[T:V] Targetting Laser

V

Void|deadjawa

Veteran X
Everyone who plays Tribes is familiar with the targetting laser. Its good for Tribes style impromptu dance parties, burning people's retnas, and the occasional laser war. But other than that, it is one of the least usable weapons on the battlefield.

The purpose behind the targetting laser is a good idea in theory. It allows you to do blind spam with excellent accuracy. However, in practice it just isnt very good. First of all, it completely gives away your position. If you are trying to use it legitimately (in matches) youll get sniped down before you can count to 3. Secondly, its a two person system (targetter+mortar launcher) that is just as effective as one person with a mortar who knows his ranges/spam spots. Finally, you have to keep it on the target until the mortar person gets his spam spot lined up. If you die both of your purposes are completely lost.

So, that said, here is my idea to replace the targetting laser.

The Complete Targetting System
The targetting laser would be replaced by something I call the "targetting computer". When activated, the targetting computer zooms you in 5x automatically (it cant be zoomed out further than that) and you lose all IFF ability. Your normal vision would be replaced with infrared vision of the battlefield, which looks something like this:
vision.jpg

(that image is taken from AVP2 I believe)

With this vision, you could see through walls (not through terrain though), see turrets, deployables, people, explosions, etc.

Included with this packages, comes an infrared laser that can ONLY be seen by people with their targetting computer on and can ONLY be used by lights (so heavies cant mortar spam by themselves). The infrared targetting laser has the exact same purpose as a normal one except for one feature. When fired, the laser leaves an infrared signature that is tracable for 10 seconds after the laser is fired. Therefore, people who wish to pick up the targetting signal have a few seconds after the laser is fired to do so.

The purpose of this package is twofold. First, since you are able to see through walls (at the severe disadvantage of being zoomed in, losing your IFF, having funky colors that would make it very hard to ski, and if youre a light not being able to equip any weapon but the infrared targetting laser) it makes wallhacking lose a little bit of its appeal. Wallhackers will recieve a smaller gain from using their cheats, because everyone has limited wallhacking capability. Secondly, it replaces the targetting laser with something that might actually be used once or twice by someone in the field.

The ideal targetting computer situation
Player X turns on his targetting computer before he runs into a base for a cap. He notes the base defense set up, and sees that a player is deploying turrets. He quickly lazes (is that the proper verb?) where the turreter is laying turrets, and informs his team over TeamSound. A heavy who was on his way to the base pulls off from his route just short of the base, turns on his targetting computer, quickly picks up the target, and begins to take out the turrets.
 
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I would just make the targeting laser be the thing that guides the rockets. No autolock on, but a guy has to 'paint' an aerial target for the thing to lock.
 
I won't buy T:V unless there is a classic targetting laser. Oh shit, thrax doesn't pay mind to "I won't buy..." posts.
 
And dead here's what i think of your idea.

Essentially, how does this improve the gameplay, other than introducing an added element of complexity? I believe the targeting laser is supposed to give your position away, plus it's good that it works in conjunction.

I agre tho, it is pretty useless(a good Ho has the aim). It would be cool if they could improve the usefulness of the target laser.
 
My suggestions for targetting laser:

1. Restore non-flareable missile lock to target.
2. Take heat signature away from turrets and sensors.
3. Have 2 modes for laser, invisible and high visibility. Only the marker would show to teammates ONLY when beam was invisible. The alternate mode would be the same as existing TL.
4. "Greenout" effect for temporary blindness of players.

Those were made for the T2 TL and were partially implemented by Qing in Version 2.
 
ZOD said:
TL = useless other then for lazing the ground for a flag pass. I wouldn't even put it in T:V
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Yeah I agree that the Targeting Laser (TL) is generally useless during gameplay, but I still like it. I considered the TL in T1 to be more like a "player animation" than an actual "weapon" It's fun to play around with -- leave it in! :)

It does have some uses though. For example I remember when I was in tribe -Ai- (T1), our leader would use the TL in conjunction with Roger Wilco during practices to trace cap routes and direct people as to where they should be, or where they should spam, etc.
 
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If you wanted a useful TL why not let it leave a 15 second waypoint (the only waypoint besides beacons) for the person who actually used the TL to get a position.

The cost is that the TL takes up a weapon spot. :X

AKA, I can buy a targeting laser, and it marks a spot like a long distance beacon?

Of course, this is a spammers dream. But whatever. I can spam anyways. Until you remove all waypoints and mortar reticules, I can shoot any flag without thinking.

It won't take it long to learn how to spam the flag even without a range ret or waypoints/targeting laser. :p

The point of this post was to say what a good TL would do.
 
Zoolooman said:
If you wanted a useful TL why not let it leave a 15 second waypoint (the only waypoint besides beacons) for the person who actually used the TL to get a position.

The cost is that the TL takes up a weapon spot. :X

AKA, I can buy a targeting laser, and it marks a spot like a long distance beacon?

Of course, this is a spammers dream. But whatever. I can spam anyways. Until you remove all waypoints and mortar reticules, I can shoot any flag without thinking.

It won't take it long to learn how to spam the flag even without a range ret or waypoints/targeting laser. :p

The point of this post was to say what a good TL would do.
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Basically there is no such thing as a good TL in Tribes. When you say good I assume usefull in gameplay. Scrap the POS and put something different in.

Why TL when you can rangefind and beacon and waypoint. I never used it for anything other then a pointer and I bet thats pretty much all anyone ever used it for. So there ya go, just change the name to Laser Pointer :slurp:
 
Apotheosis said:
Yeah I agree that the Targeting Laser (TL) is generally useless during gameplay, but I still like it. I considered the TL in T1 to be more like a "player animation" than an actual "weapon" It's fun to play around with -- leave it in! :)
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Somebody could make a mutator where the TL worked like the bat signal, and you could use it to light up your personal badge on the enemy base. Maybe you could make it so that if you shined it in the enemies eyes he'd see a retina burn of your logo/badge for a while. Like a HL spray but more annoying.
 
sender said:
I would just make the targeting laser be the thing that guides the rockets. No autolock on, but a guy has to 'paint' an aerial target for the thing to lock.
Click to expand...

i hope the traditional targeting lazer stays. only... may we please have both high & low trajectories back?

sender's idea is sweet also.
 
Thrax Panda said:
Somebody could make a mutator where the TL worked like the bat signal, and you could use it to light up your personal badge on the enemy base. Maybe you could make it so that if you shined it in the enemies eyes he'd see a retina burn of your logo/badge for a while. Like a HL spray but more annoying.
Click to expand...

I love it!
 
rilkean panther said:
I won't buy T:V unless there is a classic targetting laser. Oh shit, thrax doesn't pay mind to "I won't buy..." posts.
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I think there should be a non functional "fun" version, and an upgraded useful one.
 
Greywolf said:
pretty cool,but allows Offense to be a huge problem then...and turrets to be pretty useless
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I like the idea of offense being very powerful personally. Without offense, defense is rather boring (see T2).
 
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I think rather than trying to make the targeting laser into a useful version of what was intended, we should instead try to enhance the way it's currently used today.

The main function of the targeting laser is to point -- LD use it to point to incomming cappers that are in the fog to a HoF.

I can think of two ways to improve it.

First, make it offhand -- such that you don't have to switch weapons to point with it, it'd just be an extra key you press. Don't worry about range finding with the mortar, you can just remove those when the gl or mortar is out (or not even bother with range finders since only newbies use them). Anyways, this would allow the defense to easily point without having to switch weapons. Allowing the D to easily point only improves communication, thus I do not consider it to be unbalanced.

Next, and this is only for fun, since the second most used feature of the targeting laser is for lightshows (maybe the first), allow people to swich between differnt colors. Maybe have a green and a pink laser (JUST FOR MY EXAMPLE). For nothing but eye candy purposes, but teams could use it to their advantage. For example they could point out incomming cappers with a green laser and incomming HOs with a pink laser. I wouldn't be heart broken or suprised if this wasn't in the game tho.
 
Zoolooman said:
Of course, this is a spammers dream. But whatever. I can spam anyways. Until you remove all waypoints and mortar reticules, I can shoot any flag without thinking.
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Your idea is pretty much the same as mine. I think that there is nothing wrong with spam at all, as long as the mortar range is within reason (more like T1 than T2). Spam can only be so effective because the defense can move and adjust rather easily to it.
 
Sir Lucius said:
I think rather than trying to make the targeting laser into a useful version of what was intended, we should instead try to enhance the way it's currently used today.

The main function of the targeting laser is to point -- LD use it to point to incomming cappers that are in the fog to a HoF.

I can think of two ways to improve it.

First, make it offhand -- such that you don't have to switch weapons to point with it, it'd just be an extra key you press. Don't worry about range finding with the mortar, you can just remove those when the gl or mortar is out (or not even bother with range finders since only newbies use them). Anyways, this would allow the defense to easily point without having to switch weapons. Allowing the D to easily point only improves communication, thus I do not consider it to be unbalanced.

Next, and this is only for fun, since the second most used feature of the targeting laser is for lightshows (maybe the first), allow people to swich between differnt colors. Maybe have a green and a pink laser (JUST FOR MY EXAMPLE). For nothing but eye candy purposes, but teams could use it to their advantage. For example they could point out incomming cappers with a green laser and incomming HOs with a pink laser. I wouldn't be heart broken or suprised if this wasn't in the game tho.
Click to expand...

These are the best ideas in the thread so far.
 
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