(Suggestion) Afterburner Cert Lines

[commandoFi]

Since ESF afterburners and V-thrust maneuvers have been a hot topic, I decided to post my own thoughts on the matter as a suggestion. The original post can be found here: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/.../#post-2041860

Afterburner revamp and AB Pod Cert lines

The afterburners can be customized into one of three cert trees, similar to airframe customizations. Any level that has been unlocked can be chosen, similar to zoom scopes. They are as follows:

Standard afterburners: they are given stock and have average acceleration, average fuel capacity, and average recharge rate.

Sprint afterburners: these provide high acceleration with low fuel capacity and high fuel recharge rate. In practice the sprint afterburners are good for getting up to speed quickly and rapid V-thrust maneuvers. Its low capacity limits it, making AB pods the top choice for V-thrust pilots using this.

Endurance afterburners: they have lower acceleration, but a high top speed, high fuel capacity, and average recharge rate (slow to fill up due to large capacity). The endurance ABs allow a high speed to be maintained for a very long time. This allows it to outrun other afterburners and often lock-on missiles, making it good for hunting down enemy aircraft or escaping/outrunning them altogether.

Each AB tree can be upgraded to provide slightly better stats all around.

Afterburner Pods
The EAB Pods are available stock and provide greater fuel capacity as well as increased recharge rate. Upgrading them increases both capacity and recharge for each rank.

Bare wings
ESF’s will have the ability to either drop their AB pods or equip no secondary. When the wings are bare the ESF has faster acceleration, higher top speed, and increased maneuverability. I do not know what style of play this suits best, but it could be beneficial.

Afterburner Thrust Reduction
The introduction of these new AB cert lines will be accompanied by a reduction in the acceleration given by afterburners in V-thrust. It is NOT as severe as the proposed reduction on the test server (8 down to 2), more like 8 down to 6. The sprint ABs will provide at least 8, while the endurance ABs will produce less than 4. This makes V-thrust best on sprint and worst on endurance, while still possible on basic AB.

Conclusion
These changes will increase the depth of customization available to ESFs, and thereby allows a greater number of builds, each favoring a different playstyle. Players will be able to choose V-thrust based play, long range interceptor type play, or something else entirely. This change would go well with the idea of letting ESFs lock their thrusters in the hover position.

If you like this idea and want it implemented, up-vote it, post/link it on Reddit, put it on Twitter or Facebook, etc. If you dislike it feel free to give a well thought out critique after reading the whole post. I'd also like to see some dev feedback if this is a popular idea.

TL;DR (you lazy bum): new afterburner upgrade lines give more variety. SLIGHT nerf to default AB V-thrust occurs.

[Lonehunter]

I'd like to see it get a little more creative.

Maybe double tapping boost expends all of it and achieves more top speed then usual but only lasts like 5 seconds

Heavy fuel tanks that have maybe 50% more fuel then current but 20pkh less top speed while boosted

Light fuel tanks for the opposite affect

Maybe a tank that's really the same size as the default afterburner level, but an extreme recharge rate.

A really bazar idea. Is rigging your excess combustion up to a nanitre shield generator. Essentially provided a Vanguard-esque bubble while you have spacebar held. While taking no damage could last a long time, but could only take a bit of damage, like 1-2 missiles

[SerethiX]

This is about esf, not mbts XD

SerethiX - www.serethi.de

[Lonehunter]

Originally Posted by SerethiX

This is about esf, not mbts XD

I made ONE reference to a tank lol

Unless you thought my heavy and light tanks weren't talking about afterburner fuel tanks, added "fuel" to be more clear

[Edfishy]

I love the idea of diversifying the afterburners for ESF's. Good post!