In the never-ending search for a good, non-overpowered and still useful team-wise tool for the Light Assault, I had an idea. Most support classes focus on supporting infantry, medics rez, engineers supply ammo, infils provide close-range recon. So what if Light Assaults provided support to vehicles? What if we had a laser designator tool that uploaded targeting data to vehicles in your squad ( not platoon ). Said designator would take a few seconds to "lock on" to the target area. There would be a faction-colored laser dot displayed ( think starcraft nukes ) and everything in a 10-15m radius of the dot would be rendered to squad vehicles beyond regular render distances, as well as displayed on the map with some sort of target indicator, allowing tanks and aircraft to make long-range attacks against distant targets. Light Assaults would need to maintain the lock to keep the target lit up, and would earn a bunch of target assist XP from targets killed by squadmates firing in the target area. Light assaults climbing behind enemy lines would be able to target enemy hotspots of infantry or vehicles to get them taken out. It's not OP and cheesy like a grenade launcher ( the most frequently suggested tool for LAs ), requires teamwork and coordination ( and a good tank gunner ), and would help LAs make experience. Thoughts?
Might as well introduce new tank guns designed specifically for this purpose as well. Artillery shells
Yeah, this idea gets suggested a lot, and it seems underwhelming to me. This thing doesn't exactly do anything normal spotting doesn't. Vehicle render distance is ~700m - 1000m, and at that range it's next to impossible for a tank to hit anything due to extreme projectile drop and low projectile speed. Besides, I don't think they can just bypass render distance at will. Myself I also thought about target designator tool, a something that would light up the vehicle through walls, make dumbfires automatically track that target as if they were lock ons, lock on launchers would get an instant lock even if they normally can't lock on to this type of target. For example, it would be possible for dedicated A2A launchers to lock on to ground vehicles lit up by target designator. Basically it could work like this: I don't think anything less powerful than enabling autohitting is enough for a support role, and even then it's only going to be useful in very specific situations: 1) big battles where LA can count someone will react to him designating the target 2) in organized squads And in both cases it must be infantry going against vehicles, which is not an optimal way. Most of the time it's better to pull your own vehicles with AV loadouts. So even when we're talking about something tankers would complain is borderline OP (homing Decimators anyone?), it's still going to be weak and situational. I don't like it.
I'm totally down for this idea, but I think that, being an Assault class, the Light Assault should not have a support tool, or at least not by default (again, I think this would be great for LA, but maybe as an optional cert tool or a utility slot?). The LA should be the mobile brother of the slow HA, an their tools should reflect that, and still be combat oriented.
So this... with this https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/mortars.191448/#post-2776246
I honestly feel as though this would work better with an Infiltrator given that Infiltrators are supposed to be the "recon" class
Perhaps, but then again Light Assaults are better equipped to get into positions to give targets to allied vehicles. Plus, calling down artillery is pretty much as "assault" as you can get.
I'm of mixed opinion on this idea (despite having once suggested it myself). It might be useful, might not. That said, I could see this working similar to Coyotes - it could simply impart a Coyote-style "auto-target" effect on nearby ordinance, with a much wider lock radius. Could also work with tank shells, but I'm just brainstorming.
