Boarding pod should have some mobility; it's too situational for its cost #14774
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I do think that the boarding pod is a neat idea to add, and I perceive it as a good, alternate way of boarding aggressively without having to deal with the airlock being a chokepoint while both subs are dry. However, with its current perk point cost and how the two modes (TDM and KOTH) play out, I believe investing into boarding pods doesn't feel right with how limited their functionality is when you can pick other, more beneficial perks. Any feedback's welcome about this suggestion.
Issues
All submarines (at least to my knowledge) have their depth charge tubes on the bottom, limiting boarding pods to just being deployed downwards. This is an issue with fights where both submarines are contesting over who gets to hug the cavern ceiling, and it can really only be used when you've already won that by flooding and sinking the opponents. By the time that happens and you have a gunner consistently putting holes in their hull, it's pretty much overkill to go in with a boarding pod when you can already go through hull breaches that no one can tend to at that moment.
(in a way, yes, this is the appropriate use for the boarding pods, but they should be more versatile than that)
Talking about the KOTH mode, there's a chance the beacon station will spawn onto the cavern ceiling or the ground, which any submarine can dock into. The station spawning on the ground is actually fine, since the opponents will most likely dock onto it anyways if you're willing to wait for them, leaving them perfectly vulnerable to a rapid boarding pod attack.
Theoretically speaking however, the beacon station spawns on the ceiling. Not only does the same scenario from the last issue happen here, but even if you had the plan to go into the beacon station via boarding pod, you can't. That hinders the boarding pod even more– you physically can't use it in any case scenario.
Primary solution: steerability
Giving boarding pods the ability to steer voluntarily via the same way submarines do would solve both of these problems, as that would not only remove these limitations, but allow more possibilities to board the enemy sub/station via the pods.
Outside of steerability, the pods would behave almost the same as the current ones. The only changes would be:
There would be a sonar monitor UI with the same layout as a handheld scanner, just steerable. The pods would be slow to steer properly, no matter your helm skill. If this isn't implemented already (can't really check this myself), the pods should be big blips on other sonars.
This does put limitations on the pod– you can't deploy and steer when you're close to cavern walls, you can't make tight turns to pull a complete 180 to board and you can hypothetically die to human error if you miscalculate and miss completely, condemning yourself to the abyss. It's also impossible to somehow sneak into the submarine as well, assuming that the captain and gunners are on their monitors. I feel like that's a good way to balance this to make boarding pods worth more, whilst not making them completely preferable and otherwise broken balance-wise.
Secondary solution: pods behaving as railgun ammunition
If steering is a no-go, making it serve as railgun ammunition would be a good alternative. It'd work the same way it already does for depth charge loaders, and the gunner can have fun with sending the rider wherever they wish (either into the sub, or the abyss, wherever they feel really). This would require the railgun ammunition to be free of any rails to make room for the boarding pod however, just as a light balancing change to put the railgun off commission for a bit, depending on how fast the gunner can load the rails back in after shooting the pod out.
This would partly solve the issue with the pods only being shot downwards, provided that the railgun is anywhere else but on the bottom of the ship. Even if that happens, the fact that the railgun has an arc is good enough, so it's not completely straight downwards and can be shot into either side. Poorer, less preferred submarine models would also benefit from this if the supposed team leader can put points into a railgun perk.
Tertiary solution: reducing the perk point cost to 2
If the other solutions can't be done due to technical limitations or other reasons relating to the boarding pod design, the only other thing I can think of is improving the pods artificially by reducing the perk's cost.
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