They'll all be redesigned as the classes are overhauled one by one. First up is scout, and that already has new ones in the document.
recon is cool as hell, especially after wallhacks were removed there ought to be a skill replacing damage or armor that instareloads squad magazines like how squad heal replenishes health
idk if it should involve reloading the current magazine or filling up ammo to capacity. like an hmg-er has 200 rounds total but 50 in the magazine (100 max). reloading current magazine would result in 50 rounds in store but 200 in the magazine instantly, without reload animations. conversely, if the max is like 200 rounds and the rifleman has 100, he'd be filled up to 200. ideally both would replace the useless rifleman and grenadier skills respectively. (damage and armor, whichever applies to which)
Replenishing ammo is pointless, it's a specific power that would end up getting used for specific people. So no.
Indeed. There would be no use but personal use as you have no way of seeing how much ammo squad members have as of current. Armor, recon and damage would maybe be not so useless if they were much more powerful. A 50% increase in armor/damage for 10 second comes to mind.
Recon will basically just work both ways. The people in the area will get the Recon power, but you'll all also be totally invisible to enemy minimap.
In one of the playtests I found out that a 130 hp rifleman with the armor power active survives a nuke with like 10 hp left, so its not worthless. I think it just suffers from the same problem that all passive effects like that in games have: unless they are absurdly overpowered you don't notice them as much as, say, squad arty, even though it's doubling your ehp or something else equally silly.
even if a 130 hp rifleman with armor does survive a nuke, so what? what's a lone rifleman gonna do about it?
Damage upgrade in theory is awesome, Ive probably used it in real games more than anyone in Empires, and I have noticed a difference in how fast buildings drop, I haven't used it in 2.3 because Trickster told me it was a lower damage bonus (10%) or broken or something... If damage upgrade was truly a 20% damage bonus for all the squads weapons, how is that bad? Damage bonus your squad, spam some buildings, arty strike whatever wont die... To me that's some badass synergy. Make damage upgrade work properly, and buff Rifleman and Scout SL powers to be on par with Gren and Engi's. Come to think of it, as Ounin pointed out, with the removal of targets, recon is a lot more useful than ever, and we all know what squad hide is capable of :/ I think squad powers are pretty close to balanced atm, it's pretty much always going to make sense to have a gren or engi SL though, and that's due to class roles, not squad powers. What do each of the squad auras do btw? gren is damage - how much? rifle is what, stamina? scout is speed - how much? engi is regen aura, which I know Trickster buffed to be actually useful.
Don't think I did, but if I did, ignore me. I have no idea what the buff is. Afaik, Rifleman aura is accuracy, Scout aura is stamina, and Gren is damage. Stamina is 2x I think, but the other 2 I don't know. It'll be looked at at some point I guess, but I'm still working out what the 2nd gren power should be, as I still think damage upgrade isn't useful enough.
or make damage and armor last about 10 seconds, and everyone in the squad gets a really high damage/resistance buff, so basically ubercharge. I think it should cost 5 squad points, the same as arty strike, cause it could be as effective.
Only if Empty adds some over-the-top particles to the buffed guys so its not "OMGWTF HAXORS THY ONEEE SHT MEEEEE" to the noobs.
Actually, the change for Rifleman Charge/Armour I had in mind involved something not too far from this.
it would be cool if the gren/rifle powers countered each other like +50% damage for 10 seconds and -50% damage taken for 10 seconds cost 5 points, except the damage would probably be OP against buildings both of the rifleman's skills are 'invisible' he's the only one who doesn't have something obvious happen like rev or arty or hide... no one's gonna like this suggestion but how about instead of charge he can drop an armoury?
