Big plume of purple smoke makes it too obvious. Even if you were to get points for it, the actual benefit of sabotage is somewhat useless as a result of it's obviousness (is that even a word?)
No, its just pointless on a map like crossroads because it is so small and you were 1 of 5 people on your team so your efforts would have been much better used elsewhere. Also in such a small game I can keep track of you pretty easily and my team told me every time they saw purple smoke. We were also holed up in our base so I could pretty much see our entire base in 1 screen. Bigger map, Bigger teams it would be alot more effective. If you coordinated your sabotage with a tank rush on our rax and vf it would have been devestating.
Exactly my point. It's much easier and quicker to see and fix something that's sabotaged than it is to actually sabotage it.
The NF vehicle factory had smoke coming from inside so that it wasn't visible from the outside. Someone reported it as a bug. I changed it in RC 8 that it takes a lot more health to repair to make it no longer sabotaged. I thought that would be good enough.
The problem is that it's too easy to see when something is sabotaged that it doesn't have any real/major impact on the game.
the buildings should be marked purple on the minimap when in proximity instead of the smoke. That way it'd still show which buildings are sabotaged but not be so obvious.
Well In my opinion a smaller plume inside of the buildings like the NF was would be enough. You then have to go inside or at least in front of the building to see that its sabotaged. And wont have to bother the comm with something else to do.
My point was your tactics were retarded. We just had a large game on isle were the scouts were helping their team and would sabotage buildings while the team attacked. You just walked in by yourself and sabotaged stuff never coordinating with your team. Why the hell should a class be able to singlehandedly cause that much trouble behind enemy lines without some sort of warning. The scout sabotage is probably the fastest way to take down half a buildings health as infantry. Also I would notice purple on minimap twice as fast.
Spawning with half health is a dead give away too. Make that less obvious! Your problem Dee was that you were against me, I seem to notice these things, I think most people on the other hand wouldn't. Like Simon said, using sabotage on crossroads isn't effective because it is so small. I think Dee's idea of a purple box (when in proximity) has about the same effectiveness as the current purple smoke because any good player should be keeping an eye on that minimap (basically, I don't think it is worth it). Krenzo's change in the time it takes to repair may be the answer.
We'll Sabotage isn't entirely used to sabotage a building. If the scout was smart, he would sabotage a building, and then use it as bait for some engineer to come up and take pot shots on him. I mean shit do you use a nuke tank to get loads of kills, or can you also use it as a scare tactic to make guys fall back.
I think the Scout sabotage is good as it is. 90% noobs who play Empires can't tell that a purple-smoking building is a bad thing.
As a player who plays scout class 98% of the time, I think the purple smoke is fine as is. Even if it does get notice right away I still hide in the enemy base and just wait till they leave and do it again. But I do see your point on smaller maps like crossroads. On those maps I just practice my scout rifle head shots, instead of sabatoging.
the problem i see with sabotage is that you can just change class to engineer and fix it. so why not stop people changing classes at sabotaged buildings. there will sure be an engineer around soon, but not just the instant any player comes along.
How bout a modified sound? That'd be a more subtle way of indicating it, and you could only tell when you were nearby (not that I have any issues with the purple smoke, I think it's fine as it is).
like a grinding sound (mixed with the normal sound so it wouldn't get irritating and repetative?) cool :D
