[Considering] Jeep Mounts/Utility

This is a sugestion inspired by Empty's sugestion.

Give the Jeep a utility slot.

As an Engineer you can equip a lvl1 turret(ML or MG), a camera, a radar or an ammo box(Wich will dissapear after some time).
You simply walk to the jeep and build the utlity on the jeep utlity mount.
This turret can then be set on either auto-fire(weaker, but requires no human input) or manualy fired by a passanger(second seat),
wich improves the weapons fire power but decreases accuracy.
You can remove the utility the same way you remove your other structures(with the calc).
You cannot remove the structures of others.

As a Grenadier you can equip your jeep with mines(by walking to the jeep and pressing the "equip button" with a mine out).
These can then be placed/released while in the jeep by pressing the fire button(there should be a display of how many mines you have left though).
You should also be able to equip your jeep with your RPG/Mortar.
Wich can then be fired by a person in the second seat.
This is done simply by moving to the jeep with your mortar/rpg equiped and then pressing the "equip" button.
The person in the second seat will then be able to switch between mortar or rpg.

As a scout you have the ability to use cloak by pressing left mouse button(no radar stealth though, unless you have the skill) or nitro by pressing the right mouse button.
The nitro uses up fuel that will replenish over time, and if the jeep is out of fuel it will move at 50% of it's speed.

The idea behind this is to make the jeep a low-cost attack vehicle,
suitable for early rushes, base defence, mobile weapons platform(with the engineer/grenadier), support, and resupplying your troops.

This way the Jeep can be usefull(and re-used).
As it will actualy be able to support your troops(with supplies or by taking out enemy structures with mortar or rpg fire for example).

 

Been suggested exactly 9000 times and shot down every single time.

I guess it's time for it to be suggested over 9000 times.

 

Hmm, weird, somebody delete this.(I must have accidently pressed post thread)

Ofcourse, it's a taboo! Thou shalt not question the mainstream opinion or discuss it! Vote now for the Empires Conservative Party 2012!

 

It wasn't shot down, the jeep was going to become a utility vehicle.

 

Better = Give the second driver seat a mg thingy (Not a turrent! Would've been too easy to kill someone with)
or even better! = Let the jeep be as it is

 

Anyway, even if it's been suggested 9000 times, it's not that bad of a suggestion, and right now it seems like things are actually going to get added to the game at a faster pace, so there's a chance it might even be considered.

As long as the turret can't be upgraded and dies when the jeep dies, it probably wouldn't break anything... ammo boxes and sensors certainly wouldn't.

Only thing is, if you need an engineer to do it, this would make engineers even more powerful. Is that really needed?

So I would suggest giving the ability to install these things when building a jeep, too.

 

This is a massive set of features (code wise and features). The part where you can place a turret/ammo is one thing, but like gren drivers handing their RPGs to passengers, player-mountable turrets, minelayers, cloaking, turbo... Oh my.

I like the idea of a utility slot, but beyond that it's sooo much to deal with, and doesn't really add anything except complexity. For example, everything the gren driver can do in your writeup you can already do as any class if a gren is in passenger seat. Since this is a team based game, saying "but now I can do it myself" is a bad point, and handing over your RPG would require a passenger anyway. Scout cloaking either wouldn't work or is already in there, depending on what you mean. If you mean radar cloaking, it's already in there. If you mean like scout hide, it wouldn't work at all, a huge part of a scout being hidden is that they are small and low(er) to the ground, and if they move it's pretty obvious where they are. A jeep sized object with that cloak while moving would stick out enough that I'd wonder why we wasted our time coding it.

In short, I think you took a good idea and ran with it, but you ran way too far, I need you to come back a little now

Utility slot I like, and I think balance is managable if it's capped at lvl1 turrets, but making them player controlled would be a mess for a number of reasons that I can go in to if you really want but would prefer not to.

 

You need to fix rubber banding in the second seat of vehicles, it's basically impossible to hit anything with anything while moving.

 

That's one of the reasons, and although with proper coding we can minimize it (perhaps to the level that it's not noticable) I don't think we can ever get it to the point where you could reliably hit what you aim at.

I suppose a small amount of realism can rationalize that for us... accuracy from moving vehicles (land) is horrific. Then again, LA drive by's skew the stats pretty bad.

 

I'd just like to get one kill from a moving vehicle.
Just one.
I'm still trying to get it.

At the very least, can we repair vehicles from the second seat? I mean it would be interesting to try out for balance.

 

I'll make a deal with you. We'll take a car with engine/drivetrain problems. Then I'll drive you around, and from the passenger seat you fix the problems. You can use whatever you can fit in the cab. If successful, absolutely we'll add engi repairs in moving jeeps.

I know the calc is like magical or something so maybe that's not fair... but at the same time, imo oneither would be repairing a jeep while it's moving, and once parked you may as well get out to repair.

 

I mean for real tanks.

 

Okay, same experiment but with a tank then and I need you to weld some peeled back plates back into place... I doubt that'll make it any easier on you, and if I move the turret you're pobably a dead man...

I suppose this wouldn't be a bad idea for tanks provided all damage (splash) relayed to the infantry in the exposed seat. Right now mg fire will get them, but I'm pretty sure HE cannon doesn't ever hurt while riding up there. That'd be really frustrating if you didn't take an MG and now you can't kill the enemy tank because you have no way to kill a completely exposed engi.

 

Well I'd still like to see it as a feature.

Our tanks can flip over and be fine afterwards, realism is nothing at all.

 

That's where you went with that eh? I'd say being flipped has nothing to do with it... I'd have gone with "our tanks explode if they are upside down for too long" but that's just me

Regardless of realism, repairing from inside the hatch of a tank would be OP if you had to MG kill the engi like you do currently (will mortar do the trick by chance?).

 

So heres my idea.
on the nf jeep shotgun seat uses a mountable HMG/RPG and does awesome stuff with it, good for drive-bys or anti-infantry support or saving a refinery that is in a remote location.

For BE, since they have a deficit in Passenger slots, get an engineer mount, useful for missions such as building a new base, and can have the turret serve as protection for when the player first arrives in an area, therefore, can be used as a mobile defense placement.


[EXTRA] Now here is the part that I added in because maybe the jeep needed it, an ammo box on the back of both vehicles. Useful for bringing ammo to the frontlines or as a temporary armory. Now I know you are thinking "5 vehicles parked beside this allowing them to get ammo is cheap ass ****" an alternative to that situation is not have the ammo box or limit the amount of ammo it gives out(meaning you go back to base and leave it beside the armory to regain ammo).

The purpose of these ideas is to encourage teamwork, from setting up a ammo refill and turret defense site to working together to kill the enemy units.

 

You can still hit them directly with cannons, get your own engy, or get a second player in a tank to back you up, that engy cant drive a tank if he's in one, so you outnumber him 2 to 1.

 

Megel had made a.. I guess concept model? for this idea with a jeep that has a bed in the back for an ammo/health box or level 1 turret. Seemed pretty cool.

 

I have, but mostly by luck (more in APCs, too, since then you can just fire madly with unlimited ammo and hope you hit something.) Throwing seismics madly to destroy turrets works sometimes, too.

Explosive nadespam from an APC also works well. Of course, if you have an APC you don't need to be more deadly to infantry, but oh well.

Hrm. Has anyone tried putting a rifleman with stickies in an APC, then ramming enemies and stickying them? Does it work well? Is it worth the trouble? I'd imagine that would be a pretty effective way to take out LTs, at least. But it'd require coordination.



...hey, wait a minute. For something easy, how about just make it so people riding a jeep recover ammo the same way people in an APC do? Not health, just ammo. I mean, come on, ammo is easy to come by already, so it's not going to break the balance, and this would encourage people to use jeeps for drive-bys and such, with what I assume is very little work.

Making a player-controlled turret would apparently be difficult, but you can give players unlimited ammo in a jeep using the existing APC code, and it's basically the same thing as a player-controlled turret, isn't it?

I also think automated turrets on jeeps would be a lot of fun and hope we get them, but anyway, just brainstorming.

 

Ah yeah, nadespam I've done, the occasional mortar or RPG, definitely mines.


I tried second seat stickying, most of them land on your own vehicle, killing you (just you, when you sticky a friendly vehicle from an extra seat, you die instantly but no damage is done to the vehicle)