My take on MAX abilities.

[Vectorian]

Some of these ideas I got from other people but tried to balance with other factions. Each MAX has a main ability and a Long Cooldown special.

VS:

Skiing ability - to quickly jet to the left, right, or forward and backwards and shoot at the same time has a bar that replenishes over time.

Coalescent Shot - Long cooldown High Damage similar to samus' shot from metroid lol, They charge up their gun for about 3-5 seconds and slows them down a bit while charging. Has a large plasma explosion when it impacts the target for high damage.

NC:

Shield - Keep their shield they have now has a bar that replenishes over time.

Sonic Punch - Long cooldown Blasts enemies in front of them outward does Medium damage maybe enemies can take fall damage as well added onto original damage lol.

TR:

Overdrive - Guns fire much faster their overdrive has a bar that will replenish over time.

Artillery Strike - Long Cooldown they hunker down and cant move while doing this and shoot rapid cluster bombs into the targeted location and it rains down shells that explode in the air and split into many bomblets good for taking out fortified positions.

[SniperSteve]

Sounds like you have been playing League of Legends too much. :P

[Vectorian]

Actually I've only played that a game a few times lol

[CutterJohn]

I rather wish the MAXs didn't have unique empire specific abilities. It was a very weird aspect of PS1 that existed nowhere else in the game, and I worry about such a thing being in PS2, or worse, expanded on to other infantry and vehicles.

[Metalsheep]

Samus has many different kind of Charged Shots... which kind are you thinking of specifically? Just a high damage shot, slower shot, does it leave burning damage? Or something like the Zero Laser that forces you to hold still, but hits and pierces things infront of you? (Metroid nerd) And as long as the VS dash is only usable once every long time, i could live with it. I'd hate to see MAXs like armored core ACs, dashing everywhere and dodging everything.

All MAXs already have a Melee, supposedly. The Sonic Punch seems a bit much to add on top of a Melee Oriented NC MAX.

And TR MAXs can already hunker down and unleash hell, what kind of Hell depends on what weapons they have equipped. Since TR is focused on speed, perhaps they could get an ability that speeds up their MAXs movement speed for a short period. Not quite like the VS dodge, just a general footspeed increase.

I cant think of a second ability for NC MAXs... the shield is pretty awesome all on its own.

[EVILPIG]

Originally Posted by Vectorian

Some of these ideas I got from other people but tried to balance with other factions. Each MAX has a main ability and a Long Cooldown special.

VS:

Skiing ability - to quickly jet to the left, right, or forward and backwards and shoot at the same time has a bar that replenishes over time.

Coalescent Shot - Long cooldown High Damage similar to samus' shot from metroid lol, They charge up their gun for about 3-5 seconds and slows them down a bit while charging. Has a large plasma explosion when it impacts the target for high damage.

NC:

Shield - Keep their shield they have now has a bar that replenishes over time.

Sonic Punch - Long cooldown Blasts enemies in front of them outward does Medium damage maybe enemies can take fall damage as well added onto original damage lol.

TR:

Overdrive - Guns fire much faster their overdrive has a bar that will replenish over time.

Artillery Strike - Long Cooldown they hunker down and cant move while doing this and shoot rapid cluster bombs into the targeted location and it rains down shells that explode in the air and split into many bomblets good for taking out fortified positions.

Interesting. You have long range mega-shots for TR and VS, yet a punch for NC. lol

If my memory serves me right, there will be at least 2 empire specific abilities for each empire plus common pool abilities. VS will have an overdrive type ability and shields will be a common pool.

The skiing for VS could happen, as some of the team is playing Tribes and could draw influence. Don't know how well it would work or even if it would be balanced. I imagine just the ability to run will be a common pool ability now.

Of course, nothing you hear is gospel. When you hear about something at this stage of development, take it as, "That's what we're thinking about right now" instead of "That's how it will be live". It's more realistic and makes things that sound overpowered easier to swallow.

[Vectorian]

Originally Posted by Metalsheep

Samus has many different kind of Charged Shots... which kind are you thinking of specifically? Just a high damage shot, slower shot, does it leave burning damage? Or something like the Zero Laser that forces you to hold still, but hits and pierces things infront of you? (Metroid nerd) And as long as the VS dash is only usable once every long time, i could live with it. I'd hate to see MAXs like armored core ACs, dashing everywhere and dodging everything.

All MAXs already have a Melee, supposedly. The Sonic Punch seems a bit much to add on top of a Melee Oriented NC MAX.

And TR MAXs can already hunker down and unleash hell, what kind of Hell depends on what weapons they have equipped. Since TR is focused on speed, perhaps they could get an ability that speeds up their MAXs movement speed for a short period. Not quite like the VS dodge, just a general footspeed increase.

I cant think of a second ability for NC MAXs... the shield is pretty awesome all on its own.

In regards to the VS Samus shot ability - I was going for a shot that just explodes on impact that has some area of effect to it but long cooldown on it and you cannot move very fast while charging it up to fire it. No burn damage or anything like that prob would be to op.

In regards to the Skiing ability yes it would be very limited wouldn't be able to spam it as I mentioned there is a power consumption bar for each main ability. Example: you prob could only Ski 10-20 feet in a direction maybe twice back to back before the power would be drained and have to wait for it recharge and that would be depending if you used it to go 10-20 feet. They could balance it to Ski distance to power consumption cost. So people would have to choose how much to use and when. So no abusing it to keep doing it over and over again.

[Ceska]

From what they said so far :

TR : keep the anchor mode and get a charge mode

NC : shield and not revealed

VS : not revealed

[Tamas]

NC - Falcon punch?

[Vectorian]

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

Interesting. You have long range mega-shots for TR and VS, yet a punch for NC. lol

If my memory serves me right, there will be at least 2 empire specific abilities for each empire plus common pool abilities. VS will have an overdrive type ability and shields will be a common pool.

The skiing for VS could happen, as some of the team is playing Tribes and could draw influence. Don't know how well it would work or even if it would be balanced. I imagine just the ability to run will be a common pool ability now.

Of course, nothing you hear is gospel. When you hear about something at this stage of development, take it as, "That's what we're thinking about right now" instead of "That's how it will be live". It's more realistic and makes things that sound overpowered easier to swallow.

In regards to the NC punch ability it would prob have a bit of range on it but directly in front of the MAX maybe 15-20ft so you don't have to be point blank lol. Kind of like sending out a conal shockwave out of your fist lol and yes saying falcon punch while doing it would make it awesome. Also when they do it their suit lunges forward a little for the effect of its power.

[Pollo Jack]

I think we should stray from strong abilities balanced by lengthy cool downs. If Planet Side has taught us anything, that is a horrible way to balance. Since you can pull a MAX suit from a galaxy, grabbing it getting two or so kills then running back and changing class would be commonplace, especially since you don't have to cert max you can unlock it's abilities as you level other classes.

I have seen the skiing idea tossed around, and it is fine for tribes which is very quick pace but we had a similar event in Planet Side with surgiles. Not only was it so unbalanced they had to buff the REXO but they also went back and forced you to put your weapon away while surging eliminating speed and punch all together for infantry. I doubt the devs are even considering this just because of the nightmare of balancing it they had in the original.

[Vectorian]

Originally Posted by Pollo Jack

I think we should stray from strong abilities balanced by lengthy cool downs. If Planet Side has taught us anything, that is a horrible way to balance. Since you can pull a MAX suit from a galaxy, grabbing it getting two or so kills then running back and changing class would be commonplace, especially since you don't have to cert max you can unlock it's abilities as you level other classes.

I have seen the skiing idea tossed around, and it is fine for tribes which is very quick pace but we had a similar event in Planet Side with surgiles. Not only was it so unbalanced they had to buff the REXO but they also went back and forced you to put your weapon away while surging eliminating speed and punch all together for infantry. I doubt the devs are even considering this just because of the nightmare of balancing it they had in the original.

Depends on what your take on a lengthy cooldown is I wouldn't consider anything between 30-60seconds a lengthy cooldown. That's just a smart way to make it so the ability cannot be spammed over and over again.

Also in regards to skiing in tribes your doing it 24/7 and that's cool and fun but I'm talking about a short burst just to avoid maybe one tank round shot at the max.

[Stardouser]

Do maxes have anything like the Tribes mortar gun, and should they?

Don't be fooled by the name, the Tribes fusion mortar is not, as far as I know, an indirect fire weapon.

[Vectorian]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

I rather wish the MAXs didn't have unique empire specific abilities. It was a very weird aspect of PS1 that existed nowhere else in the game, and I worry about such a thing being in PS2, or worse, expanded on to other infantry and vehicles.

What would be the point of having different unique empires if none of them had unique weaponry or abilities. Seems like the game would be kind of stale to me if everything was common pool imo.

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

Interesting. You have long range mega-shots for TR and VS, yet a punch for NC. lol

If my memory serves me right, there will be at least 2 empire specific abilities for each empire plus common pool abilities. VS will have an overdrive type ability and shields will be a common pool.

The skiing for VS could happen, as some of the team is playing Tribes and could draw influence. Don't know how well it would work or even if it would be balanced. I imagine just the ability to run will be a common pool ability now.

Of course, nothing you hear is gospel. When you hear about something at this stage of development, take it as, "That's what we're thinking about right now" instead of "That's how it will be live". It's more realistic and makes things that sound overpowered easier to swallow.

When I originally came up with skiing I mentioned that activating the ability would let you move omni-directionally without friction on the ground, as in hover. The idea also included it being a bit tougher to control since you wouldn't stop moving in direction X just by letting up on that key, you'd coast to a stop like an actual hover vehicle (regardless of the direction you turned) unless you put energy into the opposite direction or took off hover. Easily explained as a MAX suit being too small and complex to include inertial stabilizers that automatically do a job most scientists figured the soldier could damn well do himself.

This could be easy or tough to implement depending on the way the game is coded. I suspect that since they are using a physics engine, it would be fairly easy.

I also suggested that there not be a capacitor for the ability, being harder to control would balance it out IMO, and cause players to jump from hover to standing modes frequently, even in mid combat.

Also, for the OP, this forum isn't the "idea vault" forum. You really should have just posted your ideas there.