News: T:V Pack Roundup

No Cloak pack???????????!
Nope! :clap: :alfdance: :rocker:

remaining wish list
- more grenade types
- info on deployables
- info on 2nd ground vehicle
- better UI esp the radar area. The little sensor at the bottom, should be removed or replaced with something else.

I noticed all the names for weapons, vehicles, packs etc are pretty generic. Fighter, Gunship, Speed Pack etc. No fancy names?

Well, that's certainly an interesting idea although the passive effect doesn't sound too useful. The only time I ever really walk durring fighting inside has been when I had a shield on... of course the reason for that appears to be gone (independent pack energy). Outside I will occasionally walk when on a hill outside and enemy base and peeps are trying to snipe or chain me but it doesn't seem like that would be enough of the time to warrant a pack that yeilds a small percentage boost. Even for farming it's usually a little jet to get going and bounce the rest of the way or something... certainly far faster than a little over normal walking speed anyway and no pack required. Since the farmer gets to pick his pack independent of deployable it seems like an epack would provide a better speed boost anyway and a repair pack could be durn useful for keeping equipment up at the same time.

Of course TV may change all that and there may actually be reason to walk for larger amounts of time where there really hasn't been reason in the past.

The active effect does sound interesting, anything that seriously decreases reloat time will certainly be useful in an offensive situation at least. Although, one of the elegant aspects of tribes has always been the emphasis on how you use your shots, placing them well, choosing optimum instant to fire, etc; not how fast they fire (typically much slower than most games)... of course for indoor combat rate of fire has always been a big deal so it makes sense there since helping there seems to have been the goal for the pack. Active effect certainly sounds useful anyway.

I have a question about the pack active effects in general... for those that take effect over time (shield and speed it seems), we know it has to be at full energy to use but can you terminate the effect early to save pack juice so your recharge is faster for next time? There has always been a good lot of skill involved in properly using a shield pack as HoF or indoor fighter for example.

... also wondering something about the shield pack :), when active does it loose pack energy as it takes damage as well as over time? Seems like it would probably just be over time or it would get used up real fast if both. Of course that sure sounds like the pack might take a much more offensive use. If a HD or HoF will take damage anyway that will probably decrease its usefulness for them since they'll need to repair regardless and typically take a lot of damage relatively fast just all on shield. HO and cappers for example seem like they would get HUGE boosts from the shield pack. For HO it could effectively amount to 500% health for the first 5 seconds in an enemy base... talk about making a mess. Likewise for cappers, 5 seconds is an eternity... one second before grab and 4 seconds after can be the entire time a route is really vulnerable for... sharpen those bb skills boys. :)

New players will like the speed pack.

I think this is the point - and absolutely right. It may add to newbie interest in the game from early stages as they will be used to horizontal movement. Older players would use the speed pack primarily for the reload speed, however. It's entirely logical and fits well with T:V.

Great move by Thrax and co. I like it! :D

TribalWar: Do the repair bursts stack on top of each other? Say if two people are working in tandem.

Thrax: They stack serially, so the process doesn't speed up, but instead last longer.

Something about this bugs me. I want to see it in practice, but it just seems to me like it removes some of the benefit of having team members actually coordinate their efforts.

*shrug* I'll reserve judgment till Beta.

wow....i really like the idea of the speed pack....i can already see the huge potential for this (farmers, defense (chasers), offense (heavy-spam))

I liked seeing some details on the packs, knowing how long a recharge is and how long the effects last gives me a better idea of how they will be used.

I can't wait to mess around with these packs in beta.

I have a question regarding the Speed Pack and Chain Gun combination.
The Speed Pack's active ability seems to speed up the Chain Gun's rate of fire by about 55.55%. Now will using the Speed Pack's active ability cause the Chain Gun to also "overheat" 55.55% faster? Thank you.

This is a good point, but the speed pack also allows you to walk faster. The CG overheats slower when you are moving faster. If you were evading fire from your target by moving around, you would increase your fire time. Your walking speed is increased by 60%-70% by the speed pack, allowing you to put more air over that heatsink.

I never got one thing though. The speed pack's passive function is to make you walk faster and the active function makes you fire faster, but when you set the pack to active, do you just have the active function or do you keep the passive and gain the active? Do I get to walk faster and shoot faster if I am wearing it and it is on? -Or is it just one function or the other?

Question: Does the speed Pack decrease the fuse time on the GL and Mortar? We already know you can fire faster but what good is 3 mortars sitting at the same spot if it still takes forever and a day for them to blow up.

If you ask me the projectiles should also fly faster, and have a shortened (yet comparable) fuse time.

I haven't seen this asked or clarified, and in another thread I heard something that was either mis-information from Thrax or just mis-interpreted by me. When you activate a pack, can you de-activate it before its total pack energy runs out, or must you wait for it to completely deplete, and use it in full cycles? I would assume that the E-pack is just a burst, so no question. The other packs, however, I'd like to know about.

Your walking speed is increased by 60%-70% by the speed pack, allowing you to put more air over that heatsink.

We don't know if the heatsink of the cg can be cooled.



I never got one thing though. The speed pack's passive function is to make you walk faster and the active function makes you fire faster, but when you set the pack to active, do you just have the active function or do you keep the passive and gain the active? Do I get to walk faster and shoot faster if I am wearing it and it is on? -Or is it just one function or the other?

Don't try to think too hard. Passive = always on.

oh theta, you ho bag

Cool!

Now we just need that last vehicle!

If it keeps newbies in the game, I guess the pack is OK. :shrug:

I still find it odd that many players discount most of the packs in T1/T2. Saying that the only useful packs were the energy, repair and shield is simply not true. Many players, including most top players, not only use the other packs, but used them in a way that made a huge difference in matches.

Honestly, I can't think of a single pack I didn't use in T1/T2 matches, including the often ignored deployable sensor jammer of T1! Sure, some of them were situational, but when used properly the results had a huge impact on the match.

Sounds like HoF might not be that useful of a position anymore...the shield packs recharge time of 8 seconds is a loonnnnnnnnng time when your dealing with mortor spam, even once its active it doenst absorb 100% damage like before. This is not nessiscarily a bad thing, I always felt hofs were a bit too powerful, on the other hand it could mean a helluva lota stand off mode time.
BETA....now

Don't forget that mortar spam in T:V will most likely come through the SpeedPack, meaning any HoF will have his hands full.
:)

I have a question regarding the Speed Pack and Chain Gun combination.
The Speed Pack's active ability seems to speed up the Chain Gun's rate of fire by about 55.55%. Now will using the Speed Pack's active ability cause the Chain Gun to also "overheat" 55.55% faster? Thank you.
I hope it will overheat at least 65-70% faster, and I'll tell why.


Faster firing speed means more damage per second, or otherwise said, the same amount of damage in a shorter time. Then again, shorter time means less movement on the victim's end, so the overheat should not only compensate for the practically increased damage, but also for the less aiming you need to get it.

I agree with z0dd. I remember winning a T1 D&D match with the sensor jammer pack. :)


I must say I am not pleased with the sound of the repair packs. Perhaps I don't understand it properly, but I think that the serial repair is not going to be effective for base repairs against dedicated base trashers. Beta or dev clarification will tell.

I also don't know if I like the shield pack. Since no packs use armor energy, I can't see a way to make it work like the pack we know, but toggling the pack at the proper time to ensure minimum (or even negate) damage is a tremendous skill in today's Tribes games. That clearly is gone in the form we know it.

I'll be honest. I don't just want T1 or T2 with better graphics, but I do have to wonder why so many functionalities that were part of the old core games needed to be reworked. Yes, we have our skiing, speed, and movement. And we have new things (vehicles, grapples, buckler), which are (potentially) cool. But were so many of the "classic" game ideas so out of whack that they needed to be removed or radically changed? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind.

I am not saying what we get will not be balanced well, especially once beta is done. I am asking why it needed to be so different. Will the game work? I think it probably will. Will it really feel like Tribes to me? I am not sure.

Should I care? That's up to me and I really could give a damn what anyone says about that.

Yes, part of this is a reaction to loss of things with which I am long familiar, but I think that it is valid on a logical level as well.

i'm going to miss the Classic SJ. But that's all i'm going to miss.

I have a question about the pack active effects in general... for those that take effect over time (shield and speed it seems), we know it has to be at full energy to use but can you terminate the effect early to save pack juice so your recharge is faster for next time? There has always been a good lot of skill involved in properly using a shield pack as HoF or indoor fighter for example.


Excellent question