[Suggestion] Changes to the repair mechanic

Summary at the bottom.

I like driving lightnings. To have any effect on the battlefield, I need to be able to flank. People who do so too will know the following situation: You are flanking a MBT or a sunderer and almost got it dead. Suddenly, one or several of the gunners drop out and start repairing the vehicle. This results in them surviving long enough for the other team mates to realize there is someone flanking and destroy your vehicle. Other situations are engis repairing battle sunderers, which already endure a ****-load of damage, making them near unbeatable without far superior fire power. I do not mind if my flanking fails because I was spotted or people are fast to realize that I'm there. I do mind however that when I load several shots into a vanguards rear, have him near burning just for him to pop his shield and his gunner to repair him, extending his lifetime long enough for him to destroy me even though I clearly had the tactical advantage in the situation.

Now you might say that I should just shoot the engineer repairing. Well, first of, I run AP when I want to flank and kill vehicles. Shooting engineers with AP running around the tank is a rather difficult thing to do. Secondly, every shot I waste at the engineer significantly reduces my chances of successfully flanking the vehicle.
"But Thrustin", you might say, "This is team work and should always beat you solo'ing". I agree that team work should be promoted and rewarded, however, there should be a clear limit to how much power team work actually gives you.

I originally was going to propose that repairing should give an armor debuff. Essentially, you can repair mid-combat, but your resistance value will be a lot lower, leading you to take a lot more damage so you definitely cannot out repair anyone. Unfortunately, this would have the large negative side of randoms running up to your tank mid-battle, possibly with bad intentions, and making you loose because they started repairing you. So I thought of an other idea:

When your vehicle is taking damage, the repair rate of the repair tool applied on your vehicle gets reduced, similarly to the situation of the back seat repair rate of the harasser.

This essentially has the desired effect of reducing the efficacy of mid-combat repair, while removing the drawback of the first suggestion.

Summary:

Mid-combat repair reduces effectiveness of flanking and adds to the tanky-ness of the already very durable sunderer. Reduce the repair rate of repairing a vehicle when it is taking damage so that mid-combat repairs is less pronounced.

At least there should be a 30 second cooldown for repair after exiting vehicle. You exit vehicle: cannot repair for 30 seconds.

Damaged tanks come back much sooner than AC and this should be balanced. Damage at least should drive the tank off for a good minute.

I can get behind this, OP. Personally I had an idea that any damage taken makes it so you can't repair a tank for 2-3 seconds. You can still use FS to get some health back. But if you're being repaired and you take damage, the vehicle should not be able to receiveany repairs for a very short time. But your idea works just as well.

if you flanking, you must expect that your victim will shoot you back, that's why you must have "plan b". or try MBT, because it has more fire power, or flank with another Lightning. and i'm not sure that 2 engineer in the field can repair more damage than receiving

Of course I expect to get shot back. But mostly, I flank people who are already taking damage, hoping that I can end it as quickly as possible by shooting them in the rear.

No, two engineers will not be able to out-repair the damage, but extend the life of a MBT long enough to make me fail most of the time. Sure, I could try a MBT instead, but I like to believe that a lightning has a place on the battlefield as well, without them being regarded as an inferior MBT.

i think it's only for Vanguard.. and i don't know, how came, that you shooting tank in the rear, and it still able to kill you.. something wrong here...

They happen. Several vanguards attacking. I go around a mountain, start shooting the one whose smoking a bit in the rear, resulting him in heavily smoking. He pops his shields, looks around, sees me and starts shooting my frontal armor while his gunner gets out and starts repairing. We exchange blows for a few seconds before I start smoking heavily myself. Then his team mates realize I'm there as well. At that point I've lost.

In the end, it is a matter of opinion. I personally think repairing mid-combat to give an HP boost is a lame tactic and provided arguments as to why I think its removal would better the game.

I solo most of the time and personally I don't like this idea as it seems to me it would buff defenders more than offensive minded players and people have little enough reason to take territory as is.

I know where you're coming from but lightnings do still have a place on the battlefield and it's essentially to harass with the added benefit of more durability and resistance than the actual "harasser".

Unfortunately lately I'm finding them much less relevant against TR as the Harasser can close distance so fast and basically demolish you with a Vulcan. Even if you land all of your AP rounds you don't seem to have a chance. I honestly don't know if that's because it got overbuffed or if it's just the playerbase's perception of said buff and now it's just far more prominent. I see numerous Vulcan harassers at every fight now just wrecking armor and it's reminding me of when it was first introduced...

It's fine. If anything, make it so resupplying at a terminal doesn't recharge abilities and zero the repair tool heat gauge.

How exactly would this buff defenders? If at all, it will nerf them, as it is the defenders who bunker down and have the engineers at a safe spot around the corner repairing the vehicles. Attacking vehicles do not have that much of a luxury.

Defenders generally have shields and more friendly territory to hide behind while the faction on the offense has to cover more open ground and has to contend with potential ambushes from uneven terrain.

I am a complete noob to this game but I feel like its boring to have stalemate fight where the enemies keep rushing a well defended area for nothing except maybe farming, im playing HA and shooting rocket on vehicle seems useless because they will just repair over and over again. I just hit the logout button after a while because the fight is uninteresting, its just an endless massive respawn fest with no purposes.

You really should try joining a squad. Three or even just two people can make a far bigger difference is they coordinate with each other. This game can be pretty frustrating until you get the hang of it.

If we would at least get some damage XP.. same as when you hit enemy aircraft..

then I could at least get something out of damaging the Sunderer.
As it stands right now, ONLY the engineers repairing that Sunderer make any XP.. while I can unload all my ammo.. and never take down the Sunderer nor make any XP..

As others have said, best way is to never start flanking an enemy Sundy by yourself. Run with a pack, or just follow randoms..

Yeah, I never attack a sunderer, unless they are being shot at by several other friendlies or are unmanned. But I stay away from battle sundies, they tear me up in a few seconds and you cannot outrun them.

Repair tools should work at half their speed anyways.

Want serious repair?
Have a properly equipped Sundy nearby.

This is yet another silly thing in PS 2, where a hand held tool is more efficient than a purpose built vehicle.

Damage disrupting repair for 3 sec would also be something I have no problem with.
With rep Sundies now being the go to method of fixing vehicles, even if their dual Rep Sundy battlegroup tactic doesn't work as well anymore, they'd still have a major support role.

If you're sitting still and attempting to just "tank" every shot from a Vanguard, then you're doing it wrong. Use your speed. If he starts hitting you, then it's time to bug out. You're complaining about going 1v2 in a weaker tank and losing.

This is a problem of wrong tool for the right job . I understand you are hunting vehicles with ap , and rightfully so , but if you are running into this problem , swap to he . Yes it will take longer because you do less damage , but the splash damage will either kill the repairing engineer or make him get back in the vehicles or ****. I used to use ap lightnings to pop sundies at bases getting assaulted . If you didn't kill the sundy in the first 20 seconds , enough people would change to engi and start out repairing the dps . So i swapped to HE rounds meaning it takes longer , but prevents mass repairing . ( well it doesn't but then you get free kills , not to mention people spawning at the bus )

Which sort of proves that the game is totally upside down in terms of selecting shell type for a given mission.

AP for hunting infantry - it's easier to score a direct hit (required anyways, maybe except for the Big V's big HE against someone without flak armor, a near miss results in enemies running around dodging incoming fire).

HE for hunting vehicles - splash from multiple rounds will kill the repair crew allowing to have a chance of destroying the vehicle itself (attacking with AP results in damage done being outrepaired in real time).

This is not even touching the topic of C4 being above everything, infantry or vehicles, in terms of destroying stuff to the point it's better to take a tank or fighter as a taxi than as a combat vehicle.

I think you are misunderstanding me or the situation. Personally, I do not think it is okay if I attack a damaged tanks weak spot, with a my front armor facing towards him, with a weapon designated to destroy said vehicles, and still loose due to a game mechanic which is detrimental to the game.

You mention 1v2. I repeat, yes team work should beat solo players in the norm, but if said solo player tactically outplays you, you should loose.