5 simple changes.

if only they actually were.....

The spitfire is "Bad" balance wise is due to preemptive fear/panic hyping & misinformation about the difference of PVP & PVE, which turned it into a glorified alarm system that shoots peas.

Now let me make something clear..........

MANA Turrets have flexibility & power.

The Spitfire currently has no flexibility & no power.

You can't give the excuse that "the spitfire would be OP if it had a cooldown like the other engineer turrets" because that excuse doesn't fundamentally work.

The spitfire is an automatic turret that would be spammed everywhere if there were no repercussions. Engineer groups with spitfires would be better than Heavy groups simply because they can create a bullet/rocketsponge wall that retaliates. Place "just" 5 of these and you can almost instakill any player that enters, especially against larger groups that come in through one entrance these turrets would add a nasty, huge amount of extra DPS. 1 minute cooldown or more means that players still require to think of where they place these rather than them being quick-place DPS machines. Even with 1 minute, they can easily place one, make use of it and be moving on to the next area to place a new one by the time the cooldown is done.

It does "fundamentally" work.
Or can you give a good, detailed explanation as to why it doesn't?

Keep in mind that here are my counter replies for some standard arguments:
"It dies to quick": It's got 2000 health, which is a lot more you can say of the Heavy shield but those apparently are "OP as hell" with just 750 extra health. With 2000 health it drains your enemy of ammo, which means he'll be an easy target because he'll be closer to the reload, if he doesn't just reload and becomes an easier target that can't retaliate.

"It deals no damage": Spitfires are a tool that you can use next to your primary weapon. If the spitfire dealt 50 to 100% of an Engineer you could double your damage output and stomp anyone into the ground. Current damage model is good enough.

"It's a glorified scanner": Not an argument against it even though people like to use it. It is a great early warning system that will protect your back from any attack from behind. There's smart players out there that use it to scan for C4 fairies, other players use it to heavily damage and kill any LA or Engineer that tries to nuke a Sunderer, which ties with the "it deals no damage" argument above.

6) Flash has now now access to Walker and a 360° view in 3rd Person view.

But the Spitfire is not "the other turrets"
The Spitfire can be very effective if used in a smart way and not just like a deploy & forget item. It's more a tool to establish a defensive perimeter and provide additional firepower. Having to resupply all the time is completely stupid, but neither being able to drop a new one in 10 seconds sounds that good.

Top 5 7 9:

1) All aircraft lose NAR. Hell, make all ground vehicles lose NAR too. Taking damage interrupts engineer repairing for.. 6s? 10s?
2) Valk becomes a closed transport. Passengers can drop 50-100m down without "squad logistics" before suffering fall damage.
3) MOUSEYAW added.
4) Ranger.. is it still suck? if yes, --> Buff.
5) New infantry AA: either a mini-walker, or a "lockon launcher" that launches immediately and you have to keep guiding the missiles. Trade-off: less damage.
6) New vehicle AA: some faction specific AA, "heavy AA": anti-galaxy and liberator. No flak.
7) tanks: increased frontal armor.
8) Engineer turrets get a 2x scope option. But, the AV loses damage: 800 ish damage so it can't instagib infantry.
9) Where are the sights for the non-ns sidearms?

-) no spitfire changes; it is already being used so some people like it over the other turrets.
-) MBT's bulldogs & fury's: not sure that's necessary anymore.. "meh".

These seem like good ideas. I'll add what I have to say...

Agreed, 100%. This module should be default on the Valkyrie because it's what gives the Valkyrie its ideal role. It's very bad that, at present, a Valkyrie pilot must waste a viable utility slot to have this equipped, and I see little point in it not being standard and built into the vehicle. This has been suggested many times before, and is a very good idea with many benefits. Suffice to say that it'll hopefully give leeway for the Valkyrie to improve its survivability with a new utility slot open, and will also help give it more of a specialised role. The Valkyrie needs some work, though this would be an excellent place to start.

Again, why not. Another good idea posed here. Spitfire spam is quite an issue in smaller scale facilities, and it is absurd that an Engineer can have their initial one destroyed, then place another with extreme ease. This fundamentally means that an Engineer can keep pushing enemies attacking a point back by hiding in a corner and placing as many Spitfire turrets as possible. Moreover, the Spitfire turret also works as a passive reconnaissance device in many respect, so a cool down is necessary for making this thing more balanced in terms of intervals between deployment.

Hmm. I'm not so sure. If players want to give it their all when fighting for inevitably lost territory, then let them do so. Likewise, if people want to spend time at a base with no connections to its initial allied territory, and either defend or attack it, that's their choice. I for one quite like battles where I'm trapped by enemies, and am almost attempting a last stand with my fellow soldiers to hold the line and keep the territory long enough for forces elsewhere to so something more productive.

Disagreed. While I agree that maybe they could have Empire-specific versions of these weapons, this would add to the infamous Nanite Systems influence and would henceforth dilute faction uniqueness even more. And besides, I don't know many players who would give up certain weapons for these. Leave Bulldogs and Furies for the Sunderer, I say, and reinforce its role as a siege wagon that can provide artillery support, (these weapons have very parabolic shell/explosive paths, and so make effective indirect bombardment guns). By all means, implement Empire-specific versions, though not those of NS.

Provided that they're weakened, I agree with this idea.

All in all, some interesting ideas made here. Good job OP.

Its not all about power it also has to do with risk spitfire has no power because it has no risk you dont have to do anything other then put it down you dont have to man it and lose the ability to go elsewhere which causes you to get sniped on the other turrets you dont lose the ability to use your primary weapon you also dont lose the abity to simly turn around so you dont get flanked easily this is why it deserves to be squishy and have a longer cooldown. Its in the game for people who like engineer but their playstyle doesnt really use either of the other turrets because they dont like getting locked in place they use the spitfire for that tiny bit of radar and support fire as easy as it is to kill it still takes bullets those are bullets that arnt hitting you and if they are shooting you than its shooting them and tho the damage is pathetic its still damage and gives you a small bit more than what you would have. Overall tho the spitfire is pathetic it does have a place and i also dont like it being a 1 of at terminals but i dont think having a 10 second cooldown so theres almost no drawback to something that has zero risk involved is ok.

But do you see the problem?

The Spitfire has become less of a turret and more of a glorified alarm system.

A 1 minute cooldown is overkill to even suggest. The normal Engineer turret cooldown(10 seconds) works fine.

Listen to what your saying!

Your letting irrational fear & panic rule over your opinion of the spitfire.

You have never physically used one have you?

Its not even good at that and you know it.

How can you establish a perimeter if you cannot even rebuilt it or re-position it?

A 10 second cooldown isn't suddenly going to make the spitfire a godly weapon.

2000 HP goes down in a few shots, not even a clip is emptied & the enemy can just reload.

Look at the damage model.

100m up to 10m, 50 damage up to 50m.

You can run up to it, take out a activatable knife, activate it & knife it to death all while its shooting at you.

Its not a threat & half the time you barely notice it shooting at you.

ITS SUPPOSED TO BE A TURRET, not a alarm system that is outclassed by any recon devices/darts/bolts.


A 1 minute cooldown is absurd to even suggest. Its(spitfire) not something thats OP and nor would it be OP if it had the 10 second cooldown the MANA turrets have.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Did you ever go on the PTS to test it way back?

Or did you fall for the fear/panic & misinformation that was pushed about it, and now we have the lack luster joke of a result.

The sad thing is, no matter how bad the spitfire is, it gets more kills than the VS PPA, it actually comes close to getting more kills then the PPA and the PPA-H together for the VS version.

I think indeed it should be repositionable, but how do you break a defensive line if it can be rebuilt every 10 seconds? Imho around 30 seconds would be great.

But that's a detail: the point is there is no reason why the turret has to be re-equipped all the time.

"a few shots"= half a clip. After he empties half a clip he can just reload, which is why you should remain close to your tool. Because when do you want to attack and kill an enemy? You want to attack him while he's reloading or has spent half his magazine when he's a far easier target.

You state half it's statistics, why didn't you name it's ROF? It's TTK? Which I already mentioned by the way so stating it's damage doesn't matter anymore. A TTK of 3 seconds max is a TTK of 3 seconds max, regardless of each bullet dealing 1 damage or 1000, because of the ROF and resistances applied.

And again, if anyone is stupid enough to take out any type of knife to destroy your turret, shoot him while he's vulnerable. It's that simple!

It's not outclassed, it's just not used as it should by you apparently. A turret does not by definition have to be a massive death machine, and it would be unbalanced if it was anything better than it is now. So screaming "it's supposed to be a turret" doesn't matter, because it is a turret. It's just not the unbalanced reaper you want it to be.

It would be. Simple as that. The fact that you have no idea what your suggestions would cause does not factor into this.

What does this personal attack have to do with the rest of the discussion? I didn't want any AI controlled weapons in the game, regardless of how it was in. But since they were going to put them in anyway, I've tried to keep it at a level that I would think it balanced and useful. That's why despite my dislike for AI controlled weapons I still say the Spitfire needs a cooldown.

Edit: Oh and you basically repeated the exact arguments I said are already nonsense. Good Job! And you didn't explain anything about how it "fundamentally" does not work.

I'm going to say no to the ES AI on the sundy. Have you ever seen what twin kobolts (very situation ik but still) can do to a large chunk of infantry targets? Now imagine twin PPAs, or Hell even canister, that could be disastrous especially because you can get sunderers alot of places that armor can't (with possible exception of the magrider which goes where ever the Hell it wants too). Without armor to kill the said highly devestating AI killing power, I don't see a very effective way to take that sundy down.

Other than that one point I don't truly care tbh. Spitfyre could get very annoying though. Instead maybe have it be like the infils deployables where you only carry so many for all the turrets. That way you only have say 3 AV/AI/Spitfyre turrets, and you can stop the spam of guided rockets flying at your tank a little easier. Ive had a few times of engineers constantly bugging me despite blowing up their turrets 5-6 times, seriously, thats physically impossible to be carrying that much matter with you even with the effect of a high tech power suit.

Extra rambling point: If you think about it the engineer is the strongest class in the game. Carrying billions (trillions???) of bullets, batteries, rockets, etc in an infinitesimally small case. Even with nanites thats technically impossible... (unless you want to pull some doctor who bs here...). Wierd rambling point over Im sorry you read this.

Its not "Half a clip"

You can take out the spitfire & the engineer(if hes even around).

Your using the "perfect scenario" where all shots hit on a still target without nanoweave thats not fighting back.

Can you do the same to a MANA AI turret thats shooting at you?

Holy molely you are dense.

The Spitfire first and for most is a AI turret, it fails at that primary design aspect.

Then its apparently a "alarm" system that doesn't even Q spot what ever it spotted & it beeps when idle so EVERYONE knows where it is.

"It would be. Simple as that"

WHERE ARE YOU GETTING THIS???????? OUT OF YOUR ****?

I know exactly what my suggestion would do.


Allow you to rebuilt the spitfire due to it having a already tried & tested(and balanced) cooldown thats already been in use since the game came out.

Its not a personal attack.

Way way back when the spitfire was first on the PTS, did you PHYSICALLY test it?

I know you hate AI stuff, but realistically you shouldn't since automated turrets have been part of PVP FPS games FOR YEARS.

PVP =/= PVE.

"nonsense" because they go against or do not fit your narrative.

AV weapons?

Armor?


ES AI sunderers would only be as effective as bulldogs or fury's or kobalts.

Turrets are ABILITIES, not Tools.

Tools have resupplies

Abilities have cooldowns.

Same way you do with MANA turrets..... you kill the ones rebuilding it.