Engineer Buildable Ideas - gogogo?

[Trailer]

Sentry Guns go down so easy, I don't think an engy really needs ANOTHER buildable at this point. When I play engy against people who don't suck, the majority of my time goes to keeping up the sg. Sometimes it's hard to even have a dispenser up because the sg goes down so quick. The push just needs to be increased, that's it IMO. About the teleporter, could we PLEASE not encourage offensive engineers.

[Iggy]

Honestly, O engineers don't need encouragement..... they find a way to just do it.

Though, I do agree about teleporters. I don't mind map specific ones... but not as an Engineer buildable.

[FreaK367]

Because I'm lazy, I only read about two thirds of the first page.

But still, I like the idea of an "electro magnet device of some sort", an Engineer having a device that can help protect his SG from far away fire, is a good idea.

It could be a similar ish size field to the new HW slowing grenade, but a different looking effect, and the closer the incoming fire is to the center of the field, the more drastically it gets pushed away, since it is stronger in the middle, and nearing the edge of the field, the incoming fire simply arcs away from the field lightly, but still throws it off its original course.

It would help defend from the oh so common Soldier, Scout or Medic sending a straight stream of nails or rockets towards an SG from far away, that an Engineer has trouble defending against.

But it shouldn't effect handheld Grenades, sniper shots, AR rifle, shotgun blasts, minigun or anything I've missed off. Oh and it should affect Team fire too, it must have its risks, team Fire will also arc away.

In theory... that sort of device could be given to any class, any class that is considered a defending class, could throw up one of those to throw off incoming attacks.


To think of it in a different light, a Heavy Weapons Guy could throw this little device out infront of him, that lasts 20 Seconds, and then he could commence to start shooting his mini gun sitting behind this field, and incoming rockets and nails would arc away from him... since a HW guy is almost motionless when shooting.

But it would be great for an Engineer.

[squeek.]

I do like that idea as well (something that alters projectiles' movement). Could be interesting.

[angrypyro]

whatever the new buildable is, it shouldn't just be used to support the SG. It needs to have a standalone purpose.

[Drakonal]

would be nice to put teleporters on spy class :P.


Or maybe even a spy only teleporter :P


/wakes up



-Drak

[Drakonal]

Originally Posted by squeek.

I do like that idea as well (something that alters projectiles' movement). Could be interesting.

Would be neat if you did have an electro magnet buildable, that collects projectiles. The projectiles would orbit the device and once the device explodes all projectives go everywhere at it's own speed path.


This is a form of roulette defense, you can stop direct fire towards any one area, or flag room entirely but it will blow up in your face.


-Drak

[FreaK367]

That projectile altering idea seems to be the best so far. It would be good to see it in action, depending on where it is placed though, it could either be a great help, or a hindrance assuming incoming fire from either team is affected by it.

[Peppas]

In my opinion, I think the SG is fine the way it is. I play engineer in most pickups and (not jerking my own chain) against the best medics it is sometimes hard for them to take my sg down, but they do get it. If you were to ever alter the dynamics of the SG, my vote would go towards a projectile atlering idea.

The way I would do it is have a 2nd type of "cell". For example, cells are used to upgrade and repair the sg. We could have a 2nd type of "cell" an engineer will have that will go directly and only towards a projectile altering mechanism. And you get this second cell the same way you get regular cells, by grabbing a ammo bag.

Now to put this into a scenario, imagine a sg and engineer on destroy in the normal flagroom spot. You have a lvl 3 sg at 100% health and 100% projectile altering shield. You have a medic come up to the main (heavy guy position) ramp. And he is shooting a stream of nails. The shield will go down when the medic uses like 1/4 or 1/3 (or how much you would like) of its nails and the rest is up against the health of the sg.

The shield has no power against grenades like yall were saying before.

But I would recommend limiting the amount of shield cells an engineer gets and try to balance it out from there. Good luck!

[Trailer]

I agree that the amount of health is fine for the sg, but the push does badly need to be increased, IMO of course

[Hammock]

I'm gonna jump on this brain storming band wagon too I guess. I posted this suggestion ages ago, but I'm going to repost it.

The SG could be built on "magnetic disk". Default state is off, but when the engy gets close to it and presses his "use" button the disk turns on, and it hovers slightly off the ground and is "tethered" to the engy.

While tethered, the engy has the capability of dragging his sg around with him, it can go up steps and ramps, and if the engy goes up an elevator the sg can be pulled up with the tether alone (ie: it doesn't need to sit on the lift with the engy, it'll get pulled up through the air to the engy.

If the engy gets impatient and runs too far away without allowing his sg to keep up around corners or lifts, the tether does break, and the sg is anchored to the ground again.

While moving around the sg wouldn't work at 100% efficiently. But as soon as it stops moving it's back up to 100%.

I think this idea would solve a lot of issues with the sg being spammed to death by skilless nade spam as the engy would have the ability to move his sg out of harms way (only taking a decrease in efficiency in the process). It would also allow the engy to follow the flag as it's moving throughout his base, as that's another major problem, once the flag gets moved out of his "designated defending area" it's difficult to continue to defend the flag as bags aren't available, so he either has to destroy his sg and rebuild it as fast as he can in the new spot (many times failing to get it up to even level 2), or leave his sg, become somewhat less effective at defending the flag, and leaves his sg vulnerable to destruction from backdooring offense, which in that case he might as well have tried to rebuild it in the new location anyways.

[squeek.]

Another interesting idea.

[Trailer]

I like that idea actually. It would eliminate the suckyness of having the flag thrown on your sg, only to have the demo pipe trap your sg =\

[episkopos]

The idea of something that diverts both friendly and hostile projectiles, or something that randomises projectile trajectories, or anything in a similar vain, could be seen to contradict the idea that a team should never be better off without a given player. I would be very careful with anything which could affect friendlies negatively. I like the magnetic disk idea though.

How about a remotely activated force field around the SG which vaporises projectiles and lasts for five seconds, then takes ten seconds to recharge? If the engi spots a nailgunner, he can hit the force field button so he has time to get to his sentry to wrench it before it's destroyed. To encourage sensible use, the sentry's rockets could be disabled and it could do only 75% of its usual damage while the shield is active.

Or what about making SGs regenerate health fairly quickly, beginning five seconds after last taking damage, or even as Bridget has suggested in the past, making them repair themselves after they're destroyed? Maybe after destruction there's a five second period of smouldering and then during the next five seconds repairing noises are made, after which the sentry gun is restored with 50% health and a small amount of ammo. If it takes damage at any point during the auto-repair, the timer resets. The engineer can speed up the process by standing next to the remains of the gun. Maybe allow scouts and spies to deactivate the repair mechanism by standing on the remains for a couple of seconds.

Also, make the wrench and dispenser heal at 33%-50% the rate they give armour, and the medkit give armour at the rate the wrench gives health.

[Crazycarl]

We need something to make the SG more powerful against/resistant to heavy classes, especially on AvD maps.

[episkopos]

Originally Posted by Crazycarl

We need something to make the SG more powerful against/resistant to heavy classes, especially on AvD maps.

It's hard to make something good against heavy classes but not too strong against light classes. How about making the sentry's damage or push scale with the target's speed and possibly armour, so lighter faster classes take not much more, or the same amount of, damage and push that they do at the moment, while heavier slower classes have their armour "compensated for". Or possibly give lighter classes special counter-sentry armour, then beef the sentry up.

The issue is, it would be counter intuitive. I think more generally FF needs a class selection screen that shows each class's health, armour, speed, weapons, and abilities. With nice pictures for those with short attention spans.

[Elmo]

Originally Posted by episkopos

The idea of something that diverts both friendly and hostile projectiles, or something that randomises projectile trajectories, or anything in a similar vain, could be seen to contradict the idea that a team should never be better off without a given player. I would be very careful with anything which could affect friendlies negatively.

also we generally dont like random chance stuff

[squeek.]

Originally Posted by episkopos

The issue is, it would be counter intuitive. I think more generally FF needs a class selection screen that shows each class's health, armour, speed, weapons, and abilities. With nice pictures for those with short attention spans.

This has been planned since the dawn of time. It'll happen... one day.

[Elmo]

Originally Posted by episkopos

The issue is, it would be counter intuitive. I think more generally FF needs a class selection screen that shows each class's health, armour, speed, weapons, and abilities. With nice pictures for those with short attention spans.

Looks at ricey for his promices of HUD design... that I nominated him to do months ago

[Bridget]

• Enemies wounded by the Railgun but not killed are marked for additional damage by the Sentry Gun for a duration relative to the amount of damage they take. Medics can remove this by hitting targeted teammates (indicated on a Medic's hud and the Engineer's hud by an overhead icon) with the medkit. Additionally, rockets could gain a small accuracy bonus and make hard-turns toward marked enemies.
• The Sentry Gun could have a built-in counter measures system on quick cooldown. Any explosive projectiles that come near the Sentry Gun can be shot down. However, the Sentry Gun's counter measures system has limited range, so any 'nades that fall too close can not be destroyed.
• The Engineer can trigger a desperation mode for the Sentry Gun. In this mode, the gun deals double damage and takes heavily reduced damage for a short duration. The downside is that this can only be triggered on a level-three Sentry Gun and the Sentry Gun self-destructs after the effect is over due to "mechanical stress".