News: The Fission

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Johari

Wouldn't it play into the VS theme of mobility if the Fission is actually both? Don't get me wrong I love the look and I'd love to see what a reskinned Lancer would look like but what if the Fission had 2 fire modes? One is the slower lock-on projectile as described and the secondary toggle fire is the old Lancer style charge-shot of old?

Yeah I was thinking that as well. It'd fit quite well into the VS theme of versatility. But personally, I'd much rather all three empires have both firing modes on one ESAV weapon instead two separate weapons, rather than giving that advantage to just the VS. It fits the "flexibility over firepower" advantage that infantry have over vehicles, and given the solo-vehiclefest that PS2 will most likely become I fear that softies are going to need all the help they can get when outside.

Plus, in PS1 both the Striker and Phoenix already have dumb-fire modes which I presume will carry over to PS2. It would be a logical next step for the Devs to give the VS AV 2 modes as well. Hopefully they'll improve the Striker/Phoenix dumb-fire modes so they're actually useful against moving vehicles as well, though.

Originally Posted by Ceska

If you got the Lancer back, it should have some kind of damage decrease over distance, as it is mentioned for Pulsar, based on plasma bolt.
So VS can have their toy back, but NC can forget their TV-guided rocket ?

PS : I'm not sad of losing TV-guided, it made battle static, but seeing people whinning for their sweet toy is just annoying...

Damage Degradation has been slapped onto other VS weapons as a balance measure to counteract their superior accuracy over NC/TR weapons. However, the Lancer would not have any such advantage over the Striker/Phoenix in many situations. And we have no idea how many shots it'll take to destroy vehicles with ESAV, so it's too early to tell whether or not Degradation would even make sense as a balancing measure.

As for the Phoenix, BorisBlade and Bobby Shaftoe both covered reasons why the Phoenix camera mode needed to go. I will add the fact that its ability to fire around buildings and over walls and hills made it next to impossible to break out of a base under NC seige without a large numerical advantage. Much like the Lasher's lash, it was simply too hard of a feature to balance with any measure of success.

[Fenrys]

Originally Posted by Erendil

Damage Degradation has been slapped onto other VS weapons as a balance measure to counteract their superior accuracy over NC/TR weapons.

There's some conflicting information about that. It seems to me that what you've said is the way it should be, but in the last webcast Higby said VS weapons got LESS damage degradation and LESS bullet drop (as in they still drop a little bit) compared to NC/TR weapons. We'll see if the extra recoil is enough to balance things.

If VS still get mobility as part of their theme, then having longer range weapons makes sense. For example, the PS1 Magrider would need an accuracy buff to take full advantage of its mobility.