What would you do to MAX's to make them useful, skillful, balanced?

Well, comparing the Nebula to the Orion, they both bottom out in the 1,500s at the 50m mark. So even at its worst, the 2xNebula puts out as much damage as the Orion will at the same range. Where you start to see the problem is when you remember that the MAX is locked into hip fire. Just go into VR sometime and see how long it takes you to kill the target dummies at the very back of the shooting range with Nebulas.


As for the shotgun comparison, here are the point blank TTKs (no headshots):
2xNebulas - 0.42s
Automatic Shotty - 0.23s
SA Shotty - 0.26s
Pump - 0.0s

No contest really, but the Nebulas do have more range than the shotguns and are much more forgiving of misses so it's not the best comparison. For the Nebulas in particular, comparing them to the Serpent VE92 is going to be the closest. It comes in at 2013 top end DPS, and while it does bottom out lower than the Nebula it does so farther out. At 50m you have 2xNebula at 1590 and the Serpent at 1577. TTKs at 0 & 50m are naturally also nearly identical, 0.42/0.42 & 0.56/0.56.

So there you go: 2 x Nebulas on a VS Max is essentially a Serpent VE92, except you get 70 more rounds per magazine and can't ADS. Go to the LA forums quick, and see how many of them would be willing to trade all their other weapon attachments and ability to ADS for 70 more rounds.

Considering the reason the MAX crash works is because of its ability to tank damage, those people who want both more HP and less crashes might end up a bit disappointed.

Also: I'd posit the consensus (among people who want a change at all) is "How dare that MAX hurt my pristine KDR. KHAAAaaaaaan!"

To balance MAX suits I would drastically reduce their turn speed so that any infantry player could easily circle-strafe them to death. Then I would buff their resistance to rockets to match the same resistance they have to small arms fire. I would leave mines and C4 as they are (except I would also change it so that C4 has to be planted with a touch mechanic instead of lobbed off the top of buildings/while jump-jetting).

I would do this so that MAX suits would become a unit you pull when you want to help push forward while soaking up damage, instead of a unit people pull because they're tired of losing every 1v1 infantry engagement they experience. You would have to support them so that they don't get easily flanked and bullied by more agile infantry, and luring them into C4/mines would still remain a viable tactic.

Also, only one rez allowed.

Doors. Pity they wouldn't really work in this game.

MAXs are fine the way they are. The only change that I would make would be to give them Empire Specific AA instead of relying on NS Bursters. Maybe lock on AA rockets? Like a Coyote but lock on required? Other than that they are fine. The only reason they seem OP is because you've run into guys that have died enough times to know how to play a MAX smartly.

I would take away the MAX "diversity" - VS and TR get their own MAX shotguns, while NC get some ranged weapons. MAX abilities become 3-4 different abilities that every empire can use.

I would also make them less maneuverable. I think one issue with MAX's is that they are able to turn too quickly so they don't really have the mobility issue that they *should* have. A MAX should be support for infantry, and a lone MAX should be extremely vulnerable.

Oooooh! *jumps up and down* Me, me, me, me, me! *drools a little*

Remove them. They are straight upgrade to infantry, and why shouldn't they be? Mechanized suit of armor with heavy weapons, makes sense it would be straight up better. The only problem is that leads to ****** gameplay.

Alternative would be removing AI weapons from them, and making AV weapons extremely ineffective at AI work.

They're already garbage. How bad would you need them to be?

Comet is hardly ineffective, pretty sure fracture isn't either. Raven I don't know...

Don't get me wrong: in a 1v1 a MAX will generally win <10m no matter what weapon they've got.

But look at the options, first for reference:
M2 Mutilator - Probably the worst AI weapon in the entire MAX arsenal. Has an optimal TTK of 0.45 and if you cert it for extended mags it has the capacity to kill 42 people in 22 seconds before reloading.

Now the AV weapons:
Fracture - Takes 5 shots (half the mag) to kill, and has the rof of a pump action shotgun. Anything less than 100% accuracy and you're looking at roughly 1 kill every 5 seconds. 100% will get you 2 kills every 8s-ish.
Pounder - Probably the one with the most room for error. Only takes 3 hits out of 8 in the mag to kill, so you're allowed to miss a shot and still get 2 kills before reloading. Also has one of the slowest projectiles in the game, so even at it's best your looking at around 2 kills in 7 seconds.

Comet - Can only get one kill per mag, and you're only allowed to miss one of your 4 rounds. Somehow even slower than the Pounders, but don't have the drop to compensate for. If your aim is true, you can look forward to a kill every 2.3s.
Vortex - Ok, this one is way better than I was expecting. At least in the sense of kills per magazine. 6 shots to kill with the 1st level charge, so you can get 4 kills per mag with perfect aim. Upper end looks like approximately 1 kill per second. A gem in the rough.

Falcon - Easy to evaluate. If you hit, you kill - 1 kill per 2 second reload. If you miss, then this probably isn't the weapon for you.
Raven - And somehow these projectiles keep getting slower. Is there anything in the game worse than 85m/s? The Phoenix maybe? Either way, if you somehow manage to hit somebody directly with these it's 3 hits to kill. You'll blow your entire mag if you have to depend on the splash. Top end is 1 kill every 2.75s.

So there you go. The AV weapons can kill. And in some cases do so in such a way as to completely dominate short range 1v1 encounters. But as I showed before, the AI weapons are basically just regular infantry guns with bigger magazines and even the worst one is so much better than the AV options.

Those are laboratory TTKs, but for balance we have to consider actual battle conditions. AI weapons might have the ammo to kill dozens, but chances are, 42 people won't line up to be killed, so in actual combat you'll likely get less kills. Defending a control point you may get lots of kills, otherwise in the open you'll probably only encounter a couple of guys in effective range at a time.

That being said, the versatility of being able to effectively shoot at vehicles, then fend off a couple of infantry too, that's where the problem lies. Comets more than others, considering the lack of drop...

NC MAX weapons seem to work against infantry just fine.
Worse than a pistol. I want them to be so bad that it would be a better choice to use MAX punch than try to fire them at infantry.

Which is why the AV weapons seem so attractive. You're right, you aren't going to see a steady stream of 42 people walking blindly into the arms of a MAX single file (except in the odd montage). You are probably only going to see a couple at a time, and those you do see are most likely going to run for cover at the sight of you. As long as you can keep to 1v1 and 1v2 fights, AV weapons work OK. As soon as you actually need to fight a real group of infantry you're going to be hurting.

remove them entirely

I'd make MAXes 2x slower, 30% bigger, with 3x more HP and all AI weapon would be like nerfed MANA turrets - good suppressive fire but very inaccurate. Revive and repair would be 2x slower. Would get nice pushing unit but not a good killer, very weak if solo.

The Pounder MAX is so good at everything I almost feel dirty for using it, but at least I'm killing a lot of other MAXs so I like to think I'm doing the game a service in between mowing down infantry and vehicles.

Currently VS/TR AI MAXs have a "massive" 0.3 second longer TTK at 0-8m and a faster TTK at 8m+. Reducing DPS would actually hurt NC AI MAXs the most as they'd lose thier 0 second (0-8m) TTK and any "advantage" they have.

Currently any VS and TR AI MAX can win any MAX AI fight where either they NC AI MAX doesn't have extended mags (or Grinders) or where they have KA5.

Never mind that they'd be able to survive at least one C4 anyway.

MAX AI weapons would certainly need to be rebalanced (and maybe changed)......... but that is a good thing.





AV weapons would be more problematic, but I think balancable in the end (they'd likely have to have reduced AI damage for increase AV damage).
AA might be the most difficult given that high AA DPS is needed, but then they don't have great AI or AV damage currently.

Maybe you don't but given MAXs are insanely vulerable to it if you decimated their DPS you have to actually make them walking tanks or they become pointless.

PS1 MAXs were much more like this.

I think if they were to reduce their DPS they'd need to buff everything defensively to make them worthwhile viable.

At the moment if you're playing with KA5 you can take quite a bit of small arms damage and frankly could get away with a signficant DPS reduction...... but you're still insanely vulerable to C4 and rockets.

Conversly if you're running Flak 5 at the moment it really helps with C4 and to a lesser degree rockets, but you still go down to concentrated small arms pretty quickly.


I think reducing DPS by half would need a big old buff (probably double) to both.

I don't want to do that either.

MAXs seem to be in a good place right now. When Libs went nuts, you could tell because they were everywhere. Every spawn room had Libs crowded over it jostling for position to farm the most fools willing to leave the safety of the shields.

MAXs? Not so much. They're out there, and MAX crashes are a pant soiling experience if you don't see them coming, but they just aren't that hard to deal with.