Author Topic: New Class: Communications Officer (not another Gungineer thread)  (Read 27400 times)

Offline Thomas

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Re: New Class: Communications Officer (not another Gungineer thread)
« Reply #30 on: March 17, 2014, 03:33:02 am »
I would agree that the proposed class doesn't kill gunners or engineers. For that to happen, it would have to replace them or be more useful than they are in those respective roles. Skipping past gunner debates it was pointed out that a solo engineer can't keep up all the repairs on their own. This can be argued, but it essentially points out that in most cases, having a second engineer would be preferred to having a communication officer. So it's not affecting those classes at all, since they would be chosen over the proposed class. By some people. All in all, roles are pretty flexible. There's no requirement to have one of each.


Of course you can argue the gunnery position, but essentially it'd be the same as having an engineer as a gunner. Or a pilot. So that's more on the gunner role than the new proposed one.


For it being a captain, I could only say 'maybe?'. Essentially the pilot is the coordinator. They're generally stationary on the ship, keeping an eye on the crew and the surroundings, calling out targets, reminding crew of components that need attention, etc. So far the proposed tools for the proposed class still require a lot of running around and focusing on little things, like the engineer and gunner; making it a poor choice for a captain. What makes pilots be a great captain choice is from them being less likely to get the tunnel vision. Gunners are busy shooting the guy in front of them and might be zoomed in to not even notice the other target they could hit (literal tunnel vision), needing someone to coordinate them to change targets. Engineers are busy fixing and buffing and running all over on top of shooting as well, they can't do all that and keep track of everything going on.

If the communication officer was the captain, they'd have to run around less and keep a better eye on the crew and the surroundings, giving orders to the engineer, gunner, and pilot. This makes them far less useful, since they wouldn't be able to focus on doing their own job; because doing something besides piloting the ship leads to tunnel vision.



All that being said, it would be a pain to balance. Although it would be interesting to see the new strategies and play styles develop.

Offline Tanya Phenole

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Re: New Class: Communications Officer (not another Gungineer thread)
« Reply #31 on: March 18, 2014, 07:51:50 am »
 
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Except most of the time, on the average ship, a single Engie COULD manage the important stuff, as long as someone was dedicated to serving as a secondary repair person. Lets use your "problem ships" as an example.
All ships are "problem" in encounter. There are no interest in maximum possible HPS, the repairing-bebuilding-cooldown balance is based on idea you need to be IN proper time ON proper place. That is why we have "responsibility" zones on all the ships, where parts are divided between engineers focus.

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Pyramidian: It only ever needs one Engie anyway, as the Engie's entire job is sitting on the lower deck keeping the hull and engines working. The second engie is always stationed at the balloon anyway. This job can EASILY be managed by a Comm Officer, or even a Gunner. The ability to super-repair is NOT a necessity for this. Hell, the Comm Officer takes Mallet, the Gunner takes Spanner, and together they can maintain the balloon and guns, leaving the engines and hull to the actual Engineer.
  Fisrt enemy with caffonade or  flametrower (or incendiary carronade) will be your painful death. Because destroyed baloon is a HUGE HOLE for hull damage. As well, balloon is most vulnerable to fire, so that it must be chemspayed all the time. So in the situation of real combat your people will not be on guns, but on baloon.



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Galleon: Really, the Galleon is a tricky ship even with 2 Engies, so it's a ship that may not want a Comm Officer. However, if one is used, it could be assigned to the lower deck as a Gunner Comm Officer, maintaining the weapons lower-deck engines. Meanwhile, the Pilot actually sets up to help repair the balloon in a pinch, and the actual Engie goes where needed, with the Hull being their primary focus. While two engies could maintain the ship as a whole easier, it's not absolutely necessary. This ship does require more coordination between all the members regardless though.

You have not even invented the new class, but already founf where is it unneccessary.  ;D


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Spire: A single Engie can actually maintain the entire Spire pretty easily if they know what they're doing, as long as they can keep the armor up. It's possible to hit the Hull with Mallet, drop down and hit the Balloon with Mallet, and get back to the Hull just as the cooldown from Mallet ends, and hit it again to start the loop over. That said, I'd put the Comm Officer on repair duty primarily on this ship, with their role being to repair destroyed parts rather than to keep things alive. Once the armor can be restored, the main Engie can easily use the parkour loop to restore the armor while maintaining the armor on the other part. Fixing broken engines and guns can be shared, with shooting happening whenever. Again, they don't need super-repair power, they just need to not spend 90% of their time on the guns. Even a Gunner could fulfill this role in the current game, if they didn't sit on the guns all the time. While they will obviously not be able to pull the trick the Engie can with Quick Repair then full Armor in a very short time, they can do basic repairs.

I really want to see you playing as engineer, because you seem not to be much realistic.

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Basically, let the Engie deal with the Emergency Repairs, while the Comm Officer deals with routine maintainance, buffs, and information warfare. All of which it can do while doing said routine maintainance.
Everyone does emergency repairs. Even pilots.  Lueosi participated in rebuilds hundreds of times.


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Now, as to what you've said about Pilots. You seem to have this belief that a Pilot, the only person on the entire ship who can effectively fly the damn thing, would lose their role as Captain if the Comm Officer was made.

Good pilot is a leader with 8 hands, who manages setting crew, setting teammates crew, setting good enemy team on opposite side, talking with crews on match, talking with ally, deciding tactics, taking up conclusions, and well, for the last thing he moves the damn thing. Appearance of person who can be in charge for strategy will move a pilot to crew slot. And a lot of pilots will not like it, and decide to abandon the game.


Offline Milevan Faent

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Re: New Class: Communications Officer (not another Gungineer thread)
« Reply #32 on: March 18, 2014, 08:47:45 am »
Quote
Except most of the time, on the average ship, a single Engie COULD manage the important stuff, as long as someone was dedicated to serving as a secondary repair person. Lets use your "problem ships" as an example.
All ships are "problem" in encounter. There are no interest in maximum possible HPS, the repairing-bebuilding-cooldown balance is based on idea you need to be IN proper time ON proper place. That is why we have "responsibility" zones on all the ships, where parts are divided between engineers focus.

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Pyramidian: It only ever needs one Engie anyway, as the Engie's entire job is sitting on the lower deck keeping the hull and engines working. The second engie is always stationed at the balloon anyway. This job can EASILY be managed by a Comm Officer, or even a Gunner. The ability to super-repair is NOT a necessity for this. Hell, the Comm Officer takes Mallet, the Gunner takes Spanner, and together they can maintain the balloon and guns, leaving the engines and hull to the actual Engineer.
  Fisrt enemy with caffonade or  flametrower (or incendiary carronade) will be your painful death. Because destroyed baloon is a HUGE HOLE for hull damage. As well, balloon is most vulnerable to fire, so that it must be chemspayed all the time. So in the situation of real combat your people will not be on guns, but on baloon.



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Galleon: Really, the Galleon is a tricky ship even with 2 Engies, so it's a ship that may not want a Comm Officer. However, if one is used, it could be assigned to the lower deck as a Gunner Comm Officer, maintaining the weapons lower-deck engines. Meanwhile, the Pilot actually sets up to help repair the balloon in a pinch, and the actual Engie goes where needed, with the Hull being their primary focus. While two engies could maintain the ship as a whole easier, it's not absolutely necessary. This ship does require more coordination between all the members regardless though.

You have not even invented the new class, but already founf where is it unneccessary.  ;D


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Spire: A single Engie can actually maintain the entire Spire pretty easily if they know what they're doing, as long as they can keep the armor up. It's possible to hit the Hull with Mallet, drop down and hit the Balloon with Mallet, and get back to the Hull just as the cooldown from Mallet ends, and hit it again to start the loop over. That said, I'd put the Comm Officer on repair duty primarily on this ship, with their role being to repair destroyed parts rather than to keep things alive. Once the armor can be restored, the main Engie can easily use the parkour loop to restore the armor while maintaining the armor on the other part. Fixing broken engines and guns can be shared, with shooting happening whenever. Again, they don't need super-repair power, they just need to not spend 90% of their time on the guns. Even a Gunner could fulfill this role in the current game, if they didn't sit on the guns all the time. While they will obviously not be able to pull the trick the Engie can with Quick Repair then full Armor in a very short time, they can do basic repairs.

I really want to see you playing as engineer, because you seem not to be much realistic.

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Basically, let the Engie deal with the Emergency Repairs, while the Comm Officer deals with routine maintainance, buffs, and information warfare. All of which it can do while doing said routine maintainance.
Everyone does emergency repairs. Even pilots.  Lueosi participated in rebuilds hundreds of times.


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Now, as to what you've said about Pilots. You seem to have this belief that a Pilot, the only person on the entire ship who can effectively fly the damn thing, would lose their role as Captain if the Comm Officer was made.

Good pilot is a leader with 8 hands, who manages setting crew, setting teammates crew, setting good enemy team on opposite side, talking with crews on match, talking with ally, deciding tactics, taking up conclusions, and well, for the last thing he moves the damn thing. Appearance of person who can be in charge for strategy will move a pilot to crew slot. And a lot of pilots will not like it, and decide to abandon the game.

I admit to not really playing Engies, but I have practiced in Practice Mode with them, actually testing out various Parkour things and trying to figure out how I would manage repairing the ship. I have personally managed the Spire trick on a heavily damaged Spire in Practice, so I know it's possible. If the armor gets broken it becomes much harder, but that's where the Comm Officer with Spanner or Wrench can help by covering repairs to destroyed components where possible, especially balloon or hull, leaving the Engie to actually heal the armor when it's back up, while keeping on the move so it can get to wherever they're needed. If this is feesable or not is something that needs to be tested, but it can be tested in game right now simply by taking 2 gunners and having one act as the Comm Officer would and seeing if it works like the theory says it should. Of course 2 Engies will be able to keep the ship in working condition EASIER, but the theory isn't that it will be AS GOOD, but GOOD ENOUGH. If of course it's proven to not be the case, then of course the concept has failed, and that's the end of it. Of course, the Comm Officer also has mostly tools that work on various components like the Engie, so they can end up moving around like the Engie would anyway. The role of the Engie making this circuit to maintain the Armor on Hull and Balloon could actually be swapped to the Comm Officer, leaving the Engie free to maintain everything else, but this obviously wouldn't work as well using a Gunner as a test.

That said, dispite your argument, the Comm Officer is STILL not going to kill Pilots. As has been said by others, the Pilot can only lead because they have only one job that doesn't require them to run around the ship like a chicken without a head that has tunnel vision. Comm Officers have to run around just like the other classes, or be on the guns. They COULD be a replacement Captain, but in that case they give up maneuverability as they would HAVE to be on the Pilot Wheel, thus also limiting what skills they can use to only ones that don't require them running to components. The Pilot will always be the better option for flying the ship, and thus being Captain, because they have no reason to ever go anywhere except for emergency repairs in the most DIRE of situations.

As for the balloon being on fire.... you do realize there are so many ways to deal with that it's not even funny? An engie stationed up there doesn't even need to chemspray it, the main engie could run up there to do that if its such a big deal. That said, the setup I was talking about is specifically designed to repair the balloon just as fast as an engie, but requiring 2 people. Yes, that means you stop shooting. But when the ship is dying, you tend to stop shooting ANYWAY because you can't hit targets as you're falling to your death. That said, in a "combat situation" only one gun ever needs to fire on the Pyramidion at a time. The Comm Officer with a Mallet makes sure the Balloon stays up while waiting for the gunner to take out the armor, then the Comm Officer switches to shooting while the Gunner moves to fix the balloon as soon as it finally breaks. The Main Engie could even just take a fire extinquisher and extinquish fires that way, rather than using chem spray. Only time I ever even need chem spray is if the enemy actually takes a flamethrower anyway.

As for the Galleon not needing a Comm Officer... of course not every ship needs all the classes, if they did then something is wrong. Ideally, it should be possible to take 2 Gunners and 1 Engie and still be considered viable in this game, but that's not the case right now. While a Comm Officer can offer some value, the Galleon is a pain to manage in general, so it's a situation where two engies can be more valuable than the tactical ability of a Comm Officer, no matter the situation. That's not a fault of the class, but a simple fact of the ship being that much harder to fly as a crew. While it's POSSIBLE to take a 1/1/1/1 team, it's not likely to be as effective on the Galleon as it would be on other ships, due simply to the problems you'd run into on the Galleon.

Offline Alistair MacBain

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Re: New Class: Communications Officer (not another Gungineer thread)
« Reply #33 on: March 18, 2014, 09:03:59 am »
One engineer covering a whole ship?
Not really.
The com officer would need to use a wrench which renders his repair/rebuild capabilities. That wouldnt be an issue but he would still miss the extinguisher and with a Hades for example you will be pretty damn hindered. While all those tools sound nice they are rarely a benefit in a fight.
They are nice tactical things when out of fight but once you are actually engaging most of those tools dont do anything.

A flamer shooting at you will pretty much pin you down forever.
You already sacrifice alot when using a buff engineer with wrench buff ext. You sacrifice a faster rebuild usually on the balloon. That can already cripple you quite well.
If you miss the extinguisher in that aswell you are similiar to a gunner ...

This com officer will probably more replace the gunner than actually be used instead of an engineer.
OR you wont have a com officer at all and the crew will just specify their com loadout aswell so you cover the most important parts ...

Offline Milevan Faent

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Re: New Class: Communications Officer (not another Gungineer thread)
« Reply #34 on: March 18, 2014, 09:33:02 am »
Okay, lets try making some new item concepts.

Cloudmaker: Acts as a Buff on the Engines. When all the engines have this buff, reduce their output by 50%, but the entire ship creates a cloud around it (large enough to not only hide the ship, but potentially large enough to make it harder to find the ship in the cloud, especially if there are other clouds nearby). This lasts for 60 seconds, until another buff is applied to the engines, or until the engines take damage.

Tracking Device: Acts as a buff on guns. When a gun with this buff hits a target, that target is automatically marked and cannot lose mark for 10 seconds.

I'm sure I could come up with more given time, but I just ran out of time for the moment. Any ideas for things that can improve the usefulness of the class during combat are welcome btw.

Offline Caprontos

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Re: New Class: Communications Officer (not another Gungineer thread)
« Reply #35 on: March 18, 2014, 10:37:46 am »
I think the downside to this class is... with 4 people that's 4 tools from the class on a ship - which is probably plenty in most cases..

Meaning the only time people will use this class is to level it up and probably not in to many serious situations.. Sorta like using a gunner in many silly to be gunner spots (like gatling gunner).. I highly doubt it would replace a second engineer or remove the 3 engi ship advantage..

I do like that the idea is based around a whole new thing, I just don't know how useful it is in practice as it's own class..

Personally I'd rather see Muse focus on fleshing out the three classes we have now, then adding an entirely new class.. (ie new tools new ammo to add more variation on what a class can do).

Offline Omniraptor

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Re: New Class: Communications Officer (not another Gungineer thread)
« Reply #36 on: March 19, 2014, 03:05:49 pm »
Except Muse has said they won't do Passive abilities for classes like that, so that kind of fix will never happen.

Where exactly have they said this? Can you provide a link?

Can't recall where I heard it, but I think it was mentioned on one of the Dev Fireside livestreams. I may be remembering wrong, but I'm still pretty sure of it. Sure as hell can't remember which one though regardless.

Found an old link where cullen proposed passive bonuses for gunners and was shouted down by players https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,410.msg19567.html#msg19567