Empire night flares

[Marinealver]

So we can see who is the imbisel that is lighting us up as we try to flank the side in the night, just like we can see who is blowing up the veh pad as we try to hack an AMS out of it.

[MedicDude]

Short duration flares that are pretty, but don't burn your eyes out, yes YES, please yes. Should be a micro-transaction item.

[Wolfhound]

Illumination rounds like those that are fired from motars and howitzers by the military today would be great. It would be awesome to fire some of these rounds off when defending a base to illuminate that 15 man platoon that's making their way towards the base...

[Cuross]

Absolutely they would be useful. Micro-transaction? I dunno, I feel that they should just cost normal resources, but require a special cert tree to use. Maybe in the grenades (for infantry) or flares (for aircraft). And definitely not too short. I'm thinking thirty seconds at least haha.

[MedicDude]

Well I wasn't going for functional flares, more of a firework / eye candy item.

If night's actually going to be dark enough to require flares, then yes, I'd like to see them, but I feel like they would cause lots of game play frustration if a flare was needed for sight, and fizzled out as you were engaging the enemy.

If empires automatically deployed flares to hotspot locations, that would be awesome, I'd love to see that.

[Cuross]

Well, the reason why I suggest flares actually light up the sky is because the night time actually gets really dark in game. From what I've seen, trying to spot anyone on the ground who doesn't have a laser pointer or flashlight turned on would be really difficult, so functional flares would greatly increase awesomeness of night fights, I think. Not to mention if they were able to create IR flares (higher rank cert for flares, of course), only your Empire would benefit from the flare through night vision. Or not, perhaps it would still be an all-encompassing mechanic, but you still need night vision in order to make the best use of even that kind of flare

[Soyokaze]

This is an awesome idea, though some are over complicating it.

A tossable flare should be a side-grade grenade replacement, while a flare gun should be a side-grade to the faction specific pistols. In each case, you trade the secondary damage source for a utility tool.

All they need to be is a highly luminous point light source of faction specific coloring. The ability to reveal enemies sneaking under the cover of darkness and to temporarily blind and disorient are perfectly viable trade offs for lost direct combat versatility.


Best off, this is caveman simple.

[Raka Maru]

I can see why you would want faction specific IR rather than normal flares because of dummies in your empire giving away your position. It would light up the nights in an eerie way. Just another light source drifting to earth.

Why not just give us all varieties?

Flare gun pistol: overhead parachute style
Grenade ammo: to light up distant corners
Tossable: other than flash bang.

I've seen some wondering about blinding varieties. I would be ok with that non-IR version. The feeling of helplessness should not last more than a few seconds and can be countered by special goggles if slotted. The whole room can be cleared out if no one has these goggles. Would add a whole new gameplay, I wonder how it would work out...

[Lanka]

To be fair I think faction specific flares should still be barely visible to other factions so they know why they were spotted. Just to reduce the "omg lol haxs" crying that it'll cause. Also experienced players would know to wait for the flare to die before moving in over open areas.

If given to infantry, I'd rather make them SL/Commander cert than giving everyone bunch of shiny things. Or maybe they could work as utility sidegrade for Galaxy/Sunderer?

Grenade replacement as signal flare? That'd be interesting. Could toss together color smoke&flare into one to make it viable option both night&day. Enough smoke&'flame' that it can be seen from sky for calling in Liberators or Galaxies..

[Cuross]

Originally Posted by Lanka

To be fair I think faction specific flares should still be barely visible to other factions so they know why they were spotted. Just to reduce the "omg lol haxs" crying that it'll cause. Also experienced players would know to wait for the flare to die before moving in over open areas.

If given to infantry, I'd rather make them SL/Commander cert than giving everyone bunch of shiny things. Or maybe they could work as utility sidegrade for Galaxy/Sunderer?

Grenade replacement as signal flare? That'd be interesting. Could toss together color smoke&flare into one to make it viable option both night&day. Enough smoke&'flame' that it can be seen from sky for calling in Liberators or Galaxies..

Yeah, someone had already mentioned the flare being visible, but I'm on the fence about letting the enemy faction get even a small portion of the flare's benefit. I had the idea of the IR flare strobing while it was in the air, so that even though the enemy factions don't gain even a small amount of benefit from the flare, they can still see it in the air and know that the enemy launched one.

But maybe if the enemy factions did get a small benefit, it still fits in as fluff. There is only so much of the light spectrum that can be utilized, I'm sure that there would be some overlap between the three factions choices.

[Saifoda]

Make it simple: Parachute style flare (video example to follow), burn/hang time ~30 seconds, lights up the immediate area (and for game purposes include dynamic shadows). Everybody should be able to see the thing; unfair advantage of you can light up the whole field with several guys popping flares and your guys get all the advantages of it and the enemy is just sol. If you don't want the enemy spotting you, don't shoot it over your heads -- shoot it over theirs!

[Daffan]

This would be unique and seems like a good addition if it were added.

Wouldn't mind it anywho;

[Cuross]

Originally Posted by Saifoda

Make it simple: Parachute style flare (video example to follow), burn/hang time ~30 seconds, lights up the immediate area (and for game purposes include dynamic shadows). Everybody should be able to see the thing; unfair advantage of you can light up the whole field with several guys popping flares and your guys get all the advantages of it and the enemy is just sol. If you don't want the enemy spotting you, don't shoot it over your heads -- shoot it over theirs!

I know where you're coming from for this, but if this kind of thing gets implemented into the Beta, I would like to see it tested between faction specific IR flares and all around IR flares. I imagine that night fights will be chaotic, and anyone certing high enough to get IR flares would definitely benefit their faction greatly. I can also see a counter to an IR flare, someone sees a strobe light in the sky saying that there's an IR flare up, the enemy launches a normal light flare to basically nullify much of the benefits, since nightvision and visible light don't mix well :P

In the end, you did bring up a valid point of giving one team all the advantage and leaving the other scrambling for cover, but I would like to see how the metagame for this plays out if it was given a chance

[Kayos]

Originally Posted by Saifoda

Make it simple: Parachute style flare (video example to follow), burn/hang time ~30 seconds, lights up the immediate area (and for game purposes include dynamic shadows). Everybody should be able to see the thing; unfair advantage of you can light up the whole field with several guys popping flares and your guys get all the advantages of it and the enemy is just sol. If you don't want the enemy spotting you, don't shoot it over your heads -- shoot it over theirs!

Agreed, just a simple flare like the one in the video is what I would want.
The IR ones wouldn't be able to be faction specific realistically since anyone wearing nvg's would be able to see the light.

[Lanka]

Originally Posted by Kayos

Agreed, just a simple flare like the one in the video is what I would want.
The IR ones wouldn't be able to be faction specific realistically since anyone wearing nvg's would be able to see the light.

Well, it is a scifi game..

But I wouldn't make them even IR/NVG boosting flares. Just that your faction gets 100% light effect while other two get 10-20% effect - enough to know that it's there, but significantly less than using their own flares.

IMHO, making the flares same for everyone could lead to some interesting griefing - pissed off at your side's doings, just toss a flare above base they are trying to sneak into and watch the carnage. I mean all it could require is 1 childish player with a flare to mess up attack of a platoon. (Could be just my pessimistic view of other players though.)