Personally I think an AV weapon for Infiltrators should not come as a rifle causing actual damage. I see more an EMP / Mircowave weapon with short / mid range that causes vehicles to have weapons disabled and / or to slow down. I see Infiltrators more like saboteurs than tank killers. Then personally I dislike the idea of vehicle hacking to just steal vehicles and drive around the battlefield like if an enemy vehicle could be considered a trophy. I'd love to be able to infect vehicles with a cybernetic virus allowing me to lock crew outside, and or disable modules, invert commands, slow it down or debuff weapons.
What's the point of inconveniencing a vehicle when another class can destroy it far more easily? I'm getting tired of seeing non-lethal, temporary disruptions of a vehicle's functions being suggested as if our class somehow doesn't deserve the same ratio of effort to reward that everyone else enjoys. If I have to sit next to a stationary tank in full view of everyone surrounding it for something like 15 seconds, I'm certainly not going to do it just to kick that guy out of his vehicle so that I can essentially fight him one-on-one and get an incredible 100 XP if I manage to beat him. Likewise, I'm not going to bother at all if the only result is that the tank starts to drive slower. Why would I care about that? It's just being annoying for the sake of it and I had to hack a stationary vehicle anyways. Blowing **** up is just as much an act of sabotage as some meaningless non-lethal nuisance. What matters is that the damage is done before people become aware of it. You guys don't like real vehicle hacking? Give me a sticky time bomb that other classes can disable like an overloaded generator. There's no legitimate reason why we should be swimming in the shallow end of the anti-vehicle pool just because our class is supposed to be subtle.
What, exactly, are you hacking on a tank?? I could never imagine a tank having a circuit board right behind a panel on its outside armor. Weak. I'd rather be able to slap, not shoot, on a EMP device that shuts down the tank for a few seconds. Each cert level, of said device, would increase the shutdown timer's time. That way if the driver gets out, you can battle him/them. If he doesn't, then you've just taken a tank out of the fight for bit. This way they don't loose out on all those resources they spent on it, but the infiltrator can still help against vehicles. Also, against a deployed Sunderer, it would close it up and deactivate the "Deploy" effect for said seconds.
What about a stealthier approach? Boobietrap hacks. Another sort of terminal hack. You hack the terminal of the enemy, but due to the hacking of the nanite programs of the terminal, a bomb is spawned with the spawned object. Thus the vehicle/aircraft blows up three to five seconds after you sit in there. You know... for fairness. This wears down after the first user accessed the terminal to spawn something, maybe one or two more for certs. This hack will be visible to other infiltrators alone, enemy or allied. And it will be some sort of roulette. If you're lucky, the enemy spawns a Sunderer, if not, it's only a Flash. This would be an infiltrating approach to the entire hacking scenario. I think the hacking of parking vehicles is not the way an infiltrator would approach the situation. Such vehicles escaped his boobie trap hacks. Why risking personell to hack a vehicle if you can simply blow it up from the distance? Because challenge? The infiltrator works best in and around bases. Just hacking the terminal to deny the enemy access? Why? Hack it in a way the enemy think he's save, but isn't. That way is more fun, diabolical and imagine the trolling.
What does it matter what we're hacking? Tanks & Aircraft are technologically advanced pieces of equipment now, you don't think you can come up with a feasible reason for hacking to work on them? This worked in PS1 with no issues after all, and works on Turrets currently. And again as DrEuthanasia said, why do we have to arbitrarily limit the Infiltrator class? No other class has such limitations on engagements - not even the Combat Medic. I want a real method of combating vehicles, not some nuisance that is easily resolved in a couple seconds. If I manage to sneak up to a vehicle undetected, I want a real tangible reward for my efforts - whether that is a pile of broken scrap, a functionally useless vehicle, or a vehicle I can turn on my enemies. As fun as that sounds, it's needlessly complicated, and doesn't really do anything to the scenario we're working to fix - Infiltrator vs. Already Spawned Vehicles. If my base is being shelled by 10 Vanguards, hacking my base terminal is not going to alleviate the issue. I need a method to defend my base that may or may not involve getting within the enemy ranks, which in contrast with what you said is exactly what Infiltrators would do - the precedent was already set by PS1.
I don't know if vehicle hacking would be great for PS2 (I loved it in PS1, but PS1 had a completely different playstyle". What I would like is a device you can slap onto a vehicle, that doesn't damage it, or disable it, just gives the driver the ILLUSION that their vehicle is at say, 20% HP (changes the little vehicle icon on their hud to display an improper value) - some drivers would jump out to repair and BAM BAM BAM.
What do you mean a different playstyle? What part of PS2 do you think would necessitate keeping Vehicle Hacking out of the game?
I had a few friends that left dark age of camelot in its hey-day for ps1 but came back pretty quick due to cheaters. In one hand i miss the experience on the other I dont miss the frustration of hackers ruining a game.
The amusing point about those who comment that this wouldn't work well in PS2 is that in PS2 everyone can spawn a vehicle, they are much easier to destroy, and in general far less useful. Hacking a vehicle in PS1 was by comparison godly, yet it was balanced. I must say, I am with Dr. Euthanasia and Astraka on this - if we are going to have to get close and remain there for a long time while visible I definitely don't want to just to make the driver get out. I would only agree with that if a) it only took a small amount of time to eject them from the vehicle, b) it also made the vehicle neutral and required a 'generator-like-action' to flip it to your side (which anyone could do as long as they are not interrupted). Even then I am still giving the driver another chance to thwart me and get their tank back. It would be preferable to just use the turret-hacking system to be honest. I could see the use of a ranged emp tool (dart/mine/etc) for the purpose of stopping a vehicle so that we could try and hack. Of course the driver would then be expecting that, so to make this work the driver would have to get out restart the vehicle (a 'generator-like-action') thereby giving us the chance to deal with them and proceed to hack the vehicle.
So medics can carry 2xC4. The infiltrator can hack a terminal switch to engineer dump C4 or AT mines and then go back to hacked terminal and switch back to infiltrator.
This doesn't work in the field. What are you supposed to do about tanks that aren't immediately outside someone's base? Hack a Sunderer? Oh wait, yeah. You are. Too bad it's impossible right now.
NO! Taking away stealth from an infiltrator in ANY situation is like giving a galaxy the same durability of a flash after taking the first shot of damage. It would entirely unbalance the whole dynamic of using the ability so badly it would never be used. Rather than that, hacking a vehicle should be just that, messing with the computers inside the vehicle. Not kicking the current occupants, but screwing with how the vehicle functions (Until restored by an infiltrator on the occupants side). Each effect would have to be unique to the vehicle though, like the infiltrator is doing his best to screw the driver in the short time he has to get in an out without detection. IE: ~Hacking a lightning inverts all the controls. Driver says forward, it goes backward Driver says left, it goes right. ~hacking a heavy tank disables friend-or-foe detection and disables driving forward. Reverse only. Driver has to navigate everywhere in reverse. Funny as hell to see in battle... "Here's a Prowler rolling around backwards blasting and running friendlies..." ~Hacking a flash would be just what you'd think, but flash remains property of original owner. Flash (And subsiquently its new driver) shows as a friendly to owner and his team, they also get a friendly fire warning if they shoot the flash, but they get the red "Enemy Hit" and no warning if they only shoot the driver. It is afterall, still his side, just not the driver. And there are TONS of other options availible. Keep in mind, even with invis, it's tough to get that close without someone noticing for 6 seconds while you hack it.
So what if you cannot kill every tank you see. Why should you? You're an infiltrator. If you want to kill tanks outside of the confines of the infiltrator class, pick another class.
What is the problem with the Infiltrator having a real means to combat vehicles outside of turrets? Why is the Infiltrator the only class arbitrarily restricted in that regard? Would being able to effectively contribute in a combined arms battle make the Infiltrator overpowered? Where is the wisdom in preventing Infiltrators from having a hand in destroying the most important target on the battlefield - the Sunderer? No other class is so limited in its ability to engage targets. The Infiltrator is no more powerful - and is arguably less so - than the other classes available. I can't see the rationale behind that design decision, especially considering that Infiltrators in the previous game had the ability.
Hacking vehicles should be as if overloading a generator/placing a time bomb. With the same arm time being the in line with console hacking, ie. reducing the time with your hacking cert. Give it a 5 second fuse time and pop. Sneak up to the tank with cloak into a nice position, uncloak, hack and hope no one catches you. This takes skill, using positioning to avoid lines of sight, also getting behind enemy lines puts you in the danger zone. It isnt an instant kill directly as the arming time leaves you open., they might drive off or you might get ran over. heck could even add resources to it as a "tool" slot or the "utility" like tank mines, though I prefer it didnt I honestly thought this is how c4 worked for other classes, with an "arming" time seeing how others saying it took so long to set up and thinking the time to arm was a high risk for the damage it did. Then I tried it in VR and its just throw and pop. weak sauce.
Honestly, the biggest threat when approaching a vehicle is never from the driver himself. You'd be an idiot to approach a driver who was likely to notice you, Infiltrator or not. No, what really gets you killed are the other guys. All the XP-hungry engineers looking for an easy repair job, the reinforcements driving up from your enemy's back line, and even people retreating from the front, be they in tanks or on foot. Those are the guys who will find you, and they will be there constantly in any situation where a tank has chosen to stop moving for more than a few seconds at a time. They don't even have to be in shooting range of you, either - some hawk-eyed meddler could spot you from up to 100m away and you would be beyond doomed, sitting there next to a tank and trying to pretend that you're not about to jack the thing. Even if you pull the hack off in spite of all this, your new tank is going to be spotted and obliterated in seconds, possibly even by the driver you just ejected in the extremely likely event that he's an Engineer with AT mines. Finally, supposing this all happens and you manage to get out of your stolen vehicle before it explodes, everyone and their mother is going to be hunting for your blood, especially the tank drivers who don't want their precious investment yanked out of their hands, and you'll be as powerless as ever to stop them once they're actually aware of you. All of this combined is why I find the notion of vehicle hacking being too strong to be ridiculous. If you people speaking against it could see the horrifying **** I get up to with just a 2 man Engineer/HA anti-vehicle crew, you wouldn't be so afraid of Infiltrators hacking tanks anymore. This game has far worse things to be watching your back over.
