Since NSO are drones, it would only make sense to have the only Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft belong to the NSO. Please consider the following NSO ISR Aircraft & options: [Condor]: Pilot and passenger (payload operator) drone aircraft. Slow moving, VTOL, high altitude; equipped with 24 Guided AGMs, one per magazine. Certs: [Harpy] Equips Air-to-Ground (AGM) lock on missiles operated by the passenger. With the AGM cert, carries 24 small diameter missiles, two per magazine. Increased levels of decrease lock-on time, and increase camera zoom. Certs: [Interrogator] Equips ISR payload. Provides an additional communication GUI. GUI provides list of voice channels from detected adversarial units, selectable to listen while ability has energy. Lasts 1min w/ 1min cool down. Increased levels of upgrade decreases cool down. Certs: [Prosecutor] Equips ISR payload. Provides drastically increased sensor detection range for all non-stealthed units, and some fidelity when "overcharged" ability used for temporary stealth detection. Overcharge last 30 seconds w/ 1min cool down. Increased levels upgrade increases sensor range. Certs: [Turbine Reengineer] Upgrades turbines to increase speed.
maybe give the nsos some sort of javelin-like esf, that's super fast, agile, and cheap, meant solely to quickly and efficiently transport a player across the map. Let the thing have a radar, whatever defensive capabilities it wants, but don't turn it into a no-skill a2g farming machine like other esfs. At most, allow the thing to mutilate enemy esfs, but it must not have any ability to engage ground targets.
People tend to dislike a weapon system that can kill them while they can hardly retaliate. There is quite literally no ground-based weapon designed to deal with high-altitude threats in the game. So adding more aircraft that can bomb you to oblivion while being untouchable by groundforces is not really great for the game. Even if we did have a G2A system capable of dealing with your ISR craft it wouldnt be good. Having one niche AAA platform to deal with an ISR while the ISR can target most vehicles and infantry clusters just makes the ISR an annoying hindrance to fight while the ISR can have fun any time it spawns.
Excellent points. Please consider: 1. The platform is slow moving. 2. The system doesn't have a viable A2A counter. 3. The A2G systems exist for precision strike and ISR, not air superiority -- thus the very low magazine size and ISR packages. 4. Even fully upgraded to deploy lock on AGMs (which isn't the platforms primary purpose), would be able to only, at best, destroy 4 light tanks, 2 sunderers, etc... before slowly RTB for reload. That is IF in that time they are not destroyed from anti-air anything. A far cry difference to even a barebone Galaxy that could do considerable damage, stock. 5. Regular, laser guided, one at a time slow reload, AGM make it a very prime target, but provide some strike capability while still executing the ISR missions. 6. ISR Mission!!! Do you know how fun and exciting it would be to actually include a flying ANT (by far much weaker) or a NEW game feature to actually temporarily join an enemy voice channel? ALSO: Please note: I've made suggestions to NSO Anti-Air MAX, Rail Gun, and Cruise Missile here to address a lack of anti-air. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...dditional-nso-defector-weapon-options.256008/
....Okay... ...Flail Dart ignoring No-Build zones then. How bout that since the whole point is supposed to be a Recon-drone right? (same limitations as current flail... must be connected to a Flail battery within 550 meters of target, etc) Just making another 2012-Zypher Liberator (that's single occupant) was a dumb idea from the start and you probably coulda anticipated there would be strong feelings against it
Another aircraft that is designed to be downed primarily by ESF and can murder ground forces with impunity? Limited magazine size doesn't matter, what matters is that it kills something and it's targets are virtually helpless against it. I already considered that and it's just not very fun. The developers deliberately nerfed G2A weapons in order to get people to use aircraft and get A2A battles, which backfired immensely as A2A combat became a one-trick-pony style combat with an inverted skillcurve making it virtually impossible for the average player to enjoy the airgame. Adding more reasons for SkyGriefers to lord it over everyone else is not a good way to go. I would even go the other way: Make your ISR an A2A platform so it's not just about the ESF. Let it fire rockets with a small flak radius for example to engage other aircraft or use auto-canons to engage them. You can also link construction bases to ISR craft and allow them to fire off support powers into the target area. Your ISR mission is based on voice-chat. You are basically asking the player to be in a platoon where other people are talking, then join an enemy platoon/squad chat and listen in while his buddies are still talking and making listening to enemy coms tough, then after he listened to use voice-chat to his limited group of players to convey that information while having to wait for any other information being passed through the squad/platoon to be given. Voice chat is the second worst communication tool in an MMOFPS (having to write the message is worse, although if you can easily read messages back it's actually better). Only one player can be talking at a time while the rest listens, the information given will usually not apply to most of the people listening unless the orders are extremely general like the well-known "everybody go there" tactics of Galdrops and Redeployside. If you want your ISR to do anything useful, it should use visual information. For example the ISR can create contextual icons on the map to designate special targets of interest that everyone on their team can see and react to regardless of squad/platoon/outfit affiliation. If "listening in" it would find out which allies are spotted and give an icon on the HUD telling players that they are. ISR's could also add additional information to any spots it makes, such as relative height difference between the player and the spotted target (3m height difference shows an = sign next to the spot, 5 to 10m above or below shows an upwards or downwards ^ and more than 10m difference shows two upwards or downwards ^ signs). As for your suggestions for G2A. It's on the limited NSO faction for just the MAX, and it doesn't solve the fact that 99% of the players will not have the weapons to defend themselves against your ISR craft unless they first switched to a weapon that will nerf them against everything else and is often not even effective enought to kill the target.
Love your post! Thanks for the feedback! Since NSO does not have a full vehicle or max arsenal, these solutions are meant to fill in the gaps while enhancing gameplay. The manned ISR platform is meant to replicate to some extent a current drone (aka NSO) ISR, while adding a great degree of new or increased gameplay immersion experience you would find in a futuristic, military world. Intelligence always drives Operations in the real world, yet the game has very few avenues to replicate and enable users to this entirely fascinating and powerful layer of how to conduct a campaign. I didn't play with the flail, however the fact remains the NSO is underdeveloped -- these are solutions that give ALL Empires these capabilities without faction power creep since NSO can go to all factions. I like your idea of map icons for the ISR payload to increase battlefield awareness fidelity. This changes the Common Operating Picture (COP) into a Common Intelligence Picture (CIP), great idea! Thanks for the contribution. What are your thoughts on NSOs missing aircraft and missing max options?
Not sure, didn't play in 2012 for flail. This is just meant to add a more realistic and practical ISR solution that makes perfect sense. NSO are drones, so their vehicle options should replicate what real world drones would do. Drones perform the "Dull, Dirty, and Dangerous" jobs that we normally wouldn't put a living person in -- which is why the slow moving, extremely high altitude platform is perfect. What do you feel should fill the NSO aircraft slot?
To keep with the NSO theme, it has to be mostly P2Lose, like our fun but useless Javelin lol I would love more support role aircraft (ie not more A2G)
Your suggestion may be nice but I highly doupt something like this will be implremented. More likely a traditional ESF, or drone in this case, with some quirk (Extreme example: more movement in exchange of no hover, enabling hit an run playstyle similar to the javelins NEST launcher tries to "promote"). Three Reason for my assumption (not influenced by my example): - The three traditional ESF do not feature any empire specific ability - They all share the same weapontypes, the only main difference are their respective AI noseguns - They differenciate in their hitbox and their performance in speed and hoverability I would recommend to search for some PS1 video featuring all comonpool airvehicles form PS1. As I am aware, the Reaver and Mosqito where comonpool (NS) in the original game. Same as the Wasp and some stealth transport. I guess the developers will either be influenced by the original game or reuse the surveillance drone and scale it a little bit up. The image shows the wasp. It was an A2A fighter also featuring a radar if I remember correctly. And here you see the scraped design for the surveillance drone. And a little bit offtopic I guess the NS MBT will also get some quirk, perhaps the dirver uses the secondary and the gunner the maincannon, but we will see.
Oooo that would be neat, make it like an easily killed support drone, and bring back the almost OP thing the motion spotter used to do (changed radar dots into movement arrows!) But then put it on the mini map like a router icon, so it's a priority target. Just some ideas
I like it! Keep the voice comms, and added enemy icon, stealth detection features? What else though? Being weaponless means defenseless, so there would be very little incentive for people to play it with no survivability. How would you recommend its suvivability be increased? Fast moving? Stealth? High self-repair? Shields?
On a side note, I have this content developed now -- but no access to the developer engine for testing. It appears no more community generated content is accepted anymore.
To bad. All we know is, that the NSOs will get a 2 seated heavy fighter, featuring a top mounted gunnerturret. The pilot will have access to a "light" and "heavier" nosegun, while the gunner has access to at least two options. Then there was also something written about microrockes, but if those will be accessable for the gunner or a utility similar to the javelin is unclear.
The problem with these supposed support roles is that the core of this game doesn't really need much support roles beyond revives. All of the intel **** is done by 1 infiltratior at the whole fight, be it 3v3, 12v12 48v48 or more. Having a highly vulnerable vehicle do this is just a waste of manpower as at least the infiltrator can start killing doods when they attack the points. Listening to voice coms is kinda silly when many people use 3rd party voice chat, be it discord or teamspeak3 or whatever.
To use the analogy of today's ISR platforms that are also armed -- I would strongly disagree with not being able to kill stuff. As for the voice comms, don't you think it would add a new dynamic and fun to the game?
