Commando Archive

What I do know is what we are not....

We are NOT a support profession. Nothing pisses me off more than when a pistoleer/carbineer/rifleman/tka/pikeman/swordsman/fencer, who spends half the skill points I do, tells me that commandos are supposed to be gimpy because we are a "support profession."

Hell some of the BHs who were harassing us about the detonation droids even said it, saying that we don't deserve good weapons like that because we are a "support profession."

Grrrrrrrrrrrr...

I thought the original intention for Commando was allways as "Heavy Weapon Specialist" not "Special Opperative"

Hence we get flamers, grenades & rockets.

Besides, "Sneakie" ideas wont work because:
a) They involve late stage messing with the game mechanics (face it, no one its ever going to get radar invisibility)
b) There's allready a class with conceal abilities (*giggle*), Ranger. Remember them?


IMHO, the key thing the Commando class needs for completness is a range of (viable) damage types. Working and cost/inventory space effective grenades & heavy weapons covering all damage types that are at least competative when contrasted with other classes weaponary (eg. Cold damage cryobans vs a Master Rifleman with an SG-82).

These should be backed up by non-consumable weapons covering standard damage types for general purpose use. These would include the Flamer, HAR and launcher pistol. IMHO, they should include either an assault rifle (give us some decent, believable, energy damage rather than a cartoony pistol) but a working & distinct HAR and maybe some skill mod improvments for the LP would suffice.

My 2 c's worth:
My idea of the commando is first and foremost a professional battlefield soldier. His the weapon wielding, 'in the mud' grunt to the squad leaders sergeant or officer. We should IMHO be competent in two areas. 1) general weapon usage 2) specialized heavy weapons.

General Weapons:
First off, I don't really think we need a new 'assault rifle' weapon. We already have more weapons certified than any other class. We just only do well with one of them (the flamethrower) When it comes to general weapons I see the commando as a jack of all trades but master of none. We should be able to be fairly useful with most standard weapons, but never compete with the specialists in their area.
Instead of asking for a new assault rifle style weapon, i think we'd be much better off if we were 'allowed' to make better use of our rather extensive arsenal. Being able to use weapon like Laser Rifles, Laser Carbines, FWG5's and Jawa Ion Rifles with some degree of competence would very quickly solve our sole dependency on the flame thrower.

To allow us to effectively use these weapons, give us additional accuracy and speed mods for Rifle, Pistol and Carbine, not enough in either to encroach on the Riflemen, Pistoleers and Carabineers supremacy of these weapons. But enough to make them useable alternatives to the commandos specific weapons. Add two 'generic' special (generic as in useable with Pistols, Rifles and Carbines). One should be a fairly high damage random pool attack, the other could be a cone AEO posture change with low damage. The first being useable as a standard damage dealer (without this, the plans falls kind of short), the second I added because it just seems to fit well with the 'battlefield soldier' image. Laying down a suppressive fire. IMHO this would solve the 'non-heavy weapon' aspect of the profession. I also think it makes good sense since it would give a lot more meaning to our pre-requisites for the profession and make it feel like the marksman profession was more than just a skill point sink, but instead useful to the class.

Heavy weapons:
This should be where commandos are unique, and this should be where we feel we shine and get our skill points worth of death, carnage and mayhem. First off, I think heavy weapons should be powerful, but always carry a significant disadvantage to them. They area weapons you'd only want to use in the right situation. Knowing how to deploy the right weapon at the right time rather than picking the biggest and spam 'biggest special' should be the challenge and test of a commando. A commando who knows how to deploy his extensive arsenal of weapons should be a fearsome foe, a commando gives little thought on how to use his weapons should not last long on the field of battle.

We currently have three 'types' of heavy weapons.

Flame /acid throwers
Well.. we all know and love the FT, no one really think much of the ugly little brother. My suggestion would be to lower the Acid's damage even further, but give it medium armor piercing. The idea would be that the flamethrower shines vs. light armor targets, but the acid is the stronger vs. well armored targets. The disadvantage of these weapons are 1) the short range 2) the melee damage modifier. The idea should be that both the FT and HAR should cause quite a lot of damage up close, but leave the commando very vulnerable himself. All depending on numbers and tests, it might even be advisable to increase the melee damage penalty further for heavy weapons

Grenades
IMHO grenades should be a ace up the sleeve, a little extra for those special occasions, not something worth spamming against targets. They could play a special role in several different ways as I see it:
Status attacks: Commandos tend to be rather short on status causing attacks. A lot of people has suggested that grenades be given status affecting attacks such as stun, blind or even knowdown.

'Anti-stacker weapons': The grenades could be made to ignore secondary defenses of the target. If the commandos have no weapons with which they have a very high accuracy, having an alternate way of hitting high defense opponents (mainly PvP I’d guess) might be in order?
Different attack types: The existing grenades already have several different attack types (cold, blast, heat, acid..) If the grenades were more useful in practice, this in itself might make them versatile and useful additions to the commandos arsenal.Increasing the accuracy of grenades and removing the chance to hurt oneself seems to be in order though. While the self-damage aspect of grenades is very realistic and what have you it doesn’t translate well to a game where we often get the un-accounted for lag spikes, warping mobs and so on. Other professions don't have this problems (CM's don't risk poisoning themselves for example).

Disposable heavy weapons
Personally I always disliked the disposable aspect of the heavy weapons. They are extremely bothersome to make, and thus expensive to the point where they are not really worth it in most situations. As i see it, heavy weapons should usually only be really useful when working with a group. A commando should in most cases need to be able to launch his heavy weapons from behind the front fighters. Melee damage modifier, long animations and long ideal range should mean that these weapons should mainly be useful in group fights. However, they need to make big holes! If their damage are not high enough to make the commando grin when he hits people are not going to bother with them in the first place. Yes they need to be a hassle to sue in general, but the effect need to also be worth the hassle.

The weapons could include the rocket launcher and hopefully the E-Web at some point in the future. The accuracy on most of the existing HW's seems to need tweaking. And in all honesty, I believe so does the damage. Currently there’s little point in playing for rockets .. A rifleman will do a better job on just about anything anyways. The sum of the long ramblings above would leave the commandos in a situation where:
Commandos would be a very versatile profession, a huge array of weapons available, risky but high damage weapons for up close and heavy weapons for group play. The disadvantages would be:

1) low defenses.. we should dish it out as well (or better?) than anyone, but our defense would be severely lacking.

2) Our best damage weapons would require a group 'to hide behind' and possibly render us immobile while using them, thus further compounding our low defenses and the melee damage modifier.

3) FTs and HARs for up close.. again.. lots of damage but little to no defense plus a melee damage modifier makes these weapons potentially very effective, but also risky to use.
.. anyways.. enough rambling

Message Edited by TennerRavenstar on 05-13-2004 06:42 PM

"It's a hybrid profession, there should be more than one way of playing it. Different styles of play, with different specialties and abilities. And of course, a Master would be the perfect versatility. A simple weapon and tactic swap and you can switch from one class to another. But meh, I'm dreaming."

This is my essential view of the proffession. Everyone sees the commando being forced into a single role, but I don't. Being a hybrid proffession, it only seems natural that there would be multiple ways to play the class, depending on what the situation calls for.

It's rather interesting, gleaning over all of these posts I seem to be finding a re-curring concept that appears, even if the content of the posts differs some, and that is versatility.

I think that one word sums up what the proffession should be about.

Message Edited by Raptor2k1 on 05-13-2004 07:04 PM

• A form of placeable explosives (timed, proximity, whatever) giving to commandos.


• A melee (bladed?), medium range(FT or Assault rifle works for me), and long range (heavy weapons/improved HAR/Imperial Heavy Repeater w/ tripod) weapon for commandos.


• Unconventional combat actions for commandos


• Grenades and heavy weapons much more accurate than they are now, and cause state effects.


• Scout req. rather than unarmed. Some scout/survival skills.


• A way to forage to construct a temp cure for disease or states.

useless post submitted purely for the pleasure of seeing my name as the most recent submittee for all posts on page one.

i have been MC for a while now and intend to stay commando as it is fun. I feel that there are a lot of tactics involved in playing commando as it stands just now due to our low defence and HAM cost on weapons. Our flamer is pretty powerfullbut the delay between speacials feels likemonths.I think Commando needs fixed but not completely changed.

I don't think commandos sneak into battle. They might sneak to a given location but once they get there all hell breaks out.

I say Keep flamers (as they are) and HAR (fixed as per Garvins thread on this subject) and greanades, rockets etc. We just need to fix them. Rockets need more damage and more accuracy and maybe a widerhit radius. I think we need a set up similar to BH where we get lots of pistols accuracy and speed in one tree (for example); Heavy weapons in another; Flamer/HAR in single tree; andsome sort of toughness/survival orientedtree.

Flame Single is good. the HAR would be good if it had similar effectiveness as flamer. We could use our launcher pistol because we have pistols skills and we would have effective rockets to take out ATST's etc. And the devs don't need to make any new weapons.

I see Commandos as all round hard hittingcombat fighters. We already have quite a lot of versatility its just that some (most) of the weapons don't work properly. I think weneed an every day weapon like a machine gun/pistol/assualt rifle and rearrange our skill trees slightly then Commando will be efefctive but fair.

Someone said earlier that we invest the most skill points in Combat skils so we should be good in all types of combat against all types of target. I agree. I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask people to invest more skill points in prerequisite skills if commando could be made a more viable and versatile profession. At the moment I need TKMso I can put my Commando skills to good use.We should be able to stand our own ground and hold off attackers as well asbea key combat member of any team.