Play this game long enough, and eventually you'll start thinking about the guns you can't have. Nothing in here aiming for perfect balance, just getting the ideas out of my head. Terran Republic (aka Toasted Revelers): Trigger discipline is for the peasantry. Focus on speed and aggression. Peace through superior bullet volume. New Conglomerate (aka 'Muricans in SPAAAACE): Bonus checks only count if you live to spend them. Focus on defence and fight ending hitting power. Vanu Sovereignty (aka Spandex armor? Sounds legit): Didn't follow the rules in school. Got a problem normal guns can't solve? Choose Vanu! Infiltrator ES Pistol: This should give some sort of scouting effect. TR: Silenced, gives a longer term minimap triangle for targets. NC: Target is a dot on the minimap for a very long time. Fire while cloaked? VS: No dorito, but target gets the full on HA shield glow effect for a while. Infiltrator Cloak: Why just turn invisible? TR: Massive speed (& jumping?) boost while cloaked. NC: Shorter duration cloak, but also teleport a few meters when shot while cloaked. VS: Total invisibility during cloak, but can't see other players either. Light Assault ES weapon: LAs feel like a debuff class to me. TR: Incendiary - hampered vision and COF for target. NC: Rivets - slower (stopped?) movement for target. VS: Electric shock - Heavy sway and periodically firing. Light Assault Jump Pack: The only way to travel in style. TR: Very short cooldown 'dodge' jets. NC: Single massive vertical thrust with good control on the way down. VS: Short range teleport. Medic gun: They get to play with HP, let's go nuts. TR: Communicable disease, DoT for target and anybody that touches them. NC: Leech health. VS: Ignore shields entirely (both normal and HA overshield). Medic Tool: Lose Revive (or heal?) to gain the ability to play with other corpses TR: Turns enemy corpses into landmines. NC: Turns enemy corpses into 1-time player spawns. VS: Turns enemy corpses into zombies. Engineer Tool: Lose repair, but get to modify the play field a bit. TR: Remote drone dies in a splash of path blocking napalm. NC: Expanding gel to give temporary cover. VS: First use is jump pad, second use is landing pad. Engineer Ability: Lose ammo, gain a buff aura. TR: Bonus to fire rate. NC: Bonus to shields. VS: Bonus to ability duration/strength. HA shield: Can we do better than "More HP" TR: Every bullet you get hit with ups the damage of your gun. NC: Creates a shimmer dome, making accuracy harder for those firing in. VS: Every X bullets will hit a friendly close to you instead.
Fun stuff, now I'll try... Tank guns: TR: P-2-6/57 - a set of 2 gattling guns, 6 barrel, 57 mm caliber (compare to Tankbuster's 30 mm). Recoil makes the tank go backwards at 50 km/h in 2 seconds if it ain't anchored. NC: Titanium - fires one shot for 15 000 HP once per 15 seconds. Recoil is so strong, it'll damage the firing tank for 3 000 HP. Better shield up. VS: Hypernova - No recoil, yes charge up. If not fired when fully charged, the tank gets a big plasma disc around it which will vaporize any infantry as the excess energy is released from the tank. Combine with MagBurner and perhaps more enemies get mowed than friendlies for once...
TR needs a better ES sniper rifle: TSAR-423: It's a TSAR-42, except it has 3 barrels so you can shoot 3 times before chambering another set of rounds. Somewhat slower chamber time to compensate (like 2x so it's still a bit faster overall than the normal TSAR). (NC is good, I would love to get my hands on a Railjack; IDK about VS)
I "met" him on Connery, though beyond him showing up on my killfeed I have no idea where/when he plays.
Just use the RAMS .50. The Railjack sounds good in theory, but the .2 second trigger delay is very problematic.
New set of AI MAX weapons TR - QBA Shotgun: 12 rounds in a magazine, auto fire, but has a longer reload and less damage than NC Max Shotguns. (100ish per pellet), 18 with Extended mags and slugs are available. NC - Heavy Gauss SAW: 50 rounds, 200 damage, but fairly slow rate of fire (200 rpm). Can do light damage to vehicles and increased damage VS other MAX. (Similar to a Basilisk.) VS - Scatterplasma Shotgun: 6 rounds in a magazine, semi auto and ability to charge. Charged shots focus and deal more damage in a tighter cone. Extended mags are available, but not slugs.
Better ES. Not better in general. 'Cause the TRAP sucks. Horribly. If you use a burst, it's horribly inaccurate. If you don't use a burst, it's a really ****** SA. (When I say inaccurate, I mean the second round misses at 50m in VR). The trigger delay (guessing here) might be problematic for an experienced user who's going to lead, but I imagine most people at 300m primarily shoot at stationary targets, in which case a trigger delay wouldn't matter. Or we could just give everyone a new ES rifle. Maybe NC gets a round that separates into multiple rounds at proximity? And like half of them need to hit the head, or all hit the body, for an OHKO.
Frankly I kind of like the Phase shift... but it should be repurposed as a CQC Rifle instead of a long range one.
And some vehicles ESFs - kings of A2A combat. TR: Drunken missles. NC: Just give them the wing rail guns that got nixxed in the last ESF update. VS: Limpet mines which attach to your target, and then fire at their friends. Libs - for when salting the earth isn't quite enough. TR: MIRV warheads NC: Remote deployed turrets. VS: Ball lightning - it bounces, it chains, it glows in the dark! MBTs - The only way to express your individuality on the ground. TR: Incendiary - hurt the passengers of vehicles. NC: Penetrator - every hit is a rear armor hit. VS: Variable arc - fire around corners, or just eliminate drop Announced but unreleased ES buggies - the hopes and dreams yet to be crushed. TR: Generates floating gun drones that can be taken by the driver's squad members. NC: Deploys regenerating shields around the vehicle - take the spawn room warriors out on the road! VS: Converts to a tower, allowing both movement over walls and a high vantage turret platform.
New Tank Abilities NC - Phalanx Blitz: Allows the vanguard to pass another vanguards shield to another vanguard for however long the original vanguards shield remains active. For each vanguard linked, it reduces the shields time by 7.5% but raises each vanguards speed by 10%. Effect stacks up to 5 times. Vanguards must be within a 15m radius of eachother. The vanguard equipped with this ability does not gain a shield itself, and instead carries a visible energy tower on its back to pass the shield on. VS - Event Horizon: Allows the magrider to fire a laser beam out for seven seconds straight. Any target hit receives a 33% movement speed debuff as well as taking damage from the beam itself. The regular cannon may still be used while the beam is active. Any infantry within 7m upon activating the ability is automatically blinded for 2 seconds. This ability requires the magrider to collect sunlight in order to fire.
