Since there was a lot of hate towards the FS here are some statistics, most of which will remove the current reasons people gave why they hate it: Health: 2000 when attacked by small-arms. Vulnerable to grenades: Yes, deals +/-1250 damage for a full hit. Lifetime: Remains active for 2 minutes maximum, then it auto-deconstructs. Size: It's currently using the size and shape of a jumppad. Real easy to hit but low. Infantry terminal: None Does currently not show up on the radar for friendlies (and possibly enemies, needs testing), this is probably because it's still in development. Capacity: The Medic can carry 1 at maximum with the current status. Resupply: Only at terminals or by respawning. If the Medic so much as switches to the FS any existing FS will be destroyed. So even if you don't place it your FS is instantly gone. Probably a bug. Other effects: Functions as a shield-regeneration device, regenerating anyone within 4,5m distance (about the size of the pad itself). Unclear how fast. Certable levels: Currently none. Effective respawn range: The player has to be within 100m distance of the Spawnpad. 101m distance already makes it impossible to spawn there. To give an idea how long that is: A wall section of an AMP station is already between 130 to 150m. If you died on one of the defense towers and FS on the next tower wouldn't be able to respawn you. FS exclusion range: Not tested.
In other words, is a niche tactical tool for tightly operating squads that have the discipline to stick together and hold objectives or other locations - you can't use this to drop one medic down on a roof and have the rest of the squad in the WG several klicks out spawn on you. That's what beacons are for. Any hate towards this device is completely over-blown, given that it don't let you use the shield node or the AOE heal device, you only get one pad per life or re-supply, it dies in 2 minutes or to half a magazine of small-arms fire, can be EMP'ed, and has limited range. At this point in time I honestly think this thing needs a buff in some way to justify the 'no-deploy zone works both ways' because you can no longer deploy a hard-spawn sundie inside your own base's boundaries, and this flimsy, short-lived low-range thing is supposed to cover for that. Unless you enemies are morons, it simply won't.
It's not just for tightly operating squads. I can see them in their current form being used a lot as well. Just imagine one random throwing an FS on top of a point, yes that's possible. Suddenly you have a never ending stream of players spawning on the point as anyone who dies nearby the point will see the new spawn and go there. With enough of a rotation of players (IE they die a lot) you have enough fresh Medics to replace the FS whenever it dies or expires and get in on that sweet respawn XP action. That is assuming more people will play Medic for this. Also the chaos around such a point could mean players forget or don't realize their FS is destroyed or expired until it's too late and most players have already respawned somewhere else or all the Medics are dead. But I would also give it a bit better stats. 5 to 7,5 minutes lifetime, that's relatively long for a normal battle and allows players to be a bit less constantly worried about their FS expiring and focus on the battle more.
So, useful against NC then?...............sorry, I just couldn't resist the temptation. I vaguely remember reading that Meidcs are going to lose something and this will replace it? Hope I'm wrong but CBA to check.
Yup. There was concern for a while that the forward station was going to replace the shield bubble. I can't find the thread now, but Wrel has confirmed that our shield bubbles are safe. The forward station is going to be an addition, not a replacement.
Still a bad idea. Even if it was 1 minute, you're still summoning your entire faction to respawn right there in a 200 diameter circle, the beacon dies in 1-3 shots and IT'S still spammed, not every single medic needs the power to respawn everyone in range, that is what gave medics a purpose in the first place, why people were punished for making bad moves, why medics assessed the situation to make the right calls, now I can bypass all of that from a toolslot that I barely use anyhow? Why don't we give heavys a riot shield just like the aegis now, with a pistol side to shoot with or maybe a UAV that covers the entire hex for the infil with realtime spotting. This is literally catering to the lowest common denominator again, we don't need more items to make people think less about what they're doing, we already have mindless zergs that are unfun, how exactly is this going to be less cancerous for them and beneficialfor defenders?
Really? How "spammed" is it? Whenever I'm in a squad/platoon I have to bully the squad leaders to put theirs down. Usually there's maybe 1 Spawn Beacon per 10 to 20 fights I visit? Probably less but I want to be conservative here. And keep in mind that these things usually die quickly as well and can spawn only 12 people max at a time. The amount of times I've seen a spawn beacon be super-powerful and break an enemy: Maybe 3 times in the time that I played the game? And I've played since launch. Not every Medic will equip it. Look at it from a Medics perspective: "So I can either equip something to heal myself and allies indefinitely while I keep reviving them, or I can put down a shield-regen device that helps people stay alive for longer and can be placed indefinitely while I revive people, or I place something that lasts 2 minutes tops and then forces me back to a terminal/to die. What am I going to pick?" Well, that FS sounds nice, but with the short period it's active it's far less useful on a personal level for the Medic, if only because the Medic has to be aware of how many people will be dying and respawning on the FS, and if there might be better FS's standing around that would steal the amount of people spawning on your own. Imagine sacrificing your medium-assault self-heal ability only to have one or two people spawn on your FS and have them run away immediately? The FS is a gamble with these stats, a gamble that has a high chance of not paying off for the Medic at all. 2 minutes is far too short a time for most scenario's to be truly effective. You barely use self-heal? Medics now have an even better purpose. Besides being a glorified healer they can help get people out of the spawn or keep alternative attack routes open. Teamwork is required to keep the FS's operational due to the short lifespan and high vulnerability. It's basically a version of the Router, but worse. Weren't you one of the players that supported the Router? I think you were. This is literally catering to better teamplay and class-interaction. How would this be the lowest denominator? Dumping your FS randomly won't work. Dumping it in the perfect spot means you have to know the perfect spot which means knowing how many allies are dying in the area and what effect it has to have less people approach from the Sunderer and more people from your FS. And all it means for the players that die in the area is "hey, there's suddenly an FS there where I can spawn. Now I have to have the knowledge to know how useful that placement is and what it'll do for my team to spawn there". And if you are part of the lowest common denominator... Then you just spawn randomly on either the FS or the Sunderer and do your lowest common denominator thing, no biggy for you.
I'd like to draw attention to "Whenever I'm in a squad or platoon, I have to bully the leaders to put them down". Quality of squad can easily be manipulated. Not to mention, "these things usually die quickly", how would you know if you rarely see them put down? How is that argument not complete fubar? You're making generalized assumptions on an item you rarely use or see, that's like if I said tanks are OP even if I rarely die to them, oh wait. That is assuming far too much. And if you're wrong and literally every medic equips it? I'm perfectly fine with healers, but spawn points on literally every medic is the zerg tool right there. If everyone is using, oh **** that, if two medics are using the forward spawn and simply bouncing spawns off each other, they can simply revive and heal each other. Self healing can be done easily without a medic, isn't it you that said that ammo printer is useless and only taking the spot of a regeneration implant instead? Ok so I can simply equip that and forgo medics? What about heal applicators from other medics? Heal nades? The ******* biolab benefit that they aren't removing? A gamble you say, you mean to tell me you won't put this on a front line and the people who spawn won't be forced to defend it? The only time your hypothetical situations hold water is in 1-12 fights, but then we have the spawn beacon in those fights don't we? How about the large scale fights I'm saying will make this tool broken and cancerous? Well why not give heavy's massive shields like the aegis? That's an even better purpose! Just because it's better does not mean it's a good thing for the game. Also "Glorified healer"? You mean the only class that can heal. Teamwork is required to keep the medic operational due to the short lifespan and high vulnerability. How odd how that fits so well. Except medics can't res people 100 meters away and teleport them to a safe haven. Failing to see how this item is not the overpowered crap that you say it isn't. Never heard of it. Or don't remember, get some citations. Because literally anyone could charge out, fail, come back, no consequences of ones actions. Because that's what the newbies do.
Y'know, after reading all your messages, the forward station seems to be functionally equivalent to reviving--except your tool slot is now empty. The point of the forward station is to put people back into the fight quickly, right? Well the medical applicator and revive grenades do that, too. Although being able to spawn from 100 meters out does sound useful. Still, you'll be looking at a loading screen for a few seconds (or longer depending on your CPU) as defenders redeploy and overwhelm the point with grenades, MAXs, and vehicles. We also already have something similar to this new tool, and that's the Elysium Spawn Tube. Those help base defenses a lot, but it makes little difference when the enemy team is right on top of you with all those force multipliers. From what I read, the new updates in PTS seem to try to address the difficulty of attacking bases, and give small squads a better chance to hold a point down when anyone can redeploy and crush those attempts. Although they're adding additional redeploy options, so I guess that's debatable. The Forward Station seems like another hokey band-aid for poor design decisions that make the game frustrating. Honestly, their efforts would have been better put into adding more capturable hard spawn options.
Allright you got your "gotcha" moment, congrats! Still, whenever I see a Squad Beacon I have to run to get it before someone else does. Which is the opposite of what happens with motion spotters that 50 people will walk passed before they decide to kill it. So since multiple people simultaneously spot and attack a beacon, it doesn't live long. Since Beacons are visible from quite a range, it's not to hard to figure out if and when they are being used. Also since I've also seen it from the POV of the squad/platoon I know that even in tight teamplay beacons are often used by maybe 6 guys maximum, and that the amount of time it takes before people place a beacon not to mention that usually only one squad out of a full platoon will put one down, that the amount of beacons placed isn't that high. What's the chance that 100% of the Medics will equip such a feature? Not high. Considering that in-combat AOE heal and shield regen are still competitive with an FS, especially one that lasts only two minutes and that you already have 2 tools available to get people back into the fight, the chance that more than 50% of the Medics will be equipping it is also low. I don't see the problem? Even if 100% of the Medics equip it... All I see is proper teamplay, a new tool that's used as it should be used. both sides can use this. And it's not as if those Medics are just going to be sitting behind friendly lines and keep placing one, redeploying, waiting for their FS to expire, place a new one ad nauseum (you don't even need that second medic, that second Medic could do the same somewhere else so you keep two forward spawnpoints open at all times). You know why Medics were given AR's? Because Medics, who have the power to revive, heal, AOE-heal, and AOE revive, weren't used enough. People don't want to be a glorified necromancer. They want to be shooting people, they want to do more stuff. That's why the FS won't be used that much by Medics because it's only a 2 minute spawn. And like I already said, even if 100% of the Medics use it, all it means is that now you have to hunt your enemies a little longer. With a 100m respawn range most players won't be able to spawn on it, so FS's would have a lower and lower amount of players respawning on it even if the Medics were continually placing them. But here's the kicker: They can't keep placing them in the same place since then they will be overrun eventually, and if they keep moving from place to place they have to keep moving out of the old FS range, which means that any players that die in the meantime have a high likelyhood of not being able to spawn on the FS. It's a 2 minute spawnpoint with 2000 health. Enough to sap some ammo but since the FS isn't designed for that purpose it falls apart quickly. Also considering how people treat Sunderers currently, you really think they care? You are lucky if in a 96+ fight more than 3 people immediately react to threats at the Sunderer. Now look at a much weaker, short-term thing that will die anyway. It's barely worth protecting! It's a throwaway item! Jeez really. "But tha spawnbeacon!". Well a Spawnbeacon has a much longer respawntimer and is barely used, not to mention they are more restrictive of where you can place them. Also you are assuming that in 1-12 fights everyone is part of the squad, which is bullcrap. Ahw so cute, using my own lines against me. Well here's a kicker: This better purpose is better for the game. It's not OP. It is actually an item that the game sorely needs especially to counter spawncamping. For this purpose it would actually need upgrades to function properly since with a 2 minute timer and a low likelyhood of enough people dying at the spawn it wouldn't serve that purpose too well. Oh dear, and how does that change how it is now? The FS is a spawnpoint, the Sunderer is a Spawnpoint, the Spawn Beacon is a Spawnpoint, Elysium tube is a spawnpoint, Spawnbunkers are Spawnpoints... And from each and everyone Newbies can charge out, fail, come back, "no consequences for their actions", except ofcourse dying and taking their own time which is a consequence. So you can't just designate the FS as a newby tool/lowest denominator tool since every single spawn option or revive option would fall under that category. Under your reasoning, let's remove Sunderers, Spawnbeacons, Elysium tubes and Spawnbunkers because they accomodate the lowest common denominator! Which is probably going to be you.
