We'll be taking a look at the plasma cannon along with all AV weapons as part of the vehicle work we are doing in 1.5.

Tbh, I think the clip size is fine. I like the idea of a shoulder mounted "rocket" weapon in the game. It does, however suffer from a lack of a benefit, so here's what I'd do:

Swap swarm launcher damage with plasma cannon damage. The swarm launcher is in every way superior to the cannon - clip size, damage, range, and accuracy. I think that the plasma cannon should reward proper placement by being a burst damage close range rocket, while the benefit of swarms should remain the lock-on feature, at the cost of a lower damage.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I want them to apply kick to the user when you fire them. I want dumb-fire back.

I want to be able to aim straight down and launch myself into the air, landing behind and enemy and then knifing them in the back of the face.



But, if I can be serious for a moment -

Ideally, I'd want swarms (assuming time was found to be put in to this) to be shifted to something like an 'assisted lock' TOW launcher.

Fly-by-wire missiles are nothing new in shooter games. However, they're usually pretty difficult to use. While I'd love to see a proper TOW system... I just don't see it happening. So... What I'd like to see, is essentially what we've got now but removing the 'fire and forget' aspect of the weapon, requiring someone to maintain the lock by keeping the 'locked on' target box inside their reticule until the missiles make contact. Losing track/LOS of the target would make the missiles miss, but could be corrected and put pack on course if the lock is re-established quickly enough.

Now, with a change like this you could fire repeated volleys off the same lock, but you'd need to maintain tracking throughout the entire thing. This requires a lot more dedication from swarmers. Alongside this, I'd like to see a missile velocity buff, but keep the damage the way they are. As-is missiles are pretty slow and can be evaded entirely by certain vehicles going at top speed. Faster missiles would prevent this in most cases, and would reduce the amount of time a swamer would have to maintain direct sight & lock.

As primarily an AV player, and secondarily a tanker with my alt, the only problem I see with swarms is the fact that you're invisible to most of the targets you're attacking. If they would fix the rendering issue that makes tanks unable to see swarms unless they're launched from like 40m of them, this would fix most of the problem. If you call in a militia tank, you should damned well lose it to my proto swarms with dmg mods, the same way I can take out militia suits with a proto suit/weapon.
The damage is fine, there are already PLENTY of actually capable tankers out there who know how to fit their tanks and can withstand 8-9 volleys straight before finding cover for the 1 minute it takes to come back in at full health. The same goes for militia and assault dropships. Some of the assault pilots have figured out that it's quite possible to take almost no damage from swarms while still engaging us by just strafing in a circle above us. Swarms never catch them and they never stop shooting us.
Also, I would like to see some uniformity on the swarm missile tracking. Either make it curve (seek) after the target all the time, or make it fly to the place the target was and then abruptly turn, right now it's about 50/50 on what the logic will be. Make it predictable so both the av and vehicle drivers will know how to react.


Edit: In reply to Nova Knife: That's a terrible solution. The second you fire a vehicle would simply have to move in and out of cover, similar to strafing as a dropsuit when somebody is shooting you, except for with a vehicle it would literally make them unhittable.

As primarily an AV player, and secondarily a tanker with my alt, the only problem I see with swarms is the fact that you're invisible to most of the targets you're attacking. If they would fix the rendering issue that makes tanks unable to see swarms unless they're launched from like 40m of them, this would fix most of the problem. If you call in a militia tank, you should damned well lose it to my proto swarms with dmg mods, the same way I can take out militia suits with a proto suit/weapon.
The damage is fine, there are already PLENTY of actually capable tankers out there who know how to fit their tanks and can withstand 8-9 volleys straight before finding cover for the 1 minute it takes to come back in at full health. The same goes for militia and assault dropships. Some of the assault pilots have figured out that it's quite possible to take almost no damage from swarms while still engaging us by just strafing in a circle above us. Swarms never catch them and they never stop shooting us.
Also, I would like to see some uniformity on the swarm missile tracking. Either make it curve (seek) after the target all the time, or make it fly to the place the target was and then abruptly turn, right now it's about 50/50 on what the logic will be. Make it predictable so both the av and vehicle drivers will know how to react.


Edit: In reply to Nova Knife: That's a terrible solution. The second you fire a vehicle would simply have to move in and out of cover, similar to strafing as a dropsuit when somebody is shooting you, except for with a vehicle it would literally make them unhittable.

right onn you think their mostly ballanced. Armor tankers claim that proto swarms do a rediculas amount of damage. Do you agree of disagree? When i ask them about it they all say they do about 3000 damage per volly

Two proto modded volleys will instapop well fitted tanks.

right onn you think their mostly ballanced. Armor tankers claim that proto swarms do a rediculas amount of damage. Do you agree of disagree? When i ask them about it they all say they do about 3000 damage per volly. I am a shield tanker and with totall 60% resist (counting the natural resist) 4 to 5 proto swarm vollys strips me of my shields. thats a lot of damage

No, they won't. Unless you're running more than the 3 complex dmg mods I am, you're not fighting "well fitted" tanks at all. Falchion yesterday, slightly over 9k shields. Armor can't hit those high of numbers, at least that I've ever seen, but they can certainly fit to negate damage or just rep through it.

Exmaple Core: Yes, they are definitely biased towards being used against armor targets. I'm not so sure about 3k, but then again these are some of the same people that kept saying Lai Dais were doing anywhere between 4k and 7k damage. Numbers always inflate. Generally I think they could use a buff though, as I have a slightly higher success rate against armor than shields.

yeah, Exp. does way too much bonus damage against armor

perhaps lowering it's dmg bonus against armor (and equally raising the dmg against shields) they would not be so over powered.

PRO lvl swarms w/ dmg mods OHK STD LAVs that aren't runing like 2 active resists and even then they barely survive.

either that, or introduce ADV and PRO vehciles that have more slots/built-in resist/PG/CPU/etc. to contend with PRO level AV

No, they won't. Unless you're running more than the 3 complex dmg mods I am, you're not fighting "well fitted" tanks at all. Falchion yesterday, slightly over 9k shields. Armor can't hit those high of numbers, at least that I've ever seen, but they can certainly fit to negate damage or just rep through it.

Exmaple Core: Yes, they are definitely biased towards being used against armor targets. I'm not so sure about 3k, but then again these are some of the same people that kept saying Lai Dais were doing anywhere between 4k and 7k damage. Numbers always inflate. Generally I think they could use a buff though, as I have a slightly higher success rate against armor than shields.

Dust 514 : The Importance Of AV Grenades

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laoXHCsk3hw




4 LAV'S in less than one minute...if you reduce the amount of AV or what not.....REDUCE the amount of LAV'S that can be present.

Dust 514 : The Importance Of AV Grenades

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laoXHCsk3hw




4 LAV'S in less than one minute...if you reduce the amount of AV or what not.....REDUCE the amount of LAV'S that can be present.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I want them to apply kick to the user when you fire them. I want dumb-fire back.

I want to be able to aim straight down and launch myself into the air, landing behind and enemy and then knifing them in the back of the face.



But, if I can be serious for a moment -

Ideally, I'd want swarms (assuming time was found to be put in to this) to be shifted to something like an 'assisted lock' TOW launcher.

Fly-by-wire missiles are nothing new in shooter games. However, they're usually pretty difficult to use. While I'd love to see a proper TOW system... I just don't see it happening. So... What I'd like to see, is essentially what we've got now but removing the 'fire and forget' aspect of the weapon, requiring someone to maintain the lock by keeping the 'locked on' target box inside their reticule until the missiles make contact. Losing track/LOS of the target would make the missiles miss, but could be corrected and put pack on course if the lock is re-established quickly enough.

Now, with a change like this you could fire repeated volleys off the same lock, but you'd need to maintain tracking throughout the entire thing. This requires a lot more dedication from swarmers. Alongside this, I'd like to see a missile velocity buff, but keep the damage the way they are. As-is missiles are pretty slow and can be evaded entirely by certain vehicles going at top speed. Faster missiles would prevent this in most cases, and would reduce the amount of time a swamer would have to maintain direct sight & lock.

As we should all know by now, AV and vehicals are going to be changed in 1.5 and most likely 1.6 and will be changed completly. as evident in this post:




So, im going to go through the whole list of AV weapons in different threads and try to collect a non biased collection of feedback the Devs can use to change vehicals and AV. So remember, what we post here is what they may listen to. Ive started a discussion on Plasma Cannons in this thread: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1145262#post1145262
Also, this link is the AV nade discussion: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&find=unread&t=99452 Feel free to throw in your thoughtful and reasonable ideas in ethire.

What are your ideas for the swarm launcher rebalance?
Remember to ALWAYS give reasons on your ideas, we dont want to give the DEVs crap to read. Put up a convincing argument!!

Personally, I believe the swarm launcher should be the weakest form of AV due to the simplicity of the weapon, that a no skill required weapon should not be an insainly effective weapon on the battlefield, like it currently is. However, it should still be able to keep a tank at bay, its AV. I feel it should do the least amount of damage compared to the other AV and a post in the plasma cannon discussion sums it up here:


This way, the shield tanks will be largely unbothered by explosive AV because of the explosive resist shield tanks boast and the real counter to shield tanks will be the eventual lasers and the current forge guns. Armor tanks will still be hurt by the explosive type of swarms, as it is their weakness and will scare them away.
The swarms tracking is absurdly exact but very awsume to watch and needed, swarms would be too easy to avoid without such extreem tracking measures. If the damage is reduced it may be entitled for a +1 clip size as well, if not then the current clip is sufficent. The missle speed, range and lock time are also very sufficent as is. The promblem with the weapon is its damage.
My opinion

Let me tell you a little secret. Many people will tell you im the best tanker in the game. Im not saying I am, I just do my best and let others decide. But there is a reason people say these things. I know how to fit a tank better or as well as anyone in this game. I have a 7kdr and it would be like 15 if I didn't screw around from time to time. Perhaps if I activate every module on my tanks ill take 2 to 4 proto volleys.

Im talking about armor tanks which take more damage to swarms. Sheild tanks are different they wont have such a big deal but there reps are so sh!tty that taking any damage in a shield tank makes you very vulnerable.

just lol

im not an armor tanker so i cant comment on the real damage to armor tanks, id imagine they do do alot of damage because they are made to destroy armor tanks, their explosive. 4 to 7k damage per lai dai is... and exageration lolol i dont talk to idiots who claim those numbers i assure you my armor tank freinds are more reasonable than that. But at the same time you use the swarms and i belive you both, though your opinions clash. Its weird. You say swarms should be buffed because you do better vs armor than you do shields. Armor tanks take more damage from swarms and shields take less, wouldent those kind of results make sence and be expected? how would you buff the swarm and why?

you should be able to cancel a swarm lock without having to turn around 360 , thats whats missing from swarms

As we should all know by now, AV and vehicals are going to be changed in 1.5 and most likely 1.6 and will be changed completly. as evident in this post:




So, im going to go through the whole list of AV weapons in different threads and try to collect a non biased collection of feedback the Devs can use to change vehicals and AV. So remember, what we post here is what they may listen to. Ive started a discussion on Plasma Cannons in this thread: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1145262#post1145262
Also, this link is the AV nade discussion: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&find=unread&t=99452 Feel free to throw in your thoughtful and reasonable ideas in ethire.

What are your ideas for the swarm launcher rebalance?
Remember to ALWAYS give reasons on your ideas, we dont want to give the DEVs crap to read. Put up a convincing argument!!

Personally, I believe the swarm launcher should be the weakest form of AV due to the simplicity of the weapon, that a no skill required weapon should not be an insainly effective weapon on the battlefield, like it currently is. However, it should still be able to keep a tank at bay, its AV. I feel it should do the least amount of damage compared to the other AV and a post in the plasma cannon discussion sums it up here:


This way, the shield tanks will be largely unbothered by explosive AV because of the explosive resist shield tanks boast and the real counter to shield tanks will be the eventual lasers and the current forge guns. Armor tanks will still be hurt by the explosive type of swarms, as it is their weakness and will scare them away.
The swarms tracking is absurdly exact but very awsume to watch and needed, swarms would be too easy to avoid without such extreem tracking measures. If the damage is reduced it may be entitled for a +1 clip size as well, if not then the current clip is sufficent. The missle speed, range and lock time are also very sufficent as is. The promblem with the weapon is its damage.
My opinion

Firstly, I apologize because I haven't read any of this thread except the OP (I'm at work and wanted to respond with my idea before I forget).

I was gunning in a friends tank a couple days ago and we were discussing how cool it would be if the gunners in the tanks could shoot the swarm missiles and blow them up before they hit the tank. Now this would apply to all gunners and swarms. I like to run AV and use proto swarms and used to use FG back in chrome. I think nerfing swarms is a bad idea because they are strictly AV, FG and plasma cannons can be used on infantry. Nerfing the swarms would make them completely useless. Instead of nerfing, they can be balanced by letting gunners shoot them out of the sky! How cool would that be?

Ps:
Sorry for any typos or grammatical errors. I'm at work typin this on my phone trying not to get caught.

Missiles should rotate in the air instead of heading straight for the target. terrain and scenery would dictate on whether the missiles reached its target as they could hit these and explode.

Also, missiles should have momentum. so if im flying my dropship and i know swarms are on my tail and if at the last second i dived or looped the missiles momentum would carry them past my ship where they would lose target lock

lock on is a lock on unless there is a cover betwen you and swarms

what you want is a countermeasur ala chaff grenade

I don't know about the rest of you, but I want them to apply kick to the user when you fire them. I want dumb-fire back.

I want to be able to aim straight down and launch myself into the air, landing behind and enemy and then knifing them in the back of the face.



But, if I can be serious for a moment -

Ideally, I'd want swarms (assuming time was found to be put in to this) to be shifted to something like an 'assisted lock' TOW launcher.

Fly-by-wire missiles are nothing new in shooter games. However, they're usually pretty difficult to use. While I'd love to see a proper TOW system... I just don't see it happening. So... What I'd like to see, is essentially what we've got now but removing the 'fire and forget' aspect of the weapon, requiring someone to maintain the lock by keeping the 'locked on' target box inside their reticule until the missiles make contact. Losing track/LOS of the target would make the missiles miss, but could be corrected and put pack on course if the lock is re-established quickly enough.

Now, with a change like this you could fire repeated volleys off the same lock, but you'd need to maintain tracking throughout the entire thing. This requires a lot more dedication from swarmers. Alongside this, I'd like to see a missile velocity buff, but keep the damage the way they are. As-is missiles are pretty slow and can be evaded entirely by certain vehicles going at top speed. Faster missiles would prevent this in most cases, and would reduce the amount of time a swamer would have to maintain direct sight & lock.

just say this.. you lock onto your target no probs there but in between your target is a crane. doesn't look like its in the way but since the missiles are rotating one of them hits the crane decreasing ur damage. all because the user was too lazy to wait and get a clear shot. cant remember which dust video but one of the scenes is a guy shooting a swarm and the missiles are rotating

That's one hell of a boast considering one of the top ten in the game is a tanker and has around a 20kdr. You're far from the best

I don't know about the rest of you, but I want them to apply kick to the user when you fire them. I want dumb-fire back.

I want to be able to aim straight down and launch myself into the air, landing behind and enemy and then knifing them in the back of the face.



But, if I can be serious for a moment -

Ideally, I'd want swarms (assuming time was found to be put in to this) to be shifted to something like an 'assisted lock' TOW launcher.

Fly-by-wire missiles are nothing new in shooter games. However, they're usually pretty difficult to use. While I'd love to see a proper TOW system... I just don't see it happening. So... What I'd like to see, is essentially what we've got now but removing the 'fire and forget' aspect of the weapon, requiring someone to maintain the lock by keeping the 'locked on' target box inside their reticule until the missiles make contact. Losing track/LOS of the target would make the missiles miss, but could be corrected and put pack on course if the lock is re-established quickly enough.

Now, with a change like this you could fire repeated volleys off the same lock, but you'd need to maintain tracking throughout the entire thing. This requires a lot more dedication from swarmers. Alongside this, I'd like to see a missile velocity buff, but keep the damage the way they are. As-is missiles are pretty slow and can be evaded entirely by certain vehicles going at top speed. Faster missiles would prevent this in most cases, and would reduce the amount of time a swamer would have to maintain direct sight & lock.

clearly they need to fire twice as many rockets maple 2x the dmg will fix everything (god i hope ccp takes me seriously roflmao)

This is a grand idea. Maintaining sight lock makes good sense, even if you boost missile velocity (Slightly, 10% at the extreme most) to make lolswarms have to work for their kills. Yeah, vehicles could move in and out to dodge, but you know what? Your job is to make sure that tank isn't killing your team, and he can't kill your team if he's busy avoiding your swarms.

This is war. It's about who wins, not your personal kd ratio or padding your wp. AV's job is to deny the enemy vehicular assistance, whether my forcing him to hide, or blowing him to hell.

Also, I agree that dropships should be able to dodge swarms. Missiles turning 180 with no change in acceleration is ridiculous.

I want a dumbfire rocket launcher (Like an RPG). I pretty much want the plasma cannon but make it anti armor and more like how BF3's RPGs are. I hate lock on weaponry and always will. If you want an argument then tell me reasons why we shouldn't have this.

I want a dumbfire rocket launcher (Like an RPG). I pretty much want the plasma cannon but make it anti armor and more like how BF3's RPGs are. I hate lock on weaponry and always will. If you want an argument then tell me reasons why we shouldn't have this.

Drop "effective" range to 200 meters and make it so if you go into cover where the user of the swarms can't see you they should lose target and smash into the ground.

After 200 meters the swarm targeting should be really bad often times just cutting out mid air or crashing into random objects. 50% hit chance
After 300 meters chances of the swarms hitting anything should be under 10%
After 400 meters the swarms backfire and hit the user for being that much of a ***** to go into the battlefield.

I like the op original idea of making the plasma cannon stronger and swarms weaker, simply due to the degree of difficulty of the weapon, and its effective range.

Oh so your saying the weapon should force you out of cover? lol the weapon was designed so that you could engage the enemy armor without exposing yourself. You want to kill me? well then get up that mountain and come get me because im not budging. This is a war game. I will do whatever it takes not to die while making you die as many times as possible. Welcome to the true battlefield where patience and playing on the defense is rewarded and being a run and gun sport tard is punished.

give a reason for dumbfire swarms as well!!
I am opposed because the swarms are meant for AV and not meant for killing infaintry. It is an AV weapon, so the damage of these weapons can be a couple thousand. If you were given the ability to shoot infaintry with it, wouldent you? Also, if it werre a dumb fire weapon the missiles would likely spread in random directions, becoming inacurate at range. Additionally, you would not be hitting at swarm range without a lock. Tanks, dropships and lavs will be unnhitable to you at 150m+ and the current swarms have a range of like 400m.

All of these factors morph the swarm launcher into an anti infaintry, it is meant to be AV. No dumbfire or ppl will use it on infaintry like forge gunners do, except it would be almost exclusively anti infaintry because it simply wouldent be effective against vehicals

Soldiers use lock on weapons. If you hate lock on weapons then you better hate ALL military games. Which means you shouldnt be playing dust. Why dont you go outside and kick a ball or something. Oh and dont come back to dust we dont need your ******** thoughts on here. lol I mean listen to this guy this game is about war 1000 years in the future and hes whining about guided weapons? lol watch this guy say something like this. YEA ITS WAR BUT ITS A VIDEO GAME IT DOESNT NEED GUIDED WEAPONS IT NEEDS TO BE COMPETITVE SPORTS GAME! Dude if your looking for competition i think you need to go play some NFL or NBA or whatever you fanatics call that stuff. War is not competition Its a nightmare soldiers will do whatever it takes to survive a nightmare. Thus the guided weapon was created. In short if you dont like guided weapons then you shouldnt be playing games about war. Its that simple.

As we should all know by now, AV and vehicals are going to be changed in 1.5 and most likely 1.6 and will be changed completly. as evident in this post:




So, im going to go through the whole list of AV weapons in different threads and try to collect a non biased collection of feedback the Devs can use to change vehicals and AV. So remember, what we post here is what they may listen to. Ive started a discussion on Plasma Cannons in this thread: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1145262#post1145262
Also, this link is the AV nade discussion: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&find=unread&t=99452 Feel free to throw in your thoughtful and reasonable ideas in ethire.

What are your ideas for the swarm launcher rebalance?
Remember to ALWAYS give reasons on your ideas, we dont want to give the DEVs crap to read. Put up a convincing argument!!

Personally, I believe the swarm launcher should be the weakest form of AV due to the simplicity of the weapon, that a no skill required weapon should not be an insainly effective weapon on the battlefield, like it currently is. However, it should still be able to keep a tank at bay, its AV. I feel it should do the least amount of damage compared to the other AV and a post in the plasma cannon discussion sums it up here:


This way, the shield tanks will be largely unbothered by explosive AV because of the explosive resist shield tanks boast and the real counter to shield tanks will be the eventual lasers and the current forge guns. Armor tanks will still be hurt by the explosive type of swarms, as it is their weakness and will scare them away.
The swarms tracking is absurdly exact but very awsume to watch and needed, swarms would be too easy to avoid without such extreem tracking measures. If the damage is reduced it may be entitled for a +1 clip size as well, if not then the current clip is sufficent. The missle speed, range and lock time are also very sufficent as is. The promblem with the weapon is its damage.
My opinion

Soldiers use lock on weapons. If you hate lock on weapons then you better hate ALL military games. Which means you shouldnt be playing dust. Why dont you go outside and kick a ball or something. Oh and dont come back to dust we dont need your ******** thoughts on here. lol I mean listen to this guy this game is about war 1000 years in the future and hes whining about guided weapons? lol watch this guy say something like this. YEA ITS WAR BUT ITS A VIDEO GAME IT DOESNT NEED GUIDED WEAPONS IT NEEDS TO BE COMPETITVE SPORTS GAME! Dude if your looking for competition i think you need to go play some NFL or NBA or whatever you fanatics call that stuff. War is not competition Its a nightmare soldiers will do whatever it takes to survive a nightmare. Thus the guided weapon was created. In short if you dont like guided weapons then you shouldnt be playing games about war. Its that simple.

Make em anti air only.

wtf does skill have to do with anything?

difficulty of proper use is a valid point, skill at circumventing said difficulties is an individual player trait and has no place in any balancing conversation.

why? then there would be no counter to armor tanks

Personally I find the swarm launcher to be mostly useless against vehicles, at least up to the adv variant (haven't tried proto yet in Uprising).

LAV's (and especially LLAV's) - Swarms are almost 100% useless, the LAV's are far too fast and nimble for swarms to really give them much trouble aside from giving them a temporary distraction. Heck, the LLAV is even mostly immune to the forge due to their speed and insane ability to tank up their health with hardeners, resistance mods etc.

Dropships - Yeah, pretty much the same as the LAV's, they are fast enough to escape before any devastating blows can be had. And they can just fly high or go behind/on-top of a building which makes them unable to be targeted as they regen for another rinse-and-repeat attack. Also the time it takes to lock and send a volley towards them, usually is enough time for them to massacre you with their gunners (this is if they are really close to you).

Tanks - Probably the best things swarms are good at, but that isn't saying much. From my experience, as soon as the tank gets hit once or twice, they just back up behind a hill or wall and any incoming volleys, or future volleys of swarms, are null and void. They regen then pop back out, rinse-and-repeat. Even if the swamer has the high ground, it doesn't take much movement with a tank for the missiles to hit buildings, hills etc.

And tanks are pretty fast, they can easily relocate to a new section of the map which forces the swarm player to basically run to the entire other side of the map, and if they can make it over there without being slaughtered by infantry using anti-infantry weapons, the tank just runs away again back to their old spot... once again requiring the swarm player to relocate.


IMO, swarms could use a buff. Faster lock times and significantly faster missiles. ATM, the adv assault forge is almost infinitely superior to swarms when it comes to taking out vehicles. But alas it requires a heavy fat suit which is extremely slow and has no equipment slots. Swarms need to get closer to the ability of a forge, simply because it is the only viable AV weapon for the light weapon slot. And light/medium framed players shouldn't be forced to spec into the forge or heavy to get decent AV results. It's already bad enough we have to gimp ourselves against fellow infantry to use AV, but to use a completely new suit with less slots and be slow as hell?

I don't use swarms, be it AV nade or tank I never have a problem with armor tanks. But than again that takes risking suits to get close enough to throw a nade or risking my own tank to take out theirs. Swarms are the I win button of AV, no skill no risk and devastating to even the best fit tanks. Every other form of AV has some risk, swarms power has to come in line with the risk that's not involved.

It is absolutly a no skill weapon, easy mode but that doesent mean we should punnish the weapon too heavily, it still needs to fullfill its role and become balanced at the same time

Your not doing it right then. end of discussion...

Personally I find the swarm launcher to be mostly useless against vehicles, at least up to the adv variant (haven't tried proto yet in Uprising).

LAV's (and especially LLAV's) - Swarms are almost 100% useless, the LAV's are far too fast and nimble for swarms to really give them much trouble aside from giving them a temporary distraction. Heck, the LLAV is even mostly immune to the forge due to their speed and insane ability to tank up their health with hardeners, resistance mods etc.

Dropships - Yeah, pretty much the same as the LAV's, they are fast enough to escape before any devastating blows can be had. And they can just fly high or go behind/on-top of a building which makes them unable to be targeted as they regen for another rinse-and-repeat attack. Also the time it takes to lock and send a volley towards them, usually is enough time for them to massacre you with their gunners (this is if they are really close to you).

Tanks - Probably the best things swarms are good at, but that isn't saying much. From my experience, as soon as the tank gets hit once or twice, they just back up behind a hill or wall and any incoming volleys, or future volleys of swarms, are null and void. They regen then pop back out, rinse-and-repeat. Even if the swamer has the high ground, it doesn't take much movement with a tank for the missiles to hit buildings, hills etc.

And tanks are pretty fast, they can easily relocate to a new section of the map which forces the swarm player to basically run to the entire other side of the map, and if they can make it over there without being slaughtered by infantry using anti-infantry weapons, the tank just runs away again back to their old spot... once again requiring the swarm player to relocate.


IMO, swarms could use a buff. Faster lock times and significantly faster missiles. ATM, the adv assault forge is almost infinitely superior to swarms when it comes to taking out vehicles. But alas it requires a heavy fat suit which is extremely slow and has no equipment slots. Swarms need to get closer to the ability of a forge, simply because it is the only viable AV weapon for the light weapon slot. And light/medium framed players shouldn't be forced to spec into the forge or heavy to get decent AV results. It's already bad enough we have to gimp ourselves against fellow infantry to use AV, but to use a completely new suit with less slots and be slow as hell?

Just shoot straight out of the barrels instead of that spread thing.
An unnecessary pain in the ***.

I'd like to see them not go through hills and corners so I can make use of my LAV speed

I don't know about the rest of you, but I want them to apply kick to the user when you fire them. I want dumb-fire back.

I want to be able to aim straight down and launch myself into the air, landing behind and enemy and then knifing them in the back of the face.



But, if I can be serious for a moment -

Ideally, I'd want swarms (assuming time was found to be put in to this) to be shifted to something like an 'assisted lock' TOW launcher.

Fly-by-wire missiles are nothing new in shooter games. However, they're usually pretty difficult to use. While I'd love to see a proper TOW system... I just don't see it happening. So... What I'd like to see, is essentially what we've got now but removing the 'fire and forget' aspect of the weapon, requiring someone to maintain the lock by keeping the 'locked on' target box inside their reticule until the missiles make contact. Losing track/LOS of the target would make the missiles miss, but could be corrected and put pack on course if the lock is re-established quickly enough.

Now, with a change like this you could fire repeated volleys off the same lock, but you'd need to maintain tracking throughout the entire thing. This requires a lot more dedication from swarmers. Alongside this, I'd like to see a missile velocity buff, but keep the damage the way they are. As-is missiles are pretty slow and can be evaded entirely by certain vehicles going at top speed. Faster missiles would prevent this in most cases, and would reduce the amount of time a swamer would have to maintain direct sight & lock.

I'd like to see them not go through hills and corners so I can make use of my LAV speed

There is nothing wrong with swarm launchers. People who skill into and use them on a consistant basis give up a lot. With only a side arm to defend your self against other infantry, the movement penaly when firing, GOOD tankers know this is their counter and use this counter efectively. Tankers come off as wanting an I win button only looking at stats on paper, not taking team play and player skill into consideration and compeltely ingnoring actual game play.

For all the talk about swarms being a no skill weapon and op against tanks one thing is never compared. KIll death ratio. As a class what are tankers KDR vs dedicated swarm users?

Being a AV swarmer i have seen this happen once , my entire volley went through a rock that was sticking out and i thought it stopped my swarms but then 3 secs later a "+50 kill" appeared on my screen i do not know what caused it but i can understand how frustrating it can be.

I dont know if any one else has noticed but when i fire my volley i keep an eye on it just to be sure that it hit or didnt but right before the misses hit or miss they slow down for a second then accelerates towards the direction of what was locked on also i have noticed that my swarms have a lock on time of about 2 sec. then after firing i have to wait about 2secs before i can run, switch, reload or even attempt to lock on again.

I enjoy using the swarms but i feel like calling it a easy weapon is wrong, why? its one thing to just lock on and fire away but to have some one wait until the indented target is in a open field where cover isn't easily accessible isn't.most people just want to pull the trigger. or knowing when not to engage a target. i have seen people using swarms and just locking on to the railgun sniper tank on the mountain in the red zone and not hitting but still just launching volley after volley or the tank that just came around the building and hit with swarms then rolling back behind cover. but maybe thats just me.

I would like to see milita swarms droped to 2 or 3 rockets per shot. This would reduce the ablity to just have an entre squad take out a tank by just spaming it with militia swarms.