I have heard a lot of people complaining about the knife wrecking their player made bases (PMB). I do a lot of construction myself, and have everything unlocked. I also use that knife as an Infiltrator to try and take down enemy PMBs. Here's the thing about using that knife...it's not as easy as the disgruntled are making it out to be. For starters, you have to get inside the PMB. If you, the enemy, use vehicle gates, well, guess what? Infantry can walk right in. Sure, you can put a pain spire down at the gate's midpoint, but, all infantry has to do is run past it. The spire won't kill them. You need to be more creative and strategic with your construct placement. Maybe vehicle gates should not allow enemy infantry to pass? Problem solved if you build your base carefully. While we are on the subject, guess what setup most infils are going to use for base infiltration? Stalker, not Hunter. They want the perma cloak. However, it comes at a price of not being able to use a primary weapon. Pistols or crossbow only. That severely ***** their self preservation ability. If you are using primaries and they use a pistol to beat you, well, get better or smarter. Also, for an Infil to get in and start wrecking the place, they have to position themselves where your pain spires, sentry turrets, anti infantry towers, mines and roaming infantry with weapon lights aren't shooting them. It's easier said than done. If you, the enemy, are smart about building a base, you'll have an ANT with scout radar. Guess what? It shows enemy movement, even if it is a cloaked infil. See the radar blip, shoot in that direction. Radar still works if you are the vehicle owner and in the gunner's seat. Simple. Remember what I said about being smarter? As for damaging the constructs, it's not just a few hits. A silo takes 150 hits, which means the infil is uncloaked with their back/flanks exposed for the better part of a minute while slashing away. If you have a repair module covering the silo, that module has to be taken out first, but, it can be protected by a pain spire. That pain spire can be protected by an anti infantry tower. Do you see a theme developing here? If you are SMART with your base design, a lone infil will not be wrecking the place. However, if you have an open base using just the free items that come with basic construction, then hell yes your PMB is going to get wrecked, and it should! If you want a more secure base, then unlock the other constructs via certs or $$$. That's what I did, and guess what? Lone infils don't wreck my bases. As for the knife itself, it is weak compared to other knives for stabbing people. It takes three hits instead of two. That leaves you exposed longer to eat a face full of bullets. Also, the knife says that it is Thrown / Melee, but, the thrown part is broken as you can't actually throw it. So, to damage armor, you have to get within melee range and if you manage to destroy said armor without being shot by infantry, run over, or experience some other unnatural, ill-timed death, when the armor explodes, it almost kills you too! If you destroy one piece of armor and have no means to heal up and go to destroy a second, you will die when it explodes! Therefore, the ONLY thing that the knife is good for is trying to take down a PMB, and, very few people are going to bother with it. Leave the knife as is, except fix the "thrown" part. Using it is a *high risk vs reward* scenario.
The knife you refer to may work like the Amaterasu does for me. To "throw", hold down the right mouse button and press the fire button. It would be great if it damaged armor.
Nope, I tried that already. The description says that it can be thrown (I am assuming at armor) but you can't actually throw it. That part is broken.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the "Thrown" tag is a little bit of a workaround within the engine. Like, it's actually "throwing" an invisible bullet that only lasts a couple feet every time you swing and the swing itself does no damage, as opposed to using the melee damage type of all the other knives. I doubt the knife itself was ever intended to be a thrown weapon in the straightforward sense.
The NSX Amaterasu knife can be thrown, so, the engine does allow for it. Considering that you take heavy damage if a vehicle explodes and you are in melee range, then my guess is that the Nightshade was meant to be thrown at armor, much like the Amaterasu.
Actually i'm pretty sure the Amaterasu, which I have used extensively, is a prime example of what I was talking about! You aren't throwing the Amaterasu, alt-fire shoots a slow-moving bullet out so mechanically it turns into a firearm for the alt-fire. The actual throwing knives, The Fujin, which again i've used plenty, are different in that they aren't a "bullet" but a physical "object" in the same way a grenade is, it just deals damage on contact instead of exploding. The Amaterasu waves are bullets. At least I believe that to be how it all works. It's semantics I agree but from an engine perspective it matters. All i'm saying is I don't think that the Nightshade is intended to be thrown and that the "thrown" tag in its stats is a holdover from a workaround of its implementation. Having said all that though I must admit that it is all speculation; I do not know the code of the game, I barely know any modern coding principles either and I will completely accept that I may well be wrong. It is fun to theorise though!
This man understands basebuilding. I killed 5 or 6 bases today of which only half were built or guarded in a way that forced me to take my sweet time and take them apart piece by piece. One guy had 2 AP turrets covering each other and each others as well as their own modules. So I had to take out one turret that had a repair module in a way so I wouldn't be shot by the other. Then take out that repair module cuz it covered the spawn tube and the silo too. The module was still guarded by the other turret tho and just about not in range of a pain spire. Then I had to kill the spawn tube without being shot by the remaining turret before the owner came back. Then I had to kill the silo which I managed to do just in time for the owner to come back to a broken silo. He should've replaced the missing turret but either didn't bother or didn't notice. And while I did all that I had to kill said owner 3 times cuz he got in my way. I was a stalker infil with a hunter and that knife. I think the knife actually brings a new mechanic and meaning into the game. ACTUAL proper base setup and having to kill certain things before doing anything else.
I had a lot of fun destorying bases with that Knife...but as a base builder I got to say: It's WAY too strong for something that infils can use. Half the damage would already be more than enough. Base builders already got a problem to build a "perfect" base(due to placing issues etc.) and if you got some experience even those bases are easy to destroy as infil. It's usually less than 2 minutes to take out a silo and whatever defense you got to take out before that with Nightshade and explosive crossbow. Bases have not been really a part of the game before nightshade and now they are even easier to destroy. Wasting 30-45 minutes for a base that gets taken down by one invisible(stays hidden nearby until you leave) infantry player in 2 minutes? Nope, thanks. It already sucked that MBTs could do it so easily...
Knives always seem to win in shooter video games...seems like developers have never actually fired real weapons.
It's really not. It takes 150 hits on a silo that is not protected, or, roughly 1 minute. That is a long time to be exposed. Choose a better spot. If you know terrain is going to be a problem at THAT location, pick a different location. If you put your pain spire, spawn tube, repair mod, ai mod, alarm mod, structure shield mod, and sky shield mod in a sunderer garage, good luck on that Infil getting in there to kill anything. If you want to make it even harder, place mines just inside the structure.
One minute is not long if you are not in the base at that moment. Or if you get killed and your spawn tube right after. It's not just the terrain, it's as well connecting the rest so infils can't get in. Then I wait till you leave. Take my commisioner(or crossbow) and kill the spire. I should be done with it before you react on the warning. When you come out of that spawn tube I'm already waiting for you cloaked. Take you out, then take the spawn tube out. All of that within 90-120 seconds. Another 30 seconds later the reapir module and the AI module is down. You tower can't cover those within the shields. Then you either need another ai module covering your ai tower or that one is already out of business. If you got no more repair modules covering your silo it will be down within 3-4 minutes. I will have to kill you like twice(which ain't that impossible given that I'm cloaked and can be everywhere around you) in that time....and only if you react right away and hurry to come back after your death. If you covered everything to the max I will need like 5 minutes. And let's not forget that you are talking about a darn expensive base whose owner has to invest a lot of certs to unlock and time to build.
The way that I suggested, by putting the spire, tube, etc. in the garage...an Infil WON'T be destroying those solo. He can't take down the spire inside the garage before it kills him. Meanwhile, I get the alarm, respawn to my tube, and all is well. It can be done. Play with the constructs. However, I am not giving away my design.
You can put a spire in a garage? I thought it was a little too big. Definitely was the last time I tried it, unless you're suggesting to place the garage on top of a small ditch to make sure the spire is on a lower elevation. Then it could make sense. A screenshot of it might be cool, though..
Go in, empty your magazine, go out, wait for shield to fill up again. Repeat. The repaor unit does not repaor quickly enough and spires are rather vulnerable. Sure, you just need to place the wall several times in case it does not fit exactly. That all needs additional time and cortium. You don't need to give away your design...I build like that a looooong time already. It ain't a secret among builders.
Personally, I think the Nightshade ether needs it's "power mode" adjusted so that it functions more like a powerknife ie 2x base damage with slower attack rate, or is given the full 500 standard knife damage because it's hard as hell to kill infantry with when you need a third hit to kill someone unless you manage to get a headshot on one of the two first hits with a knife.
I use the knife to take out shield sundy's solo as a engineer and it's great for popping terminals when their hacked
