[Suggestion] Add new ESAI secondaries: Close Range and Mid-Range-Indirect. Buff Marauder range, buff C85.

Define current Empire Specific Anti-Infantry(ESAI) secondary weapons(Marauder, PPA, C85) into 2 types: Mid range indirect(MRI) and close quarters(CQ), and assign new ones to what the corresponding faction does not have:

MRI type: Similar dps, indirect damage, and effective range as a PPA. Defined by minor indirect damage on impact, and is able to hit effectively at around the same ranges as a PPA. The PPA is in a great place right now so we will use it as the standard for this type.

CQ type: Low mag size and limited range, in exchange for complete dominance under ~45m including ease of hitting targets, great against LA’s, and more dps than a kobaltt up to around ~45m at which point damage fall off, or/and COF render the weapon much less effective.

New ESAI Secondaries(Placeholder examples, feel free to suggest!)

• TR: CQ typeIE: Extremely high Rate Of Fire(ROF), large COF, double mini-vulcan cannons of extreme loyalty until death. Functions exactly like a vulcan in that it has to spin up, but quicker.
• VS: CQ typeIE: A faster ROF AI Saron, 3~4x the fire rate in exchange for less damage per shot. The COF expands extremely rapidly when held down. The forbidden lovechild of the Orion and Saron.
• NC: MRI typeIE: High recoil 3 round burst fire gauss weapon with minor indirect damage. Half the fire rate of a kobalt in exchange for higher damage per shot+indirect. Less damage than a PPA in exchange for velocity.

The Marauder is put into the MRI category to further separate it from a fury, and to make way for the new CQ weapon. The dps is reduced in exchange for significantly reducing the gravity, and increasing the velocity. This should still require a bit of arcing, so it should have a bit higher potential dps than a PPA to compensate.

The C85 Canister still needs a buff. The C85 does not appropriately trade off with the kobalt. The ttk difference is too negligible at close ranges to justify losing the kobalt’s range capability. It needs to be buffed (ROF+magsize, pellets, increase dmg falloff, etc) to be more effective in the ~45m CQ range.

Why?(Wall of text, can skip)
1) Assigning the “types” (MRI, CQ) makes it easier for balancing between factions. No one is left out of a niche or function, making them easier to balance “off of each other” within those “types”.
Currently the C85, marauder, and PPA must compete directly with each other because they are the only ESAI options, while the have completely different functions.
Allowing factions access to the same niches allows for weapons to be balanced around their faction counterpart. IE: The NC C85, TR CQ, and VS CQ types, along with the ES MRI types would all be effective at similar ranges, with similar damages, making it a bit easier to bring one up if one is performing poorly, and vice versa.

2) Devs want tanks to get in a bit closer to targets (as stated in the tank update notes). This is hard to do with infantry popping in and out of cover. TR/VS would benefit from a powerful CQ type option for their gunners in that environment.

3) The kobalt is not overlapped. It will still be the most accurate, largest mag(most forgiving), and highest DPS anti infantry weapon passed the ~50m CQC type range.

4) Harassers and eventually upcoming ESBuggies while having weaker variants will have a worthy burst damage close quarters option to justify the risk of getting close and dashing away.

No. Why?

None of those new weapons sound appealing.

Nerfing the Marauder's DPS? No thanks, some of us actually like the projectile drop. (That's what makes it a real indirect weapon...)

The projectile characteristics and damage of the Fury is what makes it better than the Marauder. If one is going to be mid-range, it should be the Fury.

PS: The Kobalt has been completely overlapped since someone decided it shouldn't be a pea-shooter laser of long-range death, and implemented changes to seriously nerf the range, and make it good against ESFs (WHY?!).

TL|DR: You should have saved yourself some time and just asked for a buff or rework to the C85, lol.

PPS: The Bulldog is already good at close and medium range AI, and has AV capabilities to boot. The problem is you can't put one on a tank.

Individual appeal is not really an important metric in weapon design. Planetside included.

What makes it a "real indirect weapon" is it has indirect damage. Seems you are confusing gravity influencing projectile drop and indirect damage.

Another advantage I'm trying to keep in mind with the CQ type weapons is the ability to hit LA's easily which the marauder cannot due without a significant change. The marauder is also not well capable to hit infantry that duck in and out of cover due to the shots simply passing over top of their head. Ergo it would be less drastic of a change to put it into the MRI type, similar to a PPA. I seriously doubt a lot of TR players would disagree with a more ranged indirect damge option for lockdown.

BS. If there's no appeal, no one is going to buy it. If no one buys it, why bother spending dev time & resources creating it in the first place: it makes much more sense to just rework what we have.

Try telling SOE we want more weapon, especially vehicle weapons, that overlap with an exisiting niche. Not going to happen.

If I want to shoot LAs out of the sky, I'll equip one of the 3 weapons that is good at it. The Kobalt, the Walker, or the Bulldog. I recognize now that I'm the oddity, but I get roughly as many direct-hit kills with the Bulldog as I do with splash spam. As I said above, the problem is you can't put a Bulldog on an MBT. Personally, if players want double AV setups and are worried about LAs, they either run prox radar, or just get out and shoot them (with carbines) as they approach.

My point was that the burst DPS of the Marauder is good, but reducing the damage it does will effectively remove it from the game. It only had that semi-recent surge in popularity last fall because the Fury got knee-capped, and it was roughly the same with faster RoF.

This thread feels like a band-aid for a non-existent wound. I want to hear one good reason why we should ask for further differentiation of existing weapons, and replacement options that no one really needs (save NC, who has gotten the shaft since launch).

And why would I use that POS over my PPA.