[suggestion] rocket pod improvements

V

Void|deadjawa

Veteran X
The rocket pod is a lot of fun. In fact, it's taken the place of the chaingun in all of my loadouts because it is so fun to use. However, it is marred by a few seemingly small nuisances that make it less useful than it otherwise could be. I've heard a lot of people saying it should be made more powerful by reducing the weapon spread or increasing the splash damage, however, i feel neither of these are nessecary. It isnt meant to be a splash damage weapon like the disc launcher, and tightening the spread could make it much too powerful.

I think the real problem is twofold. First of all, each individual rocket salvo fires too slowly. This gives the user the false impression that the rocket spread is much larger than it actually is when in full ski, because each rocket is not fired from the same location if the player is moving (which he normally is). So basically the spread of the rocket pod is amplified when the player is moving giving him the false impression that the actual "launching spread" is much larger than it should be. A simple solution to this problem would be to speed up the salvo firing rate (not the refire rate, but the actual rate that the 6 rockets are fired from the launcher), so that the spread would be much tighter when moving.

The second problem is that the actual weapon is so large that it is difficult to guide the weapon after it is fired. This isnt a problem with the rocket pod's sister, the buckler, because the buckler leaves the players hand allowing him greater visibility for guiding the weapon. So, my suggestion is that the rocket pod should be taken out of view immediatly after its fired until it is reloaded (or at least lowered into some kind of reload animation allowing for better visibility- which also just makes more sense than the magical reload animation that is in place now).

If these two things were fixed, I think the rocket pod would be balanced without requiring knee jerk balance fixes.
 
agreed on both accounts. specially the second one.. sometimes when i make tight changes, I can't see the the rockets or the target because if i go back to view the rockets will change path.(the viewport will be looking at opposite direction) i tried in 3rd person at no avail.
another suggestion would be a 'lock view' toggle key so we would be changing the rockets path not the model's viewport.
$0.02
 
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Changing the viewpoints/locking the view is a novel idea. I think since the rocket pod/buckler are new types of weapons, a new type of viewpoint could be advantageous. The only problem is that they are in "feature lock" so they cant make many large changes.
 
Completely agree with your first suggestion. I'm not sure the second would really make a lot of difference. As it stands now though, the rocket pod is pretty useless IMO.
 
as far as the usefulness of the weapon goes, i dont think it belongs in ctf. the weapons we already have keep the balance. if you beef the rockets up too much, then the lights will be absolutely worthless aside from capping.

its one of those novelty weapons, its nice to screw around with, but in the end...its not ever gonna be a bread and butter weapon. Its for the players new to the game to have a little variety, and for the noob in all of us to screw around with, IMHO.
 
Maybe it's just me, but I think they could use a slight boost in the damage department - this coming from having four or five salvos fired at my pod vehicle and laughing while I wasted the guy on the ground, still with plenty of health left - maybe he was out of range though, the rockets fired from the rocket pod weapon don't have a very long life span.
 
i carry the rocket pod 100% of the time.
Not because I think its worth having, but because I want to get good with it to see if it is worth having.

I've killed 3 guys with one salvo, killed flag carriers in midair, killed pods who were chasing me when I was capping etc.

I still feel the weapon is somewhat underpowered however, as at no time did I feel that I could not have accomplished the same task with another weapon.

I'd like to see either the damage or the splash radius increased
 
bartkusa said:
It's so hard to gauge depth and see how far the missiles are from you.
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Yep, this makes it hard to know if you need to adjust your aim.

Still haven't used it much, so cannot comment further.
 
i'd like to see initial spread a little tighter and keep the long range spread the same. Weapon seems really useless at anything less then 20-30 yards out but mabye I just suck with it a likely possibility %_%
 
I agree on both accounts.

Some better control would be nice as well. It seems like by the time you get good control of the rockets they're already half way to the visible distance.
 
i have some suggestions in mind, but they would be easier if we had an 'alternative fire' key.
an extra function could be added if the button/key is held after fire (like the hook reel).. it could either be to lock the viewport (or change to an adequate 3rd person camera that doesn't rotate with the model) or to tighten the spread when the rockets are already en route. would be nice to have base turrets with it.

for wishful thinking... maybe another key to change rocket formation.. single file, spirals, pyramid.. use your imagination. might as well wait for the uc files to made a weapon mod ;)
 
AvA_Majestic said:
I still feel the weapon is somewhat underpowered however, as at no time did I feel that I could not have accomplished the same task with another weapon.
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Ditto, and i usually find that the "other" weapon would have been easier to accomplish it with too, well at least more consistantly anyways. :(

I feel that a slightly larger splash radius with a slighlty reduced damage would make it perfect. :)
 
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