As I sit here on lunch break, listening to Still Alive, it occurred to me. I always hear people complaining about the uselessness of Infiltrators within squads. What would people think of a (very limited) portal gun as an optional item for the same slot as radar darts? The range could be capped at, say... 50-125 meters (increased via cert upgrades - perhaps this would be a module for the Sensor dart gun, allowing the user to swap sensor dart / port functionality. ) - the entrance would have to be placed before the exit, and both would be destructible by small arms. (Perhaps a large, glowy ball of sorts, immune to friendly fire, and it would be squad / platoon only use) Such an item would encourage Infiltrators to... well, infiltrate - being able to sneak around enemy lines, and place a small port in / near a point would be amazing, and the ability to bypass a bit of the labyrinthian base design on Esamir / Hossin especially, would be quite awesome. Thoughts?
Infiltrators are not useless, just the players playing them tend to be the ones who would rather sit on a hillside far away trying to take potshots. There is a reason they have access to smgs, the ability to hack terminals and place mines. Not to mention cloaking. Also this isn't good, mainly because it will defeat the purpose of light assault if infiltrators can do what light assaults do better.
I didn't say they were useless, I merely stated that I hear people complaining about them. Granting a more obviously viable squad support utility could be quite beneficial. This wouldn't touch the Light Assault's purpose, LA's can only get themselves into odd spots. A limited port functionality, employed by infiltrators, would only allow other squadmates to get where they could go anyway, rather then allowing the whole platoon access to otherwise jetpack-access only type areas.
I agree with Palkora. Plus, do you know how OP that would be? It would be abused in so many ways it would cause more problems than it would solve. Not to mention the fact that SOE can barely handle a 'normal' update without adding a multitude of new bugs. This would not solve the 'infiltrator problem'.
A single infiltrator is a boon to a squad with the maxed out motion spotter. multiple infiltrators are not nearly as useful as the first, and that's why people say they are useless. They don't stack well like Medics or HAs do, and that's their problem. Engineers also suffer from this, as you only need one in a squad to provide ammo. They become more useful the more MAXes appear in a squad though.
Look up the vehicles in PS1 there was a vehicle named "The Router" It was a piece of Alien Tech found in the caves. You could drive this alien teleporter thingy somewhere close but hidden from the enemy. Then in it's trunk take out the "Router" and have an infil hack into the base and place it somewhere inside. Boom instant teleporter. It was awesome and was very well balanced.
Agreed, it's a matter of shifting play styles. Infil can totally play them as a team support role with motion sensors, hacking, and mines. Additionally, you can actually provide good DMR fire support, esp when using the medium range rifles. Since cloaking is not as important for prolonged stealth, the Armor Cloak is pretty good in that role.
