I spawn on an Uplink I realize could be under attack either by a number of enemy forces or a lurking, uncloaked Scout. I sneakily spawn in to behold a locus grenade beneath my feet and a not-so-friendly mercenary staring me in the face.* The grenade triggers, yet I survive without a scratch. Confident of the link's termination, the unsuspecting mercenary turns, only to be shot in the back as I reveal my presence.

This was Uprising 1.7. These engagements no longer exist. These engagements should not exist. Here's the story now, in 1.8, from the asterisk(*): The screen is black; the grenade triggers: my clone is crushed. These occurrences, existing only sometimes before, are now commonplace. These occurrences should, also, not exist.

Uprising 1.8 resulted in the exciting introduction of the Cloak Field, a piece of equipment that, at times, seems to mimic the appearance of a Drop Uplink cloaked spawn. Dying upon spawning into a Drop Uplink is also now more prevalent since the introduction of the cloak.

Why is this more common? Although I cannot prove this, I suspect the mechanic for the Cloak Field and cloaked Uplink spawns are somehow connect or shared. Of course, there are other possibilities. If the former is the case, the sharing needs to stop.


Spawning on a Drop Uplink results in a temporary cloak which is lost when: the player fires, the player moves, or a certain amount of time has passed. Since 1.8, the invulnerability previously attached to this sequence has not been applying; this mechanic needs to be fixed. In addition, upon firing after spawning, there is a damage output delay on the de-cloaking unit. This is backwards, as this allows the attacking forces to damage spawning units, while the spawning units' damage output is being delayed.

At the very least, spawning units should not be dealt damage while cloaked and, upon de-cloaking, damage should be applied simultaneously. In the best case, there should be a slight damage input delay on the spawning unit to give an opportunity to fight back (as well as deterring RE campers); however, this seems like it could create problems of its own. Moreover, noticing those who spawn is easier due to the spawn sound and the spawn animation, thus preventing the Uprising 1.7 occurrences (mentioned above) should not become a problem, as both players will be aware of each other upon spawning.

TL;DR: Fix the damage application on spawns.