Today I want to touch on the topic of a chimera specific ability. What makes the chimera unique are the rumble seats. Sadly their design fundamentally clashes with both the requirements for vehicle warfare and infantry play and thus with the rare exception sees little use. That's why I believe a chimera specific ability should focus to reinforce the idea of NSO providing support and utilize the unique makeup of the chimera. The Ability Description Rather than being an active system, the Infantry Routing Spire is a passive system allowing rumble seat occupants and chimera to symbiotically support each other. Here is a list of effects. (Reminder: They only apply for and are activated by occupants in rumble seats): Rumble seat occupants gain a flat damage resistance to all indirect damage. This is to ensure taking out infantry doesn't come down to just hitting the chimera with splash. Heavies in rumble seats constantly recharge their suit energy. Not enough for permanent uptime but extending its duration and allowing for faster recharge. Lockon rocket launchers acquire their targets faster. Allowing a heavy focused chimera to become even more deadly in armored warfare especially anti air positions around a base. Infinite hold breath time. To make sniping easier from its back. No cloak drain for infiltrators. To carry invisible payload. Detector dart becomes installed in the chimera if an infiltrator rides along. Medics healing pulse originates from chimera and affects a sphere enveloping the entire chimera + 2 meters around. Allowing a medic to become a boosted triage. Medic shield generator similarly is boosted in area of effect. Medic triage affects all rumble seat occupants. Even without heal pulse, they can restore health. An ammo printer is installed for all rumble seats if an engineer rides along. Making providing ammo for occupants easier on the go. Chimera gains rank 1 sunderer repair aura (still no self heal) if an engineer rides along. Additional engineers increase the rank up to rank 4. Allows a chimera to bolster an allied tank squad. Or allow a team of chimera with gunners to repair on the go by swapping to rumbles. Analysis While this might seem like a lot, remember that this would be the active ability of the chimera and requires rumble seat occupancy. The 4 rumble seat occupants are still good targets for infantry to take out due to their static placement. The same static placement means that if the 4 relevant classes come together to make the ultimate tank, they constantly need to reposition themselves to allow active shooters to keep targets in sight. Now let's examine how this ability fixes the previously mentioned conflict of infantry and vehicle combat gameplay. In reality we haven't solved it of course, but reframed it by allowing infantry units to become living subsystems (and weak points) of the chimera. Its new synergy with heavies allow for the creation of anti air platforms suited to the unique strengths of ESF and realities of tank warfare. Engineers (dedicated, offtime gunners or picked up stragglers of a slowly dissolving Armor column) can now continue to provide their repair capabilities without having to touch the whole rumble seat debate. Their mobile ammo pack allows for extended engagements on the move without heavies running out of rockets. In rare situations where a chimera becomes part of a beach head assault, medics can now provide aid to an entire crowd. And even for a more mobile chimera, the faster shield regen combined with splash resistance could make the difference. With them and an engineer swapping between rumble and driver/gunner seat on a need to do basis. Infiltrators and especially light assault might get the short end of the stick here, but they are also the two classes with the most mobility in their design. Last points Here are some minor issues that I haven’t made up my mind about: Experience points The repair field, ammo pack and motion detection need their XP distributed. For the sake of simplicity just give them to all applicable rumble seat occupants in equal measure. It's not that much to be worth being divided and if anyone actually decides to farm XP AFK at spawn, they must be very bored. Should you feel the need don't have the XP go towards ribbons, but yeah that's that. In-game descriptionWhile I wanted to go into great detail for the sake of explaining the changes, it's in-game description could probably be broken down to: Ranks If this ability had to have multiple ranks, you could scale the passive damage resistance. Demeter Veil. It could also be blown up in an area, but that should be done at the cost of the recharge bonus. Optional Repair Drone Synergy. While I would love to have engineers able to deploy their mana turrets onto seats, that would be too complicated. But at least the NSO repair drone could be incorporated. Basically for every 2 repair drones, increase the repair aura rank by one, up to 6 for 4 NSO engineers with repair drones. Bonus Valk Make this ability also available to Valks, because there is some overlap here and it would allow all factions to enjoy this feature.
As someone who plays the Chimera a lot, please don't focus on the hotseats when balancing the Chimera. They were a mistake from the beginning, please leave them as-is and focus on improving the actual vehicle instead. One thing that would help the Chimera a lot, and remove a lot of frustration, would be to give it an innate Nimitz Reactor. Same as on the Vanguard, but innate without requiring a defense slot. It would mitigate terrain damage the Chimera often takes for hitting minor bumps It would reduce the impact of chip damage from long distance sources on the large hitbox It would help with repair times, which would help a lot as the Chimera is more often driven as a 1-person vehicle A shield would fit stylistically with the futuristic look of the Chimera Anyway, while I like reading other people's ideas, please don't focus on the hotseats when buffing the Chimera.
I would welcome a complete overhaul of the design, aligning it more closely with the capabilities of NSO units to enhance synergy with other units and abilities. Some key frustrations with the current state of the vehicle include the ineffectiveness of the rumble seats. They currently serve little purpose. Additionally, the gunner seat lacks full 360-degree coverage, unlike other tanks, which poses limitations in combat scenarios. The vehicle's design feels top-heavy without a clear justification, leading to issues where it flips and sustains damage for no apparent reason. There's also a lack of variety for the gunner, as all available weapons seem to have significant drawbacks, such as poor cone of fire, slow fire rate, or slow projectiles with limited ammo. This contrasts with other tanks that offer a broader selection of approximately nine weapons, all of which outperform the Chimera 3 secondary guns in various ways. The Chimera 3' secondary weapons also suffer from restricted angles of attack and cone of fire, putting it at a significant disadvantage. For instance, the CT2-XP, while delivering slightly higher individual damage than the DV-XAT, has a ballistic firing path and an extremely slow fire rate. The empire's unique weapon, the rail gun, fails to penetrate as intended and is outperformed by the main guns of other factions, especially after recent velocity and ballistic improvements, offering no advantage over other weapon choices. Overall, the Chimera faces considerable difficulties when pitted against other Main Battle Tanks, despite having substantial disadvantages. To improve the vehicle, rumble seats could benefit from additional utility, such as the ability to transport MAX units, thereby enhancing synergy. This could be balanced by allocating two slots for MAX units in the rumble seats. I largely share the sentiments expressed by the original poster regarding the issues with the current design of the Chimera and the need for significant improvements.
