[Suggestion] Thumpers? Thumpers.

So I've been itching for the thumper (among other weapons. rocklet rifle? Dragon?) for quite some time now. I'm sure there are plently of sighs and eyerolls, but hear me out. I've been dying for weapon type variety in this game. All the terrible degrading things I'd do for something that isn't another flipping carbine.

Some suggestions for a balanced multishot thumper:
Damage: Perhaps we bring it down to a 4 round magazine with a 2 shot kill (if grenades directly hit) or if we elect to keep the 6-pack-attack we bump it up to 3 well placed grenades, and an extra grenade required for both HA shields and flak users.
Explosion Radius: This one eludes me since pretty much everybody who plays this game throws a hissy-fit if they take damage from anything that isn't a doggone bullet. The devs would know more about a fair radius than I would.
Fire rate: For those that played Planetside 1 the thumper had a rather sluggish fire rate. This helps to cement it's role as a support weapon. The only way you won duels with the thumper was if the player had horrid aim or was half dead. Give it a fire rate that's slow enough that it can't keep up with true primaries, but fast enough to get follow up shots on static players and maintain sustained pressure as it's role intends.
Ammo types: I think with this game's time to kill plasma rounds are out of the question. Not to mention the ginormous influx of weapon locks :3. Conc/flash rounds would be neat, but probably more fun for the user and less fun for everybody else. While not quite broken, it'd definitely be obnoxious. Perhaps HEAT rounds with an emphasis on AV/MAX damage? Smokes would add some nice utility for stealth oriented LAs.
Other balancing factors: How about making the rounds glow your faction color like tracers? So if it were to be a LA weapon you risked your position being found as a trade off for such a potentially powerful tool/weapon? Frankly I'm not even sure what slot it'd be in. Primary or tool?

Just some thoughts. Let us discuss.

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Because we don't have enough grenade spam as it is?!?

This.

I see no problem with your base idea. I do, however, see a problem with the community using your base idea. Let's take the idea of a racecar on American (or whichever country you happen to be from) streets.

One guy with a racecar? Hey, cool.
10 guys with racecars? No problem at all.
Even 100 guys with racecars? Why worry?
EVERYONE with racecars? Disaster waiting to happen.

I just don't think our community is responsible enough to handle something like that. (We can hardly drive an ATV without a friendly slaughter ensuing). But, your idea itself, I like. Not something I'd use (cloaker4lyfe) but I would find it an interesting addition to the game, especially with multiple ammo types iterated. Needless to say, it'd take a good long while to balance something like that, but I think it'd be neat.

What about only Light-Assaults with Racecars?

(Now how's that metaphor go again?)

Skip to 48s



Still a great game

what about lemme roll this out we give it to light assaults (don't freak out)....HAY I TOLD YOU NOT TO FREAK OUT!!

also what if they are only able to do debuff kind of munitions say smoke, flash (weak flash) , concussion grenades? those kind of things and we put it in the light assault tool slot AND it can only get more rounds from a terminal and they only get 1 full reload extra with say a 4-6 round revolving cylinder/or mag fed GL

i think there should be a ns version and empire specific versions with small bonuses for being so tr's has more shots and it's mag fed vs's shoots faster and has less drop nc's has a little worse drop and less rounds but it's grenades have a slightly bigger effective radius

after all this i don't think anyone will freak out except when they are concqed 4 times in a row and it adds more flavor to the game.

Supposedly they are developing it........ I'm not sure they'll get it to work myself (they had to cancel MAX grenade launchers and seemingly indefinately postpone MAX flamer), as it would seem in PS2 it would either be useless (basically an UBGL with no rifle) or massively overpowered (infantry portable pounder) with no real middle ground.

From Tribes Ascend
Break-action
http://www.tribesascendwiki.com/Thumper Primary
http://www.tribesascendwiki.com/Thumper_D Secondary
http://www.tribesascendwiki.com/Thumper_DX Secondary

And the nadespam continues...

well, all i can say is, i would ******* adore one, since i got good with them in TF2, but with all the crying i highly doubt somebody would put it in. as for balance, i would go for more of a battery and toggle thing. setting one: direct hits count only, no splash, no bounce [maybe very mild] but you have your full 4 shots [the damage would need to reflect the skill it took to plonk someone with a slow firing, semi auto weapon]. setting two: bounce, no direct hit, 1/3 of your health [if shields are down] BUT ONLY TWO SHOTS PER RELOAD. so. you can bounce them round corners, but the guy has a chance to move while you reload.
i don't know. like i say, i'd buy that on launch, but good luck getting it in the game. that's the sad part of such a wide playerbase.

They tried to give grenade launchers to MAXes, the result was so hilariously OP they scrapped the idea, because it was almost impossible to balance, I think that happened before the MAX update, there were also flamethrowers, but also impossible to balance.

This is all that remains:

Grenade launchers


Flamethrowers

1. To me it feels like it'd be a cop-out to appease LA players, essentially just making them a mini HA. In function it'd serve more or less the same purpose as rocket launchers save for what would likely be less vehicle damage as a trade off for different round types.
2. A single shot grenade launcher just makes this game one step closer to the space-battlefield clone it already is.
3. In order to be remotely useful or comparable to HA rockets or UBGLs it would also have to have a OSK on direct impact. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not too keen on OSKs in this game. It doesn't sound very fun to get grenade sniped from a rooftop. I would much rather deal with a bit of spammy splash provided the explosive radius isn't the size of a house. At least then you have a chance to evade or counter attack.”

My gripes from another thread about single shot grenade launchers
quote="MaRyuu, post: 2984790, member: 188184"]From Tribes Ascend
Break-action
http://www.tribesascendwiki.com/Thumper Primary
http://www.tribesascendwiki.com/Thumper_D Secondary
http://www.tribesascendwiki.com/Thumper_DX Secondary

And the nadespam continues...[/quote]

I agree that bounce would let users put grenades where they probably shouldn't be, but a grenade launcher with no radius is a glorified tennis ball launcher, removing the useful trait of sustainable burst suppression, crowd disperal, and cover invalidation

are you talking about something like the under barrel grenade/smoke launcher that's already ingame?

uote="Rikkit, post: 2984948, member: 149288"]are you talking about something like the under barrel grenade/smoke launcher that's already ingame?[/quote]

Nope. The thumper was a standalone grenade launcher in planetside 1. A support weapon. And surprisingly more tricky and skillful than you might think.

I thought of an additional balancing factor: Individual grenade reloading. Rather than changing out the whole cylinder/magazine like it's PS1 counterpart you have to load each grenade individually.

Pretty sure Higgles said that the Rocket Rifle is in development right now.

I'm sure threre'd be a large influx of players who use it because it's new, but would likely get bored and move on to other things or things they used to play. Not to mention those who don't learn the ways of the thumper quickly or are simply not careful get themselves a nice weaponlock.

I'm not sure how they will work ammo types for either rocklet rifles or thumpers if they become tool slots instead of primary weapons. Much like how the heavy assault has multiple types of rocket launchers as a way to monetize the game. Would instead there just be a dedicated HE grenade launcher, EMP launchers, and the like? If it were a primary would it even have optics? or some derpy leaf sight?
Also, I think this weapon would encourage more people to run flak armor. Which is something SOE has been saying to do for the longest time for dealing with vehicle explosions.

I always assumed it would be included as an alternative to the HA's rocket launcher. I guess you could give it to LAs if is was enough of a side grade?

I feel like SOE needs to figure out what rifle grenades are meant to be first, though.

The Thumper should shoot the same projectiles as UBGLs, and UBGLs should shoot the same projectiles as the M40 Fury.