"When I talk about "lolpods" I'm referring to the Scythe's Dual Photon Pods, the Reaver's Breaker Rocket Pods, and the Mosquito's Hellfire Rocket Pods." With the nerf to Thermal Optics (lets be honest, it was a nerf because everyone realistically gives off heat, if they made it realistic then Thermals would be useless in the daytime.), I propose a solution to the now horrid visibility vs. infantry in the dark. Tapping into the idea of "Combined Arms", I propose that ESFs lolpods would be reworked into a scouting tool for spotting enemy Armor and Infantry; this would also work on enemy aircraft if you manage to hit them when they're airborne. As a prelude to my idea, lolpods would have their Certs refunded in preparation as the change would be radical enough that it might not be something a pilot would want to hold onto. Starting out, the indirect damage of lolpods would be nerfed to doing 100 points of damage across the board with the direct damage vs. infantry unchanged; if you can aim accurately you should do a fair bit of damage. The splash range of lolpods would be increased to a 10-meter radius. Finally, lolpods would gain a new mechanic: upon hitting enemy Armor or Infantry mark them for 10 seconds, making them visible to all allied targets within the hex. Enemy units equipped with vehicle stealth or who are cloaked by a stealth mechanic would have a 50% reduced marked duration (5 seconds). This change would allow ESFs to more effectively scout areas or "prime" an area for aerial bombardment by marking targets in advance. This would also allow them to provide air support to allied ground forces, allowing ground forces to quickly take out marked targets or spot enemy ambushes. As a small bonus, whenever a marked target is killed by an all the ESF would gain a "Marked Assist" worth 50% of the experience of the kill; making the new lolpods a viable source of Cert income if used effectively with Combined Arms.
sounds like you should give Marker Implant a try if you want "scouting rockets" even better, it'll turn your banshee/airhammer/LPPA into scout weapons too
Huge flaws I can see in your "rework" already. 1. I can already easily see tanks other such vehicles, even better now with the new and "improve" TDO. If I don't see them, usually they make their presence known very quickly. 2. Scout radar already spot every infantry for everyone on the map if I do a low flyby. Why waste my time even looking then firing when I can just reveal everyone in 200m. 3. Infantry do not render unless you are within 200 meters of the ground. This is in G2Alock on range, so I have a few precious second to look for them. Even if I know what their general direction is, why not just shoot them. 4. 10 second is too short, even if I'm marking them for myself to kill on the second run, again why not just kill them outright with the current pods instead of sharing it with someone. Now if you say they fire something like the battlefield 2bc2 tracer dart that let infantry lock on targets with rocketlaunchers(Hooray combined arms) over the hill then maybe I would like that, but the tankers won't because they would have to run smoke instead of the useful ES abilities. What you are really proposing is removing splash damage from pod for things that are frivolous.
Jesus they're going to make you a dev because of your asinine ideas. Just no. They're rocket pods and they've been nerfed enough. You want to balance them? Cert them with AP and heat rockets. Ap will have little splash but better armor penetration while heat rounds have some damage to armor with a significant splash radius and damage to infantry. It shouldn't take an entire magazine of rockets to kill one soldier. If I fire on a group of idiots clustered together in a 10 m radius they should all die with a salvo of rockets. If you infantry side meat heads don't like it maybe you should coordinate AA better to prevent aircraft in the first place, but oh wait the devs can't even do that right. This whole game is a mess and weapons that should have significant influences are nerfed to hell because of people that refuse to learn how to counteract anything. Just stop with the nerfs and dumb ideas and let's talk more about how to get players coordinating and thinking without making everything useless.
Technically, they haven't been "lolpods" in years. The idea was, if I recall: even though the pilot is laughing so hard that he can't see what he's shooting at, everything is still dying.
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration of how they were, and honestly how they should have been. The problem wasn't the rocket pods but rather ineffective AA counterbalance. Most weapons were fine before all the nerfs, they just needed more options to counteract them like making things like smoke and flares standard. Give sunderers things like sky shields to protect infantry or make and anti rocket / anti missile defense turret option for engineers. Part of combined arms is infantry and armor not only taking out aircraft but also being there to clear the way for air superiority. Make better AA that needs to be taken down by ground forces prior to air assaults leading to more coordination and more objectives on the ground.
Just make lolpods a pure AI weapon with good spread. Notice how nearly anything AI is garbage AV as well? And even when it's not bad AI and AV, it's just bad AI? Take Fury verses kobalt, kobalt can only damage infantry (and light armored targets) and it only has 50 rpm over the saw to compensate this drastic specialization, while fury......oh fury got nerfed BECAUSE it was AV and AI, oh which direction? The nerf AI route? HOW ODD. As for the idea, I like ESFs specializing in scouting, however there is almost no amount of scouting that will be worth durability. 25% extra HP with stalling locks for an extra second helps stop just about every single ESF enemy. Personally wingmounts specializing in spotting would simply cripple the ESF using it, afterburns also give a ton of durability. For example, I run an ESF with just AI or default nosegun, stealth, FS and racer or hover with the appropriate afterburns. Nothing catches me, I kill infantry, they try to respond with locks, they're at a disadvantage because I specialize against that, they pull bursters, suddenly I can't go in, I force them to use nanites on me, and then come back at unexpected times to make them paranoid about an air raid, they lose the base because they either hated the AI ESF or too paranoid to move forward. Me personally? I'd just take the death, go "meh" and simply hide in buildings more and range people out and hinder enemy movement by setting up painful lanes. I know how the ESF thinks, I know where the ESF can and can't aim, popular myth people seem to believe (whether ignorance or by choice to believe it so it fits better) is that ESFs killing infantry are unstoppable, hilarious man, hilarious.
I think we might be related. I'll just copy and past this in every "nerf air" thread from now on. Love the skyshield on the Sundy idea.
i guess they nerfed furies to do AV and inffective AI because tankers complained about a grenade launcher damaging heavy armor, with the side effect that furies are no longer maruader 2.0s. i don't know why people loved furies so much, i stick a kobalt on front and an AV weapon on the back of my sundies, farm squishes that try to bust my shield sundie and scare off solo vehicles with the rear gun.
It REALLY isn't! They used to be outright broken.... Up there with original PPA and original Gatekeeper.
Just FYI - I was issued with infra-red invisible No.3 combat denims when I did my stag. The army was very strict about getting them back when I mustered out because they were so concerned about terrorists getting hold of them. As to lighting up targets for a period of time, this sounds like trying to bring back thermals tbh - and the major beneficiaries would presumably be the hovering farmers.
As much as I want a powerful (and meaningful) airforce, I have to agree with that one. You could basically oneclip any tank by flying in low and hitting his rear - and you could still do it while missing almost half of the shots. From above it took 2-3 salvoes to clip a tank. Infantry died like ants in a death ray. It didn't help that it happened when G2A was still extremely rare.
