News: Bolt Driver

[somers]

Originally Posted by DayOne

Internals (barrel/firing mechanism etc.) made by NS with a faction-made casing perhaps?

Also this... Perhaps the empires each make different casings for the same base weapons that Nanite ships them.

[CrystalViolet]

Just compared the pictures of the Gaus and the "Bolt Driver" side by side. They are completely identical minus the barrel and muzzle break. This thing can't be common pool.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by CViolet

Just compared the pictures of the Gaus and the "Bolt Driver" side by side. They are completely identical minus the barrel and muzzle break. This thing can't be common pool.

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

[Oryon22]

Originally Posted by Knightwyvern

See, I'm not convinced that is a "pistol." I think it's the medic.. hypospray, we'll call it. Though the rail on top is a bit strange, I still hold to that idea.

Ah yes, I remember this picture now. I have a hard time thinking this is a pistol, but the accessory rail on top tells me it is. I originally thought this was some medi-gun given the vials on the soldier's belt.

[CrystalViolet]

going to tweet Higby and ask him to give us a little clarification.

[PsychoXR-20]

Originally Posted by Oryon22

Ah yes, I remember this picture now. I have a hard time thinking this is a pistol, but the accessory rail on top tells me it is. I originally thought this was some medi-gun given the vials on the soldier's belt.

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".

[Rbstr]

Yeah this is only not confusing if you're not paying any attention at all.
It looks exactly the Gauss rifle.

Now, maybe the Gauss rifle is actually based off the Bolt Driver, which makes a bit of sense considering the NC's story fluff.
Or maybe things got confused on SOEs end. Or whatever.

[Akemo]

Via Matt Higby's Twitter: The Bolt Driver is NC specific. Not common pool.

edit:
Basti's question - @Arclegger @mhigby quicky, to clear up PSU confusion: Is the Bolt Driver Common Pool, or NC only?

Higby's answer - @BastiVC NC specific.

[DayOne]

Originally Posted by Akemo

Via Matt Higby's Twitter: The Bolt Driver is NC specific. Not common pool.

Well that explains it. Maybe I was right about the TR and VS getting stylised equivalents?

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by RadarX

Just to avoid confusion, this is a common pool weapon. It's prized by NC snipers because they prize their sniper rifles. Wouldn't you?

Why must you turn this forum into a HOUSE OF LIES?!?!

[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.

Many of our weapons are built similar to the Chinese QBZ or German G36 where several weapons (carbine, assault rifle, LMG, sniper rifle, etc) are built off the same platform. We have a huge number of variant parts that can mix and match to create different unique weapons. A lot of the parts will be unique to certain weapon types, so a barrel on an assault rifle won't necessarily be the same as on your LMG so that we have distinct silhouettes and looks, each of these weapons also behaves completely differently in game from an ammo count, accuracy, firing rate, damage, etc. standpoint.

The Bolt Driver is an NC specific sniper rifle, each empire will have their own ES sniper rifle, but due to the way our weapon platforms work, they'll have some variation even within the sniper rifles, this is the "sidegrade" concept you've heard us talk about a lot. While an NC sniper might start default with a high-damage, slow firing rate, magazine fed bolt driver, that player would be able to unlock variants of the bolt driver that might be semi automatic, or breach loaded for extra damage, or anything in between that makes sense for us to make. TR, and VS will be similarly versatile. So, if you want to be the high damage sniper guy, you don't necessarily have to play NC! You can be on TR and unlock a higher damage sniper rifle than the default which is semi-auto and has low recoil to allow for successive shots. Similarly if you want to be a super high firing rate VS player, you can unlock a pulsar that has some higher burst potential at the trade-off for, say, damage over distance, or ammo capacity, or whatever we think the best tradeoffs are to make the guns balanced and fun.

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?

edit: by the way, RadarX saying it's common pool is just email fail on our part, I had said it "was common pool" meaning in PlanetSide, not "that gun was supposed to be common pool".

[MadKat]

Well being as the gun itself is clearly not a bolt driver, a house of lies sounds accurate.

[Pillow]

Ban the devs for trolling

[BigBossMonkey]

Higby, sounds awesome.

Really looking forward to reading/seeing/(USING) this customization system you guys are cooking up...

Seems really powerful.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Higby

Savvy?

Thanks for the clarification Higby. It all sounds awesome.

Though I have to say, confusing the hell out of us via misinformation is the most bizarre "community managing" I've ever seen.