Defending against the pod

burner ammo based is a brilliant idea.

mindflayr i'd like to help test this stuff out as well.
these weapon mutators could do a lot to help smooth out the gameplay bumps.
 
I'm certainly too new to TV to be a good tribes player, but I'll tell ya, grappling a pod isn't easy. I did it once and the line snapped, didn't inflict any damage.

Right now I am practicing my sniping skills on podders. Sniping seems to be a lot more difficult in this game, and sniping can't get much more challenging than trying to headshot a podder speeding at you, blasting rockets at your feet.

The pod seems a lot slower than I thought it would be, actually.

I also agree on the ammo for the burner. I thought it operated more like the ol' plasma gun, but every time I tried to fire it, I tended to be in the air. Found out quickly enough that it's worthless for my play style.
Ammo, something like 12 to 15 would be pretty nice. Odd that it's energy based.
 
btw the collision model for the pod covers the pilot from the bottom and back totally, and a little on the front. Your best bet to hurt the pilot is side or top shots.
 
Buster Capinya said:
G: I'm sorry, but... "routes"?
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A route is a predefined path a player memorizes which allows him to get across the map or to a specific location very quickly.

You need to analize the maps terrain and study it and figure out the best points in which to ski down and jet up, epack boost etc...
 
Don't forget about grapplers. On several maps I couldn't get away with a cap (or even grab in the first place) without a grappling hook. ;)
 
Mindflayr said:
(3) Somehow Modify the Rocket Pod (Tighter Spiral-- better homing-Increased Range- Something???) to make it useful for bringing them down.
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The rocket pod is too easy to dodge while in a pod. When I see a volley of rockets coming my way I just strafe or dive and I never get hit. Increasing projectile speed would make the rockets much more useful versus a pod.
 
Koko said:
The rocket pod is too easy to dodge while in a pod. When I see a volley of rockets coming my way I just strafe or dive and I never get hit. Increasing projectile speed would make the rockets much more useful versus a pod.
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Faster rockets don't help much if the spread is larger than the vehicle itself. Tighter spread and faster firing rate of the 6 rockets in a salvo would be the most useful imo.
 
As the pod is right now, it's only good for annoyance spamming, and defense. I'd like to see the pod sped up considerably, it's rate of fire slowed down, the damage the rockets inflict increased against static targets "sensors, turrets ect" and for it to take considerably more damage from the changun, and for it's weapon use to be tied to energy "maybe bost jet energy or some such?" so that if it's spamming, it can't move fast.

One of the main reason's it's so annoying now, is because that's the only thing it's really good for it to annoy the enemy O.
 
Would it help if you just changed the pod projectiles to do less damage at range? The farther you are, the less damage you do. So doing significant damage requires in-your-face exposure. Currently this is accomplished by eliminating splash damage, but expert pod pilots apparently have much better aim than I.
 
IMHO, the only change the fighter pod needs is that it should have a missile-replenishment delay. Max capacity of 6 missiles, and one missile replenished every 2-3 seconds.

As for the rocket pod, I wouldn't change a thing because I think it's a balanced weapon. If it was easier to use it would be too powerful in the hands of people who take the time to learn how to use it effectively. I don't consider myself skilled at T:V but I've scored a fair share of kills in the past week with that thing.
 
after reading peoples posts, i have to respond. Rocketpod is completely useless vs the pod. I dont think i have ever died in the pod with someone trying to rocketpod me. Best way to take down the pod in my opinion if you are by yourself is the burner/disk/hand nade. If you are with someone else, cg/hand nades/rifle combo works good. Turret guns work good too. 2 good cgunners can whore down a pod instantly. Since most people cant chain that well, the pod usually survives. If they are a skilled podder, you are just shazbot out of luck. :)

I dont think the pod is over powered because i dont see lots of real good podders. There are lots of wannabes thats for sure. :p i do think man/ vehicle vs man, vehicle/man should win everytime.
 
slut said:
after reading peoples posts, i have to respond. Rocketpod is completely useless vs the pod. I dont think i have ever died in the pod with someone trying to rocketpod me. Best way to take down the pod in my opinion if you are by yourself is the burner/disk/hand nade. If you are with someone else, cg/hand nades/rifle combo works good. Turret guns work good too. 2 good cgunners can whore down a pod instantly. Since most people cant chain that well, the pod usually survives. If they are a skilled podder, you are just shazbot out of luck. :)

I dont think the pod is over powered because i dont see lots of real good podders. There are lots of wannabes thats for sure. :p i do think man/ vehicle vs man, vehicle/man should win everytime.
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Good post.

I'll let you know this... I hate the pod, really hate it. But when I use it, I can usually survive the entire map if I desire to, and never die in a 20 minute pub game. (I did it in a few maps tonight and had a large amount of players respawning immedietly after I killed them trying to take me out) In the case of someone that really can use the pod, I feel it is very overpowered.

I learned I could use it very effectively not because I liked it, but because I wanted a counter to all the other pod whores out there. As I'm whoring everyone with it, I say to myself... My god everyone in the server has got to hate my effing guts.

The pod sucks ass in a major way.
 
Zio said:
Good post.

I'll let you know this... I hate the pod, really hate it. But when I use it, I can usually survive the entire map if I desire to, and never die in a 20 minute pub game. (I did it in a few maps tonight and had a large amount of players respawning immedietly after I killed them trying to take me out) In the case of someone that really can use the pod, I feel it is very overpowered.

I learned I could use it very effectively not because I liked it, but because I wanted a counter to all the other pod whores out there. As I'm whoring everyone with it, I say to myself... My god everyone in the server has got to hate my effing guts.

The pod sucks ass in a major way.
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you wont survive that long on 5150 server. When you return flags, you have to jump out of the vehicle.
 
i absolutely agree on the vehicles should be inherently stronger than a person.

in t1, vehicles are a balanced due to decreased options. the pod is highly versatile compared to the t1 scout. the scout could move quickly, but its aim was hampered due to slow rate of fire and by default, low sensitivity.

in contrast, t:v's pod is reasonably fast, can usually cut off a capper if the podder is skilled, and can turn fast enough to defend itself against multiple human targets without fielding too much damage.

two ways to reduce the influence of a pod in a game :
1. decrease its abilities (rate of fire, total ammo, total health, any and/or all)
2. decrease its overall number. (1 instead of 3)

i'd rather go by #2, and do less to change how the pod behaves. it makes more sense keeping the pods behavior consistent from server to server, and just having or not having them in a map.

a map like junk(coupled with an already WAY too easy rape situation) is the worst balance of all involved organisms, just a mish-mash of various types of spam, especially sinces its so fast from one base to another. Here is a place where you might consider just having less vehicles. The pod on cavern, not so bad at all, i like it, i think it should stay there. It's well integrated, can be defended against easily.

I dont have anything against vehicles in tribes, I think they can be done well, but have to be done carefully. Altering their behavior post release is just so touchy a subject. Typically people just start hating the devs if that happens.

You can argue the design of the vehicles is just dumb to being with, (no ammo limit etc, high damage wall), but now that we have them, and people have learned them, if you absolutely have to remove some of their influence, keep it to overall number rather than altering their behavior.

====================
All that being said, 5150's vehicles play a lot better since the vets can defend against them relatively easily. This is because there's a lot more natural teamwork going on in those servers, and a lot of the players have a very experienced sense of cause and effect in terms of which pieces must topple in what order in order to reverse the course of the game.

its not hard, kill gens, rape base, kill vehicles, etc, but not something thats obvious to newbs...
 
You missed on other way to reduce the impact of pods on the game... longer spawn times. If the things just don't spawn as often, you have to shot 'em down less often. Also they become more valuable as an asset since if you are a dedicated podder, you just don't want to get shot down. Thus, you're more likely to run from engadgments in order to find repairs.

I find myself really waffling on the issue in general. I've played on servers where pods have been a problem because my arffing teammates just will not help gun the frigging things down. On the flip side, I haven't become as annoyed with pods as I was with v-pad shrike campers.

I also took Zio's route and desided to whore the pod for all it was worth for a few maps. I caused some perty serious damage and managed to get a few screams of "you pod whore lamers suck". I was just about to the point of doing a suicide attack with the thing when three guys popped out from under a buidling and laid the serious combined chain gun smack down on me. Sweet move. I was serioiusly impressed... and dead in about 2 seconds.

Then there's the aim bot that apparently has been ajusted to work with pod rockets... not a big deal at long range, but when they get up close, those things friggen HURT!
 
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{RiP}Zarious said:
As the pod is right now, it's only good for annoyance spamming, and defense. I'd like to see the pod sped up considerably, it's rate of fire slowed down, the damage the rockets inflict increased against static targets "sensors, turrets ect" and for it to take considerably more damage from the changun, and for it's weapon use to be tied to energy "maybe bost jet energy or some such?" so that if it's spamming, it can't move fast.

One of the main reason's it's so annoying now, is because that's the only thing it's really good for it to annoy the enemy O.
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Here is the Current Compmod Mutator Idea for the Pod. It matches up very closesly to your suggestions (then again i built the collected ideas off reading everyones forum posts/opinions and some assumptive envisioned playtesting.
The only Unknown is the idea of tying in a boost energy to potentially the Pods "Ammo" and a possible Weak Shield. Were not sure if we could Add said "Energy Bar" with a mutator-- it might require a Total Conversion mod to change the pod that much and we are working with mutators Only (we arent using a 10-15 man team and 3 months to do this). We will attempt to see how much we can tweak it with mutators...but heres what we got so far.

On List – Pod – [High Priority] – Multiple Different Ideas: Add a Mini-Shield[if possible] (with weak recharge to return Flight or Fight Instincts) Combined with Increased CG Dmg (a la Explosive Dmg Bonus), Faster (by a Good Amount) , Shorter Range of Missiles(to decrease "Sit and SPam O Route tactics" – Increased Damage w/Slower RoF(Keep these proportional so it would ot he same amount of damage over time as it does now.. but would be Less Spammy.. You fire lets say 1/2 as Many Missiles for twice as much damage each... Rewards you for being better individual missiles rather than rewarding your for decent Spray-n-pray Skills)
 
There is nothing wrong with the pod balance. The pod is perfect. I dont see why you guys want to change everything. Do you want it not being useful at all? Then say that. Tell me who is podding on pubs that makes the game unbalanced? I havent seen any good podders that make that big of a difference where we have change it. You are making it sound like the pod(dodge turbo neon) has the effectiveness/power of the shrike (corvette) which isnt even close.

You guys want to change the grapple which to me is hilarious because there is nothing wrong with that. I think there is something made now where you shoot the grapple and it breaks? thats funny. If you can aim that well, shoot the freakin capper.

If anything needs to be changed, its the shield pack. Thats it. Concentrate on that and the game will be more fun since capping will take some skill now.

This game will never get popular. Its too hard for noobs to pick up.
 
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Slut. I kindly Disagree.. While i dont think the pod is as unbalanced as most think (because they keep using you as an example- but your 1 of the best in the game at it if not the best pod pilot.. so of course you should own people in it)..

The changes we are making with Compmod wont weaken it at all. Inf act some would say its more powerful. Basicallyw ere making it act more like the srhike when it comes to Fight vs Flight instincts,Speed - returning the Vehicle Ram to chasing -- while making it less annoying.. I dont think its unbalanced that much.. just not fun to use or have it used agaisnt you. Let us put together the Pod Only mutator and ill hook you up a copy to test and you can give us some feedback.

Shield is almost done being mutated.. and we had a doosey of an idea which should add more skill to its usage.. not overpowered Sheild grabbing (welcome back epack usefulness for offense) while not making it useless for capping HO.

Only Grapple changes arent what your thinking. We are making the hook point breakable. it wont do anything to match/scrim cappers- but it will stop Looping grapple cappers on map like Junk. You cant shoot the line-- only the grapple point.. cant argue that an MA ont he capper is as easy as shooting the spot his grapples attached too if hes just doing Loops.. it will mainly affect pub standoffs with little to no negative effects. The only other grapple consideration is ammo reduction to 10.
 
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