A Path Beyond Get rid of "instant repair" Golden Wrench?

[Pushwall]

Golden wrench spam seems to be quite the source of rage as well as failed attacks that honestly should have succeeded - even after being nerfed from its old RenAlert state of literally instant full repair to merely trickling up ~9% of a building's health per second (which, it turns out, is still a damn lot given technicians repair 2% per second) and capping out at 2/3rds of it per purchase. Given how long it's been around, I can see why some people might think it's just "part of the game". But maybe it's time for it to go? After all we've done away with quite a few alienating antique features already.

So what's everyone's thoughts on this, and the possibility of changing the Golden Wrench to just be a slightly stronger version of the Repair Tool? Would buildings need to be made tougher to compensate as well maybe? Or should we just keep it in its "emergency repair" state and nerf it even more?

There's some positive side effects to making it a "better repair tool" as well: it means he doesn't need the repair tool anymore - removing some clutter from his weapon list. And since it would share warhead behaviour with the repair tool, it would also mean we'd be able to deal with another oft-requested thing: allowing both Technicians and Engineers to capture neutral buildings on Pipeline/Hostile Waters. Though Engineers would do it at a much faster rate so there's still a reason to use them, and Technicians would do it slowly enough that it's easy to stop them if they're unprotected.

[ChopBam]

Call me an ould soul, but I like the golden wrench.

[JigglyJie]

I like the golden wrench but I don't think it should be entirely gone or nerfed anymore; however I do see the problem with it. (what about signal flares, btw?)

What I do think is, in the event of a possible removal of the wrench is that Engineers should be able to repair a bit faster than a Technician. These guys cost quite a bit of money and I expect to be able to repair faster with the default method, staring at that MCT and repairing whilst under a heavy siege drives me insane. Additionally, building durability would need to be increased a tad so artillery/V2/demo/MAD spam won't wreck the building(s) in a few hits due to the lack of the wrench.

 

However, the possibility of capturing neutral/enemy tech buildings is very appealing and something I requested too... so we're in a bit of a predicament.

[Pushwall]

27 minutes ago, JigglyJie said:

(what about signal flares, btw?)

The disarm speed difference between the wrench and repair tool is actually not that big compared to the repair speed difference - it's 5 seconds for the wrench and 12.5 for the repair tool. Which yes, is a lot in practice, but I'd say the engy's durability plays just as much of a role in helping him succeed at disarming. If the "stronger repair tool disguised as a wrench" goes through, it'll just mean this difference gets narrowed somewhat with the side effect of Technicians being a little better than before, not that it'll help them unless the area's completely clear of enemies. A plus to this is there's no possibility of getting blindsided by running out of wrench use while disarming (which may happen if you're in combat and desperately trying to disarm it while avoiding vehicles and bullets) and having to switch to the tool.

Taking Reborn as a base where the engineer was 50% more effective than the techie, a possible outcome here would be 10.5 seconds for the techie repair tool and 7 for the "totally not a repair tool" wrench.

27 minutes ago, JigglyJie said:

What I do think is, in the event of a possible removal of the wrench is that Engineers should be able to repair a bit faster than a Technician.

Well, if he gets a stronger repair tool it would just be reskinned to look like a Golden Wrench. After all, he's not an Engineer without it, and we might as well reuse that asset

[JigglyJie]

25 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

The disarm speed difference between the wrench and repair tool is actually not that big compared to the repair speed difference - it's 5 seconds for the wrench and 12.5 for the repair tool. Which yes, is a lot in practice, but I'd say the engy's durability plays just as much of a role in helping him succeed at disarming

That's interesting to know however the wrench is a panic tool often utilised (in with bunnyhopping disarmers) to remove the flare ASAP. Most of the time a flare is competently defended and the removal of that panic tool means it's likely defenders won't be able to disarm. Perhaps that would warrant an increased time for the a-bomb to hit?

[Chaos_Knight]

While I admittedly haven't played in a while (but was considering making a return :P), Golden Wrench was always a way to minimize the necessary manpower on the (frankly boring) MCT repair job so that your teammates can fend off the attackers. You should also keep in mind that arty and V2 unlike Reborn counterparts can and will wreck the personnel inside the structure which made repairing with tool alone pretty unfeasable (exceptioins are RD and CY) if you are dealing with more than 1 of them at the time.

So now you'd have to also nerf artillery units in some way, and last time I checked they weren't exactly OP.

Another thing is general "game philosophy" if you wish. APB is for the matter of fact more of "high risk - high reward" game. You want to kill the building but there's somebody inside? Well, go in and kill that person/people, and structure will fall in a matter of seconds. You don't want/can't? Well, hope that either someone else will or that your enemy's economy is broken enough they won't be able to afford an engie.
Attack doesn't "deserve" to succeed just because there're more of the attackers than the defenders in base at the time, and Wrench helps exactly that case.

[Pushwall]

55 minutes ago, Chaos_Knight said:

You should also keep in mind that arty and V2 unlike Reborn counterparts can and will wreck the personnel inside the structure which made repairing with tool alone pretty unfeasable (exceptioins are RD and CY) if you are dealing with more than 1 of them at the time.

For Technicians and most other infantry that's as true as it's always been, but Engineers are pretty beefy now (50% explosion resistance, has armour while techies don't, can't be set on fire - that last bit being something that was constantly advertised in Gamma but never actually true) so they can stand up pretty well under arty fire as long as there's a wall separating them (so repairing defenses under arty fire is still difficult). Maybe some of that could go?

This was more for encouraging their use in the field than enhancing their already good repairs though - besides, even before that change, I think the only times I've ever seen an ENGINEER in a building die to arty fire (without any help from infiltrating infantry or incidental mine detonations) is from 3 V2s hitting it in sync, and maybe once or twice of someone being too stubborn to refill when the building isn't even near death. But the damage those 3 V2s deal is now equivalent to an entire golden wrench use whereas in Gamma a golden wrench could repair 9 or 10 V2s worth of damage I think? So now it cripples the defender's economy even more which... you're getting into anyway. Heh.

Good points all around.

@JigglyJieif the wrench stays I could easily just ditch the special warhead so both the wrench and the tool can do captures. But right now the wrench warhead, compared to the tool, is half as effective against disarmables and building exteriors - of course since the wrench has more base "damage" that's not true in practice, it just means that switching to the tool warhead would mean the wrench would suddenly be twice as good in those categories. Which would be quite a problem especially for disarmables. How'd you like to disarm a flare in 2.5 seconds - or, if the warhead was nerfed to compensate, being in a situation where you have to resort to a techie to disarm in 25 seconds 

I could also just let the tool do captures, but then the only time you'd actually end up using engies for captures is being Allies on Pipeline (because people love to AP mine the derricks). So the Soviets get to save even more money on the map they're already moderately favoured on.

[Killing_You]

Personally, I've always hated the golden wrench. I say we get rid of it, at least temporarily to see how it works.

[OrangeP47]

I've gotten blocked by the wrench a few times recently, but despite that I don't think it's a bad thing, per se. It's an option defenders have which is good because initiative typically rests with the attackers, and it forces the attackers to come up with a new plan, such as quickly switching targets, etc. That's just what I want to add to what's already been said.

[ChopBam]

I've always found the golden wrench useful to use, and I've never been particularly annoyed if an enemy used it while I was attacking. The golden wrench contributes to a dynamic that sets this game apart from Renegade: there are single units that can very quickly destroy (demolition trucks, tanyas) and single units that can very quickly repair (golden wrenches), making for gameplay that is more interesting and less stale. It encourages strategy and risk, which includes the rewarding feeling of rushing into a besieged building to eliminate those pesky yellow hats.

Golden wrenches also make the barracks more important. One of the main deciding factors as to whether I'll target the barracks is to eliminate opposing engineers from the round.

It's also RA-listic, and while this can't be an important reason by itself, there should be some things in this game that point directly to Red Alert, and I believe single-use engineer repairs are one of them.

[NoSoldier]

1 hour ago, ChopBam said:

and I've never been particularly annoyed

5 hours ago, Chaos_Knight said:

(frankly boring) MCT repair job

Thanks for pointing these two things out. I'm split between either opinion. The golden wrench is an option to do a fast (boring) job. You're able to counter an attack that already happened and is happening. 

If it's discarded people might repair even less.

At the same time... It's pretty easy to imagine that people get pissed off if a bunnyhopping engineer is able to outjump 3 people attacking the Refinery and thus able to keep it alive. (even though that requires ones skillset and teamwork anyway)

If we keep the golden wrench I'd say that the engineer needs to be (a tad) slower.

 

[Pushwall]

31 minutes ago, DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr said:

Like how you made the C4 weapons have a charge time just like planting a flare/beacon, could you do the same for the golden wrench? That would eliminate bunny hopping engineers from cockblocking attacking shotties from finishing off the building's MCT.

I didn't want C4 to have a charge time - there's a future feature that would mean C4 without a charge time could be impossible to disarm in more situations, so I might as well nip that problem in the bud now.

With the golden wrench, charge time sounds like a good idea for this instance, but it's not possible because charge time happens for each shot you make. Except for tesla coils but they don't use actual charging logic - they're able to get away with emulating odd things because they're not being manually fired by a player. Perhaps the repair "damage" could be spread out over a smaller ammo count to facilitate charging but that could complicate captures...

31 minutes ago, DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr said:

So Pushy, what made you rethink the golden wrench? Were people bitching about it during game night?

Nope, just popped into my head. There's a reason I throw these kinds of ideas to you guys

[Chaos_Knight]

2 hours ago, NoSoldier said:

bunnyhopping engineer is able to outjump 3 people attacking the Refinery

Well, if you don't keep your eye on radar, who's to blame really? You see that enemy dot approach and do your best to make sure it won't be a problem. Even better if the person would stop by a PT to switch to engie. Gives you some extra time to shoot a stationary target dead.

Now if the guy buys the engie in advance, sneaks in and then foils your plans? Well, that's certainly some commitment.

If switching is a problem though, which it kinda always was to be honest, is it possible to instead add sort of a delay on char switch which would freeze person in place? Like 1-2 sec, not more, so that it becomes unfeasable during direct fire from the enemy. That would certainly help the cases of "rebuy is not a refill!" thing which was going on back in the day.

[Pushwall]

31 minutes ago, Chaos_Knight said:

If switching is a problem though, which it kinda always was to be honest, is it possible to instead add sort of a delay on char switch which would freeze person in place? Like 1-2 sec, not more, so that it becomes unfeasable during direct fire from the enemy. That would certainly help the cases of "rebuy is not a refill!" thing which was going on back in the day.

I'll have to ask the scripters about this, sounds like a solution. Could be extended to refills as well since we still don't have a proper solution for refills in combat.

Thing is though, respawning counts as buying a character; currently we have a thing that prevents you from rebuying too fast - 3 seconds - and if you try to buy right after spawning you get denied. So adding this feature would make spawnkilling easier?

[OrangeP47]

Is refilling an open issue? I'm not 100% on the rules but I just never use it under fire ever to be safe, but lately I've seen some people being rude with it (and not the 'lol rude' that I say when being sarcastic either, like legit). I think back in ren I was on a server had that a script that made refil not work within like 3 seconds of having taken damage.

[Pushwall]

Refilling in combat is a bad mannered thing, supposed to be against the rules, but detecting and dealing with it is pretty difficult compared to, say, demo noobing. There used to be a bot plugin that made it so if you tried to refill while in combat it would reset your health to what it was before the refill (which still afforded you a tiny bit of protection due to lag), so that eliminated any need to moderate it (except when the bot wasn't around, but then you couldn't moderate anyway), but I believe it's not compatible anymore. I personally just rebuy and even that's somewhat cheesy.

[OrangeP47]

Yeah, I had a guy between the Euro and US session yesterday just buying rifles and techies back and forth while I was fighting him. Since it was 1 on 1 I didn't complain 

[Raap]

I haven't been able to play recently or catch a filled server when I could, but my 2 cents:

• I always thought the limited ammo super repair tool felt gimmicky.
• It prolonged matches unnecessarily due to being a cheap, solo, and low-skill ceiling counter to any team-based attack.
• It does have use in Hostile Waters due to neutral building logic, so a change would need to be made there.
• I'd say ditch the wrench model and give engineers a re-textured "Improved Repair Tool" which repairs very slightly better.
• Engineers retain their purpose with C4, mine-clearing and detection, and general repairs.
• Removing the wrench reduces the inventory clutter that Engineers have.

Edited March 26, 2017 by Raap

[MPRA2]

I do understand the frustration of last millisecond saves by 1 or 2 engineers getting to the MCT and bringing a structure from 1% all the way up to 70% in 10 seconds so, going with Raap's idea, personally I think the Wrench should be a 1 time use (per buy to mimic RAelism) that can repair defenses anywhere by 10-35%, Main Structure (non MCT) 5%, any MCT 10-20%, and should half disarm a flare. as for capturable structures, it should just insta-cap a structure. as for the repair tool, it could be anything, from a gold textured repair tool, to an actual repair tool (blowtorch or etc.) of sorts... (if we are going the cell phone route, make it a laptop like the HackTops in Rebarnz).

It probably would be a good idea that the Engineer Repair Kit/Tool to do around 10-30% more repair than the standard techie tool.

that's just something I'd like to see at least tested out or looked over... If something like this isn't possible, then just limit the repair tool to 1 25% repair to MCT per buy, and give the engineer a stronger repair tool as stated above...

[Chaos_Knight]

9 hours ago, Raap said:

I always thought the limited ammo super repair tool felt gimmicky.

Well, this is where we differ. It along with better C4s and lower TTK is what set APB apart from TSR or Renegade for me.

9 hours ago, Raap said:

It prolonged matches unnecessarily due to being a cheap, solo, and low-skill ceiling counter to any team-based attack.

If by team-based you mean tank zerg rush then yes, it stops that. Not completely fool-proof but it helps. Because said zerg rush is just as cheap, low-skill tactic, except it involves several people.
If by team-based you mean people who actually coordinate and bring assorted units (it actually used to happen, believe it or not) then no, it won't save that because there's someone clearing out buildings, blocking entrances when needed and neutralizing enemies like they SHOULD.
TSR suffered very heavily from the simple fact that everyone ignored the defenders and went straight for the structures back in the day. Idk how it is now. Wrench prevents that also and does it well enough.

9 hours ago, Raap said:

I'd say ditch the wrench model and give engineers a re-textured "Improved Repair Tool" which repairs very slightly better.

TSR called. They want their ideas back
On a serious note, APB has already lost enough of high-risk/high-reward gameplay to even out skill floors and ceilings.

9 hours ago, Raap said:

Engineers retain their purpose with C4, mine-clearing and detection, and general repairs.

Artillery units say hi for destroying mines if any. Worked pretty well last time I checked. Engies just make it easier.
C4 is fun, I guess but idk. As someone said back in the day "For 500 I expect more than just a brick of plastic explosives".

10 hours ago, Raap said:

Removing the wrench reduces the inventory clutter that Engineers have.

Is that even a problem? I am fairly sure that everyone who played any shooter besides Call of Duty/Halo knows how to manage 4-5 items in the inventory.

[ChopBam]

I agree with CK.

[des1206]

11 hours ago, Chaos_Knight said:

On a serious note, APB has already lost enough of high-risk/high-reward gameplay to even out skill floors and ceilings.

 

I'm curious as to which ones you think APB has lost?

[Chaos_Knight]

5 hours ago, des1206 said:

I'm curious as to which ones you think APB has lost?

Well, I speak from Beta perspective so keep that in mind:

- Infantry TTK in general;
- Beretta;
- C4s and GWrenches;
- Tricky but rewarding shots if done right (headshots with Shockie, Serg and allied rifle 3-shot, grenade to the face);
- Vulnerable (100/100) yet powerful phase;
- Phase driver class mattered (not sure if recent patch brought that back). You could choose between utility and better stealth;
- Dangerous demos;
- Combat-viable artillery units if you knew how to handle them.
- Even depth charges handling;
- Vehicle reload when driver is out (not just med-mech);
- Helicopters not made out of lead;
- Really useful medic but with a meh gun. I need to re-check how he works atm but last time I checked he was easily shut down by a flamer/shotty.

That's just what I could think of without going too much into it. Some of it could be argued to be bad but eh. That's just my opinion, ya know?

[NoSpoons]

I'd suggest limiting the Gwrench to 5 ammunition, with one 'shot' in each clip, and a 4 second reload? this spreads out the repair speed, meaning well co-ordinates attacks could still outpace a Gwrench reload? and bunny hopping in a refinery full of volkovs wont save the building when it really shouldn't, I suppose this might have other problems, but i think it might be worth testing or something  

[Raptor29aa]

17 hours ago, NoSpoons said:

I'd suggest limiting the Gwrench to 5 ammunition, with one 'shot' in each clip, and a 4 second reload? this spreads out the repair speed, meaning well co-ordinates attacks could still outpace a Gwrench reload? and bunny hopping in a refinery full of volkovs wont save the building when it really shouldn't, I suppose this might have other problems, but i think it might be worth testing or something  

Interesting that's a halfway between beta and delta wrench.

-Beta was a one-swing hope I hit the hark insta-heal

-delta is a slow but constant rate

It should be a good 10 shots and each with a charge up to prevent bunny hopping. 

Edited March 28, 2017 by Raptor29aa

[OWA]

On 25/03/2017 at 8:19 PM, Pushwall said:

I'll have to ask the scripters about this, sounds like a solution. Could be extended to refills as well since we still don't have a proper solution for refills in combat.

Thing is though, respawning counts as buying a character; currently we have a thing that prevents you from rebuying too fast - 3 seconds - and if you try to buy right after spawning you get denied. So adding this feature would make spawnkilling easier?

A better solution to this problem would be to disable purchasing until X seconds after combat, the same way that the health regen system works. Then there's no need for a hacky, heavy handed "freeze this guy in place" mechanic.

[Pushwall]

On 3/27/2017 at 7:53 AM, Chaos_Knight said:

- Even depth charges handling;

Depth charges handle the same way as in Beta now (i.e. fired from the cannon). Unless you mean how they're ineffective on surfaced subs?

On 3/27/2017 at 7:53 AM, Chaos_Knight said:

- Beretta;
- Really useful medic but with a meh gun. I need to re-check how he works atm but last time I checked he was easily shut down by a flamer/shotty.

Beretta is high-reward but also meh?  (I will say that duels between techies pretending to be Tanya due to killing each other in 1 hit was pretty fun though.) Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Beta medics run on the same rule as mechanics, where even though they healed a big chunk they couldn't heal both health and armour in the same swing? Since flamethrowers seem to be one of the few Beta weapons that actually pierce infantry armour, wouldn't that force Medics to only heal like 5 health instead of 50 armour and therefore easily shut them down, especially since every infantry back then also died faster?

As for new medics, on the last game night on Pacific Threat, we managed to keep a 2 medic 2 captain team alive on the brink of the Soviet base for a good couple of minutes even while under multiple Hind/flamer/starshina fire. We were only overcome once the Soviet flamers got close enough to reliably surround, direct-hit and suicide us. I'd say they're pretty strong, but still limited to specific circumstances (though wayyy less specific than "Fissure and Fissure alone").

On 3/27/2017 at 7:53 AM, Chaos_Knight said:

- Phase driver class mattered (not sure if recent patch brought that back). You could choose between utility and better stealth;

I'll have to look into this, I might bring it back, but I think the sneaking mechanic would mean that infantry in vehicles will lose their radar marker anyway so everyone would be invisible instead of just thieves. There's also the issue that it reinforces the problem of Allies being forced to take an infantry that has no use in the field just to make their vehicle not suck - an issue which is sort of already present with Mechanics (who can at least do something after their vehicle dies if friendly vehicles are around) and GTA!Spies (who I'd say are much more powerful than thief-phases though obviously much harder to pull off - even with spies now being uncrushable).

On 3/27/2017 at 7:53 AM, Chaos_Knight said:

- Vulnerable (100/100) yet powerful phase;

I was never around for "Beta" Beta - only NW Beta - so my only experience is with the NW Phase. Looking further back at the Beta phase I have to ask - how exactly was this thing considered powerful?

Against infantry, the rockets are so slow that I'm pretty sure it would have actually been possible to bunnyhop out of their way even if the RNG tracking works. And their splash damage actually takes more hits to kill infantry than Delta's phase vs Delta's infantry, which is pretty funny when two of Delta's mission statements were "nerf OP splash damage into the ground" and "make infantry out of something more resilient than paper mache". I'm pretty sure NW improved their splash over Beta because I remember it actually being something to worry about (but maybe that was also the improved ROF talking).

Against vehicles, they do barely more damage than the current phase, and that's ignoring the fact that their salvos take twice as long to unleash and to reload as the current ones. With that molasses ROF combined with the high turret rotation speed of Beta tanks, I find it hard to believe they would have been able to get all 8 missiles off before the enemy noticed and forced the phase to either retreat/hide before it could unleash its whole salvo - leading to it being less powerful - or get wrecked, which a TT could do in one hit! Though I guess back then, the "some of the anti-vehicle damage comes in splash form so there's a RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR determined chance that your TT may just not deal all the damage even though you clearly hit the phase" aspect might have lessened that? At the expense of being more dumb?

Against buildings, I can see where you're coming from - their TTK is worse than the current Phase on paper but since they seem to do precisely 1/6 damage to a building per salvo, I imagine a popular strategy was to take 3 of them, attack a building, and kill it on the second salvo, so everyone only has to go through the Volkov-tier reload time once and it works out in a pretty quick 18 seconds... which 3 Delta phases can also boast.

I'm seeing way too much risk and not enough reward. But lacking a proper testing environment for this I could be wrong. I imagine they were just the Allies' version of the MAD Tank - only good against buildings (and idle/chatting infantry) and needs to be in groups of 3 to work.

 

The other things I'll give you, but yeah, some were sacrifices to vary up the unit compositions (seeing armies composed entirely of med mechs and maybe 1 or 2 arty mechs gets a little boring after a while) and make the game more playable for the newcomers.

[Chaos_Knight]

1 hour ago, Pushwall said:

Depth charges handle the same way as in Beta now (i.e. fired from the cannon). Unless you mean how they're ineffective on surfaced subs?

Eh, my bad. Last time I cheded patch notes, they were AI controlled rather than by the player, and I didn't get to test them during the playtime I had recently.

1 hour ago, Pushwall said:

Beretta is high-reward but also meh?

That was kinda the most glorious thing about it. Meh in general but if you could just land a few headshots, you'd put down enemy pretty fast. It's just landing those shots wasn't easy (poor netcode kinda played its role here too tbh ).

As for medics themselves, I need to bring myself up to date with the changes. While I certainly appreciate the hard work you put into APB and keep it alive, it makes it a bit hard to keep track of the actual state of affairs.
If medics are no longer heal-over-time status effect which can be cancelled by burning then again, I stand corrected (and sure glad to be if that means a better game )

1 hour ago, Pushwall said:

I'll have to look into this, I might bring it back, but I think the sneaking mechanic would mean that infantry in vehicles will lose their radar marker anyway so everyone would be invisible instead of just thieves.

This one is not as simple. Basically when driver mattered, you had to tailor your kit for the mission you have in mind.
- Flare or demo n00b hunt? Get a spy or a sniper so that you can sneak around easier.
- Tanya chariot? Well, just be careful. If you can't see your enemies on radar, they can't see you either.
- General combat? Same as tanya but you can either get repairs or a gun in case stuff goes awry.

So you pick a strategy and stick to it to put it simple rather than have some all-around solution. Idk how good or bad that is, but it felt more interesting personally.

1 hour ago, Pushwall said:

Looking further back at the Beta phase I have to ask - how exactly was this thing considered powerful?

To give you an idea - you needed just 3 missiles to take down a V2 launcher. But you were also made out of wet paper bags (100/100 light armor) yourself. Phase rushes were brutal if not stopped in time but also fell quite easily. It was very different from what we have right now. Again, not saying it was better or worse but, well, different.
Maybe you could draw some inspiration from it to make it more of an ambush unit if you wish.

1 hour ago, Pushwall said:

The other things I'll give you, but yeah, some were sacrifices to vary up the unit compositions (seeing armies composed entirely of med mechs and maybe 1 or 2 arty mechs gets a little boring after a while) and make the game more playable for the newcomers.

That's another thing I really felt like I wanted to talk about but then I kinda stopped playing W3D for a while. Ahem.

So, with the mech now being continious rather than burst, could you do something about no-reload-while-driver is outside? Not remove it completely but make some units which are an exception to this? Namely artillery and V2 suffer a lot more from it than med-mech and TT/shock it was supposed to hit the most.

[Pushwall]

18 hours ago, Chaos_Knight said:

If medics are no longer heal-over-time then again, I stand corrected (and sure glad to be if that means a better game )

Medics are still heal-over-time, and we still have instances like the one I just mentioned, the multi medic rush on Under around the inception of the MP5, and some other occasions that tell me healing over time doesn't instantly make it bad

18 hours ago, Chaos_Knight said:

Eh, my bad. Last time I cheded patch notes, they were AI controlled rather than by the player, and I didn't get to test them during the playtime I had recently.

Yeah the Gunboat's been in a pretty experimental stage for most of Delta, trying to make the depth charges actually act like depth charges and not just a cannon with different damage multipliers that can still be launched onto land. None of them worked out so it's back to Beta handling and it's been this way for 7 months

18 hours ago, Chaos_Knight said:

To give you an idea - you needed just 3 missiles to take down a V2 launcher.

I just tried this on Beta (as in 1.2 - since that's the one that was all the rage with SG back in the day, I figured it was the one you meant) and it takes 6 missiles to kill a V2. Less than the 8 needed now, but still, molasses ROF kicks into gear here and thus only plays into your favour if the V2 is completely unguarded. Was there a server side mod to buff the phase back then or something?

18 hours ago, Chaos_Knight said:

Maybe you could draw some inspiration from it to make it more of an ambush unit if you wish.

Certainly not with that ROF/damage.
While it may appear tougher than before on paper with 200+200 health, that's not telling the whole story, as Mechanics have a 1/3 repair speed penalty with them (so it's still encouraged to not get hit as you spend more time needing to repair) and Tesla weapons deal 50% more damage to them. And considering other light vehicles take 25% less that means the Phase essentially takes double damage. In the TT's case this is enough to smack the Phase into red health instantly, removing its stealth and making it a sitting duck unless a mech breathes on it. So while it's certainly tougher than in Beta it's not THAT much tougher and you still want to avoid contact with teslas at all cost.

18 hours ago, Chaos_Knight said:

So, with the mech now being continious rather than burst, could you do something about no-reload-while-driver is outside? Not remove it completely but make some units which are an exception to this? Namely artillery and V2 suffer a lot more from it than med-mech and TT/shock it was supposed to hit the most.

"Reload when unmanned" is a global thing, it affects either all vehicles or none of them. Even if we were to figure out how to restrict this to certain vehicles - arty mechs would basically be the same as in Beta except that it would be easier for V2s to shut them down, and Grenadier-V2 or Volkov-V2 combo sounds terrifying - a single one would kill buildings at the speed of 2.5 medium tanks, and here's it's not even a case of tailoring because it's not like there's much reason to use any infantry other than the two long-range ones in the vehicle that is never going to be within Shock Trooper range of the enemy base and is very likely to die before it completes its mission. Hopping would just enforce this one combo further

18 hours ago, Chaos_Knight said:

- Tanya chariot? Well, just be careful. If you can't see your enemies on radar, they can't see you either.

Would probably more relevant nowadays since radar range isn't finicky in vehicles anymore.

[Alstar]

I voted no. I like wrench, unless someone magicly brings an almost dead structure which i worked hard to put down back to life with one click. If changes are to happen, what about Wrench staying but cannot repair buildings, will still disarm C4/Flares and capture derricks on Pipeline and instead engies receive better repair tool like in Renegade?