Trebuchet vs Rocketine #2

Townsend Duong (Stanford) replied to Richard's post on Jul 20, 2008 at 12:36 AM Whereas the Treb tries to balance several trap aspects of power, luck, and cheese effect, the Rocketine goes for maximum power at the cost of luck and cheese effect. As a result, the Treb is somewhat weaker than I think you should really want for that stage of the game. The Treb/Stone improves the power but gets little additional benefit from the Stone base's Positive cheese effect. The Rocketine/Stone gets a bigger power increase due to the Stone base's power bonus, which compounds the Rocketine's main strength. Further, the Stone base's Positive cheese effect addresses the Rocketine's main weakness. The result is a trap that still has no luck but is almost as powerful as the Trebuchet/Explosive. From the Rocketine/Stone, players can make the choice of the Explosive base for the only trap combination below Swiss Army to be over 1000 power (not my preference), or save for the Swiss Army while still having over 900 power. If they go the former route, they get a lot of power but must deal with the worst cheese effect in the game by using Brie or SB+, which is fine because you are basically maximizing both power and attraction - not possible with the Treb. If they go the latter route, they can quickly get the Swiss Army because they delay the purchase of the Explosive base. With the Trebuchet, because it is slightly underpowered, you can only make this choice if your hunts turn out lucky. If you go to the Harbour and have poor luck, you'll need the Explosive base upgrade sooner. I think it is the option to maximize both power and attraction as well as the strategic choice of Swiss Army or Explosive first that makes the Rocketine worth considering. Most hunters also point out the cheese effect of the Rocketine, which I think is a bogus argument. The Rocketine/Stone has the same cheese effect as the Swiss Army/Explosive or the DeathBot/Target and better than the DeathBot/Explosive. All 3 of those setups are commonly adopted by the same hunters who denounce the Rocketine for its cheese effect. More importantly, I think the best hunters don't let spoiled cheese become the central factor in their trap strategy.