Enduar

I know how these things are after all this time, I'm not questioning the work- just giving a reminder that I, and I'm sure others, are still interested in how things are going regardless of how slow or how much the info might lack "entertainment value". I want another blog where I can bitch at Wally about laser/ion/pixie rifles for 6 pages, anything to spark discussion. As for questions I suppose I'll ask a few again that I'm fairly sure I never saw a response to: Finally, I'm sure it's probably well known by now that I have a habit of conceptualizing mechanics, units/structures, maps, singleplayer plotlines- etc, that probably have the team scratching their heads and groaning that I'm wasting time thinking of things they'll never have the need or desire to spend time creating. My question is, what DO you need? I'm going to keep doodling and having fun with it so you might as well point me in the right direction to fall in line with some of the team's plans. Are there any new weapons being introduced (Such as the semi-auto rifles replacing snipers), or perhaps entire new units being introduced to fill gaps as each team requires balancing with the new infantry lineup? I can draw any of these sorts of things and would be happy to contribute ideas. I entered a contest on the old forums with a unit design that was, at the time, going to be introduced into the game as a new infantry unit- I'm totally still up for seeing something I conceptualized being put into a mod I've been following for all these years, or at least providing food-for-thought to whoever does end up designing something new.

It's been a couple months, and maybe my memory is failing me again- but wasn't there a Q&A Podcast planned about a year ago that just vaporized into nothing? Because I asked some questions there that, really, I'm still interested in knowing the answers to. As I'm sure you're all well aware of with the year winding down into the holidays and no updates since the beginning of summer... It's been a while since we've seen anything. I could care less if there's nothing to show (Which I doubt anyways), but I think with this much time having passed the recent workings and future plans of Reborn could bear some repeating- I sure as hell could use a refresher at least.

The Barracks needed to be a little bigger inside. I'm guessing you guys will be making a little underground portion, in a similar way to the APB Barracks? I'd guess it needs more room inside to make hacking more viable, since with it's current claustrophobic state that would sort of be impossible.

Uh.... What's wrong with the structures? They all look pretty spectacular, in my opinion- the only thing I could see improving them would be more expansive interiors, but that's pretty negligible. Unless I've missed something.

I personally think Ice is obnoxious but he definitely obesses over very tiny details, which as a tester could prove useful for noticing the small, barely noticable things that most other testers overlook. If you ignore posts about how GunA really should be modeled after RealLifeGunA instead of RealLifeGunB and any balance suggestions he makes (IMO) you'd probably find him useful for bug reports like the impact bullets have on certain surfaces and things of that sort. ^ This And, at least he means well by most of what I've seen him do here.

The Radar looks fine so far. All that's missing are the buildings around the base of it and some detail- for a WIP it's what you should expect.

Goddamn, Mick, that Mobile EMP is excellent.

Kerubium, or rather the confessor might be a good candidate for some C4.

Well, since there won't be mines to worry about it shouldn't be too hard. I think it will play out alright, the only structure I could see someone having trouble infiltrating would be the Barracks. War Factories are usually the busiest part of a base, but considering how enormous the GDI War Factory is I don't think the Chameleon Spy will have much of an issue sneaking through. Especially if the Stealth Effect is still that faint, nearly impossible to see shimmering effect I seem to remember. Anyway, I kind of agree with R3. The chameleon spy sounds decent enough for killing people trying to repair the base, and causing some minor (but unfortunately easy to detect) distractions. I'd like to see some additional way to make the class more subversive. Maybe the Chameleon Spy could be used to trick Sensor Arrays, or trigger false alarms? Something like that Nod aircraft did in Tiberium Wars where it causes duplicate signatures to appear on Radar, except it would do the same to subterranean/cloaked unit detection via the MSA. That way the Chameleon Spy could be used to feint the enemy by creating a fake rush, drawing defenders away from a real threat. I'm still not sure how the MSA is going to detect units, or inform the team of it- so this is mostly wishful thinking, but I think it would be a neat idea to see in action.

Hm. I guess it's easier to keep it C4-like, I would guess it would complicate things trying to make it deal some negligible point of damage every now and then to achieve the same effect. At any rate, I don't think it's a big deal. Did you guys have any idea yet how many decoys the Chameleon Spy will be allowed to carry?

It was my understanding that Reborn's C4 would function more like APB's than Renegades, making it a much more serious threat. That said the first thing that comes to mind is the panic induced by hearing that subtle beeping noise, not the "building damaged" bit. So I guess it's not useless, just... Not as much of a panic/troll tactic like I thought. Now that I've mentioned it, though, I do rather like the idea of a persistent, random-ish diversion device. Same concept, except rather than "blowing up" (or whatever the decoy mine will do) once, it will stay attached and randomly trigger the warning until it's removed, or a certain amount of time has passed.

Damn, ICE has a point. If no Nod units get C4, then the decoy C4 is pretty much a pointless ruse- Nobody would fall for it, unless the "No Nod C4" bit is going to be revised (Though I'm not particularly sure which unit/units would end up getting C4 at this point). Maybe it could be a decoy superweapon beacon, or perhaps a bug that when attached to the Engineer's hacking point would randomly set off "Building under attack" alerts until disabled?

There's probably some fairly recent stuff from back when we tested on the old forums. For now everything should still look generally the same, I wouldn't think they'd have had the time to introduce most of the new models they've shown off.

Not too bad. Still wish there was some way to stealth buildings in Reborn, though.

In the RTS the stealth generator was inordinately large. How do you guys plan to scale it with the other structures in Reborn?

Hmm... You know how in the cutscene where the MKII is destroyed by the Banshees? How about that cool looking green electrical burning effect when it hits a player, coupled with a nice glowing hole if it misses and hits the ground?

Sounds like fun. Now that I think about it, the lingering AOE effect like a gas cloud isn't all that hard to imagine either since it's basically just the flamethrower's effect with a different appearance. (I do actually try to stay pretty skeptical of engine limitations when I post an idea) Since you liked that, maybe it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to apply this sort of mechanic to other vehicles that have less interesting/useful perks. Like having the Orca Bomber get a sort of napalm bomb (Wider blast, lingering fire, less overall damage, and higher ammo cost to prevent lag inducing fields of fire). A lot of people have mentioned that Radar Invisibility isn't quite so effective since aircraft are pretty easy to see (unlike the Jump Jet). (And if we're going to follow the same trend with the other aircraft, I'm not quite so sure how I'd modify those. Maybe the ability for the Banshee's projectiles to track targets better, or higher missile velocity for the Orca Fighter for better strafing against Nod's light vehicles) ** Not trying to get ahead of myself, here, I'm happy the chemical missiles will see the light of day. Just curious if we can take it farther and see similar balance among each faction's aircraft.

The VTOL refill logic only works with one instance of ammo, so any weapon the aircraft has will draw from a single pool of Ammo, I believe.

Could do something more interesting with the missile rather than just straight up anti-vehicle damage or splash. Maybe something like a chemical missile that damages infantry over time? Maybe it could also be given a lingering AOE if possible. Just something to consider.

Bear in mind, it's likely no cyborg will be able to drive vehicles- they'll only be able to be passengers.

Likely too much trouble to do, considering the sort of attitude I've found here- but choice is always a good thing to have in any game. Waaaaay back on the old forums I suggested a similar method where you could customize infantry by purchasing simple additions like a small medkit, extra ammo, and more expensive stuff in a similar way to how the Ion Cannon beacon was purchased in Renegade- your proposal is similar, just with vehicles instead (and likely not interchangeable among different units).

That's how it has been, issue is that if GDI finds out there is a MSG cloaked nearby, due to it being a neutral abandoned vehicle they could scan the area and wait for the hitbox to pop up and label it, cloaked or not. I'm not sure if that was ever fixed/removed, and in a sense effectively renders it's own personal cloak useless if the enemy is wise to the method. The cloaked-abandoned MSG is still useful, but it's a serious flaw in the engine that hurts it significantly. Edit: I think I've said this before, but self destruction for the Stealth Tank, while a bit more sensible than the slow disruptor, still doesn't benefit gameplay as much as other options such as modifying it's weapon or its cloaking speed (if possible) in my opinion. The self destruction is one-time-use, as opposed to other upgrades which are active and benefit the driver continuously throughout use of the vehicle. It also rewards death, rather than victory- which is a bit backwards. Cheaper more expendable units would be more sensible (Attack Bike), but typically when a player invests in the highest tier vehicle for a side, they're going to want to hold on to it for a while. That said it could also be said most players might be more appreciative of a perk that would ensure survivability.

While on paper the usefulness of having a final blast take out the surround enemies might be good, for GDI with their large, slow moving vehicles, you're far more likely to hit a friendly than hitting one of the Nod units which are much more focused on controlling engagement range and avoiding getting in close. If this goes through I can see a lot of people intentionally avoiding rank ups so that they aren't a liability to their team-mates, on GDI. Other than that, I don't see any cannons shooting rainbows so there's not much to complain about, and most of the odd stuff like slow assault-focused vehicles gaining scouting perks has been mentioned. While sticking true to TS is nice in some aspects, the gameplay and balance of these games are entirely different. I really would suggest NOT going straight by the book in regards to rank ups and give units like the Titan and Stealth Tank more sensible veterancy upgrades like more firepower or speed. Why not give some of them incendiary or armor piercing capabilities more in-line with the respective infantry upgrades, or perhaps increasing blast radius? At any rate, it's just a little backward giving HP Regen to light scout vehicles, and scout perks to heavy assault ones. Anyway, can't wait for whatever "witty" (mocking, disrespectful, childish) comment I get under my name in big red letters for this blog.

Lol. That's quite a workaround.

Judging by the fact that he mentioned somewhere earlier that both commando units would be getting buffed, even from the point where we saw them testing (I assume), I would imagine they are intended to be pretty damn powerful. But just remember you'll only see one and both will likely be pretty damned expensive. While "Buff" usually just means higher damage or more health/resistances, I think buffing the way they fight (hitscan for GS and a tracking projectile for the CC) might be more interesting, and atleast make playing as them more fun. If you're spending a few thousand credits on an infantry class, you'd hope it would be worth the investment.