Currently, the turret is a very good shield and distraction. You set it up somewhere and hide somewhere else in the room. Actually manning the thing is suicide and the damage is pretty poor.
My biggest problem with the MANA turret is that friendlies have no respect for it, when i deploy it say overlooking the landing pad on a Bio Lab, teammates constantly run in front of me, not only completly denying me the assists ('cause kills with Mana is something i have yet to see) but also geting me a ******** of grief.
My primary grief with the manned turrets is that it is inconsistent with what was the primary reason people became an Engineer back in PS1. Most of the players I knew in PS1 that played Engineers did so because they either had a crap computer or just crap aim, and therefore could not "hang" in the normal gun fights. As an Engineer you can dart in, jam a SpitFire Turret into the ground and take off behind a corner. Dash in and repair as is necessary. This is the big reason why I chose Engineer now in PS2. I can repair the MAXES, drop ammo boxes.. and hang back from the real fighting where I couldn't hit the broad side of a running sniper if I my life depended on it (and hey, it sorta does!). I still get experiences and certs, I still get to be useful in the firefight as well as afterwards when all the broken terminals / turrets need repairing. Makes me feel like I can contribute without having to have that "Killer Instinct" aim. This places the MANA Turret firmly in the "Useless Crap" column for me. I pretty much never deploy it and if I ever do, it is specifically so that I can gain some temporary cover or us it as a stepping stool to get over fences. The thing may as well be a glow in the dark armored STEP LADDER for all I make use of it. Now if I had a deployable barrier? Heck yes I would use that. Block off a door, gain temporary cover during a firefight / grenade throwing contest... the works. MANA Turret? Total useless to me until either my framerate gets boosted.. or the game runs smoother.
I'll say it again. Frontlines: Fuels of War, might have been a bad game, but the Engineer they did right. A bunch of small toys to play with. I would love to see some "automated" turret which i am actively control. Have my engineer look down on a "Tablet" and steer a remotecontrolled turret. At least that way i wouldn't need to hide behind a big glowing billboard that exposes my head to everyone with a little bit of aim.
Turret that's remotely controlled from a small tablet.. and has a limited range "due to wireless signal strength" (or whatever rationale they want to use). Since we would have to be within a certain range of the turret (behind cover obviously) it would still mean that a very skilled grenade throw might get us taken out. It would NOT however expose us as a giant glowing head shot target on the battlefield. Is this really that unbalanced?
I've gotten about 40 kills with mine, so about a kill an hour, and most of those are on top of stairs or in a tech plant or bio lab. Something needs to be done about them outside tho, as they are useless there. There's no argument there. Not sure how they rationalized reducing the engineer class to what it is[still glorious and I can **** out certs no problem] giving the class a dinky turret with 1 upgrade. Lol. There must be more on the way so until then a barrier it is. The remote idea is good, if it needs balancing further we could have the proximity, and maybe you have to be able to see it or something? I'd really like an AA turret with no shield, maybe just a dual machine gun or something with a lot of arc? AV turret could be like what the vanguard secondaries are like. Hell I'd pay top dollar to get that canister gun on it... biolabs would be my heaven
I really hope they add other turrets/deployables you can deploy in place of the current one (whether you have to cert or just hit B). Something like: AV turret. AA turret. Deployable shield. Repair pad. All are ideas I have seen people mention.
Auto-turrets, etc., would help the engineer to do his job: repair, rearm, and support the war effort.
Right now I am mostly trying to figure out what the developer's design intention is for the Engineer role. Do they want it to be more Soldier less Field Technician? I get that we can get certifications from repairing damaged base equipment, plus certs from ammo packs in the midst of a fight. Gaining certs from ammo packs means being near the thick of the fighting if not directly in it, where the HA's and MAX suits are standing and without their wonderful survival tools or sturdiness. I die so much in situations like this that the only saving grace of it has to be the duration of ammo packs and the fact that they last longer than I do, still netting me experience well through my respawn cycle. Staying behind to repair an ENTIRE destroyed base is great experience. It also means getting left behind as the the rest of your herd moves on to the next base they want to decimate and conquer. You repair everything, hop on a Flash and start hussling your butt over to the next base just in time to miss the capture point experience and watch the Mongol Horde moving on to destroy their next target. This process keeps repeating, with you missing out on Ammo Pack, Capture Point, Combat and Turret experience potential for the sake of repairing experience. I'm just not getting it. Is our turret so situationally weak on purpose, as to encourage our falling behind and becoming the "Base Cleanup Crew"? I really did not sign up for Engineer just to become a glorified repair man!
If we do get PS1-style autoturrets, I really hope there's a flamethrower variant. It would bring a new meaning to the word spitfire .
I don't even bother with repairing non-essential things unless I don't have anything better to do. I've specced a good bit into engineering, but I also drive a tank a lot, so as long as I can get one, I'm prolly in there while in the field. I'll hop out to help repair people and drop ammo as needed. When not in a tank I'm all over the place. Keeping our armor and maxes going, giving the forward forces ammo behind the nearest cover, putting AV mines where needed as well as claymores near control points or gens. Its always nice when a loaded sunderer dies trying to cross the nearby bridge. Basically though I feel its our job to help keep our forces able to press on further than they could if we weren't there, with repairing and ammo, as well as pulling off defense in a way no other class can via careful mine use. I use my Lynx a lot though and maintain a positive K/D at least. I have found one good spot for the mana turret though. Biolabs at the airpad facing the edge with the lifts. Generally I'll place it right inside the entrance for a bit better protection from light assaults. The enemy pops up and I just let them have it. Works well unless we can't keep the rockpodders away from the airpad.
I'm not shore if I've posted this here before but, they should make a turret (in AI, AV and AA varieties) that; deploys unassembled (you need to repair to first) must be operated by some one else (maybe the enemy but differently not who deployed it .: requires a two man team) and is more powerful then the normal turret (possibly requires resources)
as is, its useless at best its a bullet/nade magnet you put as far away from you in a room to draw fire until they realize its empty have it be crew-able by anyone on your team (vehicle menu?) and it might be worth a damn cause you could at least try to repair it while it becomes the focus of every ones grenades as is it gets you team kill weapon locks because everyone walks in front of the damn things invisible death stream, de color the shield and give it tracer rounds that way people still know where it is and your team stops walking in to the damn bullets better yet replace it with a sentry gun (TF2/ps1) or a small area infantry shield if engies are just support classes than give them advantages while they are defending facilities (ie better static gun shields or fire rate or auto repair etc.) i thought the whole purpose of an engies turret is that it could partially defend him while he was repairing or handing out ammo and had no weapon equipped? the repair gun can't even deal damage to enemy vehicles/static guns ffs
Funny you should mention this, I was actually just thinking yesterday "I wish my turret was automated".
If we get an automated turret that can only be placed outside, that's fine by me. If it only has a range of 50 - 100 meters.. that's fine by me. If it only damaged infantry and never even targeted vehicles I would still consider this an upgrade.
I can't think of a game where engineers with autoturrets haven't pissed me off - seems a bit cheap really, putting up an AI unit to get your kills for you while you go off and hide somewhere. However, if Planetside 2 can somehow pull it off right, sure. Definitely they shouldn't be allowed indoors. Personally I'd be more in favour of making the MANA turret actually be good than adding auto turrets. What I'd be even more in favour of is replacing the MANA turret completely with something that benefits your team a bit more, wouldn't know what though.
I understand your point of view on this, definitely. Although you could make the turrets disassemble if the ENG goes so far away from it. Also it would be cool if they could summon a shield turret to regen your shields even if you're being fired upon, or a HP regen turret, but I like the shield idea better as it wouldn't mess with medic XP/cert gains.
