Boom is EXTREMELY useless.

When I first heard about the kamikaze bot in the Jan 17 livestream, I was super excited, but once we actually got to use them, I was a little underwhelmed. They're extremely volatile and practically worthless, both in a fight and an attack on an opponent's base.
They're simply too easy to destroy, even with a large amount of them, by the time they meet any type of enemy fire, an army of 50 can be destroyed almost instantly.
And even when paired with an army of vehicles/bots, when told to attack something they rush out straight into the line of fire and get cut down.

I'm not saying that they should be able to snipe commanders, I'm just saying that you should be able to use them without first clearing a base entirely of any hostile targets/defensive structures, because if you're going to do that anyway, you may as well take out the rest of the base while you're there.

Ways this can be done is by buffing their HP so they can at the very least take 2 hits from a Dox, or maybe make their AI zigzag while they move in for an attack?

I agree that the boom is EXTREMELY useless atm. A lot of it has to do with the fact that it doesn't attack properly I think (unless they fixed that and I didn't notice...) but either leaping, a health buff, or some other method would really help them be more balanced as well.

I wouldn't use them to attack targets that can easily shoot back.

They make great base destroyers.

The problem with that is that bases are covered in turrets now due to the very low cost of them.

It's too fragile imho. Unless you attack completely unprotected places you need unreasonable amounts to ever do any damage because they die before they can reach their target.
They can be pretty cool to detonate enemy pgens and the sorts, but it is just not worth the trouble to get them next to their targets. Easier to drop vanguards.

How about giving them a buff and the capability to evade shots?

Would be cool if they leaped the last few meters towards their targets. Would make them unique, have "soul" and more useful. Also awesome.

They're not even worth dropping from pelicans at the moment, vanguards are just as damaging and don't die whenever they destroy something.

A single dox can hold off a fair number of booms. A single dox could probably handle the output from two or three factories indefinitely.

Booms can cheaply and quickly take out a undefended high value target, but if it's even lightly defended you'd be better off sending just about anything else.

The only use of booms is early game scouting and taking out expanding fabbers early game, much the same as you'd use doxes except that a dox can take out quite a few booms before dieing, whereas a dox vs a dox both could be destroyed with equal losses for both sides.

Yeah I like the idea of these but only tried them once as they all died to a single turret. Perhaps they need to be smaller and faster so they can avoid fire a little better.

By "EXTREMELY useless" I think you mean "completely pointless."

In its current form it is.

If the boom bots were faster, and possibly a little cheaper, and didn't space out so far, then they'd be useful.

Right now the formations have them so space out from each other that a single laser defense tower can defend against them practically indefinitely. They need to clump up together so they aren't picked off one by one. They also desperately need to be faster.

They're already 8 speed faster than doxes. The solution is making it so that they can take damage without being destroyed instantly. Them not leaving wreckage doesn't help either.

I'd like to see them re-purposed in a more interesting way. Give them the ability to burrow, and have them be invisible to everything besides scouts and radar. They would essentially be a mobile minefield, that you could pluck up and move somewhere else as the situation changed. Leave their HP weak on the surface, but double it underground, so at the very least even if they're in vision, they're still somewhat of a barrier. You could surround metal outposts with them, or make "walls" around your base, etc, and the risk of them would further emphasize the importance of good intel.

hp buff .. damagebuff and a bit more splash ... leave wreck when destroyed ... leave no wreck when they go boom themselves

so basicly copy the baneling from starcraft 2 ... nope i rather want firebeatles ... a bit more accurate though ... those got nasty in faf ...

Funnily enough I was talking about this today. It needs to be fixed to actually work when you tell it to attack from out of range, but it's not entirely useless:

• It's as fast as a skitter
• It has slightly better vision than a dox
• A single one can take out a metal extractor, energy plant, radar, deep space radar, pelter, single laser defense tower, or AA tower (by health, I doubt even a pelican drop can destroy a laser tower [i don't know if the boom will auto-attack]))
• Two boom bots can take out a t1 factory, not that getting to it is very likely

Which makes it good as a scout in early early game, particularly when you go bot factory first. If you consider any damage it does to be a bonus then you can't go wrong.

• If you do manage to find something undefended, it likely does the damage before the opponent can react
• A dox may be able to take out a few fabbers, but mex take way too long and forget about a pgen
• A boom bot properly microed may be able to attack a single dox, someone skilled should try it - Apparently not, see below
  
• Mixing dox with boom bots may be a strong combo in early game. Quickly take out light defenses, quickly damage the infastructure,then move the dox on

Do they work well with air transports?

I have never used air transports.

Booms really cannot kill doxes. Micro doesn't affect anything here.

The only thing I thought they would be useful with is the unit cannon. I figured you could rain them down with it.

but right now I agree, there not worth building.

That'd actually be really freakin' awesome.