My TR Analysis

[BadAsh]

I�ve seen and posted in several threads here in PSU about real and perceived weaknesses in the TR Empire. I�ve played VS to BR12, TR to BR18, and NC to BR19 so I do have some experience in both playing for and against all 3 Empires. Of the 3 I believe the TR have the most detrimental shortcomings in the way this game is played and I�ll list them here. There are only 2 really and here they are:

1. The Empire Tanks: Yes the Prowler is a great tank, but it is rarely used properly to be as effective as it could. The NC have an easy tank to get a gunner for. The tank is driver friendly and is narrow enough to dodge through trees when needed. The gunner position is sweet because you have an amazing main gun and an alt fire mode to attack aircraft. Many NC players cert in this vehicle and everyone wants to be a Vanguard gunner. The VS have an amazing tank as well. It�s particularly sweet to be a Magrider driver. This vehicle offers the most incentive to drive because the driver will have a blast mowing enemies, gets his own gun very effective main gun, and can travel through trees and over water easily to avoid enemy fire. It�s armor is a bit light compared to the other tanks, but if you drive this vehicle as a type of super �assault buggy� rather than a drive up and kill everything tank you will survive for long periods of time and devastate the enemy lines in the process.

Now to the Prowler: It�s slow and wide so avoiding enemy fire is harder and it�s much less fun to drive then the Van or Mag. Next is it�s two gunner positions each with its own problems. First, the main guns have distinct target impact areas when shooting down range. I usually find myself hitting a smaller target at long range with every other shot. I get one barrel sighted in but the other misses completely from the same exact firing position. So to kill that wall turret my hit pattern is 50% unless I make an adjustment with each and every shot. It would be much more effective if both guns were sighted to hit the same area or if the 2 guns were switched with a single faster firing cannon. This would make the main guns much more user friendly and get more people to man them. Second, is the chain gun turret gunner position. This gunner position is much less exciting then the main gun position, gets much fewer kills, and it not really that effective at killing aircraft or infantry (compared to say either of the 20mm guns on a deliverer which own everything). Finding someone to gun this position is a tough proposition so most Prowlers go without air protection.

In summery Prowlers are tough to get fully manned, the least fun to drive, and both of its weapons have unique problems that the other 2 empires don�t have to deal with. These three things combined cause the TR to always be outnumbered by enemy armor. So �When Zergs Collide� the TR have a tough time holding ground against numerically superior enemy armor.

2. The Empire MAX Units: I feel this topic has already been beaten to death. To echo the reasonable posts in this forum I�ll just summarize the TR MAX problem here. In a nut shell the problem with TR MAX units is that they are not as easily integrated with infantry. Their weapons are unique in that they are explosive area of effect spamming weapons. This is a critical issue because when facing the NC and the VS you end up fighting a nice mix of MAX units and Infantry. In CQB the TR just simply can�t do this. And this is why the TR field much fewer MAX units than other empires. Yes, I know �If used properly� these MAX units can be devastating. However, in a Zerg situation you have to be more coordinated than is practical. Want to lock down a few Pounders to guard a choke point? No problem, but there is NO WAY of stopping random players from charging the choke point and racking up the MAX units grief. This is exactly why you DON�T use Thumpers and Radiators in CQB. The only TR exception is the DC MAX, so 2/3rds of their MAX units are nullified in CQB which is where half the fighting in the game takes place. Consequently you see far fewer TR MAX units in the field than the NC and the VS deploy. Also, their special ability is arguably the worst of the 3 as well, but I�ve intentionally left out debatable drawbacks and stuck with the common sense ones that really can�t be argued because they are so obvious (IMHO anyway).

This is why TR players come to the forums and give so much grief about their Empire having problems. They do.

Suggestions:

The Prowler: Switch the gimpy 12mm chain gun on the Prowler with a 20mm gun that the Deliverer has. Now it would actually be able to kill things and people would want to man the gun. Phear the fully staffed Prowler with an effective chain gun! Change the way the main guns target so that both hit the same exact location and don�t pull to either side like they do now.

TR MAX Units: Overhaul these completely. Tweak or change their lock down ability to improve it and give them infantry friendly weapons that more precisely affect a target and not a whole area. I really liked some of the suggestions that have already been made in the forums like making the DC MAX the AI MAX, and changing the AA MAX to a �Dual Striker� that rapid fires smaller Striker lock-on rockets. The Pounder would be the AV MAX and could have a mini tank-like cannon on each arm to pound enemy vehicles into submission.

[EVILoHOMER]

one thing erm the tr hav the best weapons and the best maxes so dont complain its the vanu that hav it worse off but the nc just own it in pop size!

[LunarWarrior]

I agree with u everywhere on the whole thing except 1 little part....the Dual Striker max...the burster owns because the air vehicles cant outrun flak, the flak is direct firing, and u can knock a air vehicle down easy, I totally agree with your other points, expecially making the DC max back into the AI max (like it was in beta) and just make the pounder into AV again, it worked just fine in my heavy opinion

[ImmanuelKant37]

thats the first time I've heard someone say Dual Striker for AA. That'd definatly be for AV.

[I Hate Pants]

Same as I said before. We have too many rambo wannabes. Sacrifice making kills for once, and help your Empire out by driving vehicles. We lack vehicles!

[Professor Frink]

I've never played a TR character past br 10 so I'm not extremely familiar with their weaponry, but I must say I love the Burster Max. Good for spamming infantry as well as annoying aircraft.

[KIAsan]

Badash,
Damn fine post. Would just add that they need to fix the TR AA max a tad. Bursters just can't deter libs the way the other two empire maxes do. Other than that, very well thought out.

[SandTrout]

Originally Posted by KIAsan

Badash,
Damn fine post. Would just add that they need to fix the TR AA max a tad. Bursters just can't deter libs the way the other two empire maxes do. Other than that, very well thought out.

Burster is fine IMHO in every way execpt the magazine size. This is the 1 max that's not made for dettering aircraft, but rather, killing it(I am fully aware of the starfires killing potetial, going by design here). Not only that, it provides the best range of any weapon in the game, makeing it great for AI/AV suppression fire.

[Madcow]

Great thoughts on the Prowler, the jumping reticle has always bothered me when using the main cannon. I hadn't thought much about the chain gun, I have jumped in it a few times and been dumbfounded at how hard it is to even kill a lone infantry with the damn thing tho.

The AA MAX is fine, but I agree that the MAXs in general need some love. The Pounder and the DC just aren't up to snuff at the moment. The Pounder is useful in very specific situations (and even then only in numbers) and the DC just blows against vehicles. The MAX special ability for the TR insures that the DC can never be fully effective as you can't really use the special ability in the field without considering it suicide.

[Krinsath]

The major problem with the TR is that they always seem to get the fiddly bugs and the backlash of the not properly thought out ideas. For instance:

-MAX Problem 1: Decimator kills in 2 shots and is commonly taken as the vehicle damage that it does is greater than the AV-dedicated weapons. When your special ability essentially makes you immobile, this is hideous. Even a pounder guarding a door can be taken out by two infantry who just launch the decimators before getting shredded. In the meantime, it's another 2-3 minutes before you can get another Pounder while they respawn in 7-30 seconds.

-Possible Solutions: Decimators moved to AV to make them slightly less common (right now SA is a no-brainer with three decent, if specialized, weapons for 3 certs...as opposed to AV that gives you 1 mediocre and equally specialized weapon for the same certs). Make TR MAXes take less armor damage when anchored so that it takes 3-4 decimator shots to take them out (making anchoring a somewhat more useful special ability)...however I don't think that really fits with the TR design. Lower the AV damage of the decimator (my least preferred idea).

-MAX Problem 2: Burster and Pounder are grief machines in CQB, limiting their use quite severely (hard to shoot when you get weapons lock! and some of these geniuses make it so that you either take a decimator to the face or paste his stupid tail as well).

-Possible Solutions: Inspect every TR player for functioning brain waves and ensure they can provide a satisfactory definition of "splash damage." As that is probably never going to happen, I'd be satisfied with the favored idea of making the DC into the AI MAX and creating a new AV MAX. The Burster could be left as is with the knowledge that if you use a MAX outside of its designed role, you run the risk of doing a lot of collateral damage.

-Weapon Problem 1: The Striker will not lock on, making it useless against moving vehicles at range, and not very useful in close against an AI MAX.

-Possible Solutions: Fix the damned bug. Simple enough

-Weapon Problem 2: The Striker is the most "blah" of the AV weapons, having nothing that makes it stand out as a useful weapon. It no longer has any punch, the rockets are terribly slow and inaccurate in dumb-fire and it can't be used to maintain any reasonable rate of fire on the rare occasions you do get a lock-on.

-Possible Solutions: Beef the damage per rocket up slightly. Give the rockets a slightly faster speed. Make the missiles similar to the Sparrow/Starfire with fire-and-forget missiles instead of maintaing lock. If they ever fix the lock-on, it might be fine as is, but as it stands it's difficult in the extreme to maintain the lock.

(I would like to point out that AV is the only empire-specific infantry weapon that is a problem, I think the Cycler and Mini-Chaingun and Repeater are all very good weapons, but not overpoweringly so)

The problems with the Prowler's guns are the same as every vehicle with dual guns. They just need to fix that in general.

Please note that I am not saying that all the possible solutions should be implemented. In fact, they should not ALL be implemented, I just said them to present a variety of ideas.

Overall though, he's got the gist of it.

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by Krinsath

-Possible Solutions: Beef the damage per rocket up slightly. Give the rockets a slightly faster speed. Make the missiles similar to the Sparrow/Starfire with fire-and-forget missiles instead of maintaing lock. If they ever fix the lock-on, it might be fine as is, but as it stands it's difficult in the extreme to maintain the lock.

By the way, Starfire is not fire and forget (doesn't need to be, would be an insane killing machine if it was). If the Striker lock was as forgiving as the Starfire, however, you'd have something there. I also think they should once again allow the striker to keep lock while reloading, and they should bring back the delayed lock (fire missiles into the air and then get the lock when the missiles are near the target). They nerfed the damage they do at the same time they nerfed everything else, it was just overkill.

[Heavygain]

At last! someone makes an awesome point! I agree with you past 100% and if we dont get buffed i think PS will lose a lot of players

[EarlyDawn]

I don't really mind the MAXes, but IMO the chainguns either need a boost or more ammo on the prowler. I'd prefer more ammo.