Oh bother. A rifleman thread. :p Binoculars So what say we take the rifleman and take the binoculars put it on the rifleman? What we get is the perfect class! Well, it's the perfect alternative to the Engineer. The rifleman is already an excellent anti-infantry and anti-vehicle platform. In the anti-emplacement role... the rifleman is pretty lame, and I considered sabotage, but that has issues to be discussed further. As far as support, the binocs let him shine. He can be effective on the battlefield simultaneously and still benefit the team while doing so even in a position where he otherwise couldn't do so. He still can't build and he's not any sneakier. It just gives him an additional purpose that fits well with his current roles. The infantryman will always be on the forefront, always in an offensive, and the rifleman is thus going to be in the perfect position to mark targets. It just fits. Sabotage The rifleman isn't an anti-emplacement class. Though, once seismic nades are nerfed, no other class will be either. As far as anti-emplacement classes go, the scout is impotent, the engineer won't be quite as good at it, and the grenadier is just as bad without a mine cluster. With that in mind, let's note something: Frag grenades are as good as seimics, or so it seems, making the rifleman a paradoxically effective building killer if he has access to an ammo crate. Now, sabotage cuts down a building's health by half. If that means a rifleman can now sabotage and kill a building or two with frag grenades, then sabotage is clearly violating something and the rifleman doesn't need it. Otherwise, though, it could give the rifleman a little boost in his anti-emplacement role and supplement his offensive nature. (It would also close the lid on our needing more than three classes. Zing!)
But rifleman are supposed to be anti-infantry and nothing else, which is why stickies should be moved to someone else and they shouldn't gain anything more than HE nades for structures. You're crazy.
How can you have no anti-emplacement ability in your squad when seismic grenades, frag grenades, mortar/rpg, and sab/conc grenades all work on emplacements? There isn't a dedicated anti turret class because every class is anti-turret, you just need enough of them. Why do you need to be able to take out huge numbers of turrets as one guy? Shouldn't you need several guys to take out a turret farm or a large tank/arty support?
Yeah I don't think rifleman needs any anti-structure gear. If you're smart enough to stick with your squad, all you have to do is cover your engys while they wall up to the turret and then seismic it to death.
Or just get everyone to lob their preferred brand of explosive at the structure. Scouts get to run into the grenades and try to sab while having grenades thrown at them by the rest of the team, a perfect microcosm of the empires community opinion on scouts.
The scout is the unit that has the binocs because he has to use them, same for sabotage. Rifleman has to kill off the infantry before they get too close, not look at the enemy base while there's enemies moving straight at him, but out of his view because he's using the binocs.
Oi! Using the binocs takes almost no time at all. Plus, it's most fun for marking vehicles anyhow. Killing infantry may be vastly more useful than marking things on the minimap, but that doesn't mean they're mutually exclusive. The scout has to use the binocs and sabotage because otherwise he'd realize that he really doesn't have any redeeming featu... Oh snot, you're trying to turn it into a scout thread, aren't you?
And what do you propose I tell the engineers' families when they're all dead because I didn't intercept the enemy rifleman in time, and nobody else was aware he was there? :p
why move the sticky grenades to another class? they're a great tool to add depth and variety to the rifleman class. the only problem comes when the grenadier is so useless against heavy vehicles that the only possibility to kill them is to play roulette and chase after them as rifleman. that is because the grenadier is weak against tanks to compensate for it being fairly strong vs infantry, which is entirely bad imo.
The stickies should be cut, they're a last minute tack on to the rifleman so he doesn't get owned by tanks, and it's made him the only infantry weapon against tanks, give his rifles more power and he'll be able to chop asside infantry and get steamrolled by tanks LIKE HE SHOULD
I still like the concept of stickies very very much! i would like to see it being given to someone else!
Your "variety" makes rifleman the only anti-tank weapon worth using once the enemy researches armor. It's pretty ridiculous to expect a commander to spend 1500 resources and 2-3 minutes on auxiliary research just to make the grenadier semi-useful, especially when the rifleman has the ultimate tank-killing weapon in his pocket from the very start. I agree with Empty. The stickies should be moved to another class, preferably the grenadier. It's the best thing that can be done if you want to pretend that the classes have distinct roles. Besides, sticky grenades and armor detection...
what families? this is empires, all the soldiers either came out of cloning vats or have been implanted with chips to act only for the good of the empire.
Honestly, Siesmic nades right now are the only advantage the engineer has, you can't decon an enemy barracks to death. although they are removing 9mining(RIP) the engineer should not lose his building killing ability too, then we will actually have to rely on scouts to sab. thats just stupid. when do you ever actually see a scout with an engineer in an enemy base? besides, nade spam can easily be countered by a vehicle, a roflmen, or a gren. or a scout with smg2. But enough about my pointless ramblings of how the engi should not be less effective then he already is, would you rather have body armor, or a binoc? the roflmen going all out on a turret farm is the most retarded idea I have ever seen, no offense but roflmen have enough power as it is slashing threw hordes of infantry and heavy tanks like a rhino on crack. roflmen being able to destroy bases and replace the engineer is about as dumb as forest gump with a penut in his brain.
Decon needs a huuuuge buff, it's impossible to decon a building in the short term, unless it's a turret.
That's the point, silly! The scout needs a better role and the Engineer needs to be less "allround killer dude and base wrecker"
okay, i'll say it a bit slower and a bit more carefully: the only reason that rifleman are "the only viable class vs vehicles" is because the grenadier totally SUCKS vs vehicles. if you remove the stickies from the rifleman, the grenadier will still suck, and then you'll have nothing to fight vehicles with. the solution is that grenadiers should be better vs vehicles.
.... But the problem is we dont want them to be too good VS early vehicles. So either something should be done about RPG damage multiplier so it wont 1hit kill anything smaller than a med, but can still kill a heavy with less than a dozen shots, or the RPG upgrade should be buffed. Personally I think it would be better to buff the upgrade but also have it come with upgrades missiles so u don't have to devote time to specifically research infantry buffs that could win or lose you the game. Also, back on topic, binocs should have a melee with right click.
