News: Bolt Driver

[DayOne]

Oo...I feel all psychic

[CrystalViolet]

Great explanation. I love how the system should allow us to modify weapons right into our comfort zones as far as range and feel. Let the player decide what the gun is capable of doing. Almost reminds me of how MMORPGS have different skill sets that allow you to be more effective in different roles.

[Higby]

Originally Posted by CViolet

Great explanation. I love how the system should allow us to modify weapons right into our comfort zones as far as range and feel. Let the player decide what the gun is capable of doing. Almost reminds me of how MMORPGS have different skill sets that allow you to be more effective in different roles.

This is precisely the goal of the design - allow players to customize to fit their playstyle while maintaining empire distinction. We don't want you to feel compelled to play NC to get the gameplay experience you want to have when all your friends want to play TR, but, we don't want all the empires to feel like nothing more than a color swap. So, we have blurred the edges to allow for personalizing your gameplay experience while still having each empire have a distinct overall feel and direction to what their soldiers can field.

[Oryon22]

Thanks Higby!

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by PsychoXR-20

Just because it has a rail doesn't mean it can't still be a medical applicator. The rail could accept various forms of medical scanners, which could help the user diagnose, or maybe even some form of extended "clip".

Yeah I'm pretty sure that pistol is a med app - probably without rezzing ability since that's not a medic holding it (maybe a medic-only rail attachment is what let's you rez someone?).

The image caption says, "via @mhigby: Here's the thing that TR soldiers see the most when fighting against the NC." Since Higby's an NC fanboi, he's basically saying when fighting NC, the TR will spend most of their time lying on the ground bleeding and getting healed by their teammates

It wouldn't surprise me either if it's PS2's re-imagining of a med app + medkits rolled into one tool. If so that would mean no more medkit-popping while firing your weapon.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Higby

This is precisely the goal of the design - allow players to customize to fit their playstyle while maintaining empire distinction. We don't want you to feel compelled to play NC to get the gameplay experience you want to have when all your friends want to play TR, but, we don't want all the empires to feel like nothing more than a color swap. So, we have blurred the edges to allow for personalizing your gameplay experience while still having each empire have a distinct overall feel and direction to what their soldiers can field.

So, we get to have our cake and eat it too? You spoil us, sir.

[DayOne]

Anyone else for a chain fed sniper?

[CrystalViolet]

Originally Posted by Higby

This is precisely the goal of the design - allow players to customize to fit their playstyle while maintaining empire distinction. We don't want you to feel compelled to play NC to get the gameplay experience you want to have when all your friends want to play TR, but, we don't want all the empires to feel like nothing more than a color swap. So, we have blurred the edges to allow for personalizing your gameplay experience while still having each empire have a distinct overall feel and direction to what their soldiers can field.

That's a great way to add depth to a shooter. Keep people experimenting with different load outs to try and get a leg up on the competition. I'm sure it'll get even deeper once people start organizing squads with specific roles.

[Johari]

Thank you Higby for the clarification.

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Higby

This is going to go a bit more in depth than it needs to to answer the question, but I figure you guys deserve a bit of extra explanation for being awesome and providing me with so many good times reading speculations....

...

...Now, that being said, it may very well be that the highest possible damage sniper rifle will be available to NC, and TR can get to have a weapon as powerful as one of the best NC rifles, but not quite as beefy, and likewise the NC might be able to get a very high fire rate gauss rifle, but not quite as high as the highest fire rate weapon available to the TR. This will allow us to retain the unique empire feel without having it be a straight up "these guys are always like this and those guys are always like that" vibe.

Savvy?

Very cool! And don't everEverEVER worry yourself over whether you are giving us too much information! That'll never happen. The more information you give us, the happier we'll be. Trust me.

And I must say I love the fact that there are still ability distinctions between the Empires, so that for example as TR/VS, no matter how hard-hitting you spec out your rifle to be, it'll never hit quite as hard as the hardest-hitting NC rifle. It keeps the empire flavors/themes alive.

Originally Posted by Higby

This is precisely the goal of the design - allow players to customize to fit their playstyle while maintaining empire distinction. We don't want you to feel compelled to play NC to get the gameplay experience you want to have when all your friends want to play TR, but, we don't want all the empires to feel like nothing more than a color swap. So, we have blurred the edges to allow for personalizing your gameplay experience while still having each empire have a distinct overall feel and direction to what their soldiers can field.

Excellent, excellent...! Just what I was hoping you's say! I gotta say I can't wait to play with all of the different weapon configs... *hint* *hint* *cough*BETA*cough*

[Shogun]

thanks higby!

its always great to get some clarification on systems! and the common pool/empire specific system you describe sounds great! reminds me a little bit of the inofficial weapon-editors for borderlands! just with some balance involved

having empire flavoured ns weapons is really nice, and it sounds great that you use special sets of reused parts in the weapons for all empires!
thanks for the info!
keep them coming
that´s exactly the kind of things we love to read about!

[ThGlump]

Originally Posted by Higby

This is going to go a bit more in depth than it needs to to answer the question

There cant something like "too much information". Keep it comming

Nice concept of having ES guns share same base concept. It give each empire easily recognizable weapon concept.
But each type of the gun could be harder to recognize. Now they are easily recognizable in their BASE form. There will be plenty customizations, which could blend distinguishes of each weapon type. Modify gauss for more precision/power by adding a little longer barrel, similarly modify bolt driver with shorter barrel for faster shooting. And you start to have problem tell them apart on quick first glance.

Are they that much customizable, or do they clearly stay apart visualy no matter what customization you do?

[Talek Krell]

Originally Posted by Higby

Glorious, glorious truth.

I feel like there should be a triple Venn diagram to represent how customization will work. I'm not sure why that popped into my head, but there ya go. Thanks for the clarification! Poor RadarX. He may never live this down.

[Mordicant]

Thank you Higby!

[Atheosim]

I like higby more and more every day. I might even take to calling him higgles soon, god forbid.