A few additions to the engi arsenal that I'd like to see: Automated Turret Consolidated Equipment Terminal Small Shield Domes The last could even be customizeable via cert points. (Stealth, Flak, Bullet)
I think there's a lot of potential for new deployable engineer toys and tweaking the existing turret. A Basalisk varient would be a fine example of a quick and useful addition, you could even make a Walker version if you wanted to get fancy. While automated turrets are cool, I don't think they're a good fit for this game because everything else is controled somehow by a player: there are no AI weapons/turrets/vehicles/defences and I think a large scale shooter with so many players in the same battles like this really benefits from that. Allowing other people to use them would be a good step I think, they'd basically be just like Phalanx Jr at that point and you could even let Infiltrators hack them! Deployable terminals are a bit strong if they're fully functional but perhaps a weapons crate that let you change between loadouts but not change class could work, you'd get lots of versatility for you and your team without devaluing Sunderers and Infiltrators. I love the idea of deployable shields! The Robotics class in Global Agenda is I think a great example of how they could work and we already have one-way shields in this game so no lore gets stepped on either, the biggest trick would be getting it to deploy on uneven terrain, if they're as sensative as turrets, you'll never get one up. The stealth generator varient is pretty slick too, that would be an awesome addition! Vehicle ammo packs are another idea. You'd have to limit their use to avoid abusability, treating them like mines/C4/health packs and forcing them to cost resources (maybe vehicle resource in this case) could address that though. This last one's a little bit of a stretch and could raise issues but the Flash-in-a-box could be interesting too, especially if it was usable by others and maybe only capable of making a stock Flash.
Emergency Safety Mine - Constructs a highly visible mine (glows in the dark with team colors) that detonates from either infantry or vehicles. Deals less damage than a normal mine and can be easily destroyed with gunfire. Deals just enough damage to be a deterrent (maybe just enough to take out a persons shields plus a little more) and its main purpose is to slow down attackers. Placed anywhere out in the open an its visible enough for enemies to use a shot to destroy it before advancing, only really effective if places somewhere like at the end of a jump pad or right inside a door or something. Can be upgraded to emit colored smoke and noise to temporarily blind the victim and alert nearby allies. Or it broadcasts its location on the minimap. Incursion Discouragement Beam - Erects stationary laser emiter that emits a short range team colored laser at waist height. Place it to the side of a door and it deals damage to any enemy unit who passes through. Placed in the open and it just gets shot to pieces. Upgrades turn the single beam into a force-field like projection that blocks movement but can be destroyed with weapons fire. Nanite Systems Complementary Customer Housing - Creates a force field projector that projects a protective field overhead. If it rained, it would keep you dry. As it is, it does provide limited protection from enemies firing down at you. The shield regenerates so long as the generator isn't destroyed. Upgrades produce four walls, increased durability, and festive lights to show your holiday spirit to the guys firing at you. Situational Party Attractor - Creates a smoke machine that emits a cloud of colored haze to provide cover. Upgrades increase the smokes area, make it transparent to allied forces, and infuse it with glowing nanites that stick to enemies passing through to make them glow brightly in team colors. Expeditious Corporeal Evacuation Platform - Creates a platform/terminal that reduces your body to nanites and sends you to the deployment screen instantly without effecting your K/D ratio. Cannot be used to respawn. Upgrades disguise it as an enemy supply terminal (enemies see a picture of the supply icon for the screen, the base generator stays the same so it doesn't hurt anyone who pays attention). If an enemy uses it, they despawn and you get rewarded XP. Situational Awareness Simulator - A largish radar device that detects enemies in a wide area and displays them on the minimap. Upgrades increase the area of effect, make the device itself stealthy (it should be about the size of the turret), and sends an alert when it detects an enemy. Emergency Job Security Decoy - Creates a hologram of yourself (or any other generic member of your faction) and occasionally broadcasts its location on enemy minimaps. The hologram can be destroyed by enemy units but they receive no XP for it. Upgrades let the hologram respawn after being destroyed, appear in random locations several meters away from the generator, broadcasts the location of whoever killed it, or even make it automatically fire badly at nearby enemies (its holographic shots do no damage or even create real bullets). Discount Aircraft Deterrent Sentry - A small turret like device that automatically scans for aircraft and hits them with a lock-on laser while broadcasting its position. It has no weaponry whatsoever and its primary purpose is to make aircraft pilots think they are being targeted by actual lock-on missiles.
AA mines: They come in a certain altitude (250m, 500m, 750m). When placed on the ground, the mine will float up to it's altitude and stay there. Aside from that, they work like normal AT mines (e.g. plane hits them, they go boom).
For the love of all that is good, this is an amazing post. Devs must, I mean must read this. If we have to start an online petition just to make sure these ideas get in to their heads then lets do it. The aircraft deterrent sentry is nothing short of genius. The smoke bomb is a must. Wow.
A deployable shield that goes out in an actual globe would solve terrain issues. Say 5-10m out from the shield generator? And it'd either have to have a set health bar and/or timer on it to keep it from being too OP.
Thanks! I started out with the Emergency Mine thing since I've often ran out of mines and at least wanted to put SOMETHING down even if it was brightly colored for enemies to see. Then I tried to imagine who would develop such a mine, then I thought "Aperture Science of course!". Once I started thinking of Nanite Systems (the guys who supposedly design all the stuff for engineers and the cross faction vehicles) as this universes version of Aperture Science (I mean, big glowy shield on the turret that does squat to protect against snipers? Hello?) then the rest practically wrote themselves. I think just writing the names is enough to get the creative juices flowing. I was going to add something like: Luxury Relaxation Platform - Basically spawns a waist-high wall built to resemble a bed. The good people at Nanite Systems know their customers need a time to rest from their busy schedules and the Luxury Relaxation Platform is designed to help you do so! Note that the Luxury Relaxation Platform utilizes a total of 783 individually calibrated straps, harnesses, and massage armatures to assist in your rlaxation needs (but require 37 consecutive hours to fulfill their initial software installation program. Customers tempted to spawn these Relaxation Platforms infront of doors, on stairs, or in the middle of hallways to block or provide cover from heavily armed enemy soldiers should remember that these solid objects also block your allies and can be destroyed with sufficient enemy fire. The basic idea for the above is to just spawn a big clumsy object to block pathways, windows, or provide some limited cover. The impromptu barricade can be destroyed fairly easily (but no so fast that constant repairs won't make a difference). Problem is that since it would also block friendlies due to not being a force field, having a bunch of trolls or newbies spawn them could make things hard for their team. If implemented, it would have to have friendly fire disabled for the object, so allies can shoot/destroy it without getting griefing alerts (still deny XP for repairing them, so you don't get engies shooting eachothers buildings and repairing for XP). The name is kind of a joke since spawning an unusable bed shouldn't be very relaxing... but since you're in a war then dropping Platform in a hallway full of enemies could buy you some Relaxation time... a Luxury you might appreciate. Also... Vehicle Repairing Nanite Cache - A mine-like device that costs resources. Drop it on the ground and it becomes highly visible to allies (especially vehicles). If a damaged friendly vehicle runs over it, the Cache activates and releases repair nanites. Basically the inverse of Tank Mines. Drop it in heavy traffic areas you know your allies will go through during a fight, once the tank hits it, they start repairing without needing an engineer to chase after them (and get run over). For balance, it should slowly regenerate the damage and reciving any damage during that time stops the effect. So its basically something for tanks to run over when they are retreating. Enemy tanks cannot use or see them (though... maybe infiltrators could spot and hack them?) so if they do spot an engineer throwing something down, they can't tell if it's a mine or a repair cache. Advanced Ammo Dispensing Station - Basically a dressed up version of the droppable ammo packs. It has a small physical part (like the turret but likely smaller... maybe you can walk through it but it can still be destroyed by enemy fire) and projects a big shiny hologram sort of like the circular holorams that surround capture points. It stays permanently until destroyed or you deploy another and dispenses ammo for that time. Basically acts a more visible and permanent ammo pack. Upgrades produce a terminal that allies can use to get grenades and other consumables from (but can't change classes), or does something like increase its visibility for allies. Could also alert you on the minimap or something if a damaged MAX is requesting repairs. Alternately, the Advanced Ammo Dispensing Station could have an expensive upgrade that lets it automatically repair MAXs who are very close to it (or maybe if they open up the terminal). Or the repair nanites would have to be inserted into the station... either the Engineer buys several Nanite Canisters and somehow installs them into the station to give it several minutes of repair ability, or he just targets the the station with his repair tool and it turns into a weaker but wide area repairing effect. Basically, have one engineer plop this down and focus his repair tool on it, and any MAX within several meters gets a small health regeneration effect. Best used for Anti-air MAXs who are focusing on the sky and don't have to move that much. Downside being that the higly visible Ammo Dispensing Station could be a big target for those same aircraft (use the Discount Aircraft Deterrent Sentry to mess with the aircraft in the mean time). And of course... Line-of-Sight Morale Generator - Place a projector on the ground and it projects a specific hologram in the air above. Most likely a Decal chosen from a specific list (kind of like the Decals for the Ultimate Empire Showdown), useful for squads or Outfits who want their presence known. Different upgrades can modify how the hologram appears (a small terminal sized one, a big Empire flag sized one, a REALLY high one that can be seen by aircraft, A rotating circular one, etc). I'm sure other special holograms could be introduced like christmas trees, halloween stuff, or whatever. No real mechanical effect except for looking cool. Couple with thinks like the Complementary Customer Housing and you can have bunches of christmas trees and festive tents set up to look like little campsites where soldiers can cool off and enjoy the holiday spirit... until some aircraft flying XP farmer spots their highly visible campsite and bombs the hell out of it. Damm... the thing is that I really love the idea of a sort of high-tech post-scarcity setting where death no longer exists and goods can be fabricated on demand with nanites. I'd just love to have some sort of hot-cocoa dispenser or holographic TV thing you can build and plop down wherever you want. Maybe have an actual radio/TV thing that can be plopped down and it relays orders from high command, plays music, or plays canned announcements and "inspirational speeches" from the various factions leaders or something. I would totally pay certs to unlock a radio so I can listen to whoever the hell is supposed to be in charge of my faction and have him give canned speech after canned speech on telling me why the heck I should be fighting for him.
