I’ve continued to experiment with these, and I’m still enjoying them, but my results are inconsistent. Sometimes I’m the hero, sometimes I’m the zero.
Figured out that Quantum buffs the damage, so I’ve been using that cabin with Hertz. Unfortunately, the cabin doesn’t have enough power and mass carrying ability for a Skinner build to be effective against anything but the lightest enemies, so I’ve given up on that for now.
Instead, I’ve been combining four of them with a King and a Kapkan, which seems to work. Might pick up a second Kapkan, because trapping someone inside the fence does great damage, while the single King is mostly an annoyance.
Originally I had all four on the same trigger, firing in four directions to make a box. Worked ok, but too often some of them would get blocked by other builds or scenery. Ended up switching to two aiming forward and two aiming backwards, and splitting the triggers so that only two fire at a time (with a King doubled up on one trigger and the Kapkan on the other).
This arrangement allows me to circle an enemy and build a fence around them, without as many shots getting blocked.
Also tried all of them shooting out the sides, which is good when people are chasing me, as I can drop gates that they drive through. But not good in tight spaces, as they get blocked too easily.
I wish they weren’t so bright, as that makes them too easy to spot. But they’re definitely a more interesting minefield style weapon than the others we have. Driving through a crowd of enemies and spamming electric fences can be very disruptive. And people underestimate them, because quickly passing over them doesn’t do much damage. Get stuck on one though and it’s game over.
I’m committed to mastering them, especially because so few other people are running them. It’s fun to kill people with things they aren’t expecting!
Sounds like they have a rewarding but steep learning curve. That’s a good thing, I think. They are fun, but I don’t have but one. I want two. At low PS, I think I can make two work and leave plenty of energy for other flavors of complimentary mayhem on my build.
They might be fun with turrets. Drop some turrets and then surround them with an electric fence to zap the people who try to ram them.
I remember being a kid and hanging out at a neighbours house who had electric fences for livestock. I discovered that the shocks didn’t bother me too much, so I would hold the wire and touch my little brother to transmit the zap to him. I feel a bit bad about that now, but thought it was hilarious at the time.
Might try them with some Fatoms and Photon. Although my previous experiments suggested that Photon’s perk didn’t seem to buff the spider drone lasers, so it’s possible the perk only works on weapons attached to the build, and not autonomous weapons.
