Now, as far as I know there are no plans to put support abilities (ie prox repair, ammo dispenser) on ES buggies. But I was thinking it would be an interesting way to set them apart from the Harasser and create a halfway point between the Harasser and Sundy. Plus, the smaller buggy would be able to bring these abilities to places the Sunderer is too wide/tall to get into (certain poorly-placed towers come to mind, there's a lot where a sundy is blocked by clutter or inclines). So, prox repair/ammo on ES buggies? Maybe with a slightly reduced range (say 20m) since the smaller, nimbler buggy can deal with driving around more? Maybe some empire-specific support abilities?
I don't know, that kind of sounds like adding features for the sake of adding features. It would be a bit like adding those things to the lightning. I mean, you could do it, and it probably wouldn't be stupidly overpowered, but it doesn't make a ton of thematic sense and it wouldn't add a whole lot to the game.
I'd rather prefer that these vehicles get released, rather than getting features on paper... What's next - squad spawn from them?
Well, a big part of it was looking to answer the question "why should I pull an ES buggy instead of a Harasser?" After all, the Harasser can already equip ES weapons. The other reason is that the biggest difficulty of running a support sundy is just how fat the Sundy is. Offloading some of that support to a smaller ES buggy would hopefully make armor columns less crowded, it would be easier to support friendly vehicles without blocking their movement. Though I guess buffing the range on Sundy support abilities would achieve the same thing. However, it would also provide a potential platform for ES support ability, rather than having to stick it on an already overloaded NS platform (the Sunderer). I was thinking maybe a deployable one-way shield projector would be cool for NC. VS could maybe get an acceleration/time dilation field that lets affected units move faster (including letting the Magrider strafe better). Or it could accelerate bullet/shell velocity instead, which would be quite strong on RLs, Comets, and Magrider weapons. TR's traits are harder to apply to a support ability in a way that makes sense. Maybe something that boosts RoF or reload speed for nearby units? Would be absolutely terrifying when stacked with units that can anchor.
Mitebcool. I still think they should combine the ANT and deliverer the way they did the sunderer and AMS. Just give the deliverer/ANT different support abilities and make it more of a small scale support. Pretty much make it a IFV. But yeah different abilities would be nice. The proposed plans for the buggies so far was a ramming shield for NC, something like overdrive for TR, and a phaseout ability for VS.
