Commando Archive

To make things easier for new players, for our correspondent and for the 'veteran' grenadeers who've never picked a heavy weapon or grenade, here's a list of the issues with these weapons:

Grenades:

ACCURACY: Grenade Accuracy mods do not seem to stack or the accuracy mod is too low. Even at Field Tactics 4 and Master Commandothe grenades miss 8 out 10 times in average. The effective range (aka -10 @0m, +10@ 10m,-50 @20m ) of the grenades put theowner inside the blast range of the grenade itself. Not to mention making the grenade a rather pointless weapon to use inside 16m, for you could just as well use the flamethroweragainst the target.

***Grenades should be very accurate weapons, hitting everything inside their blast range, even friendlies. However, the effective range modifiers must be increased to at least +10 @ 0m +20 @ 25m -50 @35m , making the grenades mid-range expendable blast weapons, a 'softening-up' weapon before the commando closes into flamer range.

HAM COST: Ok as it is. See speed and damage issues below.

DAMAGE: For a disposable, short range weapon, the damage of any of the grenades is sigificantly underpowered. A poorly made flamethrower or acid rifle will do the same damage via normal shots in the same amount of time it takes the grenade timer to wear off.

Note: Grenades will hit the commando as well as the target, however, the damage the commando takes apparently is not calculated as 'pvp' damage (with no 75% reduction), but as PvE damage...thus a commando can and oftenly does, kill himself with his own grenades.

*** Grenade damage must be increased by at least 50%.

SPEED: Too high.3 to6 seconds timer average is not wise to have on a weapon that is disposable and that is used practically at melee range. It is actually more effective to let the flamethrower autofire that use grenades in this case.

***Please lower grenade speeds to 1 or 2 seconds max, keep the high ham cost to prevent grenade spamming.

RADIUS: Too small. Even modern grenades are a significant risk out to 50 meters due to shrapnel.

***Radius must be increased to 15 meters for all grenades. All targets inside radius must get hit, reduce damage the further away from blast radius.

PowerUps and Slicing: There are 2 kinds of power ups for the grenades (wiring kit, explosives kit). To 'slice' a single 5-pack of grenades you need to have the smuggler use a clamp, 2 knives and a weapon upgrade kit. This makes the powering up of a grenade very time consuming, and for the returns, usually unwise.

***change grenade slicing to not require weapon upgrade kit, have its slicing be random in the way of : if you cut red cable, 50% chance radius is sliced and 50% chance speed is sliced, cut blue cable, 50% damage is sliced, 50% ham cost is sliced. grenade powerup kits are ok as they are, being inexpensive to make and purchase by the crateloads. Also, make it so that we are able to slice an entire crate of grenades in 1 sitting without having to take the grenades out of the crate. Have it consume 50 laser knives (25*2) to slice the crate.

Heavy Weapons:

Damage: Heavy weapons are seriously underpowered. For a max damage of about 6k upon hitting a target vulnerable to damage type with no armor rating, and weapon stats of 4k max (highest ive seen..ever), these weapons, as most of the commando weapon trees, are rather pointless to use when a flamethrower does more damage faster and puts a DOT on target. It is said that the AP ratings in weapons should function as a damage multiplier, of +25% per AP rating above target's armor rating... so an AP3 weapon should techically do +75% damage to an AP0 target.. but it doesnt. It seems however, that AP rating just DAMAGES a target's armor more than lower AP rated weapons. This, of course, is idiotic beyond belief for its got no application on PvE and in PvP it becomes useless for anything but to grief someone out of their expensive armor.

*** I would propose a middle ground for this. Increase heavy weapon damage by 50% min/max , and instead of AP rating damage bonus (which would overpower an already 50% damage boosted heavy weapon), make the heavy weapon do 25% WOUNDS per AP rating. So in essence, AP3 shooting 0 armor rating target, the weapon will leave target with 75% of its ham bar fully wounded (if it survives the hit that is). An AP3 hitting and Armor 3 rating target will leave no wounds.

ACCURACY: Heavy Weapon accuracy is currently ok as it is as far as to-hit chances. However, the accuracy modifiers in the weapons themselves must be increased to all positive modifiers. Having no on-the-move modifiers, our heavy weapons are really useful against mostly static targets...not to mention the commando has to stop and kneel to use the HW. Commando also suffers terribly when using the heavy weapons because they cannot specify a HAM bar to hit. For being heavy weapons, which we kneel to use and as expendables, which we pay an eye and limb per shot for, these should be the ONLY commando weapons that can target specific ham bars.. otherwise our role proffession as the heavy armament users will be limited to russian roullette players hoping the2nd heavy weaponwe fire at target hits the same HAM bar... a game in which we have 66% chance of losing!

*** Increase ALL heavy weapon modifiers to an equal, +10 in all ranges. Its not a big accuracy boost, and the weapon will hardly hit a moving target.. however it does allow the commando to use them in any range without severe penalties.. its not nice to shoot 2k+ credit per shot weapons to have them miss a target.Add the following abilities to the commando heavy weapon trees:

TargetChassis (health ham bar), TargetMobility (action ham bar),TargetControls (mind ham bar). Have these abilities work like the 'aim' command. Commando click on TargetMobility, then clicks on the heavy weapon of choice, heavy weapon fires and hits specified Ham bar.

AP RATINGS: They are all HEAVY weapons. Why some of them have AP1 rating is incomprehensible.

*** Increase all HW to AP3.

Charges: If the above changes are made, charges on weapon will be fine as they currently are.

RADIUS: Broken. Heavy weapons currently will not affect any targets inside their blast radius. This must not only be fixed, but also have the blast radius adjusted to give each heavy weapon some specifics.

***Change the following: Heavy Lightning Cannon & Heavy Particle Beam Cannon - no blast radius. These should be single-target weapons.. also the least expensive to make and produce, so it balances out. Acid Stream Launcher & Rocket Launcher - blast radius 10m.

PRODUCTION & MARKET ISSUES: The biggest issue with the expendable weapons is their supply. two of our skill trees are very usually not used at all because most weaponsmiths do not make these armaments.

This is tracked to two reasons: Materials used in construction and time spent producing these weapons.

To make the grenades and heavy weapons, the weaponsmith must have at hand specifically named metals and metal types, and in amounts bigger than those used to make a non-expendable weapon. For a weaponsmith it becomes a matter of practicallity: Burn their precious, rare metals making weapons that are used up at an astronomical rate compared to non-expendables, and who'se market is limited to one proffession (commando)... or make non-expendable weapons which can be purchased and used by nearly all proffessions? Most weaponsmiths choose the 2nd option, as you can see from the rarity of finding a rocket launcher in someone's vendor... and how easy it is to find C-12 grenades, which everyone can use, in most weaponsmith vendors and even bazaar.

The second factor is time. Making a rocket launcher is very time consuming. A good hour or 2 must be spent before you can churn out the first crate of 7 launchers from a pair of factories. Higher end grenades as well. Again, for a weaponsmith.. its a clear cut choice: spend 2+ hours making 1 batch of 7 weapons per crate, or 2+hours making 1 batch of non-expendable weapons at 25 weapons a crate..which incidentally sell much better and quicker. You already know which most wepsmiths choose to do. Matter of fact , ask a few weaponsmiths in your server to make you a rocket launcher, i bet a good deal of them will tell you it takes too long to make one and they really dont want to waste their time in that.

*** Solution to this is simple: Change the expendable weapon schematics. Make them not use name or metal-specific materials. Just ask them to use 'steel' or 'crystalline gemstone' instead of 'nameofmetalhere duranium steel' and such. This makes the weaponsmiths be able to produce these weapons in a great range of effectiveness and at a dramatically reduced cost (for no longer they need rare metals)... which results in finally there being a good means of supply and commandos finally getting the chance to buy them at reduced prices, thus increasing their use in the field and the amount commandos will purchase.

For honestly, what commando buys a backpack full of rocket launchers or hpbc's and uses them when he hunts in groups? Right now its an amazing waste of money.

*fires acidsingle at thread, misses.*

8 seconds later, timer wears off

*throws grenade, thread evades*

6 seconds later

*fires HPBC, misses*

5 seconds later

*fires flame single2, thread is 100% heat resistant!, dot ticks*

6 seconds later

*drops all weapons, uses newly acquired MTKA ninja skills, 8itchslaps thread to death in 2 seconds*

Heavy Support Weapons AP Ratings are definatly a sore spot for me.

I don't know what it's doing, but it seems to do absolutely nothing. All the dmg done to the target is exactly what the dmg spec on the weapon is give or take a few hundred points.

Acid Rifle? Why bother?? Even against something with 100% resist to heat, often the flame dot works better.

Launcher Pistol = Needs to be AP1 and work. We should also get something in the form of a single pistol special, or a better pistol to get better results. For all the comotion this thing causes when it fires, it's sad that it seems to work no better and often worse than other pistols. The only difference between this weapon and a FWG5 are graphics and blast dmg.

Grenades as they exist currently should be done away with. Should be replaced with grenade launchers with a good range on them. Would allow us to "shell" our enemies at a distance. It seems nonsensical to have yet another close range weapon, when the flamethrower is clearly the winner in that arena.