell that puts all enemies into a deep sleep, leaving them vulnerable.
Atomix Role: DPS Play Style: Nuclear powerhouse with devastating long-range attacks. Notable Moves: Fission Blast: Fires a concentrated beam of nuclear energy. Radiant Rush: Charges up and releases a pulse of energy that knocks back enemies. Atomic Shield: Generates a protective barrier that absorbs damage and radiates energy. Super Attack: Nuclear Nova - Unleashes a massive explosion of nuclear energy, dealing extreme damage to all enemies in the vicinity.
Gutrot Role: Support Play Style: Chemical warfare expert with a variety of gas-based abilities. Notable Moves: Toxic Cloud: Releases a cloud of poisonous gas that damages over time. Corrosive Mist: Sprays a mist that weakens enemy armor and slows movement. Fume Screen: Creates a smokescreen that obscures vision and chokes enemies. Super Attack: Chemical Chaos - Floods the area with a lethal combination of gases, causing various debilitating effects to enemies.
Whampire Role: DPS Play Style: Life-stealing vampire with close-quarters combat abilities. Notable Moves: Life Drain: Bites an enemy to steal health. Bat Swarm: Summons a swarm of bats that attack and disorient enemies. Shadow Cloak: Blends into the shadows, becoming temporarily invisible. Super Attack: Eclipse Embrace - Plunges the battlefield into darkness, empowering Whampire and weakening enemies.
Shocksquash Role: Tank Play Style: Electric bruiser with crowd control and area denial abilities. Notable Moves: Thunder Clap: Claps hands together to create a shockwave that stuns nearby enemies. Volt Vault: Leaps into the air and crashes down, electrifying the ground. Static Link: Chains electricity between enemies, dealing damage and sharing effects. Super Attack: Lightning Rod Rampage - Becomes a conduit for lightning, striking multiple enemies and electrifying the terrain.

Took a break from OW for a few years, heard they unlocked all heros this season so I decided to pick it up again to see how it is. Holy hell is sombra so cheap now, it simply feels unfair to play against her now, first off her hack + virus is just BS. It does so much damage, and because you get shut down for so long you pretty much are toast if no one is helping to peel her off from you. Like before it seemed like her main hinderance was being able to stealth in and out readily, along with having to be strategic with her hacks. Now its just hack, virus, profit and then teleport away to do it all again. Like heck you don't even have much of a tell of where she is unless she's close enough to hear her, and her hack can be done so far away that once she starts it you're pretty much cooked.

Ok, so I am interested in starting a faction review for every faction in the game. Most reviews out there are about 2-4 years old, and I kind of wanted something more modern as new players get introduced to the game. Now, I'm doing this in my free time, so don't go expecting a new review every single day. Also, as a note, while I will attempt to be factual and genuinely helpful, the focus of these posts is entertainment rather than rules lawyer accuracy. Expect these posts to be filled with helpful tips, tactics, and general hilarity. Also, as I'm having to do this in my free time, ill be updating/completing these posts whenever I have free time. If posts are incomplete/don't have all of the units, its most likely because I had to stop to sleep at some point and didn't want to save the post as a draft. One last thing. These reviews are mostly meant for battlemode. However, you might occasionally see tips for other modes like settlement mode, where I will specifically mention that. With the intro out of the way, lets get to the review!
Robots Faction Review:
PROS:

• DURABILITY. You are one of only 3 armies that still get armor on their base units without needing to purchase it. In settlement mode, rules as written, your army is the ONLY army where every model starts with armor.
• CHONK. The lowest HP in your faction is 5, meaning that for most weapons, it will take on average 3 activations to kill even your weakest model. Most of your army averages between 7-9 HP, and usually have decent armor.
• FEAR. You have some of the scariest centerpiece models. Between Assaultrons, Sentry Bots, and Space Sentries, you have several "Titan" units that will reliably kill most things, as well as cheaper versions to actually run in your 500 point games.
• FLESH IS WEAK. You are steel. Thus, you are immune to hazards commonly found in the wasteland such as radiation and poison.

CONS:

• COUNTING CAPS. Most of your units are EXPENSIVE pointswise, and unlike other factions like BoS, your cheap units usually cant do objectives.
• Poor reaction times. Outside of robot mods and/or your robot controller, you have next to no quick actions.

Faction Rules:

• If running PURE robots, you must run robot controller as your leader perk. Say goodbye to selfish but awesome perks like Bruiser.
• Robots only, outside of your leader.
• Your leader may take robot perks.

Weapons, Mods, Upgrades, Items, etc:

• NO, IM NOT WRITING THEM ALL DOWN. YOU CANT MAKE ME. IM NOT GETTING PAID FOR THIS.

Named Characters
The Mechanist
This gal is pretty good. 75 caps with a free Stealth Boy. If she's your leader, she gets Robot controller, Robot expert, and any 3 robot perks for FREE. Keeping her cheap with combat armor and a cheap pistol is probably your best bet though, as her combat stats are just the WORST. Even if you kitted her out with decent power armor, her strength/melee wont really go beyond 6, and besides you have other units for that job. Invest those hard earned caps elsewhere. Funnily enough, her agility is decent, if you wanted her to just lob molotovs after hacking a terminal.
Codsworth
This fancy butler can do A LOT . You want a melee guy? Mr Handy buzzsaw goes pretty hard with AGI 6. With Int of 7, hes also quite dapper at hacking. Purified water also heals NOT ROBOTS consistently over a game. While hes not great in the ROBOTS faction due to only healing living targets, Im sure hell shine in other armies.
Curie
Diet Cosdworth. Terrible at combat, but a higher intelligence means that this gal will almost never fail at hacking terminals. She can also heal other units 2 damage a turn, but cant be used on robots, synths, or power armor.
ED-E
If youre running the Mechanist, RUN THIS ONE. ITS MANDATORY. While it is EXCEPTIONAL with its eye laser, thats not why you take it. You take it for enhanced sensors, giving friendly units using stealth boy an additional -2 to be shot at, for a total of -6 perception test to even be shot at while running objectives.
N.I.R.A
Its a meme. Dont run it. Jokes aside, its pretty cheap, and does buff search tests, so theres that. AGI of 1 means that it will almost never hit, and it cant do any objectives other than search. But, it can have a use in settlement mode. The Take a Flyer rule will net you an additional 5 caps every game, which is a free perk, I guess, if you want to sacrifice an eyebot or battered protectron for her cost. Just remember its once per game, and each of your opponents can also interact with her to gain 5 caps.
Units
Assaultron
Holy crap this guy is scary. Its basically a melee version of HK-47, if you're old enough to remember him. Red move, green charge, and free ready ups mean this guy is AGGRESSIVE. Its also one of your only bots that can climb, SO NO ONE IS SAFE FROM YOUR WRATH. Good armor with HIGH HP means it can also take a beating. It also fires a face laser, which is always a plus. AND it explodes when it dies, so dont be afraid to send it into the middle of enemy lines. The only downside is the price at almost 250 caps each. Meaning that this will really only see play in 750+ games, and maybe not even then. True, you could CLUNKY it, but do you really want to make this thing unreliable while still being around 200 caps?
Automatron
You like making your own robots? Do you like converting models? Did you play Orks before leaving 40k? Then this unit is for you. You can customize a bot for any job by combining 3 robot parts. Want a cheap, expendable wall? Look no further than the Junkbot build. 1 Protectron head, 1 Junkbot torso, and 1 protectron legs equals 11 caps worth of cannon fodder that cant do objectives. This thing is so cheap, it costs only 1 cap more than the hand laser on your protectron! Funnily enough, its also got 7 HP with 2 physical, so HE CHONK. But you get what you pay for, so don't expect it to do anything. Ever. On the other end of the spectrum, you could fully kit out an automoton with a Strength 9 melee profile, red move, and immunity to terrain. Happy Toaster Oven Noises
Battered Assaultron
The diet version of the Assaultron. Less than half the caps as to original, it loses out on ready up, a point of armor, and some specials, but still well worth the cost. Does not automatically throw a nuclear temper tantrum when it dies though, instead having a random chance to do so. Still gets a free face laser shot during your turn, albeit less accurately.
Battered Protectron
Decently cheap for less than 50 caps, don't expect this guy to so much. It also cant do any objectives without leader perks or mods, so don't take it for that. INSTEAD, take it because it has a decent chance of exploding during a game, and because of its strength 8. Sure, it hits in melee with an AGI skill of 1, but any time your called to do strength tests due to unique scenarios/quests, this bucket of rusty bolts shines.
Battered Sentry Bot
First off, even though he's the old man Jenkins version of the Sentry Bot, don't underestimate this guy. 10HP with strong armor means hell probably stick around a while. Not terribly accurate, but seeing as a missile launcher scatters when it misses, you still have a chance of hitting something even when you miss. A fun tactic you can do is to send your cheap junkbots into melee with an enemy unit, and then have this guy fire into it with a +2 accuracy. Even if you kill your 11 point junkbot, one, you most likely wont care, and two, its tanky enough to survive it in the first place.
to be continued

Hi all, can I please get some clarification on spell casting before I run my first black hack session?
For the sake of this question, I am playing a level 1 wizard and have selected magic missile as my memorized spell for the day.
We get into our first combat for the session and I blow my load early, dealing 1d6 damage on a faraway or nearby target. As I’m a wizard, I naturally pause to pat myself on the back.
I then make an attribute test to determine if the spell remains memorized… and I fail. Now I have no memorized spells until the next day.
So as per the rules on page 15, when turns are tracked with minutes I can attempt to cast a spell from my spell book. With success or fail results.
But that is ONLY when turns are being tracked in minutes (i.e. out of combat)? When turns are tracked in moments (i.e. in combat), does this mean I can’t cast spells?
If so, within combat my Wizard’s options are only to do non-magical attack damage with staff, dagger etc? ‘1d4 or 1 if unarmed’
I only have 1d4 HP and AV1 armor, so it hardly seems worth the risk to get close to an enemy just to poke it for 1d4.
I appreciate that this will improve with level increase, but Wizard’s seem very weak at level 1.
At least the cleric can do 1d6 damage after they run out of spells. Plus they have the HP and armor to be worth risking getting close.
So is this a correct understanding of the rules? Essentially, you can’t cast spells during combat if they aren’t memorized/you forget them?
If so, then am I correct in assuming this is a feature and not a bug of this OSR gameplay? Like, it’s meant to be very magic-lite with super squishy wizards?
Any guidance much appreciated, thanks!