Interesting idea but I think it would be better for you to be able to upgrade teammates turrets instead of wasting one of your own. Reminds me of TF2 when I would place a turret than another idiot would place his 5 feet away from mine.

I don't really like this so much. The repair function is pretty much useless, because if you've got two deployables in the same spot then it's the kind of zone you want an engineer to hang out in anyway; he should be able to perform the repairs himself. If you bolster another turret by enough that it's worth more than just laying a second turret, it seems like you're starting to nudge Brink engineering toward the TF2 model, where an engineer base is a huge obstacle to any attempt to advance.

But the spirit of your idea has potential. Maybe a device that jams enemy PDA transmissions so they can't hack until it's disabled, or one that immobilises enemies but doesn't damage them--working synergistically with either another turret or your teammates.

Immobilization is a bit much slowing them down sounds more reasonable. PDA jammer would be another interesting tool in the escalation between Engineer and Operatives.

In QW, Strogg COnstructors could get repair drones. You could deploy them to automatically fix deployables and vehicles, while you could be somewhere else. They could be shot down, and you had to wait for them to become available again. I would prefer something like that.

I'm just happy my idea was worth discussing.

Q.V. my http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1095352-operative-discussion/page__view__findpost__p__16000076, since there will be fewer different uses for engineers' repair ability, I don't think a device that specialises in repairing would really be so useful. No vehicles, no deployables dropped by other classes, just your own turrets and maybe the maintenance bot. Engineer is already a fairly solipsistic class, by which I mean that they don't interact much with other classes. Besides buffing teammates' guns, their contribution to the team comes almost entirely through interacting with the environment and their own toys, i.e. replacing mines, repairing turrets, repairing objectives. I don't think Engineer needs more Engineer-centric tools.

True true. The power drill should be able to repair everything. Also having the ability to repair without being there is a tad unfair.

How exactly would an engineer upgrade my weapon? Would he attach a shotgun on my assault rifle like in army of two?

Less of an upgrade, more of a power boost. :wink_smile:

Yup your smg now shoots .50 caliber bullets. :celebration:

Every class has the power to bend the laws of physics. Engineers can change the way bullets gain and deliver momentum, medics can reverse entropy, operatives can spontaneously change size, and soldiers can crap ammo.

But you cannot change the laws of physics Jim. :cryvaultboy:

Nice description though.

That's gonna be my fallback comment every time anyone appeals to realism in an argument about Brink. "Soldiers crap ammo."

Or pull it out of their hammerspace.

There's a difference?

Not really no. Back on topic. We have talked about turrets but what about mines. Harder to see and go boom! We know the operatives can see mines but only other engineers can defuse them. When they defuse them should they get the mine? Should you able to upgrade to to a OHK? How to improve? Bigger blast damage, DoT? GO!

Well, mines are probably not going to be an "ammo" type resource, but rather based on ability charge. So it wouldn't really mean anything to "get" the mine, except maybe if it caused you to recover charge faster. Incendiary mines would be pretty cool, though I think SD wasn't able to get flame effects to look good enough for their satisfaction.

I think some good upgrades to mines would be:

• higher maximum number of mines
  
• faster triggers on proximity mines
  
• more damage
  
• larger blast radius

Some different types of mine you could buy could be:

• remote trigger (does not explode until you tell it to)
  
• laser trigger (immediate trigger, but narrower detection, like tripmines in ET:QW)
  
• gas mine (not immediately lethal, but gas lingers for a short duration)
  
• gold mine (stupid pun)

I will use things from previous SD games to maybe get a "feel" or idea of how things could work in Brink:

In ET, mines were undetectable. You could not spot them like in BC2, since they were planted underground, and although Operatives could see them, they needed to use binoculars to be able to spot them - they didn't just automatically spot them. Also, if you stood on a mine, you would hear it trigger, and if you didn't move off of it, an Engineer could disarm it under your feet.

Then you have QW, where mines could be placed on walls and act as tripmines. Also, you didn't have to actually arm them - they would automatically arm after a few seconds.

Mines pretty much [censored] [censored] up. If you triggered one, you were dead, even if someone near you triggered it, it could still kill you.

I think that mines should be brutal and be able to OHK - act as one of those things players need to be aware of and be careful of. The types of upgrades for mines I would have would be things like increase the amount you have, make them completely undetectable (or much harder to spot), decrease arming/disarming time, or maybe an ability to have remotely detonated mines, rather than proximity.

The only problem in these kind of tit-for-tat abilities is who will win. For example the engineer gets a perk to make his mines invisible to operatives? -> Will operatives get another abilities to let them see invisible mines?

I don't know if it's certain that only operatives will see enemy mines. If everyone can see mines, which was the case in ET:QW, then an upgrade could make it so that only Operatives could see your mines, or the enemy has to do a comm hack in order to find your mines, or something like that.

I recall reading it in an interview, the fact that operatives can see mines. Perhaps see isn't the right term, detect maybe. I could go find the source but they would take awhile. They need to condense their realized info and release it with the new info at E3!!!

It would make sense. It starts playing into what you think will be most effective, and really brings out the point of having skills in the first place - to cater to certain situations and playstyles, not to make you a juggernaut powerhouse. If you only get to brinng 5 or 6 (or whatever) skills into battle, then you really need to start using strategy and tactics when picking which ones you will use. Do you think mines are going to be a problem and want to be able to detect them no matter what, or do you choose other skills instead? On the other end, do you want your mines to be undetectable, forcing Operatives to use a skill to spot them? Of course, the more people play and start to catch on to players tactics and different maps, etc. the choices will probably become a bit easier to choose.

ET:QW had a "Mine Detection" skill, even though everyone could already see mines. I actually don't know what it does, offhand, so I'll ask H0RSE to tell us, but I'd assume it flags them on your HUD or puts them on your minimap.

H0RSE, I agree with Wraith on this: I don't think there should be specialisations whose only function is to negate enemy specialisations. Maybe if an Operative mine detection upgrade flagged mines on your radar (useful whether you can see the mines or not), but the Engineer mine camouflage upgrade still made it impossible to verify their location visually (regardless of what shows up on the Operative's minimap).

The way I see it is, it's all optional - Just because it's available, doesn't mean you have to choose it. If it was mandatory, and built into the game by default, then it may be a little redundant.

It really depends on the perks and how many we can have in a given game. Plus the class perks aren't obtainable till you have played the game quite a bit. It just certain turn into a huge counters game. On that note I want to know what the anti-interogation perk is.

Its one thing to have the capability to effect how say your turrets or mines work, but as far as effecting the other teams abilities seems pointless.



Thank you good sir. :foodndrink: That idea makes sense.

Also as you stated above, engineers can walk on enemy mines? I am not sure that is balanced. Engineers and Operatives are going to have so much fun working together and working against each other.