Spitfire Turret - Well done SOE

This, so much this.

I've been able to run through groups of 3+ spitfires while taking small amounts of damage and still having enough gas in the tank to kill people on the other side of the line. If it is area denial, it is failing. Spitfires right now can be safely ignored.

So far the only use I'm aware of is to guard Sunderers against light assaults trying to C4 the Sunderer. Which, unfortunately is very redundant with the Sunderer shield bubble which makes Sunderers invulnerable to individual LAs. I have yet to try this out.

Also, you are giving up a normal turret for this thing. You can't carry the AV Turret, which in my opinion is the best weapon in the game. As for supplementing your own carbine... you are going to be adding less than 200 damage because of how poorly this thing performs right now. Something in the range of one to two extra bullets on target. You give up a lot when you let go of the AI and AV turrets to baby sit this trash can so it can marginal support in a 1v1 that may never walk up to you.

I was skeptical before trying them, afraid they would be over-powered.

Sure, the ones I set can sometimes go down pretty quickly. That also means the ones I face will go down pretty quickly when I'm on the receiving end. I didn't want to see these things creating more stalemates and congested lanes. I'm glad they don't.

The times I've used them, they've proven very helpful and worthwhile.

If you are struggling for certs, this may not be for you. It isn't a death machine, but it is a good tool. If spending 1k certs sounds like draining your entire life's savings... don't buy it.

Overall, completely agree with the points made by OP.

Update...

I have noticed a lot of players comparing the new PS2 Spitfires with the original PS1 Spitfires, stating that they are much weaker and we can't place more then one at a time. I would like to remind all of those players that the original PS1 spitfires only had an effective range of between 20-25m and they also had a sphere of influence which restricted players from placing more then one in that Sphere.

I remember that we could place one turret on either side of a base entrance and they barely covered the main entrance. This is a restriction not found on the new PS2 Spitfires, which means players can effectively stack these turrets in groups and they will also engage at longer ranges. This is HUGE...Like everything else in this game we can not balance them on the single user, but rather we must consider how they will work in groups. And unless everyone wants to deal with these turrets having a sphere of influence and the hell that will cause, then we need to except that they are relatively weak individually but in groups they exponential gain strength.

To all the people asking for a buff - just stop to imagine the levels of screaming and shouting if these things were actually a danger to a solo player.

Scary huh?

Granted I do think there are some tracking issues and those need to be addresses and I think we can tweak its fire delay, but increasing the damage or the health of this device, IMO would definitely create some balance issues, especially in small scale engagements or as players stack 3 or 4 of them together.

What?

These 2 points contradict each other, spitfire takes 14 143 bullets to kill, half a clip size for most carbines and AR, it has lower resistance then the AV turrets and a player can out damage my repair rate, then you got the fact that you have to resupply it every time you place 1.

The spitfire currently is very very limited and also weak, even if I babysit it it'll die to any, I'm fine with 1 rocket or 1 well placed grenade but 14 bullets to kill one while only being limited to 1 is pointless to take over anything else with more firepower or utility.

Oh aye tweaks fine - I think that's more netcode stuff anyway that'll be fixed next patch - but making them more powerful is just asking for trouble lol

I do not see how they contradict themselves. Personally, I love the spitfire and IMO they are just about perfect for PS2. What you want is a turret, that you can drop and it will go 1 vs 1 vs any player, well I'm sorry that just isn't going to fly unless you are willing to give up your main gun on your engineer and the Auto-turret becomes your main weapon...

Think about this, you place a turret down and you stand beside or behind it and you and the turret engage another player. If the other player attacks the turret, he will expend half a clip all the while you and the turret are putting damage into that player, the other player dies and the turret may survive with a sliver or health or it dies, however you are completely unscathed. Or the other player engages you, all the while the turret and you are putting damage into that player, and either you die and the turret finishes the other player off or you kill that player and the turret is still up to rinse and repeat.

These turrets augment the DPS and survivability of the engineer, and what many continue to ignore is they are stackable, meaning we can place multiples of these turrets in the same area.

I think a lot of people are misremembering PS1 spitfires lol ... if anything spitfires in PS1 just delayed people a bit and got occasional kills on an unaware infantry(hide a line of them behind trees so they start firing after the infantry has run past into the open towards a rear base door). Overall they were pretty useless but still put up because why not you might get lucky with one.

In PS2 I would say they probably should have a bit more resistance to small arms fire and that would be alright but make sure to leave their susceptibility to rockets the same. If it ever takes more than 1 deci to kill one it would be a bit imbalanced. If you tweak their damage, accuracy, responsiveness too much then you end up with a problem due to the fact multiples can be placed next to each other resulting in pretty much instant death to infantry which would be horrendous.

I think the turret is fine for most part. But I wish the turret would be able tank another player shooting at it "if" the engineer is repping it.
Atm the engineer cant outrep damage done to it even by a pistol.

Why? If an engineer is doing the tradeoff of repping and maintaining his turret instead of focusing on shooting with his gun.
The turret should be his gun and able to finish off other players 1vs1 if they dont use another tactic than simply shoot straight at the turret.

Now, they can still throw a grenade, shoot the engineer (if he's not in cover). Shoot a rocket or anything to destroy the turret.

t should be rock paper scissors. Not rock rock paper.

I just want a small shield for it...

by the way, VS turret and NC turret has same highlight colour

I have repaired my turret while it has engaged with another player and my turret did defeat them, but it was not a controlled environment and I would like to see some testing done, but it is not so weak you will not out repair a pistol. It really comes down to being able to stack these turrets in close proximity and that is why we need to be really carefully giving them more HP or DPS.

I also think they got this spot on.

I've been using this in and off for a couple of days and it's picked up a dozen kills and twice as many assists. If they were more powerful it would definitely cause problems.

I think they're good right now because they are good at some jobs but not others. You can't just stick one anywhere and expect it to rack up kills, but if you place it carefully it can help. Guarding sunderers is good, especially from LA jetpack assaults as their slower speed in the air makes them susceptible to the Spitfire targeting. Close range they're pretty weak, unless there is plenty of action around to not make them target number 1, then they pick off a few stragglers.

Well done SOE

You should be able to carry one with the possibility to upgrade the amount up to 3 for 1500 certs total (500 rank 1 and 1000 rank 2).

Or as a HA I could just engage my shield and run past the turret, shotgun the engie in the face, and knife his worthless turret. Or I could just grenade the turret. Or hell I could even just engage them directly with an LMG and shield up and still gun down the engie first then kill the turret because turrets do such laughable damage and are made of paper. They are that bad that they are almost a non factor. I have died to ONE spitefire and that was because I was fighting 3 other people plus the turret and still killed the 3 infantry before finally dieing. The point being that in reality the most likely outcome in the scenarios you describe is that both you and your turret will be dead. Especially considering the lazy reactions the turrets seem to have right now.

Its one thing to say that the turrets should not be able to 1vs1 infantry by themselves which most people agree should not be the case. But at the same time the spitefire should pose at least some threat that infantry should consider and play around. The reality tho is that the turrets are so weak you can pretty much ignore them the majority of the time. Yes they are stackable but only if you have multiple engineers and those engineers have not placed any turrets elsewhere. The fact you have to go and resupply after you place each turret and are limited to only being able to carry one makes stacking them not as viable. And the only time the turrets actually become a threat is if they are stacked.

As far as the engineer deployables go the spitefire is by far the weakest. And its weak because I dont have to actually play around it like I would other deployables like mines or MANA turrets. I can pretty much ignore spitefires when I encounter them. At the very least they should have higher small arms resistances and you should not have to resupply them. At least then you could use them as you describe as a way to augment the engineers personal combat power. Right now tho the only advantage spitefire gives you over a MANA turret is that it does not make you sniper bait like the MANA does. Outside of that there is no reason to use them.

So are you saying that HA's are OP? Because you can take on 3 other players + a turret and kill all 3...

Honestly, I think you are mostly bluster...Everything you mentioned you can do you, you could have done before the spitfires where in the game and to say they would not effect you is nonsense. They do pose a threat and they also offer a utility that was not present before. Not only do they augment an engineers DPS, but they also act as a sensor and even if they can only take a few hits before being killed, that is a few hits that would have been directed at me or my teammate and maybe they only get a few rounds into you before you kill them, but that is a few xtra rounds I will not need to kill you.

Sure it may the weakest deployable, but it is also offers the most utility from being an automated turret that does damage or at the least operates as a sensor detecting enemies. If you want a stronger AI turret, then use the mana turret and AI mines may be stronger in alpha damage, but they also do not engage targets at 50m, or more then one target or even alert you that the enemy is in the area.

- Can you drop a AI mana turret in a separate room and have it damage or alert you that enemy are approaching? Nope
- Can you drop an AI mana turrets next to your sunderer to use against LA's and repair the sunderer at the same time? Nope
- Can you place an AI mana turret behind your character and have it cover your back while you guard another door? Nope
- Can you place an AI mana turret and have it cover you from infiltrators or LA's while you repair friendly MAX's? Nope
-Can you place an AI mana turret and then stand behind or beside it and engage the same target? Nope

I know people want these turrets to be stronger, but I am telling you any stronger and they will become way OP. Even now they are borderline OP,especially when you place 4-5 of them in an area together and it only takes one engineer to support those turrets while the other engineers are doing other things....

If it was spot on, you wouldn't have the majority of "career engineers" saying it's not worth spending the certs on it.

In that respect, if the inteded customers don't want it because they see it as worthless - it's a failure.