Defensive weaponry for all classes.

I've been reading some suggestions and I've been thinking about something which could perhaps make the game a bit more fun. Defensive weaponry.

At the moment, all weapons are more or less offensive, even the HMG and mortar can be used to attack, but what if we implemented a system whereby some weapons were designed to be used defensively, the main method of doing this that I can think of would be to add a setup time to them, and not allow them to be used without setting up. This ties into the idea of crew served heavy weaponry which I have seen suggested before.

Take the rifleman for example, the current HMG serves more like a light machine gun to be honest, so I suggest it be re-dubbed the LMG, then add another, heavier MG with better accuracy and/or damage, but require it to be deployed before use. The deployment time should be substantial, about 5 seconds perhaps, so you'd need to do it in good cover, the flipside would be that it would be quite deadly to advancing infantry, the downside would be that it takes another 5 seconds to dismantle it, so you are very vulnerable to being flanked and sniped. It could also perhaps be upgraded to use light AP ammunition, giving it a use against very light armour such as jeeps and APCs (the latter if used en masse, mainly it would just scare them off rather than actually damage them significantly)

The grenadier could get two weapons perhaps, an AT rifle (think COD, the russian AT rifles you use in the winter campaign to defend the large building) which would basically fire a quite fast but not hitscan shell, and would be good against light armour (better than the MG, but not effective against heavy armour, I was thinking something like 2 shots to remove a plate of plain armour with the AT rifle, and about 7 seconds of sustained MG fire to do the same). The AT rifle would also be quite effective against infantry, but the low fire rate and slight amount of inaccuracy (enough to make it impractical as a sniper rifle, but not enough to make it hard to hit vehicles with at medium range) would mean that it isn't overpowered.

The other weapon would be the heavy AT missile, (think a TOW missile in real life, comes on a tripod mount and you sit next to it to use it) it's basically a homing missile that fires in a tall arc, and would do about 30% more damage to a tank than the regular RPG, it would also be easier to use at long range because of the lock ability, but harder at close range because you have to deploy it and lock it on. Both these weapons would require deployment, the AT rifle would be about the same as the MG, while the AT missile would be slightly longer, give that it is has substantial destructive power.

The engineer already has the turret, I don't think this should change as the engineer already has a lot of ways to contribute to the battle, and I want to encourage diversifying into other classes.

The scout could get the scopeless carbine rifle that I've seen suggested as it's main weapon, while the scoped rifle could be given slightly better zoom, lower damage, and require deployment to function, it should also be louder than the current one and have a larger muzzle flash, it should also be bolt action. This rebalance should make it be used more like a sniper rifle, you have to get a headshot to kill with it, or a number of body shots, but the latter would be difficult due to the low fire rate and high visibility of the rifle.

To deploy a weapon, you need to find a ledge or go prone, the grenadier AT missile should be deployable when crouched and in a flat area, as it's more like an artillery piece than anything. You may also consider requiring the scout rifle to be either crouched or prone, whereas the MG and AT rifle should work in any stance as long as there is a ledge of the correct height. When you deploy the weapon, your view should pivot around a point slightly in front of your character, like when you use an MG emplacement in battlefield for example, this would allow you to use them better when they are deployed on the edge of a ledge for example, as you can look over it to shoot below you. I know this would be an animating and coding challenge however.

I think this rebalance would encourage people to fortify locations as infantry, and give a defender a significant advantage, at the moment it's not much fun watching a tank just blow every defender to pieces then roll into your elevated base and kill the comm, I think having more powerful weaponry at your disposal would help matters. Some of the more powerful ones might require research, like the AT missile, but I think most of these are balanced.

There are of course many ways to balance these weapons, such as limited ammo supply (neccessitating an engineer or armoury nearby), upgradable ammo (the at rifle in particular should be scalable with tank armour) and deployment time. So do consider ways to balance any imperfections in the idea.

 

Those all sound like excellent suggestions to me, especially being able to set things up on ledges. Jumping on top of a wall to go prone on it always seemed kind of... self-defeating to me.

 

Being able to set up your MG was the only part of DoD that I liked.

 

Agreed

 

I also want to see what beefy noises you come up with for the MG and AT rifle.

 

... I hate you, and once again reinforce my "Die with cancer" statement.

But on a more on-track note, I already have sounds for it.

 

Eh?

I like your weapon sounds, the brenodi MG in particular sounds like it's ejecting refined win instead of shell casings when you shoot it.

 

I know, but I was saying that because you reminded me that all it means is I have to do more work. :p

But thank you Chris, that's really the nicest thing anyone here has ever said to me.

 

I like the idea of deploying, sounds fun, but defence has no place in the world of empires.

 

Well it's true.

The BE SMG2 sounds good enough to make me forgive how fucking annoying it is to be shot by.

I'm not very good at subtlety or sarcasm. Are you being serious or making a witty observation on the lack of defensive ability in the current build of the game?

 

It was discussed before that the HMG should be set up to be accurate; I dont know where that went; but it should be implemented

To some extent grens already have mines as a defensive measure; but some sort of deployable weapon could do all of the classes some good..

 

Here's your friggin Christmas present Chris.

Scout Carbine: http://empiresuniverse.com/sound_test/scout_carbine.mp3 (Reload, fire trice)

BE HMG: http://empiresuniverse.com/sound_test/BE HMG.wav (Deploy Bipod, Reload, fire once)

If you could get that ML turret done soon that'd be great.

 

There's not much ledges and cover that you could deploy your weapon on.

Ofcourse, proning on the ground to deploy is another option.

 

I'll go work on it now. I did have a quite nice firing animation done, but the damn func_rotating turns on when you use it, and I can't remember how to stop that, I'm sure none of my other ones do it.

Yeah, you should be able to deploy when prone, or at a ledge.

And I know there aren't enough ledges, that's something that will have to be added to maps, or buildings.

 

I thought the reason why it didnt deploy was they hadnt gotten around to coding it... I think the main reason I never see it used or use it my self is its to damn inaccurate after two to three shots... The assault rifles are more accurate! And also dont forget the damn scouts who can just snipe you out. Maybe deploying adds a small face shield?

 

Why not give the rifleman a deployable rifle with two Vehicle mg slots? So he can choose from a wide spread of ammo and he benfits from the researchtree.

 

Thats sounds pain full right there. Just a segjetion we could add remote control to engi turrets but i see a very bad ballance issue coming out of that one with rocket sniping but it would help in recovery of the engi turret if you could self destruct it.
The scout need some more items to increase his scouting i love doing intel gathering but so far all the things for that has been shot down.
I would also like to see some more types of Body armor the lowest would be like a kevlar vest/body suit to a small open head power armor (very scout friendly as in slower than normal and still a head shot friendly playing arena) it would increase accuracy slower stam regeneration when moving and can take a direct HE hit a little better than norm (so reaserch any one). The kevlar is every classes basic undergarmet but its worthless, standard is the Riflmans other classes can use it but they lose an item cept for engi he looses nades(meybe well ide lose them for armor), Heavy (rifle only) slower absobart and flashy, Power reaserch only and all deployables can be fired on the move at the cost of stam usage and extremely horible accuracy(just think a HEmg doing KOTOR shots).

 

I like the idea of some weapons requiring deployment, and others using it to increase accuracy.

One thing that I would like to see is more advanced infantry weapons that can only be used once you have achieved a certain rank, like this little beauty. For those types of weapons, you would 'buy' them with your skill points. For example, if that gun was worth 100 skill points and you had 106, after 'buying' it, you would drop down to only 6 skill points, thus losing all of your skills. (You wouldn't have to buy it again every time you spawn - once bought, always bought.) The interface would be simple enough; when you click on the appropriate category in the class selection screen, they would just show up in the menu along with their associated cost. I would actually have all weapons available to all classes...for a cost. For example, an engineer could equip himself with a HMG for 50 points, or a RPG for 75. By jacking up the price, you can ensure that 'lusers' who don't help their team can't afford the cool stuff, while the 'gods on the ground' can pick up some sweet gear.

 

The problem with that idea is that it means if you join a game in progress, you're going to be at a significant disadvantage. If you want to buy weapons, I suggest using my resource pool idea where your 'money' goes up as your team holds refineries, and goes up for everyone, and if you join in progress, you get the same amount of money as everyone else has had throughout the match.

This also resolves the problem of some classes being able to get more points than others.

 

what? resources are shared for all the team----
And 3 skills slots makes little difference if you play your class well.(the worst case scenario if you join an ending game)