How much effect will ammo printer have on xp earning for Engy and ammo Sundy?

I started a 'discussion' over at Reddit....and got exactly what I expected: An E-Beatdown. Everyone over here may also disagree with me, but I have found numerous times that majority opinion over there can differ significantly than over here, and hopefully, it'll be slightly more civilized.

The basic idea is that there are numerous situations where, if people are running the printer, it will result in significant accumulated xp loss for Engys and ammo sundys, and that this could then domino into less engy and ammo sundys being out there, and then domino effects further from there.

The simple concept scenario is this: Someone is running printer and there's no engy or ammo pack nearby. At max level, over a five minute period, gradually using up the original five mags, the printer will replace one mag per minute.

Then, an engy arrives and drops a pack just as the player *would* have normally run out. Normally at that point, the ammo pack would have refilled all five mags in about five seconds, and the engy would pick up as much as 120 xp when you factor in squad xp and bonuses. But in this case, the player is fully stocked, and so the engy loses out on that xp, and only gets xp going forward.

I am suggesting, that in every situation where someone is running a printer and an engy shows up at some point and drops a pack, that this can, and in some cases, will result in a significant accumulated loss over a night of gaming.

It all depends on how many people run the printer. I realize that it many situations it simply won't be needed, but keep in mind, the point here is not about keeping a player from running completely out. The point is that both the printer and ammo pack many times refill ammo that is never even used. It's always topping you off, even if you don't use it, and that has lots of value for the engy and sundy. I should know, as someone who has Engy farmed since beta.

Personally, I have already maxed out my printer and plan to use it on my launcher HA's and Maxes in situations where I cannot guarantee an engy or sundy being close by. I stated over on Reddit that I often run out of ammo in those situations (not the majority of the time, but often enough), and it will certainly help me out. Of course, being Reddit, I was promptly called a liar. lol

No, those situations don't exist, right? And 20-60 seconds ouf of the action to respawn or run down a rocky hill to a sundy doesn't matter, because in this game, it's not about gaining ground or holding a line, it's just about the shooting.....at least for some, it is. Personally, I prefer to maximize my 'in the action' time and I prefer to gain ground and make progress, and I believe in many situations, the printer will help do just that.

I also think that more people may end up running the printer than some think. Only time will tell, but certainly more will run it over time as more have access to it.

So, what does everyone over here think? Will engys and ammo sundy drivers lose any xp with this thing? And how much effect will this have on Engy and ammo Sundy play? If you are an engy or ammo sundy driver, what is your red line limit where you will start playing those roles less?

I wouldn't call myself an expert on these new implants by any means, but the slow pace of replenishment of Ammo Printer even at maximum rank makes me think that it's not going to be very useful in the thick of combat, which is where Engineers and ammo Sunderers see the bulk of their resupply XP come from. It'll certainly affect things less than the fact that there's seldom just one Engineer or Sunderer doing the resupplying, so the XP gets divided between them, or the fact that many players will run to a terminal of some sort for resupply when possible, which means nobody gets XP.

I agree that the majority of situations overall, and the vast majority of heavy battles with see little to no effect from the printer. But I have seen plenty of moderate, or spread out battles, where, for example, there's a small ridge with five to ten players on it and no engy. I run to them as engy, drop two packs, and all of a sudden I pick up 2-5 cert points in about 10 seconds time. I see this enough that I know for a fact that it will affect my engy xp gains, IF, they are running printers.

The bottom line is, how many people will run printers and in how many situations. Engys can and do leave battles. Ammo packs get destroyed, sundys get destroyed, and are not always close by, or they are inconveniently located, such as at the bottom of a steep rocky hill.

I also think, that the impact on the resupply XP gain for engineers and ammo sundy drivers is minimal.

The resupply ticks are too long for infantry. Ammo printer gives 1 magazine and 1 rocket per minute, that is nothing compared to the ammo pack. Also, nobody I know uses ammo printer for infantry, b/c there are much more usefull implants.
A sniper, sitting in a remote location, might profit from ammo printer, but then again there wouldn't be an engi around anyway.

For vehicles its allmost the same. Ammo sundys are quite rare and can mostly be found in bigger vehicle zergs. So they still instantly resupply vehicles in their vicinity. The only difference is, vehicles who opperate along the flanks and behind enemy lines won't have to stop by every now and then to rearm.

Two questions on the functionality of it:

1) If the timer cycles on the printer but the player's stock is full, will the printer instantly refill for the next mag when needed, or does it only refill on the exact moment of the cycle?

2) If a player with printer is in range of an ammo pack when they become one mag low, will the ammo pack override the printer?

I wouldn't say that there'll be no impact, but in the long run I'd say we'll see about the same (maybe even somewhat lesser) of an impact that Regeneration has on Medics.

1)
The ammo printer only gives you ammo when a tick occurs.

2)
The first resupply tick (implant or ammo pack or tower) will give you ammo. If you are not fully rearmed after the first tick, the second tick will give you ammo as well. Having both ticks occur excatly at the same time is pretty unlikely.

i'll say not much, for most weapons it is extremely underwhelming.
1 mag every minute or two for most weapons doesn't help you out much.

there are some rare cases though inwhich ammo printer shines,
folks who use large mag weapons like MCG and butcher will LOVE ammo printer.

From everything I've seen and read, ammo printer will affect primarily : vehicle players (who aren't pulling engy ammo anyway), huge-clip weapons (which might have been pulling from engy packs) and lone-wolf players who aren't anywhere near the battle (who probably would'nt get engineer packs anyway).

As such, so long as you're in the battle and keeping everybody resupplied like a good little engy, I imagine your ammo pack is gonna be ticking away just like always.

People run ammo sundies? Aside from me, I could probably count on one hand how many times I've seen one outside of a zerg.

That aside... I don't think ammo printer is powerful enough to replace an Engineer/ammo Sunderer. Not saying there's zero stepping on roles, it will cause one or two less XP ticks when an Ammo Printer user hits you up, but their need is not gone. Ammo suppliers will always be better. Ammo Printer is best used for deep flanking, not much else.

I'm probably the only player who's fine with roles being blurred. I don't think the game should be balanced around big "combined arms" battles where every role is present, since that doesn't always happen. (read: A2G in small fights)

Ok, thanks. I didn't realize the ammo pack worked off a preset tick rate beginning at deploy time. I always thought that the first mag was instant, and then followed the cycle after that.

I agree it's not a replacement for most situations. Basically, I'm just going off my own Engy experience, spamming packs everywhere, and one situation I see, often enough, are small groups of players with no engy or sundy nearby. Then I run in and nab a nice bag of xp very quickly. If enough of those people started running printer, I would take some dings off of it. It wouldn't be enormous, but it would add up over time.

Practically nothing.

Ammo packs will give you ammo the moment you don't have full reserves anymore. Unless you are actively and constantly avoiding ammo packs that means that ammo packs will have barely any less ammo ticks to give to friendlies (or enemies). Especially considering the average lifespan of infantry: 2 to 3 minutes. Infantry rarely have the time to run out of ammo, or even regenerate more than 3 magazines. And that's assuming 100% of the population carries Ammo Printer 5.
Just dump you ammo packs and watch the certs roll in, as always.

Geez, the fact that people need to scrape this deep into the barrel shows how little there is to actually complain about the implant system.

Better to scrape deep and find nothing than not discuss at all.

Some scrapings are so obviously not a problem you shouldn't even discuss it. The only thing "discussing" it will accomplish is creating bad rep for the game.
If you want to bad mouth the game, find some facet of the game that deserves it. PS2 has many flaws, but you are barking up the wrong tree. In fact, you are barking in the wrong forrest.

So far, I'm using it on a majority of my kits. Ironically for vehicle kits I do not run it. Often the only problem with my heavy or medic or light or even stalker infil is that I run out of ammo. For steady streams of combat I actually find this implant more useful than regeneration, probably more important than any other implant besides sweeper for avoiding mines.

For heavies it's basically having access to the battlegoose, LMGs don't exactly mag dump and for NC weapons with high damage per bullet I simply never run out of ammo on long towerstomps or even air hunting with cloak ala rocket launcher.

Overall, very little. When using things like RLs and the like I often run out of ammo or resupplied by an engie before the first tick occurs.

I suspect that we will see a lot more of people like you who, once they try it, will find it has good value in more situations than initially thought.

I just maxed my printer and will be using it later today. I somewhat routinely run out of ammo as launcher HA and Max, so I know I will benefit there to some extent, especially with sporadic fire.

Been running it my tank driver config and I pretty much never have to break off just to resupply.

out of interest, if you're in a vehicle with several people, will your ammo printer resupply all of the weapons? or just the one you're using?
i could see it being a really nice option for libs/mbts if you have 2 of them ticking away, or even better a battle gal (though i haven't seen one in a while) could have all 4 gunners and the driver running it for more ammo than you can possibly spend